My main concern about the class system

[EASyEightyEight]

Originally Posted by Bags

I really don't see why I can't have a shitty medapp while you get a bitching medapp. You do realize I'm not an unstoppable killing machine because I can't heal incombat, right? Right?!??!

I guess you haven't played planetside since you don't know what the lightning is.

Cannon fodder to anyone that can actually aim a rocket, or a real tank cannon. Thing is a rolling coffin if there aren't bigger targets for the prey to worry about.

And the issue is out of combat healing, EI: take a few hits, duck behind cover, completely recover, rinse and repeat. This is done ad infinitum in PS1, and no one needs a partner because of it.

[Bags]

Originally Posted by EASyEightyEight

Cannon fodder to anyone that can actually aim a rocket, or a real tank cannon. Thing is a rolling coffin if there aren't bigger targets for the prey to worry about.

And the issue is out of combat healing, EI: take a few hits, duck behind cover, completely recover, rinse and repeat. This is done ad infinitum in PS1, and no one needs a partner because of it.

The lightning is a fine vehicle and I always rolled with teammates back in the day despite being a "super soldier" so I 'm still not sure what your point is.

Can I solo efficiently? To an extent. Do I work better with teamwork? Absolutely.

[EASyEightyEight]

There's always strength in numbers. No denying that.

You're also forgetting the long term problem with one role having access to a med app, engineering kit, and HA/AV: PS2's own cert system. Sure, one year in, maybe you've finally mastered the minigun, and it now spews rocklets, hundreds upon hundreds of laser guided rocklets, but then what's year 2? You'll eventually have a bitchin' med app too, just as I will eventually have a bitchin' minigun.

Classes are here for power control. No one person is supposed to be too powerful. They mentioned a 15-20% difference as their plan. That equation most likely includes class restrictions. A guy with a souped up HA and a souped up med-app on the same class is probably going to be bigger than 15-20%, unless the certs are so underwhelming no one gives a flying **** for them anyway.

On the note of the long term... newbs may never catch up, especially the later they join, but at least due to the class system, they won't simply be mice against 5 year old lions.

And I've only feared a lightning when I'm stupid enough to be caught alone by one. Most of them can't drive and gun at the same time (highlighting it's true weakness.) Mad props to the pros whom can, whom seem to be extremely rare.

[Bags]

Originally Posted by EASyEightyEight

There's always strength in numbers. No denying that.

You're also forgetting the long term problem with one role having access to a med app, engineering kit, and HA/AV: PS2's own cert system. Sure, one year in, maybe you've finally mastered the minigun, and it now spews rocklets, hundreds upon hundreds of laser guided rocklets, but then what's year 2? You'll eventually have a bitchin' med app too, just as I will eventually have a bitchin' minigun.

... then they simply limit how many certs you can have ala PS1? This is why classes are bad and the cert system in PS1 was perfect.

[EASyEightyEight]

Uh no... but that's my opinion, as is yours for you. I'd rather they restrict what certs I can bring with me at any given moment instead demand I log out and back in with a new character.

They want to encourage teamwork. As for your argument to reduce cert points just like in the "good ol' days" here's the original 23 cert point cap allocation:

Med-assault: 2
Med-app: 3
Engineer: 3
Heavy-A: 4
A-Vehicle: 3
Rexo : 3
ATV : 2 (it seriously used to be 2 certs for just one variant)

There was more than enough room (3 whole points!) to spare back then for another weapon cert, or even 1 of many vehicles, or even enhancing a support role. Clearly, all these "extra" certs aren't the problem. They never were. They just allow more free-form choice without having to roll an alt. There was always enough to pull off the basic grunt setup we see today and still get around in a bloody reaver/MBT if you so chose. The restriction you're asking for, we'll be looking at 10-12 cert points tops for everybody, then they can either decert/recert or roll an alt to experience other roles.

I can't imagine that will turn out well in the long term.

[Aractain]

The core of my hope for PS is no one class can take on infantry, vehicles, aircraft and MAXs all at the same time. Maybe choose two or one really well.

Im imagning HA + rocklet or MA + AV but not HA + AV. Maybe they break up AV into AV and AA also who knows. Maybe there wont be many close in corridors and things so HA isn't as uesful (probably will be though).

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by Aractain

The core of my hope for PS is no one class can take on infantry, vehicles, aircraft and MAXs all at the same time. Maybe choose two or one really well.

If your infantry can't take on MAXs and infantry at the same time i'll be sitting in a MAX waiting to chew everything up...... seriously people complained about MAXs when every grunt had some form of AV, you take that away and it'll be a MAX fest

I'm hoping the classes are along the lines of the; medic being an ADV med with MA, the eng being a CE with glue gun and MA, the grunt being able to heal/rep and HA MA AV sniper, the cloaker having pistols and hacking, and a pilot having MA and glue gun.

I honestly think taking the basic grunts ability to grunt away from him will destroy the game

[Aractain]

Umm the point is that people will choose between them. There will be people with anti-MAX alongside people without - thats the whole point. If EVERY infantry is effective vs every other infantry/MAX its just a game of Quake.

