PlanetSide 2 News

That sinister chill crawling up your spine can only mean one thing, soldier - from Wednesday, October 14 through Sunday, November 1, Nanite of the Living Dead will rise once more to haunt the continents of Auraxis!

Our annual Halloween event is back and bigger than ever, with Space Pumpkins, an all-new Seasonal Directive, and a bevy of special treats available to earn or purchase from the Depot. Even Sanctuary has been outfitted for spooky season, so load up your Ectoblaster and make ready for mischief, those Galact-O-Lanterns won't hunt themselves!



The party starts in Sanctuary, where even the vendors have dressed for the occasion! Ghouls, ghosts, and ghastly surprises abound at this monster mash, so make sure you're appropriately kitted for the masquerade. Small talk is its own reward - a variety of Halloween Masks can be earned by talking to certain vendors, and equipping any Halloween mask will award bonus XP throughout the duration of the event!



[h2]IT'S TIME FOR A PUMPKIN HAUNT[/h2]

Space Pumpkins and the elusive Galact-O-Lanterns are back and spawning all across Auraxis! Smash these pumpkins to earn XP and extra rewards in the form of Infernal Grenades, which can in turn be used to earn bonus XP and Directive progress. But be wary of where you trick-or-treat this year, soldier, for some Pumpkins are equipped to offer even more explosive surprises...

Kills with any Halloween weapon also award Hallow Ribbons, providing extra bonus XP:

Ectoblaster
Slasher
Auraxium Slasher
LB00 Python
Infernal Grenades
NS Candy Cannon 3000

[h2]NEW HALLOWEEN DIRECTIVE[/h2]

Complete the all-new Halloween VII Directive for new rewards, seasonal items, ISO-4, and more!

Tier 1

• Speak to FL-34 in the Data Exchange on Sanctuary
  
• Speak to Foster in the Sanctuary Observation Deck
  
• Speak to Nalla in the Expedition shop on Sanctuary
  
• Find and speak to a sketchy looking guard on Sanctuary
  

Tier 2-4

• Slashing Pumpkins - Destroy Space Pumpkins, Galact-O-Lanterns kills are worth 10 kills toward this directive.
  
• Masked Murder - Kill enemies while wearing a Halloween Mask.
  
• Necromancer - Revive allies.
  
• Witchy Ways - Earn heal/resupply/repair experience.
  
• Silver for Monsters - Use melee weapons to kill enemies who are wearing Halloween Masks or Facepaint.
  
• Hallowed Ground - Earn kills while near a Mining Drill, Bastion Fleet Carrier, or in The Shattered Warpgate area.
  

Rewards

• Tier 1 - Ichabod Crown, Infernal Grenade
  
• Tier 2 - Ectoblaster, 100 Certs
  
• Tier 3 - 450 A7, 100 ISO-4
  
• Tier 4 - Title: Creepy, Halloween VII Banner, 500 ISO-4
  

[h2]NEW SEASONAL ITEMS[/h2]

The Depot has been restocked with a series of special themed cosmetics only available for the duration of this event!

• Flamerider Tire Trails (Flash/Harasser) - Sport burning trails of fire on the wheels of your vehicle.
  
• Green Wisp Tire Trails (Flash/Harasser/ANT/Sunderer) - Green floating spirits follow your vehicle around the battlefield.
  
• Holiday Horns - A variety of spooky Halloween themed vehicle horns are available.
  
• Holiday Helmets - Special costume helmets are available.
  
• The Slasher - Melee weapon.
  
• L-B00 Python AP - A holiday-themed version of the Lightning’s Python AP main cannon.
  
• NS Candy Cannon 3000 - Fires candy corn, the hardest substance on the planet.
  
• Halloween Camos - Various Halloween-related camouflage has been made available.
  

Settle your nerves, soldier, all the intel you'll need to survive these horrors can be found over in the patch notes. Nanite of the Living Dead VII: The Seeds Must Flow is live in-game starting today, so get a head start on your Devil's Night revelries and start smashing those pumpkins!

With the release of The Shattered Warpgate update, we made some ambitious changes to the game that add more structured elements to the sandbox experience we all know and love, while revamping the continent of Esamir. In this post I wanted to point out some observations surrounding the new additions, and the lessons we’ll be taking to heart moving forward.

Back when this all started, the original intent of this update was not a complete overhaul of Esamir, if you can believe it. We were initially focused on fixing Esamir’s imbalanced lattice and using the Warpgate’s detonation as a catalyst for storytelling. Buuuuuut, the more we did, the more we wanted to do, and Esamir ended up better for it overall.

[h3]The Shattered Warpgate Combat Area[/h3]

Between the objectives created through Missions and Campaigns, the lack of limitations on Construction, and the Abandoned Vehicles scattered throughout that area, The Shattered Warpgate resulted in some of the most organic, intense, “PlanetSide” battles this game has seen in years. The feedback about the combat in this area has been extremely positive, and we’ll certainly want to pocket some of the concepts in this area for use elsewhere later on.

