Niche vs customizable vehicle roles.

[Figment]

Whenever we talk about niche vs customizable vehicles, I feel like the designer in this clip talking to a dozen or so "generals" patting each other on the back without having the slightest notion of what consequences their decisions have for the design.

Pentagon Wars - Bradley Fighting Vehicle Evolution - YouTube

The problem typically is that people who think in "lob everything together!" don't seem to realise that the principal qualities that favour one unit are all too often completely different from qualities that favour another unit.

To niche vehicles the design philosophy "less is more" applies, because less roles means better suited for the job at hand: everything about the unit would be designed around THAT purpose. Less is more means "less kibble that isn't needed is better design".


Most people here seem to take "less is more" as meaning "less UNITS is more". This though means MORE kibble and more uniform design. Meaning all these units or all but one role gives up a lot of proper functionality, or they all get some qualities from other units that destabilizes balancing.


Every time I see unit design being discussed on these forums, I think about role and balancing - meaning direct game play consequences. Most people here just seem to think in texture reduction (which is the main purpose of reducing the amount of units: lower dev work and optimize purchasable customization options per vehicle).

Quite often it's not clear to people here what unit functionality and design properties are suited to a particular role. Sometimes I even wonder if people realise what kind of vehicle it even is.

[ringring]

Most people here seem to take "less is more" as meaning "less UNITS is more". This though means MORE kibble and more uniform design. Meaning all these units or all but one role gives up a lot of proper functionality, or they all get some qualities from other units that destabilizes balancing.


I don't quite get what you're saying tbh.

Put it context of the Ps2 Lightning...
we have the vanilla lightning - deals some armour and infantry damage
we have the AA Lighning - little to no amrour/infantry damage but high damage against Aircraft
The Anti-tank Lightning - Little to no damage abaist Aircraft/infantry but high against armour

How does that customisation fit in with what you're saying?

[Evilmp]

I get what you're saying. It's an interesting thought, great video and something to think about in beta.

[Bruttal]

i loved that video

[Figment]

I don't quite get what you're saying tbh.

Put it context of the Ps2 Lightning...
we have the vanilla lightning - deals some armour and infantry damage
we have the AA Lighning - little to no amrour/infantry damage but high damage against Aircraft
The Anti-tank Lightning - Little to no damage abaist Aircraft/infantry but high against armour

How does that customisation fit in with what you're saying?

See, that's the problem, you think in damage dealing.


But you ignore the frame design (hull).

EDIT:
Another thing is visual qualities regarding use. These are called "use cues" in ergonomics design. These are there to indicate how something is used and encourage intuitive use from the first moment you lay eyes on it. If you take PlanetSide 1 and use cues, then those would be both embedded and external.

The embedded use cues are things like a visual spawntube and an equipment terminal visualy built into the AMS design and the difference in stance between undeployed and deployed state. In fact even the visual transition of state 1 (undeployed) to state 2 (deployed) where the equipterms are being lowered is a visual use cue: you know exactly when you can use it when you can't and what it is for.

The external use cues would be the yellow emblems on the ground that indicate you can perform a certain kind of action there. In combat, use cues would be things like tracers, reticules, health bars, shields lighting up due to being hit, the yellow ball in PS1 that registers hits for you, etc: it gives you information on what you do in relation to the "product".

A lot of vehicles in PS2 don't seem to have proper visual use cues, because the basic design (unit profile) between roles does not really change and isn't designed around every single purpose of that unit. This too makes unit identification harder for enemies. At a distance you may see a Lightning because you recognise the hull. But you have no idea what type it is till you get closer, which, with the different skins, can cause a lot of friendly fire. ES units are more than "cool", they're useful friend or foe identification features.

You could make a tank destroyer out of a tank, but if you keep the same basic profile with a turret, it still looks like a tank and it's not very suited to a tank destroyer (whose benefit is usualy a lowered profile and strengthened frontal hull). If you use the same chassis, it's not evident. PS2 does do something like this with subtle changes to the vehicle with armour and mobility sidegrades (see Magrider comparison shots), but it doesn't do so between fundamentally different vehicle roles aside from a slightly different turret or gun. Furthermore, with the same hull, armour values, speed and hitpoints are expected to be in the same domain range. There won't be extremely different qualities to these units.

While if you take the Sunderer and Deliverer, they can have extremely different qualities, despite being in the same unit category. Why? Because the platform itself (the basic frame) is different.

[Xyntech]

The difference from a game like Planetside 2 versus real life is that in PS2, we can have sidegrade modifications that change multiple things. For example, if it's over or underpowered to have the same armor on one vehicle variant versus another, the modification can also boost or decrease the vehicles armor as an additional tradeoff.

If they made a Sunder variant that had no guns, no troop transporting capacity, a cloak bubble and a spawn tube when deployed, and the exact same relative difference in hitpoints as an AMS had compared to a Sunderer in the first game, what exactly would be the difference? The hitbox is about the only thing.

I understand what you are saying, that there is more to consider than just saving development time, but I would argue that the luxury of nanites and gameisms allows us to essentially create two entirely different vehicles off of a single frame.

I think of it more like how the Joint Strike Fighter is, versus the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The vehicles in Planetside 2 aren't meant to do everything at once, just to be able to be modified to serve one role or another. Some of the roles will be able to be done simultaneously, but I certainly don't get the sense that they are trying to make them all fill some of their more extreme roles all at once.

See, that's the problem, you think in damage dealing.


But you ignore the frame design (hull).

I think this would be a bigger problem if there were only 2 vehicles in the game. Each empire currently has access to 2 sizes of combat airframe, 1 transport airframe, 2 sizes of tanks, 1 land transport, and one personal land transport. We've already seen designs for a possible additional smaller land transport (Deliverer?), and we may still see buggies at some point. I could also see them doing a smaller air transport vehicle as an alternative option to the Galaxy, perhaps with a cloaking option to reintroduce the Phatasm.

My point being that PS2 isn't too bad off for variety in frame design, and we'll probably fill out more niches shortly after launch. There is just no reason why there would need to be an entirely separate model for a Harasser and a Skygaurd. The only reason there would ever need to be more than one buggy model is for empire specific looks.

I'm not saying it isn't cool to have radically different looking buggies, but as long as it doesn't significantly impact gameplay, I'm okay with the consolidation if it improves development time and lowers costs.

[Figment]

Xyntech, this isn't about real life. It's about use. It's not about lore. Lore is typically bullox anyway to explain stupid stuff away.

There's a HUGE difference between being a good spawnpoint and being a good troop or cargo carrier for instance and putting these on the same frame has nothing to do with good gameplay design, but with cutting costs and textures.

The JSF is also doing too much at once, hence why it is so expensive in design. Being a good bomber, divebomber or a good fighter jet or good stealth jet are all entirely different demands and they often conflict. And then they also want it to be VTOL...

