Higby Outlines this Months Patch

[Hamma]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/news-higby-outlines-this-months-patch-2928.htm

Hey all!

Happy New Year, I hope you all had a great 2012 and are having an amazing start to 2013. On the Planetside 2 we had a pretty **** fantastic 2012, but we're looking forward to even bigger and better things in 2013! I've said before that while 2012 was the year that Planetside 2 launched, 2013 is the year when we're opening up the afterburners and aiming for the stars. After a well earned rest the team is energized and ready to get back to "kicking *** and fixing bugs. And we're all ou--" er, oh yeah, okay, we've still got some bugs to fix.

While we were out we were still paying attention to the forums as well as twitter, reddit, facebook and all the other places you guys interact with us; we've heard a lot of your excellent feedback, ideas, concerns and consternation. One of the biggest goals of our team has been and continues to be listening to our community and following YOUR direction for what this game needs to become. We're going to be talking a lot more about this philosophy in the coming weeks and how community involvement is going to directly impact our development schedule & priorities as we reveal "our" plan for the next 6 months. For now, we wanted to address some of the biggest issues we're seeing come up over and over again, so that's what we're focused on for January's update.

Game development can be messy and there is always the possibility that something from this list may slip or not pass QA, and more details will be released on the specifics of all of these items as we get closer to the patch date, but I wanted to get this info out to all of you as soon as possible, so with that in mind, here are some highlights from what the team is working on finishing up for LU02 which will be released on 1/30/13.

General performance increases, particularly for lower end GPUs
Experience (XP) system enhancements:
Dynamic XP system for player kills, players who have more kills are worth more XP. Freshly spawned players will be worth a fraction of the current kill reward.
Partial damage XP for dealing damage to vehicles that you don't end up killing
Population XP / Resource bonus moved over to continent population instead of global
Better display of XP sources for things like defensive bonuses & population bonuses
Rebalancing of XP rewards to help support tasks
Server transfer token available in Depot
UI changes to emphasize score per minute as a primary metric of player comparison
Sortable columns on outfit management & addition of "last online" column
New weapon type for all empires: SMG
Short period of invulnerability will be added to freshly spawned / revived players - breaks upon game actions such as entering a vehicle or using a weapon.
Dynamic / player configurable colors for minimap & overhead indicators for enemies, friendlies, and squads within a platoon
New Hot Spot system that displays where active fights are occurring on the map
New spawn buildings with more exits, protected balconies and easy roof access to make them less campable.
Tunnel systems for amp and tech facilities to give access from spawn rooms to interior of bases and base walls without having to go above ground.
Making MAXes render more reliably at long distances for players in vehicles
AA improvements, notably flak changes for turrets and skyguards, giving them some better ability to aim, although not drastically impacting their DPS.
Fixes to missiles so that they more reliably detonate and actually blow stuff up
Air vehicle weapon tweaks
Increases to reload speed for certain HE ground vehicle weapons
And of course... lots of bug fixes
Whew, it's going to be a busy month! We know this doesn't address every issue that's been brought up recently but we hope it knocks out some of the big ones. Check Holiday Gift Guides (https://www.weeklyads2.com/holiday-gift-guides/) and Michaels Ad (https://www.weeklyads2.com/michaels/). Hopefully you will see from this update (and the feature plan for the next 6 months, when that is revealed) that we're taking your feedback and concerns for the game very seriously. We're here, we're listening and we're committed to continue to work with our community to build the best online game the world has ever seen.
As always, your feedback is very welcomed, here, on reddit, on twitter and everywhere else you may find us.
Cya on Auraxis!
-
Matthew Higby
Creative Director - Planetside 2
@mhigby

[EVILPIG]

Yeep.

[james]

Looks good, the only thing that has me confused is

Increases to reload speed for certain HE ground vehicle weapons


HE already is a problem why make it better.

[Hamma]

Not a ton of changes but definitely some stuff that we have discussed around here.

[SixShooter]

Dynamic XP and tunnels!!
:cheers:

[LoliLoveFart]

All in all good changes all round. And its going to be out this month +1 SOE.

[Brusi]

niiiiicceeee!!!!

[maradine]

That is a wonderful down payment on our design debt. <3

[Archonzero]

Dynamic XP and tunnels!!
:cheers:

Yay to dynamic xp an other coming fixes, changes, additions.

While tunnels is a cheap fix (a welcome one) to the overall issue, I would much rather opt to a more defensive minded layout for major bases.

[robocpf1]

Outfit Sorting YES!

That makes me probably the most excited of anything on that list.

I'm pumped to see a spawn room redesign, that's great they're listening to us on that - I think that one change alone along with dynamic exp. is going to change the game significantly.

Also, let's not forget server transfers, that's also awesome.

[adaroe]

population xp moved to continents ,good, hopefully with an increase in xp bonus%

[SixShooter]

Yay to dynamic xp an other coming fixes, changes, additions.

While tunnels is a cheap fix (a welcome one) to the overall issue, I would much rather opt to a more defensive minded layout for major bases.

Agreed but tunnels are definitly a step in the right direction and something that can be expanded upon.

They really need to add dynamic XP to base caps as well but this is still a step in the right direction.

[OCNSethy]

Great stuff!

"◦Better display of XP sources for things like defensive bonuses & population bonuses"

Does that mean XP for defence or am I just being overly optimistic?

[gunshooter]

Meh, it's okay I guess. I'll probably play a few days to try it. But it fails to address many problems.

Even if spawns are less campable, bases are still poorly designed. This is especially true for minor outposts. I do like the addition of tunnels, though, and tank/aircraft nerfs are always good.

Really dumb that they bended to the will of Buzzcutpsycho in just flat nerfing kill EXP for everyone, even infantry players. I laughed at the "tweaks" to support exp also, support already gets a ton of exp. The entire game will be engineer/medics just trying to farm exp because kills will give you none. If there's one thing the game DIDN'T need, it's lowering the rate of cert gain even more.

SMG's are just a moneygrabbing addition though. You know what an "SMG" in gaming terms is in PS2? A carbine. The last thing this game needs is more boring automatic weapons that effectively serve the same purpose, but I guess Higby needs his paycheck.

[capiqu]

Well nice less vehicle kills and more infantry to infantry combat. Love the tunnel idea. Now some tunnels at outpost and towers would be great as well. Let the above ground be what it should be for, vehicle vs vehicle.

[Morsong]

the dynamic xp alone makes me excited as this was something I was saying was needed since launch. Also can someone clarify this for me? Higby mentioned that xp will be better sorted and mentioned defense xp. Does he mean that players will now gain xp for defending a base finally, or did it just mean that all the xp contributed to whatever a player is doing will be better sorted out?

[Zulthus]

I'm glad (and amazed) that they added dynamic XP and tunnels under the base. The next issue they should focus on IMO is the metagame... I can't play anymore from sheer boredom. The resource system is largely pointless, since filling them is such a trivial task. Other than that, it's just a giant deathmatch ATM, not much more really.

Can't wait to see what they have up their sleeves for 2013.

[Kail]

Great stuff!

"◦Better display of XP sources for things like defensive bonuses & population bonuses"

Does that mean XP for defence or am I just being overly optimistic?

the dynamic xp alone makes me excited as this was something I was saying was needed since launch. Also can someone clarify this for me? Higby mentioned that xp will be better sorted and mentioned defense xp. Does he mean that players will now gain xp for defending a base finally, or did it just mean that all the xp contributed to whatever a player is doing will be better sorted out?

You already get passive +10% experience while fighting in territory your empire controls; course, this goes mostly unnoticed, so they're going to be doing something to make it more obvious how much that bonus has impacted you.

From that line I didn't get any change to capture mechanics (ie, a big bonus on resecure).

Edit:
Even if the tunnels are very simplistic for this initial implementation, I'm really excited to have them just as a first step towards base capturing having "phases" to the fight (past hold the line -> allourbasearebelongtothem)

[MyOdessa]

Higby loves air power, so he does not address or care about #1 complaint on forums, i.e. OP air power, especially Liberator.

Great job on not responding to the main complaint in PS2 so far. Minor redesign of bases, but no plans on improving meta-game or defensibility of bases.

Pilots can continue to farm everything on the ground, without hard counter from the ground.

Airside 2 FTL.

[ChrisLand]

It is a step in the right direction, however fails to address making resources / territory matter which is a huge issue for me.

Very excited for tunnels, SMGs, XP changes, and UI changes though.

[DirtyBird]

Its better than nothing.
I hope the XP changes dont see cert gain impacted.

Sorting of Outfit tabs...what we got, Name, Rank, Status and soon Last Online?

Server transfer token...1000SC maybe?

Hopefully UI changes means the Leader Board might work again.
They might even even add some more stats OR even release the Player pages on the web.

Hotspot MKIV, good luck.

New spawn buildings, not rehashed old spawn buildings.

Finally missile fixes...

I'd love to see a list of their known bugs and which they intend on fixing this patch.
Hope the bugs fixes are done before the other changes are made and inevitably more bugs are introduced.

Wonder if the flickering screen bug, which is like eye aids, will get a look in.

[maradine]

Higby loves air power, so he does not address or care about #1 complaint on forums, i.e. OP air power, especially Liberator.

Great job on not responding to the main complaint in PS2 so far. Minor redesign of bases, but no plans on improving meta-game or defensibility of bases.

Pilots can continue to farm everything on the ground, without hard counter from the ground.

Airside 2 FTL.

Did you miss the part about flak getting an accuracy buff, and SAMs working as intended? Or, like, what?

