I would increase the XP for Supportroles. I almost see on all Factions "Heavy Assault" No Lock ons that can be Dumbfired (u have to decide)
Few ideas i had: - Make alerts more focused on actual domination rather than having 2% more territory than second faction. Require at least 50% territory to win the alert, if no faction has that when 2 hours pass instead of cancelling the alert with draw add 15-30 minutes and continue. Adjust XP reward accordingly. Keep doing until someone wins. Someone will /eventually/ win. - Either rework resources or get rid of them completely, as in this state they're mostly useless. For vehicles, bring back upgradeable acquisition timers, for handheld consumables remove costs entirely or add small (5?) self-replacing stock that refills itself over time, ideally upgradeable capacity/time with certs. If you intend to keep resources, make facilites your faction owns actually contribute towards resource gain (right now it seems they have minimal to zero effect as WG gives 50 on it's own). Bonus points if you count this from all continents, so if your faction has large advantage on, let's say, Indar, you'll receive resources from it on Amerish and vice versa. - Get rid of continent locking. Most people probably prefer one or two continents due to their playstyle, and prefer to play on those. What if both are locked? You're forced to play on another one. Instead of actual locks, re-add domination or whatever it was called - winning an alert or capping 85% of continent will give your faction that continent's bonus, until your territory is reduced to ~25% or whatever was the old value. Winning an alert could also transfer all non-warpgate regions to your faction, perhaps with exception of bases directly next to the WG. - Facility Generators. Like in PS1. Blow those and whole facility goes dark. That'd mean terminals, shields (even if shield generators are not destroyed). Perhaps this functionality could be added to SCU to make it a little bit more important. For mostly aesthetic effect, this could also affect lights and those holographic banners that show which faction controls the facility. - Minefields! Nerf AV mines damage a bit, but buff amount you can carry and deploy considerably so you could actually use mines to block off roads and similar locations while not relying on "I hope they'll drive on this side of road". As a counter, anti-mine armor should work as mine plow - destroying most mines with only minimal vehicle damage. - Make it harder to snipe air targets with tank primary guns. This one is quite recent, and is becoming increasingly annoying, as often when i fly liberator, about 100-200m above ground, about 3/4 speed i get hit with one or two AP shells from tank that's standing quite far away (mostly vanguards and prowlers and lightnings due to rotating tower and faster projectile speed than magriders). This could be countered by giving liberator better resists against tank shells. I assume those are designed to penetrate strong and well armored tanks, and liberators probably don't have such thick armor plating. AP shells would likely over-penetrate and just fly through, leaving relatively small damage in comparsion to flak projectiles and similar assault methods. - ECM module for galaxies/sunderers. When active ECM gives nearby allied units increased resistances to lock-on weapons. Bonus doesn't stack, and doesn't affect the galaxy/sunderer itself. Lock-on weapons would require 2x more time to estabilish lock, including any stealth module bonuses. Could be multi-ranked certification, with higher levels having better range. Range could be 100-200 meters on maximal level. - Nano-Repair Grenade. Engineer-only, like healing grenade heals people, this would rapidly repair MAXs, vehicles and aircraft near the explosion site. - Indicator (unless that's somewhere already, i didn't notice) of vehicle shields's status, if the vehicle has a shield (deployed sunderer for example) - Make squad logistics system a passive always-on-once-bought certification on Valkyrie. - Add more empire specific content. Ideally balanced. Doesn't necessarily have to be another new weapon. It could be a module for example. As a random quickly-thought ideas and likely unbalanced, just to demonstrate what i think of: VS: Sunderer spheric shield. Generates small shield sphere (few meters) around the sunderer. This shield absorbs all gunfire, both from inside and outside, but allows free movement of both players and vehicles. This shield is vulnerable to rockets and similar heavy weaponry (like deployment shield) and will shut down after it takes too much damage, requiring time to reinitialise. Story-wise VS has advanced power sources that allow them to sustain better (=larger) vehicle shield than other factions. TR: Liberator uranium-enriched shells. Causes explosions from Dalton, Zephyr and similar grenade-based weapons to leave small radioactive cloud effect behind, that causes small damage directly to HP (ignores personal shields). This effect would persist for few seconds, and will keep causing damage until you leave the cloud. NC: Vanguard EMP generator. Causes Vanguard to emit strong EMP pulse. This effect would both affect friendly and enemy targets. It would detonate any lock-on missiles that are currently active in certain radius (25-50m?) Furthermore, it would apply the EMP grenade effect to infantry. Affected vehicles would lose weapon reloading ability for few seconds. That's it. My little list of things that i believe would be nice to have. The end.
