A serious concern about tanks.

[EASyEightyEight]

Originally Posted by Sobekeus

You can't have played PS very long if you don't know what mowing is.

I don't concern myself with morons stupid enough to run around in the open when tanks are roaming those same fields.

I took "mowing" as in regards to mowing down infantry with a minigun. Get what mowing can mean in general now?

Might have taken long breaks, but I certainly have played since the beginning.

[Traak]

I would like to see tanks actually fight tanks in PS2, not run shrieking from each other, and both sides' tanks concentrate on raping infantry while avoiding each other.

I mean, all the major tech vehicles were used for farming anything BUT each other, and usually ran away from a straight-up fight.

I don't know how the game can reward fighting and punish cowardice, however. BFR's, especially, are infamous for running in and raping the AMS, then taking gigantic leaps backwards to avoid anyone who was actually armed.

I don't see how they can make tanks focus on each other in the game, instead of Reavers attacking tanks, tanks attacking AMS's, and every other vehicle focusing on killing cloakers, all while they avoid vehicles of the same class so they don't get hurt.

I wonder how they will make it so a tank battle actually occurs in PS2? I mean tanks battling tanks, not Reavers easily chewing tanks to bits, and tanks focusing on finding and killing spawn points, cloakers, medics, and other softies.

[Coreldan]

That said, tanks werent made to hunt each other or they would've been pointless to begin with!

But yes, I agree. But just that generally speaking it feels weird to promote somethings existance for hunting it's own kind. If it was so they could just.. not use them and save the money. Much like few of the ideas presented on the forums where people suggest that snipers primary job would be hunting other snipers or only cloakers should have a Darklight-equivalent.

[Tasorin]

The other part of this equation is that you are not by yourself in a single tank. You are running around 8 tanks deep with 16 people in total. This gives you the ability to mix and match a compliment of AA and AG.

Strength in numbers and Independence through force. The NC way of freedom.

I think your concern though was of a one tank army in which you can just cruise around and pummel most things in a 1v1 or 1v2 situation. I concur with your position that if the flak AA cannon allows the tank to be highly effective in countering its biggest threat, something will probably have to be done about it.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Traak

BFR's, especially, are infamous for running in and raping the AMS, then taking gigantic leaps backwards to avoid anyone who was actually armed.

Thats called using your resources wisely, and playing in an extremely risk averse fashion is the result of a large penalty on death. Its why all the major alliances in eve have reimbursement programs.. They don't get nearly as many people fighting if they have to risk their own stuff.

People didn't risk their FVs because it took 45 minutes to respawn them.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Coreldan

That said, tanks werent made to hunt each other or they would've been pointless to begin with!

But yes, I agree. But just that generally speaking it feels weird to promote somethings existance for hunting it's own kind. If it was so they could just.. not use them and save the money. Much like few of the ideas presented on the forums where people suggest that snipers primary job would be hunting other snipers or only cloakers should have a Darklight-equivalent.

Hey, I resent the cloaker darklight comment

That was more of a suggestion for limiting the use of darklight, not turning cloakers into anti-cloakers. It's not the best idea, but it makes sense that the class with the ability to neutralize cloakers main advantage also be the class with the least armor. Makes the fight more fair.

Snipers are a similar thing. I'd never advocate snipers primary role be to kill other snipers, but the mere fact that no other infantry weapon can match the snipers range instantly makes counter sniping a logical part of their repertoire. Obviously cloakers and A2G ES fighters would serve an equal or greater role in killing enemy snipers, but sniping is clearly an important way to counter sniping. Always has been, always will be.

I agree that a units role should never be primarily about killing the enemy version of themselves, but in several cases, it ends up being at least a significant part of their job.

Look at fighters. Is anyone really going to argue that fighters shouldn't spend a significant part of their time dogfighting? Hell, a lot of people have frequently complained about how much time PS1 aircraft spent spamming ground targets. I assume most people would be overjoyed if fighters spent more time dogfighting in PS2.

It's not like ES fighters won't still spend lots of time tank hunting, spamming infantry, hunting down Galaxies (especially if Galaxies are a lot more prevalent this time around).

The same goes for the other classes and vehicles. Tanks won't only fight tanks, but it will be a significant part of their job description.

MAXes won't only fight MAXes, but as the two heaviest infantry armors, I'm sure they will clash with each other on many occasions.

Light Assault will be the only thing that can easily reach each other in certain situations. You can bet that a lot of bullets will be traded inside of that class.

Obviously some classes, like medic or engineer, will be less likely to be hunting each other, but let's not act like a class/vehicle hunting for it's own kind is absurd.

Of course, if any class or vehicle ever became next to useless for anything other than fighting it's own enemy counterparts, that would be ridiculous as well. That can easily be avoided by making sure that everything has multiple roles they can fill and fill them effectively.

Snipers will be great anti snipers for the simple fact that they have the range to counter each other and that they have low armor, making it even easier for them to kill each other. Now, if you made it way too hard for a sniper to kill any other class, they would become relegated to being little more than counter snipers. As long as they can effectively kill other classes, they will be fine. A sniper may want to clear out the enemy snipers before going to town on the shorter ranged enemies, however a sneakier sniper may prefer to ignore the enemy snipers and pick off the other troops right under the enemy snipers nose.

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by EASyEightyEight

I don't concern myself with morons stupid enough to run around in the open when tanks are roaming those same fields.

