"Balance Pass" info released!

[Chadly]

Sony has finally released the infamous "Balance Pass Document", outlining all the changes that will be made one it goes live. All I can say is... WOW.

http://planetside.station.sony.com/game_updates/future_plans.jsp?id=58534

-Chad

[DeathKiss]

hell yeah they are fixing the sky gaurd. Going to love it now.

We need to get pics with our knife glow if we want it. As an inf I love it. It looks like most of the changes will be good. Not sure I like the vanguard changes but we will see.

[rev]

Finally, the Striker has been brought back down to earth.

[Flattfoot]

yea.. I'm excited about the Skyguard upgrade as well. We'll truely kick ass now.

[Chadly]

Well, now that I finally got a chance to read the whole thing very carefully (I wrote the original message 2 minutes after the document was posted), here's some of my opinions:

1) Nerfed the Jackhammer. YAY! Doesn't matter how much they changed it, just knowing it was nerfed will make me feel better.

2) Nerfed the hell out of the Striker. It never really pertained to me (not a MAX, no veh certs), but it seems like it was overpowered just from listening to everyone else.

3) Nerfed the AI ability of the Lancer. Hmmm, nerf the AI but don't change the crappy AV ability? This isn't gonna be a popular change.

4) Modified MAX's. I suppose they will all-around be more intimidating on the battlefield, but I think the Pounder is gonna suffer some. The cut down the damage and doubled the ROF. Lots of reloading = lots of time for us to Decimate them. Quasar got lots of lovin', I might drop AV to pick it up. Sounds like a fast-moving MAX that could really kick ass.

5) Removal of jumping timer. This is great!! They also increased the stamina needed to jump to 10, so now we'll have all these l33t kiddies jumping around. You'll just have to avoid them for the first 5 seconds of combat, then let them run out of stamina and kill them while they try to walk away. Hahaha.

6) Aggrevated damage stacks!!! WOW!!! I absolutely love using a Lasher/Thumper loadout with lots of plasmas. This makes my job a whole lot easier, especially while defending on a base wall :twisted:

...now they just have to release the damn patch...

-Chad

[Flattfoot]

Skyguard...

Improved turret speed (tracks air targets more easily now)
Added up to 8X zoom (to identify incoming targets more easily)
ROF for the Flak Cannon has been increased.

OOOOO... Skyguard got another buff.

"Increased the damage of the 12mm machine gun bullets (all vehicles using those bullets gain this increase, as well)"

I just wish they would have uped the armor on it a bit more though.

It also seems that that Reavers got nerfed pretty well as well.

"Reaver

Rocket clip reduced to 16 (from 24). (design reduction) "

Come on.. bring on those TR flyboys now!! I'm ready for some freaking ownage.

[DeathKiss]

Yeah baby. I need to find a cert to lose so I can get a sky cert.

[Drizzt421]

Yay beamer buff. It is now officially the best sniper pistol ever! Wish they got rid of damage degradadion completely. Good thing were not hit by agrivated damage very often (only by plasmas, or wed be dead. Overall i think they did a good job.

Am I mistaken or did the damage for all chainguns get buffed? More power to skeeters!

[rev]

I like the approach here. Looks as if they tried to reduce as much of the instagib aspect of weaponry as possible.... and more importantly, get back to a theme for the weaponry while keeping an eye on the equivalent, yet unique, enemy-faction rendition. i.e. You make changes to weapon while keeping all faction weapons in mind. You do not buff the TR Prowler just because it is 'worse' than the other faction's tanks. You have to have a lot of trade-offs. No faction can have the best of everything. This is key and I think a lot of people that play TR and NC easily forget this.

The challenge to the developers was to create unique weaponry for each faction but evenly distribute their effectiveness in a given battle zone. Meaning, put the onus of a battle outcome on the skillset and decision-making of individuals not on the shoulders of weapon dependancy. People will continue to leave this game in hoards until they find a medium... and it looks like they finally figured this out per this weapon balance. I still think it's obvious that most of the devs do not play Vanu per the language they use when describing changes to each faction. ala... the pounder's damage per indivdiual round is being reduced to help in reducing grief, not in reducing it's instagib effectiveness on enemy factions. I think they could find a better way of justifying these updates.

[Rottencrotch]

[LilianNiN]

"The Beamer is now the most effective pistol against armor. It won't be taking out tanks anytime soon, but it can nick them to death slowly over time. (You may find it more effective against more lightly armed opponents. ; )"

Goofily written to mock?
Probably.

But anyway... I'm anxious to see how these changes will affect the flow of battles. I must say SOE looks like they have made intelligent decisions on the balancing modifications, for the most part.

[MuffinMonkey]

We should all get in the same spot and try to kill vanguards with beamers and make a video out of it :twisted:

[snipegrzywa]

I couldn't take a look at the site...I'm on the computers at school during study hall, but from what I've heard sounds awesome.


For Muffin Monkey's entry...
I'm in for that. :twisted: Not only would that look hilarious, but we could mock the guy till he quits.

[SirKibbleX]

I'm at school right now too :-(
(In social studies to boot!)

[elana]

The video I picture goes something like this:

You see a guy sneaking up to shoot a magrider with a beamer. He gets off a few shots, suprising the tank driver. Magrider then gets it together and runs him down.

Then you show the guy respawning. He goes up, dies again.

Now, respawn again and it's subtitled "10 minutes later". At this point, the Magrider drives up to where the guy just spawned and blows the hell out of his AMS and kills him.

"11 minutes later" guy spawns near tower and refuses to give up, runs to find mag, mag kills him.

"46 minutes later" guy runs out of tower, mag mows him.

"89 minute later" magrider driver gets out of his vehicle to finally repair the damage the beamer did. Guy with beamer runs up, and kills the driver before he can get back in. Then he keeps shooting the magrider.

"2 HOURS LATER" *BOOM* Magrider finally explodes

I NEEED A NEW COMPUTER SO I CAN MAKE MY MOVIES DAGNABIT :)