Planetside 2

IRL_Sinister

Just so you know nVidia released new drivers yesterday. I'm noticing 10 FPS more, although I already have more than enough FPS in-game.

Dcully

Never have fps issues,60-200 fps at all times at max settings, then again i reckon my CPU @ 4.7ghz is helping a lot.
Had a brilliant game last night,one of the biggest and best battles ive played yet.
Literally hundreds upon hundreds of us raiding a VS base,epicness in the extreme.
Planetside 2 like this is the single best means of showing off what PC gaming is capable of.

Nody

I have to admitt I'm getting REALLY sick and tired of the shield "exploit" going on. Forget even trying to take a Bio lab if defended (for those who don't know you can C4/tank mine or sticky 'nade the shield and have the explosion go through into the room basically only making the furthest away corner semi safe and only if they don't chain it).

Monty - the one and only

Haven't run into that yet, thankfully... but then again I've been spending most of my time getting my mossie dog fighting skills up.

PirateShampoo

The patch is uploaded at 4am PST (just under 2 hours from me posting this) and downtime will last 4 hours.

General Updates

Client performance improvements
Client stability improvements

Infantry Updates

Spotting

Repeated spotting without a valid target will now put your ability to spot on cooldown.
Spotting an enemy at 30+ meters now has to be more precise.
You now have to be closer to the center of the target to see their nameplate.

Existing Weapon tuning changes

Added medals to all weapons that were missing them.
VS Pistols
Increased iron sight accuracy, from 0.5 to 0.4.
All shotguns
Lowered vertical recoil, from 1.75 to 1.5 per shot.
Reduced accuracy loss per shot, from 1.0 to 0.5.
Increased damage falloff range. Damage used to start scaling at 5m and end at 15m. Now it starts at 8m and ends at 20m.
Jackhammer
Lowered vertical recoil, from 1.75 to 1.2 per shot.
Reduced accuracy loss per shot, from 1.0 to 0.5.
Increased damage falloff range. Damage used to start scaling at 5m and end at 30m. Now it starts at 12m and still ends at 30m.
Reduced pellet spread, from 3.0 to 2.5.
Increased projectile speed, from 300m/s to 400m/s.
Increased iron sight move accuracy. From 0.3375 crouch-walking and .9 running, to .25 crouch-walking and .75 running.
Increased iron sight move speed, from 0.5x to 0.75x of the player’s base speed.
Increased hip-fire accuracy. It now matches all the other shotguns.
Very small adjustment to reload times. Cut 100 whole milliseconds off the reload chamber time and added it to the reload empty time. It's now 2 seconds to reload when reloading with at least one bullet remaining and 3 seconds if empty.
TX2 Emperor
Fixed audio not playing when in iron sights.
Underbarrel grenade launchers
Fixed underbarrel grenade launchers not doing any damage after a reload.
Grenade rounds must now travel at least 10 meters before they arm and explode.
Underbarrel Grenades
Increased internal radius damage, from 1125 to 1250.
Reduced internal damage radius by 0.5 of a meter
Reduced external damage radius by 1 meter.
End result with these is that direct and near misses are stronger, but the overall explosive radius is smaller.
Frag & Sticky grenades
Reduced external explosion radius by 1 meter.

Misc Changes & Fixes

Added a short invulnerability on newly spawned players. This invulnerability goes away if the player moves or takes any action.
Added auto-run to infantry. Defaults to ‘=’ key and can be re-mapped in the keybinding settings.
Ctrl-F11 will now turn off the first person arms and weapon. You cannot shoot or interact with terminals while this option is turned on.
Reminder: Ctrl-F10 will turn off the UI.
Purchasing the second Medic C4 cert will no longer grant every class the ability to carry an additional C4. This bug allowed a number of classes to carry more C4 than what was intended.
Ace Tool ammo packs should now be properly affected by Ammo Pack certs.
Fixed bug that caused client and server ammo counts to be out of sync (for example, extra underbarrel rounds on your client that were doing no damage).

Vehicle Updates

Mouse movement optimizations have been made for vehicle turrets. They should feel a bit smoother and more responsive. Some players may find the sensitivity to be different and should adjust the sensitivity slider.
Players in vehicles can no longer capture points.
Some improvements were made for ground vehicles sliding – although hitting the slope maximum will still cause you to slide
Made adjustments to the Magrider so that combining strafe and forward velocity no longer provides an advantage to hill climbing


ESF Adjustments

Rotary Cannons
Added 10 rounds to the magazine of each rotary.
Magazine certifications reduced to 2/5/7/10
Ammo capacity raised
Projectile speed decreased slightly on all rotary cannons to help further define their role as a close range weapon.
Reaver M20 Mustang
Fire rate increased
CoF Reduced
Saron Laser Cannon
Projectile speed decreased slightly. (The Saron has no bullet drop, while equivalent cannons do.)

