The Impending Magrider Nerf.

[Rothnang]

A vanguard can strafe while taking hits to the front if it angles its hull to a <45° angle and just drives forward and backward.

Saying stuff like "Only Magriders can strafe" is exactly why I think it's the general lack of experience with controlling turreted vehicles that's causing peoples inflated opinion of the Magrider.

Anyone who thinks Magriders are so infinitely better than other tanks really needs a month of remedial World of Tanks.

[almalino]

Originally Posted by Rothnang

A vanguard can strafe while taking hits to the front if it angles its hull to a <45° angle and just drives forward and backward.

Saying stuff like "Only Magriders can strafe" is exactly why I think it's the general lack of experience with controlling turreted vehicles that's causing peoples inflated opinion of the Magrider.

Anyone who thinks Magriders are so infinitely better than other tanks really needs a month of remedial World of Tanks.

45%? But but. Then you expose weak side armor to Magrider then. I would never do that unless I want to die fast. Ans also you need to think while drivinbg Vanguard and take extrasteps while Magrider jist pres lefft and right to strafe

Comon. You could have even proposed 90%. Why not? Strafing is even faster that way

[neoritter]

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

Of course. Just not as easy nor as fast, when it comes to how fast you can start moving side to side, as when using a Magrider. Also the Magrider doesn't have to expose it's side armor to strafe.

You should have a side armor upgrade. Put your side to tanks, rival chasis, and drive forward and back as the bullets fly. Not that hard. Plus, you can SEE the magrider's shots way better than anyone elses. I dodge mag shots all day long during an engagement. What I love to see when playing VS in a mag is enemy tanks driving past me and exposing their rears. I see it all the time.

As others said, you have to flank the mag. It's hard as hell when using a magrider to see your flanks, 9/10 when I die it's because I wasn't keeping myself on a swivel.

[almalino]

Originally Posted by neoritter

You should have a side armor upgrade. P

Basically it means stock Vanguard without upgrades is weaker then stock Magrider

[Rothnang]

Originally Posted by almalino

45%? But but. Then you expose weak side armor to Magrider then. I would never do that unless I want to die fast. Ans also you need to think while drivinbg Vanguard and take extrasteps while Magrider jist pres lefft and right to strafe

Comon. You could have even proposed 90%. Why not? Strafing is even faster that way

Planetside 2 doesn't determine armor groupings by which part of the tank you hit, but by the angle you hit it at. If you shoot an enemy tank anywhere while you're in its front 90° it counts as a hit to the front armor, if you shoot it anywhere while you're in its back 90° it counts as a hit to the back armor, completely regardless of whether or not you hit the tank on its actual front or back.

Test it out. In fact, this even applies to the turret. If someone shoots you in the turret from the front you get the full armor protection, if someone shoots you in the turret from the back it has paper armor, even if you're looking right at the guy in both instances.


Also the Vanguard has stronger stock front armor than the Magrider, which is why side armor is so common on Vanguards, it gives them superb protection from 3 out of 4 sides.

[ChipMHazard]

Originally Posted by neoritter

You should have a side armor upgrade. Put your side to tanks, rival chasis, and drive forward and back as the bullets fly. Not that hard. Plus, you can SEE the magrider's shots way better than anyone elses. I dodge mag shots all day long during an engagement. What I love to see when playing VS in a mag is enemy tanks driving past me and exposing their rears. I see it all the time.

As others said, you have to flank the mag. It's hard as hell when using a magrider to see your flanks, 9/10 when I die it's because I wasn't keeping myself on a swivel.

That is still a bad argument. I shouldn't have to do anything that a Magrider player shouldn't in order to stay as competitive, within reason as they are designed differently. If a Prowler needs to take side armor than so should a Magrider.
Also putting on extra side armor still doesn't make it as effective as front armor. If the Magrider hits you then it's going to do more damage than if you hit it on it's front armor.
I don't see that being able to more easily see the plasma round has to do with anything as it certainly doesn't make up for the Prowler's shortcomings, nor does it make the Magrider weaker in any real sense.

Also no MBT should have to use flanking in order to match another MBT, period. I cannot see how you can't balance things like that. The Magrider is naturally more inclined towards facing it's opponent face on since its cannon is forward mounted, but every MBT is at a disadvantage when attacked from the side or rear.

Originally Posted by Rothnang

A vanguard can strafe while taking hits to the front if it angles its hull to a <45° angle and just drives forward and backward.

Saying stuff like "Only Magriders can strafe" is exactly why I think it's the general lack of experience with controlling turreted vehicles that's causing peoples inflated opinion of the Magrider.

That's not really strafing, you're just moving forward and backwards in an angle. And please stop it with the "learn to play" argument.

Originally Posted by Koadster

You really think Ehigby wants to fix the prowler.

I know, I'm a fool for thinking that they are going to change the design. It's obvious that they really like their design and it's almost certainly not going to change. I do so much want to have a centralized turret.

