Minefields

[Figment]

How many of you used mines in a minefield?


Note, a minefield is a FIELD filled with mines. I'm not asking if you layed a mine once, particularly not if you layed it under a tank that was already there. I'm asking if you created a minefield once. I'm not talking about Cfou... Boomers either.

So in the order of filling 20 square meters with mines would be a start. A small start, but a start nonetheless. Have you?

Next question, have you in fact ever filled more than 2 square meters with mines in PS2 thusfar?

Please state your reasons why. How practical and effective it has been for you so far and how often you've encountered mines at all and which type and in which environment and context (how many enemies present, time pressure, etc. Anything of relevance you can think of).

[Traak]

Mines? That has been seeming billions of Auraxibucks from being anywhere near being in reach. I've only once been able to even cert enough to get a repair Sundy. It's hard to critique a game where even the most basic stuff like being able to afford a Sunderer with AMS would take weeks of playing.

Here's my suggestion: Sony. Make all certifications available for anyone. How can we test stuff that is four billion Station Bribes from happening, or would take two hundred years of playing to finally crawl up to the point of being able to use?

Mostly, I spend my time being run over by friendly tanks and vehicles, and being killed by enemies that have, somehow gotten BR12 while I'm still struggling to do support work to get up to 2.1.

Beta is stupidly set up. The way you test stuff is make everything available, not by making nothing available unless you play way longer than any beta has ever been active to get.

So far, beta has been a frustrating and un-fun slog where the good support stuff is light years away from even being able to be affordable. The support guys are punished non-stop. I understand that for most, it's a brainless splatter-fest. But for some, as in, not none, it's a game of support. And Sony has made support downright unprofitable and almost impossible to advance in this given time-frame.

[Mutant]

A while ago before the last character wipe i fully certed mines so i could place 4 at a time.

After saving up enough resource to buy 4 mines, which were 75? orange resources at the time i stuck them in a line across a busy-ish road in the hope that an enemy might cross it at some point.

I did this a few times but I never had a kill by just placing the mines on a road hoping something would come along later.

The only kills i have had with mines (and only a couple of kills) where when i was targeting a specific vehicle maneuvering near me.


I soon moved on from tank mines as the resource cost was way too high to try my luck.


I have no memory of ever getting hit by a mine myself.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Mine are removed if you swap classes from what I hear. I too played with them, no proximity limiter on them unlike the old ones and I don't know if you can refill and place more than 4 and I don't know if they're cheaper now that we've had the resource change.

I've gotten 1 kill with AV mines and it was an ATV I got by luck (and a bit of positioning).

The only anti-tank weapons in the game worth a damn at the moment are the HA rpgs which are all carbon copies of each other. (side note, if you're hunting tanks pick up the anti-air rpg because it goes faster. Has a little less damage but the speed bonus outweighs that)

Oh yeah, I hear the anti-tank nades the HA can get are really bad. Never managed to hit anything with them myself. (No emp nades yet either)

[Timealude]

I played with them a view times, I figure the reason they arent used more is because they do less damage then the old HEs and also we dont really have bridge choke points (that i have seen.) Maybe once they add some water on continents and buff the mines they might be a bit more useful.

[ringring]

I laid 2 mines ..... I'm guessing that doesn't count.

I know where you're coming from on this and I am in full agreement. Combat Engineer is a role that is absent to all intents and purposes.

If the Devs added this back in it would be a buff to infantry gameplay versus the tank zerg and it would allow outposts and bases to be fortified prior to an attack giving a buff to spec ops play.

All the devs would need to do is.

Allow more vehicle and personnel mines to be laid per person, I'm talking more than 10.
Mines should not decontruct on change of class (some other method, e.g. 30 minute timer, or forever while the person is on the continent with 15 minute timer if not)
Show friendly mines on the map.
Do not indicate any enemy within a base/outpost until the hack has commenced (to allow preparation time).
Cost should be rebalanced


Do it, and do it quickly so that the imapct can be tested while still in beta! :cool:

[PoisonTaco]

Mines should be permanent, limited only by resources.

