How would you feel about Asymetric gameplay?

I was kinda thingking about this, say
NC gets best Heavy and MAX
TR gets best Medic and LA
VS gets best Engi and Cloaker

Lol Blarg
TR and VS would be ****** with that.

Asymmetric gameplay really shouldn't be about giving each faction the best "class" of one type or another. It should be about letting each class excel in different areas. For example, TR MAXes with lockdown become AA beasts, while NC MAXes with shields are able to breach entrenched areas more easily than TR MAXes can. In one situation, TR MAXes are clearly superior, while in the NC MAX excels in the other.

In a game with this many people fighting in battles, I like to see individual weapons balanced by being very situational, with much more drastic advantages and disadvantages, than trying to make entire factions asymmetrical. For example, on a tank, I would make HE wipe out any infantry in a 1 meter radius in one shot, and still do drastic damage outside of that, but do literally almost nothing to tanks, make heat be a .25 meter one shot kill, splash damage min at 1 meter, do a middle ground amount to armor. Make AP to half health on direct hit to infantry, but be twice as powerful as heat against armor. Make it so if you are attempting to specialize in one area, you are worthless in another, like using a shotgun at long range. Make short range weapons so inaccurate that they cannot hit anything at long range, but make long range weapons so slow a ROF that they are outclassed in short range. Things like that.

That doesn't make sense. Kanil was specifically asking why people who prefer tanks would join any empire other than the one with the best tank. If they truly prefer tanks, why would they join either of the other two nations? The other two nations might have some other cool things, but if someone prefers tanks, they prefer tanks.

This idea isn't terrible because of the "crybabies" who will oppose it and because "modern gaming [generic doom and gloom about current/future gaming generations]" - no, this is a terrible idea because it makes no bloody sense. I like flying, so I would join the nation with the best aircraft. I'm sure most others would do the same for their preference too. How stupid would you feel being the tank driver for the empire with the worst tanks? Why even bother? You know that you won't be able to 1v1 the other teams tanks and you would be much better off going air (or whatever else is your empire's strength).

In the end, this amount of asymmetry would force players to only play to their faction's strengths, making the game "infantry faction" vs "air faction" vs "tank faction".

If it is more like some of what the OP said (one ESF is best vs ground, another vs ESFs), you will still find people piling onto one faction. I like dog fighting, so I would go with the faction with the best anti-air ESF. If I liked attacking the ground, I would go with the faction with the best Liberator. If I went for the faction where its interceptor (ESF) aircraft was actually just a crappy version of a Liberator (i.e. good vs ground, not air), I would be easily shot out of the sky by enemy ESFs (because they are better vs other ESFs). Vehicles have their own roles too - you can't say "this anti-aircraft fighter is the best non-anti-aircraft fighter" and expect people to play it (or for the game to ever be balanced).

Perhaps true asymmetry, where each empire has entirely different vehicles (as in, one empire has Libs and ESFs, while another has ground attack Warthog-like aircraft and a big anti-air gunship) could work, but it would require far too much effort.

Also, it confuses me that people come on this thread and go on about how PS1 was so great because of its asymmetry. All aircraft were common pool in PS1. In fact, most vehicles were common pool, with only a few tanks and a few troop transports being empire-specific. It was asymmetric in some ways, but not in the ways many people seem to be implying.

I too want this.

I feel (as TR vs NC) that when I fight NC, I get the biggest asymmetrical gameplay.

Whenever I face NC on an open field I feel that we get pushed back quite easily to their superior weapons at range and their pheonixes keep every land vehicle away.

Our strikers hinder their tanks from advancing... which is... well okay.

Anyways, I always look to getting close in these engagements, since their weapons are so much better at range. And it usually boils down to them trying to take our base, while we're succesfully defending it for ages, since they can't beat our CQC without a superior force

Most forum complaints are not faction vs. faction imbalance complaints, where different approaches can mitigate weaknesses and play to strengths, they're 1v1 complaints so everything must be equal if those people are to be catered to. Of course, those who aren't focused on that get put off because then it turns into a generic shooter.

They're planning outfit vs. outfit maps for competitions, they could create 1v1 maps but the crying would never end.

Yep, and therein lies the problem with asymmetrical balance, not saying its a bad thing, just that it must be done very, very carefully.

