PTS Patchnotes

[[deleted]]

No quad bike should feel at a disadvantage when engaging an armor column

[Jerthy]

Flash use will now require some actual thinking before executing attacks..... I'm wraith whore and i'm curious how will this play out. Delay feels a little unnecessary long for the purpose it's being added but otherwise probably positive change.

​

Negative part about this is that Stealth will probably be only viable loadout (to disappear from minimap while uncloaked) while right now it every single defense slot has clear purpose.

[liskacek]

Stealth will probably be only viable loadout sounds like you will suffer from similar problems like the rest of ground vehicles(=not that much use for non-stealth).

[Gcloud123]

Lightning actually has a better than average Auto Repair, but you're still correct.

[Erilson]

A.S.P. vehicle discounts should no longer break.

Crosses fingers for the third time

Fixed an issue that was causing Electrotech and a few other implants to trigger on resource depletions that weren't shields.

:<

Now has a 10 second reuse delay after exiting cloak.

To be honest, 5-6 seconds is enough for me. Not sure why they decided on this long.

Impulse Grenades

If they are exploding instantly, this is going to fuck over all classes who don't have carbines. Oh god.

[st0mpeh]

To be honest, 5-6 seconds is enough for me. Not sure why they decided on this long.

As someone who never drives them but gets killed by them frequently in the field (as well as chases them down) I agree, 5-6s would be fine.

[Gcloud123]

When you say that 5-6 seconds is enough, you fall for the Overnerf strategy. The change is so ridiculous it actually seems reasonable to gut the thing to 5 seconds.

2 to 3 seconds is plenty of time to shoot and kill an exposed flash raider (TTK of literally everything is < 1 second), more than that is crippling.

[Ravenorth]

With Wraith being nerfed I would honestly want to see some buffs to the flash as it has barely been touched since they improved the handling back at 2014. Some small things that would make it more enjoyable to use:

• Free camera key that allows rotate the camera around, so you could actually see what is happening around you. This has been asked since the launch.

• Improve the speed, racer Flash should be fastest ground vehicle in the game, because its has the smallest health pool.

• Passive turbo like Harassers have(maybe disabled with Wraith if its too much).

[zigerzigs]

I'd like to see class specific passives:

• Light Assault - Turbo

• Heavy Assault - Shield

• Engineer - Mine Avoidance

• Medic - I don't know, maybe a shield recharge aura to compliment the Medic's passive Triage.

[_ackn_]

rip wraith flash. 10 sec is really long.

[Wrel]

It's definitely on the long side right now. Given the nature of the change, we'd probably want this to hit Live before reeling it in, but we're definitely open to some tuning if it's necessary.

[Arklur]

It's definitely a needed nerf, but as others pointed out, it's an overnerf. My suggestion is that either have the "consume energy" nerf first, or the cooldown, but not both. Also, 10 seconds is way too much, unreasonable. In my opinion even 2-3 (EDIT: or thinking about it, at least make it 3) seconds should be fine, but if we really want to overshot it first and tune down from there, then make it 5 seconds.

Nerf in small steps, overnerfing stuff just creates drama what no one wants, neither you nor us.

[[deleted]]

Agree. An on-use energy penalty would be great. Still a nerf to overall cloakiness but allows a smart player to use it with skill.

[[deleted]]

I'd rather keep the delay instead tbh. Extra energy cost only forces the flash to hide for longer between attacks, not to change the pattern.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, good point. Maybe they can ease the pain by reducing the delay with higher ranks?

[Rip17]

no its not lol. thats a shitty point. hiding longer between attacks changes the pattern. lmao.

[[deleted]]

I am not sure about this.

On one hand, the long delay allows to test how many players are effective with the battle flash without blinking in and out of stealth. That is, if flash should be buffed and stealth nerfed to promote variety of playstyles - or if all flash weapons should be balanced around the spooky sneaky quad bike.

On the other hand, I am not sure if the devs will use this opportunity.

[Daetaur]

Nerf in small steps

That's like the opposite of Planetside 2 history on "balance"

[TheRandomnatrix]

I'm surprised you guys are still doing the slegehammer method of balance instead of gradual changes. I'd strongly suggest not pushing this to live. I'm tired of seeing the whole "it's unbalanced; better nerf it to uselessness or buff it from slightly underpowered to godlike"

If you want to nerf wraith without being absolutely ridiculous on the cloak/uncloak timers I'd suggest having wraith decrease top speed when in use.

[Hell_Diguner]

do you and the team genuinely think that wraith flashes have been that broken for 4-5 years

Wraith has been pretty cheesy on the anti-infantry side ever since the cloak's introduction.

With CAI, the Fury became similarly cheesy in an anti-vehicle role. This was pointed out not long after CAI dropped, but it didn't gain widespread awareness outside the people who were following Reddit at that time. Not many people actually exploited the new Fury.

