Planetside 2 Catch-All

I have all three dogfighting upgrades for the Scythe. It makes a BIG difference in handling, particularly the rudder power. You may even want to stop at upgrade 2 because upgrade 3 makes the controls very twitchy. I can usually win a turning fight as long as I am not outnumbered.

I havent gotten used to rolling with the mouse, as opposed to yawing. I even plugged in a controller and tried to duplicate Saints Row controls. Couldnt find a scheme that didnt have me crashing real fast. Burned through all of my Airborne rec. real fast. Those VR missions can't get here fast enough.

I've got the hover airframe on my scythe and don't really have that much problem pitch/rolling around (yaw is slow). If anything I could use a wider FOV in aircraft to be more aware of my surroundings and collide with it less, I think most times I'm trying to be evasive after being shot at, I kill myself more than they kill me. Landing in a hurry is another one when I'm not LA.

I will most likely get some station cash to unlock some of those upgrades tonight. Probably a boost too, the speed at which I'm getting CP is really bad, even when I'm doing pretty well. I've been playing probably 8-12 hours so far and have accumulated no more than 200 total cert points.

As far as I can tell the dogfighting upgrade doesn't change the pitch speed so your effective "turn" speed is the same as other ESFs. But it increases yaw and GREATLY increases roll so going evasive makes you much harder to follow.

Still no fix for the framerate issues, but I found that it gets worse with player density. So playing on the quieter continents like Amerish makes things bearable.

I'm REALLY not a fan of the new spawn tunnels. I thought the whole idea was to make the spawn harder to camp and the base easier to defend. Well the tunnels are cool and all, and they shift you around nicely. But the exit points for the tunnels are just one-way manholes in the ground which are STUPIDLY easy to camp. Some of them can even be shot by tanks from the right angle.

The new SMG is cool. Sucks for the people who bought the automatic scout rifle because the SMG is pretty much better in every way at the distances infiltrators use them. SMGs rapidly lose power with distance though, even the sighted accuracy is not so great.

Really? That's it? Even without the new 50% alpha squad boost I could make bare minimum 1 cert per 2 minutes of play. Now that the boost is 50 instead of 10% I can make a cert a minute easily. Though to be fair I'm playing with a character that I consider fully "kitted out". I have enough different weapons that I can respond to any situation.

Boosts are really much more valuable than they used to be because they now apply to facility capture XP. One biolab is worth 6 certs on it's own, not including all of the other XP you get while capturing it.

polypusher wrote:

I will most likely get some station cash to unlock some of those upgrades tonight. Probably a boost too, the speed at which I'm getting CP is really bad, even when I'm doing pretty well. I've been playing probably 8-12 hours so far and have accumulated no more than 200 total cert points.

Shoot more dudes. Or do what I do and heal/fix things.

Also: Enjoy the game.

Don't focus on the certs or the grind. Just have a good time. The default stuff is pretty darned good. You can upgrade a whole bunch of stuff for only one cert point as detailed in the first post on this thread. That lasts for a good long while.

Edit: Tamren is ultimate beast mode; don't listen to him. =)

I only played the patch for a bit but the changes seemed nice. I let a lot of the bugs and quirks go because it's clear that Sony pushed it out too early. I will consider the game in "beta" until the end of March, when it should have been released.

Yeah the default guns are just fine. I own 4/6 of the vanu LMGs and I still use the Orion most of the time because it has the best rate of fire.

I feel too limited by knowledge of whats missing from my newbie character to completely enjoy the game as it is at the moment. I am enjoying it, but I'd like to be making faster progress because my character physically can't do the things I've seen in videos and in game, like Im playing a demo of the real game and Sony is demanding my cash. I dont mind ponying up this time. It's an enjoyable game and I'll be where I want to be after a few good sessions as I learn to play smarter and get more kills.

There is a LOT to learn in this game. Also I need to hook up with Quantum Dawn, if its still active.

BNice wrote:

I only played the patch for a bit but the changes seemed nice. I let a lot of the bugs and quirks go because it's clear that Sony pushed it out too early. I will consider the game in "beta" until the end of March, when it should have been released.

The thing is, considering what they've got planned for PS2 it's going to be 'beta' for a while yet. I know to a certain extent stability of the game is a good thing for getting quality up, but I can't help thinking for a game like this, stability is death, or at least for the early part of it's life. They need to adjust things as they go, they need to react to what players are doing and what they're asking for, and they need to add new stuff so it remains interesting, all of which are the enemies of stability. Obviously quality is something to be striving for in what gets released to the public, but I don't think there can ever be a final finished non-beta version.

That's before you get into discussions about how bad a term "beta" is nowadays. Perhaps calling it perpertual "gamma" (release candidate stage) is a better approach.

The changes are nice, but they seem to have reintroduced some major lag issues. That is, new weapons and modified base layouts aren't helpful when unable to aim or move properly.

polypusher wrote:

I feel too limited by knowledge of whats missing from my newbie character to completely enjoy the game as it is at the moment. I am enjoying it, but I'd like to be making faster progress because my character physically can't do the things I've seen in videos and in game, like Im playing a demo of the real game and Sony is demanding my cash. I dont mind ponying up this time. It's an enjoyable game and I'll be where I want to be after a few good sessions as I learn to play smarter and get more kills.

There is a LOT to learn in this game. Also I need to hook up with Quantum Dawn, if its still active.

In my opinion, you don't need to spend ANY money to be better at this game. Now that opinion is really only valid if you play infantry most of the time, if you want to use vehicles, especially the aircraft, then you'll need to buy the weapons (you can grind the certs, but it's really not worth it).

I think a large part of it is learning base layouts and when to just join large pushes and roll along, not getting many kills but healing (medic), repairing and supplying ammo (engineer) and getting facility capture points.

I spend most of my time playing solo (eg. no friends), but even then, I try and fight in groups. If I'm in my Reaver then I try and make sure I'm either fighting around a base we hold, or if we are on a push, with other Reavers.

It's just too easy to get caught by yourself and killed in this game.

On the recent patch: I think they've done a terrific job. The NC weapons have had a audio pass and they sound so much better. The base and anti-camping improvements are going to be a really help.

The only issue I have is that in my Reaver, the "Lock" beeping and visual indicator seems to disappear/glitch off once the missile is launched, which led me to think I was safe, then I'd get hit :/

Scratched wrote:
BNice wrote:

I only played the patch for a bit but the changes seemed nice. I let a lot of the bugs and quirks go because it's clear that Sony pushed it out too early. I will consider the game in "beta" until the end of March, when it should have been released.

The thing is, considering what they've got planned for PS2 it's going to be 'beta' for a while yet. I know to a certain extent stability of the game is a good thing for getting quality up, but I can't help thinking for a game like this, stability is death, or at least for the early part of it's life. They need to adjust things as they go, they need to react to what players are doing and what they're asking for, and they need to add new stuff so it remains interesting, all of which are the enemies of stability. Obviously quality is something to be striving for in what gets released to the public, but I don't think there can ever be a final finished non-beta version.

That's before you get into discussions about how bad a term "beta" is nowadays. Perhaps calling it perpertual "gamma" (release candidate stage) is a better approach.

Yeah, I know what you mean. The reason I picked March is because that is when the tutorial will be implemented. I'm sure the client optimization will be farther along by then as well. I think client stability and a tutorial are two things you want pinned down before you properly release a game and so I'll consider PS2 "released" in March.

But yeah, I expect the game to continually evolve and bring more sets of complications. Like you point out, it's good for the game. I kinda like the idea of using "gamma".

There is a lot for new players to learn, maybe even too much.

1. New players should start with the basics of movement, aim, and how the two are related.
2. After that I would introduce classes, abilities, tools, and deployables.
3. Joining a squad/platoon would be the next topic.
4. From there, move on to the minimap, strategic map, control points, and deployment locations.

So yeah, I'm not sure that PS2 is really ready for primetime. I mean, it sort of was, but in the process of fixing stuff, they broke other stuff. I appreciate that SOE is committed to supporting this and getting it into better shape, but it's also frustrating as a player when things are constantly in flux (including client stability).

Itsatrap wrote:

So yeah, I'm not sure that PS2 is really ready for primetime. I mean, it sort of was, but in the process of fixing stuff, they broke other stuff. I appreciate that SOE is committed to supporting this and getting it into better shape, but it's also frustrating as a player when things are constantly in flux (including client stability).

I disagree with your premise that it's not ready for primetime. They could have had this in beta forever and not identified the structural issues and balancing issues they have by having a much larger player base.

You also can't expect them to not accidently break things as they work to improve, expand and balance the game. They are making more consistent updates and fixes than almost any other game I've played (except for maybe TF2). I can guarantee that if they hadn't made any of the changes they've made in the last few months, that people would not be still playing in the numbers they are.

While I agree client stability and perf can improve, they aren't bad. I usually only crash once a session (2+ more) and it runs fine on my machine.

EDIT: From the Game Director on Twitter

We're continuing to investigate reports of performance decrease since GU02, we're definitely seeing it, but haven't found the cause yet.

As a QA guy I can understand the complexity of launching a live product. I get the impression they're moving very fast. The issuing of a patch -and- hotfix within a few hours on a Sunday is suprising, for one thing, impressive for another thing, and inevitably it has to have some problems. That was really the first patch I've seen for the game, so I dont know the history, but I did get a good impression of the speed of response and the elegance of its implementation.

What I saw was this:

Patch posted in the morning including server downtime. The downtime wasnt communicated in the launcher, which I thought was annoying.
Once in, the game played fairly well but it was clear there was one major problem to me. Many mounted guns and turrets were not actually firing projectiles. Oops.
Within no more than a few hours, a message posts in game that they're aware of the problem and are working on a fix. Good communication
Within no more than a few more hours, a message posts in game that the fix is applied. All we have to do is relog to get it. That is extremely elegant. I can either continue playing, aware of the bug and willing to deal with it, or I can relog and hop in a tank. I chose to do the latter and enjoyed blasting a few folks

Developing, testing and deploying a hotfix to a live product is a scary thing to do and I feel they did a great job doing it. Just, if I were them, I'd start launching patches at like midnight and let the crazy all-nighters find those bugs for me so we can hot fix it in the morning

Add another vote for not needing to buy anything if you play infantry. The only gun I use is the solarius for the grenade launcher for my light assault. You definitly want a zephyer an air to ground missiles though for vehicles. Ground vehicles are fine for default, and they have some good relatively low cert items.

