Class-Switching Mentality

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Palerion

Sure thing bro. Support and sniper set up a position in a building nearby a base. Set up machinegun and sniper on bipod, the assault in the squad places a healing pack by their side, the sniper places a motion sensor by them. Engineer and assault go to the point which the support and sniper cover and begin to cap it. As enemies become aware of the cap, they begin to defend the point, but are made quick work of by the sniper and support. The health pack mitigatws any damage that the support and sniper take. Those who pass through are taken out by the assault and engineer. Through the use of the motion sensor, the sniper and support detect someone entering their building. They cover the exits and eliminate the opponent. A tank arrives, the engineer eliminates it with his javelin. The point is capped. Just one scenario in which all four classes are made use of.

Okay, the genral thing I noticed straight away is that what you are proposing is human teamwork, not class teamwork. There may aswell be two Supports, one packing claymores, the other one packing C4, or two medics. Or actually two medics and two supports.


Now if we close our eyes to that, here's a similar situation:
MAX+LA+Infiltrator+HA+Medic+Engi

A Biolab fight occurs near an SCU Shield Gen. A MAX, followed by an HA with a Decimator (against enemy MAXes) jumps in. Medic keeps the infantry alive, while Engi pocket-reps a MAX. Behind them a sniper is using his bolt action sniper to easily pick off enemies at close distance. LA does not follow the group and jumps on top of the roof. The group pushes through to B, and sets up a defensive perimeter there. Infiltartor puts bouncing betties down, Engi places an Ammo Box. Infiltrator stands on it and keeps spamming Sensor Darts. The fight goes on, and LA on the roof keeps the bridges secure. Anyone who comes close enough to entrance and gets shot at by forces inside, is after that finished off by LA with a revolver. When a situation gets dire, LA let's all hostiles through and then jumps in after them with a shotgun clearing out the building and holding it for a bit more until the team can reenter the fray.


The problem you say exists is probably caused by PlanetSide's scale. BF3 offers squad play on a very small scale, with vehicles being heavily limited on top of that. PlanetSide 2 doesn't have that small scale combat when a group of 6 is pitted against a group of six (that type of combat is typically uneven), thus it may seem that all classes are standalone. But in reality, 1 engineer is enough to supply a group of 10 HAs, or two infiltrators with darts and one engi is enough to get a legit wallhack on a relatively large radius. In other words, the reason you see shooting classes dominating the battlefield is probably, because of how support roles are not restricted by the numbers they have to support.

If you compare it to vehicle combat for example though, you'll notice that any improvised vehicle depot (a place where engies massively repair vehicles) has a number of engineers significantly higher, than a number of currently repaired vehicles.

[Palerion]

You make an extremely good point. I'm just saying let's give those support classes a bit more combat emphasis so they can stand out as more than just support. As I've said before, future developments should work to put more emphasis on the combat in combat medic. The engineer, as previously stated, is shaping up well, and receiving utilities to give it a defensive combat role.

It makes more sense then. A heavy assault will still focus the most on bashing the door down and laying out an endless wave of fire, proving the most useful in the mass-scale warfare that occurs in planetside. But the ttk disparity is less. When a medic gets caught by a heavy assault, or even multiple, as it revives its teammates, or an engineer as he repairs a max or mans a turret, he can fight back with similar 1v1 power, and has a chance to down at least one enemy. And the LA and Infiltrators are pretty much combat-specific classes. My hope is just that in the future the classes will be developed so that they all get a little bit of focus on killing. Perhaps just in different ways. Medics using their ARs in a more tactical, accurate manner alongside their squad, engineers defensively with their turrets and carbines, LAs flanking and overwhelming their enemies, infiltrators sneaking and long range elimination, and HAs for laying down fire on the frontline.

HA can be the main frontline fighter class and that is fine, but as you say, people are playing the game because it is a shooter. Picking a class should be a matter of what I want my special ability to be. Big mags and heavy AV weaponry, repairing and defending, flanking and surprising, sneaking and hacking, or healing and reviving. Behind that everyone has to be an equally potent soldier.

(Yes, I'm excluding the max. It's an entirely different beast.)

More importantly I feel that there is a less vocal group of people who feel similarly to me, and want more incentive to play something that is not HA. I just want to make sure that every class is developed with respect to combat aside from their support-related abilities. Not just one class.

[Whiteagle]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

So that leaves us with the Light Assault class, unique for PS2. It needs more use and love, that's for sure. Combining it with an infiltrator would make it way too overpowered though: Sniping/gunning while cloaked from every height, no thanks to me. At least it is a lot of fun to play and somewhat useful in Biolabs and while being squad leader. I expect this class to become more useful when it gets an overhaul in a few months. Expect some added team spot/scout capabilities to it.

Well to be fair this isn't so much a lack of utility, since the Jet Pack is VERY useful, as it is yet another symptom of poor level design...
...It's not good when Team Fortress 2's Two-Fort makes better use of vertical Mobility then your average Planetside 2 Outpost...

