Key Parts of PS1 Vehicle Combat Missing from PS2 - Page 2

ThGlump · 2011-09-22, 12:21 PM

Well its the secondary guns thats ruining it. Without them wouldnt be that universal tank that dont need any other support, gives driver gun because there are 2 now, making other ground vehicles obsolete and basically throw off balance between 1-2 manned tanks. Right now it seem there wont be any variability and only tanks as a ground vehicle and that would end boring fast.
Pushing back to 1 gun per tank (even exchangeable) would fix most problems that we predict with actual state.

Raymac · 2011-09-22, 12:30 PM

Malorn does a great job of expressing the concerns I think most of us have about vehicles in PS2. I still firmly believe that tanks should be accessable to more casual players that just want to jump in and jump out of the game. I'm not too ashamed to admit that there have been a number of occasions where I have waited a long time spamming "V-N-G" or saying over platoon chat "hey if anyone needs a gunner, let me know". That IS a problem especially if you don't have chunks of hours to play, and letting the driver of a tank control the main gun is a solution to that.

I sincerely hope they implement what Higby mentioned on twitter that they are looking into making dedicated drivers and gunners an option in PS2. I believe that would be the best solution to appease everyone. It would only take a little tweaking to make sure that 1 good 2-man tank crew is better than 2 1-man n00b tanks.

I absolutely agree with Malorn that I want to see more variety in vehicles, not less. Considering the value the devs are putting on customization, I find it a bit odd that they would only have 2 types of ground vehicles, so perhaps there are more we just don't know about yet.

Finally, I just ignore these people that repeatedly claim "PS2 is just a BF clone" because they are the same type of people that claim every single mmorpg is simply a WoW clone. Of course there are going to be similarities (it's an fps with vehicles), but a clone? Hardly.

FIREk · 2011-09-22, 12:32 PM

They based a lot of stuff off BFBC2, but that doesn't make it a clone... The broad selection of classes, sub-classes and air vehicles is a huge difference in itself. Not to mention vastly different objectives and a completely different goal of the game.

Would you prefer them to make up new, broken mechanics just for the sake of being original? I would rather see them learning from the good and bad design concepts of other games.
A game developer should do their best to make a good, successful game, nut pull half-baked "original ideas" out of their asses, just so that a bunch of whiners don't call their game a derivative ripoff.
Neither should they adapt old ideas that would appeal to a very limited group of people.

Plus, was there anything original in PS1's gameplay? Everything in the game was already present in other titles of that time. The only differences were the scale, MAXes, AMSs and the oh-exploitable cert system. Does that mean PS1 was a Mobile Forces ripoff, with some "minor changes" and on a bigger scale? I don't think so.

But this thread wasn't supposed to be about whether or not PS2 is a BF ripoff...:P

Lonehunter · 2011-09-22, 12:43 PM

This looks like a very good long post, and I promise I'll finish it later. But just getting through the first part and speeding over the rest I just have to add, you COULD be right. IF these things are true, they've been holding back a lot of info and could double the amount of vehicles we've heard of so far.

TacosWLove · 2011-09-22, 12:44 PM

Yes very nice post, totally agree that a diverse and segregated(by ability) vehicles is the way to go. Having a single driver tank blob with AV and AA is not going to be too much fun in the long run.

But who knows what will happen when we finally see it in action...

FIREk · 2011-09-22, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by TacosWLove

Yes very nice post, totally agree that a diverse and segregated(by ability) vehicles is the way to go. Having a single driver tank blob with AV and AA is not going to be too much fun in the long run.

But who knows what will happen when we finally see it in action...

Luckily, the tanks would need two people to operate the secondary guns. Unless they implement vehicle seat hot-swapping, which would invalidate two-man vehicles forever.

2coolforu · 2011-09-22, 01:00 PM

I dislike the one-man tanks idea, it really negates teamwork and rewards killwhoring. It also demonstrates a shift from vehicle/infantry being complimentary to vehicles just being there to use for personal benefit. Planetside was a demonstration of how multi-manned vehicles really benefit teamwork and reduce killlwhoring, despite being the best and most powerful vehicle in the game tanks are generally used sensibly and well. Before BFR's tank combat was one of the best parts of the games (raids and organization) however BFR's came about and gave a player the option to control everything on their own, the playstyle I see with BFR's is similar to that of lone infantry - they just wander up to a good camping spot and try to rack up the kills rather than contribute anything to the battle.

