[Suggestion] Remove AMS from Sunderers and give it to Galaxys instead.

"No Sundie, No fight!"

Exactly. So you'll forgive me when I say that I take people's assurances that it will still be a terrible idea with more than a few grains of salt.

Apples and oranges unless you have a compelling argument why the use of what is essentially a large moveable router is going to differ from the PTS in the same way that a flying battleship did.

I'm not saying that it's going to work or that there wouldn't be problems, but using the experiences that are nearly a decade old in a far less developed version of the game as rationale for dismissing the idea of even testing the mechanic just doesn't track. There are things on the PTS that have been there for years without making it to Live.

Sorry, not getting where you are coming from here.

Are you saying people don't remember correctly? We do. It was a bad idea. When it was announced what the current system is everyone nodded head and said that was good.

Are you saying the game is not the same now and that's why the observation is invalid?

If so, sure, I get where you would come from on this. Let me first acknowledge the game has changed since then (both in rules, equipment, and also the skill and experience of the player). Now let me also add that because of these changes it would be far, far worse now than it was back then.

You're a vet. This new feature appears. How would YOU arbitrage it? Go on, think about how you would abuse it. I would abuse the everliving **** out of it. Guaranteed. I can give you just one tiny sick example right now....

C point on the crown. No sneaking, bullying or heavy anvil involed in getting a sundy up there.... Instead I'm gonna park a galaxy on the east edge of C point. As tough as a sundy and with way more guns it's gonna dominate there. And when you blow it up do I have to repeat the sneaking, bullying, or heavy anvil to get another up there? Nope. I'll chain pull them. There WILL be a spawn at C point and there is nothing crown defense can do about it. Nothing.

Team pull some ESFs? That was an option with the sundy too mind you... It will be harder with more than 2 guns to face, but you can do it. Again though... unlike with the sundy, I'll replace it in 45 seconds. Again and again.


We're not guessing or speculating really. This crap played out and we watched it.

Sounds like a new angle of attack, sounds like fun. I welcome this kind of abuse. It isn't like it is hard to defend the crown. Plus, it has a huge profile so even when "hidden" it will be quite easy to hit (either from the tower or with vehicles air/ground). If hidden near 'C' from the tower then it is fairly easy to C4 and get to through normal means. Plus your opponent can use Galaxies with tempo-play and counter-play.

The biggest issues with the Galaxy AMS has been dealt with through lattice and no-deployment zones. So I'd say we've watched this play out under very different circumstances.

If we were to add an idea to the game, for example the idea of the Unreal Tournament Redeemer, can we then guess as to how it would affect the game?
The Redeemer is a tactical nuke that can be dumbfired or can be fired like a Phoenix on steroids with far higher maneuverability and control. When it explodes it releases a blast that will virtually instakill anything including vehicles in a massive AOE.

Could this be added in a way that's balanced? No it can't. Even if you added a 750 nanite resource cost and a "lose on death" rule alongside it this weapons would be OP as all hell. Vaporize half a vehicle column in one go? You got it. Clear out a heavily guarded room? No problem!
We can say all that before it's ever added to the PTS. There's no point in adding it to the PTS for that reason.

If we look at the Galaxy even without it's history then we can see that adding an AMS wouldn't work. It's big, it's tough, it can ignore terrain, it can land and deploy on far better positions than Sunderers, it holds more weapons, it's faster etc. Now we add in it's history where it already was an AMS vehicle and we see that it's removed for several reasons many I already named. Now during the Alpha the game was different, no Lattice lines and no NDZ's around points for example. But if we look at how the Galaxy functioned back then we can see that it would barely change how it functions now. It would still be the fastest and easiest option to the next base, it would still eclipse the Sunderer's job (and that is assuming we don't go along with the ridiculous idea to remove AMS from Sunderers for no reason at all) and there would be little reason to pull a Sunderer except in a few cases where you really need that Sundy Garage or want to be a bit more stealthy.

I've already given a far superior option: The Valkyrie AMS. It does not replace the Sunderer, instead it offers an alternative way to deploy AMS's. If you deploy an AMS Valkyrie in the same spot as a Sunderer the Sunderer is at an obvious advantage with better placed weapon systems, more health and Sunderer-specific defenses like the Deploy shield. But you can use the Valkyrie in other setups: It's speed, it's size and it's flying ability allow it to create spawnpoints at unique locations or respond quickly to enemy captures while avoiding enemy vehicles. However it's inherent vulnerability to fire when it's stationary on the ground make it also a valuable target to take out that you can take out quite quickly even if it's defended.

As for the PTS my point stands: Players play the PTS differently than the main game. When a new toy is released on the PTS you can be damn sure that dozens of people will be using it regardless of the situation. Who's going to the PTS to use all the gadgets you already have available? You go there to use that new toy! Which is why the PTS is only really useful for finding bugs or extremely obvious OP tactics that might arise early on.

/facepalm

Listen. You will have a permanent attacker spawn at C, right on the point. The further nuances of the hypothetical are endless but that's the important reality. Defenders of even population will be at a disadvantage and they will lose. The fact that the crown is made difficult by being a hill will be erased.

