January - Spawn Room Tunnel System
In our ongoing effort to mitigate spawn camping, we are planning on adding some spawn room tunnel networks to provide additional escape paths. The current plan is to add these to all Tech Plants and Amp Stations.
January - Rendering Distance Based on Threat
We want to mitigate the impact of render distance on enemies that are a direct threat. For example, anyone that pilots air vehicles can probably attest to how lame it is to get shot down by AA players that didn't render because of the distances involved. We want to make sure that doesn't happen.
January - More secure spawn rooms at small outposts
This entails adding more windows and doors, as well as a canopy to protect against aircraft. This should make spawn camping more difficult and will be present across all small outposts.
January - Tower Redesign
The layout of towers would be altered to include more shields and an additional exit from the spawn room. The hope is to make spawn camping in the towers a more difficult proposition.
January - Experience Incentives
The idea behind this Incentive system is that higher “priority” targets are worth more experience than others. So killing someone on a wicked kill streak nets you more XP than killing someone right as they spawn.
For example, perhaps something like this:
Spawn Kill
25xp
This is a newly spawned player alive for less than seconds.
Kill
100xp
This is a player who has lived for more than 30 seconds and has accrued less than 500 unbuffed xp without dying.
Priority Kill
150xp
This is a Player who has lived for more than 30 seconds and has accrued more than 1000 unbuffed xp and less than 2000 unbuffed xp without dying.
High Priority Kill
300xp
This is a Player who has lived for more than 30 seconds and has accrued more than 2000 unbuffed xp without dying
When an enemy is spotted, we mayd add a visual indicator to show the relative target “priority”
This status would be inherited by any vehicle the player owns
January - Defender Only Jump Pads
In an effort to help support general defense at facilities, we’re exploring the idea of having the jump pads which allow players to quickly traverse the walls only be usable by the Empire in control of the facility.
The current plan is to roll this out to all of the Tech Plant and some specific Biolab walls.
January - Experience Source Display Improvements
We want to display the total Experience bonus percentage rewarded whenever you get the applicable experience.
Currently this would show as a small popup next to your Cert point display right above the Minimap.
This would add up elements like:
Population Bonus
Membership Bonus
Defense Bonus
We might actually just display the defense bonus as a static value in the facility panel above the minimap all the time
Squad Boosts
Personal Boosts
In addition, we want to show a progress bar over your certification points to give a better visual indicator of how close you are to earning your next cert point.
January - SMGs
We'd like to add a new weapon type, the Submachine Gun (SMG), to the game.
The current plan is to make them accessible to all classes outside of the MAX
Stats on the individual weapons will vary slightly to account for Empire and specialization differences, but currently the goal is to have the SMG look something like this:
Pros
Excels in Close Quarters Combat
Top end Rate of Fire
Low Time To Kill
Cons
Significant drop off in effectiveness at medium and long range
Limited magazine size
January - Window Plugs
We're making windows all across Auraxis’ bases and facilities smaller, so it should be tougher for tanks and planes to shoot into buildings.
January - Player Invincibility on Spawn
Getting killed right as you spawn in is not fun. One of the things we can do to try and reduce frustration on that front is to add a very brief period of invulnerability to a player in that situation.
The goal would be to only allow players to get their bearings and maybe start to make a break for cover – taking any actions like firing a weapon would remove the invulnerability even if the default timer had not yet expired.
January - Destroying the SCU only penalizes Spawn Timers
Currently, destroying an Spawn Control Unit (SCU) completely removes that Spawn point from the facility until it is repaired. Unfortunately this can have the effect of ending a fight too quickly and lead to boring moments. Players may not want to stand around waiting for the point to flip because defenders can no longer get to the fight.
One possible solution to this problem would be to have a destroyed SCU penalize the spawn timer for that location rather than simply disabling the spawn point completely.
So with an SCU destroyed, defenders could still spawn at the base, but they would do so with a penalty to their Respawn Timer.
This would affect all player spawns for the facility that are not tied to a Forward Spawn Point. Forward Spawns would remain unaffected by this change.
The overall intent would be to shift the climactic moment of the battle to holding/taking the control point instead of defending/destroying the SCU.
January - Creating "No Deploy" zones for AMS equipped Sunderers
We are currently discussing mechanics which would allow designers to designate areas within a base or facility that Sunderers cannot deploy in. The initial use of this ability will be to disallow Sunderer deployment in Tower Vehicle Bays, but that can expand if we discover other problematic areas.
