Phoenixes are back. Now it's time to cloak the AMS.

[Ruffdog]

Tomorrow will see a large shift for PlanetSide 2. One that cannot be undone: First-person-guided, anti-vehicle ordnance.
The Phoenix.

2 empires will suddenly find their AMS Sunderers have just entered a new level of vulnerability.

The Sunderer, it goes without saying in these large maps, is the King unit on the chessboard. It is ultimately what dictates battles, and so territory.
The Sunderer AMS is Planetside 2.

No unit will suffer as much against the Phoenix as the deployed Sundy and the TR and the VS are going to realise this.

There is no comparison to be drawn with air units eyeballing sundies in the current state of affairs. That air unit is a player right there in that space that can be destroyed and air units cost resources. Heavy Assault NC on the other hand will be able to scout with no risk and no resource cost. Admittedly getting a visual on a sundy will be incidental but the end outcome will be the same. The next rocket is going to the rear of the target.

I feel now is right to establish a cloaking system for deployed Sunderers for all empires.

[camycamera]

YES I WANT.

i remember seeing old PS1 vids of the cloaked sunderer, that was pretty cool. getting close to it reveals it though, as it is in an invisible bubble, making it balanced, somewhat. hopefully it isn't too OP though. and there should be a slight shimmer for the bubble.

[Gonefshn]

I don't think the AMS is going to be in any more trouble from this change. That said, I agree the cloak bubble needs to be there. But it should have been there a while ago.

I'd be more worried about the lancer since it will be impossible to dodge and has no way to see it coming. Imagine 6 players all firing a charged lancer bolt at the same time. Instant dead with the chance to avoid it.

At least you can avoid a Phoenix missile.

[Chewy]

I don't think the AMS is going to be in any more trouble from this change. That said, I agree the cloak bubble needs to be there. But it should have been there a while ago.

I'd be more worried about the lancer since it will be impossible to dodge and has no way to see it coming. Imagine 6 players all firing a charged lancer bolt at the same time. Instant dead with the chance to avoid it.

At least you can avoid a Phoenix missile.

That and it may not be possible to hit a sunderer behind cover if you don't get a perfect starting angle. Or one could stand at an end on an Amp station and hit a parked sundy on the other side of the base. That demo stream didn't show much of anything to what the phoenix can do other than hitting a rock.

[Snipefrag]

yeah, I would love to see it make a return.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[Baneblade]

Lets see what they can do before we bitch, shall we?

[bpostal]

Lets see what they can do before we bitch, shall we?

Can't we bitch just a LITTLE bit?

Although to be honest it takes a bit of work on the player's part to ensure they leave the cloak bubble at an angle/area that is unseen from the enemy. My guess is that most players aren't going to give a god damn. Thus cloaked AMSs are going to be just about as easy to find (active ones at least) by following the stream of players backwards to the honeypot of XP as they currently are.

[Koadster]

My max level blockade armour just became a whole lot better.

If you watched Higgles stream it was fairly hard to move the missile unless your pretty much in LOS.

[Baneblade]

The Phoenix is a massive buff to enemy snipers.

[Artimus]

Can't we bitch just a LITTLE bit?

Although to be honest it takes a bit of work on the player's part to ensure they leave the cloak bubble at an angle/area that is unseen from the enemy. My guess is that most players aren't going to give a god damn. Thus cloaked AMSs are going to be just about as easy to find (active ones at least) by following the stream of players backwards to the honeypot of XP as they currently are.

You may be suprised at how hard it is to track down a clocked sundy at least in PS1 it was somewhat of a bitch to find even with the stream of soldiers. EMP's were a big help though; I hope they bring those back. As far as the NC launcher goes.. I did not catch the stream but I would imagine they would be the most underpowered and the VS one being top dog. TR's I would guess would be most effective in groups of people spamming them (which is what the TR were known for).

[Stanis]

TR & VC will just become adept at finding features/terrain that block the Pheonix.


Since both Striker (Lock) and Lancer (Direct Fire) requires Line of Sight - the NC will be doing the same with slightly different criteria.



Cloaking bubbles for AMS and engineer deployable would be great to have.
I think they'll need to enhance the Interlink / Radar / Intel metagame with radar before they introduce stealth.

[Corvo]

TR's I would guess would be most effective in groups of people spamming them (which is what the TR were known for).

Let's not make biased assumptions, shall we? It reminds me of people bitching in /y about NC/TR/VS "being known for" hacking, griefing etc.

EDIT: Sorry mate, didn't realize you were probably talking about PS1 here :) Just had a bad day I guess *sigh*

Well anyway, I don't get it how TR's will be more effective in groups than the Lancer and the Phoenix. Any weapon used in large groups will be more effective than used by a single soldier, and both the NC and the VS have a bigger potential at raining death on unsuspecting targets since both of them don't give any warning except for the thud of a warhead impacting your armor a split second before you blow up. I think TR is at a disadvantage here since we are just getting another lock-on launcher that people already have working tactics against. It's no game-changer, it doesn't bring anything new. The Phoenix and the Lancer do.

