What happen to the Empire Distinctivness in AV weapons?

[Marinealver]

Ok watching Day 3 and seeing the HA attacking MAXs and Vehicles with theAV weapons and noticed that well the weapons were pratically the same with diffrent paint and RoF. They were all lock-on guided rocket launchers.

Now in planetside the AV weapons were verry diffrent. The TR had the rapid fire LockOn guided AV weapon. The NC had a Fly By Wire in which they piloted the missle to the target but could only fire one at a time. The VS had a lancer which was a energy bolt that travels super fast and had a slight charge up time so you had to slightly lead but once you learn it you could just unleash bolts upon bolts of fire upon tanks.

So with the whole now every AV is a modified striker there needs to be a more destinctive weapon to the whole HA AV arrament. I see that in Planetside 2 the whole shots to kill is reduced so no longer minuets for TTK it is now seconds (which is good IMHO). So with the tr stryker give it say a lock on guided rocket system that can fire a salvo of 3 rockets at a target. Now the rockets don't do as much dammage individual but combined they add up. The NC need to have a verry powerful missle but give them back the remote control to steer the missle into the enemy tank. The VS need to have their anti-tank laser back. I don't want to say like the "Spartian Laser from HAL0 but an energy base laser that charges up and dose allot of damage but has a slow rate of fire, much slower than the planetside 1 lancer. Now none of these weapons should be able to 1 shot kill a tank, (mabey unless it is a rear attack on a tank but still tweak it down to 2 shots atleast.) But it should help with the whole faction specific weapons.

[Bags]

It couldn't have been cuz it was alpha. nope

[WorldOfForms]

From what we can tell so far, each faction gets at least 2 kinds of AV - one is the lockon, and the other is the more distinctive kind.

For instance, the VS get the Fission, which is the lockon rocket launcher, but they also get the Lancer.

Like HA weapons (MCG JH and Lasher), I don't think the ESAV has been shown yet because it's not ready.

[Erendil]

From what we can tell so far, each faction gets at least 2 kinds of AV - one is the lockon, and the other is the more distinctive kind.

For instance, the VS get the Fission, which is the lockon rocket launcher, but they also get the Lancer.

Like HA weapons (MCG JH and Lasher), I don't think the ESAV has been shown yet because it's not ready.

^^^ This. ^^^

I am kinda disappointed that they'd give all 3 empires a fire-and-forget AV weapon. Talk about cheeze. I was hoping that NO faction would get FAF weapons... Same goes for the A2A missiles the ES fighters have.

At least aircraft have countermeasures like chaff available to them...

[Bags]

Good news is the FAF weapons couldn't come close to hiting planes in E3.

[Baneblade]

There should be no FAF weapons in the game at all. You should have to maintain lock or your missiles lose their target. LOS, Range, your ass is dead... whatever the reason, lost lock = lost kill.

[Wahooo]

I thought I heard that they were still working on the mechanics of all the ES specific weapons for maxes and for the time being they just gave all maxes all the weapons. As the balance tests progress they will adjust/eliminate/sort all the weapons and make them ES then.

[Sirisian]

It didn't hit you as completely unbalanceable? I always felt cheap shooting down aircraft with my lancer knowing that the other empires weren't balanced for it. The situational imbalances alone should have made that clear. I don't think non-PS1 players would welcome such gameplay mechanics so readily like some vets. I could be wrong though.

Not to mention any 3 AV weapons that are added essentially removes 2 playstyles from the other factions for better or worse. No real option to sidegrade into another faction's AV at that point.

I'm glad they went with standard AV launchers for the empires this time.

[Kran De Loy]

It didn't hit you as completely unbalanceable? I always felt cheap shooting down aircraft with my lancer knowing that the other empires weren't balanced for it. The situational imbalances alone should have made that clear. I don't think non-PS1 players would welcome such gameplay mechanics so readily like some vets. I could be wrong though.

Not to mention any 3 AV weapons that are added essentially removes 2 playstyles from the other factions for better or worse. No real option to sidegrade into another faction's AV at that point.

I'm glad they went with standard AV launchers for the empires this time.

I personally loved to use the VS shoulder mounted searchlight. I always imagined I was blinding the pilots with science until they blew up.

While I honestly do not care if it's ES or not I would still very much like to see that weapon in the game again. Or at least something similar.

If it has to be ES then to balance it to the other empires give the VS our Carebear-Stare Cannon, the NC an electromagnetic rail-launched mortar (essentially a shorter, stubbier, lighter version of that ugly tube thing on the top half of a Vanguard) and the TR a ...

