[2020] Wrel's Actual Response to Condensate grenade and Thumper BEC

Hey everyone. I don't typically like to follow up topics where people are hurling personal attacks, but in spite of that, I wanted to let you all know that your voice is heard when it comes to feedback.

For context, buffing and debuffing is an experiment we've been trying out more over the past few years with damage over time effects, various implant benefits, snares, health or armor increases, all sorts of things. Some of these effects have meshed well, some of them haven't, and others are still a question mark. For the long term health of not only PlanetSide 2, but any future projects we'd want to do in the genre, I believe it's our duty as developers to find the edges of the creative boundary box. Even in a game almost eight years old.

That's the heart of it. If you don't agree or care about anything else, at least take that away.

In regards to BEC Ammo/Condensate Grenade specifically, the majority of the contention stems from the rate of fire reduction. Message received. There's definitely a lot of theory crafting on how it'll affect combat right now, which will (and should) be the case when new mechanics are on the horizon, but there are two discussion points that stand out even more to me. Those being...

1. Should rate of fire modifiers exist in PlanetSide 2?
2. Does the gameplay benefit at all from this?

This is the meat of it, the important questions worth answering. Between this and Firestorm, a lot of you very vocally fall in the "No" category. I am also aware, however, that very few people have actually tried the equipment on PTS, and are mainly opposed to the idea of it existing. That sort of thinking can paralyze a development process and stagnate a game. On the other side of that, developers need to also be willing to look at something once it's in the wild and say "Ah, that's no good," and change it based on worthwhile information. This is the key to experimentation.

You may have noticed by our last few updates, and the recent barrage of PTS publishes, that we're much more willing to make changes based on feedback now than we have been in the past. That continues to be the case with this. To that end, I hope you're willing to keep an open mind, as there is some value to be gained here at the end of it all, even if it's not immediately obvious.

Anyway, I started writing this at 12am and it's now past 3am, it was about twice as long originally, but hopefully this condensed version can convey where my head is at with this sort of thing.