Vehicle/Air balance - a different approach.

EVILPIG · 2013-01-07, 05:50 PM

We should be seeing a change to the experience system soon that will make kills not the greatest source of XP.

One of the greatest complaints about the game right now is the Air and Vehicle zergs. Simply nerfing these is not a good answer and a game starts to become lame when you've got something like rocket pods from Planetside 1. Reaver "whores" would use the air-to-ground rocket spam to farm infantry, so they nerfed the rockets. This certainly lowered the rocket's effectiveness vs. infantry, but it doesn't feel right when you unload 16 rockets into a foot soldier and they laugh about it. I believe a better approach is to change how infantry and vehicles interact with each other.

Why do so many players farm infantry with vehicles/air? 1. Is the desire to get XP as fast as you can and using vehicles can certainly produce. 2. It's so easy. Why is it so easy? It's so easy because the game mechanics serve up infantry on a silver platter due to how easy it is for vehicles/air to find them. The maps certainly need more terrain features, mostly just foliage and tree cover. However, even with these additions, every kill is simply a "Dorito" away.

Perhaps we just need some simple changes to the mechanics? When you are in a Liberator, you have all these beautiful indicators screaming out "Hey, free XP here!!". If you removed the "Doritos" on enemies when viewing from a vehicle (all types) then infantry could actually go unnoticed by vehicles. We have the ability to buy camo patterns, yet don't really get to utilize them because the indicators tell the enemy that you are there any way. If you had no indicator above your head, you could literally squat in a bush and an enemy tank will likely roll right by you. In real life, when you are looking at your surroundings, the first thing you will notice is movement. If infantry hunker down, or get under a tree and freeze, it is likely that vehicles will not notice them. Especially aircraft.

Now, there would need to be some additional tweaking to weapons, but overall such a change to the spotting system would allow infantry to go more unnoticed by vehicles and harder to spot. Now, if vehicles are seeing infantry less, they will see enemy vehicles more and those should become their primary targets. Additionally, I would remove AA specific weaponry from infantry and MAXes and add more AA options to the existing vehicles. Give vehicles (still including air here) weaponry that can be specifically geared towards each other and they are now each others' greatest threat.

Would infantry be worthless against armor and air? No. Definitely keep the decimator. If a tank stops and infantry is close, they should be able to inflict a good amount of harm on the tank, just as the tank could return fire with it's cannon. Rocket Pods could be more of a tank-buster, no splash type of rocket. The debate on HE ammo continues and could be taken away. We would not need to make these units futile against each other, just not equipped to specifically kill each other. Small arms fire could damage all aircraft, to a degree. If a Lib wanted to bomb from safety, they would have to bomb from high up where it would be difficult to distinguish infantry. The Libs could bomb smoke markers provided by their command.

Again, there is a lot more that needs to be done for Planetside 2. The base layouts need work and having some partial or full enclosures on some would be great. This could be anything from shield domes to large hanger-like structures that wrap over 1/2 of a base.

The primary purpose of this change would be to get aircraft and vehicles mostly focused on fighting each other, so that infantry can mostly focus on other infantry. Raise the interaction between all vehicle types and lower infantry interaction with vehicles, but by all means, not eliminate such interaction.

Also, obviously the resource limitation doesn't have much impact on vehicles, especially when they survive a long time. Another possibility, and just a simple suggestion, would be to charge resources not for the vehicle, but for the ammo. The resource limitation is to limit the vehicle's effect on a battle. If a vehicle costs 200 resources and I can keep it alive for an hour and reload it's ammo several times, that 200 resources is having a much greater impact. If it was 200 resources to rearm, then the resources would basically tax the vehicle resource more based on how much it is being used. This may not be popular change, but it is an example of how you can change up the limitations to greater represent the purpose of the limitation. In this case, it's the usage of said vehicle.

To summarize:

1. Remove icons/names from enemy infantry when viewing from inside a vehicle.
2. Provide more anti-air and anti-armor options to all vehicles.
3. Remove Lock-on hand held weaponry and Burster arms.
4. Tweak base layouts and provide walls/shielding to some.
5. Charge vehicles for their ammo, not to spawn them.

These are just ideas for changing the way the game is played right now. These changes would also allow infantry to be more tactical when vehicles are around and they wish to bypass or hide from them. Not your typical "just nerf em" thread and please, add to any idea here or present a better one.

