Can we please scrap the idea of consumable implants?

Discussion in 'Test Server: Discussion' started by Rigsta, Jul 16, 2013.

  1. Rigsta

    This has been bugging me for a while. Why on earth should any player be happy to see a cert or SC sink?

    Implants are, frankly, game-changers. Let's have a look at them.
    • Awareness - Auto spots enemies who damage or kill you; also auto spots enemies that you damage. Negates the sole advantage of suppressed weapons. I wonder if it works on snipers too?
    • Battle Hardened - Reduces camera shake from all explosions; also reduces flinch when hit by enemy fire. Sounds like a go-to implant to me. Removal/reduction of screen shake & flinch allows a player to land more return shots. That's a direct increase in damage ourput when under fire.
    • Clear Vision - Protects against concussion and flash grenade effects. Reduces the time between a flash/conc grenade going off and the LA/HA who threw it rushing in to collect free kills. Since, you know, they don't have to worry about blinding themselves any more. Pretty much removes all flash/conc downsides apart from "it doesn't kill all the things".
    • EMP Shielding - Protects against EMP grenade effects. Does anyone actually use these? I certainly don't bother with them ever since they ceased preventing shield regen for 10s.
    • Enhanced Targeting - Enables an enhanced targeting HUD that displays the health of any spotted enemy that you target; it also increases the range of the IFF system from 8 meters to 25 meters. Doritoes on any visible target within 25m, and health bars to help you decide who to pick off first.
    • EOD HUD - Allows you to detect any enemy explosives within a 20 meter radius. AP mines? Not an issue any more. Tank mines? The detection range is a little low for those but it's better than nothing. Serious contender to sensor shield for CQ-infiltrators.
    • Regeneration - Slowly regenerates health over time when not taking damage. A lot depends on the regen rate, but even the Bio-lab regen has saved me on a few occasions. If they stack, then that'd be excellent. Except for infiltrators of course - no health regen while cloaked.
    • Safe Landing - Reduces fall damage, allowing you to survive falls from heights twice as high than you normally would. I can't really see this as a contender considering the power of the other implants. But on the other hand, trying to walk down a hill without accerating to warp 7 is difficult these days.
    • Sensor Shield - Makes you undetectable to enemy radar equipment and motion sensors. An infiltrator's dream.
    • Thermal Reduction - Prevents you from being highlighted by thermal optics. Depending on the driver's loadout, this'll be better than cloaking XD
    So with a couple of exceptions, the benefit of each implant creates a nice "which should I pick?" decision for that slot. But most importantly every one of them is a straight upgrade to an empty implant slot.

    Implants have a time limit, are limited to one loadout slot (might be wrong on this) and can be purchased with certs or SC. This is pay-to-win because subscribers and SC-purchases have significantly more of both forms of payment available to them.

    The slow rate of F2P exp gain makes implants an ugly choice between character progression and staying competitive on a given day.

    For an SC-buyer, it's 50/50 I guess. I hate buying "rental" items in F2P games, and implants fit that description nicely.

    For a subscriber or heroic/alpha booster owner, implants are an annoyance but they're effective enough that you can't really ignore them.

    For reference, I personally bought a lot of stuff with SC before getting a subscription and a heroic boost. I've been playing since release, barring a 2-3 month hiatus. I have 8 post-it notes around my monitor, each with at least 7 lines, most with multiple levels of unlocks per line. It's going to take me a long time to work through that lot.

    One of the arguments for consumable implants is that some players are running out of things to spend certs on. Well, that can't be helped. No developer on earth can keep up with the amount of game-time a truly hardcore gamer/no-lifer can put in. If that's really the reason behind this cert sink/money-spinner, I can only say it's poorly thought out. If it's severe enough to affect the hardcore/no-lifer, it's an even bigger hit to the casual/normal player. If it's cheap enough to not bother the casual/normal, it doesn't affect the hardcore/no-lifer at all.

    While we're on the subject, resources have become pay-to-win as well now that MAXes and ground vehicles are expensive. Assuming equal skill, a guy who can use twice the number of consumables, MAXes and ground vehicles per hour is much more effective.

    And heck, a guy with a more advanced character able to switch roles and adapt to the situation is more effective than a BR1. But that's an inevitable part of any game with a progression system and speeding up progression is the de facto standard for F2P games.

    Also for reference, I don't buy "if you can eventually get it for free it's not pay-to-win". There's a limit to how far that argument can go.

    My personal opinion is that implants should be multi-level cert lines like every other non-weapon unlock. I like knowing that once I've unlocked or bought something, it's mine and I don't have to worry about it disappearing.

    Alternatively, keep them as they are but let us buy them with infantry resources.
    • Up x 73
  2. Shiva64

    I'm also extremely disappointed with this as well. I thought that once you buy them, you're free to use them whenever (or well, at least you can't switch them out every single second, like how resource timers work with vehicles etc, like if you've got one equipped, you're stuck with it for however long the timer would have lasted for... this would have been far more preferable tbh)... and that they weren't gonna be obtained with SC.

