EDIT: I'm wasting way too much time on this. I'll stop posting and get back to wait&see mode. We'll know soon enough when beta comes out.
I think it will all revolve around balance and what devs have in mind.
Based on the new cert trees/BR structure, PS2 will require a lot of specialization to avoid having anyone becoming a one-man swiss knife army.
Assuming this principle, if you want to use a ground or air vehicle, you will have to specialize on them.
Here is where the first dev balance decision comes in:
A- should vehicles be powerful and exclusive ?
or
B- should vehicles be easy to get and plenty on the battlefield ?
With A, the reason you will choose to specialize in a vehicle cert will be for that power. You ought to be a god outside because you should get r*ped when you even think about trying to participate as a footsoldier for a base assault without the proper certs. With this choice, the difference between vehicle-side and infantry-side is clearly delineated and you are dedicated to one dimension of the game.
--> If PS2 takes this direction, some might argue that having the Drive&Gun approach with bonus firepower when a gunner joins is the right way to go: if I gimp myself in soldier fights, I better get something good in exchange. Since people have to choose a specialization, this might mean comparatively less-numerous but very significant vehicles.
With B, you could have a decently furnished soldier cert tree AND decent vehicle certs. The only sacrifice you make would be having less kit options for base fights but vehicle certs would also be accessible. Vehicles wouldnt be as powerful (otherwise everyone would have a vehicle when they move outside since they can D&G) but it's ok because most people could get one. The vehicle-phase would be a transition until the next base/tower fight and vehicles seen more as a utility.
--> I think we would see everyone heavily specialized in some infantry role and also have some utility by having a vehicle cert. A good aspect of this choice is that everyone can participate in all aspects of the game.
Since I tend to believe PS2 is meant to be more infantry centric, I think B has been chosen. Any casual player will be able to have fun inside and outside. Vehicles will not be very meaningful in order to give more breathing space for infantry fight.
People have repeated over the years that rifle-fighting in forests and foot-zerging was some of the very fun PS experiences they had so I would not be suprised if PS2 tried to provide that. And we havent seen a PS2 screenshot where 5-10 soldiers get obliterated by a vehicle-shot either.
:P
This highlights another development decision they have to make at some point:
A-For open-field fights, do we want vehicles to be heavily dominant in the fight composition ?
or
B-Do we prefer to allow strong infantry presence in those fights ?
Those questions are important because it will determine the balance between vehicle armor/power and infantry AV weapons availability/power.
If vehicles are to be the dominant weapon of choice outside, they will be powerful and with strong lasting armor.
If infantry is meant to have a spot in outisde fights, they will have efficient ways of dealing with vehicles.
In the first case, outside fights would weigh towards being ground vs. ground/air vs. ground fights where soldiers will get r*ped. The main threat to your vehicle would come from the air or another ground vehicle.
In the other case, soldiers would have doom-canons AV, short/long range jamming capacity, etc... Ground vehicles can be given big guns but they would as easily be dispatched by troops. In short: you will be given incentives NOT to bring a vehicle to a gun-fight or to get it close to that gun-fight.
By itself, this would also justify the existence of some kind of engineer class meant to tame vehicle usage near ground troops. The reason I say that is because I assume a guy would have to choose to do it and if he decided to dedicate himself to AV certs + forgo other useful infantry certs, he will need to get some nice return on his cert sacrifice to justify his choice; and this means your tank will blow up one way or another.
Just to rationalize a bit, in PS1, your vehicle did end up blowing up at some point or another and could get owned by a group of troopers so it's all about how many shots it will take to take out a tank.
I feel for the devs because they have quite a challenge in balancing all that stuff and making a great game that will keep everyone entertained; and it looks quite complicated with all the very high expectations we have.
In the end, everything will depend on their vision of what a vehicle fight or an open-field fight should be. I'd be interested in learning more about that rather than what is in the game because what they think justifies the choices they implement.
Anyways... Mainly just some thoughts...
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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.
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If battles get bigger, it will not be due to D&G but just the 2000 players around.
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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.
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Bigger battles will come from more players and this applied to PS1 too.
Do not forget that a fully-manned vehicle would still require 2-3 people to run at full power. With D&G, it just means there is a possiblity that drivers will not bother with getting a gunner and roll to battle asap since they are viable without needing a gunner. You may not see that many more vehicles though because people may still have to choose between certing soldier/ground/air.
