Gameplay: No Role Left Behind

Evahn · 2012-06-22, 11:50 AM

I've been thinking about this one for a while, and here's the basics: most roles can either do something in any situation already, or can hop in a vehicle that performs similarly to the role they chose. However, the medic and engineer both have situations where they are forced out of role entirely in order to meaningfully contribute to their team.

For the medic, it's outdoor combat. Unless things have changed quite a bit from PS1 to PS2, there are no vehicles that can perfrom a "healer" role. So, you either change to another class, or you essentially change into a vehicle role, which inevitably has nothing to do with healing and rezzing and the like. Plus, you can't heal vehicles as a medic, and you probably won't be alive long enough out in the open to heal fallen comrades.

For the engineer, it's offense. They can't really use engineering style vehicles either mind you, but they can repair vehicles, and lay down mines and traps. However, the only thing that an engineer can do on the offense at this point, is lob jammer grenades, which have already been stated to cost resources. Since pretty much everything an engineer can do requires them to be on the defensive, and they get the weakest weapons of the bunch, they can't really meaningfully contribute when trying to capture a base. The closest thing would be repairing the occasional MAX, but even that's pushing it since most people don't play MAXes, and the rezzing is still the medic's thing, not yours.

So, in all reality, people who want to play pure support, or especially a particular brand of support, can end up in situations where they are forced out of role (and these situations can easily last an entire night sometimes). Now, I'm not saying they're the only ones with this problem, but they're the most obvious ones. What I am proposing isn't necessarily any concrete example at this point, but more of a push towards making sure that nobody ever has to go out of role just to feel like they're doing something good for their team.

Just to complete, here's a list of Pros and Cons (sort of):

Pros: More people can enjoy the game more often, which in turn means more players to play with and more money flow for the game developers and more money for making the game better.

Cons: ...um... honestly, I really don't see any real cons to this. Sure, someone's bound to make some blanket statement like "engineers shouldn't have offensive abilities", but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they won't be able to back that up with a real explanation as to how allowing everyone to always meaningfully contribute is a bad thing for the game and the community as a whole.

Knotz · 2012-06-22, 12:10 PM

I don't really know what you're suggesting is the fix to whatever problem you percieve, so I'm just going to concentrate on this right here:

Originally Posted by Evahn

The closest thing would be repairing the occasional MAX, but even that's pushing it since most people don't play MAXes

I have no idea what things were like in PS1, maybe MAXes weren't that popular there and thats where you're getting that idea from... but did you see the E3 footage? Rather a lot of people chose to spawn as a MAX.
MAX is going to be one of my favourite troop types, and I'm damn sure you won't see a lack of them on the battlefield.

TL;DR:

Originally Posted by Evahn

most people don't play MAXes

is complete bullshit

Evahn · 2012-06-22, 12:18 PM

Originally Posted by Knotz

I have no idea what things were like in PS1

In PS1, MAX Suits could only be pulled from certain kinds of spawn points, and had a 3:00 time from the time you pulled one out 'till you could get another one of the same type. Even if you specialized and got all 3 types, you still ran the risk of having to default to something else, and even then we're talking about using an AA MAX indoors because you have nothing else to play. So, no, MAXs weren't super common, they probably made up somewhere around the 5% to 10% of your standard force trying to get inside a base and capture it.

This also doesn't compensate for the fact that most MAX players didn't stop and pull back so they could be healed, they just kept pushing forward until they died, and often were in an unsupported position by that point too.

And finally, even if the MAX population is higher, that still doesn't change the fact that no role should ever be unable to contribute.

Knotz · 2012-06-22, 12:33 PM

Engineers and Medics will always be able to contribute in an assault/defence

If you're assaulting a base;
Engineers can repair MAXes, they can do that ammo dispenser thing, they can shoot.
Medics can revive downed friendlies, heal people that are injured, shoot

if you're defending a base:
Engineers can set mines, traps, turrets, repair MAXes, shoot
Medics can revive, heal injured, shoot

they're not useless. If anything they're going to be the unsung heroes.

