One Tank/ESF Per hour

[Beerbeer]

I know we have this whole resource thing, but I honestly believe it is way too easy to spam these vehicles. One hour limits should be in place for tanks and esfs (and maybe libs). Lightnings, sunderers, flash and galaxies would be immune to this

It promotes reckless play. It exacerbates disparities and balance issues.

Maybe the subscriber could cut 30% off that time?

People would be more careful with their vehicles. You won't see crazy rocket spamming idiots who suicide into tanks or libs. Dare I say AA, in its current form, would look a lot more deadly.

[Crator]

Won't happen. They won't limit them this much due to investment of time and real money in the roles.

[Ruffdog]

Have you been in Duke's booze cabinet? You're off your face

[Electrofreak]

The solution isn't timers. It's a resource system that works properly. If it did, we wouldn't need timers.

[Hamma]

They won't do this.

[Beerbeer]

I know why they're afraid of doing it: frightened they my scare away the average player?

I don't think it will have the negative effects people may think it will have. Heck, even in bf, tanks and planes were at a premium if I remember correctly? Here, nothing.

If anything, people might care more, want to cert deeper into them for countermeasures, attack capabilities, etc., because if they get destroyed, they know they'll have to wait an hour (or less if subscribed) to get another.

Anyways, just a thought.

[Hamma]

Higby has said many times they don't want to keep people from playing the way they want, thats not fun. I suspect we won't see much more than we have already.

[Beerbeer]

Well, the biggest problem with that logic is that the current system encourages play in those vehicles more than any others, even if you don't want to, since they are so powerful.

[Crator]

Once they add more vehicles to the game this will likely fix itself. They could even increase the acquisition timer for MBT when they add more vehicles. Remember those nifty implants in beta that let you reduce the acquisition timer? Those will probably return at this point to allow dedicated MBT drivers to get the tank faster. Should even out the amount of them at that point.

ESF, I got nothing. But I don't think limiting them in # is necessary. They just need some tweaking as far as damage towards different types of units I think.

[Beerbeer]

The balance see-sawing that's probably going to happen is going to piss off as many people as it pleases.

Making changes like this might be enough to tilt things, without affecting actual game play mechanics. Leave them in their powerful state, but make them rare (or rarer).

[Mooseay]

So let's say you log on and you're in the mood to fly in ESF, you get the aircraft just about to get out the warpgate and a gal comes careering into you. You flip, nosedive into the ground and well that's the end of your play session, no more Planetside for you for an hour you only want to be a fighter.

That kind of bull happens to often for an hour to work, people will just feel cheated, it wasn't a lack of skill or less certs that lost you your plane it was bad luck.

Also think of the griefing it would allow for. Come on you know there's gonna be that one guy just siting at the spawn pad with C4 or rockets :twisted:

[GuyShep]

I'm not going to wait an hour just to play how I want to play.

[Aurmanite]

Why is it so hard for everyone to deal with ESF and tanks.

Can't you read the map and find out where the battles you like are?

If you're getting killed by tanks/ESF's to the point of frustration you're playing wrong.

[WarbirdTD]

Ok, this is getting ridiculous.. You HAVE to be trolling this forum. Aren't you the same one that has said that the NC weapons are underpowered? The Gauss SAW has such a ridiculous TTK in CQC that anyone complaining about it might benefit from a head examination... or perhaps just aiming practice. And while we're on that topic, the EM6 is a damn fully automatic shotgun disguised as an assault rifle. The game is getting boring after 2 weeks? Most players and outfits haven't even hit their stride yet. The game is still evolving with new tactics every day.
Now we should have ridiculous timers so that no vehicles interfere with massive infantry zerg smashes? This would probably be the best way for SOE to destroy their own game. If they were to take your suggestion, they would also have to remove all lock-on AV and AA weapons from the game, as well as nerf AA flak by 15 to 20% just so there would be a point to pulling vehicles. It would almost certainly destroy any kind of organized gameplay within outfits that specialize in Armored Divisions or Air Wings. If you really don't like vehicles in your first person shooters, why did you pick Planetside?
Tell you what... If you want to see what happens when people are scared to lose MMO items that they put a lot of resources/time/money into, go give Eve Online a try. See how many people avoid a fight because they don't want to lose their e-stuff.

[Beerbeer]

Relax, I was just expressing my thoughts.

What I was trying to say, more or less, is they should leave everything as-is, but just give these things a timer.

People who play clans will log in, raw, and not be affected by the timer, unless they just logged out.

I was offering an alternative to the see-saw that we're going to have.

[Beerbeer]

See, not less than a few hours after I posted this and here we go again.

I personally welcome the changes, but I'm sure there will be a lot of unhappy fliers after the patch actually gets rolled out, but we'll see.

[Sturmhardt]

Well, the biggest problem with that logic is that the current system encourages play in those vehicles more than any others, even if you don't want to, since they are so powerful.

Very true. There is no reason NOT to pull a vehicle anytime you come across a terminal. I hope this changes with the decimator bc is killing tanks near bases.

[Tooterfish]

I would be a fan of limiting ESF's more, if not for the fact that a team mate manages to either run into my ESF, or deliberately flip it in WG every few minutes.

[Mox]

I would stop playing if i cant spam vecs. Thank god SOE supports drivers/pilots.

[psijaka]

Maybe the subscriber could cut 30% off that time?

Maybe this would be straying a bit too close to Pay2Win?

And 1 hour timer; no thanks. I'm no fan of tank spam or being blasted by rocket pods, but putting a long timer on is not the answer; balancing the game is.

