My main concern about the class system

[exLupo]

Originally Posted by Redshift

I've read somewhere that HA can't headshot since mcg would be nuts with them

The fact is waiting on others does not work 100% of the time, i've sat outside a tower on a noob for 3-4 mins spamming WNR before, then i gave up dropped a nade on myself and respawned, that's not fun.
The reason people used med/eng themselves was because others can't be relied on, when it could be relied on it was much better to use a dedicated med eng, i.e during an outfit gen hold.

1) By no quirk of design, every unit, regardless of certs, spawns with a REK. Not having one means you're choosing to not be able to perform basic hacking. Not every unit spawns with med or engi tools.

2) rexo/ha/med/eng is not the same as rexo/ha/av/a.med/a.hack/engi. Neither of those are the same as rexo/ha/medkit. Back in the days before super soldiers, people had plenty of room in their packs for medkits. Take out the HA, Med and Engi (rek and grenade or pistol move to small slots) and you too will be able to partially recover after a fight without depending on anyone else.

If you make it impossible to play the game without a group you'll lose subscribers, there's no way you can argue against that point

A decade of other mmos and shooters begs to differ. If pure player numbers were the only evidence necessary, I have only to point to TF2 which currently peaks at 80,000 unique players per day. As PS2 has been discussed as some flavor of F2P (no-sub w/ box I assume) game, I find the analogy quite appropriate.

Purely in shooters besides TF2 we've got Tribes and, for a even bigger impact, the entire Battlefield series. Role inter-dependency is critical in those games.

[Redshift]

i'd like to see

grunts with basic med and eng

Medics with faster med adv med med station deployment maybe some stam recovery gun/term with MA

eng with all the current CE and glue gun with MA

pilot with glue guns with MA

infil with hacking boomers and pistols

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by exLupo

A decade of other mmos and shooters begs to differ. If pure player numbers were the only evidence necessary, I have only to point to TF2 which currently peaks at 80,000 unique players per day. As PS2 has been discussed as some flavor of F2P (no-sub w/ box I assume) game, I find the analogy quite appropriate.

how many players do you get in a TF2 map? because i've run across a CY and lost 80% of my life to stray rounds before.

also i'm not advocating HA REXO Med ENG AV ADV Med ADV Hack CE mossie grunts...... i'm advocating REXO Med and Eng and two guns (in this case HA and AV) which like i've said before is what br20 gave you, it's not a super soldier it's a basic grunt class

[Aractain]

Don't forget implants. Maybe they will make regenration implant really awesome if there is no self healing?

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by Aractain

Don't forget implants. Maybe they will make regenration implant really awesome if there is no self healing?

Maybe, but you spend so much time jammered anyway

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Redshift

i'd like to see

grunts with basic med and eng

Medics with faster med adv med med station deployment maybe some stam recovery gun/term with MA

eng with all the current CE and glue gun with MA

pilot with glue guns with MA

infil with hacking boomers and pistols

I get the feeling you're contextualizing PS1 far too heavily (as everyone else was, including myself, before FanFaire).

The benefit to classes over certs means we should be seeing things like "medics", "engineers" and "infiltrators" being far cooler and far more elaborate than the things you're giving them from Planetside. Who knows what sources of healing will be available that we aren't even aware of? Using scenarios of sitting outside a tower spamming VNR is positively pointless until we know more about PS2.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by Vancha

I get the feeling you're contextualizing PS1 far too heavily (as everyone else was, including myself, before FanFaire).

The benefit to classes over certs means we should be seeing things like "medics", "engineers" and "infiltrators" being far cooler and far more elaborate than the things you're giving them from Planetside. Who knows what sources of healing will be available that we aren't even aware of? Using scenarios of sitting outside a tower spamming VNR is positively pointless until we know more about PS2.

i agree but considering what we have to go on atm i feel its valid to bring it up, if you can't play without a medic, what happens when you don't have one. Thats what my main issue is, and it's a problem that blights mmorpg's.

