More Weapons

[DviddLeff]

While PS had a wide range of weaponry I always thought it was lacking in certain areas which would have been interesting to see in game or expanded from what they are. I swear that the originals devs mentioned putting modifications onto some weapons, and I even remember seeing some images of them, but I cant find them now.

So here are the classes of weapons I would like to see in PS2:


Knife
Pistols
SMGs
Assault rifles
Battle rifles
Sniper rifles
Machine guns
Grenade launchers
Shotguns
Flame throwers
Mortars
AV launchers
AA launchers
Grenades


Most of these are already catered for, but some like machine guns, mortars and AA launchers missing entirely.

Here is more detail of what i would like to see based around the old games systems:
https://sites.google.com/site/planetsideupgradeproject/phase-2/infantry-weapon-overhaul

[BorisBlade]

So whats the difference between machine guns, assault rifles, battle rifles, and a smg as far as gameplay. How would they differ in game? We dont need the CoD/BF weapons where they only have em cause they exist in real life, but they dont play any different its mostly for show.

Do you think some would be better at different ranges? Or maybe have some secondary functions that make em different? Different power levels and so maybe they fit in different slot sizes. (to go along with the suggested new medium slot sizes on agile etc.) If its just guns for the sake of guns, i dont really care. But if they each bring different tactics or gameplay, then im all for it and think thats a great idea.

I'm just not sure we need 4 automatic weapons and could do them in a way that doesnt encroach on either of the sniper rifles and without making shotguns worthless and without takin over HA (although those could be in the group of automatics).

I'm not knockin down the idea, i want more guns. Just curious as to if you have certain roles in mind for these so that they each have a place. We dont need more Supressors, weapons no one uses. (although the CoF buffs to it helped alot, its still too small of a clip to ever get used)

[Rbstr]

We dont need the CoD/BF weapons where they only have em cause they exist in real life, but they dont play any different its mostly for show.
Because diversity is fun. But yeah, different skins is kind of boring.

You are also wrong, as far as BF is concerned. SMG/Assualt Rifle/Machine Guns all behave differently in terms of ROF, Damage and accuracy.
In BC2, even within the weapon classes, there are considerable differences between something like the AN94 and the M16, even though both are burst fire.

In PS you have the potential to go really crazy here. The NC can have a really tight spread shotgun as an SMG-type, Vanu can have a continuous laser thing, TR has something based on that "wall of bullets" experimental gun.

A battle rifle is should be though as the difference between an M14 and m16. They typically use a larger cartridge, have longer effective ranges and are more accurate but slower fire rates.


Do you think some would be better at different ranges? Or maybe have some secondary functions that make em different? Different power levels and so maybe they fit in different slot sizes. (to go along with the suggested new medium slot sizes on agile etc.)

I'm just not sure we need 4 automatic weapons and could do them in a way that doesnt encroach on either of the sniper rifles and without making shotguns worthless and without takin over HA (although those could be in the group of automatics).
I think differentiating the classes is an obvious thing.

HA doesn't need to be a thing that it was. I'd rather it fit into the 'machine gun' class to some extent...basically, turn the jackhammer into more of a rifle-type thing..perhaps more of a small autocannon.

Longer effective ranges throughout the weapon classes combined with more effective cover could make outdoor combat a much better experience. And allow some really crazy short range things to be developed. This also creates more incentive for squad-diversification. Having more range disparity means squads have to plan to not get caught unable to effectively fight back.

[CutterJohn]

So whats the difference between machine guns, assault rifles, battle rifles, and a smg as far as gameplay.

My guess(judging from the standard formulas of FPSs)

Machine guns - things like the M-60s. Lots of firepower, not so good for running around with.

ARs - Better for running, smaller clip, has an underbarrel attachment for shotgun/GL/etc

Battle Rifles - Longer range, perhaps semi auto. M-14/SVD style.

SMG - Smaller weapon, good for running around. Still good dps, but not so good at range.




To split things up a bit more..

AV
-Laser guided missile(can be used against air, but hard to hit em with)
AA
-Lock on missile(fires in a straight line with no lock, but does poor damage to vehicles)
AA/AV
-Dumbfire rocket with flak alternate fire(would be a basic, somewhat short ranged MA av weapon)
-Recoilless rifle/antimaterial rifle with [small] flak alternate fire(still enough to need accuracy, but a bit forgiving)

Grenade launcher
-6/8 shot GL. Short ranged, low damage.
-1 shot GL, long range. Has aim assist. Styled like an m-79.
-Grenade rifle. Very long range, flat trajectory, can be dialed in to explode beyond walls/hills


I would also rather like the base functionality of all these weapons to be pretty even across the empires. Some, however, should have secondary fire modes, and empire flavor would be added here. NC shotgun = double barrel blast, TR shotgun secondary = slug or tight pattern, VS plasma shotgun = shot + burn after effect. Or something like that.

