[Guide] [PS2's] Balance is Bulls**t (w/ solution)

Warning! This Post Is Heresy! Enter if you DARE!

"A player should never feel that their failure is the fault of the game, but rather the direct consequence of a mistake they made. If this is not the case, the game has failed and its players will quit, dooming the game to an early grave..."

- Me (Just Now...)

PS2's balance is littered with problems, but the solution may surprise you!

If you're like me, then something about Planetside has always bothered you. Perhaps it's the way that you never seem to make any noticeable contribution to your team or how the enemy always seems overpowered. Something about the gunplay feels wrong and every time you join a battle, the feeling of epicness quickly gives way to frustration and annoyance. If you're like me you'll understand that there's nothing mechanically wrong with the game: everything functions well and is well optimized considering the scale. And if you're like me, you'll quickly realize that the problem lies with the game's poor balancing.

It's no secret that PS2 is one of the most poorly balanced games on the market and it doesn't help that every player and their cat seems to have their own fix. The secret, however, is that everyone's solution is wrong because, in this case, the symptom has masked itself as the disease. The problem with balance is, ironically, not a problem with the balance at all. The real problem is that the class system is broken (What??).

Analysis of the Problem
For this post, I will be using the Heavy Assault as my principle example (though all of what I say will apply to every class) as it is the most egregious example of why the class system is broken.

To understand why Planetside's balance is so broken (and why the game is so frustrating as a result) requires us to understand that Planetside is in the uncomfortable position of having to balance every weapon, item and ability for use by both the individual and the group.

Let's look at one of PS2's most controversial weapons for balancing: the launchers of rockets. If you ask someone who regularly plays Heavy Assault, they will tell you that rocket launchers are pathetic; they don't do enough damage and have a weird arc and short range that seems wrong for something that is supposed to be rocket-propelled. However, if you ask a tank enthusiast, they will tell you that tank driving is not very viable in the game because rocket launchers from infantry make mincemeat of their tanks at a rate that is not befitting the assumed shelf life of an armor-plated main battle tank. Infantry say that launchers are too weak, while vehicle users say that they are too powerful. So who's correct? The unfortunate thing is that they both are.

Rocket launchers are pathetic. Unless a given player has certified for additional rockets, most launchers will exhaust all their ammo before they can bring down a single MBT, which is understandably frustrating. However, when there are a dozen of them, they can do some serious damage at a rapid rate. These launchers have to be pathetic in individual use because making them properly effective for each player would make them so powerful that vehicles would become completely unusable. However, reducing the damage any more would leave Heavy Assault players so frustrated that they might all just switch to a different class or rely on C4 and tank mines instead, making rocket launchers obsolete.

Let's break it down, shall we?

For the purposes of this post, let's assume that a given zerg is divided evenly between each class (it never is but this makes the math simpler and it's not far off). This would leave us with approximately 20% of a given team as Heavy Assaults, or 20% of a given army equipped with rocket launchers. When 1 in every 5 guys has a rocket launcher, those launchers have to be exceptionally weak in order to give vehicular players a fighting chance. It is difficult to make rocket launchers balanced when there are so many people with them readily available. To balance their numbers, they must be nerfed hard, which makes them feel useless for the individual player. Though they are technically adding to the total damage output of their team, each player is unable to feel their own contribution.

And now we get to the crux of the issue.

Every Heavy in the game will have, on their person at any given moment, a big gun (LMG/SMG/Shotgun) and a sidearm and a rocket launcher and a personal over-shield and grenades... and you see where I'm going with this. When a player has access to all necessary weapons and items at one time, then those abilities must be made to be weak and dissatisfying to keep that player from being too omnipotent in every possible situation. This, in turn, means that weapons and items are only effective when used in groups. But, if, for example, rocket launchers are only effective when there are 12 of them, then each person using one feels expendable and useless. The problem is that there are no specialization options available. Every class is capable of doing everything poorly rather than simply doing one or two things really well and the only way to make meaningful contributions is with a large group. This leads to frustration because, rather than contributing something unique to your team, joining a battle feels like you are simply just like everyone else around you. The only meaningful thing a player can personally contribute is to become just another body for the meat grinder. This is not a good feeling.

