Balance Pass Post 1: Vehicle Weapons and the Harasser

Can we increase the Vulnerability of Harassers to Small Arms? A Little buggy comes flying through a squad of men, he should pretty much be dead before he gets to the other side. Its a buggy not a Stryker.


But these changes sound like a good start.

Fire Supp + Nanite Auto Regen/Top Armor

The undying Skyguard. You can soak up some extra damage by hitting Fire Supp just as you receive a burst of damage. You should have wounded them enough for them to back off and repair/auto-repair for another pass.

For 1V1/AA in remote areas you could go Top Armor and then get out and repair between passes + use fire supp or you could use Nanite Auto Repair for when there are targets engaging other things so you can stay in your Skyguard and engage more air without getting out to repair.

Yes, I guess it's a choice between increased defence against aircraft vs no defence at all against C4 attackers. Prox radar or fire suppression is a choice, but I don't think prox radar or nano-repair is. Not for a Skyguard Lightning anyway.

Guys seriously. Play the game a little. Data and numbers aren't telling you half of what you need to know.

Either of these alternatives would also be helpful, but I think what we're all trying to go for here is that allowing us to have more options and variety for load outs on the MBT and the Lightning would be very appreciated. It would help tanks even the odds against the numerous AV weapons infantry have been given since the game's launch, and it would finally allow us to make use of that blank/empty slot found to right of the performance slot.

If I pull armour it's always going to be a skyguard and that thing needs the radar, when you're busy focusing on the air you need to have a quick glimpse at the mini map to see if infantry are sneaking up on you, just because you're sitting out in the middle of nowhere does not mean you're immune to infantry sneaking up on you. Smoke is useless unless you're going to the front of the combat. Fire suppression is ok but you're dead if they're mutiple air anyway all targeting you with pods, stealth Armour is the better option only this nonsensical change would ruin that and the skyguard would be limited with an empty slot in my case as I don't want fire suppress or smoke.

The proxy idea needs a serious rethink, put it in defence/utility slot and be done with it.

Harassers currently have too much freedom in infantry areas because...they know they can boost in, boost out, straight through mines, too quickly to allow anyone to effectively use C4, and worst case scenario, can, "REPAIR ON THE RUN".

Seriously, when I hear phrases like "reduced, but not by much", it lends credence to the notion that you honestly don't play your own game. All you need to do to balance the Harrasser is simply remove the option to repair on the run. Problem solved.

I mean lets get real, when has anyone ever had the opportunity to C4 a harasser? Unless its the worst Harasser driver of all time, hardly any actually sit still for longer than a second. If that. Though, even then, they can just boost out and repair on the fly.

Noticing a trend yet?

I think we should wait until the (hopefully) test server gets the changes loaded on and then see how it plays out. Right now opinions are being based on nothing (Meaning we don't specifically know what the stat changes are, only that they'll be occurring).

What in gods name are you smoking, devs? The harasser needs to be nerfed, not buffed. Buffing the effectiveness of a weapon that poses no threat to it whatsoever isn't going to do anything.

The total health of the harasser needs to be reduced massively.

For one thing, it shouldn't take a full inventory of rockets to put a dent in them. They're essentially tanks that can take small arms fire right now.

First of all let me say that I am glad that balance is being looked at next - there are some glaring problems with the weapons and vehicles that need to be addressed.

As you are talking about Harassers and vehicle weapons I will only discuss those in this post, so here goes.

Harasser Weapons
First of all, check out these Harasser stats:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...blJ1cUEtdEVNNUk0OVhVekRqZlE&usp=sharing#gid=7

The TR have DOUBLE the kills of the other empires using Harassers. While TR do have a higher population, they do not have double the amount. Plain and simple the Marauder-H is obscenely overpowered compared to the other faction AI weapons, earning DOUBLE the amount of kills per hour for each player. And the thing is cheaper than the Fury to buy, so much is it better that the TR have three times less Fury users than the other factions!

The PPA-H seems ok, while the NC AI weapon is a shameful disgrace of a thing - it needs an overhaul obviously (around 50 times fewer kills overall than the Marauder-H?).

What to do about the Marauder-H? Just nerf it into the ground; lower damage and smaller clip size for starters, it is cheaper than the Fury so it should be less effective in most situations.

