Why are veichles so easy to drive?

[DeadTeddy]

seriously, I was considering formatting so I can come back to the game, but then I remmembered why it got boring in the first place.

I'm the kind of person who REALLY likes veichles in FPS games. I really liked planetside, but at some point it stopped being impressive, and when I looked for fun things to do, I found the veichles are just too easy to drive. it took me a game of Desert combat to understand that's why I got bored.

planetside, like most games, takes the wrong approach to balancing. it makes the weapon less effective, gives it weaker armor, a bigger COF, that kind of thing.

very few games got it right, and DC is one of them. instead of limiting the weapon's power, it makes it really hard to use it's full potential. again, look at the apache. a new guy will need about 15 mins to master take off and basic flight, not to mention landing. put the average player in there and he will get a couple of kills, but will eat a stinger or a tank shell before he gets the chance to celebrate. only uber players will manage to live long enough to repair and re-arm.

My point? it takes hours to learn how to use a weapon and days to master it. exactly what FPS's are all about. PURE SKILL. the buggy is the same, very fast, impossible to hit, but only if you can control the thing. a new guy will end up swirling until a tank finally kills him, but a pro will be an impossible target.

now let's look at planetside:
-the reaver, which is allot like an attack helicopter, is slow, not too agile, very easy to control, and quite honestly, gives pretty much the same result no matter who flies it, with maybe a 50% effectiveness difference. the apache in DC takes lots of effort just to hover.
-the assult buggies and generally all ground veichles require little more then pressing W. the veichle will drive in a straight line completely ignoring the terrain. in some cases you can point the car at a general direction, press 0 and go get a snack. not exactly challenging.

weapons need to be given potential, not power. give the reaver the potential to be an uber weapon, but make it hard as hell to max it out. I'm talking about 2 hours in the VR training and then 30 in the game. make the buggy react to the terrain, hard to drive, but make it fast. I doubt anyone with a phoenix or deci will be able to get close to good drivers. in modern weaponry the human factor is quickly becoming the limitation. why is that not ingame?

this isn't so hard to implement either. instead of having "fly up/fly down" keys, and moving the planes as if they were hovering cars, give the driver control of thrust for the engines and let the mouse control the plane's angle. maybe even give control of engines seperately, and allow to control how far forward or back it points. all those things the game does for you. it will be a nightmare at first, but after some practice you will see people performing tricks worthy 35th century machines. you'll also see more crashes then in your win98 machine.

and yes, I'm very bored right now, E-mule is working very hard, my DVD drive is dead, and the only 2 games I have installed that don't need a CD are BF42 and gunbound. one sux, the other has horrible AI.

anyway, bring on the flames.

[Rbstr]

%50 percent is a big difference between a good pilot and a bad one

[DeadTeddy]

50% is the difference between 2 and 3 kills. I'm pretty sure that grunts get up to 1000% (difference between a fragrate of 0.5 for a newB and 5 for a good player)

[Cauldron Borne]

There are things that Pilots in PlanetSide can do that would kick a pilot in a Fighter Sim's ass. Even without the ability to turn upside down (on purpose). And Vehicles have quite a few limitations. NONE of them just ignore terrain. The Harrasser comes close to your idea for a buggy, speedy, highly manuverable, and a pain n the ass to master. They are gonna format PS so that Joysticks can be used. The reason they didn't make vehicles and weapons hard to use was so that people didn't HAVE to spend 2 hours in the VR. SOE wnated it's customers to jump right into the action.

And, seriously, the difference between a player who uses a vehicle and a player who mastered that vehicle is a lot greater than you are giving credit for.

[Nalar]

I think they made the vehicles easy to drive on purpose. Not all players are hardcore players and are willing to spend hours in a simulator just to learn how to drive a buggy. The maps are too large to be walking between bases and most people are not willing to dedicate hours just to learn how to drive, they want to be able to jump in the game and start shooting something.

However, my impressions of some of the post BR20 advancements that have been hinted at lead me to the conclusion that they will allow for more manuverability and functionality in vehicles for players that master a specific vehicle. (Disclaimer: this was never specifically specified by the devs and is my own opion based on some of the hints from the devs through forum posts and ask the devs interviews)

[Lartnev]

I agree, I think the ease of use is deliberate to help players pick it up.

[DeadTeddy]

I don't think it's too hard to label current driving "autopilot" or something and give it a toggle button. do you?

I just think a beautiful machine like the mosquito or reaver is going to waste with this BS control system. seriously, 2 thrusters like that can do amazing things. if this ever gets implemented the first thing I do is learn how to do a 180 in flight and go right back where I came from. and that's just one tiny trick. you can count on gamers to find a million ways to use this.