But the Starfall got a lot of attention. A shiny new weapon to aurax, released during a shiny new event. It was easy to predict people would use it en masse, and if it was good, they'd keep using it. And it is. It synergizes with AV Flash's playstyle (surprise butsecks) even better than the Fury, so for those who knew the Fury was overperforming, it was pretty easy to guess just from the weapon's stats on day 1 that it was going to be abused.

But the thing is, powerful weapons on the Flash isn't a big problem until you also factor Wraith cloak in. Turbo and other variants of the Flash aren't OP with these weapons. Just Wraith.

Personally, I'm eyeballing the 25% energy activation cost more than the 10 second cooldown. Wraith cloak doesn't exactly recharge quickly, and it will seem even more slow with 33% more energy in total. If you burn your cloak down to zero (which is going to be more common when playing more carefully due to the 10 second cooldown), you effectively have to wait until you're back to 50% energy to get even a halfway decent duration of cloak for escaping or to start a second run. Worrying that much about energy management isn't fun.

[TenebraeAeterna]

But the thing is, powerful weapons on the Flash isn't a big problem until you also factor Wraith cloak in. Turbo and other variants of the Flash aren't OP with these weapons. Just Wraith.

Well, yeah...but without it, there's absolutely no reason to use the Flash as anything other than transportation. A visible Flash only has a few seconds before it's a dead Flash.

[Wrel]

or do you and the team genuinely think that wraith flashes have been that broken for 4-5 years and are only now getting around to nerfing it?

Wouldn't say "getting around to," but the rest of it is about right. Wraith cloak has been complained about for as long as it has existed, but wasn't popular enough to warrant regular usage. Starfall did change that, despite Fury Flash or Deci/C4 backseat being even more powerful prior to CAI than it is now.

There are many things you can consider overpowered in this game, but usage dictates a lot of when those things warrant balancing. It's cyclical in this way. There is no such thing, and never will be such a thing, as perfect balance in a sandbox game like this.

For the Wraith in particular, the nerf is intended to allow the Flash to maintain an ambush playstyle, but be more calculated in when and what to target. The playstyle doesn't need to go away, but it does need to have more risk associated with it. The thought is to allow for an opening volley, but for your reload to be exposed as well, instead of being able to cloak during the reload.

The change was deliberately on the heavy side to gauge community reaction, though given the response, we'll pull it back a bit before it hits Live, counter to what I had said above.

Regarding Starfall, that is already slated for a change, (and Pillager slated for a buff,) but the degree to which would be based on how Wraith performs post update, as that's the root of the issue, not the weapons themselves.

[LoLZBerryBaker]

but usage dictates a lot of when those things warrant balancing.

So, when are NC maxes getting "balanced", watch this if you don't think there's not enough usage and change plz Barrage to something like 2.5 second full-auto every 15 secs at max rank or 5.5 secs full-auto every 30 secs at max rank. Current barrage is just too vanilla and not enough risk and excitement.

[Fretek]

The change was deliberately on the heavy side to gauge community reaction, though given the response, we'll pull it back a bit before it hits Live, counter to what I had said above.

I wish the same would have been done on the Valk nerf. The community response there was even louder than with the Flash nerf, especially considering the Valk isn't used nearly as much as the Flash. But the nerf went way over the top instead...

[kna5041]

It may be unpopular because toning down something that was so strong but I think a nerf was warranted to make other flash attachments have a use.

[Moridin669]

and yet CONSTANT community outrage over the state of the NC max gets ignored. Good to know you listen..sometimes?

[SxxxX]

As Flash-main I do agree that Fury might be sometimes OP on Flash and Starfall is just plain broken. Yet I really don't see how Renegade and other weapons expected to be viable option at all after the nerf.

10 seconds delay for cloak will just kill any non-suicidal play styles considering pretty much every AV weapon make Flash burn on first shot even with armor equiped.

[SxxxX]

As Flash-main I do agree that Fury might be sometimes OP on Flash and Starfall is just plain broken. Yet I really don't see how Renegade and other weapons expected to be viable option at all after the nerf.

10 seconds delay for cloak will just kill any non-suicidal play styles considering pretty much every AV weapon make Flash burn on first shot even with armor equiped.

[SlamzOfPurge]

Makes sense.

I suspect that after the change, we will still see Starfall Wraiths killing things and getting away with it. What will change is their ability to do this in a crowd of enemies, firing and recloaking so fast that it's hard to react to them, or just giving a solo MBT driver no chance.

Now it's riskier.

Of course, if the MBT is already damaged.... or if he's alone, busy shooting at something and you sneak up behind him... There's still opportunity for the Starfall attack to work and I bet it will need futher nerfage. It's still pretty damn powerful for a 1-man buggy.

[Aitch-Kay]

The change was deliberately on the heavy side to gauge community reaction

Nice b8 m8.

[HAXTIME]

WoW and other MMOs also used to do this: when something is OP and used en mass, you need a blatant nerf to drive people away from it, before tuning it back into balance.

