Planetside 2 - Oshur! The first new continent in a decade!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Planetside 2 - Oshur! The first new continent in a decade!

Whose fault is it?
	Smedly
	Higby
	Wrel

Skyl3lazer: Aug 27, 2007; [Dooting Stealthily]

The continent of OSHUR launches today!

Welcome back to Auraxis! Yes, this is the same Planetside 2 from 2012/2013, original by Sony Online Entertainment (now Daybreak Games), currently developed by Rogue Planet Games (a subsidary of DBG). It is still very active, is again being actively developed, and there's lots of stuff coming this year. Thanks to AggressivelyStupid for parts of this OP.

Yes, your old account works, and will have all your stuff as well. Some servers have been merged, so if you were on a server that wasn't Emerald, you might be now!

Planetside 2 is on Steam. It is also on PS4/5, but there is not crossplay, and I don't think there's any goon presence there.

:siren:

Most active goons are on Emerald (server) Vanu (faction) :siren:

Planetside 2 is a free to play, large, open world, three faction first-person shooter. It features territory control in a semi-persistant world, large battles featuring up to 1200 players per continent (400 per faction) on foot or in land/air vehicles. They battle to take territory on the ~~four~~ FIVE different continents, each with its own flavor, look, and playstyle. Every so often, an Alert will happen, triggering an hour and a half long period at the end of which the faction with the most territory will win a prize, and claim the continent! At least, until the next time the fight circles back.

The reason that this game has persisted, and even been growing again in 2020/2021, is due to the very unique nature of the game. Combat can go from small 2v2 infantry fights, and very organically become 96v96 combined arms slugs over the course of 15-20 minutes. The different natures of infantry, air, and ground vehicle combat, as well as the playstyles within them, creates an awesomely cool experience. Imagine being pushed back as you attempt to capture a building, only to see it get strafed by a friendly fighter, before an entire platoon of friendly troops drops behind the enemy out of a swarm of player-flown transports. Or being one of those saviors yourself! The fact that it's all individual players deciding where and how to attack means you get that kind of cool experience constantly. For whatever faults the game has, no other game can match those moments.

The game is NOT pay to win. Paying can get you skins or weapons. The weapons are either directly attainable via certs, or a visually different but identical statwise weapon is. Membership gives you faster queue to full continents, higher XP gain and members-only double XP weekends monthly, faster nanite regeneration (can pull vehicles more often), the ability to have your NSO mostly-permanently join a faction, and a small amount of premium currency monthly. Basically, money helps you get things faster, but not get better things.

So how does it work?

Combat takes place on the continents of Auraxis, which themselves are broken up into many territories. The number of continents available at any given time is based on the current server population, so if a continent is open, there's going to be at least some fights there. Controlling a base allows that faction's players to spawn there, as well as to spawn vehicles. Bases are connected via a "lattice," with connected bases being the front line of combat.

As a player participates in productive activities (such as kills, healing, construction, destruction, etc), they will earn experience, which will increase their character's battle rank and reward them with certification points. "Certs" are the main currency of PS2, and are used to improve class abilities, unlock completely new abilities, as well as to purchase implants, weapons, and attachments.

The current continents are:

Indar - An arid clusterfuck
Amerish - A mountainous boondoggle
Esamir - A snowy snafu
Hossin - A swampy butthole
Oshur - New! Who knows how it's terrible, we'll find out together!
Koltyr (Kind of) - A very tiny continent usually only active between 3-7AM EST. It's meant for super low playercounts. In the very near future, this will also open for alerts as a normal continent in low pop.

Latest Updates

The continent of Oshur has been added. This includes water, which you can go beneath, weapons that work in the water, and the ability for vehicles to interact with it in different ways. Routers have been nerfed, Banshees have been nerfed, and all in all it looks like it might actually be a fun patch. This is the first new continent in seven years. Also, the second campaign got changes so you can do the previous parts simultaneously. Chapter 2 is out now.

The :siren:

New Player Experience Update :siren:

has been released. There's a whole new tutorial, new areas in Sanctuary to help guide new players, they've redone the starting gear, and much more. This (September 2021) is probably the ideal time to join the game if you're a new player. In general, the weapons you're using are more appropriate for new players, and you won't have as many 'empty slots' on vehicles/etc. New players are now given default loadouts for vehicles, and there's more direction in what the classes do and how they work. They've also added colorblind modes, if that applies to you! Good on them, I don't see many games do that.

The NSO Overhaul is live. All players can now create NSO (robot) characters after doing a short mission, which act as mercenaries that fight for the lowest population faction. If you're a member, you can also spend some certs to set a home faction where you'll always spawn, can join an outfit, etc, though you can toggle back to mercenary mode after you do this.

