As some may have seen in the far flung roadmap entry for LA, the devs would like to try and give the LA the ability to dual wield weapons as a niche. EXPOSITION I like the idea at its core. The LA is still an assault, and the jetpack alone is simply a good way to get into flanking positions, in combat it's more of a liability for the most part, but faster or more complicated jets screw with the netcode and ultimately that's an entirely different discussion. That aside, it's not a bad idea. LA is on the squishier side of things with no potential MANA turret to hide behind, no self heal, shield or stealth. About the best way for the class to do serious damage is to drift and drop or flashbang and toss C4, which I don't think is what the devs had in mind. Dual weapons could create a new niche, a close range mobile glass cannon that can clear a room like a max if he hits them from the right direction with proper preparation...but while being relatively squishy of course. /EXPOSITION Ultimately though it comes down to what should the LA be able to dual wield? Anything means dual pump shotguns/.05 TTK Smg's which...yeah let's not even consider that. Carbines sound good, but without ADS you're just limited to a handful of good movement fire carbines which again reduces it to strictly bullet hosing. Pistols sounds like the best idea to me, but with the exception of the crossbow for obvious reasons. Either it would be OP as hell one shotting people or utterly useless flinging bolts everywhere and reloading every few shots.
I'll just put my quote from the roadmap here. Mind the strong words, the discussion there was getting a bit too hot =) Edit: Oh god, Erendil, can I please make you a signature picture? Your current one hurts my eyes
Ah very true! +1 I'm not sure how arsed they may be to add a few sets of new weapons for a single class, but given that you can take existing weapons and modify them a bit, I think it could be feasible. Still, the question remains "What exactly..." I could see dual pistols. Maybe very small SMG's or some such. Probably a selection of both with NS and then faction specific variants with pistols focusing on accuracy and recoil control while SMG's focus on positioning and timely reloads (or alternately Pistols having low RoF for a primary and mediocre damage, but good movement accuracy. SMG's have low accuracy with sustained fire and long reload times, but can put a lot of lead downrange or be burst fired for decent accuracy).
No, seeing how they have conducted liberator and infiltrator "revamps", we'll be lucky to get one per faction. Edit: to be honest, I'd prefer they fixed performance related issues first, and then worry about the content.
well lets lok at it this way dual crossbow= on hit kill dual revolvers = overpowered/ way to small ttk dual repeaters nc/tr= a little to powerful but meh, dual vs pistols = meh dual nc semi pistols = actually might be balanced
Crossbow doesn't make sense with dual wielding, since it's a weapon you hold with both hands. But dual revolvers or semi-auto pistols wouldn't break anything I'd say. Since you wouldn't be able to ADS with them and that would limit your effective range to about that of a shotgun with slugs.
A different mechanic than that of a shotgun, and simply for fun. CoF would make sense to stay as is, but the CoF bloom should be increased, to around 1.5x perhaps. vvvvvEDIT: like below poster said.... DUAL LASHERSvvvvv
My logic behind each: CoF: The weapon isn't as stable in one hand as in two. Additionally, it isn't as "lined up" with your sight. CoF Bloom: The recoil from the weapon as you fire it has much more of an effect than it normally would, as you can't stabilise it with both of your hands. I feel like these sorts of measures would be necessary to balance dual wielding. Some weapon classes should also be excluded, such as shotguns. They don't need to be more effective in CQC, and can you imagine someone running around with two fully automatic ones?
A fun idea of balancing dual wielded semi-automatic weapons (pistols) and adding a skill element to them. So each gun is out of the box outfitted with laser red dot sight, I mean real one, that actually produces a laser dot. No crosshair, no blooms, no CoF, no any of that stuff. Just two guns with two laser dots. However, the dots aren't stable: they float semi-randomly within a cone. The key to success is to fire whenever the dots happen to be on target. If you engage jump jets, the laser sight float cone increases, but not by much, and your guns still shoot wherever their dots are pointing. So even if you jet through the air, but caught a split second moment to shoot when your red dot was on enemy's skull - you will reliably get a hit. On second thought, this idea is far from great when applied to comparatively low damage pistols, but in itself is kinda fun I think, and has a possible application somewhere in planetside.
It's a drastically different mechanic to what everyone else is used to. So you'll be branded heretic. A free thinker. Like in the dark ages. Don't kid yourself. Dual wield will happen and it will happen with the most obvious way possible. New Dual Wield only guns that need to be purchased for each arm and they will function essentially like an automatic shotgun - highspread, bloom, high damage if you manage to keep your crosshair on target and if the game decided the random spread should favor you today.
You're probably right. It's not like I seriously expected anything to come out of it, at this stage I'm using the forums more like a blog and place to socialize rather than try to influence anything. They did listen to the feedback on Cougar, though, to my surprise.
LOL is that better? Planetside Intel switched around all their background pics a while back and I never bothered to go in and update it. RE: dual wielding weapons, I'd much rather they give LA semi-auto scout or battle rifles since that would actually give LA more tactical options and expand their role on the battlefield. Dual-wield adds nothing to the class other than to look cool in the eyes of a few. Nobody in their right mind would dual-wield firearms in a combat situation.
I'm guessing that you won't be able to a) ADS and b) it will also be a lot less acurate, so it will only be lethal in the hands of accurate players.
Dual wielding, no matter what form it may take, cannot be balanced. Normally, I'd shy away from such an absolute statement, but I'm certain of this. There is no way to balance dual wielding based on anything that has been proposed. Because dual wielding will be designed around killing, there are two possible outcomes: either dual wielding is powerful enough to give us the advantage in any 1v1 engagement, or it will be so weak as to be useless. The former would be nerfed in short order (or result in LA spam), while the latter would give us next to nothing. As I've said many times before, giving Light Assault more ways to kill people is not the answer. By its very nature, dual wielding would be imbalanced. It's the same problem with giving us grenade launchers, or assault rifles, or any of the dozens of "let me kill things faster" ideas floating around the forums (this applies to all classes). Any ability that gives one class a universal advantage in a fight is, by definition, overpowered.
Duel Wielded Pistols? like Magshots? I personally would not allow players do DW shotguns, Carbines and the like...it would be little more then Magshots/Beamer/Inquis/Repeater/Desparado...the like. Compared to a single gun, id nerf Hipfire quite a bit. There would be no ADS. Lasers would help, not as well as a single gun, but still Rof would not drop, but instead maybe increase. More RoF but worse acc. I do agree with you though, its hard to balance DW.
