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.