Should Heavy Assault Drive?

[PhoenixDog]

Did a quick forum search to no avail. I'm sure it's been discussed before though....But should Heavy Assault be able to drive? Much like the Rexo in PS1, they couldn't drive closed-cockpit vehicles. And of course in the stream from Higby we saw him get out of a tank fight and fire the HA Anti-Vehicle weapon at a Magrider.

So anyway...Should driving (passenger/gunner excluded of course) be limited to Infil/LA/Medic/Engie? Or should the HA be able to drive as well?

(Of course, the Flash is excluded from this conversation)

[Jeepo]

No I don't think they should. Or if they can they can not bring a full weapon load out so no AT weapons. If they have entry and exit animations then it won't be so bad I guess.

[Littleman]

In this iteration I think it's fine. They can't heal themselves like they could in PS1, so they already have their limitations. Not sure we can leave a weapon slot empty anyway.

[Maticus]

Originally Posted by PhoenixDog

Did a quick forum search to no avail. I'm sure it's been discussed before though....But should Heavy Assault be able to drive? Much like the Rexo in PS1, they couldn't drive closed-cockpit vehicles. And of course in the stream from Higby we saw him get out of a tank fight and fire the HA Anti-Vehicle weapon at a Magrider.

So anyway...Should driving (passenger/gunner excluded of course) be limited to Infil/LA/Medic/Engie? Or should the HA be able to drive as well?

(Of course, the Flash is excluded from this conversation)

Perhaps everything besides MBTs and air cav/lib. I don't think HA driving lightnings would be THAT big of an advantage. For the gal/bang bus, the more people able to drive support vehicles the better.

[Electrofreak]

I agree they should not be able to drive closed-cockpit vehicles. It's a bit too much to be able to tool around in a Vanguard with AV.

Either that, or dismounting from the driver seat should take several seconds. You shouldn't be able to bail at the last minute and start throwing AV.

[PhoenixDog]

Originally Posted by Electrofreak

I agree they should not be able to drive closed-cockpit vehicles. It's a bit too much to be able to tool around in a Vanguard with AV.

Either that, or dismounting from the driver seat should take several seconds. You shouldn't be able to bail at the last minute and start throwing AV.

That's been my problem with the lack of animations associated with the vehicles. the instant in and out allows for players to just shoot a shell, hop out, fire a rocket, hop in, and fire a shell again all while the other tank has maybe managed two shots...You got 3.

[Ratstomper]

Last I heard all infantry except MAXes could drive vehicles.

Vehicle animations would go a long way to solve some of the class as driver problems. They would pretty much act like a delay so people can't just bail and start shooting (plus they look cool).

[Zidane]

Now that they cant heal themselves I think it should be fine.

[Envenom]

I can see that class being very boring and average if you take away such a huge facet of the game such as vehicles.

I disagree and think you're all over reacting.

Originally Posted by Ratstomper

Vehicle animations would go a long way to solve some of the class as driver problems. They would pretty much act like a delay so people can't just bail and start shooting (plus they look cool).

^ touche

[Electrofreak]

Originally Posted by PhoenixDog

That's been my problem with the lack of animations associated with the vehicles. the instant in and out allows for players to just shoot a shell, hop out, fire a rocket, hop in, and fire a shell again all while the other tank has maybe managed two shots...You got 3.

Yep, that's exactly my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Zidane

Now that they cant heal themselves I think it should be fine.

They may not be able to heal themselves, but they have something better; they can bail in a fraction of a second and pop a shield which will allow them to survive a tank round. Combine this with the ability to fire AV and they just have too much of an advantage.

[PhoenixDog]

Originally Posted by Envenom

I can see that class being very boring and average if you take away such a huge facet of the game such as vehicles.

I disagree and think you're all over reacting.

I'M NOT OVER REACTING TO ANYTHING! YOU'RE OVER REACTING TO NOT ENOUGH!!!

Originally Posted by Electrofreak

They may not be able to heal themselves, but they have something better; they can bail in a fraction of a second and pop a shield which will allow them to survive a tank round. Combine this with the ability to fire AV and they just have too much of an advantage.

Forgot about the shield thing. In essence too, say another HA has almost killed your tank. While it's on fire and he's reloading the rocket to finish you, in a fraction you can hop out and kill him without him even realizing you got out of the tank...