[Figment]

If they just required multi-crew on MBTs, they'd be pulled in lower numbers and would be more vulnerable if solo'd and would be allowed to be slightly more powerful per player (that'd actually warrant one shot kills, which the solo tanks do not warrant).

Especially if you would have to make a pre-selection of vehicles you can use. It's silly that everyone can use every vehicle right now. That's a bane to logistics denial.

[ShadetheDruid]

Or, you know, it's because the resource system is broken.

Seriously, Electrofreak is right, if the resource system worked we wouldn't need all these inane reactionary limitations as are suggested all the time (or the current timer limitation, even).

(Though having to spend certs to unlock a vehicle in the first place wouldn't bother me at all, but that's unlikely to happen at this stage).

[Beerbeer]

I hate bumping my own thread, but I think this might be worthwhile discussing. The prevalence of these vehicles, coupled with the mechanics of base captures and spawn locations, might make this idea worthwhile.

If anything, this will lesson the need for the constant buffing/nerfing battle between AA/AV and vehicles.

Not only that, the core of the game (infantry FPS) is being severely diminished due to the abundance of vehicles. We need to start looking at different ways to balance this IMO, outside of the constant nerfing and buffing.

[CasualCat]

Still think the issue is more that anybody and everybody can pull any vehicle they want.

All the proposal does is punish people dedicated to those roles. The spammers will say oh well and just do something else.

The tank 1 hour timer wouldn't bother me most of the time. I've survived in tanks for hours many times.

A hour timer on a Liberator would be a bitch though. I've survived that long before, but it is much more infrequent.

I suspect the 1 hour timer on ESFs would affect even the great pilots. As the lesser pilots quickly ended up on timers the remaining good/great ESFs (of which I'm not one) would be easier to focus down w/AA or other ESFs.

[Beerbeer]

Yeah, if you're "good" or part of an organized outfit, these timers might have limited affect. However, this will reduce the sheer amount of vehicle spam currently available, IMO, which will only benefit the greater good of the game.

[Miffy]

The game needs to take away any limits tbh, Planetside only had like a 5min min timer from I can remember and it was fine. Right now Resources and time limits stop people from defending because all you're doing is losing until you're out and cannot do anything and have to go.

There are no infantry areas so vehicles just dominate the whole map :\

[Ruffdog]

Sorry I think it's nonsense.
Think of all the nerds that will empire hop just to grief and kill MBTs and ESFs on their "own" team.

"Oh great another 59 minutes to pull a veh I've sunk all my certs into, because some shithead just TK'd me."

[Beerbeer]

That's not a very good excuse for something that I consider endemic.

Vehicles are just too easy IMO. The only purpose of infantry is to stand near the cap point until it flips, that's pretty much it.

[LUID]

The game needs to take away any limits tbh, Planetside only had like a 5min min timer from I can remember and it was fine. Right now Resources and time limits stop people from defending because all you're doing is losing until you're out and cannot do anything and have to go.

There are no infantry areas so vehicles just dominate the whole map :\

A few minutes in PS1 was fine because it didn't allow soloing in a MBT, or the ridiculous killspeed the rocket pods have right now.

Defending is impossible because of horrible base design and little/no incentives to defend. Nobody *wants* to defend as its better to cap the next point and wait until it changes color to get it back.

The biggest problem this game has is the need for hard counters and the ramboing. This is where PS1 is vastly superior:

Main tank rounds one-hit kill infantry. (IWIN)
Most secondary weapons one-hit kill infantry (IWIN)
C4 one-hit kills tanks in the rear (IWIN)
Mines can be placed on top of each other to one-hit kill tanks (IWIN)
rocket pods can one-hit kill infantry and kill a tank before it can react (IWIN)
Heavy assault killing non-heavy assault infantry too quickly (IWIN)
Excessive grenade spam/Grenades doing too much damage (IWIN)
Heavy assault being allowed to drive vehicles (when they shouldn't)
Vehicle/Aircraft spam due to lack of doors in bases.
ESF's overpowered against everything and breaking the 'rock/paper/scissors' rule
Solo heavy tanks
Vehicle costs too low by at least 25-50% across the board.
Minimap uselessness/Mashing Q to ID targets that are in your face and suddenly "dissapear".

If you want "anyone to do whatever they want", all the time, without significant restrictions, then be prepared to deal with the consequences, including:

Giant zergs of the most effective vehicle to cap bases (MBT's, ESF's, Libs)
Vehicle/class imbalances (and because of the hard-counter nonsense they will probably never get it right.)

I don't think this will be addressed. I think this is exactly the type of gamestyle they want.

[shortcake]

I'd rather they just set it up so that you have to certify in one vehicle, and during that time, it's the only vehicle you can use(barring the flash probably). Give vehicle changes a 3 hour cooldown, and leave acquire timers as they are.

As it is, it's basically: Do you have your ESF up? If not, do you have your tank or liberator up? If not, do you have your lightning up? The current system with resources just encourages sitting on whatever continent your faction is zerging the piss out for the most resources of and spamming whatever vehicle isn't on a timer.

[Beerbeer]

I miss the good "real" FPS fights of infantry and maxes.

They're doing everything in their power to minimize this, which is strange since Sony can sell us a myriad of infantry guns, but only so many vehicle weapons. Who wants to buy infantry weapons if they get little use?

Vehicle spam, base design, everything minimizes the importance of infantry other than to get farmed by vehicles. And eventually, most people will figure this out, and so forth and so on until one person gets out of the vehicle to cap, while fifty others stay in their vehicles. God forbid, no one gets out to cap.