MBT vs C4

I do understand that most people won't read all 55 pages of this thread, I can assure you that there has been posted fairly good proof that c4 is too effective at anti-vehicle. I think its back about ten pages by now. Also, I took the liberty of buying c4 to play around with it. While I don't have nearly the perspective that I do on tanks, I can say that I dropped ten bricks, and killed four prowlers. Out of five attempted runs, I failed on one and died on two. It's not as hard as people make it out to be.

1. There will always be oblivious tankers who die right away, in fact I find I die to their flaming hulls landing ontop of me more than I do tank mines, and if you joined an outfit you would see people teaming up against tanks and the like all the time. A much easier combo would a 1 LA and then 1 HA .

2. A single burger with no fries and no drink is over 7$ where you are?!!??! (What is that a triple stack big mac?) ...... well I could make the same comparison with a TV Dinner Steak to a 4 Star restaurant Steak anyways lol

Well to be fair, it's nearly impossible to C4 Magriders as they are always moving/strafing (or should be) and if a Magrider spots you when you're close up, it'll just magburn away.

Prowler (especially lock down Prowler) and Vanguard are a lot easier target for C4 and require a lot more awareness to keep out of harms way.

I'm against nerfing C4 though. If you're able to plant 2x C4 on any of the MBTs, you should get the destroy and kill.

Probably the best solution to all this is to get Infantry and Vehicles out of each others throats. How to do that?

Simple, buff Vehicles to ludicrous levels and turn every base into a biolab ... probably not the most elegant solution but I think this will most likely be the path SOE is taking if I look at the current AMP station design on the PTS ... Infantry seems to enjoy Biofarms so much that every base will now become one.

Enough joking around ...

Vehicles need to be more powerful to dominate between bases. Vehicles need to be limited in numbers by gameplay mechanics such as a mandatory dedicated crew system to get the powerful guns or the power of the Vehicle being chained to how many sit in it.

Infantry needs ways to defend against those powerful Vehicles that are more static or can only be used at bases or are non destructive(EMP). But also tools to not just get farmed aka base design.

Let's talk about the standard classic PS1 Vehicles. They were dominant and truly ruled everything that was not the inside of a base or tower. A single Vanguard shell could kill 3-4 Infantry that had full health and fired 2 times the RoF a current Vanguard does with more splash than the old unerfed HE. Short said, Infantry totally feared Vehicles.

Infantry on the other hands had very weak AV weapons but had a very potent close range defense that would not kill a Tank. EMP Grenades were a great equalizer. You throw them at a Tank and it could not fire it's weapons for a set amount of time, leaving the Tank defenseless and often resulted in them bugging out to gain range on you.

The other thing was base design, Vehicles had no part in them once you cleared the courtyard of a base. Everything was inside buildings with doors. Instead Vehicles would roam around the base to intercept enemy Vehicles trying to gain supremacy of the outside again to destroy the Attackers AMS's.

While I think that the old PS1 system was good, it would need a complete resign of every base from scratch. So instead, improve the defenses of a base against Vehicles. But let those shields go down once the attacker actually has pushed into the inside by destroying very easy to defended Generators. Defend for the defender not the attacker! Meaning teleporters, tunnel exits and a general close proximity to the spawn room.

So once those shields are down and you have Vehicle supremacy, the fight of that base should be over once the powerful Vehicles can enter, while also lowering spawn shields. Meaning the only options to re-secure the base should be gal drops or a counter attack with Vehicles.

Also bases need Infantry only entrances that can be used by both the attacker and defender. Lets say you have a out side the base walls mounted bunker which is connected to the inside via a short tunnel. Instead of huge gaps in the wall that Sundys or other Vehicles can crawl through ...

TL:TR

This is a combined arms games, every aspect of the game needs a role and purpose. Tanks currently do not fill any role that Infantry could not do better. C4 blowing up Tanks is part of that problem but not everything by a long shot.

Right now I'm staring at my chat screen, dead. You might wonder why... it wasn't from an MBT, it was infantry. So what does that have to do with this thread? The fact of the matter is, I'm dead right next to an enemy Sunderer. On it, are two bricks of my C4. That Sunderer has maximum blockade armor. I was the only Light Assault to make it in with C4 oddly enough, and I made the trip 4 times before I decided to stay dead, leaving my blocks of C4 on there, with slim hopes that someone else may go in. So lets see, I spent 800 resources to try to destroy this vehicle. No joy in that. There are many more problems with this scenario than just that though...

