My one 'dislike' of PS2 (Main Battle Tanks) - Page 16

DOUBLEXBAUGH · 2012-05-27, 07:57 PM

Originally Posted by Mechzz

Yeah, unfortunately for me I fall into the "sucks at driving and gunning category". Honest question to you though, will you be able to drive and gun without third person view, which is not planned to be in the game for ground vehicles and infantry.

You had to be in first person to drive and gun as a lightning. You didn't get a reticule to line up your shots in 3rd person.

On the subject of dedicated driver or not, I really don't care as I never drove an MBT in PS1 (but <3ed gunning them), and most likely wont grab one often in PS2. I was just pointing out why with the current stated mechanics the secondary gun on MBTs was useless (unless you grab a random zerger to fill it). So if you want 2 man tanks to be the norm in PS2, you need to either have a dedicated driver like PS1, or give the gunner the main cannon and the driver the weaker secondary.

2coolforu · 2012-05-27, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by Serpent

Not to be rude, but a lot of the VS idea is basically how BF3 system works. I realize PC gamers generally hate Console gamers (

) but seriously, I never see a main gunner winning a battle against engineers. There must be a person manning the MBT's machine gun, which is extremely effective at killing infantry. The Driver basically focuses on flanking enemy vehicles, and the secondary gunner defends the tank from literally everything else, even helicopters sometimes have problems with tanks.

That's just how I see it.

I tanked basically all the time I could in BF3 and I'd say I ran at about 90% without a secondary gunner, seriously. I'd only ever pick up a secondary gunner if I was in VOIP with them, because their random fire just attracts attention and is not too effective. The main reason I carried another person was so they could jump out and blowtorch the ass of my vehicle if we ever ran into a close range slugfest with another tank.

Let me put it this way, if you lose a tank in BF3 it's because you used it stupidly, you drove it in too fast or you allowed yourself to go into a chokepoint were 3-4 engineers could just rain fire down on you.

But there are some flaws with the logic anyway

1) BF3 had limited vehicles, maybe 3-4 tanks, therefore having an engineer was just a raw advantage. It meant that tank had 250% survivability compared to a non-repaired tank.

2) BF3 is a relatively low-pop environment, tanks are maybe engaged with 3-5 targets at any one time.

In Planetside anyone can spawn a tank and drive it, there's no limit to their numbers. That means your gunner has to be more valuable than the both of you just grabbing two tanks, an AA secondary has to be more effective than your gunner just grabbing a lightning Flak variant, you see where this is going? Having 2 tanks is 4 times more effective than having one, you have double the HP and double the damage, its a square relationship. In other words if the gunners secondary weapon is AS DAMAGING as a tanks main cannon you are still at a serious disadvantage.

Now if you get to the point where the secondary weapon is doing the same damage, or 2.5 x times as much as the main gun why the hell is it a secondary weapon. Why don't we just give the gunner the main cannon and give the driver the secondary as a 'bonus'. The secondary weapon will be a small advantage, a 15-20% damage increase or a weak AA weapon that is effective en-masse against aircraft. That way we can make the MBT's powerful as they were in Planetside 1 so they can fill in their role. We can also eliminate some of the serious role overlap too.

Raymac · 2012-05-27, 10:41 PM

While this is a very good discussion, I can't help but think it's just a bit of a circle jerk. I believe the ship has already long sailed on this subject and it won't be changed. I think the only thing that is possible is that they give an option to have a dedicated driver, but that's as close as you'll get.

2coolforu · 2012-05-27, 10:46 PM

We'll see how it works but I just don't see how secondary guns are ever going to be worth losing another Vanguard/Magrider/Prowler/Lighting AA for.

Let's just say your 32 man team on Battlefield 3 spawns in on Operation Firestorm, you have the option of getting 16 tanks with secondary gunners or having 28 tanks and 4 AA vehicles. The choice is obvious right?

Raymac · 2012-05-27, 10:53 PM

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

We'll see how it works but I just don't see how secondary guns are ever going to be worth losing another Vanguard/Magrider/Prowler/Lighting AA for.

Let's just say your 32 man team on Battlefield 3 spawns in on Operation Firestorm, you have the option of getting 16 tanks with secondary gunners or having 28 tanks and 4 AA vehicles. The choice is obvious right?

