Patch Notes 1/30/14

[Phaden]

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/server-downtime-for-patch-january-30-2014-6-am-pt-3-pm-cet.170709/

Downtime Start: 6 AM PT (3 PM CET) *Time Zone Converter
Downtime ETA: Up to 3 hours (staggered unlock – hopefully for the last time)

Patch Notes:

Known Issues

We’ve enhanced logging to detect the membership certification benefit issue. We hope to find it quickly and have an update out soon. For all those missing certs, we’ll be reimbursing and throwing a little something extra on top.


Long login times on patch days. We’re close to a couple fixes on this, but don’t have anything quite yet.


Squad Vehicle Spawning
In an effort to encourage squad cohesiveness and increase available spawn options we are adding the ability to spawn in squad owned transport vehicles.
Vehicle spawning is limited to Galaxies and Sunderers that are occupied and owned by a squad member.

The Sunderer AMS no longer requires an item to be equipped in order to function. Once the certification is purchased, it is always available. This frees up the Utility slot on the Sunderer for other items.

Squad Vehicle Spawn Bonus Reward: Vehicle owners receive 10 XP when squadmates spawns in their Sunderer or Galaxy, which matches the current squad spawn beacon XP reward


Map
Moved Ally and Enemy filters into a new section called “Heat Maps”
Added WDS capture and defend point heat maps to help identify the point-rich regions

Refined lattice line art


Misc

Deploy Kill Bonus: Vehicle owners now receive 50 XP per kill, up from 5 XP, when passengers exit the vehicle and kill enemy players
Automated Warpgate rotations are now scheduled. The first one is THIS FRIDAY!

We've done a lot of backend work to support WDS, so keep an eye out for another pre-season

Squad deploy and instant action timers now trigger independently


Bug Fixes

HUD indicators for ally aircraft will once again only be displayed if they are in line of sight

Fixed an issue that sometimes caused spawn points in contested areas to not display on the deployment map

Removed "capture" and "hold" text from shield generator HUD icons

Fixed an issue that sometimes caused loadout tooltips to not display

Removed incorrect green hue to some layers of the Reaper helmet to make it consistent with other TR helms.

Shield generator HUD icons will read Overload or Destroy again.

Kill notifications are now able to display longer names without truncation


Performance and Tech

Reduced VO quality by a notch to improve client memory usage

Server performance optimization

Client crash fixes

Zone crash fixes

[Neurotoxin]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat all Sunderers are AMS now? Galaxys as a squad spawn? Oh hell yes. Deploy bonus is getting a boost, another hell yes.

Does the server go down for warpgate rotations, or will people on at the time find themselves "in a restricted area" at their old warpgate?

[Calista]

Will the squad based AMS' have no deploy zones?

[synkrotron]

We’ve enhanced logging to detect the membership certification benefit issue. We hope to find it quickly and have an update out soon. For all those missing certs, we’ll be reimbursing and throwing a little something extra on top.

Mmmm... Interesting :D

[bpostal]

I'm still not sold on squad spawning directly into a G or S AMS (or whatever) but since I'm most likely in the minority I'll wait to see how this plays out.

[BlaxicanX]

OOOOOOOHHHH GAAAAAWDDDD SQUAD VEHICLE SPAWNING YEEEEESSSSS

That is... really fucking fantastic. Been waiting for that feature forever.

[Falcon_br]

We’ve enhanced logging to detect the membership certification benefit issue. We hope to find it quickly and have an update out soon. For all those missing certs, we’ll be reimbursing and throwing a little something extra on top.


Long login times on patch days. We’re close to a couple fixes on this, but don’t have anything quite yet.


No compensation received until now, still receiving 12 certs with most my characters, and 48 with just one random one.
Several attempts to play the game, most of them I stay on the logging screen until the game closes after 10 minutes trying to log in.

And like always, they are going to fix this by giving a double XP weekend!

[ChipMHazard]

Will the squad based AMS' have no deploy zones?

I would think that bases no deploy zone still affects them. No idea about the zone from another AMS.
Since Galaxies will be spawn points, will they also be affected by no deploy zones?
If you can just squad deploy on sundies or gals within base limits, especially diffuser sundies inside an AMP station. Well, good luck trying to defend against that.

I'm still not sold on squad spawning directly into a G or S AMS (or whatever) but since I'm most likely in the minority I'll wait to see how this plays out.

Me neither. It could go both ways, we'll see.

