ES MBTs 1v1 tests

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by TheSunlikeOne, Sep 13, 2016.

  1. natowpnzor

    Do you think the developers will act on that?
  2. JKomm

    Absolutely, they have plans laid out already... Gatekeeper has a "ramp up" velocity like rocket launchers(Meaning the projectile does not spawn at max velocity, it reaches it over distance), it will also get drop. The Aphelion is going to be getting tweaks to CoF and Bloom to emphasis on laying off the trigger for longer distances. The Mjolnir is likely to become fully automatic, they plan on reducing it's maximum CoF for more range as well.

    None is set in stone but this is very likely to happen, and extremely well ideas to balance out the weapons.
  3. Dethonlegs

    Sooo....the gatekeeper has a similar DPS to the saron. Wish I could land all my saron shots at max spamage at a stationary target from a hex away!

    As much as I appreciate the review, what they are proposing with the gatekeeper sounds similar to what they did to the halberd a few years back. Players will get used to it and it will achieve nothing substantial.

    You didn't mention the PPA buff! Not that I think it will ever become effective again. They buffed it from abysmal to pathetic before and it made no difference.
  4. LaughingDead

    Could I get a reference here? I'm always putting mjolnir on my HE tank to help not die during the aurax.
  5. JKomm

    Here is the subreddit thread where it was mentioned: https://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/52pck7/twitter_wrel_buffed_the_trap_today/?sort=top
    It should be the top post on there, where he talks about the TRAP, Gatekeeper, Aphelion, Mjolnir, and Photon PPA. He hinted that Enforcer should use changes but doesn't know if people want them(Thinking the drop gives us an advantage from behind cover, which it doesn't).
  6. JKomm

    I didn't think the PPA buff was relevant to the conversation, nor was the TRAP which was the main focus of the entire thread. But, of course players will get use to it, they always do... this does make it more difficult to use however both with the drop AND the velocity increases to max mechanic.
  7. Slandebande

    Right, where exactly am I using too many words? Last I checked, being thorough is a good thing, and especially when conducting online text-based discussions, you need to cover all the bases as the many signals used for effective verbal communication aren't present. Otherwise you risk misunderstandings, people quoting you out of context etc etc. But feel free to point out what I wrote was irrelevant.

    That wasn't what you wrote. You specifically wrote a question asking how often the maneuverability of the Magrider comes into play. My argument was, that it comes into play in nearly 100% of the time, at least if you aren't a zerg-humper. Using the maneuverability of the Magrider could be (but isn't limited to) actively dodging fire, staying on a wounded targets tail (while they try to retreat), sneaking up on enemies from alternative routes/angles, making daring escapes (often in combination with the Magburner of course) etc. Using the maneuverability of the Magrider doesn't imply you will always have the terrain advantage, in fact, I never wrote anything like that. But you can still use the terrain to your advantage, and MUCH more easily than the other two MBTs.

    And how big of a part of the entire continent are you talking about here? The parts I described were only SOME of the canyons of SE Indar, and in fact, I largely prefer the Magrider for those canyons because you can scale the cliffs easier and fire down upon enemies you cannot fire back at you. The others can do it as well, but not as easily and from as many potential angles as the Magrider can. The Magrider also fights more effectively from "awkward" positions on the cliff-faces etc. And I can definitely push up towards the next base in SE Indar using the Magrider and terrain effectively. Keep in mind, that in those very canyons on Indar, you ALWAYS have the opportunity to flank your enemies as well, as there are numerous small "loopholes" in the canyons.

    On Amerish there are certain canyons where the Magrider cannot use the mobility as effectively, but those very same canyons are generally death-traps for tanks anyways, due to infantry having the upper hand in such fights (and aircraft as well, but that's nothing new).

    Wait a second, are you calling the Magrider the best farming platform and the worst for actually having an impact on fights? Right, I'm sure the Prowlers sitting 300m away are being soooo effective at winning you the fight, with them only being able to target newbs and all from such a distance :rolleyes: No competent player is going to lose their tank to another tank at 300m. The Prowler is by far the best farming platform of the three MBTs, hands down, for numerous reasons (I can go into detail if you want, but I honestly feel it should be obvious that the Prowler is the best farming platform).

