A Rough Proposal for the Functionality of Tank Mines

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

I guess the commanders never got around to telling their troops that blowing up tanks that way is "wrong".

And there you go again by ignoring how I phrased it: PRIMARY use.


PRIMARY use of mines should be defense, not offense!

And I never said it shouldn't ever be used offensively by placing it under stationary vehicles, ever, which is what you're trying to make of it. All I said was it should take more and it should have some restrictions in stacking placement by interference radius and time between throws so the C4 and mines have more defined roles and less direct overlap.

FFS. Kerrec, those nuanciations are there for a reason! Don't ignore them!


And just to complete the point, that type of mine come down to the design of the HA's Anti-Tank grenades, not the throwable mines in game: fused, throwable AT weapon, compared to proximity/pressure sensitive mines that are dropped. But that's rather irrelevant to the debate, just an observation.

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by Figment

I'm sorry, but this is a huge devolution of the professionality of the engineering class and equates their sophistication to suicide terrorists. I'd be insulted if I was a military engineer, tbh.

I can't believe you still expect people to read your walls of texts. If you can't make your point in a concise paragraph, I stop reading. I quoted the above, because I happened to catch it as I was reading the post below yours.

Here's my reply to what I quoted above:

If I was in the military, I would do EXACTLY what those military history books explain, because I value my REAL WORLD LIFE. However, in a game, I DO NOT want to spend 15 minutes laying out a well placed mine field. I want to play a GAME.

Here's another thing: In the REAL WORLD, that minefield that contain hundreds of mines would cause all kinds of headaches for an advancing enemy force:

1) It would render the first vehicle inoperable (IE: 1 mine = 1 kill).
2) That vehicle would REMAIN there, blocking the path. It would not deconstruct, leaving the way open for the next vehicles to move thru.
3) There's no magical repair tool that allows a real world vehicle to hit a mine, back up, repair, move forward over the next mine, back up, repair, move forward over the next mine, back up, repair, etc... Yet the game HAS IT. And it renders real world mine warfare irrelevant.

So stop throwing REAL WORLD at me. I'm playing a GAME.

[Figment]

If you don't read my walls of text, just put me on ignore. I'm not interested in hearing your bullshit that consistently comes down to "I haven't read it, but I'm going to respond directly anyway". But at least you're consistent I suppose.

I'm also not going to post concise for you. Deal with it or ignore it.


Who's telling you to place them in 15 minutes? Where do you get that number from? Did you read we said 20-25 mines per player, possibly 15 due to the amount of players? Are you such a slowpoke it takes you fifteen minutes? Think 1 minute: one mine every 3-4 seconds. Minefields can be layed very quickly and the more experience you have with smart placement, the less time you spend planning.

If you want to place 15, that's 45 seconds to 1 minute time. Walking to the other side of a Tech Plant takes longer! If you don't want to do that, then don't.

It's a GAME, WHERE TANKS DRIVE AROUND EVERYTHING, so mines would help people PLAY THE GAME. If it's not your style, or you're too lazy, that's not the problem of the people that arn't that lazy.


And no it doesn't render it irrelevant: it stalls that unit if he drives over it, making it a stationary target. If the occupant gets out to repair (must be engi), the engineer becomes vulnerable to sniper fire and HE as infantry. Don't make such presumptious statements as "it not mattering", just because you haven't actually thought about it enough to realise it matters, lots. One of the primary purpose of minefields is stalling. If the enemy does that, then the mines served their purpose.



PS: Kerrec, your PS1 inexperience is flaring up again. You should get that sorted when (if... ) PS1 goes free to play. Again, that's not an insult, but you're spouting bullox by continuously making assumptions without realising you've been proven wrong ten years ago.

[Kerrec]

You can count on my being consistent. Deal with it, or ignore it.

[Hamma]

Ok guys seriously.. how many times to I have to tell people to utilize the ignore feature? Otherwise infractions get handed out and people get banned. I try to avoid bans even though everyone thinks I love them.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

You can count on my being consistent. Deal with it, or ignore it.

I'm dealing with it. :/ Look if you don't want to read it, great. Don't reply.

Originally Posted by Hamma

Ok guys seriously.. how many times to I have to tell people to utilize the ignore feature? Otherwise infractions get handed out and people get banned. I try to avoid bans even though everyone thinks I love them.

Don't you sleep with your finger on the trigger?

[BIGGByran]

Originally Posted by Figment

PRIMARY use of mines should be defense, not offense!

Ok ok, I will only deploy it under sundies that are attacking the base I am defending :P

[Sturmhardt]

It's baffling how many people don't seem to be able to follow a real argument

.sent via phone.

