Hello Planetside 2 Gamers, I'm ownasaurus from Mattherson and I'm reflecting on how a battle earlier in the night could have used tweaks to make for a funner, more realistic one. It was a lot of fun but in conclusion I think some rebalancing could help the game overall. It was 3 a.m. in Mattherson's Esamir, north of apex genetics. There were decent sized fights with random VS outfits versus NC10, a nice NC outfit, and some other NC outfits. VS kept pulling sunderers to encroach on NC territory like stillwater etc. NC repeatedly responds with armor and air. Armor repeatedly faces AV turrets and HA lancers/rockets. Air come in to trim our numbers down until being pushed away by bursters. The tanks get farmed and make gradual movements forward towards our sunderer and eventually enemy sunderers/infantry come to help the armor push to destroy our sunderer. Rinse and repeat. Air basically serves to harass and occasional brave (skilled) liberators will kill our sunderer before being destroyed by bursters. This cycle occurred over the same territory for over 4 hours that night. I observed this same pattern and I'm curious about what other gamers expect of this game. We'll make this a brief questionnaire:1 being strongly disagree, 5 being strongly agree, and 3 being neutral. Sunderer placement be the most important thing in the game? 2+ Infantry squads outside sunderers be able to EASILY defend against armor columns? Burster maxes are the most effective air deterrent in the game. Presence of air does not affect the outcome of a battle. Tanks should retreat from infantry. Please fill this out and check on this thread to see what everyone else thinks. I believed the tanks could have used more survivability buffs, AA could have used balance tweaks(vehicle AA being superior to bursters at range), and infantry receive nerfs against vehicles.
2 (Communication & Coordination is, as well as numbers.) 3 (Depends on terrain, armor loadout and coordination of the squads. Also: Combined Arms.) 4 (Depends on numbers and skill of the pilots, though.) 1 3 (In fact I retreat from LA/HA/Medics approaching my tank. At least untill my secondary killed them.) Please fill this out and check on this thread to see what everyone else thinks.[/quote] Things are fine. And if you cannot move on, flank the enemy/open another front/try new tactics or bring more numbers. Usually one tank is sufficient to (suicide-)kill a sunderer (Depends on terrain, though.). And if you are used riding tanks... hell yeah. (Especially since you can snipe enemy ESF with the AP turret. Love it.) edit: AV turrets (from Engineers) should be nerfed, though. None rendering "plops" out of nowhere. Most annoying. (Same for AV base turrets, although they are seldom used for 500m sniping.)
If AA is present, air influences the battle in no significant way (we might be able to pick off a tank or two on the outskirts) but if there is no AA, air shreds everything, doesn't matter if it's tanks or infantry, or you're flying an ESF or Lib, if they don't have AA, they're free kills. That's the balancing problem.
Questionnaire being what you feel it should be. And if controversial, give a brief explanation. I like the one paragraph responses too like BH brigade's Edit: I want to clarify that I enjoyed the battles as they were strategic and well fought and rewarded (certs). But my question is are the game mechanics realistic enough and could it use tweaks? 6. Should AV turrets be a significant armor deterrent at range? Edit2: another 2 cents: I want to fear tanks. I find it surprising me and my HA friend run directly at tanks to farm certs.
3, it is important but as long as the sunderers keep coming and gazillion infantry keep spawning... it doesn't matter so much where, an infantry zerg pwns. Of course wisely chosen deploy locations can make life much easier. 3, In an open field? No. With wisely chosen cover? Yes. 5, playing a burster myself. I also have a striker and literally 95% of aircraft have flares -- fair enough, as the striker is overpowered against those who don't. But it's just not as useful as everyone says, overall. 4, it very much does but only if there's no AA present. Like mentioned in regards to the next point -- it's similar, but more extreme. Three bursters take out squads of aircraft unless they are organised and flankassault and then retreat after a few seconds -- then they only take severe damage. If there's no AA, air completely dominates and decides about the outcome of the battle. Of course I exclude Bio Lab battles here, those are different. 3, depends on the organisation of the tanks and infantry. Right now skill should decide, but with a dedicated anti-vehicle squad you can take out platoons of vehicles with your little finger. Unorganised infantry however are toast.
This game is trying to do combined arms. Combined arms has NEVER worked in any shooter game I have played. There is always a balance problem. Closest comparison I can make to the style of PS2 (vaguely, but in the strategical and large battle sense) is ARMA II. That game is not about tanks or helicopters, it is about the infantry fights. Everything is centered around the infantry fights. Rather than combined arms, PS2 needs to focus on one thing, and make everything else support or centralize around that one thing. In this case, infantry. Make tanks and planes balanced around the infantry game, not their own sub-meta. Drive tanks to support your troops as they advance, fly aircraft to provide support, but by no means should these things take precedence over the infantry combat/experience, and with some implements such as the HE prowler of past, it seems like they did. It seems like the general idea on this forums is that with the massive scale, PS2 should operate like an RTS. This is a bad idea. Nobody wants to be the SCV that is sent to scout out someones base in starcraft, they all want to be the Thor. The game needs to be balanced around the idea that everyone is on an 'equal footing'. While elements of an RTS genre should be present (writing up a battleplan is great fun) this game is at heart an FPS where 1v1 is the norm and should be balanced around that fact.