I just think the ease of coordinating in 1 tank versus coordinating in multiple tanks shouldn't be underestimated.

Tarconus · 2012-05-27, 11:51 PM

Maybe I am confused but won't you be able to just go in third person view and drive and fire in the tank? That would be just like World of Tanks. I drove and fired the main cannon in that game just fine didn't hit rocks or trees.

SKYeXile · 2012-05-27, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

We'll see how it works but I just don't see how secondary guns are ever going to be worth losing another Vanguard/Magrider/Prowler/Lighting AA for.

Let's just say your 32 man team on Battlefield 3 spawns in on Operation Firestorm, you have the option of getting 16 tanks with secondary gunners or having 28 tanks and 4 AA vehicles. The choice is obvious right?

there is the possible resource cost involved of spawning double the vehciles, but yea. bam double the hitpoints and unless the gunners gun hits harder than the main gun, alot more firepower too.

Haro · 2012-05-28, 12:12 AM

I think TotalBiscuit best addressed these types of claims in his video explaining Planetside to his followers unfamiliar with the franchise. One thing he pointed out was how the experience of the game could change drastically from a player without an outfit to a player with an outfit. Typically, the experience was a lot worse, because you couldn't really experience the main benefits of coordination from an outfit, especially with multi-person vehicles. Relying on random strangers for that can have very mixed results, and can lessen the fun of driving as a result.

A lot of changes in PS2 seem to address the issue of non-outfit players, which I think could be very important given that we may be getting a lot of fps players who have little to no experience with mmo mechanics. Joining an outfit is obviously a good thing, but I don't think players who can't or won't join an outfit should suffer such a serious loss of gameplay. Most people on this forum will probably disagree with me on this, but I think it's vital that ps2 tries to cater to a wider, more casual audience to survive. I know a lot of people don't really care for COD or Halo players (save that discussion for another forum and another time) but the game needs high levels of success to receive high levels of attention.

I can understand the OP's concern, and I like the idea of a sidegrade for a dedicated main gunner, but I don't think we should return to the old model from PS1. A lot of things about the mbt system were pretty broken, and the lightening had absolutely no purpose when the most popular land vehicle, and thus the one a lightening would have to fight, was the mbt, vastly superior in every way.

Tanks largely fought independently, with high levels of defense from heavy armor and great offense from dedicated gunners and powerful weapons. They could take many rocket hits, retreat, repair, and return with ease. They rarely needed support or coordination with other types of vehicles except against aerial threats. Outside of bases, they dominated combat.

If losing a dedicated gunner makes MBTs more vulnerable, I think thats great. They need to be brought back in line with other areas of gameplay. Tanks in PS2 will probably need to coordinate with infantry and other vehicles, including the lightening, in order to survive many threats. Secondary gunners will be needed to aid against infantry, which looks to be a serious counter against them this time around. They will also need to pay more attention to where they go and what's around them due to their added vulnerability. No more rolling into base courtyards without a care in the world.

It's still far too early to judge the merits or problems these changes will bring. After all, none of us have played it. You might find yourself really enjoying the new design, I may hate it, who knows. Discussion is good, but it should be done with an open mind. Like I said, I'd be totally fine with some tanks side-grading for dedicated gunners. As long as my tank actually has a chance in combat and has the same level of stats, I'm fairly confidant that I can put up a serious fight even by myself (years of playing MechWarrior and Spectre may finally start paying off.)

TLDR version:

1. PS2 looks to address issues concerning players that don't have outfits or groups of friends to play with. 1-man capable tanks seems to be a part of this.

2. Tanks are also part of a huge new style of play, one that seems to balance offensive power with vulnerability.

3. I think the same tank should have both 1-man and 2-man main gun capability, with the same statistics. If I can multitask better than you coordinate, I should win. If you win, it should be solely because you drive/gun/coordinate better, not because your tank is bigger than my tank.

2coolforu · 2012-05-28, 12:35 AM

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

there is the possible resource cost involved of spawning double the vehciles, but yea. bam double the hitpoints and unless the gunners gun hits harder than the main gun, alot more firepower too.

Here's the even funnier part, it's actually MORE efficient resource wise too! You don't have to put a secondary gun on your tank, which adds cost and you also save all the customisation of putting it on there. Those certs can buff driver specific areas like armor or speed. Not only that but you also use your resources waaaay more efficiently.