Planetside 2 had ongoing campaign, which has some lore implications, but mainly has been reworking the continent of Esamir. It finished, but they've said more will come. (Campaign #2 for Oshur is out now)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5WI03ZT5Gk

If you haven't played since 2014

There's some new stuff that exists in game now! Depending on when you stopped last, here's some major changes:

You can only capture bases along a lattice connection, rather than hex adjacency
Vehicles a less powerful than they were, and there are more AV options (CAI)
Three new vehicles: Harassers, Valkyries, and Javelins (see Vehicle section)
Implants - Each infantry loadout has 2 slots for implants, which grant various sidegrade properties. For example, reducing screen shake, or letting you rechamber a bolt action faster if you kill with a headshot.
Bastions, Orbital Strikes, and Colossus Tanks exist now for Outfits. They're pulled with resources outfits gain for having the highest combined score among outfits capturing a base.
All ESFs have been normalized, except for the A2G weapons. No, the Reaver is not faster.
Signifigant base and continent changes, especially Esamir.
A Mission system, which lets you select goals to earn rewards like certs, XP, implants, and some weapons!
Construction has been added. Players can use the ANT vehicle to collect Cortium from nodes in the world, then build various buildings of dubious usefulness. This includes a Routing Spire, which can let you drop a spawn point literally anywhere!
The NSO faction has been added for members, a mercenary group whose robot players will fight alongside the lowest population faction with unique weapons and MAXes.
Sanctuary, a place you can spend various currency, and will have to redeploy away from every time you log in. Looks pretty though.

Notes on the New Player Experience

Planetside 2 can be a rough game for totally new players. There's a lot of depth, breadth, and quirks to the gameplay, and it can be pretty overwhelming. I highly recommend that you find people to play with, be it goons (see the bottom of this post), other friends you have (heh), or even just a random large outfit on the server you play on. The in-game tutorials and guides are currently pretty bad newly updated and good now. This is a great time to join as a new player.

All of us on SA that play this game are very very new player friendly, and are happy to offer advice/info/coaching/tips/etc.

:siren:

If nothing else, keep this in mind: Aim for the head, and if you're bored at a fight or because a fight is over, redeploy (U key default)! Don't walk between bases.

Missions

The in "Directives" menu tab (looks like a braided cord circle with a star in the middle) there is a "Missions" tab. There you can accept missions, which have various requirements, some harder, some easier. The difficulty is generally indicated by the 'rarity' of the mission. You can accept up to 5 a day (9 with membership), and as a new player they're a great source of Certs, ISO, and sometimes even weapons or implants. There's a handful of weapons available for each faction, shown here. For Vanu, the biggest highlight is probably the Ghost - our premier bolt-action rifle, and the all-faction NS Annihilator, the best dumbfire rocket launcher. The New Player Experience update removed these missions, but made it so you always get missions that reward each type of currency.

Planetside 2 has 3(ish*) factions vying for control of Auraxis. Each has their own faction traits, faction specific vehicles, and weapons. You can have characters on multiple factions on the same server.

An authoritarian government that leverages military might to maintain strict control over the colonial citizens. The Terran Republic is obsessed with the preservation of law and order through violence, and are thus seen by some to be an oppressive and dictatorial force, but many view the TR as the only hope for lasting security on Auraxis.

TR's gimmick is bullets. They have the fastest firing guns with deep magazines. Generally the lowest damage per hit, but that hardly matters when there's so much lead in the air. Shoot fast and shoot a lot with the Terran Republic. (Just don't shoot your friends)

Traitors. Rebels. Terrorists. These are words often associated with the New Conglomerate, However, to many the soldiers of the New Conglomerate are something else entirely: Heroes. Freedom Fighters. Protectors.

High damage but low RPM defines NC's faction flavor. They have some of the slowest firing, hardest hitting guns in the game. And shotguns, lots of shotguns. (Even on their tank)

A technocratic faction that believes humanity can only evolve by rediscovering and tapping the lost technology of the Vanu. The Vanu Sovereignty are a transhumanist cult of academics, intellectuals, and technology worshippers who believe that human destiny lies in the further development and exploitation of the alien technology.

VS strike a middle ground, with weapons that deal decent damage, have a decent rate of fire, but feature no bullet drop for 99% of their infantry weapons. They get a hover tank, and a hover plane. Some of their faction guns also have a unique "heat" mechanic, rather than relying on reloading. Also, spandex.

