Quote:
Originally Posted by usagold2004
Would anyone entertain the idea of having pilot characters? Like in some new shooter games where you gain points which you can spend on character atributes...
in a flying game, maybe you could upgrade your pilots eye sight, or boost his G tolerance, or maybe he could be mechanically skilled and get a little extra horse power out of the engine...
throw in your ideas or shoot it down. fights on
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This is almost precisely what Combat Flight Simulator 3 introduced, and it was poor in concept.
The idea of making a pilot more individual is laudable and desirable, but the execution of it is always a problem. What we're talking about here is more like an RPG...boosting eyesight? Nonsense, this didn't happen...G Tolerance? Again, fantasy, the pilot was trained and his personal tolerance is his personal tolerance, end of story. Those two 'stats' are straight out of CFS3 and that system was awful in the opinion of many people. "mechanical skills" are pretty useless in the cockpit. Engine controls are available, that's all you're manipulating in the pilot's seat. My knowledge of the internal combustion engine never made my car faster while I was driving it
The fidelity of the system by which an individual 'character pilot' has strong and weak points may be useful for named non-player aces, but for a human? Firstly, nobody wants to be at a
disadvantage, and while it may make the game 'more interesting' for some by introducing this RPG aspect, the sim should be about simulating reality. As I've noted, "boosting" eyesight is science-fiction, not fact. In addition, this lends itself to 'plus stacking' where the only goal is the "best build":
"plz help. My 4th level OKL char is porked, what did I do rong?"
The only thing such a system could do is make a novelty accessible to players, and only at first. Two months into the game, every player will know how to 'stack pluses properly', and then every Pilot Player Character will be exactly the same- just like they are now in Il2, with zero time money and effort spent. Then development time and resources will be spent on "fixing" the PPC system, becasue of the complaints or exploits, and all we'll have to show for all of this is the same, perfectly level playing field we have right now
Bad idea in my opinion, waste of time, effort, money, and it makes high expectations that can't be met.