RykerStruvian · 2013-01-07, 06:01 PM

I can agree on some points but I don't really agree with nerfs (as you said) or removal of weapons. The first thing I would like to point out is motivation. As you said the primary motivator in the game is to get XP, XP is a means to get more certifications, allowing more access to different pieces of equipment.

I think before any sort of balancing is made, the primary thing needs to change which is the motivation. There needs to be more than just killing for XP because the act is very meaningless, or rather it is very shallow. It purely lacks content and there should be more to PS2 than just killing for XP, such as killing as a means to achieve a greater goal ie: continental lock.

The other thing is, you really can't remove items which have already been added to the game. People already spent money on these things and to remove it would hurt Sony even if they do not 'lose' the money, for instance refunding it as smedbucks. If it affects SOE's income negatively I really doubt it will ever happen or work.

EVILPIG · 2013-01-07, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by RykerStruvian

I can agree on some points but I don't really agree with nerfs (as you said) or removal of weapons. The first thing I would like to point out is motivation. As you said the primary motivator in the game is to get XP, XP is a means to get more certifications, allowing more access to different pieces of equipment.

I think before any sort of balancing is made, the primary thing needs to change which is the motivation. There needs to be more than just killing for XP because the act is very meaningless, or rather it is very shallow. It purely lacks content and there should be more to PS2 than just killing for XP, such as killing as a means to achieve a greater goal ie: continental lock.

The other thing is, you really can't remove items which have already been added to the game. People already spent money on these things and to remove it would hurt Sony even if they do not 'lose' the money, for instance refunding it as smedbucks. If it affects SOE's income negatively I really doubt it will ever happen or work.

You can expect changes to the XP system to being less kill-centric to be coming soon. The next big motivator for farming is K/D and anyone can go back 9 years reading about my objection to tracking deaths and it's effect on farming.

It is possible that Station Cash could be refunded for any weapons dropped from the build, or, they could be replaced with new ones. The possibilities are pretty wide open, but I would be most interested in hearing what anyone thinks of changing vehicles' ability to see infantry markers.

maradine · 2013-01-07, 06:39 PM

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

To summarize:

1. Remove icons/names from enemy infantry when viewing from inside a vehicle.
2. Provide more anti-air and anti-armor options to all vehicles.
3. Remove Lock-on hand held weaponry and Burster arms.
4. Tweak base layouts and provide walls/shielding to some.
5. Charge vehicles for their ammo, not to spawn them.

1. Do not like. IFF is a big part of the game. Removing it from a certain class of play feels hacky and non-elegant, especially in light of the fact you'd expect a vehicle to have better IFF capability than a bodysuit.

2. Like. I think this could be as simple as the Walker being as viable a weapon choice as a Saron rail or a missile. Supplemental, maybe bolt a 5 round magazine worth of SAM to the side of the Skyguard. Why it's less useful than, say, a Tunguska, is a mystery to me.

3. Do not like. Infantry squads should be able to do something about aircraft if they choose. That they're also currently the best anti-aircraft solution is a separate problem with separate, individually addressable causes.

4. Like. Debated to death, and a good idea in my opinion. At least one major base type of the three should be moved mostly underground, frankly.

5. Do not like, but worth a longer discussion. Resources should be charged against the force multiple they provide. Charging vehicles for ammunition only makes sense if we're also charging HAs for their rockets.

So, mixed bag in my book, but worth kicking back and forth.

RykerStruvian · 2013-01-07, 06:45 PM

As for the removal of IFF abilities for vehicles/infantry, I do think you are on to something but I think a little too extreme. While I don't think it should remove markers on infantry for vehicles, I think a certain prerequisite should be met to enable this function. For instance, give a tech plant (or any kind of facility really, maybe interlink 2.0) the ability to grant the faction's owner the ability to mark enemy targets using the spotting key. This would give some more incentive to fight/defend certain bases, I'd say.

maradine · 2013-01-07, 06:48 PM

That, I think, is a nice compromise.

StumpyTheOzzie · 2013-01-07, 06:52 PM

Changing the XP motivation is a very very easy thing to change and calculate the butterzone. They must have enough data by now to figure this out.

I think IFF is a tricky one. Personally, I think camo and hiding is very important because I used to be a rifeman IRL. I'd hate it if the enemy could see a little red triangle after I spent hours getting camo'd up. The Q mechanic should stay though because any decent, well trained group of soldiers will be able to communicate enemy positions after they've been spotted. I say remove triangles.