If you rely on a gunner/driver combo then that driver is burning through his resources to get that improved two man tank. If those two guys go for two seperate tanks then they both make use of their resources. Assuming the rate is a per-player deal then that means you have effectively twice the resources, that bloke in the gun is now actually using his resources to maximum effect on the Battlefield, at the same time he's saving Mr.Tankdriver a load of resources too. Not only are they making their resources twice as effective as the driver/gunner pair just by merit of having two tanks they are also getting a cheaper tank that is more effective.

Originally Posted by Haro

Tanks largely fought independently, with high levels of defense from heavy armor and great offense from dedicated gunners and powerful weapons. They could take many rocket hits, retreat, repair, and return with ease. They rarely needed support or coordination with other types of vehicles except against aerial threats. Outside of bases, they dominated combat.

The only time tanks could manage this was if they were used En Masse. Even then unless you buggered out pretty ASAPish once you started taking damage you were in trouble in a large fight, a tank with flickering headlights or sparking armor was a missile magnet.

Saying 'The only thing they are weak against is aerial threats' seems a bit boorish. I mean, that's a huge dynamic of Planetside, aerial, it's not this tiny niche threat. It's a big part of the whole rock-paper-scissors gameplay, after the reaver buff you can pretty easily take down a 2-3 man MBT on your own if it's stupid enough to get far away from supporting troops.

The brilliant thing about Planetside was that a tank was a goddamn tank, it wasn't the Battlefield style vehicle. I need to explain what I mean by that, in Battlefield a tank isn't really that much different from an infantryman. Everything dies at pretty much the same rate to a degree of approximation. Just watch a Battlefield 3 fight, the people who drive tanks straight in to combat, or even to the front line, will last a few seconds. In the close-up maps like River Seine the tanks get chewed into pieces and spat out unless you use them very, very carefully. In Battlefield 3 the tank is a powerup Quake-Style, it's a wild card to play and you use it as if its disposable. One heli in the spawn with TV Missiles or 2 guys with Javelins and a soflam can neutralize every tank on a 2 kilometre map.

But in a game like Planetside the objective is to capture territory, not get a KDR or what not. For this to work people need to push forward, if they are to push forward they need to survive a long time in a battle that can have 2000 people all shooting each other up. That's a serious amount of firepower that can be rained down upon you which means that tank is gonna have to take a lot of punishment if it's going to be pushing the front lines forward. I'd liken this to Operation Metro on BF3 64 player servers. There's a high density of players in a small area and it's one of the few areas where you are very likely to die if you push forward to capture B. Everyone on the US team is too scared to move up because they are more worried about padding their stats, so even though a sacrifice of short term stats to take B would be massively advantageous noone ever moves up and they just sit at the stairs and get shot up a lot.

Tanks in Planetside where the guys that could get shot up a lot so that the battle could actually have some flow to it rather than just being guys sitting on hills shooting each other until one side gets bored. They could be that powerful because you had to have a driver to just sit and move the tank around and a gunner who wasn't pants-on-head retarded. In other words one person had to sacrifice getting kills in order to benefit the common Empire, that kind of person is one in a million in online FPS gaming so the tanks were pretty balanced in numbers and pay off. The majority of people didn't want to drive all day so they periodically drove tanks and footzerged so that they could get kills. If a large portion of a tanks DPS lies with the driver then that balancing part flies out of the window and they curve more towards the 'Infantry powerup' area that Battlefield 3 has which I don't see working with 300 people having a clusterfrak fight.

We'll see how it works on beta, I'll reserve my judgement until then. I just think that tanks were a vital part of the game as you needed their armor to win battles and they forced people to communicate as driver/gunner pairs. It really lightened some of the killwhoring and zerging and actually got people talking to one another rather than being one-man-armies a-la BF3.

Figment · 2012-05-28, 03:46 AM

Originally Posted by Tarconus

Maybe I am confused but won't you be able to just go in third person view and drive and fire in the tank? That would be just like World of Tanks. I drove and fired the main cannon in that game just fine didn't hit rocks or trees.

