Drivers Main Weapon

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Not really. BFR's had so many other flaws involving shields, flying, etc.

You can look at other games that have solo tanks (as so many use for comparisons) to see the difference between a BFR and a solo tank. Mostly those differences tend to stem from how quickly tanks die in those games, but that's not where the differences end.

I fully expect the game to be balanced (at least to the point of not being broken) by the end of beta for the simple fact that it will have a full development team working on it, not the shoddy backup team that existed by the time they added BFR's in the first game.

Apples and oranges, but I'll admit it's still optimism.

Of course, assuming that not only will the new system be broken, but will receive no attention and remain broken through til launch is the height of pessimism. What's the point, for someone who doesn't even seem that interested in the rest of the game? If one thing is going to break it for you, you can't possibly be that excited for anything else about the game.

I ignore game comparisons for one simple reason. This game is not the laboratory conditioned game that BF3 and other games are. It's not an even match between players, and it's not a set goal to win the match.

This game is pushing for thousands of players in a single continent, and what will the majority of FPS players do? They will go for what gets the them the most kills. You can't dictate to the player base how many people can man tanks at any given time because that generates downtime and takes away from those that actually enjoy it. Instead you have to control the tank numbers through other methods, like requiring 2 crew members in a tank in order to best utilize it. Resources is a flawed method, because they will be hogged by tanks.

You say they aren't like BFRs because they don't have shields. I say you are wrong. Because MBTs are the heaviest armored vehicles on the field of PS2, that makes them the top dogs. What were the BFRs? They were the top dogs made with some weak attempt at a full circle by making them vulnerable to infantry and light weapons (which they also had heavy firepower to counter). The shields did NOT over power them, it was an exploitable hole in their defense actually. Yes I called their shields a weakness rather then a strength. What overpowered them was the fact that one person had access to weaponry that made them effective against everything, gave them mobility (not even counting the flight variant), and heavy armor. MBTs will have mobility, firepower, and heavy armor, all available to a single person.

Besides, you can customize the MBTs with shields, tweaked speeds, and tweaked armor. They are the BFRs of PS2, without the requirements to pilot them.

There is a fine line between optimism and naivety.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Blackwolf

What overpowered them was the fact that one person had access to weaponry that made them effective against everything, gave them mobility (not even counting the flight variant), and heavy armor. MBTs will have mobility, firepower, and heavy armor, all available to a single person.

And what about the drivers cannon on the liberator? Shall we dispense with that as well? We wouldn't want one person to have access to mobility, heavy armor, and firepower, after all.


Also.. The tanks were top dogs at one time. But they were never as crazy as the BFRs were, because they were physically weaker. They had actual counters on the battlefield that were a serious threat, aside from massed fire from everything else.

And the tanks with 1 dude in them won't have access to weaponry that makes them effective vs everything. From the sounds of it the driver cannon will not be an AI raping death machine like the PS1 tank cannon were.

And theres more ways to limit than manpower. Tanks could easily have a ten minute respawn.

And having a gunner will be awesome for the same reason it was in BFRs. More eyes, more firepower, faster repairs, better coverage, and, new to ps2, more efficient use of resources.

[dsi]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

And what about the drivers cannon on the liberator? Shall we dispense with that as well? We wouldn't want one person to have access to mobility, heavy armor, and firepower, after all.


Also.. The tanks were top dogs at one time. But they were never as crazy as the BFRs were, because they were physically weaker. They had actual counters on the battlefield that were a serious threat, aside from massed fire from everything else.

And the tanks with 1 dude in them won't have access to weaponry that makes them effective vs everything. From the sounds of it the driver cannon will not be an AI raping death machine like the PS1 tank cannon were.

And theres more ways to limit than manpower. Tanks could easily have a ten minute respawn.

And having a gunner will be awesome for the same reason it was in BFRs. More eyes, more firepower, faster repairs, better coverage, and, new to ps2, more efficient use of resources.

Who cares if tanks have a 10 minute downtime when your outfit can easily field 30 of them, pick up some blues, and go to town?

Tanks were an asset in PS1, now they're just infantry in a tracked suit.

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

And what about the drivers cannon on the liberator? Shall we dispense with that as well? We wouldn't want one person to have access to mobility, heavy armor, and firepower, after all.


Also.. The tanks were top dogs at one time. But they were never as crazy as the BFRs were, because they were physically weaker. They had actual counters on the battlefield that were a serious threat, aside from massed fire from everything else.