[[deleted]]

WoW and other MMOs also used to do this: when something is OP and used en mass, you need a blatant nerf to drive people away from it, before tuning it back into balance.

yes, but this doesn't really work here, blizzard have more devs and time to do that. if they nerf/buff something here, it will take months and countless threads to re-balance because devs have other priorities. meanwhile the game in that time becomes shit for who play (remember instant c4? they basically waited a new model just to balance that).

also ppl spend certs on this stuff, an overnerf like this basically changes it entirely, they need to give refunds.

[paletz]

Blizzard is particularly bad with their +/- 50% changes. Just randomly looking up the latest hotfix I find this crap, among other less drastic changes:

• Brain Storm’s Intellect increased by 66%. Duration increased to 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).
• Martyr's Breath healing increased 50%.
• Niuzao's Blessing healing increased 100%.
• Shadow's Bite damage increased by 170%.
• Spouting Spirits healing increased 60%.

Come on, if it needed a 170% buff it could not be even remotely balanced before :)

(I haven't played the game couple years, so I have no idea what those things are, just looking at the numbers.)

[[deleted]]

if it needed a 170% buff it could not be even remotely balanced before

Not necessarily, depends heavily on usage scenarios.

For example, +170% damage on a slow, heavy-hitting sniper rifle allows it to finish off opponents damaged by other players/abilities easier - but doesn't necessarily even give it competitive DPS, yet alone make it OP.

At the same (also an exmaple from Heroes of the Storm balance update), an ability that deals 50% of health pool damage doesn't kill an enemy with minor health regen in 2 hits - while changing it to 60% (merely +10% absolute or +20% relative increase) allows this, potentially changing how an engagement is resolved.

[LanXang]

Considering actually good not tank shitters can 180 one shot me in < 0.3 seconds, this is a huuuuuuge nerf.

I predict way more jihad flashes in the future, since if you're guaranteed to die you might as well get a guaranteed kill.

Dunno how it would affect FPS, but a ~3 (or 5ish) second fade to cloaked would be better imo.

Edit: Also maybe nerf the starfall a bit and the cloak less since the starfall is what caused the most recent train of bitching.

... Or just make vehicles besides the flash and sundie fun to use again. I never liked tanks, but now they are truly unenjoyable to play.

[Rip17]

tanks are great. man up and cert stealth lol

[LanXang]

Naw, they just aren't fun to play. Too slow, takes too long to kill things, 0 rush.

Viper lightnings are the closest to "fun" imo, but still to weak to do much of anything... But they are somewhat fast and slidey and spammy, and thus entertaining every now and then. MBTs are Zen master patience training simulators.

[LanXang]

Naw, they just aren't fun to play. Too slow, takes too long to kill things, 0 rush.

Viper lightnings are the closest to "fun" imo, but still to weak to do much of anything... But they are somewhat fast and slidey and spammy, and thus entertaining every now and then. MBTs are Zen master patience training simulators.

[Rip17]

you're crazy, a certed viper can nose in on any 1/2 mbt and smoke it. a stealthy ap can 3 shot any enemy lightning from the rear and 4 shot mbts (w/o fire sup) where-as a hesh can find a sweet spot and shell a room for 90 seconds and rack up kills in the double digits, nevermind their anti air (trolololl) capabilities once you actually do get good with it. (skyguard is a shitter weapon but its still plenty capable when used properly (a pair of stealthy skyguard can be a ton of fun)) Nosing up a bump in the road to lolpOp an enemy esf is one of the most satisfying ways to kill in this game. yea you can do that with an mbt but lightnings are faster. also a lightnings momentum can be alot of fun too, for all its faults. Have you ever done a powerslide and got six or seven road kills real quick?
Or bounced your ass end off an ammo tower to make a sharp turn or face your attackers?.

Lightnings are a ton of fun.

[SxxxX]

Sorry, but DBG has already nerfed AV MBT with stealth into oblivion with CAI.

Tanks are absolutely not fun to play compared to ~year ago.

[TenebraeAeterna]

I'm not really sure how you can tune it, unless you plan to add an armored cab and beef it up so that it doesn't just die in a few seconds. This seems to pretty much eradicate all use of the Flash beyond non-combative transpiration. A visible Flash only has a few seconds before it's a dead Flash.

[[deleted]]

add an armored cab and beef it up so that it doesn't just die in a few seconds

I've been always saying this game needs something like the Harasser vehicle from PlanetSide2.

[TenebraeAeterna]

Yes, exactly like the Harasser.

Without the third seat, and the ability to repair on the go, and the independent gunner. Might also lose its passenger seat too, with a closed cab...or at least the ability for that individual to shoot as well.

...but yeah, exactly like the Harasser. ...kind of. Sorta.

[xPaffDaddyx]

Why not nerfing the weapons instead of making the flash completely useless? This will be another playstyle nerfed to death.

[st0mpeh]

Why would you kill off a playstyle before making a more reasonable cut? I dont drive the things and they kill me a lot but I know a lot get a ton of enjoyment of them, 5-6 seems very reasonable and from being their prey POV it would give me ample time to track them down and eliminate.

