[Suggestion] Mechs for Planetside 2 (Pics Included)

Okay you may or may not be serious but, this just exemplifies the problem with units that have so much armor that they don't require any skill to defend. If you want guaranteed progression in combat try a dungeon crawler game.

Everything a players does in strategy is to win easily. Okay so is it really a desperation unit? Sure, a few could be pulled to provide cover and soak up some mines when a sundy can't get off the platform but it would be an offensive unit so much more when a vehical terminal is hacked in an assaulted base and they use them to just block off doorways.

If so much effort to destroy, they could be cheaper to buy than to destroy. So buying one would just slow down the games pace to the monotonous work of shooting at walls. Also what economics would allow the wall to be worth the purchase to buy alone but not worthwhile to scatter across the landscape like building paint ball courses around bases. If they can't be destroyed by tanks what can they be destroyed by? C4 only? Infantry only? Would they need to be flanked to destroy them?

If they added something like this, what I would do is get a platoon to spawn a whole army of them and move across the map with the armor sides out as if it was a bacterium sweeping across the landscape. A few anti armor tanks and anti air sunders would be in the middle as units would shoot between the cracks and out the top. Engineers would constantly repair walls that retreat into the middle to be refreshed. Basically this strategy would take over the entire front line game outside the bases because nothing else would be as effective to control the roads than these moving bunkers. Though this does sound like fun teamwork in the short run, it's slow pace would hamper the style of planet side which intends to be fast and low commitment.


The heavy mechs I was suggesting as an option would be not be easily one-shot-able but not be like walking wall. They would be slow yet versatile to terrain. Passive climb, would make them hard to follow and ducking abilities make them easy to hide between reloads. They would also be easy to return fire in due to wide range smoothing suspension for extreme terrain variations, They would be easy to aim area effect projectiles in due to high shooting angles.

A large part of their defense would be resistance to mines and C4 not directly stepped on. Also an under gun and an overrun to prevent easy placement of C4. Slowness would be it's biggest weakness. Just like the medium mech the heavy mechs biggest problem would be infantry that can go everywhere it can go. Attempting to repair anywhere but behind friendly lines would be extreme vulnerability since it would take a significant amount of time and c4 directly on one of the normally evasive legs or on the cockpit would be a one shot on the unmodified stock model.

Obligatory "I'll quit this version of PS as well" post.

so NC wit 6000hp while other have 4200hp? Dream on!

Consider an alert and your faction starts with a vehicle zerg. Same arguments, same problems, same solution: The zerg has to split up at some point or lose what was gained. Turtling up with this mech doesn't work like bacteria. You can't multiply, you always have to split up at some point or lose the regions you conquered. Don't forget that timing is key and if you decide to crawl over the land just because it's easy, you'll become easy pickings for swift enemies.
And consider these babies are huge, easy targets while slow on the road. Any platoon using them on narrow paths have to slow down to their pace. It's not an iWin unit but as situational as most others.

Why? Because mechs would be too awesome? Because we can only have todays weapon technology in a war thousands of years in the future? That seems to be PS2*s design guideline, because very few weapons are actually futuristic (lasher for example).

I was around during the first Planetside, the idea of mechs in the game puts a very bad taste in my mouth. True, they could be balanced, the issue in PS1 wasn't mechs themselves so much as the implementation as for the first few weeks or so they were uber-OP. After the nerf bat you were better off in an MBT, they were balanced after this point but they were also ultra vulnerable and the playerbase adapted (For the record, I'm referring to the multi man one, the jumping flying one remained stupid).

The problem with mechs in PS at this point is purely symbolic. After the wave of "BFRs killed Planetside!" years back, putting them in again would be akin to NGE in the disconnect from the sensitivities of some of their oldest fans. Even if balanced right, it'd be more likely to erk a portion of the playerbase than it would be to attract new players. With that said, announcing BFRs for PS2 would make a great April Fool's joke.

IMHO the current base and landscape design is one of the major issues with Mechs.Even if they were balanced weapon and damage wise it would not be a good idea implementing them.

Short version since I dont have much time:
Base design: Far too open, already tank-shellable. Mechs that are stronger than MBTs would also be used for camping and make it even harder for the defenders.
Landscape design: Also far too open, high render distances. Either these Mechs would tear apart entire vehicle zergs from afar or would be torn apart by AV & tanks from the distance due to them being bigger and more visible than tanks. Just imagine the AV sniping on Indar.

