harrasser proves dedicated driver is great

[moosepoop]

Originally Posted by TheSaltySeagull

I am not saying this as an argument against having crewed vehicles I am just saying reducing tank numbers by making them crewed will not impact current infantry vs vehicles balance.

reducing tank numbers will make infantry vs vehicle more balanced. it will justify the armor and deadliness of the tank.

[TheSaltySeagull]

Originally Posted by moosepoop

you write a 500 word essay on how i am wrong, then say you are not against my idea.

I am not against the idea(which is not yours BTW) of having crewed tanks. I am simply pointing out your logic is flawed. As I said before you are using fabricated arguments. There is no balance reason as to why tank numbers need to be reduced. Current tanks zergs are not dominating large scale combat and are still underpowered vs large infantry forces. There is no reason to attempt to actively reduce their numbers further.

less tanks means they can also tone down the infantry av damage.

Or the devs could do what they just did. Buff endurance vs infantry AV weaponry. This change has so far made tanks a lot more viable. They still need a bit more endurance but could be achieved via a similar buff as the last one. There is no reason to alter crew mechanics to reduce numbers then rebalance infantry AV weaponry to compensate for the reduced numbers which in turn could throw off infantry AV TTK vs none MBT vehicles.

[moosepoop]

Originally Posted by TheSaltySeagull

I am not against the idea(which is not yours BTW) of having crewed tanks. I am simply pointing out your logic is flawed. As I said before you are using fabricated arguments. There is no balance reason as to why tank numbers need to be reduced. Current tanks zergs are not dominating large scale combat and are still underpowered vs large infantry forces. There is no reason to attempt to actively reduce their numbers further.



Or the devs could do what they just did. Buff endurance vs infantry AV weaponry. This change has so far made tanks a lot more viable. They still need a bit more endurance but could be achieved via a similar buff as the last one. There is no reason to alter crew mechanics to reduce numbers then rebalance infantry AV weaponry to compensate for the reduced numbers which in turn could throw off infantry AV TTK vs none MBT vehicles.

i got 10 years proof. planetside 1.

tanks kill infantry instantly. to counter this they are instantly killed by invisible, infinite ammo, infinite range av turrets. this isnt balance. this is a fuckin joke.

battlefield 3 has solo tanks. tons of bf3 vets were jumping ship to ps2, so planetside 2 must have solo tanks. it ends up feeling like a cheap knockoff.

SOE needs to stop assuming casual players are morons.

[TheSaltySeagull]

Originally Posted by moosepoop

i got 10 years proof. planetside 1.

tanks kill infantry instantly and is only countered by invisible infinite range av turrets. this isnt balance. this is a fuckin joke.

battlefield 3 has solo tanks. tons of bf3 vets were jumping ship to ps2, so planetside 2 must have solo tanks. so far this is not working.

Tanks vs mass infantry was lackluster in ps1 as well. It was a bit better because tanks were more durable in comparison to ps2 ones. It had nothing to do with crew mechanics. Besides outdoor combat in ps1 was very much air side with the reaver dominating pretty much anything on the ground.

BF3 was a successful game so maybe there is something to the solo tank style :P

In any case I think I am derailing here a bit. I am talking more about infantry vs tank balance than I am the pros and cons of crewed tanks. I will just leave it as saying I don't think we need to reduce the number of tanks on the field for any balance reasons. Personally I enjoy large armor columns as it is an impressive sight and one of the things that helps showcase the scale of the game. So long as these zergs do not dominate outdoor combat as they did in the past. Whether those tanks be crewed or solo I suppose is not really that important to me as a grunt.

[moosepoop]

Originally Posted by TheSaltySeagull

Tanks vs mass infantry was lackluster in ps1 as well. It was a bit better

as long as its an improvement, implement it.

players take the path of least resistance. solo mbt is the path of least resistance, maximizing indivisual firepower.

[TheSaltySeagull]

Originally Posted by moosepoop

as long as its an improvement, implement it.

They did...

[moosepoop]

Originally Posted by TheSaltySeagull

They did...

lots more improvements to go.

[Ghodere]

Originally Posted by Figment

With a crewed MBT (AND WITHOUT THE SOLO MBT, BUT THE LIGHTNING INSTEAD) the game provides the option for people to play as a team using a teamwork vehicle in order to gain access to more firepower and/or endurance, or to use the Lightning or other solo units instead. Nobody is stripping you from the option to play the game solo, you just should never be allowed to play with the heaviest of vehicles in game solo because that's not balanced in relation to that other unit peforming the same role. They should never have allowed solo-mbts for this reason alone or they should never have made the weapons on it this deadly, as it leaves no room for teamwork units that get a bonus as trade-off for using less units.

Unfortunately, as I have come to expect, Figment is right. Two-man MBTs alongside three-man and Lightning tanks would be fine, if they were balanced to have x2-3 the crewed firepower of a Lightning, with a 3-man tank having 4-5x the durability and firepower of a Lightning.

With the current game, though, that's not possible without creating ridiculously powerful weapons; and if you were to balance the crewed tank's weapons and armor first, then scale down the Lightning and MBT to match, you probably wouldn't have any reason at all to ever pull them due to the miniscule infantry TTK making it more effective to shoot at enemies with a gun than the Lightning's cannon. At the very least you would have to nerf the Lightning and MBT to such an extent that they really wouldn't be the same vehicles anymore, and you might as well have just taken out the MBT altogether.

