Key Parts of PS1 Vehicle Combat Missing from PS2

[sylphaen]

Finding out PS2 is all about being selfish turned me off to vehicles completely.

Quite well said, it echoes my sentiment that I tried to convey when I mention support mindset players. But you say it much better.
^^

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by BorisBlade

When BFR's first came out i was all for adding weapon slot customization to vehicles. But as I began to think about it, I realized that you end up with bland vehicles and gameplay. One vehicle can equip a weapon for any situation then you only see that vehicle.

Unless the vehicle chassis have different strengths and weaknesses.


"Oh god! Tanks will be the only vehicle because they can fit every weapon!"

No. They can't. They can fit different weapons. They can fit some AA, or some AI. This does not it will be the best AA or AI platform in all circumstances, or even most.

And they can still be balanced on performance. I can think of differences and roles that would make both a buggy class and a tank class useful. Why can noone else?

Lets try.

A buggy does not set off mines. Holy crap thats not useful at all. Nobody would ever drive them.

A buggy can go twice as fast as a tank and hence respond to threats quicker. USELESS!

A buggy has a jump pack to let it clear terrain obstacles and get to places tanks can't, or get there much quicker. Bleh.

Oh no! The buggy found itself a galaxy to cart it around! Why would anyone EVER want that?

Oh look! The buggy has a 2 minute respawn timer while the tanks is ten minutes!!!one!!11 Doesn't matter cause tanks never die or something.

Waaaa! Why do the buggies upgrades all cost 33% as much as the tanks?

Go. Play. Battlezone. A bunch of different vehicles with different levels of mobility, different uses. Some weapons are unique to certain vehicles. Some are not. They are all useful in their own way. Making nothing but the biggest, baddest tanks with the most firepower and slowest speed is a very quick way to lose.


Or not and just assume SOE is absolutely horrid at balance and will do the worst possible job.

[Sirisian]

Speaking of what CutterJohn wrote I'll explain how a tank SHOULD function (imo). All of them should use slow firing shells. If you're an infantry and there's a tank next to you then you should feel safe knowing it's not going after you with the main gun. That is if it fires at you from 100m then you can just sprint out of the way. It's not in the tank's best interest to go for long ranged kills on infantry. It will focus on fighting armor at that point which is how I feel a tank should be used with just a driver. With a gunner it should focus on using long ranged rockets or motors. This reserves things like machine guns to buggies and other vehicles.

This leaves buggies to fulfill other weapon choices.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Speaking of what CutterJohn wrote I'll explain how a tank SHOULD function (imo). All of them should use slow firing shells. If you're an infantry and there's a tank next to you then you should feel safe knowing it's not going after you with the main gun. That is if it fires at you from 100m then you can just sprint out of the way. It's not in the tank's best interest to go for long ranged kills on infantry. It will focus on fighting armor at that point which is how I feel a tank should be used with just a driver. With a gunner it should focus on using long ranged rockets or motors. This reserves things like machine guns to buggies and other vehicles.

I don't really care how it should or should not be used. My only point was that the chassis and the weapons that chassis can carry can all be balanced so that its not the supreme being on the battlefield and the only viable choice. You can make something the best choice in particular circumstances without making it the best choice in all circumstances, or the only choice for that particular circumstance. Role overlap is perfectly fine.

[sylphaen]

More than anything, we would need to hear more about the gameplay vision of the devs. Knowing how they intend the game to be played will be more helpful than getting facts like "non-turret mag cannon" or "MAX can melee" (even though knowing something is better than nothing).

The interesting part is the design decision behind a choice to implement something. For example, knowing they are trying to achieve a faster gameplay is useful to understand the other design decisions like faster TTK.

Up until now, I don't think they have said anything about the role/purpose of vehicles or I missed it.