[OCNSethy]

Something that higby wrote the other day,,,

"Most people can't accept facts which disagree with their opinion"

That seems appropriate to most threads on this forum lol

[Brusi]

I like the idea about mines taking longer to deploy, but how about them just taking longer to arm?

deploy speed is still super fast frisby, but now they take 5 or 6 seconds to arm! in the meantime, if a tank drives over them, the just *poof*.

In addition to this, if they are shot (buy enemies, friendlies, or hit with explosives) then they also just evaporate, doing no damage.

So now, if your Sundy defenders are not paying attention, there is still the possibility of deployed mines going off and killing the sundy, but it now gives defenders the opportunity to "defuse" the mines.

It also doesn't punish people who want to just chuck out a couple to defend the base they just too, and switch back to another class before moving on.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by BIGGByran

Ok ok, I will only deploy it under sundies that are attacking the base I am defending :P

Why the troll attitude? Is it that hard to defend your preference that you don't have any arguments to defend the merits of the current design? I mean, the only argument I've heard from your side is "we are lazy" (Kerrec), "we like using this on AMSes just like c4 so you should use mineguards". An argument that is completely irrelevant because under the new system that would be the same, it would just take engineers a bit longer than if they would use c4. That is it.

Not a single argument regarding larger pro-active minefields, which is the core suggestion here.

Not even a single argument to why the ttk of an engineer has to be like this. Only refering to how it is, which we all know and is irrelevant if you don't say why this is good design.

Come on. If you don't have any arguments, then you know you are just coming over as protecting a status quo "because it is the way it is" and you know how to abuse it so you fear having a greater challenge. Your mind is closed to new options that would net you far more kills if used properly. What we suggest is a huge buff to engineers. But it requires some compensation in damage per mine. That, I find really sad about these discussions.

You lot are like the people proclaiming a ground ams wouldn't help the gameplay. Honestly I don't see why anyone should listen to you if you don't have any argumentation aside from strawmen.

[Kerrec]

Defense is already very difficult. Attackers will pin defenders in their spawn rooms and camp it, because it is a strategy that works to win the base. If we flip the tables, and the defenders push out to the Sunderer, are they expected to damage it slowly to be fair? Or should they just camp it until the base is "defended"?

Seriously, AMS Sunderers are the source of the attack. Want to win your base defense? Kill the Sunderer. The best tool to do that? Mines.

If you nerf mines, what will happen? People will move on to the next best tool. HA with 2x C4 and a dumbfire rocket. Sunderer owners will not realize they are under attack any more than they do now, with Engineers running up to them trowing mines. They will think everything is fine and then BOOM. Dead. No time to "react". Instead of seeing Engineers running at Sunderers, you'll see those Engineers become HA instead. So what then? Nerf C4? Nerf how C4 is triggered by explosions?

And lets be honest. AMS Sunderers are a dime a dozen. There's often AT LEAST two attacking a base. Kill one, move on to the next. By the time you died, respawn, died, respawned, killed the next Sunderer, another came and took the place of the first one you killed.

People will move on from mines once they are nerfed to the next best thing. They'll find another way to reliably kill Sunderers and we'll be here all over again, discussing the same true underlying topic: "We don't want our Sunderers dying".

How about this for a "novel" idea. Instead of changing the way something works now, so you can have it work the way you think it would be "more fun" to use, how about you suggest ADDING a new kind of mine that does exactly what you want. Less damage + carry more = minefields.

Now there's a constructive idea, that is not game altering, that caters to both kinds of players. I don't have an issue with the ideas proposed for an expanded set of options for using mines. I have an issue with forcing what is fun for you into a game at the expense of what is fun for me.

Hamma, if you read this, I am barely refraining from responding to Figment's attack on my character by calling me out as being lazy.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

I don't know Babyfark. Does a MAX set off a AV Mine? (I'd really like to know this, many times I've run away thinking there was nothing I could do against that MAX) Was he using AV mines or AI mines?

Did he put down an AV mine and shoot at it instead of you?

Did he put down an AV mine and have it set off by someone else's grenade (or some kind of other explosive)?

Did he throw an AV mine at a vehicle beside you? Like a Flash, or something else?

I don't know what happened. All you've stated is you were in a MAX suit and an engineer was jumping around throwing mines. You seem upset about it since you bring it up here, so I'm assuming he killed you?

He was jumping around me indoors and killed me with a tank mine in a 1on1. I'm not upset, i just don't know how that's possible indoors without any vehicle around to trigger the mine. I'm pretty sure no other explosive triggered it aswell (allthough with michael-bay-PS2 you never know).

