Vehicle nerf is huge. I agree that making resources count is worthwhile (I was spamming Lightnings and Vanguards on cooldown last night as part of a continuous push into a heavily fortified VS position) but this seems to be a bad way of going about it. Full disclosure; I just put ~700 certs into the two NC tanks last night.
Firstly it's a snowball mechanic.
The only time I remember people not having the resources to pull vehicles was when we were warpgated and trying to push back out. Your income is based on the territory you control on the continent you are playing on. No territory, no income. Given the new alerts force fights onto continents that might otherwise be abandoned as impossible that's going to leave a lot of people trying to push into superior enemy forces without any resource income. Used to be you could still pull at least a few vehicles on cooldown before going bankrupt. That's massively decreased now.
Secondly it's going to dictate where people fight.
Back when I was stocking up on all the infantry resources (I try to keep 40/40 on at least the various explosives) I was focusing on biolab fights. Because you get some bonus resources alongside XP based on the resource granted by that facility fighting in a biolab would quickly max out my infantry resource. Actually, that's not true.
Camping in a biolab would max out my infantry resource multiple times in a few minutes. If I was lucky enough to get inside the spawn of a zerg camped biolab I could earn and spend a couple thousand infantry resources from the turkey shoot. Without doing a damned thing to help my faction.
If other people know this and these changes go through expect to see dedicated pilots and tankers who are out of their favoured resource focusing on fights that grant them that resource rather than the most useful place to actually fight.
Thirdly it's a stealth fury nerf.
The fury was listed for a nerf (reduced to a two-hit kill while the Renegade got buffed to one-shot infantry on the PTS). Then it went on premium sale. Then it didn't get nerfed. Nerfing the Flash altogether seems to be their solution to avoid changing the weapon itself. Also seems to be targeted at people who pull multiple Flashes to hand out to their squad (although they can still get five to play with if they want to burn all their resource).
My preferred solution to this would be add a weapon cost when pulling a Flash. Make base Flash 25, one with a gun 100. Or even add scaling for other attachments as well. I'd happily pay 150 for my radar/Kobalt/stealth Flash if I could drop the attachments and grab a 25 resource transport or 50/75 version with radar alone. I don't think this is needed anywhere else (no other vehicle has such direct and significant upgrades) but for Flashes it makes sense.
Fourthly it's a stealth nerf to MAX spam.
The biggest problem with ZOE MAXes wasn't how good they were but that suddenly every VS player realised they could play a MAX. When they pretty much replace standard infantry in most fights it's getting a little excessive. Add to that that they were a cheap and effective source of AA and pulling a MAX was just the default option in a lot of cases.
Of course, this is hard to balance in any case. A MAX can be revived and swap out weapons so even resource/timer changes aren't always that effective at limiting their numbers. People who choose to MAX spam can probably afford to give up spending infantry resources on other things because, well, MAXes don't use other resources. If you get a good MAX pull in a biolab you can probably farm up enough infantry resources during that life to pull another one on cooldown.
The only real positive aspects I can think of are;
1) It makes engineers and gunners far more valuable. A MBT is now worth a lot more. Keeping it alive is more important and maximising it's usefulness is even more important. I happen to love running as a gunner, especially in the new Halberd Vanguard, and always make sure I change to engineer first to be the first-responder repairer while doing so. A Halberd Vanguard with a halfway awake gunner (I think I'm at least decent; I've started hitting Scythes semi-reliably with the thing) is more than doubly effective compared to a basic HEAT/AP Vanguard, regardless of the other upgrades. If that gunner can occasionally jump out to repair through incoming damage all the better.
Not everyone enjoys this playstyle and it can be a crapshoot finding a decent driver (let alone a decent driver who doesn't already have a dedicated outfit-mate gunner) but it makes me feel valuable damnit.
2) It encourages outfit ops. If you are coordinating and playing as an organised group you are going to be doing everything more slowly and conservatively than solo/PUG/zerg players would. Playing ops already means keeping your vehicles available as much as possible so you can drop into a new role when required. It means having other players around to give you more ways to be effective. Even in a dedicated armour or air squad you can usually find a gunner, repairer or other support position while waiting for a cooldown. Trying to do this in a PUG is often an exercise in frustration (and in a zerg an exercise in being run over or the vehicle you jumped into charging an enemy stronghold).
This will hurt coordinated outfits as well, but somewhat less so than the general PUG/zerg.
3) Vehicle certs will feel more valuable now. Even if you get to use them less. Oh, and except cooldown timer certs.
As for the other changes...
Shotgun nerf;
Hits the Scat MAX hard. Again. And I've already seen Falcon MAXes inside biolabs (and by seen I mean been TKed by).
Other than that I'm kinda OK with it. I've been messing about with the Piston and Light Assault and it is a disgustingly easy playstyle. Making it a little harder (less range spraying) without completely destroying it seems sensible to me. I shouldn't be able to beat a carbine/SMG user who gets a line on me outside 10m.
ZOE;
Sure, sounds good.
IRNV;
Wait to see. Sounds like it might be useless as a general scope now. Adding sway to the soft range limitations seems like a little much. I tend to go between this and the reflex on the guns where it's useful and I always end up missing the one when I'm using the other. Adding any further drawbacks to the NV suggest I'm going to be maining reflex sights again.
Faction heavy weapons;
Dunno about the Jackhammer, but might be a worthwhile alternative to the Piston. Already started seeing more Lashers and MCGs so this might mean a new round of their being spammed. Could be interesting, could be annoying. Wait and see.
Sunderer no-deploy zones;
Sounds fun to me.
UBGL change;
I've used this enough that I'm sure I'm going to pull the wrong weapon a lot, but makes sense for those who aren't already used to it. That said, I don't like not being able to switch using the mouse wheel or directly to the GL from a weapon other than the carbine. If there was an option to list it as a separate weapon I'd take that.
Flak/Skyguard changes;
Hopefully this makes the Skyguard more valuable while still letting burster MAXes be somewhat effective. Sounds reasonable so far, except that the resource changes are going to hurt both options anyway. I still doubt we will see many Skyguards. I can actually see dedicated pilots having a field day if this leads to reduced AA.
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Topic: Planetside 2: Free-to-Play MMOFPS. 2000 players/server. (Read 1134936 times)