Lock on rockets really have no place in this game

Roy Awesome · 2013-02-08, 05:28 AM

I'm not usually one for bitching threads (Because PS2 is really fun and I quite enjoy it, and because bitching rarely comes off as constructive), but the entire idea behind lock-ons has been a major problem for me ever since A2A rockets and lock-ons became prevalent in beta.

Every other weapon in the game requires effort and skill to use. Dumb-fire rockets require leading targets. Tank shells have travel time (lolprowler). Bullets have travel time.

You're ability to be effective with these guns is completely dependent on the skill of the user. Also, if the recipient of the rocket/bullet is good, he/she can dodge the projectile. The sender has to have skill to fire, and the receiver gets to exercise their skill to dodge.

For example, consider the following video posted to reddit today:

This guy oneshots and twoshots aircraft with his tank. He is fucking good at leading these shots and hitting air targets, and is rewarded with a ton of kills. Skill vs Reward is a nice curve where Reward falls off as skill goes up, but you still get good reward for high skill.

Now lets look at lock-on rockets, in particular the annihilator, although the a2a rockets are the same and pilots have been bitching forever about them. The general process to these weapons is point your screen in the general direction of the target; wait 3 seconds; left click when the box turns green. That's all you have to do. The receiver now has to either fire a flare/IR smoke (press a button), execute a perfect maneuver to dodge it (Very high skill), or be lucky to have terrain that will block it (pre-planning).

Just take a moment to compare these situations and the requirement for success here. It takes no skill to fire one of these guns, and takes a ton of skill, a hard counter, or pre-planning to dodge them. It's too skewed in the direction of the attacker, to where every other gun in the game isn't. To modify a quote from Shoot em up, 'Auraxis is the land of opportunity, where a pussy can become a tough guy with a lock-on rocket in his hand'

'Now, why don't we just nerf them so they are weaker than all the other rockets?' You ask. In any other game I'm right there with you, but for planetside 2 it's not possible to nerf it enough. Consider a standard 24v24 BF3 match, where at most 2-3 people will have these rockets. You have the dude in the tungeska, the A2A jet, and the one or two guys that use the stinger. Unlike PS2, this limited number of rockets per map allows you to balance not just the quality of the rockets, but also the quantity. With PS2, there is nothing to stop you from pulling 40 Annihilators.

So, you get two options. You can make the Annihilator an individual weapon, where one person can actually be effective with it (current state), or you can nerf it into the position where it is only good in groups (Previous state). If it's relegated to a group-only weapon then people will not buy it unless their outfit requires it on ops. If it's good in the hands of one user, then outfits will require it and just mass spam it.

How can we fix it? Frankly, Throw out the lock-on fire and forget idea. It's never going to be balanced. With that out of the way, How do we make these unique and useful? One option is a TV-Guided rocket. This requires some skill to pilot and fire, and there is a level of diminishing returns with numbers (have the rockets collide with eachother in air. Diminishing returns on numbers!). Think more BF2 click to direct, NOT the Phoenix rocket from PS1. BF2's system of high speed, click to give the rocket a bit more direction in where it is going forces the shooter to be actually good at the game. The Phoenix had a huge number of issues and external factors (like mouse sensitivity) factored into it way too much.

Another option is to force the user to remain locked on to the target or the rocket loses it's lock. You have to keep your gun pointed in the direction of the target, and this introduces the same type of skill that most other guns in the game have. EDIT: Sirisian brought up the idea of a HL2-laser guided rocket. Same vein of guided rocket.

A final option is to introduce High-Velocity dumbfire Anti-Air rockets. Put their velocity somewhere between a bullet and a tank shell, and make them do high damage to aircraft. They would require skill to fire and feel rewarding when you do damage.

So, there. Long winded post on why I think lock-on fire and forget rockets are dumb.

ShadetheDruid · 2013-02-08, 05:38 AM

I know what you mean about it being more rewarding with the other launchers. The other day, I saw a Scythe coming in for a semi-low speed pass at a tank over at a tech plant, I only had my dumbfire launcher at the time. I aimed at it, thinking there's no way I was going to hit it, so I sort of just twitched to the side and fired instantly.. and hit it. Granted it was pure luck, rather than skill at estimating timing for the shot, but it was so awesome.

