Vehicle hard point system

[stargazer093]

hmm..personally, i don`t think that vehicle hardpoint was a bad idea.. however, there MUST have some limit on what weapon can be equip on what vehicle. For example: a harraser can choose between a 12mm chaingun, a small grenade launcher, or a hellfury missile, not an 150mm cannon or heavy railbeam or whatever on tank.
As for Vanguard, beside the mighty 150cannon and twin-link 25mm gun, it can choose to equip one sponson weapon between a 12mm chaingun for anti-infantries, a hellfuty missile for additional anti-tank, or something like that._.,but not too powerful for sure. Certainly, a sponson weapon MUST require another person to use.

[DviddLeff]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Step back think about what you're saying. It's not that hard to hit a plane with a tank shell. Also only NC and TR have tank shells. Would the round from a lightning count? Would the energy shell from a Magrider count? I used to shoot planes out of the air all the time with the Magrider. If it was one hit that would take all the fun out of it.

Maybe not for the larger vehicles like the Gal or Lode, but if you get hit by a tank shell while in air cav, you are doing something wrong or are just damned unlucky. The Mags gun is fine as is against aircraft however, underpowered against infantry yes, but not aircraft.

Check out the link stargazer, you will see that I have given each vehicle light, medium or heavy hard points which restrict the weapons they can equip.

So no 150mm cannons on an ATV.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Maybe not for the larger vehicles like the Gal or Lode, but if you get hit by a tank shell while in air cav, you are doing something wrong or are just damned unlucky. The Mags gun is fine as is against aircraft however, underpowered against infantry yes, but not aircraft.

Check out the link stargazer, you will see that I have given each vehicle light, medium or heavy hard points which restrict the weapons they can equip.

So no 150mm cannons on an ATV.

Yeah, there are alot of good Mag gunners out there that could nail my Reaver from an impressive distance. That thing already did alot of damage that would make me drastically change my tactics against it, so a 1-shot kill would be a little too much.

But if I got clipped by a Prowler or Vanguard cannon, well, it was probably because I fly into point blank range and came to a near stop so I could roacket spam some more. I wouldn't mind getting 1 shotted in a situation like that.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Check out the link stargazer, you will see that I have given each vehicle light, medium or heavy hard points which restrict the weapons they can equip.

Still not a perfect system, though. Example. Skyguard. Has 1 light, 1 medium.

But so does the lightning.

Who would ever take the skyguard for AA duties again, when you have a vehicle that could sit in the back lines, be an ideal AA turret, then move out at max speed when encountering a threat. Granted, I dreamed of being able to do that constantly while playing, but it would probably be unhealthy.

So its not like it can be an easy copy paste operation. There would definitely need to be more to the balance than that. I would expect some weapons to be unique to a vehicle, and some to be be denied to a vehicle.

Though I would be fine with tossing the skyguard entirely and just fitting those weapons on a normal buggy. It was an ugly model anyway.

[DviddLeff]

Changing the lightning to a two man vehicle as they are doing with the reaver would work

[Aractain]

Lightning is a mossie analog, Reaver is tank analog so Id say fine as one man. We DO want solo options for all aspects of the game. Reliant teamwork obviously gives many advantages (for the disadvantage of reliant teamwork).

Anyway why are so many people 'scared' of a modular weapon system? Its not like you can just take any weapon and slap it on. Each one would have its own balance.

Not only that but each one would probably cost cert points anyway so there is no real difference than a seperate role unless you want different graphics (which is understandable).

Having Reaver with the option of rocket pods, cannon, bombs, missiles (lock on gunner fired) or ECM would enhance the gameplay. Its role would roughly stay the same (air to ground) but can be shifted slightly with choice. I.e. cannons make it less powerful against tanks but more able to shoot down other aircraft. It wouldn't come close to the role of (probably...?) the mossie however. Even better if each hardpoint would be indavidually configurable.

I can see the argument of "not worth it" but providing viable choices for a diverse player base is IMO the magic of Planetside after the scale and scope of the game.


We still know so little about PSN, maybe they something far superior already?

[CutterJohn]

Yeah, I wouldn't like the only solo offensive ground vehicles to be the ATVs, since I doubt the alien vehicles or FVs will be making a show. A better solution is to just make weapons specifically for each vehicle.

Or just make the flak less crazy, and ditch the skyguard.

[Hamma]

Originally Posted by Aractain

Anyway why are so many people 'scared' of a modular weapon system? Its not like you can just take any weapon and slap it on. Each one would have its own balance.

People seem to be afraid because they seem to think orbital strike launchers, BFG9000's and artillery cannons are going to be placed on every vehicle.