[cellinaire]

(... Well, some of you guys remember saying like "PS1 would die as soon as PS2 arrives. It's sad but true. And PS2 will be uber hehe can't wait" in one of the older threads in this forum? )

BTW, we still don't know if ALL vehicles in PS2 will let drivers also gun their own vehicles. Furthermore, I personally only don't agree with the specific notion that all players will only use vehicles in which drivers also can shoot projectiles. But don't get me wrong here, cause' .......
just think about situation where there're 3 magriders and 4 veteran players. Two of these players choose to drive&gun, while two remaining players decide to team up and use the single tank. In addition, the first two tanks which don't have dedicated gunners receive penalties like decreased shooting range/speed, decreased damage, decreased accuracy and decreased rotation speed/increased reload time, compared to the last tank which has dedicated gunner in it's position with no such penalties.

Lastly, let's suppose without separate dedicated gunner, few of the weapon/vehicle fuctionalities can't even be used. So what I'm trying to say here is that, without teamwork vehicles can't flex their muscles even 80%. The price one-manned vehicle has to pay should be huge. And of course I agree with the rest of your concerns here.



=)

(I have to say again that I don't like "drivers can also be gunners" idea myself.)

[Talek Krell]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

More than anything, we would need to hear more about the gameplay vision of the devs. Knowing how they intend the game to be played will be more helpful than getting facts like "non-turret mag cannon" or "MAX can melee" (even though knowing something is better than nothing).

Agreed. At this point we desperately need more pieces of the puzzle to begin forming a more accurate version of the larger picture. The devs stated in one of the more recent pieces that there were at least a few vehicles in the game that weren't in PS1 at all. Between those and the ones that we haven't heard about yet, like the lightning and the deli, there's a lot of important information that we may be missing.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Unless the vehicle chassis have different strengths and weaknesses.

This is really important and part of the core concept of tradeoffs. Each chassis should have different strengths and weaknesses, and they should be significant.

I think buggies have some great potential for different advantages. Its one reason of many why I think they should not only be in the game, but part of the core balance right from the beginning. I don't want them to be an add-on accessory as a throw-back cookie for the vets.

Ideas for how Buggies can add diversity and the buggy chassis offer distinct advantage vs a tank would be a great topic all itself Cutter. I hope Higby and T-Ray and others are listening. I liked the vehicle diversity in PS1. I liked how buggies had distinct roles and purpose. I was quite disappointed when I read that buggies weren't in and would hopefully be added. It just screams that they aren't important to core vehicle gameplay. Its a shame they're going the direction they are with it.

Originally Posted by sylphaen

More than anything, we would need to hear more about the gameplay vision of the devs.

I would very much like them to sit down and not just tell us how things are but explain the why behind the decisions and a more detailed vision for ground vehicle combat, teamwork dynamics, and balancing.

If anyone watched some of the sessions from the Microsoft BUILD conference that revealed Windows 8, there was one talk by the guy who designed the new UI where he walked through the principles of what the core UI principles were and more importantly why they made the design decisions that they did. I would like to see something like that from the PS2 devs with respect to some of these big changes.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Malorn

I was quite disappointed when I read that buggies weren't in and would hopefully be added. It just screams that they aren't important to core vehicle gameplay. Its a shame they're going the direction they are with it.

Wait what?!

No buggies?

When was this said? We can't just have tanks dammit..

[Malorn]

The interview last week. Its one of the reasons I made this thread...


Look at the PS2 info thread, the interview from 9/15. First and last items on the list are what is stirring up a lot of concern.

• Drivers gun their own vehicles too
• Buggies on list of things to put in, hopefully

Its the lack of certainty in the statement which gives the message that it isn't critical to the game but something they want to add. The "hopefully" part says to me that they can/will ship the game without if if they have to.

[2coolforu]

A simple solution would be to perhaps make 2 seperate cert trees for tanks, one can produce a tank that the driver guns himself and the other tree produces a tank that requires someone else to gun the main cannon. The one man tank would be similar to a lightning relative to the two man tank however that's the price that driver pays to put in zero effort to teamwork, the reward he gets is the most powerful one man frontline combat vehicle. The two man tank driver gets a far more powerful tank at the cost of requiring teamwork and sacrificing getting all the glory, obviously he would recieve a massive assist bonus and he would have the benefit of being 'that guy with the awesome tank' and everyone would want to hop in.