Nanite Systems Operatives, or NSO, are the "fourth faction" of Planetside 2. They have their own guns, vehicles, and look (robots), but when they actually deploy to Auraxis they are assigned to the faction with the least population on the continent. NSO weapons tend to be the middle of the pack in terms of damage per hit, range, and rate of fire, but where they excel is accuracy and consistency. They have low bloom, low recoil, and don't lose as much accuracy while moving. They now also have their own ESF - a "heavy fighter" called the Dervish, and an MBT called the Chimera that boasts a bunch of rumble seats in addition to the driver and gunner.

Don't try and lonewolf it :siren:

, this is first and foremost a team game. The scale of most fights will be beyond other games and as a new player you'll end up as fodder. Join an outfit as soon as you can! The most active goon group in the game is [GOKU] on the EMERALD SERVER, VS FACTION, although many of us have been playing for years and have characters of all factions. We do large ops every Saturday night, but people play throughout the week. Don't feel like the only way to play is with us though! Emerald always has 2-3 continents active during primetime, with weekends obviously having the largest populations. Even in off-hours there's often several large fights happening.

The PGS thread with discord and mumble (lol) info is here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3845393

Skyl3lazer fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Jan 26, 2022

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:00

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 14:19

Skyl3lazer: Aug 27, 2007; [Dooting Stealthily]

Planetside features 6 different infantry classes. You can switch between them any time you spawn, or at infantry terminals. MAXes work a little differently than the other 5.

All of the default guns for all of the classes for all of the factions are good. Don't spend early certs on weapons.

With the exception of certs spent on weapons, you'll get a cert refund at rank 15, so don't worry too much about where you put certs early. Just pick what seems fun, or ask!

Infiltrator is the stealthy class. They have access to snipers, obviously, but also SMGs that are devestating at close range. It isn't a lone wolf thing though! They have access to extremely powerful support capabilities with their motion trackers. Their class ability is a cloak.

Pros

Cloaking
Capable of hacking terminals, allowing friendly forces to use them.
Capable of using either sensor darts or motion spotters. Darts are a ranged scanning tool that will spot enemies within it's area of effect while Motion Spotters are placed on the ground and detect enemies that get near to it.

Cons

Lower base health. 100 less than any other class.

Common things to cert

Nanoweave (suit slot)
Cloak (ability) - There's a bunch of options, but you're going to be best served IMO with the nano-armor cloak.
Motion Spotter or Darts - These are an easy way for infils to get certs, since you get XP for every enemy killed while spotted by your device. Which you use is a personal choice, but I prefer the spotter.

Light Assault is all about mobility. They can fly around in various ways, carry C-4, close range weapons, and a tiny anti-vehicle "Rocklet" launcher. Their class ability is the jump jets.

Pros

Jetpacks! Go up and over, around, or below objects in bases with ease.
Access to C4 combined with the jetpacks and rocklets make them a very capable anti-vehicle class.

Cons

No particular long-range ability outside of bursting with your gun and hoping it hits.

Common things to cert

Nanoweave (suit slot). Noticing a pattern?
Jetpack of your choice. I'd stay away from Icarus, but they all have their uses.
C-4

Combat Medics are a midrange combat class with support abilities. Notice the word "combat" in front of the word "medic." You can turn your dumb dead friends into piles of certs with this class. They have access to a wide range of weapons, a healing/revive tool, C-4, and lots of other cool supporty tools. Many people reccomend them as a starting class because of their versatility, and for the certs you can get reviving people. The class ability is a healing field or shield battery.

Pros

You can heal hurt friendlies and revive dead idiots for certs. Good deal!
Wide range of available weapons, from almost-snipers to C-4.
Very powerful class abilities. The default healing field is almost as much of a survivability boost as the Heavy Assault's shield if used correctly.

Cons

Not very mobile, but also not as tanky or damage-y as the HA.

Common things to cert

You guessed it, Nanoweave (suit slot).
Medic Tool. Higher ranks let you revive and heal faster, which is very good for certs.
Nano Regen Field. Again, higher ranks = more healing = more killing.

The old OP didn't have a section for HA. Wild. Anyway,

The Heavy Assault is the primary front line class. They carry LMGs and Rocket Lauchers, and their class ability is the overshield.

Pros

Tankiest class by far due to overshield.
Very high damage potential.
The best AV and anti-MAX class beyond C-4 range.

Cons

Very limited mobility. You walk slower with the overshield on.
Your normal shields also take the longest to recharge.

Common things to cert

You actually start with Nanoweave maxed now I think so you dont even need to put certs in it.
Medkits. Higher ranks let you carry more at a time.
Overshield. The Adrenaline shield is considered the best at the moment.

