Tank/Liberator Changes Update

ah.

If tanks arena gona be closer to other tanks and infantry just give em blockade armor.

It's always direct hit+blast, but the blast will not always damage vehicles.

Dalton and zephyr can splash damage non-light vehiches, the shredder cannot.

higby,:
causing me to lose goodwill despite other devs positive efforts since 2012

I mean really nerfing all tank guns and we're supposed to be happy about it because we get a slightly better deal?

its hurting my brain.

There was also the magrider-only nerf, which felt like 'coarse salt in the wound' after we're having our biggest perk distributed to everyone.

In other words, the combination of everything is what made forumside have a moment of unity, asking why they're nerfing the mag some extra when it should be getting a buff to make up for a lost advantage.
It would be like giving everyone the armour of the vanguard or the dakka of the prowler without giving them anything to make up for the loss of their perk/advantage.

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/patch-notes-6-16.190083/

I'm sure he's just as confused as you are (since Higby doesn't use tanks whatsoever). The rest of what they were doing was nerfing, other than the reverse speed, which seemed completely out of the blue and not asked for. The turret stabilization is really the only change many of us wanted out of all of those. I'm fine with no reverse speed buff if it means no nerf to velocity or drop.

I was assuming the acceleration they mentioned WAS the reverse speed acceleration increase. Giving that to just the Vanguard alone would have been incredibly OP.

It's a change to the time the Vanguard spends in "gear shifts" from 2.5 to 1.5 seconds.
So if you know how to gear pop it changes nothing.

You can hardly call that a buff or even a relative one considering it doesn't address the main issue of the Mag losing its stability advantage. And that change is actually going live.

Well according to those patch notes, this thread never happened.

GG SOE.

Those patch notes....are beautiful.

Tbh... the only thing I want is the stabilization for the prowler. The mag could use a projectile velocity increase and i really dont want to a reverse speed buff... Which is kind of ironic cause all i do is tank. I hate the mbt changes... Lib changes probably shoulda happened ages ago anyways...

This game is becoming worse and worse due to infantry. Everything that is good and fun as vehicle player gets eventually ruined because of infantry.

I'm ready to completely give up. I want to play a vehicle game, not another infantry game. Cause frankly, there are many infantry FPS games that are much better than PS2. Vehicle gameplay is the only thing that makes PS2 stand out

NP

Which I am sure if fine and dandy when you have a dozen or two infantry to farm out. If you want to play a vehicle game there are plenty better in that department too, you could be playing warhunder or world of tanks or whatever else if the only action you wanted was vehicles. Your fine with it when you can fire rocket pods, or daltons or ppa's/banshee's into infantry and fly away with an easy half a dozen kills, but when infantry complain and say these things aren't fun for them you are surprised? If you are going to have overwhelming fire power and maneuverability then you need to be fragile to make up for it (ESF's being a good example of this) but what about when you have the ability to spawn suppress an entire base, have high maneuverability and can easily take 5 or more rockets shots and still get away scot-free? That creates a problem.

Its unfortunate that farming infantry is essentially the only thing tanks are built to do, but until we get an overhaul that's what we've got.

Please debate these updated "counter" patch notes:


Tank Changes

• Tank primary turrets are now stabilized. Their elevation will not move with chassis elevation changes, unless it hits the upper or lower constraint. (You’ve had your fun bouncing all about, but this time actually hit your target)

Reverse Speed

• Tank reverse speed and acceleration is now being improved. Equipping Rival will still increase your reverse speed.
  • Vanguard Reverse speed increased from 22KPH to 41KPH (You weren't imagining it, infantry actually were running slightly faster than you)
  • Vanguard Racer Reverse speed increased from 25 KPH to 49 KPH
  • Vanguard Rival Reverse speed increased from 29 KPH to 55 KPH
  • Prowler Reverse speed increased from 25 KPH to 45 KPH
  • Prowler Racer Reverse speed increased from 28 KPH to 53 KPH
  • Prowler Rival Reverse speed increased from 32 KPH to 60 KPH
  • Magrider Reverse speed increased from 32 KPH to 47 KPH
  • Magrider Racer Reverse speed increased from 36 KPH to 45 KPH
  • Magrider Rival Reverse speed increased from 41 KPH to 50 KPH
  • Lightning Reverse speed increased from 30 KPH to 53 KPH
  • Lightning Racer Reverse speed increased from 35 KPH to 64 KPH
  • Lightning Rival Reverse speed increased from 42 KPH to 70 KPH

