2 very simple yet important questions.

[Atuday]

I have 2 questions that once answered I will be able to sleep soundly knowing that the devs of planetside 2 are the coolest people on earth.

The first is an easy yes or no question. Will the HUD be as customizable if not more so as the first planetside? This may not seem important to some but for others who can be a bit OCD this matters a lot.

The second question is harder and has to do with what drove me away from the first planetside. When an empire develops tactics that allow them to gain an edge in combat such as NC sitting at the end of a hall and spraying gauss gun ammo, or the vs using max crashes to break through a siege and people complain about weapon balance because of this. Will the devs then alter the weapons like they did in the first planetside or tell the players to man up and develop better tactics? I got so sick of one week having the power to lash with a lasher to the next week having to use a suppressor because all of the vanu guns got nerfed. How do you plan to avoid this?

Sorry for the question being so jumbled I just couldn't think of a better way to word it. Also as a VS player I will admit the lasher started off overpowered but I will also complain that it got nerfed and the noob hammer never did. I guess a good follow up question might be what is being done to remove the devs bias from affecting gameplay?

[Bags]

it got nerfed and the noob hammer never did.

So nerfing triple-jack wasn't a nerf?

[Logit]

So nerfing triple-jack wasn't a nerf?

There was a secondary fire mode on the jack hammer?

[morf]

Its not a nooobhammer its a skillhammer, l2p.

[Bags]

There was a secondary fire mode on the jack hammer?

I'm not sure what you're trying to convey with this post.

[Highwind]

...When an empire develops tactics that allow them to gain an edge in combat such as VS sitting at the end of a hall and spraying Lasher Orb ammo, or the NC using max crashes to break through a siege and people complain about weapon balance because of this. ...

Fixed it for you. Thats how it went down on Markov, as I remember it at least (wth is a VS max crash, never seen it, it was always NC scatter maxes doing that. VS AA max roof camping, now that I've seen)

[Bags]

His over all post I agree with.

Stop bitching about balance and learn to adapt.. If it's completely over powered.. then ya... but I seen no problems in beta with any of the balance.. at all...

I could kill then, I can kill now...

>implying people don't bitch about imbalances

[Malorn]

The jack got several nerfs, ranging from damage-per-pellet decreases (this happened at least twice), to changes in the spread and pellet damage degradation. They also tweaked the rate of fire and introduced a delay on the triple-shot once people started using it to effectively instagibbing people by firing one normal shot, switching and firing a triple shot instantly to put 4 shots on the target in the span of a second or less.

[Thoreaux]

The jack got several nerfs, ranging from damage-per-pellet decreases (this happened at least twice), to changes in the spread and pellet damage degradation. They also tweaked the rate of fire and introduced a delay on the triple-shot once people started using it to effectively instagibbing people by firing one normal shot, switching and firing a triple shot instantly to put 4 shots on the target in the span of a second or less.

And add to that at least one MCG buff and some Lasher.... uh, tweaks and we're finally at a rough equilibrium. (or at least we're as close as we're ever gonna get)

Those changes were necessary and all, but the lesson here is: if it needs to be nerfed, do it in beta. After release, only use the buff-stick to solve your problems, lest you be run down by a screaming horde of whaaambulances.

[Sovereign]

The balancing in beta is always preliminary and sets the framework for future "tweaks"...

With that said we still don't even know if the same weapons from the first game are even going to handle the same way they did previously.










:wantbeta: :)

[Logit]

The balancing in beta is always preliminary and sets the framework for future "tweaks"...

With that said we still don't even know if the same weapons from the first game are even going to handle the same way they did previously.


:wantbeta: :)

This. Ive been bitching about balance as much as the next guy for weeks now..mostly the "10-20%" non sense.

But until we actually see how everything pans out, we really have no reason to complain. It seems pretty clear to me Higby understands our concerns on the topic of balance, and Beta will prove to be a fairly large aspect of the finished product.

Or so I hope.

[Atuday]

Wow really people?? I just through some of that stuff in as an example and you guys really latched onto it like a bunch of 6 year olds with a tooth ache.

Thanks for IDukeNukeml, Sovereign and Logit for a relevant comment. At least there are a few people who can keep on topic rather than bitching.

[Thoreaux]

Will the devs then alter the weapons like they did in the first planetside or tell the players to man up and develop better tactics? I got so sick of one week having the power to lash with a lasher to the next week having to use a suppressor because all of the vanu guns got nerfed. How do you plan to avoid this?


Bitching, you say?

Planetside is now better balanced than it ever has been. This is a good thing. The things that got nerfed or buffed DESERVED to be nerfed or buffed, and the game is better for it.