Yeah but in wot you don't fire on the move unless at very close range. Ps1 tank combat was far more fun and didn't give you distance and height compensation in the gun angle so you only need to lead ahead. Tank combat in ps1/2 is more demanding with more targets at more extreme angles and with less handicap aids. And a dedicated driver means more dynamic fights too as you continuously drive rather than move from bush to bush and take your time aiming or backing up a few meters while reloading.

Dynamic one player combat in tanks is inferior to dedicated drivers. Not to gunner drivers though. Stationary in Ps is much worse for a tank and it is stupid that you may end up dead because you have to stop to fire because your AV/AA tank can't fire at another tank cause you need to look elsewhere to dodge bullets.

IMO it dumbs down and slows down tank combat too much and makes it less fun and less rewarding and too solo oriented for this game. It just doesn't fit PS2 As it does wot.

Figment · 2012-05-28, 03:50 AM

To the person staging solo play is being encouraged... Lightning suffice for that, why should mbts too be single player viable?

Note, a dualboxing Prowler in ps1 had a main av gun or a dual 15mm. (Thus AV). A dualboxing Prowler in PS2 has both main gun and AA.

Captain1nsaneo · 2012-05-28, 05:09 AM

Are there issues with 2 tanks being better than 1 with gunner? Yes.
Are there issues with 1 man tanks and encouraging teamplay? Yes.

We've had no new information on this front for several months and I've seen no new arguments about it.

If you want to read a 47 page thread on this same thing here it is:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=37346

And if you don't think that's enough here's more tank related threads:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=39778
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=39791
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=39724
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=37352
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=41478
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=41333
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=41332
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=41306

Everything save the last 2 have over 10 pages. We've written a short novel about MBTs.

Xyntech · 2012-05-28, 06:07 AM

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

Everything save the last 2 have over 10 pages. We've written a short novel about MBTs.

But there's no ending. I hate stories with cliffhangers...

Mechzz · 2012-05-28, 07:36 AM

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

Are there issues with 2 tanks being better than 1 with gunner? Yes.
Are there issues with 1 man tanks and encouraging teamplay? Yes.

We've had no new information on this front for several months and I've seen no new arguments about it.

If you want to read a 47 page thread on this same thing here it is:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=37346

And if you don't think that's enough here's more tank related threads:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=39778
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=39791
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=39724
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=37352
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=41478
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=41333
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=41332
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=41306

Everything save the last 2 have over 10 pages. We've written a short novel about MBTs.

Great post! But it's not a short novel - it's the same 3 paragraphs repeated over and over and over.

Rhapsody · 2012-05-28, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

Everything save the last 2 have over 10 pages. We've written a short novel about MBTs.

Have you ever thought that the more a topic is brought up and talked about the more the Dev's will think about changing things?

Tanks largely fought independently, with high levels of defense from heavy armor and great offense from dedicated gunners and powerful weapons. They could take many rocket hits, retreat, repair, and return with ease. They rarely needed support or coordination with other types of vehicles except against aerial threats. Outside of bases, they dominated combat.

Thats BF thinking. Tanks didnt fight independantly if they wanted to actualy be effective or accomplish something. Every time i pulled a Vanguard durring a battle and i was seperated from my outfit, i did one of two things.

1. Found a random persone who's also in a tank and followed them around (or got them to stick with me)
2. Scooted up towards the front line and tried to act as 'fire-support' to help the front line move up.

I never dived into a fight single-handedly as thats just asking for trouble. Tanks are bullet magnets. Why? Because their sapose to be dangerious, their sapose to be a threat. But in order to be that threat, it required atleast 2 people working together. That was the 'balance' to the power the MBT's in P1 gave.

As for tanks being vulnerable to Aircraft. Um, thats the way its been all threw history. Tanks are built to attack other tanks as well as 'bash threw' fortified defenses. Their not built to attack planes, they dont have wings =P And if they werent vulnerable to aircraft people would scream that they were to powerful.

For the argument that makeing MBT's 'single-seaters' in order to make it more enjoyable for people who are not in outfits. Most people who dont ever join an outfit, or never think to atleast join a squad, are likely going to be those people who are from the BF group. Those people who are use to being a one-man-army, use to having direct controle over everything they get into. Their simply going to have to learn that PS1/2 isnt a 'one-man-army' game, its a Teamwork oriented game. And that means 2+ people cooperating in order to use the big-toys. If they are dead-set on one-man-army'ing everything, well then they have the lightning to play with.