A new Engie Tool: The Shield

[thegreekboy]

So, we all know that grenade spam is a problem. It can wreck an entire defense, and it's skill-less and has no counter, especially with the awful resource system.

So, as a counter to this, I propose to you, the Engie Portable Shield.

Idea:

Basically, It's a shield that people can walk though but not throw grenades or shoot rockets through. It is about as large as 2 soldiers standing side by side, and is about as tall as the ceiling (on standard cookie-cutter buildings) minus a foot or two. SOE can monetize this.

Balancing Factors:

Once you deploy this, you are locked from setting up any other deployables. They also cost rescources. They can be destroyed by rockets or EMP grenades.

Upgrades:

There will be 4 tiers

Tier 1: Basic. Can deploy 1 shield and nothing else.

Tier 2: Can deploy 2 shields.

Tier 3: Can deploy 2 shields plus an ammo pack.

Tier 4: Can deploy 2 shields plus an ammo pack and a turret.

*****SMALL ARMS FIRE CAN PENETRATE THE SHIELD

[Pella]

Great idea. Promotes Anti spam.

This is the TR verient :P

http://i.imgur.com/eXf2s3X.png

[Sledgecrushr]

I love it

[Mooseay]

Bad idea to monetize. people who don't pay can't fight grenades leading to people grumbling about P2W. but as an addition sure but i think you should have to give up your turret or ammo pack though, specialize in defense. and will the shields be repairable or timer based?

allot of stuff has to be sorted out before putting something like that in the game, or anything in the game for that matter.

[Mietz]

If this shield can't be destroyed or has some kind of timer, this will be completely wreck any balance.

Place shield(s) at any entrance, behind shield place either:

A. If NC, Scatt Max
B. If not NC, Infantry Mines

Epic stalemate camping, all you did is move the spawn-room camp to another location.

If a shield should be introduced in any capacity, it needs to be a short burst of defensibility and mobile. Preferably for HA (or engineer, im ok with that too), and behave like a short-time bubble against projectiles and explosives to either push (MAX support) or escort (Medic, resecure, defense).

Ghost Recon Online has something like this called the AEGIS.
http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/screenshots/GhostReconOnline/GRO_Announce_AEGIS%20(Specialist%20Embargo).jpg

[Sledgecrushr]

I like the idea of shields. They should probably only last about five minutes and be destroyable. Other than that I think maybe light assaults should get it because there utility kind of sucks.

[Pella]

If this shield can't be destroyed or has some kind of timer, this will be completely wreck any balance.

Place shield(s) at any entrance, behind shield place either:

A. If NC, Scatt Max
B. If not NC, Infantry Mines

Epic stalemate camping, all you did is move the spawn-room camp to another location.

If a shield should be introduced in any capacity, it needs to be a short burst of defensibility and mobile. Preferably for HA (or engineer, im ok with that too), and behave like a short-time bubble against projectiles and explosives to either push (MAX support) or escort (Medic, resecure, defense).

Ghost Recon Online has something like this called the AEGIS.
http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/screenshots/GhostReconOnline/GRO_Announce_AEGIS%20(Specialist%20Embargo).jpg

Perhaps a Grenade? Something like the Halo one. Would work outside and in.

[Chewy]

I was thinking of another Mana deploy-able thing. Something of a 10 foot wide dome that blocks all fire from the outside yet not inside (like spawn room doors) but any person or armor can pass through it. Perks could be
A long cool-down between deploys
Time limited use
Repairable HP value
All damage to the shield hurts the emitter and the emitter itself takes 5X-10X damage when shot.
Can't be used at all without open space around the deploy site.

Cert options could either be to lower the deploy cool-down or longer use timer. Could also make the use timer linked to it's HP. If you don't repair and babysit the shield it will die (no XP gain from timer damage like not getting XP for repairing from friendly/self fire) at around the speed of a turret in a pain field.

More or less make it something that can ONLY be used outdoors for temp cover, ambushes, or AA nests. 1 shield could give a group time to regen their shields and pop shots at snipers or take on armor without HE rounds fucking their day, but a chain of shields with a few engies playing leapfrog can make approaching a base safe-ish against heavy resistance if they can keep the chain alive.

[Electrofreak]

In alpha, (I think at the E3 demo) there was a locked AEGIS (IIRC) deployable shield for the Medic, which makes more sense given they can use it specifically to protect themselves while they revive soldiers.

Given how much Engie already has going for them, this sounds like a much better alternative.

EDIT - Found it, but since I see it listed under the nano-healing ability for the Medic, it sounds like it does something to buff the medic's own shield.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=603&d=1339216679

BUT, I also found an Engie ACE blueprint for a Shield Generator:

http://www.hamma.ws/ntemp/Infantry/Engineer/EnginACE.jpg

Looks like SOE is a step ahead of us...

[Mietz]

Perhaps a Grenade? Something like the Halo one. Would work outside and in.

If the purpose of the shield would be to protect against grenade spam, like the OP states, why would you want a grenade to counteract it?

In GRO it works because grenades can be deployed in different ways, they can be thrown -and- rolled. A rolled grenade will go through the shield, a thrown one won't.

Rolled grenades are slower and harder to deploy, so it balances itself out.

