The Shattered Warpgate Update - August 28th, 2020

• Shattered Warpgate

• Missions/Campaign

• Indar "Central" Changes

• Sanctuary

• Performance Update and Hotfix, QoL features, PS4 Update Status

• When Coming on PTS and Other Updates

Shattered Warpgate

• Esamir, North Eastern Warpgate has detonated and devastated the continent.

• The warpgate itself is now an explosion frozen in time, exposing the hardline substructure below the previously intact gate.

• Nearby bases are destroyed, nanites stopped functioning, wreckage everywhere, ice thawing with icebergs flowing in, geysers of mysterous energy flowing from underground dotted throughout the landscape, and some areas now abandoned and non-operational due to intense cold.

• New alien flora arise to oases seemingly overnight around the destroyed warpgate and geysers.

• The sky is now vivid with lighting and auroras.

• Nanite System replaces with NE Warpgate with the "Haven" warpgate, a new technology, and the fight continues.

• Lore was previously never featured, and will be the first time it arrives into the game.

• All Biolabs have been destroyed and are now inactive, abandoned zones. Go out into the Global Warming Apocalypse and get that sunshine Planetsiders!

• Each faction has access to one AMP station, and must still fight over the only tech plant on the continent.

• Lattice has been made more asymmetrical, to improve the stagnation previously with the area between the NE and NW warpgates, some bases abandoned to allow more distance between them, and some new bases also added.

• New East Warpgate features a "Haven" warpgate with Bastions anchored off in the backdrop. Did not spend too much time dressing up the space, but has a good feel and layout.

• Grayed out areas will be accessible and not out of bounds, marked out as social areas and for missions.

• Abandoned bases will be marked with little red alert lights as a story area boundary, and some will be accessible.

• Intact derelict vehicles you find will be accessible for other factions to use, for the first time, previously faction exclusive. Like a NC player operating a Magrider.

• Won't have great loadouts, not the intent currently, but to bring the flavor in.

• Area towards the NE warpgate is surrounded with near impassible water and icebergs for vehicles, may later add some shallows to allow easier passage.

• And no, Magriders can not float on top of water.

• Will other warpgates explode? And how will it change the landscapes?

• New dangerous weather: Storms!

• Storms move towards the HIGHEST population fight/area.

• Vehicles, aircraft and players gather electric charge which are visualized, and get enough will get you killed by a lighting strike.

• Vehicles and Aircraft will have hindered control, and subject to change.

• Random lightning strikes will also damage around the area.

• Dying by a lightning strike will inform you on how to survive and avoid dying by a lightning strike in the death screen.

• Avoid dying by taking cover and not staying in the storm for too long.

• Infantry will get a HUD warning when they gather too much charge.

• Armor and infantry will have insulated armor available to obtain to mitigate storm effects.

• Lighting Arrestors are available as a tactical slot item, and absorbs up to 4 lighting bolts around a decent radius, SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

• A neutralizer device available too for absorbing charge from vehicles, with many other tools not mentioned.

• Other weather affects may be added, but must observe the effects this current weather effect has on the game and gauge response.

• Bastions can get hit on the hardpoints by lightning, not yet tested.

• Alen, PS2 Environment Lead, has reworked Esamir nighttime skybox and lighting to be very, VERY nice. And would like to specifically highlight its stunning beauty. <3 you Alen!

Missions/Campaigns

• Missions come in two modes, regular missions and campaign missions.

• Campaign can be joined with an active membership subscription or certs.

• Campaigns give access to multistage content, currently intended for a chapter to stay for a month, and whole campaigns to last 3 months.

• Campaign is not instanced and plays out in the world with everyone else!

• Campaign missions are oriented for both newer to older hardcore players, and won't need to grind super hard, where other systems for this already exist.

• Campaigns will have chapters which offer rewards on completion, and completing all chapters will offer a special bonus reward.

• Old mission system didn't work properly and fulfill its purpose of pushing players towards an objective, and replaced with this new system.

• The regular missions will be more akin to daily challenges like other games. New challenges every 24 hours and missions you can pick.

