[Suggestion] Mechs for Planetside 2 (Pics Included)

This is the best example, I love how it can jump clear over vehicles and the speed it runs. More so I like how it gets gradually taken down even by past modern weapons when an untrained civilian is piloting.

I especially like how it gets upturned and plowed when a light armored vehicle hits it. This would be another reason that mechs should be afraid of the flats and be mostly confined to rough terrain. A harasser or lightning on the flats could just ram into a light mech to upturn and damage it. The mech would need to jump on top of a nearby rock for defense and if it does it would become a stationary target.

Well they never made me a promise and if they did I would have rejected the sentiment. Was it a pinkie promise? If not it has questionable validity. There are more important factors like improved game play and simple individual promises only need simple individual excuses. It would make little difference if dexterous mechs were a big success. No more throwing babies out with the bath water say I.

My thought is that they would pre-nerf them as people say. Then carefully buff them where needed so that they excel in specific situations. I suspect that normally when adding a vehicle developers buff them so that players get's excited about the new vehicle. In the case of mechs though, they probably would not want to get the wrong players too excited, so not to appear like the PS1 introduction of mechs. No doubt players who want unstoppable killing machine would be disappointed but that is because they can't be satisfied with rock paper scissors fairness.

Reliable walker technology does not exist yet. Also I was hopping a few points from my and other posts would stick. The point of having any potential heavy mechs more visible on the maps would be to have platoon leaders allocate human resources better. The point of having these potentially more targetable armored units running around is that most of the time they would be out of sight. They would normally be visible to only to a few at a time as they route around the cover of bumpy areas currently impassable by ground vehicles.

In some locations infantry just run from capturing one facility into the heart of another uncontested and there is no line of defense to invest in to try to challenge their approach except other infantry. The point of mechs would be to create a battle of the cliffs while tanks would still own the battle of the roads. It would be a three way between infantry, mechs and air. Air could also use the mountains as cover as they circle. While mechs split their attention between infantry and anti air if they have it. Once in town infantry would be too concentrated for the mech to stick around long without immunity to small arms.

Sane mech pilots would not be seen brazenly running down the middle of the road to fight a tank, because tanks should make mech pilots shake in their stirrups. Instead the best fighting would be between crossings where vehicles are trying to take a shortcut to get somewhere, and in crossover areas where the land is not ideal for mechs nor for tanks.

Scaling up an exosuit up would look silly, I don't like mechs that look like giant humanoids. Also they can't just "borrow" intellectual property, they could get sued apparently for just looking similar.

I was surprised when someone commented that they thought someone planed to include space platform combat as another continent. I am not sure if that is true but it suddenly reminded me of a game called Carrier Command. It has a similar style to this one, but it is all about island hop warfare with amphibious vehicles. Maybe they could add island hopping naval warfare too between the continents. Just add Newtonian physics space combat, then they really would have everything. Having everything for it's own sake seems unreasonable though.

Mechs=Happy thoughts.

Nope,Nope,Nope,Nope,
artwork is really nice, but MAXes are already overpowered, and this is just a Giant MAX unit
(never played PS1, so I don't know how was it working there)

This seems to essentially be what MAX suits are...personally a mech is supposed to be something that towers above the battlefield, is supposed to be hard to take down, and dishes out a massive amount of damage Especially in large battles.

And when everyone is using said walker that dishes out buckets of damage to everything, towers above the battlefield and is hard to take down, as that is what happened last time...

And when I mean everyone I meant it 133 players per side per continent and the empire that could field the most never capped a thing as no one left said mech's as the cool down was 45 minutes with no option of reducing it.

Interesting, one commenter says something like 'No, that it too much like maxes which are too powerful' While the other says something like 'No, that is too much like max suits they are supposed to be more powerful'. Neither wants mechs that are like max suits but for different reasons.

What I was suggesting was potentially two types of mechs, Light and heavy. Light mechs would rely on how fast and nimble they are for survivability, while heavy mechs would would be nimble but not fast because they would be hauling around ammo and armor.

Any potential light mechs would in a few ways be like maxes, but they would be much faster and much more nimble so that they can get to strategic points in the fields where maxes are seldom seen.

I don't believe light mechs would necessarily be made overpowered because size would be at the cost of being more target-able, less repairable, and not compact enough to hide in close quarters like facilities.