People like the idea of being a small part of a larger team effort, but there is a fundamental difference between teamwork and conformity and PS2's current class system forces people into the latter. Hence, we have the frustration that comes when people think "Me joining that large fight won't really help my team out in any measurable way. I might as well not bother".

And Now, The Solution
Let's stick with rocket launchers, shall we?

The ideal solution would be to simply have fewer rocket launchers on the field, but have each of them be more powerful. If you were to reduce the number of people with launchers from 20% to 5%, then you would have divided the number of launchers by 4. So, to counteract this, you could increase the damage by 3x and the warhead flight speed by 3x (which would roughly balance out). The aggregate damage output from the zerg as a whole would be mostly the same, but the people with launchers would feel that they were doing something meaningful for their team because they would be able to better feel the impact they personally make in a given combat scenario.

So the trick is not just to rebalance the launchers, but to implement a system to limit their use. For this, we look towards another game that effectively handles specialization per class: Heroes and Generals and its point-based equipment system (a similar system was also used in CoD:Black Ops II).

While H&G is far from a perfect game, the class system is very effective at providing the solution I described above. In H&G, each class would have access to various vehicles and a certain number of inventory points depending on the class. These points would be spent on weapons, ammo, items, explosives and other things. Infantry would have access only to the most basic vehicles, but would have the most equipment points and access to the largest assortment of weapons and items. However, while Infantry was the only class with access to rocket launchers, tank mines and LMG's, the limited inventory points would force each player to prioritize their gear:

• Small items like binoculars, knives and sidearms would cost only 1 or 2 points.
• Medium items like Tommy Guns and tank mines would cost around 5 or 6.
• Large items like Bazookas and LMG's would cost 8 or 9, and usually leave only enough room for a pistol or pair of binoculars.

What this forced players to do was specialize. Bazookas were exceptionally good against tanks and jeeps, but bringing one meant reducing your anti-infantry capabilities to almost nothing. This system made players feel special by psychologically rewarding them for having the clairvoyance to bring the right tools for the right job. It also meant that mistakes felt like the players fault (e.g. That's what I get for bringing a knife to a firefight), and thus players would learn from their mistakes rather than blaming the game for being poorly designed.
Rocket launchers are not the only weapons that this principle applies to: Light Assaults with C4, Infiltrators with SMGs, Engineers with tank mines, etc. In each of these cases, the balance can be fixed, not by nerfing the weapons/items/classes in question, but by forcing those classes to sacrifice something else to make those loadouts possible. Light Assaults with C4 wouldn't be so overpowered if those same LA's were forced to give up their carbines and/or switch to a less powerful jetpack to make room in their kit for the C4.
The one example of something similar already in existence in PS2 is the Hunter's Cloak for Infiltrators. In theory, the idea of an infiltrator with perpetual invisibility seems overpowered, but it isn't. The cloak forces Infiltrators to give up their primary weapon, making the Hunter's Cloak great for recon and infiltration, but very limiting in any combat roles.
Coincidentally, using the Hunter's Cloak to sneak up on unsuspecting enemies, and get the drop on them with my handgun, has become one of my favorite things to do in the game because I feel clever for effectively working towards my strengths to overcome a challenge.
In summary, PS2's classes need some form of point system to limit what a given player can and cannot bring to the field at any time. Once this is done, all weapons and items can be buffed to help counteract their reduced usage, leading to the same aggregate effectiveness for each item and weapon, but more power for the individual.
One of the main appeals of Planetside 2 is the ability to take part in large, dynamic and organically evolving battle scenarios. The downside is that, due to PS2's jack-of-all-trades approach to classes, there is little room for specialization, and thus limits the variety of roles any player to assume in a given battle. By implementing an equipment points system tied to our weapons and abilities, we would be forced to choose which tools we want to bring for any given job. Doing so encourages outside-the-box thinking and rewards players for being crafty and anticipating their faction's needs.
Give us back our specialization. Make us feel like the special snowflake we know we are and we will thank you for it.
Agree? Disagree (you're wrong)? Feel free to debate below, but keep it civil.

As you can see, the class on offer has 10 total points, and each weapon featured below has its own cost depending on physical size and gameplay balance.

