I was over on Reddit and PS-Universe browsing and I noticed two threads about drop pods and how they are making the game more chaotic. This got me thinking about a new idea, I don't think I've ever seen before, for a Light Assault tool. Well a couple ideas really.... Best thing about these ideas, they'd help your team some too! What if their tool was something along the lines to suppress spawn capabilities? Spawn Beacon Disruption Mechanics Idea 1: Spawn Beacon Scrambler Place this item down within 20 meters of a spawn beacon and if someone then uses that spawn beacon, they are sent 400-500 m in a random direction. Instead of destroying spawn beacons it messes them up so people aren't able to direct where they land with as much accuracy. While I know it is great to destroy beacons, imagine the frustration for those using them when they drop 500 meters away from where they are supposed to drop. To make this work, you'd really have to make the podder drop quite a ways out in random directions, thus messing up any kind of cohesive coordination that they get. The item would definitely have to be placed close to the enemy squad beacon, maybe even on it. Idea 2: Drop Pod Protection Grid Place this item and drop pods can no longer drop within a 20 meter radius. Hmm... hard to balance this one. Basically I was trying to find a way to make it so you could disrupt those suicidal drop-podders. Part of me wants a kind of dome (small) that when the pod hits will break open the pod and drop infantry down through. Another part of me just wants it so it forces drop pods to land outside a certain radius so that they can't get so close. Idea 3: Drop Pod Destroyer Pretty sure SOE won't go for this, since they have stated before they disliked the idea of automatic turrets in PS2, but a small specialized turret that does nothing but shoot drop pods out of the air in a small area. It'd be really difficult to balance this one unfortunately. Idea 4: Drop Pod Shutdown Grid (needs better name probably) Deploy this and any pods within a 50 meter radius (plus unlimited height of course) would not be able to steer. You'd put it near objects you want to protect and then the chances of people being able to get close to an object by podding are greatly diminished. It could still happen by random chance but the chances are pretty small. Deployment Disruption Mechanics Idea 5: Spawn Disruptor Idea is easy enough, take 5-8 seconds to setup a device where it shuts down a spawn that is within 15 meters. Should work only on Sunderers (and Galaxies if they ever put that back in). You'd have to get CLOSE to something for it to work, long deploy time makes you vulnerable, but then you could possibly shut down (for a limited time?) an enemy spawn, without destroying it. If you are good enough to place this and then clear out the defenders, you clear the spawn until they destroy your device. Heck I'd even pay resources for something like this. Idea 6: Spawn Booster Damn this fits better with Engineer, but an item that speeds up nearby friendly spawns, maybe only base spawns. Needs to have open sky above it (like beacons) so it'd be easier to destroy and not just placed inside a spawn room. Idea 7: Flip side of the coin for idea 2, an item that makes it so people take LONGER to spawn. Wouldn't be able to stack with multiple copies, just one at a time. Imagine how it'd change the course of a battle if suddenly the Sunderer you were spawning at took 10 seconds longer than the nearby base. My Favorites: I really like Idea 1 above. It'd cause some extra chaos on the battle field and make it so people couldn't suicide pod in as easily. Personally I imagine a ring like device that is placed around an enemy beacon to corrupt its signal (and graphics?) Idea 5 is my second favorite. We wouldn't get EXP from killing sunderers but we'd still really help the battle out. Might be OP though. My Worries: These items would be extremely situational, not really super useful to the battle, though nice. Honestly, the first four probably wouldn't be used a whole lot. Idea 5 might be a bit OP, hard to say. These ideas don't really give a strong team play aspect to LA, but would give them an ability that the team benefits from. Thoughts?
I think that #1 can be tweaked a bit. Not sure how it could be done, as usually if there's a beacon within 20m I'm usually going after it to kill it. But I could see an Infiltrator 'hacking' the beacon to scramble the GPS codes. Again, this would then lend the squad beacons being deployed in areas the Infiltrator can't get to. #6 is a good one to have. Perhaps have the LA get access to the control point to upload it's code into the matrix, giving the outpost/base an increase in spawning while under friendly control. Could cert into that a bit more in order to have the enemy spawn slower once it flips. Would counter that with an Infiltrator having to hack into the control point to rid the system of the virus.
The drop pod ideas are interesting, but yeah, they're all kind of a tough sell because you're f-ing with guys who haven't even started playing yet! I was thinking like even something that reroutes drop pods to a spot of your choosing, like a spawn beacon magnet for enemy pods, but even that I think would be kind of unfair: people getting rerouted to a ditch, to a firing line, or on top of a friendly galaxy or sunderer (if you're griefing that is). Yeah, that's all we need, "Hey, don't put that there you *******!" Nah. The spawn jammers are too powerful for just an infantry item I think. Maybe like a sunderer anti-AMS that creates a dead zone for spawn beacons, or if a drop pod is coming in, it's like half-speed or something. But then maybe an early warning system? Something that spots drop pods for you, and ascertains their impact site on the minimap, like a little blip for the crater? Just an earlier heads up. Doesn't throw you off course (since that could actually work to your advantage in a lot of cases I think), doesn't shoot you out of the air, just something that lets you know someone is dropping in, and where they've dropped.
OoohhhHH!!!!! I really like this idea! It would be similar, in my opinion, to the power of the IFF tool for Infiltrators too so it wouldn't be too OP. I think though, since the number of pods is a lot less than the number of infantry running around, to balance it the radius would have to be much larger and last much longer than the IFF tool does. This could help friendly troops out greatly, especially if it leaves a nice colored symbol on their minimap for 10-15 seconds, even after the pod deconstructs. (You'd have to be able to toggle it on/off though, cause I could see it getting a bit annoying.) What does everyone else think of this kind of radar for drop-pods? I think I might like it more than the stuff I posted at the beginning! I hope SOE reads this!
Hey thanks, Rogue! My pleasure to spitball it with you. The aesthetic is completely arbitrary, except maybe if it were a ripple effect, like a pebble dropped in a pond kind of look. So whether people like the idea being vehicle or item based, you would get little splashdown ripples emanating from the impact site (assuming it's in range), and if the impact site itself is in range, you could even see the spot itself. Oh, if I had a quarter for every comment I wish SOE would take a look at... well I'd have like 3 bucks. But STILL!
