MOM it killed me, NERF IT

how so?

This week!?

This has been happening since the very beginning on forumside. The REAL problem is not the complaining itself though (Because that happens on every game forum ever) the problem is that DBG actually LISTENS to them. Get enough people to whine about something no matter how poor the reasoning they give and DBG will eventually give them what they want. The HA nerfs are a perfect example of that. Heavies were not meant to be "Fair" for other classes to fight 1v1 with no flanking. That was there POINT. You were supposed to flank them and aim for the head like you should be doing at all times.

All we need is here.

Why can't infantry just get smarter and not get killed by PPA? Why instead of nerfing PPA couldn't we have just buffed the Marauder/Canister to be just as effective?

In other words, who gets to make the call? Certainly it isn't based on any hard data. Data would suggest that the PPA wasn't actually that over-performing prior to the nerfs:

KPH, October 29, 2014 (one day before PPA nerf)
Canister- 94.75
PPA- 86.47
Marauder- 78.94

For that day's data, the PPA was actually doing worse than the Canister. I mean sure data can differ from day to day, but it's hard to point to a specific piece of data and say, "look, that proves that the PPA was OP".

Likewise, how about HE spam?

KPU, August 4, 2014 (one day before HE nerf)
Magrider HE- 16.29
Prowler HE- 14.37
Vanguard HE- 10.76

Which shows really low performance per user. Your average Vanguard HE user would only manage to kill about 10 people in an entire day. Which, if anyone is still confused about that number, is about the same number of kills the user of a Stalker scout rifle would get in a day (10.13).

There was no evidence that the PPA was a problem. There was no evidence that HE was a problem. Yet the PPA and HE were nerfed.

Now is there evidence of a problem with C4 killing MBTs? Well...

MBT Deaths, 30 Day Average
1) Prowler AP
2) Vanguard AP
3) VS C4
4) NC C4
5) TR C4
6) Magrider AP
7) TR AT Mine
8) NC AT Mine
9) VS AT Mine
10) Suicide

Yeah. C4 is more dangerous to MBTs than even the Magrider AP cannon. And you don't even see any Lightning cannons appearing in the top 10 list (the NC Lightning AP cannon makes an appearance at #22). C4 performs better than HEAT as well (Prowler HEAT is #17).

So how do you think when tankers point out that C4 is probably too dangerous to MBTs, presenting statistics and evidence to support their point, the reaction has been to pretty much ignore them. Yet when infantry start crying about non-existent problems they immediately get their wishes fulfilled?

The answer to the question of "who gets to call the nerfs" seems to be "infantryside". That is what is extremely unfair about the balancing in this game, and that is what exasperates vehicle users (who are also infantry players as well).

So either:
1) Nerf infantry AV weapons.
2) Unnerf vehicle AI weapons.

But when infantry (not saying you specifically) call for vehicle AI nerfs but resist infantry AV nerfs with cries of "don't nerf anything, just L2P", it sounds extremely hypocritical.

the ppa was broken, c4 and emps arent
big difference

Okay... let me ask you...

How do you know the PPA was broken while C4 and EMPs aren't?

A note... youtube videos and personal anecdotes aren't particularly compelling as "evidence".

because i sat on a hill and hosed people way too far away with the ppa, wrecking them..
because there was 10 other people doing it also, this was common. it was too easy to use
c4 has its moments of easy use sure but more often getting to those tanks and popping them isnt an easy thing, or at least SHOULDNT be if the tankers are paying attention/have prepared/have inf support
emps are crap and cold in fact use a buff

If tanks should have infantry support to avoid being C4'd.

Shouldn't infantry have had AP tank support to avoid being PPA'd?

After all, a 2/2 AP MBT would have a fairly easy time against a Magrider running PPA, even assuming that the Magrider is also not using HE.

We still playing the Nerf/Buff game?

That's so last year, let's come up with something new for 2016, yeh?

The amount of wisdom in this comment ...

I am pretty sure that, althought the PPA definitely was broken, the real problem was the platform that could mount it.
Had the PPA been a Prowler weapon the problem would've been much smaller.

Remember what happened around the time when the PPA problem really started?
If you guessed "SOE started putting indestructible walls around bases to separate tanks and infantry" then you are right.