Performance

• Vanguard acceleration is being brought closer to the other tanks.
  • Vanguard gear change time decreased from 2.25 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
  • This will make the Vanguard accelerate to full speed in 7.25 seconds instead of 8.75 seconds and spend less time stuck at 16 KPH. This does not impact engine acceleration, but the delays caused by gear changes in-between. (don’t worry, it will only seem like half an eternity now)
  • It is still the slowest accelerating tank; it was just too slow.
• Vanguard Racer chassis will be adjusted to keep it close to the gear change time that it has now.
• Magrider strafe increased from 20 KPH to 27 KPH. Rival increases the strafe speed to 35 KPH and increases strafe acceleration. (all the better to flatten your teamates with)

Shell Velocity

• The 25 meter per second projectile speed scaling between AP/FPC and HEAT/PC tank cannons is being reduced to 15. High explosive tank rounds will also now have projectile speed change between factions.
  • Lightning / Magrider HE projectile speed will remain the same at 175
  • Prowler HE projectile speed is being increased from 175 to 185
  • Vanguard HE projectile speed is being increased from 175 to 195
  • Lightning / Magrider HEAT projectile speed is being increased from 200 to 230
  • Lightning / Magrider AP projectile speed is being increased from 225 to 245
  • Prowler HEAT projectile speed is being increased from 225 to 245
  • Prowler AP projectile speed is being increased from 250 to 260
  • Vanguard HEAT projectile speed is being increased from 250 to 260
  • Vanguard AP projectile speed will remain the same at 275

Misc Changes

• G30 Vulcan
  • Vulcan max cone of fire reduced.
• Magrider will no longer immediately lose speed gained after using Magburner. Similar functionality to the Harasser.
• Prowler undeploy time decreased. (maybe now you’ll be able to pack up in time)
• Magrider Racer max speed reduced from 65 to 60
• Infantry dumbfire rocket velocity increased by 100% (not gonna lie, this could be a problem)

=======================================================



Hi I'm Klypto. I drive the Vanguard a lot. Not all the time though, as I do have a side hobby of becoming #1 in pistol kills with all pistols (Except the horrible and and awful Underboss. That gun can just go die in a corner somewhere). As far as I know, I've used 118,000 shells (4.7 days of firing non stop with an ammo tower) with 60%~ accuracy to kill more people with my Vanguard main gun (24K) than any other NC player in Planetside 2 in the 700~ hours I've spent operating Vanguards.

I posted those patchy things above in this thread since this is an official feedback thread and I'm sure RadarX and the guys at SOE don't want to have to keep tabs on a dozen or so threads to gather feedback. That and I realized that I made a mistake of posting them in the vehicle section of the forums, which is isn't going to get me the right kind of feedback from parts of the game such as infantry players.

The goal of the notes is to try and keep tank balance intact while adding turret stability and not making everyone jump on a rage wagon of hate-o-rama. The HE velocity buffs are the only ones that stand out to me as totally and completely unnecessary, but I threw them in since SOE did it first just to see what the reaction would be. Will probably trash those. :3

I'm going to take a bit and explain some of the why behind everything I posted.


Stabilized Guns.

This is the only change in PlanetSide 2 right now that HAS to happen. You can't go around this one, it's a must. There is no way the console crowd who is use to stabilized turrets are going to find the current tanks fun to use with a controller when they play PS2 on the PlayStation 4. At least, that's my opinion on it.

Reverse Speed

Kevmo was right, part of the reason why people don't move up is because they can't back out. The Magrider sorta can, it's pretty fast in reverse compared to other vehicle reverse speeds, but when you get down to things like the Vanguard... Infantry can run faster than it can back up.