Speaking as an aerospace engineer... It's a nice idea in theory, but far too ambitious, meaning it's going to be a compromise aircraft that's not optimised. It will never beat a Sukhoi SU-37 Super-Flanker in maneuvrability, never beat a lot of other aircraft on speed and the F-117 will always be more stealthy bomber while the F-22 Raptor will be a better stealth dogfighter.

[CutterJohn]

Infantry can change weapons. Vehicles should be able to as well. Whats the difference?

Nobody complains that infantry can fulfill multiple roles. Heck the usual argument is there is not enough customization options for infantry.

[Cuross]

From what I gather it's an issue with information and logistics? I see where you're coming from as far as silhouette and yeah an infiltrator can spot a tank column a mile away but won't be able to tell if they're tank destroyers or packing AA guns and I can see where that might get annoying. While I think it's always safe to assume that they are your direct counter, it would be nice to have that knowledge before you risk yourself trying to take it out.

Now, I'm not sure we'll know exactly the look of the customized pieces of vehicles, but maybe they might just be noticeable enough from a distance to tell if one turret is AA and one is AI. But regarding the video, I think everyone will have customized their vehicle to their likings in general, but everyone will still have access to the other options. So while one might be maxing out AA on their Lightning, they'll still be able to pull AV if they need to, effectively taking away the jack-of-all-trades super-ish fighting vehicle like the video :)

It would be nice to see more vehicles come out later that fit obvious roles like the Skyguard just so that we'll know exactly what we're up against some of the times, but who knows, maybe spotting will be able to tell us more about our quarry than we think right now.


------Edit:
Ah, saw your edit and now I understand what you mean. Well, I don't think we're creating vehicles that take on too many roles at once. They can just change their weapons like Cutter mentioned. Even if you are specializing in one thing doesn't mean that you don't have the option to choose something else should the situation arise :) At least until more vehicles are released with updates.

[Xyntech]

Xyntech, this isn't about real life. It's about use. It's not about lore. Lore is typically bullox anyway to explain stupid stuff away.

There's a HUGE difference between being a good spawnpoint and being a good troop or cargo carrier for instance and putting these on the same frame has nothing to do with good gameplay design, but with cutting costs and textures.

The JSF is also doing too much at once, hence why it is so expensive in design.

You tell me not to bring up real life and lore (the nanites thing was meant as a joke, the gameisms part was not), and then you bring up the JSF costing too much. My point with the JSF is that it is meant to be modified to fill different roles at different times, and PS2 looks to be going beyond that level of variation.

There are three major issues I see you raising in this thread.

1) Vehicles doing too much at once.

I think they've got this one covered, and if not, I think we'll be able to work out proper tradeoffs and balancing in beta. There is no reason you can't have a single frame fill totally different roles, but be unable to fill them all at once.

2) Frames being used for more than they can handle.

I think this could possibly be a minor issue until we get one or two more frames, but I don't think the problems will be huge. Due to this being a game, we can have a single frame be radically different in almost every way, without having to worry about real world structural considerations or real world development costs. Unlike the JSF, putting multiple things into a single vehicle saves costs in this situation.

The one thing we can't change is the overall size and major shape of the frame, which I don't think will end up being that big of a deal. I know that Sunderers aren't meant to be spawn points, but in my AMS/Sunderer example from before I really don't think that an AMS would have been that much worse off if it had the slightly larger frame and hitbox of a Sunderer.

3) Visual identification of roles.

This is the biggest and most important point you bring up IMO, and it's one that has concerned me for some time. As a pilot, I can easily see how troublesome it's going to be to wonder whether that Lightning has a regular gun or a Skygaurd gun. Of course, this isn't entirely different from how Infantry is in PS2, or even how Infantry was in the first game. It's actually better than Infantry was in PS1 (more like how infantry will be in PS2), because at least we will know what range of weapons and capabilities each vehicle will have available to it.

None the less, I wouldn't mind seeing more done to distinguish which role a vehicle, or even an infantryman is fulfilling. One thought I have had is if there was something like Advanced Targeting from the first game, but with the option to be able to see what weapons an enemy had on their vehicle/in their loadout as well. I think this would be a fair option, and at least a band aid solution to the problem.

As for having proper visual identifiers for things like deployed equipment terminals and stuff like that, that's a good idea, but something I think would still be possible in the current multi-use frame system. We have seen that vehicles can be much more articulated this time around, and it would be relatively simple to add a small animation of a deploying terminal than it would be to add something complex like vehicle entry animations.

I would definitely like to see more done to increase visual cues of all types, but I'm still convinced that their current multi-use frame design is going to work out okay. Certainly there will be room for improvement, but that will happen over time.

[Figment]

Infantry can change weapons. Vehicles should be able to as well. Whats the difference?

Yeah you're one of the 'generals' and don't really get it. :/

Infantry has to have a human silhouette, but there's a HUGE difference between a MAX and a normal soldier. Because their roles differ. There's a huge visual difference between an infil and a medic, because their roles differ.

They're not all the same design.

INFANTRY =/= INFANTRY, in contrast to what you just claimed that infantry == infantry. You need to teach yourself what differentiation we're talking about here if you want to be contributing to this thread.



The point is, an infil does not look like a MAX, does not function like a MAX, has a completely different role from a MAX and doesn't have the same weaponry as a MAX.

Nobody complains that infantry can fulfill multiple roles. Heck the usual argument is there is not enough customization options for infantry.

Which has more to do with specific types of infantry being a lot closer in practical use than different vehicle types and that it is weird to many that someone can carry something and suddenly can't what you can in a different class. Hence why I prefer to look at classes as suits with different slots. The big difference with PS1 by communicating them as classes is that infantry is felt to be arbitrarily limited. In PS1 limitations were based on suits: inventory and gun slot size. You wern't told that you can't carry something that would fit into your slots.


With regards to infantry, I also wouldn't say nobody complains. A LOT OF PEOPLE complain about the infiltrator and sniper being in the same suit. Me included. I'm an infil, infil is about low damage close quarters combat, agility and quick relocation and stealth, with a focus on melee and sabotage. Snipers are long range combat, being relatively stationary and heavy damage. The only thing they both have is it being favourable to blend in with the background, but beyond that, they have entirely different specific design demands and there was a VERY GOOD REASON the PS1 infil only got a pistol slot.

EDIT: in terms of suits (classes), I'd have added a pilot suit, a naval suit (seal) and a sniper suit with specific functions, perks (advantages) and disadvantages.

[infected]

Speaking as an aerospace engineer... It's a nice idea in theory, but far too ambitious, meaning it's going to be a compromise aircraft that's not optimised. It will never beat a Sukhoi SU-37 Super-Flanker in maneuvrability, never beat a lot of other aircraft on speed and the F-117 will always be more stealthy bomber while the F-22 Raptor will be a better stealth dogfighter.

except... none of those aircraft are in this game, so what's your point? planetside aircraft will never beat them... but it will also never face them in this game.

this isn't eve online where there's countless ships to choose from. in this game you need to be able to ID a vehicle and know its capabilities. in eve you don't exactly need to zoom in and check the silhouette of each ship before deciding how you're going to react.

