Niche vs customizable vehicle roles. - Page 2

Infernalis · 2012-06-28, 09:42 AM

You can change stats and the silhouette enough. It was common in WW2 to have different vehicles with different roles based on the same chassis and they were good in their respective role and have a very distinct silhouette (Panzer 4 chassis was used for your standard tank, tank destroyer, AA etc).

infected · 2012-06-28, 09:58 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

Infected, please read the thread twenty times over if you need to.

Please, don't make me insult your intelligence and just read what the argument and figure out what the intend behind the argument is, instead of not reading half the thread and taking something too literal and out of context and then rambling about not needing to be able to identify, which is actually a problem identified by pretty much everyone else here...

or, you could have just formed a clear example in your OP of what exactly in ps2 you have a gripe with, instead of trying to be cute by posting a funny video, and making us guess what exactly you are griping about... perhaps you could form your thoughts in a manner that we can all respond to?

so after your reply, perhaps i can deduce the general sense that you don't like the air vehicles getting somewhat homogenized.

any other specific examples of ps1/ps2 changes you dislike? or reasons why we should stick to the old ways and not just adapt to the new ones?

Haro · 2012-06-28, 02:11 PM

The OP's thread is poorly worded, does not make clear or concise arguments, and cites a video that, while funny and somewhat educational, doesn't fully address the issue at hand because it refers mostly to a mixed-up, poorly communicated design process rather than effectively argues against the role of multi-role vehicle chassis.

1. In contrast to the portrait painted by Pentagon Wars, the Bradley has actually become one of the most successful fighting vehicles in the world, a class of vehicles that was well-established even before the first Bradley designs. Though it was subject to a tortuous initial design and subsequent redesign processes, the modern Bradley demonstrates, without a doubt, the effectiveness of a multirole platform. Many other vehicles are based on previous designs: Russia's ZSU Self-Propelled AA systems were based heavily off of T-60 chassis, Germany's Gepard is based off of the Leopard Chassis, American AA vehicles are typically re-purposed Bradleys and Humvees, etc.

2. It needs to be stated that in a game, concerns of hull design are a distant second to gameplay. Vehicles are not limited by physics, and can be as heavy or light, strong or weak, and as fast or slow as they need to be with no regard to the physical design. We have ATV's with rocket launchers on them, that alone demonstrates this far better than any other design in the game.

3. We don't really know how these vehicles are going to be implemented. An AA vanguard may be faster or lighter than an AT vanguard, or vice-versa. There is nothing that states that a vehicle's weapon selections cannot influence other parts of their performance. Talk of a four-barrelled Prowler mod makes me believe that extensive visual modification of tanks is possible. As we have seen no visual examples of tank cannon variants (that we know of, at least) and the game is still in alpha/closed beta, we could see mods that make extensive visual changes to differentiate between vehicle models.

4. Plenty of people think of balance in these forums. Indeed, balance seems to be the primary issue, even though we don't really know a whole lot about what we're "balancing." Don't think your special or above everyone else in that regard, that's more than a little obnoxious.

NEWSKIS · 2012-06-28, 03:34 PM

I read through your post about 3-4 times (not just skimming it) and it seems to me that you're saying that with customizable vehicles, you wont be able to tell what type of damage a particular vehicle can do just by looking at it from a distance. For a PS1 example, you see the outline of a vanguard and you know it will only really damage ground targets and not aircraft. The same for a skyguard, you know it can slaughter aircraft but wont do much against a tank. Is that what you're talking about with this thread?

If what I understand this thread to be about is that, then I would point out two things.

1. At this point we don't know if different setups on vehicles will have visably different outlines or not. Odds are they wont be the same and everyone will learn what the differing variations look like, even from a good distance.

2. For the sake of argument, say every setup on each vehicle chassis looks exactly the same, does it have that great of an effect on gameplay. If this is the case, which I doubt, the only thing that would really be affected is aircraft. If you can't tell if that tank has AA and will kill you or if it has AI and can't kill you.

