Implants- Making them ready for primetime

[GeoGnome]

I know right? Another implant thread.... Well I'm going to try and make this exhaustive, so here goes:

Brief intro:
To those not in the know, implants are a system by which you can equip items to your loadout that will grant certain bonuses to your character. The bonuses are things like: The ability to fall twice the distance, the ability to auto-spot anyone who shoots you, the ability to not show up on radar, etc. One implant will be equip-able at a time, and they can be purchased for certs or station cash. It has been indicated that the implants will be consumable. It is implied that you can either purchase them in bulk using SC, or set up an auto-resupply with certs. There is no word on how long they will last, or their cost.

Issue:
Incase you have been hiding under a rock, the issue is that many people are concerned that this starts the game down a slippery slope, towards overt pay to win (p2w). It's not as much because you can purchase the implants with certs it is that the pricing of the implants, could limit their regular use by people of low BR who are not paying members of the community, because they have fewer certs to work with, and they are busy spending every cert they have to get those few things you need early on.

Old Implant Systems:
Okay, implants aren't a new idea. They were in PS1, you could have up to 3 on your person, they were unlocked via BR, and their use was limited by a Stamina meter. When you ran out of stamina, you ran out of implant benefits. Other games have tried them in the past. Another version of implants was shown by forumite vinLauria, from an old source engine game called Dystopia. In that game there were active and passive implants. Active implants granted an ability that had an energy bar, while passive implants would always run. All implants in that came could be deactivated by an EMP grenade.

Abilities:
The abilities the implants grant straight negate certain grenades and stealth. Whole items that were absolute are now situational. If you have invested all your time and effort into making a stealthy character with a silenced gun and what have you, you even put on a sensor shield so that you don't show up on radar, if you shoot someone with Awareness, your location is pinpointed on the map. If you have certed out your flash with radar and parked it so that it is telling you who is coming through the back door, 7 heavies with sensor shield can walk right past it and you'd have no clue. As of now, the Sensor shield, Fall damage, and regen implants work for sure, they can be seen in the test server. A few others do not. With the abilities being as powerful as they are, how do you protect against implants? A good response would be EMP grenades. A thrown EMP grenade can negate the ability of the implants. Also giving the implants some downsides would mean that picking an implant means that you need to weigh it's pros and cons. If you use Sensor shield, maybe when your manually spotted you show up for longer. If you use Awareness, conc and flash grenades effect you for longer. As is, with straight upgrades the next point becomes a really big issue, but by reducing the effectiveness by making the implants also have downsides, the next point on price becomes less of a big deal for the developers and number crunchers who are trying to make money from this system

Price:
Here is where the pay to win and power of the abilities all ties together. How do you charge someone for the implants? Permanent implants will mean people can save up for implants and will pay 1,000 or 2,000 certs after a while, but this does relegate them to the "High BR Player Only" side of things. Temp implants that are cheap means low BR players can get them, yet when you break it down to Price/hour it starts getting difficult to know who you are targetting. A good player can have a KDR of 4, and kill hundreds of people an hour. Their cert gain makes the implant an easy purchase that can be paid for entirely with certs. A low BR player just starting out, people who have shorter play times, and people who need certs to buy weapons and upgrades around the mid tier battle ranks, these people may not have the ability to get the implants with certs unless their cost is minimal. As to SC, yes everyone can get them, but for this, unless the cert price is lower than the SC price, and considering the power of the items, it does show preference towards paying players over grinding f2p players. This may not be the literal definition of pay to win, but it's disconcerting at the very least.

Solutions (Effectively all you need to read)
1.) Make the price of implants under 5 certs or 7.5 SC an hour. This shows preference to playing over paying characters, and still lets a 10 hour implant be at such a price that it's ability can be offset in a single play session of 4 hours

1a.) Make implants permanent. Many people who are upset about the implants, that I have talked to, have said this would be acceptable, as it means you can save up and it's something to aspire to. That said, the same basic pricing rules of preferring playing over paying members should be kept in mind.

2.) Make implant abilities something you can turn on and off, with an energy bar. This way the always on implants have some sort of control on them, and you don't get this sizable ability granted all the time to people

3.) Make hard counters for the implants. Cert lines to reduce implant effects, some kind of other player ability to negate implants, EMP grenades, something that can shut down, confuse, or destroy the implants so that people can counter them.

