[Suggestion] The Ultimate Combined Arms Gameplay Thread

Wow. There's a lot to digest here.

Tank mines and C4 were in at launch, but now most everyone has certed into them so they're a more frequent threat. Tank mines, so long as they're set up ahead of time and not thrown under a deployed sunderer, feel powerful and rewarding even for their cost. It's not a gurantee that something is going to run over the mines or that they'll survive the explosion spam of a heated battle.

The splash radius really has hurt tanks. I used to love tanking, but now it feels like I'm just driving a pinata of exp. I get hit by 3 different HAs for 500 + 200 + 200 exp and they're often hitting me from outside of my own effective range.

I disagree about the cooldown change though. All that's going to do is make me stop playing if me and my buddy's timers are down. Why wait for 20+ minutes when I can play a different character or even a different game instead?

For the timers, think of it like this. If tanks were actually balanced and not complete garbage, you wouldn't have HA's two-shotting you in the rear. You'd be able to shrug off a ton more damage. You'd just generally have a lot more survivability. If you are dying 5 minutes after pulling your tank, why should you be allowed to turn around and get another one? If you can't last half an hour in the buffed MBTs, then you don't deserve to get a new one right away. Your enemy deserves to be rewarded for knocking you out of the game early on.

We don't punish infantry by locking them out of the game for several minutes. Why should vehicles be the same way? I can understand the resource cost as this helps emphasize the need to take and hold territory.

But if the options are getting farmed by tanks for 20 minutes (as it was the case before all of the changes) and playing another game I'll just go play another game. Death happens and sometimes I can live for 10+ minutes as infantry and some times I live for 10 seconds. Tanking works the same way and the cooldown timers just feel frustrating. Right now it's not a big deal with some certs put into them, but increasing the timer would just be annoying.

Infantry wont be rolling around in a steel fortress of doom that can annihilate anything on the ground and laugh at all but the most powerful AT weapons.

Pros and cons. We want tanks to matter, we want them to be powerful, we want them to lead charges, support, infantry, and make the enemy afraid to fight them. To do this we have to make them rare and difficult to come by.

With the buffed MBTs there should -NEVER- be a reason for you to die before your timer expires. The only exception would be if you screwed up, if you did something stupid, if you over-extended and got killed. If you ****** up and got yourself killed, you don't deserve to immediately pull a new tank. Again, we're talking about good, strong, durable MBTs. Not the paper tanks we have now. If we got proper tanks, with that timer, there will be nothing in the game that can kill you before you can react. So if you die it's because you were simply outplayed.

Troll all you want, you have no evidence that my videos are faked or are setup. You have nothing to suggest that I suck when I play infantry, and you obviously didn't read my thread or else you'd know my buff to tanks also makes them much more rare on the battlefield

I'm not convinced that making tanks 3/3 will be enough to balance them by making them scarce. I believe that if they are buffed a lot then people will still pull them in numbers and spam them to do 2/3 cert farming. Perhaps if it also cost a token number of certs to pull a MBT then people would think more about pulling one and they could stay as vehicles that worked with 1/2. Possibly vehicles with larger crews could be added later although the idea that people being on teamspeak gives them a right to use uber killing machines becuase it's double the fun is, I dunno.

Everything said by the OP I agree with. I am a dedicated tank user with a lot of certs into my tank and engineer. I am also a dedicated medic when I am not tanking. I consider myself a very smart tank pilot and wade on the side of caution most of the time because it only takes seconds to destroy a MBT right now. I am very good about keeping a constant 360 perception of the battle around me and that is a problem. I spend more time paranoid about LA and flanking HA that I sometimes cannot even focus on assisting a battle correctly. The moment you tunnel out (and it seems EVERY LA knows when this happens) you are C4'ed and gone.

The only comment I have for Air is the moment I enter a battle I have 2-5 seconds before I am attacked by AA and downed. If I can tailed by another ESF I am done as there is nothing I can do to out fly them. I admit I am beginner skill level with air at the best however.

Infantry I run support. I am highly certed in medic with the max tool, C4, revive grenades etc. C4 need to be taken away from Medics. I spend 600 certs and almost never use them. Medics need more ways to heal and assist, not destroy tanks.

In a forum that is predominantly full of whining and cries for dumbing down the game into a bland generic shooter, I have actually logged in to congratulate you on the most constructive summation, critique, and suggestion I have read to date. Although I may not agree with some of it (and it is hardly anything in all fairness), I can't help but sit up and take notice of your balanced and reasoned approach.

I wish more people like you took the time to suggest how to make this game monumental as a true stand out performer. It is with the help of those like you that SOE may yet turn this game into something close to how people describe Planetside 1.

I've not read all of the replies to this thread yet but I would hope I've joined in a long list of people who have nothing but praise for your work. No doubt there will be the odd people who will find fault, but that is to be expected (not only due to the nature of these forums, but also the fact that you'll never please everyone).

Seriously impressed.

You can't make the vehicle cost certs. Period.