In the end if I'm still talking about the right thing, it really isnt a big deal unless every variation looks the same. Even if that is the case you'll just have to be more cautious when picking a target to attack.

Figment · 2012-06-28, 07:16 PM

Sorry, long post.

Please all raise your hands who have never dabbled in User Experience Design or actually never worked as a designer or did a design study at all...

Tbh they stand out like soor thumbs in this thread and all across the board. Please don't take this as an insult, but it's true.

Sensory cues and categorization are incredibly important to good designs, as is functional and practical design.

If every unit looked like a Sunderer, including the ATVs, I'm pretty damn sure it'd be perceived incredibly important. Just because half of you are not interested in a good design and content with an half-baked design, whether or not it does its job and whether or not it fits your definition of "good (enough)", doesn't mean it's actually good design.

Those people that say "but you can make anything do everything in a game".

Yes, you can make a stick magically fire nukes in a game. You can make tanks fly and have afterburners without them being visible (some games probably did that too). Great! Who cares what things look like? It's not like immersiveness or user experience has ANYTHING to do with how the user experiences the game, right? It's not like visual IFF design is at all interesting for a FPS, right?

Certainly not a MMOFPS where friendly fire is active! It's not like it matters if an immovable object accelerates to the speed of light because it's a game, right? Who cares if it communicates well what it does and is for and if it's made both believable and functical on more than "look I can fire with it" within the game?

There's loads and loads of reasons why good and believable game unit design is important to the player. Most of you should know why, but I don't blame you if you don't realise it, because you've never really cared to think about it because you just want to have fun and you don't really care for the design details and leave that to others. Fine. And I can definitely imagine you've not had an education in UX-design or ergonomics, hell most designers don't. And my knowledge of ergonomics is also not as optimal as I would like it to be. However, I do understand the importance of it and I can relate to those who don't see the importance of it, because it's not something a lot of educations pay attention to (Aerospace Engineering including, but Industrial Design Engineering does - let's put it this way - I worked with fellow students who could calculate structural frames to milimeter, but could not realise that their protective frame completely blocked a pilot's view and didn't care for incorporating a toilet or 'personal waste' disposal system or any other ergonomical features beyond a chair and a bucket for a kitesurfing, transatlantic boat / plane). People typically don't want to think about things they feel are better left as afterthoughts or 'unimportant'.

However, if something looks like a tank, but is actually supposed to have the tech specs of a buggy or ATV, I'm pretty damn sure this doesn't "FEEL" right to the gamer because it communicates something else entirely! This is the same for changes WITHIN a single unit.

The question is if you ever think about intuitive design yourself, or just in stat balance? Most gamers think in stat balance and some might go as far as saying "okay that hitbox should be a bit bigger and that unit a bit smaller and have more hitpoints". They don't think about the fundamental design of the unit. I've only seen a very few people raise the issue of the Magrider's main gun being very low in relation to the other tanks and having to turn its hull where the others do not.

Most people don't even realise this has tremendous design and gameplay implications even if it's probably the most obvious "error", ie making one TD and two tanks. Why was it done? Because they kept to the old design platform's basics, while changing the role of the driver as they wanted the driver to have the main gun and this was the only logical driver gun within that configuration!

Please people, realise that this unit's platform wasn't fundamentally changed aside from aesthetic appearance, just that the driver's role changed, meaning ONE gun configuration change. Yet the entire unit's role and use were changed! Platform design means everything to roles and the other way around! If you go by a platform and THEN determine a role for it, you're doing it the wrong way around! PS2 is doing this, a lot! They first design a unit, then give it additional functionality that doesn't suit it because of rather arbitrary reasons.

The Galaxy, the Magrider, the Sunderer, I'm sure other units will have the same sort of multi-role problems where they were designed for one thing, then a different role got shoe-horned in.

