I'm still not sold on any kind of idea like this. If we need objectives or Drop Uplinks as coordinate points to perform a "spawn", how do you figure it would be able to put you up in the air like that?

That's just from an in-game lore standpoint. I'm not sure if any of you were in the earliest builds of Planetside 2, but I can pointedly recall the Instant Action system in that game, and how my outfit would take a base, but Flak MAXes on the roof, and just shoot down all the drop pods. Dropping in from the sky sounds cool until you try to put it into practice. As we all know, the inertial canceller does nothing to stop you from being shot, and having people spawn in from the sky even in Ambush matches where it would be randomized would just leave good marksman with easy airborne prey.

And you're making the same assumption of uncontrolled freefall that has already been debunked.

Make it so while you're NOT running the inertia dampener, you can alter the direction you're falling in. Not massively, but a small amount. And when you hit the dampener, you should speed up by enough to potentially throw off a shooter's aim.

Also, other games have successfully implemented drop spawns.

As for how they work, that was also covered in my OP.

Drop Uplinks are described in lore as a wormhole system. NULL Cannons are objectives you can spawn on, and there are also fixed spawn locations and CRUs. In the MCC it's reasonable to assume you're spawning in an on-board CRU, so the same "spawn at this location" rules apply to both. Being wormhole tech and not just a "beacon" for you to drop onto, Uplinks are effectively a teleporter if you work with the existing lore for the game.

Only the starting spawn point(s) and objective spawns will spawn you in the sky, and all they have to do is the simple method of setting a spawn location ABOVE the battlefield instead of at ground level, and adjust the freefall mechanics (which could use some work anyway, because having 0 control after only 1m of falling is pretty awkward).

See, I'm actually not making that assumption. Those pods were originally able to deviate from their initial landing point to a far greater degree, and it never did anything to help them. I think you could get a good 100 meters in any direction after initially spawning in the pod, but it wouldn't save you from Flak equipped infantry aiming up. You can't shoot at players falling to the ground in Section 8, for example, you can only hit them with Flak turrets which are on objectives you don't own or can be deployed by any player with enough resources. That's not the way Dust works.

In every game I've played or seen with drop pods (which are different from freefall in your Dropsuit in DUST, by the way), you have a decent SPEED of lateral movement, but not very much PRECISION - once you've set yourself in motion in a particular direction, you can't change it easily. What I was thinking of is SLOWER horizontal movement, but with more CONTROL over the fall. you can't move back and forth quickly, but you can CHANGE DIRECTION sharply to throw off a shooter's aim.

Keep in mind that snipers won't be firing hitscan insta-kill bullets after the next update. If you change course slightly as a distant sniper is shooting, they're going to miss because of the travel time. If you hit the Inertia Dampener and that changes your fall speed as I've suggested, they're going to miss because they've worked the bullet drop out based on your speed before the dampener kicked in. Basically, there won't be any weapon that can just point-and-click kill you. As you change direction, people will need to track you effectively AND anticipate the direction changes and lead their shots based on pure guesswork.

Hitting a player walking (not even moving at full NON-sprint speed) in an irregular zigzag pattern is difficult enough when you're not just point-and-click hitscanning the target. Imagine that while they're zigzagging back and forth slowly, they're ALSO moving downward at freefall speeds. it's NOT going to make you an easy target.

See, I'm actually not making that assumption. Those pods were originally able to deviate from their initial landing point to a far greater degree, and it never did anything to help them. I think you could get a good 100 meters in any direction after initially spawning in the pod, but it wouldn't save you from Flak equipped infantry aiming up. You can't shoot at players falling to the ground in Section 8, for example, you can only hit them with Flak turrets which are on objectives you don't own or can be deployed by any player with enough resources. That's not the way Dust works.

And what flak canons do we have in Dust?
Also, think about the number of suits dropping in. In ambush, each team has 80 stock. If one team completely dominates the other, we might look at a 40:0. That would mean there was a total of 60 casualties. If the match took 15 minutes to complete, that would mean a suit dropped in every 7 seconds. If a sniper is picking off that many people as the hurtle from space, than he deserves it!

