Poll on driver gunning

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

That might become a little awkward when making repairs. Usually it's the tanker that has engy, and then the gunner covers him with the vehicle weapon.

Fair enough. Perhaps you don't boot the other crew when the "commander" (last guy with the cert) leaves. After all, in PS1, it's not a problem to let the tank-certed guy jump out and let the uncerted gunner still gun.

Instead, just re-seal entry, so nobody uncerted can get in (or back in) until a commander does again. That still accomplishes the goal of preventing certed guys from pulling a tank for uncerted guys to fully crew by themselves.

Originally Posted by Traak

My option: other

Tank certification gets you the commander role. You gun, some token flunky drives. Or you can drive, but no one can gun.

But no more "I have the tank cert, thus I drive, and someone else has the fun gunning." Nope.

Why not give the commander the option? Why tell the commander that he can drive, but NOBODY gets to gun if he does? Some people like driving (and, to be honest, I suspect that all these commanders who want to gun may not want to gun so bad when they discover how terrible unpracticed drivers make the gunning experience). Permit them to do it!

[Goku]

I prefer PS1, but if we severely limit the use like option D that is doable.

[2coolforu]

Wouldn't a cool way of doing it be to allow the driver to gun, but then say he is using an autoloader to keep the gun ready and therefore suffers a reload time that's twice as slow as a properly manned tank.

Therefore if you get a gunner you increase the DPS of your tank by two-fold and a properly manned tank will always defeat a solo-tank and manning it not only provides you a payback for using 2 people (e.g. 2 people = 2x the DPS) but you also gain the advantage of teamwork and having seperate gunner + driver. As a bonus the driver gets to use the special weapons that he paid to put on his tank, then he can't moan that his certs that he earned are being wasted.

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

Wouldn't a cool way of doing it be to allow the driver to gun, but then say he is using an autoloader to keep the gun ready and therefore suffers a reload time that's twice as slow as a properly manned tank.

Therefore if you get a gunner you increase the DPS of your tank by two-fold and a properly manned tank will always defeat a solo-tank and manning it not only provides you a payback for using 2 people (e.g. 2 people = 2x the DPS) but you also gain the advantage of teamwork and having seperate gunner + driver. As a bonus the driver gets to use the special weapons that he paid to put on his tank, then he can't moan that his certs that he earned are being wasted.

Sure, 2 crew means 2x the DPS.

However, so does 2 tanks. So now, the 2 tanks equal the DPS of the 2-crew tank, and yet have twice the armor. The two solo-tanks still win.

This is still a problem we're worried about.

[basti]

Originally Posted by kaffis

Sure, 2 crew means 2x the DPS.

However, so does 2 tanks. So now, the 2 tanks equal the DPS of the 2-crew tank, and yet have twice the armor. The two solo-tanks still win.

This is still a problem we're worried about.

err, no, the two tanks wont win.

In fact, while the 2 manned tank will roll around, use cover effectivly, shoot stuff, drive around and stuff, the 2 single tanks will bump into each other and have a hard time hitting the enemy.


Srsly, if you ever played one of those games where you drive and gun a tank at the same time, you know how absoluty stupid it is. You just CANT drive and gun at the same time without screwing up. You rather snipe from far away (so you dont need to drive), or rush into and die without doing much.

[Talek Krell]

Originally Posted by basti

err, no, the two tanks wont win.

In fact, while the 2 manned tank will roll around, use cover effectivly, shoot stuff, drive around and stuff, the 2 single tanks will bump into each other and have a hard time hitting the enemy.


Srsly, if you ever played one of those games where you drive and gun a tank at the same time, you know how absoluty stupid it is. You just CANT drive and gun at the same time without screwing up. You rather snipe from far away (so you dont need to drive), or rush into and die without doing much.

Seriously? People aren't going to climb into a tank and suddenly become incapable of navigation. Driving and gunning is only difficult because you tend to run into things. Not only will the two 1 man tanks win that fight because they have equal firepower and twice the hitpoints, but they'll also be able to flank the fully crewed tank and score hits on the rear and side armor, multiplying their advantage further.

[Traak]

Originally Posted by kaffis

Fair enough. Perhaps you don't boot the other crew when the "commander" (last guy with the cert) leaves. After all, in PS1, it's not a problem to let the tank-certed guy jump out and let the uncerted gunner still gun.

Instead, just re-seal entry, so nobody uncerted can get in (or back in) until a commander does again. That still accomplishes the goal of preventing certed guys from pulling a tank for uncerted guys to fully crew by themselves.



Why not give the commander the option? Why tell the commander that he can drive, but NOBODY gets to gun if he does? Some people like driving (and, to be honest, I suspect that all these commanders who want to gun may not want to gun so bad when they discover how terrible unpracticed drivers make the gunning experience). Permit them to do it!

