Inventory and Resupply (Dropping Ammo) - Page 4

Figment · 2012-03-10, 07:39 AM

I feel it is a much better mechanic to actually WORK for your resupply. ie. either you have to go back and collect some ammo from a supply point: apparently Sunderer or Galaxy - still under the impression we need an AMS - or equipment terminal, OR you have to kill an enemy that is "compatible" with your certification and loot their backpacks.

Now, I still don't get why that's not possible. If backpacks are too much graphically, make a less demanding graphic, or like in PS1, have them deconstruct sooner if there are too many on screen.

Hell, I wouldn't mind if looting was only possible as long as the person you shot was laying on the ground as a corpse and had not respawned or had not been revived yet.

Consequence of getting looted before revive is obvious: you force the enemy to return to a supply point instead of laying around waiting for a medic and that's a tactical opportunity/threat and choice for both sides.

If unlocked sidegrades are a problem for this system, just only pass over those sidegrades you already unlocked on the own empire, OR better yet, just default it to the standard, unadapted weapon variant with no extras.

Dropping your own ammo is to me like cheating. It's like putting two APCs in Advance Wars next to eachother: they resupply eachother fully when they're both almost out of fuel (and can resupply other units endlessly). It's sometimes a bit silly.

StumpyTheOzzie · 2012-03-10, 08:17 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

Hell, I wouldn't mind if looting was only possible as long as the person you shot was laying on the ground as a corpse and had not respawned or had not been revived yet.

Dropping your own ammo is to me like cheating. It's like putting two APCs in Advance Wars next to eachother: they resupply eachother fully when they're both almost out of fuel (and can resupply other units endlessly). It's sometimes a bit silly.

This.

Death2All · 2012-03-10, 03:52 PM

A lot of people are dancing around or completely ignoring the issue of the OP.

This issue isn't that we could have more ammo in PS or we have less in PS2. This issue is that you could theoretically defend a choke point forever because you could never run out of ammo. Which class has the ability is completely irrelevant.

Some solutions I've come up with:

Give the the ammo refill ability to Engineers and have it be dispenser like deployable a la TF2 that you could only deploy outside with restrictions similar to the Aegis Shield generator. (You could actually upgrade and allow them to give you ammo, I wonder how many people didn't know that).

If it is given to a Light/Heavy Assault class, give it a limited number of uses. Only 1-3 per life. Also disable the ability from being able to recharge upon revival. Only a limited used based on the last time you hard spawned.

Remove it from the game entirely and bring looting back.

Bags · 2012-03-10, 03:56 PM

Originally Posted by DeeTwoEh

A lot of people are dancing around or completely ignoring the issue of the OP.

This issue isn't that we could have more ammo in PS or we have less in PS2. This issue is that you could theoretically defend a choke point forever because you could never run out of ammo. Which class has the ability is completely irrelevant.

Some solutions I've come up with:

Give the the ammo refill ability to Engineers and have it be dispenser like deployable a la TF2 that you could only deploy outside with restrictions similar to the Aegis Shield generator. (You could actually upgrade and allow them to give you ammo, I wonder how many people didn't know that).

If it is given to a Light/Heavy Assault class, give it a limited number of uses. Only 1-3 per life. Also disable the ability from being able to recharge upon revival. Only a limited used based on the last time you hard spawned.

Remove it from the game entirely and bring looting back.

I can't believe these will have more than like 10 clips per pack. Maybe they should limit it on a per person basis, IE you can only get 2 more mags per pack/life?

And yeah, I'm really confused why this isn't an engineer item... Higby!!! Support class should support!

Gandhi · 2012-03-10, 04:02 PM

I'd much prefer looting ammo over having a class supply it, but if a class absolutely has to have that ability it should be the engineer. Heavy assault doesn't make much sense either, I just don't like the idea of offensive classes also carrying ammo drops. Like Bags says it's a support item, give it to a support class.

GoldDragon · 2012-03-11, 12:56 PM

Alright, so I didn't read through the entire thread but it seems the general concern is infinitely spawning ammo behind enemy lines and a lack of advancing gameplay because of this (in conjuncture with revives and other mechanics).

I agree that a "free" ammo pack is a bad idea off hand. I think the dev team has thought of some of the same issues we're pointing out. In that, I'm sure they have counter-balances.

For example, in the game footage we saw from GDC pay attention to Higby's clip size. The standard 30 rounds for a Gauss rifle, but if you look at his spare ammo/clips when he has respawned and is fully loaded, I believe it was in the neighborhood of 90 rounds. So right now we're looking at a total of 120 rounds for a light assault at respawn. Compare this to a PlanetSide Agile loadout. Even if I didn't completely fill my inventory with 9mm, say only 4-5 boxes plus all my other toys, that's 200-250 rounds in my backpack plus what's in my rifle and this is being minimal.

With this in mind, the Ammo pack might actually be a required thing in one form or another. Now, I don't think this should be a mechanic where a light (or heavy) assault can go around dropping these things like M&Ms. There either needs to be a reasonable cooldown on using them or a limited number they can deploy before they need to reload at a term.