Mechs stronger than MBTs? Wat. OP described them as:

Something like a lightning basically. A MAX on steroids, faster (running speed) and more firepower, but with the disadvantage of being larger and thus easier to hit.

Was thinking of Mechs as in PS1, BF2142 etc, which is the common conception of 'Mechs (ala Battletech). What you are describing is just a bigger Exosuit, not really a 'Mech

But lets see. Where would those UberMAXes be useful? They would be difficult to balance.

In Biolabs they'd be overpowered. Probably similar in most other base fights due to being agile and fast and probably having higher-than-MAX firepower (which is already high). What firepower would they have? How strong would they be versus infantry and vehicles?

In field combat they'd probably be UP and useless due to being too slow compared to vehicles. Would they render like infantry (300m) or like vehicles (1000m)? The former would probably make them OP against vehicles (shooting vehicles while not being rendered) and the latter would (literally) render them useless due to tanks shelling them from 1000m away.

I'm not completely opposed to such ideas, but it would be almost impossible to balance with current base design.
Remember, the devs already have a hard time balancing what we currently have ingame and we will soon face another balance problem as soon as the ES Buggies are ingame (around November). IMHO we need to get these balance issues sorted first and finish other content (base design, resource revamp II,contlocking (BattleIslands & Searhus) etc) first before we could think about adding these Uber-Mechanised Armor Exosuits

I honestly don't think BFRs had that much of an effect on PS1, more it was Core Combat wasn't what was expected (it was supposed to be "City Fight" - but was less Stalingrad and more "80's healing crystal meets 70's Discoball Fight" and it didn't work too well with PS1's pace or PC systems of those days either - Core Combat would work much better with PS2 pace and current PC systems although I'd much rather it be more Stalingrad then Crystal-Discoball for PS2).

Followed by it just being plain expensive for what it was $15 a month was the same as EQ1 in those days and PS1 for all that it was great didn't give the same amount of value as EQ1 did - $7 a month and who knows how many more players it may have retained (or indeed a F2P model).

Lastly it was dying off anyway, people were leaving before BFRs after Core Combat, due to the above and due to there not being much advertising for PS1 (in fact none) for replacement players, in fact it was The Bending that got PS1 populations back to its peak again, but it was short lived, likely because SOE had seemingly got a bit confused with development by then and the juggernaunt that was WoW was released, and Aftershock and BFRs were just a point along that decline.


It's a shame though.

I did a lot of forumside back in PS1, moreso than I have in this game. Core Combat really didn't have all that much complaining. Granted the core was empty for the most part save for a few dedicated spelunkers. The Maelstrom received a fair amount of complaining but it was hard to read between all of the BFR complaints. I personally wouldn't be opposed to a BF2142 style mech but hell to the no on the solo flying BFR. There are plenty of those out there though who aren't so open minded, and the very thought of mechs brings back memories of BFRs sitting in trees spamming spawn rooms. A BFR announcement would lead to some complaints given how poorly implemented they were in PS1.

And you're right, mechs themselves weren't what killed PS1, there were a number of factors that dwindled the population, BFRs receiving an unfair amount of the blame. Not confusing correlation with causation here. BFRs were the biggest stated reason looking back, even though it was more realistically a cascade effect, people mostly left because their friends stopped playing, and of course WoW impacted the entire industry for a while. There are plenty of people, myself included, who think of mechs in PS2, and think "oh god, what are we getting into".

Well I dunno CC got a fair bit of complaints..... but you are absolutely right mostly it just wasn't used.

BFRs were a bit weird in that there was vast amounts of forum complaining, yet the fights in game were massive with rolling battle lines (the likes people had always complained about not having enough of - and still do in PS2! ) of them and then the nerfs started.

I rarely feel sorry for Devs (they live and die by their own decisions), but I really did with BFRs because they seem to be dammed if they did and dammed if they didn't with them.




I don't think they'd be daft enough to have flying BFRs again, not considering the PS2 VS MAX decision, but really I think the biggest difference would be PS2 rate of damage and Air power.

Even an orginal BFR would have a harder time surviving for long in PS2, and the final nerfed version was about MBT toughness only visable, hittable and targettable from much, much further away.

Exactly, but the balancing itself would be only as difficult as the average person has difficulty thinking outside the box. It would be much easier to balance if developers just predict how they would really be and make them reflect that. I think the animations are the hardest part to do right, and so many old game publishers have avoided putting mechs where they should be, which is on rough terrain. It has always been a technological challenge. So to save on work game developers just focus on everything else that is easy to do. This "Easy" to create mech is what legacy Planetside 1 players remember. The nimble and challenging to animate mech could be much more realistic and something completely different.