All this goes for a unit "look and feel" in general, as well as it goes for if its accesspoints and interaction areas are recognisable or not. Take the PS1 AMS: due to its equipment terms being very visible and attracting attention during deploying, you don't need any yellow circle on the ground. You don't really need those either at doors as you can easily identify those accesspoints. However, you do if you want to know in an instant if it's locked or occupied or not (red crossed circle).

If you make the Sunderer to be an AMS, you will need a lot more of these use cues on the ground, because they wouldn't be visible on the Sunderer itself, though probably they'd make people accidentally find it by stumbling onto a "PRESS G NOWZORS" on screen.

This would mean it feels far more like a game. Because the function of the unit is less intuitively integrated into the design of it unit than it could, meaning its use is far less obvious. Using that same example, for a new player learning the game, it's far less obvious that a Sunderer is or can be a spawnpoint if they just see this big APC until they accidentally use it, are told about or otherwise come across it. So of course eventually they will learn it, but if they have to ask or learn from others, then the devs have poorly designed this element of the game as it is not self-explanatory.

By now I suppose you understand we're not talking about basic design 101, but on a somewhat higher level, I hope?

Of course you can make a half-arsed design, put some text next to it, expect people to read that (hah!) or figure someone will eventually figure it out and tell others. Great. Works. Bad designer attitude and bad design, but works. But because it works, one should never strife to improve?

So great. It probably "works". Is it good design? No. Will it feel cheap? Yes, you won't get the impression the makers really put a lot of effort in it - even if they have in the sidegrading - if you only get one basic frame. If people come in from World of Tanks which per unit has a lot less sidegrading, but realise they can only sidegrade two tanks per empire, they'll probably go "okay, uhm... where's the rest?"

If you look at World of Tanks, tanks themselves undergo a couple changes, but the variety of changes that you will be able to make to a single frame are limited. In PS2 per frame the potential of changes will be much greater, yet I wonder if that's actually important as people will go for certain setups and then leave it with that. How many of the gamers tune their cars in racing games after a one or two attempts? I certainly don't care for that, I just want to race. Same for my friends and relatives, only my nephew is interested in tuning his car. The remainder just use the default or put on a scope in CoD (if even that) and call it a day. 80% of the customization options of a single frame are left unused. This is even more true if there's a certain optimum. So once that's reached, there's no point in spending more certs on it. If there were other frames, sure, you'd happily do it for that frame too.

Either way, these changes should be visible on the tanks. But IMO it's questionable if people can still make out these subtle differences, especially if the skins also change from unit to unit making any subtle changes less obvious because people first have to get accustomed to the big skin change.

And gamers will definitely want to know what they're up against to determine their strategy (rather than just if they engage at all which is the case for aircav regarding AA). But yes, even if you're not aircav you'll care.

Again look at World of Tanks as an example. Is it important to know if you're fighting a Tiger H or a Tiger P, a T29, IS or KV-3 from a huge distance? I mean they're all Tier 7 tanks right? How different can they be? Well... A LOT. The T29 has an incredibly strong turret which you can't damage safe on a few tiny spots, but a very weak hull, especially side and rear. The Tiger P and Tiger H have very different weakspots, particularly noticable in frontal section (100mm or 200mm), the IS and KV-3 each have different bouncy areas, different speeds and different engine locations, etc.

If all the hulls would be the same, you'd fight each enemy more or less the same. If each hull looks the same, but in reality isn't, that will be very annoying.

So yes, yes it is important. Does it matter if you know what turret or gun they have? Yes of course, but that's not relevant till you're closer. By simply identifying the unit, you know HOW to engage it, because you know its main weaknesses and strengths. Advance knowledge is everything in any even remotely strategic game and PlanetSide is almost a RTS. Pretty much every MMOFPS player in PS1 looks at what weaponry an enemy carries or drives before making decisions.

Instinctive decisions can mean everything between winning and losing.

