Long range anti-vehicle weapons used by infantry are ruining vehicle gameplay.

Rothnang · 2013-04-11, 10:18 PM

I'm having less and less fun with Planetside 2, and one of the major factors making that happen is the huge proliferation of anti vehicle weapons with extreme range that infantry can carry.

Let me explain why this just plain ruins my fun:

Vehicles in Planetside 2 are designed to not be infinitely replaceable. I generally have no problem with that. The idea of a unit that has some penalty attached to it when you lose it appeals to me because it creates an element of risk vs. reward and that makes for a smarter, deeper game.

This becomes a serious problem however when the things most likely to kill your vehicle aren't risks you take, but weapons that can take you down without giving you any reasonable chance to avoid it. Those weapons are all the various extreme range anti vehicle weapons that infantry carries.

A fight between vehicle and infantry at more than 300 meters distance favors the infantry to a huge amount. The vehicle will not be able to even render the infantry, let alone have the slightest chance of hitting it at those kinds of ranges. Even if you do kill infantry, they can come back nearly instantly.

Any AV weapon in the game can kill a vehicle instantly when used by multiple people at the same time, and while that is a coordinated effort that should be rewarded, it leads to a situation where combat scaling simply doesn't work anymore because armor and hitpoints become meaningless as battles get bigger, while speed, size and stealth become the only survival mechanics that make any impact. That leads to an increasingly backwards paradigm where the most armored units are actually the easiest to take out.

Basically what we have is a situation where vehicles are increasingly becoming less and less fun to use because any organized opposition can easily destroy them without giving the drivers much of any chance to save their vehicle, and as a result the spawn timers and resource restrictions eventually strangle you and force you to play something else. That's just plain frustrating at this point, since the infantry party never stops, no matter how many times they go down.

The really big offenders that are causing this are weapons like Bursters, Strikers, Lancers, AV Mana and Lock on G2G and G2A missiles. Basically anything that can effectively engage a vehicle at ranges beyond about 300 meters and is carried by infantry is pretty much breaking the game for vehicle players at this point.

I would have sworn that the lancer is the worst out of the new weapons two weeks ago, but my experiences using that thing have pretty much convinced me that it is in fact the most overpowered out of all of them. Not because it's all that practical to use or anything like that, but simply because if you have 5 lancers sitting on top of a hill you have an 800m radius deathzone for all tanks, sunderers, liberators, galaxies, lightnings and anything else that's a nice big target that comes into your line of sight.

The reason why there is simply no reasonable balance to be had with those kinds of weapons is because they just throw any kind of Risk vs. Reward out the window for vehicle players and just introduce the risk of instant unavoidable death to absolutely everything you do with a vehicle.

You cannot see a volley of lancers coming in a Vanguard. There is nothing you could have possibly done to avoid getting facemelted by them. The people firing them are probably sitting between 500-800 meters away from you, aren't rendered, even if they were you have no weapon that can seriously kill infantry at that kind of range. Even if you could both see and combat them, you still lack the advantage of infinite respawns and medics, and your armor isn't of any use to you in a fight so large that you die in one second regardless of how tough your vehicle supposedly is.

To me if there is a concentration of units that has enough firepower to instantly kill you then they should be pretty obvious. If I see 5 Skyguards in my Liberator I don't go to them, because I know they will fuck me up. I can't see 5 Bursters though, or 5 Strikers, they just get to kill me out of the blue without giving me any reasonable chance to avoid it.

There are really two options here:

1. You keep this instant unavoidable death bullshit in the game, but then I don't want my vehicles treated as though they are precious and I have to keep them safe.
You aren't giving me the option to play in such a way that I get to participate in the big battles and keep my vehicle safe at the same time, so if my vehicle is going to die a lot and without me being able to prevent it I don't want it costing a shitload of resources and have a huge timer.

2. You get rid of all of those weapons that can kill me without giving me any chance of avoiding it because it's impossible for me to even know where they are coming from, or stay out of their range without being completely barred from all larger fights. If my vehicle is an expensive investment and my task as a Pilot / Driver is to keep it safe in the field then I want a game that gives me that option. I don't need to be deathproof, but a penalty is something you take for making a mistake, and I'm sick of getting slapped with penalties when the only thing I did wrong was going within 500 meters of a large fight - which just happens to be the whole point for playing this game!

HereticusXZ · 2013-04-11, 11:02 PM

Why are you driving your vehicle into a organized force? A organized force should be dealing with any threat generally well, specifically vehicle spam.

IR smoke and Flares counter lock-ons pretty well, talented vehicle users know how to take advantage of terrain during attack maneuvers to break enemy LOS which pisses off lock-on users to no end.

Vehicle render distance vs Infantry render I don't think is terribly bad just yet, more or less just annoying. SOE is making baby steps to find solutions to that but I wish they would make greater strides.

Lancers do bother me with the kind of range they can hit you at, any other AV threat you can at least attempt to dodge, but not the lancer it feels like it just teleports to your vehicle, even at extreme range.

