Walker/Mech/ Heavy Tank Ideas, anyone?

Reading this thread, I'm not sure ANY of you have played PS1 in depth.

BFRs can EASILY be solo'd by one infantryman in any armor. You just cant facetank a BFR, their regenerating shield insures that. It's what they were designed to do. BFRs primary prey were tanks. Their shield could easily shrug off a single tanks fire, even two if the BFR crouches, diverting movement energy to shield regeneration, but then it became stationary with a low fov.

Yes, they could equip other specialized weapons, but they lose effectiveness against other targets and had to go to a rearm silo to equip the other weapons.

A BFRs true weakness was Infantry. Thier shield only stopped high caliber vehicle rounds and infantry AV weapons. A single infantryman can EMP the BFR, which really ruins their day. The EMP was 7 solid seconds of no shield regeneration, nearly no movement speed or turning ability, no radar, no jumpjet and reduced weapon retire rate and reload speed. You were basically helpless.

In this state, a BFR Hunter would then use a weapon with AP ammo to shoot your shield generator and cause it to fail. Follow up with 3-4 decimator shots and you have a dead BFR. This could all be done in the span of time the EMP lasts. If not, just EMP again, you get 3 jammers in a pack. Once jammed, a BFR can't do anything to stop you besides ejecting and trying to 1v1 you in agile armor.

BFRs also took like X4 damage from AV mines. An infiltrator could Jam a BFR, and place mines on its feet and kill a BFR with only 3\4 mines. That's all they could carry, but it could kill a BFR too.

The problem was BFRs were on the test server for only 1 day and were released in 1 day. They were stupid strong, but swiftly nerfed. They weren't as all-powerful as most PTSD PS1 vets make them out to be.

wow u like spits i thought i was the only one lol i had and i dea of puting an spitfire in the back of a harraser ps4 did not like it they were like oh haaaaaaaaaal no harraser op nonononononononno

Why do people use the max then? The reason being that it has access to areas denied to other vehicles. This would be the same, just for a different range of areas.

What Metalsheep didn't mention is that this was only possible because there was a Decimator swap exploit that allowed you to rapid-fire Decimators. Once that was patched, BFRs became much harder to take down.

Also I don't even remember the shield generator. Was that added like after I quit or something?

The point is big stupid robots in Planetside don't work. They didn't work then, and they wouldn't work now.

Also...

HAHAHAH!!!!!

Right, which is why the things had like a 30+ KPD against infantry!

More rock-papers-scissors nonsense.

I didn't mention deci hotswapping because it is irrelevant. After the fix it is still just as easy, only takes a few seconds longer. The BFR is still helpless. Their AV weapons were poor against infantry, as were their AA. And the AI guns were aweful at killing tanks. If you as infantry get killed by a BFR it is your own fault. MBTs were way better for infantry farming.

The flight BFRs were powerful because they could escape a bad situation quickly, while the gunner BFRs couldn't. But jammed they still cannot fly, and they have less armor and shielding than a gunner. They also trigger AA when jumping, making Starfires, Sparrows and Burster all track\detonate and do serious damage. Especially since the shield drops while in flight.

They had a myriad of weaknesses.

They also took nearly an entire dedicated character to use effectively. At BR 25 you had about 27certs. BFR required Armored Assault 1 and 2 which was 3 certa plus BFR which was 4, 6 if you wanted the AI and AA weapons. You also needed Engineering which was another 3. 5 if you want faster repairs from Combat Engineer and 10 if you want the max repair from Advanced Engineering that is 19 certs, leaving you without much else. 20 if you add The Flail, which you may as well if you are getting that deep into Armored Assault.

Not to mention you had to earn both the BFR imprint and Flight BFR.

The pilot was in effective anywhere else but in his BFR 90% of the time.

There was certainly a tradeoff for using one.

So the ability to move them to one captured base to another is your argument for them being OP?

Look, just stop. BFR's are NEVER coming back to Planetside. It was a mistake then, and it's a mistake now.