The secondary fire would increase the versatility of that weapon, but not add functionality not found in the other empires.

[DviddLeff]

As you guys have detailed the SMG->Assault rifle->Battle rifle->Sniper rifle weapons would see a decrease in ROF and an increase in effective range and damage per shot.

Each empire should have their own version of each, with a middle ground common pool version to use in addition. This gives us more variety, while still giving players options to go for their own favourite style.

BFBC2 did this very well; they often had 5+ weapons for each class, each with their own strengths and weaknesses which could then be further tweaked with easily available modifications. Personally I initially went for the most accurate gun; it simply suited my steady, calculated style of play. However after working on getting every gold star I found I preferred the inaccurate, weak rapid fire sniper rifle as it gave me huge versatility; being able to hold its own at close range yet still allow me to take down dedicated snipers at distance.

[BorisBlade]

The crazy part comes when the have 3 empires and tryin to make em all unique and balanced with a ton of weapons. We whine about just MA/HA/AV now multiply that by 5. But then they also can keep much of that common pool or could keep them fairly close in design. Some of it seems simple. But as we learned with the cycler and the rexo buff, half damage and double fire rate sounds like the same dps but with how damage is taken and with how its dealt from range with burst, its actually much worse.

So it could be a nightmare to get balanced right, but if the whole system is done better and less diversity is ok. All those guns could work.

Keep in mind with BF/CoD games. They dont have to get balance anywhere near what PS has to do. Games are super short, most stuff kills ya so fast it doesnt matter much anyway, you just dont notice the difference on the level you would with ps. And you arent stuck to one team's weapons only, you can switch up at about anytime.

[Sirisian]

If more guns were added I Wouldn't mind if they were common pool with different models and projectile graphics. Balancing a lot of extra guns is just problematic as we've seen with the few we have.

I'm hoping to see on all of the guns though a single, burst and automatic fire mode with different accuracy and distance. Punisher is one of my favorite guns and it always bothered me that I couldn't turn on a single fire mode for more accuracy and distance with a slower rate of fire and no CoF increase. Here's my breakdown though:


Single fire mode - delay with no CoF increase
Burst mode - fast RoF with a huge CoF at the end and a small delay between firing
Automatic mode - small CoF addition as normal


Ammo Idea
Okay since I have free-time I've expanded my old comment about add ammo types to guns. I think it makes a strong argument that more weapon types could be possible without them feeling the same.

Other than fire modes, I want a radical change in ammo types. I'd replace the current anti-infantry bullet with anti-health (AH) and anti-armor (AA). Anti-health would do more damage to health and less damage to player armor and anti-armor would do more damage to player armor and more to health. This means it's easy to eat away someone's armor with AP bullets but getting through their health bar is difficult. (Might take 15 rounds to take down 200 armor then 10 to take down the 100 health. In contrast it might take 4 anti-health rounds to take down a persons health). The original armor piercing ammo would be called anti-vehicle. (It would do very little against player armor, but more to maxes).

This opens the way for more weapon modes to cycle ammo in a magazine (these are advanced guns). So you could have a magazine with 20 AA rounds and 10 AH rounds. What this would mean is if you shot someone with AA rounds or AH rounds it would take more time to kill than if you shot them with AA rounds then finished them with AH rounds.

Some guns like the suppressor might only have AA rounds while a battle rifle could have both.

This opens up the idea of having more ammo types which adds delays to the firing, adds CoF modifiers, or changes the range of bullets among other things. Fire modes could restrict the type of ammo being used also.

In the weapon menu when you aquire a gun to put in your inventory selecting the weapon would expand the ammo customization. There would be a default loadout set with a single magazine of just AA rounds.
http://assaultwars.com/pictures/planetsideweaponcustomization.png

Now you could customize the magazines with different numbers of ammo types. Some ammo types could have a different cost. So if a magazine only holds 35 rounds then anti-vehicle rounds might take 2 spots each whereas anti-armor and anti-health rounds would take 1.

Then you'd need a way to configure the weapons.
http://assaultwars.com/pictures/planetsideweaponammo.png
When you select a weapon in your inventory this menu shows up around the weapon to let you choose an ammo configuration. It also defines the magazine that's in it using the default magazine set.

During combat in the game you'd simply select your fire mode like usual by right clicking then to switch magazines you middle click and drag up to release on a clip type. (Automatic reloading reloads the current magazine type). You can also select the ammo type by middle clicking and dragging down. This also shows you what kind of ammo and the number of rounds that are in the magazine. This is show with the image below:
http://assaultwars.com/pictures/planetsideweaponreloadorchangeammo.png

The ammo types would be faded black if they aren't available in the current fire mode that's being used. So if you switched to burst you might notice that you can't use anti-vehicular rounds or that in single fire mode on a weapon you can use long range rounds that don't lose damage over further distances.