    I'm not sure what your point is here. I've played against plenty of good Vanguard crews (like the top 4 Titan-AP users for instance, to just name a few, and that's just the ones that still play the game). In fact, YOU tell ME where I wrote they cannot use cover well? The Magrider is simply more effective at using cover with the smooth movements and ability to easily fire accurately while moving. Or are you saying the Vanguard is more effective at using cover than the Magrider?

    Are you also then claiming good tankers NEVER get surprised? Because that is a flat out lie, unless they are playing super-safe and thus not accomplishing much.

    And thus, you fudged up. That very rarely happens to me, as I don't like to act as the "bait", but rather prefer to use other objects for that purpose, like the aforementioned Sundy, so I can jump the Vanguard instead of the other way around. A scenario like you are describing actually happens quite rarely to me, but then again, I'm often quite aware of my surroundings. Even IF you let a Vanguard roll up to you while you are defending a Sundy, you are going to do so much damage to it, that it will die right after to your allies. Because if you are defending the Sundy you are close to it right? And your allies can see you?

    Yup, just like the Vanguard not having advantages all the time, or the Prowler not having advantages all the time.

    It doesn't? I feel like I can easily have an impact on fights by utilizing flanking maneuvers and similar tactics. Especially defense is my preferred combat arena, as it allows me to engage enemies that are preoccupied with my allies in one place, which generally allows much more freedom of movement (even in the aforementioned canyons actually).

    On offense, the Prowler/Vanguard is decent against some of the bases that are open enough, but those vantage points are so well-known by now that many people should be able to predict it happening, and setup counters in those locations. The Magrider on the other hand, can use the maneuverability to scale many obstacles preventing the other MBTs from impacting the fights, and simply rain death on defending infantry. I'm not much of an AI-tanker, but I've done it at times to help push a front, and the Prowler has NOTHING on it. Sure, the Prowler is good if your enemies are stupid enough to all funnel out of the same door, i.e. when the fight happens on the Prowlers terms, but the Magrider can actually take the fight on the infantries terms, which is something the other MBTs simply cannot do. A bonus to performing this is that by scaling those obstacles to get to the infantry, you often leave enemy MBTs with no way of reaching you, thus they aren't having any impact while you are helping your team push/hold etc.

    None of the MBTs have an advantage 100% of the time. Do you disagree with that statement?

    Well, if you are forced to fight over the bridge it is difficult yes, but the Magrider is excellent at holding a bridge, due to the ability to get more guns on target easier, and the long-range general evasiveness of the platform makes it very hard to push across. Also, you said you had to fight over the bridge? Can't you perform a flanking maneuver on the forces holding the other end of the bridge? I'm asking because I cannot think of any bridges where that isn't possible, and I do it regularly myself.

    If you honestly think the Magrider is the superior platform for farming noobs, I'd love to see how you rate the Prowler in that regard, as that is the ultimate rookie-farming machine. I personally find the Magrider the most fun to use, the generally most effective MBT for impacting larger fights, the most comfortable to use etc.

    Right, I'm sure you know exactly how I use my tanks :rolleyes: You go ahead and believe whatever makes you feel better and make personal insults (since that is such a nice way to argue right? o_O). Meanwhile, I'll go back to fighting the top-tier tankers I've been fighting for YEARS, literally, using all three MBTs. But I'm sure they are just newbs I'm farming, right?


    Not disagreeing, just to clarify: The "ramp up" is an already present feature for other weapons, typically name acceleration. And the GK does have drop (a projectile gravity factor of 2 compared to 5 for the Enforcer for comparison), but will get increased drop.

    Well, keep in mind that the Saron also has the ability to quickly mag-dump and then hide behind cover, effectively reducing the DPS of the GK immensely, while not losing ANY DPS itself. Reliance on sustained-fire is a weakness in my book, at least when fighting competent enemies. Just saying that it isn't all about flat DPS values :)
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  8. Lord_Avatar


    Coilguns are an iteration of MLA technology, same as railguns - only somewhat more sophisticated (without going into details). Coilgun, railgun - same principle, albeit applied differently. Thus - in essence - the NC did have 'proper' railguns.