Assuming he didn't cheat and no explosive set it off it felt like he was exploiting the mechanic. And that was the reason why i think mines should be rather deployed than dropped.

Overall there are much more important problems this game has though.

[JesNC]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

Defense is already very difficult. Attackers will pin defenders in their spawn rooms and camp it, because it is a strategy that works to win the base. If we flip the tables, and the defenders push out to the Sunderer, are they expected to damage it slowly to be fair? Or should they just camp it until the base is "defended"?

Seriously, AMS Sunderers are the source of the attack. Want to win your base defense? Kill the Sunderer. The best tool to do that? Mines.

If you nerf mines, what will happen? People will move on to the next best tool. HA with 2x C4 and a dumbfire rocket. Sunderer owners will not realize they are under attack any more than they do now, with Engineers running up to them trowing mines. They will think everything is fine and then BOOM. Dead. No time to "react". Instead of seeing Engineers running at Sunderers, you'll see those Engineers become HA instead. So what then? Nerf C4? Nerf how C4 is triggered by explosions?

And lets be honest. AMS Sunderers are a dime a dozen. There's often AT LEAST two attacking a base. Kill one, move on to the next. By the time you died, respawn, died, respawned, killed the next Sunderer, another came and took the place of the first one you killed.

People will move on from mines once they are nerfed to the next best thing. They'll find another way to reliably kill Sunderers and we'll be here all over again, discussing the same true underlying topic: "We don't want our Sunderers dying".

How about this for a "novel" idea. Instead of changing the way something works now, so you can have it work the way you think it would be "more fun" to use, how about you suggest ADDING a new kind of mine that does exactly what you want. Less damage + carry more = minefields.

Now there's a constructive idea, that is not game altering, that caters to both kinds of players. I don't have an issue with the ideas proposed for an expanded set of options for using mines. I have an issue with forcing what is fun for you into a game at the expense of what is fun for me.

Hamma, if you read this, I am barely refraining from responding to Figment's attack on my character by calling me out as being lazy.

- Defense is diffucult, yes. That's why this thread is about changing AT mines to better support defensive fights. Imagine AMSes/tanks not easily being able to drive into a courtyard because of an actual minefield there

- Nobody's talking about 'nerfing mines'. It's about altering them, about spacing out their damage potential to a greater area. So what if it takes 4 mines intead of 2 to kill a Sunderer, when you can carry 10 of them in exchange. (disclaimer: this is an example)

- An alternate set of AT mines or a minefield dispenser could work, too. But IMO this will add too much clutter to the already cluttered Engineer class. Are you going to take C4 to take on anything, AP mines vs infantry, AT mines No 1 to take out stationary targets or AT mines No 2 to put down a defensive minefield?
IMO an alternate set of mines just shoehorns the existing AT mine into the C4/assault explosive role. A sensible change to the existing one on the other
hand will simply shift its battlefield role towards defensive use with only minimal effects on its 'AV-in-a-pinch' effectiveness.


Because that's what this thread was discussing before all the screaming began: How to sensibly alter AT mines.

[Kerrec]

I've made this point already in this thread. I use AV mines. In both ways. Defensively and offensively.

When I deploy my 3 mines across a road, or in a garage, or some other high traffic area, MOST of the time I get Flash kills.

That is a monumental waste of resources. I can kill a flash with my weapon, which is replenished from an engineer ammo pack or a terminal for free. I cannot kill a tank or sunderer with my carbine.

If you think that having a big mine field is going to increase defensibility, then OK fine. I won't contest that. Lobby to have new mines added for that purpose.

However, I don't agree that mines as they are should be removed from the game. An AMS-Sunderer driver has to make a choice. Blockade armor protects against all kinds of incomming damage, including C4. It's a huge improvement in the survivability of a Sunderer. The catch is it is weak to mines. The other option is Mineguard. It renders mines a non-threat.

By neutering mines so they get spread out more and each does less, the driver has time to react after the first hit. Hit the brakes, maybe hit another 2-3 mines before coming to a full stop, reverse. Get out and repair. Mines are a non-threat to someone with half decent reflexes AND the driver has Blockade armor to protect it from everything else. It's a WIN-WIN proposition for Sunderer drivers gamewide.

If Figment and outfit buddy JesNC just want a different playstyle that reflects how they think mines "should" be used, there's room for that in the game. I really can't believe that the suggestion to ADD content to a game is being shot down because it would make it too complicated and "clutter up the engineer class".