[VIDEO] Angry Tankbuster

Here's the thing. Liberators counter MBT's in the same way that sledgehammers counter kneecaps. Brutally and efficiently. If you're alone in a MBT and a Liberator wants to kill you there is quite literally nothing you can realistically do to stop them. That's just kindof a fact of life while in a tank. Yes, it's annoying. Yes, I know the feels I've spent a decent amount of time in tanks. But it's also something I've accepted. Tankbuster actually is responsible for a fairly tiny amount of MBT deaths. Something like 1% of them I want to say.

Either it's 3% of tanks, or less then 1% of tanks. Like, .5% of them...

Either way, I want to quote that there... But then ESF's would use it against us!

That's all fine and dandy but what sledgehammers you? The only counter that you cannot fight against is a max camping a spawn room with dual bursters and even then you just fly away from the area leaving him useless. As a main pilot you can accept it, but many others will not and I am sure if you had any interest in balance you would see their point of view as well rather than block your ears and deny everything like most other pilots seem to.

You have minor annoyances, we have sledgehammer counters. Pilots are at the top of most leaderboards and it is a lot easier to coordinate a few pilots then it is to coordinate the masses on the ground so you can never expect to be fully covered by AA at all times and yet we get nerfs and you got direct buffs against us.

This is why posts are springing up all over the place about the lib atm and rather than coming up with the typical denial routine that everyone always goes through (not specifically you just most pilots on the forums) you guys should really listen to some of the complaints because when people cry the next thing that hits is usually a sledgehammer nerf and that isn't good for the game or for you. It happened to the harasser, striker, vulcan, ZOE and anything else and everyone who used them just denied and denied until they were hit with massive nerfs to multiple areas at once. I know you have that document with pilots opinion on the lib but you should really be putting it in a more public place, sure you will get trolls but just ignore them. It is the only way you will get down to earth advice from people on both sides of the fence.

Regarding the tiny amount of deaths from libs, that is all statistics as I said in another thread. It doesn't take into account how many of those tanks were hit by TB then finished off with a single dalton shot and it also gets heavily watered down by the sheep tankers who sit under towers and overhangs begging for C4. You are more often than not taking out the good tankers that are trying to flank, as intended, but you shouldn't try to dismiss this as these are the tankers that will have an actual effect on the outcome of a battle. They aren't the ones sitting back shelling an already captured base in the hopes of picking up a few infantry kills and contributing to nothing in the long run. Last time I heard anything the number one cause of death in the air was suicide but that doesn't mean that every time a pilot of your skill takes off they are destined to hug a tree.

the scythe i was dueling was strafing targets at the time and after i fired he noticed me we went into an active dog fight and i was observing how many of my shots were landing. more than half the clip while he was actively evading, take a look at my stats and see how much flight time i have. my first major hurdle of the night was learning how to avoid crashing into trees, but even with my horrid lack of experience i was reliably hitting a flying scythe. <-that is my problem with the TB.

that is tempting. i may have to start doing that.

I fully understand and I do want to work with people to get solutions that are happy for everyone because at the end of the day that's the only way SOE might, MIGHT listen to what we, as players, have to say on balance.

I'm 100% in support for instance of giving the Liberators an increased noise profile.
I did not approve of the Composite Armor buffs or the increase in AP hits to kill Liberators. All I wanted was for the Vanguard/Prowler to have the same turret elevation as a Magrider.
I also wouldn't really mind if they slightly increased how many Tankbusters it takes from the rear to kill a MBT it's pretty easy for a competent pilot to do(assuming it's not a Vanguard).

I'm not really sure what more public place I could put the document? I have it on Reddit and the Forums. Either way, here's the one problem that a lot of pilots have when pure infantry/tank players start commenting about ESF's/Liberators. Many of them don't or can't fly therefore they have very one sided opinions. All they see are the successful pilots or the Liberator that camps their spawn because they don't pull any AA for 5 minutes. On the flip side, many top pilots are also exceptional infantry/tank players and actually do understand both sides of the coin.

I will say one big difference is that, as a pilot, if I'm getting annoyed by Liberators/ESF's I just go pull my own Liberator/ESF and kill them. The fact that many if not most people can't realistically do this is probably a large contributing factor to the feeling of helplessness you get. However, even when I don't do that I really don't have any problem countering aircraft. Grab 3 HA's with lockons and you'll scare any Lib crew off instantly or kill them. ESF's will get run off by a single dual burster.

I would like to see all air counters be slightly more lethal at close range but have diminished range. For instance, there's no reason for HA's to be able to lock me 150m past where I can even render them and basically 300m past where I can realistically shoot back. Same with flak. It has absurd range and while it's not LETHAL at that range it's incredibly annoying and can get you killed.

