[Suggestion] Mechs for Planetside 2 (Pics Included)

Battlefield 2142 had the walkers. Basically they were the same mass as tanks. But were vertical in nature. So slap two vanguards together, one on top of each other, and then stand it up. Cut off the bottom half and put legs there.

You have something that is a little taller than a sundy, not much more so than a Galaxy. And its on legs. So the size issue isn't too bad.

As for role. Well there's a big problem right there. Only the Galaxy and Sunderer have a role in the game. Everything else just farms certs. We need a fix to vehicle roles or we're getting another Valkyrie.

But for the sake of argument lets say vehicles have a role, or that cert farming is a valid role to base a vehicle off of. How would this Mech stack with Vehicles? Personally I'd give it 4000 health, like a MBT. Slightly less resistances, different firepower, and more agility. It would fill the same role as Walkers did in BF2142.

Different firepower means the main guns controled by the pilot are AI based. Basically supped up versions of the AI ES and NS weapons. Dual Kobalts, Dual PPAs, Dual Canisters, Dual Marauders. It wouldn't actually be those weapons, but the effect would be like a supped up MAX, in addition they would be able to damage vehicles with them at least a little. The gunner would have a turret on top that could fire AV weapons. Probably Basilisk, Halberd, ect. Basically your typical MBT secondary.

The idea is a AI platform with limited AV capabilities. It would be quick, but not like a lightning. It would be agile and tough, but not as tough as a MBT. A good lightning driver would give it pause. Harassers wouldn't want to get too close. Infantry would get melted. And MBT's would wreck it in a toe to toe fight.

Sounds like a tougher harasser at first admittedly. But harassers are more versatile and quicker. This thing would be 450 resources and your 'tough' solution to AI where your MBT's would be great against Sunderers and other tanks.

And a little more on its agility. Pressing A or D will not turn the vehicle. It will actually walk in that direction. You turn the vehicle by looking in the direction (torso twist, aka rotating the turret) you wish to go and pressing W to move forward. The legs orient in that direction and it walks forward. It is a mech so it needs to control similarly to one, not a tank. I would suggest that it control like a BattleMech but we don't need a vehicle in the game that is harder to pilot than a ESF.

Are you a game artist? If not, its your thing great art and idea. Would be fun to try it out on test to see how it works. I give you an A+ for the artwork and presentation.

Not sure this is true.

First, tanks can have a variety of weapons mounted to them. They can have missile boxes attached outside the turret (like what many IFVs do) or even have barrel-launched ATGMs (like what many Russian tanks do). Or just go with the odd-looking WWII tanks like the T-35:



Second, mechs can't simply attach weapons everywhere willy-nilly. Arguably you really can only attach weapons on the arms or as a hat or something. Mechs still need clearance to turn, rotate their torso, and walk. Furthermore mech weaponry is limited by balance issues, simply because they are further off the ground and on two legs makes them innately less stable than tracked vehicles. Finally weight is another limiting factor, which means that mechs simply cannot be more heavily armed or armored than an equivalent-sized tank.

In other words something like this would be totally ridiculous, and would either sink into the ground or tip over when it fired its first rounds:

Big thumbs up. I love this idea...I definately would like to see mechs return to Planetside 2 especially if they were extensively tested and balanced ahead of time. And that artwork is mouthwatering.

That sexy VS mech, looks like a Wraithlord/Wraithguard from the Warhammer 40K universe. Awesome!

It's a shame that many in this community are biased against mechs due to how they were portrayed in PS1.
PS2 is a completely different game from the original and light walker mechs like this can be incorporated to give more variety to ground vehicle options in this game, provided SOE learn from their mistakes in PS1 and made proper adjustments.

I like the Idea, there are going to be so many people that think that BFR's(mechs) are the end of the world. When in PS1 it was one of the easiest things to take down if you airdrop behind them and take out their generator with a Deci. One man could take down one of those BFRs.

VS mech should be levitating

to balance mechs you would have to make them WAY weaker than sugeested here, a one-man vehicle needs to be weaker than a three or two-man vehicle when having to fight against them
in PS1 the problem was that the BFRs were so unbelievably strong you had no chance of fighting back alone without an airdrop

they also have the better elevation, which is nothing that you should underestimate as an advantage

also the VS one looks just hideous, sorry^^

This is what maxes should have been. Large, one man exoskeletons that are used FOR BASE DEFENSE AND/OR OFFENSE, ON THE OUTSIDE, basically walking perimeter defense turrets.