Harasser in general
The rumble seat is a nice addition, but repairing while on the move needs to go. It simply makes it too survivable when combined with it's speed, the only time I see Harassers dying is when they get greedy or got caught up with 3-4 enemy vehicles around them.
Mines do not work against Harassers. They travel too fast for them to damage them as they are out of the blast radius by the time they detonate. Either slow Harassers down or make vehicle mines detonate faster/wider blast radius.

Harassers need to be especially vulnerable to AV weapons - AP rounds should rip them apart, as should infantry AV launchers.

Regarding other vehicles weapons, lets look at the MBTs:

MBT: Primary weapons:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...aC0tZTFrdmVFMjF0Rkhrb0VIRFE&usp=sharing#gid=7

Obviously the TR have the most kills with all weapon types, and also the highest kills per hour for each person pulling it. NC also have the worst of everything. Is the problem just down to the Prowler being overpowered? I don't think so - the huge numbers of strikers (double the number of Phoenix users and triple the number of Lancers) being used is a big issue, even with the thing getting a nerf and lock on weapons being fixed so many TR brought the thing that it is simply on most HA load outs, and it allows them to wreck both enemy armour and air. In comparison the Phoenix is still only good for fighting retreating vehicles and the Lancer only for long range armour. The Striker needs a fix to make it less versatile plain and simple.

I would also like to see the Mag and Van get slight buffs, in particular the Mags main weapons projectiles should move faster, to compensate for the ease of aiming with their oppositions turret mounted primaries (I have shot down 2 ESFs with my Mags main gun since launch, that's it, in the original game I would manage that in 10 minutes).

MBT Secondary weapons:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...LWg3MkN5YWlncmJYSVlJbzh5ZXc&usp=sharing#gid=3

These are worth looking at as well, notice the poor NC and their empire specific options as well as the Vulcan which has a poor mount on the Prowler as the platform is not the best suited for the weapon type. The Marauder is also not as effective on the Prowler - could be down to a number of factors.

I do not generally waste my time thinking about balance, but these are some issue that I think need addressing.

using my 3day boost tomrrow playing none stop in my comet max to get br 94 .

Armor upgrades should go into their own section.....Armor....wild thought huh>?

Defensive Gear goes into Defense

Utility goes into Utility...

How to balance the harasser: put both the gunner and driver in the front seats and make them vulnerable to damage like a flash user.

The way to balance to ZOE is to either add a timer 10 seconds use per 60 second cool down

Or remove one of the buffs, either speed or increased damage. You could even have 2 versions one that does either of the 2 increases in performance but both reduce the ZOE resistance. If this was done a permanent on/off button would be fine

Have the Damage increase ZOE glow teal and the speed buff ZOE glow purple so players can tell.

The issue is that currently ZOE gets 2 buffs for 1 negative

not sure how I feel about the radar moving to the defensive slot.

This is a terrible change and basically says that the defense/utility slots need to be redesigned completely. Smoke is also defensive. Auto-repair sounds more utility-ish to me. Stealth is a defensive utility?

And I don't think this will fix the C-4 "problem" anyway because anyone losing their tank to C-4 because they didn't see the infantry approaching, probably won't see the dot on the radar either. The end result will be the same, nobody will choose Radar because Stealth is better. Anyone not certed into Stealth currently is vastly underestimating how strong it is.

Color me Not Yet Impressed.

Do you guys even play this game you're building?

No, don't do this.

They need to do what they did but with the vulcan, saron and enforcer ML85. The Saron and ML-85 used to be Halberd dupes. They got a balance pass to make them more unique. This is what the Marauder needs. It shouldn't be an NS++ weapon. It needs to be UNIQUE. No don't make it an MCG that's buffed because then it's just an either worse or better Kobalt. Don't make it a TR Bulldog. Make it UNIQUE. That's the only way to fix the Marauder.

No, marauder is fun and needs no nerf. It's the others that needs buff.

On behalf of all Lightning drivers:
http://1.bp.************/-Ekh0DyBtSqQ/TnfXJWcMJZI/AAAAAAAABDs/NJBdP4XAJT8/s1600/panda.png