Time to get rid of HE rounds - Page 4

Dragonskin · 2012-12-12, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

And HA in PS2 kills tanks and infantry alike faster than he could with either that AV or MA rifle.

So not really seeing your point here.

Just going to watch your crusade of balance, because it starting to look like.. nerf air vs ground... now nerf ground vehicles vs infantry... so if your next war on balance starts with buff infantry vs all vehicles then I won't be surprised.

ChipMHazard · 2012-12-12, 12:38 PM

While I do not see the harm in having all tank rounds being at minimum a two hit kill, except for sabot rounds which would require a direct hit to kill anyway, since the game is designed around scale and as such the chance of having more than one tank with HE, or default, rounds hitting an area is higher than there only being one. I do think that the farming issue, which I do see as being a serious issue, is more of a symptom of poor facility design that promotes farming tactics. It's easy to simply pass it off as being the players' fault for being too damn stupid to realise that having a group meeting next to a sundie is a bad idea, well it is, but they probably won't see it that way and may stop playing as a result of being farmed (it's not a very pleasant experience, or so I have been lead to believe from the comments made by the crops).
I do believe that I am being objective when I make the following statement; Planetside 2 really is dominated by vehicles be it the flying or earthbound kind.
I really do think that as soon as it comes down to infantry combat, like when trying to force your way into the tech plant, they should limit any and all involvement from vehicles as much as possible.

Figment · 2012-12-12, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by Dragonskin

Just going to watch your crusade of balance, because it starting to look like.. nerf air vs ground... now nerf ground vehicles vs infantry... so if your next war on balance starts with buff infantry vs all vehicles then I won't be surprised.

I'm not warring randomly on stuff and I'm certainly not warring for myself if what I suggest nerfs myself. I do want infantry to be better inside bases and I do expect them to have EMPs and more flexibility. You can fricking one or two or three shot them while they can do barely anything to you unless you are foolish enough to let them get behind you (which shouldn't happen if you bring a buddy or two to watch your back - not even with a slower TTK).

Yesterday for instance, I killed 12 or 14 infantry in a row with a single Lightning with HEAT, would have killed more, had the collission detection not messed up when I tried to ram a HA three times. Went straight through him. He shot me twice from inside my Lightning, which was a pretty funny bug seeing his head stick out through my turret. He even had 4 stripes left somehow.

His squad was lucky, since I had gotten into an overwatch position and already killed 6 of them, two engis, two medics, two HAs who hadn't seen me coming (started with their rear troops). They couldn't even return fire aside from this guy and he was running out of rockets (missed two, hit once, which I had repaired behind the hill I was doing hull down from).

Maybe you don't really see this the way I do, but if I had a HE Lightning, I'd have farmed the hell out of them, because I HAD hit the HA before with splash. Had it been HE instead of HEAT, he'd have died and wouldn't have had a chance to get his shield back up.

Me personally, I would have found that really cheap and I was much more thrilled by him being able to defeat me than if he had been another statistic and smudge on the floor.

Probably hard to understand in a world of ego-centrists that think it's fine to kill 70-140 people in a row without breaking a sweat, but that's what you get when all the spoiled brats want uber-toys for themselves and don't think their opposition deserves a decent chance of success.

So yeah, if I see issues where some side is UP, I'll fight for that side or against a side that's OP. But don't expect me to exclude infantry from that list. In fact, I said before that it'd be fine for G2A missiles to be a three shot kill instead of two shot, because pre-everyone flaring, we'd instakill lots of air together. And lock on weaponry simply doesn't take as much skill, just more time.

Otoh, I don't see why one would have to wait with reacquiring a lock after one has already loaded or a flare has been popped. There's some proper balancing left to do in that area. Will have to see how this patch turns out first though before I comment on it.

Dragonskin · 2012-12-12, 01:46 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

....Maybe you don't really see this the way I do...

Probably hard to understand in a world of ego-centrists that think it's fine to kill 70-140 people in a row without breaking a sweat, but that's what you get when all the spoiled brats want uber-toys for themselves and don't think their opposition deserves a decent chance of success.

So yeah, if I see issues where some side is UP, I'll fight for that side or against a side that's OP.