I dunno what else could be used to emulate an instantaneous or near instantaneous AV weapon that would fit the TR style other than a Vulcan Minigun and that wouldn't really fit ES AV weapon limitations. AV weapons are not used against infantry not because AV weapons aren't equally devastating to foot soldiers as it is to Armor, that only happens in make believe la-la land. AV weapons aren't used against infantry because of ammo limitations. Giving a Vulcan to a TR and telling him it's only for AV may be canon with their lore (mindless drone does what he's told all the time anyway), but eventually some brighter than normal goon will get antsy and try it out on some infantry then it's just a matter of time before the command lines find out how effective it is and probably stop whipping any of the troops that disobeying orders.

I need to go to sleep...

Edit: Maybe a rapid fire flak launcher? Oh that would work great for TR. Yeah

So for HA AV weaponry...
NS - non-FAF missile launcher. For balance reasons should be the most powerful AV due to chaff countermeasures and whatnot.
VS - Lancer - Charge up delay before firing, no travel time.
NC - EM Rail-Launched Mortar - Instant launch but has minor travel time.
TR - Flak Cannon like on their MAX suits only smaller?

[GreatMazinkaise]

Pass... the purples can have their AT Rifle, we get our Striker back (with nerfed beeping please), and the NC can keep their weirdo flying camera bomb. That is the essence of Planetside, situational imbalance along faction lines.

[Froglicker]

I just don't wanna see any camera guided missiles. It was always incredibly annoying to have infantry hide behind walls and trees while still able to take out MAXes and tanks without ever exposing themselves. What made it worse was by the time you saw the rocket 30m away it'd somehow instantly teleport to my position and explode (at least thats what always happened to me). Give NC wire guided or laser designated rockets instead.

[Bags]

Pass... the purples can have their AT Rifle, we get our Striker back (with nerfed beeping please), and the NC can keep their weirdo flying camera bomb. That is the essence of Planetside, situational imbalance along faction lines.

The striker is almost always the worst ESAV... only time it's "better" is in the hands of someone who is bad.

Lancer or Phoenix any day, please.

[GreatMazinkaise]

The striker is almost always the worst ESAV... only time it's "better" is in the hands of someone who is bad.

Lancer or Phoenix any day, please.

Something must've changed in the intervening years, because as I recall the Phoenix was the worst (suffered awful ranged damage degradation combined with it's slow rate of fire).

[SixShooter]

I just don't wanna see any camera guided missiles. It was always incredibly annoying to have infantry hide behind walls and trees while still able to take out MAXes and tanks without ever exposing themselves. What made it worse was by the time you saw the rocket 30m away it'd somehow instantly teleport to my position and explode (at least thats what always happened to me). Give NC wire guided or laser designated rockets instead.

The striker is almost always the worst ESAV... only time it's "better" is in the hands of someone who is bad.

Lancer or Phoenix any day, please.

I will take on a Striker over a Pheonix any day. At least with a Striker you get some warning of a lock on. The Lancer took some aiming skill while the NC hid behind rocks and wall shooting arounds corners.

Oh, yeah -- Fuck the NC:groovy:

[Bags]

Something must've changed in the intervening years, because as I recall the Phoenix was the worst (suffered awful ranged damage degradation combined with it's slow rate of fire).

Slow rate of fire, but no damage degradation as of March 2006 (when I started it was fine).

Striker is easy to shake, tells enemies you are locking them on, aims for the midsection of maxes, can't kill a mossie in one clip... all it has goin for it is ease of use. :doh:

[StumpyTheOzzie]

From what we can tell so far, each faction gets at least 2 kinds of AV - one is the lockon, and the other is the more distinctive kind.

For instance, the VS get the Fission, which is the lockon rocket launcher, but they also get the Lancer.

Like HA weapons (MCG JH and Lasher), I don't think the ESAV has been shown yet because it's not ready.

So the decimator got turned into a lock on weapon?

[SergeantNubins]

No, teh decimator was open to all factions and was 3 shot dumb fire, or you could time when it expoded a little like the pheonix, except you couldnt steer it.

The pheonix has the same fire otions as the deci, but you could steer the camera view. The pheonix was awesome at taking out maxes from a distance and not much use at anything else, it took so many shots to kill a vehicle and as you had to manually steer each shot, any driver with any semblance of situational awareness could easily get away before they took any serious damage.

For PS2, there were 4 AV weapons listed on the cert screenshots - the lock on launcher, another launcher, a lancer and someting else that i cant remember now.

[Erendil]

Something must've changed in the intervening years, because as I recall the Phoenix was the worst (suffered awful ranged damage degradation combined with it's slow rate of fire).

No, you're right, the Phoenix is still worst in actual combat effectiveness. It is the most annoying to fight against, however. :D


Slow rate of fire, but no damage degradation as of March 2006 (when I started it was fine).

Striker is easy to shake, tells enemies you are locking them on, aims for the midsection of maxes, can't kill a mossie in one clip... all it has goin for it is ease of use. :doh:

I think Maz is talking about the huge DOT penalty suffered by the Phoenix at targets get farther away due to to its rather slow missile speed. In that respect it does degrade rather harshly.

