I posted this in an older thread so I thought I'd make an actual thread out of it to see what anyone out there thinks about it. Why not a radar jammer? That would help with what Light Assault is meant for, flanking, as you're harder to spot if the enemy can't have access to radar. Could be deployed like a mine/C4, just dropped, and be the about twice the size of a TR Claymore. It would work at the same radius as the Infiltrator's darts, and be upgraded the same way. Carrying capacity of one or MAYBE two. Could be destroyed, and/or after a while disappear on it's own. It would simply disable your radar, rendering it unusable, and perhaps disable spotting for any enemies within it's radius, removing the colored arrows. Combined with smoke grenades from Engineers or the Light Assaults themselves, it could also help with a forward push; enemies could not even rely on the radar to detect enemies. And please, if you're trying to be an advocate to help LA get a team helping tool, don't suggest something absolutely half-*****. I've seen a lot of people suggesting "tools", if you can call them that, that only seem to work to make the Light Assault more powerful and not enforce team-play at all... The goal here is give us a way to support teammates, not make us better at killing.
I've suggested this in the past. IIRC the overwhelming response was "Don't let one class have an ability that totally shuts out another class" To that extent, ECM technology should stay with Infiltrators. Maybe Engineers could have this as an alternative to a turret, because their mobility is far more limited. It would be a bit OP for Light Assaults to just fly around dropping anti-radar bricks on every building. Honestly this is what the Decoy grenade is for. Instead of clearing the radar, Decoy grenades spam it with a buncha dots that aren't really people, to obfuscate the positions of people who can be spotted. This works better than a radar nullification device, as a spotted player would still show up on radar even with an anti-radar radius, while this makes it impossible to tell where spotted players actually are. Also, Decoy grenades are already in the game, so it won't take the team 100+ hours to create a new anti-radar device. I feel like Light Assault would be better improved with better spotting tools, things that increase the cone of spotting to 1 degree instead of crosshair-only, and that allows the player to mash the spot button without being given a cooldown.
I like that idea, but I'm not sure the power of completely denying the infitrator's tool should be vested in the Light Assault. Maybe for the engineer, but not for the light assault. I don't know how many times that I have to reiterate the fact that the light ASSAULT is not a support class. It has assault in it's name, for crying out loud! Okay fine, don't make the light assault better than killing, but at least give it a couple more mobility options, for the people that don't want to be clunking around as a resist shield nanoweave 5 heavy.
I can agree with something that would cause a distraction like the decoy grenades, but if it's going to be a tool, then it shouldn't be something we have to spend Infantry Resources on to use. That's the issue with Light Assault, the only way we can possibly provide real support is by killing vehicles, which Heavy can do for free and at range, but we have to spend 200 Infantry Resource each life to do it. When we're scrapped on Infantry Resources, we're useless. Maybe a dart or something that creates false radar blips around a certain radius on it would be nice. Though if Radar Jammer was feasible, it could only be something we could drop one at a time perhaps and only carry one of at a time. I'm not agreeing with you on the Infiltrator matter, asdfPanda. They can shut down any would-be flankers instantly with an easily spammable, indestructible dart, why shouldn't we be able to shut them down and therefore help teammates move along flanks with a destructible box that cannot be fired across a facility? As for mobility options, it would be nice, but those don't necessarily give the Light Assault a means to support his teammates similar to revealing enemies, blowing up tanks (for free at range rather than using a costly tool that everyone sans Infiltrator + MAX can use), healing, or resupplying.
Since you're pushing the "team" aspect of Light Assault, fine. Relegate the spawn beacon to a tool, only to be enployed by light assaults and infiltrators. How's that sound? As to the radar jammer, now that I've given it a thought, it's not too bad. It's actually great! The radar jammer would create a whole new metagame for Planetside 2, simply because the enemy would also have to deploy light assaults to get rid of the radar jammer. Simple, yet elegant. The light assault can place it in only places that light assaults can reach.
Did you read the part about it disappearing on its own or did you skim my post? It's not like that metagame doesn't already exist. Light Assault on tower, what is asked for in chat? Light Assaults to go up and stop him. I'm pushing the teamplay because all the tools so far provide greater purpose for your squad or platoon, so if LA gets any tool it should do the same thing.
Disregarded it, because no deployables in Planetside 2 disappear after a while, except for infil darts, if you count that as a deployable. How would you feel if mines despawned after a while? On death maybe, but on it's own, no way. However, I kind of question the relevance of your answer. Sure, the metagame exists, but when? Okay, biolabs, but where else? Most people just tend to take potshots at light assaults anyways, and when they go down, they go down. I was wrong in saying that it would create a new metagame, I should've said that it would incentivise light assault play. As to other classes' tools being better for teamplay, that's because they're support classes, except if you're going after the Combat part of combat medic. Light assault kills by mobility. Heavy assault kills by resiliency. Infil kills by stealth. Each has it's merits, but light assault's mobility aspect is lacking, which is why I ask for more mobility tools/ self temporary buffs.
