New single person mechs designed from scratch for PS2

[opticalshadow]

Originally Posted by Vancha

I could take them or leave them honestly. I just dislike seeing such terrible arguments used for their exclusion (not yours specifically, just in this thread in general)


Keep in mind that while the very vocal minority here has daddy issues with father BFR, the vast majority of people playing PS2 probably won't have a clue what a BFR is. They'll think you're trying to reference Doom's BFG or something.


You could just as easily ask why they wanted to risk implenting Galaxies, Vanguards or Threshers again. There's nothing that makes mechs any more prone to imbalance than anything else...Especially in such a major redesign.




I'm going to try and put this to rest here.

Auraxis is not Earth, it's another planet...and it's not just any planet. It's a planet with native trees. Do you have any idea how unlikely it is that any other planet in the universe has trees? The mere existence of trees on another planet is so unfathomably unlikely that fathoming it would send you instantly insane, because the human brain isn't able to calculate such odds. If you knew half as much about how stupidly unrealistic having trees on Auraxis was as you did about the real-world pros and cons of mechs, both Planetside and it's sequel would become immediately unplayable for someone who has any issue with suspension of disbelief.

Now, not only does Auraxis laughably have trees, but do you know how we arrived there? Through a wormhole. That's right, we arrived through a goddamn wormhole. How utterly, stupidly, ridiculously impossible is that? The mere fact that we could in any way set foot on Auraxis requires a baffling amount of suspension of disbelief. We broke fucking physics to set foot on Auraxis...And did I mention there were trees?

Realism in Planetside is dead and gone. So, so gone. Long gone. GONE gone. It doesn't exist. If you can suspend your disbelief to such absurd lengths that you can play a game where humanity broke physics to arrive at a planet with trees (fucking trees!)...then mechs should be a cakewalk.

if you keep up with astrology tyhen you would knwo there are sevral earth like planets we know of all of which contain large landmasses, and oceans, in a solar system set up silimulre enough to our to actually have a possibility at containing life and some which are belived to have plant base life.

aside from alge, planets in our own solor system contain bacteria, if one can be present the idea of another is not so great. while i get your argument planetside is in itself not realistic, theres also a great air of realisim involved. all the vehicles in some form exsist in real life currently. we have hover crafts planes bombers tanks amphibious transports many of the weapons are similure to real life examples, with the exception of possibly vanu weaponry theres not much going for un realisim here. but a mech is not argued to not be used becaus eits unrealistic as in could not happen.

its unrealistic because it offer 0 advantage over other methods of movement. because no military woudl bother building something so insanely exspencive to offer 0 or in the absolute best case scenario a very very minor advantage, especially because the cost of a mech and the fragility of them makes them more akin to porcilin dolls then army equipment.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by Vancha

The unlikelihood of even algae being on other planets aside, I do feel you're somewhat missing the point of my rant.

It's not the point of your rant it the lack of basic knowledge of evolution thats worrying me, things evolve to best fit their surroundings, given the same conditions you'd expect evolution to follow similar paths, the eye for example has seperatly evolved dozens of times on this planet, and they've all ended up similar.

you would expect evolution on any planet similar to earth to give earth-like results

and as for algae being on another planet, they don't need to be there originally they evolve from goo, goo being a soup of amino acids, as to how you get amino acids there well thats up for debate, but it's also largely irrelevent, if there's life there's amino acids

on a side note wormholes don't break physics

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Snow

^This.

No!

v That.

Originally Posted by Snow

I don't believe that the inclusion of a mech over a more traditional vehicle would intice enough people to be worth the development time and cost.

You made a good criticism - why support a bad one?

[Snow]

Because the argument being made was that mechs attract people to the game and I agree mechs attract someone who likes mechs but not necessarily someone who likes team based shooters.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Redshift

the eye for example has seperatly evolved dozens of times on this planet, and they've all ended up similar.

you would expect evolution on any planet similar to earth to give earth-like results

and as for algae being on another planet, they don't need to be there originally they evolve from goo, goo being a soup of amino acids, as to how you get amino acids there well thats up for debate, but it's also largely irrelevent, if there's life there's amino acids

I wouldn't expect evolution on any other planet, anywhere, because I wouldn't expect life on any other planet, anywhere...and even if I did, surely you can see the difference between a light-sensitive organ evolving and the re-evolution of bugs/fish/plants?

