[Suggestion] Light Assault Update: LAWS

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Metalsheep, Jun 5, 2014.

  1. Metalsheep

    One thing the community seems to agree, is that Light Assaults are lacking... something. Upon thinking about this for a while, I've felt that one of the things LA lacks is any way to support in an Anti-Vehicle role, aside from the controversial C4-Fairy style. Which is expensive in both cert and resource investments.

    I do feel that the LA should have a Anti-Vehicular option similar to the Heavy Assault, but on a lighter scale and as a default tool.

    As a "new" player spawning into the game. You only have ONE real option for Infantry Anti-Vehicle work, and that is the Heavy Assault. (Yes, Default MAX do have 1 AV arm, but 1 arm makes AV more of a support role rather than 100% AV)

    It is then I remembered a Real Life weapon that many militaries use outside of specialized Anti-Tank weapons.

    The L.A.W.S or Light Anti-Tank Weapon System. Also known simply as a LAW.

    A LAW is a disposable, collapsible, one-shot weapon that fires a 66mm HEAT warhead. They are easily carried and deployed by a single soldier. Most soldiers that use LAWs are capable of carrying two with little encumbrance.

    To me, a weapon like this sounds perfect for the Light Assault class. A weaker rocket weapon that they can deploy from high perches or unusual angles to hit Tanks in their weak spots, and supplement the Heavy Assaults primary AV role, with their own secondary AV weapon.

    You could come up with some slight ES variations on the cosmetic look of the weapon for each empires LA, or make it a NS weapon. Could name it something like the NS Punisher. (A nod to the PS1 Punisher Rifle that could shoot tiny rockets.)

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    Now, how would this weapon work in game?

    The LAW is known for its lack of penetration power when faced with the Frontal Armor of a Tank. So, naturally I feel the Punisher should be rather ineffective against the Front armor of a Tank. Perhaps taking 8 total Punisher rounds to destroy a tank from the front. 4 From the Rear, 6 from the Sides/Top. (Talking MBT's)

    The idea of the Punisher is to take advantage of the Light Assaults mobility, and to strike the Tank in its weak spots or simply add a bit more damage to the Heavy Assaults beefier rocket weapons. Not to outright solo a MBT, that is a AV Heavy or AV MAXs domain. Yet, you want a Vehicle to also consider a Punisher to be a viable threat.

    The Punisher would also have its resistance type as Medium Ordinance (Which I believe is what the Viper is also considered. If I'm wrong, please correct me.) Allowing the Punisher to deal more significant damage to Harassers specifically, and a little less damage to Infantry.

    As a basic, uncerted Light Assault, you spawn with 2 Punishers. Each has only 1 round and equipping the Punisher would go through a "Unfolding/Deploying" animation, as LAWS are collapsed and watertight before they are prepped to fire.

    After the Punisher is fired, you discard the empty Punisher, and "Deploy" the next Punisher. This will act as a "Reloading" phase or animation between rockets. Taking about 3 seconds total. 2 Seconds for just Equipping a Punisher, 3 for the discard and re-equip animation. This is lower than the standard HA Dumbfires Reload of 5 seconds.

    I am on the fence about giving the Punisher a .75 ADS movement speed, to emphasize the Punishers "Light" nature.

    I was also thinking of adding a change to the Light Assaults Ammunition Belt cert line. At level 2, you get 1 additional Punisher and at level 4, a second additional Punisher. Allowing for a LA to carry a total of 4 Punisher systems.


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    Well, that was longer than I thought it would be. What does Forumside think of an addition like this to the LA class? Awesome? Just No? What changes would you make to this system?
    • Up x 10
  2. DoctorPC

    I was thinking of posting idea EXACTLY like this. As it is, tanks can destroy infantry with little to no danger of getting shot. Good work!
  3. ColonelChingles

    I think the biggest problem with LAWs is that they do absolutely nothing to tanks... maybe a mobility kill, but even hits to the rear would at most knock out the engine but otherwise leave the tank perfectly operable.

    You need something like an RPG-29 to blow up a MBT nowadays... but that's not a light weapon by any means. 105mm warhead, not something that you can fly with.



