[Suggestion] Lowering the amount of infantry AV may actually lower infantry farming.

I was reading a very old, dead thread some time ago and I remember someone mentioning that, while in their tank, they never bothered to shoot infiltrators even if they were very close because they knew that infils could no damage to their tank.

So this got me thinking. What is the prime instinct that leads you to kill infantry in a tank? No, it's not certs. If you take out one enemy tank it's 700 XP if you consider bonuses and all that fluff, that is 7 squishies. Take out a 2/2 tank and it's 800, take out a tank that killed some other tanks and menace bonuses bump up its value to up to 1000+ XP. So XP is not the dominant reason why tanks can be seen focusing on infantry so often.

The reason is that every single infantry unit is a potential danger. All infantry units can carry C4 except the infiltrator, which means that any infantry except infils who get close to a tank are a potential instagib, resulting in the tank farming them as soon as they come in view.

Why don't tanks focus on enemy tanks more? Because they are much more "manageable", in a way. Infantry can come from every corner, ambush you from every angle, and thus, when it's on sight, a tanker will want to eliminate all of it as fast as possible. Enemy tanks, on the other hand, are slow, noisy lumbering hunks of metal (or magnets) that also auto-spot themselves when they get close enough. They are a much more "manageable" risk for a tanker.

This leads me to conclude that if less classes were potential C4 carriers, tankers would downright ignore them and focus on killings tanks instead of farming, a bit like an eagle does not catch flies and concentrates on rabbits instead. Currently, nearly every fly can blow the eagle to pieces, if this wasn't the case, flies would not get as farmed as much as now.

In my country, we have a saying that goes "Don't shoot the Red Cross", the red cross being ambulances. That is, don't harm people that have no way to harm you. This principle should be applied to Planetside 2.

Thus, I propose the following:

> Remove C4 from Medics.
> Show C4 and AT mines on Engineers (only them).
> Show Hunter QCX with a blinking red light if it is loaded with explosive rounds on all classes (blinking light would obviously go away for cloaked infiltrators)

This accomplishes the following:

> Medics don't get farmed anymore and can do their job better without getting killed every time they try.
> Engineers that simply want to give ammo and do AI work don't get farmed.
> Less farming overall.
> Only attacker classes (Heavy and Light Assault) are consant dangers, and thus targets, for tanks.

Please not that this won't fix your average 10% VS 90% overpop fight. Nothing will. If the enemy outnumbers you 1 to 10, you are going to get killed regardless of who is camping the spawn room and how.

Thoughts?

Yes. Yes. A hundred times yes. Even when I run PPA, it's just for defense against C4 fairies and rocket peasants. I always run FPC instead of HEAT or HE, to protect against tanks. If this suggestion was added, I could finally go pure AV again.

You can farm the same amount of XP from infantry really easily without risk of dueling a tank with HE and a group of 10 infantry and sooooo much faster. So yes, XP is one motivation and a hella strong one.

So I don't agree at all with that statement.

Decreasing AV options would increase farming much much more if infantry can't fight armor back.
I've never heard a driver said "oh noes, they got AV, time to farm"... that's just plain weird. The reason there is so much AV is especially to counter the vehicle spam and farming opportunities!

Remember lib domination? The lack of AA effective counters made them genocide machines. And now you want to reduce AV so tanks can do the same? rofl

It's sad but people don't get by those nice philosophies in games.
There's an enemy? I shoot it with whatever I have effective against it.

This is not Earth. It's Auraxis. And there's nothing nice going on here.

You seriously think most tankers will just ignore grunts who can't fight back?

They will get farmed ten times more and will sit in spawn rooms and bio labs all day, then quit the game.

Let's just remove all the guns in the game and we can all just be a big happy family!!!



Side note: I don't think you understand the definition of "Farming"

I don't think you could go so far as to expect no farming to take place. But I do agree in so far as allowing classes to overlap in roles affects threat prioritization and a vehicle's willingness to get closer to the fight. This is because even if you see a Medic there is a potential he could one shot you, so you can't just ignore him and shoot the HAs, like you would with infiltrators.

