Tomorrow's Killzone 2 Patch - Full Details

Q&A with Guerrilla lead multiplayer designer inside

Posted by Staff
Tomorrow's Killzone 2 Patch - Full Details
Sony's set to release Patch 1.27 for Killzone 2 tomorrow morning. It's spawned from feedback dished up by the community over at the official Killzone 2 site and will include improvements to the party matching system and a 'High Precision' control system.

We could bang on about it, but instead we're going to turn you over to Eric Boltjes, Guerrilla lead multiplayer designer, in this Q&A Sony's dished up. Bear in mind that it is indeed official... so we're analysing it, however, we figured you'd want to see it ASAP, so have a gander below:

"First of all, Eric, can you run us through the highlights of Patch 1.27?

Sure! Most importantly, we’ve added functionality to make the process of finding and playing with friends much easier, tweaked the Skirmish Mode to keep it interesting for players with lower-bandwidth network connections, introduced a new ‘High Precision’ option to the controller configuration menu, and improved the overall balance of the game. There’s also a host of smaller changes as well, but I’ll save that for the change log.

Let’s start with the first one: finding and playing with friends. How has that been changed?

We’ve examined how party systems work and added similar functionality to our game where possible. The ‘Join Friend’ option has been changed so that the player can automatically join a friend’s faction and squad – even if faction balancing is on. In addition, squads and their factions are now persistent over multiple games, so friends can keep playing together continuously.

You said the Skirmish Mode been tweaked – can you explain?

Well, we’ve decided to unlock all the badges in Skirmish Mode. Considering that the game has been out for a while, and that many players have already reached the rank of General, we believe this is a nice way for players with lower-bandwidth network connections to experience the full range of weapons and abilities available in the Warzone.

Control-wise, what exactly does the new ‘High Precision’ option do?

When this option is switched on, it makes the analog sticks more responsive to small movements. Turned off, the controls behave exactly as they did before the patch. It’s not a radical overhaul of the control system, so the layout and the ‘weight’ of the controls remain the same.

Still, a lot of us here at Guerrilla really enjoy the new High Precision option, so we’ve decided to switch it on by default for new players. Existing Killzone 2 players will have the option turned off by default after patching – we wouldn’t want to force a sudden change to the controls on you!

How have you improved the overall balance of the game?

For starters, Patch 1.27 allows players to switch factions manually if the factions are unbalanced. If the factions consist of, say, 13 players versus 11 players, a player from the largest faction can manually switch over to make it an even 12 versus 12. Switching in the other direction is not allowed, so players from the smaller team can’t defect to the larger team if the battle doesn’t go their way. Players who switch over retain all their points, but squad affiliations will of course be lost.

Furthermore, we’ve removed the temporary invulnerability awarded to players who spawn at a spawn point other than the base camp. The players will still be safe at their own base camp, but custom-placed or mission-based spawn points do not yield temporary invulnerability anymore. This will hopefully give opposing players already at this location a fair chance.

Finally, we’ve made a couple of changes to the Badge abilities. The Assault Badge, for instance, was deemed too powerful by many players – so we tweaked down its Armor ability from 100 hit points to 50 hit points. The Tactician Badge’s secondary ability (to request air support from a Sentry Bot) has also been tweaked to make the Sentry Bot more useful. It can aim more accurately now, and its health is a little higher as well. To make it even more useful, we’ve reduced the way automated turrets target them, so they’re not shot down as fast. It should certainly make the Air Support Specialist ribbon easier to obtain!"

As we say, it's the official line..
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Comments

Ivan 27 May 2009 16:56
1/8
Yes!! finally the air support will show its poower :D.. and there will be not assault guys with freaking shotguns running and shooting
Did you just COPY this? 27 May 2009 18:16
2/8
Same Exact Post as PS Blog, but you didn't site them as a source.

They didn't site you either. So someone isn't telling the truth.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/05/27/killzone-2-patch-127-details/
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Was p 27 May 2009 19:21
3/8
Air Support Specialist ribbon was a long slog, and now every one will be boosting in and dropping spawn points, that was my trick but not any more.
However, gald the assault is getting taken down a chunk, if they did some thing about the rockets, it would be even better.
Leo 27 May 2009 22:46
4/8
but what about the network error codes? like code 8013 have they fixed that? i cant play online because of that error code! it constantly shows up and kicks me from the server!!!
Leo 27 May 2009 22:47
5/8
but what about the network error codes? like code 8013 have they fixed that? i cant play online because of that error code! it constantly shows up and kicks me from the server!!!
Leo 27 May 2009 22:48
6/8
but what about the network error codes? like code 8013 have they fixed that? i cant play online because of that error code! it constantly shows up and kicks me from the server!!!
TimSpong 28 May 2009 08:40
7/8
Did you just COPY this? wrote:
Same Exact Post as PS Blog, but you didn't site them as a source.

They didn't site you either. So someone isn't telling the truth.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/05/27/killzone-2-patch-127-details/


We state that this is an Offical Q&A in the story: "We could bang on about it, but instead we're going to turn you over to Eric Boltjes, Guerrilla lead multiplayer designer, in this Q&A Sony's dished up. Bear in mind that it is indeed official... "

We were sent the info directly from Sony and rather than editorialise all over what is useful info, we ran it straight and clearly stated that it is Official and that it's from Sony.

No conspiracy here I'm afraid.

Cheers

Tim
Killzone wannabe 22 Jun 2009 04:11
8/8
This game rocks, EXCEPT for the f'n Errors, I'm gunna sell this Pos if they do not do something about them, Hope others do the same.
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