[PTS] Test Server Update - Jan. 28, 2021 (Outfit Wars Revamp)

[PSNews]

Outfit Wars Revamp

We've been diligently working on an overhaul to the Outfit Wars tournament layer that was introduced last year, and are pleased to announce the newest version of it.

Unlike previous cycles, all outfits now compete against one another on the Desolation asteroid belt during the qualifiers, instead of gathering resources in the sandbox. Where you rank compared to the rest of your faction changes based on your victories and losses during the qualifiers and the playoffs thereafter. Outfits of similar rank are pitted against one another, creating more movement up and down the ladder.

A detailed breakdown on phases and scoring can be found in this article: https://planetside2.com/news/ps2-outfit-wars-alpha-3-pts-january-2021

Rewards

This revamp also introduces a new delivery mechanism for rewards, and new rewards based on your outfit's rank during the season. When your final outfit rank is determined for the season, rewards are doled out based on your placement.

Some of these rewards are for the outfit itself, like War Assets or Outfit Resources, and others are personal, given to the participants. During the championship match, the outfit taking home the gold, silver, or bronze medals receive an additional reward atop their standard rank reward. Lastly, each player participating in a Desolation match is given 500 ISO-4 upon completion, similar to a standard alert. This happens in every match.

PTS TESTING INFORMATION BELOW

• The PTS testing schedule is as follows below. All outfits with 12 or more players will be able to join in, though that number will become outfits of 48 or more when the update is released on Live.
• Characters must also be Loyalty Rank 3 or greater in order to go to Desolation for a match.
• You can receive free Outfit Loyalty and other currencies from the holographic Flash located on Sanctuary, next to Representative Ayla in the Atrium.

-PTS SCHEDULE-

This first run on PTS will be an extremely compressed schedule, consisting of only 3 matches total, taking place a single day. The goal of this test is to ensure each match can move through the steps without interruption, and that rewards get doled out correctly.

All of the times below are in PST.

Enlistment Phase

• Starting Immediately
• Ending Jan. 30 - 12:00am

Qualifiers (First Match)

• Jan. 30 - 12:15pm OR Jan. 30 - 12:30pm

Playoffs (Second Match)

• Jan. 30 - 2:00pm OR Jan. 30 - 2:15pm

Championship (Final Match)

• Jan. 30 - 3:45pm

EXECUTION ON LIVE

When Outfit Wars heads to Live for the first time, we'll be running the final "Alpha Cycle" that will use a total of 6 rounds taking place over 6 weeks. We consider this a somewhat compressed schedule, compared to its "go-time" counterpart which is intended to take place over 10 rounds. From there, the plan will be to periodically run new Outfit Wars throughout the year using the same format. Ultimately though, the length of the Outfit War seasons will be something we get a feel for based on the interest from Live. Each new season of Outfit Wars will come with new rewards for the participants, on top of your standard bragging rights.

Continent Changes

• Indar's Seabed Listening Post's control point can no longer be contested through a wall.
• The continued barrage of Orbital Strikes to TI Alloys on Indar seems to have damaged the hardline beneath it. The base has become inoperable, and will require maintenance before coming back online.

War Assets

Made some minor adjustments to weights, crafting times, and costs to encourage use of some of the smaller assets, and bumped the cost of Orbital Strikes. We'll likely be taking another look at expeditions in the future.

Heavy A.N.V.I.L.

• Weight from 25 to 10

Medium A.N.V.I.L.

• Weight from 15 to 5
• Crafting time reduced from 5 minutes to 2 minutes.

Light A.N.V.I.L.

• Weight from 5 to 1
• Reduced the number created per crafting attempt from 3 to 1
• Crafting time reduced from 5 minutes to 1 second.

Orbital Strike

• Polystellarite cost from 0 to 15

Tactical Deployables

Cortium Bomb

• Can now be placed indoors.
• Is no longer disarmed from taking damage.
• Disarming is now done by interacting with the Cortium Bomb, requiring a 3.5 second channel.
• Allies can also disarm this device.

Dev Note: Cortium Bomb is definitely seeing some meme use on Live, but being able to disarm it easily from any distance didn't create the tension it was originally intended to. Having this tool in the toolbox now means that players can intentionally create space, even in indoor fights, forcing a commitment from enemies while creating a mini-defense objective for allies. Allowing allies to disarm the device also reduces the possibility for trolling, and helps ensure that the device only gets placed when everyone is on the same page about its use.

Infantry

Burning Resistance

• We've added a new "Burning" resistance (type 64) that is used for... well... things that set you on fire.
• This includes Pillager's damage over time, Incendiary Underbarrels, Thumper Incendiary rounds, and the Hunter crossbow's Incendiary bolts.
• At the moment, Flak Armor will not mitigate this damage, though effects that grant you overall resistances (Resist Shield, as an example) or armor buffs, will do so.

Dev Note: The way our engine works currently, is that resistances tend to dictate what audio you hear when damage is inflicted on you. Much of the damage over time dealt from incendiary weapons was using the common explosives resistance, which was meant for... well, explosives. So you'd periodically hear the "thoom, thoom, thoom," instead of a sizzle that'd be more indicative of your burning state. It does also present us with opportunities to use the burning damage type as a way to bypass some of the other resistances in the game, which helps further define a niche. Currently, incendiary's damage mirrors that of the common explosive, so no changes to the actual damage output of any of these effects, with the exception of protection provided by Flak Armor, which does not mitigate this damage type.

Fortify (Implant)

• Standing still for 1/0.75/0.5/0.1 seconds now activates a 20% small arms resistance until you move again, down from 4/3.5/2.75/2 seconds.
• Rank 5 of this implant continues to provide 50% resistance to common explosives.
• Modified shield visuals, and made them personal to the player.

