Some things I noticed in GDC videos

[Infektion]

Hey guys,

just wanted to know what your opinions were on afew things I noticed...

for

1) kill cam, we've spoke about this before and i'm pretty sure many are against it, but based on what you just saw... please update. I'm still not with it.

2) Quick knife, I believe I saw one in there some where.

3) very very quick, it seems like on a massive scale, it'll just be very much a zerg fest.

4) this goes in with 3, but deserves separate introduction; health regen... honestly, what's the point of a medical class when we just regen health? This honestly looks like a COD/BF3 with a huge map.


If you haven't realized, not very much for said items. Please share your thoughts.

[ArmedZealot]

There is already a 6 page thread on this.

[Coreldan]

I'm not sure if we health regen, the shield regenerates.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Coreldan

I'm not sure if we health regen, the shield regenerates.

Yep ... there's no health self-regen apart from med packs .... the shield does regen tho.

[Warborn]

Counter point: You die so quickly that regenerating health will probably not do you a lot of good.

[Azren]

Originally Posted by Infektion

2) Quick knife, I believe I saw one in there some where.

I think it was just a reloading animation.

[texico]

Here are my pro's and cons:


Pro's:

- Beautiful graphics - really top notch. 10/10

- Physics - Everything seemed a lot more fluid and realistic. I loved the way those vanguards tilted fluidly with the terrain when they were moving. Flight mechanics seem awesome, you can actually fly decently now 10/10

- Hexagonal territory system - I love the idea of a more spread out "front line" and this concept of territory control over the whole map. Tactics could be much more interestnig. 10/10

- skin - Really glad they preserved the bluey/greeny skin of PS1, it looks awesome and gives the game it's own feel. 10/10

- lots of neat customization options - Always felt PS1 would have benefited from being able to make changes to your weapon such as add-ons like laser pointers and such. 10/10

- day night cycles - looks awesome! looking forward to seeing the weather effects that can be put in. 10/10.


Cons:

- kill cams - It's not a huge deal, but given that it does have obvious negatives but negligible benefits, I'm disappointed it's still in. 4/10

- Indar's shape - Indar seems to have a fantastically crafted environment, but the shape seems a little dull to me, it's just a square, lol. PS1's continents were all really cool shapes. I think the devs should reshape the edges a bit to make it look a little more natural. 5/10

- Mechanics that emphasize killing too much - We've seen domination and revenge make its way in, and also I'm sure I heard Higby say he was trying to get a streak. I think these mechanics are going to promote selfish play too much as oppose to team play. I can imagine some guy, rather than helping me take down a max, running away after an infiltrator he's seen so he can complete a stupid kill streak and leave me to die. I can understand why there are these kind of "satisfaction" mechanics in so players attempt to complete mini roles (I did Psychology, you can't fool me, it's brainwashing them into being addicted to the game ), but I think some kind of combined attack-and-support "score" would be better, where people get score-streaks if they obtain enough score-points in one life. Some stat-based mechanic that takes the emphasis away from constant killing a bit. 3/10.

- no ams - really useful for more spec-op game play than this massive galaxy. You should really bring it back on top of the galaxy, it can hardly hurt? 2/10. On this point...

- galaxy is a spawner AND dropship...? - It really seems icky to me. I like where you're going with this idea of a big, bad central "heart" to an empire participating in a particular battle, but to make it both a dropship and a spawn vehicle just seems like poor designing. I would say you should have made two separate vehicles for each roll (and the AMS on top of that), but in line with the whole customisation thing, I think you should at least make sure that it can't fulfill both functions (you have to remove the transport "slots" to put spawn tubes in it), so somebody can make it a dropship OR a spawn point. 2/10.

Can't really tell much more without actually playing the game, but things I'm "meh" or iffy about (but would need to play to know for sure):

- classes - Still have a feeling it's going to make the game feel a lot more mechanical and a lot less "personal" than PS1. I like the customization, but still, you can dress up a tiger all you want, it's still a tiger a not a giraffe. Even if people can add loads of gismo's to their sniper rifle that give it some small AV capabilities, if you can't carry a rocket launcher with it it's going to be small comfort. 0/10

- inventory - There should be at least some sort of trade-off for what a character can carry. Inventory did that superbly, but it doesn't have to be a tetris game, even a "weight" limit rather than backpack size would be better than nothing. Players should be able to make active decisions like "I want to carry only 1 gun so I can carry more med packs or ammo boxes" or "90% of my ammo is for this gun, only one box for my second weapon." If customization can't achieve that kind of decision making, then 0/10.

- movement speed of battle - I don't mind the action for the individual being sped up a bit for PlanetSide 2, the actual pace of the fighting itself can be bedlam. But I hope the battles don't move around stupidly fast. There is a MASSIVE sense of satisfaction you would get from PS1 from fighting over a bridge for an hour and slowly pushing them all the way back to their spawn points (towers/AMS) and kicking them out. The biggest and most memorable battles in PS1 were the ones that lasted upwards of 6 hours of insane fighting where both sides were throwing everything they had to try and capture or defend a facility. So there needs to be a healthy mix of fast-moving smaller fights and huge, whole-empire fights spanning hours.