Lockons make for boring gameplay

After Watching STLYoungblood's video "Giving TR a dose of their own medicine" I am forced to recognise just how linear and terribly boring lock on mechanics are, no matter which side weilds the lockon launchers. I'm sure a lot of players on all sides are also experiencing the boredom and blandness of lock on missile launchers and the resulting linear combat experience they are producing.

Target acquired, flare/smoke or die. That's it. That's the choice we are given in a game of this enormous scale when this happens to us. Of course there is always run away and hide and avoid that combat area. A boring combat experience resulting in you becoming utterly useless for your Empire for an extended time period due to cooldowns. So many dynamics of combined arms combat are lost. Exciting tank battles with the ability to outflank and outmaneuver your opponent. Cover from enemy bombing raids needed in the form of flak or from having your own fighters in the air. Harrasers zipping in and out of the front lines taking pot shots at infantry and armour dependent on loadout. That's adrenaline inspiring combat!

The huge scale and excitement that is the Planetside 2 experience, with its enormous variety and dynamics of the battles that take place is lost when a squad sets up and uses lock ons to end an enemy combined arms push in minutes. A battle that could have raged for an hour or more gets halted and killed within minutes and every one plods forward on foot. Or in the case of the VS or NC on the receiving end of a lock on barrage, they plod on on foot as the enemy marches forward with their air and armour relatively intact. It's so boring!

It is precisely because of these barren, dry and linear combat environments that the TR are creating when I fight them, that I find all forms of combat with VS so much more exciting. An armour push will be met with armour, air raids will be met with a sky armada and flak from below. There is so much more diversity to the ebb and flow of a battle against the Vanu. Lock ons still exist and even when fighting them and have the same linear effect of flares / smoke / run or die. Just not in the same numbers as the TR but still producing the same dry and boring combat experience.

Despite the occasional lockon, a much more enjoyable combat experience is to be had when battling the Vanu and the tides of battle are being won and lost dependent on who was the superior players and who made the right tactical choice at the right time. Not who had their flares or smoke on cooldown and whose lockons beat out the other sides lockons.

I hope TR understand it is not the Striker a lot of us have a problem with. It's the dry, barren and downright boring combat environment that the Striker creates that is utterly disheartening. Planetside 2 is such a diverse and exciting game with numerous ways to combat whatever the enemy throws at you be it infantry, armour or air. Lockons just dull the experience for all involved. Both the users and the receivers. With the lock on mechanics as they are today and their linear combat functions, we are cheapening and boring the experience of Planetside 2 creating a predictable and bland combat environment.

It's really sad to see such glorious and memorable battles lost in a sea of lockons when we could be talking about the excitement of an armour push being denied by well placed lockdown AP Prowlers, or how an air raid of Scythes was denied by Mossies luring the Scythes into an air to air battle with the support of Skyguards. Tactical choices and decisions from platoon and squad leaders should have huge impacts on the way the battle progress. Placement, movement and choice of combined arms needed to launch a successful attack should really matter. Lockons just deny so much diversity and tactical knowledge of the enemies movements and arsenal.

I am very passionate about this game and love nothing more than to see a huge combined arms battle come together just right. To see a successful attack forward into enemy territory made or to see a huge enemy push repelled. I am just saddened by the bland and boring experience of lockon launchers. For all parties. Planetside promised us, the players, so much more than this and here we are in our dynamic, diverse and exciting universe, experiencing the most linear form of combat available.

As players of Planetside 2, we should be demanding more diverse and fun ways to combat what the enemy throws at us and not relying on our ESRLs, lockons and MANA AV turrets to deny the enemy advancements. It cheapens the gaming experience for all involved parties and denies so many exciting and memorable battles.

Agreed. While lock ons may be effective, they are extremely boring to use, and require no skill.

Wasn't SOE planning to remake the lock on mechanic?
They wanted to make lock on times based on distance, meaning that if you're further away you have more chance to react (like for dogfighting ESF's, while lolpodders would get locked on in a second)

They also wanted to make lock required for the whole duration, no more 'fire and forget' you still have to kinda guide your missile, if you miss your target for a second your lock will be broken.

Next to that they are also reducing flight time and increasing travel speed, meaning that the lock on range is also the effective range of that lock on (Striker for example has a lock on range of 500m, but its flight time makes it hits targets up to 800m)

Gee...I sort of like my Stryker.../grin

That...or just keep flying around in circles near friendly positions, fly just close enough to an enemy position to fire a volley of rockets/bullets/whatever at them, making painfully sure that you don't get close enough to any enemy who could possibly even put a dent in your hood and then circle back, duck behind a hill/rock/building and repair and then repeat.