February - Account Level Unlocks
We would like items purchased with Station Cash to be unlocked across all characters on the account that can utilize them. This change would be retroactive to prior purchases.
February - VR Training Area
Learning how to play the game under live fire conditions can be pretty daunting. To help address this, we’re planning on adding in a VR Training zone that will be a safe haven for players to try out weapons, practice piloting vehicles, and get comfortable with basic game mechanics.
Initially, this area would be more of a sandbox for players to experiment in, but down the road we’d potentially look to leverage it for in game tutorials.
Highlights include:
Your faction only
Friendly fire disabled
No vehicle spawn timers or resource cost
All weapons available for use
Areas set up for firing ranges and vehicle courses
February - Community Grief Reporting
We're investigating ways to improve the reporting tools available to the PlanetSide 2 community at large to help identify and call out hackers and other griefers.
This would include things like being able to click on a name to /report them instead of trying to correctly decipher where the i's and L's in IlIIlllIll's character name are.
Please call out more ideas that would make your lives easier when it comes to calling out the folks ruining it for the rest of us.
February - Empire Specific Rocket Launchers
We'd like to add Empire-specific rocket launchers, including things like player guided rockets, multiple lock-on swarm missiles, and a charge fire mode into the mix.
February - Improved Item Preview
We want to add the ability to preview an item on the player’s current Loadout for their class/vehicle so everyone can get a better idea of what it's really going to look like in context.
This would apply to Camo (tint), decals, wearables, and vehicle attachments.
February - Loadout Screen Revamp
We want to take a pass at cleaning up and enhancing the Loadout screen. Specifics are still pending, but the goal is to make common actions more convenient. For example: Changing tints on your weapons, vehicles, and uniform should be easier than it is currently.
February - Regional Empire Priority System
The intent for this system is to allow the game to set "priority level" for regions based on what activities are taking place there. These areas would come with score/XP bonuses to encourage fights in underutilized areas, spread population, and create hotspots.
February - Vehicle Update: Flash
We want to add new abilities and weapons to the Flash.
Current ideas include:
Adding additional weapon types
Wraith (cloaking the quad) option for infiltrators
We're still brainstorming, so call out any ideas you have that you think would be cool for the Flash.
February - Increase the number of vehicle cosmetic slots
We offer a bunch of sweet cosmetic customizations for vehicles, but we only let you equip them one at a time. We'd like to add additional slots that will allow you equip multiple customizations on your vehicle SIMULTANEOUSLY. We have the technology!
February - Separate Score from Experience
At the moment experience and score are tied too closely together, so if you buff your experience, you end up buffing your score as well. That’s misleading and not really fulfilling the intention for the scoreboard, so we'd like to make score and experience are two independent (if still related) numbers.
February - Daily Medals/Achievements
We'd like to add in daily achievements/medals for weapons and tools which could include things like:
"Kill 10 enemies with the CARV" or "Revive 10 allies with Revive Grenades" would net Experience or Cert rewards
These would reset daily
February - Pump Action Shotguns
We would like to add a new weapon type, the Pump Action Shotgun. These shotguns would fill a similar role to the existing semi-auto’s already in game, but trade rate of fire for increased damage.
February - Orbital Strike
Orbital Strikes are intended to help push enemy players out of an area by turning that area into a series of large explosions. Players should have enough warning time to potentially escape the area, but if caught off guard, they would definitely not enjoy the experience.
Functionally, the idea is to be able to call down an orbital strike via a consumable laser targeting device. When aiming the targeting laser, you’ll have an arming time that will need to take place before you can fire the device, at which point the targeting device itself is consumed.
The strike starts off with a few smaller projectiles that come down from the flight ceiling and then ramp up over time in a pattern within the strike’s attack radius.
If the projectile hits anything before it reaches the ground, the projectile will have the same effects as though it had hit the ground, exploding and dealing damage to the object it hit and anything else that meets the damage effects settings.
Each faction will have a specific look and feel, but will be equally devastating and do the same amount of damage.
February - Spectator Mode
We would like to add a Spectator Mode for live gameplay observation.
March - Continent Locking
In order to start laying the foundation for a proper metagame, we've been putting a lot of thought into continent locking. There are a lot of little snags and details still to work out, but the basic idea at the moment looks something like this:
Add the ability to capture a Warpgate.