[HiroshiChugi]

Is it just me, or do Striker Ambushes sound a little like the Stinger Nests (I think that's what they're called) in C&C Generals and C&C Generals: Zero Hour? :D

[Qwan]

I look at it like this, if this optically guided missle can do a 90 degree turn then Ill start to worry about it. But two things that are a disadvantage, one your exposed, two you dont see whats going on around your charactor. Granted if your siting on a hill firing at a tank, he can see you as well, lets not forget near misses will cause you to move, and jerk around. I believe it balances itself out a little, but we will see in the game. Its the TR one im workied about, 5 round, magazine feed, rocket launcher, talk about rocket spam from hell, imagine 3 heavy assaults standing on a wall with these things, :scared: it just aint right man.

[bpostal]

You may be suprised at how hard it is to track down a clocked sundy at least in PS1 it was somewhat of a bitch to find even with the stream of soldiers. EMP's were a big help though; I hope they bring those back...

Yeah, Jammers would be nice. As I recall though most of the times it wasn't that difficult. If you lost the CY then there was typically one back by the NTU silo, one back behind the vpad (always next to a stairwell) and the NC liked to park one just outside one of the gates like we weren't going to notice everyone pouring around the corner into the CY.

If the AMS is outside, like back behind the BD then you could identify where most of the players were foot zerging from, infil your happy ass out there to confirm the position and mark it for an OS.

Cloaked AMSs would be nice, but I don't think they'd solve much.

The one caveat I will add to that though is that of course it does make inactive or backup AMSs much harder to find as they're not in use and thus don't have the ant stream to follow.

[VaderShake]

Tomorrow will see a large shift for PlanetSide 2. One that cannot be undone: First-person-guided, anti-vehicle ordnance.
The Phoenix.

2 empires will suddenly find their AMS Sunderers have just entered a new level of vulnerability.

The Sunderer, it goes without saying in these large maps, is the King unit on the chessboard. It is ultimately what dictates battles, and so territory.
The Sunderer AMS is Planetside 2.

No unit will suffer as much against the Phoenix as the deployed Sundy and the TR and the VS are going to realise this.

There is no comparison to be drawn with air units eyeballing sundies in the current state of affairs. That air unit is a player right there in that space that can be destroyed and air units cost resources. Heavy Assault NC on the other hand will be able to scout with no risk and no resource cost. Admittedly getting a visual on a sundy will be incidental but the end outcome will be the same. The next rocket is going to the rear of the target.

I feel now is right to establish a cloaking system for deployed Sunderers for all empires.

Typical facist response before and issue is an issue, lets speculate and make changes to make everyone else "safe" without evidense there is an issue or without having to try and think or use new tactics to overcome change. Change everything for me so I don't have to change myself......


That said if it is an issue then there can be reasonable changes made to to the Phoenix and the Sundy that make sense within context of the game, cloaking the sundy is not one of them.

[psijaka]

@OP - The AMS Sunderer is by far the most powerful outpost capturing unit in the game, and you want to make it even more of a battle winner by being able to cloak it?

No thanks; bases are hard enough to defend as it is.

Edit - and you want to make these changes to counter a weapon that has yet to be introduced!

[Sonny]

Bqsed on Higby's ESL preview, I really doubt that Phoenix's will be a big issue in terms of being able to bend rockets around barriers to hit enemy AMSes. I don't think they have the same manoeuverability as they did in PS 1.

Although I may eat my words. Let's give it a week and see.

[LayZ]

The Phoenix is a massive buff to enemy snipers.

Can't wait :D

[Crator]

Create a new vehicle called the AMS, breaking it off of the Sundy.

The new AMS only vehicle should have these features:


No weapons

Cloak bubble *Deploying enables cloak bubble.

Low profile chassis with greater max speed and good turning. Not so good torque. *Can be upgraded with certs.

Very light armor *With option to upgrade against certain things like mines via certs.

None or 1 passenger seat *With option to upgrade via certs

Pretty high cert cost *This would be the one vehicle that not everyone has. You would have to purchase it with certs or SC to be able to use it. This is to limit the amount in the field.




Should have been like this a from the beginning.

[Bear]

Since the NC missile can be shot down I'd anticipate it being a lot less OP than many fear.

[Thunderhawk]

I don't see this as being a problem more so than having line of sight.

You cannot control the Pheonix round bends in a way to make it overpowered, and so the TR and VS will adapt.

Lets see it in game on a mass scale before starting to cry Nerf.

(also I dont see it in functionality that different to Engie AV turrets, and so I am not that concerned ....yet)

[Forsaken One]

Well to be fair the Phoenix in PS1 was retarded.

It was annoying to use and you had to learn to be good with it.

and the end result of gaining skill with it is that you became just pure annoying and it felt retarded just dealing with such users.