Not like anyone would ever do that...definitely not like...ALL...THE...TIME.

I don't mind AA lock on weapons as much, they are necessary in a game world were the large majority of people don't have 'skill' so the game shouldn't be balanced around it anyway, and at least the AA launchers in this game aren't as useless as they are in BF3.
Personally I think the new lock mechanics that they will be putting in will change AA launchers for the better while still giving the less-skilled players an option to be effective against air targets.

G2G lock on launchers however are much to two dimensional, not having 3D movement to deal with the lock on crutch is not really necessary, anyone should be able to compensate for drop, tough I think there will always be a place for the lock on launchers but they should require a less 2 dimensional kind gameplay, maybe someone needs to continuously 'Tag' the target from 200M or less before you can lock on to it yourself from distances greater then 200M.

Are they boring, yeah, are the neccesary, yup, could they require tuning, hell yeah.

However the 'No skill' complaint should be dropped, this is not a 1v1-12v12 arena battle designed around skill, if you're looking for some kind of E-honor gentlemen style duels you might want to look for other games.
A game like PS2 should be designed around the large numbers and most of those will not have a terribly high skill level, there will always be need for equalizers to give the low skilled players a chance at killing the high skilled ones.

The devs have already stated they hate lockons, so expect them to change.

*cringe*

since everyone can pull a good tank, and you can not select the target to acquire when 2 VHC are close to each other its ok to haven an easy 1000cert way to deal with em. yes its borin to empty a mag into a enemy tank without guaranty to blow him up but its much more frustrating if i had to aim manual and can not nuke it.

There was a lock on change that made it so I think you had to keep the target in your sights. It was nearly ready for release but like everything it got pushed back when the devs switched focus to optimisation.

I don't think lock on is needed for any ground to ground attack. You can shoot a tank. Lock on is a must though to hit air craft, having to keep the target in your sights to maintain lock should introduce the right level of skill. A good pilot jinxing around might reliably be able to break the lock. That's my hope anyway.

The game would have been better without lockons full stop.

Sadly, the horse has well and truly bolted on that particular one.

Someone said the other day that they were implemented to deal with the monstrosities that are Dalton/Zepher libs. Why not make G2As lock-on libs only?

What's the reason behind this thread? Weren't there multiple announcements that lock-on behaviour is gonna be changed bigtime? Until we actually see the result of the changes, any and all these posts are just a waste of time, IMHO.

Pft...Another tanker's / pilot's nerf the lock-on thread. What a surprise.

They'll still be boring to use and the game would still be better if they removed them. I would not even hesitate to return my Annihilator for the 700 SC I spent on it.

They all may become laser-guided for all we know. Their current state needs work, but there is no any real info as to how they will function yet - only a number of suggestions that were mentioned to hear the feedback.

I agree. Lock on launchers are boring. I tried Striker several times and it was always a dull experience, to the point I refuse to use it at all, even though I'm TR player to the core. I much prefer using walker/skyguard/bursters/ranger (though it's terribad) as AA weapon, it's way more satisfying gameplay-wise, and against ground, I find dumb-fire rockets to be more effective.

Using a lock on launcher / a2a missiles is mindnumbingly boring.

I know that "no-skill" is tossed around in here, but there is just no skill involved in firing a lock on launcher.

Lancer and Phoenix at least require some sort of aim - the striker and lock ons just have you point in the direction of your target. They're just so dull to use. I have that aa lock on launcher and I rarely pull it, because it makes me want to log off and play something more fun.

We don't use lock-ons because they're fun (although the Striker IS fun). We (infantry) use them because we have to.
They're defensive weapons that we have to use in order to keep the unskilled pilots and tankers from lazily farming infantry. If you were off engaging each other in battle, I guarantee you you wouldn't have near the problem with lock-ons that you perceive.

As long as SOE gives me an effective weapon to keep the rocket dumping ESFs, the Dalton/Zephyr crapping Liberators, and the HE spamming tanks on the run, I'm using it. I don't care if it's armor piercing puppies and kittens fired from Rosie O'donnell's backside, if it keeps you on the run, I'll shoulder it...and right now, lock-ons are the best thing going.

^ This

Using a lock-on is a lot more " fun " than being farmed by vehicles all day.