Planetside 2: Grindy McGrindy McSpaceyPants

I'll hop in and throw you an invite.

The only class that uses Jump Jets is light assault, and they can't use grenade launchers or rockets (I don't even know if grenade launchers are in the game any more for anything other than vehicles, they were removed in beta some time). As for standard grenades (and C4, since you can deploy that too): Grenade physics don't play well in any situation. When you drop a grenade it tends to fling out of your hand like you're a major league pitcher, and they bounce like super balls, so placement can be extremely difficult and unpredictable in most situations. You'll get a feel for how weird they are, but they don't handle anywhere near as well as Tribes grenades.

I still drop grenades all over the place when hovering over the enemy etc, but unless I'm aiming into a huge crowd I'm flying over it's usually unlikely I'll get anything more than a few assist kills, unless I'm grounded and taking a bit more time to prepare my throw.

As for C4, it pretty much drops almost straight down if you're hovering over something, which can be infuriating when a tank knows why you're there, and they're moving back and forth (or shooting at you). C4 is best deployed when you're just standing right in front of something, because all your character will do is lean forward and just stick it to a surface. Although I still drop tons of the stuff when hovering over enemy vehicles (or at least trying to) and the like, timing and player location is everything, because it doesn't handle at all like you'd want it to either (I just want to throw it like a satchel).

Flying is really just a travel power in this game. I mean, I've done some incredibly heroic things while jetting around (sticking c4 to very low flying enemy Galaxies as an example, and killing groups of grounded people with well-placed grenades), but instances like that are so much the exception to the rule.

I haven't unlocked Smoke Grenades or Flash Grenades, so I have no input on their usefulness by a flying LA, other than dropping a smoke grenade in key hard-to-reach places does sound very appealing. Flash grenades just seem flat out stupid to me (as least the ones in beta were), since I'd rather just damage (than blind) the enemies I'm trying to grenade. No idea how useful those are since release, nobody has hit me with one yet.

I try to avoid generalizing behavior across factions in these sort of games ("Alliance sucks at PvP", etc), but I am starting to wonder. I had about 30 minutes to kill this morning and decided to hop on to my NC guy to spend the certs that have been accruing while he sleeps. Went infiltrator and hot dropped into a base assault on a Vanu amp station. About 15 minutes minutes later I am standing with 14 kills and 1 death. To put this in context, on my main Vanu guy, I think I have somewhere around 40% K/D ratio -- so, in short, I suck at FPS games. But holy crap, the Vanu seemed to have no clue about sophisticated concepts, like, say, cover. Seriously, there was one point where I was holed up in a little nook of rocks where not 30 meters from me 4 Vanu snipers were sitting in the wide open without stealth. So I kill one with a headshot (pretty freaking easy from 30 meters even for me). You would think the other three would reconsider the merits of their position, but nope, they just keep pew pewing away. I ended up killing them all, but it almost felt dirty. Like stealing candy from a baby.

Oh, and it seems a bit unfair that the NC starts with a bolt-action sniper rifle that's a one headshot guaranteed kill with zero upgrades while the Vanu start out with the "scout rifle" and have to either spend a billion certs or real money to get a descent gun.

It takes a while for Vanu to learn the hard lessons about cover, because they're effectively invisible everytime the sun so much as moves behind a cloud.

For the record, fuck the NC and their easy-come fucking bolt action rifles. GOD I HATE THOSE SO MUCH.

VS seems competent on um...Hoth, not sure if that is just a population thing, but not on the Jungle Planet. Last night I saw 30 riderless Flashes (I assume the riderless bit was just a graphical glitch) circle jerking at the warp gate. I waited around to see if they were massing for Flash Zerg but I never saw them leave the Warp Gate. VS is just going to attact the goof-balls. Wheeeeeee Perp3Lz L4z0rz!!!!! :)))))))))) !!!!

Yeah, I've been trying to get into this since my brother and his friends play almost every night, but I'm just not feeling it. It seems like there might be something there if I were willing to invest a good amount of time, but the first impressions aren't great and I have other stuff to play.

So, apparently servers are being taken down at the moment to restart them. I don't know exactly what the problems are, but the warning message indicated "Locking out External Players from Server." All I can say is that about an hour ago I started being shot through walls, and invisible enemies were able to kill entire squads of people, and destroy gens etc without anyone being able to see or interact with them.

Well, since I've played the crap out of the two or three maps (yes, I am being a little sarcastic, but different weather and day/night do not a separate map make) Mechwarrior has to offer, I'll be downloading this tomorrow. I played the hell out of the original Planetside, but burned out sometime before the devs when crazy and broke apart the planet.