But don't discount ease-of-use so quickly as a valuable weapon trait. It might not help the individual soldier in 1-on-1 situations, but it quickly gets devastating as the number of users start to rise, and it's a weapon trait is vital for the average soldier to be successful. One only need to look at the Lasher to see how a decent but difficult-to-use weapon can negatively impact an empire.

Too bad they didn't apply that 40% ESAV damage boost to air targets as well as ground back in '06. Major fail on the Devs' part, IMO.

[Ghstmarauder]

No, you're right, the Phoenix is still worst in actual combat effectiveness. It is the most annoying to fight against, however. :D




I think Maz is talking about the huge DOT penalty suffered by the Phoenix at targets get farther away due to to its rather slow missile speed. In that respect it does degrade rather harshly.

But don't discount ease-of-use so quickly as a valuable weapon trait. It might not help the individual soldier in 1-on-1 situations, but it quickly gets devastating as the number of users start to rise, and it's a weapon trait is vital for the average soldier to be successful. One only need to look at the Lasher to see how a decent but difficult-to-use weapon can negatively impact an empire.

Too bad they didn't apply that 40% ESAV damage boost to air targets as well as ground back in '06. Major fail on the Devs' part, IMO.

That boost would of helped, the one area that Phoenix's have trouble with is scaring away Aircav. While a Striker or Lancer would make one think twice about trying to mossie farm the user, the Phoenix slow ROF and the fact the user is standing still, unless he has a team of users to Alpha the mossie, the Phoenix never stands a chance.

From an Armor standpoint i've always been more afraid of Lancers than Phoenixes, the lancer user would be in some hidden spot just blasting away and the gunner usually couldn't hit him.

[NewSith]

Something tells me that we'll see ES AV later, right now the game is shaped up to be only aesthetically different for empires. The reason for that is that you can't really test out ES mechanics without the appropriate number of people.

I'm sure 6 months max post-launch we will already see an expansion patch that'll give us more Empire Specific stuff, like maybe buggies or said AV weapons.

[Buggsy]

Ok watching Day 3 and seeing the HA attacking MAXs and Vehicles with theAV weapons and noticed that well the weapons were pratically the same with diffrent paint and RoF. They were all lock-on guided rocket launchers.

Now in planetside the AV weapons were verry diffrent. The TR had the rapid fire LockOn guided AV weapon. The NC had a Fly By Wire in which they piloted the missle to the target but could only fire one at a time. The VS had a lancer which was a energy bolt that travels super fast and had a slight charge up time so you had to slightly lead but once you learn it you could just unleash bolts upon bolts of fire upon tanks.

So with the whole now every AV is a modified striker there needs to be a more destinctive weapon to the whole HA AV arrament. I see that in Planetside 2 the whole shots to kill is reduced so no longer minuets for TTK it is now seconds (which is good IMHO). So with the tr stryker give it say a lock on guided rocket system that can fire a salvo of 3 rockets at a target. Now the rockets don't do as much dammage individual but combined they add up. The NC need to have a verry powerful missle but give them back the remote control to steer the missle into the enemy tank. The VS need to have their anti-tank laser back. I don't want to say like the "Spartian Laser from HAL0 but an energy base laser that charges up and dose allot of damage but has a slow rate of fire, much slower than the planetside 1 lancer. Now none of these weapons should be able to 1 shot kill a tank, (mabey unless it is a rear attack on a tank but still tweak it down to 2 shots atleast.) But it should help with the whole faction specific weapons.

Don't look at me, I always thought empires were pretty well balanced, I never complained about weapon balance on PS1 forums.

Something tells me that we'll see ES AV later, right now the game is shaped up to be only aesthetically different for empires. The reason for that is that you can't really test out ES mechanics without the appropriate number of people.

I'm sure 6 months max post-launch we will already see an expansion patch that'll give us more Empire Specific stuff, like maybe buggies or said AV weapons.

More dumbing down. Meh.

[NewSith]

More dumbing down. Meh.

Tell me the original amount of "maps", BRs, vehicles, bars and weapons in planetside, please. Compared to what PS is now. If you look at it from that perspective, PS1 is even more dumbed down than the most modern CoD.

[Buggsy]

Tell me the original amount of "maps", BRs, vehicles, bars and weapons in planetside, please. Compared to what PS is now. If you look at it from that perspective, PS1 is even more dumbed down than the most modern CoD.

You're only looking at graphics, fluff, bells and whistles. Try looking at the meat of the game, be NEO and see the Matrix.

[NewSith]

You're only looking at graphics, fluff, bells and whistles.

No.

/end of replies

[Buggsy]

No.