[JHendy]

Infantry can change weapons. Vehicles should be able to as well. Whats the difference?

Nobody complains that infantry can fulfill multiple roles. Heck the usual argument is there is not enough customization options for infantry.

What...? Infantry weapons, roles and capabilities change as you change class.

Vehicle roles and load outs should be as distinct as the difference between each class, that is to say, you hop in a new vehicle, and your capabilities change drastically.

By allowing every vehicle to partake in every activity you're ruining that distinction.

If you think vehicles should be treated in exactly the same way as infantry then you must be in agreement with Figment.

[Figment]

except... none of those aircraft are in this game, so what's your point? planetside aircraft will never beat them... but it will also never face them in this game.

this isn't eve online where there's countless ships to choose from. in this game you need to be able to ID a vehicle and know its capabilities. in eve you don't exactly need to zoom in and check the silhouette of each ship before deciding how you're going to react.

Infected, please read the thread twenty times over if you need to, because if you don't comprehend role distinction vs embedding everything in one compromise aircraft then you will just fail to make any relevant post on this matter.



Do you really not see the difference between the PS2 Mosquito and the splitting of specific airborn jet roles between Mosquito, Reaver and Wasp as was done in PS1?

Do you really not see how the PS2 Mosquito is what the JSF is to those other real life vehicles listed? :confused:



And are you seriously incapable of making and understanding analogies and metaphors "because they're not literally in the game"? :huh: When was that the point made!? :confused:

Please, don't make me insult your intelligence and just read what the argument and figure out what the intend behind the argument is, instead of not reading half the thread and taking something too literal and out of context and then rambling about not needing to be able to identify, which is actualy a problem identified by pretty much everyone else here...

[Xyntech]

I would just like to point out that an MBT with an AA gunners turret will not be the same as a Lightning with a Skyguard turret. There is role overlap, but they handle the roles differently and one (the Lightning) will be more powerful at AA, while the other (the MBT) will remain more versatile. As long as we know what range of weapons and abilities a vehicle can have, it will be no different than the diversity found in infantry classes.

Snipers and heavy assault guns will both be anti infantry, but will handle it in different ways. Do we really need 30 different infantry classes, just to make sure each one only covers a small niche? I think not. The same goes for vehicles. As long as there are enough classes of vehicle to cover the majorly different frame designs, I think we'll be alright.

But I certainly think the game will still benefit from having a few more vehicle frames added over time as well.

[Infernalis]

You can change stats and the silhouette enough. It was common in WW2 to have different vehicles with different roles based on the same chassis and they were good in their respective role and have a very distinct silhouette (Panzer 4 chassis was used for your standard tank, tank destroyer, AA etc).

[infected]

Infected, please read the thread twenty times over if you need to.

Please, don't make me insult your intelligence and just read what the argument and figure out what the intend behind the argument is, instead of not reading half the thread and taking something too literal and out of context and then rambling about not needing to be able to identify, which is actually a problem identified by pretty much everyone else here...

or, you could have just formed a clear example in your OP of what exactly in ps2 you have a gripe with, instead of trying to be cute by posting a funny video, and making us guess what exactly you are griping about... perhaps you could form your thoughts in a manner that we can all respond to?

so after your reply, perhaps i can deduce the general sense that you don't like the air vehicles getting somewhat homogenized.

any other specific examples of ps1/ps2 changes you dislike? or reasons why we should stick to the old ways and not just adapt to the new ones?

[Haro]

The OP's thread is poorly worded, does not make clear or concise arguments, and cites a video that, while funny and somewhat educational, doesn't fully address the issue at hand because it refers mostly to a mixed-up, poorly communicated design process rather than effectively argues against the role of multi-role vehicle chassis.

1. In contrast to the portrait painted by Pentagon Wars, the Bradley has actually become one of the most successful fighting vehicles in the world, a class of vehicles that was well-established even before the first Bradley designs. Though it was subject to a tortuous initial design and subsequent redesign processes, the modern Bradley demonstrates, without a doubt, the effectiveness of a multirole platform. Many other vehicles are based on previous designs: Russia's ZSU Self-Propelled AA systems were based heavily off of T-60 chassis, Germany's Gepard is based off of the Leopard Chassis, American AA vehicles are typically re-purposed Bradleys and Humvees, etc.

2. It needs to be stated that in a game, concerns of hull design are a distant second to gameplay. Vehicles are not limited by physics, and can be as heavy or light, strong or weak, and as fast or slow as they need to be with no regard to the physical design. We have ATV's with rocket launchers on them, that alone demonstrates this far better than any other design in the game.

3. We don't really know how these vehicles are going to be implemented. An AA vanguard may be faster or lighter than an AT vanguard, or vice-versa. There is nothing that states that a vehicle's weapon selections cannot influence other parts of their performance. Talk of a four-barrelled Prowler mod makes me believe that extensive visual modification of tanks is possible. As we have seen no visual examples of tank cannon variants (that we know of, at least) and the game is still in alpha/closed beta, we could see mods that make extensive visual changes to differentiate between vehicle models.

4. Plenty of people think of balance in these forums. Indeed, balance seems to be the primary issue, even though we don't really know a whole lot about what we're "balancing." Don't think your special or above everyone else in that regard, that's more than a little obnoxious.

[NEWSKIS]

I read through your post about 3-4 times (not just skimming it) and it seems to me that you're saying that with customizable vehicles, you wont be able to tell what type of damage a particular vehicle can do just by looking at it from a distance. For a PS1 example, you see the outline of a vanguard and you know it will only really damage ground targets and not aircraft. The same for a skyguard, you know it can slaughter aircraft but wont do much against a tank. Is that what you're talking about with this thread?

If what I understand this thread to be about is that, then I would point out two things.

1. At this point we don't know if different setups on vehicles will have visably different outlines or not. Odds are they wont be the same and everyone will learn what the differing variations look like, even from a good distance.

2. For the sake of argument, say every setup on each vehicle chassis looks exactly the same, does it have that great of an effect on gameplay. If this is the case, which I doubt, the only thing that would really be affected is aircraft. If you can't tell if that tank has AA and will kill you or if it has AI and can't kill you.

In the end if I'm still talking about the right thing, it really isnt a big deal unless every variation looks the same. Even if that is the case you'll just have to be more cautious when picking a target to attack.

[Figment]

Sorry, long post. :)



Please all raise your hands who have never dabbled in User Experience Design or actually never worked as a designer or did a design study at all...

Tbh they stand out like soor thumbs in this thread and all across the board. Please don't take this as an insult, but it's true.


Sensory cues and categorization are incredibly important to good designs, as is functional and practical design.


If every unit looked like a Sunderer, including the ATVs, I'm pretty damn sure it'd be perceived incredibly important. Just because half of you are not interested in a good design and content with an half-baked design, whether or not it does its job and whether or not it fits your definition of "good (enough)", doesn't mean it's actually good design.