So what did that lead to? Prowlers and Vanguards stood in front of indestructible walls, occasionally blowing up because of fairies.
Magriders on the other hand just climbed the next mountain and used that extra elevation to simply spam over the anti-tank walls with a freaking point&click weapon that had 4m splash, seemingly unlimited range and a 70!! shot magazine
In addition the lockon mechanics of losing any progress because of a ms interruption in the LOS to the enemy center of mass meant that the Magriders on the mountains could not be effectively attacked by infantery at range. Exceptions include Ravens, (kinda) Phoenix, and would include Fractures if the Fractures could scratch at least the paint. Annoyingly enough, the ideal weapons for this situation would be Lancer and Vortek, which unfortunately belong to the guys who didn't have the problem.
So, suddenly VS had an unfair advantage that they (ab-)used to no small degree and they had the absolutely ideal weapon for it.
It was actually rare to have only 4 Magriders floating on a hill spamming their blue balls of death.

Long story short - the PPA situation was a disaster several orders of magnitute bigger than any balance issues we have nowadays.
C4, which I personally think IS an issue, because it is all-powerful and (usually) NOT hard to use, is an NS weapon, so every faction has more or less the same gain and loss from it and it creates no faction imbalance.

Shure here you go:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...shoot-you-in-the-back-why-u-cant-move.237491/

Let's apply this post:

C4 is verry effective, true. ~9/10 (due to Latency issues)
Ease of use is easy to medium (You need to reach the tank without being noticed)

counter is available
(Move the tank, make your gunner hop out of the tank and shoot the LA (a flying LA is a sitting duck as the COF is to huge while midair)
Ease to use of the above is easy to medium
and it's verry effective in ~9/10 you will be able to kill the LA before he kills your tank

If the LA manage to sneak up on you, that's not the problem of C4 but your awarness/tunnel vision lack of coordination with team mates Okay Drifter LA droping from planes/cliffs are maybe a bit too good, but again if droping c4 from this hights the weapon gets harder to use, and it's easier to counter it via movement.

To me this seems like an balanced system. If your opinion is different, i would love to hear/see how you apply the above equasion to C4.

PS: As Magriders are verry mobile and Vanguards have their shield, they are stronger vs C4 only the Lockdown powler is weaker vs c4 (if compared to other MBT's) as lockdown prevents movement for a few seconds.
But a lot of dedicated lockdown prowler crews use the Spitfire turrets to make up for this weakness.

Statistically neither PPA or HE were broken however this is do to people getting smart about not dying to them and this is where people saw the issue which couldnt be tracked by stats. The thing about both is the suppression aspect they could lock 40 people in a spawn room the people didnt want to get insta gibbed and die so they stayed inside and neither of the PPAs counterparts could do this do to their lack of range this keeps stats in line tho a weapon is too powerfull. To compare the GK probably needed a bit of a nerf because tho it was statistically just fine its suppression aspect that cant be tracked by statistics was just a little too good however unfortunately for the other 2 weapons the people that nerfed them was SOE and not daybreak because daybreak does things in smaller steps as to not break things.

It's more often than not ... not realy a question about statistics ... more about the amount of people crying out for a nerf.

Of course it's in the devs best interest to try and make the majority of the players happy.
Well the majority are andhave always been infantry players.


No matter if you are a tanker or a pilot, in a whine fight against infantry you ll always lose, no matter the statistics.

Well, C4 is unfortunately a little bit... hard to evaluate. But sure nothing stops us from trying.

Weapon Effectiveness vs. Weapon Ease Of Use vs. Counter Availability vs. Counter Ease Of Use vs. Counter Effectiveness

Ok lets start with C4 now and get some numbers for that.

Weapon Effectiveness: 10 It is without any doubt the most effective weapon in the game, and only two units are able to survive 2 sticks afaik: Sunderer and Galaxy. I am unwilling do subtract one point because of lag issues, because those very same lag issues have killed me more than once in FAVOR of the C4 user: I see him in the door and blow up before he even drops the damn thing.

Weapon Ease Of Use: 4 / 8 The 8 is for LAs, the 4 for everybody else. For infantery battles, everyone can throw C4 into a doorway. LAs can throw C4 from the top of the building you try to enter or leave, leaving you no chance at all to react most of the time. As for the AV potential - normal people will usually rarely get close enough to use it against a vehicle, except if they throw it off a tower or something. LAs on the other hand have a variety of tools at their disposal that can make this rather easy - if the terrain is right. Drifter jumpjets enable the LA to fly a significant distance, and although it is of course possible to detect and eliminate that LA, the chance of detection decreases significantly if there are more immediate threats present. Enemy tanks and heavy assaults for example. An abundance of enemy signatures will also make a proximity radar far less useful.

Counter Availability: 10 This one is a bit wonky - technically there is no counter to C4, save for the Vanguard shield. "Not being there" can hardly count, since that is literally a counter to absolutely everything. So I suppose the counter is "kill the C4 guy before he drops it and/or evade ther C4". And I suppose everyone can do that.