CAN a turret and gun change on a Lightning for instance be enough to make any stat change obvious? To a degree yes, but it's definitely not the BEST, the ONLY nor a COMPLETE way. It's a somewhat half-arsed way though at least it's a start. However, you can't expect the unit to have wildly different other stats relating to the hull from the other units, while if you created a different platform (hull / frame), you would be able to tweak everything from scratch.

It's just a bit more effort put in than "look, I put a bumpersticker on it that says I'm an AA unit".

But yeah, I don't think that's very good design. :/ It can be sufficient design as most of you indicate, but I'm not as easily satisfied as the people who say that. As you can tell from this post and the others, I got different, probably higher standards to be met before I call something good.

IMO, a good game unit design visualises any inherent characteristics of the unit in question in an intuitive manner on ALL levels that are relevant to game play in the slightest. Not on some levels. No compromises if you can avoid it. On ALL levels. For PS2, that means its empire, any functions, entry points, speed, weight, armour, maneuvrability, sound, you name it. If it loans any of the same visual information from an entirely other unit it also means it communicates the same characteristics. Even if they can have very diverse characteristics "because it's a game".

Everything has to be communicated to the players that are using it and those that are competing with it.

But are different guns enough? Take the ES Sunderers from PS1. You could categorize it as a Sunderer APC, but I highly doubt people knew which gun was which till they got in (most people quickly trying to get in to shoot at aircav ended up in the 75mm guns instead of the ES straight fire guns). Even if they were quite distinct. Even if your configuration per empire was fixed. I even doubt that if you put a Vindicator, Leviathan and Juggernaught next to each other in random empire colours and with the name not in sight even if they can see the guns, that people can really differentiate between the TR and NC ones in particular.

TL;DR:

Is it possible to design by just altering guns and turrets? It's possible certainly. But it's not obvious and needs a lot of identification experience, meaning it's not intuitive. At the same time, I'm quite sure people can immediately differentiate between all PS1 buggies, etc. They don't have to squint their eyes and look at the guns: they just know from the basic profile what it is and can do: Between buggies: what empire is it, is it AV, AA or AI. And in relation to other units: is it agile, speedy, less hitpoints, you name it.

All you ever may want to know about an unit seen in ONE single instance.

ChookWantan · 2012-06-28, 07:28 PM

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Snipers and heavy assault guns will both be anti infantry, but will handle it in different ways. Do we really need 30 different infantry classes, just to make sure each one only covers a small niche? I think not. The same goes for vehicles. As long as there are enough classes of vehicle to cover the majorly different frame designs, I think we'll be alright.

But I certainly think the game will still benefit from having a few more vehicle frames added over time as well.

This^

WorldOfForms · 2012-06-29, 04:13 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

Sorry, long post.

Please all raise your hands who have never dabbled in User Experience Design or actually never worked as a designer or did a design study at all...

Tbh they stand out like soor thumbs in this thread and all across the board. Please don't take this as an insult, but it's true.

Sensory cues and categorization are incredibly important to good designs, as is functional and practical design.

If every unit looked like a Sunderer, including the ATVs, I'm pretty damn sure it'd be perceived incredibly important. Just because half of you are not interested in a good design and content with an half-baked design, whether or not it does its job and whether or not it fits your definition of "good (enough)", doesn't mean it's actually good design.

Those people that say "but you can make anything do everything in a game".

Yes, you can make a stick magically fire nukes in a game. You can make tanks fly and have afterburners without them being visible (some games probably did that too). Great! Who cares what things look like? It's not like immersiveness or user experience has ANYTHING to do with how the user experiences the game, right? It's not like visual IFF design is at all interesting for a FPS, right?

Certainly not a MMOFPS where friendly fire is active! It's not like it matters if an immovable object accelerates to the speed of light because it's a game, right? Who cares if it communicates well what it does and is for and if it's made both believable and functical on more than "look I can fire with it" within the game?

