News: Balance Pass Post 1: Vehicle Weapons and the Harasser

ChipMHazard · 2013-10-30, 08:51 PM

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...rasser.156160/

"I’m going to be writing a series of posts that go over the balance adjustments that we’re implementing based on collected data and player feedback. These changes will start rolling out in the updates following the optimization patch. This first post will cover the vehicle weapons and heavy vehicle vs. light vehicle combat.

Secondary Weapon Damage Adjustments

Anti-vehicle secondary weapons will remain the same against vehicles, but will see a slight drop in damage against infantry.
This corrects the cases where certain anti-vehicle weapons are outperforming anti-infantry weapons at the latter’s intended role.
Anti-personnel weapons will receive a damage increase at very close range against infantry and light armor (Harasser).
This gives coordinated tank drivers and gunners the tools to deal with approaching Harassers and infantry with C-4. The key word here is coordinated. We’re not giving tanks a free pass, just better tools and options.
More noticeable damage falloff is being added to vehicle secondary weapons, similar to infantry but with the range extended much further out.

More information on the damage falloff
Vehicle damage falloff will not be extreme. It will be just enough to better define the roles for the different weapon types. We won’t be changing any weapon roles, just getting them closer to where they should be.

For example, the G30 Vulcan will perform better at close-to-medium AV combat when compared to the E540 Halberd, but the Halberd will be able to reach out and perform better at longer ranges. Players can equip either to match where they’re fighting or how they like to fight.

The bigger change here is that the range of Harasser weapons is being reduced in comparison to the other ground vehicle secondary weapons. This means that the Harasser will have to put itself at more risk in order to output its full damage, which better fits its hit-and-run style. On the other side, the larger optimal range of the main battle tank and Sunderer secondary gunners will overlap with the Harasser's sweet spot, allowing those gunners to better protect their vehicles.

Proximity Radar Change

Proximity Radar is being moved to the defense slot
Proximity Radar is intended to be the defensive warning against approaching infantry with C-4, but it’s become obvious that the other options are vastly preferred in the Utility slot.
We feel that moving it to the Defense slot makes more sense for the cert line and that this move gives players clearer defensive options to choose from.

General Vehicle Weapons Balance Pass
In addition to everything listed above, we’re taking a pass at all vehicle weapons in order to even out the performance and the various tradeoffs between the different faction weapons.

Harasser Changes

Harassers currently have too much freedom in infantry areas because their high speed and acceleration allows them to recover and repair quickly. We’re going to increase C-4 and tank mine damage against this vehicle so that infantry can punish Harasser drivers who get too careless.
Harasser composite armor’s max resistance is being reduced. Not by much, just enough so that it will not out-tank a tank. The C-4 resistance buff on Harasser composite armor is also being removed.

Upcoming Posts

Nanoweave and related features, like sniper rifles
Rocket launchers, underbarrel grenade launchers, and engineer turrets
MAX anti-vehicle and ability adjustments
And more to come

"

HereticusXZ · 2013-10-30, 09:33 PM

Sunderer's with both AMS and Scout Radar or Anchor Mode Prowler with Scout Radar - Awesome!

DredVS · 2013-10-30, 09:54 PM

Personally, I do not like the Proximity Radar changes for the vehicles I use. I will have to choose it over Auto-Repair now on my Lightning.

Seems to be there's no good reason to use anything other than Smoke for the defense slot at the moment now that Radar is defense.

Phrygen · 2013-10-30, 10:34 PM

They are going to let me use anchor and prox at the same time...

God help them all.

KesTro · 2013-10-31, 01:12 AM

Here's to hoping the Vulcan's brought in line then. As it is now it can shred anything with little risk to the harasser using it.

HereticusXZ · 2013-10-31, 03:23 AM

Saron and Enforcer are just as devastating as the Vulcan if not -marginally- better (that's a big if), the difference is Vulcan is more popular because everyone knows and loves a rotating cannon that kills stuff so you naturally see 2-3 vulcans for every 1 of the other guns.

I don't think this new change will be to huge for secondary weapons, but I could be wrong, Anxious to see it in action!

Plaqueis · 2013-10-31, 04:33 AM

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard;948083[LIST

[*]Harassers currently have too much freedom in infantry areas because their high speed and acceleration allows them to recover and repair quickly. We’re going to increase C-4 and tank mine damage against this vehicle so that infantry can punish Harasser drivers who get too careless[/LIST]

Harrasser is too fast so C4/Tankmine damage is buffed? Ya, makes perfect sense...

Who came up with this brilliant idea? How are the squishys supposed to get that damn C4 on a speeding Harrasser? Currently, it takes freaking forever to drop them on a static tank, let alone slow moving Max... and that should help infantry somehow.. lolz

PredatorFour · 2013-10-31, 05:42 AM

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

Not by much, just enough so that it will not out-tank a tank.