Originally Posted by Palerion

More importantly I feel that there is a less vocal group of people who feel similarly to me, and want more incentive to play something that is not HA. I just want to make sure that every class is developed with respect to combat aside from their support-related abilities. Not just one class.

Dude, you are Ordo Imperialis, so I want you to ask some of the old Second Life Vets which weapons new recruits would especially joined up for...

I'm not familiar with the Ordo's weapons, but chances are it was either a Rocket Launcher of some sort or a really big machine gun.

That's the thing, people in shooting games generally want to play with the BIG guns first, so the class with BOTH a Rocket Launcher and an LMG is going to attract the most attention.

Honestly though, I don't think the Heavy Assault is as heavily used in Infantry Combat as you make it out to be...

...Hell, I seem to remember a time when MEDICS were considered Overpowered, because the Assault Rifles were the best default weapon in the game AND they had their Healing Aura.
Really, the only class that is as vanilla as the HA is a Default Engineer, but the Engineer is also the preferred class of Vehicle Operators thanks to the Repair Tool...

[Wahooo]

Why is the argument about balance somehow equal to killing ability 1v1 and number of players that play it?

Part of being a utility player like medic or engineer is can you help your teammates kill better? Squad v Squad which do you choose one with all HA or one with a medic or two?

Less played classes doesn't mean they are less balanced, it just means they have a different roll. If you are rolling 12 in a Sundy what is the make-up of your 12?
You want to choose a variety for a reason. OR if you gal drop on a base, infil hack out a sundy and hack any terminals for use, lay some AP mines. A couple maxes and couple engies and couple medics and several HA.

If medics were as good as HA's at killing straight up the only role HA has is their AV. Right now medics are pretty good at killing and are a force multiplier by helping the rest of the squad kill better.

As far as class switching in general, you pick the right tool for the job, right? There are different situations to use the different classes. Even if you only ever play HA or LA for killing there is a reason you chose one over the other.

[Brusi]

If the OP had been less of a wall-o-text... I might have kept reading beyond the point when I realised his post was pointless.

This is not an mmorpg and if every class is close to equally fun to play, then that is good enough for me.

[OCNSethy]

Long answer; short.. I pull what ever class I need to get the job done. If that doesnt work, I'll pull something else.

[Phreec]

The thing is that Planetside 2 isn't even close to as predictable and restricted as BF3 so more often you need to adapt to an entirely different situation than what you initially spawned for.

It's a fine balance between all-out "Do-It-All Soloing Universal Soldiers" and classic single class RPG system. You can switch between roles at terminals and sundies, but in battles you still need to depend on other classes and work as a team to win.

[Assist]

Originally Posted by Palerion

I have noticed that many people seem to have a certain mentality that class balance doesn't really matter in Planetside 2 if classes can be simply switched on a whim; a mentality that you should switch to whatever fits the situation.

The problem isn't the classes. It's that the combat doesn't allow for organized squad play. The TTK is too fast, the game is far more based on twitch than strategy, and most importantly it rewards bad play by allowing respawning just meters away from where you died in most cases. It doesn't matter which class you choose because you can simply change classes at whim without any penalty. Run in, suicide C4 into 7 guys, then respawn as a MAX and clean up 20 seconds later. No reason to rely on teammates for anything when it's simply faster to respawn and change to whichever class you need in that situation.

If you want classes to have more defined roles than you need to change the game so it has more emphasis on tactics and strategy at the combat level. Until the TTK gets changed, that won't happen. Some of us have been saying this since before release, it's unfortunate that SoE hasn't listened because it would help so much of this game. It doesn't need a major change either, but the guys who are in favor of the thoughtless twitch combat that we currently have are so ignorant that they won't take the time to think about the other games that have longer TTK that have succeeded throughout the years as great strategic FPS games.

[VaderShake]

I personally prefer the specialization in PS2, however if they wanted to add a "Special Forces Class" that allowed for some crossover of gun types or ability I would not have an issue with it if it were balanced.

But we can't have someone running around with ammo, RPG, Bettys, assault rifle, jet pack, cloaking......no thanks....

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by VaderShake

But we can't have someone running around with ammo, RPG, Bettys, assault rifle, jet pack, cloaking......no thanks....

Nice idea for an event! Let's call it "Black Ops"...

[Wahooo]

Originally Posted by NewSith

Nice idea for an event! Let's call it "Black Ops"...

[Ellipson]

Originally Posted by Palerion

You make an extremely good point. I'm just saying let's give those support classes a bit more combat emphasis so they can stand out as more than just support. As I've said before, future developments should work to put more emphasis on the combat in combat medic. The engineer, as previously stated, is shaping up well, and receiving utilities to give it a defensive combat role.

