Not Another Teen Tank Debate

[TiberiusAudley]

The driver controlling the main gun and a passenger controlling a secondary gun turns it too much into Halo 3 / Halo: Reach Scorpion/Wraith syndrome.

A lot of times, those secondary guns aren't impactful enough to justify trying to get someone to gun them...so the potential side-gunners would just elect to go find something more useful, be it a vehicle of their own or a stronger weapon. The majority of the time you see a turret gunner in a Scorpion or a Wraith, it's because the opposing team is just goofing around and not taking the game seriously.

That problem is alleviated SLIGHTLY in PlanetSide by the sheer numbers of potential people you can have who may want to gun (a lot easier to get a gunner out of 700 than it is 8), but it still becomes a "Why would I use your dinky gun when I could just use a better vehicle or an HA weapon myself?"

[Wizkid45]

I liked the PS1 system, it allowed the driver to solely focus on driving. To put it in perspective, think Magrider versus Vanny or Prowler in PS1. Much more fast paced when the driver can be zig zagging or driving around the terrain at full speed while the gunner is unloading, rather than the driver have to stop or slow down to shoot at something.

[Raka Maru]

Originally Posted by Azren

That is exactly what the devs are thinking and that is exactly what so many disagree on. I do want to be only "taxi" and I do want to put all my time/points into upgrading the gun on my "taxi", because that is what sets PS aside from all the rest.

Bah, at any rate MBTs will be do-it-all vehicles now thanks to the very low number of vehicles they are implementing. I can imagine how this got decided on on one of their conferences; A: "hmmm, so we have 9 months to do this thing from zero, and we do not have the resources to do everything we had in PS, what should we scrap first?" B: "Ah I know, how about mixing all vehicles into one, so we do not have to code all those different behaviours" A: "Oh yea, good one Johnny". So now we have instead of buggies the MBT with AI turret, we have instead of Skyguard the MBT with AA turret, we have instead the MBT the "all-new-revolutioneary" MBT with AV turret. All of these also means that the MBT will have paper armor (if not on day one, very soon for sure).

My post from another thread... That also turned into a tank debate.

Originally Posted by Raka Maru

Ok let me rephrase that.

You don't want to be FORCED to be a taxi or STUCK with an alt gun when the player certs a tank. I would gladly turn my main gun over to a competent gunner. Welcome to my tank, I can relax and concentrate on my badass driving now. Tank ownership caters to the owner in this decision to give drivers the main gun.

They can go further with this by giving owner controlled gun assignments. After all, everyone is in the same tin can. They should be able to switch seats (at least guns) when you're safe inside. Specified if the tank owner flags those guns usable. Think trunk space or vehicle use interface as an example of what I'm getting at.

[Raymac]

As a Reaver pilot, I will make a living off of punishing tankers that leave base without a secondary gunner. Eeeeeaasy pickings.

[Azren]

Originally Posted by TiberiusAudley

That problem is alleviated SLIGHTLY in PlanetSide by the sheer numbers of potential people you can have who may want to gun (a lot easier to get a gunner out of 700 than it is 8), but it still becomes a "Why would I use your dinky gun when I could just use a better vehicle or an HA weapon myself?"

Problem is, everyone will be able to get MBT on day 1 (and keep it as long as they don't delete the character). So, would you either;
A: Enter a tank as a secondary gunner, with an unknown driver (who will get you killed in 1 minute because he is to busy shooting his main guns), or
B: Just get a tank of your own and hope that AA MAXes and grunts fend of those pesky reavers?

I assume 90% of the palyers will go with option B.

Originally Posted by Raymac

As a Reaver pilot, I will make a living off of punishing tankers that leave base without a secondary gunner. Eeeeeaasy pickings.

AA max, AA weapon for grunts, direct fire main weapons (magrider) are more then enough not to bring any AA specific vehicle with you in PS, will probably be the same in PS2. Still, I hope you are right, then again, if tanks die too easy to air, they will be class locked into AA secondary gun (that's a no-no).

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Azren

AA max, AA weapon for grunts, direct fire main weapons (magrider) are more then enough not to bring any AA specific vehicle with you in PS, will probably be the same in PS2. Still, I hope you are right, then again, if tanks die too easy to air, they will be class locked into AA secondary gun (that's a no-no).

I got the tankbuster merits pretty easily in PS1 mainly using the Reaver, even with all that other AA out there you mentioned. I totally agree that secondary AA should not be de facto mandatory, but having a few more out there will help tanks out as a whole I think.

[Talek Krell]

Originally Posted by Raka Maru

My post from another thread... That also turned into a tank debate.

And it's as wrong here as it was there.

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

You're still talking for other people who have gone on record as disagreeing with you, so I'd say you did a pretty poor job of rephrasing that.