I'd be interested to hear more ideas about mobility, and would myself like the Icarus JJ back, but due to the reason they removed it to begin with, I highly doubt that they'll bring that one back. Something to do with networking or whatever, and we all know how well SOE handles optimization. Someone came up with an interesting idea, a wingpack of some sort that sort of has a deploy time of about 2.5-3 seconds and lets them sort of fly similarly to an aircraft, but that might be beyond SOE's abilities + it might perhaps be overpowered. Regardless of whether it helps the team directly or not, Light Assault IS getting to be a stale class due to the lack of new things. I remember how excited I was over the drifter jet sliding, and that was forever ago.
how about grapling hook, so light assault could stick into a galaxy and blow it up,like in the trailer.but imagine what happend when a platoon of light assault sticking into one galaxy just because they are too lazy to get another 3 lol
Someone mentioned something similar to that that lets you stand on top of them with magnetic boots and a lot of people suggesting grappling hooks for the purpose of aiding allies with mobility, but I don't imagine SOE has the capacity to do something like hanging off of aircraft or even standing on top if it goes sideways. Being upside down as infantry doesn't really exist in-game so it's not something they could easily do I don't think. People suggesting grappling hooks a lot and that seems out of the question, a small, deployable lift would probably be better for the purpose of helping allies with mobility, but that's not really something that's needed, we don't really need a bunch of Heavy Assaults getting on rooftops that easily.
Hmm isn't there something like this in game already? Like the EMP grenade. Just saying, surprise no one else caught that one. Not LA though.
so thats what those are? ive been in places were all of a sudden my hud goes off the wall with like 50 dots and im like holy **** thats alot of guys. So its just a decoy grenade? That clears up so much.
No, the decoy grenade only pops up one dot, what you are seeing is most likely a friendly ESF with radar flying over, hence the 50 dots on map pop-up.
grapling hook can be used for something else maybe,like towing a harrasher, or sticking into a galaxy and blowing it up using c4,im not suggesting graple hook for team moblity,since anti vehicle capability actualy is a team ability, the only thing i see isnt that usefull for team is AI ability since that is what infil and LA are really meant to do,if we give LA grapple hook the posiblity of having LA destroying galaxy before it can drop anything gonna make it much more valueble for a squad. and for the technical stuff,just make the graple hook work like a magnet ,when you shoot it it pull you, problem solved.
The problem with this is that Light assault is filling the same niche as Heavy assault and Max, in a different way that tends to seperate it from a team. Engineer and medic are fantastic force multipliers. Heavies and maxes work well with these and do their jobs, while having ranged AV abilities. Those two classes are the force that the support class multiplies. Currently, the light assault does decently with killing infantry. But it cuts itself off from direct support to do so. More often than not, it's job involves dropping C4 or countering itself. While its role in flanking and mobility over hard terrain has been marginalized by how easy it is to use drop pods to circumvent the same terrain with other classes. On the other hand, the heavy assault and max are ability to kill just as well with a lower skill cap while staying in support range. Sure, you can force your LA's to stick around on the ground. But they're no better than an engineer with fewer essential tools. This would be somewhat forgivable, if the light assault had some other utility (like people are suggesting) but it doesn't. I won't argue that the infiltrator could use help as well though. After consoles are hacked, the infiltrator is discard-able to a team.
No. No grounding to fill a support role. This would be controversial. It's like giving a car rocket engines and putting it on permanent handbrake. We already have two support classes, why in the world would we need LA to be a third support class?
You're piecing apart my post and not getting the core of my message. It's that Light assault currently has no strong or defined role. Other than being a decent solo class. Grounding it is bad, but that also means it separates itself from a team. Meaning you're practically leaving your squad a man down when you roll as light assault, to no real benefit to the team. Even if you go all light assault, you have a team with no longevity, no real impact, and very little bonus for traveling together, outside of a few niche moments where light assault has a unique attack option. A combination of drop pods stealing their thunder and bases being open leaves LA's current abilities nearly useless. Heavy assault, maxes, medics, and engineers would all leave a noticeable gap in gameplay if you suddenly removed them. Light assault would not. Something should be done to fix this. Be it making their verticality more important or giving them some form of support ability that synergizes with their verticality.
OMG there's one in game??? LA should totally have this!!! that explains sometimes the burst of enemies on my minimap lol aww crud. that's useless for us.
