[Suggestion] The Ultimate Combined Arms Gameplay Thread

No, a single player can not normally perfectly control a tank in all situations. How would the game as a whole benefit from having more tanks that are shooting in different directions to the way the driver is looking? Not that much I think. I don't think that the idea has as much general appeal as you think it has compared to people expecting to be able to drive the tank and fire the main gun. But you don't want to make tanking appealing do you? You want to drive people away from it to make it more of an exclusive club.

You hate the skill argument? Tough, your dislike of it is neither here nor there.

I don't hate the teamwork argument but nobody has a monopoly on defining what enables or disables teamwork. You think that three man tanks that "cannot be killed by any lone infantry" is teamwork. Three other people might want to work as a small team of armour with one MBT and a lightening and use flanking more. Three other people might want to work as an infantry team with a HA, engineer and medic and expect to be able to ambush a small tank column. And the game would get stale if simple teamwork always guaranteed a win just by playing by the numbers.

And I'm sorry but Lightening just doesn't have any weapons that are flat out effective as rocket pods in all situations. I only ignored other weapons because you only discussed AP and HE. About the closest they have is the viper which can take a MBT with two volleys to the rear, rather than one for the pods, and can then melt large groups of clustered infantry, better than rocket pods. But all of this involves more risk. If Viper had double damage and a much improved vanguard shield then I would accept an argument saying that lightening is equivalent to ESF (and therefore mbt should be equivalent to lib).

EliteEskimo - i like most of you ideas about changing the way MBT's should operate and that they for sure need more distinct defined roles (AV, AI, ...). However, i don't see how all you suggestions support a better combined arms approach. Essentially, you wanna buff tanks and debuff infantry and to some extent air (particular all those who causes a threat to MBTs). This sounds a bit harsh but i feel it summarizes all your suggestions quite well. Your suggestions do only support better team play in terms of adding team requirements on MBTs and favoring air team play by rolling out higher XP. But this is not combining arms!

So unless you come up with some real suggestion on how to promote better combined arms game experience - I myself suggest you better strip off all the infantry/air part, rename the thread title to something like "Make tanks more viable ..." and start all over again (even though this would be a redundant thread then as most of your ideas are nothing new).

Thanks, I'm just trying to get some structure in these discussions

On ESRL's:
I considered them long range, because that is their most optimal distance. At shorter range dumb-fire rockets can out damage them (taking into account reload speeds etc, ...) while at longer range the ESRL's all have an incredible accuracy advantage (lock-on, camera guided and extreme travelling speed with no drop off). I'm not saying they can't be used at Short-range, but their design supports stimulates Long-range play.

On resource cost:
Ah, my bad. I assumed you meant all rockets. This is indeed a much beter alternative, leaving medium ranged rockets for defence while adding a cost to the Long-range weapons.

On possible ways to reduce Long-range efficiency:
I'm still working on this one. I have some ideas but still need to analyze them a bit better before I start suggesting them.

The increased combined arms comes from the fact that infantry tend to outdo tanks in the few roles tanks were supposed to excell at ('Hunting' and 'Escort/transport'). This obsoletion means tanks have become exceedingly rare in any large group or as part of an offensive. By buffing tanks in a certain way, they can give them back their necessary role in this game, which the infantry can complement rather than usurp. (I don't like plugging myself but, if you want the full explanation, you can read my post on page 10 of this thread.)

I don't like the idea of having 3/3 crewed MBT unless the driver gets the main gun, the main gunner gets the secondary weapon and the second gunner an AI coaxial with some degree of movement.

I didn't cert my gun and MBT to be a choffer.

Otherwise everything else in the post is a great idea, pretty much summarizes every single thread in the vehicle discussion subforum

TL,DR: tanks are supposed to be more resistant and cost more resources, rockets or rocket launchers should cost resources.

It's the same concept as the liberator. Driver doesn't get the main damaging gun. But it doesn't matter, SOE will never change their minds on this. They suck like that.