TL;DR Copy the point-based class system from games like Heroes and Generals and Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Incidentally, by the way, this is why every other faction feels overpowered. In the individual, the three factions are actually more balanced than most people realize. The problem is that, due to a poor frame of reference, a player is only able to measure their personal abilities against the aggregate strength of the entire enemy zerg. This can be alleviated through specialization, by making players feel as though they have more agency within their particular domain.

The heavy amount of AV weapons is definitely a problem in PS2. AV rocket launchers should be fairly rare on the battlefield and difficult to replace if lost. I've made a similar post attempting to bring balance to PS2 before:

I did mention many times before the HA overshield nerf that the problem with heavies was not the shield itself, but rather than heavies alone are far too versatile, durable and potent in basically every role on a single loadout.

A little luck or unpredictability keeps things interesting though

If the problem is that both sides feel weak, why are tanks so weak in general?
Practically everything revolves around HA, it's a go to class for almost anything, deals consistent damage to infantry, tanks, maxes, has self sustain and a large clip size with ammo pool. If anything, people just don't have a reason enough to play something not heavy. What's the point of healing if no one dies or takes damage you need to heal? What if you have nothing to repair? What if you need to kill a max or vehicle?

Tanks are just kinda sorry. Tanks do get hit hard by rockets, they deserve to. But since a lot of players play heavy, vehicles just get shredded soon as infantry meets deployed sundi. Tanks are long range armor peices that since they cannot fight infantry with substantial risk, fight vehicles. All but 2 infantry can trade with a tank, and the max can fight them at long range. So it's kinda like watching all sides for the lucky one, but not only that, HE, the anti infantry option for tanks is 4 seconds per shell, 4. I could literally step out and kill two guys faster than the shells reload time before it fired the next one. So what benefits does that provide? An AoE around doors, but that barely has a killzone, I could just toss a nade or sticky in there for the same effect. Also lightings do it simply better. 3 second HE is far better than 4, by that logic, you're strapping a topgun on a bad lighting turret and lowering the speed and slimmer profile by a ****ton.

So yea. If things change, it should be that heavies have far less sustain so they rely on supports, tanks don't insta-die to C4 and heavies have specialized rockets for tanks or infantry. Probably gonna get some hate but thing is, I main the bloody heavy, it's not hard to kill tanks solo, the only thing that annoys me as a heavy more than not killing that tank or sundi is watching a light assault do it no problem. Guy getsa jetpack and suddenly he's the anti tank god over a class designed to take out tanks, so balance.

Very interesting idea. I'd really like to see some freedom to mix-n-match gear but limit equips to 2-3 items per infantery.
I do think, however, that this system will not be implemented anymore since it

1. overhauls too much (people resist change, bugs, rebalancing issues, etc.);
2. is not cost-effective for the devs.

Which is a shame.

Just something I've noticed that might frustrate others as much as myself. As a HA, I can hold my own fairly well. If I am ANY other class I'm farm bait.

This is why everyone plays HA. 1vs1 the HA wins 90% of battles vs other classes due to one thing. ....

Shields.

I love the idea of allowing 1 skill and 1 weapon per loadout. Having 3+ just makes heavies too popular.

all heavy weapons should cost resources. Single rocket should be no less than 20 nanites
AV turret should be no less than 100 nanites

then it'd be OK to beef up rockets slightly. AV turret is already powerful enough

Sounds about right but there's zero chance of any of this happening unfortunately, that's far too large a change for it to be considered.

I am not saying you are wrong, everyone feeling to weak is definitely a thing, but we already had "fun" weapons that are strong and do a lot of splash damage. It turned out to be extremely "not fun" for the infantry players shot at.
And that is exactly how it would end. Even if you make powerful rockets a primary weapon, with only 1 shot, no secondary, shield or grenades allowed; even then a lot of player would go for the "1 shot to kill'em all"-option versus a versatile or durable loadout.

I really feel with you and I feel the same thing a lot of times:
Skyguard, unfun, usless. Yesterday I played it for a life, made 9000 xp and 1 kill. It's not bad xp wise, but totally disappointing gameplay wise.
Same if you play with a tank gun, it feels weak. Stealth is your only option, otherwise it is run or be dead once spotted.
Even MBT's die way too fast, they just don't feel tanky at all. It's all hit an run tactics versus everything.
On the other side, try getting 4-5 rockets into an MBT as a heavy without it killing you, that's still quite a challenge.