With one man vehicles I believe they will be very similar to how BF2/BFBC2 vehicles are used; as a method to pad ones kill/death ratio. I thought BF2 had some good roles, the attack chopper had some of the most damaging attacks but required 2 people to use it, but vehicles like the APC and Tank were treated as iron infantry and not used to gain territory or transport people. The worst example from BF2 was the jet, it was the exemplification of a solo killwhore weapon giving vast amounts of power to a single person, if your team didn't have the best jet pilot then prepare to be bombed into a hell of spawnkilling.

It's important to know that the vast majority of the power in Planetside, and in Planetside 2 will be/was the zerg. A mass of people unified by a common objective, beyond that they had no organisation, no teamwork and no communication. If you don't force teamwork then the de-facto state of the zerg will be to use the most effective solo tool in the game. Planetside balanced this well as the only all-purpose solo tool for a long time was the infantryman. The BFR, once again, shows how adding in a powerful generalist solo vehicle (even if it has a secondary gunner) can totally upset a game dependent upon teamwork and combined arms.

Didn't the TR disprove the concept of a secondary gunner, having a 12mm prowler/marauder gunner was a liability rather than a bonus, one Raider would be up against 2 Thunderers and which would win that battle?

Anyway on topic I think Tanks HAVE to have a seperate gunner and driver. If the game is going to have 2000 people per battle as has been hinted then having the bread&butter, main stay vehicle which will be the core of every fight be a one man affair is just silly. Make the tank more effective in its role and require more people to operate so it isn't just a glass cannon (a style of gameplay that merits camping and stationary action) , if the driver wants to keep his super awesome attachment then give him control over the secondary weapon, not the main weapon. Surely that's the one he's certed for in the first place? I don't get the whole idea of designing the game for selfish people, people are more than willing to selflessly get a galaxy fully certed to give benefits to the people who spawn at it, but then moan when they don't get the kills from the tank they drive? Why not make the driver assist exp huge?

There are plenty of people out there who will become specialists in vehicles that someone else reaps the benefits of, just look at medics/priests/healers in many games, FC/logistics in EVE. I know people who WANT to drive the tank and that's what they love. I mean, in Planetside the medic could only revive other people so those 2 cert points in ADV Med were totally selfless yet plenty of people took the role. I think designing the game for selfish gameplay will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Senyu · 2011-09-22, 01:10 PM

^

agreed. Also small point is having a tank require more than one person will downsize the amount of tanks. Instead of having 1 for 1. (Tank to person) It would vary from 1 for 2-4. More people on the field and less lone "iron infantry" or BFR type players as said above

Raymac · 2011-09-22, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

Didn't the TR disprove the concept of a secondary gunner, having a 12mm prowler gunner was a liability rather than a bonus.

Not meaning to cherry pick here, but as a reaver pilot, I absolutely loved the TR that had this mentality. It really did alot to progress my tankbuster merits. Just pointing out 1 reason why having a secondary gunner is not just adventageous, but almost a neccessary to survival.

NapalmEnima · 2011-09-22, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

In PS1 we had a variety of vehicles and a paper-rock-scissors balancing mechanism to them. We also had a "1+1=3" principle where multi-manned vehicles had a lot more power than single-manned vehicles.

With you so far, mostly. BFRs broke that, which is one of the reasons I despised them. They've been nerfed quite a bit from back in the day, but are still head & shoulders above a lightning.

Originally Posted by Malorn

From what w know of PS2, a lot of vehicle consolidation has occurred. While there remains a diverse set of aircraft - Mosquito, Reaver, Galaxy, and Liberator (not confirmed, but Higby did mention it). However, ground vehicles seem overly consolidated into just a few - ATV, APC (Sunderer), and MBT.

What are you basing this on? We've heard the following:

Specific mentions of Reaver, MBTs, Sunderer, Lib, Gal, Mossy, empire-specific fighter... am I missing anything?

We've heard that 70% of the vehicles will be common pool and the rest will be empire-specific variants (the opposite of infantry gear).

Incidentally, we've also heard there will be empire-specific upgrades for common pool stuff, but its not clear if that will be infantry gear, vehicles, or both. I think "both".

If that ratio is accurate (shaky, I know), that means:
A multiple of 10 types of vehicles. 7/10 only works out accurately at multiples of 10.
So, a minimum of 7 (or 14, or...) different common pool vehicles, with 3 (or 6, or...) empire-specific vehicles. Lets go through what's been mentioned and see what we can see.