Don't be so sure, I've had multiple people from SOE comment saying it's a good and detailed thread. There also existing coding in the Test Server for a 3rd Seat and they already have a Coaxial MBT Gun Coded. Stay hopeful, I know they are watching this thread for the feedback, so if we get enough people who want 3/3 MBT's who knows they may just implement it.

Bill I just completely ripped to shreds your theory on Infantry adapting to tanks and this is why tank combat is destroyed. In my thread I stated that I want tank spam gone, resulting in a few strong tanks being pulled. Since there is no longer tank spam there should no longer be rocket spam. Spam is bad. I don't see why this is such a hard concept.

Why does everything need to have a cert to defend against? Okay Bill, so by your logic lets take away Infantry's Flak Armor or the HA's over shield. After all why do they need a defensive cert against vehicles and damage in general? See, that's the type of statement you're making right now.

An Anti-Sniper Helmet for Phoenix's... you mean when you fire the Phoenix you don't hide behind cover which is its primary and unique advantage over every other rocket launcher?!!?!?! I thought that was the whole point of the Phoenix. Secondly, it takes more skill to line up and land 1-2 heads shot on a HA then it does to put a camera guided rocket on a huge tank.

Not really. The problem with HA combined arms is they are better than every other class by a mile and it is partially why they are used so much more. There is effectively only one class that can have multiple loadouts that make them effective at AI,AV,AA. Tanks are currently shut out of big and sometimes medium sized battles, so that is a combined arms discussion. Liberators don't have a role in big battles anymore, and have had their AV role stolen by ESF's. So that is an Air combined arms dicussion.

I had so much to talk about tanks because mechanically they are broken, balanced wise they are broken, and spam wise they are spammy. I also talked about tanks more for the simple fact they are the biggest thing thing not included in the combined arms gameplay aspect of the game right now, second to maybe only Liberators. If you read my suggestions, making MBT's require tanks and then buffing them to make them have a place on a battlefield is combined arms. It's combined arms because it is bringing tanks back into large battles. I know my thread is a long read, but I really think you need to read my thread against, watch the videos. It's really apparent that I want to do much more than just make tanks viable again.

I would match rather the tank gets additional firepower as people get added in, with penalties for lower-loaded tanks.

A 1/3 tank would be able to fire its main or its secondary gun depending on what seat the driver is in, but only be able to reload at half of its normal reload speed.

A 2/3 tank wouldn't have any sort of reload penalty, and have access to the primary and secondary weapons.

A 3/3 tank would get access to a third, otherwise locked weapon that can only be accessed by a 3rd person. The 3rd person would also have access to fire suppression if the cert is available (make it available on all 3/3 vehicles to encourage, SURPRISE, tail gunners to be appreciated on Libs and 3rd gunners to be appreciated on tanks)

To balance things out, we would allow only ONE AV or AA gun on the tank, so no dual Rangers or Walkers or Rangers or Halberds or HRBs. You can have an AA and an AV, but not 2 AAs or 2 AVs. You can have 2 AIs, that's fine. Basilisk, I'm actually iffy on, because I know 2 of them are quite scary on a Sunderer.

That makes all three seats a vital part. If you want an infantry-whacking machine, HE/Kobalt/Kobalt or whatever, and have at ye.
If you want an anti-tank build, AP/Vulcan or RL/Basilisk or Whatever

People should want to be in a 3/3 tank, in any seat. The driver, who is normally the one who certs the darn thing, gets the main gun and the driving because, seriously, he spent the certs for it. Making it a 2/3 requirement to use the main gun makes things derpy because when vehicles spawn, they spawn 1/3, and in a tech plant fight, we all know that the spawned tanks are pretty much under fire when they pop out.

Obviously, tanks would need to be a bit beefier in some fashions to manage surviving against other tanks, or we'd end up with scary one-shot scenarios with main gun/rocket/basilisk tearing through armor, but pretty much yes, please.