[TreeSapDT]

I recognise both parts of this argument. On the one hand I think SOE was a little worried at getting a player base right away. Sometimes you can scare people away with the skill requirements. Check Counter Strike, for example. I do not know how many people I have watched just quit after playing for five minutes because every time they turned a corner they got a lead sammich. The people that quit are just looking for an enjoyable experience for the short amount of time they have, or something like that.

Now here are my real thoughts about the SOE approach. The devs have said before that they want a brand new player to be able to compete with a br20 head to head with prety much the same chances of winning. And as long both are eye-to-eye with skill, this is true. What the leveling does for you in PS is not only give you more options to toy around with, but it also gives you a longer life span. A br8 may be able to whoop up a br20, but after the fight the br8 will probably not survive another encounter. I think this is the same thing with the aircraft. A n00b may be able to annhililate another person with a rocket spam, but that same pilot will probably die soon. A more experienced player will now how to pick the right battles. I know I have spent plenty of time in a mosquito, not too many do compared to the reaver. The mosquito is infinitely better than the reaver in so many ways it is stupid, but only if used right. I can bum ruch an kill a couple of soldiers, but if I have not double checked my surroundings, a surprise pheonix assault will be on me. As for the tanks, I'll just say I have seen the difference between a mastered maggie and a n00b maggie.

BTW, Huge AA MAX tip here guys: I have used this MANY times being an experienced mosq pilot myself. I used to never die in my mosq because as long as you stayed low and kept a reserve of afterburner, you are fine. I never got shot down by an AA MAX because they were so eager to get a kill that they targeted me as sooon as I was in eyesight, letting me get away easily (I play as TR). When you are sitting there with your AA MAX, let the aircraft come closer before you target it, that way they are much too close to run away in time. I know this is a little off topic, but it has been on my mind for quite some time.

[Lonehunter]

Originally Posted by DeadTeddy

the first thing I do is learn how to do a 180 in flight and go right back where I came from.

If you can't do that now then you just need more practice.

[ICha0sI]

PS driving is fine. I hate DC..

[WritheNC]

The main focus and most important skill in this game:

Teamwork.

Everything else is easy on purpose so anyone can learn quickly. It's shedding your solo-habit inhibitions and learning to work with others that really elevates you to a new playing level.

[Meursault00]

I had this entire argument written out, but I read TreeSapDT's post and I figured to hell with it, someone already posted my views.

I've had the same experience as Tree, except I spent my time as one of those pesky snipers all you grunts hate and try to punk on =D. Early on, I could definitely take out BR15+ snipers. Sure, no problem. Take a hit, I'll be fine, he'll be dead. No biggie. Of course, after getting hit once, I could not afford to get hit again. Now at BR15, I feel that I'm pretty versatile, I can take innumerable hits in one lifespan and all I have to do is equip my med applicator and start healing up, then go right back out and track down the bastard who shot me. A skeeter came to dispatch me? No problem, have my trusty striker (which I stoll off a dead TR, AV weapon of choice). Cloaker come up on me? No problem, turn around, turn on DL and fire. But there are still those grunt encounters where I can only run away and pray. Higher BR allows you to fill more roles, and increases survivability in combat.

It's important to keep in mind Planetside is a first person shooter, and vehicles are meant only to supplement the gameplay, not dominate it. Not like Tribes 2 *cough*

By all mean, potential is important, but how many people have time to try and fulfill it?

I don't think SOE did a good enough job of making the game easily introduced. At BR5, I definitely could not take on a BR20. Even as a sniper. Basically in any situation. The BR20 just had more tricks up his/her sleeves, he/she had more cards to play, and that person had a pretty good advantage over me.

Key word: compete
Compete but not win.

[hex222]

what if how hard it is to drive a vehicle or use a weapon was down to both your experience and the experience the character has had, if a player gets to good for that weapon or vehicle then they can then start over with a better but harder weapon/vehicle...

[DeadTeddy]

the game may focus on teamwork, but that doesn't mean it has to be too easy. it's too easy to drive a car, and too easy to kill one. it's come to a point you know the result of an encounter before it ends. you know the phoenix will hit. you know the prowler will need X seconds to get out of range. it's too easy to tell who will beat who. it's come down to simple math, with maybe a 10% margin for error.

what you all call "skilled pilots" is just pilots who learned to run away in time to repair. not pilots that learned how to dodge, do tricks and max out the plane.

I know some people don't have 5 hours to spend learning how to fly, and just want to jump in the game. I know hard to control veichles may scare some people away, so here's what I suggest.

leave the current control system in the game, but allow it to be toggled on or off with the push of a button. that way when covering distances or just hovering you keep it on, or if you're just a newB and don't want to learn how to fly. but, when you turn off the "auto pilot" or "cruise control" or whatever you want to call it, you get full control, at the price of stability and ease of use.

newB's get easy driving, pros get a challenge with a worthwhile prize. everyone's happy.

[Lartnev]

So you could flick a switch and you give your vehicle more power/speed/firepower but at the expense of it being harder to control and use? I like it