Higgles on certs and progression

[Mastachief]

Originally Posted by ThGlump

Im expecting some sort of mix between unlocks and certs. You can unlock/train everything in some class but still use only limited set at a given time (selectable cert or equipment related). So even if you unlocked it all, you cant use it all at once.

Easily switching classes i see as a problem. Everyone will have access to everything, with no downside (after you train most from all). In ps1 those who had drivers certs pulled tanks etc, and those who didnt would be theirs gunners. In ps2 everyone will rather switch class so they can have their own tank, than to be someones gunner and use inferior gun.

Not sure that's the route they are going down. The classes i believe will govern armour and weapons. Vehicle i reckon will still need you to have certed and trained them up.

[AncientVanu]

Hey thank you Figment and Mastachief for the info. One question that is related to the leveling and skill unlocking, if I have to spend some points to unlock the Scythe, are there other skills of any particular significance for piloting? From what I've read we would be able to unlock and mount different weapons to the vehicles, but are there other skills of any use for the air vehicles? I guess such info is not available for PS2 yet, but how was it in PS1?

[ringring]

Originally Posted by AncientVanu

Hey thank you Figment and Mastachief for the info. One question that is related to the leveling and skill unlocking, if I have to spend some points to unlock the Scythe, are there other skills of any particular significance for piloting? From what I've read we would be able to unlock and mount different weapons to the vehicles, but are there other skills of any use for the air vehicles? I guess such info is not available for PS2 yet, but how was it in PS1?

No, in PS1, once you had certed Mossie you could fly it. Of course, it was helpful to have another cert to go with it.
i.e. Engineering, which allowed you to repair vehicles - and then you adjusted your pilot/vehicle loadout to include a glue gun.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Figment

Considering you are not locked into a class, but can change at your whim at an equip term or next respawn, yes you can use it all at all times when the need arrises.

So it takes a couple lives or a term switch. That's not exactly a huge restriction, now is it? Which means it'll eventually be EXACTLY like BR40. Since sure, you can't fit a MAX in a rexo, but if you can open a term you can become one instantly when you need one.

Truth be told, I don't consider anyone extremely insightful if they discuss balance on the basis of a single lifetime and single encounter in a respawning game.

Really? You make it sound like there will be equipment terminals and spawn points every 10 feet. We've all played this game so we all know that with the dynamic nature of the battlefield MUCH changes in the time that it takes to respawn or run back to an equipment terminal.

In 2 minutes, the threat that took you out may very well be gone to reload or even be destroyed. The fact that you can now equip yourself to counter the threat that took you out may be moot by the time you get back to where he was when you died.

Plus, that is even assuming that he is in the same place which we all know is highly unlikely. If you sit around in 1 spot for too long, somebody will always take you out, no matter what vehicle or weapon you have.

So, I don't really give a crap if you think I'm insightful or not, but there is a difference between being able to carry everything you need on you and having to switch loadouts at a terminal.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by AncientVanu

Hey thank you Figment and Mastachief for the info. One question that is related to the leveling and skill unlocking, if I have to spend some points to unlock the Scythe, are there other skills of any particular significance for piloting? From what I've read we would be able to unlock and mount different weapons to the vehicles, but are there other skills of any use for the air vehicles? I guess such info is not available for PS2 yet, but how was it in PS1?

What Hillfort said (ringring), with one additional thing:

In PlanetSide we had these things called Implants, which were basically bionic, inherent upgrades of which you could have three installed in your character. These implants gave you particular benefits that enhanced your battlefield capabilities a bit. CoD used this concept and renamed them "perks". Difference with CoD is that implants used to have a warm up time of 30 seconds to a minute.

You could however exchange them freely whenever you had access to a Implant Terminal (like Certification Terminals, only found in sanctuary and Bio Laboratory facilities). Typically people didn't change implants a lot as they picked those that were most suited to their combat style.

Some were even quite pivotal and pretty much all infantry oriented, especially for infiltrators (cloakers). One of these made your knife slashes much stronger (Melee Boost), some kept you from being heard or caught by interlink radar and kept Artificial Intelligence turrets from spotting you (Sensor Shield) or put nearby running players without Sensor Shield on radar (Audio Amplifier). Then there's the zoom implant, which allowed you to zoom in much further, which of course can be useful for sniping. The only implant useful for vehicle users was Enhanced Targeting (shows Enemy health) really to help you with target selection.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Raymac

Really? You make it sound like there will be equipment terminals and spawn points every 10 feet. We've all played this game so we all know that with the dynamic nature of the battlefield MUCH changes in the time that it takes to respawn or run back to an equipment terminal.

In 2 minutes, the threat that took you out may very well be gone to reload or even be destroyed. The fact that you can now equip yourself to counter the threat that took you out may be moot by the time you get back to where he was when you died.

Plus, that is even assuming that he is in the same place which we all know is highly unlikely. If you sit around in 1 spot for too long, somebody will always take you out, no matter what vehicle or weapon you have.