The n00bish playerbase that has all the money expects little red and blue triangles though and you can't piss off your target market. Certing into IFF is a good compromise. It'd be handy to have a cheap cert for IR strobes too. That way I can shoot willy nilly at the green dots that aren't blinking at me.

Perhaps something along the lines of:
0 cert points - you can 'Q' red triangles up to 50m
10 cert points - IR strobe to stop friendly liberator gunners shooting at you
50 cert points - you can 'Q' red triangles show up at 75m
100 cert points - you can 'Q' red triangles show up at 100m
150 cert points - you can 'Q' red triangles show up at 150m
200 cert points - you can 'Q' red triangles show up at 250m
500 cert points - red triangles show up at 500m

PredatorFour · 2013-01-07, 06:55 PM

I would be in favour of getting rid of the markers above enemy heads whether your in a tank/air or on foot. Why are they in it ? Oh yeh, battlefield field has them so they must be good

And you cant call someones idea as bad because its not realistic (tanks having better target recognition) in a game like this!

If it was realistic my Light Assault jets should be able to burn-off higby's beard ingame if i got to close to him!

james · 2013-01-07, 06:55 PM

Removing the red triangle wouldn't change much, as the gunner could just have thermal or IR. Plus inf is so easy to see as is.

On the removal weapons point i think that a horrible idea. Removing the two major ways to take out of air could cause even more problems.

NewSith · 2013-01-07, 06:57 PM

@OP, can I ask you to do a little formatting, this is actually quite hard for my eyes to read.

Use colors, font sizes, and headers (Like: General Problem, General Idea, Theoretical Result, Conclusion)...

Thanks in advance.

Helwyr · 2013-01-07, 07:00 PM

IR/Thermal optics and radar capable of detecting Infantry needs to be removed from vehicles. (change to Q spotting would also greatly benefit the game as suggested in the OP)

Access to vehicles needs to be tied more to meta game objectives, like MBTs are to Tech Plants

Base layout and general terrain needs to be adjusted offering more cover for Infantry especially from the air.

maradine · 2013-01-07, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by PredatorFour

And you cant call someones idea as bad because its not realistic (tanks having better target recognition) in a game like this!

I didn't say it was a bad idea, I said I didn't like it. Vanishingly few people around here understand the difference, it seems.

Thunderhawk · 2013-01-07, 07:18 PM

In an ideal world, you could debate all this with triangles, etc.. but sadly Render distance of infantry vs vehicles dumbs this into an irrelevance.

1. Infantry can see Vehicles (as in they render) even in a Zerg at up to 600-800 Meters.
2. Vehicles cannot see infantry (due to them not rendering) until they're within 100-150 meters (and this depends on the zerg, the more players the lower the render distance)

This makes balancing terrible and makes changes to balance irrelevant.

AA MAXs can begin shooting at an ESF without the ESF even knowing where it is, seeing the flack, or even being able to shoot back. Same with Liberators, they cannot "bomb from a distance" if they cant see what they're bombing. Also, You can mark where to bomb all you want, if the infantry don't render, the bombs don't inflict any damage, so High level bombing is also out of the equation.

To cut this short as I have work tomorrow and need to go to bed, You need to make Vehicle and Infantry render to each other at the same distance before starting to discuss buffing AV or making changes to the UI.

Helwyr · 2013-01-07, 07:24 PM

Originally Posted by Thunderhawk

You need to make Vehicle and Infantry render to each other at the same distance before starting to discuss buffing AV or making changes to the UI.

Equalizing Render distance between Vehicles and Infantry would be the straw that breaks the camels back. The current rendering difference is the only thing keeping the game remotely playable as Infantry atm.

NewSith · 2013-01-07, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by Thunderhawk

1. Infantry can see Vehicles (as in they render) even in a Zerg at up to 600-800 Meters.
2. Vehicles cannot see infantry (due to them not rendering) until they're within 100-150 meters (and this depends on the zerg, the more players the lower the render distance)

They could at least make it so projectiles have their own draw distance. Like, say, mines that explode regardless. However, say, AA missiles stop tracking targets when the latter stop drawing.

PS YOu should call it Draw Distance peeps, because Render Distance is a slightly different thing.