[james]

Did you miss the part about flak getting an accuracy buff, and SAMs working as intended? Or, like, what?

Still doesn't seem to make any changes to the lib.
As i said i like the patch, but i don't feel its enough to get me back into the game. There still is no meta game, and i hope we see that next month. To bring back the player base this just isn't enough. Here's to Feb bringing bigger changes, otherwise we will just have to see.

[Helwyr]

There's some good changes, there's a few bad ones, but this hardly addresses the major community concerns. Unfortunately this rates very low on the excit-o-meter.

[GraniteRok]

Second to last item; "Air vehicle weapon tweaks". Hopefully this will encompass the Liberator.

Still doesn't seem to make any changes to the lib.
As i said i like the patch, but i don't feel its enough to get me back into the game. There still is no meta game, and i hope we see that next month.

[james]

Second to last item; "Air vehicle weapon tweaks". Hopefully this will encompass the Liberator.

I hope so to, but i will believe it when i see it. SOE has seemed to make more problems out of fixes than solutions. I'll give it a try when the patch comes out, but my excitement level is quite low.

[TotalEclipse]

For the 2nd real update it's pretty good. Really looking forward to fighting in the tunnels.

[Rahabib]

Guys, "Better display of XP sources for things like defensive bonuses..." Simply means you will get a pop up when you do something like "+10 defense bonus"

[OCNSethy]

Guys, "Better display of XP sources for things like defensive bonuses..." Simply means you will get a pop up when you do something like "+10 defense bonus"

Gotcha.. thanks

Sigh, I was getting a little excited by the thought of a defensive bonus.

[Ghoest9]

Well they are adding the change that matters to me personally more than everything else -

"Dynamic / player configurable colors for minimap & overhead indicators for enemies, friendlies, and squads within a platoon"

I will finally be able to join squads without killing friendlies.
So over all I cant help but to be happy.


That said I really hope the zephyer and pods are getting a big nerf..

[PurpleOtter]

Hmmmmm...... tunnels and mines, time to re prioritize my cert purchases.

[Rivenshield]

That is a wonderful down payment on our design debt. <3

Very elegantly and aptly put. We need to cut the negativity but keep the pressure on full blast when it comes to base design, I think.

I'd also prefer to see the lethality of everything explosive lowered somewhat versus infantry, rather than seeing AA buffed. But... hey. Baby steps.

[Sunrock]

Looks good, the only thing that has me confused is

Increases to reload speed for certain HE ground vehicle weapons


HE already is a problem why make it better.

Im' not sure if any one replied to this but could not see on on first page...

Sure you did not misunderstood? "Increases to reload speed" means that the reload speed will be longer.

[Misato]

I definitely think its a step in the right direction. I am hoping the next big update after this is even better :)

[Wahooo]

Good start a few more patches like this the game will be ready for release.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

Making MAXes render more reliably at long distances for players in vehicles

YAY!!!!

AA improvements, notably flak changes for turrets and skyguards, giving them some better ability to aim, although not drastically impacting their DPS.

Air vehicle weapon tweaks

Oh god no!!! Oh well, 3k Lib certs down the drain... Better try this "infantry" class I keep hearing about.



Everything else is magical rainbow unicorns though.

[Sturmhardt]

Still no ETA, so I guess the patch comes near the end of the month...

.sent via phone.

[kantsler]

the closer it gets to planetside 1 the better chance this game has to bring me back to active duty and with it all the rest of the vets

[DirtyBird]

Still no ETA, so I guess the patch comes near the end of the month...

Correct

...so with that in mind, here are some highlights from what the team is working on finishing up for LU02 which will be released on 1/30/13.

[ShakareeVS]

Higby loves air power, so he does not address or care about #1 complaint on forums, i.e. OP air power, especially Liberator.

Great job on not responding to the main complaint in PS2 so far. Minor redesign of bases, but no plans on improving meta-game or defensibility of bases.

Pilots can continue to farm everything on the ground, without hard counter from the ground.

Airside 2 FTL.

Are you kidding, AA bursters are very powerful, Turrets and Skyguards sucked because they were impossible to aim due to low projectile speed, Higby clearly said the AA turrets and the Skyguar are obviously getting projectile speed increases, meaning now SG's and AA turrets in essence will be like AA Maxs.....very good idea

[Mox]

There is a lot of good stuff there but i still miss tons of things.
He should also adress:
Shared platoon/squad xp
Shared vec xp.
Better defesebility of bases (tunnels are good but not enough)
More conts
Better zerg leading mechanisms (lattice?)
.........
AND WHERE IS THE META GAME!!!!!!!!!

[Pella]

Not good enough. Palmed off once again.

Does he even listen to what we have been banging on about for the last 3months?

[Gortha]

total fail:

short period of invulnerability will be added to freshly spawned / revived players - breaks upon game actions such as entering a vehicle or using a weapon.

no.

[Figment]

Really want to see the new spawn building.


I'm, curious, for obvious reasons. :)

[Vashyo]

Small changes at best, wonder if SMGs look pretty much the same as all the other guns

Hopefully the dynamic XP makes leveling faster than slower as it is now.


Server move token costs money?...hmmm I wonder if Woodman becomes even bigger ghost town as it is...


So now the tiny XP bonus will work on continents instead of global, I bet farming will continue on indar with handful of happier ghost cappers going around the other two continents.

[Gatekeeper]

Some great changes there, which really look like they're going to help address one of the biggest issues in the game right now - the constant spawn-camping, especially by vehicles.

Even as a keen tank-driver, I'm glad to see I'm going to have to work a little harder for my kills and XP from now on - and be more rewarded when I take a break from tanking to do support work or defend outposts.

Good work devs, you're really helping to rebuild my faith in this game after a shaky start with the rushed beta.

Also, I know it's not a priority - but I'd still love to see some kind of cert that lets my gunner control the main gun and allows me to concentrate on driving, so I hope that's on the list somewhere.

[Dodgy Commando]

All good news to me.

Better visibility of defense XP might encourage players to defend more, especially as you can now access the main facility safely thanks to tunnels and a redisigned spawn building. Coupled with lower XP gains and respawn invulnaribility, these could all reduce the occurence of spawncamping.

At the very least, it will make it more profitable for defenders if they manage to kill a spawncamper or two, who will presumably be worth a lot more XP than said defender!
-e-
Come to think of it, if this isn't an incentive to go to great lengths to take down a spawncamping liberator, I don't know what is. Even in a suicide run, imagine the big bonus for taking the bird down.
-e-

I'm curious to see what the SMG's are all about (perhaps usable by Infiltrators?).

@gunshooter: PS2 already has carbines and IRL SMG's are not carbines. But I do agree with you to an extent, I'd like to see how they will fit in with what already exists in the game.

They're taking what the community says into account, even if they appear to fail to address all the concerns (some which I don't necessarily share, but that's not my point). I certainly don't expect them to fix everything in a single stroke, nor would I agree with such an approach. It's a start, and that's what's important to me.

[OpolE]

So no new Continents and people are leaving the game because they probably think Planetside2 is a tri-island shooter and it plays like cod/bf3.

Lack of content I want as a customer tbh, seriously.

[ringring]

Yay to dynamic xp an other coming fixes, changes, additions.

While tunnels is a cheap fix (a welcome one) to the overall issue, I would much rather opt to a more defensive minded layout for major bases.
Agreed.

Nothing about undoing the odd change to the Tech Plant in the previous update - the one that made the generator insanely vunerable.

I also thought that underground structures couldn't be done in this engine, so maybe they've updated the engine similar to when water wasn't possible.

[Dreadino]

Dynamic XP system for player kills, players who have more kills are worth more XP. Freshly spawned players will be worth a fraction of the current kill reward.
Great change, make it so player with more xp worth more xp and that's a deal!
This way killing a badass engeneer that didn't shoot a single bullet but was a repair/ammo master will give me more xp than shooting the dumbass LA that scored 2 kills with a C4.

Oh and extend that to Sunderers, more spawns/resupply, more xp!

[Sabrak]

"Tunnels under bases", as in "big ass tunnel layouts with rooms and important capturable/destroyable objectives where everyone will have to focus on infantry CQC, with a lot of Planetside 1 base-layout inspiration", or as in "long and boring tunnel to go from point A to point B, and useful only to walk around the enemy's blocus on your spawnroom" ?

I hope the first option will be used, but I fear it'll be the second.

[ringring]

Oh I forgot. They're working on new player experience, so it looks like that didn't make the cut this time around.

[Suitepee]

Will be interested to see what those tunnels look like.

And it'd be nice if they could fix the MOTD also so it actually remains when I put in a new one.

[Ruffdog]

Dynamic xp and invulnerable for newly spawned is a great fix imo. We should see less Sundy camping now. Far less. Add in increased HE reload times. Beerbeer should be happy

Tunnels - good to see (screw you flyboys) - mana turrets just got useful. And lashers sadly.

SMG - I guess one handed Uzi types for inf class?

Hopefully a boost in frames for my graphics card too. I think 5770 qualifies as "older"

[p0intman]

He didnt go full retard, wow

New spawn buildings with more exits, protected balconies and easy roof access to make them less campable.

Tunnel systems for amp and tech facilities to give access from spawn rooms to interior of bases and base walls without having to go above ground.

New weapon type for all empires: SMG

Making MAXes render more reliably at long distances for players in vehicles

Increases to reload speed for certain HE ground vehicle weapons
Air vehicle weapon tweaks
assuming a buff for that, including op lib a2g weapons...