    From a gameplay perspective there are already enough (free I might add) things to blow up tanks with, namely the Heavy Assault or other tanks. Fighting off Light Assaults shooting at tanks with ranged weapons beyond the tanks turret traverse would be a nightmare.
  4. Iridar51

    Sure, seems interesting. I'm a bit on the fence of carrying barely enough LAWs to take out one tank from the rear, though.
    • Up x 2
  5. TheMish

    Have you lost your damn mind? Isn't there enough anti-vehicle weapons already?

    The LA needs nothing, the idea of the bloody class is to flank and kill. It's not supposed to be a front-line warrior and/or attack vehicles.
    • Up x 1
  6. vilehydra

    I think L.A.W.S would act as finishers or ambush weapons. A squad is having problems with a tank or two that keeps pulling back and repairing. The heavies in that squad would bring the main damage with the light assault picking it off in it's retreat.

    Alternatively LA ambush squads hiding in the mountains, just waiting for your tank to pass by.

    Also I think it would be a good option to replace c4 with.
    Take either ranged damage or expensive close range c4.
  7. Jaycemonde


    MetalSheep's idea is that the Light Assault isn't supposed to be capable of single-handedly taking tanks out to begin with, but rather to harass them or assist Heavy Assaults or MAXes. I think just enough to take out one tank with good aim is pretty generous, especially if it were refillable with ammo packs.
  8. Iridar51

    I will agree to that when it will REQUIRE two people to operate a tank.
    Harassing tanks is uselees. Current ground based AA also can only "harass" enemy air, see how much useful that is. They retreat to repair for one minute, and that's it.
    Even if refillable, four consequtive hits into the rear armor seem unrealistic, and require being so close to the target that it's easier to just C4 the bugger.

    Light Assault's advantage is a brief moment of surprise, when LA is already in the attack position, but enemy doesn't know about him. That's why C4 works so well on LA.
    With the first hit of LAW (or second, if the tank crew is particularly bad) this advantage ends. And then it's a straight up combat of LA vs tank, and it's pretty clear who has the advantage in this situation.

    Finishing off retreating tanks is another story, and in that regard LAW seems useful. A problem I have with that system is that it relies on the Jet Pack, and Jet Pack is situational, it relies on rough terrain. There are bases surrounded by open field, with bits of cover spread out around several hundred meters from the base, ideal for tanks to hide behind to repair. LAW would be completely useless in this situation, as pretty much everything else, to be honest, save for tank zerg counter maneuver.
  9. Kayth

    As you implement more AT options then you indirectly nerf tanks and cause that entire portion of the community to go into outrage. So to best implement this I believe it should be a utility slot option so that LA doesn't have access to an abundance of AT damage in one single kit.

    I like the idea though. I think they could fit into a good place for the class. I would just be weary of them dealing too much damage to both vehicles and infantry. It is also important that they feel distinctly different from the HA rocket launcher, so the classes each have identity.
    • Up x 1
  10. RubiksCubix

    This idea is brilliant, under 3 conditions:

    1. LAW's cannot have more than 1.25 ads zoom.
    2. LAW's cannot lock on in any circumstance and can be shot down with tank shells.
    3. LAW's take a second to switch to and have a reasonable fire delay.
  11. EnsignPistol

    Seems solid to me, especially with regards to having some access to it off the bat. I'm of the opinion that we need to do more to get new players up to speed in engaging a variety of targets sooner rather than later. I tend to wonder to myself how many new players are drawn to heavy assault simply for being the only no-cost anti-vehicle solution.

    For those not in the know: Right now the vast majority of all in-game characters never make it past battle rank 10. If we're being generous and we figure that most people decide whether or not to continue playing the game upon hitting BR10, that's only around 150 certs worth of experience, not counting passive gains, that they have to work with to make their playing experience feel viable and get them wanting to continue. Not exactly a lot of room for fancy weapons systems in there. It's critical then that we get players up to speed without them feeling like we force them into having to go a certain class or such just to have any effect against something.
    • Up x 3
  12. Jaycemonde

    This may sound weird coming from someone who's predominately a tanker, but I agree with that sentiment--mostly because it's a pain in the *** to drive and keep an eye on everything going on around you and aim at a target and manage ammunition all at once. Tanks should operate like Harassers do, with one crew member for every specific task.

