(https://i.imgur.com/qhW1Mnu.png)
Welcome to the Isles of Oshur
A new, massive-scale continent makes its way to PlanetSide 2 for the first time since 2014. The tropical isles of Oshur are reminiscent of a time before the Auraxian war, where research and exploration were the most valued pursuits, and the factions weren't fully divided.
Something for Everyone
Oshur was designed with an emphasis on logistics and diversity of gameplay. The towering Trident Relays necessitate air support and quick responses, the lattice has deliberate and strategic cutoffs for squad and platoon leaders to pursue, the beachheads and mid-field bases carve a meaningful role for construction; the open savannahs, sandy beaches, and tropical jungles foster vehicle battles and heavy armor usage; and the hand-crafted designer-driven bases create unique and learnable gameplay spaces for hardened infantry veterans. With this new island battleground, there is something to enjoy no matter your style of gameplay.
(https://i.imgur.com/uQ00Dfv.png)
Exodus Flotilla
The expedition to Oshur took place aboard the new Exodus-class Fleet Carriers. Unlike traditional maps, there are no Warpgates on Oshur, and this flotilla of heavily armed fleet carriers will become your new base of operations. Enemy vehicles that stray too close will be shot out of the sky by the shipboard Particle Projection Cannon.
(https://i.imgur.com/B43tZ26.png)
Water Mechanics
As a part of a massive undertaking, we've completely changed how water works in PlanetSide 2. Every vehicle, infantry, and projectile interaction has been re-engineered to accommodate these new mechanics.
- Wheeled Vehicles putter along the surface.
- Hover vehicles float above the water.
- Air vehicles cruise beneath the waves like submarines.
- Infantry and treaded vehicles prowl the ocean floor.
- Projectiles that enter the water are hit with heavy drag.
Indar, Amerish, Hossin, and Esamir will all be retrofitted with these new water mechanics at a later date (so don't dip your toes into that frozen river just yet.)
(https://i.imgur.com/rYfjTym.png)
Underwater Weapons
Most traditional weapons won't fire while submerged, but special equipment has been added to ease the transition.
Three new underwater rifles and one underwater pistol are now available to access by various means.
- UBR-100 Frogman - Unlocked by completing the first tier of the Conquest Oshur directive.
- UBR-150 Sea Lion - Unlocked with Certs or DBC.
- UBR-300 Swordfish - Unlocked by completing Chapter 02 of the Distant Shores campaign.
- UBP-1 Starfish - Unlocked by completing the Distant Shores campaign.
(https://i.imgur.com/We7Qsz2.png)
New Facilities
Interlink Outpost
Constructed as early communication hubs for research on the islands and out at sea, the Interlinks are single-point infantry-capture bases with a close-quarters arena and multiple entrances for attackers.
Controlling an Interlink Outpost counts toward Empire Strength on the continent.
(https://i.imgur.com/SvdZxyy.png)
Trident Relay
These massive spires jutting from the water's surface are only enterable from their airpads located high above. Three symmetrical entrance-ways provide an airport-style atmosphere to fight through.
Controlling a Trident Relay counts toward Empire Strength on the continent, and allows for lattice cutoffs deep into enemy territory.
(https://i.imgur.com/HAoNEFI.png)
Distant Shores, Chapter 02
Nascent Expeditions has finally cleared the path toward Oshur, and the Empires are maneuvering to gain a foothold. The last chapter of the Distant Shores campaign will be made available Jan. 27.
(https://i.imgur.com/rYFB5w0.png)
New Directives
Oshur Collections - A new "Collections" tab can be found in the Directives page. Our first Collections directive asks you to recover the lost dog tags of those who died during the evacuation of Oshur.
(https://i.imgur.com/exCXGvd.png)
Conquest - Oshur - In the "Strategic" tab, a new directive line dedicated to the war for Oshur has been added. Unlock the new UBR-100 Frogman by completing the first tier, and the (very special) Paradise Camo at Master tier, reserved for only the most hardened veterans.
(https://i.imgur.com/ZxDBdKo.png)
Oshur Auto-Unlock Dates
To celebrate the launch of Oshur, we'll have certain windows where Oshur will auto-unlock itself. Outside of these days, the continent will remain in the normal rotation. We can enable or disable this functionality without downtime based on demand. The goal here is to allow everyone to experience the continent immediately while its new, while avoiding the burnout of the same map 24/7.
The current auto-unlock schedule is: Wednesday, Jan. 26 through Sunday, Jan. 30
General Changes
Friendly Fire
- Friendly fire damage is now reduced by 50% at all times against non-squad/non-platoon members.
- Grief from friendly fire now decays 50% faster at all times.
Spawn System
We've stepped away from the Spawn Priority system from 2019, as it ended up providing too much freedom in later iterations, and have opted for something closer to the spawn system in 2018 with additional flexibility. Overall this constrains movement around the map slightly, which should help reduce the speed of the redeploy meta, and (ideally) emphasize vehicle's power to transport players. Additionally, Squad Beacons no longer have increased delays on spawn times, which, on top of increased access to Spawn Beacons over the years, is a pretty considerable boon to coordinated squad play.
Construction Changes
We've made some quality of life changes to make construction a bit easier to engage with, and made some adjustments to Routers that should bring "Router Bases" closer to the front lines.
Harvesting and Construction
- Construction objects have been recategorized into more sensical groupings.
- WLT-Mandible Cortium harvest rate from 200 to 400.
- WLT-Mandible Cortium deposit rate from 336 to 400.
- WLT-Yellowjacket Cortium harvest rate from 150 to 300.
- WLT-Howler Cortium harvest rate from 375 to 800.