    Using MLA in addition to a chemical propellant would be impractical (not to mention exceedingly bulky and clumsy), as the initial burst of speed would be neglible in comparison to the acceleration provided by the coils themselves (auraxium-infused 'powder' aside).
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  9. FateJH

    And now you know why everyone else has been giving the NC funny looks for years.
    • Up x 1
  10. Demigan

    Ok did you just read what it says there... A small bullet fired at like 40% of the lightspeed hits with a minimum force of a grenade (I'm playing it safe here, it could probably hit with the force of a small nuke). The mass driver described there would need to be powered by several suns to fire something as large as a shell at relativistic speeds.This is an estimation by me and can be off by a lot in this case, if anyone has some calculations that can narrow the actual power requirements I'm really interested to see and learn them. Although At relativistic speeds anything is possible, since just increasing the speed requires exponential amounts of energy (decreasing it costs exponential energy as well, hence it would be a good weapon) and you could easily add another suns energy without a lot of difference in speed.

    Now a baseball going at 0,9 times the speed of light would already start a fusion reaction with the air and cause a sizeable nuclear explosion before it hit anything other than the air. So the 5x5 ammunition that is apparently launched by this weapon would probably obliterate the one firing it just as much as it's intended target.

    Although it's a game and they aren't really consistent with what each weapon is, they are specifically talking about both a particle canon and a mass-driver.

    A particle canon fires what is essentially energy. It fires particles of negligible mass at the opponent in an attempt to destroy the atomic and/or molecular bonds of the target and cause it to fall apart. The nice thing about particles with neglegible mass is that it doesn't take impossible amounts of power to launch it at speeds approaching lightspeed.
    The Mass driver, as it's name suggests, launches things without a negligible mass. The only technology we have now (or create theories about) that can accelerate linearly are coilguns and railguns that accelerate something magnetic. I would guess that the process of converting a mass into a plasma as the weapons description says would be to find some plasma-form for that mass where it's magnetic, or alternatively to use the ions within the mass to propel itself (?). This makes some weird kind of sense since in a plasma things lose electrons to form ions and there's ways to create an Ion drive out of a mass-driver this way. Still it has some kind of space-magic to make it work since real ion drives take a bit longer to accelerate things.

    My bet if you don't want to obliterate yourself while firing this weapon (or need a nuclear powerplant to even start firing it): It's a particle canon that fires the mass as an additional weapon. First they turn the mass into a plasma, then they launch some kind of particle beam based on ions and/or whatever negligible mass they can siphon from the plasma, then a split-second later the plasma is accelerated after it at much more ordinary speeds to hit the weakened molecular structure of the target.
    • Up x 1
  11. LaughingDead


    Ty, it's sooooo reassuring that they're looking into vehicles before the next biolab pass. Hopefully live play will give some insight on how vehicles are balanced.
  12. CptFirelord

    How..? The Enforcer won?
  13. CptFirelord

    For those QQing about the Saron or whatever, his first volley didn't do full damage. He missed 3 of his shots.

    Very good video illustrating how the Prowler will out DPS every tank when in it's prime positioning. Like it's designed to. In actuality this never happens, but still a nice illustration of on-paper DPS numbers.

    Would be interesting to see you do a Main gun + top gun video. Prowler should lose each of those.

    Additionally I find it interesting you choose to show the Gatekeeper v. the Enforcer (which is not its counterpart) and not compare the Vulcan to the onion peeler.
  14. CptFirelord

    Worst tank to learn if you have 0 combat sense sure. Otherwise it's pretty formidable and easy to pick up on with its low profile and innate ability to strafe in and out of fire.

    I think it's interesting you believe the VS is bleeding the most players when on all servers VS has the highest player advantage (and has for 4 years.) Granted there are much less people playing VS since the infantry weapons were balanced.
  15. Liewec123

    by a very very small amount, now take into account that one weapon is borderline hitscan, point and click and the other is hurling slow-moving bricks.
    for how difficult Enforcer is to use compared to GK it should kill way faster,
    in a real scenario GK is leagues better.
  16. ridicOne

    Honestly didn't bother to read all of that just due to its not going to alter anything in the game and I didn't feel like reading an epilogue of your opionon and then have Tr and NC thumbs you up.