There's loads and loads of reasons why good and believable game unit design is important to the player. Most of you should know why, but I don't blame you if you don't realise it, because you've never really cared to think about it because you just want to have fun and you don't really care for the design details and leave that to others. Fine. And I can definitely imagine you've not had an education in UX-design or ergonomics, hell most designers don't. And my knowledge of ergonomics is also not as optimal as I would like it to be. However, I do understand the importance of it and I can relate to those who don't see the importance of it, because it's not something a lot of educations pay attention to (Aerospace Engineering including, but Industrial Design Engineering does - let's put it this way - I worked with fellow students who could calculate structural frames to milimeter, but could not realise that their protective frame completely blocked a pilot's view and didn't care for incorporating a toilet or 'personal waste' disposal system or any other ergonomical features beyond a chair and a bucket for a kitesurfing, transatlantic boat / plane). People typically don't want to think about things they feel are better left as afterthoughts or 'unimportant'.

However, if something looks like a tank, but is actually supposed to have the tech specs of a buggy or ATV, I'm pretty damn sure this doesn't "FEEL" right to the gamer because it communicates something else entirely! This is the same for changes WITHIN a single unit.

The question is if you ever think about intuitive design yourself, or just in stat balance? Most gamers think in stat balance and some might go as far as saying "okay that hitbox should be a bit bigger and that unit a bit smaller and have more hitpoints". They don't think about the fundamental design of the unit. I've only seen a very few people raise the issue of the Magrider's main gun being very low in relation to the other tanks and having to turn its hull where the others do not.

Most people don't even realise this has tremendous design and gameplay implications even if it's probably the most obvious "error", ie making one TD and two tanks. Why was it done? Because they kept to the old design platform's basics, while changing the role of the driver as they wanted the driver to have the main gun and this was the only logical driver gun within that configuration!

Please people, realise that this unit's platform wasn't fundamentally changed aside from aesthetic appearance, just that the driver's role changed, meaning ONE gun configuration change. Yet the entire unit's role and use were changed! Platform design means everything to roles and the other way around! If you go by a platform and THEN determine a role for it, you're doing it the wrong way around! PS2 is doing this, a lot! They first design a unit, then give it additional functionality that doesn't suit it because of rather arbitrary reasons.

The Galaxy, the Magrider, the Sunderer, I'm sure other units will have the same sort of multi-role problems where they were designed for one thing, then a different role got shoe-horned in.

All this goes for a unit "look and feel" in general, as well as it goes for if its accesspoints and interaction areas are recognisable or not. Take the PS1 AMS: due to its equipment terms being very visible and attracting attention during deploying, you don't need any yellow circle on the ground. You don't really need those either at doors as you can easily identify those accesspoints. However, you do if you want to know in an instant if it's locked or occupied or not (red crossed circle).

If you make the Sunderer to be an AMS, you will need a lot more of these use cues on the ground, because they wouldn't be visible on the Sunderer itself, though probably they'd make people accidentally find it by stumbling onto a "PRESS G NOWZORS" on screen.

This would mean it feels far more like a game. Because the function of the unit is less intuitively integrated into the design of it unit than it could, meaning its use is far less obvious. Using that same example, for a new player learning the game, it's far less obvious that a Sunderer is or can be a spawnpoint if they just see this big APC until they accidentally use it, are told about or otherwise come across it. So of course eventually they will learn it, but if they have to ask or learn from others, then the devs have poorly designed this element of the game as it is not self-explanatory.

By now I suppose you understand we're not talking about basic design 101, but on a somewhat higher level, I hope?

Of course you can make a half-arsed design, put some text next to it, expect people to read that (hah!) or figure someone will eventually figure it out and tell others. Great. Works. Bad designer attitude and bad design, but works. But because it works, one should never strife to improve?

So great. It probably "works". Is it good design? No. Will it feel cheap? Yes, you won't get the impression the makers really put a lot of effort in it - even if they have in the sidegrading - if you only get one basic frame. If people come in from World of Tanks which per unit has a lot less sidegrading, but realise they can only sidegrade two tanks per empire, they'll probably go "okay, uhm... where's the rest?"