As soon as I can use the VX6-7 and Jaguar on my HA, I'll be drooling. I have a hard time with blanket statements like this when weapons in the Assault Rifle/Carbine class are equivalent or better in a lot of cases if you don't need the long clip. I do just fine in infantry combat on Medic/Engineer and better on my LA.

Assist brings up some good points about teamplay being hampered by the short spawn time/TTK and some negative gameplay ramifications; that's where I'd be focusing my efforts. Honestly the classes feel like they're in a pretty good place. A revive grenade can single handedly swing a fight with good placement and medics are a necessity to sustain a push when it's a good distance from a spawn. Engies are basically required for most vehicle play and you still need a few for ammo packs. I'm not seeing the problem..?

[kubacheski]

SOE used to support a game they made that had all of the variety of mulitple classes, but that you couldn't do everything at once. You had to specialize in a branch of what were called "certifications". If you got enough certification points, you could be specialized in a couple of these branches such as hacking, engineering, medic, heavy assault, a variety of vehicles, etc. If you chose to specialize in something you didn't like, you could de-certify and get the cert points back so you could try something else. This de-certification could be only performed every so often so it would take time to modify all of the character specializations.

They also had this cool inventory system that would limit the number of weapons you could hold.

Well at least until the population decreased as crappy ideas were put into the game and it wasn't as fun. When the pop decrease, they allowed for high level people to be able to do everything to compensate for this.

This jack of all trades was so powerful that many players wanted to make sure that it was not implemented in PS2. It was deemed too powerful, but in the end even a level 1 char in PS2 is capable of HA, Infiltrator, max armor, medic, engineer, etc, etc, etc. And if you pay real cash you can even have multiple weapon types (e.g. semi-auto and bolt action sniper rifles) to choose from. All at level 1!!! You don't even have to save up you certs for vechicles, you can drive em all from the start. But there is one single catch, you can't do 2 things at once.

So while just seconds before you switched from medic to engineer, you could heal yourself - i mean you had the knowledge, the tools, whole kit and caboodle, now that you're an engineer, you don't know how to do that shit no more. It's like the nanites wiped your dumb ass brain clean of everything you knew how to do in that split second you switched from infil to MAX after hacking a equipment terminal.

I can't remember what that game was called... anyone remember?

[Figment]

Originally Posted by NewSith

Nice idea for an event! Let's call it "Black Ops"...

Your sarcasmometer just exploded.

[Palerion]

Honestly I didn't post this thread because I'm getting my ass kicked. Personally, I do just fine with any class. I'm a seasoned fps player and can competently kill any enemy that stands in my way regardless of my class through tactical play and decision making and careful aiming.

When I posted this my mind was on the idea that people feel that they can switch classes whenever they want for every situation. But there was more going through my head I suppose, and as the thread progressed my mind wandered to other concerns. In attempt to sum up my thoughts, here are the three main things I was trying to discuss, yet don't think I managed to clarify or adequately deliver by any stretch of the imagination:

1. I kind of want classes to have their own unique way to gain an edge in combat. In global agenda I found this by playing a drone specialized robotics class and using it as an assault class (it's actually quite effective) instead of actually playing assault like everyone else. It worked pretty well and could be used in different ways than the straight-forward assault class. Drones could be used to make an escape, or to bombard an enemy with fire and kill him 1v1, or to "bomb" a clusterfuck by flying over it and dropping the drones. It was useful in its own respect, and though mildly underplayed, proved itself to be a powerful killer, not necessarily killing better than the assault class, but just killing differently. PS2 game may not be designed for this kind of gameplay and I suppose I can respect that. It's just something I was looking for in the game, I didn't want one class for all the killing. Personally I think the engineer could become something like this in terms of playstyle, giving you the option for automatic turrets like in PS1 to be a unique killer in your own respect with different tactics than HA. But for the sake of not opening a bigger can of worms than I already have, I won't go into detail. And while I can see the infiltrator and LA as being unique killers, I don't quite see it developed yet; but ill discuss that later.

2. I don't like dying or having to switch classes in order to handle a situation. Personally I don't like having the option. I feel like it's a bit cooler to have to survive an onslaught of tanks until some friendly AT soldiers come, or do some serious improvizing if I'm not prepared to handle that situation. It improves team reliance to need that teammate to take out a tank if my class is more anti-infantry focused, and can lead to some McGyver moments when you can't get help. Having two people in a squad that focus on two different kinds of killing makes you have to call on your buddy(ies) in order to handle a situation that your class wasn't designed for. It gives both classes a sense of importance and integrity.

3. The infiltrator and LA seemed too close together in role in my opinion. I really didn't want to jump to a conclusion that they should be merged. I just wanted to express that they felt like they were meant for the same job. My hope is that they will develop in the future to become more unique soldiers. And while I know many people feel that they already are, I don't find their differences to be apparent enough. And that is not in attempt to call you wrong: it's just my view. I could see the developers paving very different paths for these classes in the future, but for now it's just a concern of mine.