Sony, for the love of anything you hold dear, Please PLEASE give us back the old-school engineer turrets. Give us the smaller, more strategic albeit weaker AI controlled turrets. I used to have fantasies back during the days of PS-1 of more in-depth turret specializations. Some weaker form of automated YET player controlled base defense would be glorious. Curse this perversion of a turret you have currently given us. MAKE US THINK LIKE WE USED TO! We actually enjoyed fussing over the right place to put our little automated turrets. Sure, too any engineers can take up all the "good" spots. However, that's up to you to figure out how to combat- maybe make them place-able in-doors (with a specific in-door turret graphic?) Give us certs to upgrade our turrets in uniquely customize-able ways! I might want my turret to fire a small explosive rocket every 8 seconds of fire, but the guy next to me might want his to simply have a faster rate of normal fire? Perhaps more armor? Maybe a small % chance to uncloak someone nearby! Sorry for the vent. I loved the original engineer class, and want to see it done some justice.
AI controlled turrets are kind of thoughtless, since many would argue you set it up and hide in a corner while it racks kills for you. Having to man it at least puts you at equal risk, and keeps fairness. I'm not sure what the PS1 turret was like, but many would protest having an AI turret, unless it was severely weak, in which case why would you want it at all? Certable turrets is a good idea, but instead of having an explosive rocket on top of your normal gun, have the turret become an AV turret instead of anti-infantry. The % uncloak would be even more problematic than the AI controlled turret.
AI controlled turrets were a totally different approach to the Engineer role. I can hardly see them in PS2 for a few reasons. The first is that TTK in PS2 is considerably shoter than in PS1: the old-style turrets would easily turn into a fast way to improve the K/D ration without any skill but deciding where to place them. In PS1 those turrets were annoying, but not really so dangerous. Then I can remember that many in PS1 were asking for users controlled deployables: devs just gave us what we've been requesting for years, imho. After all the MANA is not so bad, I like it. What we really need is more certifications to customize it (removing the shield or making it more resistent, AV and AA turrets and so on).
I really really miss spitfire/shadow turrets from PS1. Its the #1 reason I played engineer exclusively. Engineers had soooo much more depth in PS1. Put up tank traps, lay down vast amounts of mines, put up stealth generators etc. Engineers need a great deal of work.
That was the point of the PS-1 turrets- They WERE weaker, in fact a player could charge them down and kill them easily, given enough reaction time / armor / HP. However, they had great strategic value - they were small enough to be placed near blind spots inside a bases walls, like near the giant entry ways in the original bases. An enemy(s), when charging in, would start to take damage from the turret, and if the engineer or other players were nearby, the enemy might not even target the turret right away, increasing the chance of the turret scoring a kill/softening the target. If the player decided to take out the turret, once again the cost-trade off of decisions comes into play. A strong crossfire of turrets might successfully defend a back door, or reinforce current positions long enough to allow backup to arrive. They were also a deterrent against people trying to get into an area they knew no players were currently defending, as the enemy had to carefully scope corners/angles and 'nade the turrets or snipe them somehow. The turrets also had a smaller range; if the engineer failed to place it in an area where the enemy was forced to engage it in close combat, it was simply picked off- a fair trade off. It's not like the machine just gave the engie free kills- The engie had to figure out where to place it, take the time and effort to get it there, and potentially re-place it in the heat of combat if need be (just to have it destroyed by a rogue 'nade, or a close-up shotgun blast). For as many advantages the turret gave defensively, there was an equal, if not greater amount of offensive tactics to remove the turret, either damaging an opponent or not. Perhaps, give them limited ammo? Make the engie have to re-fill them after some time, and during the refill period of lets say 10-15 seconds the engie is a sitting duck? Finally, lets not forget why engies don't get the big guns.
Just take the useless graphics whoring sheilds off these damn things and I'll be happy. I cannot even shoot anyone while using mine cause the shield lags me out.
Can't see why they shouldn't put them in the game. They'd totally have to cost infantry resources and be only resuppliable from terminals though.
