Originally Posted by Helwyr
Having access to Scout Radar is trivial, it's cheap, readily available, and shared with everyone in your faction. There's no great player strategies going on here.
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Its not exactly shared with everyone. It only broadcasts to allies that are within the radar's range. Getting it to a comfortable, easily-used range is not cheap certs-wise, especially on ESF's whose mobility is also a hindrance to providing effective Scout Radar coverage to allies (at lower levels of the cert). It certainly isn't all-encompassing by any means.
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What does it add in terms of complexity in being able to see all your opponents on the minimap? This sort of implementation of radar mechanics is a pure reduction of player strategy choices. Seeing everyone on the mini map is the removal of player options and the impact of certain player skill on gameplay.
Radar is to a player's situational awareness, observation, and concealment/evasion skills as aimbots are to a player's twitch skills.
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It clarifies a fairly chaotic and constantly changing environment, these factors effectively being amplified in a game of PS2's scope. It makes the game more accessible, accelerating certain phases compared to IRL (e.g requires less manpower, or indeed none at all, to scout enemy positions or set up dedicated overwatch during battle). Such tasks are rather thankless in a game, despite being crucial. Radar exists for gameplay reasons and fit well considering PS2's F2P nature.
You can argue it dumbs down player skill, reducing the need for situational awareness, but its a question of point of view at the end of the day. There's already a lot going on, you still need to keep an eye out for the enemy on your minimap as well as your screen. I don't think it limits tactical choices, there's lots to play around with through Radar: it doesn't detect cloaked players; infiltrators have decoy grenades (their actual utility is subject for another thread); and the enemy can seek and destroy your radar assets as well as deploy their own. Plenty of tactics going on there IMO.
Besides, PS2 is set in the future! Even today's armies strive for such an advantage; knowing is half the battle.
I disagree strongly with the aimbot comparison, but once again it boils down to opinion. I'll maintain the gameplay argument as the strongest reason for Radar's existence in PS2 and other games. It makes them generally more fun and accessible. If you want more realism (and I enjoy this type of game too, when I have the time), PS2 is not the right game. I'll agree that the absence of Radar mechanics also definitely puts forward a player's skill in terms of situational awareness and tactics, though.
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I'm all for Intel gathering tools so long as there's counters, but in the end it should be a player's ability and the way they utilize that ability that has the largest outcome on game play... not game mechanic crutches like radar and aimbots that do all the work for the player.
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I would welcome counter-intelligence mechanics too. Once again, I don't see it as a crutch though, rather a tool (accessible to all) which can also show your skill.
As for rewarding the use of the Sensor Dart (along with the other forms of Radar), I also welcome the change. I believe it is an underutilised piece of equipment. The change in itself will not prove unfair in terms of XP gains IMO, the rates have already increased quite a bit with several changes that have gone through.
Just my opinions of course, thanks for reading.
2013-04-26, 05:31 PM
Hybrid Mode
