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View Full Version : What a big fat friggin list!


ZionsFire
2003-10-05, 02:46 PM
Hey, All, Credit to ZombieB
I originally posted this one the wishlist, but people there suggested I posted it here too, so..here goes.
This post is a huge one with all the ideas I've come up with (including concept art) and that I at one time or another would like to see included in Planetside. (some parts have been listed before in my Perfect Planetside thread)
If you do not want to read all of it, scroll down to the part which interests you and comment on that part only. All aspects are seperated with a few linebreaks and a new header.

Posted before the balance pass goes live - 4th October 2003.

Part 1: Base Layout, Defense/Offense, Facilities & Baselinks.

--- Main Base Gates/Walls/Turrets ---
- Add more "Anti-Mow" obstacles and cover for the troops in courtyard.
- More obstacles near the base gates so that tanks can't just rush straight in. (i.e. 5 of those small "walls" at each gate instead of the normal 3 (or none as is the case some places).
- Add more cover in form of rocks/boulders/trees so that advancing forces have decent cover to fire from.
- Phalanx turrets get a rate-of-fire boost and preferably make them dual-chainguns merely because it looks better.
- Anti-Air Flak Turrets on the main base roof (where there's now usually a dome/radar etc). Make them non-autofiring and so they have to be manned by personell in order to fire. Do not make them able to fire down in the courtyard. Less efficent than AA Maxes, but with fairly good range. Maximum 4 of them in each base. Poor armor.

--- Bunkers ---
(See concept art at: http://home.online.no/~bulhanse/chr/bunker.htm )

- All bunkers are connected to the base with underground hallways.
- Add forcefields around bunkers to protect those inside the bunker. Reduce damage taken inside the forcefield to 1/3 of the normal damage. Make the forcefield seem like a dome around the bunker and passable, so that enemies can get inside the forcefield and shoot the bunker occupants with full damage.
- The forcefields regenerate if you got an Amp station (much like the vehicle shields). On top of each bunker is an exposed generator which can be destroyed to take down the forcefield (and repaired from inside the bunker).
- The bunker generators can also be destroyed with boomers from the backside of the bunker (place boomers where the pipes on the concept art are and the generator takes damage).
- The color of the forcefield changes with the owner of the base. I.e. red for TR, blue for NC, purple for VS.
- The point of the forcefield would be to make the bunker a favorable place to be compared to outside, and reduce the fact that you're mainly sniper bait in one at the moment. (Yes, I know it can be used to avoid magmowers etc).
- Bunkers are connected to each other through tunnels (so you don't have to run back to the base, find the next exit and run to a new bunker).
- In the bunker-corridors you have some exits which in order to use, you'll have to run up a small stair, thus preventing them from open because some guy runs too close to them when he's going for the bunker. Those bunker doors are only hackable from the inside.
- The bunker corridors lead to the same "main" room as would be used when coming through the backdoor. (see backdoor section)

--- Backdoor ---
(Concept Art at: http://home.online.no/~bulhanse/chr/backentrance.htm )
- Create the outer door hackable from the outside. You then arrive in a semi-large room with some obstacles for defensive positions.
Then create a linked hallway from the "backdoor-room" to the main complex which has a door only hackable from the inside. That way you reduce the amount of people queing up in the backdoor tube (which I at least find mildly irritating), and you avoid people getting mowed down by vehicles while waiting outside. It will also allow Spec Ops Teams to deploy some interesting strategies.

--- Base, Outpost, Tower Layout ---
(Concept art at: http://home.online.no/~bulhanse/chr/map.htm )
- Divide base designs into 3: Main Base, Outpost, Tower. Make Main Base a huge base, Outpost the size of a normal base, and towers as they are today.

- Main Base:
- Add 2-3 main bases on each continent. These bases will be able to use all the facility benefits (tech station, dropship centre etc) IF, and that's a big IF, it's respective outposts are captured.
- Increase the size of the complex by a lot. Different textures for different areas. Add more signs. Larger and less cramped hallways with boxes to hide behind for indoor fighting (instead of queing up to die when in a zerg, you'll actually be able to move).
- Create chokepoints and bottlenecks inside the basecomplex so that a well setup defense can hold off a semilarge force even after they've broken into the courtyard.
- Change the illumination in the basecomplex and add directional lights (so that infils can hide/move in darker spots to avoid detection as easily). Currently the base lacks mood and it's like fighting a war in a mall.
- Make it so some Outpost benefits are shared by two mainbases. So if NC holds the north base and TR the south base, and there's tech plant outpost linked inbetween, only one empire can have that benefit at their main base.
- Main bases should be harder to capture than outposts. Increase the amount of turrets and include two CCs (where both must be hacked for timer to start), two spawn points (one in each end of the facility as it's very large) and two generators. Perhaps so that blowing one generator disables one part of the base but the other half is kept operational.