Also, not sure if you've played Starship Troopers the game, but there's a really sweet gun in the game. It's a assault rifle shotgun (Crysis 2 has something similar). This kind of gun would open up the ability for dual magazines. Sounds complicated right? It's easy. It just adds a second ring to the above image. :P

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "This is too complicated." But it would add a lot more strategy to the game.

[DviddLeff]

I would love to see different fire modes for weapons, but I never really saw the use of gold ammo; most cases by the time I had switched it out the vehicle/MAX had already taken me out.

Of course as a VS my Pulsar switched instantly... so in those cases I had the advantage.

TBH I am not sure gold ammo is needed in PS2; just make normal bullets do the same damage to vehicles/MAXs as it did anyway as its unlikely that you will actually kill anything with gold ammo anyway, unless there are a bunch of you using it.

Borisblade wronte-
The crazy part comes when the have 3 empires and tryin to make em all unique and balanced with a ton of weapons. We whine about just MA/HA/AV now multiply that by 5. But then they also can keep much of that common pool or could keep them fairly close in design. Some of it seems simple. But as we learned with the cycler and the rexo buff, half damage and double fire rate sounds like the same dps but with how damage is taken and with how its dealt from range with burst, its actually much worse.

The Rexo buff did a lot of damage back in the day; MA and standard assault weapons as a whole got screwed, anything with low damage per shot compared to HA was made sub par and the Cycler and pistols got hit worst. The feel of the game was much better before then with the lower TTK overall as you could start firing with MA at a HA user and have a good chance of killing them rather than 50/50 they just turn around and near instagib you.

[Sirisian]

I would love to see different fire modes for weapons, but I never really saw the use of gold ammo; most cases by the time I had switched it out the vehicle/MAX had already taken me out.

Of course as a VS my Pulsar switched instantly... so in those cases I had the advantage.
Yeah that's why I posted the above idea. It allows a person if they want to fill a clip with different ammo and instantly switch between them so all guns could theoretically work kind of like the pulsar. Imagine having say 8 rounds in a magazine with anti-vehicular rounds. If these rounds fired slowly in single fire mode and did a lot of damage to armored targets they'd be useful to carry around if only for taking pop shots at planes.

[CutterJohn]

TBH I am not sure gold ammo is needed in PS2; just make normal bullets do the same damage to vehicles/MAXs as it did anyway as its unlikely that you will actually kill anything with gold ammo anyway, unless there are a bunch of you using it.

Indeed. If there needs to be a base AV capability for grunts(and there should), add a proper AV weapon to the basic and MA trees. A sticky grenade, perhaps to the basic cert anyone can access, and a small rocket launcher, a Deci-lite, to the MA cert.



The Rexo buff did a lot of damage back in the day; MA and standard assault weapons as a whole got screwed, anything with low damage per shot compared to HA was made sub par and the Cycler and pistols got hit worst. The feel of the game was much better before then with the lower TTK overall as you could start firing with MA at a HA user and have a good chance of killing them rather than 50/50 they just turn around and near instagib you.

Hopefully, instead of an integer damage reduction, the armors work off of percentages. This would be a far more effective method, and not throw balance out of whack when its inevitably decided it must be adjusted. Or even better, simply a damage matrix that can be adjusted at will for specific weapon/armor/vehicle imbalances without touching anything else.

Yeah that's why I posted the above idea. It allows a person if they want to fill a clip with different ammo and instantly switch between them so all guns could theoretically work kind of like the pulsar. Imagine having say 8 rounds in a magazine with anti-vehicular rounds. If these rounds fired slowly in single fire mode and did a lot of damage to armored targets they'd be useful to carry around if only for taking pop shots at planes.

Ick. I'd much prefer just having "Bullets" and nothing else. Plus the idea of anti health bullets and anti armor bullets just rubs me the wrong way... Any bullet that can pierce armor will be quite deleterious to the continued functioning of the bag of meat hiding behind it. We're pretty fragile. All hollow points do is turn a wounded man who can't fight into a dead man.



I'd love more alternate fires that add to the versatility of weapons though. It is something that has been missing from games of late. The unreal games did this well.

[Vancha]

Many players in their infancy made the mistake of using AP ammo against troops, and I'm not sure any player enjoyed the amount of time it took to switch to it...

I like the idea of having a single ammo type, and making every gun with bullets work like the pulsar. However you'd still need the "change ammo" button instead of tying it into the primary/secondary firing modes, due to guns like the punisher.