MBTs

Magrider
The hover length bonus (how high it floats above the ground) obtained from the rival and racer chassis has been removed. It still retains its hover power bonus (how springy the hover mechanic is, more power adds stability).
Saron HRB
Slowed Projectile down slightly. It retains no projectile drop.
Vanguard
Side and Top armor increased. Allowing it to withstand roughly 1 more hit from a weapon as powerful as a tank cannon.
Titan-150 HEAT and Titan-150 AP
Increased projectile speed
Reduced Vanguard 150mm AP explosion visual. Visual was set larger than intended (and larger than the actual blast damage)
Enforcer ML85
Fixed an issue that prevented the projectile from reaching its intended top speed.
Reduced time to reload to 3.25 seconds (down from 3.5 seconds)
Added some drop to the projectile.
Updated missile trail FX in first person so that it is easier to see.
Enforcer C85 Modified
Changed to have a 3 round clip instead of 1 shot reload.
333ms Fire Rate
Removed exaggerated COF
Reload speed increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds.
Base ammo capacity increased from 30 to 60.
Ammo Capacity certifications now increase capacity by +6 each rank.
Prowler
Prowler P2-120 HEAT and P2-120 AP
Damage per round increased
Increased Projectile Speed
Anchored Mode
Anchored Mode now increases projectile speed of the equipped 120mm cannon. (In addition to the improved reload rate)
G30 Vulcan
Increased minimum damage.
Decreased maximum (close range) damage (It still maintains the best TTK at close range by a large margin).

Other Weapon Adjustments

M40 Fury and M40 Marauder
Projectile speed and gravity increased.
New, more distinct first person trail, to make it easier to see where shots are going.
M20 Drake & M20 Basilisk
Reload speed reduced to 3 seconds (down from 4 seconds)
M20 Drake
Increased projectile speed
Reduced gravity on projectile
E540 Halberd
These changes to E540 Halberd should put it between the Saron HRB and the ML85 Enforcer with their new changes.
Increased projectile speed.
Reduced projectile drop.
Increased time to reload by .25 seconds.
CAS30 Tank Buster
Reduced maximum damage slightly.
Damage fall off now begins at 50 meters. Down from 100.

Item Updates

New Decals
Back in my day, we didn’t have any decals. We had emblems, and we liked it that way! Relive the glory days with these classic decals.

Classic Bull Head Decal
Classic Celtic Decal
Classic Flame Decal
Classic Poodle Decal
Classic Red Star Decal
Classic Wings Decal

New Camos
Continent-specific camouflage will teach you the value of not being seen.

Amerish Scrub Camo
Indar Scrub Camo
Amerish Grassland Camo
Indar Canyons v2 Camo
Amerish Leaf Camo
Esamir Snow Camo
Indar Savanna Camo

New Weapons
Each faction now has a submachine gun that is useable by all classes except the MAX.

