Homogenization of Shields

Want to make it simpler? Here's how

Stop bullets on ALL shields but the 1 way shields on spawn rooms. This will remove biggest confusion about people not knowing they can be shot through courtyard gate shields.

You can only run through enemy VEHICLE shields, as indicated by vehicle icon. All other shields not owned by your faction cannot be walked through. In order to make this easier to understand, make them less opac for infantry only (leave the Vehicle shield Icon very opaque so easy to see if shield is up or down)

Tie Biolab shields to SCU gen. It's hard to see through effect would tell you you can't walk or shoot through it as enemy, but that you can't be shot either. Same with Tech/Amp shields with vertical and horizontal gens.

Sure, it wouldn't simplify it by a LOT but it'd be a lot more consistent this way with ONLY spawn/spawn TP exit shields able to be fired through. (Opaque on outside, see through on inside). And ONLY vehicle shields able to be walked through.

Making Biolab ground floor spawn shields is a terrible idea with the LoS they have. Why? Because while you could park a Sunderer out of LoS near the elevators, you couldn't secure the area properly with friendly armor to protect it. This would be a HUGE nerf to attackers who already have a hard time maintaining assaults on Biolabs without serious overwhelming numbers.

Additionally, the shields on the Tech Plants & Amp Stations function perfectly. The side objectives to take their gens and keep them down is the only thing that makes those fights fun. Vehicles are already basically useless except for a Sunderer which can gate diffuse anyways. and the only reason it doesn't work is you can't easily secure the interior in order to get one secured while the shields are up unless you've already taken the point and they just repaired the gens.

There is no other way to work those shields within the limited 2 shield system.

Remove a couple funky and unexpected mechanics like infantry shooting through gate shields. Use the transparency/opacity to help indicate what is what. Make the shield icons VERY opaque so they're always visible, and very clear.

There will still be a learning curve, but it will make a lot more sense and should be much easier to grasp all the concepts with more consistency.

Don't over-simplify and cause problems with bases designed around certain shield requirements, by removing those requirements.

I don't like people who don't leave spawn rooms. I don't know many that do except for those that do it. And it seems that the devs don't like them either. You might be in the minority if you think its a valid way to play the game.

This is a PVP game. Meaning I should have have the ability to affect my opponents. When they sit in their spawn room, I have 4, 7, or 10 minutes where I can't fight them, but they can surely shoot out at me. That isn't PVP. That is annoying. No one should be able to inflict damage on me from a place where I cannot do it, or have the potential to do it right back.

Personally I think all spawn room shields should be linked to an object. That object is either switched, fliped, destroyed, overloaded, once the capture point has been flipped (and base is being capped). Once that happens, the shields drop and the attackers can go into the spawn room and clean it out.

But that isn't going to happen, or happen soon. So what Higby is suggesting is a great compromise until/if we get something else.

I'm willing to give this idea a go

Uhm, I don't think you understand the proposal, cause his suggestion adds MORE spawn room type shields to the game (below biolabs)

It also completely RUINS the entire purpose of Tech/Amp shields, which don't have the shoot through problem, but he would make them like gate shields... which you can just run through.

Please read my post top of this page, I outline a couple serious problems with it.

I understand the purpose, but I think they could make shields more logical and consistent without destroying a couple of game mechanics.

You know that for sure do you? Using the word "seems" tells me that you don't.

As far as I am concerned there is enough room in this game for every playstyle, so long as it does not including cheating and exploiting.

Whether I am in the minority and you're the majority simply does not matter.

I am a champion of letting people play this game how they want to, including you.

sieges happen. stop whinging just because the other side won't go kamikaze for you and up your kill rate.

I may be missing the point here, but surely a 'shield' that you can shoot though and walk through is not a shield. It's a glowy texture?

EDIT: and actually, a 'shield' that you can neither walk or fire through is not a shield either... it's a wall.

So what he is saying is there are no more shields. Just windows and walls?

Unfortunately for you, it is a PVP game. PVP by its very definition allows for players to force, hinder, or control another person's playstyle by their actions.

Its like Continent Locking. I can take someone's precious Indar away from them. When I do that, I give my opponents only two options:

Log off.
or
Fight me on Hossin, Esamir, or Amerish.

Why do I like doing that to other players? Because I like PVP. I want them to fight. I want them to face me. I want them to have a reason to fight me. Course if they log off that means they do not have the attitude, fortitude, or gumption to give me a proper fight. Which means I don't have to worry about too much 'fodder' making the game boring.

And to be quite honest. This game has been getting way too stagnated by the coddling of players new and old. Simplifing the game with these shield changes make things easier for players to Identify what shields do what. But it also forces them to come out and fight. For me, that makes the game more enjoyable. If it makes it less enjoyable for others because they want to pad stats or don't want their feelings hurt seeing a death screen. Tough luck.

Because I'll be honest, I don't give a damn about those players. I really don't. Its great you care for them. But you're not doing this game any favors. Because how aggressively I take down such players will turn away five for every one you coddle to stay. Just remember that. There's not much you can do to stop me, cept maybe login to an opposing faction and try to rally the sheep. And if you do that, good luck. Because as I said before, I only give my opponents two options: Log off, or Fight.

