The Escalation Begins Stream - February 6th, 2020

• Escalation update
• Date of next public playtest

Sanctuary

• Foundation of many things to come.
• Coming this update.
• Relaxing soothing new CUSTOM music!
• Amazing exploration awe type vibes.
• Shown in various parts of completion, continues to be built, a foundation for many things to come.
• Hub for players not only to stop by and talk with other factions, but NPCs to talk to them and learn their lore with, outfits and squads, built up more the last time you saw it.
• Lots of audio work done.
• Vendors will also go live this update. With black market dealers currently carrying some of the rare alert weapons and camos. Every alert win will give a currency called A7, and contents of the black market rotate over time.
• Another vendor, at some point will provide exceptional implants, and/or provide the means to do so. Not this update.
• Stores will be themed for their purposes. One probably called Expeditions, Black Market has no known name currently, no known name for Outfit based shop.
• A7 is earned from alerts and also exposed data nodes throughout the continents, meaning some computer assets/crates/etc ingame may provide A7. Subject to change and expanded upon.
• New systems for not just Sanctuary, but Outfits, because it's been undeserved but very important. They give life to the game, and found that players stick around dramatically longer in an outfit.
• Was more of a glorified friends list, but that will change.
• Cross-faction chat is slated on release, if not, later. Voice chat maybe, testing it out.
• Lore: Everyone went through wormhole, found Auraxis, consisting of combatants and non-combatants, creating satellites, living on them. Soldiers coming in to trade.
• Goal internally is to have players relax after constant battle.

Outfit Rework

• Loyalty rank is a personal progression system, that grows as you do things with your outfit. Gives kickback in merit, a currency you can spend on things.
• Higher ranking loyalty gives and unlocks items in the Sanctuary "Outfit" shops which uses merit. Such as decals, infantry armor and gear. Also on rare occasions, outfit resources, will be tuned on how the game plays. EXP/Nanite boosters etc.
• You can earn resources on the outfit level used in the Armory etc.
• Outfit screen has gotten updates with new tabs, such as the Armory which everyone in an outfit access. RESOURCE VALUES IN ARMORY IS PLACEHOLDER.
• Outfit resources can be earned by capturing and/or defending bases, owning a base will give you ticks of resources and also participating while defending and attacking a base will give a lump sum of resources.
• The armory features how much of each resource you earn per minute.
• Resources can be used to deploy War Assets.
• In the Armory, you can craft the War Assets and overclock the timer by using more resources to get the War Asset faster.
• Every base offer different resources in different types.
• "Expeditions" vendor in Sanctuary will accept Expeditions crafted from the Armory using lower tier resources. Redeeming Expeditions will provide a random set amount of rarer resources.
• Armory has permissions able to be set to restrict use.
• Outfit resources are tied to the OUTFIT, not only on continent.
• Outfits now have impact in the world.

