Some fun things to spice up the gameplay

[shrinker]

Here's some ideas I thought I'd get off my chest. Although the game is fun, it's pretty predictable at times and doesn't seem to have many stand-out moments of genius/hilarity/OMGness. Before you say they'd unbalance the game I should point out that cool stuff shouldn't be easy. An opportunity to do something fantastic is only fun if it's really hard to do it. Also having to defend against these things should also add to the fun. Whenever I make a suggestion I always try to think about what it would be like for the other side and whether it would make their experience more fun too.

1. Pesky jet troopers aways get to bases first and always lurk in unexpected high places. How about letting the rest get their own back by adding a weak spot on the underside of the jetpack. One *very* accurate or lucky shot would detonate the pack, sending him spinning out of control. (With extreme luck he'd plunge into his teammates and blow them up too.) This means he can stand on legdes owning the wretched fools below but if he's not covered his back then... woooaaaahhhhBOOM!

2. Put variable fuses on wookiee timebombs. Imagine being able to load up a tank with multiple bombs and then dump it in an enemy camp.

3. Make timebombs and mines (even granades) explode when shot at or when other items explode nearby. Chain reactions are *always* fun either when you set one up yourself or when some other smartass spots you tring to rig a sneaky bunch of high-ex and decides to take you out with a bang. (Also provides effective and entertaining deterrent to No. 2 above.)

4. Allow a brief period where you can pick up a dead player's dropped weapon (while discarding your own). To this you could add all kinds of extra subtleties like jet troopers not being able to fly as fast if they've picked up a rocket laucher. This has been discussed before so I won't go into all the reasons why I think it would improve the game.

5. Allow for stand-out moments of marksmanship. Currently it's just too easy to shoot accurately. Make guns less accurate unless you're really concentrating on your aim (standing still or whatever). I get little satifaction from dropping a distant enemy with a blaster because it's just too darned easy. A successful long range shot should be something to chuckle about, not the norm.

6. Make it really easy for pilots to tell when somebody's in trouble. It would be great fun to heroically sprint across a map to save a struggling teamate.

7. Play as Jedis. Haha, just kidding...

Okay, flame suit on, open fire...

[DarthLeven]

I *LOVE* that exploding jetpack idea! (And this from someone who plays quite often as a clone jet-trooper!)

We do really need some difficult-to-achieve "special moves" to spice things up beyond the run-and-gun fare... Other notions :

1.) The ability to kamikaze a mobile command point's "vulnerable spot" with a fighter and take off 50-75% of their hit points in one fell swoop. (Thinking snowspeeders through AT-AT viewscreens, LAAT's against Spiderwalker viewport, etc.) It'd be risky as you'd have to build up speed and fly in the face of the pilot's forward pointing gunnery, but it would be *really* special if you pulled it off. You could even randomize the damage to make the outcome a bit more unpredictable.

2.) Modify the existing LAATs so that they can air-lift/drop ATTE walkers. For Republic troops it'd be an amazing team effort — you crew the walker and the gunship, then the LAAT pilot moves in low overtop of the ATTE and hits the "g" key to pick up the walker. Off you go, but flying slightly slower than normal due to the payload (with the command post disabled as a spawn point while it's in the air.) If you pull off the maneuver, you move the command point across the board much faster and deploy it in a key location. If you happen to be the TradeFeds and shoot it down, that's pretty special too as you've taken out a command post, a ship, and about 8 clones — it'd be tons of fun for *both* factions!

Elements of skill and chance really add spice to a battle... Great risk for great reward.

[mrflippy]

Originally posted by DarthLeven
2.) Modify the existing LAATs so that they can air-lift/drop ATTE walkers. For Republic troops it'd be an amazing team effort — you crew the walker and the gunship, then the LAAT pilot moves in low overtop of the ATTE and hits the "g" key to pick up the walker. Off you go, but flying slightly slower than normal due to the payload (with the command post disabled as a spawn point while it's in the air.) If you pull off the maneuver, you move the command point across the board much faster and deploy it in a key location. If you happen to be the TradeFeds and shoot it down, that's pretty special too as you've taken out a command post, a ship, and about 8 clones — it'd be tons of fun for *both* factions!

The only problem with this is that the transport ships go down after only 2 missiles. After picking up an AT-TE and getting it instantly destroyed a couple of times, the whole thing would get pretty lame and nobody would do it anymore.

[DarthLeven]

That's where unit ballancing comes in... Two rocket hits take it down? Award the LAAT an armor bonus when it's carrying an ATTE so that it's more difficult to destroy.

(The gunship *is* carrying a huge armor plate underneath it, so it even makes a bit of sense to award a hitpoint bonus for technical reasons.)

[shrinker]

If you just take the suggestion at face value then you're right it wouldn't work out. You've got to give the designers and testers some credit though. Any feature can be added provided there's a little time to tweak all the variables afterwards to make it fun.