Of course, the posters above are right that you would still shoot the Medic if there are no more important targets.

Still, I would love for classes to stick to their role and rely on teammates like they should. And to know what to expect from particular classes like I should be able to.

Medics DO NOT DESERVE to have C4. It has a negative impact on gameplay.

I agree with this. I don't even kill enemy Infiltrators in the field if I find them (unless they're a clear and present danger to my squad, which most sniping Infiltrators usually aren't). I just start flashing my Lumifiber and chasing them all over the hill they happen to be on. It's cute the first few times when they think they can just recloak and reposition, but eventually they get the message that everytime they look through their scope their shot is going to be blocked by a Lightning hull.

Most infantry at long-range I don't bother with... but if there's infantry at short range then they become priority targets. In fact if there's an AP Lightning and any infantryman coming at me at the same time at close range, I'll definitely shoot at the infantry first (while backing up) because 1) I can end the infantry threat more quickly and 2) the infantry can OHK me whereas the enemy Lightning cannot.

Now if I knew that those infantry couldn't hurt me, then I would at least prioritize the enemy Lightning first. I'm not saying that I wouldn't kill those infantry if it was helpful to the squad, but I would be more comfortable letting them slip by if there were more dangerous targets nearby (or I would run off to do some scouting or Sunderer hunting).

I view all infantry as a threat due to their individual contribution to the enemy's cause. To shoot or not to shoot no doubt is a personal choice that is weighed after a bunch of variables are considered. I have driven past Infiltrators before, but not because I don't see them as a threat. I will ignore them for I don't want to get drawn into a lengthy cat and mouse game for a single infantry kill when there are 10-15 running about all visible in front of me.

As for other classes.. I don't want engineers fixing the enemy.. I don't want medics to revive their buddies or to improve their quality of life.. light assaults need to use the front door like everyone else.. that is why I kill them.. Heavies and maxes die so my guys don't have to.

I fully understand your idea about minimizing AV abilities on certain classes. It makes sense, there are some tankers that may be considering targets based on their threat level. Being C4ed as often as I have, I'm a bit jumpy when I see infantry near me. I am, however, still going to pull the trigger and send 'em to the re-spawn room if they aren't carrying that blue triangle or mercy over their heads.

This. Most tankers complain that inafntry players just want CoD, when what most tankers really want (and get, in this game) is an infantry slaughter simulator.

The logic is sound, but lets do the opposite instead. Remove all anti-infantry weapons from vehicles. That way infantry won't see vehicles as a threat and won't bother trying to kill them. Brilliant!

That's almost the closest thing to make sense in here!

No AI, infantry won't want to defend themselves, therefore, vehicles would gain peace of mind

sorry, i find this idea flawed and unrealistic.

The real reason for infantry farming from vehicles is simple.

So the farming vehicle can up his KDR.
They just want to add kills to their weapons, pad their K/D, and get Auraxium medals.

When you hit BR 100, you don't really bother going for as much XP as you can rake in.
The majority of players go for some goal or another.

The two most common goals are either:
Farming from one weapon to the next, trying to Auraxium as many weapons as you can-
Or farming with just a favorite weapon to try to get as many kills as possible on it.

I fit into the first category.
I've got 19 Auraxiums (It took a while, but my main goals were to Aurax both variants of the Phoenix Launcher and every single AR -including reskins like the NS-11A/NS-11P and variants like the Gauss Rifle, Gauss Rifle Burst, and Gauss Rifle S- available to the NC. These are my crowning achievements. ^_^).

And I'm still moving on to my next weapons.
Right now I'm working on my Anchor and bouncing around between working on different pistols.



The point is, if infantry are even more susceptible to vehicles, that will only cause them to cower from vehicles more, and in turn force vehicles to farm them harder to keep up with the number of kills they were raking in.