If any at all I think heavy mechs like I sort of suggested in a previous post, would be sort of like what you are suggesting here, but would still require some dodging skill for extended survivability.

They would have high hit-points and pack and hard initial punch but even with a good pilot most only be as hard to "take down" as the units they hide behind while repairing after each assault. {This could be a serious balance problem though if what they are hiding behind while repairing is a hundred and thirty two more mechs.} So if truly hard to take down when in numbers, heavy mech population would need to be artificially limited. Perhaps limited by raising the price and cool-down exponentially by the number already deployed so that eventually people can't afford them.

Even though this is better than a high static price, it may cause people to be too careful with mechs. Planet side has a theme of quick action and rewarding aggressive players, so mech drivers would need to have general incentive to just run in and do as much damage as they can instead of repair spam camp. Aside from long repairs and being bad at retreating they would need to maintain some Goliath style weaknesses that add random elements to their survivability. This way players can't reliably camp to grow their mech numbers to annoying levels and expect to keep them in a fight.

The additional things I am about to suggest should make heavy mechs useful siege breakers. And for a short while at a time each feel like an unstoppable killing machine, while not really being too difficult to destroy and suppress to satisfaction where it matters on the whole.

Some things I suggest are to:
-Make them feel sort of tough they would have a many hit points but limited direct damage suppression.
-Make them vulnerable to excessive long rage shooting over walls, they would have no weapon immunity.
-Keep them balanced within the continent they would be only spawn-able at the warp gates so to naturally cost more travel time the more a faction has already conquered.
-Keep them shy of close quarters combat, they would have Goliath style weak points as subsystems.
-Make them bad at retreating they would be easily made to trip by ramming from behind and the sides of their travel direction.
-Make them more a shock assault unit and less at a siege unit thank tanks repairing would take longer than a tank per damage since a tank would have more simple and effective armor.
-Make them vulnerable while repairing, repairing them would require that the mech crouch down while immobile so to be in range of the engineers repair gun.

This way heavy mechs would end up being a siege breaking unit that is more often either all in or all out because it would not be easily repaired on the go. The general tactic would be to rush in under the moderate cover of rough terrain and to destroy as many repair and heal spamming units holding the enemy line as they can, so the main force can push forward. The heavy mech may rely on the cover of the advancing forces to retreat behind for a long repair.

If the mech really was the tipping factor, then the counter tactic would be to simply repel the initial assault, then to counterattack faster than the mech can retreat and repair. The heavy mechs would not be repairable while mobile, so the team would need to be able hold the line from counter attack without the help of the heavy mech for long enough periods that they may lose any ground gained plus be overrun.

If overrun, even if the heavy mech is mostly repaired, it may not be able to stay repaired while trying to keep up with the retreat. Even if out of reach of repair spamming tanks, it could still be left behind to fight many infantry on the hills which: Would be slightly faster than it; Can go all the places on the rough that the mechs can go; Can quickly respawn in more numbers; And are more adapted to hide while others are shooting and flanking. It would not just be vulnerable to close range David and Goliath style shooting at weak subsystems, but also with unliklyness of repair and no immunity long range shooting and a death by a thousand cuts.

Retreating across the flats would also be made a risky option for a heavy mech because vehicles depending on the size could be made ram-able into a single leg mid stride, to plow a heavy mech it into a fall and a skid such as a face plant, roll or pratfall, doing damage. This would make heavy mechs bad at hasty retreating, while their ability to do some crush damage instead of tripping when traveling in the direction they are walking could convince them to instead stay and fight to conclusion.

I don't know how I became a supporter of heavy mechs but I guess I am now. I still believe much of the fun would be in the little details of how the legs allow the mech to maneuver and do crush damage to things. {I also require that they be able to dance like they no mech has ever danced before! This is not optional, it is a requirement. My mechs aside from being killing machines must have groove from the 60's 70's 80's 90's and 00's!

If a mech can't dance like there is no tomorrow, what is the point. Tell me, what is the point!}

I think MAX'es are OP possibly because I often play against them, and not AS them, but:
If you want mechs, they should work as tanks units, not as infrantry units, so they shouldn't be capable of getting inside any kind of building, they should activate AT mines and they should do the tanks' stuff (I'm playing as a infantry, don't know what tanks are usually doing)
But if they would basically walking tanks, the stat's you gave them, would make them underpowered compared to other tanks

*Cough* Bump *Cough*

Just squeeze them between Light Tanks, Tanks, and Light ground vehicles. Don't devs do this when adding a new class of vehicle? I don't know why people free out so much. It would be like adding a new vehicle. Period.