War Assets

• The A.N.V.I.L. is a asset ability with three tiers, Light(Flash/Javelin), Medium(Harasser/Lighting/ANT), and Heavy(Empire Specfic MBT/Main Battle Tank). Dropping down a crate of which the size depends on the tier selected, allowing you to spawn one vehicle from the deployed A.N.V.I.L.
• The A.N.V.I.L. will later get patched so you can't spawn two in directly the same place. Also standing under it will kill you, and vehicles will get flung off the map. Also will follow no-deploy zone rules.
• Orbital strikes can also be called down with asset abilities.
• Citadel shields are deployable shields that can be deployed in bases, able to fire out from inside, but not from outside firing inside. Stops all projectiles. Lasts six minutes. Shield generator at the top can be shot by heavy weapons and air to shorten the timer. Each shield has an exclusion radius of 300 meters from other shields.
• Steel Rain, either activated by squad or platoon leaders, will get immediately and probably forcefully redeploy the squad/platoon after 30 seconds into a droppod after the queue upon a designated area. Castable anywhere on the map except probably warpgate and no-no zones. Great for herding all cats back together. MAX units in droppods aren't intended and unknown if it works, maybe or not implement.
• Bastion, can be deployed at the back stairs of each warpgate from a terminal after crafting it from the Armory.
• Only one per faction per continent at a time, either dies when all hardpoints are gone or an hour passes.
• Player who deploys becomes the Captain, and can make attacks as well as move the Bastion using the map's waypoint system.
• Bastion has atmospheric engine sounds to signal its girth.
• Has one captain, nine turrets, and 38 interior seats. Guns above and under. Platoon sized.
• Acts as spawnpoint for outfit, debating platoon and squad.
• Everyone can see in map and minimap will show Bastion health and location.
• Ship to ship combat is possible, but collision between ships is not possible, and will auto adjust elevation to narrowly avoid each other.
• Four automated Bastion attack cannons will be shown as locked seats, and fires high explosive payloads according to the set waypoint on the minimap.
• Bastion health is split between eight weak points, two on top deck towards the front, four in the top back towards the flight deck, one in the front below, and one in the back below. Requires a conservative effort to destroy, projecting power all over the map. Meant to be the end climax.
• Infantry can stand on the Bastion, but if it moves, you will get kicked off or die. The tech parenting people to a vehicle needed would be a multi month process with fundamental physics process, Interiors maybe also longer too.
• No repairing the Bastion, but takes a ton to bring one down.
• Can hit Bastion on drop pod.
• All bastions cannot set altitude by player, all automated, until something smarter comes. Spawned 50 meters apart, next Bastion on top of other Bastion.
• Ejecting from Bastion will throw you in a response fighter, currently just ESF, but probably will be a ESF with a specific purpose.
• To get back on the Bastion, redeploy to it. Maybe will add a little escape hatch.
• Orbital strike can kill hardpoints if aimed well.
• Awesome destruction states of hardpoints. Very visible.
• Cannot generate resources on locked continents, but will pay out extra resources on victory.
• ESF only currently, if you drop pod and it was about to die, would leave you in the middle of nowhere.
• ESF will not require nanite to deploy out of bastion, with an Anti Air(AA) loadout. So no spammy Anti Ground ESFs.
• NO BASTION IN OUTFIT WARS. NO NO NO.
• Bastion is likely to have a Empire Strength impact on the map.

OUTFIT WARS

• Layering meta game on top of base game
• Wanted to do something like ServerSmash after watching it for competition.
• Game works really well when everyone has same mentality and goal.
• Structured a new competitive element in Planetside 2.
• Outfit Wars is a sequences of phases that culminates into a final battle of the top outfits on the server.
• There is a off season and track the resources you get.
• Then a qualification phase will track resources on a separate board, which contribute to your score, of which the score determines your rank at the end of the qualification season, and what bracket you participate in.
• After qualification phase, there will be a cool down to prepare for a timed event to gather players for Outfit Wars. Optional participation.
• Small outfits will be able to compete against zergfits as the resources system by being there for base defense and captures will give a flat amount of resources.
• Takes the larger outfits to spread out. Small outfits won't be able to participate if too small, but zergfits are wanted to be played down.
• Brackets will limit the population who can participate and what you earn will also be limited for zergfits at a certain point. To discourage outfit bloating and spamming to get more players. We want "right size" outfits.
• Currently 48 v 48 v 48.
• Spans currently 3-4 weeks with set schedules. Planned for prime time weekends customized by server regions. After testing will become more frequent.
• Outfit wars will cut the fat/bloat of zergfits if you want to participate.
• Gold, Silver, and Bronze brackets.
• Will custom outfit wars be available? Maybe in test, but do not want players to be out of main game for extended amount of time.
• STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS.
• Been working with players on internal playtests, lots of good feedback on features, viability, and desirability to make changes towards our vision. Thank you playtesters! Would not have gotten the build to this point, without Vindicore, Robo, and Reltor. They were primary points of contact, distributing hundreds of keys, and more of a gentleman's NDA. The hundreds of people they coordinated did not leak anything in the playtests, and weren't even in the internal developer discord, and did an amazing job.
• Following a seasonal structure, first season more preseason style for more testing at full scale, we want to modify rules and add more to do during prep and matches.
• Starts with 3 outfits, 48 each, built the map to support more outfits and scale more players that can participate.
• Will not be built for perpetuity, and will change constantly to be fresh and be better.
• Really want to do alliances/coalitions, no plans for it right now and need to discuss our priorities for the year, alliances would make the most sense as a solution for small scale outfits. There are designs for it, but it's a matter of priorities.

