VR Training (Another Idea! Run!)

[BloodWulfe]

During the beta, one of the changes they had planned was improving VR. I think this got put on the back
burner while they shipped out the core components, but here's an idea anyways.

Keep VR the same in the sense you enter it via the sanctuary and pick either 'weapon' or 'vehicle'
training. You pick 'training' and are teleported to a very similar VR area, except instead of a bunker
with four gaping windows, it would look something like this:



Now here's my idea: instead of having random targets out on the field and twenty some players shooting
at them all at once, creating one massive free-for-all that doesn't impart much knowledge, why not
create individual VR booth�s?



You would hit the use key in front of the door, and it would play a "swipe a card, walk in, door closes"
animation or something fancy like that; similar to the vehicle animations. When the VR room is occupied,
nobody else would be able to access it. Think of it as a larger implant terminal. When you're inside you can walk around freely, or you can leave by hitting your use key next to the door. It would play the same animation, except from a camera inside the VR booth.

Now here's where it gets tricky.

There would be an equipment terminal on the right side, and a VR terminal on the left side. This would require quite a bit of coding I'm assuming, but they wanted to spruce up VR, so why not go all out? The equipment terminal would function like any old equipment terminal, but the VR terminal would give you control of the VR booth. It would allow you to select your opponent via a dropdown menu, whether it moved, jumped, or used cover, and how far out the target would be.



When you select your enemy, a VR representation will appear in the shooting range. Please note the shooting range is not accessible, just like in the current VR. There's some invisible field there that prevents you from jumping into the range, but allows you to shoot. If you select movement, the enemy will strafe left and right continuously. If you select jumping, the enemy will jump in place (or while strafing). If you select cover, a pair of rocks/trees will appear in front of the enemy (so when strafing, it would have cover for a second). You can also adjust how far out the VR enemy and cover would be. The strafing and cover would let you practice leading the target with your Lancer or missile or whatever. The range would let you practice distance shooting. Etcetera. Here's how it would look:



Notice the six? That's the damage you just did. The damage you do to the VR enemy flashes up where it's name would be. It would be on screen for a second or two, slowly floating up (a foot maybe? a few inches?) until it vanished. It would be up long enough for you to realize "hey the gauss did more damage then the punisher" or something like that. The damage floating up aspect would let you spam an enemy with a cycler clip, and still have some semblance of what's going on instead of a solid block of text.

Then you could visit the equipment terminal, pick whatever you want, test it out, and repeat until you are satisfied. When you exit the VR booth, all the VR settings reset, and somebody else can jump in and try it out.

Of course a lot of details would have to be fleshed out.. Like how vehicles would strafe, but you get the gist of it.

Comments?

(Postscript: The reason I posted this at PSU, as opposed to the official site, is the community is better here. It's nice and moderated and, from what Hamma says, devs do visit. I don't care for the official forums, I swear they're not even moderated. It's downright depressing. Plus PSU has Hamma and Hamma is . He spreads .)

[MilitantB0B]

Very nice idea. I personally would just love to see some way to know how much damage you are doing per shot. Sometimes you don't know if the training dummie you are shooting are already damaged. After you refine the idea a little more, please do post it on the official forum, I would like SOE to at least have some chance to see and implement this idea.

[Doppler]

I love these ideas, now if we can get some VR games with some alternate ideas, both between outfits and between factions. Capture the flag in a simulated facility whould be cool and other litttle micro games. I remember proposing something similar for neocron and getting shot down hardcore by the devs and palyers alike.

[Endodroid]

So many unfinished things need to be added to PS at this point I think it's a safe bet that VR training will remain the same for a long, long time. That said, I think Smokejumper mentioned the VR training was going to be changed some time down the road in one of his beta forum posts.

Planetside thrives on keeping information hidden from the player (weapon damage rate, number of players on the server, size of forces in hotzones). Despite peoples attempts at deducting damage rates for weapons in game and trying to do the �ah ha! The TR max is overpowered!� It really hasn�t worked towards affecting change in the game.

I think the current VR serves it's purpose, and that's to see which weapons suck more so than others.

[Hamma]

Interesting ideas.

And elite illustrations

[�io]

Originally posted by BloodWulfe

I love it when my enemies party hard, fragging and getting drunk is just better when done together.

[Strygun]

Wow, that's a great idea... let's hope one of the devs sees it.

[Daedalus]

I think this would offline,because there are too many players and not enough training areas for the sanctuary...
PS:I haven't played the game so i don't really know what's going on!

[1024]

Ya the only problem i can see is the VR terminals filling up. Every time i go in there theres alwasy a shitload of pople. Maybe when you step in, the door closes, and it can still be used by other people, except they're just transported to a different VR room.


My idea in a nutshell:

Number of VR Terminal - not equal - Number of actual VR rooms

[BloodWulfe]

Thanks guys. I'll work on it a bit and post it on the official forums. I'm afraid Endodroid might be right though. Even if this was implemented far down the line, it probably wouldn�t contain damage information. Still, there's no harm in putting it on the table for consideration.