/end of replies

That's funny BF3 looks like it plays exactly the same as BF2 with all of the exact same quirks.

[roguy]

That boost would of helped, the one area that Phoenix's have trouble with is scaring away Aircav. While a Striker or Lancer would make one think twice about trying to mossie farm the user, the Phoenix slow ROF and the fact the user is standing still, unless he has a team of users to Alpha the mossie, the Phoenix never stands a chance.

From an Armor standpoint i've always been more afraid of Lancers than Phoenixes, the lancer user would be in some hidden spot just blasting away and the gunner usually couldn't hit him.

I kinda thought that the fact that the pheonix was much better than the other ESAV indoors with dumbfire and how you could use the rockets as mini UAVs to locate enemy positions and AMSes made it pretty awesome.

As NC I'd be PISSED if it wasn't included in PS2, regardless of wether or not it kept it's PS1 weaknesses.

[Johari]

All empires have the OPTION of using a FAF weapon like we've seen in the E3 presentations and what not but it is NOT the only one.

Taken from Neurotoxin's Cert post
http://www.hamma.ws/ntemp/Infantry/Heavy%20Assault/HeavyAV.jpg

The VS have access to 4 different AV weapons. The Fission which we've seen in action, another 2 designated for AV and AA, and then the good old Lancer.

I can only assume that the other empires will have similar choices in one way or another.

[Klockan]

^^^ This. ^^^

I am kinda disappointed that they'd give all 3 empires a fire-and-forget AV weapon. Talk about cheeze. I was hoping that NO faction would get FAF weapons... Same goes for the A2A missiles the ES fighters have.

At least aircraft have countermeasures like chaff available to them...
How is lockon missiles against ground any worse than the lancer? Imo the lancer is way worse since you can't dodge them by moving your tank behind walls and such.

[Bravix]

If they have another fly-by-wire Phoenix, I will make it my goal to hunt down every single one of those bastards.

Oh har-har I don't know how to use anything except the Jackhammer but I'm in a tower and the enemies aren't inside of it!!! So instead of grabbing the amazing Gauss and shooting them, I'm going to stand inside the building and snipe infantry with a phoenix.

It's just annoying as all hell to be getting hit by something and having no counter to kill them. Best you can do is have air cav camp the door.

[Thoreaux]

I can only assume that the other empires will have similar choices in one way or another.

And I'm as happy as a clam about that. Lancer was best AV and we all know it. If TR get an AM-rifle, I know exactly what I'll be doing.

:sniper: http://i.imgur.com/xpuGK.gif

[Baneblade]

The Phoenix high point is that it can out-deci a deci. But the camera guided mode is mainly useful for short scouting a position.

[Bags]

But the camera guided mode is mainly useful for short scouting a position.

And making it impossible for the enemy to use maxes in a base defense.

[GreatMazinkaise]

So it's good at killing MAXs and terrible at killing vehicles compared to the other two... that's stayed the same.

That being said, when we were working on Versus it was the understanding that even AV weapons were subject to ranged damage degradation in PS... was this untrue?

[Xyntech]

I thought they were replacing the camera guided phoenix style AV guns for each empire with a laser guided style.

[Buggsy]

I thought they were replacing the camera guided phoenix style AV guns for each empire with a laser guided style.

awe, I liked the phoenix. Bring it back.

[Xyntech]

awe, I liked the phoenix. Bring it back.

As a wise VS dev once said: cus-tum-ize-a-shun!

Maybe they'll find a balanced way to bring it back as another sidegrade option. The Phoenix could be annoying as hell, but not to the point that I'd mind seeing it come back.

[Baneblade]

And making it impossible for the enemy to use maxes in a base defense.

Outdoors, certainly. But then your snipers pick those Phoenix users off with free kill after free kill.

Honestly, my favorite thing to do when playing VS or TR is to snipe and punish NC that haven't learned to Phoenix correctly.

[CutterJohn]

Hopefully they are less distinctive. Its ridiculous that the empires never filled obvious holes in their armories.

You can still keep things distinctive.

For instance, the VSs Lancer could be the best direct fire AV weapon, and the TR and NC are slightly sub par.

Even better, the VS version is available straight away, while the NC and TR version would be available higher in the cert tree. This would keep the empires different as a whole, since most everyone would have access to the basic type of weapon for their empire, but more dedicated souls could get the other empires gear and fill that hole if they felt like it.

But either way, its ridiculous that the TR and NC forgot about the concept of the anti material recoilless rifle.

[Bags]

Outdoors, certainly. But then your snipers pick those Phoenix users off with free kill after free kill.

I can't say I've ever died to a sniper while using a phoenix on my BR24 NC.

[CutterJohn]

I can't say I've ever died to a sniper while using a phoenix on my BR24 NC.

Yeah, it doesn't take too much smarts to hide behind a hill or tree or something.