[Suggestion] New LA jetpack- focused on forwards motion.

Discussion in 'Light Assault' started by ToRideTheRisingWind, Dec 15, 2016.

  1. ToRideTheRisingWind

    Okay, to keep this brief, I'll stick to the basics.

    The Light Assault class now has three distinct jetpacks, Icarus, drifters and the standard jumpjet.

    Icarus- Accelerates rapidly upwards, very little horizontal motion.

    Drifters- Relatively slow vertical velocity, highest and most extended horizontal velocity.

    Standard Jumpjet- Kind of a not-all-that-useful mix of the two.

    Between these three jetpacks the Light Assault is able to move quickly and efficiently in near any direction,
    I however feel that something is missing.
    Now, though drifters do cover the horizontal plane, their main use is for staying airborne for extended periods of time, rather than covering distances quickly, this is why I would suggest implementing a new jetpack which provides quick bursts of speed in the direction the player is travelling, as well as about a max of 5-10m upwards, to stop the player from skimming the ground.

    This jetpack could work in a number of ways, either utilising a number of charges which activate immediately on activation and catapult the player a set distance, or the jetpack could work by holding down the key to charge the jetpack's power, which would then catapult you a longer distance.

    This would allow LA troopers to 'pounce' from position to position quickly, letting them cover ground faster than ever before, as counter balance to this, whilst using the jetpack they wouldn't be able to climb buildings and structures as easily as with any of the other jetpacks, preventing them from performing any of the usual stealthy-light-assault-in-a-tree maneuvers.

    That's all I had to say, tell what you think and if you agree with my post.
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  2. Eternaloptimist

    I thought drifters gave you pretty fast forward motion but I haven't used them. I don't find the skirmisher jetpack to be "not all that useful" tbh. Blipping the jets if I don't want to get too high works nicely for vaulting obstacles. And a short stationary jump to look, shoot or lob things over walls is very useful.
  3. ToRideTheRisingWind



    The drifters barely move faster than sprint speed horizontally, unless you activated after hopping on a jump-pad etc.
    What I'm talking about is something that will move you forward MUCH faster than sprinting can.
  4. Iridar51

    Without going into detail on how repeated and unoriginal is this idea, the simple fact is, devs do not visit these forums, and they don't care about suggestions that are posted here. If you want to have a chance at real attention, you have to post on reddit.com/r/planetside.
  5. Demigan

    Icarus Jumpjets are to me the useless of the bunch. Skirmisher is powerful and useful for it's combination of height, relative speed and horizontal distance. Drifter is great if you can find the height to reach almost any target.

    That said, what you want is either Charge, or a burst-pack ability. Press F, you burst forwards fast and burn some fuel. Great for entering chokepoints etc.
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  6. Corezer

    a while ago there was a bug where if u spawned with Icarus jets on a slope. your jets would move you forward rather than straight up/down, depending on the angle of the ground u spawned on.

    it's a thing we've seen asked for a lot here, but we just got a thing. Only took 4 years, next time we might not get so lucky, who knows how long it will be before a horizontal jet gets put in.
  7. Demigan

    Maybe not that long.

    The Carbine change was pretty recent, then we got the Rocklet Rifle, although after a hiatus which we thought would mean the end of the Rocklet Rifle. Seeing that all other classes are getting goodies at acellerated rates (well, all but the Medic) I wouldn't be surprised at more LA stuff as well.

    I mean we currently have the entire NSX series, which is for everyone (although the most for the HA who gets an LMG and Rocketlauncher), we have the coming deployable shield (which should go to the Medic but ofcourse they throw that bone to the Engineer again), they have added major changes to the game, such as construction, LMG changes, rebalances of certain abilities etc. With future things down the pipeline like shotgun changes.

    Now I don't agree with many of these changes or their execution, but the developers are busy, very busy. We get more content now than ever before, and the quality is much higher compared to the "buff it to heaven, nerf it to hell" development process we saw in the early years. And regardless of you agreeing with it or not, the game has mostly improved rather than gone to hell due to them.
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  8. MrMinistry30

    Actually, that idea is pretty sweet but a lot of testing to balance this would be necessary.

    If you don't find the right combination of speed, distance, fuel consumption (= frequency of use) and duration of the single "jumps" you might create a monster that is extremely hard to hit due to very fast overall movement and the clientside issue or on the other end of the spectrum something that rather feels and looks like a fat old frog with a broken leg.

    Just to make it clear; in my personal opinion, you are right, forward movement is still sort of "missing" in the LA's jetpack arsenal and i love the idea of small LA squads jumping up hills and through the bases (sort of ninja style :D) but this COULD be difficult to bring into game.

    @Demigan: dude, get out of my head! every time i see something you wrote i think "yepp, i could have written that as well but he was faster again! sigh...where was that like-button again?". it slowly starts getting creepy...
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  9. Demigan

    Crazy people think alike ^^
    Although not about those pork chops, dude that's just gross.

