Now that Higby's gone

Think we can see some new artwork on the loading screens and website that isn't strictly Pro NC? And maybe a nerf to win shield and ravens??? Ohhh man i'm getting excited.

"Pro NC artwork"? did you even look at what's happening there? They should just shoot their comrade in the face and have him respawn. Just look at what the stupids carrying the guy are doing: both are wielding an LMG in one hand and firing, what the hell? One is even an LA using an LMG in one hand! They might as well be screaming "don't kill us, we aren't doing anything for our team so just let us hamper them some more!"

As for the "win shield". You don't know what you are talking about. The Vanguard shield is the easiest and most used MBT ability out there, giving the most value for each use. But that's where it ends, it has a mightily long cooldown and there's tons wrong with the base Vanguard. Using a Magrider and dodging 2 shots almost gets you more than a Vanguard shield. The usage stats don't lie: the Vanguard is good, but compared to the other two it's just underperforming. Despite having the incredible good shield.
Update the base Vanguard, then we can talk about changing the Vanguard shield, but not before.

The Ravens are already getting a nerf, so keep your pants on. They will be strictly 200m range weapons from what I hear, and the other ESAV MAX weapons are going to get upgrades.

If you actually main as a tank you'd realize the vanguard isn't OP at all. Especially when you play both factions. So people whining about the vans "win shield" dont quite know how to tank.

Like the other guys said, the shield isn't OP at all; you need to legitimately drive a Vanguard to understand how vulnerable a Vanguard actually is and the shield is a balance to keep it alive.

And yes, I speak from a lot of experience both playing with and against the Vanguard.

No, I like my pro NC loading screen.

I'd like to see it change based on the empire of the character on the login screen. Propaganda for everyone!

Revenue generation for everyone!

its funny becasue i would gladly play a game with bill boards in it, it really does not take away from me killing people in the slightest.

In the grand scheme of things these really top your list? Really? This playerbase sometimes, I swear...

And the Higby/NC "conspiracy" never existed. ZOE, Ravens, Vulcans, Orion, Striker, PPE, Vanguard shield, these things are cyclical. Take off the tinfoil hat and start an alt and you'll see the grass is always greener on the other faction.

This is why people play all three factions. If something seems unfair, you can check it out and exploit it if that is the case.
ZOE MAX was pretty fun...

Yes, in the grand scheme of things, seeing the faction that i like the least posted on everything, even Higby's selfies, does get old. There's alot of great faction art out there, why limit it?

I'll agree, there certainly isn't a conspiracy in terms of what Higby's favorite faction is, he screams it loud and proud. Now, you may want to down play it, but when he's openly insulting the vanu on one post, then apologizing to his "NC Brothers" for considering a much needed nerf in another, it's quite obvious that this favoritism does indeed affect the game.

There's nothing cyclical about the things you mentioned. ZOE was op, and was nerfed into the ground in response. It's been in this state ever since. Ravens have been OP for a long time, just more NC players finally took notice and/or got enough points to buy two of them. Are you implying that the game's perfectly balanced, and that we should all accept things the way they are?

Yes...pro NC artwork. You're ignoring the Vanu player getting his guts blown out, and the TR player about to receive a frontal lobotomy via mag-cutter. Don't down play it man, it's obviously Pro- NC, and I've got to see it every time I log in. Not to mention the vanguards leading the way into Hossin. There's plenty of awesome Planetside 2 artwork out there that shows each faction in equal light. At the very least the loading screen should rotate, showing each faction kicking ***.

So...it's an I-WIN button just like I said. Usage stats can be skewed, if you have some that show the vanguard as actually being worse than the other two tanks, then link it. Last i checked, the Vanguard seemed to under perform, but this was due to it being pulled more often than the other tanks, mostly by lower skilled players. The vanguard is the perfect MBT. It's has higher effective health than any other tank, and this is before the shield is taken into account.

There's a huge misconception involved with the magrider's ability to "dodge" shots. If your opponent has good aim, you're not going to avoid his shots unless you're outside of 175+ meters, and this scenario doesn't take into account an average combat experience where there are multiple hostiles firing at your tank. If you're facing against a magrider, you're always going to be presented with the same profile, a frontal view. Any thing other than this and you've already won. Learn to aim at the mag's center, you'll never miss a shot.