You're right. I don't see things like you do, but it has nothing to do with my use of vehicles. I am on the ground just as often as I am in my scythe tearing it up in the skies.

Vehicles are supposed to be powerful. That is the point of them requiring resources and having a cool down for re-spawning. If people would care less for the k/d ratio then you might have people more readily prepared to take on vehicles with the chance of dying.

In large scale combat in organized outfits all these major balance issues you claim are less of an issue.. large tank column coming?

"Hey guys, we need HAs with AV rockets. We have a tank column heading our way. Switch and roll out."... and within a few minutes the tank column is dead.

Large air presence?

"Hey guys, we need AA rockets, Bursters and scythes up ASAP. We have a lot of air that needs to be taken out"... few minutes later the skies are clear.

Just like you said.. lock-ons take a lot of the skill out of the game. The second you have 2 squads or more switching to take out a certain threat with their lock-ons then those issues go away. So to me.. HE rounds are fine as is. If we have problems with a tank or tanks.. we deal with them. We are never solo, so there are usually sundies or terminals around to make the change on the fly. Now if I continuelly looked at the game from a 1v1 perspective as you seem to do.. then yea, I could possbily understand your side, but this game is not based in 1v1 engagements and you rarely ever are trully solo in this game unless you are trying to back cap adjacancies.

Maybe it's a server thing. On Mattherson and i'm sure it is similar on other High population servers then there are plenty of people to deal with situations. Tanks don't normally go on insane kill streaks.. neither do air vehicles.. because eventually someone will take them out. I would love to see some one go 70-140 in a killstreak on Mattherson in a highly contested area. Just not going to happen.

Quovatis · 2012-12-12, 01:51 PM

They just need to decrease the anti armor damage of the HE rounds. You don't lose enough AP damage as a tradeoff right now, and there's little reason NOT to go with HE rounds.

ShadetheDruid · 2012-12-12, 01:57 PM

The AA launchers sometimes are three hit kills rather than two. Not sure why though. I'd say composite armour, but I don't know if that helps against missiles.

As for lock-ons, it would be pretty hard to have G2A missiles without it.

Figment · 2012-12-12, 02:40 PM

Originally Posted by Dragonskin

Vehicles are supposed to be powerful. That is the point of them requiring resources and having a cool down for re-spawning.

That's only half the story.

Resources, time limiters and cert cost are there to balance numerical presence in the field en enforce and a variation and scarcety of units.

They're not just a measure of power. They're all supposed to be trade-offs, which is why the current cert system of endless cert gain and having access to everything is pretty down right stupid, because you're not trading off anymore.

Killing for instance an air unit should ensure that air threat is gone for some time. Not because it's powerful, but so you can focus on another aspect of the fight. If you keep having to fend off the same guy(s) in the same air unit(s), when are you going to be able to fight those other units?

It's there to provide tactical meaning to a kill. Not just pure power. Since everyone has to be infantry, there's little reason to limit infantry aside from the more tactically impacting units, like MAXes which have very specific offensive and defensive advantages - AND - disadvantages. And not having the same advantages and disadvantages across the board or all the time (tactical meaning).

Cost is there to ensure there would be sufficient infantry for infantry on infantry combat. It's there to ensure people don't all have personal transports, so they would choose to gun for others and would have need for transport vehicles and therefore choose to board them rather than hop in their own, solo, non-transport, combat vehicles. The latter would therefore be more expensive, to further encourage the use of group vehicles.

Unfortunately, most players have too shallow knowledge and insight into gameplay to understand the design reasoning behind it.

That cost is of no consequence to classes is why everyone has AV and everyone is an engineer and infil etc. now. Certification cost in PS1 enforced variety in characters, because players were forced to make choices.

And with regards to power, if you get an air unit, you don't just get firepower or staying power. You get the entire package of speed, agility, altitude, terrain ignoring, etc. That's a trade-off few pilots are willing to admit to, so they can cling to just the firepower/endurance argument.

On top of that, solo units shouldn't be constantly available so players also have social interaction by grouping up in multi-crew vehicles. This is good for the social cohesion of the game and encourages formation of outfits and teamwork.

