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Dear Auraxians,

We are excited to announce that our team at Toadman Interactive is taking over development duties for PlanetSide 2. Our colleagues at Rogue Planet Games have created a unique gaming experience that has thrived for over a decade. We have assembled a team of developers who have many years of experience working on Massively Multiplayer Online games and First Person Shooters. Although we are not the purchaser of the franchise, the team is delighted to carry the PlanetSide 2 torch forward. Additionally, we will continue working with the Daybreak Games publishing team to ensure the game continues to receive best-in-class marketing and community support. 

Our vision for PlanetSide 2 is to highlight unique aspects that have given it such a storied place in gaming history while improving the general game experience. To that end we’ve laid out three major principles to guide us moving forward along with our 2024 roadmap following below:

• A renewed focus on the elements that make PlanetSide 2 great, rebalancing mechanics and content while addressing the current pain points that get in the way
  
• Create more objective-based player goals within the core gameplay loop to
  
• capitalize better on the breadth of PlanetSide 2’s potential
  
• Infuse each major update with more theme, lore, and world building to give more
  
• structure and context to the world we all inhabit

Q1
If you look back on Q1, you can see that we put quite a bit of effort into fixing bugs that were major causes of pain points for everyone. We're not at the end of the road just yet, and we are dedicated to identifying and squashing more.

The tradition of developer letters that started at the end of last year will continue. We want to be as transparent as possible and also share some insights with our community on how we create assets and develop features for PlanetSide 2. In addition, we reworked Capture the Conduit and created several beautiful bundles celebrating Auraximas, Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day, and St Patrick's Day.

You may have noticed that the reward structure for the Seasonal Directives is much more rewarding. Below is an example of how we want to continue with directive rewards:


Q2
We have exciting content waiting for you in Q2, which we are working on right now. We’re starting with the Puzzler Bundle on April Fools' Day, in which you will find a handful of Puzzler themed cosmetics, all for only 10 certs.

New color variants for the NS-44 “Primed Amethyst” Commissioner that were featured in the 11th Anniversary Bundle are entering the Depot as well as a new base/facility capture method (more details to follow).

Q2 also includes the PlanetSide Franchise Anniversary and other equally exciting holidays such as: Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day and Father's Day.

Q3
Q3 is going to be hot with the return of two summer directive events with great rewards. We are also very excited to release the updated Sunderer, although it may happen sooner if we manage to overcome some technical limitations. Additionally, we will have another new game mode, which some of our colleagues have already started working on, and we will also celebrate holidays such as Independence Day and Labor Day in a big way.

Q4
The most anticipated PlanetSide 2 updates will arrive at the end of the year. We do not want to reveal all the cards just yet, but at the same time we want to share some of the novelties that are waiting for you closer to the end of the year. We will start with the traditional Halloween celebration, for which we are preparing an intimidating event, and right after that we will release the Anniversary Update. There, we will introduce a completely new theme, which will include a new vehicle type, armor sets, helmets, weapons, and cosmetics.

We cannot wait to show you a behind the scenes look at our upcoming new art assets, story elements, and the technical workings of creating a new type of transportation in PlanetSide 2. Expect more Auraximas events, a bundle with winter weapons, sales, and holiday decorations.

Naturally, to accomplish our goals for the year, there will be a learning curve involved, not only for technical reasons, but also because PlanetSide 2 is a large and venerable game with many gameplay niches and a deeply passionate community. This transition has been under way for several months and is largely the reason updates have been smaller and slower lately than what the community is used to seeing.

As we become more proficient and knowledgeable, the scope and pace of updates will speed up and our ability to take risks will grow. Becoming experts in the full scope of such a massive enterprise will take time, and mistakes will be made. However, we promise to listen closely and carefully to your feedback so we may learn and grow as quickly as possible.

- Toadman Interactive, PlanetSide 2 Team

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Greetings Auraxians,

For this March's development letter, we have some news, updates, and a special treat; the reveal of a new facility type!

The Warzone rotation, Oshur Alert, and Friends List updates will be hitting the Public Test Server shortly after the next patch.

The Friends List has been rewritten from scratch to solve a myriad of various bugs and issues. We are confident that this rewrite should solve the existing issues, however since it is a new system there could be other issues we have missed.