TR: SMG-46 Armistice
NC: AF-4 Cyclone
VS: Eridani SX5

UI Updates

A tiny bar that represents your progress towards earning your next cert point has been added to the cert point area on the HUD
Players now have the ability to customize empire colors on the HUD. The game will default to our "Enemy vs. Ally" color preset. The default colors can be changed from the General section in Settings.
The player's total experience bonuses are now displayed on the HUD, above the minimap. Mousing over the component will display a tooltip which details the bonuses.
Hotspots have been reworked. They have a much more visual representation on the map and are dependent on more precise and up-to-date activity metrics. Also, the color of the hotspots is now tied to the empire that is dominating the area.
With this change, "Instant Action" and "Hotspots" are no longer synonymous. Instant Action is meant to take you to a large fight where there's already a significant amount of allies. Hotspots are visual cues for where fights are, regardless of whether you have a significant amount of allies there or not.
Each column on the Outfit Members screen is now sortable.
New “Report” window. Typing “/report <playername>” into text chat will bring up an improved reporting UI to better help players inform CS of hackers, griefers, and general nuisance.
Clicking on player names with a bracket [] around them in the chat log and Voice & Chat screen will bring up a player actions menu with a variety of options: send message, add/remove friend, add/remove from squad, add/remove from outfit, and report.
You can click and drag in the chat log and Voice & Chat page of the Social window to select text for copy/pasting.
Added ignore list to Voice & Chat page of the Social window where you can view, add, and remove players that are ignored.
More contextual player nameplates : squad members have a green circle with the squad member # next to the player name, squad leaders/platoon leaders have stars next to the name
Smarter player indicator visibility logic using Line Of Sight ( LOS ) checks for non-squad/platoon allies to reduce HUD indicator clutter
Better mechanism for determining when to display the player indicator name text
Vehicle indicator nameplate inherits the nameplate style of the driver
Delta squad platoon color changed from yellow to black to avoid confusion with Bravo squad coloring.
Profile screen, leaderboards, stats page, and tab scoreboard screen have been polished to show BR icons and revised to de-emphasize K/D as an important metric. Facilities Captured and Facilities Defended stats have been added to help emphasize teamwork instead.
Population bonuses (XP/Resources) are now granted based on continent population instead of server/world population.
Updates to Character/Vehicle Loadout Screens:
Attachment button should always be visible on the Equipment page and the selected weapon view of the Equipment Edit page.
All weapons that have attachments will always display the Change Attachments button regardless of whether the player owns attachments or not.
All tabs for attachments/customizations of weapons will be visible regardless of whether the player owns that type of attachment or not.
Tabs for which the player owns no attachments will be displayed as disabled.
If the player owns no attachments for a particular weapon, the customization screen will display a "You have no attachments..." string.
A Get More button has been added to the Customization view of the Equipment Edit page that will link the player to the certs page for that particular weapon.
The Get More button that was on the Weapon Selection view has been changed to be gold (since it links to the marketplace).
All equipment that does not have attachments (suit slots, ability slots, melee slots, etc) no longer have an information panel.
The item selection now spans the whole screen and has the ability to display up to four columns of items.
The resupply and auto resupply button/checkbox has been moved up to the stats area for items that can be resupplied.
Weapons now display camo in the loadout UI
Loadout Weapon Stats Bars now use the same ticks as seen in the Marketplace
Larger loadout screen changes will be coming next month
Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented individual squad leaders from within a platoon from promoting other members of their squad to leader status.
Mousing over chat area on top left of screen now brings up the chat menu
Heal/repair reticle does not clear out when it is at 100%
Kill spam player names no longer have default red/green outer glow. The glow is now player type specific ( enemy, ally, squad member, platoon member…etc )
Fixed resource icons for Mechanized and Infantry resources in the session stats panel of the tab scoreboard (they were swapped).
Fixed an issue with grenade counts showing up as “1/0” when you were out of grenades.
Fixed issue with icons for connected benefits not drawing at low resolutions.
Added a stat tooltip to bundle items on the purchase preview screen- Items in bundles that have stats will have a stats tooltip when moused over on the purchase preview screen.
Clicking on the command list button should now take you to the commands list, with the top of the commands list being visible. Also, updated list of commands with new commands and removed commands no longer used.
Fix for wrong killspam icon showing up when a player crashes their own vehicle.
Broadcast messages should no longer show up twice in the chatbox.
Added music to the credits screen Music should start up when the player opens the credits screen.
Better text positioning for weapon thumbnail labels and cert title bars to prevent truncation.
Better loading indicator for in-game web browser
Resource tooltip now scales with resolution on escape menu
Not showing the vehicle slot on the vehicle health schematic on the HUD if the vehicle capacity is 1
Instant Action and Redeploy buttons on the Map screen will now play a “ticking” sound effect during the 10 second countdown to activation.
New sounds added for item unlock, broadcast, and medal earned notifications
Back button has been added to Bug Submission page that will return the player to the Support Menu Back button has been added to Command List page that will return the player to the Support Menu
Render Distance slider added to Graphics Settings
Significant UI performance improvements

Experience Updates

Added tiered kill xp
Killing a player who has been alive for less than 10 seconds and has not earned more than 5 xp will yield a diminished “Spawn Kill” xp reward of 25 xp
Killing a player who has been alive for more than 10 seconds, or earned more than 5 xp and less than 1000 xp will yield a normal “Kill” xp reward of 100 xp
Killing a player who has earned equal to or more than 1000 xp but less than 2000 xp will yield an enhanced “High Threat Kill” xp reward of 150 xp
Killing a player who has earned equal to or more than 2000 xp will yield an enhanced “Extreme Menace Kill” xp reward of 300 xp
Added Surface-to-Air Damage experience rewards
Applying a fair amount of damage to air vehicles while not in an air vehicle should now grant a 20 xp reward
Increased Sunderer Kill xp
Fixed a bug with the Sunderer ammo dispenser where a squaded driver did not receive xp from resupplying non-squadded friendly player vehicles
The global population xp and resource reward adjustments should now be granted to players on a continent based on that continent’s population level instead of the world population level