Evahn · 2012-06-22, 12:39 PM

Originally Posted by Knotz

Engineers and Medics will always be able to contribute in an assault/defence

If you're assaulting a base;
Engineers can repair MAXes, they can do that ammo dispenser thing, they can shoot.
Medics can revive downed friendlies, heal people that are injured, shoot

if you're defending a base:
Engineers can set mines, traps, turrets, repair MAXes, shoot
Medics can revive, heal injured, shoot

they're not useless. If anything they're going to be the unsung heroes.

First, I never said they were useless, or that either of them couldn't help on defending a base. Second MAXs are far less common than infantry (go play PS1 if you don't believe me), in PS1 the only thing an engineer was allowed to place within a certain radius of a base was a remote detonation mine (which often went unused due to how easily it could be disarmed and the fact that unless they enemy pushes back your lines, they won't be coming within range), and engineers appear to be given the weakest gun set in the game, likely with light armor to boot.

Also, setting down ammo for people is apparently a light infantry role at the moment, though I'm hoping that maybe it's a multiple role ability.

Knotz · 2012-06-22, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by Evahn

First, I never said they were useless, or that either of them couldn't help on defending a base. Second MAXs are far less common than infantry (go play PS1 if you don't believe me), in PS1 the only thing an engineer was allowed to place within a certain radius of a base was a remote detonation mine (which often went unused due to how easily it could be disarmed and the fact that unless they enemy pushes back your lines, they won't be coming within range), and engineers appear to be given the weakest gun set in the game, likely with light armor to boot.

Also, setting down ammo for people is apparently a light infantry role at the moment, though I'm hoping that maybe it's a multiple role ability.

PS1 is no gauge for how popular certain classes will be in PS2. Yes I agree that MAXes wont be as common. But in PS1 maybe you have 100 people on your team and 5-10% of them are MAXes. Thats 5-10 MAXes. Now you have upwards of 500 people on your team, MAXes look a lot more popular so lets make that 15-20% of people will be MAXes... thats 75-100 MAXes running around. Engineers will NOT be without a MAX to team up with.

Similarly, Medics will never be without someone to heal/revive.

Light Assault has the worst weapon and the lightest armour... the Engi can put down a turret and hide behind its protective shield while it shoots.

You're making a fuss about nothing.

Evahn · 2012-06-22, 01:11 PM

Originally Posted by Knotz

PS1 is no gauge for how popular certain classes will be in PS2. Yes I agree that MAXes wont be as common. But in PS1 maybe you have 100 people on your team and 5-10% of them are MAXes. Thats 5-10 MAXes. Now you have upwards of 500 people on your team, MAXes look a lot more popular so lets make that 15-20% of people will be MAXes... thats 75-100 MAXes running around. Engineers will NOT be without a MAX to team up with.

Similarly, Medics will never be without someone to heal/revive.

Light Assault has the worst weapon and the lightest armour... the Engi can put down a turret and hide behind its protective shield while it shoots.

You're making a fuss about nothing.

Engies have never been able to put down turrets in the enemy SOI, or sphere of influence, which surrounds every single base and tower in the game. Makes it kinda hard to do anything.

Combat engineers had tons of restrictions, which made them somewhat rare. Sure, you can put down, say, 10 automated turrest (Spitfires), but the bullets from them can only travel, say, 50ft., and you cannot place them within a certain range of any other similar turret, reguardless of whether you owned said turret. It was pretty easy in fact to fill up an entire base with CE (short for combat engineering, refering to all kinds of tricks and traps they could use). In fact, any more than maybe 3 engineers and you ran out of space to place things. Meanwhile, everything you had was easily countered with jammer grenades, or worse yet, orbital strikes and EMP strikes from commanders. Basically, you had to think carefully about placement, and be quick to replace everything that was lost, and even then all you could do is force the enemy to slow down - it was pretty rare to get a good number of kills that way.

The problem is, an engineer lost all of those tricks when on the offense. They weren't allowed to place most of their stuff indoors, especially in the enemy base. So, unless you branched out into other areas, you were pretty much left sitting around hoping someone actually played a little more defensively, and actually pulled back in time to be repaired instead of just dying. Of course, even then, all those tricks and traps were all left behind, leaving you as little more than an armor repair bot.

