Upcoming Tank and Liberator Changes

Range doesn't have much to do with HE at all though. You aren't direct hitting your target.

If anything, the extra gravity will be a small buff to HE shells, allowing full use of it's splash damage on a surface by achieving better arcs.

Like he said, it only impacts tank vs vehicles (air included).

BTW, I will still know when you quote me even if you remove my name.

i know this.

N7Havoc -

#1 - Perfectly said. That minority of A2A lib pilots you describe is a fairly small, tight-knit group. About 2 dozen decent lib crews on Matherson all accounted for are all that's left. Fewer every day. The teamwork it takes to make effective use of the lib without dying every 2 minutes requires hundreds of hours of practice and communication on voice chat. We all know each other (most not just by handle) and know what it takes to be decent. This time invested with highly skilled and extremely dedicated players means there is some very rewarding camaraderie - even cross faction. Frankly speaking - that's a lot of the reason I still play PS2 and I think most would agree. It's this same sense of community combined with skill/dedication that propels some games to be legendary (WoW, Counterstrike, Guild Wars). By nerfing the A2A effectiveness so the lib is only good at ground pounding, they are damaging the source of community that has grown up for no apparent reason. I can firmly say the proposed changes (especially combined with the tank movement buffs) are only going to make it drastically harder to fly and defend against all 10 or 12 already effective counters against libs.

It's hard to describe this, but I feel like the high skill ceiling/rewarding aspects of A2A and community that has formed around it provides uncapitalized positive marketing that I don't think SOE has taken into account. There are plenty of other games with better infantry gameplay. 8 of the 10 guys I got to download and play this game quit after 30 hours because infantry sucked, and it took so much time to get enough certs to get your vehicle to an adequate level of competitiveness. It's only the few that stuck it out and sometimes I feel stupid for doing so. It's just that the unique gameplay aspects and extreme complexity of effectively libbing make it a highly rewarding experience that I think PS2 does better than a lot of other games. The thing is - a lot of these pilots that are going to take the brunt of the nerf stick are the same people that you see podcasting for tournaments and posting gameplay videos with 10's of thousands of views on youtube.

I can safely say that highly skilled and extremely dedicated means something. I've played (won some and lost a lot) with many FPS over the last 15 years. I've spent thousands of hours scrimming against CAL Main/Invite teams in CS 1.5 & 1.6 that would later show up on the mega tournaments that are used to showcase games. Some game manufacturers are literally dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into marketing to try and make their games look decent enough to attract that sort of talent. It's disgusting to see SOE, when they stumble onto something decent, destroy that which they do not obviously understand.

I think they should look at the average flight time for vehicles pulled. I bet it would be a revealing experienced on how "balanced" the lib is. I remember being a sub-100 hour player and my average flight time in a lib was about 45 seconds. 30 of which was finding a fight. Heck, at 500 hours and flying with two gunners with a combined game time of 3000 hours we sometimes only last 3 or 4 minutes many nights. It's that rare run when you take out 6 or 7 tanks/sundes, 2 or 3 ESF's and a lib that keep me coming back.

I also think they should take note that the people posting these 1+ page replies critically analyzing each proposed change have 500+ and sometimes 1000's of hours of gameplay. I'm seeing a lot of seniority in this thread.

poojam you literally created a account 3 days ago just for this thread.


your the 4th new guy on the forums I've seen thats done this, and whos also come up with a "creative" name.




I can understand your worried, but i rather actually Test the changes and see what exactly they are changing.

i have over 500 hours in this game. i just don't post on the forums until i have a vested interest.

This is the sort of change that encourages people to say something though. Why should forum presence have anything to do with it either? He makes a valid point, especially in that it is flat out difficult to fly these these things well. As a lib pilot myself, I've learned quite a bit. I'm not the best by any means, but I've had my share. Flying a shredder lib takes a kind of finesse like nothing else, especially due to the gimbal. It has a very restricted firing arc.

People seem to find an argument in that tanks should be able to fire its primary gun at aircraft, why is that any different from a liberator? Its not hard for vanguards to peg aircraft, nor for deployed prowlers to be the hands down most effective galaxy removal platform. Things like that make the game interesting. The fact is, no matter the nerfs the Dalton recieves it will still be used against ESFs and infantry. All it does is diminish the weapon, and make others more attractive. Its pretty sad to be honest. As the liberator gets weaker, the fewer there will be that fly it.

One last thing. The composite armour change was uncalled for. The idea was to address the fact that the liberator is so inaccessible to your everyday Joe. These changes will hit the newer pilots and gunners the hardest. Survival times will go down, and so there will be fewer people learning.

They won't disappear as suddenly as the harasser did, but it will be gradual. Higher BR players will tire of things and move on, leaving no new blood.

These changes are bad news for the newbies. My gunner will likely handle increased gravity just fine, and I'll compensate as well.

if pilots want to combat this nerf, the simple solution would just to not fly the new aircraft. don't buy anything for it, don't cert it out, and don't buy any of the other Lib weapons. then, when the new shiny toy is reserved noobs, and mass crashes into the other warpgates, SOE might listen. remove your skills from the pool, vote with your wallets

HE Lightning has been my **** from Beta. i certed out my Rival, my NAR, and Night Vision [pre-nerf]. i'm a horrible FPS player, but here, here was a playstyle that fit me! i could help my team out, and rack up a good amount of kills.

first, they nerfed NV. okay, no big deal, right? switch to Thermal.