Common Pool: Mossy, Reaver, Lib, Gal, Sunderer. That's 5. We're missing at least 2.
Empire Specific: MBT, fighter. We're missing at least one.

And 2/5 is 40%. Close to 30%, but not that close.

So there are 3 (or more) vehicle TYPES we no nothing about.

And here's an argument that isn't so shaky.

The devs have stated that they're trying to bring everything from PS1 (non-core-combat) into PS2. As such, I expect to see Moar familiar vehicles. Buggies, ATVs, the Lightening, Deliverer... what am I missing. No AMS. Ooh ooh! The ANT.

PS2 is going to have More Variety than PS1. Count on it.

The fact is we don't know a lot about vehicles yet. That's no reason to ass-u-me that we know of all the different vehicles.

Quite The Opposite

Originally Posted by Malorn

These ground vehicles generally coincide with the Battlefield Games where you have solo/quick transportation with the ATV, a "medium" assault vehicle with the APC, and the Tanks. The tanks also rolled up the other more specialized roles which buggies previously held, such as mortar and AA.

I'm convinced there are more vehicles we haven't seen, so I see no reason to conclude that any of this is true. Again, Quite The Opposite.

They've also said things about multiple variants of different things. We may see faster/lighter tank hulls, slower/heavier ones, and so forth. We may even see much lighter empire specific 1-seat tank variants instead of Lightnings. Perhaps with a wider-but-not-necessarily-360 field of fire.

Originally Posted by Malorn

While I want to embrace the new changes, my gut tells me something isn't right. Two of the core principles which I believe was vital to making Planetside great are being kicked to the curb with the current ground vehicle changes. First, the paper-rock-scissors balancing is being canned with a one-size-fits-all tank and no buggies, and second the 1+1=3 principle seems to be in grave danger.

We've heard there will be more A2G options than in PS1. We've only heard about two of the three A2G options from PS1 (reaver & libby, no word on a gal gunship). Ergo, there's more stuff we don't know about here. Maybe the fighters will be able to dive-bomb or something. I believe the empire-specific fighters were called "light fighters" at one point. There may be a common pool fighter/bomber. Liberators may have options other than a bomb payload (ripple-fire rockets or something). Lots of possibilities.

Having said that, I agree that the varied secondaries on tanks reduces the rock-paper-scissors effect.

But do you realize that your Argument A revolves around "1 man MBTs are Very Bad", while Argument B is "MBT's gunners' AA wrecks Rock-Paper-Scissors" has a flaw? Will tanks have manned secondaries or won't they? You can't have it both ways. You say "when necessary", but the quintessential zerglings are just going to pull a tank and run off into battle. They quite likely won't know in advance if they're going to need AA... and may not even care.

Now. The 1+1=3 effect. I agree that 1-man MBTs will reduce this. Some. But there are two mitigating factors:

1) 1-man MBTs will be vulnerable to both AV troops and A2G.
2) You can't really "run away" any more. The weak rear armor means that if you turn tail, there's an excellent chance you'll die Very Quickly.

Those two combine to mean that when a 1-man MBT runs into something it cannot easily handle, it'll DIE.

All the brush/grass/etc (which we've seen in various screen shots, looks great) will actually provide places for infantry to hide from tanks. Tanks with their backs to AV troops will die quickly.

Imagine this ambush:

Engineers lay a mine field JUST PAST where the AV troops are hiding.
Enemy one-man MBTs roll past AV troops hiding in brush, find mine field, and stop to destroy the mines.
AV troops shoot those fish in that barrel
Alternatively, some infiltrators can run out and plant explosives on the tanks and kill them that way.

If you scale this up a bit, you can have more AV troops "in front" beyond the mine field that hold their fire until the tanks turn around to deal with the AV infantry behind them (who are all back behind cover now). At which point the surviving tanks try to run, presenting their weak rear armor to all the AV, and they take more losses.

Infantry losses: 0
Tank losses: at least 1 tank for every two AV troops. And that's if they immediately turn tail and run. If they try to fight, they're doomed, though they may inflict some losses.

And A2G will just have a field day with 1-man tanks. It'll be Pac Man working his way through the dots. Wakawakawaka... only a little slower. Pac Man doesn't have to reload.

Originally Posted by Malorn

My fear here is that the single-man tanks will be prevalent, with primarily AA as a secondary weapon which some will use when necessary, but mostly it'll just sit there.

