Vehicle Change Idea

[Beerbeer]

Since vehicle spam is the name of the game, I think they should drastically increase overall vehicle health, while concurrently reducing damage output.

The overall magnitude of vehicle spam and infantry one-shotting has to stop. Let vehicles live longer in the face of AV/AA, but require them to shoot more to kill things.

This game desperately needs more infantry friendly activities. It's dead to me as I find farming in tanks and esfs so easy.

[ShadetheDruid]

This again.. :( How many times do we have to do the inane vehicle nerf dance?

Fix the resource system. Hell, make vehicles cost certs to unlock too while you're at it (and just give people who've already spent a couple of thousand certs on a vehicle the unlock automatically).

Seriously, the problem isn't that vehicles can instagib infantry - it's a giant hulk of metal that fires out exploding shells the size of someone's leg, what do you expect to happen if that hits you? - the problem is the limiting factors already in the game, that should logically work to limit vehicle numbers, are broken.

[Beerbeer]

Listen, I spend 80% of my time in vehicles. The pool of infantry to farm is shrinking by our own success as everyone else is in vehicles (or quitting).

This game is neglecting a core part of planetside.

[Methonius]

Since vehicle spam is the name of the game, I think they should drastically increase overall vehicle health, while concurrently reducing damage output.

The overall magnitude of vehicle spam and infantry one-shotting has to stop. Let vehicles live longer in the face of AV/AA, but require them to shoot more to kill things.

This game desperately needs more infantry friendly activities. It's dead to me as I find farming in tanks and esfs so easy.

I agree with this whole heartedly, I consistently find it only fun to play as infantry lateley if there is sunderer vs sunderer spawns in an area if not in a bio lab fighting you get one shotted by everything as infantry. In the original ps1 you could take multiple shots from mags in that game, this game every tank just one shots and even infantry can own tanks just as fast from behind the fights just dwindle out way to fast. I dont mind how fast the TTK is for infantry vs infantry but for infantry vs vehicles and vise versa its just rediculous it makes everyone want to play vehicle but then you either get two shot in the back randomly or bombed by esf or a lib.

[Beerbeer]

I know people enjoy farming infantry, but we are our own worse enemy as I fear there won't be many infantry left to farm if things stay this way. There are too many vehicles as it now stands.

Out of all the ideas I could think of, this might work the best to bring overall balance back to the game, and allow for more infantry friendly activities.

Vehicle spam can live on, just the TTK for them would be more (i.e., no more one-shotting infantry), while they gain a equivalent amount of health. A fair trade off that would keep everyone happy IMO.

[belch]

I disagree beer. It's still necessary to dismount and stand on objectives to take them, and that isn't always possible in a vehicle. Some redesigning of the bases, and where spawn areas are located, could solve a lot of it.

[Beerbeer]

Have you seen base captures recently? Good luck finding someone willing to leave their vehicle to do this.

One lone capper with ten vehicles climbing over each other to spawn camp two people dumb enough to respawn. I think this trend will only get worse as people get sick of being farmed as infantry.

[belch]

well, yeah, that's occasionally been an issue...

lol

That's where some modifications to the bases would help I think. If they made certain areas inaccesible to fire from ground and air vehicles, you wouldn't see so much of it. But you have to understand, some of the issue lies with the very people you describe...those that just refuse to dismount their vehicles and help capture an objective. Meanwhile, I'm getting MAX'ed and lasered beamed to death in the fight of my life, just meters away....lol *weep*

[Rahabib]

just nerf xp for vehicle on infantry crime (50-75xp) and you will see a lot less vehicle farmers and will xp at the same rate as infantry will.

[Crator]

Doubt nerf XP for vehicles killing infantry will help much. Players don't kill just for XP. They do it cause they are helping capture a location and kill stats and because, they can.

I think we need to make the bases more infantry friendly to fix this. #1 imo is making it so vehicles cannot camp the spawns and making the bases more defensible for the owners.

[Canaris]

while I heartily agree with the sentiment beer I think perhaps as others have said that a base/outpost over haul could achieve the same thing for infantry rather than a drastic change to how vehicles work. I think the vehicle change while helping infantry would alienate the people who enjoy vehicle combat.

[Beerbeer]

Bases are definetely a cause, but I firmly believe that vehicle one-shotting has to end. It's too easy to farm so long as this capability exists.

[belch]

I can't agree with that bro. A tank should one shot an infantryman. It's a freakin' tank!

Maybe a re-hash of shoulder launched rocket's damage to vehicles, and number of mines carried is worth looking at as well as base fixes. But honestly, a grunt caught out in the open by any armored vehicle should not expect to last long.

[Beerbeer]

Then tanks need to be rarer, like on a timer.

Right now, any Tom, Dick or Harry can pull a tank because of this ability.

It's one or the other IMO. Rarity or less damage, that's the only solution I can think of to the infantry farming problem.

[ShadetheDruid]

Then you agree that fixing the resource system so it actually works (ie. so you don't just have full resource all the time, and actually have to think about capping places to get resource gain) would be the solution?