I think the game feels pretty balanced right now. I only have two major problems with it really: 1. Infantry can engage armor from way to long distance. AV turret is the primary culprit of this but lock-on launchers and the ESRL are also responsible. The problem is that it makes it plain impossible for tanks to operate in any environment where you do not have a equal or superior force, as you simply get targeted by way too much stuff. It is also highly frustrating to get hit by a enemy you can not see, with no idea where you're being hit from. I was part of an assault against Ti Alloy the other day. Our first sunderer got sniper from a AV turret over at the crown. Our second sunderer died from a AV turret at the satellite base north of Allatum bio-lab.. .2. Range of AA is too long. G2A weaponary should be defensive and used for point defense, instead it completely shuts down the airspace within several hexes. The ESF is called a "air superiority fighter" yet it's the buster maxes that is used to control the skies. I think it would be awesome if air control actually meant something in this game.Related to that, ESF A2G also needs to be nerfed, as in rocket pods needs to be removed. Partly because it's simply too powerful for a solo-crew vehicle to be able to take out armor and decimate infantry without them having much chance of fighting back, while having the highest mobility in the game. But it also makes the liberator somewhat obsolete, there are a few situations where liberators still shine, but in the majority of cases you're better of just pulling mass ESF as they are more mobile, have much easier time shaking lock-ons and dodging flak and can fight enemy ESF on equal footing as well as only requiring a single person to operate.With the ESFs A2G power the devs have been forced to balance the game around flak being the be-all end-all counter to air in general, while the ESFs role as A2A fighter is largely redundant as bursters can already handle any liberators or enemy ESF causing trouble.Maybe I'm crazy, but I have this vision where the ESF is truly a dedicated A2A fighter and fighting ground with it would be akin to engaging infantry with AP tank guns. Liberators would be a true force to be reckoned with, and if your own factions ESF wasn't doing their job it would have a noticeable impact as liberators would rain destruction on the ground. Bursters and skyguards would quickly shred enemy air hovering above them but would have to relocate to assist any adjacent bases as their potential would quickly drop of against targets further away. As such they would still be a highly effective counter to air, but would be used strictly for defense and only able to effectively cover one base at a time.
Make it so HAs can't carry rocket launchers and LMGs at the same time, congratulations all balance problems forever solved.
2 Although positioning the forward operating base is important, it is only a cog in the machine of war. The Sunderer does not win a battle, though it certainly helps. 3 With the right counters and entrenched positions, infantry should be able to put up a potent defense against tanks and cavalry. 1 AA MAXes should be only a temporary remedy, a bit more potent than heavy assaults with anti-air rocket launchers. More powerful and permanent AA (not counting air superiority fighters) should be Skyguards, deployed defenses by engineers, and Aspis phalanx turrets. 1 Air should be the third corner of the triangle it composes with infantry and vehicles. Having air superiority should be devastating against the other side, unless they have a very dedicated AA team. 1 Tanks are designed to punch through enemy lines. Only infantry with significant anti-tank counters should actually be able to stop tanks. They have much greater speed than infantry on level ground, but are limited in what terrain they can move through. I fully agree.
1) 2. It is vital for a "good" game, but consider the platoon galaxy drop.. the max crash.. the fact that most bases are relatively close to each other. Also, sundies now cost 200 nanites. Sundy placement bad? Get a new one. 2) 3. Terrain & armament dependent. Pull a few harassers with suitable weapons and farm infantry. Sundy is OP. Cheap, mobile, well armored and well armed. Sorry, but some of those boxes need to go. 3) 3. Depends.. I personally prefer the skyguard (higher velocity of the flak shells). Also, if a few heavies pull lock-ons, a lib can be killed, as it typically doesn't use cover as much as an ESF. Regardless, air is OP. 4) 1. Depends on the fight of course. 1 liberator showing up at an armored column of 20 tanks, 4 sundies, 60 infantry (about a 96 fight). Ok, maybe the lib doesn't have a huge impact. Consider, again, the galaxy airdrop. Consider, instead of 1 liberator (450 nanites) showing up at a fight with 10*350 (lightnings), 10*450 (mbt's), 4*200=8800 nanites, plus maxes probably, and expecting to farm the ground, what happens when air brings 6 liberators at once. Tankbuster+zephyr and the ground is gone. Because those libs destroy their supposed counters ("AA is a deterrent"); and then they destroy everything else. (Zephyr has same resistance multipliers as the dalton) Do people complain when they pull 1 mbt and engage 10 lightnings that they get killed? Because that is how air-whining sounds. They pull one aircraft, and get killed by several of their counters, which often costed more nanites to pull. (burster max) Even at a biolab, the indoors fight, air can have a massive impact by eradicating people on the landing pads 5) 4. At short range, yes, in the context of this game, and keeping in mind that 90+% of tanks pull AV weapons, not AI loadouts. As long as there is C4, infantry is a lethal threat to vehicles at short ranges. I do feel the game would be better if: -bases were more shielded from "shelling"; -tanks would get a co-axial LMG (faction specific? ), and/or tank main guns got a rework, with mixing ammo, heat doing 1000 dmg in a 0.5m circle; and HE buffed to about 1500 splash in 0.5m. So it would do more damage vs flak users.
