Tank drivers acting as gunners in PS2 - Page 20

Talek Krell · 2011-10-03, 03:44 AM

Do you play it now?

And how exactly would driver/gunners encourage people to pull more tanks? They'll have to be weaker to account for the lower manpower requirements, and according to you they rarely survive long enough to actually reach the battle.

**Malorn** · 2011-10-03, 03:53 AM

The point of the AA being not on the tank is that you create vehicles with different strengths and weaknesses and require a good balanced force to be the most effective.

Buggies are frail but fast, and the skyguard uses its speed and maneuverability to be very good against aircraft, but the speed is also its only survivability against that which can completely ruin it - infantry and tanks. Some buggies are bad against aircraft but good against infantry as light suppression vehicles. Also a tradeoff for speed & rexo vs armor and some firepower. Tanks have weak AA and moderate speed, but are otherwise the kings of the ground engagement.

By combining these concepts the game is dumbed down. Of course it will work. I dont' think anyone questioned whether it could work, but it's a step backwards from the richness of vehicle combat that we enjoyed in planetside. It would just end up as a bunch of BFRs with tank chassis running around with different weapon configs covering each other. No paper-rock-scissors aspect, no variety. Its dull.

Much rather see vehicle designs built around teamwork with inherent strengths and weaknesses that both encourages and rewards variety and cooperation. Then we have rich combat with tactical options to overcome the enemy as opposed to just brute force of tanks. I liked how PS1 wasn't reduced to who had more numbers but you could overcome with the right vehicle combinations to push the enemy back. It would be a real shame not to have that aspect carried over into PS2.

Aractain · 2011-10-03, 03:56 AM

Lightnings, loads of lightings were in PS1. I drove one quite a bit. Very weak but its cool to be able to support other vehicles in the area and do a little bit of shooty at the air with the 12mm.

Im hoping there will be exclusive-ish AA vehicles on tank chassis or buggys (also one man gunable) since several of those will be supporting the one man tanks.

Edit: like Malorn says, but I want both solo capable vehicles and teamwork options for different roles. Secondary gunner is cool (means something to do outside for infantry only players for example).

I don't play PS anymore. Just makes me really sad when I remind my self of the faliure of my favourite game. Which is why I want PS2 to be a success and not just PlanetSide: Again.

Aractain · 2011-10-03, 04:30 AM

Maybe it would help make my view more obvious if I put a list of stuff I want to see.

I want tanks to be weaker but more common, I don't want people standing around waiting. I want everyone who wants to play on the front line fighting and dieing. I want teamwork rewarded by being more deadly so a teamwork vehicle is prioritised or avoided. I want different vehicles for different playstyles (tanks, buggys, air etc) but all vehicles capable of all roles (with different setups like AtG and AtA for aircraft, a buggy with a anti-tank missile or a rocket rack). I want solo players to enjoy themselves and form natural indirect teamwork by helping each other out without the need for communication or orginisation.

Traak · 2011-10-03, 06:45 AM

Originally Posted by Azren

If you join a reasonable outfit you will have a great time driving tanks.

Ah, but what if you don't gel with the little Hitlers that run outfits? Tanks should intrinsically be set up to reward being manned and being certed, without any external and extremely unreliable third persons, aka, outfits, being necessary.

PS is about teamwork, yes. But it also needs to be conducive to people who have no desire to be the fawning sycophant of some idiot hierarchy to be able to find others who are like-minded, team up, and play effectively.

Traak · 2011-10-03, 06:48 AM

Originally Posted by Aractain

Im hoping there will be exclusive-ish AA vehicles on tank chassis or buggys (also one man gunable) since several of those will be supporting the one man tanks.

Edit: like Malorn says, but I want both solo capable vehicles and teamwork options for different roles. Secondary gunner is cool (means something to do outside for infantry only players for example).

How about an AA setup on a turret on a tank chassis that is separately destructible? People can either try to blow the tank chassis, which is an easy hit, or the turret, which is smaller and not as heavily armored?

This would prevent too-indestructible AA-equipped uber-tanks from dominating.

DaSwede · 2011-10-03, 08:00 AM

Driver as a gunner is a bad idea, period

Azren · 2011-10-03, 08:04 AM

Originally Posted by Traak

Ah, but what if you don't gel with the little Hitlers that run outfits? Tanks should intrinsically be set up to reward being manned and being certed, without any external and extremely unreliable third persons, aka, outfits, being necessary.