Counter to mines? Have a new cert for each MBT:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/113/293235478_3fb286d0a5.jpg

[Hmr85]

I had mines a few times. I couldn't really do much due to only carrying 3. Gone are the days of laying enormous mine fields like in PS1. I haven't even bothered certing into them since the last wipe because they came across as worthless to me.

If they would up the damage slightly along with the quantity back to 20 then I would re-cert those bad boys again in a heartbeat. It would also help cut down on the armor spam we have been seeing.

[Crator]

Loved being a Combat Engi in PS1. The mine fields laid by players were large but so was the open landscape. It took knowledge to know where to lay the mine fields properly. And even then there was no guarantee someone would run over them or not see them and EMP. You often had to move your mines around the battlefield a lot as well.

Haven't seen much use in PS2 for them tbh. Not with the amount you can lay at one time and the fact that they disappear if you change classes. Too bad about that. Seems we actually had more diversity in role selection in PS1 as well. You could be a regular engineer that can only repair stuff but move further down the cert tree in engineer and become a combat engineer (with 2 different paths to choose from).

[ringring]

I will say I've been hit by mines twice.

The first time I was a passenger in a sundy which ran over 1 mine. There was a clang and a significant amount of damage, but it didn't really bother us.

The second was in a push on Indar. We were rolling south on the East side through a narrow canyon. It was quite a good fight tbh. The NC was defending the canyon hard and we could only get up by moving 2 tank side-by-side, which the the width of the pass, with engineers constantly repairing.

I got my tank through, as did the second front tank but immediately once we were through we hit mines. 2 took his tank out and thinking I was in the clear I moved forward but 2 more took out my tank.

However, all in all and despite that. Mines as they are now are not worth the effort.

[Figment]

Pretty much as expected. :/ bassically valued as an useless tool right now.

[Soothsayer]

Yeah, I used them in tech test a little bit, had about three out at once. I got a random bit of XP once or twice and it was mines. The placement was of zero tactical value, in that there was no purpose above and beyond getting a veh kill at some point in the night.

I stocked up on them but I found I could buy them faster than I could use them, which is a testament to their suck.

[maradine]

Have enough mines ever existed simultaneously in PS2 to warrant a field? I literally never see them, not counting the occasional betty at a cap point.

I like the idea of "as many as you can afford", but I have no idea how that would balance out. The passes into/out of the northern desert would be hell. Might be fun, though.

[Timealude]

Have enough mines ever existed simultaneously in PS2 to warrant a field? I literally never see them, not counting the occasional betty at a cap point.

I like the idea of "as many as you can afford", but I have no idea how that would balance out. The passes into/out of the northern desert would be hell. Might be fun, though.

It would actually involve planning to set up those mines as well as to find a way around them.

[Raka Maru]

We need lots of them..I would like to be able to cert 25 like in PS1 and not have them disappear or go neutral if I died. I would like to also pick them back up, they cost money and they are not grenades.

Was having a good hour with them one night when we had certs galore. I had a 5 kill steak by having a sunderer nearby and laying them down on the hill to the crown. Very situational indeed.

[Crator]

Wait, they disappear when you die? I thought as long as you kept the Engi class, when dieing and re-spawning back as an Engi, your CE stayed.

[Hmr85]

Prior to the wipe my mines stayed when I died. ( I haven't certed back into mines since). The only time they disappeared on me was when I swapped classes. Which imo is extremely annoying. I also agree they need to increase the amount of mines back to 25 and provide the bar for engys that we had in PS1 so we could keep track of how many we have down.

[Raka Maru]

Would really like to test them more, but gotta get certed again. I think they disappear when you switch classes and go neutral when you die. I remember getting a TK from one after I died, but they may have done something else to set it off, like a grenade thrown near it by an enemy. I know one blew and killed me, but that was my fault.

What I stated in the above thread, however, is how I would like them to function.

[PredatorFour]

Fairly sure i heard Higgers say in an agn ages ago that they were annoyed about random mines in the original so they were going to do something about it( driving across a cont to get killed by a mine/ no player kill). Well this is a warzone,there is going to be stray mines everywhere. I hope they increase it back to 20. I might thenbe able to do something i loved doing in PS 1 actually in PS 2.