• Daily missions will have rarities of difficulty, offering bigger rewards the higher the challenge.

• ISO, XP, weapons, and A7 will show up as rewards!

• Move at your own pace, and dip your boots into new roles and styles of gameplay! Ranging from defense, scouting, attacking, and more objectives to participate in!

• Missions will have different contractors, some faction exclusive, more unknown factions, Nanite Systems, and more!

• You can also pin the mission and contractors will communicate with you on the HUD.

• Message courier missions will be the more relaxed, less conflict possible missions allowing you to explore the map. Harder difficulty will send you into more contested territory.

• Lots of missions types, along with community ones too.

• Will reward some items for mitigating lightning strikes/effects, and lightning based attack equipment, like lightning grenades.

• Campaign system allows development to give good updates and allow a major update to cook in the background.

• Missions are structured to run into other players, some are fighting other people....

• Some missions, like mining missions, are more community based in defending it.

Indar "Central" Changes

• Crown D point moved north and further away from the, added another underground corridor to underground B point from the hill near D point.

• Crown B point has some cover removed to allow fights to move more and not get locked in fights.

• Crown A point is now a vehicle capture point and moved to the southern bridge of the Crown. Once was too close to defenders directly West of the spawn and made no sense.

• Crown will now finally allow attackers to be able to push defenders in the base.

• Ti Alloys Rock Bridge is now destroyed and previously was a point of stagnation because there was too much cover to it and people stayed alive too long. Also contributed less fighting the defenders and more fighting the other attackers coming up the North hill.

• Ti Alloys Northern Hill has an added path up the hill towards the east side.

• Ti Alloys Capture point has some cover removed for more movement and a wall erected in the middle of the Northwest and Northeast entrances inside the capture point room for more specific routes of attack/defense.

• Ceres Hydroponics has some trees and other objects removed and cleaned up. Walls around the point room now are arranged so their openings don't directly look into the point.

Sanctuary

• Sanctuary gets new social assets like desks and chairs around.

• The facility exterior is finished and the glass is replaced with a shield for performance.

• Shops/Vendors gets new livery and voice lines! (Dialog volume control is added too!)

• Exceptional implants cost 45000 ISO to craft, SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

• New Campaign vendor.

• New missions board in Sanctuary. Accessible in the UI as well.

Performance Update and Hotfix, QoL features, PS4 Update Status

• Tech Director was working on the client performance update for quite a while.

• PTS hit good numbers, but not similar to live during playtest, and had no negative responses which was ominous.

• When it hit live, there were issues with IFF and working on it with other bugs, ready to deploy fixes.

• QoL Render distance changes, for varying levels of hardware and play styles, UI and Code teams were quick to make this feature.

• Allows players to either adjust render distance globally, or set them individually for infantry, vehicles, and aircraft.

• PS4 got the Escalation update with 8 months of updates, and shouldn't be falling behind too far moving onwards.

When Is It Coming on PTS and Other Updates

• Will come live on PTS today, weekend or early next week. Going through final build candidate right now. Keep eyes on Twitter and will post on Reddit. Wanted to push it out at the end of livestream, but had a lot of last minute changes and want to make sure everything is presentable.

• A lot of "little changes", and "Oh, and forgot to tell you, War Assets are getting revamped, specifically resources." Lul.

• That should ring lots of warning bells of WHAT ELSE ARE THOSE "little changes".

• Might bring in more developers on stream to talk about things more, events dev-side, etc.

• PTS will have a set amount of missions to test and maybe change it up, and only a decent pool of missions right now but working on more. Campaign will remain DISABLED for PTS. To temper expectations.

• Lots to do in polish and working super hard to knock it out on PTS for the Shattered Update.

• Outfit Wars is getting completely reworked in a future update because qualifiers kept creating burnout, campaign system reengages players like outfit wars, and could have gotten it better, but it still wouldn't feel good.

• Future outfit wars will have more matches and rank outfits in skill level better, will be discussed in the next stream, and there is a massive, massive change coming for it, in a less frustrating/burnout way.