People like you, who only seem to focus on power, are absolutely clueless at what else "cost" is for.

Hence you don't seem to realise that that guy in that video before, was actually dedicated to AV. In PS2, everyone could have AV. In PS1, you actually relied on people with AV to be good at what they were doing, because you, nor your other buddies had AV power, at all. In PS2, you only don't have it when you chose to use something other than HA.

So no, you don't understand me, because my frame of reference and the game I want is completely different from the shallow and IMO somewhat dead-end road PS2 is taking by copying shallow gameplay and standards from individualistic oriented games.

Dragonskin · 2012-12-12, 03:13 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

That's only half the story.

Resources, time limiters and cert cost are there to balance numerical presence in the field en enforce and a variation and scarcety of units.

They're not just a measure of power. They're all supposed to be trade-offs, which is why the current cert system of endless cert gain and having access to everything is pretty down right stupid, because you're not trading off anymore.

Killing for instance an air unit should ensure that air threat is gone for some time. Not because it's powerful, but so you can focus on another aspect of the fight. If you keep having to fend off the same guy(s) in the same air unit(s), when are you going to be able to fight those other units?

It's there to provide tactical meaning to a kill. Not just pure power. Since everyone has to be infantry, there's little reason to limit infantry aside from the more tactically impacting units, like MAXes which have very specific offensive and defensive advantages - AND - disadvantages.

Cost is there to ensure there would be sufficient infantry for infantry on infantry combat. It's there to ensure people don't all have personal transports, so they would choose to gun for others and would have need for transport vehicles and therefore choose to board them rather than hop in their own, solo, non-transport, combat vehicles. The latter would therefore be more expensive, to further encourage the use of group vehicles.

Unfortunately, most players have too shallow knowledge and insight into gameplay to understand the design reasoning behind it.

That cost is of no consequence to classes is why everyone has AV and everyone is an engineer and infil etc. now. Certification cost in PS1 enforced variety in characters, because players were forced to make choices.

And with regards to power, if you get an air unit, you don't just get firepower or staying power. You get the entire package of speed, agility, altitude, terrain ignoring, etc. That's a trade-off few pilots are willing to admit to, so they can cling to just the firepower/endurance argument.

You are trading off what you can do with a particular unit at that point in time by pulling a unit for infantry, anti-armor or air. The resources need to be more scarce. Right now with certs dumped in I can pull a scythe.. hell even a sunderer which I believe is the most exspensive... almost anytime our outfit needs one unless my vehicle was just killed. I didn't mean the resources and cool down where JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE POWERFUL.. but that is a portion of the reason.

On top of that, solo units shouldn't be constantly available so players also have social interaction by grouping up in multi-crew vehicles. This is good for the social cohesion of the game and encourages formation of outfits and teamwork.

I don't believe this last part is actually directed at me.. I've always said I am in a large outfit on a high population server.. so social interaction is what I am after, but you also have to have things for lone wolves.. things for soloers to be able to do. Some people only want to be tankers and they play solo.. so they have lightnings that are low cost and solo friendly to operate. SOE straight up stated that is why the current costs are the way they are for single person vehicles. They want those soloers being able to do what they want, when they want to.

People like you, who only seem to focus on power, are absolutely clueless at what else "cost" is for.

Again, I do know what the cost is for.. next time I will pull out a dictonary for you so that I can cover all possible angles of an arguement before you try to start poking at me for being "clueless"

Hence you don't seem to realise that that guy in that video before, was actually dedicated to AV. In PS2, everyone could have AV. In PS1, you actually relied on people with AV to be good at what they were doing, because you, nor your other buddies had AV power, at all. In PS2, you only don't have it when you chose to use something other than HA.

So no, you don't understand me, because my frame of reference and the game I want is completely different from the shallow and IMO somewhat dead-end road PS2 is taking by copying shallow gameplay and standards from individualistic oriented games.

Not sure what all that was about really haha. I already stated I didn't play PS1.. so yea.. not going to get a lot of referrences to mechanics in that game.. which I already admitted.. but this isn't PS1.. so that doesn't really matter unless you are living in the past and trying to make PS2 a PS1 clone.. which is clearly not what SOE wants to do because they want more than a handful of people playing and paying for virtual items. So PS2 is not an exact PS1 clone with a new engine.. it's going to be different.

