Equality of Playstyles - How about a "Driver" Specialization?

[Tatwi]

After reading this great comment on a forum somewhere,
"[Vehicle] playstyles [are backed] up by specialization-through-certification, [they are] not luxuries. Infantry is not the only playstyle in this game. One should not be limited over the other... An infantry-specialized playstyle is always accommodated, no matter what."

I got to thinking that if SOE really wants to allow people to play Planetside 2 in a way that is fun for them, they're going to have to address this concern.

As it stands now, infantry and MAX units can be spawned infinitely and without a meaningful cooldown, while vehicles have both a long cooldown and a resource cost. If a person truly wants to do nothing other than operate a particular kind of vehicle they will be forced to have down time that infantry loving players won't ever have. Not only is that an unfair advantage, it also goes against what Planetside 2 is supposed to be about.

As a solution, I put forward the following two possibilities:

1. Make a Driver Class

Access to this class is unlocked by spending Cert points in it.
Unlocking this class causes all other classes to cost resources and have cooldowns to use.
Pistol.
Repair Tool.
1 Gound and 1 Air vehicle of choice does not cost resources and has no cooldown. 24 hour cooldown to change choices.
50% Resource cost reduction on vehicles.


OR

2. Allow Engineers to specialize as drivers via cert trade offs.

All of these only apply when playing as Engineer.
Trade the turret for 50% reduction in resource cost on all vehicles.
Trade rifle for the choice of 1 vehicle that will not have cooldown.
Trade the ACE for the choice of 1 vehicle that will not have cooldown.
Trade the ammo resupply for an additional 50% resource cost reduction on upto 2 specialized vehicles (requires at least one of the rifle or ACE trade offs), but also causes all other classes to cost resources.


I am sure that these aren't perfect ideas, but I think the general principle of them would allow the two preferred play styles to be on equal footing.

[IgloGlass]

Well engineers are already the best drivers? They just pop out of their tank and heal it. Arguably they are better pilots than Light Assaults, definetely better Galaxy pilots.

Add some implants that decrease the cooldown to five minutes like in TB's video, plus some skill, and you should be able to have indefinite vehicles.

[Renegadeknight]

Think the engineer one sounds like a better idea. Adding another class seems less practical than using an existing class. Not sure about the making classes cost resources/time however, since these would be class customization that could be add and removed.

edit-

I like where you are going with this but it may be getting to "complex" for the audience they are wanting to attract. And don't get me wrong I am not one of them but I do see plenty about. I wish the game has some deep RGP-esque elements but unfortunately casuals are the direction of our time.
I wouldn't say that. They had already said that there will be class customization where you can trade one advantage for another, so this isn't too far of a stretch.

[Comet]

What you want is supplied via certs into vehicles.

[Tatwi]

Think the engineer one sounds like a better idea. Adding another class seems less practical than using an existing class. Not sure about the making classes cost resources/time however, since these would be class customization that could be add and removed.

edit-

I wouldn't say that. They had already said that there will be class customization where you can trade one advantage for another, so this isn't too far of a stretch.

I think the Engineering one is better too, but I thought I'd throw both out there for comparison. When it comes to making thoughtful trade offs through the cert system, I don't the ones I put forward for Engineers are too outlandish. I mean, you're giving up something to get access to something else that is just as useful in a different context. So I think that works as the cert system is intended.

As for making that ultimate trade off, that super specialization choice of making two of your vehicles free at the cost of making all your other classes cost resources, I think that's exactly the kind of decision a dedicate driver/pilot would be willing to make, because it's fair and helpful for them. Really, it just turns the tables around, making infantry work like vehicles for the people that choose this deep specialization. And people wouldn't have to take it, but it would be there for those who really want it.

[RoninOni]

#1: Engineers are already the best drivers.

#2: Team up with a buddy. You can spawn a Faction tank and he guns. When you die HE spawns a Faction tank and YOU gun. When you die again, if your faction tank is still on CD, then you spawn in 2 lightnings.

#3: The resource cost is supposed to be part of the whole economic territory system. If you can't afford a vehicle, you can always join a crew as a gunner and repairer. I do think MAXes should actually have a minor resource cost as well, but not really significant. Just enough to make them want to run in crews taking turns as engineers.

#4: There are already certs to reduce Cooldown durations on vehicles. Confirmed in game, I believe in a video interview, and shown in some scene while showing off their customization menus.

