Higby Q&A during Playtest 27/04

[Stanis]

We were lucky to have Higby join our PTS platoon during the Focus Test on 27/04/13
He answered some questions and chatted while we played.


[0m:00] Q1. Warpgate Traversal and Continent Locking
With a lock in place there is a risk that the enemy would be at either side of the warpgate camping it all the time.
This can be done with 4 continents. Not ideal with 4
They are looking at 4 continents plus some battle islands - all up in the air currently.

Currently the are trying to solve continent gameplay : the rush lanes : if they can get that nailed then they worry about the intercontinetnal gameplay
We have to have good continental gameplay.

[0m:52] Q2. Long range combat
(asked about the lack of long range gameplay in the game)

Thinks that the lattice changes create more open field battles which encourage this by forces meeting in the middle
During the PTS Higby had been at Peris East Grove which was about an hour long engagement which was pretty much a long range infantry fight the entire time

[1m:25] Q3. What is the Angel.
Mwahahaha. Or noise to that effect.

[1m:39] Q4. Adjusting Sunderer spawn times be adjusted.
Bases are more defendable and the flow makes more predictably in the fight.
Sceptical that defenders are at a significant disadvantage meaning they'd need to debuff the attackers.
Finally both attackers and defenders use Sunderers.
It has been discussed.

[2m:33] Q5. Are they going to be any Spawning resources?
Resource costs are front loaded on the cost of a sunderer.
No plans to put costs on loadouts .

(I think this was more of an NTU on bases related question but got answered in the context of talking about Sunderers/Base spawns.)

[2m:52] Q6. Hossin
The 'Warp to Hossin' on PTS .. Is it trolling us?
Nope. Devs use the button internally.

Is Hossin in the game files now?
No. Some objects are.
Adding Hossin will be about a 2GB patch. Zones are pretty big.

[3m:18] Q7. Aegis Shield
The questioner was discussing PTS balance. The amount of damage it can absord is great, if we keep it at that level can we slow the equip/unequip time.
They can equip it in response to the enemy swapping to a rocket launcher and then drop it to shotgun to the face.

Higby: That is what it's tuned around. The rocket launcher equip times. It is intended to be able to react really quick.
Still WIP. He hadn't had much luck using on the PTS that day.

[4m:37] Q8. Sunderer (next big vehicle update)
Give it rumble seat funcationality where passengers can shoot out of it. (This would be a slot instead of say Ammo or Repair).
AMS bubble : they are talking about adding an AMS style shield bubble.
They are looking at different deployment types : one of them is a 'cloaking deployment type'
This is not anytime Soon(TM). This is a couple of months away before we see.

[5m:18] Q9. Vehicle/Class update cycle
Every 2 months vehicle update.
Every 2 months class update.
They stagger alternating months.

The max update got delayed, so the harasser and max update are coming at the same time.

[5m:32] Q10. Additional Cosmetic Slots
Not sure which GU that'll be. Should be soon(tm)
It's not something they are working on right now - but once it is on the task list it should be fairly quick to achieve.

[5m:55] Q11. Amp Station and other Benefits
Focussed on getting battle flow working and then they can work on which benefits they want to give them.
These will be designed around the new facilities coming out.

[6m:14] Q12. Generators & Small Squad Objectives
Any plans to put backhacking or generators : small squad objectives back into the game
No immediate plans. Trying to accomplish something else right now. But this is something they want to do.
They are actually going to be shutting down things : such as detonate generators unless you have adjacency.

Kalyper, SOE Developer posted on the official forums Friday night.
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...stment.120344/
On PTS the generators which control SCU are gone. The SCU will go down when the enemy capture bar is haflway.
(Which translates to base is 75% captured)

[6m:56] Q13. MAX: Flamethrower and Grenade Launcher
Flamethrower kinda sucks right now.
These are not going to be included in GU8 - they will be held back and iterated on the PTS until they are 'really cool'.

[7m:25] Q14. Vehicle Loadout Swap
It's on the task list. Been discussed.
It's pretty tough to do, and isn't scheduled as part of a specific Game Update yet.

[7m:43] Q15. Slots and Implants
Question asked if upgrade slots will be expanded to categories such as shield, armour, utility or if implants would fill this role.
A. Some of that is in implants, still be worked on.

[8m:18] Q16. Do you plan on redoing Esamir and Amerish like they have Indar for the lattice system.
Don't feel they have as much to fix.
Indar was built very early on and had bad flow and primative facilities.

Some of what they've done to Indar will be used to fix up some of the bad places on Esamir/Amerish. But there is not as much as they needed to do to get Indar working well.

What was bad:
Facilities that are completely wide open, and really easy to bring vehicles into and dominate.
They identified that they needed to have more segregated infantry areas.
A lot of the Esamir and Amerish facilities already have that.

[9m:36] Q17. Hossin
The bases coming on Hossin don't have a fixed layout like the current ones do.
Will we see changes to base layouts : amp stations and tech plants for example.

[basti]

Woha. Your a beast for getting it done that quickly.

[Ruffdog]

Nice work and good questions you technophile freaks!

[Timealude]

wow, my mic is really hot on PTS...but anyways good job on the fast capture.

[Sledgecrushr]

Wow great info there. Thanks for the brief 8 )

[EvilNinjadude]

I approve. OP? Higby? You guys deserve a cookie each.

[Assist]

Indeed, was nice of him to hop in and answer some quick questions. Lots of info in a short period

[ChipMHazard]

No mention of the addition of Basti's Asshole?

The more I hear about Hossin the more I keep looking forward to it, hopefully I won't wind myself up for disappointment.
Once Hossin gets released I'm sure my TR will become a full-time Swamptrooper.

[basti]

No one shall know, otherwise people really demand a base with that name.

[Stanis]

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

No mention of the addition of Basti's Asshole?

I cut out the long pauses. The rambling and some swearing.
Also some bits that had really loud explosions you couldn't hear anyway.

The bit about caverns with an underground base being called Basti's Asshole wasn't really answering a question.

Mostly trying to preserve the Teen rating.

[EvilNinjadude]

Originally Posted by Stanis

I cut out the long pauses. The rambling and some swearing.
Also some bits that had really loud explosions you couldn't hear anyway.

The bit about caverns with an underground base being called Basti's Asshole wasn't really answering a question.

Mostly trying to preserve the Teen rating.

Sir, you deserve an award for the ability to obliquely explain inside jokes without making it too obvious.

[Mastachief]

No lattice for the other conts?

[Fafnir]

Originally Posted by Mastachief

No lattice for the other conts?

There is lattice on other continents already, especially on Amerish. They just need to polish it and show on the map. I think that's what Higby meant.

[torokf]

Originally Posted by Mastachief

No lattice for the other conts?

yes but they simply doesn't need as much attention as Indar, because the battle flow there is already working even without lattice, so they will just do minor tweaks, nothing compared to the huge overhaul indar is undergoing,
not to mention Indar have something like 10/15 more capturable hexes than the other continents, or something like that, a pain in the ass to manage for people who cares about strategic gameplay, so they removed many outposts in the PTS.

Esamir and Amerish are kind of fine actually, the lattice will be easier to implement there (and much needed anyway)

[Mastachief]

But there are so many improvements to outposts on indar it would be a shame if they dont take the same to the other conts as there are still many outposts on esamir and amerish that need these changes to add the chokepoints in and antivehicle blockades especially with the pending mbt buff.