Vehicle spam IMO is a greater problem then Infantry' wide variety of AV weapons. IMO Give vehicles more HP and armor but make them more complicated to use, I.E. 3 person crews. Tank crews could potentially mean epic skilled tank fights which would give the game a even greater epic feel to the fights. The comradeship with Sunderers, Liberators and Gal Gunship crews lead to some awesome outfit experiences and the feeling of having the same vehicle still alive after 10+ major battles is a awesome one.

Might even be a stretch but rumble seat ESF? Pilot who flys and uses the nose gun, co-pilot to use missile pods or just taxi?

maradine · 2013-04-11, 11:46 PM

When you drive/fly/walk into a prepared nest of anything/anything/anything, you die/die/die. I'm beginning to wonder if you solo full-time. That doesn't count the guys/gals/whatevers you coax into your perma-lib.

krnasaur · 2013-04-11, 11:54 PM

Im all for people being able to solo vehicles from range.

and when 3 people coordinate to take down a 1 man tank, the 3 people should win every time(unless they stand on top of each other and all get taken out by the splash of 1 shot, then they deserve to lose)

Ghoest9 · 2013-04-11, 11:57 PM

Use the tanks like real militaries do and then they are powerful.

Use them like rambo and you die.

Sledgecrushr · 2013-04-12, 12:02 AM

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

Use the tanks like real militaries do and then they are powerful.

Use them like rambo and you die.

Basically what Ghoest is saying is if you run into five enemies and you are solo you are probably going to die. Real good players might be able to comeout on top from this situation but yeah, almost certain death.

Rothnang · 2013-04-12, 12:32 AM

Simply saying "Well don't drive your vehicle near an organized force" doesn't solve the problem.

An organized force that can take down a vehicle so quickly that you have no serious chance to respond is 3-5 people, they aren't even visible until you are within about 300 meters of them, and that force can be created at any infantry terminal while you are already in the area.

Simply saying "Well, just avoid it" and actually doing it is a world of difference.

The whole reason why this stuff is ruining my fun is because you can't "just avoid it". If they have a decent vantage point in a relatively open region you cannot go anywhere near the entire battle, and since you can't see the enemies you have to risk your neck and might die to even just roughly establish where the threat is.

In order to be able to avoid a threat to you while still participating in the battle you have to be able to see the threat, and that threat has to be localized somewhere, and not be able to attack you anywhere in the combat zone.

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

Basically what Ghoest is saying is if you run into five enemies and you are solo you are probably going to die. Real good players might be able to comeout on top from this situation but yeah, almost certain death.

Yea, you should lose if you get into a fight with five enemies, but the thing is, you have no way of avoiding it if those enemies are several hundred meters outside of render distance when they open fire.

It's sooooo easy to just say "Oh, you're just not careful enough" and make excuses for that crap, but the reality in the game is, there is no way for someone to avoid getting killed by unrendered damage from units that can cover the entire battle in every single direction.

CrankyTRex · 2013-04-12, 12:35 AM

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

Basically what Ghoest is saying is if you run into five enemies and you are solo you are probably going to die. Real good players might be able to comeout on top from this situation but yeah, almost certain death.

I believe the crux of the complaint is that the range of the weapons allows infantry to engage from outside the visual range of the vehicle, thereby making it rather difficult for the vehicle to respond accordingly. So less "running into" and more "being anywhere near the combat zone."

That might not be so bad if one could instantly re-spawn their vehicle with no penalty, but that is unfortunately not the case.

EDIT:
Oh bother, one post late.

Rothnang · 2013-04-12, 12:39 AM

Well, at least someone understands the complaint.

I don't have a problem with someone getting killed because they picked a fight with a group of enemies that were obviously packing the firepower to kill them. I do have a problem with not being given the choice of whether or not I want to commit to such a fight because either I can't even see those units before they are already laying into me, or those units have such insane range that the only way to avoid them is to abandon that battle completely.

AThreatToYou · 2013-04-12, 12:54 AM

Originally Posted by Rothnang

Well, at least someone understands the complaint.

I don't have a problem with someone getting killed because they picked a fight with a group of enemies that were obviously packing the firepower to kill them. I do have a problem with not being given the choice of whether or not I want to commit to such a fight because either I can't even see those units before they are already laying into me, or those units have such insane range that the only way to avoid them is to abandon that battle completely.

LOD needs to be fixed/changed, I agree. There should be some flag that renders all anti-vehicle-wielding infantry up to 800m away,

but I don't see Lancer crews taking out tanks at 800m. Lancers have damage drop-off and they don't do much damage at that range, although I suppose literally 12 of those guys could stamp them all out. The fact stands is that they can kill you and you literally can't see them. That has to be changed.

Yet, atm, I think that's all that should be changed. Given some kind of chance of forewarning we can go from there. Until then, all buff/nerf calls on the basis of this are off.

CrankyTRex · 2013-04-12, 12:56 AM

Originally Posted by Rothnang

Well, at least someone understands the complaint.

I don't have a problem with someone getting killed because they picked a fight with a group of enemies that were obviously packing the firepower to kill them. I do have a problem with not being given the choice of whether or not I want to commit to such a fight because either I can't even see those units before they are already laying into me, or those units have such insane range that the only way to avoid them is to abandon that battle completely.

