SOE, do not listen to INFANTRY telling you how to balance the game

Vehicles resource cost is pretty laughable. Also, if playing with friends, there's also now double the resources and double the reduction in cooldowns to spawning said vehicles.

That's not saying I agree with the way it is, as I would agree with Isilia's assessment on Vehicles in his above post. If a couple players could offer more to a battle somewhere, anywhere, than as running infantry, and they want to play in vehicles then why not?

There is no ratio. Resources are per person and that ratio you have in your head is not enforced in-game, at all. Just because 1 player is in a vehicle does not mean 5 have to run beside it. No one is ever trying to attain a ratio. They're just trying to take a base, defend it, play what they like, or play what their outfit wants or needs them to play. No one is like, "Oh well, ****, guess I have to play infantry cause that vehicle ***** over there just took the last tank spot."

the part that makes vehicles hard to balance is how easily accessible they are to EVERYONE, so in contrast they have to be sort of easy to kill. If they made vehicles "hard mode" to destroy, then what is the point in playing infantry when you can pull a vehicle?

As stated in countless threads in the forums, SOE should make vehicles harder to access by making you buy a license and maybe change timers, but on the flip side make vehicles better. Other than that they are just fine imo.

Uhm... Wow.

Infantry is not exactly the 'bottom' of the food chain, Colt. Infantry may not be the 'elite' cause they aren't driving millions of dollars/euro/whatever currency vehicle with millions of currency weapon systems, but at the same time, Infantry is counted on to do the job that a tank person cannot do or a pilot. That is to hold the ground.

Infantry prey upon air and tanks as well. What has been failed to be grasped by a lot of the players here is that infantry 'dig in'. Note, the phrase, DIG IN. Infantry literally digs foxholes, entrenchments and means to take on forces, both infantry and vehicles.

What a lot of you fail to understand is, this game has mostly STATIC setups. The only thing I can reference for you all to grasp is to look at all war movies out there. Midway, Band of Brothers, Hamburger Hill, Saving Private Ryan. Yes, most of them are World War II and with old style equipment and literal Hollywood attitude, but again, it points out something on some of the basics of Conventional Warfare. As much as you want to make Tanks and Air seem like they dominate 100%, in the long run... It only last for as long as it can stay out there, but infantry can also still PREY upon said armor and air forces... Infantry can setup defenses that can stall or counter a push, even with armor. Saving Private Ryan shows also the fact that Vehicles pushing into a town, relied on Infantry supporting them before they could so more serious damage.

What we are currently lacking is proper venues and abilities for infantry to do so. At the same time, we do have people who are playing in vehicles who want to treat it like Infantry are meant to be easily eaten and without repercussions to them in return. But even to this day, we are still creating defensive systems for VEHICLES to deal with infantry.

So the point here - Infantry is not necessarily the bottom of the food chain in warfare. There are a LOT of things out there where infantry is still expected to do that Air and Tanks can't do. In this game, one of them is to hold those control points. This game, however, has not afforded Infantry proper ways to control those points for defenders, because there is still the ease of having tanks and air to spam the crap out of certain areas with relative ease. I should know, I've been doing it as a tanker or ESFer as well as trying to push out as a defender.

• Resources, at the moment, mean **** all
• If your vehicle of choice is consistently getting blown up before the vehicle timer is up (you did cert into the vehicle timer right?) you're doing it wrong.

Very true .. Vehicles should be low in number but high in threat . In Ps2 they are low in threat but high in number .. and having them like some people want " high in threat and high in number " would break the game and would be just as stupid as having them low in threat and low in number ..

Lately, I have been sipping delicious tea with honey while viewing these threads, it makes for a fun variety read on these cold February evenings.


Insults are thrown, some people with actual intelect point out the issues politely and explain themselves but ultimately get ignored in the end, the thread leads to nil conclusion due to stubbornness and stupidity based on some self perceived superiority and then the thread gets derailed. And forgotten. Repeat ad nauseum next time.

I's almost like a grimm ballad of sorts.

I agree with this guy.

I really believe map design for Planetside 2 is my biggest gripe. I really feel like they failed big time.

I look at Essamir and think, this would of been perfect for some big underground bases/tunnels. Sure above ground is open, little cover, flat terrain, but then bases would be heavily fortified underground bases built for infantry fights.

Really the variety of terrain to facilitate different forms of combat is just disappointing.

The new swamp planet, Hossin, for instance, could have large forest areas, with canopies, preventing air interfering with the ground in many areas. And hard to navigate for tanks/sunderers except on roads, easily ambushed, so through those areas maybe flashes could even be useful actually.

But nope, we just get generic terrain littered with pretty generic bases, out in the open, that seem pretty damn bland. And so far all they've done is add more "clutter" to the spawn points. Meh.

Obligatory "the terrain/map design is the real problem". Somehow, with the exception of pretty much the biolab, "combined arms" turned into "vehicle camp the spawn room so our 3 infantry guys can cap the point".

You were about 5 minutes to late to oblige.

Both of which are failures of design and implementation.

If you want to play tanks then I'd suggest a tank game. Maybe one with world in the name. What's the point in playing a game like Planetside if the only thing you're going to do is sit in a tank and lob HE at infantry?

I'll oblige when I want to oblige!

Uhmm .....that is a lot. Like, a lot a lot. 40% of your kills come from vehicles. Seriously....the fact that you're oblivious to how that's a lot is astonishing.

This. Vehicles went from having a well-defined role to play in the grand scheme of Planetside (winning field fights, pinning enemies inside bases/towers but NOT actually determining whether or not a base got capped) to being one-size-fits-all powerups that could do everything that mattered in the taking of bases.