Originally Posted by Xyntech

This is PS1 bias that people are carrying over to PS2. If there does prove to be some serious balance problems in PS2, we'll have to address this issue again, but for now there is no good reason to think that PS2 will suffer any of the problems that PS1 would have suffered if Rexo could drive every vehicle.

I'm normally on the side of "wait until beta" too...But one thing that doesn't carry over from PS1 to PS2 is TTK. An extra rocket fired from the driver could potentially make a huge difference in a tank fight.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by PhoenixDog

I'm normally on the side of "wait until beta" too...But one thing that doesn't carry over from PS1 to PS2 is TTK. An extra rocket fired from the driver could potentially make a huge difference in a tank fight.

I would be more worried if we had ever seen any footage from PS2 where a HA with an AV gun took out a vehicle who was actively trying to kill the HA. It just hasn't happened.

If it remains this difficult for a single HA to stand out in the open with no cover and try to kill enemy vehicles, then there is simply no problem. It doesn't matter if both tanks are pretty near death and one hops out and successfully kills the other vehicle once in a blue moon. He probably would have been just as able to stay in his vehicle and use that to kill the enemy in 99% of the situations anyways.

This is entirely an issue about how quickly you can exit vehicles, and how balanced HA are against the other classes. But as it stands, AV guns are not overpowered against vehicles. There is literally no footage to support anything otherwise.

I only say wait for beta to see if there is an issue because we have only seen evidence to the contrary from the footage we've seen thus far.

[Flaropri]

Originally Posted by Electrofreak

They may not be able to heal themselves, but they have something better; they can bail in a fraction of a second and pop a shield which will allow them to survive a tank round. Combine this with the ability to fire AV and they just have too much of an advantage.

And LA can fly away to avoid getting hit entirely and then plant explosives on the enemy vehicle, Engies can pop out and put down an AV turret or similar small structure, etc.

As far as HA being able to supposedly hop in an out of a tank to fire off extra shots between cannon fire... just reset the timer on the cannon when someone enters that seat. So for example, you've got the timer after firing off multiple shots in a Lightning, if you hop out, have that timer start again from zero when you get back in, that removes the ability to take advantage of timing like that. It also keeps the Engi from being able to take advantage of such timing via repairs.

I don't think it's that strong of a tactic to begin with mind, since it means you and the vehicle are stationary, but if it is an issue that's a way to resolve it without removing the entire class from most vehicles.

[QuantumMechanic]

I'm kind of surprised there's no dedicated Pilot/Wheelman class. I mean, when you are in a vehicle - your intent is to.... use the vehicle right?

Being able to hop out and rambo somebody down with your heavy weapon strikes me as overkill.

Edit: yes you could hop out and rambo somebody down with your HA weapon in PS1, but you could only do that in light armor while sacrificing most of your inventory space.

[Littleman]

We're over reacting based on what little we saw and then speculate with little to no knowledge from previous info sources, as per usual. Pretty sure SOE isn't considering any of this as valid feed back, they really shouldn't.

Tank armor is directional. Note how little damage the prowler did to Higby's vanguard striking it from the front: very little, barely a 1/10th if that. When the prowler flanked him and hit him from the rear, he took some significant damage however.

I'm willing to bet when he hopped out of his lightning to engage the Mag-Rider (which he lost against by the way) it shrugged off his rockets in a similar fashion the front his vanguard did prowler shells.

I think unless the victorious tank is sitting at a sliver of life, as long as the bulk of it's armor is facing the bailer, said bailer is just waiting to be smeared across the ground. Lighter craft might be a different story, but unless there's an ejection seat, that's probably a dead HA guy, while the other guy might be an LA that can safely bail or an engi whom can easily retreat and repair his craft.

Also note: there ARE certs that influence how much time is spent entering, exiting, and switching seats. In this build (which is NOT the latest build,) those probably weren't implemented. So when one guy is clearly losing the fight, now he has to choose when he wants to bail. Make use of an extra shot, or get out way ahead of the soon-to-be fireball.

Originally Posted by Xyntech

This is PS1 bias that people are carrying over to PS2.

I think this is the motivation for many posters in this thread.