Facility Updates

Upgraded all spawn rooms to be more defensible. This should lead to less spawn camping.
Adjusted the tower to help reduce spawn camping.
Added Tunnels to the Amp Station and Tech plants. These tunnels are only accessibly by the defenders and emerge in key locations throughout the Facilities. This should lead to less spawn camping. (I see a theme)
At all Amp Stations and Saurva and Andvari, we added faction specific Jump Pads. Only the facility owners can use these jump pads. This should make getting around in these bases a little trickier for attackers, but not impact the defenders.
Warpgate ownership on all three continents were rotated.
Redesigned the Biolabs. There is better cover at the landing platforms which should lead to more interesting fights there.

Audio Updates

Optimized assets being loaded into memory.
Optimized all factions infantry automatic weapons rate of fire. No longer dependent on composite effects.
Added peak limiter on master bus to prevent explosions/multiple sounds from summing up and distorting
Adjusted dynamic mixers during weapons firing, and menu screen.
SMG’s unique audio for each faction
NC and VS scout rifles have been assigned their correct firing sounds
Fixed Flash grenade to play blast and “stunned” effect
Fixed distorting issue with T1-S Cycler.
G40-F Ranger had incorrect firing audio. Corrected.
Increased possibility of playback on “travel” music cues

Other Bug Fixes

Jump Jets should no longer fail to function after switching to a different class from the deployment screen
Should no longer be able to get a vehicle into a bugged out state of invincibility
IFF shields should once again consistently block enemy fire
Engineers should no longer be able to maintain a repair even after they’ve entered the vehicle
Plugged a hole in the world near Shadespire Farms
Removed the pain field from the roof of the spawn room at Old Shore Checkpoint
Addressed incorrect spawning behavior for vehicles created at Freyr’s Northern Barracks
Fixed an issue that could prevent players from re-entering vehicles after they’d exited
Fixed the spawn point at Jagged Lance Mine so it is properly tied to facility ownership
Corrected the capture timer at the Tawrich Tech Plant tower.
The Gate Shield at the Wokuk Shipping Dock will no longer persist when the generator is destroyed
Corrected mismatched description text for MAX Flak Armor II
The Hailstorm Turbo Laser’s 3rd and 4th tier magazine size upgrades should now give the correct amount of ammo
Removed a phantom road from the minimap near the Mekala Tech Plant
Players in a MAX should now be able to use Instant Action to hot drop to a hotspot on the continent they are on

Monty - the one and only

some interesting tweaks there....how big is the patch ?

PirateShampoo

Just hitting over 4 gb

Nody

I'm annoyed at the nerfs to Magrider (the mobility was suppose to be the big benefit; now it lost mobility, the other guns do more damage AND nerfed the VS gun while the other MBTs got more armor/reload...) and the fact that once again the Lasher was ignored (the gun suck, period).

Sarky

You still have the fetching gimp suit uniforms though right?

Monty - the one and only

new update has cut my fps down by about 75 Still playable... but odd... turned on fog shadows and it jumped 50... cant figure that out at all.

Sarky

Lot of server disconnects, sluggish framerates and tracer fire remaining in the air flickering away. Rather offputting. Still, It's nice to have a little more chance at taking down a magrider on foot.

Nody

Sarky wrote: »

You still have the fetching gimp suit uniforms though right?

Of course; they knew it would be riot if they dared to touch it... Oh and the Jackhammer is now silly good from the times I've gone up against it.

Canis Lupus

Performance was a big reason I abandoned this game. Both posts above don't seem to suggest the performance optimisation has had much luck?

and 4gb patch?? That's a big one.

Dcully

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Performance was a big reason I abandoned this game. Both posts above don't seem to suggest the performance optimisation has had much luck?

and 4gb patch?? That's a big one.

Have you a good rig mate?

Canis Lupus

Dcully wrote: »

Have you a good rig mate?

It's my cpu which is the let down but I was holding out for the patch as the devs had said they were really going to focus on performance.

My pc died last week because of dampness (ex cyclone hit us here in Queensland) and I was all set to upgrade. The sun came out again and the pc came back to life so upgrade excuse was lost

Sarky

Dropped into a hotspot right behind a Prowler last night, he'd been pounding a base and racking up kills. Anti-vehicle 'nade combined with a Decimator up the jacksie resulted in a huge wad of xp. Didn't survive long after that but 1 grunt for 1 heavy tank is a fair trade. I like this priority target xp change.