- Outposts:
- Outposts are at more or less the size of the normal bases we got today.
- Outposts are the way to get facility benefits. If you only own a Main Base, but no outposts, you get no facility benefits.
- Each warpgate has an respective outpost which must be captured before they can move on. So that once a faction has been pushed off the continent, it's hard to get it back. Also gives the defending faction some time to react (as today the first bases you capture on a locked continent won't have any people defending them).


- Towers:
- Towers work more or less as they do today. In other words - close proximity spawnpoints near the outposts. For Main Base attacks however, you're required to bring AMSes as there are no towers close to the main base.


--- Faciltiy Benefits ---
- Personally I think the facility benefits are pretty good, however got one I want to change.

- Interlink facility:
- Instead of constantly showing where the enemy is on radar, you create several terminals that can be used as a small "reveal enemies" with effective range of base, courtyard and walls. Thus giving insertion squads the capability of performing sabotage without constantly being shown on radar.

ok thats the first part

ZionsFire
2003-10-05, 02:48 PM
Part 2: Vehicles/Aircraft/Soldiers

--- Soldiers ---
- Give CR5s a CUD automatically in slot 6.
- Make it possible to place armor in the locker (except max armor). Make it take up the room of 2 anti-vehicle ammo boxes for reinforced.
- Make armor-piercing ammo slightly more efficent against tanks.


--- Ground Vehicles ---
- Increase armor of tanks & transport. So that forces will prefer to use armored transport instead of just rushing a target on foot(as they do most of the time now).
- Increase top speed of the light buggy vehicles (harasser, basilisk etc) but lower handling as speed increases. Instead of afterburners you give them a handbrake for slideturns. (making a good harasser driver actually something of an asset) (PS: might be void after the balance pass).
- Give the sunderer guns a small machinegun in addition to the main guns in order to fight off aircraft. In other words the main guns can change to secondary mode to access a machinegun.

--- Ground Vehicle Modules ---
- To increase the use of some buggies (basilisk in particular) and to make sure people aren't stuck with 1 left over cert point, here's an idea.
- Modules you can cert in. Now, there can be a lot of different modules, here's just an example. Say that a guy already certed in ATV decides to get the "Basilisk Side Mounted MAX slot". Which would add a sidemounted MAX gunner seat. Basically it would make MAXes capable of entering a sidecar on the basilisk and fire in all directions.
(Concept Art: http://home.online.no/~bulhanse/chr/module.htm )

- Modules could of course be implented into other vehicles, for instance the sunderer sacrificing it's two max spots for medic terminals to allow hurt units to heal themselves when they return to the vehicle.

- All of the modules would require extensive beta testing though.

--- Aircraft ---
Galaxy:
- Make it a better looking, semi-large (bit larger than a sunderer, but not as wide as the current galaxy) aircraft which operates as a helicopter.
- Give it two sideguns (one each side), 1 forward mounted gun (not manned by pilot) and a double-barreled tailgun (all will have to be operated by passengers in "gunner" spots.
- Give it the possibility to land a lot more places, but make it tip over (and be rendered useless and eventually explode) if it tries to land on severely banked landscape. Do make sure that it can indeed hover close to banked landscape though to let squadmates "jump on" without having landed.
- Operate it like a futuristic helicopter (instead of a rotor you can have two jet engines which are locked in a downward position). Preferably with joystick support, but I guess that won't be coming in any time soon (despite all the requests). To go faster you tilt the nose down. To go up, you increase speed etc (can be controlled easily with number keys (1-(1)0).
And finally, give it a tail-roter so you can spin around while hovering (while banking left/right would only move the aircraft sideways).
- Give the guns moderate infantry damage so they can defend against incoming infantry when in an landingzone. (Increase rate of fire on the current galaxy guns and you have something which would work).
- If you can't remove the limits on plane movements, at least increase them so you can tilt it 90 degrees in any direction.
- Make two versions of the Galaxy. One transport version and one warzone version. The transport one has heavy armor and a good top speed. The warzone version has medium armor, has an open passenger-compartment solution which allows passengers to move around inside the galaxy and fire out of the side of the galaxy. Add a small obstacle so they don't fall out though. (I.e. a non-passable, totally transparent forcefield). Allow the passengers to be killed off independantly of the aircraft itself, and perhaps set it's max altitude to 200 feet so that it has to skim the ground to be effective. Would be cool for more "vietnam-movie" approaches.
- Did I mention you should make the galaxy handle like a helicopter?
- Well..make sure it handles like a helicopter! :P