Base after base up and down the lattice will simply fall as fast as the timers can tick. The other side does the same. Small forces can easily attack, they cannot defend. So the zergs form.. and not the ones you are used to. These devolve to stupid counter-galaxy meta which is fun like... twice then it's boring. Suddenly skyguards are in style but the rest of the armor game melts away. Nobody gave a crap about vehicles to cap bases in alpha/beta.

It. Does. Not. Work. We all saw it...and the lattice would make the zerg factor worse today. You can no longer be territory-flanked by a smaller force like you could in alpha.


The only place I think It would still work today: On the airpads. If landed on an airpad, the Galaxy can AMS. The bases were designed for this. The whole biolab was envisioned as two battling armies spawning from Gals on opposite pads. The designer of it said so in some interview.

I doubt it. People adapt to changes and a new meta, so I do not think that kind of approach will become this insurmountable threat you claim.

Plus if it is becomes a problem you could always implement deployment timers or other changes so you can't plonk them down willy-nilly. There are many ways we haven't tried that might work which could refresh the PS2 experience despite us having experienced something 7 years ago under very different circumstances.

It wouldn't even work in biolabs, since they added hardspawns inside the bio. No one even bothers assault from the pads, even when a perfect flanking anvil ams is deployed on one, people prefer to spawn directly inside their hardspawn.

People also quit the game when there's a new meta that's broken.

I know you doubt this will do something horrible. I don't doubt it because I watched it actually happen. And it was with reeeeallly inexperienced planetside 2 players. They barely knew how to abuse it but were having such resounding success that it triggered an overhaul in the whole thinking of the game. If you place this same thing into the hands of veterans today, the meta that will unfold will utterly wreck the old meta. Those that liked it will quit in droves.

Sorry man, I just don't agree on this is a good idea.

So don't break it then. Learn from the past and ensure it adds something new and exciting to the game. For example, Demigan's Valkyrie idea.

Also, I was there too.

Bit of Irony there, man

We did learn from the past. That's why we're not breaking it by doing this again.

I literally just said we shouldn't do the exact thing over again but if wish to object to an idea I'm not selling, go right ahead.

Bluntly? I don't trust people to remember things accurately when the events in question:
A. Happened a long time ago, and
B. Happened in an entirely different game ecosystem, and
C. Are being described to me by people who heavily give the impression that they have a preconceived bias on the subject.

I've seen too many people on this forum either willfully or otherwise misremember things to simply believe out of hand when I start getting assured: "Oh, we don't even need to test it, trust me I remember!"

Sorry, but them's the breaks. From my perspective all I see is tinted goggles and speculation being used to justify a knee-jerk reaction.

You're comparing a flying spawn point to a literal nuke. This is precisely why people's personal assurances mean so little to me.

By this logic there is little point in having a PTS since broken mechanics can be easily identified without testing and even if you did test it wouldn't matter since the results are invalid because the test environment doesn't count!

This on the other hand, is a great idea and I appreciate that you at least offered an alternative.

Day-to-day,I agree with you, but it's disingenuous to claim the PTS has never been used to gauge the realistic implications of changes to the game. There have been several player-led large scale tests designed specifically to test as closely as possible the impact of new mechanics on live play. The most recent one I can think of was testing the effects of the ASP benefits.

Anyways, I've said my piece. Pretty certain there's not much value in continuing this.

I'm not comparing, I'm giving you an example of how we can judge a mechanic or weapon without the need of a PTS using an extreme example.

There is lots of point in having a PTS and lots of point in having hundreds of people overusing the hell out of it! The whole "you can't make something foolproof because fools are too smart" applies here. As a developer there's dozens if not hundreds of tiny little ways players will use something that they would never have tested, and just one has to break it.

The only thing you can't really test as easily is how well it would play out in the live servers. If you find an exploit you can be assured it will be used, but otherwise you might not find out how useful or broken your item is as players either destroy them with a vengeance or ignore them/screw around. That gives incredibly poor idea's on how useful it will be.

Yey! I was helpful for a moment!

Yes it's disingenuous to claim the PTS has never been used to gauge the realistic implications. Especially glitches, bugs and glitches that give unfair advantages are extremely likely to pop back into the live server if they aren't fixed and players will definitely try out strategies in a relatively safe environment. However that doesn't mean players will actually play the PTS in the same way as they do live because of that relatively safe environment plus the fact that they've joined the PTS to test something specific. If that's Galaxies you can be sure there's an overkill of Galaxies at a single base a lot of the time.

Kane our bias on the topic is not distorting our memory of what this feature was like.
Our memory of what this feature was like is causing our bias on the topic.

You're acting like someone with more information is less informed? C'mon man.
Maybe, just MAYBE it's not a good idea? Are we considering that possibility AT ALL?

I've shared with you where I think the mechanic could still work successfully. I'll also remain open to the possibility that with really, really severe limitations (like airpads only, get rid of spawn-to, prevent flight again) there may be some way to make it work. And I have no objection to anything on PTS. It's a place where fun can happen with no risk to the game itself.

I would *not* put the previous incarnation of this into live. It would kill the game (drop player count below financial viability) in a couple months. I'm firm on this and not even slightly convinced otherwise.