I do awesome things occasionally that are never going to get repeated again.

Anyway, I did have a little think yesterday about what they could do in the event they removed lockons from the game. It's in the ideas section of the forum if you want to check it out (don't expect anything too genius there though

).

/self promotion

VR Draco · 2013-02-08, 05:56 AM

If you remove all lock-on rockets, you have to increase the exp for a air-kill about 5-10 times...
Otherwise air will dominate everything, because of 100 ground people, only 1 or 2 would fire at air and even hit something. The dumb-fire-air-to-air launcher has to be a one shot kill for an ESF and I don't think that the ESF-pilots want this.

I think that G2G-lockon is realy unnecessary, BUT G2A-lockon or A2A-lockon are quite necessary, otherwise air would dominate, because the only thing that could kill air realy fast are MANY AA-Maxes or MANY Skyguards. One AA-Max or one Skyguard is useless against heavy air
And dumb-fire against distant Liberators, who could shoot at you....no good idea...

JesNC · 2013-02-08, 06:12 AM

Lock-on rocket launchers are ok, in theory. Just not at the ranges they currently are effective at.

Fire-and-forget target locks should IMO be reduced to 250-300m range maximum.

VR Draco · 2013-02-08, 06:19 AM

Originally Posted by JesNC

Fire-and-forget target locks should IMO be reduced to 250-300m range maximum.

I can agree on this, BUT then decrease the range of ESF and Liberators to the same range. Libertors hovering 400m above you, shooting at you and you can't lock them?

JesNC · 2013-02-08, 06:27 AM

Originally Posted by VR Draco

I can agree on this, BUT then decrease the range of ESF and Liberators to the same range. Libertors hovering 400m above you, shooting at you and you can't lock them?

Time to whip out that AA gun.

Honestly, I can see the issue with G2A lock-on rockets. For G2G, anything above 300m is just silly, mainly because ground vehicles neither have the agility to dodge the missiles nor the speed to get away from the shooter.

KoKroach · 2013-02-08, 06:33 AM

Or make the lock on launchers have a smaller ammo capacity, and force them to rely on equipment terminals, not ammo boxes?

Baneblade · 2013-02-08, 06:35 AM

You are more than welcome to remove lock on missile launchers from infantry if you remove all dumbfire rockets from air.

Sledgecrushr · 2013-02-08, 06:41 AM

Originally Posted by Baneblade

You are more than welcome to remove lock on missile launchers from infantry if you remove all dumbfire rockets from air.

Exactly this.

ShadetheDruid · 2013-02-08, 07:35 AM

I'd rather got for a "reworking" of both than total removal, but I definitely wouldn't miss them if rocket pods vanished from existence.

belch · 2013-02-08, 08:19 AM

Originally Posted by Baneblade

You are more than welcome to remove lock on missile launchers from infantry if you remove all dumbfire rockets from air.

Exactly. I have used both A2A and A2G on my ESF, and the argument that one is more "skillful" to use than the other is complete horseshit. In fact, when I am running rocket pods I almost always have a much higher number of enemy kills...on everything from infantry to armor to other aircraft. I highly doubt that my experiences are any different from any other ESF'er in that regard.

I think there is room to tweak both lock ons and rocket pods, but probably what needs to be tweaked more than anything is players feeling like their favorite play toy should reign supreme and move with impunity.

Tatwi · 2013-02-08, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by Baneblade

You are more than welcome to remove lock on missile launchers from infantry if you remove all dumbfire rockets from air.

I agree.

1. It's almost impossible to hit an aircraft with a dumbfire, unless the aircraft is sitting still farming. Aircraft should never be allowed to sit still and farm - no one else can, not even tanks.

2. It takes at least 3 people with lock ons to insta-gib an ESF. Yes that's 3 people to counter the one dude in the ESF. Who has the better deal there, eh?