Anyway, I'll join Vanu this time. I'll ask for an invite when I get things set up. My internet connection probably won't handle voice comms while playing, however.

FWIW I am completely miserable when it comes time to actually shoot people. I've gravitated to the Engineer class and tanks as a result. Spawning in a Lightning at the Warp Gate and driving to the Nearest hotspot give you a chance to approach the battle with friendly territory to your back as well as giving you a good chance to join the Zerg (if your doodz are winning the battle) as it rolls out. Being an engie gives you the chance to gain XP by repairing yourself and your allies tanks. Finding where the front line is, not advancing beyond it and retreating when you get damaged can result in a very long life. Quick Note - The Lightning's default gun is pretty much ass against actual armor, I invested in the, Python - I think its name is - (good against armor, moderate burst) and I can take out other Lightnings with ease and have buzzarded quite a few Prowler kills with it. Remember to Flee a lot in the light tanks, just have an idea of where you are going to flee too.

But once your tank is blown out from under you, deploy a turret. Which for me has the advantage of giving me a little cover while providing a somewhat effective long range weapon. (Though you will get head shotted by the aforementioned Bolt Drivers...a lot). The turret also allows for plentiful spotting (so does the tank with a cheap optical zoom or two) while generally cutting down on the behavior that I am worst at (mano-a-mano combat).

I'm having fun, but I developed this playstyle during hours of play in the Beta, it might just taking finding your niche to really enjoy PS2. A decent squad always helps as well.

I've killed tons of people with grenades. Almost all friendlies, alas. In my last session I had the opportunity to toss one into a building full of hostiles. "What could possibly go wrong?" I thought. Then a whole squad of Vanu rushed into the building, like, a microsecond after I threw the grenade. Blammo. YOU'RE WELCOME.

I guess that technically wasn't the fault of the grenade physics, but still. I've come to realize that mapping the grenades to the G key is meant to serve as a mnemonic. "Press G for Grief Points"

Mandella, having playing both Mechwarrior Online and Planetside 2, I'll say this: I plan to uninstall Mechwarrior.

If only the fuse timers weren't sooooooooooooooooo loooooooooooong. Since the game is down at the moment I don't have access to my stats, but I'm positive that except for a team kill I scored with my ATV, and a couple friendly dudes I blasted when they surprised me, I think 99.8-99.9% of my team kills are from grenades.

You know, that's an excellent point. Maybe I'm miserable because I'm trying to play in a totally different way than I played PS1. In PS1 I was a flyer/engineer -- why am I trying to play assault?

I need to log in, find somewhere far from combat, and learn the flight controls and what engineers can do.

As an Engineer, 90% of mine (including 2 weapon locks) are from the turret.

You would think people on the same team would run around the back of a firing turret, but oh no...

Some unlock questions:

I assume that if I unlock a weapon, any eligible class can use it? Like, If I unlock a shotgun, I could equip it with any class that has access to shotguns?

Is the same true of attachments, or are those all weapon-specific?

What are some good weapons to unlock, assuming that I have some space bucks to burn? I was thinking about doing a bolt-action sniper rifle, just because the default Vanu rifle is fairly lame. Is a shotgun worth the investment, or are assault rifles generally better? Are any of the alternate assault rifles worthwhile?

Yes.

Attachments are specific to each weapon, but shared for that specific weapon between all the classes eligible to wield it.

My favorite guns, by class (entirely my preferences, not claiming they're all the BEST EVAR):

Medic -- the default gun is solid.
Engineer -- Eidolon with a 6x scope, lets me be a snipy-ish engineer. For up-close slugfests, Thanatos shotgun.
Heavy -- VS-88 (I think that's what it's called?) with a 2x reflex scope, although I wish I had the 3.4x instead.
Infiltrator -- I have one of the bolt-action guns, forget which.
Light -- meh, I hardly play light.
Max -- dual Nebulas chew through infantry crazy fast. I also have a dual-burster loadout, but even if I unload two full clips into a stationary aircraft, I can't blow it up. Pretty much giving up on AA for the time being, unless I run across a crowd of AA maxes and can join in with 'em.

And, don't overlook the "trial" for guns you're considering.

How are the Nebulas for Friendly Fire? I was a Grief Monster in PS1 when fools would run in between me and my Dual shotgun wielding MAX...

Not too bad, but if someone runs in front when you're cutting loose, you definitely get yelled at.