But there is hope!

Play here: https://www.playhawken.com/

I agree bro!
Planetside 1 was awesome before core combat turned it into power rangers BFR force.
As if it wasn't enough with all the pros running around slicing new players in half with their neon samurai swords, we got giant Mecha's curb-stomping clueless players into concrete and painting the walls crimson with their gore!
Kata

Every Faction has a Small Mech and a BIG mech.

TR small mech is good at dashign forward without turning. (with blades that auto come out when dashing and auto kill any infantry it collides with)

NC has a small mech that rockets backwards and up, artillery shots the ground once. Floats for a little bit in 1 spot so the use can shoot stuff with his normal guns. Then rockets take the mech back to where it took off from. (so like a quick backup, suckerpunch, then back in)

Vanu can have a dasher that lets them dash in any direction and get up into cool spots with free control. Make any person they dash through catch on fire with energy but they dont instant die like the DR forward dash.

THEN each facction has a NS-TITAN Mech

Titan mechs have 4 seats.
1 pilot who sits in the chest/body of the mech and has a forward only gun.

1 guy who sits on the shoulders or back area or head. - This gun can have 360 degree vision and firing arc.

2 guys each who sit on each hip and fire longshot stuff like artillery, rockets, or giant anti infantry cannons. The hip cannons can only fire in a forward arc and cant tilt side to side that much.
Or maybe make the 2 side hip cannon where you press a button to make it snap into "Forwards arc mode" or "Backwards arc mode" but no side shots.

So heavy front cannon that cant swivel. 2 medium cannons on the side with front arc. And a small top with 360 degree view and gun.

Or maybe switch up where the cannons are for faction. Like NC have 3 medium cannons up top and 2 little 360 view guns down below.

Vanu could have a crazy floating sphere with 10 medium guns... I dunno.

If i smoke a bunch more weed maybe i can think of more werid ****.

Sadly, PS2 is designed like a lobby shooter. ...Without the lobby. Or the careful restrictions of power on each map. Instead of there being, say, 1 tank per team in a 32 on 32 1sqkm map, EVERY mofo in a 128+v128+ can bring a tank... into a small two-tank wide valley. Or in the surrounding hills around a tiny little outpost built into a crater with the spawn room exposed on all sides...

Let's not forget the average capturable facility's actual size for that matter, which is totally not meant to support more than 48v48 players...

About the only things PS2 does differently from lobby shooters, should you take away the player count and open world, are the MAX suits, and the class abilities (while completely stomping on the holy grails of shooter balance in the process at that.) Even CoD won't touch that $#!%, and it's working its way further into the sci-fi setting with each iteration. I fully expect missions to take place on Mars and Venus within the next three installments.

Y'see... the lobby shooter was never meant for the MMO space. That's why PS1 played more like an RTS with each single unit being an actual player, rather than giving each single player the capacity to wreck so many other players through twitch skill alone, as opposed to teamwork and clever play.

The big giant Uber Mechs could cost 600 nanites from 4 PEOPLE. Like they all perma spawn into the mech and buy in their spot. Make reward for tanks against mechs HUGE so players feel awesome for taking out a giant titan mech. Or if 10 light assualts all keep landing to c4 it and it cant keep them all away. HUGE reward.

Maybe make it so you get a portion of mech destruction exp as NANITES that are surplus only like a +bonus nanites that fill over the 750 limit. But the excess bonus nanites can only be spent on mechs.

So if 1 enigineer with 750 nanites and pouch upgrade drops 5 tank mines on a mech he gets a 750 with a +bonus MECH over bonus.
So it promotes little players that destroy a big giant mech to instantly spawn a mech for free. Promoting people to learn how to best kill mechs even as infantry and have it be worth it.

As long as their are proper rewards you can get away with anything in video game land. Even making a weapon that destroys 1 whole continent for the day. Just gotta have it match the story and give a comperable reward. I think you could squeeze giant mega mechs and little mechs into the game somehow and have players WANT to kill them while not hating the mechs too much.