    I think that it could be balanced by adding delays. After sprinting there's a 0,5 second delay or something before you can open fire. This delay is even there when you are flying with a jumpjet, so don't hold your shift key while jumpjetting! Similar delays could balance out the LA's hightened speed so that players aren't treated with too-easy shotgunblasts to the face (although that's not a big problem after the coming damage nerfs) and C4 runners that can be at your tank before you know it. Additionally the delay could be kept short, but balanced out by a COF increase that takes a little longer to settle than normal.

    Besides that you can also just have it function similar to Charge. One fast blast, then you are out of commission for a short duration. MAX's had the problem of being able to either use it for attack or defense, but not both. LA's would have a similar fate when they lack their flying capability.

    Although I've always wanted a burst-pack ability. Let's say 5 charges at maximum level, fires you in the direction you are looking at high speed. It's downsides are long recharge, a tough time landing without damaging yourself (needs implants) and you could give the LA damage if it rams the environment or a vehicle during this time, which cannot be diminished by implants. So you use your jumpjet, burst forwards for like a second in which you deal damage to yourself if you hit something, then normal physics take over again and you slow down depending on terrain, landing on your feet and crushing into something. That way it has a great value for moving through the world, but requires a lot of skill to pull off without smashing your face into something and killing yourself or heavily damaging yourself. Additionally it could have some sound and smoke effects as well as make you visible on the radar as downsides.
    But the upsides... Oh I would so love it even if I died more often due to tripping over a teeny tiny rock than an enemy shooting me in the face.
  10. NubCannon


    I feel like this would be very unbalanced, especially when used in combination with high damage cqc weapons like underbarrel shotguns or the pump action shotguns. a light assault being able to quickly close the distance between targets would allow for people to only fight in cqc. also this would make escaping c4 fairies very difficult, as much faster than drifter jump jets would allow light assaults to move very close if not faster to many vehicles reverse speeds.
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  11. TR5L4Y3R

    so in short you want a boost/dashpack ... hmmm ... could be a bit too powerfull with being able to fire while jetting ... imo depending on the speed your ability to fire should be locked then similar to regular sprinting ... this might be even more intresting with smg's and shotguns then i think ...
  12. Oleker2

    You still able to fire while using drifters. Very low accuracy, yes. But you can rotate and fire while maintaining the direction. Throwing grenades is possible to, placing C4, rocklet. And some weapons have pretty decent hip-fire to get the job done. If you sprint normally many of these options are blocked until you stop sprinting.
  13. Violence777

    hold cntrl w drifters noobs
  14. Demigan

    Yeah! And let's remove Icarus and Skirmisher because they are practically the same as jumping!

    Seriously Drifter+ducking (use C so you don't have to hold it all the time ya noob) is something completely different from a jet that boosts you temporarily but quickly in one direction. Drifter makes you go a little faster than running, but if you read the context this new booster jet would make you go much faster than that.
  15. OldMaster80


    I can imagine they never implemented this because they do not want to **** up the already poor hit registration. It's the same reason why Adrenaline Pump only has 1 tier and it makes you faster... but not THAT faster.
  16. Demigan

    Depends on how its executed. Charge was never too much of a problem as far as I could see. And vehicles can work with speeds much higher than those of infantry.
    Maybe its possible to use some of that in PS2. When someone uses the ability they could have a limited turn ratio similar to concussion grenades. That along with a set speed would make it easier to predict the hitbox similar to how its (probably) done with vehicles.
  17. OldMaster80

    Yeah but vehicles and Maxes and bigger than common soldiers. Then Charge had limited duration and remember: it has been removed for a reason. A fast horizontal jetpack would easily be used as a cheesy tool to escape when in danger.
  18. Demigan

    That can be remedied by increasing the maneuverability limitation. With that in place you'll never be able to do something like a super-ADAD tactic.

    This jetpack would also have a limited duration depending on how many charges/energy you get before it needs to recharge.
    And Charge was removed because it was an OP ability. You have a highly resistant unit that takes literally 10x the small-arms firepower to down compared to other infantry, and Charge functioned as an instant-escape button that increased the MAX survivability to extreme heights.
    Just imagine: When I proposed it for the LA people complained that it would be too OP, mainly because of "omg shotgun!". But it's somehow A-OK to have on a super-armored unit which has a ton of firepower up close? I mean really? How much of a hypocrite can you get? At least an LA has so many hitpoints that by the time you can cancel your Charge and start to open fire your enemy can have murdered you already.

    Or to attack and get into danger.
    But how about this: Infiltrators have stealth as a cheesy tool to escape when in danger as well as attack (although it depends on how you use it how effective it is). HA's have an overshield as a cheesy survive-and-counter tactic. And LA's, the designated fast-attack infantry, can't have an actual ability that allows it to do fast attacks/escapes? All it's got now it abilities to scale obstacles, but no abilities to breach or use in-combat.
    Also keep in mind that to pull off a quick escape, infantry needs to react much more quickly than a MAX. As an LA you basically need to have chosen what you are going to do (fight or flight) before the battle starts or you'll just get nailed, with the exception of longer-ranged combat.
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