I felt bad earlier when I was in my dual-neb max -- a friendly engineer was reparing me, when four NC came around the corner directly behind him. Dunno if I killed him or they did, but if I'd held my fire we both would've been toast (I died anyway, but took two of 'em with me).

War is Hell. No way you come back the same man who left.

All the Vanu scopes:

I'm not sure that it's completely up to date, but it's still a good overview. I think scope choice is mostly a matter of taste and play style.

BTW, under-mount grenade launchers are still in the game, but only one weapon can equip them, AFAICT. For the Vanu, it's the Solstice SF. I'm trying to decide between that and the VX6-7 (which reportedly tears it up in close combat) for my Light Assault loadout.

For what it's worth, being probably equally if not even more terrible i've found the "weapon instruction" video from the tutorial page extremely helpful. Like, going from flailing and what the fuck to three kills in a row in middle of all-out combat helpful. (yes, this is a success story)

Have also discovered thanks to it the TR guns have epic spread, which allows me to pretend that's the main reason of hillariously bad earlier performance.

Pretty much all of those tutorial videos are worth watching, but especially the weapons training one, and the base capture tutorial.

I hear ya, but I don't know what it is, but something about Mechwarrior, even half-ass Mechwarrior, just gives me a gamer boner. Maybe it's all the hours spent on tabletop back in the day, but even then there must have been something that resonated for me to play that instead of Warhammer or something.

Still, Mechwarrior Online is early, early Beta (or should be). Planetside is release, and I've learned with Sony to jump in on release early before they can get around to screwing it up.
I'll go back to MWO when they, you know, add the game in.

Yeah, Mechwarrior could improve. I like the actual "sim" part of it--the vehicle piloting and such. But the maps are boring and the game objectives are boring.

I hope that Sony doesn't screw up PS2, because I'm having fun with it right now.

Well, work blew up so I only got to play for a few minutes just now until the game sputtered to a halt with some graphical glitching. I couldn't really see anything but the moon. I like the fact it doesn't take forever to kill someone. Played a bit of NC light assault and infiltrator. Hopefully get the chance to put an hour or two in tomorrow. Tentatively positive on the game, though.

So I tried playing the Infiltrator as an Infiltrator (instead of as a Sniper), and it takes some skill and requires a very different mindset than what you might use with one of the Assault classes, but is actually quite effective if you can resist the urge to get entangled in run-and-gun battles. I'm not entirely sure that it's how I want to roll (I really like the Light Assault class), but it's interesting and useful. So for those of you that think that the Infiltrator is only good at sniping, try the following:

1. Equip a scout rifle. I know. They suck as sniper rifles. But what they don't suck at is close combat, if used correctly. Consider the Nyx: semi-automatic with a ten-round clip that you can fire off as fast as you can pull the trigger. Some recoil, but the first shot is always dead-accurate when shot ADS, and if you give the gun time to return to center, the next shot will be, too. Adding a grip would likely allow you to speed up your rate of fire. If you add a scope, go for the 2x one. You aren't going to be fighting at range. Also, add a silencer. The penalties are negligible on this gun at close range, and you don't want people to find you. The Nyx does a LOT of damage for a CC weapon--more than twice as much as a shotgun, and with much better accuracy. The thing is, you do need to aim (the Nyx takes large penalties when shooting from the hip), and if you let yourself get into a run-and-gun battle against someone with a carbine or an LMG, you are going to lose. So the trick is to not do that. Use your stealth to sneak around, find an unsuspecting target. Get behind them, but fairly close, and ideally in cover. Aim, de-stealth, and shoot. If you can get a head shot in, you can likely kill them before they even know who is firing at them. If you don't kill them quickly (and also if you do), re-stealth and bug out. Hide. Then look for a new target. The key is to remember that you do not want to get into a stand-up fight. You are a glass cannon, and your job is to shoot people in the back. Of the head, if you can manage it. If you want to play the assassin, you are also going to want to put points into the Hunter cloaking device, which increases the regen rate of your cloak. If you can't resist the urge to get into stand-up fights, then this role probably isn't for you.

2. USE YOUR SENSOR GUN. Dropping sensors in key places behind enemy lines will auto-spot every enemy in the area, which is not only critical to your continued survival, it's also hugely useful to your team. Arguably even more so than killing people. Recon is really one of the Infiltrator's most important jobs.

3. Hack terminals. Cap control points. Sow chaos. This requires some stealth and ingenuity, but you'll be aided by the fact that Infiltrators seem to get a large passive bonus to capture speed. At least, every point I've captured has turned over really quickly, even on offense. Much more so than when I have captured points as Light Assault.

