Why are vehicles so durable?

You have got to be kidding. Vehicle guns can regularly OHK any infantry, but infantry weapons DESIGNED TO ENGAGE VEHICLES take multiple hits to do the same.

Not saying all vehicles should be one-shotted by missiles, but come on: A dedicated anti-aircraft weapon that cannot kill the LIGHTEST of the airplanes in one hit? That seems kind of strange to me.

I guess the challenge I see with it is this: this is not real warfare, it is a team game where a few dozen players from each faction battle over a particular map location. When it is not that hard to see one side with 80-90% of its force as vehicles, and those vehicles are superior in durability and firepower to any infantry, it is a game balance issue. It seems more sensible to have vehicles be an interesting addition to any combat force, not the entirety of it, if there is to be any semblance of game balance.

And I agree, but the problem is that since there is no practical limit to vehicle use that you frequently see one force of almost nothing but vehicles steamrolling an equal number of players who are using infantry. There needs to be some kind of rock-paper-scissors balance, because as long as one team can afford to spam vehicles, there is literally no drawback to doing so whatsoever. It's not like you typically see one team of 5 tanks assaulting a team of 50 Heavies with rockets. It's more like 50 tanks assaulting 50 mixed infantry, and there is no practical way to fight back in that scenario.

A balanced game is more fun than a realistic game. Doesn't mean PS2 is perfectly balanced, but the overall style of balancing is good.

Only reason he would survive is if people weren't landing shots on him. Galaxies die fairly fast when they come under fire from 2-3 players using real counters (ESF mostly, but a skyguard landing hits counts too; the lockon users are mostly a joke.)

Yeah, the infantry-carried anti-air weapons (aside from MAXes) are way too weak.

You wuot mate?

PS2's vehicles are extremely vulnerable. A few rockets to the rear and it's dead. A couple C4 bricks dropped by a fairy will instantly kill you, sometimes without warning.

In PS1 this is largely unheard of. A standard ammunition block for an anti-vehicle weapon has two, sometimes three times the capacity PS2's standard count has. 45 striker rounds sitting in your inventory is fairly normal for a PS1 TR AV loadout. This is out of necessity. In PS1, all AV is deterrent at best. You're either expected to lay down minefields, upgrade your base fortifications, or pull vehicles of your own to deal with vehicle threats. In PS1, using infantry AV is like using a flyswatter on a tarantula. You're just carrying it so you don't feel completely helpless. You have to use guerrilla tactics to be a lethal threat to a vehicle as some softie running around.

PS2 players have no idea how easy they've got it sometimes.

There is a practical limit. And that is the limit of physical space and terrain. Shove 50 tanks onto a bridge and chances are most of them would die from collisions or just being pushed off. Shove 50 tanks at a biolab and they collect dust. Shove 50 tanks against most bases on Hossin, Indar, Amerish and the walled bases of Esamir and only a tenth of that number can do anything but shoot blindly at the exits where they think infantry will come out. (and often enough they are rewarded for their efforts from lemming infantry who think they can solo a tank, let alone a battalion).

And when you think about it, that is 50 people using vehicles that will never touch a single point in a base. I've seen bases have a substantial population favor to one side hold out for hours because the people in the vehicles can't contribute anything to actually flip the base over.

Also, what's to stop that 50 mixed infantry pulling their own vehicles at another base? Everyone can use vehicles.

Point is you will never get super-powerful anti-vehicle weapons on infantry without some kind of major drawback. The strongest weapon currently is C4, and the issue with it is getting it to the target in the first place since it has such a short range. Cause the biggest kicker here is that infantry weapons outside of grenades/C4 are completely free. And infantry can get to places where vehicles can't, regardless of how many they throw at you. And infantry can be revived on the spot.

Try playing a vehicle in a swarm against a group of infantry using the advantage of terrain. It's like a game of whack a mole as the ones that pop up to shoot rockets constantly get picked off, only to be revived by a medic sitting slightly over the other side of the hill where you can't get them. Getting closer means you get exposed to tank mines, C4 and shots at your rear. Staying at range means you get nowhere. That is a tonne of resources you just spent that became meaningless.

Coordination would melt those tanks in one concerted salvo of rockets.

"Easier than Planetside 1" may well be the case, but that is not the same as saying the current system doesn't need a little tweaking.

True, but the fact is that in any situation where vehicle spam occurs, the vehicle spamming side tends to win - and that is why it happens. We're gamers. Gamers are a practical lot. We like to win and we tend to use what works. You can find examples of places vehicles have challenges, but the truth is that in most cases fielding an overwhelming vehicle force will tend to win the battle.

It might, but the simple truth is that such coordination is almost unheard of. That's why you don't see people throwing their hands up in frustration and saying, "you know what? We're never spamming vehicles again. Infantry is just too powerful." In point of fact the exact opposite happens, because vehicles ARE so strong.