Well the last time they added a new vehicle... the Harasser... things didn't go so well. Mostly because it was too close to the Lightning in durability and firepower, while surpassing it in speed. So understandably people are a little nervous when it comes to SOE to add in new vehicles.

That and the legacy of BFRs from the last game also make people quite skeptical.

So essentially you have the possibility of SOE adding an OP vehicle based on an OP design from a previous game... so obviously lots of people are going to be concerned.

In other news... the Mechguard:



It has a Bulldog for a wee-wee!

And the Mechler!



It actually looks quite derpy. I'm sure those genes from from the Prowler.

I like Mechguard as a common styled heavy mech. This is like what I was thinking if there were slow heavy mechs that came from the warp gate. It has stubby legs with lots of room for a bit of actual armor and obstruction where it matters at the joints. It has a big top mounted heavy siege gun that can peek over hills at a distance, though I can't imagine it crouching much. The lower cannon would be intense to play during times of defense since the legs would often be in the way. "Who wants some of this!, Ga.. turn driver turn!

I don't like Mechler at all though. Where would the ammo be stored let alone the power plant and cooling? All in the legs and those cavities beside the legs? It does not look right.

What about instead of making mechs more fragile, smaller and with less firepower in order to stop them from killing planetside 2 like they apparently did with ps1 why not make them much much bigger, tougher and harder hitting than ever! I'm talking pacific rim, power rangers and metal gear size here!



The reason this is still balanced is because they are monstrously expensive and easy to hit from a distance. You would probably need to introduce some kind method for outfits to pool their resources in order to afford this thing, you would also need most of a large outfit to protect it. Because of how cumbersome this thing is you are going to need ground support to keep faster, high damage things just endlessly strafing it and taking it down. Also someone needs to keep the entire platoon of light assaults with c4 away and this mech doesn't come equipped with a fly swatter. So you are going to need your own tank/infantry zerg to take down theirs so that you can get to the mech but how do you deal with the mech once you break it's defenses? With your own mech!
This would change your normal boring, kind of unstoppable zergs into huge forces protecting their mechs and at the same time hunting each other down and eventually resulting in incredible mech on mech action until one achieves victory and has to slump of to lick it's wounds. By the time the victor is all fixed up and ready to go again the enemy or other faction has another mech on the go and it all happens again.

Or you could probably just sit at a great distance and bombard it with AV cannons on main battle tanks but this is probably where the air and then counter air polay would come into effect.

Planetside2 is currently a realistic futuristic combat game. Building bigger war machines than necessary historically has proven to be a poor use of resources.

I know a game that was balanced like this, "Age of Mythology Titans" It was epic but when it became clear that the player can't prevent an enemy titan from spawning, there was no choice but to macro for resources so to buy one for defense. No other strategy was effective but to follow and support your titan around because which ever one died first left the other to slowly slowly but shurly stomp everything remaining. It was an end game unit but the game was clearly over even before it spawned sometimes.

Also free to play games like Planetside 2 are designed to be accessible. They are supposed to be quick to start and stop playing with low a commitment level per session. All player are supposed to feel significant at any given moment in battle like they could take on any other unit and have a chance to win single handedly if lucky and done right. A cost of 750 from each three occupants would be plenty cost and commitment for a realistic heavy mech.

C&C Tiberian Sun mechs say hi...

I like the sound of this, something between a MAX and a tank, more agile than a tank but not as tough

I know I'm late on this but, you should switch now. All three of these Designs use reused parts from their respective MBTs and ESFs... You already have things that hideous.

Yep.

the ironic lack of diversity between the three factions has been a point of frustration for me for quite awhile...

EDIT: as for the OP, the ONLY reason I can't agree to mechs in Planetside 2 is because SOE clearly has a hard enough time figuring out exactly what they want their EXISTING vehicles to do. Otherwise we wouldn't be faced with the constant revisiting of classes/vehicles because of their lack of distinct purpose

Yeah, mechs will have a hard time being implemented, until all the PS1 players stop looking back in the past and start to the future.

have machines in planetside 2 would be an amazing and fantastic experience. Developers think about this subject.