4.) Introduce negative implant effects. If I am immune to conc grenades and flash grenades I should have some weakness, elsewise it's just an over scaling up of my personal power in a way that I have no way of indicating to other people

5.) IFF indicator of implants. If someone is using an implant there should be some indication of it. Simply put, not knowing what you are getting into, when going into battle means that you are setting yourself up for failure. So you throw a conc grenade into a room, and everyone in the room has Clear Vision on, yeah you get an indicator that it had no effect, but why on earth did the game let me waste that grenade then? If your going to use implants, there should be a way to automatically distinguish the implant users, from the non-implant users.

Final Verdict:
Implants are just not ready for prime time, and should be held off until something more balanced, with counters and indicators can be introduced to the system.

[Qwan]

Were is the implant that allows me to spot cloakers.

[EvilNinjadude]

Well. Here's my response to the solutions (since I agree with all preceding problem statements):
1. I'd go with 1a. I remember saving up for my first SMG. It turned out to be Underwhelming, but I remember counting the certs until I'd finally be good at CQC. (then shotguns. Now I have Shotgun too.)
2. Like the current active abilities? Yeah sure, that's not a bad idea. Like, turn on flinch reduction and get reduced flinch for 30 seconds. Do you think you should be able to deactivate it (like active abilities) or not (like equippable boosts)?
3. Do you want those passive or active, or a mixture of both? Limited to how many implants, or individual cert line counters for all implants?
4. Yes please.

5. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YES. This should already be in with:
a) Suit slots
b) Weapon Attachments
c) Active abilities

(mfw Tribes:Ascend already does this with perks: )

When I get killed by a dude at long range, I wanna know how and why. Does he have a long-range scope? A compensator? A forward Grip? Some of these are visible, but occasionally the respawn map appears before I can check out all 3 people's data.

I saw a revamp pic over on Reddit. Guy suggested an improvement to the kill screen that lets it stick around until you proceed to the map (also showing rez timer), let you check out all the dudes' details who dealt damage to you, that sorta stuff.

[typhaon]

Or... they could scrap implants and just make class-specific skills, instead of trying this "everything can do everything" approach we're seeing... try and actually make fun things that are balanced... not "stuff we can sell to everyone!"

Holy @#$@ - I just saw a video with a flash equipped with a rocket launcher... FFS...

There's a reason you can only spawn MBT at your warpgate, if you don't have a Tech Plant... the reason is that MBT are supposed to be lords of the battlefield... not just another object that can shoot every type of gun and be easily defended against/destroyed by anyone.

[DynamoECT]

Renting stuff like implants is bullshit. I don't mind paying for things, I have membership, but don't make me feel too much like a cow being milked dry or I'll take my cash somewhere else.

[GeoGnome]

Originally Posted by EvilNinjadude

Well. Here's my response to the solutions (since I agree with all preceding problem statements):
1. I'd go with 1a. I remember saving up for my first SMG. It turned out to be Underwhelming, but I remember counting the certs until I'd finally be good at CQC. (then shotguns. Now I have Shotgun too.)
2. Like the current active abilities? Yeah sure, that's not a bad idea. Like, turn on flinch reduction and get reduced flinch for 30 seconds. Do you think you should be able to deactivate it (like active abilities) or not (like equippable boosts)?
3. Do you want those passive or active, or a mixture of both? Limited to how many implants, or individual cert line counters for all implants?

Cert lines for the implants would be nice. That would work better if you had to just buy one permanent implant too.

Considering how situational it is (Pulling counters for implants would be kind of hit or miss) I'd say something that covers a certain set of implants and is active)

Originally Posted by EvilNinjadude

Well. Here's my response to the solutions
4. Yes please.

5. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YES. This should already be in with:
a) Suit slots
b) Weapon Attachments
c) Active abilities

(mfw Tribes:Ascend already does this with perks: )

When I get killed by a dude at long range, I wanna know how and why. Does he have a long-range scope? A compensator? A forward Grip? Some of these are visible, but occasionally the respawn map appears before I can check out all 3 people's data.

I saw a revamp pic over on Reddit. Guy suggested an improvement to the kill screen that lets it stick around until you proceed to the map (also showing rez timer), let you check out all the dudes' details who dealt damage to you, that sorta stuff.

I think being able to check out the person who killed you might be a bit much. What this could be, is something incorporated into the spot ability. You spot someone it gives an indicator of their loadout, just something general, like an icon above them that shows their implant. We're already getting an icon for vehicles, why not this?

Plus, that way scouting out your enemy could be a thing. Use your stalker cloaked infil to go check out what kind of opposition your getting into, in that next building.