Not to mention the main counter against AEGIS in GRO is Blitz, the soldiers ability to deploy a riot-shield and charge for a set amount of time.
Which incidentally is a similar ability to the MAX charge and would work perfectly fine as a hard counter for a similar AEGIS in PS2.

@Electrofreak

The problem with these solutions SOE had in alpha/beta was exactly the same the OP has, they are deployables and SOE is incredibly unwilling to add something that could potentially block entrances and be indestructible or impassable.

The idea of deployable cover has been around for a while around here.

[Ghoest9]

This is a bad idea.

There are tactics to deal with grenades.
This would just promote lazy dumb play even more.

[Electrofreak]

...

@Electrofreak

The problem with these solutions SOE had in alpha/beta was exactly the same the OP has, they are deployables and SOE is incredibly unwilling to add something that could potentially block entrances and be indestructible or impassable.

The idea of deployable cover has been around for a while around here.

Right, so why wouldn't it just work like base entrance shields, where it blocks weapons fire but can still be walked through? Just give them a use radius like deploying a Sunderer so they can't be used to an outrageous degree.

[Tatwi]

I love it

Agree, but I think it would be pretty epic if there was an alternate shield that functioned like so,

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/jaminsonmoses/jaminsonmoses1008/jaminsonmoses100800016/7544887-rodent-in-a-hamster-ball-wanting-to-go-down-gopher-hole-so-close-but-so-far-away.jpg

Would be pretty epic to roll with a platoon into the crater on Indar, inside a bunch of these! Pun intended. :lol:

[VaderDSL]

Would at least give EMP grenades a little more purpose if you could take down shields with them.

[Spazmodian]

I'd like shields to stop explosives only. Tank rounds, rockets, missiles, grenades, mortars, mines, basically anything that explodes will stop at the shield edge and detonate dealing damage to the shield and everything within range on the outside of the shield. Normal projectiles pass through the shield. As well infantry and vehicles have no collision with the shield. It would be maybe 7m wide by 5m tall parabolic dish that only covers on one side(a big rectangular shield might be easier for everything involved though). It would take the same slot as the turret does now. It works 2 ways, so explosives will detonate on the inside if you try to fire through it. I would give it 6000 health with no damage resistance, and repairable by an engineer.

[Laldy]

I'd rather the engy got a *****. It would be fun to dig trench lines and foxholes :p

Erk. Edit for profanity? Really? How about "manually operated and portable earth moving equipment", sometimes incorrectly referred to a shovel.

[Sifer2]

Guy above mentioned the problem already. If the ScatMAX remains like it is just put some of those behind the shield, and nothing is getting through there ever. One Engineer, and a ScatMAX can pretty much stall a whole attack group lol.

That shield generator cert in the pic might have been a deployable that speeds up shield regeneration for soldiers around it. In any case if they ever do add a deployable shield wall it should probably function the same as the turrets. Something that absorbs damage but can be destroyed. Honestly I love the idea of one of those for outdoors combat but it sounds too powerful for indoors.

[Mietz]

Right, so why wouldn't it just work like base entrance shields, where it blocks weapons fire but can still be walked through? Just give them a use radius like deploying a Sunderer so they can't be used to an outrageous degree.

Personally for me, there isn't any problem with the suggestion of impassable cover or deployable dome shields.

The problem still persists that with the current philosophy of PS2 those deployable shields, if indestructible from the outside, would make points too defensible according to the devs.
You could use them for example to close off holes in the base-design that the devs are unwilling to close, i.e. fuck around with the base defensibility which is supposed to remain static in the eyes of the dev (example: unshielded Amp-station entrances, Tower-holes, etc.).

Another consequence would be that these shields could be deployed to protect AMS Sunderers making any sort of long-range assault against them impossible.
Imagine if the Engi really got this tool.
I'd immediately start deploying these shields to protect my deployed Prowler from the rear for example.

The developers don't want this kind of defensibility because their game isn't balanced around this.

[Electrofreak]

Guy above mentioned the problem already. If the ScatMAX remains like it is just put some of those behind the shield, and nothing is getting through there ever. One Engineer, and a ScatMAX can pretty much stall a whole attack group lol.

That shield generator cert in the pic might have been a deployable that speeds up shield regeneration for soldiers around it. In any case if they ever do add a deployable shield wall it should probably function the same as the turrets. Something that absorbs damage but can be destroyed. Honestly I love the idea of one of those for outdoors combat but it sounds too powerful for indoors.

That's why you don't give the shield infinite health? It should only survive a clip or two of small arms fire or a rocket... put a reasonable cooldown on it and prevent them from being deployed too close to one another and the situation you described becomes a non-issue.

[thegreekboy]

This is a bad idea.

There are tactics to deal with grenades.
This would just promote lazy dumb play even more.

Please extrapolate on your point

[thegreekboy]

Right, so why wouldn't it just work like base entrance shields, where it blocks weapons fire but can still be walked through? Just give them a use radius like deploying a Sunderer so they can't be used to an outrageous degree.

I think that this shield should work, basically, as a "wall" to explosives. Rockets, grenades, thrown C4, etc, but gunfire and people can penetrate it.

EMP grenades would shut it down (that would actually be a pretty cool feature), and they can be destroyed, but they have a pretty high health and can be repaired by engineers.

Basically, think deployable SCU shields, minus the fact that you can't walk through it.

I'm opposed to the use radius because it severely limits the effectiveness of the shield as a defensive tool.