I took "mowing" as in regards to mowing down infantry with a minigun. Get what mowing can mean in general now?

Might have taken long breaks, but I certainly have played since the beginning.

I understand why you made your error, but mowing in PS is always referring to a very specific action. And that was what I was talking about.

[Hamma]

[EASyEightyEight]

Originally Posted by Sobekeus

I understand why you made your error, but mowing in PS is always referring to a very specific action. And that was what I was talking about.

Don't try and correct me on this. It was not an error. I don't know whom you get your references from, but from my experience it wasn't always used to mean tanks making roadkill out of squishies. Stop harassing me.

[Coreldan]

When I refer to tanks moving infantry down, the image I see in my head is a big ass chaingun going off, mowing the infantry

Mowing down infantry does not bring any feelings of driving over them to me. Sure, lawns are mowed, as in driven over, but still.

[Xyntech]

Mowing infantry only makes me think of running them over in the context of the Magmower.

I never thought of it as mowing infantry when I ran someone over with any other vehicle.

[Wizkid45]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Mowing infantry only makes me think of running them over in the context of the Magmower.

I never thought of it as mowing infantry when I ran someone over with any other vehicle.

Same. You could apply the term to other tanks, but "mowing" in PS (for me as well) referred to mags running people over coining the term "Magmower".

[Baneblade]

I suppose when its an AMS its called bowling.

[Raka Maru]

Machine gunners often call staffing a section of field "mowing the lawn". It involves the tripod, shooting, then adjusting the dial, repeat.

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by BuzzCutPsycho

LOL because that philosophy worked so well with the Lasher, right? By using the logic you're touting you create a situation where stacking multiple non-specialized weapons/units becomes far superior to using one specific counter unit. The "universal but not exceptional" balance sense has been proven to be such bull shit in various games that I don't even know why people still think it has any weight.

Examples? Let me give you some.

VS Lasher - The weapon was made to the point where it didn't need secondary fire and did general damage to both MAX units and Infantry. Turns out that when you stack a shit load of them everything gets mowed down and the need to switch to a AV weapon becomes irrelevant.

PS1 Plasma Grenades - Same as above. Who the fuck needs frag? That shit does more damage per application.

DOW2 Plasma - Turns out that an infantry weapon which can do moderate damage to all units is far superior to a specialized weapon that can do severe damage to a certain type of unit. It was because of plasma weapons that players would spam tac squads and mow over people with varied armies. For those who played back in Chaos Rising think back to Inferno bolts for CSM squads, same shit. General purpose weapon that when used in mass far exceeds specialized weapons.

Only an idiot would use a specialist weapon which can handle one situation very well over a weapon that can handle every situation reasonably well.


"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein"

The "Jack of all trades, Master of None" concept is a perfectly good way to balance a weapon platform. You're just trying to fit specialized weapons into the JOATMON category and wondering why it doesn't work. I can't comment on your DOW2 example, but your PS1 examples suck.

The Lasher is the most effective AI weapon in the VS infantry arsenal, and for about 4 years it had one of the worst AV abilities of any infantry weapon in the game. In fact, you could kill a MAX w/ JH gold ammo, and then switch to an AMP with gold ammo and kill a second MAX in the time it took to kill one MAX with the Lasher during that 4 year span. How is that in anyway way a Jack of all Trades? Unless you're referring to the SA-like lash. But the incredible AI ability of the orbs already disqualifies it as a JOATMON weapon IMO.

Plasma is also a bad example. It does rather good damage to softies but does almost nothing to MAXes and vehicles. That's a specialized weapon. OTOH, the frag does okay damage to both and is a good example of what I'd call a JOATMON weapon. However, what do people use? Plasma, because of its specialized and superior AI ability and because if they want to attack MAXes and vehicles they use another specialized weapon - ESAV or the Deci.

An excellent example of the JOATMON concept would be the Lightning. It has good armour but not as much as MBT's, good speed but slower and less maneuverable than buggies, and a pair of weapons that allows it to dish out decent AA/AI/AV damage but not as much as MBT's AV, Buggies AV/AI, or the Skyguard's AA. It can be useful in a lot of different situations, but for any given situation there's a more specialized vehicle that does it better and that's generally what most people prefer to use.

EDIT: And before anyone says, "but the lightning is only a 1-man vehicle of course it's gonna be weaker..." A single MBT is better at AV, a single Skyguard better at AA, and single buggy better at quick strikes than 2 Lightnings would be.

Originally Posted by Coreldan

Fair enough, I have no experience on Prowler/Mag and very little on Vanguard and Lightning. I'm usually not inside an armor to begin with.

One thing they could use to balance it is slow turret turn speed as well, which would make hunting infantry harder as well. It's not like tank turrets turn instantly anyways

Turret rotation speed is a good way to help balance a MBT's AI ability. This is also done in PS1 and it does help reduce the MBT's AI ability somewhat, at least at close range. Slowing it down further in PS2 could be an option though since PS1 MBT turrets still swivel pretty fast. The Lightning's turret swivels significantly faster in PS1 and hopefully it'll continue to do so in PS2 as well.

Oh, something else occurred to me about that Vanguard comment made by one of the Devs, about it being able to kill most infantry on a direct hit.. The exact same thing could be said of PS1's Vanguard if you consider MAXes to be infantry, which that Dev might. So it's possible that the AI abilities of its main cannon haven't been diminished at all in PS2.