If you look at World of Tanks, tanks themselves undergo a couple changes, but the variety of changes that you will be able to make to a single frame are limited. In PS2 per frame the potential of changes will be much greater, yet I wonder if that's actually important as people will go for certain setups and then leave it with that. How many of the gamers tune their cars in racing games after a one or two attempts? I certainly don't care for that, I just want to race. Same for my friends and relatives, only my nephew is interested in tuning his car. The remainder just use the default or put on a scope in CoD (if even that) and call it a day. 80% of the customization options of a single frame are left unused. This is even more true if there's a certain optimum. So once that's reached, there's no point in spending more certs on it. If there were other frames, sure, you'd happily do it for that frame too.

Either way, these changes should be visible on the tanks. But IMO it's questionable if people can still make out these subtle differences, especially if the skins also change from unit to unit making any subtle changes less obvious because people first have to get accustomed to the big skin change.

And gamers will definitely want to know what they're up against to determine their strategy (rather than just if they engage at all which is the case for aircav regarding AA). But yes, even if you're not aircav you'll care.

Again look at World of Tanks as an example. Is it important to know if you're fighting a Tiger H or a Tiger P, a T29, IS or KV-3 from a huge distance? I mean they're all Tier 7 tanks right? How different can they be? Well... A LOT. The T29 has an incredibly strong turret which you can't damage safe on a few tiny spots, but a very weak hull, especially side and rear. The Tiger P and Tiger H have very different weakspots, particularly noticable in frontal section (100mm or 200mm), the IS and KV-3 each have different bouncy areas, different speeds and different engine locations, etc.

If all the hulls would be the same, you'd fight each enemy more or less the same. If each hull looks the same, but in reality isn't, that will be very annoying.

So yes, yes it is important. Does it matter if you know what turret or gun they have? Yes of course, but that's not relevant till you're closer. By simply identifying the unit, you know HOW to engage it, because you know its main weaknesses and strengths. Advance knowledge is everything in any even remotely strategic game and PlanetSide is almost a RTS. Pretty much every MMOFPS player in PS1 looks at what weaponry an enemy carries or drives before making decisions.

Instinctive decisions can mean everything between winning and losing.

CAN a turret and gun change on a Lightning for instance be enough to make any stat change obvious? To a degree yes, but it's definitely not the BEST, the ONLY nor a COMPLETE way. It's a somewhat half-arsed way though at least it's a start. However, you can't expect the unit to have wildly different other stats relating to the hull from the other units, while if you created a different platform (hull / frame), you would be able to tweak everything from scratch.

It's just a bit more effort put in than "look, I put a bumpersticker on it that says I'm an AA unit".

But yeah, I don't think that's very good design. :/ It can be sufficient design as most of you indicate, but I'm not as easily satisfied as the people who say that. As you can tell from this post and the others, I got different, probably higher standards to be met before I call something good.

IMO, a good game unit design visualises any inherent characteristics of the unit in question in an intuitive manner on ALL levels that are relevant to game play in the slightest. Not on some levels. No compromises if you can avoid it. On ALL levels. For PS2, that means its empire, any functions, entry points, speed, weight, armour, maneuvrability, sound, you name it. If it loans any of the same visual information from an entirely other unit it also means it communicates the same characteristics. Even if they can have very diverse characteristics "because it's a game".

Everything has to be communicated to the players that are using it and those that are competing with it.

But are different guns enough? Take the ES Sunderers from PS1. You could categorize it as a Sunderer APC, but I highly doubt people knew which gun was which till they got in (most people quickly trying to get in to shoot at aircav ended up in the 75mm guns instead of the ES straight fire guns). Even if they were quite distinct. Even if your configuration per empire was fixed. I even doubt that if you put a Vindicator, Leviathan and Juggernaught next to each other in random empire colours and with the name not in sight even if they can see the guns, that people can really differentiate between the TR and NC ones in particular.

