Some PTS balance changes.

[Chewy]

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...0-2013.161836/

Infantry hitboxes have had small adjustments.

The head hitbox has been adjusted to fix a bug that was causing upper chest shots to count as head shots in certain movement states. Actual headshots should be unchanged. *Unearned* headshots will no longer happen.
Leg hit boxes have been reduced in size. They now better match the player’s actual geometry.

Audio adjustments to give better situational awareness

Muzzle audio range and direction should be easier to locate now
Projectile flybys will now give a better sense of travel direction
We reduced the length of projectile impact audio on infantry. It will be easier to tell if multiple bullets are hitting now, instead of multiple bullets all blending together to sound like one impact.

Nanoweave will now only resist a set % of incoming damage from infantry small arms and rapid fire vehicle weapons. Headshots will always bypass the nanoweave resist and do full damage.


Flak now resists direct damage from explosive weapons in addition to resisting AOE damage.

Rockets and other explosive direct damage has been adjusted to work better with flak armor.
For example, rocket launchers do 1000-1335 damage on average now, compared to the 1500-1700 pre-resist damage that they previously did
Damage resists on the vehicle side have been adjusted so that rocket damage against vehicles and MAXes is unchanged

We adjusted how projectile acceleration works on the backend.

You’re going to see some projectile values drop, but projectiles with acceleration are all reaching their max velocity much faster now because that data is being interpreted differently
The dumbfire rocket launchers have had their gravity slightly increased to compensate for the faster average velocity

Sniper rifles no longer kill a full health target with one headshot if that target is more than 150 meters away. Nanoweave no longer prevents a one-shot headshot kill if the target is less than 150 meters away.


Zealot Overdrive Engine changes

Reduced speed
Forward move speed is now 50% faster than the MAX’s base run speed
Strafe and backpedal move speeds are now at 43% faster than the MAX’s base strafe and backpedal speeds
Sprint is now the same as the base MAX speed (so the MAX cannot outsprint infantry now), but the MAX now reaches that sprint speed faster when ZOE is active
Damage is now the same across all cert ranks and only increases close range damage
After activation the ability is active for 15 seconds
This ability now has a cooldown. Each cert rank will reduce the cooldown
Each cert rank now reduces the amount of damage received when ZOE is active

MAX AV weapons

These now all fire from the weapon barrel. Previously, some weapons fired from the barrel and others from the camera.
Damage against infantry has been reduced. Damage against vehicles is mostly the same, with only a few minor adjustments here and there for balance reasons.
All weapons have been sighted so that they perform better at range

Other misc. infantry changes

The blast damage of underbarrel grenades has been reduced. They will no longer kill with one indirect shot. Direct shots will still kill with one hit.
The AV MANA turret has had its range and blast damage reduced

Harasser adjustments

Reducing effectiveness of repairs from the rumble seat
Composite armor effectiveness reduced
All Harasser weapons are now “-H” variants. They now do less damage at range compared to the non-H variants on the main battle tanks.

Adjusting infantry survivability against vehicles in some areas

Refactored high damage value weapons so they do less damage to infantry
Reduced damage resists on the vehicle side to compensate. Vehicle vs. vehicle damage values will remain near the live values (some weapons are being adjusted for balance reasons).
Flak armor will protect against direct hits from rockets, grenades, and similar damage types
Added headshot/legshot modifiers in some cases

All infantry lock-on launchers have been adjusted to have a shorter lock-on range, but they lock on faster at close range.

Anti-tank launchers
These now have a max lock range of 300 meters, down from 400 meters
These will now complete their lock in 1.5 seconds if the target is within 100 meters. They then scale to a 2 second lock time at 300 meters.
Anti-air launchers
These now have a max lock range of 450 meters, down from 500 meters
These will now complete their lock in 1.0 seconds if the target is within 100 meters. They then scale to a 2.5 second lock time at 300 meters and farther.
Striker and Annihilator
These have a 0.5 to 1.0 second longer lock time compared to the above launchers to compensate for them being able to lock on to multiple vehicle types
Fired projectiles now behave like the normal launchers (less hitting vehicles behind cover)
The Annihilator is getting a damage increase to offset it having a longer lock time and no dumb fire capability
All launchers that can fire without a lock
Hip accuracy is being reduced
Aimed accuracy is unchanged, though we fixed a bug that was causing them to reach their aimed accuracy before the iron sight animation had completed

Vehicle weapons are becoming more distinct in their roles

General tuning pass on anti-personnel weapons
Anti-personnel weapons are now more effective against light armor (Harasser, flash, ESF)
Anti-personnel weapons are now unable to damage heavy armor (they were pretty ineffective to begin with)
Anti-vehicle weapons less effective against infantry
Blast damage adjustments
Flak armor now more effective

We are adjusting some of the vehicle secondary weapons to be stronger counters to light armor targets. Specifically, we want the M20 Basilisk, P525 Marauder, C85 Canister and Proton II PPA to be stronger Harasser counters.


Prowler Anchored Mode: Data shows that anchored mode is extending the Prowlers range too far and making it too easy to hit aircraft. The projectile speed increase on Anchored mode is being reduced.

[OCNSethy]

Thanks Chewy

That is a mixed bag. Noted the 150m sniper nerf snuck in there as well as the ZOE 15 sec activation limit... with cool down.

Lets see how it pans out on the PTS.

[HereticusXZ]

So no more long-range combat at all outside of Engineer AV Turret, Dalton, ESF Rocket Pods and Halberd?

What's the point of Anchored mode now? Just shooting faster? if your locked in place then you need range...