Ya see, I will get absolutely NOTHING from those last two C4 bricks when someone else blows them up. You may ask, "How is that a problem for MBTs?" Well, MBTs want the same stuff that Sunderers have, only they also want to be powerhouses when it comes to attack as well. Sunderers are built around DEFENSE, while MBTs are built around attack. Having both attack and being great at defense too is complete and utterly wrong without spending a whole heck of a lot more resources than they currently are. MBT pilots have no clue the frustration that C4 users have to go through in order for us to actually kill enemy Sunderers, and now they want the same treatment for themselves by either giving themselves something like blockade armor or nerfing the damage that C4 does to them.

I kill Sunderers. I kill them a LOT. Let me tell you MBT pilots, I would say the average number of bricks that I use to destroy a Sunderer is around 5. The funny thing is, the maximum amount it takes to blow one up is four. See, if I trigger before someone else placed their bricks of C4, they always have time to repair, always. That's what you are asking for, to make C4 WORTHLESS. Yes, I do mean worthless when it comes to vehicles because you will always have time to repair. The fact of the matter is, you will NOT just jump out and repair giving us a chance to shoot you. MBTs drive a whole lot faster than infantry run, so you will fall back, repair, and make our C4 utterly wasted. There will be absolutely NOTHING we can do about it. Sorry but NO. Sunderers die for one reason, they are extremely stationary when we hit them. If they weren't, and they had the ability to move like tanks do (I know Prowler locks down, but that is ONE out of three, and a special case for its ability), we would absolutely never blow them up. NEVER. I'm 100% confident of this.

The developers have had it in game since probably before Alpha, where C4 has the ability to solo a vehicle. They obviously want it, I can even remember Higby talking about it in an early stream he did where he ran up to a tank at Zuran with C4 and tried to blow it up so obviously he was happy with it then, only whiny sissies who don't know how to play against it don't seem to want it. The other MAJOR problem that I have with Sunderers is, I get absolutely nothing out of it, zip, zilch, nada, zero, nothing. No experience, no joy, just death for me if I am the first to arrive. What do I mean no experience? Well you see, there isn't experience for land vehicles when they take partial damage, unlike aircraft. C4 users would blow up their C4, get absolutely zero out of it, and MBT pilots would drive off, repair, and keep going. So I get zero experience if my C4 is placed first on Sunderers and now you want that for MBTs too? WTF? NO! Really, you are asking us to be happy with ZERO experience (sorry I'd say only 1 out of 10 times do I get experience for a partial kill, which is really almost never) for blowing you up too? That's complete BS.

"But you need to play as a team!" I know you are going to want to say that. Well, lets see, right now there are at least two platoons of friendly (and enemy) players present. Ya know something? I've been dead for 15 minutes and nobody else can get to this Sunderer. I've talked to three squad leaders personally and none of them have been able to get someone here to place more C4. Teamwork isn't always successful nor should it be necessary 100% of the time like some of you are implying. Sure the game can be better as a team, but it isn't required, yet you seem to want to make it that way. Uh, no. Plus, even if I do play as a "team" (Oh I've done it before) you have to remember that half of that team gets absolutely NOTHING except lost resources. Sorry but that's very uncool to even consider asking of them.

"But it is easy to be LA with C4!" OBVIOUSLY IT ISN'T! I'm freaking good at what I do, hence the title "Professional Sunderer Hunter." Sure I made it 4 times in a row to this Sunderer, but nobody else can make the trip. I was told by those 3 squad leaders that each of them had about 4 people who tried. Lets see... one person makes it out of 13? Yeah, that proves LA with C4 definitely IS easy doesn't it? I'm sure some of you will say "Oh that just means there was one good person and 12 that weren't good." Uh... doesn't that help prove LA with C4 isn't easy? "Maybe that one person was REALLY good then and the rest were just OK?" I honestly think I'm pretty good but not REALLY good. Look at my stats, do they look like someone who is REALLY good? https://players.planetside2.com/#!/5428010618038996721 Nope. Sorry, I'm going to call BS on your line saying using LA with C4 is easy.

