My one 'dislike' of PS2 (Main Battle Tanks) - Page 5

sylphaen · 2012-05-26, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by Rhapsody

Like i said, if their turning the MBT's into over-sized lightnings to cater the Cod, MW, BF crowd, i honestly think they should make that the 'option', not the default.

That sends out the wrong message though, imo. In general, the thing you unlock is meant to be an improvement, better than the default, or to offer something different but desirable (otherwise, what's the point of working to unlock it?).

When you put driver/gunner as a reward, it indirectly implies that it's better to drive and gun; or if it's not better, that it should be better since it's at the top of an unlock/cert tree.

Mechzz · 2012-05-26, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Rhapsody

Yea, someone mentioned their considering a cert for the driver to 'give up' the main gun. But that implies the driver has control of it by default. It should be the other way around: Cert being required for the driver to take control of the main gun, with the trade-off being he wont be nearly as mobile as a 2 person crew.

And yea, the new Mag is an issue since they seemed to have removed the top turret and turned the 'nose' gun into its main gun.

I hear ya. Some of us had a fairly lengthy tussle on this a month or two back. Overall, it seemed more peeps were of the opinion that to attract the BFers that we need to go the "driver is gunner" route.

Personally, driving or gunning in PS1 was a genuine highlight of the game, one I look to experience anew

Figment · 2012-05-26, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by Stardouser

That would be 120 guys if fully staffed, and how many people total are in a battle on average?

Why do you assume fully staffed?

GGs are typically staffed for 40%-60% to optimise the endurance / player and optimise their firing angles so they are useful players. Often less.

If the average battle was 400 people(200 per side, and yes for simplicity I'm assuming a 2 empire fight) and you have 120 of them in GG alone, they won't be able to capture flags on the ground. Strategically, it should all balance out, because however many less guys they have on the ground capping flags, lets your team have that many more guys up in Mosquitoes or Reavers(or Lightnings) to shoot them down.

What you forget is concentration vs dispersion of troops. Like most players talking about GGs, they ALWAYS for some reason assume the defender is equally concentrated and that no other opposition is locally present.

They won't be and these GGs will invade any fight their empire has virtually instantly due to being airborne (they ignore terrain). That creates an immediate imbalance locally between the amount of AA needed before and after.

Meaning, that AA won't be present or organizable, while at the same time you need AV and AI to fight off others. And when the GGs have passed, they will continue to ANOTHER point. Since they are aircraft, they can become present ANYWHERE on the continent within a minute or two, which is NOT true for AA and ground vehicles.

Yes, I'm aware that this may force extra infantry to choose AA, or to not play infantry at all and instead pull appropriate vehicles, but if it weren't that way, the strategic importance would be reduced.

Also, if we've got 5 gunners in a GG, I'm guessing only 3 will get good firing aspect angles at any given time, the inefficiency of that fact also makes this less powerful than it seems.

No, it just means there will be more GGs with less crew in it to prevent players being non-functionally present. NEVER assume that when crew is not useful, it will be present! Players are not that stupid!

A GG = 5 gunners, only 3 of which will have a good shot at any given time, whereas if it were replaced by 6 Reavers, would that not be a lot more powerful?

That depends entirely on how fast you can take out a single Reaver vs a couple GGs (not one). If you can reduce the Reavers firepower faster then the damage dealt over time of 6 Reavers will be less than a couple half filled GGs.

Gandhi · 2012-05-26, 10:30 AM

I think TTK for vehicles will be a big deciding factor in this. If an MBT dies in 3 or 4 hits then the fact that a fully crewed Prowler will have more firepower and more versatility won't mean much. In fact in that case it'd be much better to have 3 solo Prowlers, or a Prowler and 2 Lightnings, or whatever. On the other hand, if tanks can withstand a lot of punishment then that extra edge for being fully crewed could make a huge difference.

