Ditch the surge implant?

[Krinsath]

I'm just really curious about how people feel about this issue. For those who either don't play Planetside or don't pay attention, I'll offer the following synopsis.

Surge makes your character run faster, and is an excellent implant for an infantry grunt who needs to cover long distances but lacks the certs for a vehicle. It also gives a slight advantage in combat as you're moving a bit faster than your enemy.

The problem is that the PS engine does not handle surging well, especially indoors around stairs and other inclines. Combine this with the powerful HA weapons and the fact that if your computer doesn't put this person where they belong correctly, you can't hit them and you have a great number of frustrated players. It's not that Surge is an unbeatable implant, it's just that PS handles it so poorly that the game basically gives these people a leg up. Sure, there are various tactics for dealing with it and each has their drawbacks and advantages.

I don't have a problem with the concept of Surge, I just dislike the fact that the game is bugged and it gives them an advantage that they're not meant to have. I just wanted to see what other people thought of the situation.

Feel free to post your reasonings/opinions, but as always...keep the flames to a minimum.

[Queensidecastle]

I find the constant braindead solutions to Surge really annoying. Stamina drain is Already the limiter placed on surge. Fix that and problem solved. Surge doesnt need to be fucking taken out, it doesnt need to be nerfed where you cant use a weapon, or any of that stupid nonsense. Tweak stamina the way it needs to be and the issue is resolved

[Veteran]

It makes the game look amateurish when you show some friends and they see Mr. Warpy teleporting like a Translocator-user in Unreal.

Client-Side Hit-Detection plus Surge equals trouble.

[Krinsath]

Originally Posted by Queensidecastle

I find the constant braindead solutions to Surge really annoying. Stamina drain is Already the limiter placed on surge. Fix that and problem solved. Surge doesnt need to be fucking taken out, it doesnt need to be nerfed where you cant use a weapon, or any of that stupid nonsense. Tweak stamina the way it needs to be and the issue is resolved

I believe the primary complaint people have is the warping issues that Surge contributes to as how can you hit that which is not where it's supposed to be? Stamina drain does nothing to address that unless you make it so rapid and extreme that Surge becomes worthless...and at that point, why keep it?

As I said initially, I have no problems with Surge itself, but if the Devs cannot fix it easily, why leave such an obvious blackeye on the face of PS? At least until such time as it has been corrected...it's not like there are no other implants to choose from...

[Queensidecastle]

Nobody complains about warping Rexos. Now why is that? You would propose a wholesale nerf to the surge implant impacting all the players in Rexo who dont warp?. What about Infiltrators? no one complains about them warping. Agiles and Standards are the only ones warping. So why dont we just deal with that problem. Also warping is heavily dependant on your own PC/connection. Just because someone has shit for a computer doesnt mean they get to nerf everyone else's gameplay as a result. I rarely see a warp and when I do, I know the person did it on purpose and it is not hard to compensate for. The Devs are working on the warp problem. I have faith that they will nail it down at some point. In the meantime surgile warpers are not that hard to kill and are at an even further dissadvantage because of the Rexo buff. Its really not that much of a problem anymore.

[Warborn]

I'd like to see the ability to use Surge while holding a weapon removed. I really dislike how combat at close ranges involves an elaborate spinning dance between infantry with bullets flying every which way. It's stupid. Is it completely and utterly terrible? No. Are Surgiles or surgers in general invincible? No. But I prefer the alternative to what we have now. Making Surge a getaway implant, or a general sprinting implant, rather than the most important combat implant in the game, especially when used with Agile armor, would be more enjoyable.

[Krinsath]

Originally Posted by Queensidecastle

Nobody complains about warping Rexos. Now why is that? You would propose a wholesale nerf to the surge implant impacting all the players in Rexo who dont warp?. What about Infiltrators? no one complains about them warping. Agiles and Standards are the only ones warping. So why dont we just deal with that problem. Also warping is heavily dependant on your own PC/connection. Just because someone has shit for a computer doesnt mean they get to nerf everyone else's gameplay as a result. I rarely see a warp and when I do, I know the person did it on purpose and it is not hard to compensate for. The Devs are working on the warp problem. I have faith that they will nail it down at some point. In the meantime surgile warpers are not that hard to kill and are at an even further dissadvantage because of the Rexo buff. Its really not that much of a problem anymore.

On flat level ground, that's probably quite true. Surging up and down stairs, like there are in every base and tower, and even the Rexos will warp.

How, exactly, would someone tell if an infiltrator is surge warping? If they're friendly, you probably aren't paying attention to them. If they're enemy, then they're probably invisible and their weapons really aren't powerful enough to do the kind of damage that those with rifle slots can inflict. Sure, the Mag-Scatter hurts, but dodge the bulk of one of the shots and they're toast...or, tap them gently with the side of a vehicle and watch them keel over.

Warping is not just keyed off of what machine you have, just like lag is not tied to your personal machine. Mine, while not high-end, is a far cry from crap (1.8GHz, 1GB DDR RAM, GeForce4 Ti4600, 3 HDs: System, Paging, PS, cable) and I encounter warping quite frequently in the conditions described above. Since the game centers around base and tower caps, and they both have the conditions that are exploitable by this implant, it does become a large issue.

The Rexo buff did not solve the problem, it just made it so that it is no longer a sure thing on which way the fight is going to go. Depending on other conditions though (environment, number of people around, how laggy the SOE servers feel like being that day), you can quickly get back to the "no chance in hell" situation of before.