    To be fair, getting air units to buzz off for repairs does give friendly infantry and vehicles a slight breather to find cover or make repairs. Harassing somebody is by definition annoying them and making them unwelcome, so I wouldn't say it's useless.
    Another big part of harassing tanks as a Light Assault is that LAs can hide practically anywhere where there's either a steep incline, a tree or a bridge--to say nothing of tightly packed buildings--and most tankers would have no way of knowing just how many of the buggers there were hiding behind that corner or over that berm--even if it were only one or two LAs with two rockets apiece, I sure as hell wouldn't want to stick around to find out if there were more. At least not without some kind of coaxial (i.e., pointing in the same direction as the main gun, not controlled by the top gunner) machinegun or grenade launcher.

    The issue with that is that C4 is expensive to cert into and requires you to come out of hiding for a relatively extended period of time, which exposes you to the tank (if the driver is paying attention) or its gunner. If a tank doesn't know where the first attack came from (which is probably going to be the case in an ambush or when it's focusing on other, more tangible threats) that gives the LA the opportunity to fire off another rocket before dying or to get to another hiding spot. With sufficient cover, a good Light Assault can stay out of the firing solution of a tank almost indefinitely, and if one or both crewmen disembark to chase the LA down on foot they're now on equal ground.

    There's always the Drifter jets.


    I'm gonna be honest here; another reason I think this way is because, as a tanker, I feel C4 is kind of overpowered, especially considering how many other ways there are for a tank to meet a fiery and grisly end in Planetside (C4, tank mines, Heavy Assaults, other tanks, Harasser crews who know what they're doing, practically any form of aircraft, trying to drive on Amerish, etc.), and if there were a way to give Light Assaults a mite fighting chance against tanks (which isn't their intended role, but still useful in big fights and increasing their life expectancy--fair play, yo) without being too individually powerful, I'd be all for it.
    • Up x 1
  13. Kumaro

    I would rather tha LA got more tolls to define his role as a gureilla like fighter.
    Traps and explosives!!!! Not just some flimsy C4 and for the love of higby no more ROCKETS!!!
  14. MCSquard

    I'm going to go with a No on this one for a few reasons.

    1 - We already have a class dedicated to rockets and missiles, its called the Heavy assault cause he carry's big weaponry, the Light assault is supposed to be a flank and sneak attack class, not a can deal with everything on the field class( which cause of there C4 they almost already do)

    2 - this would be a direct Nerf to vehicles , Vehicles already have to watch out for C4 Fairy's flying about dropping there packages of doom, now you want to allow those fairy's to speed deliver.

    3 - the La already has a grenade launcher for projectile explosives
    • Up x 1
  15. Flashtirade

    Make it replace the C4 slot somehow and you have yourself a deal. The last thing I want to see is an ammunition belt LA with enough explosives to easily solo a Sunderer (stock or upgraded) or two MBTs.
  16. lawn gnome

    i would be ok with this as long as it goes in the utility slot (where the C4 is) as was mentioned before so that we don't simply end up with flying heavy assaults, but i also think light assaults should not be given standard C4 charges and instead should get 4 smaller charges that each do half the damage of a full C4 charge. same max damage output but it takes a little longer to do since they can fly, and it also adds a bit more utility to the charges since 3 would be enough to drop tanks in most cases. having 4 half charges would also allow LA to set more traps. finally i think the light assault needs access to all of the different grenade types except maybe the revive grenades (risk of being severely OP) and the concussion grenades (too much like flash bangs).
  17. ChillyPhilly27

    Make it a secondary option for all classes (except infil and max), and 5 shots to kill an MBT from the rear. You can also only carry one at a time (must be refilled from infantry terminals)
  18. MasterDemoman

    I'd rather Light Assaults have a LAW than C4, who's the dolt that decided to give the flying class the ability to insta-gib armor? Heavy assaults should be the severe threat to tanks, not "Light" assaults.
    • Up x 1
  19. FulgurInteritum

    I think PlanetSide 2 has enough weapons to take out vehicles. Really, vehicles are almost useless for anything but the spawn camping you see. Also, carrying launchers no longer make you light, especially when your carrying a lot of them. Besides, using the damage values you said, it's already as strong as a dumb fire launcher. The heavy usually should be the only one with rockets, 'cause that is his job.
    • Up x 1
  20. Metalsheep

    (Lawl forgot about my own thread.)

    This was sort of the motivation behind my idea for LAWs, as i dont agree with giving LAs C4, but think they should have at least some kind of Anti-Armor weaponry.