Then that Scythe was an absolutely abysmal pilot. I would be willing to bet you any amount of money that I could pull a stock ESF and duel you in a fully certed Liberator and you'll never kill me with a Tankbuster. In fact, I'd be willing to bet you'd never get me below 75% health. Hell, I'd even be willing to bet you wouldn't land a single shot on me. And I'm perfectly willing to go on Test Server with you and stand behind that claim.

how about we link it here too: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oYykEbVqxh34c2xsK1vcwvG1Z3M-tccoWs0DS2pcacE/edit?pli=1

as for your suggestions about lock on ranges, the problem with cutting lock on ranges is that locking ESF is already difficult, ESF and liberators both get access to flares which are a hard 100% counter to G2A missiles. if the range for missiles gets cut anymore then they would be impossible to use except against the dumbest of pilots. as far as MAX flak, render range has always been the source of many imbalances and i think that is why MAX bursters do so little damage per shot, but if we cut their range then we start running into the same issues that lock on missiles have and the max suits will be useless unless you have a herd of ten or more.

skyguards are the only reasonable effective air counter and like many have said before you trade a lot in a lightning for that ability, not nearly as much as many of those claims would lead you to believe, but a competent lightning of ANY other type is easily capable of winning that fight, the same can also be said for any sunderer with 2 gunners, and in most scenarios i will simply be rick rolled by any MBT. if i am paying attention and watching my radar C4 infantry are rarely an issue, but rocket launchers from more than 100 meters away can readily take me out because my cone of fire is too large to do significant damage to them, the best i can hope for is to scare them and push them back into cover while i retreat.

Well, technically nothing accounts for a large amount of MBT deaths other than C4 due to the very wide variety of ways a MBT can die.

I have a shield and high powered AP rounds though, so I don't care if they really feel it's a good idea to get that close.

so you would be willing to bet that as a long time practiced pilot you could out dog fight a person (me) who just learned how to fly yesterday and probably has less than an hour total flight time in this entire game? OMG skillz! i do have plenty of flight time in simulators, but the physics in this game are silly and cartoonish to the point that my flight sim experience is somewhat detrimental.

the point is he was flying and maneuvering and with zero training and barely being capable of flight i was able to hit him at full speed, while going full speed, and while he was maneuvering.

and i have said it before and will say it again. if you can't ever hit ESF anyway (as you claim) then why do you have ANY complaint about losing your high ROF even if DPS is the same? at a top speed of around 100kph ground vehicles hardly warrant 10rpm.

C4 is a leading killer because the majority of the ground population can carry it and most sacrifice nothing for it. it's like saying infantry guns are the leading killer of troops.

I never once said that you can't EVER hit an ESF. I said that you can't hit competent ESF's with it. I would be willing to fight any Liberator pilot on test and unless I get very lazy I won't be dying to their Tankbuster.

What you're saying "the point is he was flying and maneuvering and with zero training and barely being capable of flight i was able to hit him at full speed, while going full speed, and while he was maneuvering." is simply a flat out lie or an exaggeration or as I said, the Scythe was completely incompetent. Try the Tankbuster on live servers. My offer still stands. Come over to Waterson(any faction) and I will pull you a 100% max'd out Liberator to play with.

it won't do anything but stroke your ego because at this point just flying around without hitting trees is still a challenge. you could easily say the same crap about any of the ESF weapons and where i am concerned you would likely be right. where we run into a problem is where you define "competent" so far as i can tell based on the posts you have made this means someone who has over 100 hours flight time.

you wonder why grounders don't learn how to fly? because your "competent" pilots carve up anyone who ever wanted to try. i have run around in a scythe a few times and my average life span in combat is around 30 seconds against your "competent" players. how many players do you think would be willing to put up with that while they are just learning? do you think everyone should be trapped in VR until they gather enough of the skills to come out? that is the whole reason i started in VR, because i wanted an opportunity to build the basic skills that i knew i needed. so normal players are handily kept out of the skies by your "competent" pilots. i would like to consider myself a "competent" heavy assault (i break vehicles with C4), but i don't immediately eliminate any new player that pops a tank, it still takes effort. if the majority of heavy assaults in the game were "competent" most vehicle columns (zergs) would be left as burning wreckage in seconds.

as a skyguard driver i have watched plenty of aircraft and pilots of all flavors. and my definition of "competent" is being able to reliably fly without crashing and being able to effectively hit targets while maintaining survival in light combat. <-with a tank buster i can reliably hit that. your definition of "competent" is the players out there who have dedicated the majority of their play to flying and only choose to go on foot when their aircraft respawn timer isn't finished. the vast majority of players do not match what you define as "competent".

You have no idea what I define as competent and you're just putting words in my mouth right now.

Competency has is only slightly related to flight time. I know people with 30 hours of flight time who can outfight others with over 100 hours of flight time.

I would define competent much the way you would. You can fly around at full speed without crashing into things very often and defend yourself against he average opponent that you run into. Flying has the highest skill ceiling in any combined arms game. Look at games like Battlefield. Flight is by and far the most challenging thing to learn in that game.