I'd honestly rather have flails then the Phoenix. The Phoenix is the embodiment of what shouldn't exist in games. "Annoying to use/learn, just to be F#$%ing annoying to other people who you use it on." aka, playing/useing it is a pain in the ass and having it used on you is a pain in the ass.

games should be about fun.

[Thunderhawk]

Can you fire the Phoenix out of Spawn room shields ? - I could see an issue with that

[Hamma]

Lets see what they can do before we bitch, shall we?

No.

Nerf the Lancer.

Wait what are we talking about?

[Sturmhardt]

This is not gonna be worse than suicide engies.

.sent via phone.

[VaderShake]

Tomorrow will see a large shift for PlanetSide 2. One that cannot be undone: First-person-guided, anti-vehicle ordnance.
The Phoenix.

2 empires will suddenly find their AMS Sunderers have just entered a new level of vulnerability.

The Sunderer, it goes without saying in these large maps, is the King unit on the chessboard. It is ultimately what dictates battles, and so territory.
The Sunderer AMS is Planetside 2.

No unit will suffer as much against the Phoenix as the deployed Sundy and the TR and the VS are going to realise this.

There is no comparison to be drawn with air units eyeballing sundies in the current state of affairs. That air unit is a player right there in that space that can be destroyed and air units cost resources. Heavy Assault NC on the other hand will be able to scout with no risk and no resource cost. Admittedly getting a visual on a sundy will be incidental but the end outcome will be the same. The next rocket is going to the rear of the target.

I feel now is right to establish a cloaking system for deployed Sunderers for all empires.

So now that people are trying the launchers and saying how bad the Phoenix sucks, the Lancer is meh, and the TERRAN REPUBLIC STRIKER IS OP, Penny for your thoughts???

BTW TR Propaganda much?

[Ruffdog]

So now that people are trying the launchers and saying how bad the Phoenix sucks, the Lancer is meh, and the TERRAN REPUBLIC STRIKER IS OP, Penny for your thoughts???

BTW TR Propaganda much?

I was wary of a PS1 Phoenix repeat because I had a real axe to grind with that fucker. It was Easy Mode for the NC and every universal soldier had one.
But this thing; I can see it's destroyable, it's bright blue in flight, and I can't comment on controls because of a bug that doesn't let me enter camera mode.

I will say, people had high expectations for the Phoenix and the Lancer because they are new-style weapons to this game. They wanted super-weapons, that would get nerfed in 2 weeks, such as been the SOE way. So an UP gun has made people cry much, much more. People knew the Striker was always going to be Annihilator v2.0, so expectations were tempered. Anything which takes more skill and practice to use properly is goin to seem to "suck hard" like you say people say.

There's some attributes to fix but its still a large change to the game, you cannot dispute this. One empire out of three just got a flying spy camera with explosives attached to it. AMS XP piñatas just got easier to find. NC will get a big defence buff when this settles down. So offence will get harder for TR and VS. Can't you follow things through?


That said if it is an issue then there can be reasonable changes made to to the Phoenix and the Sundy that make sense within context of the game, cloaking the sundy is not one of them.
Let me ask you this: Why not have a cloaked AMS?

[VaderShake]

Let me ask you this: Why not have a cloaked AMS?


The AMS does not need cloaked, some more defense options to cert to.. sure (reactive shield plates round the outside, force shield, heavier armor plate, lock-on disrupter, hologram decoy, sure whatever) Invisible....no.

AMS's are pretty cheap for everyone to cert to and pretty much a limitless asset when playing with some coordination with your squad taking turns spawning them, to cloak them would make it more difficult to realize where the enemy is coming from and also give smaller no-coordinating units a stronger weapon making defense much more difficult than it already is.

[Hmr85]

I would have no issues with the cloaked AMS making a return. They where not hard to find in PS1. I can't imagine they would be any harder to find in PS2. Just look for the stream of soldiers pouring out and follow them back to the AMS.

[CzuukWaterson]

Tomorrow will see a large shift for PlanetSide 2. One that cannot be undone: First-person-guided, anti-vehicle ordnance.
The Phoenix.

2 empires will suddenly find their AMS Sunderers have just entered a new level of vulnerability.

The Sunderer, it goes without saying in these large maps, is the King unit on the chessboard. It is ultimately what dictates battles, and so territory.
The Sunderer AMS is Planetside 2.

No unit will suffer as much against the Phoenix as the deployed Sundy and the TR and the VS are going to realise this.

There is no comparison to be drawn with air units eyeballing sundies in the current state of affairs. That air unit is a player right there in that space that can be destroyed and air units cost resources. Heavy Assault NC on the other hand will be able to scout with no risk and no resource cost. Admittedly getting a visual on a sundy will be incidental but the end outcome will be the same. The next rocket is going to the rear of the target.

I feel now is right to establish a cloaking system for deployed Sunderers for all empires.

How about something that isn't rampant speculation?

[Ruffdog]

How about something that isn't rampant speculation?

What exactly is speculative about saying a static spawn point is now more at risk because of camera guided missiles?