Heh, on a side note, i see they added some new TR artwork...can't wait til' they add more Non NC stuff. Good riddance Higby.

No please don't do this.
I remember playing Anarchy Online with it's in game advertising. I can't tell you how annoying having the trailer for Babylon A.D. booming out on a constant loop was (yes I can still remember this from 2008, that's how badly it affected me). The only way to turn them off was to subscribe.

On second thought, put the adverts in the spawn rooms, it may get the spawn room warriors out of there.

I like Coke, so it's ok if TR government thinks that I need a cold one to keep my temper chill.

I just want to see the other factions getting decent ******* weapon designs instead of just copy pasted reskins with changed stats 90% of the time.

I'm reading more Vanguards in the field, which are most likely placed close to each other. They still have a shield and such. Despite this the Vanguard isn't performing overly well.
Then we look at the Q4 stats (http://ps2oraclestats.com/monthly-vehicle-deaths/, fill in the things with MBT and the Q4 stats). True, the stat's don't lie. There is a significant difference between the guns, with the Titan AP going on top. On the other hand, the TR is the only one where another of it's cannons is also in the MBT (total) kill stats, upgrading their kills to above the Vanguard. Sure the amount will be more even due to the fact the Titan HEAT will have earned some kills, but the Titan HE certainly won't. It is taken by next to no one. The TR on the other hand has a HEAT and a HE gun that is still taken some times, with the VS HE being taken a LOT. You can just find all that on the site. Continue searching now that you are at those guns, and check out the KPH or the kills. TR is leading in kills with the HEAT. The NC seems to be a little above the VS at all times, but statistically there is no difference. Lets check the AP guns their KPH and kills. Wow. The TR is outperforming by a large margin! The VS and NC are again on the bottom, fighting over who is only slightly better.
Check Vehicle KPH. Heat --> NC underperforming. Any of the more kills stats must come from more MBT's that we field. TR is stable on top, while the VS and NC are battling hard for second place. Seems very tied. Check the AP KPH. What is this? We have less vehicle kills per hour than the others? We must check this with the kills per unique (vehicle KPU). Maybe we are just slow in making the kill. No. Not really. We just pull more tanks, meaning every tank has a lower kills per run. This means despite that we field more, we are trumped by fewer tanks, and only make up for this statistic due to sheer volume of our many tanks that kill stuff. Lets check the vehicle KPH for HE guns. The VS is comfortably in the first place, while the NC and VS battle for second place? Their vehicle KPU is saying the same? I can go on with all these stats, but you can look at it yourself. I'll check one more thing for you, air.
The Vanguard is renown for sniping air. Lets see in the monthly vehicle deaths how they fare. of the ESF deaths, there are 0,98% deaths by the Titan AP, and the rest is insignificant to be shown. The Lib gets shot down only 0,3 more by the TItan AP than the P2-Ap. The Valkyrie gets shot down 0,01 % more by the P2-AP than the Titan AP and the Gal gets shot down 0,4% more by the P2-AP than the Titan AP. So even against air it is not great in win or lose in comparison to the TR.

The gist is hopefully clear. The Vanguard is nowhere near the best tank in anything. Only in total kills with the Titan AP he has 0,7% more MBT kills than the P2-AP. For the rest it is a sad puddle that is leaning heavily on its shield to even survive. It isn't the tank killer you are led to believe, unless you go on a toe to toe full frontal assault. Then yes, you will lose. To add insult to injury it can't do anything else well, like killing infantry. There is only one thing it truly excels in. Good thing it can at least keep the ESF out of the sky, which is done much better by many other weapons.

Knock a frosty, the fight is almost ours!