The dev team is honestly making much greater strides towards good game design than I thought they ever would, but fixing core design flaws like this, which require redesigns rather than additions, strains against the essence of the f2p microtransaction model.

To be frank, the bar was set so low for TTK from the outset that power creep already has nowhere to go without breaking the game.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by TheSaltySeagull

Or the devs could do what they just did. Buff endurance vs infantry AV weaponry. This change has so far made tanks a lot more viable. They still need a bit more endurance but could be achieved via a similar buff as the last one. There is no reason to alter crew mechanics to reduce numbers then rebalance infantry AV weaponry to compensate for the reduced numbers which in turn could throw off infantry AV TTK vs none MBT vehicles.

Your logic is flawed here. Both are the same thing implemented differently and you yourself neglect that increasing MBT armour changes the TTK of other units (including infantry) on MBT, so that rebalancing would have to happen anyway, just with a different category of (AV) weapons, in this case, vehicle mounted weapons, if they were to remain the same with respect to MBTs.

What we object to however, is that all that endurance AND firepower is given to a single player when it is relative to multiple other players and as such to be shared by more than one player to make having that power available to you fair.

[Figment]

It sounds more complex than it is, btw.

And Ghodere is right, power creep to incentize multi-crew units is pretty much impossible. Just look at the options of buffing specifications:


1. Firepower
AI: You can already instakill infantry, how the hell are you going to make more deadly weapons?
AV: Any MBT tank shell instantly kills an ESF. You can two shot enemy tanks from behind already. From other angles, even when they have armour on it, you only need a few shots more.
AA: There's already AA options that rival pure AA.

2. Accuracy and recoil
It's already pretty pinpoint accurate. The only reason you're not hitting every shot is because you have to compensate for height and distance yourself (unlike in say World of Tanks). Cone of fire has next to no influence on the accuracy.
Recoil does impact later shots, but there's little reason to reduce recoil much further because that inaccuracy is required to avoid spam, especially long distance HE spam.

3. Rate of fire:
Higher rate of fire? Please, it's spammy enough as is: one hit kill, one hit kill, miss, one hit kill, close call, one hit kill... That order doesn't need an upgrade. Other gameplay shouldn't suffer from this.

4. Other turrets
With what? Faster turret rotation? Please... have you actually seen how fast a PS2 turret turns? You can't outcircle an enemy due to that. World of Tanks actually put limits on the speed of turning your turret and it has a big impact on balance between light and heavy units, but the turret rotation speed in PS2 is simply too fast. You can almost instantly rotate 180 degrees and target a unit behind you.
Other turrets with more guns? See rate of fire and firepower. Other turrets with a different configuration? We don't have a world of tanks penetration system, so sounds pretty pointless.

4. Endurance
Sure, you can increase the hitpoints, but it'll just mean that people will start seatswitching while playing alone. So then you actually continue to miss the point of having crewed vehicles: work together to allow that firepower and endurance to be wielded. So that wouldn't really reduce the numbers and it would just mean that people camp with less concern for personal risk, but still would be alone in a tank and in large tank numbers.



All in all, the incredibly short TTK forces tanks to have incredibly short TTKs themselves and it forces other weapons to have incredibly short TTKs as well.



Where is our time to play the game when most of it is respawning, walking/driving a bit back to the fight, die before you can react, rince and repeat? THAT is the kind of gameplay that needs to be improved.


Given the combination of systems, there aren't many viable options to explore. Most people that think some sort of middle ground might be reached that satisfies all, completely ignore the existance and interaction of these other systems and design elements that render such things problematic and don't actually problem solve anything. :/

I'm not saying they don't mean well, I'm just saying they don't see the bigger picture and in some cases, ignore it (the selfish ones that only suggest a middleground add-on to safeguard their own option, not to make it viable or improve gameplay for all).

[Obstruction]

this whole thread is full of shit because people solo liberator and change seats to fire from position 2 while freefalling.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Obstruction

this whole thread is full of shit because people solo liberator and change seats to fire from position 2 while freefalling.

That's why seat switching has actually been under attack in this thread (and actually since pre-alpha, by me and a few others anyway). Duh.

ESPECIALLY in relation to a unit that doesn't immediately go into a free fall that might end as an explosion.

[moosepoop]

Originally Posted by Figment

It sounds more complex than it is, btw.

And Ghodere is right, power creep to incentize multi-crew units is pretty much impossible. Just look at the options of buffing specifications:

power creep is very doable, the main buff being armor hitpoints. seat switching can be disabled.

[sylphaen]

a 2-man vehicle ? With dedicated driver ?!?

I realize it's only the harasser but... Devs have to be extremely careful. They are getting dangerously close to a PS1 design !

And if population drops, PS1 ideas will be said to make games fail.

[moosepoop]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

a 2-man vehicle ? With dedicated driver ?!?

I realize it's only the harasser but... Devs have to be extremely careful. They are getting dangerously close to a PS1 design ! And if population drops, PS1 ideas will be said to make games fail.

so thats why they introduced the sunderer and the lattice system. to destroy planetside 2!

also, you on other thread

Originally Posted by sylphaen

Part of the reason why I did not like PS2 is because tank combat felt boring and not dynamic at all.

LOL