Long range anti-vehicle weapons used by infantry are ruining vehicle gameplay.

[Rothnang]

I'm having less and less fun with Planetside 2, and one of the major factors making that happen is the huge proliferation of anti vehicle weapons with extreme range that infantry can carry.

Let me explain why this just plain ruins my fun:

Vehicles in Planetside 2 are designed to not be infinitely replaceable. I generally have no problem with that. The idea of a unit that has some penalty attached to it when you lose it appeals to me because it creates an element of risk vs. reward and that makes for a smarter, deeper game.

This becomes a serious problem however when the things most likely to kill your vehicle aren't risks you take, but weapons that can take you down without giving you any reasonable chance to avoid it. Those weapons are all the various extreme range anti vehicle weapons that infantry carries.

A fight between vehicle and infantry at more than 300 meters distance favors the infantry to a huge amount. The vehicle will not be able to even render the infantry, let alone have the slightest chance of hitting it at those kinds of ranges. Even if you do kill infantry, they can come back nearly instantly.

Any AV weapon in the game can kill a vehicle instantly when used by multiple people at the same time, and while that is a coordinated effort that should be rewarded, it leads to a situation where combat scaling simply doesn't work anymore because armor and hitpoints become meaningless as battles get bigger, while speed, size and stealth become the only survival mechanics that make any impact. That leads to an increasingly backwards paradigm where the most armored units are actually the easiest to take out.



Basically what we have is a situation where vehicles are increasingly becoming less and less fun to use because any organized opposition can easily destroy them without giving the drivers much of any chance to save their vehicle, and as a result the spawn timers and resource restrictions eventually strangle you and force you to play something else. That's just plain frustrating at this point, since the infantry party never stops, no matter how many times they go down.

The really big offenders that are causing this are weapons like Bursters, Strikers, Lancers, AV Mana and Lock on G2G and G2A missiles. Basically anything that can effectively engage a vehicle at ranges beyond about 300 meters and is carried by infantry is pretty much breaking the game for vehicle players at this point.

I would have sworn that the lancer is the worst out of the new weapons two weeks ago, but my experiences using that thing have pretty much convinced me that it is in fact the most overpowered out of all of them. Not because it's all that practical to use or anything like that, but simply because if you have 5 lancers sitting on top of a hill you have an 800m radius deathzone for all tanks, sunderers, liberators, galaxies, lightnings and anything else that's a nice big target that comes into your line of sight.



The reason why there is simply no reasonable balance to be had with those kinds of weapons is because they just throw any kind of Risk vs. Reward out the window for vehicle players and just introduce the risk of instant unavoidable death to absolutely everything you do with a vehicle.

You cannot see a volley of lancers coming in a Vanguard. There is nothing you could have possibly done to avoid getting facemelted by them. The people firing them are probably sitting between 500-800 meters away from you, aren't rendered, even if they were you have no weapon that can seriously kill infantry at that kind of range. Even if you could both see and combat them, you still lack the advantage of infinite respawns and medics, and your armor isn't of any use to you in a fight so large that you die in one second regardless of how tough your vehicle supposedly is.

To me if there is a concentration of units that has enough firepower to instantly kill you then they should be pretty obvious. If I see 5 Skyguards in my Liberator I don't go to them, because I know they will fuck me up. I can't see 5 Bursters though, or 5 Strikers, they just get to kill me out of the blue without giving me any reasonable chance to avoid it.



There are really two options here:

1. You keep this instant unavoidable death bullshit in the game, but then I don't want my vehicles treated as though they are precious and I have to keep them safe.
You aren't giving me the option to play in such a way that I get to participate in the big battles and keep my vehicle safe at the same time, so if my vehicle is going to die a lot and without me being able to prevent it I don't want it costing a shitload of resources and have a huge timer.

2. You get rid of all of those weapons that can kill me without giving me any chance of avoiding it because it's impossible for me to even know where they are coming from, or stay out of their range without being completely barred from all larger fights. If my vehicle is an expensive investment and my task as a Pilot / Driver is to keep it safe in the field then I want a game that gives me that option. I don't need to be deathproof, but a penalty is something you take for making a mistake, and I'm sick of getting slapped with penalties when the only thing I did wrong was going within 500 meters of a large fight - which just happens to be the whole point for playing this game!

[HereticusXZ]

Why are you driving your vehicle into a organized force? A organized force should be dealing with any threat generally well, specifically vehicle spam.

IR smoke and Flares counter lock-ons pretty well, talented vehicle users know how to take advantage of terrain during attack maneuvers to break enemy LOS which pisses off lock-on users to no end.

Vehicle render distance vs Infantry render I don't think is terribly bad just yet, more or less just annoying. SOE is making baby steps to find solutions to that but I wish they would make greater strides.