This is accomplished by taking over all adjacent territory.
You won't be able tor take over an Empire's final Warpgate. This restriction would go away if we ever pursue adding Sanctuaries.
Once a single Empire controls all territory on a continent, the continent enters a "locked" state:
All enemy units are removed from the continent and spawn in at an available Warpgate.
The continent can not be entered/attacked by enemy units for a period of time.
March - Player Generated Missions
PlanetSide 2 has always embraced the idea that the core game content is totally player driven, so the mission system just takes that idea a little further. We want to give players (with appropriate command certs) the ability to create mission hotspots on the map that can be viewed by their entire Empire.
These missions would ask for specific actions in specific locations, and provide bonus experience for players that accept them.
Players can only have one mission active at a time
An example mission might look something like one of these:
Air Strikes at location
XP bonus to ground kills/assists while in aircraft at this location.
Greatly increased gunner XP bonus (for Lib Pilots)
Greatly increased XP bonus for Sunderer kills.
Deployment to location
Large XP increase to deploy-bonuses.
Large XP increase to AMS spawn bonuses.
XP bonus for repairs to any deployment vehicle (Galaxy & Sunderer)
XP bonus to squad-deploy bonuses
Increased weight on Instant-action values
March - Improved Map and Respawn
To improve the respawn process, we'd like to essentially merge the map screen and the respawn screen so you’ll have access to better and more relevant information when deciding where you want to spawn next.
March - Convenience Items
There are a handful of items we would like to add to the Depot that will allow players to accomplish some commonly requested actions through an SC purchase:
Certification Reset
Name Change
Server Transfer
Do you guys have any other ideas for items like these? What are we still missing?
March - Color Blind Support
We'd like to put control of the UI color schemes into the hands of the player, allowing each user to set up colors that they find useful individually across key elements the game.
March - Implants
Implants would utilize a new loadout slot and provide special bonuses that allow you to further tailor your class to the way you want to play.
Example implants might include stuff like:
Silent running
Your character emits no footstep audio
Safe Landing
Allows you to fall greater distances before taking damage
Audio Amp
Increases distance that enemies are spotted based on firing
What kinds of implants would you like to see added?
March - Tutorial
We would like to improve and expand the in-game tutorial by adding guided interactive training elements to VR training zone.
Current plans include tutorials for:
Basic Intro
Classes and Certifications
The Depot
Vehicles, Resources, and Territory Control
Getting Into the Action
Any other basics you guys think we should cover with this?
March - MAX Flamethrowers
A new weapon type for MAX suits, the Flamethrower would be designed to inflict sustained damage against soft targets.
March - Cert Screen Revamp
We would like to polish and streamline the certification screen currently in game, making it more efficient and intuitive.
March - Ragdoll Physics
Ragdoll physics would make every explosion a potentially amazing scene of amusement and spectacle. As Planetside 2 has a large output of explosions, this seems like it could make for a fun addition.
March - Class Revamp: Light Assault
We would like to polish and enhance the Light Assault class.
We’ll investigate the possible additions of new tools, new abilities, and new suit options
We want to add the ability for the Light Assault class to dual wield weapons
April - New Continent: Hossin
Adding a brand new continent: Hossin Hossin is a swamp covered continent.
April - Interlink Facility
The Interlink facility is a brand new base type on the scale of the Biolabs, Tech Plants, and Amp Stations.
It includes a giant radar dish that will offer great cover from aircraft and has difficult driving lanes with tight corners for ground vehicles.
We’re still figuring out what the base bonus could be, so please call out your ideas if you have any suggestions.
April - Vehicle Update: Sunderer
We want to give a little love to the Sunderer. Early ideas include:
Add more weapon types
Add additional squad spawn certs
For example, allowing you to ignore deployed Sunderer radii
We're still brainstorming, so throw some more ideas our way about what additions would be cool for the Sunderer.
April - Gifting
We'd like to add in support for gifting items to other players.
April - Outfit Recruiting
Rolling with an outfit in PlanetSide 2 is really making the most of what the game has to offer in a number of different ways, so we want to make the process of finding an outfit and finding new recruits easier for everyone involved.
We're still working out the kinks, but the basic rough outline currently looks like this:
A leader of an outfit wants to gain more members. They will modify an outfit description to let prospective members know what kind of Outfit it is. The leader can then toggle on a Looking for Members option.