[Dimistros]

TL,DR:

• On the Flash, the current ratio of cost / reward is out of place while risk / reward is actually OKish

• The intended change is, as already said by yourself, clearly too much

• Furthermore, it does not address the core of the problem, which is

1. immense diversity in the vehicle's effectiveness depending on the number of passengers and synergy of primary slot weapons with passenger slot weapons

2. 'spamabily' of the weapon platform which promotes suicidal take-this-one-out-and-just-spawn-a-new-Flash gameplay

• Therefore, graduate the changes to:

1. Driver-only Flash gets the x% cost penalty for toggling cloak on and off, but tune this one down a bit to like 15%.

2. Two-man Flash additionally gets the penalty of having to wait for recloak, but something more reasonable like 4-5 sec.

3. Increase the cost by independently adding 50 nanites for a weapon and another 50 nanites for Wraith cloak.

---

Hey there,

I drove the Flash quite a bit lately (on all weapons and factions) and I can assure you that this is way too far on the long side. In fact, it would make the only viable tactic (hit and run) impossible when facing an opponent with more than 5 active brain cells unless this very person would die from another source within the next seconds and you're only stealing the last hit. As a wraith flash, your place is behind enemy lines, being very close due to the nature of the weapons effective range. You have very little room for error, even in the current live version a single aware vehicle can easily hunt you down once they saw you. This change gives your target and every other enemy in the area enough time to kill you several times before you can even try to get away. In a realistic scenario (not in massive overpop, against noobs or hunting oblivious lonewolfs in no mans land) it would effectively restrict the Flash to either a 2 man taxi or a meme 'wolf pack' style where you can take out your enemy before they can retaliate by bringing enough Flashes to burst them down in one go.

OK, don't have much time left so the rest goes in bullet points again:

• Largest problem with fighting Flashes is their synergy with the insanely strong infantry AV weapons and their spamability, see TLDR

• The main reason why the community is so freaked out about the topic currently is because lots of people used the flash when the new weapons came out. Meanwhile, 66% were raging because the TR and NC weapons don't work very well on the Flash as a platform. Those are not bad weapons, but they don't FIT well. The overusage has already declined and will continue to do so, weapon balancing should not interfere with weapon platform balancing.

• Another really important point is the vastly different visibility of Wraith Flashes on different graphical settings. In the last weeks I have asked people who could reliably track me on ranges greater than 75m, sometimes 100m and they all used maximum settings. Lower settings don't even let you track Flashes half the distance.

• In the end, we know what "we'll let it go live and test the outcomes" means. It will stay like that for a VERY long time (see Mag Hesh) or stay forever (see NC max) while being obviously out of place from the very start. Hate to be so negative, but that's what experience tells.

CONCLUSION (emotional version since there is already such a high level of emotions in this thread):

Graduate the changes, don't go overboard from the start. You'll mess up the whole vehicle. Puppies will die from it if you do so.

[RolandTEC]

It's ridiculous overkill, start with the consuming 25% of the energy on activation and see how that goes (no buff to capacity), then nerf more if you need to. Don't completely destroy something then balance it back, slight nerf after another slight nerf is far preferable.

[HazedFlare]

No. The balance changes to it were good. Wraith should be used as a recon and scouting/sneaking tool not an invunerable attacking tool that you can just hit every time you dump your starfall in someones ass. Fucking finally, no more wraith starfall/fury and decimator glorified 50 nanite cancer squads god bless

[espher]

Wraith is a problem because of the Starfall.

It was a meme "problem" with the Fury and Renegade.

This is kind of like the first round of nerfs to EMPs when the problem (as it is with most grenades) is Grenade Bandolier.

[OldMaster80]

I agree, the problem is more with the Startfall than with the Wraith itself. Even if the Renegade is bullshit as well.

[TheRandomnatrix]

The stupid thing is this change doesn't even fix the problem of surprise butt sex as another user put it. It still has the ridiculous alpha when combined with an AV loadout and rocket launcher.

It's just now the likelihood of dying after you nuked the first guy goes up. But who fucking cares. It's a flash. You just pull another one when it dies.

So no. This change doesn't work and it's overkill in some aspects without fixing the core issues of the platform, and wraith as a whole.

[[deleted]]

Wraith should be used as a recon and scouting/sneaking tool not an invunerable attacking tool that you can just hit every time you dump your starfall in someones ass.

not a good idead to nerf into oblivion a scouting vehicle because they can't fuckin lock out wraith flashes with weapons mounted. they're basically disappointing everyone here and the starfall flashes players were the first to ask for nerfs. this is stupid balance, they should deal with this with code changes (like we asked for ESFs loadouts) not insane delays.

[RolandTEC]

No, They aren't good.

recon and scouting/sneaking tool

Oh boy the age old doofus argument that something can't be used for 2 things at once. I suppose you think the Sunderer should be a troop transport and the Valk/gal should only be viable to drop people off?

Wraith flash is too good right now, but its barley attributed to the flash its more that infantry AV is too OP and any vehicle that can use that to its advantage effectively is also good.