I mean, how incredibly fun wouldn't it be to skim close to the ground behind mountainranges, weaving between trees, in a full galaxy-warzone-chopper for a tower or insertion drop, instead of flying the current galaxy, which operates like a slow bus and carrying a giant "hey, I'm a easy kill for anyone in a reaver/mosq" sign, while being almost forced to fly at 400 feet in order to avoid AA? I would rather avoid AA by weaving in and out of cover near the ground with my sidemounted gunners blasting away. (and yes, I know you can weave through trees with the galaxy, but it's not an effective way of doing anything at all at the moment).


- Reavers - Mosquitos - Liberators:

- Make the attack aircraft into something a'la the harrier jump jet. Set their minimum speed to be say 70kph without activating their down-ward-thrust afterburners. That way, in order to go slower than that, they'll have to burn off precious afterburner fuel. It would prevent them from being able to sit still at their max-rocket distance and pick off turrets/tanks/amses, and would keep them moving a lot more. They would be forced to do attackruns over the enemy instead of just slowing to a halt behind an enemy vehicle and blast it to pieces. Makes it harder for the pilots, and more fun for everyone. It's not much fun to have a stationary liberator bombing the vehicle pad or anything else.
- The minimum speed would also increase the challenge of dogfights. Suddenly people have to worry about stalls, sudden afterburner-based movement (imagine going straight up in a reaver, then hitting afterburners to push your aircraft backwards)...etc.
- Set the "ammo-change" button to tilt the afterburners for either foward or downward momentum, so that you can only use either, and not at the same time.

,

ZionsFire
2003-10-05, 02:49 PM
- Part 3: Sound effects/Music

--- Weapon sounds ---
- Shell casings hitting the concrete floor. I love that sound, can't be too hard to add.
- Spin up sound for the Phalanx turret's machineguns, so that it sounds like they're pumping out bullets at an impressive speed.
- Increase the bass-volume of the shotgun (sweeper). Add the "chic-chik" sound when a new shell is inserted. *boom*, chic-chik, *boom*, chic-chik..etc
- Make some of the guns sound more intimidating. Some of the medium assault weapons could use an audio-boost. War is noisy.
- - Not sure if it's possible to implent, but having "whistle" sounds has bullets hit stuff close to you would be damn nice. Or as they say in Blackhawk Down.
"Why aren't you shooting?"
"We're not being shot at"
"How can you tell?"
"A hiss means it's close, a snap means..." *snap-sound*
"NOW THEY'RE SHOOTING AT US!"

--- General Sound Effects ---
- Cheesy woman voice announcing the time of hack. I.e. "*faction* has hacked *base*, you have 15 minutes to resecure", then updates at 10 minutes, 5min, 4 min,3,2,1 and finally the last 15 seconds counted down. You could start some sort of siren at 3 minutes perhaps.
- Same cheesy woman voice announcing low NTU when the base is running out. Announce at 50%, 30%, 20% and give an especially strong warning at 10% including the start of the siren.

- Maybe add some "death-screams" of some sort. Don't overdo them though, don' t want a quadzillion screams when they're dying trying to run up to the CC of a MoX defended tower


---Improved voicemacros ---
- Remove the unneccesary voice macros (i.e. "I'm defending our medical terminals".
- Add the following voicemacros:
I will defend our backdoor. (with subvariants of defend/attack etc)
Enemies have breached our courtyard.
Enemies have breached our backdoor.
Drop drop drop! (For gal pilots).
Hold this position.
Stay together.
Group up at squadleader's position.
Enemy force advancing on my position.
Audio Amp Clear.
Enemies on Audio Amp.
I will take point.
MAXes take point.
Take cover!
Go! Go! Go! (admit it, we need one )


--- Music ---
- Ingame MP3 player. (yes, I know, you can run winamp in the background...)