#5: You'll get natural resource drip even offline... so unless you play a LOT you should be able to make fairly regular use of vehicles UNLESS you waste them heedlessly. If you DO play a lot, then you could always purchase a resource boosting implant once in a while to support the game you love to play so much :)

[Tatwi]

#1: Engineers are already the best drivers.

#2: Team up with a buddy. You can spawn a Faction tank and he guns. When you die HE spawns a Faction tank and YOU gun. When you die again, if your faction tank is still on CD, then you spawn in 2 lightnings.

#3: The resource cost is supposed to be part of the whole economic territory system. If you can't afford a vehicle, you can always join a crew as a gunner and repairer. I do think MAXes should actually have a minor resource cost as well, but not really significant. Just enough to make them want to run in crews taking turns as engineers.

#4: There are already certs to reduce Cooldown durations on vehicles. Confirmed in game, I believe in a video interview, and shown in some scene while showing off their customization menus.

#5: You'll get natural resource drip even offline... so unless you play a LOT you should be able to make fairly regular use of vehicles UNLESS you waste them heedlessly. If you DO play a lot, then you could always purchase a resource boosting implant once in a while to support the game you love to play so much :)

There is very little I can say in reply to this post, but quite a lot that needs to be said. However, I can say with certainty that #1 does nothing at all to help people who want to pilot single person vehicles or galaxies / sunderers as their main occupation.

The real thrust of the issue is this:

When a friendly kills an infantry unit, because he thinks it's funny, the infantry unit can respawn for free instantly. When a friendly kills a vehicle unit, the vehicle unit gets locked out of their chosen play style for at least 5 minutes, but possibly hours if his faction does not have access to many resources. All because someone thought it would be funny or lag happened or *insert thing beyond the person's control here*.

In this light, people who genuinely couldn't care less about the infantry game, but love the vehicle game are secondary citizens in Planetside 2. And for no logical reason really - the game is about "massive combined arms combat on an epic scale" not just "Battlefield: SOE Edition", right?

[Comet]

Tatwi, it's a matter of game balance. The changes you're wanting to see are broad and would mean other changes would have to be made at the core of the game.

The system is just fine the way it is. I am a dedicated pilot/driver and the system works just great. You're going to lose vehicles to friendly fire and lag, it happens.

Comparing infantry to vehicles isn't an accurate comparison as they're both very diferent in how they function and what they're capable of.

If all you want to do is pilot/drive (like me), I'll say it again, use your certs properly and you'll be just fine.

[Tatwi]

If all you want to do is pilot/drive (like me), I'll say it again, use your certs properly and you'll be just fine.

Wait for your beta invitation before coming to that conclusion. :groovy:

[Comet]

Right...

[sgtbjack]

What you want is supplied via certs into vehicles.

This

You can use your certs to reduce the cooldowns.

And no, I do not want engineers to be able to auto spawn tanks for free, than this game will be WoT's. Tanks are stronger than infantry or max units, if you can auto spawn, with no resource cost, than the game will be unbalanced. Unless you want to give infantry a gun that fires tank rounds, or a jet back and the ability to complete bombing runs.

Of course if they do implement the changes you want, then I'm just going to kamikazee ships into people all day. No sense in using tactics anymore.

[Comet]

Exactly sgtbjack.

[RoninOni]

There is very little I can say in reply to this post, but quite a lot that needs to be said. However, I can say with certainty that #1 does nothing at all to help people who want to pilot single person vehicles or galaxies / sunderers as their main occupation.

*PILOTS* will have a very similar option... team up and use alternating lib timers and their own fighter spawns when they're up. All fighter craft CDs are ticking? Run some Gal duty.

For the record I will be primarily a vehicle player myself, and I've already planned to do this with various friends... knowing that there will be timers we'll be working on. My G13 is even set to count down those timers so I can monitor them while were out and about.


The real thrust of the issue is this:

When a friendly kills an infantry unit, because he thinks it's funny, the infantry unit can respawn for free instantly. When a friendly kills a vehicle unit, the vehicle unit gets locked out of their chosen play style for at least 5 minutes, but possibly hours if his faction does not have access to many resources. All because someone thought it would be funny or lag happened or *insert thing beyond the person's control here*.

