That was awesome, really love how the devs continue to demonstrate balls and humility in their approach to the game, not many people understand just how hard that is, but I for one have a ton of respect for this. Solid FNO, Lenny did an excellent job of showing off the content and being a solid guest all round.
The bubble shields are a bad idea in my opinion for a number of reasons. First, burster MAX units are most useful in bases where they are out of the way of tanks. They protect the attackers from liberators and ESFs. With dome shields, they are no longer effective inside the shields, they need to walk outside into tank territory. I think SOE are underestimating the intelligence of the player base. The vocal minority will whine on the forums about dying to liberators but in the game, the number of people with skyguards and dual bursters has increased by a lot since beta. Second, the bubble shield would be trivial to exploit. Imagine a base under siege. A liberator will only be effective at low altitude. If the skies are clear, which they probably will be if the attackers have bursters/skyguards outside, then the liberator simply needs to sit just above the bubble shield and dip down into the unprotected zone. The liberator unloads all of his bomber's ammo and then climbs above the shield so all flak and rockets don't hurt him. Will infantry wise up? Probably not. Outfits might but the general zerg will just fire on it when they have a shot. The liberator can dip under the shield to bait rockets, fly above the shield so he takes no damage, and then dip below the shield and kill everyone who fired a rocket. I like the changes to bases that were shown but I think that the shields are a bit much. I think that if bases were closed off a bit more so people didn't have to worry about tanks as much, their attention will turn to other infantry and the skies. People will run bursters if they're needed.
I like the look of the new bases. Without testing them I wonder if they are a bit too crowded with cover objects, I'm not quite as excited about the idea of the infantry combat zones having a cqc focus as Lenny appeared to be. Looking forward to trying the domes on the test server.
I think those umbrella shields are a nice addition, but from what I saw on FNO they overdid it a little - I mean they seem to be everywhere! I would suggest to limit them a bit more and maybe either attach a generator to them, so that you can turn them off, or maybe just a control room with one switch to bring the "shield emitter" in place (with a countdown), and one switch to activate it - could also be a nice mission for infiltrators to either bring down the umbrella or bring it up. This way attackers/defenders can chose wether to lock out vehicles from their battles or not, depending on their composition and who defends/attacks (or has the bigger numbers). Another suggestion would be to link this "umbrella"-shield to a Sunderer - that has to deploy in a certain area (because it needs to be support with a big external power source from an outpost) and then brings the shield up.
Will this Umbrellashields be linked to a Gen, so if this gen get blown up, they shild goes down and the bombardement could start? i think this would bring up a deeper tactical level. I noticed at mani fortress. At least the top of the Wall towers should not be shielded.
Bases look awesome. Same with bubble shields. They could maybe be a bit higher (like another 25 meters), and the sniper issue could probably be solved by making them only affect bullets slower than ___some medium amount__. Since most sniper rifles are higher velocity than the majority of weapons that would be used inside a base. Honestly I think a bigger issue is the fact that looking into a shielded base through a scope would be harder to see targets. I guess that could also be another potentially simple fix, make scopes higher than 4x not render the shield. Two birds one stone. Cue whining from low skill pilots who equate farming infantry with no way to fight back "supporting their ground troops". You want to help your ground, destroy enemy vehicles before they get to a base, or if in an ESF kill the bombers that are doing it to your side. I don't think libs will be able to effectively tea bag through the shield as some people think, if only because at that altitude it would be decimator/fracture bait.
I don't like at all the idea of bubble shields... This way the only purpose of vehicles will be transport. In big bases there is already a lot of room for infantry combat. I love how SOE listens to the community (no sarcasm), but making bases only infantry places is like having a lot of small COD maps... This said, new bases look awesome!
I love the new bases on Esamir. The Shields are a excellent touch. Finally SOE is starting to incorporate what we have been asking for. +1 keep up the great work. I can't wait to get on that continent and fight. Also TREES!!!!