Overall, I'm ok the notion of faster gameplay but do they really want to speed up ground vehicles gameplay ? It entails leaving a lot of things behind for little benefit imo.
Fast vehicle gameplay --> fast moving vehicles, low armor, no timer
Once you make low armor vehicles, you have to compensate with more speed and/or stronger weapons. If I remember BF2142, vehicles were OP 1-shot machines but blew up just as fast; so the power of their gun was balanced by how short it was active. And it forced the existence of the engineer kit which was only used for/against vehicles. The existence of one was justified by the existence of the other. If one becomes not used (maps without vehicles), the other disappears as well.
In PS1, if you wanted faaaaast vehicle gameplay, you would choose buggies. For slower action, you would pick tanks.
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I am a fan of strong and significant vehicles. They would not need to be balanced through the creation of a soldier class but by other vehicle fans in the opposing teams.
Having strong and significant vehicles makes them a significant target for vehicle hunters (i.e. reavers/libs) and an even bigger accomplishment when those hunters destroy their target.
From what I understand, reaver/mosquito aces loved Air-to-air fights and hated the wasps for disrupting that dynamic so easily.
Tank crews play in tanks not to farm footzerg all day long. They play to fight enemy tank crews. Take out the crews and what you get to choose is between infantry-kit or vehicle-kit. With D&G, vehicle-side risks feeling like infantry-side-on-wheels.
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OFF-TOPIC:
I am also concerned about how balance was being done in PS1.
In general, it seems like the trade-offs were seen as SPEED vs. ARMOR vs. POWER.
Buggies were speedy, powerful, not durable.
Tanks were not speedy, powerful, durable.
Furies were speedy, powerful, paper-armor.
etc...
BFRs were the ugly exception for a short time but eventually got nerfed to hell and became omg slow, omg durable, ok weapons. I still don't get why they were balanced to be destroyed by infantry who can't reach them while a magrider cant even scratch the shield.
However, this caused the transport cert balance in PS1 was horrible. It was never used as transport because their speed was nerfed to death because of their armor or guns. The sunderer became a slow and powerless pinata because it was exceptionally durable. The variants were used to fight or camp but rarely as transport because they were still too slow. A transport vehicle that is too slow will never get used if there are better other options. BR40 syndrom might have compounded this issue.
The BFR specter will come back but I am for vehicles that should be mobile/fast AND powerful AND strong. Vehicles should not be balanced vs. infantry but for vehicle vs. vehicle. Transport vehicle SHOULD provide mobility and 2 tank crews firing their canons at each other SHOULD be a sight to behold.
If a tank decides to obliterate infantry instead of being busy shooting at the other vehicle, it should cost them big time in the damage-lead the enemy vehicle will get. Infantry SHOULD sh*t their pants when they see tanks on the field and they SHOULD pray for aircav heroes to save their souls in the next 15 seconds. And however durable they are, vehicles SHOULD get smacked if they get near a spot where no one wants them to be (ie. too close to an infantry group or base facilities).
So what if vehicles are fast AND strong AND durable ? Well, first of all, vehicles are available to all empires so they should pull some too. Second, it would make aircav players feel important and their role critical too.
Overall, this can exist wether D&G is allowed or not so I am definitely off-topic. PS2 Devs have a huge complicated balance challenge and I do respect them a lot for that !
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Other final thought: if I specialize in vehicles, sacrifice my character's viability in other roles (ie. no base fight without getting murderer repeatedly because it's supressor vs. MCG kind of fights for me) and all of that in order to provide a big gun for someone else in a vehicle fight, shouldn't I feel shafted that I provide for others but don't get anything in return from other classes in the base fights ? Like a deployable HMG turret, for example ?
If we need extra people to make the vehicle cert specialization work at full power, can we have it powerful or very useful (i.e. get a utility item useful in infantry fights that no other class gets) ?
I'm not too worried though since I think they chose the B model with infantry-centric game where vehicles light infantry classes (let's assume medic, engies, scouts) will get to drive the vehicles and heavy infantry gets to gun for them. Vehicles are secondary to the core-infantry gameplay.
Especially if it were indeed APFSDS-T (see what I did there?
) rounds. They wouldn't explode, requiring precise aim, but would move faster than your typical tank rounds, and in a straighter line, allowing this precise aim.
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