Again, you're trying to have it both ways. Furthermore, we have no reason to believe people will be able to jump from seat to seat internally, though I understand that's still at least a possibility.

Originally Posted by Malorn

From a population perspective, now everyone can pull a tank

We have no reason to believe that everyone can pull every vehicle at day one, and given PS1, we have a precedent of the opposite being true.

As I've explained elsewhere:
1) we know that every CLASS will be available from the start.
2) We also know that there's no driver/pilot class[es].

Therefore, vehicle availability is not tied to a specific class. I suspect it will be tied to Something Else. Either a separate cert tree, or unlocks that have to be purchased with resources. Slap down your 5000 titanium, 2500 nano-units, and a partridge in a pair tree, and now you can pull tanks from vehicle terminals (subject to whatever timer they're on). Those unlocks may also form a tree.

Further, I suspect that different turret types will also be unlocks. The default might be somewhat effective against both infantry and air, but to get dedicated AV, AA, or AI weapons, they'll have to sink time and/or resources into their tank. That means Senior Zergisimo may not have access to an AA secondary even if they have unlocked the MBT.

Originally Posted by Malorn

, and they don't need a gunner to be effective with it.

In a tank vs tank role, true. But Reavers & Liberators will slaughter them wholesale, as will AV infantry in the right terrain: Anything with plenty of cover for them, which I suspect will be at least 50% of the total terrain... and the vast majority of the terrain where infantry will do their outdoor fighting.

Originally Posted by Malorn

Since there's really few other vehicle choices that's

Refuted twice... once rather shakily, and one that looks pretty solid to me.

Originally Posted by Malorn

what they will do and the majority of tanks will be single-manned except where AA is needed. Since there are few choices any vehicle timers on tanks will be fairly short, likely 5 minutes max, but probably less than that.

Conjecture based on a flawed foundation. If vehicle timers get shorter, it'll only be because of the increased speed of play.

Originally Posted by Malorn

Additionally, the class system means you won't have 2/3 of the population with AV weaponry

OTOH, because everyone has access to every class, that means anyone can pull an AV troop. And outdoors with lots of vehicles floating around, that's precisely what you'll want. A squad with local spawning ability could shift to 100% AV troops. And I agree that AV will be more lethal than in PS1, if only for the "increased gameplay speed" they're aiming for. It may even be possible to one shot a tank if you hit it Just So, in "the thermal exhaust port, just below the main port."

Originally Posted by Malorn

which implies that AV weaponry must be much more effective against vehicles in order to keep up with the increased population of tanks, or their armor is simply less. So then we'll end up similar to BF style AV where 3-4 hits will kill a tank. In other words, with have a 2-man Lightning. This increases the pace of the game but it also means there is no true "armor" for infantry to push with.

Again, conclusions based on a flawed foundation.

A few AV hits to the rear will do the trick, absolutely... but I suspect the front armor will be made of sterner stuff.

The exact number of hits it takes to kill tanks from various directions is a balancing issue that will probably undergo some tweaking during beta.

Originally Posted by Malorn

In PS1 where tanks required a 2-man investment, tech, and an agile driver to be functional and had 5-10 minute vehicle timers

Tanks have always had a 5 minute timer IIRC. And we know PS1 will also require that drivers/pilots not be in heavy armor.

Originally Posted by Malorn

you could justify the high armor of the tank and its killing power. This made tanks the primary territory-takers, but other options existed, such as buggies or the lightning or a deli. Moreover, tanks had a built-in weakness to aircraft which can be easily mitigated in PS2 with a secondary gun.

That won't be manned (according to you).

And all the MBTs in PS1 had some anti-air ability. The Mag Rider's rail beam worked pretty well, as did the dual 20mm of the Vanguard. I think can count on one hand the number of times I've crewed the 2nd gunner spot on Prowlers, but I suspect they do just fine as well.

Originally Posted by Malorn

In PS1 we could have strong coordinated force effectiveness as a team with a few tanks and a few buggies, maybe a deli or a couple aircraft. The strongest force was a mixed force of tanks, skyguards/buggies, supporting infantry, and aircraft. In PS2 its just going to be a blob of tanks, many of which don't even need to be fully manned. And those tanks will die much easier by comparison because they must in order to maintain some sense of balance.

So the kill-everything force of tanks will die much easier? Err... again, it sounds like you're trying to have it both ways.