Dev Note: This implant was previously modified without making it into the patch notes several updates ago. In this update it receives adjustments that make it easier to use.

New Conglomerate MAX Weaponry

The changes below nudge the NC MAX's shotgun weaponry closer to VS and TR MAX in terms of overall viability. These shotguns continue to sacrifice damage per magazine and effective range for better burst damage in close quarters, but the penalties for doing so should be less severe now, and versatility should be improved slightly.

NCM1 Scattercannon - Hard-hitting, default shotguns.

• Is now an automatic weapon.
• Rate of fire from 120 rounds per minute to 130 rounds per minute.
• Max damage per pellet from 125 to 130.
• Min damage per pellet from 35 to 50.
• Mag size from 9 to 10.
• Reserve ammo from 81 to 90.

AF-34 Mattock - Extended range shotguns.

• Is now an automatic weapon.
• Number of pellets from 3 to 4.
• Mag size from 12 to 14.
• Reserve ammo from 96 to 112.

AF-41 Hacksaw - High rate of fire shotguns.

• Rate of fire from 209 rounds per minute to 218 rounds per minute.
• Min damage from 25 to 50.
• Mag size from 9 to 12
• Reserve ammo from 81 to 108.

AF-23 Grinder - High-capacity shotguns.

• Rate of fire from 120 rounds per minute to 130 rounds per minute.
• Min damage from 20 to 35.
• Mag size from 18 to 22.
• Reserve ammo from 126 to 154.

Vehicles

Colossus Heavy Tank

• Tank Mine resistance (type 9) from -100 to -50.

Dev Note: This moves the total number of mines to kill a full-health Colossus from 4 to 6.

Visual Updates

The visuals on the following items have been improved. The details have been modeled in and improved upon, and the meshes cleaned up. In addition, we were able to move them off of older, less-used or unique texture sheets, which gives us savings in memory overhead, and the texture sheet they were transferred to allows us to give them a more modern look and feel.

• Spawn Beacon has received updated visuals.
• VS Proximity Mine has received updated visuals.
• NC Bouncing Betty has received updated visuals.
• TR Claymore has received updated visuals.
• NSO's F.U.S.E. mine has received entirely new visuals.
• The Engineer's Ammunition Pouch has received updated visuals.
• Tank Mines have received updated visuals.
• Medical Applicator has received updated visuals.
• C-4 Detonator has received a slight update.
• C-4 bricks have received updated visuals.
• Engineer's ACE Tool has received updated visuals.

Misc. Changes, Fixes, and Additions

• Made additional fixes to the strafing animation that should resolve the remaining "teleportation" occurring when firing semi-auto weapons.
• Fixed an issue where using quick melee after firing a weapon wouldn't show the animation for onlookers.
• Glaive IPC should no longer be missing a turret in some cases.
• Removed the large Bounty notification in the center of the screen.
• Updated the ANT minimap icons to follow the style of other vehicles in the game.
• Nomad Armor (NC armor set) should no longer have clipping around the bracer area.
• Headlights should now work on NSO vehicles.
• Optimized particles on the Prowler's deploy animation, which was causing noticeable frame drops.
• The Flash XS-1 (Tactical Deployable) has its own unique model now, a more lightweight version of the standard Flash, with a single seat.
• Cerberus' (VS Sidearm) optics should no longer be floating.
• The Ammunition Belt suit slot now functions with the SR-200 (NSO Sniper Rifle).
• Thumper's reticle has been updated for better target visibility.
• A new "Basic Banner Frame" can be purchased with certs or DBC from the Profile Screen, or the Depot.

Source: Test Server: Announcements

[Fallengud]

Updated armoury planner with the test server anvil weights:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ppWOaw9FgsI08ggmxfJhiQXwKlerNiMhmOilLme1asU/edit?usp=sharing

[Coliax]

AF-23 Grinder - High-capacity shotguns.

•Rate of fire from 120 rounds per minute to 130 rounds per minute.
•Min damage from 20 to 35.
•Mag size from 18 to 22.
•Reserve ammo from 126 to 154.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs&ab_channel=Rubba

Finally our max gets some love

[Coliax]

Holy fucking shit, we can have 2 orbitals, 2 Citadel Shields, 3 Heavy, 3 Medium and 5 Light anvils

[Fallengud]

I also got some ideas for the steel rain...

[Fallengud]

We got an outfit on the test server called: RE4E    -     The Re4pers PTS
(I enlisted to the OW)

[Fallengud]

PTS writes that the OW starts in cc 1 day 10 hours

[ChargeMaximus]

The continued barrage of Orbital Strikes to TI Alloys on Indar seems to have damaged the hardline beneath it. The base has become inoperable, and will require maintenance before coming back online.

Edit by wolken (after charge was faster with posting the image):

[Wolkenwand]

Damn -charge wanted to help, but you were faster

[Fallengud]

Lately I saw more orbitals on Comm array than on TI, maybe only because I was not really looking on the later.

My favourite memory about TI was from the recent Cobalt Clash, when at the beginning Arshee said that there is always something going on TI, and he found it almost completely deserted when he got there...

[MrFFF]

Oi! I cant make edits to reply's in this thread but Wolky can?! *riot*

[Wolkenwand]

[MrFFF]

[TheTry]

Fortify (Implant)

    Standing still for 1/0.75/0.5/0.1 seconds now activates a 20% small arms resistance until you move again, down from 4/3.5/2.75/2 seconds.
    Rank 5 of this implant continues to provide 50% resistance to common explosives.
    Modified shield visuals, and made them personal to the player.

With these changes, could running fortify + grenade bandolier be viable in point holds?

[Wolkenwand]

With current movement (aka dance battle) meta standing still will get you killed.

End of story. I can't think of any buff that would make it worthwhile to stand still in a direct engagement.