Spoke too soon. nevermind.

[Sturmhardt]

"Tunnels under bases", as in "big ass tunnel layouts with rooms and important capturable/destroyable objectives where everyone will have to focus on infantry CQC, with a lot of Planetside 1 base-layout inspiration", or as in "long and boring tunnel to go from point A to point B, and useful only to walk around the enemy's blocus on your spawnroom" ?

I hope the first option will be used, but I fear it'll be the second.

Yeah... I have the same concerns.. let's hope for the best.

.sent via phone.

[Levente]

Higby loves air power, so he does not address or care about #1 complaint on forums, i.e. OP air power, especially Liberator.

Great job on not responding to the main complaint in PS2 so far. Minor redesign of bases, but no plans on improving meta-game or defensibility of bases.

Pilots can continue to farm everything on the ground, without hard counter from the ground.

Airside 2 FTL.

cry some more baby. planetside 2 ftw

[Brutal Magikarp]

I really, really hope they fix the Outfit tab soon...

[Memeotis]

Great to see an SMG coming into the game, but I think its implementation requires a larger range of weapon stats. In the SMGs case, it needs to have killer hip-fire at short range, but it should also allow players to move faster - relative to players with other types of guns - when aiming down sight.

[Saraketh]

"Resource bonus moved over to continent population instead of global"

That sucks a little, its only 10% and what's the point, once you conquer, you don't come back to the continent unless you need to, to stop it be re capped.

All continents should feel the benefit if your side caps a continent

[Sledgecrushr]

I dont like the limited invulnerability idea. I can really see that get abused by some of these more organised outfits. What your going to see are entire platoons suicide at exactly the same time, respawn at the same time and rush together as one impossible to kill target. This isnt a really good idea and I would like to see it scrapped.

[NewSith]

Okay, let's dissect this. I'm gonna be all Thomas on some of these, but it's not being negative, it's being cautious.

Main thing:

Tunnel systems for amp and tech facilities to give access from spawn rooms to interior of bases and base walls without having to go above ground.

I was very glad to see this, but then a thought crossed my mind - are SCUs still only reachable via "above ground" on Tech Plants? Because if this is the case, this change adds NOTHING to the defensibility.

The rest:

General performance increases, particularly for lower end GPUs


Okay this is reallt REALLY good, since my i5 650 seems to be the "low end one". The game seems to be handling hyperthreading really badly. A perfect example is that my loss of FPS is minimal when recording with fraps, however the game itself only runs at 50FPS max with all settings set to minimal and with shadows actually turned off.

EDIT: Oh, wait... GPUs...

Experience (XP) system enhancements:

Dynamic XP system for player kills, players who have more kills are worth more XP. Freshly spawned players will be worth a fraction of the current kill reward.
Partial damage XP for dealing damage to vehicles that you don't end up killing
Population XP / Resource bonus moved over to continent population instead of global
Better display of XP sources for things like defensive bonuses & population bonuses
Rebalancing of XP rewards to help support tasks


This is also good, but there's one "but". "Population XP / Resource bonus moved over to continent population instead of global" That even further removes the whole purpose of the resource system. It's a step towards stalemates from Beta, I tell you.

Server transfer token available in Depot

Wonderful. No more loss of everything once moving to another server.

UI changes to emphasize score per minute as a primary metric of player comparison

Not exactly a worthwhile change for a particular type of player folk - Liberator Pilots. Especially Shredder ones like myself. I'm already getting lots of idiots that see my stat and brand me a noob because I have ~1.0 K/D ratio, with SpM system, I'm gonna look even more newbish. Not like I care much, tbh, but sometimes it does make you feel down.

Sortable columns on outfit management & addition of "last online" column

Just make it so you don't have to hit "sort by last online" every time somebody goes online/offline.

New weapon type for all empires: SMG

There we go, SMGs. The only question I have is - if most Carbines don't have a buttstock, does it mean that SMG will look exactly like carbines?

Short period of invulnerability will be added to freshly spawned / revived players - breaks upon game actions such as entering a vehicle or using a weapon.

I always considered it to be a strange addition in many multiplayer games, honestly.

Dynamic / player configurable colors for minimap & overhead indicators for enemies, friendlies, and squads within a platoon

Colorblind people will now get their love. That's good.

New Hot Spot system that displays where active fights are occurring on the map

Excuse me my rudeness, but since Beta I tend to look at the word combination "New Hot Spot System" with extreme caution.

New spawn buildings with more exits, protected balconies and easy roof access to make them less campable.

This needs just one more bit of info - does this mean "spawn buildings" as in "Base Spawn buildings" or this includes outpost boxes of death, which are definitely way more troublesome in that regard.

Making MAXes render more reliably at long distances for players in vehicles

*no comment* Feelings are rather mixed. There are two sides to that coin. Hint is - you cannot make only AA maxes render from longer distance. This means that all AI (and AV) MAXes are now primary subjects for liberator spam.

AA improvements, notably flak changes for turrets and skyguards, giving them some better ability to aim, although not drastically impacting their DPS.

Does this mean that you give them better accuracy, but reduce their damage? That's not exactly a good change in my book.

Fixes to missiles so that they more reliably detonate and actually blow stuff up

Never noticed this kind of stuff occuring tbh.

Air vehicle weapon tweaks

Just don't mess up my Shredder Lib, please.

Increases to reload speed for certain HE ground vehicle weapons

My best guess is that Higby meant "reload time", not reload speed. I mean what's the point of buffing HE weapons so they can basically have the same DPS output against armor as HEAT weapons?

[ShadetheDruid]

I imagine the invulnerability will just be a split second thing, to counter the moment where you count as alive in the world after reviving or spawning at a Sunderer (and thus can be instantly killed again) a second before you can do anything about it.

[NewSith]

I imagine the invulnerability will just be a split second thing, to counter the moment where you count as alive in the world after reviving or spawning at a Sunderer (and thus can be instantly killed again) a second before you can do anything about it.

It is a BF3 borrowed thing. They have it so unless you move your mouse (was unless you move in the first version of implementation), you are invulnerable for a couple seconds.


The added the second implemention, because invulnerable people could kill others after spawning while not taking damage themselves.

[Figment]

Pretty much what NewSith said.

Presume it'll be made clear when someone is invulnerable? Due to ammo/reload considerations. I'd rather have gone with a cloak field like the AMS than complete invulnerability, though it is a fix to lag after spawning and getting a bearing on what's happening around you before dieing. Guess it depends on implementation. Wouldn't have applied it to healed troops though, if someone is revived under dangerous circumstances he just got killed in, the medic is to blame for his timing and the player in question for accepting it. Again, depends on implementation.

As for the missiles, did notice that happening (would hit something or explode in proximity, but not deal damage).

[Qwan]

Higby loves air power, so he does not address or care about #1 complaint on forums, i.e. OP air power, especially Liberator.

Great job on not responding to the main complaint in PS2 so far. Minor redesign of bases, but no plans on improving meta-game or defensibility of bases.

Pilots can continue to farm everything on the ground, without hard counter from the ground.

Airside 2 FTL.

I hate this Air is to powerful bull crap, and I can tell you I am not a fly boy.
Guys its the nature of the vechicle, its a Air to Ground bomber, its designed to destroy targets from the air, thats what the lib does, to say its over powered is taking away its purpose. Yes if your on the ground and a lib flies over and starts bombing you yep your gonna die. But libs are very vulnarable to other air attacks and flack. Now I will say that the sky guard and maxes need a little bit of a damage tweek, but saying the lib is overpowered is not true. I mean if they lowered the damage, then it would be useless. If it takes more then one hit from a dalton to kill a ground trooper then the lib becomes useless. I think its very balanced, yes I get hit by libs quite a bit, but most libs dont last long once they get ID'd, there usually shot down after there first volley by ground flack or faster moving air ships. So before you guys go crying about the lib and its over poweredness, think about the purpose of the vehicle, thats what its designed for, if it didnt do what it was suppose to do (kill ground troops or armor, depending on the gun) then it would be useless, I mean if a lib was shooting down other air ships, and moving just as fast as a mossie then it would be over powered. Im sorry that you kept spawning at a spawn box that was camped by a lib one night when you were playing. But here is a idea, spawn at another point, you will notice that it instantly stops the dying. Myself when I know we have lost the base and see the box is surrounded, I spawn at the closest point and I try to hit the enemy from behind while there camping that box. Try it sometimes it works.

[Figment]

Qwan, nobody says it should throw daisies down instead. But that doesn't mean it simply being an air vehicle it is per definition completely balanced to a tee.

Balance is balance.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

So... after 6 months of testing and 2 months of release, they'll have 'fixed' spawn camping by reducing the xp from it, that'll work, right? It's not like people spawn camped in PS1 when you only got 1xp per kill...

A list of non 'changes' and tweaks that'll distract the masses for another couple months whilst they try and brainstorm up their 6 month plan, which you'd have thought they'd have ready for the release of the game.

[Frotang]

Ya this whole invulnerability on spawn/ revive thing has really got me worried. It better be like .5 seconds to 1 second maximum, I guess if they implement it correctly it'll be ok but to me it just reeks of a kiddie console type of game mechanic.