[Accuser]

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

A simple solution would be to perhaps make 2 seperate cert trees for tanks, one can produce a tank that the driver guns himself and the other tree produces a tank that requires someone else to gun the main cannon.

That is a phenomenally elegant solution. One-man-army solo players will have their jacked up lightning, and team players who are willing to drive without gunning can have a tank that is significantly more powerful than 2 one-man-army tanks.

[Sirisian]

Not sure why you want to enable that forced teamwork mentality of a driver relying on a gunner so much. It doesn't really add anything to the vehicle combat since it just removes weapons from a driver. I really don't think the game should reward people for giving up their own fun for others. Even if you don't see it that way it's true. I think the game can balance teamwork in other more enjoyable ways. I shouldn't have to give up the main driver AV cannon just so I can be on par with a player that decided they'd let someone else gun. If two people decide they want to kill some tanks faster they can just pull two tanks.

Also if you're not into combat in vehicles you might choose galaxy piloting. There's no gun there, but if you're going to use a primarily offensive vehicle be expected to have a weapon.

[BorisBlade]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

I agree with Napalm's points. You're really reaching to make your arguments. Your assumptions about the role of vehicles in PS2 is mostly based on an argument that a vehicle used by one person isn't as a good as a system of mandatory teamwork.

You're also making assumptions about balance since you want this system to be like BF. Chances are it's not going to be exactly like that. I imagine it's still going to take a few passes from a Reaver/Bomber and a lot of hits from tank to kill another tank. (Picture long range battles on an open field where tanks are trading shells back and forth).

meh, the PS1 system was more Driver + Gunner = 1 AV Gun

New system is Driver + Gunner = 1 AV Gun + 1 AA/AI Gun.

The original system was the "bland gameplay". When you had 10 people you had 5ish tanks and 5 people gunning. You really needed to enjoy driving to assist players. For me it was dull. I don't play an FPS game to assist a player for hours. I need to shoot a gun. The new system has 10 people with either 5-10 tanks depending on the amount of AV needed. 10 AV only tanks is going to get destroyed by AV infantry, Reavers, and Bombers.

The goal will be to keep tanks to open areas fighting other tanks which is how I believe tanks should be used. If they roll into an infantry area with rocks they're silly AV cannon with what I can only imagine is a slower fire rate than before will leave them dead.

First of all you are wrong, second, give me the much better PS1 style tanks, and i'll drive then you can gun and you will do 10x better since you dont have to drive too. I dont wanna gun, i def dont wanna gun and drive at the same time, i wanna just drive. And since they wouldnt have to balance them as just solo buffs like the pilot=gunner idea would do, you would live alot longer and alow for more strategy and fun. If you want to solo they should let you have your reavers or lightnings, this is multiplayer with a zillion people and should focus on teamwork not solo. Socially oriented games keep players longer than ones that are solo oriented and are just hella more fun...yeah i just said hella.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by BorisBlade

give me the much better PS1 style tanks, and i'll drive then you can gun and you will do 10x better since you dont have to drive too.

That's why I'm a big proponent of letting drivers that aren't good at twitch based decision making release the AV gun to their gunner. However, you shouldn't penalize a skilled two person team that's using the weapons to their fullest. If someone is good at both driving and gunning at the same time it's going to show. Always cracked me up when I saw people using the lightning and they'd just spam rounds hoping for damage instead of practicing their shots and hit every round. This vehicle combat change is really going to be a wake-up call for players that can't multi-task.

Like I said before though I'm sure the game will allow some less combat intensive roles and classes.

To sum up your last few points though I feel the game shouldn't be balanced around the forced teamwork mechanic of "1 person doing nothing means the second person has 2x damage on their weapon". It isn't really necessary.