I can only hope that SOE is beginning to learn this lesson. In GU2 they moved the cap point on TI Alloys from sitting out in the open between the two buildings (and thus being vehicle spammed to hell) to being inside of the large two-level building (where the cap point usually is in the generator building of bio labs) where vehicles can make getting into or out of the building difficult, but they can't actually contribute much to the actual capping of the point.

I think that is some of the problem as well .. People complain that an Anni launcher targets both air and ground while things like HE shells and rocket pods do roughly the same but with armour and Inf .. There should be more forced choices in the game .. I would quite happily endorse removal of the anni in favour of players having to pick either G2A or A2A IF vehicles had to make more choices .. Like HE should do 0 dmg to Armour and AP 0 dmg to Inf

Touche, good sir!

If we go with real life, infantry most certainly are bottom of the food chain. Infantry vs tanks? They're screwed. Infantry vs planes? Screwed. Infantry vs helicopters? Screwed. Infantry vs ships? Screwed. etc etc etc. Now, I'm sure you'll come in and go "but infantry get RPGs and stuff!". While such systems exist they are NOT widely distributed. A full squad will, at best, have one anti-tank launcher. And those are almost always single-shot throw-away weapons. I don't actually think infantry even get AA weapons unless for specific missions. Infantry, 99.9% of the time, have no way to fight against tanks or aircraft. They are used solely for scouting missions, for dealing with other infantry, and for protecting vehicles from entrenched infantry.

PS2 does not portray this combined arms set-up. Every HA, every single ******* one, spawns with a rocket launcher. For a measly 1k certs you can get a launcher that locks onto every vehicle in the game and allows for easy damage. Infantry are given the ability to hard-counter every single vehicle when they shouldn't be able to. This removes the combined arms nature of the game, because infantry can literally do everything.

If infantry were given PROPER means of defense, like the ability to dig in as you mention, that would be fine. If HA's got single shot rockets. If engi ammo packs didn't allow for unlimited ammo. If engineers could set up stationary AA or AV turrets that could be used by other players. If these sorts of things were done, there would be no problem. The problem is entirely based around the fact that the HA class is given the ability to counter quite literally every single thing in this game. Aircraft, ground vehicles, and infantry can all be killed by a HA.

Infantry are the bottom of the food chain, does that mean they're unimportant? No, not by a long shot. But that's why it's COMBINED arms, not infantry arms. Everything has it's place, but at present infantry are usurping the place of vehicles. Infantry's place is NOT to fight vehicles head on, it's to capture bases. It's the vehicle's place to enable infantry to capture bases. Tanks/sundies are there to support allied infantry, fight enemy vehicles, and fight enemy infantry. Aircraft are there to counter tanks/sundies, to help remove these hard targets that infantry can't deal with. ESF/skyguards/burster maxes are there to help protect against air and keep allies safe from air attacks.

THAT is combined arms. Giving a HA a launcher that can lock on to every vehicle, giving every single class C4, giving vehicles AV, AI, AA weapons. Letting everyone do everything, that is not combined arms. Everything has it's place. And infantry's place is NOT countering vehicles.

That game with Tanks in the name doesn't allow for combined arms tactics. Beyond that, your options for driving a tank on a semi-realistic battlefield can be counted on one hand.

You do realize how ludicrous your argument is right? Taking your idea to the extreme, lets say SOE removes aircraft and tanks. Will the whiners be happy? No, the light assaults will cry about the heavy assaults. Then the MAXes will be removed. Then, it will be a glorified BF3 Metro or Counterstrike depending on how much nerfing is done. If someone ONLY wants to play one thing, I don't have a problem with it.

You want to spend all of your certs on a sniper rifle and be a sniper infiltrator? Ok, go right ahead. Just because not everyone plays your favored class (heavy assault/medic by the sounds of it.) doesn't mean they should get gimped. Ever heard of different strokes for different folks?

What your sarcastic comment fails to understand is that there is no place a tank or aircraft can't attack in this game. In Planetside you'd use air/vehicles to get to a base, push the courtyard, set up an ams spawn point, then proceed to have infantry battle inside an actual fully covered base with doors. These battles would often take a lot of time and it would be a tug of war going back/forth until some did a max rush, or someone set up a teleported, or an infiltrator snuck c4 (boomers) into the generator and blew it up.

In Planetside 2, bases are so open and accessible to vehicle spam it's crazy. Generators in amp stations are outside in vehicle/air camped areas. Tech plant spawn to generators is outside. Bio labs are the ONLY base where good infantry combat happens but even there I've seen magrider s up on the air pads shooting inside at everyone. Not to mention hacksaws ruin it for everybody there. They tried resolving some of these issues with the tunnel system, but its not enough.

The reason people are tired of aircraft/vehicles, is because they are everywhere. They can go everywhere. Anyone can get them. Resources are free. And if you're semi-decent you'll just cycle between different vehicles while the others are on cool down. Once the outdoors becomes tank/aircraft fights, and bases become "real" bases with just infantry fighting where pilots/drivers/gunners have to get out and engage in infantry combat, then opinions will change. But currently there is too much accessibility. Too much vehicle spam. And too few places where vehicles can't go/shoot.

So think before you post. You got a bunch of likes from other vehicle/aircraft spammers like yourself. You didn't convince anyone else.

Clearly you don't actually know anything about war. The US lost plenty of tanks to people with RPGs, one of the simplest anti-tank weapons in existence, when they invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. To this day they continue to lose vehicles in the middle easy to IEDs, RPGs, and other cheap, yet effective, weapons.