Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Planetside 2’s next patch squashes bugs and boosts firepower

Earnest Cavalli
By

Planetside 2“I’ve said before that while 2012 was the year that Planetside 2 launched, 2013 is the year when we’re opening up the afterburners and aiming for the stars. After a well earned rest the team is energized and ready to get back to ‘kicking *** and fixing bugs. And we’re all ou–‘ er, oh yeah, okay, we’ve still got some bugs to fix.”

Those words come courtesy of Planetside 2 creative director Matt Higby. They serve as a preface to a post Higby recently wrote on the Planetside Universe forums which details the upcoming patch scheduled to hit the MMO at some point before the end of January. The list of changes and alterations made by SOE in this addition are pretty sizable, so let’s take a look at the list and see what jumps out at us:

Related Videos
  • General performance increases, particularly for lower end GPUs
  • Experience (XP) system enhancements:Server transfer token available in Depot
    • Dynamic XP system for player kills, players who have more kills are worth more XP. Freshly spawned players will be worth a fraction of the current kill reward.
    • Partial damage XP for dealing damage to vehicles that you don’t end up killing
    • Population XP / Resource bonus moved over to continent population instead of global
    • Better display of XP sources for things like defensive bonuses & population bonuses
    • Rebalancing of XP rewards to help support tasks
  • UI changes to emphasize score per minute as a primary metric of player comparison
  • Sortable columns on outfit management & addition of “last online” column
  • New weapon type for all empires: SMG
  • Short period of invulnerability will be added to freshly spawned / revived players – breaks upon game actions such as entering a vehicle or using a weapon.
  • Dynamic / player configurable colors for minimap & overhead indicators for enemies, friendlies, and squads within a platoon
  • New Hot Spot system that displays where active fights are occurring on the map
  • New spawn buildings with more exits, protected balconies and easy roof access to make them less campable.
  • Tunnel systems for amp and tech facilities to give access from spawn rooms to interior of bases and base walls without having to go above ground.
  • Making MAXes render more reliably at long distances for players in vehicles
  • AA improvements, notably flak changes for turrets and skyguards, giving them some better ability to aim, although not drastically impacting their DPS.
  • Fixes to missiles so that they more reliably detonate and actually blow stuff up
  • Air vehicle weapon tweaks
  • Increases to reload speed for certain HE ground vehicle weapons

Higby additionally claims that the patch includes “lots of bug fixes,” though after reading the above bullet points we’re far more intrigued by two particular entries: namely the addition of a new submachine gun and those listed changes to the game’s user interface.

Related

The first point stands out for one simple reason: Planetside 2 has been lambasted by fans since its debut for including too few weapons. SOE has long claimed that it would be adding weapons and vehicles to the game as time goes on, yet to date we’ve seen little progress on that front. The addition of a new submachine gun to each of the game’s three factions won’t upset game balance and is unlikely to make other weapons obsolete, yet it shows that SOE is dedicated to expanding Planetside 2 for at least the foreseeable future. Plus, new toys to shoot at other virtual soldiers are always welcome.

We see those UI changes, by contrast, as an indication that while SOE has publicly banned any and all modifications to the Planetside 2 client, at least it realizes that people will always want to expand and improve on a game’s default user interface. Any changes SOE makes will likely pale next to the alterations that could be achieved by a third-party modification, but at least the company is throwing players a bone by changing the game’s UI to be more user-friendly. We’d still prefer the option to mod the game, but at least this is something, right?

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
PlayStation VR2 launches in February and it costs more than a PS5
PlayStation VR2 headset on blue background.

Sony finally announced that the PlayStation VR2 will release on February 22, 2023. It'll cost notably more than its predecessor, with base models retailing for $550.
In a PlayStation Blog post, Sony confirmed that preorders for the VR headset in North America will begin on November 15 on the PlayStation Direct website. Players will have the option to purchase the basic version for $550, a bundle with Horizon Call of the Mountain for $600, and a $50 charging station for the PlayStation VR2's Sense controllers. 

First announced in February 2021, Sony has since slowly rolled out details about its next-generation VR headset and revealed some games for it. Information like the release date and price remained a mystery until today, though. Now, not only do we know when to expect the title and how much it will cost, but we learned about even more games coming to PlayStation VR2. 
A separate PlayStation Blog post announced new games and ports coming to the platforms. These include The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR by Supermassive Game, Crossfire: Sierra Squad by Smilgate, The Light Brigade by Funktronic Labs, Cities VR - Enhanced Edition by Fast Travel Games, Cosmonious High by Owlchemy Labs, Hello Neighbor: Search and Rescue by tinyBuild Games, Jurassic World Aftermath Collection by Coatsink, Pistol Whip VR by Cloudhead Games, Zenith: The Last City by Ramen VR, After the Fall by Vertigo Games, and Tentacular by Firepunchd Games.
Specific release dates for those games weren't shared, but considering that Tentacular, Zenith: The Last City, Hello Neighbor: Search and Rescue, Cosmonious High, Cities VR, and The Light Brigade will be available for preorder starting on November 15, it's likely that those games will come out around the PlayStation VR2's launch.
The PlayStation VR2 launches on February 22, 2023.

Read more
Overwatch 2 DDoS attack results in launch day server woes
Sombra's new look in Overwatch 2.

Overwatch 2 finally launched today, but it's been tough to consistently enjoy the game because of long virtual queue lines to start playing and other server issues once you're actually in a match. According to Activision Blizzard, a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) attack is to blame for these day-one server woes.
"Unfortunately, we are experiencing a mass DDoS attack on our servers," Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra tweeted on October 4 shortly after thanking players for their excitement and apologizing for server issues. "Teams are working hard to mitigate/manage. This is causing a lot of drop/connection issues."
https://twitter.com/Qwik/status/1577396593153564672

Overwatch 2 is a completely online game, so a DDoS attack that targets the game's servers and is hard to quell is obviously a major issue for both the players and developers. No individual group has taken credit for the DDoS attack at this time, and the server issues are ongoing at the time of writing. 
 
This is a very rough situation for Overwatch 2 to be in for the embattled Activision Blizzard. In 2021, reports of harassment and discrimination all across Activision Blizzard arose, causing player sentiment to turn against the company and developers to walk out and unionize. The fallout of this can still be felt as recently as today when the National Labor Relations Board called out Activision Blizzard for denying union activists raises.
 
Overwatch 2 is also the first new game from Blizzard following the announcement of Microsoft's impending acquisition and trying to revive a live service franchise that's been ignored for a couple of years, so there's a lot of pressure on this launch that a DDoS attack certainly doesn't help. Later in the day, Overwatch 2 Game Director Aaron Keller tweeted that the team is "seadily making progress," but also revealed there was a second DDoS attack.

Read more
PlayStation VR games are not backward compatible with PlayStation VR2
A PSVR2 headset on a sky-blue background.

Sony confirmed that games that were released for the first PlayStation VR headset are not backward compatible with the upcoming PlayStation VR2.

In an episode of the Official PlayStation Podcast, Hideaki Nishino senior vice president of platform experience, says, "PS VR games are not compatible with PS VR2 because PS VR2 is designed to deliver a truly next-generation VR experience. PS VR2 has much more advanced features like all new controllers with haptic feedback, with adaptive triggers as they've said, inside-out tracking, eye tracking in it, 3D audio is coming together, of course. So this means, there will be games for PS VR2 that require a whole different approach than the original PS VR."

Read more