Artillery idea (with concept image)

[Figment]

Originally Posted by nurizeko

I recall the PS1 Flail not being anything especially terrifying.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CB64vKnwK8

Moving on...


Artillery = bad idea, cause it will aggravate players to a degree they WILL be leaving in droves...

[Figment]

Btw, regarding PS1 Flails.

Not sure if anyone recalls the first weeks upon their introduction? (One of the first major drops in population occured then). I recall being in Rehua, finally getting outside as an infil and seeing 25 Flails parked all around the base, instantly killing any target that dares to get out. I recall the massive spam completely wasting the courtyard and especially vehicle pad and doors of bases. Towers being locked down from two sides (all 6 doors of Watchtowers spammed, killing 1-5 per shot whenever a door opened).

I recall getting 200 kills at Aton in the span of 25 minutes by getting ONE Flail on the peak overlooking Aton from the north and - from outside of draw distance - spamming the top floor door of Aton during the siege and completely removing the chance of the entire TR zerg inside on defending the generator or the courtyard in general (and this was a nerfed Flail too. It was just in the wrong hands: someone with basic map knowledge that wanted to make a point at how bad it could get after being told the Flail was useless).

I was the only Flail present in a 200 player fight. Both own and enemy sides complained through /tell about my insane killstreak, the grief it caused on friendlies who ran in despite seeing the repeating huge blast, but especially the enemy who had no way to get to me, but had to get out to keep the generator up and save the base. (couldn't spawn elsewhere to get aircraft without going a 5 minute recall/relocation/fight their way through 150 NC to get to me/out of visible range/I could reacquire and reposition one within 2 minutes if they eventually did get to me and continue my spam).

No, it wasn't "fair". I was abusing the hell out of it at that time (and would never abuse it again really, can't recall using it much cause it's boring, unfair and only serves to aggravate people, especially due to being effective and efficient, later mostly used it to hurt BFRs for giggles since a ground hit would destroy most their components, dropped it in favour of more infil certs later, something you don't need to do in PS2!). I was only one out of 150 allied players present, remember that in PS2, there are more people and everyone would have access to it, meaning chances of presence are much greater (and when present, people will try to (ab)use it in the most efficient way possible). I didn't need a spotter, as I could see the impact zone. All enemies and friendlies were outside of draw distance. This can easily happen in PS2 as well. You can't imagine how much artillery would be hated in PS2. Way more than ye ol' lib spam.


Btw, this was also the ONLY TIME I got over 600 grief points by accident (the only other two times I got griefpoint I was TKing teleporting cheaters upon their spawning) since friendly people tried to run through my spam while out of my view range.


When you introduce something new. Especially something... that annihilates all infantry in a blast range of 15 meters from long range safety as the first version did... Then that thing is going to be used en mass by players.


And they will use it in batteries.


So the thing is, you're not just designing ONE piece of artillery. You're designing an ARMADA of artillery in a game like PlanetSide 1 and 2. And the results? They're not pretty.

When we then further look at the design vision of the PlanetSide 2 dev team ("screw teamwork for power in vehicles", resulting in a mass overspam barrage of anything powerful on virtually defenseless spawnpoints) and let players go to town with it... What happens?

You'll piss of a ginormous portion of those players looking for fair dueling combat. And believe me when I say most players coming in here do not grasp the sheer scale of PlanetSide 2 and effect of scale and are overwhelmed or overwhelm others to the point it's not really fun anymore. Even the nerfed PS1 Flail could spam doors and vehicle pads (alone) to the point you could not use them anymore. Often denying both assailant and defender the usage of a door, making it both a curse and a blessing to defenders, since the attackers had to get in at some point, but had to go through the remaining fewer options to get to the objective indoors, while defenders could focus on less doors as the enemy Flail removed an option (temporarily). On the other hand, the defender was completely surpressed inside.

Currently, the defender in PS2 is already surpressed inside, while the objectives are typically outside, in full control of the enemy forces (which is still utterly ridiculous).

