Sunderer AMS made defense more pointless

[Rothnang]

A cert cap would be nice because I like the idea of being a specialist who's sought after for having skills that not everyone does, but on the other hand, that would really not make the game do well as a free to play, and it certainly wouldn't help the balance issues we have, since if there was a cert cap absolutely nobody in their right mind would cert up flash, lightning or galaxy.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Crator

^ This. The issue is how can you do that in PS2.

Well, World of Tanks does it this way:

You can have as many tanks as you have garage slots. Meanwhile, you can research every other unit and upgrades of other units, but as long as you haven't purchased said researched unit in an empty slot, you can't actually use the researched unit.

When you did purchase the unit, you then fill up its vehicle slots with the appropriate tools. But only if you first researched them.

Several racing games apply a similar "Garage" mechanic.



Certification could be considered the same as "researching parts". So stuff you could put on a vehicle or suit. But only if you had a free "garage slot" to put that suit in, so to speak.


Now, what if you had a point system on top of your cert system, where you could put a (weighed) total of X points into whatever you had researched. In fact, that wouldn't be much unlike the PS1 cert tree. It'd be a bit of a double unlock system and sounds convoluted, but could be a good balancing system.



The question then though is how you're going to convince someone who paid real money to gain access to a gun that they can't always have access to it afterwards and would have to give up something else if they wanted to use that?

It could be so that Members could purchase a few more slots (up to a limit), but that'd possibly be considered p2w, unless of course, you could purchase those slots with certs or get them free with higher battle ranks as well.

Alternatively, you could put sidegrades or collections of weapons together into the same cert group (much like Medium Assault, Special Assault and Heavy Assault in PS1).

Of course you would be allowed to change your options every Y amount of time (say once every 6 hours? Hey, recert used to be 24 in PS1 at first! ...then 12, then 6...).




So yeah, a bit of a combination of PS1, PS2 and WoT research/certs?

[brinkdadrink]

OFF TOPIC kinda -As far as specializing I am for adding the BR skills from PS1 in so you can only take to the battlefield specific skills and can change every 3 hours or something. That way you can cert anything but only able to pull specific things when in the battle. They still have BR even though it doesnt do anythign so will give it a purpose.

BACK ON - I think with the system they have now they can only solve this with a new vehicle with a high cert and/or resource cost and give the sundy a drop in resource costs for transport again. I waste so many resources to drive my squad around that I rarely deply because there is usually another one deployed and no spot for mine.

[Zar]

Originally Posted by Dreamcast

i got beat by a squad with tanks and engis working togther....and they did their job so i cryed.


I also think Engineering shouldn't stack completly cause i lone wolf and its not fair i can't rambo stuff so if 3 people are repairing the same thing then they shouldn't repair it super fast.

Fixed =3

[Crator]

That sounds like it might work Figs. I like it.

[brinkdadrink]

Originally Posted by Figment

Well, World of Tanks does it this way:

Alternatively, you could put sidegrades or collections of weapons together into the same cert group (much like Medium Assault, Special Assault and Heavy Assault in PS1).

Of course you would be allowed to change your options every Y amount of time (say once every 6 hours? Hey, recert used to be 24 in PS1 at first! ...then 12, then 6...).

So yeah, a bit of a combination of PS1, PS2 and WoT research/certs?

Originally Posted by brinkdadrink

OFF TOPIC kinda -As far as specializing I am for adding the BR skills from PS1 in so you can only take to the battlefield specific skills and can change every 3 hours or something. That way you can cert anything but only able to pull specific things when in the battle. They still have BR even though it doesnt do anythign so will give it a purpose.

I think we have very similar ideas

[Rothnang]

Originally Posted by Zar

Fixed =3

A tank and an engineer working together is one thing, a tank and some engineers tanking incoming fire like it's a WoW raid is another.

You should never have a system where doing something, even if it takes teamplay allows you to ignore the core gameplay mechanics. Tanking incoming damage by having engineers fix you faster than damage can be done overrides the core mechanics of movement and cover. Engineers repairing you while you're in cover enhances the value of using movement and cover, so the game should e built to encourage that, not the other.

[QuantumMechanic]

When they first added the AMS Sunderer, you couldn't pull it from nearly any vehicle terminal. At that point in time it was *too hard* to get an AMS when you needed one. Perhaps there's a midway that needs to be found there.

But to me, the main reason why defense is pointless is because:
1) the bases are way too friggin big
2) the bases are not made to be defended

Defensive fights were my favorite in PS1. When the baddies were coming, I'd get up on the walls, make sure all turrets were repaired/upgraded, and then I'd stand there waiting until I saw the tanks come over the hills.