I'm starting to get really tired of this thread. MBTs are built around offense, yet they seem to also want to be the defensive powerhouses that Sunderers are. Then why not drive a Sunderer then tankers? Come on now, why should you be able to be great at offense AND defense? Don't quote resources, because the Sunderer is pretty close to what you pay PLUS it is pretty much a defensive vehicle. It has access to none of the hard hitting weapons that you have access to but I haven't seen a thread by them complaining that they don't have the attack power you do. You see, Sunderers are defensive and you, MBTs are offensive. Someone called MBTs glass cannons I believe, well... duh?

Well 20 minutes later, nobody else has made it to that Sunderer. Yeah, being LA with C4 sure IS easy! <--sarcasm So I spawned elsewhere because the battle ended and my faction left. That means I lost EIGHT HUNDRED resources and got zero experience out of it. I got zero kills, I got absolutely nothing but several deaths and a whole lot of wasted time on my part. THIS is exactly what you are asking that C4 users have to put up with for MBTs as well. That's complete and utter BS.

Over the last week I've spent a lot of time in a MAX suit to see how the new resource changes have effected my ability to pull them. I also payed very close attention to how many kills I got, how many times I died, and what I died to. Maxes now cost 350 and compared to C4, they are PERFECT. I've also driven my Magrider a whole lot more than normal. Now I'll admit I'm a pretty poor Magrider pilot but I've also spent a fair amount of time as secondary gunner, so I can still get a feeling for how they are being balanced lately. Similar to Maxes, they are FINE.

You guys started this thread after GU11, which was to say "With resource costs going up on MBTs, we think you should raise the resource cost of C4 as well." Well, the C4 users have given LOTS of reasons why the current balance with MBTs being more resources is totally balanced with C4 being less (yes balanced, I said it.) Before the update, MBT pilots were NOT crying for a nerf to C4, so obviously they don't have a problem with C4, instead they have a problem with RESOURCE COSTS FOR THEIR VEHICLES. I really wish they'd realize that this is what they have problems with, not C4 itself. Please look at the bigger picture people!

Now that I've spent a week playing Maxes and MBTs a whole lot more, I'm going to be starting a new post, probably in the Light Assault section saying "Why I am not worried about SOE changing C4." Honestly, I'm not. I've seen both sides of the coin, something that many of the MBT pilots in here refuse to do, and I can say that it isn't really as bad as they make it out to believe. I've also read all 50+ pages of this thread, much of it multiple times, and will be including lots of parts from both sides in my post. I really don't think that SOE will be making changes because if they do, it will majorly help MBT pilots, when they don't really need any help against C4. Now if you get me into a thread about Engineer AV turrets, I'll support almost anything you say (omg those things are just broken), or even a thread about lock-ons and how they are way to plentiful right now. But C4? I'm not worried very much at all any more, we've proven enough to keep me happy that it isn't even used very often compared to ALL of the other AV weapons.

One final thing, SOE raised the costs for vehicles because they felt that they were not causing enough of a resource drain on those pulling them. Fair enough, SOE is out to make money by encouraging people to get membership and boosts. Well I play with both the 6 month membership and +50% resource boost. When I am playing infantry (not MAX), I am almost always hovering around 100-200 resources. I never have enough of them to pull a MAX unless I switch to medic and do nothing but heal for a long time. This says to me that obviously, the resource drain that SOE wanted to be put in place for vehicles is already in place for infantry and the plethora of items that they purchase.

The only other post I'm going to make in here is a link to my summary why I'm not worried about C4 changes. This should happen in the next several days. End of line.

C4 nerf against MBT? I mean wtf..we cant kill a sunderer with 2 C4..ok thats a good change. But now u want to nerf the C4 again? Sure, u could delete light assault after the next C4 nerf because the only way to stop a tank zerg will be mass heavy assault and rocketspam. Now we are able to take out afk farming MBT's..and its fine!

If the driver is not afk he will shoot you in the face before ur able to get 1 C4 dropped.

I hope they wont change the C4 again!

Just make C4 directionally-dependant. If it's sticking to rear armor, it will kill you, but if not, it does severely reduced damage.

Or combine the pointless directional-armor certs into MBT Blockade Armor and have that affect C4. I prefer this one.