[DviddLeff]

Well you don't have to play with a medic in your squad if you want to be stubborn, but your staying power in the field will be much less.

Having a balanced squad will be much more important in PS2 than it was in PS, because of the limitations of the class system.

That in my eyes is a good thing, it encourages teamwork and rewards players that put some thought into their game, rather than every infantryman simply going HA, AV, Engy and Medic.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Well you don't have to play with a medic in your squad if you want to be stubborn, but your staying power in the field will be much less.

Having a balanced squad will be much more important in PS2 than it was in PS, because of the limitations of the class system.

That in my eyes is a good thing, it encourages teamwork and rewards players that put some thought into their game, rather than every infantryman simply going HA, AV, Engy and Medic.

This. Also there is implant healing. So medical isnt needed to heal. Its just slower, which is fine. You must make tradeoff decisions. If you want staying power, play a medic.

[Bing]

The cert system in Planetside 1 was great, as long as there were limits on the maximum amount of certs you could have.

I'm wondering now, if the class system will have any maximum limits at all, besides just the time it takes to train the different skills. I'm hoping that there will be some kind of absolute limit so you could, for example max out two or three classes, or generalize in a few classes. If you wanted to switch classes you would start training them, and another class would start untraining. The class system so far (What we know about it of course) still sounds like we'll eventually have super soldiers who can do anything, except this time around they'll need access to an equipment terminal to do it.

I'm in support of any combinations you could want, even HA/med/eng as long as that's all you're limited to.

[Aractain]

The hard limit is time - and unlike PS1 its self balanceing, the best a class can ever be is what the devs design it to be. It can't ever cross class boundrys and gain SUPER POWERS!

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Well you don't have to play with a medic in your squad if you want to be stubborn, but your staying power in the field will be much less.

Now you're being silly, ofc i'd love to have a medic in the squad, but if the game is unplayable without a medic then there's going to be issues.

on another note what do you think the medic is suppose to do, is he suppose to have the med app out constantly spamming heals on everything? if thats the case i think we'll have the same problem all the trinity mmorpgs have, and thats lack of healers because it's a dull playstyle

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Redshift

Now you're being silly, ofc i'd love to have a medic in the squad, but if the game is unplayable without a medic then there's going to be issues.

on another note what do you think the medic is suppose to do, is he suppose to have the med app out constantly spamming heals on everything? if thats the case i think we'll have the same problem all the trinity mmorpgs have, and thats lack of healers because it's a dull playstyle

Q: If I have heavy assault(example) will I be able to heal myself at all, or am I 100% dependent on a medic / engineer??

Matt: you'll probably have at least some capacity to heal yourself, but this is something we're actively designing and iterating at the moment.

From the Reddit Q&A.

Also, medics with jetpacks.

[DviddLeff]

Originally Posted by Redshift

Now you're being silly, ofc i'd love to have a medic in the squad, but if the game is unplayable without a medic then there's going to be issues.

on another note what do you think the medic is suppose to do, is he suppose to have the med app out constantly spamming heals on everything? if thats the case i think we'll have the same problem all the trinity mmorpgs have, and thats lack of healers because it's a dull playstyle

Never said it would be unplayable, just you wouldn't be able to pick your guys up off the ground once you get into a fight, or be 100% for the next fight. Same as if you decided not to bring along a hacker, or anyone with AV, AA, etc you would be screwed when it came to that situation.

Notice that even in class based FPS games (ie Battlefield) medics have guns; and with lower TTKs overall they are perfectly playable as its a much more even playing field. Sure the guys with the equivalent of HA will have an advantage, but the medics weapons will give him a damned good chance of victory, if he has the skill.

[EASyEightyEight]

Q: If I have heavy assault(example) will I be able to heal myself at all, or am I 100% dependent on a medic / engineer??

Matt: you'll probably have at least some capacity to heal yourself, but this is something we're actively designing and iterating at the moment.

^^^This. Think med-kits and as mentioned, the recovery implant no one EVER uses because (surprise) everyone has a med-app. The emergency tools for a foot-soldier without a medic nearby.