[Suggestion] Flail overhaul

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by RabidIBM, Jan 17, 2023.

  1. RabidIBM

    If there's one aspect of construction that receives a lot of hate from non-builders it's the flail. If someone wants to tell me otherwise and that they hate the flail less than something else go for it. Its faults are that it combines high damage with high AOE, surgical precision with the ability to use it without significantly putting one's self at risk if I'm doing it right. Any one of these features in a weapon could be fine, but all of them together is stupid and the only reason the flail HASN'T killed PS2 is because it's unavailable to participate 95% of the time.

    That said, artillery ought to have a place in this game, but it should be on par with the rest of the game's weapon powers and themes, as well as require team work to be effective. Referring to theme, I would say that this game kind of feels like 1960s-ish weaponry with a sci-fi skin over top. I say that because there are clearly helicopter-like things going on, but it doesn't have anything that makes it feel like modern warfare. Obviously on top of that it is not a military simulator, and in fact has quite an arcade feel to it. Anyways, point of that rambling, artillery should spray an area with lots of firepower, but not be reliable to hit any one thing, be very obvious when firing, and quite vulnerable if enemies are able to strike back in any meaningful way.

    So, what am I suggesting you ask? Take out the flail entirely, and replace it with 2 buildings: 1 is an artillery controller. The other is something like a howitzer with an exclusion zone in common with all the other gunnery, and a limit of 1 per player. Each player can add one howitzer, but all howitzers within a silo's power range will be controlled by the one common controller, and it's respective dart.

    From here the dart should work like the OS dart, not the flail dart (for those who don't know, the OS dart CAN'T be lobbed any distance, you have to get close to the target, making yourself vulnerable), have a 2 minute cooldown, and fire say...5?...shells out of each associated howitzer with a fairly large impact area. This way, if 100 shells land on you that's because 20 players each contributed a howitzer to a massive artillery park which is likely too large to be properly covered and you should probably go deal with it. Maybe also make each howitzer eat 100 cortium each time it fires so that it can present a logistical challenge.

    If this existed, would this be tuned enough to fire into the regular fights and add artillery to our combined arms game?

    I'll also float, if this also meant pocket nukes got taken away so there isn't toooooooo much blasting of big fights would that be a net positive for people who don't like getting sprayed with arty-like things?
    • Up x 2
  2. ganthercage

    that's some logical perspective
  3. AuricStarSand

    Maybe not allow stalkers to use the flail. Hunter cloak is ok, yet stalker for darts has no counter. Your just running around a hill trying to find the stalker with no luck.

    As for " howitzer " roger that. Else a trebuchet. Some type of artillery. Most silos players want to fire something at the red circle and the flail wasn't build for that. Yet their os is able to hit the red out of bounds, yet not something more entertaining to shoot? With a smaller blast radius?

    When I use to build silos, flail glaive was destroying my silos even more often than tanks were. I haven't built for awhile and flail got a tiny nerf I hear? So maybe that doesn't happen as often, I don't know.

    The odd part of that was that flails were destroying my silos way worst than the cort bombs were, & cort bombs took 2 to destroy a module. Yet the kept the glaive the same and took cort bombs from my infil main, made no sense. They kept the main issue for silo defense and deleted the entertaining tactical item I want to still use for infil mains that wasn't even a problem anymore.
  4. ganthercage

    exactly I agree
  5. OSruinedPS1



    We need to stop destroying each other's bases. Construction players are doing more damage to each other than these zergfits who bypass bases. We're really the only ones who know how to efficiently destroy bases.

    Construction players of PS2 unite!
  6. 23rd enigma

    I disagree I think the flail should be removed because wherever it's being used at it ruins the fight. During A flail bombing You can't take cover inside buildings due to the splash damage going through both developer and construction buildings even witth a 3 min cooldown . What's the fun in fighting in triple stack and getting killed by explosions outside or getting killed while you spawn inside a constructtionbuilding. I think it should be changed to a havoc/heavy impulse effect round(similar to the flotilla guns) so it can still be useful against Construction .
  7. RabidIBM

    I think my proposed change addresses your concern. There's no reaon the flail damage should go through walls or roofs anyways. Anyways, what I've suggested IS removing the flail, and replacing it with something that still fills the artillery role, but without being completely toxic and with a requirement for team work for it to have any effect.
  8. Alpha545

    i am just gonna post it here
    my impression as someone who just unlocked it, and i have 3 problems and i dont care for balance

    1) the range is pathetic for something that call itself "artillery" (LIGHT mortar of WW1 had more range)

    2) the excessively wide no build erea that also stop it from firing there is 1st dumb 2nd way too large to anything else than fire at construction bases, just way to niche for ...

    3) THE CERT COST, 2.500 cert-> module+gun and let's be honest + 1.500 for the glaive that you will NEED to by to do its needlesly niche job is just too much

    yes i would like to fire it,the telegraphed slow firing gun, in lattice base

    meanwhile, a refund option would be nice, cause i want my cert back
  9. EWanderer

    another option might be to force flails to not be placed under sky shields/become inoperable if done so.
  10. RabidIBM

    1 All ranges in this game are condensed. It's not unusual for real infantry to engage from 300m away, in this game that's sniping. It's not unusual for tanks to engage from more than a km away, not in this game, etc.

    2 I agree that in principle the no fire into no build zone thing is crap. The only reason that's there is because of how laughably broken the flail is in the areas it can shoot, it would destroy the game if it could fire into main bases.

    3 Construction is cert heavy in general, that's one of the major things Wrel has brought up in his overhaul intentions. As for refunds, ain't gonna happen, just gotta keep playing.

    I don't like this idea because some rando will add a sky shield to my base because he's trying to help, and accidentally disable my arty while I'm using it.
    It's a thing I constantly have to deal with as a builder main is policing my base. No bunkers, don't block the road, why did you place a solid wall blocking the sight lines of my pillbox? I SAID don't block the road! Don't put the vehicle pad there, it's too easy to steal. Hey, no bunkers! That structure serves no purpose, but gives enemies somewhere to hide, deleted. I SAID DON"T BLOCK THE FLAMING ROAD REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!


    That all said guys, thanks for bumping my post, I appreciate it!