Next Patch: Fix the vehicle game

Ok, before starting i want to point out that i am playing Vanu. We got nerfed heavily in the past years sometimes for no appearent reason. But that is not the point here.
I play mainly Lightning, usually with a roaming-typed loadout (Stealth, Racer, AP/Skyguard) because especially if you usually play solo or with just 1 mate any other build is just useless. I do also play Magrider from time to time with a similar loudout. For me the infantry game is nice, but nothing that can hold me for a longer period of time because its just people spamming each other to death and apart from some interesting - but usually pretty weak - weapon ideas (Spiker, Phaseshift, Crossbow) the gameplay isnt much different from Kawadutuh with a lot more spawncamping.
So now to the actual point, the vehicle game at the moment. It is unbalanced. And the reasons are:
1) Vulcuns. I dont play TR to be honest and i probably never will. But who the hell thought it would be a nice idea to have a weapon with 90 shots, an insane rate of fire, the capability to drop tanks with HALF of a MAGAZINE and then allow HARASSERS which are vehicles for HARASSING (kinda obvious, right?) tanks and infantry to use this gun. Usual situation, i play Racer Lightning with AP, if the harasser sees me, im dead. There is no counterplay for me, i can hit him twice and he is still just burning while in the meantime he emptied almost his full magazine into me with his speed allowing to hit me in the back most of the time. I have no chance to drive away or fight back. Compare this to the saron where it takes me like forever to kill a tank or the enforcer which appears to be useless (as even most Vanguards use Halberd instead of Enforcer). This is not considering the fact that the Harasser can still use turbo to dodge at least one of my shells. Btw a Lightning costs 350 nanites, a Harasser 150 (!!!!!) nanites.
Mechanics that do not allow for any sort of counterplay are horribly unbalanced.
Same goes for the Magrider btw, the harasser can just use its speed to outrun my main gun - which would be fine, cause he is a buggy and meant to do that. But he shouldnt be able to chew through my HP in the meantime.
The vulcun deserves a nerf alike to the nerfs ZOE and Lolpods received.

2) Liberators. Same problem as above. I am spotted by a Liberator (well he is flying, i am not, not really much i can do against it), he follows me and im trying to get away with my racer chassis. No chance, tank buster + dalton and im done for it. "At least shoot at it" - Ye, 2 AP shells and appearently its still flying. Even if the Liberator pilot is as stupid as Donald Trump it can still take 2 goddamn hits and kill me. Again there is no counterplay for me to do, i am spotted, i die. Now you might say "dont get spotted, pleb" and you might be partially right, but if i am driving on the ground, why is there an AIRCRAFT that isnt just faster than me but also has a safety-angle where i cant target it and can spot me from miles away no matter the terrain that ONESHOTS me with a single combo.
Again, mechanics that allow for absolutely no counterplay are just horribly unbalanced. As a skyguard i should at least have a chance to fight back. Even if i hit my full magazine into the enemy and manage to dodge his dalton he still kills me cause i have literally no way to dodge the 2nd tankbuster magazine.
There is also a reason why there is exactly 1 Liberator loadout used by everyone (hint: its not the fact that the weapons look cooler).
Honestly i have no problem with aircraft, i can dodge the mossies/reavers rockets pretty well and the machineguns just tickle me leaving me enough time to maybe get to cover. But the onehit-power of the liberator is just stupid.

3) Counters. I still dont understand why vehicles are the part of the game that gets countered the most. I know, most people dont know more about the vehicle gameplay than what they experience, getting farmed at the doors of their spawnrooms. But you shouldnt nerf vehicles just because some people are too stupid to go to the nearest base, pull themselves an AP Lightning and **** those farmers right in their ear.
There is the strongest AI class in the game also having rocket launchers, a free way to damage vehicles (+AV grenades). There is C4 light assaults, Tank mines (which are a really bad game design imo but thats just me), AV MANA turrets (usually sitting outside of render range), AV MAXes, other AP vehicles and aircraft. No other part of the game has such an amount of counters to it. Real tankfights are just not possible anymore, there are exactly two reasons why you would pull a lightning/MBT as Vanu: Follow the zerg and maybe farm some infantry or get a skyguard. For the other factions it is a bit different, as Prowlers and Vanguards can basically just **** on enemy tanks because they have stronger weapons and an I-Win Button respectively. But as Vanu it is a lot more difficult to do anything with the vehicle, you dont have the farming capabilities of the anchor-prowler (btw the prowler also has the strongest AP weapon for absolutely no reason + the vulcun) and you cant just roll over everything like the Vanguard with his shield. What i want to point out is that as a Magrider you deal considerably less damage than a prowler and the magburner is in no way comparable to the 6 seconds of invulnerability on the vanguard. This means that you can basically just kill Lightnings as the possibilities to farm infantry for the magrider are just sup-par aswell.