Maxes should have never been allowed indoors, they are basically vehicles and they are overpowered and frustrating as **** to fight against indoors.

I agree that mechs, aka BFRs dont necessarily need to be OP. But the problem with BFRs that killed PS1 is still present in PS2 and its called SoE.
I dont trust SoE to properly balance mechs, because they have never given me a reason to.

When BFRs were finally looked at (and nerfed into uselessness. 1 Agile Deci+Jammer guy could annihilate BFRs... Useless is still crappy balance, just the other side of the scale), the damage was already done because people had left.
You cant introduce something gamebreaking and then wait a year+ before doing anything.
When you do something drastic to your game and you notice alot of people leaving, that should be your queue to prioritize looking into whatever you just did and fixing it.

SoE balance seems to have 2 speeds. Stop/Max.
There doesent seem to be anyone telling them "Maybe we should tweak it just a little and see how it performs for a few weeks"

That is why i dont want mechs in PS2.
Its not a bad idea and i like your art, its just that the people that have to make and balance it doesent seem to know what they are doing most of the time.
And they are way too slow to correct something once they figure out "Hey, maybe we shouldnt have made this Anti-everything unit almost immortal"

October 18, 2004 Battle Frame Robotics were introduced so [[ 08 + 31 - 18 = 21 days | 09 - 1 - 08 = 0 months | 2014 - 2004 = 10 years ]] it has been ten years and twenty one days since. I'm sure Sony Online Entertainment has the collective experience to avoid the exact same mistakes. It's the new and unexpected ones that should be the issue really.

Though I am sure they are glad to keep everything the same for the people with conservative opinion because it requires less effort to manage expectations of people who want what they already offer. Are you sure you nay sayers don't secretly work for SOE? LOL.

I know stability should in theory be better if more time is spent on it and less on change, but by now with all the unmovable opinions SOE could just pretend to be incompetent in adding new units to avoid work now that it is so dammed convenient to keep people against change. Blasphemy I know, LOL O well.

I agree with these two blerps soo much. If this is what you see you are thinking the same way I am.

To compare this to some situations that players are already familiar with in 50/50 populated battles.

Imagine ones side suddenly pulls armor and surrounds an air base which are often up on a hill. The tanks just point their guns at the spawn points to provide suppressive fire so that their own units can crawl all over. They may have less infantry units while manning the tank but they get a strategic advantage through suppression with little risk to the tanks that now also inhibits outside access to the road needed to go up the hill to meet them.

Now pulling a mech out of that base would do nothing if it can't even get out off the pad. But if a skilled squad of them comes from another base and makes their way up the side of the hill off road. Then they avoid mines and can cause some real distraction to the tanks, even though normally the tanks would not even flinch at the sight of a mech. They can't effectively both siege and flight off targets that they can't one shot nor chase down.

Another situation is against an air columns in bases at the bottom of valleys or surrounded by mountains that friendly infantry can traverse. This base can be easy to air drop on and to harass by enemy air because air units can simply fly over the other side of the mountain to repair while their buddies pulverize anything struggling up or down the cliff side. Now again if the friendly mech can't get off the pad in their own base because of air guns hanging around the roofs, it would do nothing. But get an early warning of an air force and a squad of mechs could more easily traverse that same path early, and or get into a position where their backs are covered, yet can accelerate up to speed and or maneuver to cover so to be hard to reliably lay sustained damage down from the air.

Now infantry and sunders since they go together. I actually believe concentrated infantry should be a mechs kryptonite. Almost everything a mech can do infantry can do in some way in some configuration, but cheaper. Having mechs that rely on the offensive state of friendly infantry and the distracted state of the enemy infantry, would make a mech a defensive base perimeter support unit. Sunders would be a frequent target of course but mechs would not be able to take concentrated small arms fire long enough to be a huge direct on threat. Instead the best strategy would be to jump up and down ridges unpredictably harass the whole area to keep the enemy looking up around and behind every bolder and overall distracted from the friendly infantry that are the cascade effect that dooms the sunder.