- WLT-Weaver Cortium harvest rate from 200 to 400.
- WLT-Weaver Cortium deposit rate from 336 to 400.
- WLT-Weaver can now deposit Cortium into Colossus reservoir.
- Common Cortium node maximum resource count from 2000 to 4000.
- Uncommon Cortium node maximum resource count from 6000 to 8000.
- Construction objects can place their lower (blue) sockets beneath the water, but upper (green) sockets must be above the water line.
Routing Spire
- Routers can now only be deployed within 500m of the Routing Spire.
- If the Routing Spires runs out of Cortium, or is destroyed, the Router that was placed will be destroyed.
Construction Bundles
You can find many of the construction items available for purchase in discounted bundles in the Depot.
Vehicle/Infantry Balance
M14 Banshee (TR Mosquito)
- Blast damage outer radius from 2m to 1.5m.
Dev Note: Reducing this weapon's blast damage is intended to increase exposure time and necessary accuracy to secure easy kills with this weapon.
ANT
- C-Barrier armor increase from 20% to 30%.
- Transport Cloak has been removed, and the certs refunded.
Dev Note: While the cloak was useful for transporting Cortium from point to point, it was needlessly powerful in the realm of farming infantry, where the majority of its usage took place.
M12 Kobalt (ANT/Sunderer/Harasser/Flash/MBT)
- Max damage from 200 to 167
- Min damage from 154 to 143
- Magazine size from 100 to 60.
- MBT/Flash/Harasser ammo capacity from 500 to 600.
- Sunderer/ANT ammo capacity from 750 to 600.
- Ammo restock per tick standardized at 120, this is a buff for all platforms.
- Magazine size skill line now increases magazine by 5 per rank, instead of 13.
- Ammo capacity cert line now provides one magazine worth of ammo per rank, instead of the previous 150.
Dev Note: These changes reduce the damage output and overall uptime of the weapon across all platforms.
Lodestar Prototype
- Nanite cost from 500 to 450.
- When deployed, the Lodestar now generates a protective shield of up to 2500 health.
Dev Note: The added health while deployed, and the lowered nanite cost should make this vehicle a bit more worthwhile as a deployable spawn option.
Wasp Prototype
- Cortium cost from 400 to 300.
- Nanite cost from 350 to 250.
Dev Note: This cost reduction puts the Wasp on par with the normal Valkyrie to increase its accessibility a bit.
NSX Amaterasu
- Projectile now despawns after 15 meters.
Dev Note: This is an experimental change meant to make the tradeoffs between the standard knife and Amaterasu more even.
UI QoL
- ISO-4 currency now shows in the Depot screen, alongside DBC and Certs.
- All vehicles now have a small dot reticle while in third person.
- When you right-click on a player's name in the chat, the "Remove from Friends" dialogue option is now located above the "Ignore" option, instead of just below "Send Message".
- A new HUD compass has been added to the top center of the screen. This compass relays cardinal directions as well as heading, and can be disabled in the Interface Settings menu.
(https://i.imgur.com/BzQLWTQ.png)
Misc. Changes, Fixes, and Additions
- Fixed an issue where Auraxium C-4 would often "misfire" compared to normal C-4.
- Spawn-capable vehicles deployed on an incline will no longer occasionally cause your character to spawn in at an angle.
- Sunderers, Routers, and Lodestars can no longer be deployed in the Warpgate regions.
- Prototype vehicles now count toward Heavy Assault's Air Deterrence Directive.
- "Treasured" MSW-R now has charge handle on the correct side of the weapon.
- Fixed an issue with Sunderer Ambulance cosmetics showing low LoD models at short distance.
- Fixed an issue where 1-person squads weren't filtered correctly from the squad finder.
- Fixed an issue where having the Glaive IPC's targeting device in-hand when interacting with NPCs would prevent you from switching weapons.
- Ammo Siphon ability for TR MAX now works with the M3 Pounder HEG.
- You can no longer earn Mining Drill mission credit from enemies or while dead.
- Scrolling in the marketplace with no category selected will no longer create a null error.
- Fixed various NSO-related construction system issues that impacted highlighting of base assets.
- Fixed an issue where Construction Outpost bases on all continents would use larger-than-intended map indicators and text.
- Hacked vehicle terminals no longer prevent remote vehicle spawning. This is a temporary fix for friendly vehicle terminals sometimes incorrectly reporting as hacked.
- Fixed a skinning issue with the TR Light Assault Composite Helmet.
Looking Forward
Welp, it's finally here. A new large-scale continent, 7 (almost 8) years later, complete with totally new mechanics, a big emphasis on some early-days gameplay, and... just so, so much. The team did an amazing job bringing all this craziness to fruition, and judging by the excitement in testing, you're more than ready to explore something fresh. Thank you to all the folks who took time to test, and especially those who filled out the feedback form. That sort of thing helps more than you'd probably expect. There's no doubt that we've got some hotfixes to follow up with here, but even from the first playtest weekend to the second it seemed like we knocked out most of the major issues in record time. Tomorrow's update (which we'll release to PTS tonight,) should show off the progress we've made tightening up the loose ends.
To get everything back into perspective, this year we'll move into ten (10) years of PlanetSide 2, an absolutely insane milestone, and we'd like to do it big. It's a pretty exclusive club for games that stay in active development that long, and we're going to continue building on the foundation we've laid for years to follow. Earlier this month I mentioned that we'd be showing off a roadmap, and that's still the case, though it'll probably land here in February, instead of the late January I was looking for. Once we're past the craziness that is this update, we'll be looking forward to sharing some of what's on the docket for 2022.
Thanks all.
-Wrel, Lead Designer