[Seafort]

I hate this Air is to powerful bull crap, and I can tell you I am not a fly boy.
Guys its the nature of the vechicle, its a Air to Ground bomber, its designed to destroy targets from the air, thats what the lib does, to say its over powered is taking away its purpose. Yes if your on the ground and a lib flies over and starts bombing you yep your gonna die. But libs are very vulnarable to other air attacks and flack. Now I will say that the sky guard and maxes need a little bit of a damage tweek, but saying the lib is overpowered is not true. I mean if they lowered the damage, then it would be useless. If it takes more then one hit from a dalton to kill a ground trooper then the lib becomes useless. I think its very balanced, yes I get hit by libs quite a bit, but most libs dont last long once they get ID'd, there usually shot down after there first volley by ground flack or faster moving air ships. So before you guys go crying about the lib and its over poweredness, think about the purpose of the vehicle, thats what its designed for, if it didnt do what it was suppose to do (kill ground troops or armor, depending on the gun) then it would be useless, I mean if a lib was shooting down other air ships, and moving just as fast as a mossie then it would be over powered. Im sorry that you kept spawning at a spawn box that was camped by a lib one night when you were playing. But here is a idea, spawn at another point, you will notice that it instantly stops the dying. Myself when I know we have lost the base and see the box is surrounded, I spawn at the closest point and I try to hit the enemy from behind while there camping that box. Try it sometimes it works.

I don't mind 1 liberator bombing but in this game there is no limit to the amount of vehicles/aircraft you can spawn because of the poorly designed resource/acquisition system.

Therefore they won't be just 1 liberator bombing but several, nevermind the ESFs bombing ground targets too. This is why i think ESFs should have their rocket pods removed, add more and better AA missiles and machine guns and let them be the AA in the skies instead of just ground vehicles, infantry/MAX and static turrets.

There needs to be limits and specialisations in this game so we aren't all a Swiss army knife and be a jack of all trades.
This "be anything you want without any limits or training" is BS.

[Ghoest9]

total fail:



no.

Well a 1 to 2 second period would probably be good.

A 5 second period would be bad.

[Assist]

Yay server transfers, base redesign, air changes, HE nerfs, performance increases, and new weapons!

Great update for the game, you can tell they actually did listen to feedback and are trying to do what they think is best (while not going overboard)

edit: After reading this thread, I've come to the conclusion that half of the posters on PSU have reading difficulties.

[ShadetheDruid]

...kiddie console type of game mechanic.

Yes, because calling people names based on what type of thing they play on is totally mature and adult.

[ringring]

It is a BF3 borrowed thing. They have it so unless you move your mouse (was unless you move in the first version of implementation), you are invulnerable for a couple seconds.


The added the second implemention, because invulnerable people could kill others after spawning while not taking damage themselves.
What about
- get revived
- happen to be facing the right way
- press g
- win

[Elgareth]

Ya this whole invulnerability on spawn/ revive thing has really got me worried. It better be like .5 seconds to 1 second maximum, I guess if they implement it correctly it'll be ok but to me it just reeks of a kiddie console type of game mechanic.

I'd guess it'll be 5 Seconds max. Just enough to get out of the explosion radius of your friendly HE-Sunderer-Camping-Whatever, no enough to get to any strategically important place unharmed whatsoever. After a revive I don't expect more than 1 Second, because that could lead to rather strange parties of undying leveled Medics :D

Generally the changes sound great IMHO, even though they should not forget that new content is very important as well (and personally I don't care for SMGs...they'll look the same, feel the same as existing weapons, if noone told people that there are new weapons now, noone would ever notice getting shot by one I think).
Personally I'm waiting for the AV MANA Turret more than anything, then I could specialise in my Engy 100% finally... in its current state I'm still torn between Medic and Engy :D

[ringring]

Yay server transfers, base redesign, air changes, HE nerfs, performance increases, and new weapons!

Great update for the game, you can tell they actually did listen to feedback and are trying to do what they think is best (while not going overboard)

edit: After reading this thread, I've come to the conclusion that half of the posters on PSU have reading difficulties.
Why?

And re: base redesign. Some cynicism is warranted, we've had so many base redesigns and tweaks that haven't solved the problem. So, bases have improved somewhat but one type at least took a step backward in the last patch. I'm talking about the tech plant.


In the case of base changes the proof of the pudding etc.

[NewSith]

What about
- get revived
- happen to be facing the right way
- press g
- win

I myself treat that as normal, since it's luck, and "chance of luck" is the most balanced factor there is.


EDIT: Doesn't mean I like the change, I'm just indifferent, since it doesn't affect gameplay that much, BF3 spawn protection Mk2 proved that to me.

[Rat]

"Tunnels under bases", as in "big ass tunnel layouts with rooms and important capturable/destroyable objectives where everyone will have to focus on infantry CQC, with a lot of Planetside 1 base-layout inspiration", or as in "long and boring tunnel to go from point A to point B, and useful only to walk around the enemy's blocus on your spawnroom" ?

I hope the first option will be used, but I fear it'll be the second.

I am sure it will be the second...I think the intent here is just to give us more ways to get out of the spawn room to shoot rockets up the asses of MBTs....this should allow for better defence, atleast for awhile, at some point a facility is still lost.

[Kerrec]

So... after 6 months of testing and 2 months of release, they'll have 'fixed' spawn camping by reducing the xp from it, that'll work, right? It's not like people spawn camped in PS1 when you only got 1xp per kill...

A list of non 'changes' and tweaks that'll distract the masses for another couple months whilst they try and brainstorm up their 6 month plan, which you'd have thought they'd have ready for the release of the game.

Wow, how ignorant. Ever hear the quote, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray?"

They probably had a very detailed "plan". However, the information, metrics and feedback they are receiving is probably causing major shifts in the priority of that plan. A Metagame is probably a huge development investment, where fixing a spawn room is a "relatively" much smaller investment.

Fixing a spawn room will probably also give huge return on investment. The combination of adding several exits and underground tunnels to the main facility forces the attackers to spread out, giving the defenders a chance to focus on one exit and succeed. Also, if the "protected balconies" allow fire outwards but not inwards, then a focused defensive force at the spawn room can potentially enforce a no man's land around the spawn building, once again giving defenders a chance. If those "protected balconies" allow fire outwards at the sky, then spawn camping Air can be stopped dead in it's tracks.

Not only that, but by giving measly rewards for killing someone that just spawned and exited a spawn room, the major motivation for the XP farmers just went away. It will still be a viable tactic to CAPTURE a base, but given human nature, without the reward, there will be alot fewer people doing it.

With dynamic XP granting more XP for people that have done more killing, ESF's will now have a motivator to go after a Lib or an A2G ESF instead of ignoring enemy air to keep his own nose pointed downward.

Dynamic XP should also motivate players to use Libs as tank column busters instead of a relatively safe infantry farming platform. Tanks will probably always be worth 100xp per kill + the crew kill xp, where farming infantry that are being insta killed by a zerg and keep respawning will give nothing worthwile. So Dynamic XP alone will probably motivate the zergs to simply spread out and look for a fairer (and more rewarding) fight.

There are a ton of "minor" changes in these proposed changes, but their impact can be HUGE. This is a GOOD step in the right direction. Small incremental changes, then evaluate. After these changes go in, they will hopefully not touch anything related to them and focus on something completely different, like a metagame and/or giving significance to resources. Once they have had enough time to really digest how the incremental changes has affected the game, THEN they can decide to do a bit more or back off a little bit.

[Bocheezu]

Really dumb that they bended to the will of Buzzcutpsycho in just flat nerfing kill EXP for everyone, even infantry players.

It's not a flat nerf to kill XP. It's a nerf to kill XP for people that just recently spawned and a buff to kill XP for people that have been alive and killing for a while. If you kill a guy that's been on a rampage, you might get 400 XP or something.

In PS1, when you finally killed that mossie killwhore that was 50/1, you got like 700 XP

[Emperor Newt]

Looks good for a start. The only thing I would like to see is reduced damage of HE weapons to vehicles and AV-splash weapons to infantry.
Also I hope the rework of population imbalance xp also means a buff to the xp gained by it. The current bonus is just not enough to make people fight.

In the long run I hope base layout gets some more love.

[FergGref]

Very interested to see how these anti-camping changes affect the gameplay and flow of battles. I'm also very excited that defending will finally be worth something.

[Mordelicius]

It seems like a good set of fixes (much better than the first one) with one major oversight that can render all the positives moot: no faction balance :(

Faction imbalance is the cause of the continental/server imbalances and migration. If one factors in the new server transfer token/service, then how long will it take before the servers are stacked 60-20-20? And how long before they can undo this server damage?

I also like changes they are making to the spawnroom exits and roofs since they are on my wishlish in the forum debates :p. That will definitely alleviate much of the spawnroom camping that's taking away the normal back-and-forth battles should be the norm in any balanced fights.

Lastly, the resuscitation invulnerability - as many has already pointed out in the official forum - will be a source of gamely exploitations. Imo, they should limit the invulnerability to fresh respawns. Or at the very least, only allow weapon/mines/grenades/c4 use 3-5s after invulnerability wears off because if not, i'd expect multiple or coordinated, rez and suicide bombing if this goes through.

[Aaron]

Excited to see how the modified spawn building and XP will play out. I like the changes, good job SOE.

Now, the next thing on your list should be redesigning the bases for defensive multipliers. That's a big one.

[CraazyCanuck]

Wow, how ignorant. Ever hear the quote, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray?"

They probably had a very detailed "plan". However, the information, metrics and feedback they are receiving is probably causing major shifts in the priority of that plan. A Metagame is probably a huge development investment, where fixing a spawn room is a "relatively" much smaller investment.