Engineers are a device and vehicle support class. They are the only class that can repair vehicles, MAXes, and base objectives like generators. They have access to placeable turrets, ammo packs, various explosives, and a wide range of weapons (similar to the medic). They're generally not as strong in a 1v1 infantry situation, as their class ability is the only one that doesn't affect combat directly. That class ability is the ammo pack.

Pros

Can repair MAX suits, broken generators, and vehicles.
Able to drop ammo packs to keep your friends shooting and the certs flowing.
Access to various explosives: Tank mines, proximity mines, C4.
Shields regen sooner and faster than other classes.

Cons

Less good at 1v1 combat.

Common things to cert

Say it with me, Nanoweave (suit slot).
Repair Tool. It repairs better. That's good, as it's the main reason to play engineer.
Ammo Pack. The max rank will let you have two packs out at once, in addition to a wider range. That's certs in the bank.

MAXes are a force multiplier combat mech. They work a bit different than the other classes. For one, you can't spawn as them, you swap to them at infantry terminals (or sunderers). They cost a fair amount of nanites to pull, which is a fancy way of saying "you can only become one of these every so often so try not to die immediately." They have two weapons, one on each arm, which can be mixed, and more often, matched.

I didn't divide this in to pros/cons, because MAXes aren't directly comparable to other classes.

Being a MAX

Large pool of health.
High damage weapons.
Able to change weapons at a terminal to damage tanks, aircraft, or infantry.
Need an engineer to repair consistently, unless you use the worse ability.
Cannot be revived by revive grenades, and medics take longer to revive you.
Dies to orbital strikes, even indoors.
Has a target on its back for every single person with C-4 that sees you.
Not very mobile.
Cannot Redeploy. (Well you can, but you won't spawn in as a MAX when you respawn)
Cannot pilot vehicles.

Common things to cert

Flak Armor. Didn't see that coming, did you?
Other weapons, honestly. MAX abilities are all fine, but they shine in being very powerful at whatever you need them to do. Having 2x anti-vehicle arms is a more powerful boost than 5 seconds off of emergency repair or whatever.

I'm not going to give an in-depth guide to each vehicle, but a brief overview. This OP is pretty long anyway.

Pulling vehicles costs Nanites, which cap at 750 and regenerate automatically as you play. You can regenerate them faster with Implants, or by being a subscribing member.

Tanks

Main Battle Tank (MBT) - Each faction has its own MBT. They are, for TR/NC/VS/NSO respectively, the Prowler, Vanguard, Magrider, and Chimera. These large two-person vehicles are expensive to pull, can take a lot of damage, and can dish it right back out. They're generally used to defend or attack Sunderers or player bases.
Lightning - These are faction-ambiguous light tanks. They have a single driver, deal a lot of damage, but also explode at a stiff breeze. They're used most effectively as flanking vehicles, dealing the extra bit needed to kill off other armor before it can retreat. Also very good at hunting hidden Sunderers.
Harasser - These are """transport""" vehicles. They can carry up to 3 people: A driver, gunner, and rumble seat passenger. Despite their classification, they're extremely dangerous combat vehicles with a good crew. They're very fast, have powerful weapons, are surprisingly tanky, and the rumble seat person (or gunner, switching seats) can shoot while on the move.

Aircraft

Empire Specific Fighters (ESF) - Each faction has its own ESF. They are, for TR/NC/VS/NSO respectively, the Mosquito, Reaver, Scythe, and Dervish. They are single-pilot vehicles (except for the Dervish), and feature a hybrid hover/flight model more similar to a 6DOF game like Descent than a battlefield game. They are extremely skill based and unfriendly to new players.
Liberator - This three-person plane is the "bomber" of Planetside 2. The pilot has a gun, the gunner has a big gun, the tail gunner has a gun. Lots of guns. Proprely flown, they're the most dangerous things in the game, and I hate them forever.
Valkyrie - Another """transport""" vehicle, these seat up to 6 players - a pilot, gunner, and 4 rumble seats. While oftentimes actually used in their role to transport (unlike Harassers), they boast a high manuverability, decent firepower, and 4 rumble seats. The rumble passengers can fire out of the craft, meaning things like lock-on launchers can make Valks a real threat.