    Guess I just won't be spending my time or money on these. :/
    • Up x 3
  3. Caserion

    I like the infantry resource idea, remove the SC payment and it's all balanced again.
    • Up x 8
  4. Rigsta

    Sorry for the length of this post, guys. I'm not so good at condensing my thoughts down to more-readable length.
    • Up x 1
  5. cfnz

    +1 for all these points. I'm not immediately a fan of implants as they've been described, primarily because of the first point, they are an upgrade and thus an advantage for the haves over the have-nots. We don't know the price point yet, that will definitely influence my opinion, i.e. if they're extremely cheap, then at lot of the above ceases to be an issue for me.
  6. Tobax


    I agree that having to keep paying for a limited time implant does not sound any good at all, but please don't start the pay2win stuff because if they can be bought with certs for free then its still not pay2win, however I was really hoping that this would be one area they would leave alone to character progression instead of certs/SC.
  7. Rigsta

    The reason I call it pay-to-win is because it widens the gap between those who pay and those who don't. If one assumes that implants are necessary to remain competitive, it's more of a drain on the already-slow cert income of the F2P player compared to a subscriber or SC buyer. And if the F2P player chooses to ignore them and save up for a new gun or something (1,000 takes a long time as F2P), they're at a measurable disadvantage.

    That might be a big exageration if the live prices turn out to be negligibly cheap though :)
    • Up x 4
  8. cfnz

    I'd be very surprised if this was the case. Even then, the cheaper they are the shorter the duration will be. My personal preference at this point is that each implant is given an appropriate con, something that you need to weigh against its pro.
  9. iccle

    They should be permanent but expensive (certs and/or SC) purchases, and ideally only changeable/equippable at a biolab.
    • Up x 2
  10. Ghstmarauder

    Being consumable is one thing but buying with SC is just screaming P2W because it obviously makes you better like gear. With the cert bonus with subscriber, even buying the consumable implants with Certs makes it P2W as well. If you go this route of Implant being a Consumable, it needs to be longer than one loadout, and a static Cert cost.

    Honestly... go back to the PS1 way of unlocking Implants and give us certain levels to reach to be able to use an Implant slot. Make the Implants a cert tree to cert into and have use choose which to specialize in, or have us purchase a new implant like a weapon and discard the old one (ala swapping implants at the terminals).

    The bonuses these implants seem to give just seem to be OP, there needs to be a downside with using them, a check and balance. PS1 you had a stamina bar and if you jumped it burned it down, but so did using the implants. You can't just leave these implants on constantly like ZOE, its a constant advantage, you NEED to have a downside with using it instead of a clear power boost.
    • Up x 4
  11. Raymac

    I agree with every word Ghstmarauder said. This is a terrible idea. I'm trying to think of an argument for how this is not P2W, but I can't. Hopefully the devs will hear us and change course or else I'm afraid this is going to be worse than the BFR fiasco in Planetside 1. And I freaking HATE "sky is falling" arguments and this is making me do it. That's how bad of an idea this is.
    • Up x 7
  12. ThundaHawkPS

    Consumable implants will do more long-term damage to the PS2 player base than BFRs did to the first Planetside.
    100% serious.

    The benefits (hp via targetting, being invisible to thermal, invisible to radar etc.) essentially are very close to "an over-the-top player-power benefit". If they are SC-only AND temporary-consumable... well... we had a good run.

    Having spent hundreds of dollars and 60+ days in-game, I certainly don't wish an early grave upon Planetside 2 but, frankly, consumable implants in their projected state will gut the game.

    So. Dear Devs. WARNING: do not kill game.

    Love ThundaHawk
    • Up x 4
  13. daxed

    This is the kind of idea that gets added at the end of a game's life span. Money grab
    • Up x 5
  14. Gheeta

    Not a fan of consumable implants either. This will end up being straight up annoying in the end.
    • Up x 1
  15. GeneStarwind

    Personally I was under the impression (and hoping) that these are unlocked items and you resupply them with resources, like every other consumable. The resource cost and duration should be something that isn't game breaking.
    • Up x 2
  16. NyaR

    bomp
    • Up x 1
  17. TraatAdmiral

    I'm a bit surprised that no-one's pointed out yet that these things are implants. That means they're implanted in your character's body, right? Where's the in-universe justification for what is presumably a major surgical procedure (well, no, I guess it's nanites, but you know what I mean) just going away after a little while? From a lore perspective, they make even less sense than the lights on landmines. That bugs me more than any potential game-breakyness (?) that may result from their addition. I do see, though, that even with just the implants that have been announced now we see suppressors, thermal scopes, concussion/flash/EMP grenades, sensor darts, scout radar, and landmines all becoming rather less useful. Suppressors in particular are pretty expensive, and even if only one person in ten has that implant, they become mostly useless. It only takes one guy to find and kill you, or at least draw enough attention to you that everyone else can. I am confident that even if they are released in an overly-powerful state they will be fixed eventually, but there is some cause for concern here.
  18. Insolence


    They are not SC only atm, they are SC or Certs.

    Honestly unless these things are like 25SC I don't even see anyone buying them. Why would you pay anything more for an item that'll disappear after a few hours of play?

    I also don't really think the resource route is the way to go, as people have been suggesting. There are already enough consumables in this game to spend resources on, and after a point you max them all out and you have an endless supply of them anyway. The idea behind implants seems to be pick-and-choose, not switch on the fly with no penalty.

    I would say Cert-based is the way to go, but even if they do include a SC option who cares? As noted above, I don't see many as seeing these implants are worth purchasing unless they're super cheap.
    • Up x 1
  19. Metal Insomniac

    Couldn't agree more. Consumable implants is just stupid, and screams "P2W." Dunno what the hell SOE has been smoking lately, but this is a godawful idea that needs to be fixed. I gave it a thumbs down as soon as I saw it on roadmap...somehow, I knew it'd come to this. The only thing I'm happy about is no Darklight Vision (ability to see cloakers).
    • Up x 2
  20. WaRadius

    Sell consumable implants for resources and permanent implants for SC.