Very Interesting Ideas Compass, thanks for commenting since this actually sounds better than my option B Idea. That being said I still don't think it would out rank option A, classic crewed tanks with a MBT AI type/ Flash Grade weapon for the driver. So far classic crewed tanks have the least balance issues associated with them. As I have been told, being able to go 1/3 in buffed up tanks would likely cause some problems with tank zerging one way or another. How would you implement your idea in such a way as to promote people pulling lightnings over a slower reloading 1/3 MBT? I'm actually very curious to know, because as of now I don't have a clear cut idea that would bring complete balance while giving the driver control of the turret in a 3/3 MBT.

My name is G3rt on matherson, You can check my stats if you wish to see that I am a avid lib pilot. I agree with a lot of the points mentioned in this thread, OP you have some serious commitment to this game to go through the trouble you have, I am thoroughly impressed. Here are my thoughts

The biggest problem with air currently is several things:

1: Too much aircraft, everywhere. too easy to fly, constant collisions, too much AA because of too much air.

2: Skill cap is too low to farm kills, resulting in too much AA

3: Vtol, Who thought having aircraft that can manuever vertically was a good idea? ( Yes I know it is real tech, but not how it is in planetside)


Proposed fixes,

Mossie:

Remove vtol completely, this solves a lot of AA problems because instead of lingering over a AO lolpoding people you have to make smart concisive passes at ground targets. Also allowing the rocket pods and rotary to be buffed in damage and splash radius, allowing more powerful explosions and a better feeling to the aircraft, This will also stop low skill level pilots from being able to farm kills resulting in less random esf's in the air. Less air means less AA directly.

Buff rotary weapon damage, buff M-14 damage and increase splash substantially ( this will be the main infantry killer). Lolpods damage and splash can be increased as well, If you get 85% of your payload on target you can destroy a sunderer.(this number can reflect balance) Really good pilots will be able to do that consistently, bad pilots will not at all.

Liberator:

Remove Vtol completely, This solves a lot of AA problems because instead of hovering over an AO bombing them, you make flybys with the tankbuster, or circle similar to a ac-130. Either way, there will be no more single handed taking on squads of infantry. By the time the Burster starts shooting at you, you have flown away, by the time the AA missles are tracking you, you are flying away. The best effective counter for a liberator would be enemy ESF (Like its supposed to be) Liberators would need friendly esf cover.

Imagine the ground game, a esf, or a lib makes a strafiing run, killing 2 or 3 infantry or a hard target, and then goes away to make another pass seconds later, to kill 2 or 3 more. This process takes time, allowing squad members to call in friendly air, or to find shelter. Esf will do more fighting of other aircraft and less of killing the ground targets and liberators won't be the ridiculous firing platform that they currently are.


As for MBTs

Right now as a lib pilot, I go for mbts because they are easy kills, this should never be the case.

I think, and maybe I'm alone, mbts should dominate open ground and dominate outsides of bases. Their main gun firing should shake the earth, rattle buildings, MBTs should be borderline overpowered in the open field, small bases, outside of bases. It should be possible for a MBT tank column to protect sunderers. But once you get to said base, or station, tanks are useless, free kills in essence, simply protecting the hard sunderer respawn.

I would also like to see 4/4 Mbt's. Whats a real M1 tank crew? 4 people, only seems appropriate. driver, gunner, loader, spotter\ coaxial gun. The loader would have a simple mechanic to load the gun, maybe a bar that moves back and forth, the closer to the green you stop the bar the faster the reload. But the minigame would have to be fun, could change dynamically based on whats happening to the tank. All while sitting inside of the tank looking at the giant rounds your loading into the main gun. Now this 4th position wouldn't be mandatory but could simply provide a support role for the people that love to play support. Base reload time 4 seconds, the closer you are to the bar, the closer you are to a 2 second reload, (The numbers can be changed to be reflective of whats balanced). The more practice you have at it, the better you are at the minigame of reloading. Would this make tanks overpowered? I would certainly hope so. Until you get to your destination. If you want to pull a mbt and expect free kills, look elsewhere ( lightning). If you want a game changer that matters pull your 500 resource MBT with a 20 minute timer, and have it actually matter in a fight.