PS is about teamwork, yes. But it also needs to be conducive to people who have no desire to be the fawning sycophant of some idiot hierarchy to be able to find others who are like-minded, team up, and play effectively.

Every outfit is different - you really need to be special not to find one that suits you.

Some vehicles should be setup to reward teamplay, and some to reward solo play. Do not want to put these two together, it will not end well.

The way is to allow soloers to pull weak tanks and aircraft that do reasonable damage and to allow team players to pull 2+ manned vehicles.

There has to be a line between the two, or everyone would be flying around in one manned Gunships...

At any rate, we will end up with a silly "do-it-all" tank because the devs do not have the time needed to implement all the other vehicles.

Azren · 2011-10-03, 08:15 AM

Originally Posted by Aractain

I played since 2003 dawg, I usualy had a friend gun (prefered buggys actually) but the times when I played solo was just like... no.

I too hate soloing in this game, but not for your reasons. If I wanted I could cert reaver and kill stray infantry all day long (in fact, I have done so before), but there are far better games to do just that. What keeps me in PS is the fun of driving or gunning a multi man vehicle.

Originally Posted by Aractain

If you look at a Vterm even early in the game it was mostly air. Maybe they want to change that in PS2?

No, in fact we will see more of them now. Why? Simple: the tanks will be much weaker (can not have same armor for a 1 manned vehicle as a 2 manned, now can we?). The tanks will only have any AA capability with a gunner, which they will usually lack (here's to one man tanks), so little Timmy will keep rolling reavers to do a number on those poor tanks.

Oh yea, since everyone can cert everything now, after the tank driver gets blown up, he will right away switch to air cav too.

This is simply a very bad dev. decision forced by the very tight time schedule they are working with. Nothing more, just not enough time to implement the various vehicles needed.

Originally Posted by Aractain

I think maybe part of the problem here is that most of you guys had nice outfits to run with so don't have the experinces of what the lonewolf (who probably will account for 60% of the game if it does well) will go through. With out the support structure of a guild or ar least a few friends MMOs are usualy terrible experinces.

I would hardly call it a problem to be in a good outfit. Everyone can find a good outfit, and if not, start one. If you can not make any friends in an MMO, why play an MMO at all?

Originally Posted by Aractain

Making it fun to play the game solo does not mean the game is broken or less fun to play the game with friends. Indeed a well done solo game will keep people playing who might then end up with a nice outfit as a result of that.

It does for the MBT, and that is what this topic is about. PS always rewarded solo play; just look at the reavers and biffers. But at the same time it rewarded team play too in the form of MBT/buggy/deliverer/GG. All of which will be missing in PS 2.

Baron · 2011-10-03, 09:15 AM

I know we have limited information, however it just seems that for ground vehicle combat: PS2 = Tank-side.

A vehicle "richness" was mentioned in an earlier post and that's what we have seen for PS2 air cav and air support...it seems marvelous. We're a little light on ground vehicle information though. Think about PS1 at launch and the diversity you had on the ground

1) empire specific MBT
2) lightning
3) empire specific buggy
4) harasser
5) 2 ATVs
6) sunderer
7) deliverer
8) ams
9) ant

It SEEMS a though they are combining the old roles of the lightning/buggies into MBT upgrades. In addition, we know the AMS is no longer around so already a large part of ground vehicle combat dynamics has changed (not for the better, IMO).

(caveat: This post, much like all the others is of course based on what we know currently)

Azren · 2011-10-03, 09:25 AM

We will have MBT, ANT and bang bus at start. They will probably add buggies sometime along the road.

So yes, MBT becomes jack of all trades due to this.

Kalbuth · 2011-10-03, 09:28 AM

No more Deliverers run? No more Thresher uniqueness?
No very different vehicle handling and behaviors making each unique?

Bad.

Azren · 2011-10-03, 12:09 PM

Not at the start.

Raymac · 2011-10-03, 02:25 PM

I believe T-Ray confirmed that all buggies will return eventually.

NapalmEnima · 2011-10-03, 02:30 PM

Originally Posted by Kalbuth

No very different vehicle handling and behaviors making each unique?

Bad.

Err... wait... what? Of course they'll be different. The MagRider is a hover tank for crying out loud. The mossy, reaver, and dyson will all be different. There's probably another type of empire-specific vehicle we don't know of yet.

We also know there will be empire-specific upgrades. These upgrades may affect handling in one way or another.

Alarmist post is alarmist.