[exile]

So, the wording there seems to be saying that:

- Squad (not platoon) members can spawn into a Galaxy or Sunderer at any time (I assume popping into one of the passenger seats).

- Sunderers will deploy AMS as normal to allow everyone to spawn on them, they just won't require a module to enable this ability anymore.

I'm interested to see how this plays out, it gives a lot of options for dynamic offensive tactics but could be too strong an advantage. I assume there will be a cooldown timer on the spawn just like there is on the squad beacon, the length of that will be key to how balanced it is.

Good teams will have Gals and Sundies just do drive-by drop-offs where they unload the whole squad and then take off and hide somewhere until another wave is spawned in and ready to go back in again.

A powerful tactic will be to have a squad or two get dropped off and while they are attacking, the transport shifts position so if the attack is wiped the whole force can immediately spawn on the opposite side of the base, having drawn defenders to the their initial assault spot. That seems very powerful, it will require defenders to launch sorties outside the base to hunt down the transports, which is cool but possibly too much of a burden on the defenders.

[Vashyo]

I would think that bases no deploy zone still affects them. No idea about the zone from another AMS.
Since Galaxies will be spawn points, will they also be affected by no deploy zones?
If you can just squad deploy on sundies or gals within base limits, especially diffuser sundies inside an AMP station. Well, good luck trying to defend against that.



Me neither. It could go both ways, we'll see.

me three, I hope this won't get abused, especially by some bigger outfits to circumvent and ignore enemy defenses.

[synkrotron]

And like always, they are going to fix this by giving a double XP weekend!

LOL, as long as it is only for Premium members ;)

[ringring]

I'm still not sold on squad spawning directly into a G or S AMS (or whatever) but since I'm most likely in the minority I'll wait to see how this plays out.
I'm not sure if you are. I think most don't know what to make of it.

Personally I am instinctively against, but is that the innate conservative speaking or is there some underlying reason I can't quite articulate?

Possible:
If there's a a squad on squad battle. The attacking squad has a spawning gal circulating overhead, it's clearly a big advantage and a greater one than having an AMS nearly as would have been the case.

In this circumstance how does the defenders respond? AA, possibly not as a gal has lots of hit points and it's easy enough for it a move away and return.

I reckon the only way is for a couple of defenders to respawn away and go get a lib.

But, we'll see over time how people deal with it.

**edit this sounds like good news.

[Plaqueis]

Well, first impression (few hours as TR on Cobalt) about the squadspawning Gals is; worst idea ever. All it did was make already bad zergs even worse. There's hardly any fights anywhere (well, except the usual stalemates), just Gals dropping platoons on different spots, and by the time people notice it on the map, its already too late.

Hats off to those who quickly learned how to use this tactic, but it's just not something i enjoy. I'll rather fight for hours and lose than camp a spawn for 3 minutes and win.

[Rahabib]

I really hope the spawn timer for Gals is really big like 4-5x that of AMS sundy. otherwise the tactic will be to have two or three gals circling around bases just hot dropping (basically IA) people all over the place.

Didn't people hate IA because its difficult to defend? Now isn't it going to be that much harder!!!!!!

[HereticusXZ]

Sunderer Gate Diffuse into a Tech-Plant and old style Amp Stations... and then Squad spawn on said sundy despite the No-Deploy Zone....

It's a game changer!

Skyguards and ESF will have a field day with the vulture orbit Squad-Spawn Galaxies!

[BlaxicanX]

All it did was make already bad zergs even worse.

There's hardly any fights anywhere

just Gals dropping platoons on different spots, and by the time people notice it on the map, its already too late.

Your post is paradoxical.

[Plaqueis]

Your post is paradoxical.

No, our perception of a 'fight' just differ. To me, platoonworth of people camping a spawnpoint isn't a fight.

And that's what the spawngals seem to have caused (ofcourse my experience is limited, and this is just a first impression), atleast on smaller bases; you spot enemy activity on some base from the map, spawn there only to see few Gals, a flipped point, and shitload of maxes and infantry shooting at spawnshields...

[typhaon]

There are too many minor outposts.

[Belhade]

There are too many minor outposts.

I always thought that a lot of those minor outposts shouldn't be controllable; no cap points or terminals, just empty buildings that can be used as staging areas or ambush points.

[almalino]

I just played Galaxyside.

Galaxies, galaxies, galaxies everywhere!!!

Esamir was really foggy today. I could not see 30 meters away - is it bug or feature? Like fog of war in BF2142?