The difference--I think, since I've only heard stories of PS1--is that there weren't nearly as many tanks on the battlefield. In PS2, anyone can pull a tank at any time, and rarely do they even have to drive very far to get to the fight, so they can't be that much stronger than an infantryman. It's a design decision that can't be changed, so we have to accept that either infantry has to be able to combat hordes of tanks, or hordes of tanks have to be pretty awful at farming infantry.

Actually we've been there already and the vehicles got buffed to were they are now, since it was even more ridiculous to kill them.

I think it also has to do with the time of the day. Peak hours and vehicles tend to live a couple minutes, if that. Off peak hours and they tend to live longer and feel stronger. My comment was meant for peak hours and there is the time it almost feels reduntant to pull vehicles.

because RLs are shaped charges, they dont make big holes in things, they burrow into armor with copper plasma making tiny holes, but these holes get bigger as they go through things like transmissions and they go boom when they hit the magazine

but because buggies are mostly empty space in the cabin and a bed, hitting one with a rocket wouldnt be very effective, hitting the front of the harrasser and the flash would actually be the most effective

I agree it's a game balance issue, but it's not something I think that can be solved with a silver bullet idea from the forums and applied in game in terms of development changes like make AV weapons stronger / heavy vehicles (weapons) weaker / revamp the resource system, or fiddle with the values somehow.

Pending the future implementation of the resource system, right now I'm convinced that it's up to the players / squad leaders to make a reasonable decision - still in their favor to take the base - on meshing assets into the current forces already assaulting a base. With the current way spawn locking / cap locking due to vehicle zergs, not many players are either making a sensible choice to stay infantry in lieu of vehicle or feel that sensible gameplay isn't worth those few easy base capture certs.

When it's a zerg of a single vehicle type usually - air or ground, then yea it's questionable as to why would anyone see friendly forces and pull the same type of vehicle. Those players are going to experience attrition in less engaging gameplay and lack of resources at the reward of getting base cap XP, maybe a few stray kills, or farm support XP in vehicle repair / ammo resupply.

There were indeed less tanks on the battlefields of PS1, but that was because of a number of reasons that, lord only knows why, the PS2 devs chose NOT to implement.

In PS1, you had a limited Number of Certification Points that was dependent on what Battle Rank you were. (At BR1 you start with 7, which are allocated into Medium Assault, Harasser, ATV and Reinforced Exosuit. You then gained 1 every BR aside from BR 6 12 and 18 where you gained an Implant slot. at BR20 you had a total of 24 Cert Points.)

You had to be certified in a Vehicle in order to drive it. So, for a Lightning, you needed Armored Assault 1 which costed 2 Certs. For a MBT you needed Armored Assault 2, which was an additional 1 cert ontop of AA1 which was a prerequisite.

THEN you also needed to be in an Agile Exosuit to drive most vehicles, which meant you couldn't be in Rexo Armor (This games equivalent of Heavy Assault)

Also, you likely wanted at least Engineering in order to repair your tank, which was another 3 Certs for the basic cert, and the Repair gun took up your only Rifle Slot as an Agile Armor soldier. So, an investment of at least 6 Certs to get a MBT.

You also needed to own a Tech Plant to pull a MBT, there was no Warpgate to pull one from on each continent. And once you pulled one, it needed a Gunner, as you were only the driver. (The prowler actually took 2 gunners and 1 driver.)

Due to all this, each tank was also MUCH more powerful, taking dozens of AV rounds to kill, and having magazines of about 20 rounds that could each 1 shot a infantry before needing to reload. In the case of the prowler.


Cert Investments were quite important in PS1 and lended themselves a lot to the balance of the game.

If one asks why vehicles are so durable, then ought they also ask why explosives are nowhere near their real life analogues of being deadly? Infantry are oh so durable too.

Edit: Give me paper tanks, but only if I can get true HE in return.

G2As are a weak deterrent, but they are not "too weak" since that implies they should be stronger. And they shouldn't.

It would be tremendously shallow for PS2 if the best strategy in all situations was "footzerg as infantry". And if G2As were a real counter to air, that's what would happen. They're still a great weapon to take (most of my HA loadouts use it) but it would be incredibly bad for the game if they were a good counter to air.

That's the answer to the overall thread too: infantry are weak so that they are only the right choice in a subset of battles, rather than being the kill-everything solution to all problems. The true issue isn't infantry vs. vehicle balance, but rather (a) bases need larger indoor components so that infantry have more area where they're useful and (b) MAXes need to be balanced so they don't trounce infantry in the one place they might be useful.

While that definitely addressed the quantity of MBTs on the battlefield, it's worth emphasizing the part where you mention MBTs were actually even better at killing infantry in PS1 back then. Not only because of the TTKs, but because cover was a lot more sparse in outdoor fights than it is in PS2. So if you weren't in a combat vehicle of some sort, you were mostly just fodder.