A good example is what happens when a mech jumps or falls against an uneven obstacle like a tree trunk and lands on a root sticking way out of the ground. Do the animations adjust to line up with all the uneven surfaces and play in the correct sequence? Or just fail?

BTW I love this thread. I am a contentious person and so enjoy arguing. I am not even sure if I really want mechs in PlanetSide2 over all the other things they could spend their time adding in the future. With the promises that SOE has already made, I think by the time they would have reason to add nimble mechs they would call the game PlanetSide3 so to not break their word.

There were complaints about CC sure, but there were dis-proportionally more against BFRs. I don't think the two man variants were ever really the problem, all it took was a deci to the butt and they were squishy. And yeah, it would be incredibly surprising to see flying BFRs in this game given that VS MAXs were given Zoe (lolz) instead of jump jets, though jump jets were significantly more useful to the point of being over powered in PS1, compared to the other empires' MAX abilities. Realistically though flying BFRs sort of tainted the idea of mechs in PS for many people.

No I agree the forum complaints about BFRs were insane, it was just that in-game things seemed pretty dynamic and populated.


I'm unsure BFRs are a good idea in PS2, but I think they could work, ironically that "super-tank" they have shown (if it ever gets into game) could cause the same forums stuff (as it would seem to be very similar to an orginal BFR) as BFRs without being a BFR!

planetside need more fun and more squadplay and strategy
so we can do something like one mechs per compete squad each squad leader can buy one and drive it alone
or it could be like a 10 seat mech one seat and one gun per member of the scouad (i don't remember if it's 10 or 12) only the squad leader can buy it and drive it untill he give the command to another player and all the player of the squad won't be alowed to by an other mech since 6 hours after that
that will allow the devlopers to do an overpowered mech but an excusive mech to and that could add an other goal to the game ("take the mech down")
(sorry for my bad english

Very ******* cool concepts man. All of them scream the representing faction as well. Hope your idea gets a serious look into BFRs' were a thing no matter how much they may of been disliked.

This could have a much better reception on aesthetic alone.

....I hope you suffer headaches for this thread necro...

I never understand the nay saying people. Mechs are not much different then tanks just a little bit more mobility. There's no reason why DBG can't balance them if implemented. We already have mag riders which can fly up mountains. I'm all for mechs if done right

Well, if this thread really wants to keep on living...

I never experienced the BFRs of the original Planetside, but by all accounts they sound as though they were improperly implemented. Overpowered yes, but that's too simple of a descriptor and implies that a simple fix could turn it around. In actuality, a different thought process is required to make it work:

To work in the current scope of the game, mechs need to have a decent number of weapon hardpoints. Say four, as a starting point. These weapons would not be particularly strong individually, but you'd be able to mount up to four of the same weapon onto the vehicle, creating a very specialised fighting unit. Specialisation should naturally have a cost, for example an AA setup could be what's known as a 'missile boat', which would be four small lock-on missile pods which are capable of wrecking enemy air when used together (without having an obscenely long range, ideally), but have little to no way of defending itself against ground vehicles or infantry. This would require the mech to be supported by friendlies so it doesn't get ganked by ground attackers.

The complete opposite of that is a multi-role mech with a variety of weapons, say two AA missile pods, an AI cannon and an AT cannon. This would be able to engage a wide range of targets, but wouldn't be particularly effective in any one area. This way you're creating mechs that can be very powerful, but only within the area in which they specialise. There would naturally be certain features of the weapons themselves that limit their effectiveness at multiple roles, to prevent pure-AT mechs decimating infantry as an example. Other features would also help to prevent them from falling into the typical patterns that exist currently; I suggested missiles as an AA weapon instead of flak because flak needs to be used in bulk to deal any reasonable damage up close, but has so much range that it becomes an obscene and unwarranted nuisance for distant aircraft. Missiles can safely deal a lot of damage up close while having a hard limit to their range. I feel a rework of flares would be necessary to facilitate G2A missile pods, but that's another subject. An alternative to missiles might be a kind of 'flak shotgun', which instantly fires a spread of flak shells and is naturally more effective at close ranges.

As an added note, defensive shields probably should not be a thing, though I would like to see some good defensive module options.