Targets: Bad habit or necessary gameplay?

I 2nd this, or more rather, 3rd it.

If commanders want true ground superiority, they should have to create radars near the front lines and mark targets accordingly. A radar is a radar, I'm not sure why it conducts research.

 

The scout should be able to link up with an artillery. With a scout acting as a spotter, the arty would aim automatically. All the arty driver would have to do is hit fire.

 

holy FFFF....

targets are what makes empires empires. i cannot believe that you would dare suggest removing them. without targets, long range artillery tactics would disappear, etc. the tactics aspect of empires would take it up the ass.

targets are hard enough as they are to assign consistently. making things more difficult for the commander is not going to make any aspect of the game better. (except save making the comm take large amounts of heat from damage. that actually made comms more responsible i think)

they're not "wallhax" they make perfect sense in this game. UAV's or whatever you want to call them. i think that we should make the targeting system a little more advanced and add the option of on screen captioning for target locations and move locations or even mass attack orders.

 

huh? we've suggested ways that the commander can point out where enemies are, for artilliary bombardment and so on. what we have currently is litterally wallhacks, e.g timing your spray to start when a guy walks around a corner.

just check this guy, on CS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhqVWqMdcKk
ignoring the ones where he shoots through stuff, which arn't really applicable, what he does in many parts is use the timing of when someone is about to come around a corner to gank them with zero reaction time, and crosshair already in the best position.

when "tactics" get in the way of the basic 1v1 gameplay, when the fact that a player has a crummy commander means that he can't even get a fair fight on the ground, then the system that breaks this symmetry has to go.

Don't say "giving the wallhack was tactics/teamwork", because the split second ability that takes no effort at all isn't even close. pointing out enemies, or focusing your fire on specific guys-> teamwork. giving wallhacks isn't.

 

Nerf comm wallhax, buff camera wallhax. Make it more dependent on the players then the commander.

Also, just because other FPS games don't support wallhax doesn't mean Empire's shouldn't.

 

No, don't take it away. Targeting is essential part of Empires, joining FPS playing Soldiers on the field with their RTS playing Commander.

The people that are complaining are using that as an excuse for a bad game they had.
But targeting is a key feature of Empires. If the Dev would take it away the very same people that were complaining now would afterwards accuse the Dev's for destroying an Empires.

 

What we're concerned with at the moment is that it is too powerful and renders gameplay too, for a lack of a better word, simple. It also doesn't really serve its purpose as "targeting", just simply highlighting targets. In addition, it also makes a number of other things, such as the Scout class or the Engineer cameras and radars, redundant.

 

If the scout class should be doing such things....

 

I love having an unfair advantage over my enemy, so i voted yes.

Anyhow, i suppose it's also nice for a commander to be able to indirectly help in combat, although it becomes a chore if they can't fight because they're missing a target.

 

Might as well. Engineer sure as hell doesn't need the camera or radar.

 

Would make sense too, saves engie faffing about with camera all the time, whereas the scout is the one that really needs to know where the enemies are.

 

I like the idea of comm targets, although it would be nice if a new building like radar towers were required (and all ranges were decreased). Then make scouts immune to getting targeted, and make their binocs instadeathtargeters. Everyone is happy, kittens rain from sky.

 

It's a good idea, but it makes people who are hiding suddenly visible. Perhaps comm.s couldn't see enemy infantry, except those who are really close?

 

The listening post suggestion only addresses the stupidity of having the comm do the work of a camera.

Cameras themselves however could use an overhaul.

I suggest something along the lines of a proper highlighting system for players and tanks.

Radars and cameras send out pulses every ten seconds or so, which detect players within their radius, when a pulse hits a player his icon flashes on the minimap and fades off over time, although it does track with the player for this period. It also highlights him on screen in a manner similar to this:



With an identical fadeoff to the minimap icon. Radar stealth will prevent all on-screen highlights and will only highlight you on the minimap if you are in a tank. Enhanced senses causes this effect on all enemies regardless of stealth and has no refresh time.

On infantry, this cannot be seen through walls, on tanks it can. This goes for both sensors and enhanced senses.

You could have different colours as well, red for enemies, while allies and possibly always squadmates get a faint green highlight around them when the pulse hits them.

 

Chris has a nice idea there, but could use some small tweaks. Too sleepy to elaborate.

 

With out targets prone snipers/rifles will dominate

 

You can make very visible flashes and tracers for long range weapons.

 

do they have those implemented already? I think I've seen them but not visible enough to find them before your already dead.

 

Well my tracers are more visible than the stock ones, and you should be able to use the fade distance and min/max draw sizes to make flashes more visible at a distance.

 

Rifles should dominate and you can't target scouts with hide.