The same for lockon rockets, if shooting solo at a solo esf, he will turn around and kill you.
Take 3 friend and coordinate, esf has no chance of survival.
But when flying yourself, these lockon rockets are a pest... Take away 1/3 of your hp out of nowhere. You cannot join any big fights because of 20 heavies aiming at you constantly.
When getting shot by esf rocketpods it often feels unfair, but when playing as esf you often fire all 16 rockets into 1 enemy and he still lives. And then then next volley into a group, make a 5 man kill...
Its's these inconsistencies that really suck, and a lot of this is because of bad netcode, bad lag prediction, hit box glitching, high ping players, lag togglers - in short to much clientside calculation that cannot be trusted. This is known in the gaming industry for a long time now and still a lot of developers make the same mistake over again, just to save money. (And I am not even talking about cheating here, which by the way is one of the biggest problems in planetside. Infantry only players with k/d ratios in the 7 or higher are more than suspicious. Hell, even higher than 4 is doubtable. Sure there are players that are that good, but not THAT many. Simply impossible.)

Essentially what I've been saying for years that the Heavy Assault is at fault for terrible game balance. The overshield is poorly designed to the point where it has no purpose being an activated ability, it is almost always available to a player in any scenario, giving them constant access to 1,450HP which increases the TTK of every other class considerably(And with little effort).

Let's look at how other games do classes... generally speaking, two things affect a class the most, health and speed. In Planetside 2, speed is constant, so is health(Aside from Infiltrator which has 900HP as opposed to 1000HP). A Light Assault and Heavy Assault, without abilities, are on equal ground... why is this? One is more visibly armoured, you'd think they would have more health.

We don't need to remove the class system, just refine it a bit. For instance lets look at the Infiltrator, this is a class that has 900HP(Not sure on specifics but I think it is 500 armour and 400 shield... or reverse) but despite having lower HP it has the same base movement unless equipped with the Adrenaline Pump certification. Adrenaline Pump should be removed and made into a passive increase to movement speed for both Infiltrator and Light Assault. Now what happens to Heavy Assault? Base armour is increased to 750(1,250HP with shield, can be increased further with Nanoweave of course) but base movement speed is decreased to compensate(All that armour and weapons must fatigue a soldier). The overshield is changed heavily due to this... there are two varients, one activates instantly and offers resistance to explosive damage both direct and indirect, the other activates on a 5s delay and gives a shield equivalent to 750HP(Causing the Heavy to have 2,000HP in this state, making you much more tanky, but only with preparation).

The Heavy Assault is a specialized assault class, but it has been made so powerful it was turned into the primary assault class... very few people are aware of this but with the original image of the game the developers planned on the Combat Medic being the primary assault class, giving them the title 'Combat' as well as access to assault rifles(Arguably the best weapons in the game) for the role... the idea was every other class was specialized and Medics were the main ones pushing to the points.

With these changes we can see the following class stats appear:

Infiltrator: 900HP, 110% speed
Light Assault: 1,000HP, 110% speed
Combat Medic: 1,000HP, 100% speed
Engineer: 1,000HP, 100% speed
Heavy Assault: 1,250HP, 80% speed

If there is one thing you never want to do, it is to specialize people, because specializations mean they won't be there. People don't want the specialized roles, because they are for the most part not needed and hence is just crippling themselves. A good example, how many HAs run around with air lockon launchers? What happens when an ESF comes about and all you have is 5 % dumb rockets and a whole lot of rifles? That ESF hits the motherload of a killing spree and people will yell in chat "Why didn't any of you dumb****s not get AA?". Same thing with 5 % dumb rockets, MAXes suddenly are far more viable to do pushes with.