However I think you are underestimating the power of crewed vehicles. Take a look at the lib. At current it's no better or worse than an MBT. It gets shredded by AA just as quickly as tanks do by AV. It's got giant guns capable of farming infantry. But do you see entire hordes of libs? Only when outfits decide to dick around. Your average battle will only see a handful of libs. Why is that? Because most players don't want to rely on another player. They'd rather take an ESF and have full control of the vehicle.

Tanks are no different. Players don't want to sit around waiting for a gunner. They don't trust randoms. They don't have any friends. They're control freaks. The vast majority of players simply do not want to share a vehicle with another player. So when presented with two options, a strong MBT that's effectively useless with a single player. Or a Lightning which is a perfectly good tank able to kill everything on the ground, yet can be taken solo. Which do you think they'd pick?

The reason requiring 2 players is the best method of balancing is because it plays off the weakness of the average gamer. That being the need to be in control. It's simply a fact that most of the community would not enjoy having a vehicle where they can't both drive and gun by themselves. Thus they wont use it. Only dedicated tankers would use it, and compared to everyone else they would be in short supply. Thus you would end up with a few, very powerful MBTs per fight instead of dozens of weak ones.

about the infantry aspect:

Furthermore: You check EliteEskimo players stats
https://players.planetside2.com/#!/5428010618040867281/

4k+ kills with prowler
despite the 400 kills with Infantry class MAX and despite the 170 kills with anti tank mines
Less than 200 kills with infantry weapons! (this guy is BR 46)
and one loosy kill with the mosquito!
He is a tank maniac. A sitting duck who wants more easy kills, thats why he wants tank > everything!
PROVED!

about tank balance:
Make tanks more rare on the battlefield and more powerful! Iam ok with that!

But why nerf infantry and air? Thats doesnot make sense. If you buff tanks shouldnot infantry and air stay at their "powerlevel" ?

They could make it cost certs to pull a vehicle if they wanted to. You don't like the idea apparently, but they could.

Your idea is apparently to make it so only that the "peasants" could get no enjoyment from playing MBT in order to reduce the numbers and make it so a smaller group could be way overpowered with few people complaining. The idea of making them cost certs to pull means that they can be balanced in terms of power making them good to use but not overpowered, limits their numbers and discourages new players who are not specialised to spam them constantly.

There are also plenty of Liberators in this game although not as many as ESF. The risk reward on rocket pods is still so much in their favour that people still recommend them as the first cash purchase for new players. There is no equivalent for Lightening. This distorts things a little.

But that does not mean that Liberators have not had times when they were spammed and seen as overpowered. People farmed a lot with them with not much more teamwork than, "I need a gunner for my lib," and, "do you see that," then, "boom boom, yup."

In general though I find that most people with upgraded tanks are more than happy to have people just dropping in as crew. And when I drive a tank I like it. If all they do is spot, shoot and ask for ammo then that's great. Happy to drive for them.

Because Infantry will get buffs from other ways anyway, like new base design. Air is not even getting a nerf, only the ESF in it's A2G role while getting a buff for actually assisting a Liberator to do it's job.

And again with the stats... stats mean nothing. Shouldn't somebody that actually plays a lot of Tank's actually know what he is talking about Tank balance?

And the Infantry nerf in itself is no overall Infantry nerf, only a HA nerf and not even a nerf in power, only in spam ability of something that has gotten out of hands already in beta. AV Lock Ons in mass was to powerful back than, but this was kinda compensated by how powerful Tanks were at that time. Which after all those further buffs to Infantry and nerfs to Armor has now gotten totally out of hands.

But Tank's should be reduced in numbers, if you make them mandatory crewed to have access to the powerful guns... you will see a lot less MBT's, you might see more Lightnings now instead of MBT's but they are a lot less powerful than the current 1/2 MBT ... and most players do not even have cert's into their MBT's that spam them, so most of those Lightnings will run around with the 75mm gun...

Just because I don't play much infantry doesn't automatically make me horrible at it. That is a really bad assumption to make, and my stats don't support your views at all other than supporting that I love playing in a tank. I love playing in tanks, but I'm also an infantry/Max player and if you look at my recent kills I do have several kills with my lynx and with my Dual Mercies. To be honest I don't always get the best frames in the game, but playing in a tank also helps make up for that, I can do well in a tank at 20-25 FPS but it's really hard to do that as infantry. I have one kill in my mosquito because I found I can't fly well with 10-20 FPS in the air.

I don't want easy kills, I get enough kills as it is and my KDR is constantly increasing which suggests I'm playing alright, but I can't do that supporting infantry on the front line very long. I also think it's wrong to have my tank constantly blown up by non rendering threats, getting instagibbed by ESF's, and killed behind cover too.

Now we get to the point!
I love to play infantry. I get killed by snipers i dont see. I get killed by tank shells i dont see coming. I get killed by Libs L105 Zepter.
And... i am not complaining about it because its part of the game. I know there is a difference between "not rendering" and "i dont see it" - technicaly, but bottom line - its the same!

You cant mix critic about game engine not rendering stuff and class play balance (nerf / buff) !!

You are unhappy with the game engine. Well then dont play the game. Its not that easy for SOE to change it. Its about performance aspects.

