Mietz
2013-02-03, 09:42 AM
Continuing from my (S31, our) previous endeavors on feedback (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/left-behind.76612/) this is my/our summary of the recent changes of Game Update 2 (January Patch/Jesus Patch).
Base Defense Improvements
Generally improvements to base defense are minimal and do not solve our gripe with defensibility for small outfits (especially since our modus operandi is dedicated defense)
Tunnles are a nice addition but we are not entirely sure of the solution offered in the patch (localization and solution). The tunnels are easily camped at the shield-exits and add little to nothing for the defenders beyond moving the shield-camp from spawn-room to tunnel exits.
We are starting to think that shields in their current form aren't a very good solution for replacing doors due to their immediate nature and translucency, making spotting troop movement from the outside transparent to the enemy.
The gaping holes in Towers are still not closed properly and explosives spam continues, the baby-step of adding barricades offers little protection and encourages LA camping on the roofs. The addition of better infantry terminal placement however is appreciated.
Changes to spawn-rooms at small and medium bases with larger shields and multiple exits does not properly solve our concerns with spawn camping and the possibility for a comeback. Additionally the new layouts seem to be "leaky" in the sense that explosive HA damage applied to the shields makes our vision spaz out and we are unable to accurately shoot back beyond explosives spam and grenade-suicides.
Defender-only jump-pads are welcome, however we still don't like jump-pads in general.
There is nothing that can't be accomplished with a teleporter, or a more compact design, instead.
SMGs
As called by me in another thread around here, SMG+Infiltrator seems to be incredibly overpowered in its current iteration. The high DPS from nowhere scenario ads another "random" element that is unable to be controlled for.
Otherwise the SMGs feel good and seem to be alright as weapons themselves.
Balance Changes
Shotguns now feel very accurate at medium range making them -the- pick for LAs that utilize high ground. We feel it might have been a bit much to give the shotgun this much power.
The MBT changes can not be evaluated as half the outfit has severe problems with buggy main cannons and the Magrider seems to be bugged as well.
UI Changes
The new map display with "blips" is an improvement and welcome.
The forced change to UI colors is not.
We appreciate the ability to change UI colors, however the -forced- change of coloring for everyone has created some very annoying confusion for most players:
-Liberators render-bomb blue doritos and think they are NC
-Tanks unload at friendly Sunderers because its blue
-People throw grenades into clusters of blue dorito friendlies
-Players standing around at blue capped capture points waiting for a "flip" because they think its enemy held
etc.
Directly from yell chat: "Man, thats a lot of NC today".
It would have been better to simply just introduce the ability to change colors instead of forcing the change on everyone.
Additionally, colors for enemies and capture-points are not individually changeable (ex.:red enemies but purple capture points)
XP Changes
Barely noticeable difference in overall XP gain, but less consistent XP gain in individual scenarios. AA is now more rewarding.
Cert-gain essentially unchanged.
Performance Changes and Bugfixing
I think this is where the patch entirely lost us.
Most of my outfit has severe framerate issues and some are getting more of the "screen flicker" bug than before.
MBTs are bugged and the hotfix made it worse.
We have all noted a performance-loss across the board, FPS/lagspike galore.
Other game-breaking bugs still exist (shield render distance exploit, etc.)
Summary
Given the previous feedback, none of our issues have been addressed and the changes presented did not change our experience for the better (bar a temporarily increased population due to patch-day).
We simply don't like where the game is going, and how no effort is being put towards changes that are important to us.
We are aware that we are not entitled to these changes, but we are also not ready to wait for something that might potentially never happen. To us, all changes in Game Update 2 feel like placebo, token-patches leading to nowhere.
It feels to us that with every patch PS2 takes one step forward and two steps back, falls over, and rolls around in the mud.
After trying the patch S31 will not be coming back.
We wish PS2 well but we will be moving on now.
Base Defense Improvements
Generally improvements to base defense are minimal and do not solve our gripe with defensibility for small outfits (especially since our modus operandi is dedicated defense)
Tunnles are a nice addition but we are not entirely sure of the solution offered in the patch (localization and solution). The tunnels are easily camped at the shield-exits and add little to nothing for the defenders beyond moving the shield-camp from spawn-room to tunnel exits.
We are starting to think that shields in their current form aren't a very good solution for replacing doors due to their immediate nature and translucency, making spotting troop movement from the outside transparent to the enemy.
The gaping holes in Towers are still not closed properly and explosives spam continues, the baby-step of adding barricades offers little protection and encourages LA camping on the roofs. The addition of better infantry terminal placement however is appreciated.
Changes to spawn-rooms at small and medium bases with larger shields and multiple exits does not properly solve our concerns with spawn camping and the possibility for a comeback. Additionally the new layouts seem to be "leaky" in the sense that explosive HA damage applied to the shields makes our vision spaz out and we are unable to accurately shoot back beyond explosives spam and grenade-suicides.
Defender-only jump-pads are welcome, however we still don't like jump-pads in general.
There is nothing that can't be accomplished with a teleporter, or a more compact design, instead.
SMGs
As called by me in another thread around here, SMG+Infiltrator seems to be incredibly overpowered in its current iteration. The high DPS from nowhere scenario ads another "random" element that is unable to be controlled for.
Otherwise the SMGs feel good and seem to be alright as weapons themselves.
Balance Changes
Shotguns now feel very accurate at medium range making them -the- pick for LAs that utilize high ground. We feel it might have been a bit much to give the shotgun this much power.
The MBT changes can not be evaluated as half the outfit has severe problems with buggy main cannons and the Magrider seems to be bugged as well.
UI Changes
The new map display with "blips" is an improvement and welcome.
The forced change to UI colors is not.
We appreciate the ability to change UI colors, however the -forced- change of coloring for everyone has created some very annoying confusion for most players:
-Liberators render-bomb blue doritos and think they are NC
-Tanks unload at friendly Sunderers because its blue
-People throw grenades into clusters of blue dorito friendlies
-Players standing around at blue capped capture points waiting for a "flip" because they think its enemy held
etc.
Directly from yell chat: "Man, thats a lot of NC today".
It would have been better to simply just introduce the ability to change colors instead of forcing the change on everyone.
Additionally, colors for enemies and capture-points are not individually changeable (ex.:red enemies but purple capture points)
XP Changes
Barely noticeable difference in overall XP gain, but less consistent XP gain in individual scenarios. AA is now more rewarding.
Cert-gain essentially unchanged.
Performance Changes and Bugfixing
I think this is where the patch entirely lost us.
Most of my outfit has severe framerate issues and some are getting more of the "screen flicker" bug than before.
MBTs are bugged and the hotfix made it worse.
We have all noted a performance-loss across the board, FPS/lagspike galore.
Other game-breaking bugs still exist (shield render distance exploit, etc.)
Summary
Given the previous feedback, none of our issues have been addressed and the changes presented did not change our experience for the better (bar a temporarily increased population due to patch-day).
We simply don't like where the game is going, and how no effort is being put towards changes that are important to us.
We are aware that we are not entitled to these changes, but we are also not ready to wait for something that might potentially never happen. To us, all changes in Game Update 2 feel like placebo, token-patches leading to nowhere.
It feels to us that with every patch PS2 takes one step forward and two steps back, falls over, and rolls around in the mud.
After trying the patch S31 will not be coming back.
We wish PS2 well but we will be moving on now.