Another dev AMA on Reddit, Higby Answers!

[HereticusXZ]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/c...ome_of/cftp3g5

I can take a crack at it!

1 - Why was ADS removed from jumping?

In PS2 bullets fire from the center of the screen and when we need them to be "inaccurate" for some reason we have to use a cone of fire. When players are moving, jumping, etc the cof kicks in to keep the bullets from going dead center. In order to give people some idea of where the bullets are likely to go in the CoF while they are ADS and can't see their CoF bounds, we made the reticule move off center a bit within the bounds of the cof in order to provide some feedback about the inaccuracy. You could see this really clearly when jumping while ADS - you had a massive COF, bullets flew everywhere, and the sight veered wildly all over the screen, so you had no real expectation of accuracy. Several months ago threads like this[1] started popping up with people questioning why the bullet isn't hitting where the reticule is at all times and saying it was unintuitive, based on this feedback we went about removing all the places where we were using ADS sway to simulate inaccuracy, so when you strafe now, the dot is significantly less offset, etc. The cleanest solution for jumping was to drop ADS while jumping. We discussed making bullets follow the sight line of the weapon instead of the center of the screen, but that was a several months long revamp of our entire projectiles system, so it wasn't a possibility.

| 2 - why harasser sucks?

The nerf was too harsh. We are doing a general balance update in April that will include a restoration of some of the Harasser's legendary maneuverability.

| 3 - population balance

We don't have a magic bullet for population balance, but we do have more and less subtle solutions. More subtle is things like XP bonuses, which really don't provide a huge motivation for joining a losing fight, less subtle would be things like respawn timing adjustments for heavily over populated empires - something we don't really want to institute and luckily haven't had to. Most suggestions we get here just straight up don't work, or punish paying players who want to play on a single account and do nothing to stop free players with multiple accounts. Right now population numbers are pretty cyclical, driven by factors like balance and tuning, and our plan is to keep addressing macro balance issues between empires to make sure they're all competitive. In terms of game systems, the resource revamp we've currently got scheduled in June is doing the most to try to provide a handicap to under popped empires, by dividing resources between the number of players on each empire, giving the smaller forces an advantage in resources and force multipliers. I'm excited to see how that works out, but I have some concerns about it's effect on moment-to-moment balance, especially for newer players.

| 5 - cap xp changes to help fix zergs

Setting up rewards so they better represent risk/reward is definitely something that many of us have been discussing. I don't have an exact answer for you right now, but it's something we've talked a lot about, and something that we're talking about potentially addressing with the 2nd phase of resources (Facility Power).

| 6 - rewards for platoon / squad leaders

I want to, we've discussed giving squad leaders some % bonus of all XP earned by their squad within a certain radius, but don't have a final plan yet except to say that this is something we want to address.

| 7 - ZOE isn't very good right now

Joshua and I were discussing the MAX abilities this morning, we want to fix them, and may make some tweaks in the April combat tuning update, but no promises yet (the changes we were discussing are probably too big to fit in for that update). We do agree that ZOE is a bit too limited right now (So is Lockdown, and to a lesser degree the riot shield) and want to improve all three of them.

| 8 - State of the Striker

The Striker is in a tough spot as a weapon. It's basically the opposite of what we want out of a great feeling gun in PS2, or at least it was before it got over-nerfed. That is, when you're playing against them it's impossible to deal with, when you're using one personally they're unsatisfying. We will have some buffs for the Striker in the April update, stay tuned.

[HereticusXZ]

All I gotta say on this is Pop Balance/XP/Zergs can all be solved IMO with one thing: Incentive.

"What reason do I have to bring my squad to a Alert on Amerish when there's a good giant fight with great XP farm here at Allatum Bio-Lab? I can get just as much XP if not more by staying and enjoying this fight instead of slugging it out and gambling on the team-work of the Empire in a Alert."

There's to much incentive on XP value, where it is important because it gets you certs. There's to much value in XP that forces players to group up and zerg to overwhelm facilities as the easiest method to get quick XP, especially for new-players and this promotes unhealthy gameplay in the long-run/grand scheme.

Players need a physical relevance to play with that gives them incentive.

Tech-Plants limit MBT's, Amp-Stations should limit Liberators, Bio-Labs should limit MAX's. Such limitations create incentives for Squad/Platoon leaders to care about attack/defense, especially during a Alert.