Originally Posted by Redshift

on a side note wormholes don't break physics

Traversing them may well do. When they exist, get back to me.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Snow

Because the argument being made was that mechs attract people to the game and I agree mechs attract someone who likes mechs but not necessarily someone who likes team based shooters.

He was saying people neglected their "duties" (errr..) in their pursuit of being a "cool" mech pilot. You could just as easily aim that criticism towards snipers, infiltrators, MAX users, pilots...

[Snow]

Originally Posted by Vancha

He was saying people neglected their "duties" (errr..) in their pursuit of being a "cool" mech pilot. You could just as easily aim that criticism towards snipers, infiltrators, MAX users, pilots...

As I said I agree with his view that mechs attract someone who likes mechs but not necessarily someone who likes team based shooters.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Snow

As I said I agree with his view that mechs attract someone who likes mechs but not necessarily someone who likes team based shooters.

So again, why not replace the word "mech" with pilot, infiltrator or sniper and use that as a reason not to include them in the game?

Hell, mechs would probably be more conducive to team based combat that infiltrators.

P.s. Red, could you PM any further evolution replies, if there are any? It seems silly to keep bumping this thread with them when it's pretty much done.

P.p.s. You can do post-scripts in forum posts, right? I mean, it's not weird or anything?

[Snow]

Originally Posted by Vancha

So again, why not replace the word "mech" with pilot, infiltrator or sniper and use that as a reason not to include them in the game?

That's true, having snipers, fighter jets and cloakers in the game will always attract the solo player but CutterJohn said that having mechs in the game would entice people and you seem to agree with me that we already have enough classes for solo players without adding another.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by Vancha

Hell, mechs would probably be more conducive to team based combat that infiltrators.

P.s. Red, could you PM any further evolution replies, if there are any? It seems silly to keep bumping this thread with them when it's pretty much done.

Only when you stop bumping something that's been shot down by 77% majority :P

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Snow

you seem to agree with me that we already have enough classes for solo players

No.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Redshift

Only when you stop bumping something that's been shot down by 77% majority :P

Of less than 1% of PS2s player base.

I only asked because our conversation had nothing to do with the thread any more.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by Vancha

No.

Edit:

Of less than 1% of PS2s player base.

I only asked because our conversation had nothing to do with the thread any more.

you're doing it again :P

[Snow]

Originally Posted by Vancha

Of less than 1% of PS2s player base...

But since this 1% is the only representation of the player base available for comment the developers will have to take our opinions to be that of the overall majority.

Of course you have the official forums as well but I'm sure if you suggested mechs there you would get an even colder reception.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Sovereign

I would love to go into detail of all the ways mechs/bfrs ruined the first game but I suspect it would provoke a many 'tldr' response..

So to summarize, the bane they created was an atmosphere of mechwarrior whereby players aspired to be super bad ass mech pilots/warriors because of the prevailing "cool factor" and thus decline on other important duties. Planetside =/= Mechwarrior and never should it try to do so again..

Mechs as in just the idea of a mech ruined the game? Someone already mentioned this discussion seems to be more about the chassis decision and not about the weapons or balancing issues. This is leading me to a conclusion I kind of left out of the first post. So you don't like vehicles or chassis choices that are cool? The idea that a vehicle is cooler than others breaks the game by making favoritism? Ignoring the duties part, since PS has many solo vehicles/classes that work in a team-based environment and shooting down another idea for that reason is absurd, we could just look at what makes all the vehicles/classes in the game "not as cool as a mech".

I'm not sure I 100% agree with that conclusion that a mech is cooler than other vehicles. I find a liberator bomber just as cool as a mech honestly. (I'm an avid liberator/vulture user). I also find sniping and cloaking and just using a punisher cool because the gun is "cool" and complicated in that it has two firing modes. I never liked really using the Reaver or Mossy since I found them boring. Maybe others found them "cool" to use? I'm sure their skill trees might unlock some cool features for them maybe? Maybe they could have rockets that break into multiple rockets for ranged rocket attacks? There's a lot of "cool" ideas out there to make other vehicles interesting if you find them so much more lame than a mech.

Originally Posted by Snow

As I said I agree with his view that mechs attract someone who likes mechs but not necessarily someone who likes team based shooters.

Wow... okay I've read all of the posts until now (phone went dead in Chicago yesterday which stopped me from posting) and I'll kindly ignore the complaints of realism because some people want Planetside 2 to get rid of unrealistic gameplay features. Apparently that's important for a science-fiction game. (It is science-fiction right? Or are we getting rid of the fiction entirely?)