The Warzone rotation system has been changed to be non-static. That is, the rotation order can shift slightly so that the oldest Warzone is not necessarily the next to be unlocked, although it usually will be. This also allowed us to set Oshur to an infrequent rotation schedule. There is a new meltdown alert on Oshur that should trigger almost immediately, setting a cap on how long the continent will remain open.

More details, if needed, will be in the PTS Patch Notes nearing release.

The Sunderer is in active development and still going through quite a bit of internal testing. Once we are confident that we have brought them to a state where you can provide us with valuable feedback, we will be releasing a new cert tree to the test server.

This *may* happen in batches so that as much testing as possible can be done before live release.

Finally, on to the special treat. We are currently working on an **Assault Facility**. This is an entirely new type of Facility that is dramatically different from the existing ones, and we wanted to try some new things to see how they affected the way players select equipment and approach combat.

Our goals are to give the Facility a much clearer and directed sense of flow. We also wanted to have more stable and recognizable phases for battles with distinct beginning, middle, and end phases each of which will require slightly different strategy and tactics. Finally, we wanted to have a base design that more elegantly integrates vehicles so that they will have a clear, crucial role without being oppressive to infantry.

Assault Rules
The basic rules for the mode are simple and follow the general pattern of an Assault Game Mode that many games have with some PlanetSide 2 wrinkles.

An Assault Facility comes under attack when an opposing faction captures the first, and only unlocked, Capture Point from the current owner (i.e. Defender). This does a few things:

• The ability to capture the remaining points becomes locked to the initial faction
  
• A hard spawn for that faction is unlocked within the Hex
  
• The facility's Energy Pool becomes active

Now that the Facility is active it consists of a series of capture points that must be captured order, unlocking as the Attackers progress. Once captured, these points cannot be recaptured by the defenders. The Attackers win when the final point is captured.

The facility is successfully defended if the Attackers' energy pool reaches 0 before the final point is captured. The energy pool is depleted in 2 ways:

1. Each capture point owned by the defenders depletes the Energy Pool at a regular interval
   
2. Each instance of spawning or deploying within the Facility Hex consumes energy. This includes:

• Respawning at the Hard Spawn
  
• Spawning at the Sunderer
  
• Spawning via Squad Beacon
  
• Spawning via Steel Rain
  
• Deploying in any of the above manners

Being revived by the medic tool or via Nanite Revive Grenade does not consume energy. This would make Nanite Revive Grenades even more oppressively powerful than they already are, thus they will be heavily adjusted before the release of Assault Mode. This is something that needed to happen anyway, and this is a good time to implement it.

Energy is added to the Attackers' energy pool when they capture a point, or via secondary objectives if they are included.

When the battle ends (Either captured or defended) the facility will enter a cooldown period where the first point is locked, and a new battle cannot be initiated.

Initial Release
To get the most out of this new Facility Type we are creating a single, new, customized base to host it. This facility will take over a construction outpost in as central, but non-critical, a location as possible. We are using this strategy to mitigate risk and have time to work on the game mode and facility layout before propagating it further.

The facility will be implemented as the simplest possible functional version of this type; with only 3 Capture Points and no secondary objectives. It is important that we extensively iterate on this simple version first since good design dictates that we make a compelling experience and accomplish all our goals with as few restrictions or complications as possible. Elegance is what we are aiming for.

Success or failure of this initial Facility will determine where, how large, and how many of these will be created in the future.

Risks & Potential Issues
Finally, we come to the risks, weaknesses, and potential issues of this new Facility type.

The first and most obvious weakness is that this game mode does not elegantly handle a three-faction interaction. It is very much an attacker vs defender scenario with the third faction being relegated to a tertiary role where they can tip the scales of a battle's outcome but not own the facility directly. However, we feel that with careful placement this weakness can be minimized while allowing its strengths to shine.

The other major concern is that the Energy Pool will dramatically affect behavior and decision-making. This can break into either good or bad direction; it is impossible to fully predict the outcome of such a chaotic circumstance. The likelihood of creating a situation that is very static or has an overly one-sided meta is very high. At the same time, having death be a more meaningful mechanic, and not just a loss of time, is likely to unlock some new and interesting strategies. It may even actively discourage deliberately over-popping the facility leading to more even and sustained battles.