Furthermore continent control can be more relevant by giving actual physical toys for players to play with. Ideas include giving the controlling Empire a Skylance defense turret at main facilities on all continents, allowing the controlling Empire to spawn NS-MBT's on all continents, I know there's rumors about new aircraft, could even finally show-off a Bastion Command Carrier, anything except bland XP!

Bio-lab passive heals, Amp-Station turret CD, Tech-Plant resources.... This is all irrelevant incentives that go mostly ignored.... Empires need to quite literally be completely robbed of a asset when they lose something as important as a Main-Facility.

I know they don't exist in PS2 but I'll exaggerate this as a example here and say: If you lose a radar-station then your Empire should lose the ability to have lock-on. You can keep the rocket-launcher, it will be switched to a dumb-fire option, but you cannot, at all, lock-on without X facility in your control!

That's what it means IMO to have a facility have relevance and give players incentive to capture/defend.

Physical rewards, toys, This is incentive to care about the importance of facilities/continents, NOT exclusively the XP.

[ChipMHazard]

Wonder what kind of improvements they could give the Striker without either revamping it or just making it too effective, again.

[HereticusXZ]

At the very least I'd like the range on the Striker to match the grounder...

[Vashyo]

I would really like shared squad XP back like it was is PS1, it just makes teamplay lot more rewarding.

Would never have to think about whos driving a tank and whos gunning and such, also if part of your squad is going to do some tactical maneuvers they still dont miss out in XP for being away for doing something.

[Boildown]

Originally Posted by HereticusXZ

Players need a physical relevance to play with that gives them incentive.

Tech-Plants limit MBT's, Amp-Stations should limit Liberators, Bio-Labs should limit MAX's. Such limitations create incentives for Squad/Platoon leaders to care about attack/defense, especially during a Alert.

This is fucking brilliant. And it should be implemented asap IMO.

[War Barney]

*to a lesser degree the riot shield*............................To a lesser degree...... to a lesser degree...... to a..... lesser.... degree.........................................













TO A LESSER DEGREE!!! ARE YOU INSANE! have this guy EVER played as the NC, the riot shield is worthless, I ranked it up to 3 cos I thought it might help but ALL i ever use it for is standing in doorways and laughing, sure its fun doing that but its not help at ALL, every good MAX user has charged slotted as it lets you charge in to get into range for our awful awful shotguns and you can charge out or a fight while the shield will just leave you slowly crawling away then dying in 1 shot to a rocket which seems completely unaffected by it.

Do NOT give us this *to a lesser degress* crap, its the worst ability in the game, sure lockdown isn't great but its helpful for making a beast of a AA MAX, ZOE is brilliant VS are just to use to having all the most OP things so having a balanced ability compared to all the OP crap they have makes it seem bad. I swear if they buff the zoe back to being OP and just ignore the worst MAX in the game again I'm going to go completely insane...

Sadly this is soe we're talking about, so be prepared for the zoe to last forever and not make you take more damage while our shield gets its health reduced by 50% and the ability to reload while using it removed.... and thats if we're lucky.. it could be worse

[bites]

Originally Posted by War Barney

*to a lesser degree the riot shield*............................To a lesser degree...... to a lesser degree...... to a..... lesser.... degree.........................................













TO A LESSER DEGREE!!! ARE YOU INSANE! have this guy EVER played as the NC, the riot shield is worthless, I ranked it up to 3 cos I thought it might help but ALL i ever use it for is standing in doorways and laughing, sure its fun doing that but its not help at ALL, every good MAX user has charged slotted as it lets you charge in to get into range for our awful awful shotguns and you can charge out or a fight while the shield will just leave you slowly crawling away then dying in 1 shot to a rocket which seems completely unaffected by it.

Do NOT give us this *to a lesser degress* crap, its the worst ability in the game, sure lockdown isn't great but its helpful for making a beast of a AA MAX, ZOE is brilliant VS are just to use to having all the most OP things so having a balanced ability compared to all the OP crap they have makes it seem bad. I swear if they buff the zoe back to being OP and just ignore the worst MAX in the game again I'm going to go completely insane...

Sadly this is soe we're talking about, so be prepared for the zoe to last forever and not make you take more damage while our shield gets its health reduced by 50% and the ability to reload while using it removed.... and thats if we're lucky.. it could be worse

While I agree with your points ... (eg the shield sucks ass) I can assure you he does play NC since hes run with us a few times.