[h3]Campaigns[/h3]

Watching players struggle with figuring out where to go and what to do was pretty heartbreaking from my perspective, and undoubtedly frustrating from the player’s point of view. Not immediately force-pinning the starting campaign event to the player’s HUD left folks wandering around, trying to figure out who Foster was and where he was hidden; and the Analysis HUD seemed like an unnecessary extra step every place we tried to use it. These sorts of usability issues were a recurring theme. By seeing how players interacted with this system, our expectations versus the realities, we have a much better sense now of how to handle Chapter 2 when it rolls around.

[h3]Carrots and Continent Rotations[/h3]

There were some takeaways from the various events available during the first Chapter, the first of which is just how frustrating it can be not to be able to progress your Campaign due to a bug. We’re dealing with new tech in some cases, and new ways to use old tech, in others, and we’ve learned a lot during this process on how to better deal with these challenges in later Chapters.

We originally designed this Chapter to give players breaks (if Esamir isn’t open, you come back when it is). That’s why our Chapters last a month, to give ample time to complete its events through fairly casual play. What we’ve seen though, is a ravenous desire to go, go, go, and complete each Chapter as quickly as possible, so we did end up unlocking Esamir for 24 hours for a while based on that feedback. This isn’t healthy for the game, however, and the potential for burnout is quite high, so moving forward we’re going to try to incorporate other continents into our Campaign events more often so that rotating continents becomes a more natural part of the Campaign’s completion. Whether or not we’ll be able to do that and make it fun is still a big question mark, but it’s something we want to try.

[h3]Missions[/h3]

Feedback for the Mission system ranged anywhere from “these missions are boring” to “this is so cool.” There are a few different goals for the Mission system, like celebrating undervalued forms of gameplay, making more use of map space by creating new sub-objectives, and giving players tangible goals to complete during their session that offer rewards. During our first pass, the hand of missions you were dealt would vary wildly, which created some bad feels for the players who got a list of things they didn’t have an interest in. On top of that, there were some missions that would break or create inconsistent experiences.

In our second pass, we divvied up the mission spread more, and removed some of the less interesting/inconsistent missions so that players would be way more likely to find something they’re interested in.

It’s important that we don’t abandon the goal of creating new sub-objectives for players, but alongside that we’d also like to offer more missions that are in line with standard gameplay for the players who have an interest in that. You’ll be seeing these missions hit your pools in the next update.

Regarding rewards, we’re still discussing exactly where we want to go with this, and our intent remains to help new and casual players catch up to some of our more dedicated veterans. We did make some changes in the last update that increased the frequency most players would see ISO-4 and Certifications as rewards, so we feel like this is a good place to continue evaluating from.

[h3]The Storm[/h3]

Esamir’s storm is intended to be a force of nature that needs to be played around and while we’ve introduced ways to do that, through Insulated Armor/Insulated Plating/Reclaimed Vehicles/Neutralizer Device, we don’t necessarily want it to be the thing you have to worry about during off-peak hours when fights are already difficult to build up. To that end we’re going to prevent it from patrolling during times of low population, and it’ll hang out over The Shattered Warpgate so that players can continue to get their Campaign events done as needed.

Additionally, we’re going to try making the storm prioritize large fights with a population imbalance that favors attackers. So, for example, if you have 60% or greater attacking population, the fight could target you to even the odds. One thing the storm does very well, is favor the defending faction.

Lastly, you will be seeing more ways to manipulate the storm come Chapter 2 (spoilers,) through things like the Lightning Arrester, Lightning Grenade, and other equipment we’ve yet to show. Ideally this becomes less of an inconvenience and more of an asset in the fight, while allowing us to further the story of the factional arms race amidst Esamir’s calamity.

[h3]Onward to Chapter 2[/h3]

One of the strengths of the Campaign system is that we can, with each Chapter, iterate based on the lessons we learn from the previous one. The river of feedback we’ve been swimming through over the past couple of weeks has been extremely helpful, and will play a big role in making not only future Chapters of the Campaign better, but also help elevate the game as a whole.

Thanks everyone.

-Wrel, Lead Designer

Here at Rogue Planet, we pride ourselves on serving our community, and yet we’re constantly humbled by the levels of loyalty and support you send back our way. So we’re really excited to share that starting today, we're launching our inaugural Extra Life Team to help give back to those in our community in greatest need.

The Rogue Planet Games Extra Life Team will work towards a goal of raising $20,000 to support Rady Children’s Hospital, our local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital in San Diego. The studio is donating an initial $5,000 to kick off our fundraising, and we hope that YOU will consider joining or supporting our team so we can hit that goal together!

[h2]Why Extra Life?[/h2]

Extra Life is a charitable organization that unites thousands of gamers around the world to play games in support of their local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital. Since its inception in 2008, Extra Life has raised more than $70 million for sick and injured kids. By fundraising for Rady Children’s in San Diego, our team is helping to support a local hospital that treats thousands of children each year, regardless of their illness, injury, or even their family’s ability to pay. And as the COVID-19 pandemic places new stresses on hospitals and communities, Extra Life helps ensure that the 170 Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals around North America have the resources they need to care for the most vulnerable kids.