DESOLATION

• Still refining it more and adding a lot more to it, environmental lead Alen Lapidis and his team are still working on it and perfecting it constantly wanting to add more to it.
• Project and map worked on for little while now.
• Works off standard lattice, has nine bases, each team can capture bases and get kills for points. First to 500 wins.
• Very desolate lunar like map.
• Can use construction with no no-deploy zones, very free flowing.
• Each server will have an outfit wars map and competitive system.
• Actual capture points are very infantry-centric, originally was very free and open. Citadel shields war asset allowed and possible to protect against air/ground vehicles.
• Middle of the map are raised, cortium nodes are all around, but Cortium nodes at the center spawn the fastest and gets longer the closer to the base if you want to do construction.
• Set to just under 150 players currently, but scalable up to 600 players with multiple platoon sized groups. Starting out with three outfits.
• Very open terrain and rolling hills lends themselves well for sightlines for targeting.
• Alan worked hard on the skybox. Engine was not designed to do it, Alan worked magic to make it happen. Asteroids are actually meshes, and a plane behind it to simulate asteroids further back. Loves to tweet out cool shit on his Twitter every week.
• Locked time, always will be night for now.
• Gravity will work the same on the map, want you to feel very comfortable with the style of gameplay here.
• Initially start with lattice system, but quite construction-centric.
• BASES ARE NOT FINAL, VERY WORK IN PROGRESS.
• Outfit specialization varies, some focus construction vehicles etc. No go-to strategy yet, will play out eventually, will do balance changes to constantly evolve.
• Limited amount of bases to pull vehicles from command center, must keep eyes on energy level, coordination is key.
• Not meant to be a chaotic free for all to find success.
• Rewards for winning still very much in discussion, like rare resources etc. But also recognition for victory like statues and banners on Sanctuary plus more.
• Want to broadcast Outfit Wars on Twitch and be there.
• We will be much more open on visibility, communication, and transparency in general now that it's revealed.
• New maps is a consideration, and affects only a subset of the community, want to make sure we are tending to the majority of the player base, so everyone gets something out of this update. Sticking to this map for the short term.

Personal Developer Thoughts

• What excites me most about this update, is not all the gameplay features, etc. But the fact is that we actually have a team now, to make large scale changes.
• Hopefully an indicator to what we can do.
• The work that has gone into this has been a lot, ever since early last year.
• Outfit stuff hoping to have a trickling effect to positively impact gameplay for the entire map. Rather than Ti Alloys forever, play at bases that don't get played often and encourage players to move around the map.
• Ever since the Empire Strength update, we have been seeing more of this. People actually moving around and fighting at underused bases. We'll have to see if people do more of that after the update.

When is the update?

• Plan right now is prepping a final build on PTS ready to download tonight or tomorrow morning. Locked until just before 2PM PST.
• Livestream tomorrow, details coming out, 2/7 at 2PM PST, with an active developer presence and observer cam.
• Sites called Wrel a Wrel again.
• Been playtesting with discord for now, with lots of refinement, time to scale up and get everyone.
• Targeting a FEBRUARY 19th update. If not ready, will hold the update.
• Please come tomorrow to give us feedback, and afterwards, a few more manual outfit wars, then accelerate the process to have outfit wars everyday to not need developer intervention.
• Over time in PTS, things will get refined off the feedback.
• Will try to do these developer streams more frequently.

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