I'll be the judge of that! Challenge accepted

camycamera · 2013-10-31, 07:05 AM

yay, at least he didn't mention removing repping a harrasser while it was driving lol

ChipMHazard · 2013-10-31, 07:08 AM

Originally Posted by camycamera

yay, at least he didn't mention removing repping a harrasser while it was driving lol

I guess that depends on whether or not it's considered a bug. If so then I could see it being in the patch notes at some point

Mordelicius · 2013-10-31, 07:55 PM

Alot of these proposed Harasser changes make no sense. It proves the Devs are out of touch with the actual live gameplay.

- Harassers do not get damaged by Mines (they are too fast). By the time the mine explodes, they are already away from the damage radius. How many AV mines have I wasted on these things defending a Sundy/Pathways etc. Too much. They are not effective at all.

- C4 on Harassers. If PS2 has a Shingeki no Kyojin movement system, this would be useful, but only fools would allow their Harassers to get C4ed. They move too fast, by the time you switched to C4, they are already far away. They can go at full speed at all times, why go slow? The reason why LAs easily C4 tanks and Sundy is because they are normally stationary targets.

Harassers need a real nerf

- Make vehicle repair optional on defense slot (armor or repair-on-the-go. pick your sidegrade, not both)

- Armor need to be significantly reduced. It's a BUGGY not a tank. A buggy. That's why it has speed. It has damage avoidance vs. direct damage mitigation. Imagine if my beloved Flash has this much armor. You know how long a Flash can take down a tank even from a backside using Basilisk? Stop trying to turn a buggy into a tank upgrade. Their speed and change-of-direction at will is more than enough. They are hard to hit because it's difficult to predict which direction it will go (couple that with their speed) and you have a hack-mode vehicle.

- They need to be damaged upon vehicle or infantry collision.

- Marauders H need a nerf too. It's a C4 projectile. They have to significantly reduce ammo and damage/radius. Compare it to Anti-infantry Bulldog. This thing is ridiculous.

- I hear Harassers have no modified directional damage. They need be more vulnerable at the sides and back just like tanks.

- Make them more vulnerable to flipping. My scout Flash is hard to drive. These Harassers fly all over the place and not even flip.

- Vulcan H needs a real nerf. It's an powerfully upgraded Basilisk. It's good against vehicles, infantry, and aircraft. Think Basilisk sidegrade not upgrade. If it's good a AV, it has to tickle us infantry not kill us in a millisecond. Aircraft damage has to be reduced too.

- Damage must be significantly reduced especially at range. They can hit you at their speed. You can't hit them at that speed. Significant, it has to be significant. If they can't be hit at long range, they shouldn't be able to damage anything at long range.

Have the Developers even fought or encountered a Harasser, much less a Harasser spam? They pick the fights, they escape when they want to. They can ambush you if they want to (you can't escape), you can't ambush them if you want to (they escape easily). That's the problem. There's no dps in any form that can damage it enough before it can skedaddle out of view/range.

Nanoweave and Snipers

- I'll wait for the actual post, but these Snipers complaining about nanoweave want low risk/high reward situations. Snipers are already kill-streakers. The current system is fine. All these guys do is deploy spam until they get to a high cliff, high mountain, high building, top of tower, top of antenna, top of tree, then snipe with impunity with very low risk and high rewards. And they still want some more?

They don't need to fix what's not broken. All these buffs to Vulcan, HE etc. weren't necessary at all in the first place. All they did was break stuff for months. Just go to any Youtube videos of Snipers killing nonstop and you'll see there's nothing to fix.

GreyFrog · 2013-10-31, 08:27 PM

Compare the Marauder to the M40, not the Bulldog, and I'm not convinced its as OP as everyone thinks.

As far as I can tell they are making most your changes.

Varsam · 2013-10-31, 08:41 PM

The radar change makes no sense to me, but I'm glad they're finally addressing the harasser. It's about damn time.

Originally Posted by HereticusXZ

Saron and Enforcer are just as devastating as the Vulcan if not -marginally- better (that's a big if), the difference is Vulcan is more popular because everyone knows and loves a rotating cannon that kills stuff so you naturally see 2-3 vulcans for every 1 of the other guns.

That's really not why there are more vulcans over Sarons/Enforcers.

Babyfark McGeez · 2013-10-31, 08:52 PM

The harasser is too fast, so...we don't do anything about that. Yeah. Makes sense.
I managed to C4 a harasser once. As in one time. Compared to the countless tanks i downed in the same amount of time. Can't say anything about mines, but if what has been said here is true and they simply outspeed the actual explosion, well then that's overall a complete non-solution to the problem.

The actual solution would be so easy and obvious; That thing is too fast, so make it a tad slower AND make it so it has to bloody stand still to be repaired.
There, harasser fixed.

Sledgecrushr · 2013-10-31, 10:47 PM

I thought that decreasing the speed of the harasser as you increased the amount of composite armor would have been a good solution.