I firmly believe that not everyone will be able to pull tanks. Even those that can won't necessarily have access to all the different secondary weapons. So most people will have to choose between Lesser Vehicles, a gunners seat, being a passenger in some troop transport, or hoofing it. And a good mix of CREWED secondaries will have much more survivability against a variety of enemies, including other tanks (I suspect we'll see AV secondaries as well).

Originally Posted by Malorn

I greatly enjoyed vehicle combat in PS and along with the persistent world it was one of those things that set it apart from other games. I had a tank that could take a beating and make a difference. I had a team that could adjust to enemy tactics and counter them with the appropriate vehicles and weapons and I had a diverse set of vehicles with which to enjoy.

Absolutely agree. I'm a tanker first myself.

Originally Posted by Malorn

The result of all this I believe will be bland gameplay, where sheer numbers always prevail and a team cannot do much to react and no strong counters exist.

"Force Multipliers". Things that make your side more effective. Good intel, prepared fighting positions, solid tactics, superior gear, etc.

I think we'll still see well organized outfits beating the tar out of twice their number of zerglings.

Fer instance: If you can have smoke grenades (deployable volumetric fog) & Special Goggles That Can See Through It (IR or whatever), a prepared group can slaughter folks who aren't with very little chance of retaliation. Throw in a couple of those deployable MGs and you've got yourself a kill box worthy of the name.

Mines within smoke: Evil!

Originally Posted by Malorn

I would much prefer a more rich set of ground vehicles where Buggies have a place as a light support skirmisher (ideally with a rather beefy gun), capable of supporting infantry when tank presence is light and making a difference, as well as transporting heavy infantry.

I agree, and I see no reason to believe that PS2 won't meet that desire. A fast attack vehicle with an enforcer-esque big punch could be a Serious Threat to forward firing tanks with weak rear armor. I expect we'll see that very thing. There's your rock-paper-scissors... just with a different brand of paper.

Originally Posted by Malorn

I would much prefer an experience where the paper-rock-scissors principle was clearly present and strong counters exist so smaller forces can adapt and destroy larger ones and the coordination and organization of combined-arms forces is rewarded with effectiveness and strength.

While the rock-paper-scissors effect will no doubt be different, don't think it will up and vanish. I think PS2 tank crews will live in fear of AV troops to their rear. And I suspect a squad of A2G attacking a squad of tanks will still favor the A2G.

Originally Posted by Malorn

And I would much prefer a strong, powerful tank with thick armor that requires teamwork to fully operate. And that tank makes a significant difference on the battle. I spent a lot of time driving a Vanguard in PS1, and it was rewarding, in spite of not having a gun myself.

Ditto. While I prefer the Vanu, my friends were all in an NC outfit, so that's where I ended up. And I did LOTS of both driving and gunning the Vanguard. Good times.

But I think everything in PS2 will be less survivable than in PS1.

Reduced TTK + shorter delays to get back into the action = more deaths.

Now folks with the tricked out upgrades will still want to avoid losing their investments, but the F2P zerg will probably not care nearly so much. So again, dedicated and organized players will butcher the zerg.

Originally Posted by Malorn

Being able to run over infantry foolish enough to be in the open, coordinating with my gunner to take out targets, and making a big impact in the local engagement was highly rewarding. I don't think I'm going to get that in PS2 based on the information presented.

I do think you're going to get that in PS2, also based on the information presented.

And if PS2 is genuinely F2P (no box price), the only reasons not to give it a try is HD space, download time, or a sub-minimum-spec PC. And I DID play PS1 with a below-minimum PC for a while. Painful, but I could still play. And did.

**Malorn** · 2011-09-22, 01:27 PM

The 3-man TR vehicles were a bit different concept, but the idea is the same. If it takes 2 men in a vehicle to equal the firepower of 2 men in 2 different vehicles, then the game design failed, because the two solo vehicles are the better choice every time. That's why most prowlers went without the 12mm gunner - it was better to have 3 prowlers with main guns than 2 prowlers with 2 extra 12mm guns.

If Air defense was a concern it would still be better to have 2 prowlers + 1 skyguard than 2 prowlers w/ 2 12mm gunners.

I think when they made that 3-person design they expected random people to hop into the 3rd seat that wouldn't otherwise pick up a tank or use it to hitch a ride or what not.