Those people that say "but you can make anything do everything in a game".

Yes, you can make a stick magically fire nukes in a game. You can make tanks fly and have afterburners without them being visible (some games probably did that too). Great! Who cares what things look like? It's not like immersiveness or user experience has ANYTHING to do with how the user experiences the game, right? It's not like visual IFF design is at all interesting for a FPS, right?

Certainly not a MMOFPS where friendly fire is active! It's not like it matters if an immovable object accelerates to the speed of light because it's a game, right? Who cares if it communicates well what it does and is for and if it's made both believable and functical on more than "look I can fire with it" within the game?

There's loads and loads of reasons why good and believable game unit design is important to the player. Most of you should know why, but I don't blame you if you don't realise it, because you've never really cared to think about it because you just want to have fun and you don't really care for the design details and leave that to others. Fine. And I can definitely imagine you've not had an education in UX-design or ergonomics, hell most designers don't. And my knowledge of ergonomics is also not as optimal as I would like it to be. However, I do understand the importance of it and I can relate to those who don't see the importance of it, because it's not something a lot of educations pay attention to (Aerospace Engineering including, but Industrial Design Engineering does - let's put it this way - I worked with fellow students who could calculate structural frames to milimeter, but could not realise that their protective frame completely blocked a pilot's view and didn't care for incorporating a toilet or 'personal waste' disposal system or any other ergonomical features beyond a chair and a bucket for a kitesurfing, transatlantic boat / plane). People typically don't want to think about things they feel are better left as afterthoughts or 'unimportant'.



However, if something looks like a tank, but is actually supposed to have the tech specs of a buggy or ATV, I'm pretty damn sure this doesn't "FEEL" right to the gamer because it communicates something else entirely! This is the same for changes WITHIN a single unit.

The question is if you ever think about intuitive design yourself, or just in stat balance? Most gamers think in stat balance and some might go as far as saying "okay that hitbox should be a bit bigger and that unit a bit smaller and have more hitpoints". They don't think about the fundamental design of the unit. I've only seen a very few people raise the issue of the Magrider's main gun being very low in relation to the other tanks and having to turn its hull where the others do not.

Most people don't even realise this has tremendous design and gameplay implications even if it's probably the most obvious "error", ie making one TD and two tanks. Why was it done? Because they kept to the old design platform's basics, while changing the role of the driver as they wanted the driver to have the main gun and this was the only logical driver gun within that configuration!

Please people, realise that this unit's platform wasn't fundamentally changed aside from aesthetic appearance, just that the driver's role changed, meaning ONE gun configuration change. Yet the entire unit's role and use were changed! Platform design means everything to roles and the other way around! If you go by a platform and THEN determine a role for it, you're doing it the wrong way around! PS2 is doing this, a lot! They first design a unit, then give it additional functionality that doesn't suit it because of rather arbitrary reasons.

The Galaxy, the Magrider, the Sunderer, I'm sure other units will have the same sort of multi-role problems where they were designed for one thing, then a different role got shoe-horned in.



All this goes for a unit "look and feel" in general, as well as it goes for if its accesspoints and interaction areas are recognisable or not. Take the PS1 AMS: due to its equipment terms being very visible and attracting attention during deploying, you don't need any yellow circle on the ground. You don't really need those either at doors as you can easily identify those accesspoints. However, you do if you want to know in an instant if it's locked or occupied or not (red crossed circle).


If you make the Sunderer to be an AMS, you will need a lot more of these use cues on the ground, because they wouldn't be visible on the Sunderer itself, though probably they'd make people accidentally find it by stumbling onto a "PRESS G NOWZORS" on screen.

This would mean it feels far more like a game. Because the function of the unit is less intuitively integrated into the design of it unit than it could, meaning its use is far less obvious. Using that same example, for a new player learning the game, it's far less obvious that a Sunderer is or can be a spawnpoint if they just see this big APC until they accidentally use it, are told about or otherwise come across it. So of course eventually they will learn it, but if they have to ask or learn from others, then the devs have poorly designed this element of the game as it is not self-explanatory.


By now I suppose you understand we're not talking about basic design 101, but on a somewhat higher level, I hope?


Of course you can make a half-arsed design, put some text next to it, expect people to read that (hah!) or figure someone will eventually figure it out and tell others. Great. Works. Bad designer attitude and bad design, but works. But because it works, one should never strife to improve?


So great. It probably "works". Is it good design? No. Will it feel cheap? Yes, you won't get the impression the makers really put a lot of effort in it - even if they have in the sidegrading - if you only get one basic frame. If people come in from World of Tanks which per unit has a lot less sidegrading, but realise they can only sidegrade two tanks per empire, they'll probably go "okay, uhm... where's the rest?"


If you look at World of Tanks, tanks themselves undergo a couple changes, but the variety of changes that you will be able to make to a single frame are limited. In PS2 per frame the potential of changes will be much greater, yet I wonder if that's actually important as people will go for certain setups and then leave it with that. How many of the gamers tune their cars in racing games after a one or two attempts? I certainly don't care for that, I just want to race. Same for my friends and relatives, only my nephew is interested in tuning his car. The remainder just use the default or put on a scope in CoD (if even that) and call it a day. 80% of the customization options of a single frame are left unused. This is even more true if there's a certain optimum. So once that's reached, there's no point in spending more certs on it. If there were other frames, sure, you'd happily do it for that frame too.


Either way, these changes should be visible on the tanks. But IMO it's questionable if people can still make out these subtle differences, especially if the skins also change from unit to unit making any subtle changes less obvious because people first have to get accustomed to the big skin change.

And gamers will definitely want to know what they're up against to determine their strategy (rather than just if they engage at all which is the case for aircav regarding AA). But yes, even if you're not aircav you'll care.


Again look at World of Tanks as an example. Is it important to know if you're fighting a Tiger H or a Tiger P, a T29, IS or KV-3 from a huge distance? I mean they're all Tier 7 tanks right? How different can they be? Well... A LOT. The T29 has an incredibly strong turret which you can't damage safe on a few tiny spots, but a very weak hull, especially side and rear. The Tiger P and Tiger H have very different weakspots, particularly noticable in frontal section (100mm or 200mm), the IS and KV-3 each have different bouncy areas, different speeds and different engine locations, etc.

If all the hulls would be the same, you'd fight each enemy more or less the same. If each hull looks the same, but in reality isn't, that will be very annoying.


So yes, yes it is important. Does it matter if you know what turret or gun they have? Yes of course, but that's not relevant till you're closer. By simply identifying the unit, you know HOW to engage it, because you know its main weaknesses and strengths. Advance knowledge is everything in any even remotely strategic game and PlanetSide is almost a RTS. Pretty much every MMOFPS player in PS1 looks at what weaponry an enemy carries or drives before making decisions.

Instinctive decisions can mean everything between winning and losing.