[camycamera]

implants should just be in the universal suit slot, only purchasable by certs, and unlimited use (i dont want to keep paying certs just to keep one thing every hour). but they do need some tweaking, especially the anti-grenade ones. it shouldn't stop effects fully, it should just reduce them.

also, i doubt that anyone would WANT to spend certs every hour just so they can spot someone when they get shot by them, it just isn't worth it.

[Obstruction]

also, i doubt that anyone would WANT to spend certs every hour just so they can spot someone when they get shot by them, it just isn't worth it.

if it works as a lib pilot i'll use it.

there isn't much else on that list for me, and they are probably all only functional for infantry play anyway. hopefully at least enhanced targeting will work for my gunner.

also remember spotting isn't just for you but for allies nearby. so if this implant works for vehicle pilots it will go hand in hand with the escort mission.

[camycamera]

Originally Posted by DynamoECT

Renting stuff like implants is bullshit. I don't mind paying for things, I have membership, but don't make me feel too much like a cow being milked dry or I'll take my cash somewhere else.

yes, station cash and certs are valuable, i don't like spending stuff on things that likely wont get fully used in the time period it is active because it was and can only be rented.

[OCNSethy]

Looks like Smed has put the brakes on implant implementation... back to the drawling board

http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=56008

[OctavianAXFive]

Some pretty thoughtful stuff here. Mind if I pick from the buffet of options to create my own entree?

Great!

So like Camycamera said something that's a one time purchase going into a suit slot.

But my question is, why the hell does it have to be an implant? Why can't some of these things just be cool special equipment?

My reason for saying this is that EvilNinjaDude has a great point about being able to tell what kind of implant they have. He's also not the first to question whether or not "implants" should be passive skills.

I don't think they should. I think "implants" should work like activatable abilities that work in three major ways:

1.) Timer: Like flares or IR smoke on vehicles, implants on a timer can be activated for a short period when you need them but then go on cooldown. You can cert into decreasing the cooldown time.

2.) Rechargable: Like cloak, this kind of implant has a recharge bar.

3.) Single Use: Like a med pack. These could be the "stims" people have talked about.
a.) Could be on a fixed timer after the single use and must be repurchased via in game resources.
b.) Could have "charges." Example: Clear Vision. If you know someone is about to toss a flashbang or at least suspect it, you can turn it on and it will soak up the next 3 flashbangs before needing to be refilled at an infantry console. It will last until the charges are used/overridden/respawn.

Additionally I don't think that flashbangs should ever be fully negated. Instead I believe their effectiveness should be reduced on people using the "counter" to them.

Now, you can't see an implant because it's built into the guy's head. It's also not much use seeing exactly what he/she is using AFTER he/she's killed you.

But if these weren't implants...SoE could make unique visual art to indicate what's going on.

For example: If someone has Safe Landing active you see a similar animation to what you see when someone is bailing out of a galaxy.

Or your soldier has a special bracer on that glows like a Mass Effect Omnitool while the ability is active.

That's my feedback. Spread it around if you like it!

[Mordelicius]

Make the resist-type implants % chance to succeed instead of 100% success everytime.

Successfully resisted Flash Bang grenade

Failed to resist Flash Bang grenade

The advantage is still there but it won't be 100% resist every single time. I suggest 50-75% chance to succeed for these implant types.

[OctavianAXFive]

Originally Posted by Mordelicius

Make the resist-type implants % chance to succeed instead of 100% success everytime.

Successfully resisted Flash Bang grenade

Failed to resist Flash Bang grenade

The advantage is still there but it won't be 100% resist every single time. I suggest 50-75% chance to succeed for these implant types.

Off the cuff, I'm not sure I like chance based mechanics in a shooter.

[ChipMHazard]

I would prefer for the implants to help define the playstyle of each player and not just make some one immune to certain effects. Of course one could claim that being immune to concussion/flashbangs helps define a breaching/defending playstyle.
I like the ideas about having both passive and active implants and having certain powerful (Active?) implants also include negative traits.

Now that they've gone back to the drawing board it's going to be interesting to see just what they come up with. This time around they might want to ask for feedback on certain implant concepts before presenting them, again.

[Mordelicius]

Originally Posted by OctavianAXFive

Off the cuff, I'm not sure I like chance based mechanics in a shooter.

Which would you rather have? 0% chance (not in-game at all) or 100% chance (what they planned to put as is)