Lancers do bother me with the kind of range they can hit you at, any other AV threat you can at least attempt to dodge, but not the lancer it feels like it just teleports to your vehicle, even at extreme range.

Vehicle spam IMO is a greater problem then Infantry' wide variety of AV weapons. IMO Give vehicles more HP and armor but make them more complicated to use, I.E. 3 person crews. Tank crews could potentially mean epic skilled tank fights which would give the game a even greater epic feel to the fights. The comradeship with Sunderers, Liberators and Gal Gunship crews lead to some awesome outfit experiences and the feeling of having the same vehicle still alive after 10+ major battles is a awesome one.

Might even be a stretch but rumble seat ESF? Pilot who flys and uses the nose gun, co-pilot to use missile pods or just taxi?

[maradine]

When you drive/fly/walk into a prepared nest of anything/anything/anything, you die/die/die. I'm beginning to wonder if you solo full-time. That doesn't count the guys/gals/whatevers you coax into your perma-lib.

[krnasaur]

Im all for people being able to solo vehicles from range.


and when 3 people coordinate to take down a 1 man tank, the 3 people should win every time(unless they stand on top of each other and all get taken out by the splash of 1 shot, then they deserve to lose)

[Ghoest9]

Use the tanks like real militaries do and then they are powerful.


Use them like rambo and you die.

[Sledgecrushr]

Use the tanks like real militaries do and then they are powerful.


Use them like rambo and you die.

Basically what Ghoest is saying is if you run into five enemies and you are solo you are probably going to die. Real good players might be able to comeout on top from this situation but yeah, almost certain death.

[Rothnang]

Simply saying "Well don't drive your vehicle near an organized force" doesn't solve the problem.

An organized force that can take down a vehicle so quickly that you have no serious chance to respond is 3-5 people, they aren't even visible until you are within about 300 meters of them, and that force can be created at any infantry terminal while you are already in the area.

Simply saying "Well, just avoid it" and actually doing it is a world of difference.

The whole reason why this stuff is ruining my fun is because you can't "just avoid it". If they have a decent vantage point in a relatively open region you cannot go anywhere near the entire battle, and since you can't see the enemies you have to risk your neck and might die to even just roughly establish where the threat is.


In order to be able to avoid a threat to you while still participating in the battle you have to be able to see the threat, and that threat has to be localized somewhere, and not be able to attack you anywhere in the combat zone.


Basically what Ghoest is saying is if you run into five enemies and you are solo you are probably going to die. Real good players might be able to comeout on top from this situation but yeah, almost certain death.

Yea, you should lose if you get into a fight with five enemies, but the thing is, you have no way of avoiding it if those enemies are several hundred meters outside of render distance when they open fire.


It's sooooo easy to just say "Oh, you're just not careful enough" and make excuses for that crap, but the reality in the game is, there is no way for someone to avoid getting killed by unrendered damage from units that can cover the entire battle in every single direction.

[CrankyTRex]

Basically what Ghoest is saying is if you run into five enemies and you are solo you are probably going to die. Real good players might be able to comeout on top from this situation but yeah, almost certain death.

I believe the crux of the complaint is that the range of the weapons allows infantry to engage from outside the visual range of the vehicle, thereby making it rather difficult for the vehicle to respond accordingly. So less "running into" and more "being anywhere near the combat zone."

That might not be so bad if one could instantly re-spawn their vehicle with no penalty, but that is unfortunately not the case.

EDIT:
Oh bother, one post late.

[Rothnang]

Well, at least someone understands the complaint.



I don't have a problem with someone getting killed because they picked a fight with a group of enemies that were obviously packing the firepower to kill them. I do have a problem with not being given the choice of whether or not I want to commit to such a fight because either I can't even see those units before they are already laying into me, or those units have such insane range that the only way to avoid them is to abandon that battle completely.

[AThreatToYou]

Well, at least someone understands the complaint.



I don't have a problem with someone getting killed because they picked a fight with a group of enemies that were obviously packing the firepower to kill them. I do have a problem with not being given the choice of whether or not I want to commit to such a fight because either I can't even see those units before they are already laying into me, or those units have such insane range that the only way to avoid them is to abandon that battle completely.

LOD needs to be fixed/changed, I agree. There should be some flag that renders all anti-vehicle-wielding infantry up to 800m away,

but I don't see Lancer crews taking out tanks at 800m. Lancers have damage drop-off and they don't do much damage at that range, although I suppose literally 12 of those guys could stamp them all out. The fact stands is that they can kill you and you literally can't see them. That has to be changed.

Yet, atm, I think that's all that should be changed. Given some kind of chance of forewarning we can go from there. Until then, all buff/nerf calls on the basis of this are off.

[CrankyTRex]

Well, at least someone understands the complaint.