*then they put up more and more walls around bases. okay, i just have to work a bit harder to find a good shelling spot. and by shelling, i mean i know how to use the gun. i can hit moving targets, i know my drop pretty well, i learned the playstyle.

then, came the NAR nerf, so now even ONE deci hit means i have to peel out and hope i don't get hit by another.

and now they want to change **** even more, but the pilots will be getting shafted now. apparently, we CAN'T choose our own playstyles. we didn't hack this **** in, we were given it. we took what they gave us, and we learned our ****. part of being a community is learning to look past the fact that you keep getting obliterated by someone, and consider what it took to do it. dalton air kills make me feel AWESOME whenever i watch a montage, or someone's Twitch, so i can't even imagine what it feels like to be able to do that
with some degree of consistency.

TLDR; i'm sorry, pilots. i really am. i'm sorry people are idiots and that they make every update feel like your toilet has a noise-sensitive nuke in it.

As a BR100 TR, I bet this would create interesting encounters, so I vote yes =D

@poojam , actual in game name, not just a creative forum account - please look up people on the player pages before commenting. (plus it's you're, not your).

has anybody noticed the Lib crews speaking here are voicing their opinions with articulate and intelligent responses?

thanks poojam for representing Mattherson as part of another skilled lib crew there, I think you nailed the points perfectly.

@KaoticSnake thanks for taking the time to spell it out too, I read the whole thing.

to sum up and add another pro Lib voice:

risk vs. reward is already where it needs to be, it takes many hours in a lib to not fry within 45 seconds of pulling.
the Tankbuster is a close range weapon with weird drop, fire angle and fire rate - it's freaking hard to use! ESFs will often come in firing beyond visibility and we just have to wait until they get close to hit them with the TB or Shredder and even closer with the Dalton. again, if you got hit by a Dalton in an ESF, you need approach differently.
changing he velocity on these and Libs will be sitting ducks for ESFs and noobs will never learn to fly/gun, they'll be toast as soon as they leave the warpgate.

but air to air isn't really the problem, it's the ground that's complaining. risk vs. reward again, THERE ARE 2 OR 3 GUYS IN A LIB using teamwork and tactics to get these results, your one Skyguard shouldn't be able to take three guys out, you need to get two guys which will more than destroy a Lib. Teamwork vs. teamwork! SOE you need to think about this. THE SHREDDER IS A CLOSE RANGE WEAPON ALREADY - Libs can't get close to any area with two Skyguards, two AA turrets, two Burster Maxes, TWO Walkers (on one Sunderer!), two HAs with Lockons or any combo of these, so we're already out gunned by two people vs. three - not to mention that AA can hit us beyond our visibility range. three HAs with lockons can take down a Lib immediately - so, it appears pretty well balanced and indeed when this is the case, we go down very fast. but if one guy wants to pull a Burster or a Skyguard, there should be no expectation of taking down a two man Lib and would discourage teamwork on the ground if that were the case. when I'm playing ground, I follow these ratios and don't have problems with Liberators. Yes, make the Lib louder, more distinct, I hate being snuck up on too!

YOU HEAR THAT SOE, LIBERATORS ENCOURAGE TEAMWORK!

Amerish is better at spawnroom protection, fix Indar - I agree it's not great, I don't enjoy camping spawns in the Lib, the best play is fending off all the above mentioned stuff trying to take you out, coming out of battles on red, hiding to repair, picking off single tanks in a hail of flak only to run out on red again. or taking two Libs and countering a 25% vs. 75% tank zerg. I fill up my harddrive with videos of these battles, I share with friends - it's awesome!

DEVS PLEASE SPEND THE DAY IN THE BACK GUN WITH US!

Feem - Mattherson

speaking more about balance and the other changes:

there's a reason both the pilot and gunner of a Lib crew certs out their Libs, because there is a pretty good chance you will die before your timer is up to pull another.

one Air Hammer Reaver with max stealth can take out a Lib before it can turn to face it, try that with the equivalent TR or VS gun. You'll understand the change.

Lockdown and range reduction on a Prowler - does not compute.

just, just too many changes at once...

Cant read all 48 pages, can somebody summarize for me how bad for Mag will be losing perk of only stabilized tank?

Nobody knows yet because the only released information so far is in the OP or that one clarifying post a little later. A whole lotta speculation and panic, but no substance.

And the same apply twice over for any ground forces; have you tried to get close to any half sized 24+ enemy position? The AV turrets will hit you 150m before you can even have a theoretical chance to render them (and if it's halfway decent fight the render distance will go below 300m quickly) and since you're a ground vehicle you can't go up/down or AB away at 200km+ at liberty either. All you see is 20% chunks of your armor going away out of the blue (if lucky and not get two or three turrets targeting you directly). And since we're talking infantry you know every single HA has a rocket launcher in some form (be it lock on or dumb fire) which they simply itch to use on a big fat juicy target. Guess what's easier to hit; a ground vehicle going up to 60km/h or a flying tank doing three times that speed?