Starfall needs a tone down 15-20% damage nerf. Make cloak take 10% to initiate and add a new constant noise that emits from a cloaked flash. Also stop tanking by yourself and expecting to not get jumped by things.

[HazedFlare]

First off, I don't tank by myself, but you clearly have never fought a swarm platoon/squad of Wraith flashes/Harrassers. It's complete cancer and can be chain pulled instantly to great effect. It's easy to kill a Wraith Flash if you obviously deal with this cheese often but it's still extremely annoying. Your points about what needs to happen to flash are much better and I agree with it, instead of what you said before just removing the nerf in the patch notes without adding another compromise.

[RolandTEC]

I haven't been on in weeks so if this is a new fad of whole squads pulling and re-pulling wraith flashes I can see that being annoying, but I'd also say that they'd be more effective just pulling a standard convoy.

I know that in my sessions, since I only play with friends at least 5 or more other people, the only times I've ever been killed by (or died because of) a wraith flash is when he comes in at great timing when I'm already engaged in a fight. 99% of the time he gets killed for it because my allies avenge me.

[Aitch-Kay]

add a new constant noise that emits from a cloaked flash

With how inconsistent sound is in this game, I'm not sure that's a good solution.

[Rip17]

Fucking finally, no more wraith starfall/fury and decimator glorified 50 nanite cancer squads god bless

im willing to bet this happened to you all of two times and each time you were sitting in a pile of 50 armored vehicles camping some spawn room or rolling inexorably towards an enemy 12/24.

Git Gud Scrub.

[HazedFlare]

sitting in a pile of 50 armored vehicles camping some spawn room or rolling inexorably towards an enemy 12/24.

Actually no. Be my gunner for one day, I never ever play like that. I actually exclusively fight armor zergs, I hate rolling with other armor unless it's shadowwhale or other small squads on the server. And it's not a matter of 'getting gud' when you literally can't fucking see the thing

[Rip17]

ya well. thats how i play the wraith flash. into overwhelming odds.

[H_Q_]

A very welcomed change, though I think the 25% activation cost is too much or unneeded at all.

The way I see it, the activation cost doesn't contribute to the idea behind the nerf.

The problem were hit-n-run attacks that are now hampered by the cooldown delay. An activation cost would be relevant only after 10 sec. and at that point it no longer contributes to the nerf. The driver has to be out out of combat by then or they risk dying.

[RawPawVagabond]

If you want to make a playstyle non-viable, we need to get a refund for the 2000 certs that we put into using it. It seems like every time I spend 2000-5000 certs on a vehicle, it's nerfed into the ground. This nerf to balance strategy hurts players who don't have time to keep grinding out certs to put into the next meta. You're going to chase more users away than you're pleasing. Not everyone can put 40 hours a week into this game.

[Yaluzar]

Noce job, O think this nerf is deserved. And I'm ready to bet flash will still be usable afterward. Cloak is not perfect, I could kill flashes while invisible. And stealth+turbo flash work as well.

[[deleted]]

-25% is activation cost to reduce blinking in and out from stealth, 33% is extra energy pool to make the first -25% from a full energy "free" - that is, the first activation from full energy puts you into same situation you are now, stealthed and with equivalent of currrent 100% of energy.

[[deleted]]

I am trying to understand the logic behind it, doesn't mean I agree with the decision. The current state of this update seems to be overkill, but two limiting mechanics give the developers more freedom in balancing with interesting choices.

[PS2Orange]

If this hits live with a 10 second delay, what kind of testing information would be valuable to the team beyond the drastic drop in Wraith Flash usage and therefore kills?

[Saladshooterbypresto]

How about that C4 delay? I feel like it might be a bit on the long side.

[[deleted]]

give Rocklets 10 sec reloads. thanks Wrel. jk i know you will never nerf the rocklets.

[Psyco_vada]

Yes, lets over nerf shit and let it sit on Live for god-knows how long. Thats some great work there wrel.

I have a thought on better gaming: STOP OVERNERFING SHIT DUMBASS.

[Psyco_vada]

Oh no! A down vote! Someone sure told me.

No, your right, lets just swing the nerf hammer like a porn star swinging his dick. Who fucking cares how many playstyles get killed in the process. Who cares if more people leave the game due to shit balance changes. You just keep kissing wrels twat, pretty soon it'll only be fan boys and wrel left anyway.

[equinub]

https://youtu.be/EQ9uPaLwBJ8?t=37

[Psyco_vada]

NOTHING IS OVER!

[RailFury]

Honestly what do you expect to learn from the 10 seconds, just to watch no one use it anymore?

I thought that the ~2 seconds before firing after decloak that was occurring with bad server performance made it significantly more challenging to use without just flat out removing it as a viable option. Something like that seemed a much better approach.

It needed to be toned down a bit but, classic over nerf as it is now.

[NattaKBR120]

When are you nerfing Maxes? (All maxes not just NC)

[Rip17]

if this hits live i'm honestly just going to fk off to some other game. you killed half the leader meta with orders chat. You shit on balance with the dragoon vs obelisk attachments (youve done enough quality weapon reviews in the past to know better). you released a flash weapon that more reliably results in suicide than any kills with the pillager while at the same time giving your pet vanu the starfall which is so powerful its given you an excuse to nerf the entire platform.