I don't have a problem with someone getting killed because they picked a fight with a group of enemies that were obviously packing the firepower to kill them. I do have a problem with not being given the choice of whether or not I want to commit to such a fight because either I can't even see those units before they are already laying into me, or those units have such insane range that the only way to avoid them is to abandon that battle completely.

Death by random crap you can't see or do anything about is a real problem in this game, especially as forces multiply. People should want to go to battles, not avoid them entirely so they don't feel frustrated by instant death from all angles.

It sucks pretty bad as infantry wherein the usual penalty for death is a couple seconds watching the re-spawn screen. In a vehicle, this is multiplied by the timers and the resources. Instead of getting right back in the action like the infantry, you sit around waiting for the arbitrary timer to go away.

Even that might not be so bad if the timer meant something in the game world. (The resources do at least, however much of a joke they are.) It's just an arbitrary number controlled by how many certs you've had available to flush on it.

[Rothnang]

LOD needs to be fixed/changed, I agree. There should be some flag that renders all anti-vehicle-wielding infantry up to 800m away,

Yea, but you need to keep in mind, at 800 meters even if infantry is rendered it might be less than 1 pixel big depending on your resolution, and even if you could see them wouldn't change the fact that you have no way of getting into the battle as long as there is no part of that battle that they can't cover with that kind of range.

Infantry is barely visible at 300 meters without a hefty zoom installed, certainly not big enough to reliably hit them without massive splash damage. I mean you have to keep in mind that at roughly 100 meters most small arms are utterly ineffective because the targets become so small that you need a scope to even have a prayer of hitting them.

Vehicles only have 2x or 3x maximum zoom on their weapons, which means they don't even have magnification factors that are comparable to what you can plop onto most carbines.


but I don't see Lancer crews taking out tanks at 800m. Lancers have damage drop-off and they don't do much damage at that range, although I suppose literally 12 of those guys could stamp them all out. The fact stands is that they can kill you and you literally can't see them. That has to be changed.

800 meters on lancers is not unreasonable actually, since you're shooting at pretty big targets. I mean, in reality the kills happen more at 600-700 maybe, because you need to charge the gun etc. but that's still insane. Against aircraft the Lancer starts getting viable at around 200-300, which is a little more reasonable, but still more than far enough away to make it hard as all hell for pilots to identify the threat before it strikes.

[Artimus]

Okay here is the thing... If a group of people is heavily defended with AV weapons then maybe stop spwaning vehicals and I dunno spawn aircraft? When a weapon is used as a group in this game it becomes OP plain and simple. Just because people find ways to exploit something doesnt mean its suddenly unbeatable you just have not figured out to counter them. If you are soloing don't expect to achieve anything tho.

Also the terrain is your best friend when tanking if you know what your doing enemy lock ons should not even really be an issue. Libs and kamikaze light assults are what you need to watch out for.

[Falcon_br]

The situation on Waterson is that on Esamir the VS got a standard tactics.
They like to push us to the warp gate and start a siege.
The VS siege is normally made by a platoon full of lancers, some engineer dropping ammunition and using the anti tank turret, 6-8 buster maxes, 2 sunderes and 2 medics.
I have seen great tank Zergs coming out of the TR gate to be instantly crushed, trying to fly is instant death.
I just don't say this is OP because we do the same, but change the lancers to strikers, doing that we decrease the kill range to 400m but we can use less anti air maxes.

The first time my outfit and the rest of the TR conquered Esamir on Jaeger, we rolled to full continent with a tank column, something it can't be done in this game anymore.

[Rothnang]

Aircraft are hit by this problem harder than ground vehicles actually, since Bursters and Lock-on launchers are both weapons with very long range that are used by Infantry against them, and it's even harder to get out of their line of sight in the air than on the ground.

Also, sure, in a Squad on Squad fight 3-5 guys pulling a specific counter is a huge commitment for the enemies, and you can pull something that counters them, but in a 100 on 100 battle it doesn't take much at all out of the enemy force to have an instant death counter squad for every conceivable vehicle type.

Being part of a huge army doesn't help you unless you're infantry. If your infantryman gets killed while there is still a significant force behind you chances are a medic will revive you. If your vehicle gets blown up by focused fire from beyond visual range it doesn't help you one little bit if there are 20 more vehicles behind you, they can't bring you back to life.


It's just simply not a matter of playing smart, the whole reason why it pisses me off is because there is no amount of intelligence or teamwork or skill you can apply to this problem, in such a way that you are actually participating and having fun. It always comes back to the same bullshit exuses of people saying "Well, you need other units to clear them out for you" and "Just don't go into areas like that" and bla bla bla.