--- Vehicle Sounds ---
- Do something with the Galaxy engine sound. When I used to fly one, the galaxy engine sound would drive me mad.

phew there is 10 PARTS!

ZionsFire
2003-10-05, 02:50 PM
Part 4 - Ingame menus & chatsystem

--- Ingame menus ---
- Include amount deaths caused by weapon in the stats menu. What's the point of seeing how many you've killed if you got no idea how many times you've died. Would give the stat whores some fun too.
- Include total amount of kills and total amount of deaths at the bottom of the stats panel.
- Top 50/100 ratings based on kills, hacked bases, kill/death ratio, ANT refuels, + +. (I believe something like this might be coming soon)
- Outfit rankings. If say, a certain amount of outfit people is in the same SOI when a hack goes through they get an "outfit-hacked-base" increase by 1. Of course it would have to check amount of enemies inside the SOI to prevent people getting a lot of outfit hacked bases without any resistance. Other rankings I could think of is: "Total amount of time spent defending a generator", "outfit members Kill/death ratio", "ANT refuels" etc. Would help distinguish the zerg outfits from the good outfits and give certain outfits the status as "good", etc.

--- Chat system ---
- Add an /away function which allows people to write an autoreply for privatemessages when they go afk.
I.e.
AnOldBlindMan: /away eating dinner, afk
Tunahead: /tell AnOldBlindMan Hey, whats up?
AnOldBlindMan: Autoreply: eating dinner, afk
- Quicktoggle between the different chatmodes. I.e. shift-o for outfit default, shift-s for squad etc. Would save some unneccesay /s /o typing.
- Friendschat channels. Allow people to create chatchannels for their friends.
I.e.
AnOldBlindMan: /chat loonies,thewickedones,deathgroove
now to send to his first chat (loonies) he would type /1 hello. For thewickedones it would be /2 hellowickedones etc..
His friends would then join the different chats by typing the same thing. So if 3 ppl are all on /chat loonies, then they can chat to each other by using /1 messagegoeshere.
Preferably this would be mixed in with the current possibility of changing chatmodes, and also with hotkeys for chatmode changes. (i.e. shift-1 to change default chatmode to be in /1)
With such chats it would be easier to stay in touch with people who change factions, move to other outfits etc.
Sending /chatlist should then also show each chat channel with it's respective online people behind it. I.e. if AnOldBlindMan, Tunahead and Retroaction are all in /chat loonies, then /chatlist would show:
Loonies: AnOldBlindMand, Tunahead, Retroaction
in the chatwindow. Simple way to check if people are online without having a gigantic friends list (as it will surely be after extensive playingtime).

Part 5 - Squad/Outfit options

--- Squadleader options ---
- Create a /order chatcommand for squadleaders/sergeants to issue orders with. Thus making them more visible.
- Allow squadleader to assign a 2nd in command (sergeant), who can use /order and invite people to the squad (so that the SL can go afk now and then).


--- Outfit Options ---
- Allow the outfit leader to assign other people in the outfit to have Outfit leader status. Thus it's not necessary to recreate an entire outfit if the outfit leader suddenly disappears.
- Add some more outfit ranks.

Part 6: Forum Additions
--- Forum additions outside game ---
- Edit button which says "last edit %date" and the edit text. Would prevent excessive posts and people from editing out their flames and claim that they "never said any such thing"
- Preview button so you could actually see what you're about to post.

--- Forum additions inside the game ---
- Create a small ingame browser so people can browse forums while playing. (low priority, but would be a nice addition).

ZionsFire
2003-10-05, 02:52 PM
Part 7: Leagues, Events, Contests, Recreational Facilties

--- Sanctuary Recreational Facilities ---
- Create a "Outer-Rim Bar 'n Grill" in each sanctuary where people can chill out and go afk. If possible, allow people to access other station.com games while being inside the bar.
- Create a "Duel-arena" for up to 10 on 10 "friendly fights" in sanctuary where you can fight your own empiremates as well as the enemy empires. (Have slots which the SL fills with teammates and then press "ready". Once both sides does that they're warped to an arena which people can specatate). This can also be mixed with a league of some sort. Would be a good place to settle outfit rivalery/train recruits.
- Powerball Arena. Football game in the same spirit of countless quake mods etc. Remember that such an implention would have to be purely an addition to the main game, and not something people would prefer to do rather than play the game as it's meant to be played.