One major complaint: I like the idea of the trial system for weapons, because if you are going to charge real-world money for the things, then I damn sure want to know that I am getting what I want. And while I can understand having a cooldown--even a lengthy one--on each specific weapon trial, I really hate the fact that trying a weapon also puts every other weapon on cooldown. I mean, WTF is the point of that? If I am trying out a weapon in the first place, then it means that I have some space bucks to spend and am not sure what I want to spend it on. Which in turn means, by necessity, that I want to compare the available options. But that's really hard to do when trying one weapon puts everything else on cooldown for eight fucking hours. "Should I get the VX6-7, or the Solstice SF, or the Pandora? I guess I'll spend the next week figuring it out!"

Come on, Sony. Lose the global cooldown on weapon trials.

Or at least give us better info on the damn things. Buying weapons is way, way too blind.

Wasn't there some talk of a single-player VR/practice mode with all weapons unlocked?

Tribes: Ascend has this and it's really useful.

This would solve a ton of problems for me.

IIRC, that was similar to how Planetside 1 handled it at least with vehicles. Even gave you XP for it; it was a quick way to get to BR2.

Yeah, that would be ideal. Perhaps make it so that every weapon is unlocked when you are inside the perimeter of a warpgate?

This makes me think of the original Total Recall and the decoy device for some reason.

They actually do get a device (if you unlock it) called a "Decoy Grenade." You toss it, and it makes a racket that sounds just like a big firefight. I haven't used one, but I did get fooled by one once. I ran out to see who was attacking, and there was nobody there, and some guy shot me in the back. Pretty funny.

I'm uninstalling this game. If you add in the time I spent testing the beta, I probably put a couple hundred hours into it, but the annoyances are finally outweighing the fun for me and I just don't have the tolerance for it in its current state.

My number one complaint is the instagib combat. I simply get no joy from nearly all my main weapons being alphastrike weapons that annihilate other players within the span of one second with a simple single click of the mouse (nor do I get any joy from being one-shotted, but I wouldn't mind that so much if the combat mechanics as a whole weren't so fucking goofy). This game is all about surprising your enemy, and pulling the trigger first. I've said it before, and it still stands, it's whack-a-mole, on a massive scale -- at least from my perspective as a standard infantry unit. Planetside 2 is essentially a huge battlefield full of scary movie cats jumping out and surprising you.

It's unpolished, it's sloppy, and it's wasting its massive potential. I spent the money, I tried to get the most out of what I paid for it, but at this point in time I've had my fill. I have great hope that they'll fix so many of the problems I've been having with the game, but I'm not getting my hopes up (How I can both have hope, but not get my hopes up is a mystery to me too). There's a ton to love about the game, but most of what I love are (it's potential... and) its hypothetical possibilities that just never quite come to fruition.

I don't enjoy steamrolling, and I don't enjoy fights that drag on and on (and on). I've had a few good moments, but they are fleeting, and I feel like I have to put too much time into doing all the crap that sucks just to experience the stuff that doesn't for whatever brief moment those instances may present themselves.

I'm less disappointed at the money spent than the wasted potential at this point. Blah!

Some would say that perhaps the game just isn't for me, and to them I say: no, at this point in time the game sucks, and you're wrong.

If I didn't enjoy at least some of the game I wouldn't care so much about quitting it, nor would I have tried to so hard to get into it. Man, I wanted to love this game since the moment it was announced. Boo! I plan to return if they ever address some of my concerns. No you can't have my stuff.

Hey all. I'm going to go ahead and swap to Vanu.

I discovered a SECRET RIFLE last night. It's probably not supposed to be secret, but it's currently not listed in any weapon or class category in the store, or in the list of weapon data that kerzain linked. You'll never see it unless you look through the entire weapon list with no filters, or search for it by name. It equips in the main slot on a Heavy, and is sort of like an M1. If the M1 shot 50 caliber rounds. Semiautomatic (no full auto mode), 10 round clip. It is highly accurate, and has great stopping power. First shot always falls dead center on the reticle; it has a little kick, but comes back to center again quickly. You can shoot maybe three rounds per second giving it time to recenter after each shot.

Anyway, I equipped it as a trial last night and did really well with it, at pretty much all ranges. Went face to face with a Max at 20 feet (no cover) and won. I had the drop on him, but still. It's a really good weapon; if you roll Heavy, give it a try next time you are off the trial cooldown.

...and if you give him a dollar, Ben will tell you which rifle it is! (here's a hint)

Shhh! It's a secret!