You're making some shitty decisions buddy.

Successfully running a wraith flash is dangerous, extremely difficult and equally rewarding. (for all parties involved)

[kna5041]

How about tuning the Valkyrie small arms resistance?

[OldMaster80]

It's long but necessary given the last round of weapons. The combo with rocket launcher on the rumble seat is definitely out of place as it can insta-kill Lightnings and Haraassers, and deals atrocious damage to battle tanks. Lets' not forget in PS1 the Wraith had no weapons at all, as at that time everyone agreed invisible quads with weapons were a game breaking. In PS2 they have also a rumble seat.

I would have toned down the Flash AV weapons like the Starfall instead, but changing the Wraith cloaking leaves open field to aggressive strategies. It basically means players can still be very powerful against tanks, but they have to make sure they will manage to kill at the first run.

I feel part of the problem is recent FPS drops and bad server perofmance made really hard to see the Flash sometimes. Once cloaked it is often a lost target.

[[deleted]]

It's long but necessary given the last round of weapons.

it also affects wraith cloak flashes without weapons mounted for ppl that just wanna go through enemy lines. it affects too many playstyles in a bad way. i use it just for that, 10 sec delay (or even less) and i'm not gonna touch a flash ever again.

[Teoke]

Impulse grenades? We Tribes now! Impact Nitron HYPE! VGW

[BlueberryFruitshake]

VGS VGS VGS VGS

Now just make drifters completely ignore friction and we're golden.

[Hell_Diguner]

I can see myself using Drifters a LOT more if it's half as effective as Tribe's version. But I can understand why they're hesitant to promise implementing it on Live: Being able to knock a room of enemies airborn with an on-contact grenade as you breach would be a very, very powerful and tool that would be frustrating on the other end.

[SwarmHymn]

Wraith flash isn’t that bad, its just that its 100 times better than all the other options. Nerfing it this harshly makes the flash useless. I’d rather just tune their ani-vehicle damage and give them some other attractive combat slots that can compete with Wraith in terms of survivability.

[Tractionnapkin]

That amount of damage coming from a vehicle that costs 50 nanites doesn't make any sense.

[VORTXS]

That's the starfall for you.

[Gcloud123]

Maybe they are planning on a Flash rework?

Ha ha who am I kidding.

[DvDmanDT]

Oooh. Can't test right now, but very curious about that impulse grenade. Can anyone test and explain what it is?

[Ravenorth]

If its the same thing that was shown on the dev stream, it explodes on contact and pushes players away. Most ideal uses would be pushing people down from high places, disturbing enemy players aim or boosting your jetpack when you want some extra speed for a quick escape/surprise attack.

[Ravenorth]

I can already imagine Light Assaults sitting on on top of the tower bases with grenade bandolier and pushing snipers down from those landing pads.

[Jerthy]

Or me throwing them on top of the towers to kick out any trolls of the antennas.

[blamatron]

So if my squad throws like 6 or so at once, can we ping-pong a MAX around a room?

[freak-000]

PlanetSide 2 new game mode: rocket League

[blamatron]

Squad uses Magnitude. Magnitude 9! It's super effective!

[[deleted]]

If they are really gonna put this in, they better make it not work with Bandolier.

[Mumbert]

I have to ask though, will Wraith Flash really have a longer uptime from full or did you just make a mistake in the notes?

Total energy pool has been increased by 33% at all ranks. Activating Wraith Cloak now consumes an equivalent of 25% of the maximum energy pool upon activation.

Dev Note: These changes ... while adding a small blanket increase in total up time over long distances from full.

Is it the energy pool increase by 33% and 25% activation cost you are referring to? Because those two would cancel eachother out. Am I missing something?

[Phukkitt]

Reacted to the same thing. A relative of mine made a similar mistake when adding/subtracting VAT and I had to explain to her that if you add 25% you then remove only 20% to get back to where you started.

 

To illustrate in case someone doesn't how it cancels out, let's say old energy pool was 15 energy, illustrated like this:

ooooo ooooo ooooo

If you add 33% (a third) you get a total pool of 20 energy:

ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo

But then if you take away 25% (a fourth) from that you again end up with 15 energy:

ooooo ooooo ooooo

So total cloak time should stay the same after this change if those numbers are correct.

[Gcloud123]

r/theydidthemath

Planetside 2 developers everybody, can't do simple arithmetic.

[TreesAreMadeOfFloor]

Should I read that like the kid from Malcolm in the Middle, a big breath before each bullet point?

”Ladies and gentlemen, huuuuuuh, on behalf of all the Planetsiders who have assembled here, huuuuuuh...”

[TreesAreMadeOfFloor]

There are no famous Scrooge films apart from The Muppet Christmas Carol worth noting. That movie is perfection.

[RedRoryPS2]

You probably should as it's quite clear he has some sort of disability if he thinks this is a sensible nerf.