Yet a single Medic/Heavy/LA with C4 will instant kill a 2/2 tank costing 450 resources; as will a single 1/3 Lib hoovering in front of the gun using TB on it (and if they are smart they have mined up a few alternative routes as well). That tank not only cost more resources but it also lacks the speed, armor and freedom of movement that a Lib has to approach this.

Yea; the fact a Lib could fly in, park in front of a MBT and TB the tank and then fly out is in no way pointing out something was wrong with the update to composite armor; no sir, all perfectly balanced here.

An ongoing theme here appears to be that that Lib pilots think they should be unique in that they should be able to approach battles and go straight through the most intense fighting without worry to deliver a payload or three; well welcome to the life of every ground vehicle. Big fight = stick to the edges and support infantry or die in a fiery ball of fire. At least you'll be able to support once the push goes into the bases themselves; that's more than most ground vehicles can do with all these walls around them...

Now don't get me wrong as well; do I think they have (most likely barring more numbers on the table) gone to far? Yes but did something need to be done? Oh hell yes. The simple fact multiple things they should have done from removing certain vision options, changing it from gun to dumb fire bombs ala PS1, removing speed and agility, limit fire when not pointing down with the guns etc. was not done is a missed opportunity but the Dev team is very much one rail track on these type of things; tweak the numbers but for the love of don't actually change the mechanics even if they don't work (looking at you ZoE).

I'm with Poojam 100%, Just like him I also spend hundreds of hours just to get the handle on the liberator and how to fly it, not to mention thousands of certs it takes just to make this vehicle able to survive in the air.
The thing people don't understand is that this vehicle requires 3 people and you need to be able to communicate properly with each other by using Teamspeak, without this coordination between pilot and gunners you will not accomplish much and die in a few minutes.
If you take any other combination, like for example 3 HA's with lock-ons, 3 skyguards, 3 AA maxes or 3 ESFs with the exact same coordination there is absolutely no way the liberator can do anything to counter this threat.
The issue is that the liberator requires teamwork and most of the time the enemy just runs around like chickens without heads and then they come on the forums to cry wolf about the liberators, not to mention that the general game base design and the lack of open areas (bases are literally next door of each other) does not support the simple fact of vehicles that require teamwork in this game.
Planetside 1 way way better at this because you had actual open space between bases to fight.

So people please remember, a liberator is easily countered and before you want to see it nerfed into the ground like the harasser just try it out yourself, spend those thousands of certs and understand its not an easy job to survive in this thing.
You have to be VERY opportunist in this thing and pick out targets carefully, if this nerf goes though I'm afraid the lib will lose its place in this game, we've got threats everywhere and can't even enter medium-large sized battle to begin with so nerfing it any further is not the solution here.
We need to point the finger at game mechanics and base design instead, unless you want to play COD of course then by all means nerf all vehicles into the ground.

Taken from here; now replace the Lib with any other vehicle in game and try to repeat that battle.

Nody, one story from one person does not represent the truth, of course if your stupid enough to show your rear end to a libs tankbuster while standing motionless then you deserve to die.
Also you don't mention what kind of terrain there is around this "story" of yours, if theres a hill where the lib can run to for cover then it has nothing to do with the lib being OP but everything to do with the advantage of terrain this libs pilot is using.
What you just describes is completely impossible in an open area.

You say that the prowler is the victim, but you imply that there will be players still using the prowler. After this nerf, I'm guessing that magrider usage will be at an all time low. SOE will need to buff another aspect of it significantly to compensate for this.

Also you have 0h 0m inside the lib, why are you commenting in this post to begin with.

Oh please... why does almost every person on these forums have something against using weapons or vehicles in a way other than intended? It brings a great sense of achievement knowing that you by YOURSELF are capable of beating others in a multi-person vehicle. There is also a sense of achievement knowing that you have the skill level to use a weapon for something other than it was designed for, of course judging by your arguments you don't appear to use the Dalton for A2A much? The Dalton is no different from a MBT main cannon, except it is attached to the bottom of a liberator.

There is nothing wrong with using the Dalton for A2A, do you have any idea just how boring the shredder is? Not only that, using the Dalton in A2A requires more skill than the shredder, you only have a few shots and the fight could be over where as the shredder it's just rakrakrak.

Well said, many kudos to you Sir.
Wonder if any of our posts of this thread will actually be looked over, maybe SOE with all their power should indeed look at those of us who have experience in these unique areas of the game they are nerfing to kingdom-come, analyzing each others post and giving it a respectable thumbs up and perhaps consider what such changes (to the dalton and the tankbuster) would do to stop spawn camping (absolutely nothing, it will just increase it due to less versatility turning the liberator 'gunship' into a liberator 'bomber') and think of some alternatives.

I know if those patch goes through I might just go back to another successful game where unique aspects are not being nerfed to kingdom-come (Counter-Strike: Source)