AThreatToYou · 2012-12-12, 03:41 PM

My solution to this is not to remove HE, but to increase the rate at which damage tapers off in its AOE. Maybe give it the same 1HK radius as a HEAT round, but keep a much larger AOE than HEAT. Maybe. That sounds fair.

On the other side of this issue, I believe infantry need EMP grenades like in PlanetSide 1, maybe even EMP missile launchers. MAX anti-vehicle projectiles should move faster and MAXes should be able to zoom. I think the result of these things would result in less VehicleSide 2.

Dragonskin · 2012-12-12, 04:33 PM

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

My solution to this is not to remove HE, but to increase the rate at which damage tapers off in its AOE. Maybe give it the same 1HK radius as a HEAT round, but keep a much larger AOE than HEAT. Maybe. That sounds fair.

On the other side of this issue, I believe infantry need EMP grenades like in PlanetSide 1, maybe even EMP missile launchers. MAX anti-vehicle projectiles should move faster and MAXes should be able to zoom. I think the result of these things would result in less VehicleSide 2.

MAXes seem kinda underpowered to me in general outside of dual bursters. Seems like SOE only really wants them to be a mobile AA threat. That's the only reason I haven't put more certs into MAX myself.

CasualCat · 2012-12-13, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by Quovatis

They just need to decrease the anti armor damage of the HE rounds. You don't lose enough AP damage as a tradeoff right now, and there's little reason NOT to go with HE rounds.

This.

Infantry are a far greater threat to AP tanks than Armor is to HE tanks.

Mathematics · 2012-12-13, 11:03 AM

Originally Posted by Beerbeer

I think it's time they get rid of this. It's way, way to easy to farm infantry with these things; no effort is really required. I personally find it boring as there's no challenge, but I feel compelled to do it since the certs come pouring in and I see tons of other people doing it probably for the same reason.

Considering there's really no restrictions on vehicles in this game, it's time for a change. Newbies don't want to play because some of them (at least the ones I talked to) felt like cannon fodder and didn't have fun when they came here looking for some type of FPS game where they can at least shoot their infantry guns and not get molested the instant they leave the spawn room.

What are your pilots doing if not providing air cover?

Whiteagle · 2012-12-13, 02:33 PM

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

My solution to this is not to remove HE, but to increase the rate at which damage tapers off in its AOE. Maybe give it the same 1HK radius as a HEAT round, but keep a much larger AOE than HEAT. Maybe. That sounds fair.

Eh, I don't know...
I would agree with you... if this wasn't the same idea I had for balancing Lightning HE Rocket-pods against the HE Python...
I would instead go for the Anti-Armor damage reduction, just to make AP tanks the clear top of the Tank Food chain while putting them at the bottom of the Vehicle-vs-Infantry hierarchy.

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

On the other side of this issue, I believe infantry need EMP grenades like in PlanetSide 1, maybe even EMP missile launchers. MAX anti-vehicle projectiles should move faster and MAXes should be able to zoom. I think the result of these things would result in less VehicleSide 2.

Well Infiltrators have EMP 'nades, but from what I hear they are rather weak at the moment...
...Certainly wouldn't mind an EMP Rocket Launcher though, it would be an awesome utility for Heavies to take down Infantry Shields, Radar, and Vehicle movement at the cost of any real damage.

While I agree that MAXes need a better anti-vehicle option (The Pounder is a especially joke, you're better off using it against INFANTRY then a tank), I don't know how practical it would be to implement a zoom function...

After all, MAXes use the "alternate fire" button to operate their left arm-mounted weapon...

...Unless...
...Unless there was a "Power Brace" option for one Arm's weapon slot that gave MAXes an optic AND allowed them to equip a larger weapon to their other limb!

So Terran MAXes could carry around the Needler like the old MCG, NC could lug a HUGEASS rail-gun, and the Vanu could have some sort of Plasma cannon thingy at the cost of a secondary weapon and maybe some movement speed...

...They could also get Rocket Pods or Lock-on Missile Launchers as single arm weapons well....