I favor the limited number myself. My reasoning is this. If a player is going to drop all 3 (we'll say 3 is the max ammo packs for this) ammo bags in one go then when they need ammo in 10 minutes they're going to be saying "damn, I wish I had saved my packs." I think this works better than a constant pack with a cooldown because it makes players think about when they should use it and keep on top of their supplies. Supplies shouldn't be unlimited at any point unless you're literally sitting on a term.

Take a gen hold for example, eventually the holders will run out of ammo, even if they had a limited number of ammo packs. Another thing player's had to worry about in PS1 was running out of Medical Injections or BANK juice. These are all things that made PlanetSide so dynamic even through its many flaws. I'm open to seeing the system change but I don't think the supply dynamics from the original game should be thrown out the window.

-EDIT-

At one point I felt that ammo bags should cost resources like grenades. Thoughts on that?

Bobby Shaftoe · 2012-03-10, 08:37 AM

Just as an aside to this...

Planetside is one of few FPSs where you really interact with your surroundings in beyond just a tactical sense.

BF/MW all you really do is run around, get a good position/cover, fire, move on etc etc.
The only things you interact with are dropped kits and "The Objective".

In Planetside you've got all the various forms of CE (hackable and otherwise) and base turrets for outside and then indoor/tower fights you've got equip terms, vehicle terms, med terms, doors, main consoles, generators, spawns, painfields, modules and of course backpacks. Many of these objects have real tactical value beyond just their use for your side, eg kill the vterm on a cont that an enemy is trying to open and you've just put a major dent in their early logistics support and might even kick them back off the cont.

I just get the feeling that this sort of 'deeper' level play that is commonplace in the original PS is going to be 'streamlined' in PS2 into "The Objective(s)", I just feel it's a natural progression from a starting point of dropping ammo/removing inventories.
I'd love for someone to point out information that this is wrong but I've just got this nagging feeling that this is whats happening.

StumpyTheOzzie · 2012-03-10, 08:47 AM

well, us old people know that this is happening with society in general.

/on Can't hurt anybody's feelings by "failing them" at any aspect of their lives. Lets send them for counselling because it's not actually their fault. They have a disease.

Let's just make things a bit easier for everyone so that we don't have to upset anybody by failing them.

Let's not use red pen anymore.

Oh, you only got 6%? Well, I'll just put that down as "not yet competent" and not "moron - will never achieve objectives"

What's that? Can't read? Can't do maths? Oh well, you can still graduate with a 65% and get into NURSING where you are now in charge of people's LIVES.

/off

If you make everything *TOO* easy, there will never be any proper feeling of accomplishment. Basic philosophy will teach you that.

Graywolves · 2012-03-10, 10:40 AM

I don't remember where I saw this but I think someone would drop an ammo box and then a number would appear above it. The number was how much ammo is inside so as people grabbed more ammo it would get lower.

Something similar would effectively make an ammo consolidation point. What if you could even add into the pool as well as take away from it? If someone ran out if ammo, a person with abundance could put some ammo in the box for his buddy to take away from it.

This would just leave the final balancing to effectively being who gets to carry it and what the trade off is.

Azren · 2012-03-10, 03:35 PM

It's just one in the line of miserable ideas that made it into PS2, but it's not the worst by far.

At least make max-es drop the ammo, it makes no sence for a light assault character to be able to carry so much weight with him.

Bags · 2012-03-10, 03:47 PM

Originally Posted by Azren

It's just one in the line of miserable ideas that made it into PS2, but it's not the worst by far.

At least make max-es drop the ammo, it makes no sence for a light assault character to be able to carry so much weight with him.

Higby says they are thinking about giving it to the heavy assault, which makes sense to me.

Bags · 2012-03-10, 04:07 PM

I mean, I don't like the one man tank gunner taking away from team work, but this is perfect for teamwork and then they just ignore the potential x.x

Duddy · 2012-03-10, 04:08 PM

Giving it to the engineer would probably be a good way to get the class used more for infantry combat, so I approve.

Then again we don't know how good engineers will be anyway, prefer it on them than LA or HA though.

kadrin · 2012-03-11, 12:35 AM

Something to consider, in a game like Battlefield 3, with 32v32 people on a small map in relation to what Planetside is going to offer, focus was on a few points on the map so you were almost always guaranteed to see a Support who would drop ammo.

They're trying for hundreds vs hundreds in Planetside 2 (with talk of thousands), but from the looks there are still points that will be the focus of attacks that numerous players are going to be fighting over, the chances of you not seeing at least 20 people who can drop ammo, especially if it's going to be the Light or Heavy Assault class, will probably be slim. Even if it's relegated to a class like Engineer, which will supposedly be less played for infantry fighting, you're still going to see a good number of them.

Personally I don't see ammo ever being a problem if there is a class that can drop it, which defeats the purpose of even having it, might as well give everyone an infinite pool.

Rivenshield · 2012-03-11, 04:09 AM

Originally Posted by kadrin

the chances of you not seeing at least 20 people who can drop ammo, especially if it's going to be the Light or Heavy Assault class, will probably be slim.

....might as well give everyone an infinite pool.

Yep. My thoughts exactly. In order for it to work, they better make the amount of ammo you can grab out of those boxes *extremely* limited.