Getting there, however, was absolute hell. Mostly due to people like yourself, who (with no perspective on overall game balance) raised holy hell whenever the devs tried to touch their shiny OP toys. I remember the days of surgile quad-shot Jackhammers, and the long-looooong arguments on the official forums with people who's only argument was, "lol, learn to skill, noob." Anybody remember Malodorous from the official forums? Yeah, he was right, and in the end his side of the argument won, because they were right, and the MCG got buffed. (and the lasher too, sorta...)

This was the origin of the term "Forumside", because arguing to have your equiment buffed and the enemy's nerfed was just one more front of meta-warfare. The point of my little rant, however, is that all of this was ugly, took forever to happen, was bad for the community, and that the constant balance tweaks so late in the games life-span drove people away. The takeaway lesson for the devs is, "If you have to adjust balance, listen to the players making a good argument, and do it quickly, in beta. Otherwise, people get too attached to one OP thing for you to change it. If you break this rule, you divide the community and will drive players away."

[NapalmEnima]

I'm hoping the reams of data they have access to from PlanetSide will help them Balance Stuff in PlanetSide 2.

That's unique information that no other company can match.

[Atuday]

Again thanks to those who post constructively rather than with accusations and complaints. I am amazed every one is focusing on only one question when I am pretty certain this thread is about two questions that I thought were important. If you want to complain about game balancing from planetside one PLEASE GET THE FUCK OUT AND GO TO THE PROPER FORUMS YOU SMALL MINDED LITTLE TROLLING SHIT HEADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Thoreaux]

Nope.

This thread was about balance. Specifically, how the developers should handle perceived balance problems in the game. I made a comment with my constructive suggestions on how to handle that thorny problem aimed at any devs reading it, and provided some game history as evidence of my point.

If you don't like it, tough shit. Sorry to be harsh, bud, I'm not really trying to rain on your parade. Just, recognize the difference between constructive input and trolling.

There was one other question which you spent two sentences on. However, you're now acting like I've derailed your thread by addressing the meat of your post. So I don my engineer's uniform and say again, "Nope."

[exLupo]

Again thanks to those who agreed with what I had to say and fluffed my point instead of providing dissenting opinions.

Clarified that for anyone who was confused by what he meant.


---

1) HUD is probably somewhat tweakable. Hopefully at least component moving.
2) What you experienced is the crossroads of a few things coming together. You've got players experimenting and finding optimal tactics and configurations while, on the other road, you have a dev -not- continuing to balance the game.

Balance is an ongoing discussion between player ingenuity and developer intent. When one side stops talking, the entire game begins to break down. What do they plan to do to make this not happen in PS2? I would assume "not shove the game into an oubliette" will be their answer.

[Avirau]

Fixed it for you. Thats how it went down on Markov, as I remember it at least (wth is a VS max crash, never seen it, it was always NC scatter maxes doing that. VS AA max roof camping, now that I've seen)

In Azure Twilight (VS), we do max crashes on an hourly basis during ops.

[Kechiro]

I could kill then, I can kill now...

I died just as easily then as I do now.

I want a +300hp and +600armor rexo buff ._.

Honestly the only gun that I personally have noticed any difference in is the MCG and Bolt Diver. Anyone remember when you could shoot one bolt diver then immediately bring out another and and finish your target off? ^_^ None of this having to wait to reload nonsense.

[NewSith]

In Azure Twilight (VS), we do max crashes on an hourly basis during ops.

In Soviet Russia Hourly basis does Azure Twilight (VS) on a max crash during ops.

On topic though, in a game where you have 3 sides with different set of specifics, there will always be whine.

Here's my chain of torment:
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o287/NewSith/Album%20of%20NewSith/JHMCGLSR.jpg

[TacosWLove]

Balancing is always key to PvP games and is always ongoing. the thing is they dont really know what to balance until players start bitching and whining about it. I mean thats what the interwebs is for afterall, better use it!

[CutterJohn]

I'd play on a server where each side was identical except for colors in a heartbeat.

[Robert089]

Anyone remember when you could shoot one bolt diver then immediately bring out another and and finish your target off? ^_^ None of this having to wait to reload nonsense.

This is still possible and I do it all the time to deal with pesky ridge snipers moving back 2 steps, healing and popping out again.

[Atuday]

This is still possible and I do it all the time to deal with pesky ridge snipers moving back 2 steps, healing and popping out again.

Or you could just have 2 players working together with good voice chat clients both shoot at the same time. A friend and I interrupted a rather large cyssor battle between the nc and the tr by sitting on a ridge line and doing this. In the end we had both tr and nc revers chasing us.