And the tanks with 1 dude in them won't have access to weaponry that makes them effective vs everything. From the sounds of it the driver cannon will not be an AI raping death machine like the PS1 tank cannon were.

And theres more ways to limit than manpower. Tanks could easily have a ten minute respawn.

And having a gunner will be awesome for the same reason it was in BFRs. More eyes, more firepower, faster repairs, better coverage, and, new to ps2, more efficient use of resources.

This is one big derp-a-derp. So let's get started.

Liberators are aircraft, vulnerable to AA, other air, and are giant floating targets. Unless they are invisible, every AA gun in the area is going to aiming right at them, limiting their ability to affect the battlefield. MBTs aren't quite so high in profile, they will stand out in tank ranges but not so much at over 200m away. Also, Liberators probably won't feature armor that is as heavy as a MBT, and their cannon is (I'd hope) inefficient compared to the gunner guns.

MBTs had zero counters that weren't also effective against BFRs. Get enough infantry with rockets aiming at a BFR and it dies, I've done it myself. In fact BFRs had counters designed specifically for them, namely deci drops. And MBTs themselves were effective counters to BFRs in numbers.

And I'm sorry but if your armor is 5000 hit points worth and the infantry armor is 200, your weapon would be effective if it was a spit wad gun. But it isn't is it? It's a AV weapon, probably with splash, that can kill a grunt in one shot on a direct hit. "Oh but it requires a direct hit in PS2!" Yes I've mentioned this, however 5k armor vs 200 armor. Even if the tank misses 30 of his shots, that 31st is going to be murder and the tank will survive long enough to deliver it.

A respawn timer doesn't do squat other then make the players treasure their vehicles, which is needed but not helpful. It doesn't limit the number of tanks on the field at a time. A 6 hour (or however long) timer didn't stop OS rains in PS1 very well now did it? Vehicle timers are a mechanic that generates down time and increases the value of the vehicles once they are pulled. That's it.

And having a gunner will be pointless compared to having two tanks. 30 1 man tanks on a battle field means anything that tries to go up against them will face 30 AV gun blasts every 3 seconds. Even air craft can't dodge them all. This isn't RL battle, air craft can't fire hellfire missiles from beyond the horizon at tanks that are incapable of knowing they exist. Tanks can aim up, point their big guns at strafing runs, and let all hell break loose. Guess who's gonna win.

[sylphaen]

IMO, BFRs have shown something:
- something balanced in small numbers (disputable idea in the case of BFRs) can become unbalanced in large numbers
- people would rather play another game rather than drop on big f***ing robots with decis all day long.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Blackwolf

This is one big derp-a-derp. So let's get started.

Liberators are aircraft, vulnerable to AA, other air, and are giant floating targets. Unless they are invisible, every AA gun in the area is going to aiming right at them, limiting their ability to affect the battlefield. MBTs aren't quite so high in profile, they will stand out in tank ranges but not so much at over 200m away. Also, Liberators probably won't feature armor that is as heavy as a MBT, and their cannon is (I'd hope) inefficient compared to the gunner guns.

MBTs had zero counters that weren't also effective against BFRs. Get enough infantry with rockets aiming at a BFR and it dies, I've done it myself. In fact BFRs had counters designed specifically for them, namely deci drops. And MBTs themselves were effective counters to BFRs in numbers.

And I'm sorry but if your armor is 5000 hit points worth and the infantry armor is 200, your weapon would be effective if it was a spit wad gun. But it isn't is it? It's a AV weapon, probably with splash, that can kill a grunt in one shot on a direct hit. "Oh but it requires a direct hit in PS2!" Yes I've mentioned this, however 5k armor vs 200 armor. Even if the tank misses 30 of his shots, that 31st is going to be murder and the tank will survive long enough to deliver it.

A respawn timer doesn't do squat other then make the players treasure their vehicles, which is needed but not helpful. It doesn't limit the number of tanks on the field at a time. A 6 hour (or however long) timer didn't stop OS rains in PS1 very well now did it? Vehicle timers are a mechanic that generates down time and increases the value of the vehicles once they are pulled. That's it.

And having a gunner will be pointless compared to having two tanks. 30 1 man tanks on a battle field means anything that tries to go up against them will face 30 AV gun blasts every 3 seconds. Even air craft can't dodge them all. This isn't RL battle, air craft can't fire hellfire missiles from beyond the horizon at tanks that are incapable of knowing they exist. Tanks can aim up, point their big guns at strafing runs, and let all hell break loose. Guess who's gonna win.

