new vehicle hacking discussion

[Timealude]

Instead of changing ownership, why not just make it so it deconstructs the vehicle after its hacked..that way it cant be exploited and its still deadly to the enemy....besides if an infiltrator can get that close to your sundy without dying and carry out a hack, it deserves to be deconned.

[Falcon_br]

Originally Posted by Timealude

Instead of changing ownership, why not just make it so it deconstructs the vehicle after its hacked..that way it cant be exploited and its still deadly to the enemy....besides if an infiltrator can get that close to your sundy without dying and carry out a hack, it deserves to be deconned.

In most places you can get under a sunderer.
An invisible unit that can get under your sunderer and desconstruct it?
Just give c4 to the infiltrator, it will be more fair!

[Helwyr]

Originally Posted by Timealude

Instead of changing ownership, why not just make it so it deconstructs the vehicle after its hacked..that way it cant be exploited and its still deadly to the enemy....besides if an infiltrator can get that close to your sundy without dying and carry out a hack, it deserves to be deconned.

There's two reasons I really dislike this idea.

1. You've changed the dynamics so much it's no longer Hacking. In fact what it becomes is more akin sabotage without the benefit of blowing up the vehicle occupants. I'd rather have c4 than that.

2. It's another 'dumbed down' gameplay mechanic, which also explains why SOE has mentioned this idea in the past (might have been Higby). A lot of us were really looking forward to a new game that had PS1's depth and complexity as well as it's scale.

[MrMak]

If camo is the issue....just have hacking remove the camo..... its that easy. A blue Prowler should be less prone to be fired at by NC.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by Mordelicius

Example - low lvl Faction A alt logs in to 'deliver' free vehicles/aircraft to friends of Faction B. Now, with an Outfit, log in 10 alts and get 10 free Liberators. Right...

*facepalm*
now, how often do you see this exploited right now?
because the situation you describe is already in the game and everybody could already use alt chars to get free aircrafts! i don´t think that anybody goes through the hassle of exploiting this. at least i haven´t noticed it yet.

to do it now, you just need 2 chars of the same faction and do the exact thing you described! you can give your vehicle to somebody of your own faction. so go and get your free liberators if you think this is a great exploit!

and the solution to all the technical problems i have seen so far:
keep the vehicle as it is, with everything. the only thing that would change is the ownership.
don´t change weapons, don´t change color, just change the friend/enemy dorito according to the driver.

then there is not even a "low risk/high reward" situation, because the risk is even higher for the hacker. he will have to find a way to avoid friendly fire.
only technical thing that would need to be changed is the friendly fire. if someone shoots a friendly in an enemies vehicle, there should be no penalty. only the warning that this is a friend.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by Timealude

Instead of changing ownership, why not just make it so it deconstructs the vehicle after its hacked..that way it cant be exploited and its still deadly to the enemy....besides if an infiltrator can get that close to your sundy without dying and carry out a hack, it deserves to be deconned.

nope. this is of no additional tactical value.

if an infiltrator makes it to your ams sunderer and hack it, it deserves to switch sides. this is a whole different story than just destroying it.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Those against hacking or thinking it would be OP aren't thinking enough about it. The time investment to setup getting ES kit from alts is much higher than you think it is and it gives much less bang for the time than simply instant actioning to a fight and pulling your own tank.

Let's walk through the process:
-Log onto alt
-Find a quiet spot on the cont that you'll want to use your tank on (warpgates still aren't working right? Haven't checked recently)
-Drive there without being attacked by enemies who don't know what's going on
-Deliver tanks to equal number of friends with hacking
-Log out after tanks have been hacked, log into your normal character
-Use tanks until either you run out of ammo or are killed, mostly likely you'll be killed.

Note that having an enemy tank isn't some magical tricky shield, people get TKed all the time for shooting at friendlies. That veneer isn't going to buy you more than 1 or 2 shots before someone figures out that their crosshairs are turning red while looking at you.
The people who would do this would probably do it one or two times and then get bored. I know I did back in PS1. The fun of hacking is doing it in the wild where you're bouncing in your seat right along with the enemy shells hitting the hull of your ill-gotten and short lived gains.

I honestly don't care about colors, if they're too much of a pain to change then leave'm! Just change the little green name to a red one, make the crosshairs change color, and if it's ES prevent it from reloading its ammo. Vehicles die fast enough to make it not matter and the ones that survive will get marked for death by the humans who are on the otherside.

PS2 needs more playstyles than shooter and while rush lanes have done some to help that the procedural stealth game aspect is sorely lacking. Perfect cloak that gets worse the faster you move, no primary weapon, pistols and tools only, final destination.

The HUDs needing to be loaded in is definitely something I hadn't thought of, wondering how much it would really take though.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

snip

you are totally right!

but you missed one thing in your list of things to do to exploit.

the minute you log off with the alt char, all vehicles (except sunderers) he "donated" would eject the new owners and deconstruct.

at least this would be an easy solution, to prevent this type of muling if it really turns out to be a problem. the new occupants of the vehicle would get a vehicle deconstruct timer like the current idle deconstruct one, to be warned and leave the vehicle/land the aircraft and that´s it.