Support Vehicles

Sunderer - The most important vehicle in the game. A Sunderer is a 12 person bus, with 2 top gunners. It's tanky as hell, not very fast, and packs a decent punch when crewed. The big point of it, however, is that it can deploy to become a mobile spawn point. This is the backbone of attacking a base: while the defenders have a spawn room, attackers must bring their own logistics. The sunderer is the most common and reliable way to put a spawn at a base.
Flash - These are 2-person quad bikes. Don't be entirely fooled though, they can also carry some limited yet effective firepower, and when driven by an infiltrator can even cloak (with the right equipment). An easy way to get in to a hex that you can't remotely spawn in to.
Javelin - An NSO-only vehicle, it's a weird rear end hover bike that I assume has a purpose. I see people fly around with them in insane ways though so that's pretty fun.
ANT - This is a resource harvester for player construction. Don't worry about it until you're at the point you have spare certs.

LIST OF THINGS NOT COVERED IN THE OP

I've intentionally left out some stuff from this OP, for length and because it's just so much to explain. Please, feel free to ask about this stuff in the thread or discord or in game. If someone makes a good post about them I'll link it here. This includes:

Implants
Spawn System
Currencies
How to fly/shoot/drive properly
Construction
Routers
How alerts work, meltdowns, etc.
Bastions/Colossus
ASP
Outfit Abilities (Orbital Strikes, Tactical Slot, etc)
Recursion
Graphics Settings
What gun is good and which 1 sux

ONE LAST TIME

:siren:

Don't Play Alone!!!! :siren:

The most active goon group in the game is [GOKU] on the EMERALD SERVER, VS FACTION, although many of us have been playing for years and have characters of all factions.

The PGS thread with discord and mumble info is here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3845393

Fs in the chat to crouch spam, time to get lost in the new bases!

FREE STUFF CODES: https://levvvel.com/planetside-2-codes/

Skyl3lazer fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Sep 15, 2021

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:01

2fat4sex: Apr 18, 2005

I've been playing this game for nine years now, please send help

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:01

drunk mutt: Jul 5, 2011; I just think they're neat

This is a video game.

This is a poo poo post.

That is all.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:04

honda whisperer: Mar 29, 2009

Also been playing since release. God help me.

Never play alone.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:05

Skyl3lazer: Aug 27, 2007; [Dooting Stealthily]

2fat4sex posted:

I've been playing this game for nine years now, please send help

I checked my STATS and it says I first played 11/20/2012.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:06

nullfunction: Jan 24, 2005; Nap Ghost

I've been playing this dumb franchise since 2003, suck it nerds.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:10

Mustarde: Oct 26, 2014; Connoisseur of fine IPA`s and Chili with beans!
Lover of mayonnaise and anime!

was a JFG and it's been 6 years

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:17

pakman: Jun 27, 2011

The discord overlords told me to post here.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:25

Acerbatus: Jun 26, 2020; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Are the microtransactions still totally hosed or did they finally relent on that?

Same w/ infinite sunderer wars.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:42

itry: Aug 23, 2019

Is the Prowler still hot garbage? It hasn't been the same since the horrible lockdown nerfs.

Edit:

Acerbatus posted:

Are the microtransactions still totally hosed or did they finally relent on that?

Same w/ infinite sunderer wars.

Bus trains aren't a thing anymore, afaik. Not only were all the sundie weapons nerfed into the ground, the repair aura only works at 50% on other buses.

That's what I remember anyway. I haven't played in over a year.

Edit: loving hell. This game is a GaaS MMO from 2012 and I still sometimes think about playing it.

itry fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Apr 29, 2021

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:44

Victory Position: Mar 16, 2004

it's that time again, it's time to post GINYU FORCE RULES

been doing so since 2014, oh my god lmao

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:54

RocketRaygun: Nov 7, 2015

Last time I played this game, I rode KV's sky chariot and farmed like a hundred kills.

Before that, I FC'd 100%ing connery in server smash.

GINYU FORCE RULES

# ? Apr 29, 2021 19:57

Skyl3lazer: Aug 27, 2007; [Dooting Stealthily]

itry posted:

Is the Prowler still hot garbage? It hasn't been the same since the horrible lockdown nerfs.

Edit:

Bus trains aren't a thing anymore, afaik. Not only were all the sundie weapons nerfed into the ground, the repair aura only works at 50% on other buses.

That's what I remember anyway. I haven't played in over a year.

Edit: loving hell. This game is a GaaS MMO from 2012 and I still sometimes think about playing it.

Prowler is the best MBT in the game currently. It's fast for some reason, and just has 50% more damage than every other MBT for some reason. Anchor is a passive ability of the vehicle so you always have it, and its utility slot was replaced with Barrage, giving it 30% faster reload half of the time. You can use Barrage while moving though, so you dont have to Anchor to get the reload speed buff.

Also confirming that chaining sunderers doesn't really work anymore. Big armor columns are definitely a mix of vehicles now.