Agreed. I'm thinking that in addition to different variants (AV/AA) that they should add different types of upgrades similar to the "defense" and "utility" slots on vehicles, so you could cert into a better shield that provides better protection against snipers or some kind of flak armor that protects you from grenades. Maybe they could have different ammo types too such as grenade ammo that would have a significantly lower fire rate but would explode on impact.
I'm just against anything that involves players not needing to be able to aim. Lock-on missiles are sadly unavoidable (ie. they're already in-game) but I really don't want to see auto-aiming guns. I can however totally get behind the idea of a remote control mana turret.
You're acting like half the explosive in this game, as well as confined combat require true "aiming". BTW Where is the diazpam for infiltrators? The concept here is not a no-aiming free K/D ratio booster. The idea is to allow players who are forced into using a smaller line of weaponry to have more "depth" to the class utilizing great strategy and intelligence, like we had in planetside one. Frankly, to make the turrets useful like they were in planetside one, the engineer had to work with them, and generally guard that area he had set up a defensive perimeter in. If anything, if it would neverbe implemented it's because of the fact they're only useful in conjunction with other players being there to draw fire/ finish off the mildly damaged target, or the presence of automated turrets would be a dead giveaway of an engie near by. Against lighter armored targets, however they were more effective, true. But thats why the cloakers could 1-shot you in melee range...
Most of you forget that the auto-turrets in PS1 only work on running targets. If you walked, crouched and crawled through the area they wouldn't fire (they were motion sensing). I think they helped provide area-denial and acted as an early alarm that an undefended area needed renforcement.
Current Mana turrets are nothing but sniper bait. I should know. <-looks at character icon. I see an engineer drop a mana turret and I cheer for a free kill. Poor guys sometimes don't even get a shot off before 20 snipers target them.
You have to follow the enemy's movement in CQ, mid and long ranges with your mouse and compensate for projectile travel time in order to land hits. Not sure what you mean by explosives requiring true aiming? Unguided rockets require leading for moving targets and it's easy to mis-throw a grenade, not so easy to throw a grenade that the enemy can't avoid. Not sure where I stand on underslung launchers in this game, haven't experienced those much yet. I think I made my feelings about lock-on missiles pretty clear. I think that any auto-aiming turret, even if it only nets assists, is exactly that - regardless of whatever else it might be. I don't doubt the tactical value of automated turrets, they're very valuable in games such as Tribes: Ascend, Global Agenda and TF2. What I doubt is the fun factor of fighting with and against them. Congrats Bob you get an assist because an auto-turret stole the kill. Congrats John the engineer you get an assist or a lucky final shot on everything passes through this door. And while I'm sure Planetside 1 was a fantastic game, I'm also sure that not everything in it was a good idea. Also I quite like the engineer - good primary weapons, same pistol as everyone else, infinite ammo for you and your squad, mana turret when it's safe to use it (gotta protect your flank & back), mines, and of course the repair tool.
Given the choice between the MANA turret, and the insane plethora of turret options in PS1, I'd take PS1's hands down - Cerberus AI turrets, shadow turrets for surprise attacks, flak turrets for helping deter Mossies from following and farming you. Even the silly deployable manned turrets in PS1 that used an AI MAX weapon weren't as bad as the MANA turret - at least those didn't have the enormous colored 'shoot me' shields and had protection from frontal headshots. On top of that at least you knew when those turrets were firing! A while back I used the MANA in a base defense and wondered why friendlies kept stepping in to my line of fire and to get shot. Then just a couple days ago I was outside of a building in a MAX when I saw a manned MANA turret emitting yellow sparks from the middle of the gun barrels. Not the ends - the middle. I didn't know what was going on with it so I walked past the gun and took some fire. If those piddly sparks coming from mid-barrel are all the other people see instead of some real muzzle flare, no wonder people step in front of it. It doesn't even look like it's firing.
Agree with the AI... but as a fellow Engineer... current turrets are little better than flashlights... at least give me 360' turn radius. As for decloak?... Give us infrared...the rest will take care of itself.
