Tank drivers acting as gunners in PS2 - Page 15

Zulthus · 2011-09-25, 11:08 PM

Originally Posted by lobohotpants

Why does it have to be one or the other?

The most annoying thing to me while I was playing ps1 was to have the vanguard cert and nobody to gun. If my friends weren't on then there were random pickups. When there weren't random pickups....well I was useless. Believe me, it happens. Especially when you're behind the push and get to a newly captured base late. You're trying to join the fight but everyone has already caught a ride. It happened to me quite a few times.

Give me the option to gun when I don't have a choice and give me the choice to pick up a friend and concentrate on driving. Good design is always about giving the player a choice. I shouldn't be forced to gun and I shouldn't be forced not to gun.

Select a solo oriented vehicle.

Aractain · 2011-09-25, 11:21 PM

Like aircraft, tanks have at least 2 spots, even if the driver guns one. (Which I like).

Sirisian · 2011-09-25, 11:56 PM

Originally Posted by lobohotpants

Give me the option to gun when I don't have a choice and give me the choice to pick up a friend and concentrate on driving. Good design is always about giving the player a choice. I shouldn't be forced to gun and I shouldn't be forced not to gun.

Exactly. That's what I've been advocating by allowing the driver to release the main cannon to the secondary when the secondary needs to use the AV.

Originally Posted by Zulthus

Select a solo oriented vehicle.

Sounds like you'd like a Galaxy more than a tank really. It's a lot more passive and you can concentrate on driving.

Zulthus · 2011-09-25, 11:59 PM

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Exactly. That's what I've been advocating by allowing the driver to release the main cannon to the secondary when the secondary needs to use the AV.

Sounds like you'd like a Galaxy more than a tank really. It's a lot more passive and you can concentrate on driving.

Slap some nice guns on that thing for my teammates and why not? I can't solo killwhore with it, so it's superior to controlling the main gun on a tank.

SniperSteve · 2011-09-26, 12:01 AM

Two Points:

1) A MBT is a specialized item. It is not something that a rookie is going to pick up within the first hours of play. Since this is the case, I think we can discard the scenario where a new player gets the MBT and wants to own with it but can't and gets frustrated because he needs a gunner. (solo vehicles fill that role)

2) I think MBTs are a great way to build teamwork. If you can do almost everything yourself, why bother with your outfit/squad. Creating game mechanics that requires teamwork is a great way to strengthen the community and give you a 'place' in the game.

SniperSteve · 2011-09-26, 12:13 AM

I also came across this comment in regard to the current PS2 model of Driver Gunner:

"So far it sounds like MBTs will be unshielded BFRs on wheels... do not want."

Azren · 2011-09-26, 06:37 AM

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Step back for a second. Think about all the properties of a tank that make it "strong" and what it's goal is. Is its goal to kill infantry? Not really. The main cannon is more directed toward armored targets. So how can this be reflected in the gameplay.

What if the tank round moved relatively slowly through the air. Not painfully slowly. Now when a player in a tank shoots at another tank it's a large target that they can lead a little ways. When a tank shoots at an infantry unit from 100 meters away suddenly you find yourself strafing or sprinting out of the way. This coupled with a long reload time for a single shell decrease the chance of it being used to kill infantry.

To further this when you lower the handling of the vehicle you make it less likely to be used for running into people.

This brings us to the magrider which can strafe out of the way of rounds, has a raycasted bullet essentially for sniping infantry, and has high maneuverability completely breaking the normal balance of a tank. I won't go into details, since I've done that before, but things need to be changed so that all the tanks fit into a role of fighting other armored vehicles. If it's caught by itself with an infantry unit it needs to set up so that the infantry unit has nothing to fear really from a single tank. Either it strafes around or gets too close to the tank so it can't make a good shot. I digress since as I said I've discussed these changed in depth in other threads.

You have got this backwards. Tanks have to be very deadly vs infantry, why else use them at all? Do you use snipers to kill snipers? Do you bring out infis to get rid of infis? Of course not, every class has its natural enemy. Infantry should be easily killed by tanks, tanks in turn should die to aircraft fast, ect.

If tanks can't kill infantry easily, they will just end up killed by AV weapons.

The devs really need to scrap this stupid idea and give us the PS1 tanks back.

How can they preach about their great community, how they want to please current players, how they take everything we say into consideriation, when they make decisions that only suit the newcommers? Do not change core gameplay, or call the game something else than PS2 altogether...

Kalbuth · 2011-09-26, 07:37 AM

It's probably been proposed before in this thread, I've not read all the pages, why not make the control of main gun by the driver an optional kit available through a certification (if any change can be made at this point, ofc) ?
And this "driver gun control" kit would weaken the main gun power / vehicle armor by, say.... 20% ?
And you can up this through your skill, up to the point where a fully skilled tanker would be of the same power solo than a basic tanker would be with a gunner.
This way, you have both options, you reward teamwork without being too drastic on it

Talek Krell · 2011-09-26, 01:38 PM

Things along those lines have been proposed, but the topic has split into enough threads that it's hard to keep track of. It's a matter of balance, but the penalties you've proposed would probably need to be steeper, and never cancelled. The idea is that 2 people in one tank should, at the very least, be as powerful as two people in two tanks. Personally I'd rather just have the lightning back for the solo crowd.