Ultimately, it's a disgusting double standard that infantry can spawn damn near anywhere with hardly any time lost because there it's considered priority #1 to make sure that Infantry never has a lull in the action, but vehicles are supposed to sit on a giant timer, get locked out of their units by resources, have to spend time driving to the battle, wait outside of the battlefield until the infantry has enough control of the place to even make them viable, and just generally get slapped with all these ridiculous penalties that keep you from fully participating. All that is supposed to jusify the power that vehicles have, but where is that amazing power? What do you actually need vehicles for other than Sunderers?

[Ironside]

infantry using av against infantry is ruining gameplay

[zirakaji]

infantry using av against infantry is ruining gameplay

But it fits the lore, no one is afraid to die anymore, so they just go taliban style with bazookas.

[Dougnifico]

You know what's hilarious? No one is complaining about vehicle spam anymore. lol

[Rothnang]

You know what's hilarious? No one is complaining about vehicle spam anymore. lol

Yea, sure, by making vehicles completely pointless they have certainly fixed the issue in a way that is soooooo agreeable to everyone. :rolleyes:

[BackzBanny]

Rothnang, you should take a look at this:
http://bit.ly/gEu7Mp

[Figment]

Cert availability
Glass cannons played solo and thus balanced against solo players
Long range bombardement by tanks

What does this lead to?

Hmmmmmmmmm...

Good thing we didn't warn about poor quality vehicle and infantry gameplay experiences due to the design of cert tree and solo-crew unit balance...


But welcome to how infantry has felt for a long time...

[Rothnang]

Cool, we've come full circle from people telling infantry players to go play COD when vehicles were owning them at every turn to people telling vehicle players to go play WoT. Guess assholes are the one constant you can always count on no matter how the wind blows.

[Varsam]

I main VS, and my outfit runs Lancer teams relatively frequently in the face of armor spam. Let me confirm some things as well as dispel some myths about the Lancer:

1. it is almost laughably easy for a coordinated lancer team to destroy vehicles within 400m, provided they are adequately protected against infantry and esfs (liberators make for easy targets).
2. it is terrible when used by lone wolves. using it in groups allows it to overcome its most glaring weakness, its worst-in-class ttk.
3. past 400m, leading on moving targets actually becomes an issue. the projectile is fast, but not instantaneous. at further ranges, against moving targets, it is quite difficult to land reliable hits due not only to projectile lag, but also to the fact that the vehicles are so small, moving your mouse even a single tic is the difference between a hit or a miss.

I agree that the lancer's effectiveness at extreme ranges needs toning down, but other people have mentioned that the lancer is one of those weapons that walks a very fine line between overeffectiveness and uselessness.

[Rothnang]

I was convinced myself that the Lancer was total shit for a long time, but after using it in conjunction with just 2 other people my opinion of it made a 180.

The thing is, the Lancer is by far not the only offender. Bursters have had the same effect on air since the start of the game, and AV Mana turrets can also hit from huge distances.

Lockon missiles with their 500 meter range are also pretty much unbeatable when volley fired. Sure, you can flare them for 5 seconds, but that doesn't really constitute a good defense, since even if you have shitloads of certs invested in them 25 seconds of cooldown means you either leave or die before the flare becomes available again. Not really something that helps you participate in the fight. The only vehicle that's fast enough to actually clear the full range of lockons in the 9-11 seconds a perfect flare buys you is the ESF.

[Realmofdarkness]

If you carry a heavy weapon as infatery then you shouldnt be able to carry a big AI gun as well. limit heavy class to only use shotguns and smg. also put a timer how often you can switch class. Then if you want to be a AW infantery you wont be as effective agains other infantery in open spaces, and that is the risk you will have to take hunting down tanks.

[Rothnang]

That wouldn't really help the issue. It's not the fact that HAs can kill tanks that is the problem, it's that they can do it at ranges where the vehicles can neither see the HAs, nor avoid them without leaving the fight alltogether.

I mean, the Decimator which causes the most damage out of any anti-vehicle weapon isn't causing any major issues because its short range.

[Realmofdarkness]

if you cant carry heavy AW and AI at the same time then it would lower the amount of AW infantery

[moosepoop]

the problem is everything in this game is a glass cannon.


everything does HUGE damage, but can be killed easily. this leads to everyone instagibbing everyone. in the end no one finds it fun.

[Realmofdarkness]

its not fun either if a tank has so much armor it becomes to easy to go hide and repair and then you are back again. its not the amount of damage a tank can take that is the problem as I can see it. its the amount of infantery that can take it out. add a change class timer, then its more difficut to switch to a AW guy as soon as you see a tank.

[Babyfark McGeez]

The long-range AV weapons are fine imo, it's just that most vehicles are made out of paper mache.
Being able to take out a MBT with a single LA/HA in a "one-shot" move (C4) is particulary irritating and i feel cheap every time i do it. It just doesn't feel "right".

Maybe buffing vehicles slightly while also slightly reducing C4 damage would be worth a try.

EDIT: Also i completely agree with this sentiment:

the problem is everything in this game is a glass cannon.


everything does HUGE damage, but can be killed easily. this leads to everyone instagibbing everyone. in the end no one finds it fun.

[moosepoop]

its not fun either if a tank has so much armor it becomes to easy to go hide and repair and then you are back again. its not the amount of damage a tank can take that is the problem as I can see it. its the amount of infantery that can take it out. add a change class timer, then its more difficut to switch to a AW guy as soon as you see a tank.
the tank hitpoint IS important, right now the tank hp is the same as battlefield 3.


also right now the instant respawn is also encouraging infantry to go on suicide rushes.

[Sturmhardt]

I don't agree with you often, but yes, lock on weapons really destroy ground vehicle gameplay.

.sent via phone.

[Figment]

http://www.deviantart.com/download/161160841/I_broke_my_glass____Cannon__by_bloodskrawl.jpg

It looks pretty, people want one for themselves, then it turns out to stink. >.>

[Assist]

I don't agree with you often, but yes, lock on weapons really destroy ground vehicle gameplay.

.sent via phone.

Air also destroys ground play, as much if not more than lock-on weapons. But that's because air does far too much damage and has been completely unbalanced with the rest of the game since release.

I agree with the esteemed moosepoop(wtf?). Vehicles did too much damage, so things that kill vehicles had to do more damage, which just turned vehicle combat into glasscannon warfare.


I still don't understand how they managed to get the tank infantry damage nerfed to the proper amount but never managed to do it with air. In effect that's what is causing all these AV weapons to have such high damage, because they refuse to tone down the air damage to proper levels (which would allow them to tone down the AV damage, making tanks back into a tank!)


also right now the instant respawn is also encouraging infantry to go on suicide rushes.

Another great point by the moosepoop. No penalty games suck. There needs to be a downside to dying. There also needs to be a downside to suicides. There needs to be a reason to not switch to my infiltrator and suicide proximity mine rush the gen room while defending a bio lab.

[Juryrig]

Another great point by the moosepoop. No penalty games suck. There needs to be a downside to dying. There also needs to be a downside to suicides. There needs to be a reason to not switch to my infiltrator and suicide proximity mine rush the gen room while defending a bio lab.

Agree with this. With my windfall certs I got C4 and the utility pouch specifically so I can stack 3 C4s on a Flash to suicide rush Sunderers. There's absolutely no reason not to do so.

Now, given the 'we can bring you back from the dead' premise of the game maybe there shouldn't be a reason...but....does it make the game more or less fun? That should be the primary concern of every design decision.

[moosepoop]

the old extra 5 seconds to respawn for every frequent death from ps1 was a great mechanic and should be applied here. in ps2, maybe you can get 1 or 2 extra second for every frequent death.

that means the battle is fast paced and tense for the first few waves of attack, but then the pace slows down. this way both types of gameplay is allowed. otherwise zergs will just overwhelm any base.



the secret to allow smaller outfits to defend against huge outfits is the respawn penalty.

[Assist]

Agree with this. With my windfall certs I got C4 and the utility pouch specifically so I can stack 3 C4s on a Flash to suicide rush Sunderers. There's absolutely no reason not to do so.

Now, given the 'we can bring you back from the dead' premise of the game maybe there shouldn't be a reason...but....does it make the game more or less fun? That should be the primary concern of every design decision.

I hope when humans discover a way to resurrect us(in some fashion), it only takes 10 seconds :P

[Juryrig]

I hope when humans discover a way to resurrect us

Probably unintentional, but there's a wonderfully creepy suggestion there that we aren't human :D

[Rothnang]

I still don't understand how they managed to get the tank infantry damage nerfed to the proper amount but never managed to do it with air.

They did nerf air damage considerably, it just doesn't matter how much or how little damage your aircraft does since the target you're shooting at has no way of escaping anyways. The only time it matters is when an aircraft is in a damage race against an AA piece, and nerfing air damage to the point where they can't win those isn't balance either.

[Assist]

They did nerf air damage considerably, it just doesn't matter how much or how little damage your aircraft does since the target you're shooting at has no way of escaping anyways. The only time it matters is when an aircraft is in a damage race against an AA piece, and nerfing air damage to the point where they can't win those isn't balance either.

Players escape tanks the same ways they can escape air. Escapability is not the same as survivability, and anything of the sort isn't going to fix the balance between Air/Ground, as it doesn't change the initial damage impact. The problem with tanks was mainly HE damage, which was dramatically reduced on all vehicles, but more on tanks than the others. On top of that, tanks also had their fire rates reduced, which was another damage nerf against infantry. You get caught near a building by an HE tank you have time to get inside, the same can't be said of the Zephyr Liberator as that 2nd shell is already on it's way when the first hits. This is one of the many reasons I don't like your idea of balancing air by adding reactionary abilities.

Nerfing something and balancing are not the same thing either, and most wouldn't consider the air damage nerfs anywhere near enough or effective. The only reason air isn't as used as much now as it was on release is the amount of AA that was brought into the game. Tanks damage vs. Infantry was balanced before most of the AV was introduced, air damage vs. infantry and armor has never been remotely close to being balanced. You cannot nerf AV damage without nerfing the reasoning for the AV damage being so high.

There's a fine line in video games for something to be considered balance, and it's not easy to get to, but the problem with the balance is it needs to start at the top of the food chain and work its way down from there. I think eventually PS2 will get there, but take a look at games like SC2:Heart of the Swarm. Quite a few people are upset at that game for their balancing they've done, and they're right to be. SC1:Brood War was the ultimate for a balanced game. Even though they got it right before, they're completely off with how it's playing out in SC2. One thing that I can give the SC Dev's credit for is their determination to make the game balanced, even if that includes completely changing strategies, units statistics, or what ever else needs to be done. They've never been afraid to piss off certain players, if 3 months down the road it made the game more balanced.

[Mietz]

Oh wow, so people are coming to the same conclusions we were in Beta now?

Shit, I've been writing my fingers bloody about vehicle TTK (infantry TTK, spawn-timers, negative feedback design, explosive suicides, etc. pp.) in beta and everyone was like "dude, its fine".

Cool, give this game another 10 years and we will get it fixed, good times.

[Rothnang]

Players escape tanks the same ways they can escape air. Escapability is not the same as survivability, and anything of the sort isn't going to fix the balance between Air/Ground, as it doesn't change the initial damage impact. The problem with tanks was mainly HE damage, which was dramatically reduced on all vehicles, but more on tanks than the others. On top of that, tanks also had their fire rates reduced, which was another damage nerf against infantry. You get caught near a building by an HE tank you have time to get inside, the same can't be said of the Zephyr Liberator as that 2nd shell is already on it's way when the first hits. This is one of the many reasons I don't like your idea of balancing air by adding reactionary abilities.

Your idea of trying to balance air by simply reducing all around damage doesn't accomplish anything either though. I'll still kill any target that can't get away from me, and people will still focus fire me with however much it takes to give me no chance to react. All you accomplish is spiking the extremes a little more.

At the end of the day you have no answer to the question of "What can you possibly do to survive against air other than outdamaging it", and that's where the whole problem lies and why all "balance" is bogus. Balancing things in such a way that they are numerically even but still a constant frustration to people isn't productive.


Also let's face it, if they want their entire balance based on just ganking vehicles with focussed fire they should really think about how they are justifying the expense and timers on vehicles, because I just don't see any justification for making people wait several minutes for their chosen unit after a death that was just as unavoidable as an infantry death.

[psijaka]

also right now the instant respawn is also encouraging infantry to go on suicide rushes.

Another great point by the moosepoop. No penalty games suck. There needs to be a downside to dying. There also needs to be a downside to suicides. There needs to be a reason to not switch to my infiltrator and suicide proximity mine rush the gen room while defending a bio lab.

I know that this is off topic, but I completely agree; there needs to be a penalty for suicide. My suggestion would be to make people who suicide respawn at the warp gate.

Back on topic - the one long range AV weapon that I have used that I regard as ridiculously OP is the AV MANA turret. A few days ago I set up a turret on the flight deck of Allatum Biolab and 4 shotted a Sunderer deployed just to the South of TI Alloys (estimated range slightly over 700m). Ridiculous. And bear in mind that this is a weapon that costs nothing, has next to no deployment delay/timer, and has unlimited ammo.

My suggestion would be to decrease the fire rate and/or possibly reduce the range.

I would also suggest introducing steps to make the AV turret less disposable; introduce a cooldown timer so that the engineer cannot just spam and abandon turrets. Or maybe there should be a modest resource cost.

I can't comment on lock on launchers as I haven't bought one, but at least there is a counter to these.

[psijaka]

I'm going to add to this - part of the problem is that SoE have rather overdone the XP reward for vehicles so that every man and his dog are taking a pop at them.

XP reward should be reduced somewhat to match the cost of the vehicle.

ESF - 200
Liberator - 300
Galaxy - 350
Flash - 25 (as is now)
Sunderer - 400
Lightning - 200
MBT 250

And - MAX - 100 !

This is certainly part of the problem with overuse of Bursters; in addition to the air vehicle damage bonus there is a lot of XP on offer if you get the kill, and even assists are generous.

And perhaps the air damage bonus needs to be revisited.

