Destructable Environment

[Alox]

How destructible is the environment going to be?

I really love the way it is done in Battlefield, where you can shoot down trees, houses and make holes through walls.

I imagine that there can be some challenges with making this work in a persistent world without some scheme for repair/rebuild. But it will really add to the feeling of the battles - so heres for hoping that some destructibility will happen in Planetside 2.

[Volw]

Originally Posted by Alox

How destructible is the environment going to be?

I really love the way it is done in Battlefield, where you can shoot down trees, houses and make holes through walls.

I imagine that there can be some challenges with making this work in a persistent world without some scheme for repair/rebuild. But it will really add to the feeling of the battles - so heres for hoping that some destructibility will happen in Planetside 2.

That's not the biggest challenge. THE issue is writing a netcode capable of synchronising all of the destruction happening to all clients.

[Kietharr]

Not going to happen. If it was in, it's the sort of feature that would've been announced already. As the poster above me said, the netcode issues would be horrific.

[Lunarchild]

Well, they did say that anything player-created can be player-torn-down. So if an outfit put a tower somewhere, someone else can in fact destroy it ^^ But that's long term plans.

[Volw]

Originally Posted by Lunarchild

Well, they did say that anything player-created can be player-torn-down. So if an outfit put a tower somewhere, someone else can in fact destroy it ^^ But that's long term plans.

there is a 'slight' difference between being able to destroy something and being able to punch holes through buildings....

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Volw

there is a 'slight' difference between being able to destroy something and being able to punch holes through buildings....

Nope. Games that do destructible environments in multiplayer just use damage models. There is no simulated breakage of parts like the digital molecular matter, just the mesh swaps. The damage is identical to everyone, and identical every time its damaged. The particle effects/rubble are different depending on settings, but those are just graphical only.

Breakable walls would be little different than a door.

It would not be a network issue unless there was a lot of it. It is, however, a big content creation issue, as well as a balancing issue.

Craters can be done pretty easy too. Heightmap alteration. Just slap a decal there and it changes.

[ShowNoMercy]

a destructible environmental wouldn't work in a game that has unlim ammo

[Traak]

Originally Posted by ShowNoMercy

a destructible environmental wouldn't work in a game that has unlim ammo

Yeah, it would because it still uses up the most precious commodity in Planetside: time.

[MgFalcon]

I could a shitstorm of lag if all the environment was destructible, nevermind all the explosions and gunfire and laZerZ, and pew pew, and explosions!

[PsychoXR-20]

10 minutes after the game launched the world would be in ruins, there would be no more tree, no more walls, no more buildings.

How would you handle re-spawning of world objects? Do tree grow back slowly? Do they just pop back up at the stroke of midnight. When do walls, and bases re-spawn? Is it left up to the engineers to rebuild the world? Do bases magically re-build themselves the instant they are captured by a different empire?

A destructible environment just would not work in a persistent, endless game. It works in battlefield because the game is based around rounds. Every round resets everything. PlanetSide doesn't have that luxury.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by PsychoXR-20

10 minutes after the game launched the world would be in ruins, there would be no more tree, no more walls, no more buildings.

How would you handle re-spawning of world objects? Do tree grow back slowly? Do they just pop back up at the stroke of midnight. When do walls, and bases re-spawn? Is it left up to the engineers to rebuild the world? Do bases magically re-build themselves the instant they are captured by a different empire?

A destructible environment just would not work in a persistent, endless game. It works in battlefield because the game is based around rounds. Every round resets everything. PlanetSide doesn't have that luxury.

Generally this is the big problem with MMO + Destructive environment yes. There are ways they could regenerate the terrain, such as when no players were around it, but its still problematic.

Its a shame though because after playing BFBC2 and with BF3 having even more, destructible environment totally changes the game in a positive way.

But it would be very hard to work in a persistent world. There are ways but none that would work well if the territory was actively in use and the more players there are the worse it gets.

[exLupo]

Originally Posted by PsychoXR-20

there would be no more tree

Is that not enough of a reason? Imagine... a world without concrete trees.

@Hamma - Smed's tree aversion was clear in the dev panel. He was doing that stare-off-into-space thing, going on and on about mass deforestation.

[Hamma]

[Bags]

As hilarious as it is to accidentally kill myself in Crysis with a falling tree, I don't think it would work too well in Planetside.

[Redshift]

the number of players in PS you could reduce a base to slag and rubble in a few minutes, i'm not sure it would work well