The Raider was definitely the superior Deli variant if your purpose was transporting troops from point A to point B. If your purpose was killwhoring/combat it was the worst. If just transporting then the extra guns just meant more defense.

Logit · 2011-09-22, 01:56 PM

Originally Posted by FIREk

But this thread wasn't supposed to be about whether or not PS2 is a BF ripoff...:P

Because we all know this answer is yes, in fact it is.

Is PS2 a sequel to Battlefield, or Planetside 1? Without knowing the title and faction names I might not know at this point.

**Malorn** · 2011-09-22, 01:59 PM

Originally Posted by NapalmEnima

What are you basing this on? We've heard the following:

Specific mentions of Reaver, MBTs, Sunderer, Lib, Gal, Mossy, empire-specific fighter... am I missing anything?

We've heard that 70% of the vehicles will be common pool and the rest will be empire-specific variants (the opposite of infantry gear).

Incidentally, we've also heard there will be empire-specific upgrades, but its not clear if that will be infantry gear, vehicles, or both. I think "both".

If that ratio is accurate (shaky, I know), that means:
A multiple of 10 types of vehicles. 7/10 only works out accurately at multiples of 10.
So, a minimum of 7 (or 14, or...) different common pool vehicles, with 3 (or 6, or...) empire-specific vehicles. Lets go through what's been mentioned and see what we can see.

Common Pool: Mossy, Reaver, Lib, Gal, Sunderer. That's 5. We're missing at least 2.
Empire Specific: MBT, fighter. We're missing at least one.

And 2/5 is 40%. Close to 30%, but not that close.

So there are 3 (or more) vehicle TYPES we no nothing about.

And here's an argument that isn't so shaky.

The devs have stated that they're trying to bring everything from PS1 (non-core-combat) into PS2. As such, I expect to see Moar familiar vehicles. Buggies, ATVs, the Lightening, Deliverer... what am I missing. No AMS. Ooh ooh! The ANT.

PS2 is going to have More Variety than PS1. Count on it.

The fact is we don't know a lot about vehicles yet. That's no reason to ass-u-me that all we know of all the different vehicles.

Quite The Opposite

I don't know what half of that stuff you wrote is about, but my statement was about the fact that we have a lot of diversity in aircraft, but very little diversity in ground vehicles. I forgot about the Fighter, thanks for the reminder. That makes at least 4-5 different types of aircraft, while only having 3 types of ground vehicles - ATV, Sundy, and MBT.

They confirmed ATV, Sundy was mentioned last week, and we know tanks. Buggies were not in according to that interview last week. Confirmed no AMS or cloaking vehicles, no buggies, no artillery, and no lightnings.

I was just making a simple point that the diversity is real low for ground vehicles, especially when you compare it to PS1.

I'm convinced there are more vehicles we haven't seen, so I see no reason to conclude that any of this is true. Again, Quite The Opposite.

I was convinced there was an AMS too, and expected buggies, but alas, neither is true anymore. I'm not going to assume anything is in until I see a confirmation. And even then, AMS were once confirmed a few months ago...they changed their minds. I'm hoping we can change their minds here too by bringing up diversity concerns.

If they do have more vehicles then we have fewer things to worry about, but as of last week it's a bit concerning.

I'm not going to respond to all that wishful thinking on diversity. If its there its there. But from what we know now, there's little of it. Sure, plenty of possibilities, but they don't appear to be going in that direction.

But do you realize that your Argument A revolves around "1 man MBTs are Very Bad", while Argument B is "MBT's gunners' AA wrecks Rock-Paper-Scissors" has a flaw? Will tanks have manned secondaries or won't they? You can't have it both ways. You say "when necessary", but the quintessential zerglings are just going to pull a tank and run off into battle. They quite likely won't know in advance if they're going to need AA... and may not even care.

I had a feeling someone would mention that, but here's the catch - you only need enough AA gunners to fend off the aircraft and no more.

I expect roughly 40% of the tanks will have secondary guns. That seems to me about the right amount necessary to fend off aircraft, assuming they spoke truth when they said "secondary guns are no joke" - meaning that AA secondary guns would be effective. If they're effective you don't need them on every tank. Therefore many tanks can go without it. If they aren't effective then you don't need them on any tanks and the secondary guns would have failed entirely. We lose either way.

In primarily tank vs tank fights, you don't need the secondary gunner because unless that thing really does about 2x the damage of a main gun the added effective hitpoints of having another tank instead is better.

