Yesterday, SOE deployed a major update to the MMOFPS PlanetSide 2, tweaking a number of gameplay elements and fixing a few bugs.

It’s a long read, so grab some coffee or tea and check out some of the changes you can expect next time you boot up PlanetSide 2.

General Updates

• Client performance improvements
• Client stability improvements

Infantry Updates

Spotting

• Repeated spotting without a valid target will now put your ability to spot on cooldown.
• Spotting an enemy at 30+ meters now has to be more precise.
• You now have to be closer to the center of the target to see their nameplate.

Existing Weapon tuning changes

• Added medals to all weapons that were missing them.
• VS Pistols
  • Increased iron sight accuracy, from 0.5 to 0.4.
• All shotguns
  • Lowered vertical recoil, from 1.75 to 1.5 per shot.
  • Reduced accuracy loss per shot, from 1.0 to 0.5.
  • Increased damage falloff range. Damage used to start scaling at 5m and end at 15m. Now it starts at 8m and ends at 20m.
• Jackhammer
  • Lowered vertical recoil, from 1.75 to 1.2 per shot.
  • Reduced accuracy loss per shot, from 1.0 to 0.5.
  • Increased damage falloff range. Damage used to start scaling at 5m and end at 30m. Now it starts at 12m and still ends at 30m.
  • Reduced pellet spread, from 3.0 to 2.5.
  • Increased projectile speed, from 300m/s to 400m/s.
  • Increased iron sight move accuracy. From 0.3375 crouch-walking and .9 running, to .25 crouch-walking and .75 running.
  • Increased iron sight move speed, from 0.5x to 0.75x of the player’s base speed.
  • Increased hip-fire accuracy. It now matches all the other shotguns.
  • Very small adjustment to reload times. Cut 100 whole milliseconds off the reload chamber time and added it to the reload empty time. It’s now 2 seconds to reload when reloading with at least one bullet remaining and 3 seconds if empty.
• TX2 Emperor
  • Fixed audio not playing when in iron sights.
• Underbarrel grenade launchers
  • Fixed underbarrel grenade launchers not doing any damage after a reload.
  • Grenade rounds must now travel at least 10 meters before they arm and explode.
• Underbarrel Grenades
  • Increased internal radius damage, from 1125 to 1250.
  • Reduced internal damage radius by 0.5 of a meter
  • Reduced external damage radius by 1 meter.
  • End result with these is that direct and near misses are stronger, but the overall explosive radius is smaller.
• Frag & Sticky grenades
  • Reduced external explosion radius by 1 meter.

Misc Changes & Fixes

• Added a short invulnerability on newly spawned players. This invulnerability goes away if the player moves or takes any action.
• Added auto-run to infantry. Defaults to ‘=’ key and can be re-mapped in the keybinding settings.
• Ctrl-F11 will now turn off the first person arms and weapon. You cannot shoot or interact with terminals while this option is turned on.
  • Reminder: Ctrl-F10 will turn off the UI.
• Purchasing the second Medic C4 cert will no longer grant every class the ability to carry an additional C4. This bug allowed a number of classes to carry more C4 than what was intended.
• Ace Tool ammo packs should now be properly affected by Ammo Pack certs.
• Fixed bug that caused client and server ammo counts to be out of sync (for example, extra underbarrel rounds on your client that were doing no damage).

Vehicle Updates

• Mouse movement optimizations have been made for vehicle turrets. They should feel a bit smoother and more responsive. Some players may find the sensitivity to be different and should adjust the sensitivity slider.
• Players in vehicles can no longer capture points.
• Some improvements were made for ground vehicles sliding – although hitting the slope maximum will still cause you to slide
• Made adjustments to the Magrider so that combining strafe and forward velocity no longer provides an advantage to hill climbing

ESF Adjustments

• Rotary Cannons
  • Added 10 rounds to the magazine of each rotary.
    • Magazine certifications reduced to 2/5/7/10
    • Ammo capacity raised
  • Projectile speed decreased slightly on all rotary cannons to help further define their role as a close range weapon.
• Reaver M20 Mustang
  • Fire rate increased
  • CoF Reduced
• Saron Laser Cannon
  • Projectile speed decreased slightly. (The Saron has no bullet drop, while equivalent cannons do.)

MBTs

• Magrider
  • Saron HRB
    • Slowed Projectile down slightly. It retains no projectile drop.
• Vanguard
  • Side and Top armor increased. Allowing it to withstand roughly 1 more hit from a weapon as powerful as a tank cannon.
  • Titan-150 HEAT and Titan-150 AP
    • Increased projectile speed
    • Reduced Vanguard 150mm AP explosion visual. Visual was set larger than intended (and larger than the actual blast damage)
  • Enforcer ML85
    • Fixed an issue that prevented the projectile from reaching its intended top speed.
    • Reduced time to reload to 3.25 seconds (down from 3.5 seconds)
    • Added some drop to the projectile.
    • Updated missile trail FX in first person so that it is easier to see.
  • Enforcer C85 Modified
    • Changed to have a 3 round clip instead of 1 shot reload.
      • 333ms Fire Rate
      • Removed exaggerated COF
      • Reload speed increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds.
    • Base ammo capacity increased from 30 to 60.
    • Ammo Capacity certifications now increase capacity by +6 each rank.
• Prowler
  • Prowler P2-120 HEAT and P2-120 AP
    • Damage per round increased
    • Increased Projectile Speed
  • Anchored Mode
    • Anchored Mode now increases projectile speed of the equipped 120mm cannon. (In addition to the improved reload rate)
  • G30 Vulcan
    • Increased minimum damage.
    • Decreased maximum (close range) damage (It still maintains the best TTK at close range by a large margin).

Other Weapon Adjustments

• M40 Fury and M40 Marauder
  • Projectile speed and gravity increased.
  • New, more distinct first person trail, to make it easier to see where shots are going.
• M20 Drake & M20 Basilisk
  • Reload speed reduced to 3 seconds (down from 4 seconds)
• M20 Drake
  • Increased projectile speed
  • Reduced gravity on projectile
• E540 Halberd
  • These changes to E540 Halberd should put it between the Saron HRB and the ML85 Enforcer with their new changes.
  • Increased projectile speed.
  • Reduced projectile drop.
  • Increased time to reload by .25 seconds.
• CAS30 Tank Buster
  • Reduced maximum damage slightly.
  • Damage fall off now begins at 50 meters. Down from 100.

Item Updates

New Decals

Back in my day, we didn’t have any decals. We had emblems, and we liked it that way! Relive the glory days with these classic decals.

• Classic Bull Head Decal
• Classic Celtic Decal
• Classic Flame Decal
• Classic Poodle Decal
• Classic Red Star Decal
• Classic Wings Decal

New Camos

Continent-specific camouflage will teach you the value of not being seen.

• Amerish Scrub Camo
• Indar Scrub Camo
• Amerish Grassland Camo
• Indar Canyons v2 Camo
• Amerish Leaf Camo
• Esamir Snow Camo
• Indar Savanna Camo

New Weapons

Each faction now has a submachine gun that is useable by all classes except the MAX.

• TR: SMG-46 Armistice
• NC: AF-4 Cyclone
• VS: Eridani SX5

UI Updates

• A tiny bar that represents your progress towards earning your next cert point has been added to the cert point area on the HUD
• Players now have the ability to customize empire colors on the HUD. The game will default to our “Enemy vs. Ally” color preset. The default colors can be changed from the General section in Settings.
• The player’s total experience bonuses are now displayed on the HUD, above the minimap. Mousing over the component will display a tooltip which details the bonuses.
• Hotspots have been reworked. They have a much more visual representation on the map and are dependent on more precise and up-to-date activity metrics. Also, the color of the hotspots is now tied to the empire that is dominating the area.
  • With this change, “Instant Action” and “Hotspots” are no longer synonymous. Instant Action is meant to take you to a large fight where there’s already a significant amount of allies. Hotspots are visual cues for where fights are, regardless of whether you have a significant amount of allies there or not.
• Each column on the Outfit Members screen is now sortable.
• New “Report” window. Typing “/report <playername>” into text chat will bring up an improved reporting UI to better help players inform CS of hackers, griefers, and general nuisance.
• Clicking on player names with a bracket [] around them in the chat log and Voice & Chat screen will bring up a player actions menu with a variety of options: send message, add/remove friend, add/remove from squad, add/remove from outfit, and report.
• You can click and drag in the chat log and Voice & Chat page of the Social window to select text for copy/pasting.
• Added ignore list to Voice & Chat page of the Social window where you can view, add, and remove players that are ignored.
• More contextual player nameplates : squad members have a green circle with the squad member # next to the player name, squad leaders/platoon leaders have stars next to the name
• Smarter player indicator visibility logic using Line Of Sight ( LOS ) checks for non-squad/platoon allies to reduce HUD indicator clutter
• Better mechanism for determining when to display the player indicator name text
• Vehicle indicator nameplate inherits the nameplate style of the driver
• Delta squad platoon color changed from yellow to black to avoid confusion with Bravo squad coloring.
• Profile screen, leaderboards, stats page, and tab scoreboard screen have been polished to show BR icons and revised to de-emphasize K/D as an important metric. Facilities Captured and Facilities Defended stats have been added to help emphasize teamwork instead.
• Population bonuses (XP/Resources) are now granted based on continent population instead of server/world population.
• Updates to Character/Vehicle Loadout Screens:
  • Attachment button should always be visible on the Equipment page and the selected weapon view of the Equipment Edit page.
  • All weapons that have attachments will always display the Change Attachments button regardless of whether the player owns attachments or not.
  • All tabs for attachments/customizations of weapons will be visible regardless of whether the player owns that type of attachment or not.
    • Tabs for which the player owns no attachments will be displayed as disabled.
  • If the player owns no attachments for a particular weapon, the customization screen will display a “You have no attachments…” string.
  • A Get More button has been added to the Customization view of the Equipment Edit page that will link the player to the certs page for that particular weapon.
  • The Get More button that was on the Weapon Selection view has been changed to be gold (since it links to the marketplace).
  • All equipment that does not have attachments (suit slots, ability slots, melee slots, etc) no longer have an information panel.
  • The item selection now spans the whole screen and has the ability to display up to four columns of items.
  • The resupply and auto resupply button/checkbox has been moved up to the stats area for items that can be resupplied.
  • Weapons now display camo in the loadout UI
  • Loadout Weapon Stats Bars now use the same ticks as seen in the Marketplace
  • Larger loadout screen changes will be coming next month
• Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented individual squad leaders from within a platoon from promoting other members of their squad to leader status.
• Mousing over chat area on top left of screen now brings up the chat menu
• Heal/repair reticle does not clear out when it is at 100%
• Kill spam player names no longer have default red/green outer glow. The glow is now player type specific ( enemy, ally, squad member, platoon member…etc )
• Fixed resource icons for Mechanized and Infantry resources in the session stats panel of the tab scoreboard (they were swapped).
• Fixed an issue with grenade counts showing up as “1/0” when you were out of grenades.
• Fixed issue with icons for connected benefits not drawing at low resolutions.
• Added a stat tooltip to bundle items on the purchase preview screen- Items in bundles that have stats will have a stats tooltip when moused over on the purchase preview screen.
• Clicking on the command list button should now take you to the commands list, with the top of the commands list being visible. Also, updated list of commands with new commands and removed commands no longer used.
• Fix for wrong killspam icon showing up when a player crashes their own vehicle.
• Broadcast messages should no longer show up twice in the chatbox.
• Added music to the credits screen Music should start up when the player opens the credits screen.
• Better text positioning for weapon thumbnail labels and cert title bars to prevent truncation.
• Better loading indicator for in-game web browser
• Resource tooltip now scales with resolution on escape menu
• Not showing the vehicle slot on the vehicle health schematic on the HUD if the vehicle capacity is 1
• Instant Action and Redeploy buttons on the Map screen will now play a “ticking” sound effect during the 10 second countdown to activation.
• New sounds added for item unlock, broadcast, and medal earned notifications
• Back button has been added to Bug Submission page that will return the player to the Support Menu Back button has been added to Command List page that will return the player to the Support Menu
• Render Distance slider added to Graphics Settings
• Significant UI performance improvements

Experience Updates

• As an added bonus to our earliest supporters, we’ve increased the bonus percentage of our Alpha Squad boost to 50% resources and XP.
• Added tiered kill xp
  • Killing a player who has been alive for less than 10 seconds and has not earned more than 5 xp will yield a diminished “Spawn Kill” xp reward of 25 xp
  • Killing a player who has been alive for more than 10 seconds, or earned more than 5 xp and less than 1000 xp will yield a normal “Kill” xp reward of 100 xp
  • Killing a player who has earned equal to or more than 1000 xp but less than 2000 xp will yield an enhanced “High Threat Kill” xp reward of 150 xp
  • Killing a player who has earned equal to or more than 2000 xp will yield an enhanced “Extreme Menace Kill” xp reward of 300 xp
• Added Surface-to-Air Damage experience rewards
  • Applying a fair amount of damage to air vehicles while not in an air vehicle should now grant a 20 xp reward
• Increased Sunderer Kill xp
• Fixed a bug with the Sunderer ammo dispenser where a squaded driver did not receive xp from resupplying non-squadded friendly player vehicles
• The global population xp and resource reward adjustments should now be granted to players on a continent based on that continent’s population level instead of the world population level

Facility Updates

• Upgraded all spawn rooms to be more defensible. This should lead to less spawn camping.
• Adjusted the tower to help reduce spawn camping.
• Added Tunnels to the Amp Station and Tech plants. These tunnels are only accessibly by the defenders and emerge in key locations throughout the Facilities. This should lead to less spawn camping. (I see a theme)
• At all Amp Stations and Saurva and Andvari, we added faction specific Jump Pads. Only the facility owners can use these jump pads. This should make getting around in these bases a little trickier for attackers, but not impact the defenders.
• Warpgate ownership on all three continents were rotated.
• Redesigned the Biolabs. There is better cover at the landing platforms which should lead to more interesting fights there.

Audio Updates

• Optimized assets being loaded into memory.
• Optimized all factions infantry automatic weapons rate of fire. No longer dependent on composite effects.
• Added peak limiter on master bus to prevent explosions/multiple sounds from summing up and distorting
• Adjusted dynamic mixers during weapons firing, and menu screen.
• SMG’s unique audio for each faction
• NC and VS scout rifles have been assigned their correct firing sounds
• Fixed Flash grenade to play blast and “stunned” effect
• Fixed distorting issue with T1-S Cycler.
• G40-F Ranger had incorrect firing audio. Corrected.
• Increased possibility of playback on “travel” music cues

Other Bug Fixes

• Jump Jets should no longer fail to function after switching to a different class from the deployment screen
• Should no longer be able to get a vehicle into a bugged out state of invincibility
• IFF shields should once again consistently block enemy fire
• Engineers should no longer be able to maintain a repair even after they’ve entered the vehicle
• Plugged a hole in the world near Shadespire Farms
• Removed the pain field from the roof of the spawn room at Old Shore Checkpoint
• Addressed incorrect spawning behavior for vehicles created at Freyr’s Northern Barracks
• Fixed an issue that could prevent players from re-entering vehicles after they’d exited
• Fixed the spawn point at Jagged Lance Mine so it is properly tied to facility ownership
• Corrected the capture timer at the Tawrich Tech Plant tower.
• The Gate Shield at the Wokuk Shipping Dock will no longer persist when the generator is destroyed
• Corrected mismatched description text for MAX Flak Armor II
• The Hailstorm Turbo Laser’s 3rd and 4th tier magazine size upgrades should now give the correct amount of ammo
• Removed a phantom road from the minimap near the Mekala Tech Plant
• Players in a MAX should now be able to use Instant Action to hot drop to a hotspot on the continent they are on