[Figment]

There were no random mines in the original. If you died by driving over mines somewhere on the continent, that's because someone predicted there'd be enemies driving there at some point.

That's the entire point of mines having been placed there! :/


Mines aren't like bullets: they require planning and quantity so they can activate passively, rather than a spontaneous trigger with precision aimed quality.


Besides, the person who drives over mines should have paid more attention to where that person was driving. Maybe that's the real issue though: they knew people don't pay attention to driving if they're firing at the same time, so they didn't want to punish that too much, thus lowering the need for driver's situational awareness? Probably a bit far fetched.

On top of that, because they reduced the quantity so much, they had to up the damage these mines deal on an individual basis. That's dumb.

Tbh, I'm under the impression they based the amount of things you can carry and place on Call of Duty.

[Gugabalog]

There were no random mines in the original. If you died by driving over mines somewhere on the continent, that's because someone predicted there'd be enemies driving there at some point.

That's the entire point of mines having been placed there! :/


Mines aren't like bullets: they require planning and quantity so they can activate passively, rather than a spontaneous trigger with precision aimed quality.


Besides, the person who drives over mines should have paid more attention to where that person was driving. Maybe that's the real issue though: they knew people don't pay attention to driving if they're firing at the same time, so they didn't want to punish that too much, thus lowering the need for driver's situational awareness? Probably a bit far fetched.

On top of that, because they reduced the quantity so much, they had to up the damage these mines deal on an individual basis. That's dumb.

Tbh, I'm under the impression they based the amount of things you can carry and place on Call of Duty.

I agree with your last sentence, and am disgusted by the mere possibility they did.

[ringring]

Imagine you and your matges are in an outpost and you see a platoon of tanks approaching. If you have CE you could potentially fortify your baselette and while the tanks are dealing with your mines you could open up with guided rockets.

The experience of defending and attacking would be improved no end, imho.

(Especially if we could lay 'traps'.)

[Captain1nsaneo]

In a rapid departure from the topic...

I agree with your last sentence, and am disgusted by the mere possibility they did.

Feels more BF limits than CoD. I'd just like the ability to lose my main weapon in exchange for vastly increased carrying capacity.

I know the devs are working hard but it seems like they're aiming for the market that would normally play BF or CoD which is ignoring that both those games have been shedding their older communities and have needed to produce new content on a yearly basis.

Something that points to that for me is that there aren't really different roles in PS2. There are different classes but the roles in the game really only have 1 major difference, do you prefer vehicles or infantry? Everything is the game is focused towards killing other players as its primary objective. The only exceptions to this are the Sunderer and Galaxy. There's nothing for infiltrators to do besides kill; engineers, medics both are focused more towards killing with a minor in healing. The multiple choice of combat rarely has more than 2 options and one is normally the better. This extends to the strategic level when looking where to take a squad as the plethora of choke points plus a little knowledge of troop locations simplify the question of "Where can I viably go?" into a very boring question.

The devs are wonderful people but we can't afford to be nice about these things. It's down right depressing looking at the limited scope that gameplay is being thought about. They are extremely competent in technical areas but the creativity for objectives makes me clench my teeth. I'd really hoped that they would take beta as a serious opportunity to really screw around with objectives and how they work as after beta they won't get the chance to just play around with systems, experiment, and get feed back on them in quick succession.

Quick examples of things that could be tested in beta: heavy flack turret powered by its own destructible generator, multiple spawn generators, multiple spawn points inside 1 base (designed for defenders not as beachheads), doors/gates varying in what they block and how they can be opened, alternate routes into bases besides the front door (Nott on Esamir I think has one, haven't been able to check out the bases there due to NC/no cloakers in game yet), access points into bases via vents or other time intensive routes that have multiple exits/entrances, capture the flag mechanics, UT assault mechanics (a -> b -> c linear progression for attackers that is difficult to reverse), holes that grenades can get through but players can't, and on the list goes.
If the number of ways to effectively approach a base can be counted on 1 hand, you have a problem.

(sorry this kind of snowballed once I started)