So yeah you can get the worst of both worlds had have a ruined Paper-Rock-Scissors while having a bunch of 1 man killing vehicles running around.

Now. The 1+1=3 effect. I agree that 1-man MBTs will reduce this. Some. But there are two mitigating factors:

1) 1-man MBTs will be vulnerable to both AV troops and A2G.
2) You can't really "run away" any more. The weak rear armor means that if you turn tail, there's an excellent chance you'll die Very Quickly.

All the brush/grass/etc (which we've seen in various screen shots, looks great) will actually provide places for infantry to hide from tanks. Tanks with their backs to AV troops will die quickly.

1) Plenty of infantry died to the Vanguard's main gun. You don't need a secondary gun to take care of infantry. Also, they aren't vulnerable to A2G if there is sufficient AA from the handful of tanks with AA secondaries (as described above)

2) Tanks don't have to "turn" to run away - they can move in reverse. Also there's a good deal of cover in the game. And if they die so very quickly then that just amplifies one of my other points about tanks being too squishy.

We have no reason to believe that everyone can pull every vehicle at day one, and given PS1, we have a precedent of the opposite being true.

As I've explained elsewhere:
1) we know that every CLASS will be available from the start.
2) We also know that there's no driver/pilot class[es].

Yes, we do. Higby stated at the Fanfaire that day 1 you can learn all the base classes and certs specifically mentioning "drive a tank" on day 1. We also know armor doesn't matter for driving vehicles. And as you point out - there isn't driver class, meaning ANY class can drive a tank. So yes, anyone can pull a tank when they want to based on the information we know.

Tanks have always had a 5 minute timer IIRC.

All vehicle timers were 10 minutes at release. It changed after 3-6 months or so to be 5 minutes. Wasn't a lot of tanks or aircraft at that time because of that. I remember actually laughing when they introduced the skyguard because there were so few aircraft we hardly needed a dedicated AA buggy. Then the population rocketed almost overnight after the timer change (they also consolidated some of the air certs). And the skyguard became a staple part of any ground force after that. Amazing what a few cert bundling and vehicle timers can do. Repair/rearm made it even worse.

Longer timers, like 10 minutes, would be one way to mitigate population issues, though it would need to be in conjunction with other factors.

NapalmEnima · 2011-09-22, 02:29 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

They confirmed ATV, Sundy was mentioned last week, and we know tanks. Buggies were not in according to that interview last week. Confirmed no AMS or cloaking vehicles, no buggies, no artillery, and no lightnings.

I gave that interview and didn't get that feel at all.

No AMS: Check.
No cloaking vehicles: check.

No buggies?

Here's the bullet point Bags came up with:

"Buggies on list of things to put in, hopefully"

That says "buggies aren't in yet" to me, not "there will be no buggies". Maybe not at release, granted.

No Artillery: Check-ish. No dedicated artillery (flail), but one of the secondaries he mentioned was a mortar.

No Lightnings? Where'd that come from?

I just went through Bags' Q&A doc, the info thread, and her lunch interview summary. No mention of the lightning at all, one way or the other. That does NOT mean there will be no lightning in PS2.

I'd also like to point out that there's a fair amount of wiggle room in "can pull a tank on day 1". It could mean that a brand new character can pull a tank right out of the gate. It could also mean that it takes 24 hours of dedicated training and or resource earning to unlock tanks. I suspect the final gameplay will be somewhere in between.

nomotog · 2011-09-22, 02:43 PM

You start out by saying that vehicle consolidation has occurred. A lot of it you say. Where did you hear this? I haven't seen anything to say that. I want to know where you got that impression. they seem to be adding not taking away. I mean they even kept the shredder.

Who said they where cutting buggies? Buggies can still play a role as the faster more agile tanks. Maybe even getting into places tanks cant like up hills. (one of the upgrades for tanks is a motor that lets you climb easier. Buggies always climb easy so I guess that buggies can climb better then default tanks)

You shouldn't assume that a class system will lower the amount of AV weapons. It might. You might have classes that don't have AV weapons, but people could gather around the classes that do have AV weapons.

Why do you assume that all tanks will be single maned with AA turrets? A tank driver could have an AI or AV turret and most will probably be maned by two people because the tanks secondary will deal more damage then a hand held weapon. We have squad spawning now, so if your on foot, you can get back into battle faster. Tanks still have to drive. People get to battle faster then tanks. That will mean there will be fewer tanks then people encouraging the side turrets to fill up.