Skyl3lazer fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Apr 29, 2021

# ? Apr 29, 2021 20:05

some kinda jackal: Feb 25, 2003; �
�

Someone send me a video card so I can goku it up again

tia

# ? Apr 29, 2021 20:25

Mustarde: Oct 26, 2014; Connoisseur of fine IPA`s and Chili with beans!
Lover of mayonnaise and anime!

Martytoof posted:

Someone send me a video card so I can goku it up again

tia

Good luck getting one out of the bitcoin mines

# ? Apr 29, 2021 20:30

Leal: Oct 2, 2009

gently caress don't make me tempted to come back to this dumb game I already put over 2k hours in it

# ? Apr 29, 2021 20:34

some kinda jackal: Feb 25, 2003; �
�

Mustarde posted:

Good luck getting one out of the bitcoin mines

I guess I�ll be back when they open the next continent in 2030

# ? Apr 29, 2021 20:50

honda whisperer: Mar 29, 2009

Martytoof posted:

Someone send me a video card so I can goku it up again

tia

If I ever see one I'll grab it, no spares atm.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 21:09

Baron of Bad News: Aug 4, 2009

KDR check. Mine is 6.9420. :smugdog:

# ? Apr 29, 2021 21:12

Skyl3lazer: Aug 27, 2007; [Dooting Stealthily]

Martytoof posted:

I guess I�ll be back when they open the next continent in 2030

"Supposedly" we're getting a new cont this year, but we've seen 0 evidence of it.

Leal posted:

gently caress don't make me tempted to come back to this dumb game I already put over 2k hours in it

Do it, it's just bandwidth

# ? Apr 29, 2021 21:17

Westy543: Apr 18, 2013; GINYU FORCE RULES

Game bad, DO NOT PLAY

-says woman with 6,000 hours in this game. Come get some goddamn spandex and disco

# ? Apr 29, 2021 21:45

itry: Aug 23, 2019

Skyl3lazer posted:

Anchor is a passive ability of the vehicle so you always have it, and its utility slot was replaced with Barrage, giving it 30% faster reload half of the time.

Yeah, I know. That's one of the nerfs.

Leal posted:

gently caress don't make me tempted to come back to this dumb game I already put over 2k hours in it

If I actually had my game time written somewhere I expect I'd be pretty depressed at seeing it.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 21:51

Arghy: Nov 15, 2012

Arghy ops 2 hours from this post, come shoot some mans while we all get progressively drunker.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 23:04

Rexxed: May 1, 2010; Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

I play this game almost every day. It's got a learning curve, but it's better than almost all these new FPSes that are battle royales or whatever. If you used to play Tribes or Tribes 2 it's got the same feel with multi crewed vehicles, large numbers of people to fight with for base control, and adaptable load outs for your character (although the gunplay was lifted from BF:BC2 which I didn't like at first but have gotten decent at). You can also do a lot of different activities because there's no one way to play it. You can be the heavy guy gunning down everyone, a medic supporting the front line, sneaky infiltrator stabbing the enemy medics in the back, vehicle guy gunning down a bunch of gathered opponents, or whatever strikes your fancy.

In 2011 my PC could barely handle it and most of my upgrades have been for PS2. CPU is more important than GPU past a certain point as well (GTX 1080 runs 1440p just fine but the CPU can't keep 100+ FPS when the fights get big enough). The game is badly optimized but new hardware from the last five years or so can handle it decently.

If you're new you should probably join up with goons. I play lone wolf style, single person outfits. It's not for everyone and if you're new you'll have a bad time.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 23:20

Chillgamesh: Jul 29, 2014

Bears repeating that the default guns are good on every infantry class for every faction and you should cert out your tools and gadgets before even thinking about unlocking a gun unless it's the H-V45 or the VX6-7 you should definitely get those first.

This game is almost a decade old lmao. I just joined the GOKU discord, is there any auth poo poo I need to do to prove I'm not a bot or whatever

ed: yes there is

# ? Apr 29, 2021 23:36

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

Could we maybe get a more focused explanation on why this is getting a new thread in TYOOL 2021. What has changed, specifically, recently, that's worth getting hype about.

Not doubting you but that part seemed a little light on the details.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 23:42

Rexxed: May 1, 2010; Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

Captain Oblivious posted:

Could we maybe get a more focused explanation on why this is getting a new thread in TYOOL 2021. What has changed, specifically, recently, that's worth getting hype about.

Not doubting you but that part seemed a little light on the details.

At the end of last year they added a campaign story. The northeast warpgate on Esamir (the ice continent) exploded and there was mysterious stuff going on with hints about the alien technology that creates the warpgates (these are the big domed areas each faction enters a continent from). In practical terms this meant that there were missions to work through for the campaign that would get you some campaign bucks and tell a story.