I too have faith that the devs will eventually fix it, but if this exploit is driving players away (and it is...both new and old) then it needed to be fixed months ago when the problem was first diagnosed, not at some hazy point in the future when they figure out the cause (or causes...meaning it will take as long as the door bugs to be fixed...and that was the better part of three months). Damage has probably already been done to the playerbase on that front though, so it's a wash on which way to go.

[Fenrys]

Originally Posted by Queensidecastle

I find the constant braindead solutions to Surge really annoying. Stamina drain is Already the limiter placed on surge. Fix that and problem solved. Surge doesnt need to be fucking taken out, it doesnt need to be nerfed where you cant use a weapon, or any of that stupid nonsense. Tweak stamina the way it needs to be and the issue is resolved

But then you could not cover long distances. The old problem is solved, but in doing so you've introduced another one.

IMO extra speed is too powerfull in any FPS and the Surge implant is doomed to always be overpowered or removed.

[Veteran]

Surge is due to be chased around by a peasant militia with torches and pitchforks. It's been screwing the game up for too long.

[Queensidecastle]

Thats just not a good enough argument when the result is a massive nerf to multitudes of people that are not even affected by it. I always could and still can kill someone warping or otherwise so I think the argument is blown way out of proportion. Yeah its not fun to be killed by someone moving 2x faster than you before you can even see them, but that is nothing that tweaking stamina down to where they can surge only for 10 seconds or so couldnt fix. Instead of trying to see what would happen if you drained out stamina for a 10 second Surge or so, You would argue for it to be removed completely, or not allow someone to use a weapon. Ridiculous and draconian proposals to an annoying issue at best

[Happy lil Elf]

Best answer that I see is not to remove the ability to hold or fire a weapon while surging but to fuck the CoF of any weapon held while surging. It makes at least a little sense from a logical standpoint and would certainly help cut into the main problem of surge, that being that people run around with it on killing people who can't fight back because of the warping. If the surge monkies can't hit anything while surging anymore, maybe they'll stop doing it but even if they're too dense to stop they'll at least become much less annoying.

[Krinsath]

Originally Posted by Queensidecastle

Thats just not a good enough argument when the result is a massive nerf to multitudes of people that are not even affected by it. I always could and still can kill someone warping or otherwise so I think the argument is blown way out of proportion.

The issue is not "can they be killed?", the issue is "should they be able to gain such an advantage when that is not the purpose of the implant?" If the purpose of surge was to make you appear randomly all over the screen, then at least it's doing what it's supposed to. It's purpose is to make you run faster, not warp. The problem isn't with surge so much as the devs inability to track down the problems in the engine that surge aggravates.

Originally Posted by Queensidecastle

Yeah its not fun to be killed by someone moving 2x faster than you before you can even see them, but that is nothing that tweaking stamina down to where they can surge only for 10 seconds or so couldnt fix.

1) Not fun = fewer players. Fewer players = less income for SOE. Less income for SOE = no more PS. Sucky chain reaction...but it applies to any serious bug, not just this particular one.

2) Tweaking the stamina will not solve the problem. The crux of the problem exists in the engine itself, Surge is just the catalyst to a string of bad circumstances. Is this Surge's fault? No, but if it's causing problems then something needs to be done. Removing it until the code has been fixed (i.e. - not on a permanent basis, unless it proves to be unfixable in which case it should be removed anyway) will be an inconvenience to be sure, but I'd rather be inconvenienced than to find out that so many people have left PS that it's no longer a viable project.

Originally Posted by Queensidecastle

Instead of trying to see what would happen if you drained out stamina for a 10 second Surge or so, You would argue for it to be removed completely, or not allow someone to use a weapon. Ridiculous and draconian proposals to an annoying issue at best

Draconian? Perhaps...but that is do to the fact that the ridiculous part is that the problem has gone on for as long as it has. This is an issue that's existed in some form since beta, and there's been nothing done to successfully fix it. Imagine if your car's brakes randomly wouldn't kick in for a few seconds...would you say "oh...well, I'll just try and adjust to my driving style to fit my brakes and hope that it doesn't get worse" or would you take it to the mechanic and say "fix this and I'll find some other way around until it's done"? Accurate placement of enemy soldiers is no less critical to PS than brakes are to a car.

Sure, Surge adds an interesting dynamic to the game, but until it can do so without negatively impacting the game like it is currently, maybe it'd be something PS would be better off without for a time.

[BadAsh]

I�ve ditched surge out of my standard implant build. I�ve gotten used to not fighting with surge and I don�t miss it. Rarely I�ll see an enemy infiltrator zoom past me and I can�t catch him because I can�t surge anymore. But, that is a rare frustration. My point is that the game plays just fine without it surge, so it�s not needed. Since the physics engine simply can�t handle surge speeds my vote is for removal. This will cause some complaints at first, but in a brief amount of time surge won�t be missed.

[Queensidecastle]

I dont know why I keep arguing with you. Your ideas are illogical and dont properly address the real issue. Fortunatly the Devs arent going to do as you propose because it would be foolish. Its really too bad that you are suffering from so many Lag warps that you cant play the game but thats not my problem. Maybe you should consider analyzing your internet connection or perhaps your PC because myself nor anyone I know has warp problems as you have described them.

[TheN00b]

Queenside, not everyone can afford or wants to waste money on a top-of-the-line computer, which is really what is needed to fight Surgiles.