The Energy Pool values, the amounts and ways energy is consumed, spawn locations, vehicle pads, and so on will have to be monitored closely and adjusted carefully. In the end we are confident we can make this new facility something that we all look forward to.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback when these updates come to the test server. See you all planetside!

- PlanetSide 2 Team

New for sale this year is the Puzzler Bundle. This Bundle includes:

• 4x Puzzler Hairmet, one in each faction color
  
• The Puzzler Decal
  
• The Puzzler Banner & Banner Frame
  
• Liberator Puzzler Cockpit Glass
  
• The Puzzler Hood Ornament
  
• Vehicle Clown Horns! Honk, honk!

• Aprils Fools Cosmetics & Bundles are returning from April 1st until April 10th

• 40% off Infantry Weapons

• Originally part of the 11th Anniversary Bundle (and still is)
  
• This Commissioner sidearm has entered the Depot as an individual cosmetic to purchase!

• The Red Crystal Commissioner is available for purchase in the store
  
• This is a variant of the NS-44 "Primed Amethyst" Commissioner with a red crystal theme

You might have noticed that we are making some nice class cosmetics that can be purchased with Certs in the Depot! Each month we aim to release a Banner, Frame and Decal for a class!

So far we have:

For the sneaky price of 10 Certs each you can get:

• Infiltrator Class Banner
  
• Infiltrator Class Banner Frame
  
• Infiltrator Class Decal

Available for 10 Certs each in the depot are:

• Light Assault Class Banner
  
• Light Assault Class Banner Frame
  
• Light Assault Class Decal

• Enjoy double xp from April 1st - 4th.

• Audio for the NS-11A equipped with a suppressor has been fixed
  
• An incorrect "Restricted Area" location on Amerish has been removed
  
• Several boxes that fell through the floor on Esamir have been re-solidified and relocated
  
• The directives screen will again clearly show when something has not been unlocked
  
• MGR-C1 Charger overcharged muzzle flash VFX should now play properly
  
• The Target Focus implant should now correctly work when the Hud Indicator size is set to large
  
• Fixed terminal interaction in command centers
  
• Characters should once again appear at their proper size during character creation 
  
• Archer reload audio should now player properly in first person
  
• Slight optic adjustments for the NS-44: "Primed Amethyst" Commissioner

This morning we released a client side hotfix update to address the major issues from our St. Patrick's day patch last week. Launching the game today will automatically download and update your client.

• Fixed an unwrapped text issue with the UI that would occur when attempting to capture bases or being in an area that isn't connected to a region your faction controls.
  
• Flashlight not emitting light when the graphics settings are set to Medium is now fixed.
  
• Fixed an issue where the seats of the Bastion would seat players upside down and are unable to properly fly it.
  
• Vehicle turret aiming has been fixed.
  
• Spawning into an ESF that caused fast walk speeds has been fixed.

This morning's patch is live, howerver we discovered a couple issues today, please see the note below. Note we are looking into a fix for these issues accordingly.

• The Bastion can cause players to be seated incorrectly, including pilots, preventing them from firing or piloting properly. This does not always occur but it is frequent enough to warrant strong caution when launching one from a terminal. There are currently no workarounds, a hotfix is in the works.
  
• Players report encountering invisible vehicles
  
• Vehicle turrets are not working correctly
  
• NS-11A's audio with the suppressor is incorrect

This month's patch is loaded with bug fixes, especially to animations and audio. We are also bringing back previous St. Patrick's Day Bundles from March 17th until March 26th

The returning items arrive (March 17th - March 26th):

• 2023 Saint Patrick's Day Bundle
  
• 2022 Saint Patrick's Day Bundle
  
• Gold Lover's Bundle
  
• Green Fortune Bundle
  
• Jackpot Bundle
  
• Leprechaun's Bundle
  
• Wyrdwood Bundle
  
• Classic Clover Decal
  
• Leprechaun Decal
  
• Pot O Auraxium Decal
  
• Shamrock Decal
  
• Clover Camo
  
• Weapon Camo: Green-gold Flecked
  
• Jackpot Hood Ornament
  
• ANT / Sunderer Clover Trails
  
• and more!

