Now that we KNOW headshots are planed.

[Coyote]

I am quite dissapoint with headshot implimentations.

But if it is to be, then we must also look at the time it takes to get somewhere. Nothing says suck like walking, driving, flying, walking and walking for 15 minutes to turn a corner and instantly die. This can happen in planetside as is, not debating that, but when every gun is going to be faster over the old TTK this makes me worried that I will be spending 5 minutes actually shooting and 35 minutes walking around trying to get to a location to actually shoot somebody. I wonder how AMSs, SL spawn, Towers, and things are going to change, hopefully to reflect the TTK decrease.

Throwing this out there. Faster TTK plus insta-respawns close to the battlefield generally degrades any need for teamwork, any need for coordination, and any need to give a rats ass about objectives. I worry that people may shift from an objective based mentality to a Team death match mentality.

If a TDM mentality becomes the majority, this game will have no future. Battlefield 3, Modern warfare 3, Halo 4, Team Fortress 2, Global Agenda, ARMA 3.... Gears of War 3, the next Tribes game...These games are coming down the pipe. Most will be released before PS2, some after. They all pull from the same community pool. A community can only be split so many different ways. This is why you find 'niche' communities (like ARMA, EVE) and cater to them. Nobody has successfully changed from Niche to Mainstream. Ever. PS is, to be blunt, a Niche game. If it was mainstream we would have many ripoffs. Which we do not. Therefore, we are a Niche game.

Quick TTK + fast respawns already have saturated the multiplayer gamespace long enough that nobody will give a hoot or consider this 'original' if they play a planetside that follows the TDM mentality. We can't pull from any communities by being similar. And when you give me Classes, no inventory space, headshots, squad leader spawns, lack of sanctuaries (to coordinate/R&R), and no real sense of achievement from winning (as no continent can be locked).... I don't see a future for this game in 2014.

It'll be popular in 2012, 2013. But by 2013 MW4, halo 5, Battlefield 4, Dust 514, a probable sequel to MAG, and possibly newly released Consoles... Planetside will have a very hard time pushing itself into the front door.

I just don't think Planetside is a game that can be mainstream. Please, SOE. Prove me wrong.

[Dragoneye]

Again, I have to say that I think that some of the old PS crowd is really jumping the gun here. :| Headshots themselves are such a granular (LolSmedley) mechanic, that saying you don't want them at all is overly harsh.

Did you know that BFBC2 actually uses a per-weapon balancing system? It's also not the only one. In Shooters, the weapons are VERY carefully controlled for how many bullets it takes to down someone. Not just in headshots/bodyshots- but in Arm shots, leg shots, and any probable combination of those things. In BFBC2 there are a lot of very subtle under-the-hood numbers, for example, that make sure you can NEVER use a sniper rifle to get a 1-shot body kill, but still to give people a reason at all to choose to use a damage-boosting effect on a sniper rifle.

Locational damage does this. Headshots do this.

Adding a headshot mechanic is, at heart, just an additional tool to give a team to help balance weapons to feel more diverse.

Everyone here seems to think that implementing headshots would be as simple as: Bulletdamage = A, Headshot Damage = A x 1.5. It's not. It hasn't been since CS 1.

Some weapons might see A being much lower, with a higher damage multiplier for headshots. Others might offer much more base damage, but have almost no bonus for a headshot. (See: Shotguns in BFBC2.)

Done correctly, this type of FPS balance actually leads to MORE variety in weapons, not less. And games like TF2 have proven conclusively that it is possible to design a space where Headshot farmers and the dextrously inept can game together in balance and harmony.

Tl;Dr: Headshots are a low-level Mechanic. Don't hate on it, because it's a way to add more variety to the game. Instead, demand an implementation where the headshot based weapons do not overshadow less aiming-reliant weapons.

[Death2All]

Originally Posted by Tikuto

Lethal and Non-Lethal hitboxes

• Essentially all your character's hitboxes deals same damage value in-take.
• Lethal hitboxes would kill the character at 0 health points.
• Non-Lethal hitboxes would incapacitate the character at 0 health points.
• Final blow decides either Non-Lethal or Lethal.

How it works?
The final blow decides the player's fate. All damage taken will lead to either a successful 'lethal' take-down or an unsuccessful 'non-lethal' take-down. Headshot would obviously be a 'lethal' hitbox.

Incapacitated players are very limited on what they can do. Probably nothing. They may as well be dead or continue waiting for a Medic.
Deceased players are ... dead. Oh well. Lulz!

Sounds like it's a Battlefield mechanic. I understand it's purpose but I don't like it for whatever reason. I would just like to totally see the headshot mechanic not even be present in PS2 period.