Fixing a spawn room will probably also give huge return on investment. The combination of adding several exits and underground tunnels to the main facility forces the attackers to spread out, giving the defenders a chance to focus on one exit and succeed. Also, if the "protected balconies" allow fire outwards but not inwards, then a focused defensive force at the spawn room can potentially enforce a no man's land around the spawn building, once again giving defenders a chance. If those "protected balconies" allow fire outwards at the sky, then spawn camping Air can be stopped dead in it's tracks.

Not only that, but by giving measly rewards for killing someone that just spawned and exited a spawn room, the major motivation for the XP farmers just went away. It will still be a viable tactic to CAPTURE a base, but given human nature, without the reward, there will be alot fewer people doing it.

With dynamic XP granting more XP for people that have done more killing, ESF's will now have a motivator to go after a Lib or an A2G ESF instead of ignoring enemy air to keep his own nose pointed downward.

Dynamic XP should also motivate players to use Libs as tank column busters instead of a relatively safe infantry farming platform. Tanks will probably always be worth 100xp per kill + the crew kill xp, where farming infantry that are being insta killed by a zerg and keep respawning will give nothing worthwile. So Dynamic XP alone will probably motivate the zergs to simply spread out and look for a fairer (and more rewarding) fight.

There are a ton of "minor" changes in these proposed changes, but their impact can be HUGE. This is a GOOD step in the right direction. Small incremental changes, then evaluate. After these changes go in, they will hopefully not touch anything related to them and focus on something completely different, like a metagame and/or giving significance to resources. Once they have had enough time to really digest how the incremental changes has affected the game, THEN they can decide to do a bit more or back off a little bit.

This +1. Kerrec just nailed it. People really need to pull their heads out of their ass and start thinking more on what is being asked for and how significant the time involved will be to make some of those changes, especially those that alternate major game mechanics. The devs then need to spend more time to ensure they didn't break something else in implementing those same fixes.

I hope they take the time they need to fix things properly. Providing a solution blindly is sometimes worse then the original problem. Something the devs for Mech Warrior Online hopefully have learned by now as their track record for doing just that is horrendous.

All and all, a good first step for 2013. I for one am optimistic. Keep up the good work SOE.

[Artorius]

Short period of invulnerability will be added to freshly spawned / revived players - breaks upon game actions such as entering a vehicle or using a weapon.

Omg, no!!!

[Crator]

All excellent changes! I'm exited to jump back in to see how it affects the game play! Thanks for listening to community concerns devs!

[Hamma]

I've had some additional time to think about this and overall I'm happy with what they have noted.

The XP Changes are nice but I believe it is to late for that - it should have been in from the start. We already have people at BR100 so it makes no real difference unless you are a new player.

I'm curious if the "Tunnels" they speak of will be only open to the owners of the base or all players. And the spawn room changes sound to me like adding more doors and windows for air and ground vehicles to camp :lol:

Really dumb that they bended to the will of Buzzcutpsycho in just flat nerfing kill EXP for everyone, even infantry players

Buzzcut did not think of this its been a discussion going on numerous places since well before beta started.

[Figment]

And the spawn room changes sound to me like adding more doors and windows for air and ground vehicles to camp :lol:

Which means you need more campers, if the building is larger. ;)

[Stanis]

I'm concerned about the period of invulnerability.


The tunnels I'm thinking through.
Right now I'm wondering if they are going to be the start of underground base complexes.
I think I'd rather have teleporters and jump pads used sensible to aid the defenders.

If the defenders still have to run to multiple objectives spread out across such a huge area - even being able to run 'safely' in a tunnel doesn't get them there any quicker.


We'll see how it works out.

[Ghoest9]

I've had some additional time to think about this and overall I'm happy with what they have noted.

The XP Changes are nice but I believe it is to late for that - it should have been in from the start. We already have people at BR100 so it makes no real difference unless you are a new player.

I'm curious if the "Tunnels" they speak of will be only open to the owners of the base or all players. And the spawn room changes sound to me like adding more doors and windows for air and ground vehicles to camp :lol:



Buzzcut did not think of this its been a discussion going on numerous places since well before beta started.

I think the change was much more in mind with how it effects game play than with who has a high BR.

[Tatwi]

No one else mentioned, so I will.

"We'll sell you a server transfer before we implement the account wide unlocks" - SOE.

Thanks SOE, that's really kind of you. Good to know you're excited to solve your problems with our money. Certainly make more sense than say, listening to feedback and making characters account bound rather than server bound, like you've done for years in Free Realms...

Not terribly excited by the rest of the things mentioned, though I had a good laugh about the Score per Minute thing - golly geepers, maybe the beta players had some good feedback after all, eh? *sigh*

[Fujilives]

No one else mentioned, so I will.

"We'll sell you a server transfer before we implement the account wide unlocks" - SOE.

Thanks SOE, that's really kind of you. Good to know you're excited to solve your problems with our money. Certainly make more sense than say, listening to feedback and making characters account bound rather than server bound, like you've done for years in Free Realms...

Not terribly excited by the rest of the things mentioned, though I had a good laugh about the Score per Minute thing - golly geepers, maybe the beta players had some good feedback after all, eh? *sigh*

Account wide unlocks should be priority number 1 if they really want to get station cash purchases. This annoys me to the point of quitting. Why on earth would they do this except some Higher-Up jackass trying to squeeze as much money out of the small % of players that actually donate for the same item on multiple characters as humanly possible.... DICK MOVE.

[SixShooter]

I'm curious if the "Tunnels" they speak of will be only open to the owners of the base or all players. And the spawn room changes sound to me like adding more doors and windows for air and ground vehicles to camp :lol:


What I hope for is wide shielded openings in the roof to pour AA through. Probably not, but I'm allowed to dream :).

Small changes at best, wonder if SMGs look pretty much the same as all the other guns


They'll just copy/paste the LMG model for SMGs :rofl:.
:cheers:

[Hamma]

I think the change was much more in mind with how it effects game play than with who has a high BR.

Perhaps, we shall see I suppose. I don't pay much attention to what XP I am getting personally.

[unAimed]

No Mention of infanty render distance - that was one of the things I was most looking forward to :-(

[Qwan]

I don't mind 1 liberator bombing but in this game there is no limit to the amount of vehicles/aircraft you can spawn because of the poorly designed resource/acquisition system.

Therefore they won't be just 1 liberator bombing but several, nevermind the ESFs bombing ground targets too. This is why i think ESFs should have their rocket pods removed, add more and better AA missiles and machine guns and let them be the AA in the skies instead of just ground vehicles, infantry/MAX and static turrets.

There needs to be limits and specialisations in this game so we aren't all a Swiss army knife and be a jack of all trades.
This "be anything you want without any limits or training" is BS.

I see were your coming from Sea, but when your defending an outpost and the entire ground is enemy, they own the air as well. Then you spawn back at this same surrounded spawn box get hit by lib rounds and keep dying. Then you come and post how Libs are over powered ( I dont mean you in perticular) then thats just whining. I do have to agree though that the skyguard, and the maxes flack cannons do need to up there damage a little, to make air think twice. But I have myself stood on a roof and fended off libs and enemy air with about 4 maxes with flack cannons and did a good job. As far as timer and resources, if you pay down the certs for the timer and deck you lib out with some of the benefits then hey, its the nature of the game.

[Hamma]

No Mention of infanty render distance - that was one of the things I was most looking forward to :-(

That's one of those things that they are always working on. Interesting they didn't mention it though.

[Figment]

If the defenders still have to run to multiple objectives spread out across such a huge area - even being able to run 'safely' in a tunnel doesn't get them there any quicker.

In that case they could just add small sections of ziplines to the tunnels.

Just like in the cavern tunnels from the geowarp to the central cave in PS1: pretty much a fancy conveyor belt.

[james]

For those worried about invulnerability, since there isn't a spawn feature when you pop out of a players butt. It should work fine. BF has been using the system for a while, and yes on a rare occurrence it will cause some bs. But it will stop the spawn die, spawn die thing. Hope full we will see less he tanks, and libs camping bang buses and other things.

After reading the patch notes a few more times.
The major concerns that jumped out where the patch is not supposed to launch to end of the month. This i think is to long, your walking a fine line of losing most of your player base.

The tokens for server transfers, i guess is there way of saying no server merges. Which once again i think is horrible. The game does not play well without servers on high, when your servers are on low and medium all the time, your missing a major part of the game.

Not mentioning any meta game, brings up some questions, if they are actually interested in fixing it.

[Babyfark McGeez]

All i can say is this dev team is really likeable. :)

While they do not allways seem to have a clue what they are actually doing there (which is not ment in a hostile way) and some core problems haven't been addressed here, they really seem to listen to the community. If they do not shy away from tinkering with basic mechanics and the (lack of) strategic depth gets addressed i see this development going in a very good direction.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

Wow, how ignorant.

More applicable to the Devs than one bitter vet, seeing as how they've pretty much ignored months of suggestions/ideas from the passionate community.

You can search pretty much any 'bitter vet' postings on PSU and you'll see them calling out every problem the game has right now, before they even got to play the game.

Pray tell, what exactly was their original plan, release the game, go quiet after a month, watch pops plummet, then fix spawncamping 2 months after release?

PS1 had the majority of its 'meta' (horribly misused word) elements in for release, base linked benefits and 2 new vehicles were added within 2 months of PS1s release. They are STILL WORKING ON THE BASICS for PS2 in comparison.

Anyone credulous enough to think they'll unfuck PS2 (since they're all down to Dev decisions) in any sort of reasonable time (as in 6 months) should probably get checked out but before that, I've got some prime real-estate I'd like to sell to you.