    The game is about either over extending yourself or making people come into your grounds. That's where you create the advantage for yourself.

    I've stated numerous times about how much terrain advantage Maggie's have.

    Show me the stats on how super powerful awesome the Maggie has been performing the last few months to solidify your belief.
  17. ridicOne

    Well the games not 4 years old yet but it's been 8-9 months since the Vanu was doing fine on pop. Frankly some servers are still OK but a year ago had a larger playerbase. With the larger playerbases there was still enough people to be viable underpop now with the numbers it's not so much. It's been awhile since Vanu has been pop king.

    Balance I'm not even going there cuz theres been one faction hit by far the hardest and people still want to peg them down more.
  18. Demigan

    The Enforcer won barely at CQC distances. The Enforcer becomes much harder to use at range than the GK, and the ease-of-use of the GK, as well as the lack of punishment for misses (especially with that short reload) means you are better off holding the fire button of the GK all the time while aiming than making every shot count. Keep in mind that the GK only just loses in CQC range, and that the further you are away the more likely it becomes that the GK wins, especially during a battle where both opponents are moving and attempting to cause the other team to miss. Since the GK isn't burdened with spending time to make sure it doesn't miss at any range and will become more accurate compared to the other two as range increases, the GK is a no-brainer.

    If you looked at the damage sustained, nope he receives damage for each shot. There is a tiny lag behind it though.

    That's not exactly prime positioning, especially the one where the Prowler is standing deployed with his back to the Magrider. Also keep in mind that every time they let the NC/VS guy fire the first shot to make sure the Prowler wasn't getting a first-shot advantage. Just looking at the Enforcer vs GK, if the GK had fired first there would be a good chance that by the time the NC guy received the hit (Latency and all) the GK would actually eke out a draw and both vehicles would have been blown up.

    You really haven't been long on PS2 have you? The Prowler's DPS beats the crap out of just about anything, with or without top guns.

    Just the fact that the long-range GK who supposedly lack CQC power can practically go toe-to-toe with the Enforcer and Saron in CQC makes the Prowler a powerhouse. Not to mention that the Prowler's standard DPS outshines the Vanguards armor by a mile and a half. The Prowler is simply the easiest to use, with lots of power and relatively little skill required compared to the other two to eke out a victory.

    The Vulcan would have murdered the Enforcer.
    Besides, the Enforcer is the counterpart of the Gatekeeper. Or did you think the Mjolnir was the counterpart of the Gatekeeper? There's lots of people who think so because they were introduced together, but the whole point was that the TR only had a short-ranged ES AV weapon (the Vulcan) while the NC had the long-ranged Enforcer and the Magrider the in-between Saron which has the ability for short-ranged magdumps and long-ranged shots with trigger discipline.
    That was supposed to change with the update. The TR would get the Gatekeeper for long-range purposes, the NC would get the Mjolnir for CQC to rival the Vulcan and I don't have any clue as to what the VS is about because it seems to be a long-range Vulcan with lower DPS.
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  19. LodeTria


    The Gate-keeper, Saron and Enforcer are the "long range" weapons.
    The Vulcan, Aphelion & Meow meow are the CQC weapons.
    • Up x 2
  20. CptFirelord

    Indeed. I wish the GK was a bit more balanced. Buff the Vulcan, nerf the GK.

    Nope, haven't been playing long. Definitely don't have over 7000 logged play hours across my account or anything.

    I've used each of the MBTs quite extensively with multiple loadouts. Using the preferred loadout of Stealth, Racer, Fire Supp the "strength priority" of a good tanker is Magrider > Vanguard > Prowler.

    Maggy w/ AP and Saron will oneclick any tank from the rear (besides a Vanguard w/ the shield up).
    Vanguard w/ a Halb from the rear will fire main gun once and halberd twice to finish off the Prowler or Mag.
    Prowler will require 4 main gun rounds and at least 1 halberd shot to finish off their target, leaving them with the slowest TTK from the rear.

    I love when people who are new to the game attempt to theory craft and call out veterans who have been using these kits for 4 years in every scenario.