Spawnroom Wariror much?

Also, on this point you make, yes, it is a PVP game, generally speaking, but how would you, as infantry for instance, tackle someone in an ESF armed with rockets designed to kill with just a couple of hits? You could go armed specifically for AA, but then you may not be best dressed to tackle enemy infantry.

This is not just a PVP game is it? It's not just infantry vs infantry, air vs air or tank vs tank.

At the end of the day, spawn room warriors form only a very small percentage of players in this game. If you get killed by one while they are safely behind a shield then that is your fault, not theirs.

No it does not. The changes mentioned in the original post do nothing to force Spawn Room Warriors to face their FPS Nemesis.

Rather certain of how other people should behave, aren't you... Also, borderline derogatory towards those who play without an outfit.

Hmm.

If that's the case, then I am all for the change. The current system is rather annoying. The main thing would then be which shields go where.

i thought vanu pray to PPA god

If everyone is attacking and nobody is defending, who will the attackers shoot? Are you saying we should just avoid any base the enemy is at and only go after empty bases?

please dont allow enemies to just walk into amp stations. I think the current system is good where it is.

Personally id rather see the back of the low memory issues i keep getting recently.

Hawk Launcher for Air.
Gauss SAW or EM6 for Infantry.
Use TR/VS equivalent if not NC.

As a bonus, the launcher can be used on ground vehicles in a pinch. That's what I use anyway, annihilator is a preference for others.

Or my personal favorite, ignore them. ESFs are irrelevant in the meta game of capturing bases and winning alerts. If you're a cert farming zergling, then yeah... ESFs, MBTs, and other non-transport vehicles are a threat. If you're trying to win objectives, they are not a threat and an annoyance at best.

But that is a problem with vehicle roles, or rather the lack of them.

You attack the enemy base until you reach their warpgate and then do it on another lattice line. Continue till you take the continent. If the enemy attacks the base you are in (or were at and prevents you from moving forward), you attack their sunderers and keep pushing to their base.

Always stay on the offensive and keep the initiative. If you sit in your base waiting for the enemy to come to you, you will likely hold for a time, depending on who is attacking. Eventually you will lose the base to a coordinated attack.

To stop an attack, you have to attack. You can't leave sunderers in the field to infinitely spawn the enemy faction. You will eventually be overwhelmed and lose the base. Its just how PS2 is setup. Base defenses are only there to slow down the attackers long enough for you to sally out and drive them out. You can't repel an attack indefinitely. Not when a Galaxy just drops its payload into the control point.

And seeing how no spawn room has line of sight to the control point. Spawn room warriors do nothing for the counter attack, or 'defense' of a base. Nothing.

Just remember that. They are an annoyance to me when I attack. They are a detriment to you, if you're defending. Want to know how? The base can be easily deployed to as long as you have less then 51% of the pop. If there is 12 attackers and 13 defenders, you'll need to spawn hop or gal drop to the base. If 6 of those defenders are spawnroom warriors. You're fighting nearly 2 to 1 odds at the control point.

So now you need an extra 6 players to make the population even in the actual attack.

6 players that could be used elsewhere on the map. Especially in an alert situation on Connery/Emerald where there could be a queue. Now 6 doesn't sound like a lot. But I am talking about squad elements. Normally we're talking platoon(s) so multiply those numbers by a factor of 2, 4, or 8 depending if there is one, two, or four platoons involved.

Is it my fault that I get killed once in a while from a spawn room? Sure, if it happens. But is it -my- fault that I fight an enemy that won't come out and is taking up dead weight in his own faction and prevents me from experiencing a counter attack and a good fight because his derpyself is taking up space that could have been taken by someone else who could have spawned there in time? No.. that is NOT -my- fault.

That is his fault. And he just griefed his teammates.

Source? I get the feeling you're missing a massive detail in context.

Don't care really, shields, one way, two way, what ever...

Just fix the optimization issues and the current bugs before this happens.

There is one shield that allows small arms to go though and infantry to go though, but stops grenades, AV grade weapons, and vehicles from passing though and its the Vehicle shields at AMP stations. These work fine as is.

Then there are shields at Tech and AMP stations called Horizontal and Verticals these stop everything from passing though.

The 3rd shield time is the SCU shield which stop infantry from passing though but does allow small arms though, use to let AV grade weapons though but I think that was changed.

The 4th and final shield type is Spawn shields which operates differently depending on the spawn spot. They block all fire coming outside in (or suppose to when they don't bug) but allow all fire inside to head out. Some of these for some reason stop AV and Grenades from being tossed out while others let people fire out. Mostly the ones on the top of the towers block this but a few


Shield types 1-3 work fine. If they do any changes it should be to be the Spawn shields Homogenized to avoid accidental team kills from trying to fire a rocket out only to have it blow up inside the spawn or have a grenade bounce back in the spawn room.