So you are bringing into question not just the balance of 2 man tanks vs 1 man tanks, but also the balance of 1 man tanks against the rest of the battlefield?

That's a little broad of a subject.

It's easy to balance solo tanks against the rest of the game. Just make sure that their armor and firepower isn't so high that they are overpowered against all else. Let's also not forget locational damage, which will make tanks much more vulnerable to surprise ambushes, while still having potentially higher survivability when facing their attacker head on.

I feel that the real question is whether solo MBT's can be balanced with 2 man MBT's. All of the other tank balancing questions can easily be addressed with a few tweaks to a few stats, but two solo MBT's taking on one 2 man MBT is a balance problem that may go much deeper.

BFR's were not just solo heavy weapons platforms. They were a perfect storm of bad ideas, poorly tested and implemented. If the PS2 devs just said to hell with the gunner slot and made MBT's purely solo vehicles, it would still be entirely possible to balance them within the context of the game, especially at this stage of development where everything else is being balanced as well.

Of course, purely solo MBT's aren't as much fun and aren't as good for team work. Optionally solo MBT's aren't much better than that, but they are still better.

There are still some relatively simple things that the devs could do to balance solo MBT's against 2 man MBT's. For example, those extra armor addons they have mentioned could come at the cost of a lower powered main gun for the driver, while the gunners weapons remain unaffected. If the armor increase were large enough, this could easily bring 2 man MBT's in line with solo MBT's so long as the gunners AV weapons were strong enough.

I just see too many ways for this to be balanced for me to be too worried about the system before we've even seen it. I think the fact that this subject keeps cropping up is a good thing, since it is obviously very important to game balance and to a lot of PS1 players, so it's just as well that the devs be aware of it's significance, but at the same time I'd hope that everyone keep a more positive tone than making claims like that solo MBT's will destroy Planetside 2, or turn it into (insert other game title here), or whatever.

Go play any other FPS that isn't an MMO and tell me with a straight face that Planetside 2 will be like that. Go take a look at firefall, which also boasts a large scale, and tell me that PS2 will be like that, with every class having jet packs. I think not. Planetside 2 is still closer to Planetside than it is to any other game. There may be changes, sometimes changes that may not make some vets very happy, but that's because this is a different game.

The differences don't outweigh the similarities though. For all their differences, solo aircraft are very similar to solo tanks. Solo aircraft didn't destroy PS1 and solo tanks won't destroy PS2, as long as the devs care even the slightest about working to balance the game.

[sylphaen]

Solo aircraft didn't destroy PS1

Farming with mosquitoes and reavers is a famous activity, though.

[dsi]

They already balanced solo MBTs with multi-manned MBTs, it's called the Lightning!

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

Farming with mosquitoes and reavers is a famous activity, though.

Right. Even at it's most exploitable, it still didn't destroy the game. I'm a pilot myself, but I sincerely hope that farming ground targets is less effective in PS2 while dogfights are more prevalent.

The right balance can be struck. They can do it the PS1 way, or they can do it another way, but PS1 doesn't always = balanced and alternatives don't always = imbalanced. If they feel they both need to make a change and also believe that they can balance the change, I intend to hear them out before condemning the entire project.

I know that most of the solid stuff we have seen from the game has been graphics related, but has anything we have seen yet given the impression that the devs are going about this half assed? Has the level of community interaction indicated anything other than that the devs are extremely passionate about this project?

So why assume that the devs are retarded and/or intend to ruin the game and turn it into some arena shooter? Give them some more credit. They have absolutely earned at least a little respect for what they've done with PS2 up until this point.

It's not like Higby and Tray and the rest don't read these threads. These tank discussions have been going on a long time and will presumably keep going on. The balls in their court. I just don't want to see these kinds of discussions descend too deep into negativity and doom and gloom, because if it's all criticism and no constructivity, why are any of the devs even going to want to sift through the bile?

[Traak]

MBT means Main Battle Tank.

From Wikipedia:
A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank, is a tank that fills the heavy direct fire role of many modern armies. They were originally conceived to replace the light, medium, heavy and super-heavy tanks. Development was spurred onwards in the Cold War with the development of lightweight composite armor. They are still supplemented in some armies with light tanks.

It doesn't mean medium battle tank.