Once again, "only choose to go on foot when their aircraft respawn time isn't finished". You have no idea how I play. Look at my stats. I have every bit as much time on the ground as I do in the air.

where u getting ur stats from? id like to be able to check myself as the #'s iv heard are all over the place; i was led to believe that TB made up 10% of vehicle kills. either way from my limited libby experience TB just weakens, belly gun gets the kill, which could be padding the stats a bit. but regardless both of u are making dumb arguments. apples and oranges and all, TB requires precise aim as a skill, along with a bit of situational awareness, and c4 requires patience and a bit of situational luck. Id say TB is easier just because u can make ur own luck with it, where with c4 in alot of situations its just not plausible to use. but agian, thats comparing apple n oranges.

battlefield as your baseline explains it all. 1942 was balanced and decent then EA got a hold of it and in battlefield 2 jets showed up with no real counters to them beyond other jets. the AA in that game was a joke and EA has been driving the running gag further into the ground with each iteration.

I DO NOT WANT THIS GAME TO BE BATTLEFIELD. I WANT SOMETHING PLAYABLE AND FUN FOR ALL FORCES.

here i will present you with a simple common scenario. new player starts this game. that new player decides he wants to join the air battle. lets say the new player has gathered 50 certs to play with, so they buy all of the 1 and 10 cert upgrades. this pilot then spawns his brand new liberator or ESF (any flavor will do). what do you seriously think the average life span and cert gain of that new player will be, even assuming they have practiced in VR and know how to avoid trees?

let's go back to the word "competent". most pilots i can readily hit with my skyguard while they are flying and maneuvering. the pilots that i can reliably KILL (over 1100 kills in my skyguard so i know how my prey moves) with my dedicated AA tank would also be the same pilots that i could reliably kill with my tank buster with almost no training and barely being able to fly. <- that is screwed up.


but let's assume this is all totally in my head and the TB is generally useless for fighting aircraft. why would lowering the ROF while maintaining DPS be so horrible then? it would just make it worse at something it can't do anyway and the A2G capabilities wouldn't be hindered because tanks are slow large targets so high ROF gets you almost nothing. just explain to me once why lowering the rate of fire while maintaining DPS would be so bad.

You could also say that anyone could just hop in AA and kill air without a problem in the AA turrets or just trailing a skyguard.

When I first played this game, I had no idea what I was doing, like litterally, I thought the repair gun worked at longer ranges and that to capture a biolab, you had to capture the bottom of it. But on esamir at Nott amp, there was a big fight and I hopped in one of the turrets. I got 10 kills air kills and then hopped in an Av turret and got some more using splash in a room

it it ain't broke don't fix this, I already said this, and you refused to respond

conclusion of this thread: bad player want skill nerfed, even on horrid weapons that can't kill anything that's not moving

Oh my goodness. You're latching on to tiny things. Nowhere did I say I wanted this game to be like battlefield. I used the example that in combined arms games flight is usually the most difficult thing to do and that's NOT a bad thing. I'm not talking about AA or anything like that in the Battlefield games. I haven't played them much so I don't feel qualified to speak on their balance.

And, quite frankly I'm done discussing this with you. You're proposing changes to weapons you've never used and you have no concept of what the air game is like. You've never even used the Tankbuster and you won't listen to the people who have hundreds of hours of experience with it when they tell you your idea will break what the weapon is. When you get 40-50 hours of flight time come back and give more input about the air game. But until then you're just making yourself look foolish to people who actually know what they're talking about and I'm not going to keep wasting my time trying to explain things to you.

>> inb4 elitist pilot snob who doesn't care what anyone else thinks.

Most crews I see don't run flares though? I do a fair amount of A2A and ever since lock ons have had their pathing changes, they tend to run into tres/hills/walls more than they do hit anything. Partly why crews don't pull flares as often as they used to. Flares arn't the issue.

what skill? the ROF doesn't help with A2G and you have repeatedly said the TB is entirely useless against aircraft. so how would reducing ROF while maintaining DPS be a nerf in any way, unless you are being somewhat less than honest about your reasons.

dedicating one of the 4 paragraphs i wrote is not by my definition "latching on" i made it very clear that BF is a horrible base line and generally should not be used as any sort of example of how to design an MMOFPS.

i refuse to simply accept the party line that "everything is ok" from the horde of dedicated pilots who are the most likely to abuse the cheese. would you only listen to the VS ZOE MAXes on how to deal with ZOE? they gave the same party line.

but if that is the way you really want to go then don't come back crying when the nerf hammer comes down on a lot more than the ONE nose gun i think needs adjusting (i know you will come back crying though because that is what happens on forums). the forums are unhappy and it won't be my my skyguard that gets nerfed into oblivion.

enjoy your future flying harassers.