A player looking to join an outfit will click on a Join Outfit button. This will bring up a list of all outfits that are looking for members. The player will be able to see the description of the outfit which will be informative enough for him to decide if it is the type of outfit he wants to join.
The player finds an outfit they like and will see a button next to the outfits listing that lets them send an application to join to the outfit.
The outfit management page will have an area with open applications in it. Players in the outfit that can see and modify the outfit management page will be able to see those applications and click through to their profile page to see more information about the applicants. If the player’s stats look sufficient then their application can be accepted and the player will be added to the outfit. If a player tries to join an outfit when they already have an application outstanding, they'd receive a notification along the lines of:
“You have already applied to the Outfit “OutfitNameHere” would you like to withdraw this application and apply to a new outfit?”
If the player chooses to withdraw the application, a notification will be sent to the previously applied guild to let them know the player withdrew their application.
April - Empire Specific Run Animations
We would like to add some variance and Empire-specific feel to the player run animations.
April - Common Pool Heavy Pistols
We are currently planning on adding a new common pool pistol type that specializes in hitting hard.
As common pool weapons, they will be available to all factions.
In exchange for their high damage per shot, they suffer when it comes to rate of fire.
April - In-game Mail
We'd like to add an in-game mail system to help on the communication front, likely contained somewhere in the existing notification screen.
April - Facebook/Twitter Integration
We'd like to improve the social networking features in game, specifically by leveraging Facebook and Twitter.
For Facebook, we'd like to add support for:
Linking an account to your character
Post from in game (pictures included)
Option for auto posting achievements
Option to call out when you start playing PlanetSide 2
Ability to add Facebook friends who play PlanetSide 2 to your in game friends list
And similar support for Twitter:
Linking an account to your character
Tweet from in game (pictures included)
Change prefix of your tweet
Option for auto tweeting achievements
Option to announce when you start playing PlanetSide 2
See your Twitter feed from within game
April - New Continent: Hossin
Adding a brand new continent: Hossin Hossin is a swamp covered continent.
April - Interlink Facility
The Interlink facility is a brand new base type on the scale of the Biolabs, Tech Plants, and Amp Stations.
It includes a giant radar dish that will offer great cover from aircraft and has difficult driving lanes with tight corners for ground vehicles.
We’re still figuring out what the base bonus could be, so please call out your ideas if you have any suggestions.
April - Vehicle Update: Sunderer
We want to give a little love to the Sunderer. Early ideas include:
Add more weapon types
Add additional squad spawn certs
For example, allowing you to ignore deployed Sunderer radii
We're still brainstorming, so throw some more ideas our way about what additions would be cool for the Sunderer.
April - Gifting
We'd like to add in support for gifting items to other players.
April - Outfit Recruiting
Rolling with an outfit in PlanetSide 2 is really making the most of what the game has to offer in a number of different ways, so we want to make the process of finding an outfit and finding new recruits easier for everyone involved.
We're still working out the kinks, but the basic rough outline currently looks like this:
A leader of an outfit wants to gain more members. They will modify an outfit description to let prospective members know what kind of Outfit it is. The leader can then toggle on a Looking for Members option.
A player looking to join an outfit will click on a Join Outfit button. This will bring up a list of all outfits that are looking for members. The player will be able to see the description of the outfit which will be informative enough for him to decide if it is the type of outfit he wants to join.
The player finds an outfit they like and will see a button next to the outfits listing that lets them send an application to join to the outfit.
The outfit management page will have an area with open applications in it. Players in the outfit that can see and modify the outfit management page will be able to see those applications and click through to their profile page to see more information about the applicants. If the player’s stats look sufficient then their application can be accepted and the player will be added to the outfit. If a player tries to join an outfit when they already have an application outstanding, they'd receive a notification along the lines of:
“You have already applied to the Outfit “OutfitNameHere” would you like to withdraw this application and apply to a new outfit?”
If the player chooses to withdraw the application, a notification will be sent to the previously applied guild to let them know the player withdrew their application.
April - Empire Specific Run Animations
We would like to add some variance and Empire-specific feel to the player run animations.
April - Common Pool Heavy Pistols
We are currently planning on adding a new common pool pistol type that specializes in hitting hard.
As common pool weapons, they will be available to all factions.
In exchange for their high damage per shot, they suffer when it comes to rate of fire.
April - In-game Mail
We'd like to add an in-game mail system to help on the communication front, likely contained somewhere in the existing notification screen.