CAN a turret and gun change on a Lightning for instance be enough to make any stat change obvious? To a degree yes, but it's definitely not the BEST, the ONLY nor a COMPLETE way. It's a somewhat half-arsed way though at least it's a start. However, you can't expect the unit to have wildly different other stats relating to the hull from the other units, while if you created a different platform (hull / frame), you would be able to tweak everything from scratch.

It's just a bit more effort put in than "look, I put a bumpersticker on it that says I'm an AA unit".

But yeah, I don't think that's very good design. :/ It can be sufficient design as most of you indicate, but I'm not as easily satisfied as the people who say that. As you can tell from this post and the others, I got different, probably higher standards to be met before I call something good.



IMO, a good game unit design visualises any inherent characteristics of the unit in question in an intuitive manner on ALL levels that are relevant to game play in the slightest. Not on some levels. No compromises if you can avoid it. On ALL levels. For PS2, that means its empire, any functions, entry points, speed, weight, armour, maneuvrability, sound, you name it. If it loans any of the same visual information from an entirely other unit it also means it communicates the same characteristics. Even if they can have very diverse characteristics "because it's a game".

Everything has to be communicated to the players that are using it and those that are competing with it.


But are different guns enough? Take the ES Sunderers from PS1. You could categorize it as a Sunderer APC, but I highly doubt people knew which gun was which till they got in (most people quickly trying to get in to shoot at aircav ended up in the 75mm guns instead of the ES straight fire guns). Even if they were quite distinct. Even if your configuration per empire was fixed. I even doubt that if you put a Vindicator, Leviathan and Juggernaught next to each other in random empire colours and with the name not in sight even if they can see the guns, that people can really differentiate between the TR and NC ones in particular.


TL;DR:

Is it possible to design by just altering guns and turrets? It's possible certainly. But it's not obvious and needs a lot of identification experience, meaning it's not intuitive. At the same time, I'm quite sure people can immediately differentiate between all PS1 buggies, etc. They don't have to squint their eyes and look at the guns: they just know from the basic profile what it is and can do: Between buggies: what empire is it, is it AV, AA or AI. And in relation to other units: is it agile, speedy, less hitpoints, you name it.

All you ever may want to know about an unit seen in ONE single instance.

[ChookWantan]

Snipers and heavy assault guns will both be anti infantry, but will handle it in different ways. Do we really need 30 different infantry classes, just to make sure each one only covers a small niche? I think not. The same goes for vehicles. As long as there are enough classes of vehicle to cover the majorly different frame designs, I think we'll be alright.

But I certainly think the game will still benefit from having a few more vehicle frames added over time as well.

This^

[WorldOfForms]

Sorry, long post. :)



Please all raise your hands who have never dabbled in User Experience Design or actually never worked as a designer or did a design study at all...

Tbh they stand out like soor thumbs in this thread and all across the board. Please don't take this as an insult, but it's true.


Sensory cues and categorization are incredibly important to good designs, as is functional and practical design.


If every unit looked like a Sunderer, including the ATVs, I'm pretty damn sure it'd be perceived incredibly important. Just because half of you are not interested in a good design and content with an half-baked design, whether or not it does its job and whether or not it fits your definition of "good (enough)", doesn't mean it's actually good design.


Those people that say "but you can make anything do everything in a game".

Yes, you can make a stick magically fire nukes in a game. You can make tanks fly and have afterburners without them being visible (some games probably did that too). Great! Who cares what things look like? It's not like immersiveness or user experience has ANYTHING to do with how the user experiences the game, right? It's not like visual IFF design is at all interesting for a FPS, right?

Certainly not a MMOFPS where friendly fire is active! It's not like it matters if an immovable object accelerates to the speed of light because it's a game, right? Who cares if it communicates well what it does and is for and if it's made both believable and functical on more than "look I can fire with it" within the game?

There's loads and loads of reasons why good and believable game unit design is important to the player. Most of you should know why, but I don't blame you if you don't realise it, because you've never really cared to think about it because you just want to have fun and you don't really care for the design details and leave that to others. Fine. And I can definitely imagine you've not had an education in UX-design or ergonomics, hell most designers don't. And my knowledge of ergonomics is also not as optimal as I would like it to be. However, I do understand the importance of it and I can relate to those who don't see the importance of it, because it's not something a lot of educations pay attention to (Aerospace Engineering including, but Industrial Design Engineering does - let's put it this way - I worked with fellow students who could calculate structural frames to milimeter, but could not realise that their protective frame completely blocked a pilot's view and didn't care for incorporating a toilet or 'personal waste' disposal system or any other ergonomical features beyond a chair and a bucket for a kitesurfing, transatlantic boat / plane). People typically don't want to think about things they feel are better left as afterthoughts or 'unimportant'.



However, if something looks like a tank, but is actually supposed to have the tech specs of a buggy or ATV, I'm pretty damn sure this doesn't "FEEL" right to the gamer because it communicates something else entirely! This is the same for changes WITHIN a single unit.

The question is if you ever think about intuitive design yourself, or just in stat balance? Most gamers think in stat balance and some might go as far as saying "okay that hitbox should be a bit bigger and that unit a bit smaller and have more hitpoints". They don't think about the fundamental design of the unit. I've only seen a very few people raise the issue of the Magrider's main gun being very low in relation to the other tanks and having to turn its hull where the others do not.

Most people don't even realise this has tremendous design and gameplay implications even if it's probably the most obvious "error", ie making one TD and two tanks. Why was it done? Because they kept to the old design platform's basics, while changing the role of the driver as they wanted the driver to have the main gun and this was the only logical driver gun within that configuration!

Please people, realise that this unit's platform wasn't fundamentally changed aside from aesthetic appearance, just that the driver's role changed, meaning ONE gun configuration change. Yet the entire unit's role and use were changed! Platform design means everything to roles and the other way around! If you go by a platform and THEN determine a role for it, you're doing it the wrong way around! PS2 is doing this, a lot! They first design a unit, then give it additional functionality that doesn't suit it because of rather arbitrary reasons.

The Galaxy, the Magrider, the Sunderer, I'm sure other units will have the same sort of multi-role problems where they were designed for one thing, then a different role got shoe-horned in.



All this goes for a unit "look and feel" in general, as well as it goes for if its accesspoints and interaction areas are recognisable or not. Take the PS1 AMS: due to its equipment terms being very visible and attracting attention during deploying, you don't need any yellow circle on the ground. You don't really need those either at doors as you can easily identify those accesspoints. However, you do if you want to know in an instant if it's locked or occupied or not (red crossed circle).


If you make the Sunderer to be an AMS, you will need a lot more of these use cues on the ground, because they wouldn't be visible on the Sunderer itself, though probably they'd make people accidentally find it by stumbling onto a "PRESS G NOWZORS" on screen.