Complaining that you certed an MBT and then were FORCED to drive it is like complaining that you ordered a hamburger and then were FORCED to consume beef. There's already a single person tank for people who want to gun and drive simultaneously.

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Course the fixed forward gun of the mag makes does throw a monkeywrench into all of this. It cannot possibly have a gunner controlled main turret without being completely redesigned.

That's definately a big one, but there's other problems involving the secondary weapon.

The one thing they do gain from having a dedicated secondary gunner is that they can give him weapons that are too unorthodox to be used as a primary gun. Indirect fire and non-LOS weapons with unusual firing perspectives spring to mind, but things like AA turrets would be clunky to use simultaneously with the main gun too. Forcing the gunner to split his attention between two turrets designed to be used by different people doesn't seem that much better to me than forcing the driver to handle both driving and gunning simultaneously. At best you're trading firepower for navigation. Between that and the mag design I don't think they can make the alternate control scheme idea work without completely scrapping a lot of their design work on the MBTs.

[Raka Maru]

Complaining that you certed an MBT and then were FORCED to drive it is like complaining that you ordered a hamburger and then were FORCED to consume beef. There's already a single person tank for people who want to gun and drive simultaneously.

Cert a prowler, what do you get? A big tank that you the owner can only drive. You completely ignored my suggested solution while twisting the analogy.

The purpose of my post was to examine the minds of the devs or decision makers as to why this was done. Not for realism, but for the player who certs the MBT.

[Xyntech]

Well at least the poll is still running strong

Hopefully the devs come up with some compromise option.

[TheRagingGerbil]

It was stated that the secondary guns (the second gunners weapons) are more powerful then the main gun. So while you could drive around solo in your medium tank, it would behoove you to find a gunner and add a secondary weapon.

[Azren]

Originally Posted by Raka Maru

The purpose of my post was to examine the minds of the devs or decision makers as to why this was done. Not for realism, but for the player who certs the MBT.

Why it was done? Isn't it obvious at this point? For one, to pull in all the CoD and Battlefield players who love to play as one man armees. The other reason is to save time; make one frame and put every possible weapon on it, so they don't have to bother with role specific vehicles.

Originally Posted by TheRagingGerbil

It was stated that the secondary guns (the second gunners weapons) are more powerful then the main gun. So while you could drive around solo in your medium tank, it would behoove you to find a gunner and add a secondary weapon.

Where was this stated? Link please.
Last I heared the balance was around 50-50, which is still crap IMO.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by TheRagingGerbil

It was stated that the secondary guns (the second gunners weapons) are more powerful then the main gun. So while you could drive around solo in your medium tank, it would behoove you to find a gunner and add a secondary weapon.

I don't think they said the secondary guns are more powerful than the main guns. (they wouldn't really be secondary then, right?) I think what they said is that the "secondary guns pack more of a punch than you would think" or something like that.

[Talek Krell]

Originally Posted by Raka Maru

Cert a prowler, what do you get? A big tank that you the owner can only drive.

Right. You get a Prowler.

You completely ignored my suggested solution while twisting the analogy.

I explained pretty clearly that your suggested solution won't work because it fundamentally conflicts with the designs of the tanks.

The purpose of my post was to examine the minds of the devs or decision makers as to why this was done. Not for realism, but for the player who certs the MBT.

There's a distinct difference between examining something and stating your opinion as fact. There's an even larger one between those and stating your opinion as other people's opinion over their objections. "The players who cert the MBT" have been raising some of the strongest criticism.

Originally Posted by Raymac

I think what they said is that the "secondary guns pack more of a punch than you would think" or something like that.

I think "no joke" were the exact words.

[Raka Maru]

There's a distinct difference between examining something and stating your opinion as fact. There's an even larger one between those and stating your opinion as other people's opinion over their objections. "The players who cert the MBT" have been raising some of the strongest criticism.

I apologize for this, but do you think that's why they are recreating the MBT this way now?

[Erendil]

I chose option 3, "Driver controls secondary gun. Gunner controls main gun" for many reasons:

1. Assuming the main gun is the more powerful one, a MBT will be more combat-effective if the main gun has the dedicated gunner.
2. In a fight w/ two 1-man tanks vs one 2-man tank, the 2-man tank should win otherwise why bother. A dedicated main-gunner is nan easy way to achieve this balance.
3. If the driver controls the main gun, where does this leave the Lightning? its role is severely diminished if 1 person can hop into a MBT and stomp all over the Lightning.
4. It makes sense the the person spending the certs on the tank (the driver) should be able to use the weapons he's chosen to cert in (the secondary gun variants).
5. Giving the secondary gun to the driver means their vehicle can still be combat=effective if the chose to only drive, but gives them something to fire while driving if they want to.