If we ever have Mechs, 1 of 2 things should be done before adding them.
1. the legs or the lower torso needs to be a weakspot.
2. Mechs can be knocked over from an enemy ramming into their legs with a vehicle.

Anti-infantry mechs would be perfect for the game, because it would fill a dedicated anti-infantry role that really no vehicle can claim at the moment.

The main problem with infantry is that they shoot from indestructible cover or from high elevation, and as PS2 lacks air-burst HE munitions for vehicles this means that vehicles are heavily underpowered against infantry.

Say, for example, that you have a Lancer nest perched atop a hill, shooting down at the armour below. There's not really a whole lot that ground vehicle operators can do in this situation. They can't climb up the hill, and engaging the Lancers with direct fire just results in a quickly revived Lancer.

But then this machine comes skittering around the hills:



It covers its approach with a continuous stream of IR smoke grenades, then suddenly leaps up and lands right in the middle of the Lancer nest. Opens up with 3x minigun Kobalts as well as a HE Viper cannon mounted to the forward arc. The entire Lancer squad is quickly obliterated before it can even respond.

The NC one of course comes with an actually useful shield...



But it's more than made up with a heavily modified 40mm HE grenade launcher. Once it has jump-jetted onto the hill, it is able to lay down an extreme amount of explosive fire before it needs to reload.

The VS give up all ranged weapons and simply go with a big stick...



Able to cloak and move quickly, it can jump and glide into nests of infantry and slice them to pieces before they know what hit them.

These units are especially geared towards closing with and utterly destroying infantry. So what's the counter then?

Remember those tanks that the Lancers were shooting at?

Pretty much a single indirect hit from any 100mm and over tank cannon would reduce their health to 10%... a second hit being guaranteed to be fatal. Vipers and Skyguards, along with MBT secondary weapons, would onyl need a few hits to kill. On top of that, the minigun Kobalts, modified Viper, modified Fury, and the sword would do negligible damage to MBTs and only passing damage to Lightnings. Finally the smoke, shield, and cloaking would only be effective against infantry... default tank optics would see right through these guises and tank shells would penetrate the shield as if it did not exist.

In other words...

AV infantry > tanks > anti-infantry mechs > AV infantry

And the circle of life is complete. Well I guess you'd still have to balance the fact that infantry are free. Maybe if they're killed by an anti-infantry mech then they get an extended 2 minute respawn time.

I'm an old Starsiege vet, also played BF 2142, tried to play MW4 but it would lock up on my AMD at the time. Haven't read the thread yet, but I just wanted to toss this in quick and I'll post again later.

I love Mechs/Hercs/Walkers. They're just awesome! I would love to see them in the game, and I've got to tell you that simply having them in the game will attract a whole new group of players who would otherwise never look twice at us. That means more money for the company and longer life for the game.

To those that have various concerns: Many concerns are valid, but at the end of the day, everything can be balanced. It may take some work, but it can be done.

Bring them on! ...sooner, rather than later. The time to breathe life back into the game is NOW, not 5 years from now.

Okay you've gone full-troll now. You cannot be serious.

EVERY vehicle in the game right now is anti-infantry. And respawn timers for infantry when they removed the timers for vehicles? You're nuts.

Why would someone play Planetside 2 and HATE being infantry, hate fighting infantry, and want it to be some vehicle simulator? You are playing the wrong game kid.

Hmm.. maybe not even just add powerful new units (as in not just add a new super "vehicle killer", or "infantry killer").

It may be better if they just view the current vehicles as weapons platforms, and added walker variants as "sidegrades" to them.. Have a light scout walker that's the equivalent of a Lightning, not more powerful, not less.. just different handling (the walker bit ), maybe tweaks to it's weapon systems.. So in some situations the scout walker may shine, and other a Lightning would be better.. Same with MBT's have a Medium Walker variant.. Not better, not worse.. Just a sidegrade option.