But in complete agreement the shield in its current iteration is a shiny "shoot me with rockets to mitigate the point" Ability.

IMHO needs a minimum 180 degree front cover AND actually blocking explosives properly ... because due to Client side right etc ... it currently sucks outside of VERY organized/planned play. Least ZOE and to an extremely lesser extent Lockdown .. is fun/useable outside of organized squads.

[War Barney]

I can only assume he doesn't use the shield then, the shield is slowly becoming something you only see used by new players who think it looks cool, eventually it wont be used at all, hell it could be said its even worse as we need charge for our MAX to work, a VS and TR MAX can work very well even without it letting them keep lockdown and zoe as an option when they need it.

Hell I see the zoe used a LOT so its obviously not that bad, so why is that put as *needs a lot of work* while our awful awful shield is being put as *minor work needed*

[bites]

Originally Posted by War Barney

I can only assume he doesn't use the shield then, the shield is slowly becoming something you only see used by new players who think it looks cool, eventually it wont be used at all, hell it could be said its even worse as we need charge for our MAX to work, a VS and TR MAX can work very well even without it letting them keep lockdown and zoe as an option when they need it.

Hell I see the zoe used a LOT so its obviously not that bad, so why is that put as *needs a lot of work* while our awful awful shield is being put as *minor work needed*

Completely agree .. I basically never change from charge myself. To my knowledge I can't recall seeing him in a suit ... he has rezzed me a few times as medic tho :P.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by War Barney

TO A LESSER DEGREE!!! ARE YOU INSANE! have this guy EVER played as the NC, the riot shield is worthless, I ranked it up to 3 cos I thought it might help but ALL i ever use it for is standing in doorways and laughing, sure its fun doing that but its not help at ALL, every good MAX user has charged slotted as it lets you charge in to get into range for our awful awful shotguns and you can charge out or a fight while the shield will just leave you slowly crawling away then dying in 1 shot to a rocket which seems completely unaffected by it.

Do NOT give us this *to a lesser degress* crap, its the worst ability in the game, sure lockdown isn't great but its helpful for making a beast of a AA MAX, ZOE is brilliant VS are just to use to having all the most OP things so having a balanced ability compared to all the OP crap they have makes it seem bad. I swear if they buff the zoe back to being OP and just ignore the worst MAX in the game again I'm going to go completely insane...

Sadly this is soe we're talking about, so be prepared for the zoe to last forever and not make you take more damage while our shield gets its health reduced by 50% and the ability to reload while using it removed.... and thats if we're lucky.. it could be worse

I'm sorry, but do we even play the same game? Are you that bad of a player that all you can do is complain about everything, because that's all I ever see you doing... From having a sulk about infiltrators that you "can't see", to medics reviving people , NC max not having a ranged weapon, etc.

I don't see any body using the lockdown mechanic, and very few people still use the ZOE module nowadays. However, go to any biolab and there is plenty of NC maxes using the shield for cover as they reload, or to retreat from firefights - as they should. It's a great defensive tool... That's right, defensive. Your problem seems to be that it isn't offensive, thus, it's useless?

I play all three factions and have no problems with any. They aren't meant to be identical, and aren't all supposed to excel in the same aspect of the game.

Maybe you should go back to Call of Duty, or whatever it is you came from...

[Rivenshield]

Originally Posted by Vashyo

I would really like shared squad XP back like it was is PS1, it just makes teamplay lot more rewarding.

That's from the old game. Like AMS's and lattices and stuff. Until and unless the screaming need for it shoves its way up the dev teams' collective ass, it'll lay there unused.

[War Barney]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

I'm sorry, but do we even play the same game? Are you that bad of a player that all you can do is complain about everything, because that's all I ever see you doing... From having a sulk about infiltrators that you "can't see", to medics reviving people , NC max not having a ranged weapon, etc.

I don't see any body using the lockdown mechanic, and very few people still use the ZOE module nowadays. However, go to any biolab and there is plenty of NC maxes using the shield for cover as they reload, or to retreat from firefights - as they should. It's a great defensive tool... That's right, defensive. Your problem seems to be that it isn't offensive, thus, it's useless?

I play all three factions and have no problems with any. They aren't meant to be identical, and aren't all supposed to excel in the same aspect of the game.