[Rothnang]

I actually think the XP reward isn't too bad. Ever since the vehicle XP was raised significantly I actually feel validated when I tell someone "No, I won't put a Zephyr on it because I'm not interested in farming infantry".

The problem is just how damn fast vehicles die. They are just giant XP pinatas at this point, and anyone with 2-3 friends can have a go at beating them with a stick a bit.

And yea, the AV Mana is easily the worst offender when it comes to insane range, but at least the AV Mana renders at vehicle ranges and has significant weaknesses, in that the enemy can deploy snipers to counter them. (Vanu have the easiest time with AV mana thanks to the Saron and Lancer which are perfect against it) MAX Units pretty much have no real counter, there are no weapons in the game that are particularly suited to killing MAXes. HAs have no counter that works well at 300+ meters either.

[Goliith]

I wish for a few simple changes that would somewhat help against some aspects of the problem.

1) I wish they would bring back PS1's respawn timers, where the more you die, the longer your spawn timer gets, and the longer you go without dying the shorter it is, so smarter gameplay is rewarded and encouraged.

2) Base level un-certed Combat medics SHOULD NOT be able to revive. Reviving should be given at the third or so tier of the Medical Applicator's Cert tree, whichever one is the one that costs 100-150 certs, so people who want to play medics are playing medics, not just players who want to farm certs with 600 SPM from spamming revives in large battles.

3) They should flip Sunderer and Spawn Room respawn timers, it is rediculous that spawning at that Sunderer parked in the vehicle bay takes less time than in the spawn room 100m away from the action.

These won't necessarily stop those instant-deaths we experience in vehicles, but it will certainly help when you blast that Lancer-wielding-yoga instructor and his 3 friends and they cant get right back up without a DEDICATED medic, or a 10-45 second respawn timer+Run back time.

I would just like to add, that I played a VS character to BR 38 and recently rolled TR because it's what I played for years in PS1, as of BR 29 I primarily played HEAT-Prowler with Rank 3 Anchor mode, Mine guard+Vulcan with NVG. I rarely encounter insta-gib deaths, but I am really quite good, perhaps even VERY good with landing shots with my main cannon, and I can typically land a direct hit on any AV-Mana turret within render distance before he can fire a second round, and AV soldiers also generally dont last long after leaving whatever cover they had to engage me.

I'm not saying 5 Lancers or AV-Mana turrets wont insta gib even the smartest player, but good positioning, staying outside of their optimal ranges and suppression fire go a long way in making people think twice about leaving cover. In my experience at least.

[Rothnang]

Yea, it's not like insta-kill squads are the only thing you ever encounter, I've had days where I've had no such problems. The thing is that if you ever do meet one you instantly face a situation where repulling the vehicle you want to use is pointless if you want to participate in that fight. If you've already lost a vehicle or two you might be out of resources and not have any chance to get back to what you were doing.

It just ruins your fun in a pretty lame way.

[psijaka]

Plenty of fun to be had without vehicles!

[Rothnang]

I don't think the infantry gameplay in PS2 is all that fun. It's a giant meatgrinder where most people are more concerned with their cert gain than with any actual objectives.

If I don't get to play with the units I enjoy in PS2 I just go play another game, and the less I play PS2 the less likely I become to continue subscribing to it, and the less likely I become to buy more SC down the road.


The thing is, I don't want them to change infantry combat to my tastes. I LOVE the idea that people with different tastes in gameplay get to enjoy the same game side by side. That whole idea of having a game that doesn't foster just one singular community, but a range of people with different strengths and interests who work together toward a shared goal is groundbreaking and amazing. I want people who are really into infantry combat and love it the way it is to enjoy themselves. I want to be able to enjoy the parts of the game that I like as well though.

Currently the resource cost and wait time on vehicles just doesn't foster the whole aspect of having a broader community. Sure, there are people who enjoy doing both things, but I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of infantry players don't pull a Liberator when they have enough air resource, because they don't want to stop doing what they enjoy. I don't see why Pilots or Tankers need to be treated differently. They probabaly have piles of unused infantry resource sitting around as well that they aren't spending on Grenades and C4 because that just isn't their thing, yet nobody would ever think it's a good idea for force an infantry player to drive around in a tank for 20 minutes before he can pull another Light Assault.

[psijaka]

Got to say that I don't enjoy being in a vehicle, with the exception of a Flash. I do pull Sunderers from time to time if I see the need, and very rarely I'll pull a tank to try and blow up an enemy Sunderer (but only if I can't pull a MAX and the Sunderer is out of LA + C4 range). Each to their own, I suppose.

But whatever preference players have, I do agree that it should be a positive experience (without being too easy, of course). Tanks just don't seem to last that long, and I can see that being shot up at 700m before you can even see who is doing the shooting could get tiresome, every bit as much as infantry being repeatedly spawn killed by HE.