And lets not forget you're rarely going to find yourself in a 1 vs 1 against any kind of vehicle. You're going to be in a melee, with aircraft, infantry and other tanks all firing at you. If a solo Prowler can take you down to 25% health before your fully manned Prowler can kill it then what solace is that? Something will just pick you off right afterward and again you've wasted 2 people on gunning when they'd have been a lot more effective driving their own tanks.

So to me vehicle TTK is the more important issue here. A fully crewed MBT has to be able to survive long enough for those extra gunners to make a difference.

Stardouser · 2012-05-26, 10:33 AM

@Figment: Even if we assume that a GG only carries 3 gunners instead of 5, even 4 Reavers would outdo 1 GG would it not? Especially when that gives you 4 different targets to shoot at.

And would 80 Reavers blanketing an area really be any easier on the other empire than 20 4 man GG?

Figment · 2012-05-26, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by Gandhi

I think TTK for vehicles will be a big deciding factor in this. If an MBT dies in 3 or 4 hits then the fact that a fully crewed Prowler will have more firepower and more versatility won't mean much. In fact in that case it'd be much better to have 3 solo Prowlers, or a Prowler and 2 Lightnings, or whatever. On the other hand, if tanks can withstand a lot of punishment then that extra edge for being fully crewed could make a huge difference.

And lets not forget you're rarely going to find yourself in a 1 vs 1 against any kind of vehicle. You're going to be in a melee, with aircraft, infantry and other tanks all firing at you. If a solo Prowler can take you down to 25% health before your fully manned Prowler can kill it then what solace is that? Something will just pick you off right afterward and again you've wasted 2 people on gunning when they'd have been a lot more effective driving their own tanks.

So to me vehicle TTK is the more important issue here. A fully crewed MBT has to be able to survive long enough for those extra gunners to make a difference.

But don't you then again create the exact same circumstances with a slight bit time difference? Of course at really low TTKs, it's like two tanks would die at once if one tank with two gunners die, so I see where you're coming from, but I don't think there's ever going to be a hard choice between extra tank or second crewmember as gunner as long as drivers can fire at all with anything heavy.

Figment · 2012-05-26, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by Stardouser

@Figment: Even if we assume that a GG only carries 3 gunners instead of 5, even 4 Reavers would outdo 1 GG would it not? Especially when that gives you 4 different targets to shoot at.

And would 80 Reavers blanketing an area really be any easier on the other empire than 20 4 man GG?

Depends. If an AA guy can kill one aircraft on his own, he is more likely to kill several of the 4. Whereas if one AA guy cannot kill one aircraft on his own, he's unlikely to deal with multiple.

Stardouser · 2012-05-26, 10:39 AM

This doesn't exactly address your concerns, but I am a definite believer in, if you hit an aircraft with heavy fire on exactly the spot where a passenger or gunner is, that they can be killed. This goes for pilots too, hit the glass with a heavy weapon and it can kill them. I know that pilots who want to hover rape won't like that, but it should be that way.

Rhapsody · 2012-05-26, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by sylphaen

That sends out the wrong message though, imo. In general, the thing you unlock is meant to be an improvement, better than the default, or to offer something different but desirable (otherwise, what's the point of working to unlock it?).

When you put driver/gunner as a reward, it indirectly implies that it's better to drive and gun; or if it's not better, that it should be better since it's at the top of an unlock/cert tree.

Eh, i can see how it would be an 'improvement' over the single-seat option to unlock the driver/gunner option. But on the flip-side, unlocking the 'driver is gunner' option would be 'different and desirable' to the CoD crowd.

I guess it depends on which crowd their trying to cater the most to, the old PS1 players, or the CoD crowd. With the MBT's, it seems like their trying to cater more to the CoD crowd and are making the old PS1 group have to spend an 'extra' cert in order to get back to the way things 'use' to be (the way 'we' liked it).

Pyreal · 2012-05-26, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by Rhapsody

Makeing the driver also the gunner by 'default' is going to remove tank on tank 'fighting', and make it more of a 'mobile artillary vs mobile artillary' fight. Were two tanks see each other, stop, and just fire rounds at each other till one blows up without moving any direction but forwards or backwards a few feet.