[Aveox]

I would like to see things like hacking make a return. They add a bit more flavour to the game.

I do dislike the hacking of occupied vehicles though. That was the lamest thing ever in PS1. Empty parked vehicles? Sure. But being ejected mid-fight because you happened to be stationairy for a few seconds is not fun, especially with the already short hacktimes in PS2. In any case hacking should take a length of time that makes it dangerous and rewarding to pull off (thinking of hacking sunderers here) and should have a very distinctive hacking sound as well as a proper tool for it.

IFF won't be that much of an issue when people get used to the fact that vehicles can be hacked. Base turrets can also be hacked and I never saw anyone have a problem with that. Usually they get 1 or 2 shots off like the captain said before everyone realises it's a hacked turret. And to make it even more obvious they could apply a "hacked" camo (I'm thinking of something like ES digital camo) to the vehicle.

It also needs a counter ofcourse: Engineers should be able to place motion sensors that disrupt an infiltrator's cloak. Like was said before in this thread: AMS guard duty is not fun and being able to plant some sensors close to the AMS should make the whole infiltrator game even more challenging.

[Captain1nsaneo]

I'd be careful when talking about counters, something that out and out prevents vehicles from being hacked would be like an ability that prevents any missiles from locking on to a vehicles. It nullifies a whole style of play rather than mearly makes the job harder but still doable.

I'd argue that proper landmine use is all the counter you'd need. I know that back when I talked to GreyFalcon about balance stuff (he's way better than I am at it) he mentioned that he really didn't like the additional cert points above 20 for the reason that it reduced specialization. Adding threats to things will make those people who are dedicated to it experiment and discover ways of dealing with it.
The back and forth game infils and engys had in PS1 was pretty amazing. I know that the land mine placement meta game went through several shifts and you could tell the skill of the defending engy by where the mines were placed around doors. Over time the best tricks filter down as more people see them. The spitfires on the sides of base entrances took years to become standard play.

[Shogun]

counters doesn´t mean hardcounters.

the engineer stuff from ps1 was kind of a counter, too
i fully agree, that the new engineer needs something like that as well. the more different things the better. this is all about alternate playstyle! i am tired of only doing the rambo all the time. i can do that in better games where all enemies actually render.
but i can´t do all the nice things in any other game, i could do in ps1!

but there is already a counter in the game for the hacking infiltrator. the flash with scoutradar. it´s basically the motion sensor from ps1 attatched to a vehicle.
but you need a pal to bring one to your sunderer, which is good because it requires a minimum amount of teamwork and coordination.
but spitfire turrets would really help a lot, due to the small amount of landmines an engineer can use.

i would love to see the engineer becoming the nemesis of the infiltrator again!
i totally miss the consequent stone paper scissor circle from ps1.

oh, one other thing: bumping into enemies must be restored! if a still standing infiltrator can´t be detected, you have to be able to accidentally bump into him and notice that! so colliding is necessary.
a engineer motion sensor may disrupt a cloak, but only when the cloaker is moving too fast. just like in ps1.

[Figment]

I would like to add that those alts first have to wait for resources if that's all those alts are used for. It's a lost of hassle and hardly occured in PS1 even if it was far easier to do in PS1.

[Lonehunter]

Originally Posted by Shogun

the minute you log off with the alt char, all vehicles (except sunderers) he "donated" would eject the new owners and deconstruct.

So if my parked vehicle gets stolen all I have to do is relog for him to lose the vehicle?

If people will bail from aircraft to prevent being shot down, I'm sure plenty will take 10 seconds to relog just to spite the person who just hacked their shit.

So now the mechanic you put it to help prevent exploiting of this new system, is being harmful to the people who spend time getting to and hacking a vehicle. After all that work all the enemy has to do is relog to kick you out.

[Lonehunter]

Originally Posted by Shogun

but there is already a counter in the game for the hacking infiltrator. the flash with scoutradar.

No scout radar detects enemy's while cloaked, which will be a big deal if they get the permacloak with pistol only

and to be clear I'm not saying I wouldn't love the stealth-hacking game, for years in PS1 I never fired a bullet as infantry. All I did was cloak, Combat Engi, hack, and recon. I just like playing devil's advocate and think it will take a lot more effort for the devs then most people think.

edit: sry didn't mean to double post

[Shogun]

i wouldn´t put the "log out and your vehicle gets deconstructed" mechanic ingame at first. it was just an idea to shut up the people who think exploiting would be a problem.

so if any excessive exploiting turns into a problem, there would be a quick fix for it. but i don´t think this would be necessary at all. like it has already been daid, in ps1 there was almost no barrier like ressources, but it has never been exploited in ten years.
i know, there may be a lot more asshats in ps2 than we ever had players in ps1, but i am still sure they will not take the hassle to pull this off. there just isn´t any incentive to do this.