--- Contests/Leagues/Events---
- Get some contests going to spark further interest. Possible ideas could probably be harvested out of this creative community by a single Dev. post.


Part 8: Experience point system
- Allow people to go past BR20 (with increase difficulty in getting levels), but do not give them more cert points. Add some armor modification for every 5-10 BR points, or better yet, allow them to access a "armor-modification" tube which brings up a screen where you can modify the looks of your character's armor. The additions you can add vary with the amount of BR you got. The additions would work in the same way as implants do, so that you can't have all of them at the same time. The armor additions does not give the player any benefits except to be lookin' good

Part 9: The Map

--- Map Features ---
- Grid system on map so you can read precise coords. (let coords be adjusted as you move the mousepointer around).
- Outfit/Platoon waypoints. Let CR3+ set waypoints for the outfit/platoon for the outfit/platoon squadleaders to see (preferably also text so "future plans" can be written down on the map).
- Height-indicators for the map. So people don't drop in gorges on Ceryshen etc. Would help planning assaults as well. Possibly a altitude-map in addition to the normal map (toggle with say "H").
- When you write on the map, let the "return/enter" button change lines instead of completing the text. It's a pain to write on the map if you're gonna outline a more detailed plan.

Part 10: Other stuff
- Do polls on "best planetside videos", then announce winners (every 2 weeks?) and let them be hosted by SOE on planetside.com. The poll could be hosted in a forum so people can add links to their movies in order to compete.
- In case the devs just do a search on their nicks... SmokejumperPS , smokejumper , sporkfireps , sporkfire , caterpillar ...hehehe
- Send me a beta acceptance mail for Core Combat :P
- Thanks for reading! Please post comments!

----

And that concludes this insanely large post. Hope you're willing to leave your comment/flame/whatever.
Sorry for eventual speealllling mistakes.

-ZombieB, MoX, Werner
jesus what a post:eek:

STEALTHKILLER
2003-10-05, 06:03 PM
Originally posted by ReaperofDeath27

- Create a "Duel-arena" for up to 10 on 10 "friendly fights" in sanctuary where you can fight your own empiremates as well as the enemy empires. (Have slots which the SL fills with teammates and then press "ready". Once both sides does that they're warped to an arena which people can specatate). This can also be mixed with a league of some sort. Would be a good place to settle outfit rivalery/train recruits.



Part 8: Experience point system
- Allow people to go past BR20 (with increase difficulty in getting levels), but do not give them more cert points. Add some armor modification for every 5-10 BR points, or better yet, allow them to access a "armor-modification" tube which brings up a screen where you can modify the looks of your character's armor. The additions you can add vary with the amount of BR you got. The additions would work in the same way as implants do, so that you can't have all of them at the same time. The armor additions does not give the player any benefits except to be lookin' good


:eek::eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: You posted a lot of shit just then, but I'd have to say that this was the best part out of it all.

1024
2003-10-05, 06:05 PM
Part 8: Experience point system
- Allow people to go past BR20 (with increase difficulty in getting levels), but do not give them more cert points. Add some armor modification for every 5-10 BR points, or better yet, allow them to access a "armor-modification" tube which brings up a screen where you can modify the looks of your character's armor. The additions you can add vary with the amount of BR you got. The additions would work in the same way as implants do, so that you can't have all of them at the same time. The armor additions does not give the player any benefits except to be lookin' good


I always thought this was a good idea.

Paingiver
2003-10-05, 06:11 PM
after readin list-http://www.gamers-forums.com/smilies/contrib/dvv/boom.gif

ZionsFire
2003-10-05, 07:28 PM
Hey i said all credit to ZombieB,who posted it on the OF

MilitantB0B
2003-10-05, 07:39 PM
All of it was good. I sure hope the devs implement at least half of those ideas, they all rock. I wish I was a dev...

ZionsFire
2003-10-05, 10:50 PM
B umpage

Happy lil Elf
2003-10-06, 02:42 AM
Some good stuff, some needless stuff some dumb stuff. Not going to bother going through each part because honestly it would take way too long and there's no way it would fit into one post.

Duffman
2003-10-06, 11:57 AM
good stuff bump

i like the the main base,base outpost thing and the bunkers