[Beerbeer]

I'll be honest, I farm infantry in vehicles as much as any other person, maybe more so. But I can see where it's becoming detrimental to the fundamental core of the game. There are less and less infantry roaming the world.

I realized this when I started to pay attention to base takeovers. Most of the people were in vehicles, jockeying for position to camp the few defenders left. One person stood at the control point. Even more astounding, I've witnessed base attacks where no one would get out of their vehicles to cap. I couldn't believe it as this is what the game has become.

1. Infantry activities are severely limited. The only purpose of infantry is to flip the objective and get farmed.
2. There's really no point in buying infantry weapons IMO, if everyone ultimately ends up using vehicles to farm an ever-shrinking pool of infantry players.
3. One-shotting anything is cheap and requires no skill, and therein lies the problem with vehicles IMO.

[CasualCat]

One person stood at the control point. Even more astounding, I've witnessed base attacks where no one would get out of their vehicles to cap. I couldn't believe it as this is what the game has become.


I have a feeling this has some to do with the interaction of vehicle despawn timers/rear armor weakness/spawn timers/resources.

They get out of their vehicle, depending on the cap time they could lose it to despawn, enemy fire, etc.

[Whiteagle]

Well as Figment has been going on about over here (http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51193), the bigger issue is the base designs themselves...

To quote his huge defense write-up:
B. A base can only be taken by firm infantry control. Vehicles gain ground, infantry consolidate terrain.


Clearly, this isn't the case with the current base layouts.

[Beerbeer]

You're kind of missing the point, but you highlight the issue nonetheless (in reference to cat).

What's sad is that the game, in this state, will never attract newbies in the magnitude they want. Newbies thinking this game is a fairly traditional "FPS" game in the sense of the word, will get steamrolled by a mass of vehicles. Coupled with the generally confusing game elements and poor explanations of anything, population may have peaked and now shrinking.

The only people left are the vehicle one-shot campers, while the pool of people to camp shrinks.

[WarbirdTD]

As has been said before, the main problem is not vehicles, so nerfing them isn't the right course. The right course is a complete redesign of the major bases so that the spawn room is underground and deep inside the main base. Vehicles should NEVER EVER be able to spam at infantry running from their spawn to regain a control point. This makes for base defense that not only doesn't make any sense, but is also hugely frustrating. Looking at some of Figment's drawings and posts, I think they should probably hire him as a consultant.

[Beerbeer]

I still believe these powerful one-man vehicles need addressing, in either how often they can be acquired or eliminating their one-shot, easy-mode capability.

It's like those great hunters that hunt their prey into extinction. Then the hunters quit.

[NtrSandman]

Take the main gun away from the driver, give it back to the passenger. I think that would be fewer tanks on the road because people would be less likely to run a tank by themselves if they have no/weak gun. I see about half of the tanks with only one person in them. I think this change would take 25%-33% of the tanks off the road.

[Beerbeer]

Agree.

[The Messenger]

It's pretty rediculous to see a column of vehicles just staring at the external shields at an AMP station waiting for someone else to take the shield down. I tend to make a habit of not destroying gens if I think we can take the base without their help. Unfortunately some indy n00blet wants the points for destroying the gens and the tanks eventually get in.

Nerfing vehicles is also a really bad idea because then they would have to nerf C4, AT Mines, and maybe rockets just to compensate. It wouldn't be right to leave tanks to be almost defenseless against infantry. Tanks are easy to kill, just sneak up on them with AT mines or a buddy with rockets to the rear. And if they spot you, use cover to get away.

The resource system does need a serious revamp though. And dedicated drivers would've cut the tanks down by about half. Drivers would probably have preferred gunners; kicking out indies and n00blets trying to farm easy kills.

Then again I don't know how they'd work dedicated drivers for lightnings and especially the magrider. A magrider's driver sitting on a hill would be bored out of his mind. But it would make tank combat more interesting for prowlers and vannies.

[Beerbeer]

Putting one-man, one-shot insta-gib vehicles in the game, that can be pretty much be driven at will, was a mistake as they will naturally overshadow everything else.

Rocket pods got a decent nerf. Tanks are next. It's either that or make them rarer IMO.

You can look at it from either side: people who believe one-man tanks should insta-gib infantry should sit on the rarer side. Those that don't should sit on the reduced damaged side. It's either that or make them two-man vehicles where the driver just drives.

[GLaDOS]

Giving the gunner the main gun won't help. That will just cause tankers to ask for buffs, since they've become a three-man vehicle, which means we'll have less tanks, but they'll be more powerful. Access needs to be limited, although I won't pretend I know how.

[Beerbeer]

If you think about it, tanks, especially with HE guns and zoom optics, are like libs, but don't require a gunner.

[The Messenger]

Rank up FLAK armor, I've put HE rounds right next to infantry and not OHK. Either it's buggy or they have REALLY high FLAK.

[Beerbeer]

I really don't play infantry much anymore to worry about that.