If i as a lightning am roaming around, i manage to sneak up to a vanguard just tunnel-shelling a base and i get my first hit into his back and he has no shield than this should mean that i WIN THE FIGHT because not just did i play better, position myself better, i also managed to catch him off-guard. But nah, he turns around, hits me with Halberd+AP and while my 3rd shell hits him in the side cause he managed to turn and maybe i manage to dodge one or two shells he still just reks me. If i can get a prowler while anchored it is a little bit of a different story cause then ill usually just lose ~75% of my health after i throw the 3rd shot into his back but if he is unanchored even if i get the drop on him he still ***** me.
The problem here is that the lightning is actually meant to be a fast, roaming tank and there is nothing wrong with that but because of its big hitbox, fast or seeking projectiles the speed is useless in tank vs. tank fights even if you are skilled because you will rarely dodge enough enemy shells so that it matters. And against liberators you are just ****** anyways.

So yeah, please fix the vehicle game in the next patch. Give the Vanguards an ability that is as nice of an idea as the other two. Bring the vulcun to a Saron/Enforcer level of usefulness and allow for some counterplay against liberators.

No one is going to read that.

You play Lighting. Lighting = 1 player.

Youre getting killed by Harassers and Liberators= 2-3 players. Whats the problem?

And the last sentence- Give the Vanguards an ability as nice as the other two tanks??? Shield is not good enough?

Because of the Wall of Text? Ye i know, reading can be difficult especially if youve never touched a book before but you can give it a try

The problem is that uncounterable game mechanics are a signature for bad design and frustrating to play against. Of course a vehicle with 2 or 3 players should have an advantage over their enemy, and they do, they either have 2 guns or high speed and good manouverability. That should not mean that any vehicle with 2 or 3 players in it should automatically win without the enemy having any chance to counter it. Not considering the fact that a harasser is still only 150 nanites. Plus the fact that vulcun-harassers and liberators can still stand just trash mbts to pieces which are also driven by 2 players.

You can counter, depending on the situation.

Tanking solo and worried about harassers. Bring land mines. Place them in your blind spot, or in an area where you can bait them to follow to their doom.

Tanking solo and worried about Liberators? Do not tank alone. Liberators are intended to counter tanks.

He is right, its the format and lay of your information.

I tried to read what you wrote, though ended up skimming because it was just to condensed.

Try using the enter key more often. Like they do in books.

Here's the math...

Vulcan TTK against Lightning rear:
167 damage per shot, reduced to 68% from Lightning rear armor and to another 45% from weapon-type damage means that each Vulcan shot does 51.102 damage against the Lightning's 3,000HP. This means it requires 59 hits to kill, something that can easily be achieved by the Vulcan's large belt. The Vulcan fires at 13.3 rounds per second, meaning that those 59 hits take about 4.4 seconds to work.

Lightning AP TTK against Harasser:
1,600 damage per shot (Harassers are completely resistant to indirect damage), reduced to 61% from Harasser all-around armor and to another 96% from weapon-type damage means that each Python AP shot does 936.96 damage against the Harasser's 2.500HP. This means it requires 3 hits to kill. The Lightning must reload twice, meaning that those 3 hits takes 6 seconds.

So we see that if an AP Lightning and a Harasser engage, the Harasser has a clear TTK advantage if it can get shots to the rear (not difficult given the Harasser's greater mobility).

Not only that, but the above calculations are based on 100% accuracy. The Lightning is much more heavily penalized for missing, and this is compounded by the fact that the Harasser chassis excels at dodging and weaving.

Finally if the Harasser takes hits, it can always disengage and rely on its greater speed to zoom away, repair, and attack again. Meanwhile the Lightning does not have this ability to dictate engagements.

Really, since Harassers are based on these:



A single 100mm AP shell ought to completely wreck them.

So no problem if a 2/2 Flash kills off a 1/2 MBT or a 1/3 Liberator?