Maybe you should go back to Call of Duty, or whatever it is you came from...

Its funny cos all I ever see you do is ignore the arguments I make and just throw insults around, I never said lockdown is good but they can at least slot it as charge isn't essential, I see ZOE used a lot, and I explained why the shield is used by people who think it looks cool but in effect its worthless. I wont even go into inf and medics as I went into that in great detail already so I'm not going to re-explain it so you can completely ignore everything I say again (hell I expect you to ignore all of this and just throw insults again, its more just so people realise you are just a troll).

While on the question of do we play the same game, obviously not if this is the first time you've ever heard a NC want a gun that has a range beyond 5m for our MAX, its what I hear non stop while playing NC as our MAX is nigh on useless right now, its only saving grace being charge in biolabs and other indoor style bases which, while it IS suicide, at least lets us clear rooms enough hopefully for people to follow us in and mop up (though that requires a good team work, random never think to follow MAXs).

How anybody could try to compare a skill which lets your MAX move very quickly and one which slows you right down and only protects against small arms fire from right in front of you is a complete joke. One is useful in a lot of situations the other will only get you killed, and I can already see you trying to say *ye zoe does hur hur* but we all know zoe saves lives and makes MAX rushes a lot more effective, shields only serve to make you a sitting duck.

[Falcon_br]

I really don´t agree with a bio lab requirement to get maxes.

TIW on Waterson held Rashnu for two weeks.
For two weeks I couldn´t use c4 or maxes on Indar.
Everytime we tried to take it, they deployed 50+ scat maxes on it.

Now, think about getting that bio lab back without maxes!

Maybe, just maybe, if we do some kind of rotation, like, you need Bio lab to have liberators, you need amp station to have tanks and you need tech plants to get maxes (all outside the warpgate of course), maybe you can use tanks to get tech plants, maxes to get bio labs and liberators to get amp stations, like most guys do today.

Harassers are useless right now, I tried to use it twice yestarday, on the first run, a single titan AP shot set us on fire, so his secondary gunner killed us right away, on the second run, a magrider AP shot took more then half the health we got, and the secondary gun killed us in 3 shots out of 6. In both runs we killed one single tank from far away using a halberd on the back of damaged tanks.

Harasser dead to one tank shot is too much, also lock on launcher take half this health with maximum composite armor! Two annihilator is the perfect anti harasser combo, just two!

I already adviced my outfit to don't use decimators (unless inside bio labs) and strikers, the default launcher can hit past 30 meters, the decimator can´t, and with all missiles lost from lost lock on and run aways air units, the annihilators will do more damage and shot faster them the striker right now.

The NC doens´t like the shields? Lol, I will change my lockdown or zoe on shield anytime!
Lockdown is useless because of the fracture nerf and the buster nerf, the faster you fire with the buster, the worst the aim gets, so lockdown + buster = you cant hit past melee range!
Zoe is still with some use, I still see some maxes inside bio labs cleaning rooms with zoe active, Two day ago I died to a VS BR 100 maxes that using the vortex on melee range plus zoe, made me impossible to hit him because of the strafing unpredictable at high velocity at close range.
But we all agree, the Vulcan is over nerfed, badly over nerfed! The basilisk is better at everything the vulcan should be used at! The oracle of death already proved that the VS is the best, with the NC close to it and the vulcan forgotten far away from all other weapons.
The VS has a no drop, perfect precision AT weapon that can be used at all ranges, the NC is not so easy to use, but because you have 10 shots you can use the first two aiming at your target so you should hit the last 8, with no recoil, usefull at all ranges but not so great at long range as the VS one is! The vulcan got a shotgun spread system that makes you imprecise at all ranges! It is only good at melee range where all other weapons will perform the same!
The worst part is that the Oracle showed that the vulcan was getting the same KPU as the other ES AT weapons, so no nerf was needed, but because this game is ruled with kids crying for nerfs on the official forums, the harasser, the striker and the vulcan are by far the worst weapon on the game!

[War Barney]

You want shield? have it we'll take lockdown =) sure lockdown isn't great but you can use it to become a AA monster, the shield just gives you the ability to be a sitting duck, so its kind of like lockdown except it doesn't give us more damage. I really don't get what your on about with bursters, perhaps lockdown makes it go insane but iv never had a issue with hitting with the bursters