[h2]How can I help?[/h2]

Join our team! Throughout the next month as we lead-in to Extra Life’s National Game Day on Saturday, November 7, the Rogue Planet Games Extra Life Team will be fundraising together towards our goal of $20,000. Team membership is open to Rogue Planet Devs, Employees, and Community members (you!). We have some fun community activities (and prizes!) planned to help support the cause, and all our efforts will lead up to a special Dev Livestream scheduled for the week leading up to Game Day next month. Rewards for the entire PlanetSide 2 community are headed your way if we meet our goal...

It’s a minimal commitment to join up – you simply promise to play games (any games!) for a total of 24 hours over the next month (something all of us will do anyway). You’re welcome to join our team from any location and play for your own local hospital (North America or Canada only), or the general Children's Miracle Network. Or, if you can’t spare the time to participate, help out by donating or sharing the news! Every little bit helps.

To help us reach our goal, you can join or make a donation here. If you were referred to donate by a specific team member (Dev or otherwise), you can select their name from the team roster when donating – it will go to both their individual fundraising goal, and our team. Otherwise, you can select the “Rogue Planet Games” team member for a general donation. The PlanetSide 2 community has always been incredibly supportive of our efforts, and we hope you’ll consider joining, donating, or sharing so we can make $20,000 for the kids together!

For more information about our Extra Life fundraising efforts, check out our official team page. Enlist today for the kids, soldier!

PC servers will come down Wednesday, October 7, 2020, at 6am PT (3pm CEST) for the new game update. Downtime is expected to last up to two hours.

Patch notes for tomorrow's game update below:

[h2]Alert Rewards[/h2]
In an effort to keep our economy in check, the last update pulled out Alert rewards in favor of the new Mission system. This was a swing and a miss from us, as it became very clear (very quickly) that Alert rewards were an important part of the motivation and progression for many of you. To that end, we've made some changes to bring back most of the rewards (and all of the ISO-4) while keeping in the bonus experience we added in our last update.

Alert Meltdown rewards now grant...

• 300 ISO-4 for a win.
  
• 150 ISO-4 for a loss.
  
• 150 Certs for a win.
  
• 75 Certs for a loss.
  
• XP for a win remains 25,000.
  
• XP for a loss remains 10,000.
  

[h2]Empire Strength[/h2]

• Full Empire Strength is now achieved at 44% through raw territory control (down from 52%), or 40% territory control if you also own the central base.
  
• This should allow Meltdown alerts on all continents to trigger a bit more easily.

[h2]Campaigns[/h2]

• !! Plants should no longer appear beneath the ground or inside of other objects.
  
• !! Added missing localizations for various campaign and mission-related strings.
  
• Speculative fix for Bio Analysis not allowing you to hack valid terminals.
  
• Accepting the first mission in the Campaign will auto-pin it to your HUD.
  
• If you aren't currently tracking the first Campaign mission, it will auto-pin when you enter Sanctuary.
  
• The recurring Campaign Side-Missions (the ones that appear in your daily mission pool) now have rewards.
  
• BEC Ammunition and Condensate Grenade tooltips now mention that they will expire at the end of the Campaign.
  
• "Warpgate Fragment" has been renamed "Broken Warpgate Arm" for the purposes of second Campaign mission.
  
• Increased the range at which "The Shattered Warpgate" is actually in effect for Foothold, Demolition, Balance of Power, and other missions that require you to be in The Shattered Warpgate to earn credit.
  
• Doubled the range at which you can stand near the downloading terminal to still get credit for the Data Recovery mission, and you no longer need the Analysis HUD to interact with the terminal.
  
• Insulated Suit schematic no longer costs Campaign Standing.
  
• Analysis HUD now works in vehicles.
  

[h2]Missions[/h2]

• The daily spread of mission types has been greatly modified so that there will always be a variety of playstyles in each daily pool.
  
• Supply Convoy, Supply Convoy Disruption, Supply Convoy Defense, Recover Lost Intel, and Plant False Data missions have been temporarily removed from the pool. We were dissatisfied with the performance of these missions and will be fixing/tuning/replacing them in the future. We are currently also creating new missions that will be released in the next update.
• In addition, we've made some adjustments to the reward sets that will result in more frequent ISO-4/Cert/Implant rewards overall.
  
• You should no longer receive weapon rewards for weapons you already own.
  
• Cloaked players can no longer contest an Elysium Mining Drill.
  
• Elysium Mining Drill is now visible from much further away.
  

[h2]Misc. Changes, Fixes, and Additions[/h2]

• Fixed a bug that tripled Nanite regeneration.
  
• Reclaimed Sunderers now grant spawn experience when deployed.
  
• ISO-4 hover-over tooltip no longer states that the max is 50,000, and is 100,000 as intended.
  
• Electrical Storm's movement speed has been increased due to player feedback.
  
• Mentor Chat now requires Tier 3 Leadership directive completion in order to speak and listen to it. (In the future we will allow you to leave this channel. This change unfortunately didn't make it in time for this update.)
• Increased the time before an inactive Outfit will fall off the Outfit Browser to 72 hours to allow more chances for small outfits to appear in the list.