Supportive combat

[Rozza]

Hello PS2 community

Firstly, would it be possible to play in an organised, tactical and structured way behind the front lines? Ideally I'd love to be given responsibly over responding to enemy zerg rushes and adapting to pushes of my own side while not being on the front lines myself. Calling down mortar strikes from a distance and giving front line troops an idea of what's going on around them sounds like something I'd very much like to do.

Secondly, can a small group of troops become famous (or infamous) on the field? Does a "hero" effect seem like something that will be in game?

It's all speculation at this point but based off PS1 and released information do these points seem realistic?

[Shogun]

i would say yes to all points.

specops teams will be able to cause havok behind enemy lines, but they will have to be very good and organised to keep what they take there.

and there was some kind of "hero effect" in ps1, so i don´t think this will change in ps2, as long as we get to see enemy names in the killspams.

there were some players in ps1 on my side, and on the enemys side, that became famous/infamous.

and if you want to become a famous group, form an outfit and get some nifty outfit customization (outfit outfits) and then show what you can do in the game. if you look badass and play badass, you will be noticed.

[Crator]

If I'm not mistaken, SOE did say they will provide the APIs to call stats info from their servers. If they add stats that relate to teams that would be really neat. Of course, this team would have to be registered as such and the stats would only update for the team if 2 or more team members are playing in the same squad?

[Rozza]

Awesome to hear!

When I said behind the front line I meant before you get to the front-line not behind the enemy line (spent like 10 minutes trying to work out what to write to avoid this confusion - guess it didn't work! )

If this game lives up to half of my expectations I'm sold!

[Shogun]

ah ok, i´m no native english speaker, so i misread the thing about frontlines.

i don´t know if there will be artillery like the flail this time, but i am sure that the command system will give you most options, you seem to be asking for! but all we really know so far, is that it will be awesome ;-)

i hope we will get more info on support roles, commando stuff and game mechanics, soon!

and crator is right! i forgot that we have been promised to get a lot of playerdata to show off even outside of the game! that was something even ps1 had in a smaller scale at some time. so i guess if you want to see who is the best sniping headshooter for example, you can go to ps2.com and check that out.

so don´t worry about heros not being known ;-)

[Raymac]

The good commanders and squad leaders in PS1 were much more about setting your troops up in a position to succeed than actually getting the pew pew kills yourself. And it sounds like they are likely going to be expanding the command abilities for PS2. Good leaders can make names for themselve pretty quickly, so between that and the new player generated mission system, there is likely to be alot here for you to enjoy. Not many details have been released yet, so stay tuned with the rest of us.

[SgtMAD]

when the game starts up at release,start playing and have the outfit tags turned on,you will see very quickly who you want to play with,it will be the guys that you're always in the same area with,that's a pretty good indicator of matching playstyles that should make for a comfortable fit for both the outfit and you.

and yea , you can be famous if you want to be LOL

[Rozza]

Originally Posted by HtSgtMAD

and yea , you can be famous if you want to be LOL

Lol, hate to of sounded like such a fame-whore
Just as someone with an MMO history there was always an "elite" on the server who were looked up to by others as they had the most knowledge or experience of the game. I was just curious to see if this MMO trait was transferred to this game, as I'm trying to guess what parts of a traditional MMO will be neglected because of its FPS nature.

[SKYeXile]

Players are more recognised in Planetside because its a smaller community, also you run into the same names regularly because there is no cross server battlegrounds, you will see the same people all the time.


PS: I am that hero.

[acosmo]

i totally know where you're coming from with the behind the front lines kina stuff like for instance, lodestar pilot. you hang out and repair vehicles behind the front line and dispense ammo. we haven't heard anything about any supportive roles. so far all we've heard about is on the front lines.

[Shogun]

let´s hope that is only because the devs think frontline stuff is most anticipated news, and not because all background support is kicked from the game!

[Crator]

Still, I think it would kick ass if we could have stats for the behind-the-lines support efforts! Supporting from behind-the-lines is typically a thankless and unrecognized action. With stats we can somewhat quantify how effective support roles are doing... How they affect the war effort, etc...

[Lonehunter]

Nice question, I can see a lot of answers coming in for this.

For behind enemy lines it's absolutely possible. Plenty of times in PS1 as a cloaker I would carry a repair and healing tool, + a REK for hacking. That's basically pure support. I'm sure they'll bring back Support Experience points, you get those anytime someone you heal/repair earns XP. Since these roles are going into classes I imagine it will be even easier to be pure support.

On becoming famous it's certainly possible. It doesn't really happen on an individual scale because of skill. But there sure where certain outfits that had reputations, good or bad. There where some who could bring Air Support and do it well, or Tanks, I remember Exxon-1 was an outfit who just brought Lodestars (A mobile repair/rearm station) to big vehicle battles.