You are unhappy how the game is balanced? Well that is somehow subjective to me! Sometimes the majority of this forum agrees with you. Sometimes they dont. If you dont want to be instakilled by an ESF then position yourself right! Have 2-3 Skyguards in your team?! (they are useful when you have more than one). Yes, he might still instakill you but he wont make it out alive. So he trades your tank against his ESF. Deal with it!

Once again. Tanks have situations when they shine, and they have situations when they get killed easily. Its called balance! Every class has this problem. See my stats, i play infantry, ESF and tank. I like all three of them. And i can tell you, its balanced.
I decide which option i use when the time is right. I dont use tanks or ESF ALL THE TIME. I judge whats superior in a certain situation. And when iam killed its the signal to myself to change the way of fighting.

You are dying a no penalty no resource cost death, and you are back in the battle 10 seconds later. I'm in a giant metal tank that will now require a team to operate, costs 450 resources to pull, on a long cool down timer, which may have to drive 5 minutes to get back into the battle. That's a huge difference, you can bear dying to non rendering threats under those scenarios, Tanker's shouldn't have to given the huge penalties.

There is a huge difference between not rendering and can't seeing something. Can't seeing a threat means they are using the Phoenix, not having a threat rendering means a bunch of things. It means I don't know exactly where it's coming from, I can't damage the threat if it hasn't rendered means I have to go close while getting shot, and the threat (which is infantry and costing zero resources) is actively stopping a giant metal tank that costs many resources, a team to work, and is on a cool down timer. Just last night my MBT was destroyed twice behind the Amp Station and Tawrich Tech Plant shields because infantry were shooting AV rockets from so far away the rockets didn't recognize there was a shield wall up and passed right through it. The rockets didn't explode, my tank just decreased in health till it blew up. How is this remotely fair?

Secondly, way more people are agreeing with my positions than yours in this case on this thread. Why should 3 people have to become completely useless against armor, way less useful against infantry, and spend 600 combined resources to pull 3 skyguards (which are horrible inaccurate) protect from 1 ESF that one person is manning that can Instagib me in under 2 seconds by merely getting behind me?

Tanks should always have a role in the fight, not be forced to turn back because there are 5 AV turrets or Lancer's on a mountain top 800 m away shooting non rendering rockets that are 2-5 shooting me. It's not balanced, and ever since the release of the AV launcher and the ESRL's threads have been going up everywhere how tanks are garbage and how vehicle combat has been destroyed.

I own a few anti tank weapons (in a demilled form.... damn you laws). The AT4's rocket is small, here it is compaired to a 150mm artilary shell (close to what the PS2 tanks fire)



Note, the rocket from the AT4 contains the warhead and the propelent, where the artilary round below it is Just the thing that flys out the end (its a big bullet, with no casing).

How the little AT4 like rockets in this game are as powerful as that huge shell below it is just strange... If they could make a small rocket so powerful, think of packing that same explosive compound into the tank shells! it would one shot a tank from the front with the current armor design. a Javalen rocket is a 50 pound rocket + tube (not counting the Command Launch Unit, the reusible / targeting part) and costs somthing like $80,000 wile a single AT4 is about 10 pounds and costs around $1000. a side note, AT4's are not counted as weapons, they are counted as a round of ammunition to the armorers.


IMO, it should take a handful of troops with dumbfire weapons to take down a single tank, not one troop from behind cover. wile we are at it, SOE needs to either fix how the rear damage works and give the tank a real hitbox or remove that behind damage altogether.

And if your at all intrested in the other fun things I own, here is a old pic (currently at work, you get whats uploaded to my imgur).

Who would have guessed, a careful and considered approach that combines the perspectives and experiences of many different players results in a post chock full of insight and good suggestions. Video evidence was also spot on.

I wish I could do more to bring this to the attention of SOE.

Look up my stats, I agree with them.

I will tell you in advance - I have more kills with a single medic rifle (that I don't use much anymore since I am going for my aux medle on a 2ed one) than I do in both my MBT and Reaver combind.

Tweet them this thread or forward it to them on Reddit, I have a busy university schedule so trying to maintain this thread, and one on Reddit, and keep up with twitter is currently not possible with my schedule. Creating this thread alone was a monumental time sacrifice on my part that took a significant amount of time.

You can also forward it to your friends so they know this reads likes a good book and is worth spending 5-10 minutes to read and analyze. I spent around a month waiting to get everything I needed to make this, but you won't know that until you take the time to read it. Any help to get this forum noticed is highly appreciated.

As always great thread and detailed explanation.

I feel soe doesn't put enough distinction between classes, instead opting to give each as many varied means of countering everything because the player base doesn't like it when a tank rolls up on them and they can't do anything about it. It should be a system of hard counters, with each class having distinct and varying abilities and weaknesses. no more swiss army knives.

I think it would be a good idea for air balance to completely remove rocketpods and all forms of lock on missiles from the game. instead ESFs can cert into specialized nose guns that will determine what role they play (like an ap rotary/banshee/heat) which means less infantry complaining about dying to a splash damage weapon and less (which seems to be the main reason nobody likes lolpods) and less aircraft dying to lockons.