Higby: Return of the Tankside

... is a meaningless catchphrase that doesn't encapsulate anything specific about how to play the game. You can't call it "situational awareness" whenever someone actually sees the Light Assault jetpacking towards him, whether or not they were looking out for it, and "that person deserved it" every time that they're looking left when the Light Assault was coming from the right and right when they can no longer see them coming from the left anymore. I don't know which is worse: that the claim sounds two-faced or that you're attributing luck to some kind of greater insight.

Even I know which situations are most likely to get me C4'd and avoid them. That's not situational awareness; that's "playing the game long enough," at least by my definition.

This actually reminds me of a discussion on tanks in another game in development. It's a Warhammer 40k game, and for those not familiar with the setting, Warhammer 40k factions generally like to stick lots of extra guns all over their vehicles.

The catch is, that means lots of someones have to sit in those tanks and shoot those guns. For example, a tank might have a main gun, two side guns, one front hull gun, and a top machine gun. That's five gun seats.

Now, let's say that up to four of those positions can mount Lascannons (exactly what they sound like: anti-tank laser cannons). The machine gun on top just gets to pick between a heavy, slow-firing machine gun or a light, fast-firing machine gun.

But wait, infantry can carry Lascannons as their anti-tank weapon in 40k! This is the exact same lascannon too, identical in every way to the vehicle one (except ammo reserves and mobility I suppose). So while sitting in the tank they have four lascannons, but they can hop out and have five. Six, if you have a separate driver seat on top of all that.

Which is obviously a rather silly situation, in theory they can increase their firepower by 50% (4->6) by getting out of the tank and using it as cover.

Which is why of course, my solution for that situation was either having a dedicated Crewman class with a restricted loadout, or prohibiting the use of driver/gunner seats while carrying certain pieces of heavy equipment (how did you even find space to cram six laser cannons inside your tank in the first place?).

Slightly offtopic, but it shows that some weird and counter-intuitive situations crop up when infantry are carrying just as much firepower on a per-person basis as a tank.

That's like saying a tank shell shouldn't kill me, because I had no warning it was coming. I was looking left, it was coming from the right. So that's not fair at all, is it?

Not even sure what you guys are trying to say here. That you should always have fair warning someone is trying to kill you? That you should always have a chance to fight back, or win?

You sound like coddled, entitled people. Who have always had an advantage against traditional infantry based AV, and you can't stand that there's a tactic out there that can kill you as fast as you can kill others.

if you bother to look at the recent stats you'd find the amount of tanks pulled hasn't increased by much while C4, grenades and tank mine use has skyrocketed.

when i pull a tank i want to fight other tanks, not get obliterated by a lone fairy who sees me as a pinata. contrary to the perception of faries HE/HEAT tanks aren't the only ones getting killed by C4.

Does the game in development involve Crusading over a long duration? Eternal even?
Not all infantry would get to carry lascannons.. like in PS2, only heavy's bring RL'ers. (and engineers AV turret... mutter mutter..)

When I pull infantry I want to fight other infantry. Not get one-hit by lone wolf tanks who see me as a cert pinata.

See what I did there?

Tankers who get C4'd only ever see the one guy that got them - not the other 10 that died trying.

No sympathy for any tanker that gets killed by a small man flying slowly pooing bricks of C4.

None whatsoever - and I say that as a LA and part-time tanker.

In fact, I think that'd do tankers a hell of a lot more good - play as an LA and go tank hunting. You'll learn how to do it - and better yet, how to avoid getting blowed up yourself when you next go farming totally legit tanking

plenty of places to fight that tanks can't get you if you play right, also if you hate getting killed by tanks call air support, pull your own tanks or coordinate a counter attack.

notice i didn't use that word c4 faries are so fond of using to defend their cheese?

the issue is a cheap consumable should not totally and completely defeat a more expensive armored vehicle with a OHK.

When was the last time a pinata had a single piece of candy? Since when outside of menace kills has single infantry been worth several certs? I see what you attempted to do there, but you failed since tanks are worth multiple certs and infantry are not.

It's a two hit kill

And says who? What reasoning do you have for this statement? There is none. It's just an emotional "feeling" that your tank should rule over all, crush everything, and face no true opposition besides another AV tank.

The resource system is ALL screwed up, we all know it. So trying to base some kind of balance argument right now, before the planned resource revamp, is stupid anyway. The resource system is not a power balancing mechanic as you're making it out to be.

The Harasser is pretty darn cheap last time I checked, by your logic I guess we need to nerf it into the ground too. It should NEVER kill other vehicles. Well maybe it should kill Flash's, cause they're cheaper, right?

Your signature has a .GIF of a tank on it.....

Not saying your are biased. But not saying you're not biased either.

Tanks should never engage infantry directly, if anything their sole purpose should be spamming/breaching spawn zones (fortifications) and other vehicles.

In the real world one man with a single shot launcher can very much take out a tank with a single shot. Tanks are merely infantry support vehicles, where infantry will always be the main force. Armour without infantry support wouldnt last a single engagement. Where infantry without armor support can do a great deal.

Even if you look at top player stats, top players are ESF pilots and tankers. Not a single infantryman.

I asked you a question, how does a single infantry represent a cert pinata if they aren't worth more than 1 cert. You can easily make more certs blowing up vehicles.

Dude I was just turning his expression around, not making some big argument over the use of "pinata".... You're being silly.

lol i don't think tanks should crush everything i think that tanks shouldn't be subject to stupid concepts like C4 killing tanks outright.

so you calling the developers stupid eh? when they nerfed tank AI the devs said they would follow up with an infantry AV nerf.
except now that you know for sure they are gonna do it you don't want to pay for the nerf to tank AI by having your favorite cheese nerfed so it can't kill tanks rambo style.

infantry explosives should never instantly kill tanks, tanks should have a fighting chance against infantry and not this "look a tank i'll bust it solo like rambo"

infantry are free, can try as many times as they like to deploy C4 comparing to a harasser is no good, the harasser is at-risk and can and does get destoryed attacking tanks(harrassers cost resources, fairies only use resources when they deploy C4). plus unlike infantry that can hide in the woodwork and attack from lots of positions and above the harrasser is limited to the ground and not some tree, bridge or high building to drop down on you.

That's what my point was. The only thing you've said is "situational awareness," and be done with it (the argument). You've not explained what it is or how it differs from luck.

At the very least, I'm trying to differentiate it from "knowing better than to drive under a building overhang in an enemy base." Or going near the base in the first place. If avoiding being C4'd was as easy as picking those kinds of things out, many tankers would already be wizards at this situational awareness thing; but, there's obviously a skillset beyond that.

EliteEskimo's stats with the Prowler:



The world leaderboard for C4:



As you can see C4 is clearly out of control.

Situational awareness for vehicle drivers also involves being aware of what vertical structures (cliffs, boulders, walls, buildings, etc) an enemy LA would have access to (i.e. doesn't have to run through the middle of crossfire to get to) and then NOT PARKING NEXT TO THAT.

Do that, and your C4 deaths will become rare.

58 k/d. Clearly tanks need buffs!

These guys make me sick.

doesn't mean i have to accept instant death to an inexpensive explosive that should'nt kill full health tanks outright when i encounter them. devs nerfed tank effectiveness against infantry and now they will carry out their promise to do it to infantry AV.

C4 faires have had tons of time to use OHKs against tanks soon it will be over unless that tank is damaged.

not the end of the world.