Now... What happens when a suit drops on an enemy, or even an enemy vehicle?

It would be less annoying, because it's a skill shot instead of a lucky, "right place, right time" situation where they didn't have to put any effort in.

Also, part of the suggestion is for limited freedom of movement while falling, so it wouldn't necessarily be a straight-line drop like it is now.

With the current system, you have about a second of controlled airtime, then you go into a "freefall" mode where you can't control your descent at all. I want that to change. You don't have FULL control, but it would be enough to throw someone's aim off.

When you hit the Inertia Dampener, you fall faster, but you lose that limited control over your fall. Harder target in one sense but easier in another.

Wave spawning would harm one of the mechanics that encourages players to wait for a revive instead of just bleeding out as soon as they go down though.

Waiting for a revive means shorter respawn time. Without that encouragement, you're going to see less players - particularly blueberries - willing to hold on a few seconds to maybe get revived. it's not a sure thing, but it means less of a delay when they spawn.

Well, Dust kind of has it backwards. Dust, you die, select respawn(or wait for a revive), go to your overview map and options, select respawn again, then wait for the countdown to enter the game.

Imagine a system similar to Battlefield. You die, the countdown to respawn begins(you may get revived during this time), you enter overview map/options screen and may deploy instantly.

Again, though, snipers aren't the issue. We may not have Flak, but we do have hitscan full-auto weapons. And that's not even accounting for the Laser Rifle, which I've been burned off the back of a speeding LAV with more than once, and from a 90 degree angle no less. If we already have players that can do that reliably, no matter how much range of motion you have when you drop in, quite a few people are going to get burned on their way down with no way to avoid it. The same goes for ARs with Sharpshooter skill, and some other ARs may even have longer ranges than the plasma based ones we have right now. I think keeping ground spawns and focusing on a system that spawns you near allies or at the very least away from enemies is a better idea, as it puts your boots on the ground immediately while solving the only real issue with the current system, that being getting gunned down either soon after spawn or before you can even move. I would imagine getting gunned down in the air would be found to be far more annoying for debatable gain.

Still would love.

Another good counter to spawn camping is waves. Rather then players respawning one by one, all presently waiting in a queue spawn at the same time.

Maybe if you combine that with sky spawning, players could launch out of dropships like in the trailer. Just imagine them flying around in sky out of reach, Cloaking in, making routes to the different spawning points and cloaking back out.

They have something very similar to this in Starhawk (another game I play) and it is awesome, but it does cause some problems with map design because any roofs or overhangs perminently prevent people from spawning under them.

Spawning from the air for objectives and random spawning would be excellent, but only if we get a bit of air control based on our mass.

Would also be nice to start the descent cloaked and when you start air controlling or inertia stabilizing you break cloak, that way your location can't be tracked, and adding a bit of risk v reward to the whole mechanic.

This needs to be in the game. NOW.
Did you get the idea of sky spawning from section 8:prejudice?

Limited control while falling was a core part of the suggestion in the first place, so we're agreed on that much. I hadn't even thought about different mass changing your mobility while falling, though - great idea!

I also quite like the cloaking suggestion. That would also be useful.


Section 8, Starhawk, Warhammer 40,000, the old trailer for DUST 514 that's being used as an intro video in the beta, and the falling and Inertia Dampener mechanics.

Bits and pieces of the idea came from a variety of sources.

did you get any feedback on your idea from devs ? It's worth poking Wang on tweeter to know more.
Personnaly, i'm fond of this first for the "makes more sense" part of it than just appearing out of nowhere.

And then, it's also a nice fix for terrible spawn. At least this way, you get a chance at seeing what you're getting in.

Bump! and +1 to aerial spawning.

They have something very similar to this in Starhawk (another game I play) and it is awesome...

Now... What happens when a suit drops on an enemy, or even an enemy vehicle?