It would be cool and add a whole new dynamic. Bases you know would change progressively as the buildings within are damaged, creating new dynamics that keep the fighting fresh. It would give engis something else to do, repair buildings. Let towers have a force field that protects them until infantry disable it, then the tower can be brought down. If the devs want to relaunch the game, then they should lead with this feature. It works for battlefield, I'm sure it could work here.
Unless you expect everyone to have an "indestructible" pc, then no this feature would be terrible. Planetside 2 is already huge. The scale of the map, the amount of people running around it, the amount of particles going off numerous times in less than a second. That'd be asking a lot out of a PC, specially one that are just getting by on medium to low graphics.
As much fun as it would be, this game really can't handle an extensive destruction mechanic. It'd be too laggy. The construction system may add a little bit of destructibility, though.
You could swap between solid and pre-destroyed meshes but that's just a lot of things you have to hope the packet data doesn't miss. Imagine a whole army flooding through a hole in the wall that only half of the people see.
First off: My PC would explode, everyone's PC would. Secondly: Wouldn't the bases be literally empty after about 10 minutes?
I think that a full-scale destructible environment is far too much. A small-scale destructible environment though... We already have turrets with health, armor, repair ability and a different size&hitbox depending on it's state (destroyed or repaired). So why can't we have a few destructible things? AMP stations are bristling with turrets, so we know that having a ton of destructible pieces of non-moving bases is completely possible. Destructible skylights/hatches for LA to move through. Some doors being destructible with enough force. Wall sections that can be destroyed and basically function like a destructible door but through a part of the wall. Holes to be blown into the floor to reach tunnels etc. We could even add ways to destroy jumppads and gravlifts to stall attackers/defenders as they need to keep them in repair. Each piece can be on the auto-repair list, as well as repaired by engineers. Similar to turrets the wreckage left after destruction can be hit to revert the repairs and keep the hole open. The destructible environment doesn't just have to benefit the attackers, it can also benefit the defenders by allowing them to make holes in their own base to create a sudden attack route to the enemy Sunderer. Or allow them to destroy something crucial like gravlifts and prevent access until they are repaired.
Just an FYI, Landmark has a fully destructible voxel environment, runs on Forgelight, and runs well enough on 5 year old computers (aka Phenom II, Radeon 5870). However with that said... we don't need every bit of piece of dirt and tree to be destructible. Only certain bridges, ledges, ceilings, floors, and walls and such. That would NOT put anymore strain than a string of tanks exploding on your screen. If that's lagging you now.. well you're lagging anyway so nothing would change. One caveat though.. high resistance to infantry based explosives. Lets use this to give vehicles a proactive role in base capture and (by proxy) defense.
Exactly. These bridges, ledges, ceilings, floors and walls can all just work similar to turrets. Turrets don't increase lag by phenomenal amounts, so by just adding these in some vital places you can easily create partially destructible environments... Where it counts.
i must admit, playing BC2 the Destruction did make something special when playing online and was damn useful. the problem with ps2 is that its a continous environment and developing it will be very tricky not to mention regenerating bases will be difficult to implement easily. Like in future BF games the destructiable environments felt tacky and off as only certain walls could be blown open and few (if any) building collapsed or could be flattened. the other issue is how much artillery/armor players encounter. Sod trying to capture a base, Level the damn base leave it a smoking ruin before pushing in. Continue to pound base until they are just massive stretches of ruins. The only time i can think destructable environments work is when we overload generators with sheer firepower or base open doors that are normally locked reactivating the shutters for windows. Maybe certain barriers turn off after too much shooting like in halo? meh, i would settle for less choke point nightmare in bases, but that is never easy to implement. there will always be choke points.
It'd be easy in PS2. Like Demigan pointed out the tax on systems would be akin to turrets. When blown up there's a poof of smoke and the stuff is rubble, or its nanite-husk equivalent. And the advantage PS2 has is the walls, ledges, bridges, and so forth that ARE destructible are CLEARLY identifiable. They'd look like nanite-constructed materials. Even when destroyed they would look like the same style husk that destroyed turrets look like. It'd fit the lore and fit the style of the game. But best of all, it'd add a new dynamic to the game. Make the environment feel like its malleable. And still keep the permanence and stability of bases. Now the hardpart is displaying when they are damaged. Smoke, sparks, or leaks would work. Simple animations that doesn't tax anyone, and you don't even have to use up more memory to show different damage states. Its a little half *** I'll admit, but to be honest with the high tempo of the game.. its good enough. Vehicles don't have damage states either and I don't think anyone has brought up that fact in 3 years. (Cool idea, but we got to get people off of playing on potatos to have such nice things)
The only way i see to keep it straight is constant updates of destructible states to clients to avoid packets being lost and forgotten in transit and taking a decent time to destory and repair said destructibles. if they made destroyable bridges i would use the energy bridge model from amerish, instead of the terminals flipping control to anyone hacking it they are engineer-only repair terminals and enemies have to fire on the energy field of the bridge to destroy it.