TL;DR:

Is it possible to design by just altering guns and turrets? It's possible certainly. But it's not obvious and needs a lot of identification experience, meaning it's not intuitive. At the same time, I'm quite sure people can immediately differentiate between all PS1 buggies, etc. They don't have to squint their eyes and look at the guns: they just know from the basic profile what it is and can do: Between buggies: what empire is it, is it AV, AA or AI. And in relation to other units: is it agile, speedy, less hitpoints, you name it.

All you ever may want to know about an unit seen in ONE single instance.

Sadly, it seems your points will fly over heads because the general response has been "eh, its good enough. Intuitive visual design doesn't matter, because we don't understand it."

CutterJohn · 2012-06-29, 06:49 AM

Originally Posted by JHendy

What...? Infantry weapons, roles and capabilities change as you change class.

Vehicle roles and load outs should be as distinct as the difference between each class, that is to say, you hop in a new vehicle, and your capabilities change drastically.

By allowing every vehicle to partake in every activity you're ruining that distinction.

If you think vehicles should be treated in exactly the same way as infantry then you must be in agreement with Figment.

You're claiming that the capabilities between the classes of vehicles don't change drastically? There is no drastic difference between a tank and a liberator?

Just because two vehicles have a gun labeled AA doesn't mean they have similar AA capabilities. Sniper rifles and MCGs are both technically 'AI' weapons. Nobody would ever claim they are the same.

Synapse · 2012-06-29, 07:44 AM

Nice video, but your thread is useless without specific vehicles/niches to discuss. Without that it's a long roam through all possible niches with no particular discussion on any of them, and I expect a wasted thread.

Figment · 2012-06-29, 08:38 AM

Originally Posted by Synapse

Nice video, but your thread is useless without specific vehicles/niches to discuss. Without that it's a long roam through all possible niches with no particular discussion on any of them, and I expect a wasted thread.

There have been plenty of specific examples in this thread. The point of this thread is is about general game unit design philosophy, principles and insight. It's about how a dev should approach developing a (new) unit and how to fill in a (new) unit's role into the actual design of a unit, rather than just cramping it into any already available unit.

That means it's a very general and very philosophical topic. Meaning focusing on something specific is irrelevant and distracting, as people would think the whole thread is about that particular thing and that's not the point. People would never learn from it because they'd look at unit design on a case by case basis, rather than understand the principles behind it.

It's possible to debate which niches are and which are not possible to lob together, however, that's best left for another thread.

AThreatToYou · 2012-06-29, 08:44 AM

The purpose of customizable assets that fill more roles than one has always been to save resources. In this case, it's development time.

infected · 2012-06-29, 09:03 AM

you're not going to see 90 different vehicles in the game if it really boils down to 10 vehicles types and each vehicle type having 3 possible weapon setups and 3 possible faction skins.

i mean, maybe create those 90 totally different vehicles on your own time. we'd like the game to come out this year.

Figment · 2012-06-29, 09:04 AM

Infected, sodd off if you're just going to troll. You could also have less sidegrades per frame for the same development time (you know, say... 20 instead of "hundreds"), so it's a matter of priorities. And you putting an arbitrarily random, but really high number out is typical of your type of argumentation and childish strawmen argueing.

EDIT: Oh, I'm also not your "Bro".

EDIT2: Just for the record, I don't think a "rush the product so we can play it this year" argument like you're making is uhm... 'supportive'... of good game play design. But thanks for illustrating you don't care for quality and people should ignore you.

In fact, it's probably one of the worst things you can ever do: rush a project and make choices you regret later. You also seem to forget that units like the Liberator, Deliverer variants, Lodestar and Skyguard ALL arrived significantly later than the basic units. Not to mention the Wasp.

So thanks for helping people realise why budget and time limit decisions may not actually be really good decisions. That's one of the points I was making from the start: it's not done for game play reasons, but for cutting on dev resources. Even if it's packaged and communicated as "streamlining game play" (utter bull).