This would mean it feels far more like a game. Because the function of the unit is less intuitively integrated into the design of it unit than it could, meaning its use is far less obvious. Using that same example, for a new player learning the game, it's far less obvious that a Sunderer is or can be a spawnpoint if they just see this big APC until they accidentally use it, are told about or otherwise come across it. So of course eventually they will learn it, but if they have to ask or learn from others, then the devs have poorly designed this element of the game as it is not self-explanatory.


By now I suppose you understand we're not talking about basic design 101, but on a somewhat higher level, I hope?


Of course you can make a half-arsed design, put some text next to it, expect people to read that (hah!) or figure someone will eventually figure it out and tell others. Great. Works. Bad designer attitude and bad design, but works. But because it works, one should never strife to improve?


So great. It probably "works". Is it good design? No. Will it feel cheap? Yes, you won't get the impression the makers really put a lot of effort in it - even if they have in the sidegrading - if you only get one basic frame. If people come in from World of Tanks which per unit has a lot less sidegrading, but realise they can only sidegrade two tanks per empire, they'll probably go "okay, uhm... where's the rest?"


If you look at World of Tanks, tanks themselves undergo a couple changes, but the variety of changes that you will be able to make to a single frame are limited. In PS2 per frame the potential of changes will be much greater, yet I wonder if that's actually important as people will go for certain setups and then leave it with that. How many of the gamers tune their cars in racing games after a one or two attempts? I certainly don't care for that, I just want to race. Same for my friends and relatives, only my nephew is interested in tuning his car. The remainder just use the default or put on a scope in CoD (if even that) and call it a day. 80% of the customization options of a single frame are left unused. This is even more true if there's a certain optimum. So once that's reached, there's no point in spending more certs on it. If there were other frames, sure, you'd happily do it for that frame too.


Either way, these changes should be visible on the tanks. But IMO it's questionable if people can still make out these subtle differences, especially if the skins also change from unit to unit making any subtle changes less obvious because people first have to get accustomed to the big skin change.

And gamers will definitely want to know what they're up against to determine their strategy (rather than just if they engage at all which is the case for aircav regarding AA). But yes, even if you're not aircav you'll care.


Again look at World of Tanks as an example. Is it important to know if you're fighting a Tiger H or a Tiger P, a T29, IS or KV-3 from a huge distance? I mean they're all Tier 7 tanks right? How different can they be? Well... A LOT. The T29 has an incredibly strong turret which you can't damage safe on a few tiny spots, but a very weak hull, especially side and rear. The Tiger P and Tiger H have very different weakspots, particularly noticable in frontal section (100mm or 200mm), the IS and KV-3 each have different bouncy areas, different speeds and different engine locations, etc.

If all the hulls would be the same, you'd fight each enemy more or less the same. If each hull looks the same, but in reality isn't, that will be very annoying.


So yes, yes it is important. Does it matter if you know what turret or gun they have? Yes of course, but that's not relevant till you're closer. By simply identifying the unit, you know HOW to engage it, because you know its main weaknesses and strengths. Advance knowledge is everything in any even remotely strategic game and PlanetSide is almost a RTS. Pretty much every MMOFPS player in PS1 looks at what weaponry an enemy carries or drives before making decisions.

Instinctive decisions can mean everything between winning and losing.

CAN a turret and gun change on a Lightning for instance be enough to make any stat change obvious? To a degree yes, but it's definitely not the BEST, the ONLY nor a COMPLETE way. It's a somewhat half-arsed way though at least it's a start. However, you can't expect the unit to have wildly different other stats relating to the hull from the other units, while if you created a different platform (hull / frame), you would be able to tweak everything from scratch.

It's just a bit more effort put in than "look, I put a bumpersticker on it that says I'm an AA unit".

But yeah, I don't think that's very good design. :/ It can be sufficient design as most of you indicate, but I'm not as easily satisfied as the people who say that. As you can tell from this post and the others, I got different, probably higher standards to be met before I call something good.



IMO, a good game unit design visualises any inherent characteristics of the unit in question in an intuitive manner on ALL levels that are relevant to game play in the slightest. Not on some levels. No compromises if you can avoid it. On ALL levels. For PS2, that means its empire, any functions, entry points, speed, weight, armour, maneuvrability, sound, you name it. If it loans any of the same visual information from an entirely other unit it also means it communicates the same characteristics. Even if they can have very diverse characteristics "because it's a game".

Everything has to be communicated to the players that are using it and those that are competing with it.


But are different guns enough? Take the ES Sunderers from PS1. You could categorize it as a Sunderer APC, but I highly doubt people knew which gun was which till they got in (most people quickly trying to get in to shoot at aircav ended up in the 75mm guns instead of the ES straight fire guns). Even if they were quite distinct. Even if your configuration per empire was fixed. I even doubt that if you put a Vindicator, Leviathan and Juggernaught next to each other in random empire colours and with the name not in sight even if they can see the guns, that people can really differentiate between the TR and NC ones in particular.


TL;DR:

Is it possible to design by just altering guns and turrets? It's possible certainly. But it's not obvious and needs a lot of identification experience, meaning it's not intuitive. At the same time, I'm quite sure people can immediately differentiate between all PS1 buggies, etc. They don't have to squint their eyes and look at the guns: they just know from the basic profile what it is and can do: Between buggies: what empire is it, is it AV, AA or AI. And in relation to other units: is it agile, speedy, less hitpoints, you name it.

All you ever may want to know about an unit seen in ONE single instance.

Sadly, it seems your points will fly over heads because the general response has been "eh, its good enough. Intuitive visual design doesn't matter, because we don't understand it."

[CutterJohn]

What...? Infantry weapons, roles and capabilities change as you change class.

Vehicle roles and load outs should be as distinct as the difference between each class, that is to say, you hop in a new vehicle, and your capabilities change drastically.

By allowing every vehicle to partake in every activity you're ruining that distinction.

If you think vehicles should be treated in exactly the same way as infantry then you must be in agreement with Figment.

You're claiming that the capabilities between the classes of vehicles don't change drastically? There is no drastic difference between a tank and a liberator?

Just because two vehicles have a gun labeled AA doesn't mean they have similar AA capabilities. Sniper rifles and MCGs are both technically 'AI' weapons. Nobody would ever claim they are the same.

[Synapse]

Nice video, but your thread is useless without specific vehicles/niches to discuss. Without that it's a long roam through all possible niches with no particular discussion on any of them, and I expect a wasted thread.

[Figment]

Nice video, but your thread is useless without specific vehicles/niches to discuss. Without that it's a long roam through all possible niches with no particular discussion on any of them, and I expect a wasted thread.

There have been plenty of specific examples in this thread. The point of this thread is is about general game unit design philosophy, principles and insight. It's about how a dev should approach developing a (new) unit and how to fill in a (new) unit's role into the actual design of a unit, rather than just cramping it into any already available unit.


That means it's a very general and very philosophical topic. Meaning focusing on something specific is irrelevant and distracting, as people would think the whole thread is about that particular thing and that's not the point. People would never learn from it because they'd look at unit design on a case by case basis, rather than understand the principles behind it.

