How do you feel about the idea of class systems and no free-form inventory?

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Shade Millith

Keep the weapons equal, no matter who you are (Or side grade), and keep the game to who's better. Not who's been playing longer.

So unlike PS1 then. Got it. Because the players weren't equal. The implants directly correlated to greater effectiveness in combat, and were limited by level.

I dont really care though. If some tanker guy, who has concentrated on tanks completely, has a small numerical advantage, whatever. No biggy. He'll get paid back when he goes grunting. Obviously I'd agree with you in theory, but I can't find myself getting too worked up over player imbalance anymore, and its going to happen anyway regardless of my wishes.

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

So unlike PS1 then. Got it. Because the players weren't equal. The implants directly correlated to greater effectiveness in combat, and were limited by level.

I dont really care though. If some tanker guy, who has concentrated on tanks completely, has a small numerical advantage, whatever. No biggy. He'll get paid back when he goes grunting. Obviously I'd agree with you in theory, but I can't find myself getting too worked up over player imbalance anymore, and its going to happen anyway regardless of my wishes.

considering they have said up to 20% player power increase, its quite possible that the 6 damage pallet becomes a 7 damage pallet. Do i Care? not really.

[Shade Millith]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

So unlike PS1 then. Got it. Because the players weren't equal. The implants directly correlated to greater effectiveness in combat, and were limited by level.

Personally, I didn't like the idea of getting implants for BR rank. I would have just had the 3 implant spots open from the start.

[Princess Frosty]

The problem with small numerical advantages is they can quickly become a much greater advantage in game. Imagine 2 tanks that each deal say 33 damage per shot to each other, such a gun takes 4 hits to kill a full health opponent.

If you increase the power of that gun from 33 to 34 that's approximately a 3% increase in power, however the number of hits needed to kill an enemy drops from 4 to 3 which is a 25% increase in effective power on the battlefield.

[Draep]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

So unlike PS1 then. Got it. Because the players weren't equal. The implants directly correlated to greater effectiveness in combat, and were limited by level.

That's a stretch. Most implants gave you indirect advantages, except for personal shield and that one that gives you health when you're too low. Even personal shield was side-grady, as it drained stamina.

Edit: Ohlookitsthisthreadagain.jpg starring the participants of the last 30 threads on this topic

[EVILoHOMER]

Would I be sorry to see the Inventory go like how it was in Planetside? No because as I remember it you'd run up to a term to equip from the quick slots anyways, you didn't pick out weapons and ammo one by one. Also the annoying thing used to be how you'd have to change armour type to get your armour back to 100%. You'd also have to keep selecting a loadout with med packs and use them constantly to heal up if you didn't have the cert for that healing thing, forgot the name of it all as you can tell lol. I just didn't find the system fun and I thought the cert system was so flawed and unfun.

I'd prefer a TF2 like system where all the classes are so unique, have their own look and play very differently. You'll be able to pick any class you want before you spawn and get right into the action. I'd really love unlocks and stuff to work the same way and a crafting system where you have to sacrifice good items on a chance to make even better stuff.

Then I'd love the whole Battlelog stats and ranking system so you can progress or even move down the ladder so you have this dynamic ranking system.


The old Planetside Cert and Inventory system quickly became pointless and didn't allow for unique styles of play like balanced classes would.

[Metalsheep]

Im sad to see the Freeform inventory system go. I loved coming up with odd, but useful load outs or loading extra equipment into the trunks of my vehicles. I never carried a Nano Dispenser in my Agile load out, i just had a vehicle favorite saved with one in the trunk with glue or other equipment.

I'd like to see the Free Form inventory stay, but also be limited to your class. So you could only select and choose equipment from your class. I know i'll miss looting bodies for ammo and med kits or using enemy empires weapons when i ran out of my own ammo.

[texico]

Originally Posted by EVILoHOMER

Would I be sorry to see the Inventory go like how it was in Planetside? No because as I remember it you'd run up to a term to equip from the quick slots anyways, you didn't pick out weapons and ammo one by one.

That's just an ease of configuration issue though. The point is with the inventory you could decide for yourself what was going to be on your persona. You picked out weapons and ammo yourself, it was just saved for convenience. There's no reason why if it needed to speed up, you could choose your load out before you spawned.

Also the annoying thing used to be how you'd have to change armour type to get your armour back to 100%.

[COLOR="rgb(0, 255, 255)"]How is that going to change by them removing the inventory? You'll still have armour. Unless your referring to armour being replaced with shields, which I'm for btw, and that's not really anything to do with not having an inventory. But engineers are there to repair you, or you have engineering yourself.[/COLOR]

You'd also have to keep selecting a loadout with med packs and use them constantly to heal up if you didn't have the cert for that healing thing, forgot the name of it all as you can tell lol.

[COLOR="rgb(0, 255, 255)"]Why would that change by removing inventories anyway? In fact, that's going to be more awkward with PS2 - you can't even choose the cert for healing if your class is different, so unless there's a medic around, you'd have to keep using med packs from a terminal, assuming med packs are even in (which is the same scenario as in PS1)[/COLOR]


I just didn't find the system fun and I thought the cert system was so flawed and unfun.

I'd prefer a TF2 like system where all the classes are so unique, have their own look and play very differently. You'll be able to pick any class you want before you spawn and get right into the action.

[COLOR="rgb(0, 255, 255)"]But that's the thing, the uniqueness might be there, but the variety is not. You've got 1 of only 9 classes. That means every single person in TF2 (thousands?) is a cookie-cutter copy of only 9 different frames.