The real thing that's tough for new players is learning the environment/maps. I know where all the good points are for a light assault to hide and cause crazy amounts of damage. Also a few of the tech plants and biodomes are very confusing in how you attack them. A player that knows the map/area can do way more damage then a newbie.

As for tips for dogfighting I can't help you there. I can't use the main gun at all. If I can I'm going to swap it out for anti air missiles. Oh and the grenade launcher on the sunderer is a beast. It has a stupid amount of ammo and can easily cause lots of damage. Not to mention it's a ton of fun to use.

master0 wrote:

As for tips for dogfighting I can't help you there. I can't use the main gun at all. If I can I'm going to swap it out for anti air missiles.

As primarily an AA Reaver pilot, I have the AA Missiles and the Rotary cannon equipped. Flares, Composite Armor and either the Dogfighting Airframe or the Highspeed Airframe are the cert's to target (with flares being the priority).

The AA missiles are quite powerful so usually you can get a kill if you get 2 missiles and some rotary fire. I always lead with the AA missiles as the lock-on forces them to usually run and pop flares. If they do that, you have a decision. If you are in a safe area (ie. not many other enemy fighters), then I follow as the reload time on AA missiles is WAY shorter than flares, so you can usually get a shot or two off. While the AA missiles are reloading, I'm emptying clip after clip of rotary fire into their general direction.

If they are banking, you'll need to lead them by a large amount, but you get used to that.

You'll start to pick up habits like slowing down to do sharp turns and other things like that. I try and keep my afterburners full in case I need to run.

The most important thing about being a pilot is staying alive as long as possible, so that if you do die, you have a short or no cooldown on purchasing another jet (buying the acquisition timer certs helps this alot). I usually can stay alive for the ~8min on my timer... Normally if I get about 50% health or less I run away and repair. I also have no hesitation running all the way back to the warpgate as then at least you can't die while landing (had that happen :/ )

Last night I was just flying patrols around safe areas and I picked up ~10 scythe kills without dying once. I also picked about about double the kill assists.

It's fun riding in the new tunnels. I also like how they added turrets to the spawn rooms of large facilities.

I like the idea of spawn tunnels, but I think they really failed in the execution of it. The tunnels are SLOW, it's as boring as riding in an elevator to use one. And when you get to the end you are dumped in very arbitrary positions that don't really help you defend the base at all.

They should just strip them out and replace them with teleporters to the same positions

Tamren wrote:

The tunnels are SLOW, it's as boring as riding in an elevator to use one.

Don't listen to this man! Also, fast elevators are fun to ride.

Tamren wrote:

I like the idea of spawn tunnels, but I think they really failed in the execution of it. The tunnels are SLOW, it's as boring as riding in an elevator to use one. And when you get to the end you are dumped in very arbitrary positions that don't really help you defend the base at all.

They should just strip them out and replace them with teleporters to the same positions

Yeah they really do need a change. Either teleporters, or just add more spawn points on the map. Maybe if they overhaul it a lot. Or perhaps add some sort of super jump pad that launchers people out of the base. Fun for the defenders, skeet shoot for the attackers

master0 wrote:

Or perhaps add some sort of super jump pad that launchers people out of the base. Fun for the defenders, skeet shoot for the attackers :)

How about a jump-tunnel that shoots you out a random direction? Extra-fun for defenders, advanced skeet-shooting for attackers.

Coldstream wrote:
master0 wrote:

Or perhaps add some sort of super jump pad that launchers people out of the base. Fun for the defenders, skeet shoot for the attackers :)

How about a jump-tunnel that shoots you out a random direction? Extra-fun for defenders, advanced skeet-shooting for attackers. :D

Really that would be a lot of fun. I'd love if silly things like this were allowed.

The problem with jump pads is that you can still spawn-camp the landing area. Also, in case I haven't mentioned this lately, mines are fun!

Itsatrap wrote:

The problem with jump pads is that you can still spawn-camp the landing area. Also, in case I haven't mentioned this lately, mines are fun!

Some jump pads don't have landing pads
Also mines are strange in this game. They act more like c4 then anything. Though I do remember swearing when my tank blew up right after I spawned. Someone places a mine where it auto drives on too.

At least their seems to be less of the whole dropping mines on sunderers. Hated that.

Hotfix is up, fixes the stuttering issues. Yay!

Tamren wrote:

Hotfix is up, fixes the stuttering issues. Yay!

Huzzah for fast turn around!

Those tunnels are fun ... until someone parks a sunderer over the hole.