DRONE STRIKES from your PHONE !@#$%!

[p0intman]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Either yes, or no but you can make another account anyways and still do it, so yes.

It's really going to be a failure if they don't take that into consideration. Another thing for us to make sure to exploit in beta.

I've got easy access to 3+ smartphones, so I'll certainly exploit it as much as possible for testing purposes.

Honestly, I have a feeling their designing this around the notion that people will keep to one account... it worries me.

[Ratstomper]

Honestly, I don't see a problem so long as its the same system you can use in game. Have a smart phone version of the drone screen in the game. That way people with iphones owners don't have some kind of advantage, they're just helping with one of their normal abilities from a remote location.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by p0intman

Honestly, I have a feeling their designing this around the notion that people will keep to one account... it worries me.

It may be possible that they are already considering ways to make it be less effective to use multiple accounts.

For example, I mentioned that I don't bother to dual box because it's too much of a bother for me, but I'd be more than willing to make an extra account or two to use on my phone. I believe most players are like me, which is why I'm not as worried about the F2P aspect of the game in general.

With that in mind, what they could do is something like requiring a certain amount of actual in game activity on an account to be able to call in a drone strike from your phone. Players who do stuff like dual boxing could still get around this by various methods, but it would undoubtedly be more of a hassle and most players who are like me wouldn't care enough to bother doing it.

There will certainly be room for exploitation, but we need to see what they've thought of in beta to know just how far that exploitability will go. If it's minor/fringe exploitability, I won't be too concerned. If it's very easy to use exploitability, I'll do everything I can to help get it fixed.

[Vetto]

While cool.. really wish some of this stuff was coming to Android phones, My phone only a year old and i am not going to drop it for a iphone for some App.

[Asp]

Originally Posted by Vetto

While cool.. really wish some of this stuff was coming to Android phones, My phone only a year old and i am not going to drop it for a iphone for some App.

"So gameplay out of your phone or your iPad, and it works on both iPhone or Android."

Also, you guys might want to wait and see (in beta hopefully) what they even plan to do with this, before we shed too many tears over how broken/overpowered/unfair it all is.. It's likely to be little more than an out of game interface app you d/l for free that allows you to take advantage of a one shot ability you have while in the game anyway.. Costs resources, on a c/d timer, etc etc..

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Vetto

While cool.. really wish some of this stuff was coming to Android phones, My phone only a year old and i am not going to drop it for a iphone for some App.

They've generally indicated that they intend to support Android as well.

Originally Posted by Asp

"[I]Also, you guys might want to wait and see (in beta hopefully) what they even plan to do with this, before we shed too many tears over how broken/overpowered/unfair it all is.. It's likely to be little more than an out of game interface app you d/l for free that allows you to take advantage of a one shot ability you have while in the game anyway.. Costs resources, on a c/d timer, etc etc..

Oh I think it will be a blast, and has a lot of potential to be well balanced. I'm just seeing a lot of ways it could easily be exploited, and I intend to try and make sure that none of them are possible by the time the game launches. If all of them are already solved before beta even starts, I can focus that attention towards other areas.

[Lythca Frost]

I think this is a fantastic idea to keep 'offline' interactivity present for those out of the house. SOE is definitely pulling some cool stunts with this app. However, the one thing I dislike, as brought to my attention by a friend, is that this potentially allows players to kill others without threat of death.

Hopefully it requires some time to certify, has a decently long cooldown, and actually places a drone model in the game that can be shot at! keep up this level of ingenuity SOE, and you have a definite winner here!

[Fenrys]

Originally Posted by Corax

prevent players from dual boxing accounts where they are playing and calling in drones at the same time.

There is no good way to do this that I have seen suggested. The current plan is to put a minimum level barrier on the Call4Drone ability.

Accounts are free, and characters earn resources when offline. Therefore, you could make a bunch of accounts, let them gather resources while you don't play them, then log onto one of your alts while playing to call in a drone. Then immediately log into a 2nd alt account if you want to launch a 2nd drone strike.

With a minimum level requirement, you'll at least need to put some time into developing each of the characters you want to have drone capabilities.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Fenrys

There is no good way to do this that I have seen suggested. The current plan is to put a minimum level barrier on the Call4Drone ability.

Accounts are free, and characters earn resources when offline. Therefore, you could make a bunch of accounts, let them gather resources while you don't play them, then log onto one of your alts while playing to call in a drone. Then immediately log into a 2nd alt account if you want to launch a 2nd drone strike.

With a minimum level requirement, you'll at least need to put some time into developing each of the characters you want to have drone capabilities.

Players only earn experience offline. They need to pay money to earn resources offline.

[Haro]

We really don't have any information on this, so I wouldn't get up in arms just yet. There's a lot of ways that this can be implemented, and I think that a phone app isn't going to be particularly deadly in a game of this scale. If it's just working off a map, it will hardly be as precise as a CoD drone or something like that working in-game and in-engine.

But for me, the drone opens the door to a whole new level of interaction. We already know about the full map, the voip, and the stats, but I would love to see something like Battlefield 2's commander mode come to browsers and mobile devices. Support roles, like reconnaissance, logistics, etc. could be a very interesting mechanic without really exacerbating a pay-for-kills model.

I agree with others though, I'd rather not see a kill-streak model go into game, and the drone will need to be carefully implemented to avoid this. I could tolerate support kill streaks in the MW games like UAVs, counter UAVs, and the like (I happen to be an absolute specialist addict in MW3) but it can be a very unbalanced model when combined with camping (something way too common and encouraged in that style of games) and team mismatches. And there have been some horrible designs for kill streaks, like nukes, Juggernaut, or attack dogs that feel like hacks I've seen in other games.

[Toppopia]

As long as i can use this on my PC then it won't be too bad, and if they add in more command style tools, then this could really help with planning attacks and such. The leader can whip out his phone or go to the web browser and start using indepth tools to create waypoints, lines of advance, and so on and so forth.

[Fenrys]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Players only earn experience offline. They need to pay money to earn resources offline.

Do you remember where you read/heard that? I'm under the impression that you earn both while offline, and earn both faster while online.

[SixShooter]

I think it sounds awesome if only to distract me from PSU while I'm at work (like right now).

[Ajaks]

And then if they have a high enough level in the game, they’ll be able to launch a drone strike.

My concern is an abundance of drones over the long term. In the early days of PS1 when the amount of CR5s was small Orbital Strikes were a strategic asset. Once everybody became a CR5 The OS became another form of spam.

Hopefully as the game matures and more players reach the level requirement the dev team will take this into consideration and drones won't congest the sky like a swarm of locusts. As long as drone spam doesnt get out of control I think its a great idea.

Although I think "The Locust" is a pretty appropiate name for the thing.

[Toppopia]

Originally Posted by Ajaks

My concern is an abundance of drones over the long term. In the early days of PS1 when the amount of CR5s was small Orbital Strikes were a strategic asset. Once everybody became a CR5 The OS became another form of spam.

Hopefully as the game matures and more players reach the level requirement the dev team will take this into consideration and drones won't congest the sky like a swarm of locusts. As long as drone spam doesnt get out of control I think its a great idea.

Although I think "The Locust" is a pretty appropiate name for the thing.

Hmm, i have an idea on how to solve that OS spam, make it so the top 5% of a faction can call in orbital strikes, it still keeps it tactical because so few people can use it, and it won't be used by newbs that don't know what they are doing.


And on topic, i could imagine a queue for using this.

You're at work, you have your break, you quickly log into the app and such, you then click to use the drone, then....

You are place 5982nd in the queue for the drone strike. Would you like to wait or leave the queue?