Chapter 1 of the campaign was kind of bad with some stupid MMO style quests like collecting 50 fruit from a plant that was impossible to find until the fervor for harvesting them died down. They seem to have learned from the feedback that people do not like that boring "find me 50 bear asses" tedium in their shootermans game and things have improved.

Chapter 2 was a lot better, most of the campaign quests revolved around building bases or destroying bases around uncontained energy areas on Esamir. There was a little tedium but they seem to have realized that people are more interested in doing missions if they actually involve playing the game where you shoot people.

Chapter 3 is beginning on May 5th and the patch that includes a lot of the set pieces (new bases and continent redesign) it will take place on went live yesterday. It includes three new large bases on Esamir called Containment Sites which are big bases with new designs for indoor areas to fight in and new tactics are required. Not sure what the missions will be for the campaign yet but just having a new kind of base that's been designed decently to fight in seems like a good thing. I messed around in the containment sites for a couple of hours last night and despite a couple of small bugs they were pretty good.

edit: they've also spoken about future plans after this campaign finishes up. There's a new continent that's been in the works for a year or two that we may actually see before long. NSO access will be available for everyone, it's been a paid account perk only since it went in (I like NSO despite some equipment deficiencies, I'm about to aurax my third Naginata variant).

Rexxed fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Apr 29, 2021

# ? Apr 29, 2021 23:53

Cowcaster: Aug 7, 2002

wow it's nearly as been as long between the release of planetside 2 and the present as it was between planetside 2 and planetside

# ? Apr 29, 2021 23:54

Chillgamesh: Jul 29, 2014

Captain Oblivious posted:

Could we maybe get a more focused explanation on why this is getting a new thread in TYOOL 2021. What has changed, specifically, recently, that's worth getting hype about.

Not doubting you but that part seemed a little light on the details.

The game has changed a lot since the last time (~2015?) there was a really active PS2 thread in Games, astonishingly for the better. The game is a lot more newbie-friendly because you start off with a ton of gear auto-unlocked, and a bunch of gear (like the Nanoweave Armor mentioned eighty times in the OP) has been balanced in such a way that it no longer provides a massive edge to players that grind (rank 1 nanoweave armor now gives the same small arms resistance as rank 5, rank 5 just also protects against other weapons besides infantry guns), and in general the unlock cost of a lot of important stuff has been reduced. Implants were also rebalanced. Instead of being irritating consumables that time out and have to be replaced, they're now essentially Call of Duty perks that let you do really fun and interesting stuff, like actually use your personal turret on Engineer without dying instantly, or jumping twice as high.

Furthermore, there's an ongoing story campaign now, and they just yesterday put out a new gigantic base type on Esamir (the snow continent), which has for like the fifth loving time been redesigned again as well.

The game still has some pretty glaring flaws (HA with medkits, the airgame in general) but it's in its best state yet imo.

# ? Apr 29, 2021 23:57

Baron of Bad News: Aug 4, 2009

Cowcaster posted:

wow it's nearly as been as long between the release of planetside 2 and the present as it was between planetside 2 and planetside

Time for Planeside 3 then?

# ? Apr 30, 2021 00:01

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

Rexxed posted:

Good posts

Chillgamesh posted:

Good posts

Thanks folks. This is good material to make a case to Friends (tm) for loving about.

# ? Apr 30, 2021 00:10

Rexxed: May 1, 2010; Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

LiberalExtinction posted:

Time for Planeside 3 then?

It kind of feels unlikely. Sony Online Entertainment got sold off to form Daybreak games a few years ago. Recently Daybreak split off the PS2 developers to Rogue Planet Games which I guess is owned by Daybreak. They've always done poorly with monetization for this game since almost everything in the cash shop is too expensive if it's not on sale. I think having everything be cheaper would probably let them sell much more quantity. The membership can be worthwhile if you play a lot but I've seen folks just opt to buy 30 day nanite or xp boosts to get what they want out of membership at a lower cost. I've honestly just done membership for years and usually get an anniversary bundle every year if it's got stuff I'd like, but I play often. I think the Halloween event in 2019 got me re-addicted to shooting planetmen.

# ? Apr 30, 2021 00:11

honda whisperer: Mar 29, 2009

Captain Oblivious posted:

Could we maybe get a more focused explanation on why this is getting a new thread in TYOOL 2021. What has changed, specifically, recently, that's worth getting hype about.

Not doubting you but that part seemed a little light on the details.

Also a bunch of racists from iFunny.com made a TR outfit and we've been hunting them for sport on Saturday nights. They got disbanded for doxxing someone recently but if they reform we'll go back to our mission from god to make them rage quit forever.