[Hamma]

Additional response:

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289067371363192832

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289067460613767168

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289067628369174529

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289068243476426753

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/289068590618005504

[Fear The Amish]

- Outfit Changes.... THANK GOD! and all his angels as a CO this was one of my biggest headaches

- Redesign of Spawn buildings i am happy about

- Tunnels can go either way so i am optimistic

- Skygaurd buff i am happy about

Overall i am very happy and optimistic about this update. And now that they are back from vacation i think we can expect a return to the beta patch calendar so good stuff.

[vipjerry]

So where is meta game?

[ringring]

I've had some additional time to think about this and overall I'm happy with what they have noted.

I'm curious if the "Tunnels" they speak of will be only open to the owners of the base or all players. And the spawn room changes sound to me like adding more doors and windows for air and ground vehicles to camp :lol:
.

Yea, the tunnels are intriguing.

If they devs can nbow build underground spaces such as tunnels can they now build rooms, of the kind tunnel, room, tunnel, stairs, surface. If which case we may get the type of facility we've been asking for.

The questions will be:-

- will it simply be a camp at the terminus of the tunnel rather than the door to the spawn, or
- although a camp as above may well occur, will there at least be an opportunity to fight back once a hack goes on, given that hack timers go so quickly


The thing we all want is an extended infantry battle for a base and although the news yesterday is welcome I'm not at all certain that it is enough.

[Assist]

More applicable to the Devs than one bitter vet, seeing as how they've pretty much ignored months of suggestions/ideas from the passionate community.

You can search pretty much any 'bitter vet' postings on PSU and you'll see them calling out every problem the game has right now, before they even got to play the game.

Pray tell, what exactly was their original plan, release the game, go quiet after a month, watch pops plummet, then fix spawncamping 2 months after release?

PS1 had the majority of its 'meta' (horribly misused word) elements in for release, base linked benefits and 2 new vehicles were added within 2 months of PS1s release. They are STILL WORKING ON THE BASICS for PS2 in comparison.

Anyone credulous enough to think they'll unfuck PS2 (since they're all down to Dev decisions) in any sort of reasonable time (as in 6 months) should probably get checked out but before that, I've got some prime real-estate I'd like to sell to you.

I was going to make a big post refuting your comments, but I realized some people are a lost cause and would rather be miserable SOBs than enjoy themselves in a game.
All I will say is, some of the PS1 vets here remind me of 8-track junkies. You can claim how great PS1 was, and how it was the bestest thing ever, but the truth is it failed, flopped, and finally died off due to the fact that more people post on these forums daily than played PS1 on the average day.

[Sledgecrushr]

So where is meta game?

I know I feel impatient at times too. We just have to be patient bro while the devs do their magic.

[Fear The Amish]

So where is meta game?

They are adding more flesh onto the bones every patch. Now that they are back from i expect a return to beta's update schedule. Be patient and it will come.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

They are adding more flesh onto the bones every patch. Now that they are back from i expect a return to beta's update schedule. Be patient and it will come.

Christmas was 2 weeks ago, this patch isn't for another 3... no double xp or triple station cash to stem the bleeding of player numbers whilst we 'wait' for a patch to 'fix' the most basic of problems with the game.

I'd like to see your 'refutations' assist, probably as shallow as PS2 is.

PS1 wasn't flawless but it had a damn sight better foundation than PS2 does, most of us are wondering why they ignored all the good stuff from PS1 whilst implementing all the terrible horrendously broken shit. viz. 3-ways + BR40

Then again, the devs seem to be re-implementing a PS1 mechanic every couple of months, maybe a decade later they'll finally have finished PS2. I guess that says more about which game flopped/failed right? Oh and nice server mergers after 2 months on a free game.

[Kerrec]

More applicable to the Devs than one bitter vet, seeing as how they've pretty much ignored months of suggestions/ideas from the passionate community.

You can search pretty much any 'bitter vet' postings on PSU and you'll see them calling out every problem the game has right now, before they even got to play the game.

Pray tell, what exactly was their original plan, release the game, go quiet after a month, watch pops plummet, then fix spawncamping 2 months after release?

PS1 had the majority of its 'meta' (horribly misused word) elements in for release, base linked benefits and 2 new vehicles were added within 2 months of PS1s release. They are STILL WORKING ON THE BASICS for PS2 in comparison.

Anyone credulous enough to think they'll unfuck PS2 (since they're all down to Dev decisions) in any sort of reasonable time (as in 6 months) should probably get checked out but before that, I've got some prime real-estate I'd like to sell to you.

Amazing! So, you are saying that all of the issues mentioned were not part of community feedback? They saw the issues all on their own, and came up with their own solutions? So you're saying that spawn room defensibility was not mentionned at all in the community? Adjustments to AA was not mentioned? Adjustments to Air was not mentioned? Dynamic XP was not mentioned?

If I bothered to take the time, I can probably find a thread discussing every single major topic touched by these notes. All input from current PS2 players and old PS1 "vets" alike.

Sounds to me like there are no notes (yet) on the isses YOU deem most important and are all pissy and throwing a forum tantrum.

My best friend is a programmer in the gaming industry. They work rediculous hours. Then when it gets to release time, they work EVEN MORE REDICULOUS HOURS. If they've been gone for a month, they're probably taking all the owed vacation time they weren't alowed to take prior to release, as well as taking well earned relaxation time so they don't end up divorced or in an insane asylum.

If you consider that devs are expected to play their own games so they have a clue, and grant that even when they're "playing", they're actually working; then you have to see that they put in rediculous quantities of time WORKING.

Everyone needs vacation, distraction and rest.

[RSphil]

some good stuff.
cant wait for Server transfer token available in Depot. first thing i buy to get my NC to a populated server.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

Amazing!

I know! Who'd have thunk it, if you make stupid decisions, you make more work for yourself.

They made their design decisions, we've been shouting that they're the wrong ones for months, they're now having to work on redoing shit which just happens to align with what we were saying all along.

It's a case of we fucking told you so, whilst being shouted down by all the newbs who were and still are clueless.

Of course you don't have to listen to anything I say, you can just check the game population dropping like a rock instead. ;)

[vipjerry]

Some would expect more in 2 months.

[maradine]

Some would expect more in 2 months.

Some can get a job at a product company and let us know how the month after a death march feels.

Honestly.

[Quovatis]

Good changes. Wish they had waited to release PS2 until mid 2013. PS2 might eventually be a good, fun game, but we might lose half the player base by the time that happens due to major issues not being addressed.

I just feel there is nothing to really play for. Resources are meaningless. We fight in the same area all the time because of the map layout and permanent warpgates. There are no achievements to work for other than a boring 1000 kill award. SOE, we need MUCH more to keep people interested, and these were things that were pointed out in beta.

[KesTro]

Higby loves air power, so he does not address or care about #1 complaint on forums, i.e. OP air power, especially Liberator.

Great job on not responding to the main complaint in PS2 so far. Minor redesign of bases, but no plans on improving meta-game or defensibility of bases.

Pilots can continue to farm everything on the ground, without hard counter from the ground.

Airside 2 FTL.

If you're getting farmed by air it's because you're in a big fight with no AA such as burster maxes or the lock on rockets, etc. That's on you. Air's strong for sure, but by no means OP. You can easily deny the enemy that 'OP' air if you take down their air from the start, not only when it becomes a problem.

[Shogun]

nice patchnotes!

and nice to know, the devs are not too sad, that most of the latest feedback was kind of rude and negative! they still listen to us and want to make the game what it deserves to be! great!
thanks devs! keep it up!

what about adding ps1 style doors and reintroduce doorhacking? to add another benefit for defenders.
and to reintroduce the necessity of organised maxcrashes

[p0intman]

You can search pretty much any 'bitter vet' postings on PSU and you'll see them calling out every problem the game has right now, before they even got to play the game.


as the most bitter of bitter vets here, i take full responsibility for everything the devs fucked up being fixed, because they weren't so hilariously broken that even new players and those that were gung ho about this game pre-beta were pointing them out as fucking terrible problems.

/sarcasm

[Climhazzard]

Sure you did not misunderstood? "Increases to reload speed" means that the reload speed will be longer.

Ehh... If you increase the speed of something, you make it faster.

Oh I forgot. They're working on new player experience, so it looks like that didn't make the cut this time around.

I've heard that's scheduled for February.

Thanks SOE, that's really kind of you. Good to know you're excited to solve your problems with our money.

Plenty of people over on the official forums expressed their willingness to pay for server transfers.

It seems that when most people throw out the phrase "listen to your customers" what they really mean is "listen to me and the people that agree with me."

[james]

Amazing! So, you are saying that all of the issues mentioned were not part of community feedback? They saw the issues all on their own, and came up with their own solutions? So you're saying that spawn room defensibility was not mentionned at all in the community? Adjustments to AA was not mentioned? Adjustments to Air was not mentioned? Dynamic XP was not mentioned?

If I bothered to take the time, I can probably find a thread discussing every single major topic touched by these notes. All input from current PS2 players and old PS1 "vets" alike.

Sounds to me like there are no notes (yet) on the isses YOU deem most important and are all pissy and throwing a forum tantrum.

My best friend is a programmer in the gaming industry. They work rediculous hours. Then when it gets to release time, they work EVEN MORE REDICULOUS HOURS. If they've been gone for a month, they're probably taking all the owed vacation time they weren't alowed to take prior to release, as well as taking well earned relaxation time so they don't end up divorced or in an insane asylum.