Asymmetry works well in certain games, as Anubis123 beat me to it: Starcraft. Plus Command and Conquer, Warcraft etc. etc. etc.
You would think you could follow those models and create an amazing MMOFPS and call it Planetside2.

Unfortunately this won't happen but not because of what anyone is talking about here. The difference between PS2 and the other games is because there isn't one over seeing "commander" that can fit the pieces together based on the nuances of the current battle. PS2 is made up of a million little, autonomous pieces whose sphere of tactical awareness is line of sight, i.e. right in front of them at that moment.

PS2 tries to rectify this with command channels and squad/platoon organization. They are about at the limit of what they can do before it gets to a 'forced role' model where people may be stuck with a job that they don't like or that isn't exciting "at this exact moment", because of requirements from a commander type leader's broader understanding of what's happening on the battlefield.

PS2 has gone the only way it can: homogeneous to being (almost) boring yet providing a game that creates situations for nearly every battlefield role nearly 100%.

Asymmetric warfare in an FPS IS possible; it just needs to be well thought-out and carefully tended to until things work right.


As an example, specific countermeasures can be given to each faction to help mitigate the inherent advantage of the others. For example, were Reavers meant to be ground attack aircraft, then the theoretical air superiority Scythes would have an advantage in the skies. What NC do when their Reavers start getting hammered? If the NC were given better than average (but limited in effective range) ground-based AA capabilities, then those Reavers could survive as long as they don't stray too far from their ground forces. In turn, the VS could have an edge in ground-based combat were the Reavers to not be present on the field. Herein we start to develop an intricate web of codependency among units in the field, which (surprise!) might actually lead to true combined-arms gameplay!

This example is limited, and it also only considers two factions. This process gets a little trickier with three factions involved and as more variables and unit types are considered, but with proper planning and execution it is absolutely possible to balance asymmetrical factions. Just think of it all as a jigsaw puzzle where the individual unit types are the pieces.


I, for one, would love to see this implemented CORRECTLY.

Somebody give this man a job and half of our defence budget.

Where did you read this? I thought the whole balance was asymmetrical.

NC LA should be better at close ranges, where the LAs are the best, because of higher alpha damage. NC also have better snipers. VS has better long range. And TR has good CQC too because of high ROF, and the MBT's good at close range and killing people.

omg no!!!

The tears that would be shed. People thing small differences cause massive imbalance never mind huge differences

Remember the Magrider? Remember what happened to this forum over it?

It's funny, because even the original Magrider would just be splattered by Strikers and Phoenixes anyway.

Naw, man... naw.

Lashers.

Ive said this in the past about other suggested aspects of Planetside 2, And I will say something similar now.
I would love to see FULL ON Asymmetrical game play in a first person shooter. What you propose would be VS roughly equal to TR roughly equal to NC, But I would love to see like F1<F2 F1>F3 F2<F3. Full Asymmetrical game play, however, I dont think that people are ready for it, and I don't think Planetside is the proper place to implement this. The way the game is set up, I just dont think that full blown asymmetrical gameplay will work. Though I do think its a good idea.

empire specific liberator type air vehicles (2 seater) I mention liberator mainly just because its a 2 seater aircraft. they dont have to be A2G only i just think 2 seater aircrafts would be awesome in this game
they would be as different as possible from each other to be empire specific

good lord VS are NOT the best a long range! what because of no bullet drop?? I really hope not. anyway you ever heard of the Gauss Saw? Also it is known that VS have the highest first shot recoil...forum side is a scary place

Thats actually what I expected when i started playing this game.... I wanted to feel "unique", but guess i was wrong

No thanks.

I'd rather have skill determine the winner rather than which OP faction unit the enemy decides to zerg with.

I would be fine if it meant that each ESF/tank etc had different strengths and weakenesses. I would not be ok with "Oh well NC gets a **** ESF because their tank is good" because then me, as an ESF pilot on NC would say "but I don't like to drive tanks, i want to fly, guess that means i have to change factions and abandon my outfit" People on these forums often like to try to claim things are balanced just because other parts of the empire sucks. Like people saying oh well it's OK that the VS max sucks a dick, their ESF is really good. That is not balance, that is just something being UP.