# ? Apr 30, 2021 00:16

Rexxed: May 1, 2010; Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

I forgot to mention that a year or so back they added a bunch of perks for Outfits (guilds/clans/whatever). On the one hand they are annoying as a lone wolfer but they're also kind of cool since they tend to be BIG. The main ones that make a difference to the front lines on each continent are the Bastion, a huge air fortress that rains death on everything, and the second is the Coloussus, a big tank that can transform into a mode that shoots giant death beams that can badly hurt the Bastion (and pops a lot of other vehicles).

I've only got a couple of old screenshots of Bastions but they're pretty impressive in game (and they'd look better if I turned up my graphics but you know, gotta get those high framerates for infantry shooting). I've landed on enemy bastions and tried to C4 them but there's point defense turrets if someone notices you so it didn't go so well and I didn't take screenshots. Also while they're mostly meant for big outfits since they take multiple people to crew I've totally got a couple ready to spawn in my one man outfit armories because they're not that hard to unlock, it's just slower and more pointless than if you're in a big outfit. Most of my outfit resources go to ANVIL (dropping a vehicle where I am instead of having to go to a base to get one) or doing orbital strikes which are both terrible and funny.

Anyway here's a little gallery of seeing bastions in game (and one exlpoding):
https://imgur.com/a/V4FtYGd

# ? Apr 30, 2021 00:28

Skyl3lazer: Aug 27, 2007; [Dooting Stealthily]

Yeah there's just so much poo poo to describe in the game that I couldn't realistically make an op to cover it all. If people want to make an effort post about one of the topics in the "not in the OP" section at the end, or on a topic that I forgot entirely, please do and I'll link to it.

The reason for the thread timing is the new esamir map and campaign, and I figured we might as well start getting people back in to it ahead of the NPE/NSO update later this year. I think it's a good time for people to get in to the game.

# ? Apr 30, 2021 00:33

nightwisher: Dec 24, 2004

Oh nice, I haven't played this in years. Sadly, looks like the oceanic population is dead and buried and the asian servers have worse latency than america (I'm in australia). Is it worth trying to play with 200ms ping?

# ? Apr 30, 2021 00:57

Skyl3lazer: Aug 27, 2007; [Dooting Stealthily]

nightwisher posted:

Oh nice, I haven't played this in years. Sadly, looks like the oceanic population is dead and buried and the asian servers have worse latency than america (I'm in australia). Is it worth trying to play with 200ms ping?

Arghy plays from Hawaii and seems to think it's fine.

# ? Apr 30, 2021 01:05

honda whisperer: Mar 29, 2009

nightwisher posted:

Oh nice, I haven't played this in years. Sadly, looks like the oceanic population is dead and buried and the asian servers have worse latency than america (I'm in australia). Is it worth trying to play with 200ms ping?

Grab a shotgun and sprint around corners? You'll die to some BS but if you use the lag to your advantage it could work.

# ? Apr 30, 2021 01:18

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 14:19

Rexxed: May 1, 2010; Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

nightwisher posted:

Oh nice, I haven't played this in years. Sadly, looks like the oceanic population is dead and buried and the asian servers have worse latency than america (I'm in australia). Is it worth trying to play with 200ms ping?

Yeah, it gets called Clientside a lot since it has a lot of client side prediction. Basically, if your client thinks you landed shots on someone you do. You'll only be at a reactionary disadvantage because there's pretty low time to kill in the game but people will be calling you a lag wizard when you get final shots on them after they thought they ducked behind a wall or whatever. Even with a 25 ms ping I get killed behind things a lot due to this. The other thing is that they added a death screen showing your killer and because of the small delay between your death animation and showing the screen people will often call others out on shooting them through walls or whatever even though they just hopped back into cover right after the kill. There are hackers now and then in the game but they seem to be rare and almost none of them are doing that kind of basic "landing shots in what's a fair fight but sometimes seems sketchy" thing, they're mostly teleporting around or always landing headshots from a mile away with an inaccurate gun, and seem to get caught pretty quickly when mass reported.

I see a lot of asian players on Connery (the west coast server) so that may have a better ping for you, but I don't know if there's any big goon presence there. In fact I doubt there is since GOKU and their alt faction outfits on NC and TR on Emerald (east coast server) are the only actual goon organizations I know of. There is a GOON on NC Emerald but I don't think that's been goons since The Drama of 2013 or whenever that all went down.

Rexxed fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Apr 30, 2021

# ? Apr 30, 2021 01:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Planetside 2 - Oshur! The first new continent in a decade!

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