In PS1, everybody has their own unique quirks and styles and variations. Generally everyone organizes themselves into one of a number of different informal "classes" but this was a natural, player-driven phenomenon which emerged out of player and game variables. The result was you got a very natural distribution and blending of different roles for the situations at hand.[/COLOR]

I'd really love unlocks and stuff to work the same way and a crafting system where you have to sacrifice good items on a chance to make even better stuff.



Then I'd love the whole Battlelog stats and ranking system so you can progress or even move down the ladder so you have this dynamic ranking system.


The old Planetside Cert and Inventory system quickly became pointless and didn't allow for unique styles of play like balanced classes would.

[COLOR="rgb(0, 255, 255)"]Really? It seems to me like it offered a lot more uniqueness and ability to gear your style of play towards a given situation. Classes only let you fulfill (in TF2's case) 9 different roles, pretty much by definition.[/COLOR]

I can even draw graphs out of player distributions in PlanetSide 1 compared to your typical class-based FPS.




From my experience, this graph shows how people generally organize themselves in PlanetSide 1. Everyone, based on their own skills, their own vision of themselves and the equipment available, generally organized themselves into these classes. The spaces in between the classes are where people have mixed classes in particular ways based on their choice and the given situation - there would be loads of slightly different classes-combos between the main classes. You'd also get weird classes at the extremes (people running around just carrying supplies and dropping them in towers for friendlies, for example).

Yeah, the super-soldier class was a problem, and should have been flattened out somehow, but generally people organized themselves into roles naturally. And remember some roles called for less people anyway (a medic can heal many soldiers at once, so fewer medics than soldiers is normal).


Now, here's the distribution of players for TF2.




This is what I'm afraid of. Everyone is one of any of the 9 classes. There's no mixed-classes in between classes, and there's no obscure classes of extreme support/attack. Basically there's no variety, only 9 cookie-cutter choices. In PS1 there might be 5-10 class-blends between the main classes, and even the definition of the main classes wasn't exactly stable because people had their own ideas of what a "cloaker" was, and so changed things slightly accordingly.


Now, I know PS2's class system won't be as compartmentalised as TF2. But, at least at the moment, it does seem that the classes will fulfill their roles alone, and while they'll get lots of toys to play with, they'll still be kept to their class (as in the "cloakers hide, not heal" example).

[SKYeXile]

texico, heres some real stats, do with them what you like, lets not make-up figures though :P

Mind you these are taken from specific Air outfits, some stats are skewed.

[EVILoHOMER]

From my experience it was.

Noobs went MAX

Pilots went Agile

Everyone else went Exo with armour and health kits, one AV/AA and a HE...


Then you went into third person all the time to look round corners and use that sprint.

[TheBladeRoden]

Shoulda made Rexo with one 9x3 slot and one 6x3 slot, instead of two 9x3 slots.

[polywomple]

Man I hope it's nothing like BFBC 2, where you chose some assault class or some shit. And you were given a rifle with 4 magazines and 2-3 grenades for your attachment, 2 hand nades and some special thing whatever.

Man it was boring as fuck

Even unlocking a new rifle or whatever it was the same thing.

[wasdie]

Coming from somebody who never played Planetside 1 because I didn't have a powerful enough PC to play at the time, I can say it doesn't sound like it makes that big of a difference.

A class based system is something I know from many other games. This can only make PS2 much easier to pick up and get used to.

However I've seen some very deep class based systems. Ever major MMO seems to have one, even if they are RPGs. You can have very specific roles as well as hybrid rolls.

The advantage for this game is that I as well as a lot of new players will be able to pick up the game quickly and enjoy it while the game doesn't seem to suffer any significant loss of depth. This will allow them to expand the player base and keep it going for long.

I may not have played Planetside 1 but I played the hell out of the other MMOFPS on the market called WWII Online and I know how dull a game like this gets when numbers dwindle. They need to do whatever they can to get new players and keep them.

[polywomple]

I'm all for noob friendly but when it pointlessly takes away FREEDOM of choice for any player then no

I'll be honest, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing when I first played PS1. I was one of those guys that chose the suppressor loaded with AP ammo, but I loved being able to choose the equipment I wanted, as opposed to BFBC2's extreme cookie cutter classes.

I'm not completely opposed to classes, but make it versatile. If I want 12 grenades or 15 rockets for my attachment or none at all then let me do it.

[wasdie]

Originally Posted by polywomple

I'm all for noob friendly but when it pointlessly takes away FREEDOM of choice for any player then no

I'll be honest, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing when I first played PS1. I was one of those guys that chose the suppressor loaded with AP ammo, but I loved being able to choose the equipment I wanted, as opposed to BFBC2's extreme cookie cutter classes.

I'm not completely opposed to classes, but make it versatile. If I want 12 grenades or 15 rockets for my attachment or none at all then let me do it.

From the developers point of view, balance goes right out the window.

I know how people always want stuff to be exactly how they remember it in every way, but they are so quick to forget the problems that came with those systems. While I never played PS1, just from my time playing ArmA and ArmA 2 which also have a free form inventory system, I can see hundreds if not thousands of balance problems.

Tribes Ascend ditched an inventory system for the class system as well because it works better with the F2P model and it is many times easier to balance. The quicker and more efficient they can balance it, the more time they can spend on implementing new gear and equipment.