If they go this route, they aren't really changing the dynamic of the battlefield requiring massive rebalancing.. but they will be adding massive -variety- to the battlefield, and a ton of new options for the vehicle game Plus a more unique look and epic feel for the game.. so your not just fighting the same 3 tanks (not counting your empires), a buggy, and an atv over and over again.. and let's face it, there's players who have no interest in driving a tank, but would fight each other for the chance to pilot a walker mech

Then somewhere down the road, after the dust settles on ANTs and construction, and sidegrade weapon platforms, they can revisit the idea of heavy tanks/heavy walkers to keep the fight on the battlefield new and evolving

Just some random thoughts..

So basically, Wolverines and Titans to go with our Tiberium Harvesters?

It can be tricky to do, since at the end of the day any vehicle is often quite a lot of power to be handing to one person (which is why it's usually a good idea for vehicles to be multi-crew). But I guess since we already have the Lightning, targeting it around the Lightning's power level should keep it vaguely in line.

That was my thinking.. and the medium version would be a 2 seater targeted for the MBT level

I'm aiming for a completely new "look and feel", but really just mimics the current power structure already in game, so it adds variety, without really upending the current game mechanics

The issue with trying to cram more vehicles into existing roles is that unless perfect balance is achieved, you're probably going to end up with a "superior" choice.

For example, say that you throw in a Lightning-esque mech alongside the Lightning. Each can fill the same basic roles and are fairly balanced, but of course are not perfectly balanced. The result is that there's a 10% preference or performance advantage for the Lightning over the mech. It's not much, but it's there.

The result often is that players gravitate towards the superior choice. While sure you'll have mech fanboys who will insist on taking mechs (just as tank enthusiasts still drive around tanks despite how underpowered they obviously are), the majority of players will stick with the slightly better choice. That's just how the PS2 meta works. People gravitate towards these things. Commissioners. Gatekeepers. Certain attachments for weapons. C4.

That's why I think creating a specialized unit to fill an unoccupied niche is a safer idea. If it has no competition, then there is no chance that it will supplant or be supplanted. And a special anti-infantry vehicle is something that PS2 simply doesn't have.

When I hear Mechs, my mind imagines machines reaching from mobile fortress size...

to mechwarrior type classes...



What we have at hand is a chance to (maybe) get some nice ideas here to get a new vehicle class. Do NOT say it can't be done balanced, the solution must only be thought of. So what are the traits of a mech that a tank can't hope to achieve? Mobility. A mech can walk and thus climb up slopes more easily than a tank could ever hope to climb. Slap some supersized jetpacks on it and you have an all terrain vehicle only excluded indoors.

The disadvantage? The size. A mech can be spotted earlier than a tank, its hitbox stretches upwards at the horizon.

Its weaponry? A variety of heavy duty vulcan cannons, plasma weaponry and missile launchers. It's a design that is well known among gamers since Mechwarrior.



Not to forget that this might as well lead to tank turrets firing guided missiles as well to cope with the new threat.

HMaxes... An exoskeleton will stay an exoskeleton, no matter how much 'heavy' you slap onto the shipping box. At one time, you will leave the realm of powered armorsuit and enter the realm of piloting a bipedal vehicle of about 5 to 7m height.

And that would be a realistic height. Anything higher would mean a collosus so big it would have to be a bullet sponge in order to remain on the battlefield for more than a minute or lacking the means to enter a base. Because you can bet your butt that everyone and their dog will thrive to get that beast down in order to get all the certs for killing it.

Now the question is:
What kind of role would a mech take? He could be a bipedal Harrasser with completely different weaponry for one way.

A whole different approach would be the introduction of a bipedal walker doing nothing in terms of close combat, but becomes the sniper among the vehicles, firing artillery shells.

The TR could have a sleek bipedal design for their mech would have guns and bullets for days, the NC would probably slap some shield generators on a bulky design and the VS would not built a bipedal, but an eight legged spidermech monstrosity.