“I haven’t played since […] – what changed?”

The purpose of this page is to give a quick overview about Planetside 2 game changes over time.
You may not have been following the game’s development closely, and/or it may be too cumbersome to read up on the many official patch notes that were released over the years, maybe even the chronicles are too much. This page is for all those players that may have tried Planetside 2 at some point but either couldn’t play it because of RL priorities or because their old PC couldn’t handle it, or those that left for various reasons. Has the game changed significantly, did they address [that thing], how does it play these days? Find out below!

At its core, Planetside 2 will always be the massive battle players know and love, yet the changes over time were extensive.
Thus this page will only try to highlight the important general strokes, not specific values or things that are displayed in the game directly. It will largely ignore time-limited changes, seasonal changes/events, hotfixes (some changes will be grouped into larger updates) and corrections of things that broke or bugfixes that ensure that things work as intended etc., and will omit now obsolete features no longer in the game (e.g. aerial anomalies), but instead focus on permanent game-changing developments. In some aspect this summary will be deliberately over-simplistic and lack details, but you’ll figure those out in game or by reading the associated notes.

2020-04: “Outfit Wars Alpha Cycle 2”

• Qualification limited to 3 days during primetime hours
• Offset starting times for matches
• Removed score gain over time
• Shared scoring for outfit war score during base captures: max. 250 Outfit Wars score/cap (equivalent to 25,000 combined score, anything above this is discarded.)
• Defenses yield outfit war score (up to 100/defense)
• Spawning a Bastion for your Outfit immediately grants you 1000 Outfit Wars score during a Qualify phase.
• Destroying a Bastion weakpoint now awards all opposing Outfits that have at least one member within 500 meters with 100 Outfit Wars score if done during an active Qualify phase.
• Desolation
  • Outfit members who aren’t flagged with the “Outfit War Eligible” privilege will no longer be allowed to access Desolation.
  • When the Desolation alert ends, the victorious players currently in the zone receive the “Warrior” title.
  • Increased the Desolation alert point maximum from 500 to 750.
• Outfit Base Capture and Resource Gain
  • The TAB battle scoreboard now only tallies score that contributes to a base capture, and ignores exempt experience types.
  • The minimum score required to award resources when a base is captured reduced from 3000 to 1000.
• Scrolling on the Outfit Management page no longer applies to both the focus and the pane behind it.

2020-04: “Tactical Improvements”

• Addition of novel tactical slot and deployables or items, that are unlocked through merit or A7 in the sanctuary
  • Flash XS-1: Now in tactical slot. Grants situational mobility
  • Caltrop: These deployables are for outdoor use only, and can be placed to help hinder the movement of enemy vehicles.
  • Hardlight Canopy: Provides small, circular cover to protect infantry against airborne assaults.
  • Auxiliary Spitfire: Places a single-use Spitfire Turret that mimics the functionality of the Engineer version.
  • Cortium Bomb: highly effective against stationary targets, especially construction buildings
  • Infradine: A medkit-like cosumable that grans temporary thermal vision
• Receiving base capture rewards now requires a minimum combined score for bases
• World map instances are now numbered, e.g. Sanctuary 1, 2, etc.
• Koltyr: The island of Koltyr has now become an instanced playspace that will become available under certain conditions.
• Sanctuary: visual improvement, and additional warpgates, disabled “join combat” on Sanctuary
• Added a permission category for Basions
• War assets
  • new visual effects for Steel Rain
  • cost adjustments for all assets
  • Expedition times halved!
  • Bastion components need be be crafted in sequence now
  • Misc. fixes to Bastions
• Mauler Cannons
  • Now have a unique model.
  • Bastion terminals now match the color of their respective faction.
  • No longer deal damage or impulse through one-way collision (like spawn room shields.)
  • Resistance type and damage model tuned down
• NS-30 Tranquility (Common Pool Battle Rifle)
  • Modified NS-30 Vandal: Silenced with superior velocity, yet slower ROF and lower damage per shot. Hits slow enemy movement!
• Misc. changes:
  • Optimizations to server performance based on bottlenecks discovered during times of high population.
  • Remedied some inconsistencies with construction resistances across a variety of structures.
  • Construction objects beneath a Skyshield will now greatly reduce the damage taken from an Orbital Strike, but will not protect the Skyshield Module itself.
  • Concussion Grenades‘ turning speed reduction now scales on distance from the blast, similar to the blurred screen visuals.
  • Clicking the Outfit button as a player without an Outfit will now bring you to the Outfit Search page initially.
  • Underbarrel Grenade launchers should no longer have large animation hitches during a reload.
  • Various animation fixes
  • Desolation has received a beautification pass on the bases, capture points, and surrounding terrain.