At a certain point vehicle roles outweigh player counts. Otherwise you end up with 12/12 Galaxies and Sunderers killing everything in the known universe.

I can't read this wall of text....

People don't wanna lose their time on reading a badly (or not at all) formatted text. Even more so when the info inside is probably useless.

1) No, why? http://ps2oraclestats.com/?stat=vkph&weapon1=6121&weapon2=6123&weapon3=6126
The Vulcan requires you to get up close, both VS and NC have tools to counter its advantage on the MBT side. As for lighting... Rival Combat chassis and Situational awareness.
2) The issue with the lib is that almost all of the ESF's are just ground pounding instead of fighting other air
3) Stage 2 of the lethality changes never went through (like almost everything else that was staged

I remember books. Do they still make those?

That doesnt mean that the vulcun harasser still isnt insanely overpowered. As for MBT side, you might be right, there arent that many Vulcun prowlers but that doesnt change anything about the vulcun harasser.

And i dont know what Rival Combat chassis is going to do, the Harasser can almost drive faster than i can turn and he can still dodge a shot with turbo and shoot me in the front to kill me.
Situational awareness might be nice but especially in battles with more than 1-12 players on each side (which is the most common battle with vehicles) youre getting spotted once in a while, by the occational infiltrator, esf or the enemy you just killed. And while spotted the Harasser can make use of its insane speed to catch up to you and just kill you off unlike any other tank could.

Here is your problem! What many do not understand in this game, is that it's a team based game. If you are roaming around alone in a tank, you should not complain if a Liberator or whatever comes and easily kills you, because it's your own fault. Tanks are not fast enough to allow themselves to get too far away from friendly troups. If you want to roam around alone, rather use a Harrasser, because they have the neccessary speed, but if you use a tank, always try to stay close enough to friendly troups so they can support you, then Harrassers also shouldn't be a problem. Tanks are not really for roaming around, they are there to secure ground on frontlines, because they have lots of armor but not very good mobility and aiming capabilities.

Stick to together! That's very important in such games.

I was with you until you complained about not being able to roll up to a 2/2 Vanguard and solo it in your lightning. You realize that every argument you used against Vulcan Harassers killing your lightning could be applied if your lightning could kill a 2/2 Vanguard, right? It would actually be more ridiculous because a Harasser is generally 2/3 to your 1/1 lightning.

Please be logically consistent.

I didn't read your post and don't know all about dat vehicle game, but FORMAT YOUR POSTS SO THEY'RE NOT PAINFUL TO READ.

Just a perfect example of zergscrub mentality
But really, PS2 needs guys like you cuz you're easy certs for those who actually can play solo.

OP, as a tank player I can partially agree with you but this all depends on skill.
Most of harassers are piloted with bads and gunned with uber bads. While they still can kill a skyguard, AP Lightning and right maneurs will at east make them burn and run. Also you're using Racer for unknown reasons. With that you're actually helping them a lot cuz you turn too slowly.

Those 5% who have fully certed stealth and know what exactly they have to do, well, they are harder to count.
Few days ago I was gunning Saron-H for my buddy and we killed AP Lightning easily in a close range duel. Saron-H, not Vulcan! We're far far away from Harasser pros, and there was no stealth. Just right using of burst-firing weapon and covers.

To be absolutely honest, I think that G20 Vulcan need a clip size nerf to 60 (68 fully certed).
This still will be enough to one-clip bad tank from rear but also will be less forgiving for Harassers's team mistakes.

It's just basic common tactics. Tanks are always for securing ground on frontlines. You can be as good as you want with a tank, if suddenly some group of 2 Harrassers or whatever comes along (which can happen any time out of nowhere) you are screwed alone.

Just a single infantry with c4 has to sneak up on you and you are already easily screwed but keep living in your dream world. I'm perfectly fine with it, and love farming fools like you with my Valkyrie.

Well after that I had to check who's writing this.
Annnnndddddd.... Even better than I expected:
https://www.planetside2.com/players/#!/8252885335327670481
http://stats.dasanfall.com/ps2/player/Klabauter8
Good luck with your farming

P.S. I've never seen anyone who has 9% accuracy on Solstice
P.P.S. OMG 6% on Orion.

Spoken like a true cheesy k/d *****. Protip: Accuracy or k/d stats are totally irrelevant. When you fly all the time the Valkyrie or whatever your gunner gets all the kills. Also, there is a thing called suppression fire, which is why accuracy is also completely irrelevant.