[Neutral Calypso]

Lately, I've been treating my tank like a cavalry unit. I rush into the enemies, unloading everything I got on 'em, and when it gets close to red-lining, I hop out and C-4 them while they're still focusing on the dead husk of my tank.

Boom.


...it works sometimes.

[Rothnang]

Yea, I think that flak armor should just be standard on all infantry at least. The primary weapon against infantry should be heavy machine guns, not explosives.

I think it's great that there are a lot of people who enjoy the infantry fights, I'd love it if the game put more emphasis on working closely with your own infantry and not so much on killing the enemy infantry in a vehicle.

I find it pretty satisfying to work with a group of infantry players as a Galaxy pilot for example, but it's not really something the game highly rewards. Galaxies have no role in the respawn-game, and it's easier to just dump people out over a base than to make a daring landing under fire. Keeping the Galaxy around afterward is not really useful either, and once the infantry has gotten out you're defenseless, and since the Galaxy is purchased with a type of resource that any infantry player typically has just sitting around collecting dust they aren't really highly valued either, most of the people that use them just buy them with a resource type they don't care for. That kind of thing annoys me, because it just gets peoples motivations wrong.

Lately, I've been treating my tank like a cavalry unit. I rush into the enemies, unloading everything I got on 'em, and when it gets close to red-lining, I hop out and C-4 them while they're still focusing on the dead husk of my tank.

Yea, if you mostly play infantry you can use vehicles as a disposable unit, since the tripple resource system gives them to you at no real cost to infantry play anyways. If you're a vehicle player though you just get screwed over.

[Neutral Calypso]

It is more that I prefer to stay in the fight regardless of how I am fighting than that I am "not a vehicle player."

And with the life expectancy of most vehicles lately, it is starting to be better for me to just give my air vehicles auto-repair, and pilot/drive as a light assault all the time so that when my vehicle inevitably explodes, I can hop out and lay waste to the dirt bags that did it.

Such as that delicious time I C-4'd a lightning after it snuck up on my prowler.

[Rothnang]

Yea, when I'm rolling with a platoon I also tend to stick around and play infantry even if my vehicles are getting smacked down in seconds. Still, I find myself playing the game less and less because of how often I find myself unable to play with the units I most enjoy.

[Rumblepit]

Magrider Saron HRB Sniping - YouTube


so its ok for all you armor drivers to sit back and snipe in your tanks,spaming doors ,windows, armor and infantry,but its not ok when it happens to you?


i think if you guys use the armor as intended, and stopped sitting around while trying to farm infantry you may be better off.its harder to hit a moving target.

the misappropriation of armor in the game makes me sick, you guys sit around buildings desperately seeking infantry kills when you should be mobile defending your infantry from armor and air.

http://i.imgur.com/46hxCLk.jpg

THIS IS WHY YOU FAIL

[Rothnang]

You have to keep in mind that all the tank weapons with the exception of the Saron have very significant bullet drop to them, and you can't even render infantry past 300 meters, and often less if its a big battle. The size of windows in bases has been significantly reduced in the last patches, and these huge metal shields were added to a lot of open areas in bases that were previously without much cover.

HE damage has been nerfed pretty significantly, and infantry has been given Flak armor, so at this point you can't expect to score 1-shot kills with a tank cannon anymore unless you're right on the target. That means you need to much more accurate to actually score any kills, and simply spamming a base from far away won't get you anywhere near as many points because if someone has to get hit twice before they die they have a few seconds to get out of the area you are hitting.

The whole notion of simply being able to farm infantry from a mile away in a tank is just not anywhere near as viable as it used to be, and it was never viable at the kinds of ranges that infantry can engage tanks at now.

Aircraft it's the same thing. You could never effectively shoot things with tankbusters and rotary cannons at more than maybe 100 meters, and the default guns for aircraft which have longer range are pretty lackluster in their burst damage, and require sustained fire, which isn't really a good deal for aircraft since hovering is a pretty good way to get yourself killed even faster. Rocketpods were also always a very short range weapon, and Zephyrs and Daltons also have maybe half the effective range they used to have with the extreme bullet drop they have now, which is very difficult to manage for most gunners.

I think it's generally a good thing that anti-infantry weapons have much shorter range than anti vehicle weapons when mounted on vehicles, the problem is that infantry now carries anti-vehicle weapons that have the same or better range than the anti vehicle weapons on vehicles.

Unfortunately the devs have been burning the candle at both ends, and instead of just focusing on making the anti-infantry weapons that vehicles pack shorter range they made all the infantry anti vehicle weapons extreme range. Now vehicles get killed at ranges that they can't conceivably retaliate at, and things like the default rocket launcher are basically orphaned equipment that nobody in their right mind uses anymore.