Originally Posted by Rothnang

What I'm ultimately just completely opposed to is to make the Magrider numerically much weaker than the Vanguard or the Prowler in some attempt to balance for its maneuverability.

[snip]

Granted, that's a very specific scenario and not one that crops up often, but variations of that type of dilemma happen a lot in the game, and a tank that can rotate its turret independently from its hull has a clear advantage there.

Nor would I want them to. I would rather have them buff the other MBTs up to the same level as the Magrider. Makes it easier to balance things from there.
I still like the idea of reducing the Magrider's front armor though.

You're right, not having a turret is a weakness for the Magrider. As you noted it's not an issue that crops up so much but there are situations where it becomes very noticeable.

I would really like to see the old PS1 designs make a comeback.

[almalino]

I just cannot find out any things that are better on stock Vanguard then on stock Magrider.

Strafing of Magrider basically nullify stronger armor and stronger hit of Vanguard because Vanguard just cannot hit the Magrider and Magrider can hit Vanguard in 1 to 1 encounter.

[Rothnang]

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

That's not really strafing, you're just moving forward and backwards in an angle. And please stop it with the "learn to play" argument.

The effect is the same where the enemies ability to hit you is concerned.

Also it's not a "learn to play" argument, it's just pointing out the obvious. People are using turreted vehicles wrong all the time, I see it on a daily basis in every single faction.

I wish I had a video of the hundreds of lightning vs. lightning fights I've won just because someone tried to drive past me and shoot me in the back, and all I did was stand there, keep my front turned, while hitting them in the side and back as they go past, easily killing them.

People do screw this up all the time, and they wouldn't have such a substantial problem if they learned how to use their tank the right way. I would bet that if the Magrider had a turret on top, even if it retained the ability to strafe, its average performance would go down, just because the average player doesn't multitask between armor facing and weapon facing well.

It is difficult for people to wrap their head around the multitasking of dealing with a turreted vehicle, that's simply a fact. Just keep a little mental tally in vehicle fights how many times someone exposed their sides or back instead of just stoically turning their front toward you when you're fighting TR or Lightning tanks. I don't think you'll argue that there is no arrogance in saying a lot of people are making mistakes here and lose fights because of it.



As far as reducing the Magriders front armor is concerned, that's exactly the kind of nerf that is absolutely uncalled for, because now you've created a situation where any Vanguard or Prowler driver who knows how to keep his front armor facing his opponent and who can land shots even if the enemy moves side to side a bit wins by default.

This is exactly the kind of thing I don't want to see, lowering the Magriders effective ceiling in an attempt to bring the average in line is just deliberately depriving people of the ability to get really good with a certain vehicle, just because it's more noob friendly at the low end. Relegating an entire faction to just having the noob vehicles that are easy to learn, but you can never really take to heights of mastery is a terrible idea.

What we should be thinking about is how to make Vanguards and Prowlers more easy to understand for people. Maybe there needs to be an additional UI element that shows you your armor facings better, and graphically indicates how well protected you are from that side. Maybe a big ring you see on your UI that's locked to your hull and shows you tick marks that show you what side of your tank is exposed to an enemy. The ring would then have some kind of indicator, like a big beefy looking shield for front armor, some medium ones for side armor, and a small dinky one for back armor, so that whenever people are looking down their sights there is an indicator directly on their screen that shows them "Hey, big beefy shield, that looks good, I want to keep that there, hey, he drove to the side with the smaller shield, I better turn my tank to get the big beefy one up there again"...


As far as I'm concerned educating people on how to use the other factions MBTs right is the most essential part here, because just nerfing away will lead to a situation where the people who have mastered the armor facings on other tanks are going to stomp all over the Magriders that got nerfed to compensate for people who weren't using the other tanks to their full potential.

[almalino]

Rothnang,

Any our arguments you put down to "Learn to play" again. Magraider is basically a turret that can move in all directions, rotate and strafe. Everythiung that Vanguard can do Magrader can also do plus strafe on top of that.

[Rothnang]

You can whine about evil people who say "Learn to play" all you want, it doesn't change the fact that the main reason why Magriders consistently outfight Vanguards and Prowlers is because they consistently come up against people who have problems with the concept of controlling the hull and the turret independently, which the Magrider can't do, which makes it easier to learn, but leaves it with fewer overall options.

Magrider is like driving automatic, Prowler and Vanguard is like driving stick. Automatic is really easy and you can't screw it up, but with a stickshift you get a higher level of control once you're good at it.