We already see this problem now, MAXes not having engineers to repair them, medics not being high enough percentage for a sustainable defense or offense, infiltrators too busy getting their KD above one with their leet sniping skills instead of getting rid of beacons with EMPs or riddle the entire battleground with motion spotters so that every single movement is know, HAs don't even use their RL half the time even when they are needed (the amount of times I have seen HAs just look at sundies or other vehicles and do nothing is too darn high). This would expand on that problem where we have too many people concerned about getting them sweet kills and not doing what their class is intended to do, further specializing them to the point where they aren't actually helpful anymore and the point of specialization is moot.
I would love for PS2 to be a game where this could be a reality, but it is a little too late and I am not even sure that it would have done any better if it was the case.

Also for tankers that apparently have problems with rocket launchers... Get good, because they are literally the smallest threat to a good tank pilot

I'd agree that they are durable and potent but I find Engies and Medics can be more versatile. Personally I find HA boring to play nowadays - Run, Glow, Shoot, Repeat - although I used to play that class a lot when I started .

I think the RL balance against vehicles and aircraft is about right - individually weak but collectively potent. Quite recently I've also noticed an increase in their use as a portable anti personnel weapon for spamming defended points, in addition to 'nades and C4.

On the other hand a well-placed mine or an EMP 'nade puts them on a par with other infantry classes re: armount of protection, even if the mine doesn't kill them outright. And attracting fire from more than one person soon depletes the shield as well.

Given that they have no healing, rezz, repair, resupply or recon abilities (and can't fly) I think a shield and a portable RL are not so bad. They are meant to be real tough, after all, so giving them an RL just seems to be a part of their role. Making them a bit slower than now when their overshield is up might be all that is needed (heavy - slow - cumbersome). I read somewhere that LA was orifginally meant to be the prime assault class and that HA were for close support and point holding........so making HA slower overall may make some kind of sense and adjust the numbers of each class people choose to play.

I like the Class system as it is (I have played long enough that now each of my avatars is maxed out in every class). I only have a few personal preferences that would make them different (I'd like AP mines instead of C4 for my Medic and a semi auto scout or better BR for my Engie).

Mostly ********.

cuz n00bz dont think 'bout PlanetCode with its bugz, no hit reg and async.

IRL's HA are dem guys

That would also help with tactics... you would want to find an all round team and would be motivated to be social

Pretty much agree with OP, more specialisation would be a good thing. One thing that should be taken into consideration though is that we can change classes and load-outs very rapidly in PS2 (unlike H&G iirc). If the battlefield situation altered and lots of tanks turned up you can guarantee that every ground pounder not carrying a rocket launcher would be making a direct line for the nearest Sunderer to grab one. Perhaps a sufficient Nanite cost for swapping classes could be a solution (though I doubt that would popular!)

Hex

In some way, Engies and Medics also have versatility to them, but what I meant in regards to the HA is that he can literally have an answer to every situation on a single loadout.

You've got your LMG to deal with infantry.
Your G2A rocket launcher to deal with MAXes, Tanks and Aircraft.
AV grenades provide bonus burst against MAXes and tanks.
Resist shield gives you the highest possible healthpool effective against all forms of damage.
Advanced Shield Capacitor ensures your shields are up as often as possible, combined with medkits to keep your health pool at maximum to fully benefit from Resist Shield.
Hell, you can even trade your pistol for a recon bolt crossbow and there you go;

Your anti-infantry/tank/max/aircraft/recon/self-healing heavy assault.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. Maybe the overshield is a bit much on top of all that ability to hurt things. But I still think the RL is as much the HA default tool as the medic gun or repair gun or recon tools for the support classes.

Must have been a very very early image. Medics didn't even have assault rifles until months after the game went into the Tech Test. It's true that medics were meant to be popular but that was a necessity because the game originally had far fewer spawn options.

It's actually the current image of the game, Combat Medics have a great arsenal for fighting as well as a necessary support tool. They are half medic and half assault, they were always meant to be the primary assault class even now. Unfortunately the Heavy Assault is unbalanced to the point that it's the obvious choice... virtually no downside for having a buff of 450HP readily at hand. Every argument people have made against this is, "It's meant to be OP so they can push", or "We need that shield because of lag"... where is the shield for engineer, combat medic, infiltrator, and light assault then? Lag affects each and every one of us yet we are not compensated for it... the shield is also a basis for instinctual gameplay where it should have no grounds, in PS2 gameplay should be skill based and tactical, where is the skill and tactics in activating a shield with F whenever you run into an enemy?