Flails/artillery cannot be taken out through melee, so any defenders in PS2 would be forced to leave their position to fall back, regroup, get transportation, move to another area and hope the Flail/artillery that was causing trouble hasn't moved yet, while ALSO hoping the base they were defending hasn't fallen yet. Which with the short timers and the extra suppressive power of the Flail/artillery would be a complete and utter no brainer: it will have fallen by the time you're ready to strike at an artillery piece. Hence I would not advice to implement it in PS2 at all. But hey. You're going to say "I just want pretty fireworks" anyway I suppose. Artillery in PS games is simply a BAD IDEA because of their effect on gameplay and the way it's going to be (over)(ab)used, rather than the one legit scenario you may have in mind in which a SANE and FAIR player would use it. Forget it. The sane and fair players are outnumbered 10 to 1.

Oh and of course you're going to invite the ither teams to mass spam /yell to abuse the other team that is cheating/haxoring/playing unfair/are noobs for using a "Fail" I-win-button, etc. Yeah. Just so you know the hate tells and atmosphere in game aren't going to improve. See World of Tanks and those artillery are pretty damn restricted by terrain, movement, numbers, range, rate of fire, accuracy and shot travel time. People still complain EVERY TIME they get hit.

So the rest of this post is damage control.

On the other hand, you're going to have to ask yourself how much fun it will be to sit far behind your own lines, spam click a button as soon as you can and without doing much see the free experience roll in.




So anyway. Zerg (over)(ab)usage of artillery. If you make a weapon that a single trooper can use, you have a problem: You'll have to either make it feel worthless or so-so, so it can or even has to be used in large numbers and thus... Only make it useful for the already large groups... Or you make it powerful, capable of targeting other zergs for instance and spamming them to death in droves, but in doing so allow for zergs to mass employ these things on both other zergs and your small squad and utterly remove any remaining chance of idle hope you had left.



Things to consider when designing artillery for a MMO like PS1:

- Making it team dependent, by which I would suggest requiring someone else to spot a target: kill the spotter, silence artillery. Making the artillery blind without a scout gives the defender an alternate form of self-defense that can be taken out in melee. Do remember that we're probably talking an infil here. I would suggest making the infil having to place a beacon in person to aim at (though of course someone is going to give them a sniper range weapon to place them "because they would in reality" or some such). Point is, this is done for the defender to have a countermeasure, not for the attacker. The PS1 Flail wouldn't have been as bad (but still bad) if a Laze Pointer being active per Flail would be required as you could have taken out the spotter who would have had to be within 75m range (rather than personal waypoints and squad waypoints also being useable for Flail targeting).
- Giving it huge weaknesses when attacked in melee, primarily that it can't aim down well (people will aim it down using hills! Especially if they can create their own shots this way) and be used against approaching close range targets. I would also make it killable by a single C4, so that tactical ops can make a huge difference. Of course it should be especially vulnerable to infils (hacking/jacking?) because these and jetpacks are the only infantry that are semi-reliably going to reach them. The rest is too constraint by terrain. The point is to make it rely on others to defend OR force the owner of the Flail/artillery to get out and defend on foot, giving a decent chance to the attacker.
- Making it completely inaccurate at a higher rate of fire, almost inaccurate at a much slower rate of fire. Hint: PS1 Flails fired about three times too often per Flail. Randomly paint a region, rather than painting a target. Meaning it can accidentally hit friendlies too if they camp too close...
- Giving it some sort of alternate ammo you say? How about EMP blasts (disable vehicle weapons), cluster high explosive splash with minimal damage, slow burning leftover radiation (infantry deterent), nanite eroding plasma (vehicle deterent)







That a constructive enough post lads?

[ParrotMarauder]

I was also thinking about some mobile artillery designs, and thought of the possibility of variable main weapons and a single gunner seat (default basilisk).
Also maybe should add laser pods for Valkyrie and fighters to mark targets

[ParrotMarauder]

Just a sketch:

[ParrotMarauder]

What say you game developers?

[ParrotMarauder]

Refined and made faction specific designs