Sirisian · 2011-09-26, 02:29 PM

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

The idea is that 2 people in one tank should, at the very least, be as powerful as two people in two tanks.

Why would one AV gun be better than 2? That's silly. If you and your friend are specialized in tanks and want to kill them faster then pull two tanks. You leave yourself open to air and infantry, but you can kill armored targets faster.

I doubt we'll be seeing a secondary gunner with AV ability, but we'll see.

NapalmEnima · 2011-09-26, 03:06 PM

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Why would one AV gun be better than 2? That's silly. If you and your friend are specialized in tanks and want to kill them faster then pull two tanks. You leave yourself open to air and infantry, but you can kill armored targets faster.

I doubt we'll be seeing a secondary gunner with AV ability, but we'll see.

I suspect we'll see a wide variety of different weapons to unlock... several different kinds of anti-infantry for example. Full-auto-grenade launcher, mutli-barrel MG (with a dual-or-quad version for TR, maybe an uber-shotgun for NC). AA might have options for missiles and flak, possibly beams for VS. How about a scaled up lasher for VS AI?

You might also see a PS1-striker type missile that can lock onto both air and vehicles. Maybe TR-specific, maybe not.

AV weapons could include dumb-fire rockets, kinetic kill weapons (little/no splash, high muzzle velocity, high accuracy), standard HE-AP. Heck, the NC might have a heavy phoenix launcher option, perhaps with different warheads..

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

Personally I'd rather just have the lightning back for the solo crowd.

I don't believe we ever lost it. That was someone pulling an argument out of the air earlier on in this thread, IIRC.

Talek Krell · 2011-09-26, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by NapalmEnima

I don't believe we ever lost it. That was someone pulling an argument out of the air earlier on in this thread, IIRC.

I realize it's been neither confirmed nor denied, but the driver/gunner setup seems like it would make it largely pointless. OTOH, perhaps modularity will breathe some new life into it.

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Why would one AV gun be better than 2? That's silly.

Mostly for the reasons listed in the dozens of other posts about the subject, such as that requiring multiple people to operate the most powerful weapons ensures that teamwork is strongly incentivized and allows the vehicles to be more powerful without being unbalanced. Also, to dismiss the idea that one AV gun be more powerful than 2 on the grounds of it being "silly" while simultaneously supporting the idea that something as complex as an MBT could be operated at even 90% capacity by a single person might be a teensy hypocritical.

NapalmEnima · 2011-09-26, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

Also, to dismiss the idea that one AV gun be more powerful than 2 on the grounds of it being "silly" while simultaneously supporting the idea that something as complex as an MBT could be operated at even 90% capacity by a single person might be a teensy hypocritical.

I've noticed that in several of their arguments as well.

OTOH, two direct-fire AV guns on one tank probably would be inferior to two tanks with direct-fire AV that all did straight-up damage...

But what if one of the secondary AV weapon is absolute murder on vehicle shields (which is still conjecture at this point) and prevents recharge longer than normal? Or a straight up EMP beam? How about an indirect fire "missile flock" weapon that could fire on anything in range with a target-painting laser aimed at it?

No reloads, but it can fire as fast as you can click. And solid range, capable of indirect fire support (given a painted target), or direct fire on enemy vehicles. Easily capable of out-DPS'ing the main gun, but apt to run out of ammo in a hurry. Give it a tertiary light MG so the gunner doesn't get bored after spewing all that death.

That'd be epic.

And probably severely OP if it could park next to a vehicle terminal and resupply at will.

Okay, scratch that. Make it a two or four tube launcher. Each missile packing the same punch as the main gun. Capable of reloading in the field, but the reload time is long enough that the main gun has a better overall DPS.

Get the idea yet? A second AV gun can be DIFFERENT. Different in a way that makes it more appealing than a second tank.

Talek Krell · 2011-09-26, 06:20 PM

Originally Posted by NapalmEnima

Get the idea yet? A second AV gun can be DIFFERENT. Different in a way that makes it more appealing than a second tank.

Interesting line of thinking. An EM weapon or non-direct fire missile could both give a fully crewed vehicle the ability to outright dominate single-person tanks, but without necessarily just being hugely more powerful than the main gun (which would call into question the point of having a "main" gun). Higby did say something like the turrets provide a lot of "situational effectiveness", and the things you've suggested are weapons I could actually see mounted alongside a conventional cannon (as opposed to just a second conventional cannon). You might be on to something.

NapalmEnima · 2011-09-26, 06:38 PM

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

You might be on to something.

Besides... a big honkin' missile rack on top of a tank would just flat out Look Cool.

I'm guessing the above missiles wouldn't hold up to a single hit. You'd probably want mech-esque closed racks: