Thanks for "Free Unlock Weekend!" Noob Tubes (rockets) for everyone!

[Jaykay]

I was trying to stay in character, and play support or Recon but 7,687 rockets changed my mind, so I grabbed the Assault kit and joined the Quake 3 reunion.

Where's my freakin' railgun?

[GetYoGooseOn]

Really...when I was playing earlier it was shotgun and zeller rifle city out there. Of course, I must admit to using the shotgun as well...it's a fun gun. I'll have to unlock that one.

[Urit]

Heh, all unlocks is kinda wasted on me, I have maybe 4-5 pieces of stuff left to unlock.

[Zoopy_T]

It sucks for me, I had an extra unlock point left and they took it away. Although I have all 40 unlocks anyways, not sure what 1 unlock point would do.

[DeimosManifest]

NS unlocks!

[Tempus]

Who doesn't already have rockets anyway?

[Jaykay]

Tempus: So you're saying there was no difference between this weekend and previous nights? Good luck with that!

What I'm saying here is that handing out this overpowered unlock to everyone simply turns 2142 into an arcade game. Even the weapon that HAS this exact feature in real life was de-tuned in Ghost Recon because it's power is game-breaking.

[Boulderdash]

My squad couldn't walk 10 feet without having a whole squads worth of rockets headed towards us. It's a little bit silly if you ask me. Pounding a bunch of rockets into a crowded area has no skill compared to long-range single kills with them.

[Arf]

No, I'm pretty sure Tempus is right. If you don't believe it just start picking Assault kits off the ground and see how many there are.

That said from what I remember of the rocket grenades in GR they weren't in any way comparable to BF2. Namely they were faster projectiles, did more damage, had a larger splash, were more accurate, you couldn't trace them back to the source like flares and you couldn't revive downed comrades. Also in BF2142 if you kill the shooter before the grenades hit they'll become duds. At first I thought that was a bug but it actually turns out to be a good balancing factor since bullets kill faster then the grenades, it makes a sniper specificaly effective against rocket grenades.

[PanzerHans]

I like the even playground setup. In my opinion this is how it should be. I do realize that the unlocks is a way to keep the game alive for an extended period of time though. In the TG vs TG scrim the riflerockets were used as a squadbased mortar, that is 3 assault softened a target before advancing with the rest of the squad. It worked fairly good(we were on team B).

[Jaykay]

Originally Posted by Boulderdash

My squad couldn't walk 10 feet without having a whole squads worth of rockets headed towards us. It's a little bit silly if you ask me. Pounding a bunch of rockets into a crowded area has no skill compared to long-range single kills with them.

Right; quoted for truth.

[Sir_Brass]

All I'm hearing is whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.

Trust me, I've been playing with rockets as soon as humanly possible in this game, since that branch of assault was my very first tree unlocked (and I dedicated every unlock that I could at first to it), and this is the truth I found about rockets:

They take skill to use.

Sure they are powerful weapons, but you only have 12 of them before needing a complete resupply. Also, they are SLOW. If you see the guy fire them you have a decent chance of avoiding them, sometimes. The best use of rockets is on those not expecting them (as in, they're currently engaging you or someone else), or where they can't escape the blast (confined spaces or tight maps).

You also have to learn to aim the buggers.

Plus, they're balancing weapons for players with high ping (the reason Bommando uses them so much....the E1st guys were saying yesterday that they now understood why bommando uses his rockets SO much, since they experienced ping almost as high as bomm and realized how debilitating it was) that are not able to track or precise shoot simply b/c of net signal delay to the server.

A noob may increase his kill count with rockets, but he's bullet bait if he doesn't know how to use them (it's bloody obvious where you are if someone sees the rocket tracks).

If I'm on the monorail on belgrade and an assault on my squad is near me, I tell him that if he's going to use rockets to get far away from me, since if they see his rockets, and there's anything shooting splash weapons (noob cannon, or a good rocketeer) that returns fire against the point where the rockets originated, then I'm dead meat along with him, and they then get a pesky sniper along with his medic.

Rockets have big disadvantages against experienced players.

I don't fear noobs with rockets. I just either return more accurate and deadly rockets, or I simply burst shoot them and kill them before they have time to try and spam more rockets on me.

Rocket spammage is a skill that must be learned. There's enough disadvantages with rockets in this game that they need to be used in choice situations only.

If you're spamming rockets constantly all game, its either a tight map with lots of closely packed targets (southtown, scrim yesterday, on defense.....PAC on flag was rocket bait), or you're on permanent buggy defense as the engineers' medic.

[deephousedj]

Howdy all,

Just signed up here a week ago and I am addicted the game and your server!

I'm gonna post over at the hello all thread, but I wanted to ask a quick question.

Does this all unlocks weekend end and we get our normal progression via ranks. Or does everyone have all unlocks from this weekend out?

Reason I ask is I like the capability to play with what I don't have yet, and decide which way to go... But I also like the fact that I am going to be rewarded for learning the game better and rank up and unlock up normally. Which leads me to hope after this weekend all turns to normal.

[WaffleHousChef]

All unlock weekend supposedly ends "Monday at midnight." Should be back to normal after that.

[deephousedj]

Thanks, I also finally found the news item on ea's site. I shoulda looked harder. See you all on the field.