[Marth Koopa]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

I'll be sticking to vehicles. Don't need to worry about headshots when you're hurling tank shells

Tank butt shots are in, which is headshots for tanks, but much easier to perform cause tanks are slow at turning

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by Marth Koopa

Tank butt shots are in, which is headshots for tanks, but much easier to perform cause tanks are slow at turning

The top is also typically weaker, DEATH FROM ABOVE!

[Haro]

I'd just like to point out, because it seems that no one has explicitly stated this, that headshots do not exactly mean a quick TTK. They may not be instant kills. Call of Duty and shooters of that genre may dominate the fps field, but they are far from the only ones there. Halo, for example, has a damage modifier on headshots. For some weapons, like sniper rifles, this is an instant kill, not something I would like in planetside. But for other weapons, like a rifle, it means that kills that took 12-13 shots may now take 6-7. It still takes a while, and it takes consistency and skill. I don't think instant headshot kills are a good idea, because you could hypothetically get hit by a stray bullet and just die, or (more realistically) someone could just be aiming for your chest and a bullet creeps up and kills you.

But none of that really makes sense in Planetside. It seems we won't be having any natural health regen, or at least nothing like a CoD or GoW, which means that ttk is likely to be kept at a little bit longer. It would be stupid to have a long ttk, except for headshots, because of a lot of the reasons people give.

In summary, I would make a completely unfounded guess that PS2 will have a headshot system similar to halo, where headshots increase damage but are not necessarily an instant kill. Does this favor players with better reactions or more play time? Absolutely. Thats how games work. But there are many other ways that you can shift combat balance, from mines to invisibility to shotguns to tanks.

Headshots are a staple of shooters. There's never been a game where headshots alone have broken it, and lack of headshots does not define PS1. It's a real no brainer in terms of changes to the game after 8 years, and odds are you probably won't even notice it.

[Aractain]

What if head shots did only a little bit more damage and made the user have blurred vision (like the new supression in BF3)?

But like Dragoneye says each weapon should have its only multiplication values for each location.

I don't think Higby is stupid. He wont do instant kills.

[Forsaken One]

I would happily uninstall the game and throw it out the nearest window if it was anything like Halo. While I admit the SP story was fun the Multi player was trash and I didn't even bother with it more then 3 times and uninstalled the game after I finished SP.

If headshots exist the game should be that you die fast no matter what. Rainbow six, S.W.A.T. 4. or even CoD MW1 hardcore style.

[Rbstr]

Are you capable of making a rational argument, or do you just start punching people if you get the wrong change?

[Forsaken One]

Originally Posted by Rbstr

Are you capable of making a rational argument?

They have been made many times.
The problem is a Human trying to explain to a Monkey that throwing its shit no matter how well it can aim isn't a good thing. Because the Monkey will think that throwing its shit is a good thing no matter how much the Human tries to explain otherwise with "rational arguments".

[Death2All]

Originally Posted by Rbstr

Are you capable of making a rational argument, or do you just start punching people if you get the wrong change?

Violence is always the answer

[2coolforu]

Eww, CoD.

I'm sure Higby will clear this up for us at some point. They have an entire team dedicated to balancing so I'm sure it will all be fine tuned, it's not like Call of Duty were they just throw the guns into a random number generator then do a half assed alpha test while drunk then box it up and ship. I actually trust SOE and the PS team to do some proper testing, plus we have a full Beta test with the Pside community getting preference over randomers so I doubt there will be any severe issues. I mean Planetside is very different to what it was in beta, physics glitches, 75mm galaxies, no lattice, constant backhacking. But that was all sorted and we got one of the best games of all time

Now we have the same team with a lot more support and modern technology to make it all super awesome, plus we have learned from the mistakes of Planetside 1. I'm feeling confident.

[Gwartham]

I always wondered what kept you people playing Pside when everyone else has bailed on it.

You all cant apparently aim for shit

[Aractain]

Whats an aim?

[Gwartham]

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

Eww, CoD.

I'm sure Higby will clear this up for us at some point. They have an entire team dedicated to balancing so I'm sure it will all be fine tuned, it's not like Call of Duty were they just throw the guns into a random number generator then do a half assed alpha test while drunk then box it up and ship. I actually trust SOE and the PS team to do some proper testing, plus we have a full Beta test with the Pside community getting preference over randomers so I doubt there will be any severe issues. I mean Planetside is very different to what it was in beta, physics glitches, 75mm galaxies, no lattice, constant backhacking. But that was all sorted and we got one of the best games of all time

Now we have the same team with a lot more support and modern technology to make it all super awesome, plus we have learned from the mistakes of Planetside 1. I'm feeling confident.

Exactly.

Everyone freakin out on what minimal info we have on the game.

We still got a long time to go here I am sure, but lets stop freakin out before we know what they are even talking about.