• Enjoy a Double Experience For All Weekend from March 15th until March 18th

Normally we would save these types of announcements for the monthly Dev Letter, but since the patch is a little light this week, we've decided to include some more insight into the progress of various updates and fixes in this weeks patch notes.

The Sunderer rework is coming along nicely. We are looking into having it arrive onto the Public Test Server to work out the kinks and adjust some balancing. For the moment we'd like to share some what we have completed.

Here is the look at the reactive armor. The armor is designed to clearly visually indicate, through shape and color, when a piece of reactive armor is active and when it is not.



Some certifications that are not getting a major gameplay overhaul are still receiving visual updates. Below are the new Stealth Module and Enhanced Plating, artwork which replaces Blockade Armor and Mine Guard.




The friend's list issue is one area we are focusing on fixing. The tracking server architecture that handles friends lists was breaking down and had to be be almost completely rewritten. Some of the things the rewrite will achieve are:

• Improved database transaction efficiency; i.e. ensuring that everything is immediately saved to database on changes. Previously this happened only a few minutes after the fact and could be lost in cases of reboot/crash/power outage on the server.
  
• Added automatic consistency fixes; e.g. fixing situations when X is marked as a friend of Y but Y is not marked as friend of X.
  
• More reliable friends invitation processing; e.g. removing cases when someone sends an invite to be friends and invitee doesn't receive it.

These are just a few of the things we are doing with the rewrite, which should eliminate the vast majority of the bugs the system currently suffers. This is a major overhaul, thus it will be released to the Public Test Server first before being deployed on live. We don't have a firm date on when this will happen but the changes are actively being worked on.

There has been much well earned consternation over Oshur. The issues it causes among the game and community are undeniable, but the potential solution for each issue has pros and cons we have to consider carefully.

Generally speaking, our first thoughts are towards building and improving the game. To that end we conducted a systematic review of the continent, which included collating the vast amount of community feedback from many sources. The list of issues was sorted, examined, and we had many discussions around how to solve them. In the end we concluded that although there was promise in the concept, the issues were extremely core to all aspects of Oshur's design from individual bases to the general layout of the continent and lattice. Small changes would do little to solve the issue, and an entire rework was needed.

Unfortunately, we also decided that an entire rework would be a monumental effort the likes of which would detract from other smaller and more pressing issues. Following our philosophy of taking on the most impactful projects first, we saw that Oshur did not make the cut when it came to the effort / impact calculation.

The next logical and simple step would be to simply remove Oshur from the rotation. This presents its own issues though. Oshur has attached to it a large amount of unique content that players have spend their hard earned currency on, as well as unique and interesting directives, missions, and so on. Simply removing it would also create a clump of additional work where we would have to spend a good amount of effort making recompense to players as well as making changes that were deemed "fair" to new and returning players. This is a non-trivial task that would also eat up a surprising amount of resources that are also better spent on more impactful changes.

To that end we decided to take a middle approach. Oshur will be put on an infrequent rotation schedule and a special alert will be created that will more tightly control how long the continent remains active when it does come up. The ability to do this does not currently exist in the rotation scheduling system, and thus we have to design and add it before this change can be made. This is actively being worked on. We will build into the new system the ability to adjust the frequency and up-times of Oshur quickly via data so that adjustments to these parameters can be made relatively quickly and easily. We feel this is a fair compromise to players that never want to deal with Oshur again and those that may want to finish their Dog Tag collection, or take an occasional boat joy ride.

As a bonus side affect we will be adjusting general Warzone rotation such that the same ones don't always follow the same pattern and there will be slight changes in the rotation over time.

• The beacons are not lit; beam visual effect should now de-spawn properly after the beacon's destruction
  
• Outfit Wars decals now have the proper file format and should no longer crash the client
  
• Players can no longer spawn in destroyed aircraft, preventing them from acquiring vertigo and the ability to shoot through walls
  
• Reworked the suppressor attachment audio on the following weapons; NS30 Vandal, Warden, Carnage AR, GR-22, NC9 A-Tross, NS-11, Reaper DMR, EM1, EM6, NC6S Gauss SAW S
  
• The NSX: Yumi's bolt can now be worked. Fixed a visual bug with the reload animation
  