3. Locks can be used to scare away vehicles. That's a great tactic which can buy time for your side to arrive with reinforcements.

4. 30 ESF with rocket pods are going to completely own 30 dudes standing on a cliff with lockons. Period.

5. Dumbfire rocket launchers have those completely useless sights on the top now, which completely block one's view when attempting to lead a shot. Furthermore, leading a shot is 100% guess work, as there isn't any ability to use math to calculate a lead (all feedback I provided in beta...). They would need to revert this design if they got rid of lockons.

Lockons add a positive experience to the balance of game play and only present issues when the numbers of them are out of balance, much like 40 Magriders showing up to fight 5 people at an outpost, etc.

Given that they are going to add in Orbital Strikes, which are the epitome of a skill-less weapon (point, click, win! *sigh*), I doubt that they will remove lockon rocket launchers.

Mutant · 2013-02-08, 05:56 AM

While i agree lock on requires less skill, they only become over powered if you have great numbers of people using them together, this is the case of a LOT of stuff in PS2.

Instead of getting rid of lock on rocket launchers how about keeping them effective but increase the opportunity cost for using them, namely make them use up both main weapon slots on the heavy.
Then a group of people using say annihilators is going to get their ass kicked by a few infantrymen.

the annihilator already does significantly less damage per rocket but make part of it up in ROF, but is by far the lowest DPS rocket launcher.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...owsperpage=250

Code:

Shrike			NC	ROCKET, DUMBFIRE	1700
ML-7			TR	ROCKET, DUMBFIRE	1700
S1			VS	ROCKET, DUMBFIRE	1700
Crow			NC	ROCKET, AV LOCKON	1500
Hawk			NC	ROCKET, AA LOCKON	1500
M9 SKEP Launcher	TR	ROCKET, AV LOCKON	1500
ASP-30 Grounder		TR	ROCKET, AA LOCKON	1500
Hades			VS	ROCKET, AV LOCKON	1500
Nemesis			VS	ROCKET, AA LOCKON	1500
Decimator		NS	ROCKET, DUMBFIRE	2000
Annihilator		NS	ROCKET, AA AV LOCK	1150

camycamera · 2013-02-08, 07:59 AM

i see your point, but you cant do anything to remove these rockets. removing/changing them would piss prople off

Rothnang · 2013-02-08, 08:38 AM

I don't think the general concept of lockon rockets is bad, just the implementation.

I would prefer it if they changed it so that you don't lock on, then fire a rocket that can't miss, but instead you fire the rocket, and it will simply fly straight unless you put your crosshairs on a target it can lock on to, which will give you the little box, and turn the rocket toward that enemy. (The crosshairs would be a little less sensitive and take more aiming to stay locked on)

A system like that will allow you more skillful shots, like shooting a rocket straight up, then locking a tank so that it will hit the top armor, or firing a rocket behind an aircraft, then locking on to it so if he turns and burns he'll run right into it. At the same time though, it will make using lock-on weapons harder, because losing your target will actually waste the missile, and the reload time would be higher if it doesn't need the initial lockon time.

Another thing the devs could do to put more skillful missiles in the game is put in a missile that you can remote detonate. If you hit the firing button a second time while the missile is in flight the missile blows up mid air, with a big blast radius, which allows you to kill enemies that are a near impossible target for other missiles. (For example, infantry on a hill crest with nothing to splash an explosion off behind or below them from your point of view - with remote detonate missile this is a kill you can make) These kinds of missiles could also come in an anti-air variety that has a particularly large blast radius. They would operate similarly to airburst flak, except the player triggers the burst - so that way it takes some solid skill to hit.

The only kind of weapon where I would approve of locking on before you fire would be a MIRV launcher that can lock multiple targets in preparation for a shot, like the rocket launcher from Unreal 2. (One of the coolest weapons ever, though stuck in a mediocre game. Actually, any Mass Effect fan should play Unreal 2, it's astounding how much Mass Effect copied from that game, including whole level ideas, like "Ice planet with research lab full of spider monsters")