Changing ammo in battle was clunky. I think a more elaborate system would probably only serve in making it clunkier. Planetside is more like a slow arena shooter (Quake/UT) than a tactical one (CoD/Battlefield). Simplifying it and speeding it up in regards to things like this will probably work better than complicating things.

[Rbstr]

I think anti-armor(read vehicle) ammo in assault rifles is kind of silly. I would like an simple MA or single point cert weapon akin to a LAW for quick and dirty anti-max

But if we have to have ap/ai ammo types:
AP/regular ammo should have to do with the way it deals with troop armor levels and MAXes. AP would be a threat to maxes in heavy weapons and groups of MA users, while dealing decent infantry damage. It would kill rexo in about the same time as normal ammo. Regular would kill rexo the same, not hurt maxes much and deal more damage to lighter armors.

For select fire: It shouldn't have a damn thing to do with the base accuracy of the gun only recoil considerations.

Re-skined identical weapons are boring and sort of defeat the purpose of weapon diversity. I'd rather have 3 really different rifles and 3 common pool than 3 guns empire re-skined 3 times.

[Sirisian]

Ick. I'd much prefer just having "Bullets" and nothing else. Plus the idea of anti health bullets and anti armor bullets just rubs me the wrong way... Any bullet that can pierce armor will be quite deleterious to the continued functioning of the bag of meat hiding behind it. We're pretty fragile. All hollow points do is turn a wounded man who can't fight into a dead man.
The anti-health bullets I descried doesn't pierce armor. It does more damage to health if there is no armor left. Maybe I didn't make that clear. The idea is to make it harder to get a kill using just one ammo type.

I think anti-armor(read vehicle) ammo in assault rifles is kind of silly. I would like an simple MA or single point cert weapon akin to a LAW for quick and dirty anti-max.
Oh I was thinking anti-vehicular rounds could be an ammo type that's unlocked when a user certs anti-vehicular. It would just open up more ways to destroy heavily armored targets.


Changing ammo in battle was clunky. I think a more elaborate system would probably only serve in making it clunkier. Planetside is more like a slow arena shooter (Quake/UT) than a tactical one (CoD/Battlefield). Simplifying it and speeding it up in regards to things like this will probably work better than complicating things.
Wait was that in response to the rotary menu I described for switching ammo? It seemed like the most intuitive and fastest system I could come up with using visual ques that can't be confused. Middle clicking then swiping in a direction is fast for most users. (Not sure if you've played the Crysis games but a similar interface was used for switching abilities).

[Vancha]

Wait was that in response to the rotary menu I described for switching ammo? It seemed like the most intuitive and fastest system I could come up with using visual ques that can't be confused. Middle clicking then swiping in a direction is fast for most users. (Not sure if you've played the Crysis games but a similar interface was used for switching abilities).
It was in response to every idea that was more complex than the one I described.

I haven't played Crysis (if I tried, I'd find my computer hanging from a rope tied to the ceiling, above a kicked-over chair), but isn't Crysis single-player only? It's also a tactical shooter as opposed to an arena shooter.

When you have a MAX hurtling towards you barely phasing out of his auto-run, do you want to be bringing up an ammo ring, trading control over your crosshair for a pointer to choose which ammo would be best out of the 3 kinds you brought along, depending on whether he had full armour or none, and then finding out you still can't fire because you're set to burst?

If PSNext's engine ends up making the game play like CoD or battlefield, then perhaps it'd be suited to such intricate ammo set-up and selection, but if it's the same style as Planetside, I'd rather be able to press a button and be ready to go.

[Traak]

How about this for recoil effect:

Your weapon's aimpoint moves, not just a larger COF, but your actual aimpoint moves up. You have to counteract wherever it moved (which would not be the same each time to make use of programmable keys on the mouse [macro: fire then move mouse down this far each time fire key is clicked]) by causing you to have to be the one moving the mouse to get it back on target.

Experience would train you to drag your mouse down as you shoot, just like controlling a fully automatic or even a semiautomatic weapon.

This way, the battle rifle, which is a semiautomatic weapon in the 7.62mm NATO class in this world, would be profitable because you would only fire when you had reacquired aim at the target.

What do you think?

[CutterJohn]

The anti-health bullets I descried doesn't pierce armor. It does more damage to health if there is no armor left. Maybe I didn't make that clear. The idea is to make it harder to get a kill using just one ammo type.


No, I understand perfectly what you suggested. I don't like the idea at all. Its something you'd see in a dice roll rpg game that needs extra complication of the damage types to spice up gameplay because there is little action. A gun should do damage, thats it. Swapping ammo in a gun halfway through killing something because the ammo that is destroying the armor is bad at hurting flesh is just plain silliness.

[DviddLeff]

Agreed; it shouldn't take more than a couple of seconds to kill with any infantry weapon if you use it effectively.