As for infantry balancing.

I think infiltrators need something more, While I love the idea of the the AV magnet. I think simply hacking the vehicle would serve just the same and be easier to implement, If your staying still long enough for a infiltrator to run up and hack on you for 15 seconds, then you deserve to be kicked out of your vehicle. With the abundance of sunderers everywhere, this would provide a reason to actually protect them, instead of the current park and forget mentality that everyone has.

Medics, the idea of having a deployable healing circle is great, allows the medic to have infantry resources to spend as well, while doing what they want to do best. Remove C4, No reason to have it.

Engineer, give them a tank trap mechanic, so you choose, av turret, ai turret, or tank trap. a tank trap will spot tanks unless destroyed, have a lot of HP, at least enough to withstand a few tank shots.

HA, rockets, le sigh, make them take time to fire and keep the resources free, can't fire while moving, have to take a knee, and clear backblast, or risk damaging friendlies, make them less point and shoot, and something you can actually be good at. Make lock-ons the skill less launchers, do substantially less damage but be something that every HA knows how to use.

Light assault is about right.

I think this game needs drastic changes in order to keep everything combined arms, otherwise this will simply turn into a infantry game, and alot of supporters will leave, I personally have no intention of a groundpounding game that plays worse than battlefield, but I love planetside 2 in its essence, we just need to get gameplay closer to the essence of planetside, closer to what this game can be, and less of what this game currently is. Stop favoring infantry so much in a combined arms games, every vehicle should have its domain, and

EVERY VEHICLE SHOULD BE FUN!

Wow... You put some serious thought into it.

everything is outside thats whats not balanced

infantry, tanks and air dont have their own place to shine (and equally not shine)

infantry have biolabs and the crown thats about it and i still farm those with vehicles

That's an old video.

Phoenix were only good vs infantry who were standing still or running in a straight line, and they really weren't that good compared to having someone actually doing their job. People kept dying to them because the rocket didn't render. Infantry damage got heavily nerfed while AV got a buff.

All things considered, it puts out about a third of the damage of a decimator considering how long you sit in the rocket and reload time. It used to be fun, if not effective in the global scheme, now it's just junk.

I merely posed the video to show how versatile the Phoenix is against running infantry because now that same speed and maneuverability is being used against big slow moving tanks. In addition since that video they did nerf the damage against infantry so it's a 2 hit kill you are correct. However they also buffed the AV damage so now the Phoenix is literally a flying Decimator Rocket which would explain why it can now One hit kill an ESF like a Decimator can.

Hey, I'm all for giving players options. If you wanna strap C4 to your squadmate and kick him out in front of a tank, why the hell not.

Compare PS1 tank battles to PS2 tank battles. In PS1 tanks were dynamic, fluid. They never stopped moving. They would try to actively flank enemy positions. They would try to dodge incoming fire. They would lead the charge. In PS2 they hide as far away as the rendering allows them, cowering in fear behind rocks, static, stationary. Boring. You may enjoy playing artillery but some of us want to play TANKS, and there are no tanks in PS2, only mobile artillery.

I don't want to drive people away from tanking. I want to drive lone-wolf rambo players away from the MBT. They work alone, they should get proportionate power. I.E., they use the Lightning. Players working together get to field bigger, heavier, stronger weapons of war. I.E, they use the MBT. Two tanks exist for a reason but players who defend one-man MBTs always, -ALWAYS-, ignore the Lightning. Well I don't ignore the Lightning and I want to see the rambos of the world using the vehicle that was designed specifically for them.