However, their idea of making it just as fast in forward as it is in reverse is just way too weird. It screws over infantry and tank vs tank battles too much. A Vanguard will be able to outrun a Magrider while in reverse. It also makes the Rival chassis much worse, and pushed the Racer chassis into the OP zone.

I figured 75% of your top speed unless you are using rival (100%) would be a better place to keep it more balanced. We can use a lower % later if a discussion on it proves that is best. It's still a buff to tanks, but at least it's not trying to eliminate stupidity caused by overextending while still promoting mobility. this also helps to keep the Magrider as one of the faster reversing tanks up with the Prowler. The Vanguard has a shield and stronger armor for that stuff, so it's not as important. This still makes the Lightning a bit too fast, but it's supposed to be a fast light tank.


The other problem I have personally with it is the Vanguard is back heavy. It already climbs really well in reverse, too high a speed will make it climb worse than a Magrider. The physics also frown very badly on 65 KPH with a heavy "front" which will probably lead to lots of flipping.

Vanguard Acceleration

What I mentioned up there about the stock Vanguard acceleration deals only with the gear change time and not the direct speed at which it accelerates. That 2.25 seconds is the time the tank stay stuck at 16 KPH waiting to change gears after it reaches 16 KPH. Basically it takes just as much time if not more to wait on the gears to change than it does accelerating up to 16 KPH. The best part is that is plenty of time for infantry (running at 22-23 KPH) to catch up to the tank and place C4 on the hull.

Yes, gear popping in the hands of a "pro" will make you skip that 2.25 seconds and accelerate much faster, but most and especially new players have no concept of this at all. I'm hoping that this will improve the new player experience with Vanguards without relying on unofficial things like gear popping.

Magrider Strafe

It's been my opinion for a long while that the Magrider is just plain awful at being a tank. With stabilization coming in, and the game up until this point balanced around tanks not having stabilization while the Magrider has a stabilized suspension, this tips it too far in favor of other tanks. I'm hoping to have at least some of the Magrider's original strafe speed restored to allow for the faction trait of mobility to become more apparent.

Shell Velocity

Notice that I also included no changes at all to gravity. This is the one that baffled me the most. The claim was that they wanted tanks to move up closer to their targets. All I could think was "What tanks? What targets? Where is this going to happen? Where is it not happening now?". Maybe I just drive so radically differently from other people that I have no clue what they are talking about. Seriously though, I have no clue what they are talking about, please answer here.

I also figured that the Vanguard would be OK with the current velocity it has now, but since we want to reduce the difference in shell velocities between tanks, the HEAT cannon just get's caught up in it. I'm hoping the buff to Magrider Velocity will help with it's poor accuracy at range, partial loss of mobility dominance, and terribleness as a tank. The prowler buffs were because lockdown vs moving tank, the stationary one is at a disadvantage. 1v1 with gunners (Halberd and / or Enforcer) a Vanguard will still barely win. It gets worse when one is stationary and the other one is charging you while possibly dodging shells. The Magrider may not have this same advantage of the shield and high armor, but I'm hoping the increased strafe will help improve things.

Misc Changes

The Vulcan & Lockdown changes were to make the prowler feel less left out in the age of mobility. I still never agreeded with the Prowler Vulcan nerf since they hardly have gunners to begin with. From what I can tell, the only major problem was it's AA ability, which could have been fixed in a different way. It would also be easier for a Prowler to pack up and leave if it had too. Maybe this goes against the idea of playing it too safe which is what the devs seem to have a problem with, but I think people should discuss that one too.

Dumbfire buff is because they just suck. Like I said before, I'm dodging these terrible weapons with a Vanguard. I do not think it is fair for new players that their only AV option is a slow dumbfire that can easily be dodge and has awful range. There is the rocket primary problem though, but I want people to discuss that as well as to what other methods can be used to help increase it's speed without needing to completely eliminate rocket primary from the game and without being too detrimental to infantry / MAX gameplay.

I threw a Magrider boost "coasting" in there because the ES ability is pretty lame. 1 second of 99KPH before it immediately drops right back down to normal speeds. This one might now work the way I imagine it though, but it is worth a shot to make it better.