It's possible to debate which niches are and which are not possible to lob together, however, that's best left for another thread.

[AThreatToYou]

The purpose of customizable assets that fill more roles than one has always been to save resources. In this case, it's development time.

[infected]

you're not going to see 90 different vehicles in the game if it really boils down to 10 vehicles types and each vehicle type having 3 possible weapon setups and 3 possible faction skins.

i mean, maybe create those 90 totally different vehicles on your own time. we'd like the game to come out this year.

[Figment]

Infected, sodd off if you're just going to troll. You could also have less sidegrades per frame for the same development time (you know, say... 20 instead of "hundreds"), so it's a matter of priorities. And you putting an arbitrarily random, but really high number out is typical of your type of argumentation and childish strawmen argueing.

EDIT: Oh, I'm also not your "Bro".

EDIT2: Just for the record, I don't think a "rush the product so we can play it this year" argument like you're making is uhm... 'supportive'... of good game play design. But thanks for illustrating you don't care for quality and people should ignore you.

In fact, it's probably one of the worst things you can ever do: rush a project and make choices you regret later. You also seem to forget that units like the Liberator, Deliverer variants, Lodestar and Skyguard ALL arrived significantly later than the basic units. Not to mention the Wasp.

So thanks for helping people realise why budget and time limit decisions may not actually be really good decisions. That's one of the points I was making from the start: it's not done for game play reasons, but for cutting on dev resources. Even if it's packaged and communicated as "streamlining game play" (utter bull).

We'll be seeing a lot more units over time and those should be designed with the appropriate mindset behind it. I hope they will go back to the first units and remove the design flaws.

[Malorn]

The OP is poorly worded and difficult to tease out what it is that is being said, though Xyntech did a good job of summarizing the different aspects under discussion.

Having multiple roles per vehicle frame is good. Customization is good, and since we put certs in the frame and then its individual weapon and upgrade options that makes the vehicle a better investment rather than having to do those investments into niche vehicles only good for one purpose.

The only issue I have with multiple roles per vehicle is role identification. As Xyntech described, it is nearly impossible to tell what role an ES fighter is, or what kind of guns a Galaxy has configured.

In the absence of clear role identification players will come to assume the worst.

The best solution here that I can think of is that the weapons for some vehicles are a bit bigger and have a noticeably different shape. Additionally some small bits should be added to the vehicle to make it more visually identifiable based on significant role changes.

Examples:
- Galaxy - guns should be bigger. AA guns vs AV vs AI should all be clearly distinguishable.

- Sunderer - just like the galaxy - guns easy to identify

- Lightning - Skyguard turret should visually change the turret so the silhouette is distinct as an AA variant. If it has AI it should also be distinct so Infantry can easily identify it.

- ES Tanks - the secondary turrets should be bigger and more distinct. The chainguns today look very tiny and that's OK for the default secondary gun. For the AV and AA and AI upgrades they should all change the turret in slight but obvious ways so players can learn to quickly and easily identify them, even when flying overhead at 240 kph.

- ES Aircraft - these are harder since the aircraft move very fast and the weaponry is not clearly identifiable on all of them. I would recommend slight changes in the aircraft as the armament (role) changes. For example, an Air-to-Air Reaver might have the vertical stabilizer on the tail angled upwards (current reaver style), while the Air-to-Ground reaver has a vertical stabilizer on the tail angled downward (the old reaver style). This would allow anyone to tell which role simply by looking at the silhouette. The Scythe and Mosquito could have similar minor but silhouette-altering changes.

- Liberator - This one's challenging, but perhaps the bits on the wings could be different if the role changes. For example, firing a chain gun is very different from a cannon in the effect it has on the aircraft's flight (the AC130 has compensators in the wings so the aircraft flight doesn't get disrupted by the recoil of the cannon). The Liberator could have slight wing differences so those on the ground can look up and see clearly what role it is in based on the wing shape.

- Flash - This one is also a bit harder, but maybe not as necessary either. Could change some of the bits on the bike to create a slightly different but distinct shape based on guns.


I'm also a bit concerned that for monetization purposes we might see different models for the same vehicles over time and that would further exacerbate role identification issues. Some things need to be clearly locked down and I think model shape is one of them.

[JHendy]

You're claiming that the capabilities between the classes of vehicles don't change drastically? There is no drastic difference between a tank and a liberator?

Just because two vehicles have a gun labeled AA doesn't mean they have similar AA capabilities. Sniper rifles and MCGs are both technically 'AI' weapons. Nobody would ever claim they are the same.

No, of course I'm not saying that the capabilities of each vehicle CLASS (land/air) don't change drastically. I didn't insinuate that.

Think of every vehicle as belonging to a separate class if that makes my original post clearer. What I want to see is every vehicle in the game having a very clear-cut set of capabilities, and over-customisation impinges on that. I was implying that I'd like every vehicle to be as distinct as every infantry class.

I'm all for massive customisation and fine tuning as long as it doesn't allow a vehicle to transcend its original purpose. 30 different varieties of cannon for an MBT? Absolutely. But please, don't allow players to stick meaty AA cannons on their tanks. There should be a vehicle designated to that roll.

EDIT: If vehicle-mounted AA guns, for example, felt completely unique across different vehicles, I'd be able to come over to your way of thinking a bit. I guess you could restrict certain vehicles to flack, whilst others are able to fire heat-seeking/lock on rockets, or something.

[Xyntech]

Highly visible differences between different turret types would be very good. Make the Lightnings Skyguard turret be big and bulbous, or have some unnecessary fins or something.

I'm sure that adding a few additions to some of the ES fighters shape depending on their role would be equally possible.

I'm definitely a fan of the customizable frame concept, but there's no need to just needlessly accept the bad along with the good either. I have no doubt that there is a nice middle ground where roles are distinguishable, while still keeping development time/costs down and having the flexible cert branches of the current design.

[Haro]

Highly visible differences between different turret types would be very good. Make the Lightnings Skyguard turret be big and bulbous, or have some unnecessary fins or something.

I'm sure that adding a few additions to some of the ES fighters shape depending on their role would be equally possible.

I'm definitely a fan of the customizable frame concept, but there's no need to just needlessly accept the bad along with the good either. I have no doubt that there is a nice middle ground where roles are distinguishable, while still keeping development time/costs down and having the flexible cert branches of the current design.

I was thinking along the lines of radar dishes and antennae, but the bulbous features could really work as well. Another thing could be to completely change the nature of the weapon: rather than having tank AA weapons as standard cannons, make them flak batteries or missile launchers. I'm a bit less concerned about air assets, as their high speed and ability to fly at high altitudes could make identification difficult in any situation, and their roles tend to vary less.

[Malorn]

I was thinking along the lines of radar dishes and antennae, but the bulbous features could really work as well. Another thing could be to completely change the nature of the weapon: rather than having tank AA weapons as standard cannons, make them flak batteries or missile launchers. I'm a bit less concerned about air assets, as their high speed and ability to fly at high altitudes could make identification difficult in any situation, and their roles tend to vary less.