[exLupo]

Originally Posted by Redshift

If your infantry can't take on MAXs and infantry at the same time

At the same time in that post meant using the same cert build and without having to visit a terminal. Back in beta, when the cert tree were very restrictive and nobody was br18, players had to specialize. You'd get medics with some MA and Agile (you had to buy it) or pilots or tankers or HA users or hackers or... Now you get ha/av/eng/a.med/a.hack do-all character. The game was reduced form a multitude of specializations to two. Indoor and Outdoor. Everything else is irrelevant or you're intentionally gimping yourself.

PS2, form every indication, will somewhere between BF2142 and EVE. Everyone will be able to perform every basic role at a basic level. Say in 2142 if you spent a lot of time in Engineer you could do all the fancy Engi tricks but if your certs were irrelevant you could still change to Assault or Support, untrained, and roll in with your buddies. From the dev panel, PS2 will be similar in a skilling standpoint. And, hopefuly, the trees will be time-intensive enough to make specializing in medic or hacker or transport actually mean something because, right now in PS1, those specializations don't exist anymore.

As anyone who has -actually- played EVE can confirm, new players can get up to 90% operating capacity in a wide variety of boats in short order. The specialist boats take much more time and that time limits your ability to do other things. PS2 seems to be taking a similar tack. Everyone will be functional indoors or out but if you want to do anything well or use anything fancy (see: example of MAX as an offshoot of HA) then you'll have to invest time and your supersoldier potential will decrease accordingly. Unless they totally screw up the xp curve, nobody will ever be able to do everything and specialists will actually be important this time around.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by exLupo

. You'd get medics with some MA and Agile (you had to buy it) or pilots or tankers or HA users or hackers or... Now you get ha/av/eng/a.med/a.hack do-all character. The game was reduced form a multitude of specializations to two. Indoor and Outdoor.

basic med and eng is not a specialisation, ADV med CE and adv hacker are what i would term specialisations and you couldn't pick up those while still having all the main grunting certs (excluding when they fucked up the br cap)

and tbh that made for good game play, i personally had myself pure grunt at br 20, i used to have to drive an atv around since i couldn't afford a mossie :P and when we did organised outfit stuff i dropped my AV for adv med, and others drops certs for what they needed for the night.

If only the med can heal people then the grunt will effectivly be dead, because without a shadow of a doubt a med with a MA will be a better killer than a grunt with HA who can't heal himself

MA/ENG HA AV is not a super soldier it's a basic grunt

[exLupo]

Originally Posted by Redshift

MA/ENG HA AV is not a super soldier it's a basic grunt

Any single unit that can realistically solo engage any other unit and not rely on anyone else to fix themselves up afterwards is a super soldier. Like I said. It's the de facto indoor build. The only one worth having if you aren't in a vehicle.

That's a problem.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by exLupo

Any single unit that can realistically solo engage any other unit and not rely on anyone else to fix themselves up afterwards is a super soldier. Like I said. It's the de facto indoor build. The only one worth having if you aren't in a vehicle.

That's a problem.

So whats the grunt suppose to be able to do then? atm you seem to want it to be a guy with a HA weapon.

That's fine but in that case a medic shouldn't be allowed to shoot. Killing people is for a specialised grunt role, medics are for healing....

That obviously makes for bad gameplay, if a grunt can't heal, but a medic can still kill people everyone will just play medics and grunts are a dead class.

With a lower ttk and headshots with MA the gap between HA and MA is not going to be sufficient to justify making HA users worthless in every other sense

[exLupo]

Originally Posted by Redshift

So whats the grunt suppose to be able to do then? atm you seem to want it to be a guy with a HA weapon.

That's fine but in that case a medic shouldn't be allowed to shoot. Killing people is for a specialised grunt role, medics are for healing....

Rexo + HA, at one time, had your cert points getting thin. That doesn't mean A.Med + MA was impossible. I'm saying what I said I was saying.

One unit that can do everything is bad.
Cross unit inter-dependency is good.

PS1 had the second before launch. Now it has the former. Before launch, players had to depend on each other to perform tasks. Now they just depend on each other to shoot the same direction. The game has, and I hate to say this, been dumbed down. Multiple specializations does more for game diversity than the current two that PS1 has.

edit: Without having any idea how HA even functions in PS2, we can't begin to speculate about the MA/HA relationship.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by exLupo

edit: Without having any idea how HA even functions in PS2, we can't begin to speculate about the MA/HA relationship.

I've read somewhere that HA can't headshot since mcg would be nuts with them

The fact is waiting on others does not work 100% of the time, i've sat outside a tower on a noob for 3-4 mins spamming WNR before, then i gave up dropped a nade on myself and respawned, that's not fun.
The reason people used med/eng themselves was because others can't be relied on, when it could be relied on it was much better to use a dedicated med eng, i.e during an outfit gen hold. If you make it impossible to play the game without a group you'll lose subscribers, there's no way you can argue against that point

[Aractain]

Originally Posted by Redshift

If you make it impossible to play the game without a group you'll lose subscribers

Totaly true. But even back in BF2 the medic/support was heavily used because it was well rewarded and had enough firepower to be fun. Engineer on the other hand was barely rewarded at all and as a result was absent most of the time. (AT and engineer was different in BF2 wasnt it? I played a lot of AT - usually the only one).

Faster paced gameplay mean suicideing and coming back will be more acceptable if no one is there to support you IF there is no self healing (which we don't know).