But picking out a chassis design and going "oh no that'll prohibit all forms of teamwork" is going a bit far. There's no possible way that a mech could work with other players? It's impossible to imagine a easily damaged mech staying near players providing assistance? Hell I've seen cloakers not wander away. I bet there were people complaining. "Oh no a cloaker would never revive another player. They'll just wander off and go solo the whole game). Same could be said for a bunch of other vehicles. I noticed someone mentioned the Skyguard in respect to the lightnining as a more team oriented vehicle with two people. It's honestly one of the easiest vehicle to use solo. You just get out on a hill and it's an uber AA turret. (I know because I used to do it to aim into bases). A lot of vehicles can be used in a way they weren't intended. It doesn't make them a horrible anti-teamwork gameplay feature. It's not like a mossy user that's picking off snipers is any less teamwork oriented than other players. In truth they're helping someone not die.

I digress, don't assume a vehicle will hurt teamwork without explaining why it would or how to design one that promotes teamwork and non-solo play. I tried to do that by explaining the easily damaged components that would make them easily get overwhelmed if they ventured off by themselves.

[FIREk]

So... There was this thread about BFRs not too long ago and, now that Hamma closed it, it appears that we're destined to resurrect this one.

I haven't followed this thread when it was made, nor do I really want to go through 11 pages of arguing about whether or not they were OP in PlanetSide 1, so I'll just write down what I think about BFRs for PlanetSide 2.

Here's how you make them work in the new game, without making them OP, or making them any more an "uber solo machine" than a Lightning or MAX unit:
1) make them about two times more hit points/armor than an MBT,
2) forget the silly shields, since they're what made them imbalanced under normal circumstances,
3) give the pilot relatively weak forward-firing weaponry - the equivalent of a Lightning's weapons, or just slap those same weapons onto the mech, with the exact same upgrade options, whatever those may be (in a small 90 or 120-degree turret under the cockpit, for instance),
4) slap on a MBT-like turret with MBT-grade weaponry,
5) keep the mobility identical as in PS1, even with the optional booster/jetpack,
6) now that we know vehicles will have weak points, add some on the legs in general or, if that's possible, weakpoints on the leg joints only would be even better.

The result? We've got mechs, which are bloody awesome, diversify the battlefield and look great on screenshots/videos promoting the game.
People who like mechs will get a machine that trades off mobility for armor.
Its role would most likely be like a siege vehicle.
While these "redesigned" BFRs could take a lot more damage, their sheer bulk and low mobility will make it appropriately easier to deal that damage than, for instance, when shooting a tank at full speed.

Problem solved!

[Tatwi]

Originally Posted by FIREk

So... There was this thread about BFRs not too long ago and, now that Hamma closed it, it appears that we're destined to resurrect this one.

I haven't followed this thread when it was made, nor do I really want to go through 11 pages of arguing about whether or not they were OP in PlanetSide 1, so I'll just write down what I think about BFRs for PlanetSide 2.

Here's how you make them work in the new game, without making them OP, or making them any more an "uber solo machine" than a Lightning or MAX unit:
1) make them about two times more hit points/armor than an MBT,
2) forget the silly shields, since they're what made them imbalanced under normal circumstances,
3) give the pilot relatively weak forward-firing weaponry - the equivalent of a Lightning's weapons, or just slap those same weapons onto the mech, with the exact same upgrade options, whatever those may be (in a small 90 or 120-degree turret under the cockpit, for instance),
4) slap on a MBT-like turret with MBT-grade weaponry,
5) keep the mobility identical as in PS1, even with the optional booster/jetpack,
6) now that we know vehicles will have weak points, add some on the legs in general or, if that's possible, weakpoints on the leg joints only would be even better.

The result? We've got mechs, which are bloody awesome, diversify the battlefield and look great on screenshots/videos promoting the game.
People who like mechs will get a machine that trades off mobility for armor.
Its role would most likely be like a siege vehicle.
While these "redesigned" BFRs could take a lot more damage, their sheer bulk and low mobility will make it appropriately easier to deal that damage than, for instance, when shooting a tank at full speed.

Problem solved!

Works for me.

Said thread was mine. It wasn't about Planetside's robots, it was about Planetside 2 getting alternate versions of tanks that look like robots rather than tanks. They would trade horizontal speed for the ability to "jump and hover", otherwise they would have the same stats and functionality.

It's a good thing that Planetside 2 isn't being entirely designed by the clearly jaded and often narrow-minded Planetside 1 community.