I think something like this has its place but I'm not so sure it's "Worth" the trouble of adding such a system. It would really have to be VERY closely considered and made.

In my personal opinion I doubt we will see hard points added. At least not to every vehicle.

[DviddLeff]

Agreed Hamma. Looking at the Vanguard in particular it looks like those guns are not going to be modular.

[Aractain]

True. I hope they have thought of ways to expand the game easily and usefully ahead of time though.

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Because MMOs need depth.

I disagree that hard points add it, though.

When talking about game design, one game I continually come back to referencing is Team Fortress 2. If you read some of the developers' blogs, and listen to the bits of commentary they've included with the game, they did a good job of letting the interested player in on a lot of their very excellent game design decisions and epiphanies.

The one that prompts me to bring this up is ready recognizability. When they were designing their game, around the time where they made the big shift in art style, one of the things they decided was that the realistic style they were releasing screenshots for around 2002/3 wasn't conducive to good gameplay. The character models for the different classes were too similar. They realized (and I fully agree) that ensuring that your player can, upon spotting an enemy, instantly evaluate what the capabilities of that enemy are leads to a more fun and engaging game experience. That's one of the reasons they went for the exaggerated and very characterful art style; it allowed them to give each of their classes a very distinct silhouette that is readily identifiable even at a distance.

This is something that I believe Planetside benefited from, and should strive to retain, as well. The vehicles are easily identified, and once you've done so, you know what you're dealing with. Modular weapon systems will run contrary to this effect, and I believe that will be a detriment to gameplay.

Right now, if I'm cruising around, mowing down some infantry in a light vehicle with a buddy, and I see a prowler crest the next rise? I know to spin the wheel and head for the hills, because it's a fight I don't want to engage in. I can identify the fights that will be to my advantage, and those that won't, and choose when and where to engage in order to both have fun and promote my success.

Now, throw a modular weapon system into the mix, and see how that affects my gameplay. There's a prowler! Should I engage, or will I get slaughtered? I don't know! He could have his AA gun loaded. Or, he could have the standard prowler gun, in which case I'm utterly screwed. What do I do?

That's not depth. That's confusion, which is bad game design. You haven't given me a new choice ("What do I do?") or layer of strategy. You've deprived me of the information to MAKE that choice.


Now, that's not to say that I don't desire variety, and a diverse array of options to allow me to find the vehicle/weapons that best fit my desired playstyle. Want to give me the option to run an AA weapon on a heavily armored vehicle? Great! Make a new vehicle, though. That way, the variety and options should just be unique enough to visually identify at a distance, without having to squint and decide whether the gun is 2/3s the normal length, or maybe it just looks shorter because it's at an angle.. and boom, I'm dead.

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

That assumes that vehicle certs would be as cheap as they are in PS, which need not be the case. It took a great deal of cert points to get a super soldier fit together, while a tank was what.. 3 or 4? If The tank was 3 or 4 certs, and the additional weapons 1 or 2 each, for that tank, players would have enough to specialize in one vehicle along with getting a decent infantry kit together.

Hmm. I don't want to see people specialize really deep into one or two vehicles, though. I think one of the contributing factors to the strength of Planetside's combined arms was that basically everybody had room to cert some infantry stuff, so there was never a shortage of available infantry.

I think what you'd see in your example would be that a lot of people would "specialize" in multiple vehicles, while dropping their infantry kits entirely. After all, heavy tanks aren't always available, neither are good air assault vehicles, so you want to have multiple options. And if you're in the vehicles all the time, why keep an infantry kit, when you need the points to ensure you've got effective builds for vehicles available? Now, when the courtyard is clear, though, you've got a bunch of guys certed for 3 vehicles sitting around in their tanks instead of the same guys certed for 3 vehicles jumping out to hack a console, switch armor, and storm the base.

Encouraging breadth as you advanced was a strength of Planetside.

[Bags]

That's exactly what I was thinking and a great point kaffs. I argue this a lot on the WoW forums when people suggest adding an appearance tab (letting you look like you're wearing whatever you want), and I too reference TF2's original design philosophy. It's very important to be able to tell what you're up against.

[Rbstr]

I'd find it kind of silly if you could be swapping out a Vany's 150mm for instance.

Now, changing the reaver to carry a divebomb or rockets...or swapping the vany's MG to a little grenade launcher or flamethrower is a different thing. Buggies with AT/AI swappable weapons ect.

I mean it has to make sense...modular tank main weapons isn't something you really see, because they are, to some extent, designed around them.

The real worry is that you end up with modular weapons removing an aspect of empire-specificness.

[Bags]

Not to mention there's enough AA in this game now as is... don't need to encourage even more of it.

[DviddLeff]

Great points kaffis. I'll have a think and post again.