Figment · 2012-12-13, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by Dragonskin

You are trading off what you can do with a particular unit at that point in time by pulling a unit for infantry, anti-armor or air.

It's a very temporary trade-off that holds little weight, so it's not really a big deal. If I don't need jetpacks now, but I could possibly use them in half a minute, eh. Just spawnbeacon, /suicide, spawn in light assault...

The system is very abusable, I'm not confronted with my own choices in the long term.

See, if I couldn't ever use light assault, I'd be forced to be creative with my alternate options. I'm not stimulated to do anything but take the easy way out in PS2. :/ If you catch my drift. In PS1, you choose who you are and what you can do and combined those things to make your sum larger than the separate parts.

That felt good.

It didn't feel good when you could just combine anything with everything or always go for the default best options. Not making due with what you have in more than one life is going to make this game very predictable in the long run.

Everyone will be the same.

Not per encounter, but over the set of encounters, there won't be differences. That will just get worse as time passes and people have their personal fave things already and start to get the extras.

The resources need to be more scarce. Right now with certs dumped in I can pull a scythe.. hell even a sunderer which I believe is the most exspensive... almost anytime our outfit needs one unless my vehicle was just killed. I didn't mean the resources and cool down where JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE POWERFUL.. but that is a portion of the reason.

They started with 5000 resource limit, brought it down to 2000, 750, and still play around with it... It's an extremely complex puzzle with hundreds of variables.

In all honesty I never have trusted them to get it right, certainly not now. Unfortunately, a lot of players don't seem to understand just how important it is to have numerical balance and variety in game play.

I don't believe this last part is actually directed at me.. I've always said I am in a large outfit on a high population server.. so social interaction is what I am after, but you also have to have things for lone wolves.. things for soloers to be able to do. Some people only want to be tankers and they play solo.. so they have lightnings that are low cost and solo friendly to operate. SOE straight up stated that is why the current costs are the way they are for single person vehicles. They want those soloers being able to do what they want, when they want to.

The rotten thing is they do that with the powerful tools, while making the weaker units gasp for air in that environment of powerful solists. And they grab MBTs to solo mostly, not Lightnings... If it was just Lightnings (specially not too powerful ones), fair enough.

The weaker units should be flexible and limited over time. The larger units should be limited in their niches in more restrictive way. It's currently exactly the other way around.

Again, I do know what the cost is for.. next time I will pull out a dictonary for you so that I can cover all possible angles of an arguement before you try to start poking at me for being "clueless"

Well you don't have the complete frame of reference and you do bagatalise the concept of cost balance. Especially the manpower resource is something you greatly underestimate. I didn't quite say clueless, I said ignorant. Ignorant can be outside your own fault: you need to have heard of something or have experience for that. Clueless is simply never being able to get it. IMO.

Not sure what all that was about really haha. I already stated I didn't play PS1.. so yea.. not going to get a lot of referrences to mechanics in that game.. which I already admitted.. but this isn't PS1.. so that doesn't really matter unless you are living in the past and trying to make PS2 a PS1 clone.. which is clearly not what SOE wants to do because they want more than a handful of people playing and paying for virtual items. So PS2 is not an exact PS1 clone with a new engine.. it's going to be different.

It matters a lot.

And no, it's not about living in the past or wanting a PS1 clone.

It's about retaining systems that no other game other than PS1 got right for a MMO of this type. It's about evolving from PS1, instead of taking one step forward in scale and taking 20 steps back in mechanics and design choices, because mini-games like BF3 or CoD do some things and that's supposedly modern (retaining 1990s systems is apparently modern).

And please explain what you mean by "only a handful of people playing", because that does sound clueless. Marketing and hardware availability (awareness) determines how many people try it, not the mechanics. Mechanics and content determine if people KEEP playing AFTER they started playing. You can't compare PS1 and PS2 in terms of players and then blame mechanics.

There's a big difference between a 2003 launchdate and a 2012 launchdate in terms of player base pick up... And yeah. WoW launched in late 2004, with lesser pc demands and a much better marketing plan. Just the moment that SOE decided to fully focus on EQII after failed content expansions for PS1 (they failed because they did what PS2 does now with regular units: overly dominant game play by specific units).