Magrider Speeds

OK, and about the Magrider speeds I'll explain why this is a bit complicated.

Magriders are fastest when moving diagonally. This is because vector addition plays a part in this game. Experienced Magrider and Aircraft pilots might know what I am talking about.

When you fly aircraft, if you point your nose down and use your downward thrusts, you move faster than you would if you just flew in a straight line. A similar principal applies to the Magrider, only in a horizontal plane.
The currently Magrider moves forward at 50 KPH and strafes at 20 KPH. When you move in two vectors at the same time, it increases your speed slightly. You can read the basics about it here. With that, a Magrider will be actually able to achieve about roughly 52-53 KPH as it's max speed. (2-3 KPH gain)

Right now, with Rival (50 KPH) your strafe speed goes up to about 27 KPH and allows the Magrider to achieve 56 KPH as it's max speed through strafing. (6 KPH gain) When you use Racer (65 KPH), it's less noticeable. At most your will probably achieve only 67-68 KPH. (2-3 KPH gain)

So to list it simply:

• Stock (50) -> 52 (2 KPH gain)
• Racer (65) -> 67 (2 KPH gain)
• Rival (50) - > 56 (6 KPH gain)

Revers behaves somewhat similar.

• Stock (32) -> 37 KPH (5 KPH gain)
• Racer (36) -> 41 KPH (5 KPH gain)
• Rival (41) - > 45 KPH (4 KPH gain)

====


With the changes I proposed, the base Magrider strafe speed will be 27 KPH with being able to go up to 35 KPH with Rival. This makes a notable difference in vector addition.

The stock Magrider will be able to achieve in forward movement:

• Stock 50 -> 56 (6 KPH gain)
• Racer 65 -> 70 (5 KPH gain)
• Rival 50 -> 61 (11 KPH gain)

In reverse:

• Stock (43) -> 50 (7 KPH gain)
• Racer (48) -> 55 (7 KPH gain)
• Rival (50) -> 61 (11 KPH gain)

This is a bit too much on Racer's part, as 70 KPH is something that is supposed to be for the Prowler as a faction trait bonus. If racer was brought down 5 KPH, it will mostly balance out with the other tank speeds (65-66KPH).


There is a reason why the Magrider's forward movement speed is less than other tanks. The importance of it was mostly lost since they nerf-hammered the strafe speed a long long time ago, but if we want to buff it back up, those parts have to factor in again.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT I SUPPORT NERFING MAGRIDER RACER WITHOUT BUFFING STRAFE SPEED. Please keep that in mind.


Overall, I feel that some of the changes they proposed are great, some of them are too powerful, and some of them are not needed.

The Dalton change seems about the right timing to me. I've always thought it seemed rather good at AI for an AV-focused weapon, but since in the past the belly gun was mostly the only significant source of damage output against infantry (aka, Bursters and HAs) it was a concession to be made so that a Lib wasn't too vulnerable to a couple chumps with lock ons. I'm sure any tanker can give more than a few tales about that single, annoying HA in the open that they couldn't quite hit right away with AP rounds and got to eat several rockets in return.

Now we've finally figured out that the tail gunner spending 95% of his time staring into space waiting for ESFs that he can't kill or even deter to show up was a terrible job, and now with a far more generous traverse angle the tail gunner can shoot at the same targets the belly gun does. So a gun that can provide AI coverage can be picked to cover for the Dalton's weakness.

I've always thought having the two gunner positions of the Lib working in tandem was the way to go rather than giving almost all of the power to the belly gun (aka, the reason why Libs were practically never 3/3 for the longest time). Now that the tail gunner can actually contribute to some extent, it's not so unreasonable to further define the Dalton's specialty. Same goes for the Shredder losing some AI effectiveness. I would even go so far as to suggest it's a decent reason to tone down the Tank Buster, as there's now two other guns with a decent chance of providing follow up instead of just the belly gun.


Still would love to see a vehicle loadout swapping option, so that roles could be further diversified as we'd be able to swap to something appropriate (and/or something that isn't nigh defenseless) as the situation changes.