Planetside 2 Balance idea

[rumbot]

No good games, that I have seen, have achieved perfect balance among classes of different player types.

For hardcoded games that never revisit balance after shipping (think cartridge era games), good players learn what the good characters or combos are and exploit them. Three words: Techmo Bo Jackson. It always sucked to pull the mage in Gauntlet! we would fight over who should get to play the dwarf in Golden Axe, we always heckled people who didn't know any of the characters from Street Fighter 2 besides Blanka, and always ALWAYS Jeremy Roenick from NHL '93.

On the other hand, "living" games have balance issued consistently addressed over time by the developers, and these constant changes allow more saavy players to always seek to optimize. Whether that's hunting for different gear combos in WoW, using the stunlock combo of the week, being an AWPwhore, abusing the lasher in either Planetside whenever it gets buffed, or those glorious weeks when the mag hover worked as intended on Mag Hill back when the phrase "Defend The Crown!" meant something. (1)

And when they do this, I think most developers throwing out perfectly fun mechanics that could be useful buffs.

Imagine, the aforementioned awesome levitation the mag had with Rival 3. Let's make that a 5-day buff that comes from winning a server event that happens every 7 days. Say, Saturdays at 8pm ET they had an alert, any of the current cross-continent variety will do. And if you win that alert, you don't get bonus XP, you get to chose from 1 NS buff (think when the Annihilator was queen) or 1 Faction specific buff (the old maglev, or the old VPC), that would stay with your character (while they could give everyone on that faction the same buff, but that would be miss the opportunity to expand the build options).

It would allow some weapons to go into "power" mode where they have those fucking buffed Strikers, which would give the other factions extra incentive for a good turnout. You're not just playing for a little more XP, which happens every night. You're playing for the priviledge of denying TR their Strikers, NC their buffed splatmaxes, and the right to climb every mountain in the best damn tank in the game.

(1) that's a different point, that with the lattice they seem to have effectively killed what was a consistently excellent battle.

[CaffeinePowered]

I think even 5 days or overly rewarding the victors with things like that is a bit much. It can really snowball into a have and have not problem, especially with having multiple characters on a single server you can easily jump ship to the winning faction.

I think a neutral reward, such as being able to pull the other factions vehicles, would be both more fun, and not create that haves vs have nots situation a buff would create. PS1 did that often and it was a lot of fun when you got rewarded with being able to pull opposing force vehicles. I would love so much, to be able to roll vulcan harasser against TR, or charge a vanguard down with the 'i win' shield.

[Elder]

i think i would have to agree with rummy on this one. The use of a pick and choose weapon/vehicle buff that lasts for a set time sounds pretty sweet. Something like this would help push for better worldwide alerts. As i know for a fact the reason NC losses its alerts is bad leaders at the helm of large zerg fits which no one will cooperate with. The other factions have these people but they aren't quite as special as the NC.

I think another glaring issue is what i hear from many of the ps1 people, and i never played the original game but, its always "i miss this vehicle, or that game mechanic". After having put so much time into ps2 the content gets dry, things get boring and essential diversity is lacking. (i dont mean make the game faster like a COD shitshow) make things like dick ops more satisfying and diverse.

I would love to run a galaxy gunship that is actually a gunship. And to shoot down those kdr elitest as they leave their gate in the esf they spend 99% of their time in, from a couple phantasms dropping a squad of annihilators to alpha strike them to dust.

I want more hate tells from whiny little shits that get to sit on a 15 min timer doing nothing because they cant pull due to lack of resources.

And i swear to god if i have to explain to one more of my NC outfit mates that ZOE does not need a nerf.

[FlyingMongoose]

I think even 5 days or overly rewarding the victors with things like that is a bit much. It can really snowball into a have and have not problem, especially with having multiple characters on a single server you can easily jump ship to the winning faction.

I think a neutral reward, such as being able to pull the other factions vehicles, would be both more fun, and not create that haves vs have nots situation a buff would create. PS1 did that often and it was a lot of fun when you got rewarded with being able to pull opposing force vehicles. I would love so much, to be able to roll vulcan harasser against TR, or charge a vanguard down with the 'i win' shield.

I lean towards caffeine's point of view.

If you recall TF2's mechanic where the LOSING team would get a LONGER spawn time, while the WINNING team would get a shorter one, yeah this makes matches and maps shorter, but it makes the steamroll... well, keep going.

[rumbot]

Some additional clarifications.

- We've already been playing against godly Strikers for weeks on end before the recent adjustment. The buff rotation could be balanced over time to prevent winning TR from picking Strikers week after week after week if they win. The buff rotation could also rotate by type: this week choice of infantry buffs for the winner, next week vehicles, then air.

- Note: my proposal specifically has the buff END BEFORE the contest over who gets the next buff begins. Each battle for the buff comes from the baseline "normal" balance for each side, so if there's steamrolling happening, it's due to the general balance issues ALREADY PRESENT and not due to one side having the buffed Striker/Mag/whatever. 

- I concur completely with Caff that some weeks the battle could be for whoever gets the privilege to unlock the other faction specific guns / vehicles / or air. also, Put GTA back in the game already.

[Goffin]

http://imgur.com/gallery/dT57rIR

this basically sums up everything. 

[Elder]

games needs a tether so i can grapple esf and hook them to a building so they cant run away (think just cause 2)

[FlyingMongoose]

Remove all weapons and weapon varieties and make everything one shot kill on everything... BALANCE!

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[Gasman]

Remove all weapons and weapon varieties and make everything one shot kill on everything... BALANCE!

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Aiming op, nerf now

[FlyingMongoose]

[quote author=FlyingMongoose link=topic=7133.msg273688#msg273688 date=1384882599]
Remove all weapons and weapon varieties and make everything one shot kill on everything... BALANCE!

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Aiming op, nerf now
[/quote]
Nope, all aiming should be perfect at any distance, and should use a combination of trace and travel and hitscan.

Another benefit to this: Consider if they DO decide to do cross-platform, this is the best gameplay mode to provide an accurate representation of KBM vs Controller and prove once and for all, PC Gaming Master Race!

[rumbot]

I loved instagib UT. Would be neat if they had a instagib cave with better performance / latency than the continents.

[at0m]

Instagib invisible was the best game mode.

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