Planetside 2

[Dog Pants]

Well the Lasher has turned out to be disappointing. Luckily it was only a couple of quid in the sale. It's obviously designed to be a support weapon for keeping enemy heads down, a long range plasma hose which damages things on the way past and has splash damage. It's capable of decent sustained fire, but the disco balls it fires make it difficult to aim and the damage is pretty poor. They'll probably buff it at some point, and I like the effect, but it's not worth the money.

[Sheriff Fatman]

The Lasher used to be the weapon of choice for VS in Planetside 1 and was a great source of nerf shouting from the other empires. I suspect they have probably erred on the side of caution this time around because it really did take the piss in close combat. I don't think it's designed as a weapon that should be used out in the open, it seems most of the heavy assault weapons suffer from quite a reduction in damage beyond close range. I'd stick with it and try it whilst shielded and running straight at the nasties.

[Dog Pants]

I've seen videos of how it was in beta, which seems more like what you're describing. Almost like a plasma flamethrower. This doesn't seem the same, but you make a valid point regardless that I might just have not found its niche. From browsing various forums it would seem none of the sides got what they expected in a heavy weapon, so it seems they have other plans for these options than being a win-button. Which is fair enough.

[Dog Pants]

Oh, and it's double XP this weekend.

[Dog Pants]

Some good Planetsidin' had last night. A squad of (at one point) eight of us mostly keeping together was largely ineffective but good fun. The 5punky road trip in the Bits bus was as hilarious as one might expect. Travelling from one friendly facility to another we got lost once, two of us died, and we had two arguments. We are never to do this in real life. Later we tried a similar thing in a Galaxy dropship. Cue much screaming and everyone jumping out at first enemy contact. We should have recorded that, it went something like:

"I have no idea how to fly this thing."
"I wonder how high we can go"
"Enemy planes behind us! Fucking shoot them!"
"I aaaaaaam!"
"Shiiiiiiiit!"
"Do you get parachutes in this game?"
"No"
"Go lower go lower!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
"Juuuuuump!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
"Oh, I'm still alive!"
"Shit, I just died falling off a building"

[Anery]

Nice, I need to get online with you guys at some point. The Galaxy trip sounds like every air-borne expedition I go on.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I had far, far too much fun last night in my magtank, must get more tankshinies.

[Dog Pants]

We got a fair beasting last night. TR were sweeping pretty much every continent and for some reason NC thought they'd zerg us instead of defending themselves. Lots of deaths, and too many caused by aircraft - as with pretty much any game like this AA is proving to be fairly ineffective against good pilots, and they're dominating the battlefields. That might just be a relative imbalance as more people unlock AA though, or even just a subjective one because they game everyone a hard time last night. Still, on the plus side, Berk and I found a great new way to breach enemy walls by piggy-backing magriders.

[Jimmington]

Considering the game is Freddy Freemans, it appears to be very well done.

However, I think it is going to pass me by pretty quick without more effort put in, because frankly much like life, i have no clue what is going on.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

That happens for a start, just log on, deploy somewhere that's flashing and follow the zerg, also, just don't expect to have much situational awareness for a while. I only got the hang of the shields etc after spending a good few hours bumming around trying to be remotely effective.

[Dog Pants]

Indeed. I did warn you you might bounce off it for exactly that reason, as I did when I played the beta. That's not a criticism, I think most people do. It comes down to whether you like the concept enough to persevere really. I love it personally, although some of the finer details are frustrating. Here's another story from friday night to demonstrate why it's grabbed me like it has.

I was bumming about in my Magrider on the leading edge of a tank zerg which had paused to capture a facility. After a minor long range exchange of fire with some tanks and turrets further along the road I retreated to repair, leaving the road to take a short cut back to the facility. Cresting the bank along the side of the road I'm confronted by the rear of a large counterattack, maybe 30 infantry and a handful of tanks, using some small hills around 800m away as cover for their attack. I popped off three or four rounds with my damaged tank into the mass of enemy before they started to return fire, getting a couple of kills. It didn't take long for a tank round to find me and I baled out a few seconds before my Maggie exploded from more incoming fire, sprinting into the rocky terrain of the roadside. I popped up to let off a couple of anti-tank rounds at some straggling armour which had doubled back to have a look for me, and noticed troops making their way into my rocks. Switching to my LMG I got the jump on one and took him out, but with no time to reload I didn't have enough ammo to stop the second and was shot down. Less than a minute afterwards a friendly medic got me back on my feet, and I looked back over the rocks to see the counterattack gone and dozens of friendly troops and vehicles swarming across the same field. So many impressive sights and desperate encounters in such a short time.

[Sheriff Fatman]

I have to say I'm really struggling to get into PS2. I don't enjoy mechanised zergs (or any zergs, for that matter) and this game seems so weighted against small units and infantry that it is becoming increasingly frustrating. I understand that it is a team game, but it is almost impossible to do anything useful without having shit-loads of infantry friends running around with you, or masses of armoured/air support.

As has been mentioned, the AA is next to useless; why a lightly armoured strike aircraft should take so many flak rounds to kill is quite beyond me. All it takes is for the pilot to spin round, hammer his rocket pods and lay waste to anything with the audacity to fire at him. Similarly, having to get three AT rounds into the arse-end of an MBT to kill it takes the piss. Even if you are lucky enough to survive long enough to get those three shots on target, the MBT remains completely effective right up to the point it assplodes and can just fling a salvo HE rounds your way and it's curtains. There should at least be some penalty to effectiveness for both air and ground vehicles that are damaged.

I want to like this game, I really do, but it so unbalanced at the moment I struggle to play more than a couple of hours before just logging off and going to do my washing, or something similarly interesting.

And then there are the bloody hackers ...

[Dog Pants]

This is quite interesting (with the link to the Excel sheet at the bottom). DPS values of all the infantry weapons, showing that actually there's not a great deal between them. I think recoil is probably about the only distinguishing feature of note.

[Anery]

Ahh, the good ol T9-CARV. Not silly accurate at all, nope not at all

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Last night I got the speed chassis on a magtank, then spent a while dogbombing off cliffs into enemy tankzergs, it wasn't particularly effective from a kills point of view, but watching the other team blow the shit out of each other because a magtank just jumped on their heads was quite pleasing.

[Dog Pants]

[Roman Totale]

Dogbomb!

[Anery]

Last night I got the speed chassis on a magtank, then spent a while dogbombing off cliffs into enemy tankzergs, it wasn't particularly effective from a kills point of view, but watching the other team blow the shit out of each other because a magtank just jumped on their heads was quite pleasing.

Not a bad tactic if you don't mind taking one for the team, I've often had to pick up the pieces of a reasonably coherant squad who shit themselves and blew each other to shit when an enemy light assault jet packed into the middle of them. Then again, I've also had to pick up the pieces or do the killing myself when everybody has been to worried about friendly fire to actually shoot the bugger.
Perhaps not quite effective if the target is slow moving and quite large.

[Dog Pants]

180 free station cash anyone? You have to sign up to two browser MMOs using your SOE account, but since Sony already have my details and I don't actually have to play, or even install, the games I don't really care. I've tried it, it works (although 180 on its own doesn't buy a lot).

[HereComesPete]

I really should get round to trying this. I declare early Fri-games intent. If I'm online on Friday and no ninja concerts have been declared, whoever else is around pester the fuck out of me until I cave in and join the queueueueueing simulator.