How do aircraft roles vary less? Air-to-Ground is very different from Air-to-Air. That's an entirely different role that will have significantly different strengths.

Doesn't really matter how they make the turret different, so long as it is different enough to be easily identifiable. Same thing goes for role differences on anything else.

An important part of a game is understanding that when you see a target that you can recognize what it is and have a chance at understanding what it is capable of doing to you. When it can be everything under the sun and they all look the same, that's a poor game design. They do a pretty good job at infantry being visually distinct in their role and capabilities, but vehicles are rather poor in that respect.

[maradine]

They do a pretty good job at infantry being visually distinct in their role and capabilities, but vehicles are rather poor in that respect.

Is that true?

For aircraft, my understanding is that the underwing munitions are visually distinct in both shape and quantity. In the case of the Lightning, I don't think we've seen any of the other setups. For the other vehicles, I wouldn't expect main gun sidegrades to have much of a visual signature, any more than I'd be able to tell the difference between the M68 and the M256 on an Abrams at range.

Put another way, do we even know enough to have legitimate concerns about this yet?

[Xyntech]

Just another thing to talk about until we see for ourselves in beta.

There are legitimate concerns, but overall I'm pretty happy with what vehicles we currently have.

We just found out last night that buggies are already modeled and just need to be properly balanced before being put in. That still probably won't happen until after launch, but I highly doubt that we are going to see vehicle production come to a screeching halt after launch. Planetside launched with a lot less vehicles than it currently has, and it did alright. Was that Reaver pilot skilled enough to take down your Mosquito with his 20mm, or was he just a rocket spamming noob? Knowing what a vehicle is capable of is important, but it's not the end all be all of vehicle design.

As long as I don't need to worry about a tank suddenly taking to the sky, or a Lightning having a squad of troops pop out of it, I think we'll be okay. I definitely support further improvements to making roles be identifiable, but the system isn't completely FUBAR'd at the moment either.

[maradine]

Fair enough. Issue everyone binoculars and I think I'm satisfied, for the record.

[Haro]

How do aircraft roles vary less? Air-to-Ground is very different from Air-to-Air. That's an entirely different role that will have significantly different strengths.

Doesn't really matter how they make the turret different, so long as it is different enough to be easily identifiable. Same thing goes for role differences on anything else.

An important part of a game is understanding that when you see a target that you can recognize what it is and have a chance at understanding what it is capable of doing to you. When it can be everything under the sun and they all look the same, that's a poor game design. They do a pretty good job at infantry being visually distinct in their role and capabilities, but vehicles are rather poor in that respect.

Well, the only aircraft that really makes a large shift in its primary role from air-to-air to air-to-ground are the empire specific fighters. As far as I know, and maybe I'm wrong, but the Liberator will likely stay in an bomber/gunship role, so there's not a lot to adjust there, and I feel like the Galaxy's weapons primarily are primarily defensive, and therefore (not counting the gunship, which is likely a ways off.) It's not to say that there shouldn't be distinguishing characteristics for them, there should be, I just don't think it's as high of a priority as it is for tanks.

That said... I think the fighters could use large missiles instead of rocket pods for air-to-air, to differentiate. Maybe experiment with different shaped wings or fins or... whatever the scythe or whatever it's called has.

[Malorn]

Is that true?

For aircraft, my understanding is that the underwing munitions are visually distinct in both shape and quantity. In the case of the Lightning, I don't think we've seen any of the other setups. For the other vehicles, I wouldn't expect main gun sidegrades to have much of a visual signature, any more than I'd be able to tell the difference between the M68 and the M256 on an Abrams at range.

Put another way, do we even know enough to have legitimate concerns about this yet?

Yes the underwing guns are distinct on the aircraft, but relatively speaking that is a small part of the aircraft. Watch the stream and look at aircraft flying around, they move way too fast and turn to distinguish whether it has missiles or rocket pods. It's particularly bad at night when shape is all you have to go on.

It needs to be more obvious and weapon pods on the underside of the aircraft is not distinct enough. There's no name tags to tell us what something is, all we have to go on right now are the small differences in armament that are not obvious.

And yes, I watched the streams and had no idea which types of aircraft were A2A and A2G unless we were looking at a kill cam. The Lightning skyguard turret was disabled for the demo so we can't say on that one, but the galaxy guns and secondary guns on tanks were very difficult to distinguish as well.

Well, the only aircraft that really makes a large shift in its primary role from air-to-air to air-to-ground are the empire specific fighters. As far as I know, and maybe I'm wrong, but the Liberator will likely stay in an bomber/gunship role, so there's not a lot to adjust there, and I feel like the Galaxy's weapons primarily are primarily defensive, and therefore (not counting the gunship, which is likely a ways off.) It's not to say that there shouldn't be distinguishing characteristics for them, there should be, I just don't think it's as high of a priority as it is for tanks.

That said... I think the fighters could use large missiles instead of rocket pods for air-to-air, to differentiate. Maybe experiment with different shaped wings or fins or... whatever the scythe or whatever it's called has.

Obviously there's different priority for vehicles. If it's a resource concern they could focus on the vehicles that need it the most first and defer the others to post-launch.

Lightning, ES Aircraft, and ES tanks are the high priority ones to have easily differentiable as they all have hard counters available as customization options. When facing these vehicles its important to be able to immediately identify what that vehicle is capable of doing, especially if it's a difference between an easy-kill and getting insta-gibbed. When both possibilities exist for the same vehicle that's bad unless we can clearly distinguish which is which.

[maradine]

Personally, I prefer a little uncertainty. For my money, I don't think perfect knowledge is a desirable design goal in this context.

As for night time, well. It's night. I'd prefer it be more than cosmetic.

[Remzsz]

I would prefer to have most of the vehicles to have a specific role instead of every vehicle being able to be AV, AI, AA. I also want customization, but the customization should be sidegrades to a vehicles role, for example an AA aircraft by default will have some type of lock on missile to take down aircraft or you can replace the missile system to a flak cannon, they would feel and behave differently, but most importantly they fit the same purpose.

And the vision identification is a big deal also, I think you should be able to know what type of vehicle you are going up against at a glance.

Overall I'm just worried that each vehicle will feel less unique. But I'll hold final judgement until I get some playtime with the current method of vehicle customization.

[infected]

I would prefer to have most of the vehicles to have a specific role instead of every vehicle being able to be AV, AI, AA. I also want customization, but the customization should be sidegrades to a vehicles role, for example an AA aircraft by default will have some type of lock on missile to take down aircraft or you can replace the missile system to a flak cannon, they would feel and behave differently, but most importantly they fit the same purpose.


that's probably a bad example of a side grade. rockets vs flak. in practice, one would prove overall more effective and most people would gravitate toward using it over the other. same purpose? yes. side grade? nearly impossible to balance stuff like that across the board.