Hoverspamming

[Thoreaux]

...needs to die a fiery death in PS2.

I bring this up because in the GDC footage, it seems like it'd still be possible for any aircav to hover, and this is concerning. So I propose a few things, while it's still early enough to be changed.

1) A plane should be either a divebomber or a gunship; not both.

2) Gunships have the armor to stand their ground (figuratively) and chew up unprepared infantry and vehicles, but they cannot easily speed away if they find themselves outmatched by ground AA. They have either: no afterburners, or weak afterburners. In either case, they are somewhat sluggish.

3) Divebombers have the ability to escape AA via afterburners and higher speed, but they they cannot fight like gunships (ie hoverspam). This can be enforced by having a minimum speed to fire, and/or reducing their armor, and/or giving them very slow acceleration from a hover.

All of that is aimed at stopping Reavers as we knew them in PS1. Quite simply, if a plane decides to come to a dead-stop over my head and mindlessly spam rockets he's abandoned any pretense of tactics; he's committed. In that situation, one of us needs to die, and if it isn't me, it should be the pilot. He doesn't get to just zip away at 200 kph the moment it looks like he's going to lose, repair, and come back to try again, all within a minute. Stupid and lazy pilots should pay a price.

[WiteBeam]

Today's aircraft can hover and fire.
All it will really do is make you a sitting target. I don't think that it will be an issue with large populations.

[Synapses]

Weird, I don't have a single problem with reavers or mossys in PS1 to this day... I think they work perfectly as intended, if not even a little underpowered currently with firepower or vehicle health.

This is the future of warfare via a science fiction setting... At some point Jets are going to combine with Helicopters to make a Hybrid such as the Reaver/Mossy.

IMO, deal with it. Hovering put you in a really bad spot and if you didn't get away at the first or second Missile lock notification you were usually dead.

[NCLynx]

PS1 Gameplay? Yea I can see why you'd want it gone.

PS2 Gameplay? It doesn't look like it'll be AS big of an issue TBH, but that has yet to be completely seen through.

[somers]

Originally Posted by Thoreaux

...needs to die a fiery death in PS2.

I bring this up because in the GDC footage, it seems like it'd still be possible for any aircav to hover, and this is concerning. So I propose a few things, while it's still early enough to be changed.

Stupid and lazy pilots should pay a price.

I really hated the pilot footage for GDC as well, I think only the Liberator should hover since it's a dedicated gunship, the empire specific vehicles should be more like jets or at least not have the ability to hover. A good example of the above is the Banshee in Halo 3 and Halo Reach; (I haven't played 1 or 2, so i don't know if it's like this...) it always has to be moving forward, but this causes it to be an easy target whenever it is slowed down trying to pick off people. It has the ability to fly away quickly in case of lock-on or other dangers. Just my opinion though...

[Warborn]

People have been mentioning something about vehicles costing resources to create for yourself. If that's true, then perhaps that plus the fact that air-to-air reavers will be a thing will keep hoverspam to a dull roar. If vehicles aren't something you can constantly pull every 5 minutes, and being a reaver whore means you will be food for air-to-air reavers, then perhaps the problem will solve itself.

[Sirisian]

This was solved in this thread. The developers apparently didn't go with it.

[Warborn]

Well, there are lots of easy ways to solve this. There are certainly more games with planes that act like planes than planes which pretend to be planes but are actually weird helicopters. At this point we'll have to defer to the developers and their obvious experience with how they've handled it, but come beta it's certainly going to be a very scrutinized part of gameplay, simply because of how enormously reavers overshadowered every other vehicle in the original.

[Thoreaux]

Originally Posted by WiteBeam

I don't think that it will be an issue with large populations.

Most of the time I think this is correct. In the zerg, when both sides have air cover, for instance, it tends to balance itself out.

It's the edge cases, though, where it was the biggest problem. In smaller fights, and especially towers vs bases, aircav hoverspamming was an issue. Infantry had a pretty balanced relationship with ground vehicles in PS1, in that tanks and such were obviously very powerful, but skilled or clever infantry could still take them down with jammers, AV, and a bit of teamwork. Aircav, however, simply retreated and repaired too quickly for small base-to-tower fights. They could hoverspam with impunity, basically. I know because I did it all the time.

Originally Posted by Sirisian

This was solved in this thread. The developers apparently didn't go with it.

Yeah, I saw that one. I just figured it was about time for another attempt now that we have gameplay video. Even a small "we recognize it was a problem, we'll fix it" out of the devs would be awesome.

Because I'm becoming worried they don't recognize that it was a problem.

[Biohazard]

Go ahead hover near my Magrider, I dare ya
I imagine with the faster pace of combat, anyone that hovers will be taken out vary fast thanks to the new driver/gunner MBT

[Hamma]

I asked Higby about this when I saw the videos.

https://twitter.com/#!/mhigby/status...88561699287040

@CDLHamma hovering is a bit too easy right now. maneuvering while in hover mode is challenging, sitting still will get you killed fast.

[SKYeXile]

I hear hoverspammers are pretty hard to kill.

[noxious]

Interesting, because the quote from Higby in the post right above yours says that sitting still will get you killed fast, which implies that hoverspammers will be easy to kill.

[FastAndFree]

I heard hovering boosts shield recharge by 80%

[Malorn]

From the GDC video bonus footage

Hoverspammer gets owned by magrider

See 41:55


Though Iv'e seen plenty of hoverspammers owned by magriders over the years.