As for small teams working together. If I'm working with my two buddies and one is a medic and one is an engineer, I shouldn't expect to engage a tank column of any size. ONE tank, sure, which you could do. Engineer lays down mines and sets up an AV turret, HA pulls out his rocket launcher. You could focus down that MBT in our ideal world. So that small squad can STILL engage a single MBT. Which is fair since the MBT is using just as many players as they are. Player for player, it's fair. But can those two infantry hope to take on multiple MBTs? Of ******* course not. They aren't superman, they aren't equipped to take down multiple tanks. They have no right doing so.

Also, your exaggerations of rocket pods are getting tiresome. It takes one and a half magazines of rockets to kill a Vanguard from anywhere but the rear. From the rear it still takes over half your rockets. To a good tanker with good reaction times, it's virtually impossible to kill an MBT in a single pass using rocket pods. For infantry, as well, the splash radius is so pathetically small you have to pretty much obtain direct hits with every rocket. It takes over half your rockets to kill a single infantry. To get multiple kills would require them standing pretty much on top of each other.

The lightning HEAT is superior in every possible way to rocketpods. The only difference that makes rocketpods "better" isn't even about the weapon, but the vehicle they're attached to. An ESF can more easily fly around, dart in, and run like a little *****. A Lightning can't since it's restricted to the ground. The weapons, by themselves, though, the Lightning HEAT does superior damage and is far more reliable. I don't have to hover there unloading a dozen rockets to kill a single HA. I can just pop off a single HE round and he's dead. Or, before all the stupid as **** nerfs, just land a HEAT round at his feet and kill him.

Lightnings are exceptionally powerful attack vehicles, they are just fairly fragile which would be adjusted if MBTs were ever fixed. This argument that "baw lightnings r bad!" was stale back in beta and it continues to be stale today. If you wanna go it alone, if you refuse to cooperate with other players, take the Lightning. If you are willing to work with others but still demand sole control of your vehicle, do a Lightning wolfpack. But there is simply no justifiable reason why a single player should wield the power of an MBT. No one player should be able to influence battle to that degree. And that's why MBTs have been nerfed into the ground. Because SOE acknowledges this fact, they just refuse to balance MBTs properly. And too many ******* imbeciles are more willing to drive worthless paper tanks than accept that they could just use the Lightning.

It was only useful against infantry because it didn't render, if someone saw the missile it is an easy sidestep. Tanks move much faster than infantry, requiring the person to have a bigger lead, it's the same idea as an infantry. If you see it coming, it won't hit you.

If you get hit in an ESF with a phoenix, you deserve to die, it's almost impossible without the pilot hovering. Considering that you can get about 3 shots of the decimator off in the same time as one phoenix (and you have a range over 300m) it's much more likely you'd die to a decimator than a phoenix.

On the subject of ESFs and lolPods, I'd be quite happy for the rockets to be exchanged for 2-4 unguided HE bombs. Light armour damage, splash as with current HE. You'd have to dive in stuka style to get any real hits, and you'd never be able to instapop a tank.

It was more useful than that, it could one hit them when they were running. Normally when the Phoenix is being shot at a tank within 300 m that tank isn't going 60 KPH down the road, it's sitting still partially sticking out from cover or strafing back and forth.

I see Phoenix's coming at my tank all the time, it's hard to side step them in a tank when they can adjust to your position. I'm not saying that hitting a hover podding ESF is broken, I was using it as an example for damage. I'm pretty sure only the Decimator OHK's ESF's beside the Phoenix, which was why I was saying I think it does similar if not identical damage of the Decimator rocket. In mass, Phoenix's shut tanks down even if they are behind cover, and their is literally no hiding from them within a 300m range.

The base rocket launcher OHK's an esf too. Yeah, it could kill infantry running, in a straight line if they didn't see the missile. Phoenix don't shut down tanks within 300m, they don't do enough damage for their reload cycle to be useful compared to the decimator.