In this light, people who genuinely couldn't care less about the infantry game, but love the vehicle game are secondary citizens in Planetside 2. And for no logical reason really - the game is about "massive combined arms combat on an epic scale" not just "Battlefield: SOE Edition", right?

The better solution to this is to make the vehicles worth the investment.... Their cost is directly relative to their value on the battlefield. If their value isn't worth the cost, then they need to increase the value or reduce the cost.

MAXes make a pretty damn decent backup Infantry class for people who like tanking for that matter.

[FortySe7en]

MAx's will have cooldown. Its beta, chill out bros.

[VikingKong]

Isn't that what these jobbies are for?
http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/Vanguard_Specialist

[Dkamanus]

UNless I'm worng, people will be able to certify to be better vehicle users. A Class that might go well with that is the engineer, with, maybe, some sort of certificate that grants passive armor regeneration over time for vehicles he drives.

[RoninOni]

UNless I'm worng, people will be able to certify to be better vehicle users. A Class that might go well with that is the engineer, with, maybe, some sort of certificate that grants passive armor regeneration over time for vehicles he drives.
???


NO ARMOR REGEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


UUGGGH I could SHOOT DICE for adding that.

[VikingKong]

Someone's in for a disappointment...

[Tatwi]

Someone's in for a disappointment...

So sad, the way this forum has gone in the last few months. Real waste of Hamma's bandwidth in a lot of cases.

I brought this topic up to sort play devil's advocate, because I sympathized with the person who I quoted in my original post. His point of view was one I had not seen before, but really it makes perfect sense - he'd rather play the opposite way, where vehicles are the focus and infantry are costly things on cooldowns that he could do if he chose. I think that's a concept worth discussing, but I guess we'll just have to confine such discussions to other forums for now...

[Comet]

I'd say the OP's suggestion was discussed in this thread.

[Dkamanus]

The idea of a vehicle driver is to drive the vehicle on which he specializes better. More armour, stronger punch, better functionality, etc. I didn't know there was such a thing in battlefield 3, but I wouldn't want an uber armour Regen. Something small so the driver actually is focusing on driving. Out better teamwork though I'd like to see how people will cope with some tks thanks to lack of attention on the part of the tank driver, squishing the engineer behind his tank, repairing it.

It isn't mandatory, if there isn't such a thing in planetside1, them there shouldn't be one in ps2. Just pointing out that there are "driver" specialization.

[Lord Paladin]

So sad, the way this forum has gone in the last few months. Real waste of Hamma's bandwidth in a lot of cases.

I brought this topic up to sort play devil's advocate, because I sympathized with the person who I quoted in my original post. His point of view was one I had not seen before, but really it makes perfect sense - he'd rather play the opposite way, where vehicles are the focus and infantry are costly things on cooldowns that he could do if he chose. I think that's a concept worth discussing, but I guess we'll just have to confine such discussions to other forums for now...

I hear you, and I feel for him (dedicated Gal pilot here), and I'll be sad when I can't afford my next Gal, but that doesn't make his solution a good one. Vehicles need to remain as they are otherwise there's all sorts of problems (Some of which have been discussed). I appreciate his desire (as I share it to an extent) but that doesn't meant it would make for a good game.

[RoninOni]

So sad, the way this forum has gone in the last few months. Real waste of Hamma's bandwidth in a lot of cases.

I brought this topic up to sort play devil's advocate, because I sympathized with the person who I quoted in my original post. His point of view was one I had not seen before, but really it makes perfect sense - he'd rather play the opposite way, where vehicles are the focus and infantry are costly things on cooldowns that he could do if he chose. I think that's a concept worth discussing, but I guess we'll just have to confine such discussions to other forums for now...

As been pointed out by myself and others, the BIGGEST concern and his biggest requested feature (reducing cooldowns on vehicles) is already in the game as a certification (and not tied to a class).

Engineer IS the driver class... Engineer or Light Assault are the pilot classes (depending whether you want disposable aircraft and be able to bail, or the ability to land and repair). A separate, mega nerfed class that can't do anything else wouldn't make drivers/vehicles any better.

Also... it would make ZERO sense for infantry to cost resource and vehicles to be free........................ :huh:

[Nordan]

I don't know, afaik there are still certs for vehicles. So in the end by creating a driver/pilot class the only thing you really do is adding a no-cooldown function. Anyone who wants to play with vehicles for a while will just switch over to their pilot class and blast away, and then switch back to their favourite infantry class when they are done.