Counter Ease Of Use 5.5 / 3 Shooting a guy would be simply average difficulty I guess.... unless it is a LA who can drop it on you without you ever knowing he was there. Especially a problem in biolab fights, but common enough anywhere. Tank usually got it a little better, since LAs have to use some effort to reach them, while infantry is mostly targets of opportunity.

Counter Effectiveness 9.8 Dead guys usually press no buttons anymore. In rare circumstances you killed the guy when he dropped his second stick, but before he pressed it - and get blown up by an EMP or stray shot. But 99.8% of the time it works all the time.

I have no Idea how to calculate those arbitrary values with each other....

For the tank, lets assume its an undeployed HE prowler...

Weapon Effectiveness: 7.5 / 10 The HE prowler can destroy any infantry that is near a wall or a piece of floor that he can shoot his shells into.Direct hits are kill

Weapon Ease Of Use: 9 / 5 / 3(2) Splash damage usually doesn't take much skill. But direct hits are not its forte, and usually it cannot raise its gun enough to slap a LA out of the sky. Unless the LA has been noticed very early of course, but if its on radar, its too late. The 2 would be the effectiveness for Vanguard and Magrider, that have only one shell per reload.

Counter Availability: 9.5 / 4 Like in the LA part, this one is pretty wonky. There is no counter to a tankshell. The only counter is destroying the tank. If C4 is a counter, which since it is the object our our discussion I will assume it is, then literally everyone save for the infiltrator is a threat. If it is not, that leaves HAs, MAX units. No vehicle counters here, that would make it even more messy.

Counter Ease Of Use: 7 / 5 An abundance of lockons in addition to Ravens MANA AVs, Phoenixes, Lancers... and of course C4-fu, which is the 4.

Counter Effectiveness 2 / 5 / 10 Infantry / MAX / C4. Nothing much to say here. A single footman will rarely severely damage a tank by himself, a MAX might fight a tank on even ground, and if C4 is used successfully - the tank is gone

IF the formula is supposed to be something like
Weapon Effectiveness * Weapon Ease Of Use - Counter Availability/10 * (Counter Ease Of Use * Counter Effectiveness)
Then we get 80 -1 * ( 29,4 ) = 50.6 for C4
And 30 -0,95 * ( 40 ) = - 6.5 for the Tank gun
Sounds a bit too much in favor of C4
If we assume that LAs are the weird fusion of flying target and footman that they are we get
(7.5 * 9 + 10 * 3) / 2 -0,95 * ( 40 ) = 10.75
Better
Still overwhelmingly in favor of C4.
BUT we are kinda comparing apples and oranges.

Because for a remotely accurate assessment we need to take into account some differences in the weapons themselves....
Initial cost
Pulling a tank costs 450 nanites. Being LA is free
Usage cost
Shooting with a tank is free, but dropping C4 costs 75 nanites apiece.
And I'd argue that free shooting is better than spawning free- so lets weigh that more by a factor of 3....
So C4 gets 3(usage)+10(initial cost) for a total of 63.6
And the tank adds up with 30(usage) + 1(cost) for a total of 41.75

Since all I just said are arbitrary values I assigned to the things that happen in game in a desperate attempt to quantify them, and it is absolutely debatable wether HE prowlers got a 8 or even a 10 in effectiveness against infantry etc. you will find it hard, if not impossible to discuss about this objectively.
But here is my attempt.

Oh, and if we add in a secret technique called "possible teamwork" into our equation....
Well "Balancing" is hard...

You took that post seriously??

ask and you shall receive lol

The main problem I see with raising the cost of destroying a tank with C-4 to a 3+ standard is the inevitable bickering between Light Assaults over who is going to throw their C-4 slab last.

If players truly are adamant about never allowing the introduction of an optional "C-4 armor," then what about removing the ability chain C-4? Throw a slab, trigger, blow a slab. Throw a slab, throw another slab, trigger, the second slab detonates, the first one is inert.

There's also my idea about two C-4 bringing a full-health tank into an absolutely critical state where if the player doesn't perform repairs immediately, the tank will explode; he doesn't even have time to drive any distance; but, if he does get out and focus on his tank, e.g., repairs, or flee, the person who planted the C-4 will be in a good position to gun him down. There's also the threat of dying to the tank's explosion even after having disembarked from it should there be any distraction. The tank driver is no less inconvenienced than before, and more often will probably still end up exploding, but I believe the encounter has become far more interesting because of it.