If you consider that devs are expected to play their own games so they have a clue, and grant that even when they're "playing", they're actually working; then you have to see that they put in rediculous quantities of time WORKING.

Everyone needs vacation, distraction and rest.


Everyone deserves a vacation but basically release a game than taking off a month, during a time period where a large part of your player base is going to play more.
The problem was that they basically left it in a mid beta state, the game had major crashing issues, poor performance, along with a slew of other problems. While every deserves a break, a whole month has caused most of their player base to quit.
There population on steam has just dropped below the 10k mark this week. Not even enough to fill two servers.
I'm not saying they don't deserve breaks at some point, but leaving your game in the state they left it, and releasing in the holiday season. Was just a horrible choice, that as it looks will have major effects on the future of the game.

[maradine]

Yes. They fucked up. And now we can be supportive as they try to turn it around, or, you know, not.

If your choice is the latter, take a moment to question what you're doing here.

[Maidere]

Changes are pretty damn good, except SMG's, not sure the game needs them now.
If they will deploy patches like this once a month it will be realy nice and the game will be ready for launch in 4-6 months. The problem is, they allready launched it. Objectively it will have too small active playerbase in a half of a year, so they will have to re-launch it.

[typhaon]

Dynamic XP: Sounds reasonable - but for most people it's really going to boil down to this: Does this make XP gain faster, or slower? If it makes it slower... I don't think anyone is going to be very happy with it being DYNAMIC!

[Whiteagle]

Really want to see the new spawn building.


I'm, curious, for obvious reasons. :)
Indeed, if Malorn used my Alamo Mushroom idea, I DEMAND COMPENSATION!!! ...In the form of an SMG...

I also thought that underground structures couldn't be done in this engine, so maybe they've updated the engine similar to when water wasn't possible.
More then likely they're just indentations, trenches in the ground that get a ground level roof put on them.

Amp Stations are probably the easiest to do in this regard, since they already have a bunch of shit lying around on the ground anyways, but hopefully these tunnels will allow better access to things like Generators.

[Eliphas]

I don't mind 1 liberator bombing but in this game there is no limit to the amount of vehicles/aircraft you can spawn because of the poorly designed resource/acquisition system.

Therefore they won't be just 1 liberator bombing but several, nevermind the ESFs bombing ground targets too. This is why i think ESFs should have their rocket pods removed, add more and better AA missiles and machine guns and let them be the AA in the skies instead of just ground vehicles, infantry/MAX and static turrets.

There needs to be limits and specialisations in this game so we aren't all a Swiss army knife and be a jack of all trades.
This "be anything you want without any limits or training" is BS.

Agreed.

[Drakkonan]

As Higby stated, it looks like they went after the low hanging fruit first, which is why I found it surprising that they're implementing dynamic xp so quickly. I just hope they realize it's going to need tuning, and continually modify values based on player abuse and trends.

And I'll repost my official forum response....since the goal of these posts is to get dev attention and thus, changes:

"UI changes to emphasize score per minute as a primary metric of player comparison"

I was really afraid of this. SPM works as a session stat, because you remember how you played in any given session, but as a persistent stat, over the life of a player, in a non-round-based game it serves absolutely no purpose. We shouldn't be driven to get straight to the fight to boost our SPM when staying in the sanctuary longer to form up with our outfits would actually be more effective. Just face it; There's no stats that accurately measure effectiveness. Just list them all (including SPM, if you'd like), and don't give precedence to any of them.


Overall though. I'm very impressed. I didn't think they were paying attention to the colorblind complaints, but I see they're making dynamic minimap colors. I'm not colorblind, but bravo and delta colors need to be changed.

[Graywolves]

I think it's mostly a step in the right direction.

Invulnerability shouldn't apply to someone revived in the field. Even just a 1/4 of a second is enough time to run back to cover if the Medic revives from around the corner.

[SixShooter]

Dynamic XP: Sounds reasonable - but for most people it's really going to boil down to this: Does this make XP gain faster, or slower? If it makes it slower... I don't think anyone is going to be very happy with it being DYNAMIC!

If you do nothing but spawn camp then it will go down for sure. Hopefully they balance it so that better kills (killing people who have been alive longer, have kill streaks, ect..), there will be a greater reward.

While it may not deter spawn camping, it sure makes it a lot less worth it.

[GLaDOS]

I like this, a lot. The invulnerability after spawning is a bit worrisome, as it could be pretty awful if implemented wrong, but it could also be great if implemented right. I think I would prefer if dynamic XP for kills was not only based on kills, but also support actions, but this is definitely a huge step in the right direction. It would be pretty great if they could eventually give S-AMS destruction dynamic XP, so you get a whole shitton for blowing up the Sundy that's been supporting the enemy push for hours, as opposed to camping it.

[james]

Yes. They fucked up. And now we can be supportive as they try to turn it around, or, you know, not.

If your choice is the latter, take a moment to question what you're doing here.

The devs have to win back the faith of the community, for many it left a sour taste with people.

[Figment]

Well James, they did lose a lot of goodwill and trust from people with high expectations such as ours. They did launch early, they are stubborn on key things at times, but at least there is still movement.

But what I'm seeing is the only game that could potentialy one day be as good as ps1. The devs from my perspective are still learning what makes strategy mmofps games tick. It is a lot more complex to get this right than make a run of the mill mmo like a RPG.

It is why I'm cynical, critical and try to be as patient as I can be despite of my disppointment. If they aren't going to learn from us? Who then? The majority of new players can't and won't have the references for ideas and worked out improvements of ideas based on experience with similar things.


If all ps1 vets leave, who will stand on the bow of the ship, warning them for icebergs in the mist?

They are nice people and willing to learn. Question for them is, who can they trust, when?



They should get a military architect to give them some historic military architecture lessons though have a look at the outposts. That would be money well spend as they would get a lot of experience and ideas out of it.

I mean come on, most worked on games like everquest and free realms. Completely different type of thinking. They may have played some ps1, but even 7 year players sometimes didn't know left from right.

I do reserve the right to call specific parts of their creation utter crap, but at least I'll say why, what they can do to improve on it because just saying it is bad doesn't help speed up trial and error designing (which is largely what PS2 is doing). I can't fault them for at least trying. I just hope they recognise who to listen to out of all the people. Even so, I will compliment them on having the balls to admit players may know better and are using their feedback - even if they don't know which ones all the time.

[p0intman]

They should get a military architect to give them some historic military architecture lessons though have a look at the outposts. That would be money well spend as they would get a lot of experience and ideas out of it.


No, they should instead be given a lesson by a historian to inform them how geology informed war time policy of nations in the past, and how it shaped history of the world. THEN architecture.

I'm tempted to make the next thing on just that: geology and how PS1 maps actually were useful in comparison. or maybe ill use a map of europe.

[Wahooo]

If all ps1 vets leave, who will stand on the bow of the ship, warning them for icebergs in the mist?

What fucking good does that do when they still wait to run into the iceberg before they acknowledge there is actually ice in the fucking water?

[maradine]

Did you miss the part where the rest of the issues, including the metagame, are still being worked on? Or the part about how this is what they could reasonably enumerate for the time frame?

Do you want us to go forward, or would you just like to get off the boat now? No one will judge you.

[typhaon]

If you do nothing but spawn camp then it will go down for sure. Hopefully they balance it so that better kills (killing people who have been alive longer, have kill streaks, ect..), there will be a greater reward.

While it may not deter spawn camping, it sure makes it a lot less worth it.

I don't think it's going to do a thing to change player behavior... only the rewards for killing.

I'm not sure how things are on your server - but I find very little egregious spawn camping. 99.9% of the "camping" is done to spawns while waiting for a capture to complete... that behavior isn't going to change. Attackers aren't going to suddenly let the defenders wander out of the spawn and get a few kills, so they can re-kill them. From what I can tell, attackers will just get less and less XP for killing the defenders... while the defenders will have more and more incentive to BE camped, as the potential targets they can nab from inside their spawn will become more and more valuable.

Now surely when in more even battles, individuals will see a greater variance in the XP they receive from kills... from time to time they'll snag someone that has been on a streak and get more XP.. and from time to time they'll kill some newb for very little XP, that is getting killed as fast as he can spawn. I don't think players are going to be able to intentionally "hunt" difficult players... and that doesn't even make sense in the context of PS2... so it's all just going to boil down to what I said: is the end result that players get XP faster... the same.... or slower, than before.

If the end result is players getting XP at a slower rate... I don't think there is going to be a lot of enthusiasm for the dynamic XP.


* Maradine - I think the frustration is that players want to hear about the MOST important thing...

[Wahooo]

Did you miss the part where the rest of the issues, including the metagame, are still being worked on? Or the part about how this is what they could reasonably enumerate for the time frame?

Do you want us to go forward, or would you just like to get off the boat now? No one will judge you.

The amount of work that still needs to be done is way more than they seem to be considering.

The way I see this game is like this:
SOE built us a house. They let us help in the design and building some. The poured a very nice foundation and started framing the house. We had concerns about where they were putting the rooms and the hall ways and we saw issues that would develop in the house if the continued on with the floor plan we saw in front of us.
then SOE said "House is complete enough you can move in. Don't worry about the landscaping or the paint on the walls and the cabinets we'll be working on those as the game progresses.
We said 'wow' I didn't know we were ready to move in.... "Wait what are you talking about fixing the landscaping and the paint... there is no fucking roof?!?!? And you still have this completely fucked up floor plan?!?!"

So yeah this patch is a good step in the right direction. But there is A LOT of work to be done yet.