Point 1) I stated that I am an aware driver and yet I get caught by C4 light assault about 50% of my MBT deaths, I think most of the time I do spot them but it is not in time to stop them Frisbee the C4 onto my tank, because yeah that's how it works -_-

Point 2) No they are not supposed to catch me with C4 they are not vehicle hunters you are incorrect here. Engineers carry more explosives and Heavy Assault have dedicated anti tank launchers. To say that Light Assault can do this when they can carry the same amount of C4 as a medic then you might aswell say the medic is an anti tank class also.

Point 3) In planetside 2 It is generally accepted that it is ridiculous, even people that enjoy using C4 know its over the top that's why they use it. If you have any basis of knowledge in real life or that you understand physics you would know that several blocks of C4 plastic explosive could not penetrate the armour of a MBT.
Just because this is not known to you does not mean it is not common knowledge.

Point 4) They clearly are struggling with these issues so as a stop gap measure they could temporarily reduce the effectiveness of items which because of gameplay faults are not working as intended, they already do this with other aspects of the game.

Point 5) Everyones experience of cheaters in this game varies that you have never seen them use C4 is subjective.

Point 6) They have many hard counters such as other MBT's, Liberators, Heavy Assaults, Anti Tank Mines, Phalanx Turrets, Engineer Anti Vehicle Turrets etc... but you would not know as you only play light assault, you have consistently tried to defend this class even though the topic isn't about light assault its about C4.
YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY CLASS CAPABLE OF DESTROYING VEHICLES AND YOU ARE NOT AN ANTI VEHICLE CLASS.

i was under the impression that it takes a bit of time for each brick of C4 and then some more to detonate

So, you are the one who determines who is allowed to do which stuff in this game.

should have stopped reading here.

Make planted C4 do lots of directional damage (against target if a vehicle, away if a wall), but make tossed C4 do general aoe damage - but less of it. Reward good LA's (or others) who get up close; penalise bricks lobbed from up high.

C4 should be a shaped charge, not a universal half-life style detpack.

1. A sunderer is an expensive vehicle which can be pulled by anyone and can use blockade armor to be very effective against C4.

2. Saying you can only defeat AFK/completely stationary MBT's with C4 is also not correct, because I'm almost always moving and have high situational awareness yet C4 is my number one death type.

3. A MBT is even more expensive than a Sunderer which is also required to be still to be effective, unless you're a Magrider but this is double the case if you're a Prowler with Anchor Mode. I hope they don't change C4 again either, but I hope they give MBT's very expensive Blockade Armor for dedicated MBT drivers to cert into. If a Sunderer and Harasser get Composite/Blockade armor then a 40 ton tank that costs more than them to pull should be able too.

Thread in a nutshell:
One hit kill solo heroes want C4 to stay the way it is so they can get BIG NUMBERS.


And because SoE always caters for this crowd, we're screwed.

1. Calling Tankers who don't like the current effect of C4 Whining sissys will not help you win over any tanker and will make more enemies rather than friends.

2. Numerous and I mean that 5+ LA and C4 users have come in here to say C4 isn't as difficult to use as you're making it out to be. So not only do you have tankers saying it's not that hard, you also have LA's who say it's not that hard. You see new C4 Montages being made every week of taking out tanks like it was nothing, and having the self appointed title " Professional Sunderer Hunter" does not make you good with C4. I'm not going to call you bad, because I hate Ad Hominems, but you need to consider that multiple LA's took the trouble to come into the thread that they obviously wouldn't mind if MBT"s had very expensive Blockade armor and/or admit that C4 isn't hard to use and aren't ashamed about it. Don't you find it strange that a tanker who constantly gets 40-80 kill streaks and never complained about C4 till after GU11 is coming out against C4 now?

3. Sunderers with two bull dogs attached are just as deadly against infantry as a 1/2 Prowler and yet Prowlers cost more than them. I'd be very surprised if you never came across a battle bus Sunderer. However this is all the more evidence that MBT's deserve Blockade armor too.