The fact that more artwork needs to come available is undisputed, the fact that this is Pro-NC artwork is not.
I'm not downplaying anything, you are upplaying it. Your reaction to the artwork is "It's Pro-NC artwork, see how they look cool and how one in the back gets a kill and the other is in the middle of a fight about to eviscerate his enemy?"
Now you can see that, it's an artwork, and if you decide that it's like that then it is. But what you completely ignore is the fact that it can be something else as well. I don't see pro-NC artwork, I see a slanderous affair of stupidity. There's 3 stupids in the center, one guy who shoots a Vanu from close range and there's an undecided knife fight in the back where the TR soldier managed to get first strike. Then there's the two reavers fleeing the scene from multiple Scythes and two Mozzies, some friendly Galaxies in the back evacuating the Biolab and oh, a freaking burning Biolab that they just lost and are fleeing the scene from. Doesn't sound so pro-NC now does it? I have to watch that piece of demoralization every time I have to log in. There's a whole of one NC guy in the whole picture doing his job better than the rest, while fleeing, by shooting a Vanu guy.

No, it's an "Now we are more on equal ground due to our wonderful shield" button. It doesn't give you an auto-win in a fight. That's the whole point I'm making and you dumb it down to "see, I was right", which is completely the opposite of everything in my previous post. Just re-read it again and give me reasons how exactly my words make you think that you are right.

check it again: http://ps2oraclestats.com/monthlystats/

The stats aren't "skewed" and it's not "just" lower skilled players. How the hell do you know they are lower skilled? How the hell is it possible that across multiple servers and more than tenthousand people, there's a massive statistical anomaly that makes all the unskilled players jump into the 1/3rd of the NC and goes for the Vanguard? Seeing as in many other area's, such as NS weapons, the factions are usually on-par with eachother, this entire idea is too far fetched.
Just once more: You believe that, while they are on equal-skill with eachother in weapons available to all factions such as Sunderers and NS weapons, for some reason a statistically large enough group of unskilled players uses the Vanguard and is so bad with the very "Iwin shield", that the statistics of a, according to you, superior tank (due to "Iwin shield") are dragged down to below that of the other tanks? That's exactly what you are saying.
Wouldn't the solution of "hey, these players aren't unskilled, the tank is simply underperforming" be a much less far-fetched idea?

Why would more people pull a Vanguard? This can have also multiple reasons. One is that people die more often in a Vanguard so they pull them more, the other is that the Vanguard is OP and is pulled more. Since the players are unskilled, as you say, they would die faster in the Vanguard and not think it OP to pull it more often. That means that they pull it more because they die faster.
But I think I just showed you why the players are less likely to be unskilled and the tank itself is more likely to be underperforming.

First off, this isn't how 90% of the players aim. You might as well say "always go for a headshot with sniper rifles" and think it finished. Just because you said it doesn't mean you can do it. I might as well say "if there's a tank firing at you, just C4 it, they can't escape or repair in time no matter what". But that completely ignores the fact that there's a dozen other factors you need to keep track off.
Players are doing more than aiming for the center. They are moving themselves, try to keep aware of friendly and enemy movement other than the target, try to maintain an escape route... and while you may think "that's easy" its much more taxing for the human mind than you think. As an example, just scrolling through a website is incredibly taxing, the mind has trouble dealing with it. So just saying "but it's easy for me" is both unfair and not true. You might feel it's easy, but in truth it's pretty damn hard for your brain to keep up and it will slip up rather quickly.
And I haven't even touched on stuff like the the environment, details on how, where and why enemy or friendly units are placed, damage and self-preservation etc.

Yeah, you realise that the piece of artwork you are referring to was probably already in the making before Higby left?

I would welcome in-game billboard ads as long as they didn't have sound or get in the way of gameplay. QuakLive does it very well, for example. Planetside 1 also did it if i remember correctly.

Key being they better make advertising that isn't just stupid and irrelevant. Show us ads for Heckler and Koch, Bushnell, Winchester, Hummer, Glock, Benelli, Colt, Monster, and throw in some coffee ads in here too. Soldiers like coffee

For starters, a 1% difference on these charts is a very large difference. The fact that Esfs get shot down .98% of the time by a vanguard is exactly why people consider it a esf killer.

Secondly, the Prowler over performs due to it being the fastest tank, and absolute best at sniping, especially when deployed. You run into the line of sight of a deployed prowler, you'll die before you have time to react. Despite general consensus, the drawbacks to the deployment ability of the prowler are not even close to balancing it against the benefits. But..

