Opaque shields gotta go.

So, I'm staring at the tech plant vehicle spawn and the shield is neon freakin purple. I can't see out, I don't even know where my tank is going to go after spawning.

A. The colour of the shields looks so out of place it breaks immersion and looks like some cheap N64 game.
B. They are completely Opaque and tactically inadequate.

Yeah, no idea how anyone could have thought that that's a smart change. I don't get why they changed the shields at all, they were fine. Yes, a few different variants existed, but hey, this game isn't targeted at 5 year olds, so no problem that you have to remember like 3 things.

Well, apparently, from what I've heard, new players are idiots and couldn't figure out the old ones.

Then obviously a solid faction colored brick wall will make them think they are allowed to pass through it.

And another thing, you can't see friendlies through that shield, so my prowler is constantly getting stuck because I didn't realize there were two other prowlers in the garage, or a sunderer, or several infantrymen, whom I ran over.

Ever been camped by armor outside the bottom spawn point of a Bio Lab? It's completely advantageous to the camping team, since you'll reveal yourself peeking out before you can actually see what's going on outside. Plenty of time to get blasted. Not to mention you just get thrust out there by the auto-drive mechanic. No idea what's on the other side. No vehicle control until you're good, well and blasted.

At least in the transparent shields you could have had a fighting chance of getting a rocket off before a shot hit you.

A horrible change, old shield types was much more logical and useful. The new opaque one is horrendous.

I blame playstation 4.

Saving resources for that underachiever is kinda the only reason I can come up with why someone would ever replace the old shield with something so ugly, obstrusive, confusing and gameplay impairing as the new ones.

Least it ain't the Xbox 1.

But, I feel like it could be done a little better. Keep the transparency, add something like a giant warning sign or something on top of a tank picture to signal you can't go through it yet. And for those shields where you can fire out one direction, add a image that basically has a silhouette with a gun, with the same circle with a slash mark in it as the previous tank one. You can only see it from one direction; the one you can't shoot through.

The Shield Change: When Hand Holding goes wrong.


I've gotten confused once that I can recall over the Shield thing, and perhaps due to a bug or hacker.

Mao South East Gate, the gateway at the end of the road leading out, the base was ours but an Enemy Lightning shot clear through the shield at least TWICE, ultimately killing me. Generator was fine, the shield was up for ages, but he fired clean through it. The Lightning was like 20m from the shield wall, I was about 10m from it.

Other then that oddball case... the Shields didn't need changing.

Connery, Esamir, North East.. Mani Fortress.. has two different vehicle shields next to each other.. bug?
One you can't see squat .. in our out.. the other is how they used to be.. Tank sign in the middle, otherwise you can see through.

Side by side, the old version, (look through) is far more appealing and makes more sense..

Why would any faction blind themselves with their own vehicle shields?

What was so horrible and game breaking with the old version that they had to be changed?.. instead of spending dev time on fixing bugs?

That's definitely a bug. Sometimes the shield doesn't render for people and allows them to shoot through it because it doesn't exist for them.

I was at twarich tech plant the other day at a pretty large fight, and when I was looking at the middle gates that go under the point, they was the old ones and could see into them, when I approached closer they changed to the new ones. Anyone else experienced things like this?

So, WTF, can't shoot through amp station SCU shields anymore?! Too many things were changed without enough thought put into it.

^lol'd

Could be that some of the LODs didn't get changed?

Mekala Auxilary compound 1 opaque shield directly beside 2 transparent shields. Looked like crap.
Theres also an amp station on esamir that has outer gate vehicle shields with no icons.

I thought they were at least going to be 2 sided? See out but not in..?

Not only are they ugly but they mean you can't see if you're about to TK Roadkill someone when you drive through a Tech Plant, Amp Station or any Shield you're ducking in to repair. It's really obnoxious. Change them back.

The only thing I could say the change is good for is to deter spawn room humping. At the same time, while it does prevent it to some degree, the trade off makes it an eyesore and a pain in the *** in other situations. I think there are more creative ways to resolve spawn camping issues than to do something like this. But if you can propose an idea, that would be better than simply complaining.

Realistically though the only time spawn camping is -truly- an issue is biolabs/stand alone bases. But amp stations/tech plants and the underground tunnel network helped alleviate those issues.

It's not so bad on SCU shield, but it is really bad on vehicle shields, especially for unintended road kills.

Yeah exactly. I don't care about infantry shields, it works fine there. Vehicle shields need to be transparent though, I get enough roadkills from the ****** collision detection without getting more from ploughing into people fixing their tanks too close to the shield.

FWIW, I agree... I prefer the old shield system. It didn't take me that long to suss out what the rules where.