Really medium mechs should be a vehicle requiring skill like air vehicles do. Certain players would become famous for their performance while others would rarely attempt to use them and instead choose to specialize in other things like destroying them. Their animations would be clear to show that the mechs leg position allowed the maneuver and reticles within the pilot cabin would be smoothed by automatic leg elevation to allow high performance return fire fire while performing evasive maneuvers over any terrain

The goal would be to change some things allot in certain situations and nothing in others. Some people would be disappointed in this type of support dependent medium mech. But just think, if it went well, maybe they would want to add a large mech that fills a completely different role. Such as a Warp Gate heavy siege defense unit for a future capture-able warpgate feature.

This slow heavy mech would be a desperation unit. It can't keep up with main army to say alive between being abandoned in offensive and defensive redeploy situation, or in a standard retreat. But when less retreat is possible anyway and less redeploy necessary it would make an excellent last stand unit.

Forget using them in most alert situations, add a way to capture warp gates and have these bad boys the thing standing between the enemy and the warp gate generator to make the assaulter prove they are really the superior force on the continent. Destroy the final warp gate defense and generators despite being on their doorstep and that faction gets kicked off the continent to make it become a two faction battle.

This would have high resolution continent balancing effects because it would motivate factions not to get warpgated. They would pull from other continents instead of just ignoring one to focus on the others, which causes full queues, near empty contents and consistently uneven battles beyond continent locks.

Just more ideas to put on the pile of ideas and logical structures we have going here. They are actually starting to look fairly refined in my opinion.

i like the idea of having mechs and i think they could be balenced


BUT



there is just no role they can actually fill

hell the devs wont even make the ANT its own vehicle


i doubt they will ever do this, and if they do it wont be very sucessful

Here, I shall repeat myself.

You mean you full on want the return of BFRs >.<

I don't know them, I haven't played PS1. But considering the role I meant, I would go as far and let the mech have no weapons but a single basilisk to defend against approaching infantry. As a walking wall, it would have nothing to fight against air and vehicles, just lots of armor and HP. As walking is slower than driving, it would be by far the slowest vehicle in the game (I'd say just the speed of a walking max). The advantage of walking instead of driving is to step over medium sized obstacles like rocks and plants like those on Hossin where tanks (including mags) have to find another way.
Why would you want to use a giant elephant with a mark and label "plz shoot me"? As cover for other vehicles in teamplay. There are a lot of situations where vehicles are easy targets with no feasible cover. So, it's a strategic decision either to advance sneaky and very fast (that's what the valkyrie is for), fast and not so sneaky (galaxy), slow and sneaky (sunderer with covers) or snail slow but steady (sunderer with walking wall). If a faction is forced to use walking walls, it's not to win easily but because it's in a desperate situation getting attacked from all sides.

The would be pretty tall, and be targetted badly.


The issues in PS1 was that MBTs had a Driver and a main Gunner (so they were basically a 2 man vehicle or nothing) unlike PS2 where the Driver is the main Gunner. So in PS2 BFRs would be target and fought easily by 1 man MBTs (as well as 2 man ones).

Also Air is MUCH stronger in PS2 compared to PS1, especially AV-wise.

Lastly the orginal BFR in PS1 where monterously powerful, but they were very quickly nerfed down to things not much (if any) more powerful than a MBT.


I honestly think BFRs would work much better and be easier to balance in PS2 than in PS1...... that doesn't mean they should be in..... but they could, I think.

Typical forumside peasant:

Oh BFR Look great! Lets get them ingame!
*mechs are introduced in the game
This is freaking bs, why does everybody kill me with the mech?? THis is unplayable!! *Leaves the game.

A Mechwarrior Online MMO would be pretty cool.

Anything that uses the Forgelight engine, and devs that know how to put 400 players shooting all at once into a small area, would be pretty cool. Does SONY realize the goldmine they are sitting on?

Nononono, you got it all wrong OP.

What we need is Pacific Rim big robots. One nuke launcher in the left arm, and a giant sword in the right arm that one shots anything. Oh and PVE godzilla attacks on random outposts so we have something of a challenge with them because **** everybody who wanted to play planetside 2!

Short Answer: No

Long Answer: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO


Very nice drawings though, maybe they can become something else. But BFR's in PS1 has forever tainted my view of gundams in PS2