Death by random crap you can't see or do anything about is a real problem in this game, especially as forces multiply. People should want to go to battles, not avoid them entirely so they don't feel frustrated by instant death from all angles.

It sucks pretty bad as infantry wherein the usual penalty for death is a couple seconds watching the re-spawn screen. In a vehicle, this is multiplied by the timers and the resources. Instead of getting right back in the action like the infantry, you sit around waiting for the arbitrary timer to go away.

Even that might not be so bad if the timer meant something in the game world. (The resources do at least, however much of a joke they are.) It's just an arbitrary number controlled by how many certs you've had available to flush on it.

Rothnang · 2013-04-12, 01:32 AM

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

LOD needs to be fixed/changed, I agree. There should be some flag that renders all anti-vehicle-wielding infantry up to 800m away,

Yea, but you need to keep in mind, at 800 meters even if infantry is rendered it might be less than 1 pixel big depending on your resolution, and even if you could see them wouldn't change the fact that you have no way of getting into the battle as long as there is no part of that battle that they can't cover with that kind of range.

Infantry is barely visible at 300 meters without a hefty zoom installed, certainly not big enough to reliably hit them without massive splash damage. I mean you have to keep in mind that at roughly 100 meters most small arms are utterly ineffective because the targets become so small that you need a scope to even have a prayer of hitting them.

Vehicles only have 2x or 3x maximum zoom on their weapons, which means they don't even have magnification factors that are comparable to what you can plop onto most carbines.

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

but I don't see Lancer crews taking out tanks at 800m. Lancers have damage drop-off and they don't do much damage at that range, although I suppose literally 12 of those guys could stamp them all out. The fact stands is that they can kill you and you literally can't see them. That has to be changed.

800 meters on lancers is not unreasonable actually, since you're shooting at pretty big targets. I mean, in reality the kills happen more at 600-700 maybe, because you need to charge the gun etc. but that's still insane. Against aircraft the Lancer starts getting viable at around 200-300, which is a little more reasonable, but still more than far enough away to make it hard as all hell for pilots to identify the threat before it strikes.

Artimus · 2013-04-12, 01:44 AM

Okay here is the thing... If a group of people is heavily defended with AV weapons then maybe stop spwaning vehicals and I dunno spawn aircraft? When a weapon is used as a group in this game it becomes OP plain and simple. Just because people find ways to exploit something doesnt mean its suddenly unbeatable you just have not figured out to counter them. If you are soloing don't expect to achieve anything tho.

Also the terrain is your best friend when tanking if you know what your doing enemy lock ons should not even really be an issue. Libs and kamikaze light assults are what you need to watch out for.

Falcon_br · 2013-04-12, 02:36 AM

The situation on Waterson is that on Esamir the VS got a standard tactics.
They like to push us to the warp gate and start a siege.
The VS siege is normally made by a platoon full of lancers, some engineer dropping ammunition and using the anti tank turret, 6-8 buster maxes, 2 sunderes and 2 medics.
I have seen great tank Zergs coming out of the TR gate to be instantly crushed, trying to fly is instant death.
I just don't say this is OP because we do the same, but change the lancers to strikers, doing that we decrease the kill range to 400m but we can use less anti air maxes.

The first time my outfit and the rest of the TR conquered Esamir on Jaeger, we rolled to full continent with a tank column, something it can't be done in this game anymore.

Rothnang · 2013-04-12, 02:47 AM

Aircraft are hit by this problem harder than ground vehicles actually, since Bursters and Lock-on launchers are both weapons with very long range that are used by Infantry against them, and it's even harder to get out of their line of sight in the air than on the ground.

Also, sure, in a Squad on Squad fight 3-5 guys pulling a specific counter is a huge commitment for the enemies, and you can pull something that counters them, but in a 100 on 100 battle it doesn't take much at all out of the enemy force to have an instant death counter squad for every conceivable vehicle type.

Being part of a huge army doesn't help you unless you're infantry. If your infantryman gets killed while there is still a significant force behind you chances are a medic will revive you. If your vehicle gets blown up by focused fire from beyond visual range it doesn't help you one little bit if there are 20 more vehicles behind you, they can't bring you back to life.

It's just simply not a matter of playing smart, the whole reason why it pisses me off is because there is no amount of intelligence or teamwork or skill you can apply to this problem, in such a way that you are actually participating and having fun. It always comes back to the same bullshit exuses of people saying "Well, you need other units to clear them out for you" and "Just don't go into areas like that" and bla bla bla.

Ultimately, it's a disgusting double standard that infantry can spawn damn near anywhere with hardly any time lost because there it's considered priority #1 to make sure that Infantry never has a lull in the action, but vehicles are supposed to sit on a giant timer, get locked out of their units by resources, have to spend time driving to the battle, wait outside of the battlefield until the infantry has enough control of the place to even make them viable, and just generally get slapped with all these ridiculous penalties that keep you from fully participating. All that is supposed to jusify the power that vehicles have, but where is that amazing power? What do you actually need vehicles for other than Sunderers?