• Fixed weapon reload sounds for many weapons, including; AF57 Piston, NS AM7 Archer, EM1, EM6, NC05 Jackhammer, T16 Rhino, T32 Bull, T7 Minichain, T9 CARV, T9 CARV-S, TMG50, VE-C Horizon, VE LR Obelisk, VE-A Lacerta
  
• Obelisk and other VS weapon's hand IK will properly un-attach during 3rd person reload animation sequences
  
• Ammunition Belt certification selection tooltip now includes information about the reload speed increase
  
• Gate Shield Diffuser certification selection tooltip now contains information about its interaction with water on Oshur
  
• Fixed MAX jumping and landing audio
  
• Fixed localization error in vehicle and aircraft key-bindings
  
• The Natural Camouflage cosmetic for the Chimera should no longer be visible in the first person view

Greetings Auraxians!  

For this month’s dev letter, we wanted to share something a little different – a behind the scenes look at the process our artists go through when creating new items in PlanetSide 2. Our example piece for this behind-the-scenes look is the new Lunar Dragon Helmet available in the Lunar New Year Bundle [2024]. We hope you enjoy a peek behind the curtain!  

The process begins with a planning phase. During this time, ideas are presented to be made into an asset for an in-game event or update. Let's look at the Lunar New Year event as an example.  

This year we decided to create a unique helmet for the event. 

After consulting with our Game Designers about any specific requirements, the process is taken over by the Art Department. 

The Lunar New Year is a celebration that marks the arrival of spring and the beginning of a fresh lunar cycle. Honored by many cultures across Asia, the way it's celebrated is unique to each place. It is the most important holiday for the Chinese (Spring Festival) and is widely celebrated by Vietnamese (Tet Nguyen Dan), Koreans (Seollal), Mongolians (Tsagaan Sar), and many others.  

The intricacies of traditions around the holiday are diverse, so we focused on the largest groups finding the most common element that overlaps. In this case, the Dragon zodiac symbol and the colors used during the festivities such as Gold (Yellow) and Silver (White). This is our foundation behind the helmet, decal, banner, frame, and nudge ideation. The work on the helmet starts with focusing on the keywords: Dragon, Fire, Asia, Red, Yellow, PlanetSide2, Sci-Fi. 

We then visualize a concept of an idea. 


From here the idea is born and we have a helmet influenced by Asian cultures in the PlanetSide 2 style. It incorporates a dragon head, red and yellow as the primary colors, and faction specific tints for additional details.  

Next, we move on with exploring designs and shapes. At this stage, the shape becomes the primary focus. 


We then decide on three distinct ideas and present them for consideration. 

After contemplating the scope of work, we choose a final direction. 


Next, we shift our focus towards functional and technical examination of the asset.  

Taking everything into account, we start the linework, proportions of different elements, and we begin fine tuning the silhouette followed by adding in the details.  

The idea is that the entire helmet is the dragon's head. The emptiness of the dragon's mouth will be represented by a dark visor hiding the player's face. 


Linework is finished up and we move on to grayscale painting to block out the contrast.  

The goal here is to have a clear separation of different elements without the dramatic difference in contrast between two close parts (we might just reserve that for a few focus points).  


At this stage we consider how the asset will exist within the environment, like hinting the faction colors, technical limitations, etc.  

In this case, faction colors will be in the second plan, while the colors associated with the Lunar New Year will be brought to the first plan. The objective is to make the asset stand out without disrupting the sense of belonging.  



We use the colors to further emphasize the face of the dragon, separate different elements, and provide space for hinting the player's faction. 

For high production level work, we usually do not make highly detailed concept renders, a simple reference to work from is all that our 3D artist requires. 


Once the concept is done and approved, we move on to creating the 3D asset. 

In this step, we make sure that the 3D artist understands the idea behind the concept. In this case, it just so happens that the 2D concept did not translate perfectly into 3D. This is why effective communication and direction is needed. It ensures a smooth transition into this step. This minimizes the need for 3D model corrections later on. 




The base model is now textured and complete. We can move on to setting up the faction tints on the pre-agreed elements. In this case, the tints are deliberately subtle to not take away from the spirit of the helmet, which celebrates the Lunar Year.


The model is then sent to an animator for rigging and once rigged it is imported into the Engine. There, the shaders are set up and adjusted for the finishing touches bringing the helmet to life.

- PlanetSide 2 Team