2020-03: “March update”

• Command voice chat channel is now continent-specific.
• Significant changes to Desolation map (Terrain, base flow, and Desolation visuals)
• Cortium costs for vehicles were reduced across the board for desolation, and can additionally spawn MBTs and Libs & Gals on desolation
• Bastion fixes: cannot be destoyed by allied droppod collision or damaged directly by glaive shots (those can still damage hardpoints)
• Visual touchups for bastions and their terminals
• Added logging to Outfit Assets (and some fixes)
• Render distance setting now saves properly for all languages.
• Sanctuary received an improved 2d map.

2020-03: “Escalation”

• Capturing territory yields outfit resources
• Outfit resources are used to craft deployable war assets such as orbital stikes, area shields, vehicle drops and even massive bastion fleet carriers
  • Bastion fleet carriers feature extensive A2G capabilities and eject passengers into response fighter aircraft in order to defend the carriers various weak points from enemy air assaults
• Added the Sanctuary – a social space station over Auraxis used for trading resources
• New personal resources:
  • A7 (alert wins, collectible on map) – used to trade for weapons & camos on Sanctuary
  • Merit (earned by playing while in outfit) – used to trade for cosmetic items and consumables/boosts on Sanctuary
• Outfit Wars: first iteration of ‘competitive’ system for outfits, allowing outfits to qualify based on points (~resources made) for a scheduled 3-way showdown on a new dedicated asteroid map called Desolation
• Triggering of continent lock alerts was changed to be based purely on map control; mini alerts/events were removed

2020-01: “Empire Strength”

• Introduced the Strength system, allowing to actively  induce continent lock alerts based on map control and other factors (lead up to escalation)

2019-12: “Spark and snow”

• Advanced Specialization Points can now be reset by a token in the depot
• New BASR sniper for Nanite Systems Operatives: SR-200
• New vehicle for Nanite Systems Operatives: Javelin: a maneuverable hoverbike
• Nanite Systems Operatives MAX unit: Defectors
  • ‘tampered-with’ NSO robots that are more agile and less tanky compared to faction-specific MAX units
  • Utility options: protective shield bubble and self-detonation
  • Armed with ‘grenade printers’ for good versatile effect against ground targets

2019-10: “Nanite of the Living Dead 6 – Revenge of the Unsown”

• New weapons: Faction-specific ‘Doku style’ assault rifles, all featuring accurate and hard-hitting burst fire
  • VS: Lacerta – accurate & deadly
  • TR: Albarest – quick bursts of dakka
  • NC: Vanquisher -hits like a truck
• Adjustments of grenades:
  • Faction-specific explosive effects for frag grenades
  • Frag grenades got increased consistent splash damage
  • Sticky grenades: the splash and splash fall-off were tuned to require & reward accuracy
• Dalton (Liberator belly cannon):  – return of the 1-hit kill on ESF
  • Basically: damage buff, reload nerf; rewards accuracy over spam

2019-08: “Dead or Alive”

• Automated bounty system (introduces an automated high-value target system while removing gripes/exploits associated with placed bounties): 
  • Bounties can no longer be placed using cash/certs, instead Players on a 7 kill streak receive 3 bounties
  • 1 bounty is removed/claimed per death; players with an active bounty cannot stack additional ones
• Death Cam: when being killed your view will now briefly track and highlight the outline of your killer in 3rd person before moving back to your corpse (!)
• Free certs: you now receive 100 certs at each new Battle Rank through BR100, instead of the first 15.
• Faction-specific MBT options:
  • VS/Magrider: Recharge (Mag), Multi-directional Exhaust (Mag) – options to emphasize mobility
  • TR/Prowler: Rampart Projector (Prowler) – deploying generates a 1-way shield for accompanying infantry and increases the prowler’s resistance
  • NC: Nimitz Reactor (Vanguard) – converts a portion of the hp to a regenerating shield

2019-07: “Midsummer Mentors”

• Additions to the mentor system: passive mentor rating score provides access to a /new channel, in turn accessible by anyone <BR30
• Ambusher jumpjets now replenish fuel in the same way as other jump jets, yet need to be full to allow using them. Related suit and implants slots have been updated to reflect this change.
• Advanced Shield Capacitator has been changed once more to reduce shield cooldown delay by 1 second. This does not stack with Survivalist.