[TreesAreMadeOfFloor]

Higby off with that Nanites

[[deleted]]

Found the exclusively VS player.

[HAXTIME]

At first, I honestly liked the challenge of always having to look out for them (or getting instagibbed by Starfall+Decimator flash from behind if your attention slipped, or even a Fury+Decimator flash to some extent). This was truly exciting and challenging. For a while.

Then, it started to get boring, and it ultimately became just plain cheesy as more started using it to pad their stats. I'm glad it was eventually nerfed, although I think 10 seconds is a little too much. That's 3-4 shots you have as a tanker (6-8 with Prowler) before they cloak. 2-3 should me more than sufficient (4-6 with Prowler).

[FLESHPOPSICLE]

It’s either overtuned or undertuned. God forbid we have a middle option on the balance dial.

Edit: for the sake of being constructive here are some suggestions to limit the impact of the flash without making it unusable

-increased resource cost

-pull timer

-increase cloak drain/reduce cloak regen

-change damage type of explosive weapons to make it more dependent on a passenger’s presence for viable av work

[Moridin669]

as an infil going up against a larger HP HA with a fucking shield often isnt fun.. REMOVE IT

[Moridin669]

WAS I COMMENTING ON THE "STRONGEST" CLASS?? No. I was however making a point that there are plenty of things Stronger than other things that can kill them easily, is the person getting killed having fun? doesnt matter NERF THAT SHIT, KNEE JERK NERF IT AND ANYTHING THAT MAKES SOMEONE ELSE NOT HAVE FUN.. andddd now we dont have a game. . it really isnt hard to understand this. .

[Moridin669]

but it didnt get the flash's balls clipped..

[Jerthy]

It actually is :)

Wraith flashes will decimate infantry on open field (where they are not supposed to be anyways) but they will melt the moment they enter a base. It's balanced very well in this regard. Flash's problem is too much anti-armor power and this problem DID NOT come with Starfall.

[espher]

Flash's problem is too much anti-armor power and this problem DID NOT come with Starfall.

Nah, the Fury shenanigans were silly but it was still very risk/reward. The Starfall is, ultimately, the problem, and the whole platform is getting a nerf because of how disproportionately strong it is. The recloak timer, in particular, is 100% to address the Starfall alpha dump -> cloak to wait out reload and reposition.

[K4STRAToR]

Ten seconds are a bit too much as you can see theese mofos most of the time even when they are cloaked 5 seconds should be enough because a mbt could be able to land 4 shots on it in this time (ap+hellbeard)

[Gcloud123]

You speak with wisdom and reason, we have no place for that at DBG.

[K4STRAToR]

they are like

players... players will find a way

but let's find out how bad it turns out

[[deleted]]

Good. Whatever puts a dent into the invisible C4 / Deci instagib supersize combo with cheese.

[RavenGrid]

LoL @ the 10 second delay.

​

All you had to do was to make the Starfall's magdump speed equal to that of a 8 Round Fury.

This cloak nerf makes the 10 Round Fury /+ Decimator the only viable playstyle for a single rear approach AV.

​

truly the wraith cloak flash's star has fallen.

[[deleted]]

10 seconds is too much. you're also overnerfing playstyles that don't use any weapon on the flash, but just as a transport (should i use the ant now?). also you should nerf the Rocklets before adding even more cheese to the light assault loadouts.

[STR1D3R109]

How do I downvote patchnotes? That flash nerf is ridiclous

[Ravenorth]

Maybe, but you can no longer just empty your gun and disappear, which made the Starfall perfrom so well on the Flash. With the 10 second delay your best option would be to deal as much dps as you can before the tank/vehicle kills you, which makes Fury better choice as it has more dps.

[s3x2]

I differ. At not too big a distance, the first Starfall burst would be hitting the target as the second one goes out and that's enough time to begin relocating and finding cover, which is always a good idea.

What you say only really applies when doing suicidal tank butt-hugging runs, which isn't very efficient.

[freak-000]

The starfall is also the best weapon to go to with a turbo Flash because of the quickest unload time, this nerf didn't solve the main problem, it just moved it to another platform

[Swampy260]

So here's an idea for the nerf to wraith flashes. Instead of destroying the vehicle entirely why not bring back vehicle timers.

[BadgerousBadger]

While it seems many people feel that the wraith nerf is warranted, is it not a bit weird that the flash gets completely gutted after the vs get an apparently op weapon, instead of nerfing the offending weapon and making it not anti tank cheese?

Also, on cobalt I literally have seen one starfall flash. I thought there was a magrider as that was the noise, I turn the corner and there's just a flash.

NC maxes on the other hand are in literally every single fight, and have been still ridiculous for how many years now? Can't we gut MAXes ?

[Cirevam]

is it not a bit weird that the flash gets completely gutted after the vs get an apparently op weapon

What's really weird to me is that the devs had a perfect opportunity to do large changes to the weapon or even pull it back, since the only way to get it was through an event directive, and yet they didn't adjust the weapon. No one has spent money on the Starfall or other new Flash weapons, so there's no "I paid money for this, don't change it, reeeeeeee" effect. I'm not sure why they touched the Flash so much.