At this point though, I'd suggest getting together 15$ to play the game for a month. It's still an awesome game, and that way you can participate in the big fairwell that's being planned. And, you can learn about how PS1 acts, and have a better idea of the concerns of veteran players.

Knotz · 2012-06-22, 02:04 PM

getting the money isn't the problem, I'm 20 with a stable job and income, the problem for me is lack of decent internet, a problem that won't go away until september (back to college).

You are talking about these concerns as if you are playing PS1, you don't know how far a turret can shoot, you don't know where mines can be placed. You're taking these stats from a game thats 10 years old. PS2 is a very different game.

Talek Krell · 2012-06-22, 06:20 PM

Okay, it's readily apparent that you haven't looked into this very much. MAXes are a separate class and can be spawned from any point, SOIs do not exist, engineers and medics both have a variety of new abilities and tools.

This is not Planetside 1, and you cannot apply Planetside 1 knowledge to it and expect to create an accurate prediction.

TeaLeaf · 2012-06-22, 06:40 PM

Not sure the engineer will be out of place on offence. From the E3 footage it looked like he could build turrets inside the base anyway so he will be good at securing footholds and creating points where the attackers can rally if they get pushed back.

I agree about the medic though, the class doesn't really have any useful talents in open vehicle style warfare. But then again, you don't have to play medic in that situation, you could switch to Engineer or Heavy Assault. I predict MAXs and LA will also be sub-optimal in open warfare due to slow speed/light armament but I doubt anyone will overly complain about that.

Evahn · 2012-06-22, 08:45 PM

Something that some of you (not all) need to understand, is that much of this game is built on PS1. It's not exactly PS1 of course, but where do you think MAXs came from? Or the Magrider, or the Reaver, or any number of other roles and vehicles and equipment? It sure as heck didn't come from TF2, CoD, BF3, or anything else along those lines. And it isn't all brand new either. And yet, despite this game being pre-beta, and therefore with very limited knowledge, some of you are quite sure that all problems will be fixed, and we shouldn't even discuss it as a possibility. Well, you have faith in the developers that I don't then, because I don't think that every single problem that was in PS1 is going to be fixed.

Knotz · 2012-06-25, 06:01 AM

Originally Posted by Evahn

And yet, despite this game being pre-beta, and therefore with very limited knowledge, some of you are quite sure that all problems will be fixed, and we shouldn't even discuss it as a possibility. Well, you have faith in the developers that I don't then, because I don't think that every single problem that was in PS1 is going to be fixed.

And yet, despite this game being pre-beta. and therefore with very limited knowledge, you are quite sure that there is a problem that hasn't been fixed. And that we should change it without even playing it in beta. Well, you may not have faith in the developers that I do then, because I believe that of what I've seen so far, this particular "problem" has been fixed, or even nullified. Not every problem with PS1 will be fixed, a lot of the problems just won't exist anymore, like what I'm seeing with the medic and the engi.

Saifoda · 2012-06-25, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

Okay, it's readily apparent that you haven't looked into this very much. MAXes are a separate class and can be spawned from any point, SOIs do not exist, engineers and medics both have a variety of new abilities and tools.

This is not Planetside 1, and you cannot apply Planetside 1 knowledge to it and expect to create an accurate prediction.

^ That.

Seriously guy, think about this stuff before you just start spouting off "knowledge" that isn't even applicable.

akiadan · 2012-06-27, 06:53 AM

How about we see how it is when it goes beta. As far as I can tell there the engie can kill just as well as a LA with his gun. It's not like he can only carry a pistol or something. Also that deployable turret thing. Storm a position either flanking or with teammates and throw down a turret and slaughter the enemy. Alternatively you will still have a carbine of sorts that can kill just fine.

Medics... well shoot and heal. better than LA at the moment all they can do is Shoot and flank. In my opinion all classes seem combat able and all classes are situational. You may spec engie but if need be you can still pull a max or a tank or anything else.