Implement a war system so factions can be completely conquered, then force the faction who lost to fight on the side of those who conquered it against the remaining faction. Then tally up the days it took for the war to end, and a winner based on hex control, kills, captures, whatever.
As much as I enjoy the improved graphics and some of the functionality of PS2, I much prefer the game play of PS1, prior to the first expansion. I fondly remember a day when I fought in one battle for 2 hours, went to work for 8 hours, and then came back to continue the fight over the same tower. I played all three factions, with BR maxed toons, and played the merry hell out of the game until about a year after the first, disasterous, expansion was released. I'd like to see the lattice changed to one of larger bases connected to other larger bases, and towers connected to towers. Each base has a connection to its local towers only. I loath the zergfest that this game encourages. I'd specifically like to see: 1) Generators for spawn rooms. All spawn rooms. Get rid of the shields at the spawn rooms, as well as the facility warning and resulting death for being in/near an enemy spawn room. This is a stupid mechanic and removes from the players the necessity to properly defend their spawn areas. 2) TR MAX weapons should shift back to their original purposing as in PS1. The devs of that game ruined the TR MAXes by switching the Pounder from AI to AV and the Chaingun from AV to AI. NC Scattergun ROF should be increased. They need to be AI monsters as the vulnerability of PS2 MAXes is greater than that of PS1 versions. VS MAXes deserve to have their jump jets back. This gave the VS a fluidity of attack that the other factions had to plan for. Given that the damage output of the other faction MAXes was greater, I feel this added to the "feel" of playing as VS. 3) Return the grenade launcher as an NS weapon. Many people hated this "noob tube," but it honestly gave new players a means to be in the fight without dying every 10 seconds. The current grenade launchers in the game, as vehicle weapons, have quite a long range, but the portable version should have about half that range. Allow for HE, Smoke, and Plasma grenade rounds. Which brings me to 4) Bring back the plasma grenade. The DOT was tricky, at times, to deal with, and many of my outfit died while running for a medic. If people whine about stacking the DOTs, then limit the stack or don't allow it at all. These were great for flushing out and killing infiltrators. 5) The crossbow should be a 1 shot kill to the head. If it already is, then the hitboxes are way too screwed up as I have pointblank shot people in the head with this, only to have then turn around and pistol me down. (I was using explosive rounds and I expected a 1 shot kill with that). 6) Sensors should NOT detect unmoving and cloaked infils. Yes, night vision should pick them up, but a cloaker should have a chance in the face of far more accessible detection methods than existed in PS1. A crouched and moving cloaker should not set off the portable motion detector device, but should set off the motion sensor dart. I figure that those are infil items meant as a counter against other infils, whereas the device is to detect assault troops. 7) The kit loadout is far too limiting and also supports the zerg mentality. In PS1 (yes, I do go there), the inventory system allowed us to prepare for action some distance away from out bases, with a single AMS. Currently, such ops are limited as the number of mines, grenades, and other devices, as so limited that we have to remain rather close to our Sunderer do be all that effective.So, either allow players to unlock additional kit spaces, or give us an inventory backpack as per PS1. 8) Yes, I do prefer the AMS and Sunderer having their own purposes, instead of the single, dual-purpose Sundy, but I guess I can live with it. 9) The Engineer auto-turret should be upgradeable as to range of detection, rate of fire, and damage of projectile. 10) Vehicle timers should be brought back. Again, the use and abuse of resources, especially with the reduced resource benefit from "owning" continents, also encourages and supports the zerg mentality. Knowing that if you sacrifice two harassers in a row and that you'll now have to wait five minutes to pull a third, tends to cause most people to avoid suicide runs. Ramming attacks should not be the go-to tactic and, unfortunately, far too many poor players use this as a means to gain XP quickly. 11) Nine continents was, perhaps, too much, but what we have now is too few. With continent locks being all too easy to pull off, the choice of battlefield is pretty much pre-determined before the player logs on. This is a less than satisfactory outcome. 12) Lastly...because the Internet has trained this generation to avoid reading...one of the more enjoyable parts of PS1 engagements was the fight between bases, instead of squarely on and in bases themselves. With the reintroduction of ANTs and the rumored/vaguely mentioned constructed facilities, if these were pre-positioned between bases/towers, in fixed locations, this would give players more incentive to spread out and to cover more ground, both in attack and defense. I have far more to write, but since most people would stop reading after #3, I will save it for another time.