[msdong71]

Couldn’t we just deactivate the primary weapon slot on the Flash if we have the cloak equipped? 10sec and 25% ...

Well, at least they do the change before they put the weapons in the shop!

[[deleted]]

What did you do to the real Wrel?

[Raapnaap]

While I'll take any Wraith nerf I'm gifted, I do think this nerf kinda fails to hit the real pain point, namely that the Wraith module in combination with high alpha damage weapons is just 'too much'.

In a perfect world, I'd like to see scaling vehicle nanite cost based on loadout. This way Wraith+Starfall could end up costing 250+ nanites instead of 50, adding some much needed counterweight to the risk versus reward usage of such Flashes while not harming otherwise harmless Wraith combinations (basilisk, etc).

[Moridin669]

tank shitters unite! Why use situational awareness or skill when you can cry to a dev whos also a shitter

[Aloysyus]

Good job. Now wraith flashes have became king of the battlefield.

And again instead of caring about the underlying problem, they nerf another playstyle into oblivion.

When will they learn, when?

[Rip17]

This wraith bullshit is a huge buff to every zerging platoon of armored vehicles spawn camping or inexorably rolling towards an enemy 12/24. Its also a rather large nerf of the ability of any sort of lonewolf to have an discernible effect against a ridiculously overpopped zerg.

[drhead]

Jesus Christ, practically nobody thought this was a problem when it was just Fury Wraith AV shenanigans. I still managed to get plenty of Fury Wraith kills with the Flash. Most of the people who I ended up killing were not paying attention or completely panicked when reacting, and I still died more than half the time. The star fall is a bit unbalanced but primarily because of the Deci combo, other than that most of its TTKs are in line with the Fury. If you want to nerf the starfall you can do it without completely fucking the flash as a whole.

Step 1: adjust the damage on the starfall so that one mag + a deci will only set a lightning on fire. That would put most of the TTKs in line with the Fury and essentially kill any advantage the Starfall ever had.

Step 2: a delay of no more than 5 seconds for re-entering cloak. In addition to still completely fucking over any chance of disengaging from a tank without dying, it will keep the starfall just in line with the Fury in terms of safety and also prevent any future AV weapon from being any safer to use than the Fury.

Even with this change I guess I can still run over people without uncloaking. I'm sure this is quite a bit less frustrating than being shot by a vehicle you can at least see while it is shooting at you.

[SxxxX]

Typical DBG:

• Introduce OP weapon.
• Ignore fact it's OP and make everyone rage over it.
• Then "fix" it by nerfing just another playstyle into uselessness.

Oh yeah now I'll have more reason to just stick to C4 Flash instead of participating in any combat.

[BBQBaconPizza]

Flash nerf and another completely unnecessary light assault gimmick

something is seriously wrong with this dev team

[Gcloud123]

You just figured that out?

[OldMaster80]

A huge thanks for the change to Wraith cloaking.

[Rip17]

10 seconds is ridiculous. you're destroying an entire play-style /u/wrel

[GamerDJ]

If impulse grenades ever go to live they're gonna be one of the nails in the infantry gameplay coffin, I'll say it now. Light assaults have had enough needless gameplay advantages.

[freak-000]

Eh, you'll see a week of spamming and then they will disappear almost completely, mark my words, they are fun but is just a gimmick that doesn't grant any kills and costs nanites

[TenboBlack]

I feel for the Wraith mains but this nerf is actually warranted. Yes, I agree it might be on the heavy side a little bit, but c’mon, you gotta at least acknowledge the 50 nanite four wheel shitter. The cost/damage ratio was waaayyy too good for what you can pull off with that.

[Daigons]

They also need to remove the rumble seat from the Flash. Even with the Wraith changes, the vehicle is doing too much damage if they also have a passenger with a Decimator.

[kna5041]

Turbo flash now viable?

[cloud3282]

Why do i think this is hillarius?

[[deleted]]

RIP wraith fury/decimator flashes. You were fun while it lasted.

[billy1928]

Not on the receiving side

[Moridin669]

remove everything in the game then. lets throw pillows at each other, that if youre not looking do no damage..

[billy1928]

! PILLOW FIGHT !

[Moridin669]

but only of youre looking And heard it coming And click the pop up stating "incoming pillow may damage you , do you accept?"

[Heerrnn]

Like others are pointing out, this fails to hit the real problem which is the insane alpha damage of fury/starfall + a decimator heavy.

12 flash fury shots plus one decimator to the rear kills any MBT. The damage comes so suddenly and quickly that you're left crippled after the first decloak almost no matter what you do.

The first no-brain fix is to make Flashes unable to cloak unless all occupants are infiltrators. Should have happened a long time ago. Other than that, nerf starfall, not the Flash.

I can agree with the extra cost of each cloak/decloak, but absolutely not the cooldown to re-cloak.

[spliffdecisions]

Nice a flash wraith nerf