We'll be seeing a lot more units over time and those should be designed with the appropriate mindset behind it. I hope they will go back to the first units and remove the design flaws.

**Malorn** · 2012-06-29, 02:40 PM

The OP is poorly worded and difficult to tease out what it is that is being said, though Xyntech did a good job of summarizing the different aspects under discussion.

Having multiple roles per vehicle frame is good. Customization is good, and since we put certs in the frame and then its individual weapon and upgrade options that makes the vehicle a better investment rather than having to do those investments into niche vehicles only good for one purpose.

The only issue I have with multiple roles per vehicle is role identification. As Xyntech described, it is nearly impossible to tell what role an ES fighter is, or what kind of guns a Galaxy has configured.

In the absence of clear role identification players will come to assume the worst.

The best solution here that I can think of is that the weapons for some vehicles are a bit bigger and have a noticeably different shape. Additionally some small bits should be added to the vehicle to make it more visually identifiable based on significant role changes.

Examples:
- Galaxy - guns should be bigger. AA guns vs AV vs AI should all be clearly distinguishable.

- Sunderer - just like the galaxy - guns easy to identify

- Lightning - Skyguard turret should visually change the turret so the silhouette is distinct as an AA variant. If it has AI it should also be distinct so Infantry can easily identify it.

- ES Tanks - the secondary turrets should be bigger and more distinct. The chainguns today look very tiny and that's OK for the default secondary gun. For the AV and AA and AI upgrades they should all change the turret in slight but obvious ways so players can learn to quickly and easily identify them, even when flying overhead at 240 kph.

- ES Aircraft - these are harder since the aircraft move very fast and the weaponry is not clearly identifiable on all of them. I would recommend slight changes in the aircraft as the armament (role) changes. For example, an Air-to-Air Reaver might have the vertical stabilizer on the tail angled upwards (current reaver style), while the Air-to-Ground reaver has a vertical stabilizer on the tail angled downward (the old reaver style). This would allow anyone to tell which role simply by looking at the silhouette. The Scythe and Mosquito could have similar minor but silhouette-altering changes.

- Liberator - This one's challenging, but perhaps the bits on the wings could be different if the role changes. For example, firing a chain gun is very different from a cannon in the effect it has on the aircraft's flight (the AC130 has compensators in the wings so the aircraft flight doesn't get disrupted by the recoil of the cannon). The Liberator could have slight wing differences so those on the ground can look up and see clearly what role it is in based on the wing shape.

- Flash - This one is also a bit harder, but maybe not as necessary either. Could change some of the bits on the bike to create a slightly different but distinct shape based on guns.

I'm also a bit concerned that for monetization purposes we might see different models for the same vehicles over time and that would further exacerbate role identification issues. Some things need to be clearly locked down and I think model shape is one of them.

JHendy · 2012-06-29, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

You're claiming that the capabilities between the classes of vehicles don't change drastically? There is no drastic difference between a tank and a liberator?

Just because two vehicles have a gun labeled AA doesn't mean they have similar AA capabilities. Sniper rifles and MCGs are both technically 'AI' weapons. Nobody would ever claim they are the same.

No, of course I'm not saying that the capabilities of each vehicle CLASS (land/air) don't change drastically. I didn't insinuate that.

Think of every vehicle as belonging to a separate class if that makes my original post clearer. What I want to see is every vehicle in the game having a very clear-cut set of capabilities, and over-customisation impinges on that. I was implying that I'd like every vehicle to be as distinct as every infantry class.

I'm all for massive customisation and fine tuning as long as it doesn't allow a vehicle to transcend its original purpose. 30 different varieties of cannon for an MBT? Absolutely. But please, don't allow players to stick meaty AA cannons on their tanks. There should be a vehicle designated to that roll.

EDIT: If vehicle-mounted AA guns, for example, felt completely unique across different vehicles, I'd be able to come over to your way of thinking a bit. I guess you could restrict certain vehicles to flack, whilst others are able to fire heat-seeking/lock on rockets, or something.