More defined roles for classes and ground/air vehicles. Less AV. Less AA. Ditch the TR or NC. Having 2 factions with traditional weaponry seems redundant, and way too hard to make them unique from each other. Less content and more polish. More options for outfits, such as special battles on smaller maps just for them. Also the ability to let only a platoon spawn on a deployed sunderer. Meteorological/environmental "events" that happen when pops are low, causing everyone on a map to be more focused in certain areas. Less ugly murkiness on Hossin.
Where many of the bases are better designed for more than 12-24 v 12-24 battles. Towers in particular. Where the gap between Indar Excavation and Quartz Ridge Camp had more than a single building in between. Where I don't have to watch as an enemy player phases through my vehicle and survives yet I somehow crush a friendly player going at half the speed and being no where near them. Where the buildings are less copy & pasted.
A PS2 without the VS. It would have been way easier to balance with just 2 teams and way more content would have been released.
Little stuff: Neutral vehicle terminals placed at: between Indar Ex and Quartz Ridge. And another one at the old BFR building north of Howling Pass. Possibly add in a small spawn room and a control console that just controls the spawn room just like the pre-lattice bio lab satellites. Feature of the platoon selection screen where you know how far platoon lead is from you before you join the platoon. Basically, if I want to join the platoon mustering at warpgate I have to join and leave random platoons until I find the one I'm already near. Big Stuff: Command room in the warpgate that gives expanded platoon lead tools. Functionally add an RTS element of gameplay. Command room has expanded waypoint ability, scanner sweeps, possibly the only place you can call in orbital strikes, more accurate data on enemy numbers in a hex (instead of just saying 24-48 it gives you the actual number) and/or it can give you the number of vehicles also in the hex. There is just so much you can do with a command room. ANTs and resource harvesting. Expand a metagame to where we can do stuff other than just farm infantrymanz. Seriously sometimes it is fine to cool off by being the guy "in the rear with the gear." Destructible terrain such as bridges and walls. Customizable tanks! Vehicles' nanite cost is dependent on weapon loadout. Weaponless Flashes are naturally 25 nanites. You'd have to expand the number of tank weapons available. You might even be able to go nuts and say, put a Lightning main gun on top of a MBT and have it cost 750 nanites. What I'm saying is: Go play Warzone 2100 and bring that into the vehicle game.
I'd remove half the bases, make the bases actually defensible, then make lattice links between major bases with the bases in-between affect cap timers. Reduce aircraft's weapon damage down to be more comparable to the Valks and nerf AA. Base turrets would have a basic AI like in Planetside 1, and would slowly repair themselves over time (about 10 to 15 minutes). Make cont. bonuses continue after the continent unlocks, but if one faction has 2 cont. bonuses the next alert makes it so if other two factions have a combined territory greater than the winning faction, the bonus is divided up between the two other factions. Ex: VS has two cont. bonuses and at the end of the 3rd alert NC and TR have 30% and 25% the bonus is given to both but at 30% and 25% discount rather than 50% (if TR or NC had more than the VS then they just straight up win like normal). I'd also make most of the directive weapons more in line with the factions traits, with maybe the exception of Carbines which would be in the opposite direction.
It boggles my mind to think that some people would rather the game be just the NC and TR. I very much like energy weapons and hover tanks.
I would go for balance but in a different way. Instead of the NC always having the hardest slowest items, i would give that philosophy to all 3 factions, so they all have hard hitting items, they would all have fast rof low damage and all have easy to use items. That way, hopefully new players may spread around more and everyone gets a bit of everything. Remove HA shields. Remove implants Remove Ravens, or give each faction something similar. No TK's in spawn rooms No switch factions for 20 minutes. More admins on servers to deal with cheats and grievers.