Cooldowns need to exist for the sole reason that vehicles are so incredibly powerful, and it would feel pretty pointless to blow up a tank knowing it will be back in just 1-2 minutes.

???


NO ARMOR REGEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


UUGGGH I could SHOOT DICE for adding that.

Haha, chill man. This is the future so armour regen actually makes sense. Them nanites man, them nanites.

[VikingKong]

So sad, the way this forum has gone in the last few months. Real waste of Hamma's bandwidth in a lot of cases.
Uh... yeah... That was meant for the post above. Guess I should have quoted. D:

[GTGreywolf]

Cooldowns need to exist for the sole reason that vehicles are so incredibly powerful, and it would feel pretty pointless to blow up a tank knowing it will be back in just 1-2 minutes.
This is pretty much the point of vehicle and MAX cooldowns, exactly.

Planetside, at it's core, is a first person shooter infantry game. You can't cap bases, you can't build defenses, you can't heal or repair your fellow soldiers from inside a tank. The tank is there for mobility, to press an offense, and to defend against the enemies heavier resources.

They want you to be able to lose your tank and not be able to recover another one immediately. One of the core aspects of the flow of the game is the ability to break an enemy advance by depriving them of vehicle accessibility, otherwise you'd just get non-stop waves of tanks, planes and other vehicles.

That said, Planetside is a team-based game. Team, in this instance, meaning the factions. One or a very small number of people can make a significant difference in a battle (well placed OS, well-timed hack, taking down a gen, disabling a vehicle pad/spawn tubes, etc), but the majority of the game is based around the concept that you'll still have dozens of other people on your team who can do something that you, at that immediate moment, cannot do. That's where the balance comes in.

[EVILPIG]

OP seems to have missed that vehicles are much more powerful than an infantryman. That is why they have a cooldown and resource cost. So, OP wants to be able to just spawn tank after tank, even if he just keeps throwing them to the wind?

[RoninOni]

Uh... yeah... That was meant for the post above. Guess I should have quoted. D:

I know what you mean now... w/e.

Anyways, my points I already made in this thread still stand.

There ARE certs, (confirmed in publicly available streams), to reduce the wait on these vehicles... AND you can alternate between single man and crewed vehicles in order to also get around the timers.


If you're running out of resources because you keep dying too fast, then that's part of the game. Sorry. All I can say is get better and make em last longer so you aren't burning your resources faster than you can gain them. You might consider having a couple chars on different servers in this case, so you can earn resource trickle while playing on the other account

[sgtbjack]

So sad, the way this forum has gone in the last few months. Real waste of Hamma's bandwidth in a lot of cases.

I brought this topic up to sort play devil's advocate, because I sympathized with the person who I quoted in my original post. His point of view was one I had not seen before, but really it makes perfect sense - he'd rather play the opposite way, where vehicles are the focus and infantry are costly things on cooldowns that he could do if he chose. I think that's a concept worth discussing, but I guess we'll just have to confine such discussions to other forums for now...

Thats a tad bit melodramatic in a thread where no one has been overly rude. I guess you feel that way cause no one is outright agreeing with your idea. I apologize, it happens, trust me, I post in favor for adding space combat and I get fragged a million ways from sunday, but I don't think this forum is a waste because of it, nor do I dislike the many that disagree with my ideas.

The problem with your idea, is your basically making all other classes utterly worthless. The tank, is the beast of the battlefield. The most brutal thing out there free and instant cast. Same with the air craft. When infantry spray, they don't kill other players, when a tank just blindly fires his massive noob tube into a building he gets three kills of infantry he can't even see. When a plane does a good bombing run, you'll see all sorts of +100 +110 +80 and so on, cause he's getting tons of AOE deaths.

If your friend got their way, nobody would play infantry, max, healer, engineer, or infilitrator because, well it would be a waste of time. You would die every 3 seconds to tank and plane aoe. Thats not really fun.

Of course I do disagree with one tank thing in game, and thats the c4 kill. I think thats a bit rediculous. The first c4 charge should just immobilize the tank(knocking the track off), but it should take about three charges to destroy a tank.

Plus if your a dedicated driver you can still drive pretty dedicated. If your tank gets blown up, switch to an aircraft, if thats still on cool down, jump in an apc(armored personel carrier), and so on.