So, I don't really give a crap if you think I'm insightful or not, but there is a difference between being able to carry everything you need on you and having to switch loadouts at a terminal.

So you are saying there's no difference between taking on a player with or without UniMAX certification? And you don't think (Uni)MAX use has increased dramatically ever since they became less costly to obtain (or completely free)?

And you are saying this has not upset balance and completely changed gameplay because players had more choice? Particularly in terms of using the heaviest weapons at all times?

And you are saying that if you are defending a position and the two of you don't have access to AV and you come across a BR40 who has both expert hack, engineering and MAX, that he can't repair/open a term and spawns, grab an AI MAX, kill the CC guys, run back downstairs to the term which is still open, get a HA/REK suit and resecure before you respawned and got back to the CC as a defender?

Note that this scenario at BR20 was often not possible, if not extremely unlikely on your own, whereas today it is very common in PS. It made it a lot harder for people who have no access to a term to compete with people who do and the question is whether that is fair, because having access to a term in the first place is already a major advantage if the other does not.

Also, you don't always have a choice about where to sit. If you have to defend a specific spot like the CC, you can't just go away, certainly not with a BR40 around who only needs a few seconds to resec. If they had no hacking certs, you'd be facing pyjamas respawning with your single life and you'd be able to leave the CC for just under a minute. BIG BIG BIG difference which you either don't understand or deliberately ignore because you don't care. Note that 'not caring' is not an argument for bad gameplay, 'not caring' means you should not bother with responding.


Reeeaaaaallly now? Please try to become more insightful, it helps.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Figment

So you are saying there's no difference between taking on a player with or without UniMAX certification? And you don't think (Uni)MAX use has increased dramatically ever since they became less costly to obtain (or completely free)?

Reeeaaaaallly now?

You're changing the subject. (you do that alot) Your arguement has no bearing on the subject because you can't be AA/AV/AI Max all at once. Really.

Try again.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Raymac

You're changing the subject. (you do that alot) Your arguement has no bearing on the subject because you can't be AA/AV/AI Max all at once. Really.

Try again.

*sigh* Sometimes you get tired of explaining things 300 times to simpletons. This is one of those moments.

Having it at once has never been the issue, but people like you can't see beyond that most simplistic basics of combat. Having it in multiple lives or classes within one lifetime IS.

If you respawn you are still in the same fight. Therefore you have access to the same weapons in the same timespan of the fight. No not all at once, you can also only pull the trigger on one weapon at a time, but that doesn't mean you can't carry more than one either!

But if that is the extend of your argument, just leave me alone and go bother someone who wants to listen to your dribble.



EDIT: Consider this Raymac, if you can respawn and the other cannot, he is not fighting just you, but ALL your incarnations. If you can change freely to whatever rock for his scissors, you will ALWAYS have the advantage. If you can change gear upon spotting his scissors and retreat to become rock, he'll never have a chance to get to you with his scissors. Besides, it is very likely that people will use "HEAVY ROCK" en mass when encountering "bread knife". Just because they have access to it and they don't need "paper tissue" just yet: they can change to "paper tissue" after the rock bit and only when absolutely needed - meaning you'll never need to be at a disadvantage against "bread knife". That is not a rock-paper-scissors anymore, it's a simple scissors vs rock or heavy rock.

Scissors will not win the encounter, even if you initially arrived as paper.

If however, you only have access to "paper", "tissue paper" or "scissors", you will either become more reliant on people with "rock", or you'll have to work on more even footing, or hell, at a disadvantage. if you don't comprehend the difference just yet, or think it's a minimal difference, stop responding. Please, because you'll never get my argument and you'd save us both a lot of headaches.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Figment

*sigh* Sometimes you get tired of explaining things 300 times to simpletons. This is one of those moments.

Having it at once has never been the issue. Having it in multiple lives or classes within one lifetime IS.

If you respawn you are still in the same fight. Therefore you have access to the same weapons in the same timespan of the fight. No not all at once, you can also only pull the trigger on one weapon at a time, but that doesn't mean you can't carry more than one either!

But if that is the extend of your argument, just leave me alone and go bother someone who wants to listen to your dribble.

Let me respond to your ridiculous ego in my feeble simpleton language: fuck you.

Now, I did understand the point you were making before that there is no difference between being able to do everything over mulitple lives and during the same life. So that is the point I responded to and debunked.

As for the issue of simply being able to do everything over the span of mutiple lives, the reponse is rather simple. If it is a tiny 5v5 fight, then yes, it can turn into a simple game of rock, paper, scissors where the loadout can give the edge when skill is similar. However, even in PS1 (and it sounds like PS2 will support larger battles) in an 80v80 fight, the individual loadout of 1 person begins to mean very little due to the huge amounts of fighting and dying happening each second.

In larger battles, you may not even see the same player twice in an hour. So considering the tiny 5v5 battles are extremely rare and not the foundation of Planetside, building the game around that would be stupid.