This update is looking like it will be the downfall or even the death of long-range combat in general...

[Mordelicius]

Testing on PTS is pointless atm. It's endless crashing. It's been broken since last week.

Anyway, the Vanu reactions on the ZOE nerf at Reddit and the official forum are hilarious. It's as almost there's nothing wrong with ZOE whatsoever.

Zoe getting nerf? Well, did you evah!

[Sirisian]

I thought the 150m sniper range was a joke, and testing it on PTS proves it. I've never heard anyone complain about snipers being over powered. As far as I can tell it's one of the lowest SPM playstyle and requires very unaware targets.

I have three theories at the moment:

1. Marketing wants infiltrators to buy SMGs and are nerfing all the weapons that aren't at the 1K cert cap. I kind of get that, but there has to be an easier way without removing long range weapons from the game? It could just last the winter holiday though to boost SMG sales. That would be acceptable.
   
2. The PS4 can't handle the render distances and they're lowering everything as they tune their DX9 engine for the PS4's hardware.
   
3. The PS4 controller doesn't work with sniping at long ranges and requires mouse and keyboard making the game unappealing to players that want to use the controller.

If it's the latter I would hope they reconsider and branch the PS4 version. I know it would be difficult managing two code-bases, but dumbing down ranged combat just so it fits into the console COD niche is going to severely hurt the PC version. Also competing with COD/BF is not the way to go.

Originally Posted by Mordelicius

Testing on PTS is pointless atm. It's endless crashing. It's been broken since last week.

Probably just you. I've been testing just fine for the past few days. Ran around for an hour looking for a fake snowman. No issues.

[Chewy]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

[*]The PS4 controller doesn't work with sniping at long ranges and requires mouse and keyboard making the game unappealing to players that want to use the controller.

I gotta disagree with this. Kb/M is better at fast and fine aiming, but my 2 decades of console gaming tells me that a controller isn't that bad in shooters. It's true that you wont be anywhere as fast at aiming but doing fine aiming is kinda easy once you start learning to use movement to fine aim. Even without aim-assist a controller isn't bad once you got movement down.

With Kb/M is all depends on the mouse, with a controller it's about moving. To be honest Id rather use a mix of both if I was able. An analog stick to move and have a mouse to aim. My fingers just can't learn a keyboard well enough to put one to good use. I can't find any of the keys right of RFV without looking for them and the only number keys I can use with speed is 2 and 3. Another perk of a controller is that all of the buttons are molded around you hand, hell my hands molded around controllers after that many years.

Kb/M has the shear number of keys over a large area and perfect aim of a mouse. Controllers have perfect movement with all buttons already at a finger at the cost of precision. If only there was a mix of both without it being either/both a pain to get working or costing far to much.

[Mordelicius]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Probably just you. I've been testing just fine for the past few days. Ran around for an hour looking for a fake snowman. No issues.

I meant during fighting. You have to test this against other players. It's always crashing when they Devs do the playtests on the new Freyr. That's why fewer and fewer player come due to the incessant crashes.

[Plaqueis]

Originally Posted by HereticusXZ

So no more long-range combat at all outside of Engineer AV Turret, Dalton, ESF Rocket Pods and Halberd?

What's the point of Anchored mode now? Just shooting faster? if your locked in place then you need range...

This update is looking like it will be the downfall or even the death of long-range combat in general...

AV turret got range reduction too it seems...

I gotta say, apart from the obvious that was needed (bug fixes, Zoe and Harrasser tweaks), i'm really not a fan of that list. What's the reasoning behind reducing blast damage from various weapons for example? Not to mention the 150m cap that's been discussed quite alot already...

[Rolfski]

Not sure about nerfing the ubgl into oblivion, It never was an OP weapon in the first place. If they make it a direct kill-only weapon, at least they should compensate for that a bit by making it less cumbersome to use.

[KesTro]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

Not sure about nerfing the ubgl into oblivion, It never was an OP weapon in the first place. If they make it a direct kill-only weapon, at least they should compensate for that a bit by making it less cumbersome to use.

Have we been playing the same game? On fights any larger than 24v24 on Connery, especially in places like Bio-Farms nothing but ubgl spam

[Badjuju]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

Not sure about nerfing the ubgl into oblivion, It never was an OP weapon in the first place. If they make it a direct kill-only weapon, at least they should compensate for that a bit by making it less cumbersome to use.

Just had a scrim on test las night. UBGL is still very effective and just as obnoxious.

Also crashing on test seemed better for the people commenting about it.

[JesNC]

Originally Posted by Plaqueis

AV turret got range reduction too it seems...

I gotta say, apart from the obvious that was needed (bug fixes, Zoe and Harrasser tweaks), i'm really not a fan of that list. What's the reasoning behind reducing blast damage from various weapons for example? Not to mention the 150m cap that's been discussed quite alot already...

It's quite obvious, isn't it?

It's all part of the big NC balance endavour - they push everyone closer together so that NC's "lolzShotgunz!!1" trait finally has some merit...

[Plaqueis]

Originally Posted by JesNC

It's quite obvious, isn't it?

It's all part of the big NC balance endavour - they push everyone closer together so that NC's "lolzShotgunz!!1" trait finally has some merit...

Well, i'm all for NC getting the love as they seem to lack a bit on some areas of the game, but i didn't know your sniper-rifles were part of that deal...

[Canaris]

overall I'm digging that list of changes for the game, have to try them out in proper combat but so far nothing that stands out as a glaring "WTF!" change at least for me...... which is surprising

[Jonny]

Fought any ZOE maxes yet?