[LoliLoveFart]

I agree wtih Rothgang on his point about lowering the skill ceiling for mags.
However, Statistically Mags do out perform other MBTs because they are generally the easiest to use in tank v tank.
But if you base your argument purely off of numbers you are building a house of cards.
There are too many extenuating circumstances for numbers to be the be all and end all of an argument.
Where a mag is strong in tank v tank it is generally fairly bad at killing infantry, its low slung turret has trouble firing over terrain and when a mag gets bogged down killing infantry it usually gets flanked fairly quickly. Farming infantry is something the prowler excells at. The Vanguard is sort of a black sheep in this, with its strong front armour you would be allowed to assume it is a tank killer but none of its secondary weapons really lend to it being good at tank v tank. Like it has been said time and time again in this thread only for some people to gloss over to beat their fists. Each tank has its advantages and drawbacks. Give the other tanks some love and call it a day. Won't stop the complaining though. That will only stop when the mag can only drive in one direction, can't strafe, dies in one hit and its secondary sneezes at things.

I guess some people can't into asymetrical balancing.

[ChipMHazard]

Originally Posted by Rothnang

The effect is the same where the enemies ability to hit you is concerned.

Also it's not a "learn to play" argument, it's just pointing out the obvious. People are using turreted vehicles wrong all the time, I see it on a daily basis in every single faction.

[snip]


As far as reducing the Magriders front armor is concerned, that's exactly the kind of nerf that is absolutely uncalled for, because now you've created a situation where any Vanguard or Prowler driver who knows how to keep his front armor facing his opponent and who can land shots even if the enemy moves side to side a bit wins by default.

This is exactly the kind of thing I don't want to see, lowering the Magriders effective ceiling in an attempt to bring the average in line is just deliberately depriving people of the ability to get really good with a certain vehicle, just because it's more noob friendly at the low end. Relegating an entire faction to just having the noob vehicles that are easy to learn, but you can never really take to heights of mastery is a terrible idea.

What we should be thinking about is how to make Vanguards and Prowlers more easy to understand for people. Maybe there needs to be an additional UI element that shows you your armor facings better, and graphically indicates how well protected you are from that side. Maybe a big ring you see on your UI that's locked to your hull and shows you tick marks that show you what side of your tank is exposed to an enemy. The ring would then have some kind of indicator, like a big beefy looking shield for front armor, some medium ones for side armor, and a small dinky one for back armor, so that whenever people are looking down their sights there is an indicator directly on their screen that shows them "Hey, big beefy shield, that looks good, I want to keep that there, hey, he drove to the side with the smaller shield, I better turn my tank to get the big beefy one up there again"...

As far as I'm concerned educating people on how to use the other factions MBTs right is the most essential part here, because just nerfing away will lead to a situation where the people who have mastered the armor facings on other tanks are going to stomp all over the Magriders that got nerfed to compensate for people who weren't using the other tanks to their full potential.

Can't say I agree. Seems to be easier to dodge when actually strafing, than just driving back and forth.

Fair enough, I agree that some players do try to drive around others, heck I've even doon this myself until I learned it the hard way.

I wouldn't nerf the Magrider as my first course of action. I do think it would be better to first buff the others before trying to nerf the Magrider. But if they were to nerf something to make it balanced then the front armor nerf would probably be the one I would go for.

It would even make Magrider players try to outflank more often, something which has been suggested more than once that we Prowler players do.
I don't have any problem with making the Magrider a bit weaker than the rest when taking into account their maneuverability. It's easier for a Magrider to have it's front armor towards it's enemy at all times, while still retaining all of it's maneuverability. The Vanguard and Prowler may be able to turn their front to meet the Magrider but they also lose out on some of their maneuverability while doing so.
In essence I would like to see the Magrider become more like they were in the original, with turret and all.

I wouldn't mind having the UI actually show the arcs of the different sides of the armor. I don't think that would actually solve anything balance wise.

That's just a learn to play argument. You may be right, but then again it might just force Magriders to employ the same flanking tactics that people suggest other MBTs use. I'm not convinced that the Magrider would suddenly get steamrolled just because it can't take as much damage from the front. They are still more maneuverable than any other MBT.
Again the first thing to do imo. is to buff the Prowler and Vanguard. Then you can start tweaking them.

Originally Posted by Rothnang

You can whine about evil people who say "Learn to play" all you want, it doesn't change the fact that the main reason why Magriders consistently outfight Vanguards and Prowlers is because they consistently come up against people who have problems with the concept of controlling the hull and the turret independently, which the Magrider can't do, which makes it easier to learn, but leaves it with fewer overall options.

I don't see how that's a fact in any shape or form, although I do agree that it's easier to move around in the Magrider. The Magrider is still better at constantly presenting its front than either of the other MBTs, which lose maneuverability when trying to do the same.

[Rothnang]

I guess I just don't see making the Magrider more fragile as justified since I don't have a problem with the idea of not trying to dodge shells and just focusing on angling armor and landing precise shots, and I also don't care if my enemy is trying to dodge shells, because he's a giant freaking tank and I'm going to hit him regardless of what he does at any range where I'd expect a kill.

[ChipMHazard]

Hopefully it won't be necessary after they finally apply their buffs.

[raw]

anyone whining about balance at this point is a fucking noob.