April - Facebook/Twitter Integration
We'd like to improve the social networking features in game, specifically by leveraging Facebook and Twitter.
For Facebook, we'd like to add support for:
Linking an account to your character
Post from in game (pictures included)
Option for auto posting achievements
Option to call out when you start playing PlanetSide 2
Ability to add Facebook friends who play PlanetSide 2 to your in game friends list
And similar support for Twitter:
Linking an account to your character
Tweet from in game (pictures included)
Change prefix of your tweet
Option for auto tweeting achievements
Option to announce when you start playing PlanetSide 2
See your Twitter feed from within game
June - New Vehicle: Buggy
We plan on adding a new common pool vehicle, the buggy. These are four-person vehicles designed to provide smaller units of soldiers an appropriate means of transport. The breakdown of seating looks like this:
Driver
Passenger
Gunner
Rumble Seat
Soldiers in this seat are able to use their personal weapons and equipment.
The downside to the rumble seat is that the rider is also exposed to enemy gunfire, similar to the rider of a quad
June - Vehicle Zoning
We'd like to allow vehicles to travel between continents by entering the Warpgate beam in each Empire's Warpgate area, instead of forcing players to abandon their vehicles
June - Improved Vehicle Deconstruction
We’re still working out specifics, but the general idea is that when you manually deconstruct a vehicle, you would get back a portion of the resources you spent to acquire it.
June - Outfit Progression
We'd like to add growth and progression to Outfits.
One of the ideas we have for doing this is to allow players to contribute points to their Outfit by earning experience, and when enough points are accrued, the Outfit will earn a rank.
At each rank, the Outfit Leader can select a benefit/perk/specialization that will affect everyone in the outfit.
What these benefits might be is still a topic of discussion, so toss us any ideas you have.
June - Per Seat Vehicle Locking
We' would like to add the ability to lock vehicles at the individual seat level instead of the all or nothing options currently available.
June - Player Made Decals
Wouldn't it be cool to roll around sporting your outfit’s custom logo on all your uniforms and vehicles? We think so too, so we want to give players the ability to make their own decals for use in game.
Details are still sketchy at this point, but more info to come as we know more about the specifics of how this will work.
June - Outfit Base Capture
If your outfit is the top contributor to a base capture, we’ll identify the facility/outpost as “belonging” to your outfit.
We still have a lot of work that we will need to iron out on this, including figuring out what “top contributor” really means, so please call out factors you think would be most important to consider here.
June - Faction Pistols
We plan on adding new pistols for each Empire:
TR: Auto-Pistol – A fully automatic pistol.
NC: Scatter Pistol – A shotgun and a pistol had a baby.
VS: Charge Pistol – A pistol with a charge up mechanic; hold down fire and your blast gets stronger until you release it.
June - Air Vehicle Passenger Transport
In an effort to streamline the loading of air vehicles we are interested in exploring support for allowing players to teleport directly into an open seat.
The hope is that this would alleviate issues like finding a safe spot to land immediately after you spawned your vehicle just so you can load your friends and gunners in.
Restrictions will obviously apply so as not to create a mobile transportation platform - more info to come
June - Supply Containers
Supply Containers are locked boxes that hold something randomish and potentially spectacular inside.
In theory, you would then ask yourself: WHAT"S IN THE BOX?!
Unable to not know what splendor might await you inside, you buy a key from the depot that unlocks it, and you get whatever awesome item is inside the container.
June - Outfit Leaderboards
The goal for Outfit Leaderboards is to allow players to compare their Outfit to another via pre-determined scoring metrics (that we are still in the process of determining).
Now when you brag about how dominant your outfit is, you'll have the pie charts (or pie chart equivalents) to prove it.
June - Outfit Tournaments
We'd like to create a structure for direct outfit competition to be used for tournaments and e-sports. Outfits will be compared to other like-sized outfits in leaderboards which can be thought of almost like "weight classes". At specific events and periodically throughout the year, top outfits will be invited to participate in outfit wars which would take place on instanced battlefields and would allow outfits from across servers and across all empires to fight each other for ultimate bragging rights.
Key objectives of this initiative are:
Participation in the tournaments is based on accomplishment over time within the larger game of Planetside 2
Compete against rivals both on your server and off, as well as test yourselves against other outfits in your empire
Rank outfits to compete against other like-sized outfits
Instanced, objective based maps with clearly defined win and lose conditions