Isn't it almost always the case in a sensible world? Outrageously broken things aren't supposed to be released, and if an item is actually overpowered, it should be supported by data that developers collect and patch things up quickly. I think we should take it as "if it works, use it. if your goal is simply to win, there's no reason to overcomplicate things unnecessarily".
In a sensible world? Yes. But this is where the problem begins isn't it? 'Sensible' is already subjective for many things, Chingles for instance thinks it would be sensible if all tanks are basically god-machines that can only be countered with multi-man AV weapons. It's sensible when looking at how it works in the real world, and games that focus on tank combat would be very sensible to adhere to this. Is PS2 a game that would be sensible with god-like tanks vs infantry? I think not, he does think so. We both have our reasons, but it's mostly subjective of what we think is more fun. While I like the sentiment of 'if it works, use it', I just don't function that way. When I see something that works too good, I seek a way to deal with it in a satisfactory manner. 'hiding in a building till they go away' is for instance not an satisfactory manner when dealing with tanks or aircraft. While laying down a smoke-screen to avoid them and try to reach some goal could be satisfactory depending on how it's executed in-game. Fighting games have clear goals: beat your opponent to a pulp, so the goal to 'simply win' is easy to achieve. PS2 has the goal of capturing continents, but unlike a fighting game where you know that you outplayed/were outplayed by your enemy, you can hardly see how much value you had during the fight because there's more to it than holding a point. Area control, relying on friendlies, pure dumb luck of not walking out a second sooner or later and running into something you simply can't beat. That guy with the most points? He might have gotten tons of kills but he might not have been as important as the guy who killed just a few guys but saved the Sunderer and with it the entire attack. And no one might even know he did this. I like larger teamgames. I like it if there's more ways to win than 'hit your enemy more times with heavier weapons'. Where you can look at a battlefield and see if there's some role or tactic that would help your team. These games don't easily handle something that can overpower most other things in the game.
I can't help but applaud you on this, I rarely agreed with anything more than right now. Especially on the part about the Colonel. I think I'm kinda a middle ground - I want both aircraft and AA to be overpowered (and thus balanced with each other), but only very few would agree and I can totally see why. In the context that guy gives in that text, it seems rather reasonable. But overall it gives me an impression of "if its possible, its fair game" Which feels one step short of exploiting, and two steps short of using actual cheats. After all the other party could do it too. Also I think everybody knows by now that SOE/DBG never really thought about tactical approaches and stuff even close to the detail he seems to assume a given. At best they randomly change some numbers and hope it works out - my favorite examples are Banshee and ZOE nerfs. Usually they seem to ignore problems and hope they go away.
These things I consider cheese - some more cheesy than others, but not listed in any particular order: Tank mines in front of vehicle spawners tank mines that dont render ES prox activation mines in general Infil SMGs (this was the first cheese I bought ) Zephyr spawn/point camp (if I went zephyr only even with a mediocre pilot my KD would be 5 times what it is now) Tankbuster asskiss (kills tanks faster than guns can kill infantry) Mustang AH drifter C4 fairies from jump pads cloak flash roadkills cloak flash furies ADAD raven maxes on a hill terminal camping infils vanguard shield render range GK (longest range point & click weapons that actually kill things right now, buy a long shot, pun not intended) vanu default camo being a pain to see at night ***** c4 flash, especially the cloaked ones deployment shield on sundies I consider cheeses to be tactics that need considerably more effort to counter than to use. These are basically the things I earn certs to buy for myself lol.
The point here isn't to get caught up in those details. You're already falling into the trap. Planetside can't be "won" - you merely define the level of your engagements and then judge your success. If it's a high KD, so be it. Holding a cap point? So be it. His point is don't whine about armor spawn camping, counter it. Don't whine about terminal camping, counter it. I haven't seen a single thing in PS2 that can't be countered. The point is "fair" doesn't exist as a real thing in competitive gaming, it's an excuse for the weak. Life isn't fair. I'm somewhere in the middle on this. Cheese is cheese, but so what? It exists, so adapt or die
The game can't be 'won', but it still has goals to achieve. But this is the exact reason why the whole scrub thing does not apply to PS2: it's not a simple goal. Street fighter is simple: get that health bar of your opponent to 0 before the time runs out. PS2 is not simple, you have several things you can do in the game to either capture a base or support it, but due to it being a team game the actual result of your actions is vague. You can rarely prove that you were the most important player to capture a base, or that you were the reason why you lost a base. In Street Fighter it's clear: you didn't block, or you did more damage etc. Because it's vague, you both can and have to go into those details if you want to know. But this also means players move to a different measure to see who won: KD. And we all know (I hope) how incredibly badly that is for a statistic due to how people can farm those over the backs of players who (accidentally or not) protect them or are their fodder while trying to achieve other goals. How can you counter terminal camping? This is a great way to show the imbalance already: you need to devote multiple people to hunt down a player that insta-kills anyone at a terminal only because you stop being able to move when at a terminal, and it takes some time before your model actually is transported into the vehicle, meaning the infiltrator has extra time to OHK you even though on your screen you are already gone! First off, sure everything can be countered, but as I said before that doesn't mean it's either fun or good for the game. Let's say we removed all AV weapons from infantry, not a single AV weapon in infantry hands anywhere. Infantry still has a 'counter': Hide in a building till they either exit and come for them or go away. This is detrimental for the game and causes everyone to leave. Second off, your reasoning would also mean that no game would have have balance patches. Because at some level, everything can be countered right? but that's not the point. The point is that the game should be fun, and a fun game is overall balanced. Thirdly, how on earth is this reasoning for gameplay? There's a limit to how much you can adapt. Again: how would you adapt to the removal of all AV weapon in the game? Would you stay and just use vehicles, which would get much more lethal and you would run out of resources very fast and end up as an infantryman, or would you leave? I think that for all the brawn you show here, you would be gone the moment you realized what was happening.