2019-06: “Fight in the Shade”

• New heavy assault weapon: NS-03 Thumper
  • Customizable with attachments affecting either its rate of fire, velocity or mobility
  • Ammo types for explosive damage, EMP or fire

2019-05: “Combat Intensifies”

• All BioLabs can now be isolated and circumvented due to lattice connections between the satellite bases
• Biolab outposts now have teleporters next to Biolab teleporters. Disabling them will prevent respawns directly into the Biolab.
• Cooldowns for squad beacons standardized and significantly reduced

2019-04: “A new soldier”

• Performance improvement: Game engine updated to run on DX11 (from DX9)
  • better use of modern systems, CPUs and GPUs; most players experienced increased FPS
• Anti-cheat: New file compression and obfuscation technique used to prevent modification of game data
• Spawn system revamp: Overhaul of spawn rules to balance fights (Priority based on timers)
  • Priority 1 Spawn Locations – Default spawn timer
    • Warpgate
    • Last spawnpoint you used
    • Spawn Beacons
    • Squad-spawnable vehicles
    • Other spawn points within your current region if that region is not overpopulated
    • Allied regions adjacent to an enemy region with less than 12 players at it
  • Priority 2 Spawn Locations– 15 second wait time
    • Spawn locations in your current region if your region is overpopulated
    • Allied regions with adjacent enemy territory with less than 96 players, and aren’t cut off from the lattice
    • Outfit-owned regions that are not overpopulated, and aren’t cut off from the lattice
  • Priority 3 Spawn Locations – 30 second wait time
    • Any Allied regions without enemy adjacency and aren’t cut off from the lattice
• New Faction: Nanite Systems Operatives (NSO) released. 
  • NSO robots will be assigned to the faction with the lowest pop numbers upon logging in and switching continents
  • Restricted to NS(X) weapons & vehicles
  • Only available and playable with membership
• Various adjustments to NSX weapons (Naginata, Tengu, Amaterasu)
• UI &QOL changes:
  • Login screen completely updated
  • Vehicle Loadouts can be picked from the map screen
  • When a character logs in for the first time, they will be automatically placed into an open squad. Players battle rank 15 and lower will prioritize placement into open Mentor Squads. This functionality can be opted out of in the General settings.

2019-03: “EverQuest 20th Anniversary”

• New faction-specific carbines: Kindred, Charger and Horizon
• New Weapon for all ESFs: the M202 Wyrm
  • Secondary weapon that fires high power, low-velocity rounds at a low rate of fire (specialized option against large aircraft)
• Major adjustments to tank shell resistances and rear armor damage
  • Rear armor damage reduced for tanks
  • Tank Shell resistances and TTKs reduced for most vehicles
  • Engineer repair rate in Harasser rumble seats increased
• Buffs and changes to: Tank Buster, VLG, Hellion
• Buffs to Walker (and reduced resistance of Libs), slight adjustments to Walker
• Flanker Armour now also provides resistance to Infantry Launchers (resist type 34) and A2G Warhead (resist type 23)
• Fire Suppression
  • standardized effect for all ranks & adjustments to its benefit and cooldowns across ranks
  • shorter cooldowns for flashes
• Gate Shield Diffusor
  • Activating Gate Shield Diffuser now prevents most types of collision damage.
  • Cooldown reduction and slightly longer uptime
• Decoy Flares
  • Cooldown improved for lower ranks
  • Longer active duration
• Barrage ability
  • Cooldown reduced 
• Anti-Vehicle Grenade buffed
• AV Mana Turret
  • Damage resistance type changed from Infantry Rocket Launchers (type 34) to Tank Shell (type 7)
• Hardlight Barrier resistances tuned

2018-10: “Halloween #5”

• Unstable Meltdown – a low population variant of normal Meltdown Alert, triggers when there are fewer than 150 players on the continent and one of the faction captures 41% of the territory. Lasts for 45 minutes and has less territory available.
• Players can now leave or rejoin voice channels using /leavechannel or /joinchannel commands.
• Comfort Grip now also reduces Unequip Time. Hip Fire CoF penalty reduced from 30% to 20%.
• New Meltdown Alert loot reward weapon: NS-AM8 Shortbow
• Flash Wraith Cloak nerfs: now there is a delay before you can recloak. Total energy pool has been increased, but the cloak also has an activation cost.
• New ES Flash Weapons: M4-F Pillager, LA7 Buzzard and V30-F Starfall.
• Valkyrie: small arms resistance rebalanced
• Many fixes for squads and implants.
• Spawn Beacon now available to all squad members, permissions can be toggled by SL

(Archaeology in progress… earlier updates will be covered in time)

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