4. It's unfortunate that the people that you work with don't like to work as a team, but here on Mattherson Sunderers get double and triple teamed by LA's all day long and they don't have a problem with Blockade Armor. Perhaps this is teamwork coordination issue that your server needs to resolve, because a Blockade armor Sunder is still quick work for the LA's and outfits on this server. If you don't have anyone else helping you take out a Sunderer for 20+ minutes that should shoot of red flags that bad teamwork and bad communication are very present. Heck if the LA's don't get the Sunderers with C4, than the HA's with C4 or Engineers with AT mines will. So no Blockade armor on our server will make little difference for bad tankers who will still get taken down fast by teamwork, and only the skilled dedicated tankers who know how to survive long without it will become a much harder target with it.

5. LA's didn't have a problem before Gu11 because C4 was cheap and MBT's didn't have a problem because their tank was cheap. Now tanks cost over double, they were compensated for it none, and there is still a Insitigib mechanic in place. Look at the bigger picture that if tanks cost a lot they shouldn't be Instagibbable. Tank mines don't count because they are way harder to use against a tank, are very easy to avoid, and you can cert against them.

6. SOE raised the cost of vehicles because they saw there were dedicated tankers. If tankers were making ludicrously more XP per hour than infantry then by giving out resource boosts it's effectively pay to win or pay to ruin the game with tank spam. You should never just think that SOE is right when they change something because they had "numbers" to back it up. Where were their numbers for the CQC God mode Hacksaw Max the first 6 months, where were their numbers when they let Liberators ruin the game for the first month, and Rocketpods to be pay to win months after that? Where were their numbers for the currently OP AV turret or the OHK Phoenix that they had to make 2-3 separate hotfixes before they realized a OHK camera guided Decimator wasn't a good idea. There are so many examples of them using numbers the wrong way or interpreting them the wrong way it's ridiculous

7. What will you do if MBT's get Blockade Armor, will you still play LA?

Double Post

C4 should have to be planted, instead of dropped. Thus sneaky players are still rewarded for "planting" C4 on a tank, but LAs just can't loldrop C4 by coasting from one of the many high points in the world.

1. Well, of course I team up to fight against tanks, but that's usually in the form of a Lancer team, not a C4 team, it's pointless to team up to destroy tanks with C4 when you can team up to destroy them with Lancers from a long range. Teaming up with C4s is something that can be done for blockade sunderers in certain locations.

2. No, not the single burger, I was talking about the combo with fries and drink, I don't remember the prices of McDonald's, but in Burger King a quadruple stacker combo with fries and drinks costs more than 10 USD. I don't know why it's so expensive, you can eat real food for the same price in almost anyplace.

Well, you have a point there, maybe with Magriders it's much easier to avoid them, I have no way to know though (well, I do, but I won't be testing the other MBTs )

1. Lancer teams are scary effective, and a C4 + Changed up Lancer shot would not be to much to ask for considering the Lancer can help you all the way from long range. Anyhow myself and a few other tanks would rather keep C4 the way it is and gives MBT's Blockade armor. There's already a thread about it in the vehicle discussion section.

2. Someone brought up a good point in that is is easier for Magriders to avoid C4 because they strafe, Magboost, and in general are constantly moving targets since they don't ever have to stop moving.

3. On McDonald's, lol true stuff.

Yes, we do both, in fact, just yesterday I helped scratch a sundy that was constantly repairing with my Lancer so that the 2 C4s of another outfit member killed it.

I'd be fine with blockade armor as long as you can know when a MBT has it equipped (the same way as it is with the Sunderer's blockade armor right now, though I learned to distinguish a blockaded sundy from a non-blockaded sundy just the other day )

The only problem I have with it is that it would look really ugly in a Magrider (I wouldn't cert it anyway )

Kill the player before he detonates his C4 and its gone... I don't see a problem with 2 C4 kills a tank. The only tanks you can kill this way are tankers that have been lulled to sleep farming some spawn room...

This is a fallacy as this also happens to people like myself who may only stand still for 3-5 seconds to engage in a tank battle, or have random LA's drop of of the sky to C4 me, or Pod down to invisible C4 me. LA's can fly above a MBT's effective arc, and a Prowler in Lock Down mode is basically like Bacon to a dog when it comes to LA's. MBT's need a counter for C4 since they are required to sit still to aim accurately. The Prowler gets shafted the hardest because we have no passive or active ability like the other 2 tanks to defend against C4. If a MBT is going to cost more than Sunderer it needs to have Insagib protection.