The last one is quite the extreme example, and it takes us out of the realm of relevant to gaming reality. I guess we would be playing world of tanks
For me cheese is an all-out attempt to win as early as possible, losing the whole game if the cheese fails, a tactic popular in RTS games and MOBA. From the tread content, I'd rather call theses broken weapons abuse
Cheese in PS2: Encountering a tactic, weapon, or group of players and instead of looking for, experimenting for, or searching for a counter... they instead come on to these forums, twitter, facebook, or reddit and try to garner attention from a dev to change it for them instead. I have far more respect for lolpod spammers, terminal snipers, terminal miners, ESF rammers, vehicle zergers, and pretty much everything else listed in this thread up to this point than I do people who use social media to try to whine to devs. The only thing I rate lower than whiners are spawn room warriors (more for their detriment to their teammates), fourth factioners, and cheaters. But even then I'm questioning that position on the list due to how prevalent the whiners are. Those of you that are guilty of such, you are not a good opponent, you're an even worse teammate, and you hurt the game. Unfortunately forum rules and auto-censors prevent me from saying what I truly think. But I'm sure any sort of vivid imagination will suffice.
...compared to Bottlefield / Bottlefront Cheese? I dunno man... If you're routinely the victim of "Cheese", then maybe you're Gunjumping too much? I just ain't seeing them OHK's that DON'T take atleast 10 seconds to set up for or get in position for. The only thing I find Cheesey still is that Hover is still so much better for Dogfighting than any other Frame ...that, or I'm just running into a ton of subtle speedhackers still
I don't think there's any real overpowered weapon, tool, vehicule or class in Ps2. I think "cheese" is more related to possible human behaviors or choices in PS2. "chezzy" for me is : -camping in front of a spawnroom in your tank while your opponents' base is zerged by your teammates. -spawning a Max during a 1vs1. -farming new players again and again while they spawn from a sundy instead of destructing that sundy. -using esfs in order to farm during low pop time. You don't NEED to use those tools (weapons-vehicules-class) or tactics in order to get victories. But you choose to use them in order to nullify the risk of any fight or of any balanced fight.
I pull an AV MAX when tanks are camped in LOS of the spawn and I can shoot them. Fair is fair. Occasionally I will spawn countersnipe if the sniper is stupid enough to be visible from a window. Otherwise I redeploy if it's a no-exit situation. If I can actually make it out of the room alive, I will.
I love people who say claymores are cheese. They really aren't. Sure, we get lots of kills with them, but that's because we know how to place them. I actually seriously wish I had the ability to sling a death pizza into a crowd around a sundie.
Thing that's cheesy about Claymores as opposed to Proxy Mines and Betties is that Claymores instantly activate and are almost impossible to survive without Flak as a result. I agree that throwing explosive disks at people would also seem cheesy in comparison but key the difference being is that people grouped up should expect to get blown up, that's kind of why you cluster up your enemies for artillery and explosives. I went up a Tech Plant today, got Claymore'd in the lift because someone put it on the edge of one of the ledges. At least with a Mine or a Betty you would have a chance when you exited at the top of the lift based in which direction you come out.
I run Flak5 because its anti-cheese. A bunch of the things that would OHK you doesent work when you run max rank flak. Most notably (imo) the C4 and Claymores. Sure, you wont be as good in 1v1s. But denying the kill of someone who threw C4 at your feet when you have no way of escaping feels too good. Preventing one hit kills from claymores also feels really awesome when you deny the enemy the (free) kill. People spamming frags trying to get free effortless kills? No problem. Shrug it off with flak5. I also run Flak5 because its supposed to stop RLs OHKing you. But i have died plenty of times to rockets when im at full health. So i dunno. TLDR: Run flak5. Prevent deaths from cheese. Feel good about yourself. For the record, i have auraxed Claymores on my TR character. People "know how to place" BB/PM's. But it doesent matter. You can place them as perfect as you want and still get nothing. When you place a Claymore you are almost 100% guaranteed to get a kill if you place it correctly. Because it explodes instantly, and has enough damage to OHK the person in the blast radius. Unlike BBs and PMs.
Try placing BB/PM on the computer consoles next to the control point in the 2story small buildings. You know the ones with the two sets of stairs. At the top floor they have these computer terminals. I put my BB's there and it gets kills quite frequently. Only EOD hudded soldiers will avoid them. What happens on the floor is people will run by, step on them, and be outside the kill range before it goes off. On the console/terminal block things.. players typically run up to and stop. Even if they try to move when they hear the beep/glitch/ring thing.. its too late, it literally goes off in their face. BB's and PM's need to be placed where players will stop. Claymores are great for where players will run by. Near windows and ledges is another good place, of course infantry terminals and vehicle terminals are good. Bonus if you get them to land ON the terminal. All the buttons and glowing lights camo's the mine very well. Many don't even realize it was on the terminal when it goes off. You can get them a second time when they come back and check the ground or floor.