Now I don't know when they are comming, which direction they are coming from, and by the time I actually see some bad guys running around I've already heard "generator compromised. generator destroyed".

I like the design of the new Amerish bases. But in general still bases are too hard to defend and to easy to take.

[sylphaen]

Figment, while I am a fan of the PS1 cert system and like your solution, it would not work out well with the current state of PS2. There is not enough diversity of gameplay offered.

I could roll all day driving in PS1 and enjoy myself without HA or hack/infil suits in PS1; however, in PS2, I can't see myself being limited to one kind of activity when the whole class system was developed and is balanced around switching roles every 15 seconds or evenly spending your resource pool to maximize its benefits.

There is not even some hybridization of roles yet.

[Fear The Amish]

i HATE when people say bases can't be defended... this is XoO at the TR warpgate when we litterally lost every position (the TR had 80% pop on amerish at the time) but these 2 and warp gate we reached thier warp gate by leap frogging 2 squads to the TR warpgate then taking both these territories this is a video of TWO SQUADS holding off the entire TR zerg for over 40 minutes (video is just 20 of it). YES you can defend a base, if you actually know how to. Funny part is he ran out of space before we got spawn camped broke out of that... then go spawn camped again at one. so we RESPAWNED at the other jumped in a few sundies and took it back.....

[Rothnang]

Bases can be defended if you have people inside willing to do so. The problem is getting people to wait around for an attack anywhere. If you try to organize a defense after a place is already under heavy attack you have to defend it from the outside in, so it doesn't even really matter if it flips in the meanwhile and you just take it back.

[Skepsiis]

Figment, your idea sounds very similar to something i mentioned a while back.

Basically people were complaining about how easy it is to change class to counter the current problem. Like a bunch of tanks roll up so everyone respawns in with an anti tank rocket launcher, or aircraft show en mass and everyone can just spawn AA maxes.

My solution was memory crystals that you can allocate from the warpgate or possibly some bases - Your brain cant handle all the memories and experiences of everything all at once due to the trauma of rebirth or whatever and you need to hold just one or two classes in your mind to respawn into at any one time. This number could start low and improve with battlerank adding to the idea of a vet not getting a direct power upgrade, but being more versatile. You can change out these crystals at any point you like, there is no time limit or cool down. It just requires that you duck out of the fight for a min to get it sorted.

The same or very similar could be applied to vehicles. Maybe you could provide bonuses for specific combinations of memory crystals and create a sort of "meta" specalist class you can pick if you have all the requirements. Like an engy, medic, galaxy and sundy combo allows you to become a support specalist who visualy looks a little different and gets a +20% to support xp and can summon a drop pod every hour that contains a miniture supply/rearm/repair structure.

It is effectively the merger of the ps1 and ps2 cert systems. The ps1 system allowed for the allocation of a finite number of cert points to be used at any given time (in this case classes and vehicles) and truely allowed players to specalise their characters to certain roles. And the constant progression and permanent unlock mentality of the ps2 system.

It also gives purpose to battleranks which as far as i know dont actually do anything except unlock titles. The grizzled vets having been through so many rebirths are able to take the torture of addded memory implants in their mind without their head exploding. So they still specalise and limit themselves to a selection of classes and vehicles at any given time but have a wider choice than a fresh recruit.

[Sunrock]

Originally Posted by Rothnang

Bases can be defended if you have people inside willing to do so. The problem is getting people to wait around for an attack anywhere. If you try to organize a defense after a place is already under heavy attack you have to defend it from the outside in, so it doesn't even really matter if it flips in the meanwhile and you just take it back.

Here is the thing with MMOs. No matter how you design the game more hardcore outfits will always beat the crap out of random casual players that are totally unorganized. Way is that? Because they have allot more experience, discipline and organization.

And as you point out discipline is key to win any war campaign. So this is not really a problem regarding game design it's a problem with the mindset of the players.

[Rothnang]

I don't dispute that an organized outfit is going to beat random players every time, but that has nothing to do with the fact that if you weren't around when a large attack started you might as well instantly shift your objective from "hold base" to "retake base".

[TheStigma]

I agree S-AMS are just too availiable as it stands now. The only reason why we don't see even MORE of the damn things is that 90% of people don't really realize that they could bring one too.

I think I would almost consider putting them only in the warpgate so that distant frontlines had some meaning to them other than just being an arbitrary spot on the map. That said if it was me designing the game I would rather adjust it in incredments and let it run a few weeks or so to evaluate the change before making bigger changes. Therefore I think it would be a good idea to start off with limiting them to (big/main) facilities. That would make you think a little bit about logistics as you could just trivially pull them from any base anywhere (ie. walk 300 meters in any random direction to find one).

-Stigma