The shields won't work bad idea imo especially if lockons hit the shield people would just unload a bunch of rounds then fly up without needing flares. Plus you could just fly out when you have to reload and not worry about being shot, This hinders defenders more then attackers. I think SOE should make a couple underground bases that are relatively open but vehicles can't fit and put a bunch of openings so the entrenches are not camped
Watched the last hour for the Esamir stuff. Great info from Lenny and Maggie, really enjoyed it. Looking forward to seeing the new stuff on the test server then live.
Wow, this episode of FNO was more like a Comedy Roast. Luperza on damage control and Lenny reinforcing that in this game "Size does Matter" and Lattice reinforces this. Just want to let the FNO and PS2 staff that you have a great game. I love the new lattice system and I can't wait to play the revised Esamir map.
I really like the way Esamir is evolving too, I love the trees and the stones added all over the bases
Hello Luperza, If you have the Game Designer nearby, can you ask him why he didn't simply put the good ol' undergrounds and doors? Made the doors only hackable by Infiltrators (that will add one of the rarely teamplay abilities and more people will play it) and the underground like PS1 (to people, forget the outdated graphics and try it, it's REALLY awesome), that will make real only infantry fights! (Holy crap, I'd just see the little tunnel in the tutorial! They are amazing and beautiful, just made that for lot of facilities (AMP/Tech Plant; also some outposts) I say that because those shields domes will TOTALY kills the remnants of aircraft's fight, Liberator will be useless, the AI nosegun and the lolpods will be useless (ok; lolpods will only kill vehicles), If Airplay in PS2 is only for dogfights, delete the Liberator and set only the rotaries on the ESF... Don't forget to listen your community before add new content; also, try to see what should be nerfed and what should be buffed, I understand it's really hard to see, but listen great people who talk a lot on Forumside, and don't listen the zerg of stupid nerfed ("Nerf because it kill meh" we EXACTLY see that when TR farm hardly at Ti Alloys with the Prowler HE, it get nerfed a week after and now the HE is a failed joke...) So, I hope you will read this, I'm French (you know, baguettes and red wine), excuse me if I write "strangly", I'm not totally bilingual :/ Au revoir
CQC in those old tunnels going down to kill the tubes are ones of my best PS1 memories. Strong support for these changes, going the good way, i m very optimistic for ps2 future. Why not designing underground bases at first ? I heard it s linked to performance issues , is it true ?
I think the dome shields are unnecessary. Infantry can handle air just fine with lock on rocket launchers and burst maxes. And it may backfire against infantry. I'm one of those evil lolpodders and i love farming helpless infantry. As i understand bullets and rockets can't go through the shield. So i can hover safely above it, dive get the kills e go back. Is that right? And for the sake of variety don't add the dome shield to every base. The new base design of esamir looks interesting but i think it's too cluttered. Too many walls and trees and rocks and boxes. Sometimes it's hard to see things in this game. Just imagine all that stuff plus chaos and explosions everywhere.
Tertiary doesn't have a "ch" in it, Luperza. This was fun to watch, but it made me feel bad. These are the people I'm fighting? I was expecting something... better. Yes. TE's goal that night was to gate NC during FNO, which isn't a huge surprise. They later accomplished that not long after NC and TR worked together to gate the VS. It was hilarious to hear the hosts giggle about the tactics TE used, considering to my experience of that night, we were just about undefeated, but that night was one of the first nights that we had actually been sent to several places at once. My platoon never lost a position. While the thought is with me, hearing the NC spokespersons mention something about Mattherson TR's main method of assault being over-saturating a single location with "twenty times" the forces as if it was dishonorable or lacking in "tactics" was kind of laughable as well. We just want a good big fight, but even with a combined operations, and even with Lattice, I saw that they attempted to flee from TR more often than face them. But I guess that's hard to do when wherever you go, you're stuck in your spawn room.