[Figment]

What fucking good does that do when they still wait to run into the iceberg before they acknowledge there is actually ice in the fucking water?

That is the frustrating trial and error bit: we warn them, they go see if it is an iceberg or a clear route. Then we go "told you so... Now back up, take a sharp turn starboard and then take this route", largely because all the time the status quo and some people at the far back of the ship who can't see ahead, go "I'm confident that wasn't an iceberg, we think the quickest route is straight ahead because we trust our captains know best", mostly because they are either profiting from selling lifeboat tickets (thinking they sell cruise tickets), or having first class enjoyment at the expense of the second and third class passengers who have no entertainment facilities or can't find it on there decks, often because they are too mesmarized and impressed by the size of the cruise ship (sure the facilities are somewhere, they just havn't found it yet). Meanwhile each iceberg rammed leads to more lifeboats being launched.

[mbarrett]

It's nice to know things are getting sorted , how ever in my eyes it's not good enough , how about giving us some originality back , squad/platoon i wan't to be able to see my whole platoon rather that just my squad , I wan't to seen the old grief system come back , I wan't to see cr1-cr5 come back as i think this game needs it , Proper CE like x 20 mines x 10 spitts x 10 motion sensors , to me this game is not worth the time as i feel its not planetside , sony fucked planetside up , Infact they done a better job fucking up the sequel than sony done fucking up the original game

[EVILoHOMER]

Until they put the underslung MCG back in I'm not coming back.

[PredatorFour]

People banging on about "meta game this ..." "meta game that...." "oh wait for the metaaaaa" are forgetting that it will still be shit if they don`t sort out the basics and get the game right. Like base design .. air overkill ....lack of infantry game etc..

[ChrisLand]

Just wanna point this out:

http://www.soe.com/status/

Population is still a major issue and no planned changes to it (aka server merges) in the patch. Transfer tokens are not enough imo.

[Hyncharas]

Nice to know that spawn rooms are getting some improvements. 3-node tower outposts are probably the worst, given you're not afforded the same chances to pick off the enemy outside, compared to spawns with an exit on the same floor.

Though I didn't see my lengthy post addressed on XP balancing for defending empires (http://www.planetside-universe.com/showpost.php?p=870609&postcount=272), hopefully that will make an appearance in the six-month plans.

[Sledgecrushr]

If they can manage a fix this month that keeps players in the game then I think that server mergers probably arent necessary. This is the issue is that folks are playing and then moving on. Im hoping for some good stuff this patch and maybe the server pops will start to rise again.

[Seafort]

The patch notes are a good step forwards but I don't see it stopping anyone from leaving or bring anyone back to the game that has already left.

With no metagame or reason to cap a continent it's just a really big team deathmatch which gets boring with only 3 maps.

The game is becoming boring to me and if nothing changes within the next 2 months I don't see myself staying around. Plenty more games to play now and on the horizon :)

[psijaka]

I'm liking pretty much everything that I see in the patch notes; good progress on lots of fronts.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

Patch is still 3 weeks away.

Xmas was only 2 and a bit ago and pops were flat/falling despite x3 SC and double XP

[james]

If they can manage a fix this month that keeps players in the game then I think that server mergers probably arent necessary. This is the issue is that folks are playing and then moving on. Im hoping for some good stuff this patch and maybe the server pops will start to rise again.

Server merges are necessary, the game is bleeding players. I see the patch as a good start, but i don't think its enough. Since steam is the only actual numbers posted. The player base on steam has drop from 12k peak to around 9-10k peak in about a week. I would say at the current rate they will be down to 5-6k in three weeks. The amount of players just using the launchers are unknown, but based on no server every go high it can't be much better. This game will die if you don't have near full servers, it just isn't that great with say 500 people on a server.

[MrBloodworth]

I need action, not talk of announcing the announcement a 6 month plan.

[Ironside]

Adding to a weak foundation isn't going to improve anything,
Where's the fully optimised client that uses all cores.
Infantry rendering needs sorting badly.
Base/Towers redesign
Lattice system
Server merging.
Size matters? like fuck it does, they're probably glad servers are half dead, doesn't impact so much on their weak engine/optimisation, shame on them for making us pay to transfer rather than taking a grip of the situation.

So what we get is some limited optimisation and tweaking of xp to try and change the game play, the rest is just froth.

This game could be so good that's the sad thing

[Rahabib]

I need action, not talk of announcing the announcement a 6 month plan.
I think the amount they are giving in this patch shows action. But we have to be resonable to give them some time to get the rest in.

Should they have had metagame in before they took off the beta sticker? Probably, but if you still want to play this game we have to be a bit patient. At least they are giving us a roadmap for the next 6 months to look forward to. If you dont like what you see in that, then by all means give up on the game because it wont be ready anytime soon.

[Methonius]

All I hope for is once they get the metagame in and more continents I hope they advertise it a lot so players can come back and see if they like it again. It seems like a lot of players have written the game off already. I am one of the players that hasn't yet though because I still enjoy it and have high hopes that this game will become so much more in the future. Patience is a virtue.

Let the devs do their jobs and all will come in time. No other game out there right now even comes close to what we have right now.

[Rivenshield]

More then likely they're just indentations, trenches in the ground that get a ground level roof put on them.

We'll see. It'd be neat if they upgraded the engine to allow for actual subterranean structures... but if not, I'm willing to settle for whatever I can get. It was breathtakingly dumb to release an incomplete game. It was... frustrating... to have so much of the advice of the beta testers, vets and non-vets, set at so little value.

So now we have AMS's back, and tunnels. How long before we get a few other essential elements that lets every soldier on Auraxis think with his strategic mind as well as his gamer one? and makes the fight worth fighting beyond the point-and-click carnagefest of a conventional FPS?

They have such a long way to go and so much work to do, and the gamer-nerd Loyalty-Until-Death part of me is worried so sick. It's like having your best childhood friend in the hospital... but you remember the dumb bastard wouldn't be there if he hadn't run out in the street like a drunken frat boy.

[FreeSpeech]

Nothing in there about balancing NC with the other factions, tut tut tut.

[outsider]

Well patch #2 seems like a pretty bland name. I suggest we call it "Let's go farm at the Crown!".

The Crown is bad enough in draining people away from the continent fight, with the xp changes there is even more reason to stay and fight at the Crown, and more reason to abandon any outfit manoeuvre's that involve leaving that $%&^hole.

What I'm not seeing in this patch is any vision or synergy with meta concerns. I don't really see any chance of balancing attack and defense with the same cert gain system. I thought we wanted this game to be FTP so that the subscribers weren't playing on empty servers and that we had a constant influx of non paying players to fill up the ranks.

Well they're going to go to the crown with this patch, meaning the subscribers are going to end up playing on empty servers unless they go play on a COD size map and attack/defend the Crown.

If we want people to leave that place than defense xp changes cannot be applied there. there are already too many incentives to stay as it is.

I know Smed is releasing the 6 month plan next week, but without it, these patch notes have no meaning other than a list of grips that once fixed won't increase player satisfaction.

It doesn't matter that the reload rate is for HE weapons, or the fact that we get a tunnel from A to B or the spawn rooms have a balconny or that a player is invulnerable to x seconds after a res. All of that is just playing with your doodle until bases and outposts have a higher purpose for fighting over than +x cert gain/hour.

Until then: " Let's go farm at the Crown!"

[DirtyBird]

Reading the initial plan for the end of January updates again I really dont see how the game will change for me all that much.
I love playing it but I see my time in game waning and a lot of my team mates have just not bothered to play at all any more.

Its like others have already said it doesnt attack the real problems in game.
They are fixes that really should probably already be in by now.
Nothing mentioned about the flashing screen bug and rendering of all players, not just MAX's for vehicles.

I think I was happy to get any info about fixes at the time but yeah after reading it again its good but not enough.
If its taken this long to get that stuff in I can already guess whats going to be in the 6mth plan.

[Mathematics]

Im' not sure if any one replied to this but could not see on on first page...

Sure you did not misunderstood? "Increases to reload speed" means that the reload speed will be longer.

Increasing the speed of something makes it go faster. How it's worded in the patch notes can be confusing to someone who pays attention to units. However, one can assume that what they wrote is probably not what they meant.

It would've been better for them to say, "We are going to increase the time it takes to reload HE weapons on certain vehicles."

[Ghoest9]

Everything is going live as promised except help color blind people.
And they went and edited out of the notes on the officeial site with out saying anything.

[Crator]

@Ghoest9 You'd think it would be higher on their list of things to do since it allows more players to participate on par with everyone else. Guess it's hard to implement? :shrug:

[duomaxwl]

Everything is going live as promised except help color blind people.
And they went and edited out of the notes on the officeial site with out saying anything.

This makes me sad. The map is a pain in the ass to read and it's a bitch having to one-shot spawn beacons because I can't tell if they are NC or Vanu. :(

[EVILoHOMER]

Have they fixed the indicator of where you are on the map yet? It always used to be so hard to see at first glance which is a big problems. I had friends who didn't think there was one but it turned out it was always hidden in a hot spot lol.

[ringring]

Increasing the speed of something makes it go faster. How it's worded in the patch notes can be confusing to someone who pays attention to units. However, one can assume that what they wrote is probably not what they meant.

It would've been better for them to say, "We are going to increase the time it takes to reload HE weapons on certain vehicles."

Yea, but it's an ambiguous way of expressing, whatever it is that they're expressing.

Rather like in ttk discussions people say 'increasing the ttk' erm, I know what that means but what did you intend it to mean?