That scenario is very unlikely. In [get ready for it..] BF3 the tank fights are very mobile, and the artillery barrage you're envisioning only lasts happens at long range, and only until one of them gets hit and then the game is on. This isn't an outcome you need to worry about.

Players are used to manning the main gun on their tanks. It's how all modern and most games featuring tanks operate.
If it was drastically different, as it was in PS, there be would be more players annoyed or upset about the set up then cheered it. I know I would be because I don't like to rely on strangers to play the game how I want to play it.

Stardouser · 2012-05-26, 10:48 AM

@Figment, another thought I had, tell me what you think.

The anti-air batteries at bases should be so deadly to aircraft(of all kinds) that until they are taken out by ground forces, aircraft would be insane to attack a base(and if an engineer gets a couple of AA turrets repaired in the middle of a fight and aircraft have moved into attack, they are in trouble).

This would cause aircraft to focus on trying to intercept vehicles between bases.

Thoughts? Note that I am talking about making fixed base AA far more powerful than infantry or vehicle based AA would ever ever be.

Rhapsody · 2012-05-26, 10:55 AM

Originally Posted by Pyreal

Players are used to manning the main gun on their tanks. It's how all modern and most games featuring tanks operate.
If it was drastically different, as it was in PS, there be would be more players annoyed or upset about the set up then cheered it. I know I would be because I don't like to rely on strangers to play the game how I want to play it.

The first part is a misconception. In most 'multi-player' games with tanks in them, such as PS, Aces High 2, WWII online. Tanks required mutli-crews in order to be fully effective. In PS1, this was handled by needing a 'gunner' to use the main gun. In Aces High 2, 1 person could operate the tank AND gun by themselves, but they had to jump from position to position (change from driver to gunner and back again), I think there was a way to set the tank in a sort of 'cruise' mode and make small adjustments right or left while also in the gunner seat but you didnt have 'full' control of the tank while in the gunner position. And WWII Online had a similar system to Aces High 2.

The key difference in these vs games such as CoD, and such, is that they were 'multi-player' focused games. CoD, BF, MW,... they are 'single player focused' games. Which is why you have the feeling of not wanting to rely on a 'stranger' to play the game as 'you' like to play it. Thats why all of their vehicals are 'driver is gunner' with the 2nd seat being an 'option'. Their designed for a single player experience with the multi-player being an option.

PS1 and PS2 (as well as Aces High 2, and WWII Online) are designed as 'multiplayer' games from the ground up, which implies team-work. Even the BFR's when they first came out required 2 people to use fully, and the 'single-seater' variant was the 'unlock', not the Default.

ArmedZealot · 2012-05-26, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by Rhapsody

The first part is a misconception. In most 'multi-player' games with tanks in them, such as PS, Aces High 2, WWII online.

What?

Stardouser · 2012-05-26, 11:01 AM

Originally Posted by Rhapsody

The key difference in these vs games such as CoD, and such, is that they were 'multi-player' focused games. CoD, BF, MW,... they are 'single player focused' games. Which is why you have the feeling of not wanting to rely on a 'stranger' to play the game as 'you' like to play it. Thats why all of their vehicals are 'driver is gunner' with the 2nd seat being an 'option'. Their designed for a single player experience with the multi-player being an option.

Have to disagree with you there. Battlefield never even had single player until Bad Company and BF3, so that's simply not true.

Instead, you should be focused on the even less admirable trait of Battlefield's developer, which is that they simply don't care about teamwork as much as those games you listed as being true multiplayer games.

See, it's not that BF is single player focused, it isn't, but instead they want to empower every player to do everything with no consequences for choosing the wrong class, etc. And to me, that's even worse.

Rhapsody · 2012-05-26, 11:01 AM

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

What?

Every time people think of multiplayer games with tanks, its the console gamers that bring up the 'but 1 person should be the driver and gunner, thats the way its always been'. PC gamers who've played the 'multi-player' modeled games, or even Tank simulator games are use to the different 'seats' being seperated, not all thrown into 1 like the console gamers are use to.