Next time I'll have c4 so I can take out his mate at the same time.^_^

Nody

Btw has anyone tried the new SMGs? I had a look at the VS one and I'm struggling to see the point of it. I compared it to the Serpent (the fastest shooting previous gun that I've already bought) and they are exactly the same except in two points, reload is faster on the SMG but the Serpent has a slightly better on something else of no importance (same DPS basically).

How ever the Serpent has 30 clip with medium range, the SMG has 25 clip with short range. What's the point to go for the SMG?

Monty - the one and only

had the tr one on trial, think its only real use is that can be used on most classes, never bought it though, just didnt seem to be useful for me. The highlight of my day yesterday, getting a reaver to ram and kill a nc sundy while attempting to ram me.

I cant figure whats with alot of nc players, take em out with mossies machine gun on the ground, then some will spend the next few min trying to ram you out of the air...until they either, crash, or get shot down.... or actually succeed.... The odd thing is it doesn't seem to be just server based as I NC see on matterson while flying for VS. I havent seen vs or tr doing

Nody

Monty - the one and only wrote: »

had the tr one on trial, think its only real use is that can be used on most classes, never bought it though, just didnt seem to be useful for me. The highlight of my day yesterday, getting a reaver to ram and kill a nc sundy while attempting to ram me.

I cant figure whats with alot of nc players, take em out with mossies machine gun on the ground, then some will spend the next few min trying to ram you out of the air...until they either, crash, or get shot down.... or actually succeed.... The odd thing is it doesn't seem to be just server based as I NC see on matterson while flying for VS. I havent seen vs or tr doing

Comes from them all watching to many war movies during their indoctrination and thinking they are all heroes (that or they are trying to suicide to avoid having to pay off their house loans now that the economy has crashed!).

DeSelby83

anyone know when the next big patch with optimisation is out? also is this game controller friendly or only mouse keyboard?

Nody

I've not seen anyone recommend controller for it so far; it would be possible I guess but FPS benefits greatly from mouse and keyboard. They are doing a lot of work now on the performance due to the drop many experienced (which should not have happened) so I don't think a mega performance patch is due any time soon (i.e. months).

Monty - the one and only

The hotfix they released on Sunday fixed alot of the FPS spiking issues i was having, framerates are still lower than what they were but at least its stable again

[edit] have to say though, I love the spawn point redesigns, as well as the teleport rooms in the biolabs

Nody

Not had a chance to play in a bio lab yet but on the tower assaults I've done I'm starting to wonder if it may have swung to far in the defender's side. On towers and single cap bases you need multiple people camping multiple locations to take them and if you're less then twice (or at least 20 for towers) you're doomed to take it as you can't stop the enemy from constantly go out from shield, kill, step in again.

Sarky

The new spawn points are nice, but still not much help when the whole building is surrounded by a ring of heavy tanks. I should probably avoid playing at times when there's some massive TR outfit rolling across a map...

Nody

Sarky wrote: »

The new spawn points are nice, but still not much help when the whole building is surrounded by a ring of heavy tanks. I should probably avoid playing at times when there's some massive TR outfit rolling across a map...

Or be with your own sides zerg doing the same to the enemy .

Also I loved the fact Sunderer's got proper AA guns finally but sad about the nerf to flak

Monty - the one and only

was thinking the same thing about aa guns for mbt's, the ranger turret, with a good gunner will keep the skies clear, the slightest amount of flak in the sky is enough to send alot of pilots running....except when they swarm the skies

Sarky

One of my most satisfying moments was in a Vanguard kitted out purely for ground combat, managing to hit a Mosquito with the main gun, instant kill, and none of his friends in the air went near me after that, leaving me to engage the ground forces. ^_^

I know the old AA gun only did ping damage, but the psychological effect of hearing all those hits in the cockpit is way better than that quiet non-threatening missile lock bleep.

Nody

Sarky wrote: »

One of my most satisfying moments was in a Vanguard kitted out purely for ground combat, managing to hit a Mosquito with the main gun, instant kill, and none of his friends in the air went near me after that, leaving me to engage the ground forces. ^_^

Done that once with a HE shell from a lightening; the pilot was seriously pissed off (what he gets for flying low over ground in a straight line!).

Monty - the one and only

loving playing on vs again , now that they are back in the canyons. Found great lib flight training in there, fly full speed near ground level through the narrow canyons with out clipping the walls... or anything else.

During beta, I gave more esf deaths in those canyons, to the walls rather than my tailgunner.

Vertical thrust is required to make some of the turns

Nody

The Alpha boost has been reset (another 6 month boost baby!) but the best part is that it's been upped to 50% . So that was 6 months at 10% boost and now another 6 months at 50%; I'm happy!