That idea has merit. However, I was wondering if it would lead to people who wanted to gun, but not drive, having a snit if they have to drive, whereas if they HAVE to have the Tank Commander cert to gun, they could actually use their time and certs to go GET it, intead of "social engineering" (whining and begging) to get the gunner's slot.

I figure if you make everyone who can gun a tank a driver also, by forcing them into that cert tree, then we will have more armor available.

So, that was my objection to that idea, because people will use whining and tantrums to get to gun instead of using cool logic of the cert tree instead.

Imagine if the way we got to pilot or have anything was "I wanna gun! I wanna gun! I wanna gun! I wanna gun! I wanna gun! I wanna gun! I wanna gun! I wanna gun! I wanna gun! " while crying and wetting our diapers at the air/ground/equipment terminals.

By making it a cert, you remove any attempts at browbeating, whining, or crying to get the gunner's seat yielded to you by the person who actually has the cert.

That's why I think it has merit that any tank gunner has to be a tank commander.

[nathanebht]

Originally Posted by Firefly

I prefer PS1 style. Too many fucking changes, and a lot of them seem dumb, twitch-oriented, or just "HEY LOOK WHAT I CAN CHANGE!"

Its not change for no reason. SOE is making PS2 faster with a lower TTK. They are aiming for no slowdowns, pure action. They are following the lead of modern FPS games like the BF series.

So it makes sense to get rid of the whole "I need a gunner" deal.

[2coolforu]

The thing about BF:BC2 is that it did alot of good stuff, it also had a lot of bad ideas. The balancing was some of the worst I've ever seen in a game, look up the kill stats from pre M60 patch and you'll see that about 50% of all the kills were made with that weapon.

I also think the vehicles were balanced poorly, I think they were balanced poorly in BF2. I'm sure someone else has said it but people treat the tanks in BF:BC2 like powerups and hop in them as an afterthought. If they want to have any level of survivability they hang back way out of the fight and just act like a form of indirect fire - in Planetside tanks were a hammer, used to spearhead the assault and soak up damage while infantry actually held the ground. The way tanks worked made them very good at their job, they could take enough damage to allow them to face down a large amount of fire for small amounts of time which allowed a screen for infantry to move up behind.

I feel that with only one person effectively having all the power of the tank they will be used as one-man killwhoring devices just like the reaver was. Although it was bearable with a reaver I don't see tanks being as bareable in the 'one man whoring vehicle' category.

[Traak]

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

I feel that with only one person effectively having all the power of the tank they will be used as one-man killwhoring devices just like the reaver was. Although it was bearable with a reaver I don't see tanks being as bearable in the 'one man whoring vehicle' category.

No, it wasn't bearable in the Reaver and was one of the things that ruined the game. I agree with you, one-man killwhoring, whether it's from cloakers to tanks is unacceptable. It isn't PS.

In PS, we want well-oiled teams to be dominant, one-man bands to be merely potentially effective. Not the other way around.

An aggressive anti-cheating policy will assist this.

[Aractain]

I do find it funny with the whole OMFG ONE MAN VEHICLES?!?! And then when asked about the mossy, reaver or Lib Gunship mode they say "oh thats fiinneeeee (because I use them)".

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Aractain

I do find it funny with the whole OMFG ONE MAN VEHICLES?!?! And then when asked about the mossy, reaver or Lib Gunship mode they say "oh thats fiinneeeee (because I use them)".

hehe. I don't drive tanks at all and probably won't in the new game. I only care about dropping bombs as the liberator driver. My initial mentality when I heard about F2P was "omfg sweet I can have both my laptops next to me and control two characters and bomb!" Then when I heard about the driver also dropping bombs it simplified how I was going to approach the game.

One thing that'll be nice is that on open terrain there are going to be a lot of tanks. Imagine like 100 people. Assuming they just need AV that's like 100 tanks. That's going to be fun to bomb those or watch Reavers drop in on them. These battles are going to look bigger now probably.

[Aractain]

Exactly, my view is that I want huge battles where teamwork is about covering each other with different roles.

Thus having one man tanks is going to mean bigger battles with, I HOPE, dedicated AA vehicles, buggys, aircraft swooping down to drop bombs or strafe lines of tanks. Strong infantry positions and artillery to dislodge those infantry.

Not the 3 tanks 4 reavers and 8 hot dropping mossys of PS1.

[FIREk]

Giving the driver control only over the secondary turret is the superior solution for many reasons. I wonder if the poll's results would have been different it the awful word "BFRish" wasn't used to describe it...

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by FIREk

Giving the driver control only over the secondary turret is the superior solution for many reasons. I wonder if the poll's results would have been different it the awful word "BFRish" wasn't used to describe it...

Yeah, I keep forgetting that many people around here violently loathe them.

At any rate it wouldn't be bad. All I personally hoped for was drivers getting to control a turret. My original idea was what if the driver could control the 15mm on the prowler, or get the 2nd gunner.