Since we're talking about a defensive ability, that offers survivability, let's look at vehicle kills per month. Just comparing the percentage of vanguard kills with the FPC vs the percentage of Magrider kills with the TItan AP, we see FPC: 4.91%, and the Titan AP: 6.10%. The enforcer accounts for 2.10% of magrider deaths, while the saron accounts for 2.30% of vanguard deaths. So that's Vanguard kills against magrider at 8.20%, while the Magrider kills against vanguard sits at 7.21%. A .99% difference...which again, is HUGE. This is taking into account the Magrider's maneuverability, and it's "ability" to dodge shots, which gets completely trumped by a single button press.

Compare this to the magburner, which requires the pilot do everything absolutely right in order for the ability to not get them killed. If i use mag burner to escape...i have to actually escape first, then use it to put distance between my tank and my enemy. However, if my enemy manages to keep track of me, since their tank is faster than the magrider, they'll be able to chase me down. If i use it to press an advantage against the enemy, i'm still putting my self in harms way, since i'm leaving whatever cover i might have been using.

The only thing the vanguard appears to lack in is kills against infantry, which can be attributed by the longer load times on the main gun. Most of its additional damage is wasted against infantry.

Hmm you look at only the Magrider. 1.19% less on the total kills you say? Lets forget you look only at the weakest of the herd and ignore the powerful Prowler, lets look at relative numbers. Each faction adds to the total numbers. An happy example. If the NC has much less deaths than the other two, the other two have much less kills to be had! Meaning they have to make up for that number by killing much more of the other, while competing with the NC. Let us see what actually happens.

Besides the fact that you gloss over the utilities and such in KPH and all that, I've calculated all Q4 deaths of the MBT. Did you know that the deaths of the NC, VS and TR MBTs account respectively for 28.678%, 33.87% and 37.453% of the deaths? This means that compared to the others the NC has 5.192% VS and 8.775% bigger kill pool, a grand total of 13.967%? And from that 13,967% they only got 0,7% higher with the Titan APthan the others. Do the math and you will see that the Titan AP loses ground in comparison with the other kills. Also, again, other stats show a lower VKPH and VKPU, making it only look a bit better with 0,7% more kills than the P2-AP when you look at only the MBT deaths. 0,7% on MBTs where it loses many more % when you look at infantry kills or practically anything else.
That means the VS has -5.192% less NC and 3.565 more TR in regards to the death pool to dispense over its kills, a grand total of -1.627%. The TR will fall into place with -8.775% less NC and -3.565% less TR in regards to the death pool, a grand total of -12.34.

So despite of having the opportunity of nearly 14% MBT deaths to devide over it's guns, it doesn't grab much of that. The VS and TR are both more than willing to take a slice, leaving the Titan AP with much less kills in relative fasion. Absolute numbers it is a winner, but relative numbers make the Titan AP not interesting. It is actually statistically significantly lower than the rest.

So less MBT deaths of NC are a mighty blow to the kills the VS and TR might have had. Luckily they grab a good slice of the deaths that occur on the enemy non-NC faction, leaving the NC only just on top despite the NC having two juicy pools to pick from, and not just one like the others.
So are we done nitpicking over 0,7% on the Q4 MBT page which is frankly very narrow minded, especially if you account for the total deaths of each faction making the Titan AP actually under performing quite a bit? Now look at the other pages and see what I see. I don't even want to go to the point of "Vanguard underpowered" etc. That is for kids who don't like to play hard with the toys they got. I just want you to see that if you nerf anything of the 'I win' Vanguard shield, the Vanguard will be the lowest MBT in every single stat, except maybe killing ESF, which is again a worthless stat as air is countered by much more and better things by a large margin.

I can however understand you don't like the shield for psychological reasons. It must look very powerful and very annoying to nearly kill things or just in direct encounters that some damage is for naught. Hell, with fire suppression that heals more you might feel better, as you still did your actual damage to the tank.
So if you want to change, not nerf, the shield, give some good suggestions. Or even suggestions that replace the shield altogether. Something that keeps the Vanguard competitive, and not the underdog in nearly every field compared to the Prowler. I'll listen, I'll support your idea if it is good, and then we will finally be over the people who don't get their facts straight and only bash their heads against the shield. One less annoyance for me.