So, TL;DR Your point is moot because of the sheer number of players per battle.

[Figment]

You never debunked it, you ignored it.

The rest of your argument is absolute bull, unless you are a zergling, which I suppose makes sense. Try running with a resec team once in your life. The skills, lives and equipment of ONE character makes all the difference in EVERY battle. There are literally hundreds of zerg fights I've single handedly turned around thanks to my equipment and getting it in the right spot at the right time over the course of a couple lives and thanks to being able to switch to weapons and support tools others had no access to.

And the other way around, we've won situations as a team where I alone (having no anti-MAX stuff) would not have gotten out on top. JUST ONE MAX can mean all the difference if you don't have any form of AV. He can stall, deny you access to certain areas or just have the right short TTK at the right time to make your respawn problematic logistically (timers run out on the CC of bases or LLUs). If you don't have access to the most obvious counter, you have to find workarounds. If PS1 was class based, I'd just have pulled an AV MAX every time I came across an AI MAX in my infil suit. Then switched back to my infil suit and done my thing.


EDIT: You may think me arrogant, but sometimes that is justified. Elitist? Maybe. Snobbish? Maybe. Ego? Damn right. I'm quite aware I go about three times as far in thinking as others do. Is it more social to make people like you think they are argueing on equal footing? Sure, all it gets is annoyance if your level of reasoning is a lot deeper than that of the opposition.

I'm sure there are people who think a Galaxy Gunship type vehicle is great, even if it is completely unbalanced outside of a fully occupied SOI, because they don't get into situations where the GG is completely out of whack balance wise. There were people who claimed that the GG was fine, because "everyone in the entire SOI would be firing at it, so there's dozens if not a hundred guns on it at once", never mind that a lot of people worked in vehicle teams of three to ten and had no chance to survive such an encounter in the open field, rather than a fully fortified base (in which they'd still get targeted and would die within seconds).

Your arguments are on the same level: ignorant, narrowminded and naive, not looking at more than one situation or scenario, even when admitting there are more situations, you don't find them relevant because you don't encounter them personally or you try to trivialise them so you don't have ot think about it. You don't think about the affects on other players. You don't think about abuse. Sorry if I don't have much sympathy or respect for that sort of ignorance while you are acting as quite the know it all yourself.

[FriendlyFire]

Originally Posted by Figment

Hi,
I make everything sound like a 1v1 fight.

Sincerely,
Figment

I edited this for you.

PS2 is not a 1v1 game.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Figment

You never debunked it, you ignored it.

The rest of your argument is absolute bull, unless you are a zergling, which I suppose makes sense.

I didn't ignore shit. Go back and re-read my response to your premise of multiple lives loadout = single life loudout. And make sure yuo read the post of yours I quoted because you may have forgotten what you said.

As for the rest of post being bull, if that is the best you've got, you are nowhere near as smart as you think. Planetside has always been about massive battles. You can't ignore that and just say massive battles are bull.

[sylphaen]

well, maybe it will indeed feel like BR40... Or maybe it will cost so much in resources to change class, while alive, 10 times in a row that it may not be worth it.

The risk of broken gameplay is there but it will all depend on how balance is implemented in the end.

Wait & see...

[Figment]

Originally Posted by FriendlyFire

I edited this for you.

PS2 is not a 1v1 game.

No shit Watson. But not at all an accurate edit because it's not about 1 vs 1, it's about 1 person in a string of person lives in the context of a lot of people with a lot of strings of life. It's about what a couple people can do in the long run. Raymac is worse than a Republican, he thinks in 2-5 minutes timespan, where at least a Republican thinks of the period till the next elections. How about you think of some longer periods of time? A lot of things can happen within 20 minutes to three hours and ANY AND ALL THINGS AVAILABLE TO YOU AND OTHERS WITHIN THIS TIME SPAN matters for the outcome of the fight.

Basically, Raymac thinks in a battle, I think in a war.


How is this evaluation for you: Anyone you encounter is everyone else, according to Raymac, because it doesn't matter who you encounter if you encounter someone. BECAUSE EVERYONE IS AT ALL TIMES PRESENT.


No, they're not. A group of individuals you are fighting does not necessarily have all certs. It would be wrong to both assume they do and then to say "well the group as a whole has access to everything, so why not give every individual access to everything" would be mindblowingly stupid and simplistic. This is what Raymac ultimately says though - you as well?


And Raymac, you never did. You didn't counter anything because you've always been talking from your own narrowminded framework of one life one weapon. Which is still utterly simplistic. As long as you are debating about the weapons you can use one at a time, you have no place in this debate.

[Raymac]

Wow. The douchey-ness has reached epic proportions and gone far beyond the point being discussed. Figment, you need to chill out.

EDIT: I'm just going to leave it at that since the last post was filled with nothing but insulting personal attacks and classic strawman fallicies where you literally put words in my mouth and then tear them apart. I stand by what I've said in this thread and will leave it at that.