Interesting. Then why do I see 10 tanks in a zerg spawncamping those poor infantry? They could go somewhere else and fight enemy vehicles instead...But hey, wait, vehicles are dangerous, they can actually destroy your precious tank...hmhhh

Are you kidding? When I drive a tank I shoot to kill indiscriminately. Everyone is a threat, Even an infiltrator. Eventually you have to come out of that tank to repair it, When you do you may have noticed that sometimes you instantly die. Often times, This is an infiltrator off in the distance who decided to remove your head.


The only reason tanks don't prioritize infiltrators is because they have other threats they are *FORCED* prioritize. Reducing AV capabilities for infantry would not reduce the farming, But vastly increase it because tanks would have nothing to worry about.

Reward -50% XP for infantry kills made by vehicles.

Just because some random guy doesn't shoot infiltrators while in a vehicle, doesn't mean I don't.

In fact, I find infiltrators a very high threat indeed! With my outfit we sometimes sit somewhere as infiltrators with a view of common places to repair... enemy tank drives up, get out to repair, 1 or two headshots later it's an empty tank.

Medics and C4? I really couldn't care less. If you pay certs to put C4 on your medic that's your choice, it's not as if he is geared to go anti-tank. No rocket to push vehicles in awkward positions, no jumpjet to get there more safely and geared for a support role behind your buddies I rarely see an oppertunity to C4 tanks.

As someone else said the reverse logic counts just as much: remove all AI weapons from tanks and infantry won't attack tanks no more! That twisted logic shows how valid the argument is.
Here's another one: In the past no-one ever took AA. So every ESF and Liberator attacked only air, right?

For starters I think its amusing to see people saying that tanks target indiscriminately and kill w/e enemy they see because they are the enemy and you are there to kill the enemy (which is true, no arguement there) but then go on to bash vehicles because if they kill infantry then they are farming and should be killing other vehicles. So you literally go from saying that its ridiculous to think tanks would/should pass up infantry because killing the enemy when you can is every players job to saying that you expect tanks to pass up killing infantry because if they don't then they just overpowered farming machines that should be blown to oblivion. Sounds like some of you are a lot more biased than the OP .

Anyways I agree with everyone that your a little off target, tanks kill whoever they (most of the time). We don't target infantry over tanks or vehicles unless they pose a serious threat. Though I do agree infantry doesn't need an offensive AV option for every class. Medics shouldn't have C-4 and engineers tank mines should be redesigned in a way to be both removable without setting it off and only trigger from vehicle movement not through other explosions or gunfire (at the very least through friendly explosion/gunfire).

Finally I've said this before and I'll keep saying it till it changes. The ONLY reason you see the majority of tanks targeting infantry is because that is all there is to do for us. Bases are too close together to have decent vehicle fights in between them so as it stands now tanks primary role is to shell the base we are attacking. The vehicle fights that do happen outside bases are typically over very quickly because one side will quickly gain the upper hand and either destroy the enemy vehicles or force them behind shields. Thus leaving all the attacking tanks little to do but shell the base. Now I know I'm going to get some of you that say "well you can just get out your tank then" and I say screw that. If I've pulled a tank I shouldn't be expected to get out of it for the sake of trying to balance the game for sony, I'm already in the tank and I'm going to use it till I lose it. It would be like me telling max users that alright get your 6-7 kills but then you need to drop the max suit because we don't want you killing too many people. Anyways to finish it off I will admit there are a few tankers that are true farmers and that does suck but they are far fewer in number and much rarer to encounter than many on forumside claim. If you want less tanks killing infantry then call for map and base redesigns not nerfs and more ways to kill tanks.

Remove infantry AV capability based off of an anecdotal "honor system". It's the same thing with AFK players, I never knife them because they "serve" no threat to me .

Gee, everyone thinking I proposed to remove all infantry AV capability... do you even read? The only thing I would remove is C4 from medics. The rest are visibility changes.