Let's talk Flying/Infinite Gliding

[DHYohko]

Right now it is possible to glide for a very lengthy period of time as long you are always loosing altitude, especially as of the build available on May 17 2021. The difference between this and actual flying is the inconvenience of having to scale another large peak and jump off again. Bellow are the main points against actual flying.

• Removes the player from the world and makes some emergent gameplay disappear.
  • I agree with this and is one of the problems I have with retail wow.
• Risks turning Em8er from a mech game into a combat flight sim (as said by Mark)
  • I don't think this is a problem as currently weapons are disabled while gliding
• May turn encounters into shooting ranges (although the tsi-hu grapling hooks should prevent this)

While the above points are true i'm confident that eventually the game will evolve to a point where high air mobility will be required. Even the current medium frame is labeled as a Air Unit Long Range Variant

The frame above even looks designed for air combat so far as to even look like it's made for high speed strafing attacks like modern jets do on ground targets.

So how do we balance flight while keeping the mecha feel of the game? my thought is this, what if we keep actual flight/ infinite hovering to specifically designed light frames, directional extended flight to specific medium frames like the one above, and heavy frames are limited to the current iteration? When comparing to the points above

• Removes the player from the world and makes some emergent gameplay disappear.
  • This is difficult to plan for but considering that the more frames and the longer an event is maintained the better rewards people get I don't think Em8er will suffer any where near the player removal from the world as wow did
• Risks turning Em8er from a mech game into a combat flight sim (as said by Mark)
  • The current iteration of gliding doesn't allow the use of weapons while doing so making this a non issue
• May turn encounters into shooting ranges (although the tsi-hu grappling hooks should prevent this)
  • the same thing could be said about ultra long range artillery but the Tsi-hu Grappling hooks are specifically in the game to stop this from happening

So with points against flying "solved" what would Em8er gain by allowing flight? the most obvious answer is even more variety and customization options for players to have fun with. Lets take a look at some examples


Bellow is an image from the Frame Arms Girls I.P. and you can see what is clearly a light frame designed for air combat. It's got enough thrusters to allow for it to hover endlessly (as long as it isn't constantly dodging and burning up energy doing so), a good range of weapons (although maybe too many backup rifles), and fulfills the requirements for Em8ers light frames in that the pilot must always be exposed and is clearly very agile (at least while air borne).


Here is another one from the Frame Arms Girls I.P.


This one switches the large amount of beam rifles for a pod/funnel system that lets her exchange mobility for remote firepower (i guess, i don't actually know it this is true but that's what it looks like to me)

So clearly light frames designed for flight are something that could be implemented and considering that they are the most fragile and rely on evasion to avoid damage it makes sense that at some point they would at least experiment in doing something like this.

But what about medium and heavy frames? could they gain as much as light frames in terms of customization? Maybe. Let's not forget that there are numerous gundams with wings and flight modes like Wing, lightning, zeta, Justice, and many others but Heavy frames are more about the heavy weapons and armor rather than mobility.

Medium frames on the other hand have a better chance of getting some flying thanks to Zone of the Enders.

Crotch rocket aside i could easily see a pilot being encased by a frame like this and considering the very scarce weaponry I see on it it's clear that weapons were sacrificed in exchange for flight ( i didn't play ZOTE, just what i see on this image)

And this one here portrays a medium frame very similar to the current concept including rear hip thrusters.

So clearly the game has a lot to gain by including flying frames in it's arsenal, maybe not at launch but in the future it would definitely gain a lot form it and considering that there might be terrain with tall pillar like mountains or even floating islands some where on this frozen planet I'm sure some mad gearheads on Home are already working on getting Reapers airborne.

 

[zdoofop]

Intersting points. I just have one critique

When comparing to the points above

• Removes the player from the world and makes some emergent gameplay disappear.
  • This is difficult to plan for but considering that the more frames and the longer an event is maintained the better rewards people get I don't think Em8er will suffer any where near the player removal from the world as wow did
• Risks turning Em8er from a mech game into a combat flight sim (as said by Mark)
  • The current iteration of gliding doesn't allow the use of weapons while doing so making this a non issue
• May turn encounters into shooting ranges (although the tsi-hu grappling hooks should prevent this)
  • the same thing could be said about ultra long range artillery but the Tsi-hu Grappling hooks are specifically in the game to stop this from happening

technically, these "solutions" don't actually change from before. You could just as easily have put these in the first time.

 

[Pandagnome]

Flying meks, flying ships, flying tsihu, and giant mega kaiju's that try to swat all the flying lot in this space of flight.

Exciting would also like to fly into a volcano and out of it just before it erupts to see how close to danger could get without turning into a cooked piece of metal.

 

[Hillverius]

Infinite flight would/could be fun, look at Anthem it had it and it was 90% fun,the problems it had with the limitation it had was that it felt like a punishment,not lack of skill.You would fly long distances just to overheat a few meters off the edge of a cliff and fall down,and you couldn't calculate the flight because of the long distances you would cover.And it also had a bad implementations in dungeons,if you didn't keep up with the person in front you would get teleported closed to the lead person and most time it was confusing.
If it didn't had that limitation it would have been more fun(didn't play past the first 3 weeks so I don't know what changes they made to it).

So if it was so fun why I don't want it in Em-8ER,well:
In FIrefall there was a bit of skill involved in it,I would generally glide longer distances then most of the people(excluding the assault frames),I knew when to dive to get more speed and how much to level the glider to cover larger distances.
Maybe a personal preference but I personally like something what requires some thinking,something that is easy to use but hard to master.

In Anthem travel time wasn't an important mechanic for the game it was just for fast travel to the next objective.In Firefall for example if ThumpDump was under attack(was in edge of the map) and I was in Sunken Harbor(the opposite edge if the map),It took some time to get there,I couldn't just directly fly there.
But why wouldn't you want to be part of the fun?you might ask:

1.There was fun in navigating the terrain on an LGV(bike) and switching between the bike and glider and the other way around,plus there were dynamic encounters along the way,there was a mine that would disable your bike and get ambushed my bandits.

2.I want to be consequences for expanding to far to fast,if everybody can fly directly to the point of trouble and defend it in the long run would make the world feel more static then dynamic.

3.Getting to late or not at all could be an interesting narrative for the game,imagine a group of players getting at the point where things seems most dire but they might be exactly what it needed to turn things around,or "dude what happened we needed you-well i got ambushed along the way".

I don't know.....I want consequences,I want something that requires skill to master,I don't want instant gratification,maybe it's just my personal preference but I think it would make things more fun.

It can have infinite flight but I think it would be a different game.