Great fights routinely ruined. Yes, C4+Rocklet, now from Valks

Uh huh.

So the deployment shield sunderer I put between the tech plant SCU and the V pad, literally 25m from the enemy spawn with a building providing cover for the approaching LA, allowing them to get on top of my sunderer before I can shoot at them, with way more than 2-3 LA trying to kill my sunderer.

I bet you'll tell me it's impossible it was alive for the nearly 10 minutes it took us to cap the base.

I'll bet you'll tell me the 3000 walker rounds aren't sufficient for farming LA for an hour. I'll bet you'll tell me that the TTK of the walker isnt less than the arming time of C4 or that cost of C4 isn't deducted when you throw 1 or 2 and it DOESNT explode.

I'll bet you'll tell me all these things. But you'll be wrong.

Protecting your spawn is possible. It just takes a bit of effort and awareness, which most players don't have, most players just want to infantry death match, so my sunderer has 1 or 2 guys defending it from an entire enemy force. Valk, Harasser, MBT, they all kill undefended/lightly defended sunderers with ease.

One last point I would like to make. Battles are on going and change. I see entire vehicle platoons get to a base, dismount, then foot zerg. They bring half a dozen sunderers at the start of the battle. Some where along the way they stop reading the lay of the land (I blame tunnel vision commanders) and stop bringing up sunderers and vehicles to support the sunderers.

You get down to 1 sunderer with 48-96 infantry spawning at it and no vehicle support. The fight is already lost at that point. Lib, EsF, Valk, MBT, Harasser, battle bus, engineer, LA, HA...All it takes is some one getting through and killing that Sunderer and the "Awesome Battle" is over.

I get it, even I get tunnel vision when I'm murdering people, but when you're down to less than 3 sunderers at a fight the top priority should be to bring another, which most people don't know or don't follow or don't care.

Adam, I think your points are all accurate (even when not aligned with my position, so I am listening).

Anecdotal on my part--but yes, TR seems to have more air in general, but as you've noted, more A2G. I say this because I rarely fly deep into enemy lines, so obviously I see more TR mossies. But we usually outnumber VS or NC.

DeadlyOmen, I am calling the DESIGN cheese, not the players. How many times does a person have to say that, and how many times do they have to say that the guys using it are coordinating well before people "get it" and focus on the problem?

Players use what designers provide. Players always push the boundaries and find creative ways to do things. So it's not the players we should react to, it's the design. Most of PS2 is awesome. A few bad features left unfixed can ruin the lot.

Are we seeing the effect of Modern Educayshun here?



The issue is bad (cheesy) game design that had what should have been a known impact on a CORE aspect of game play. My concern is that given the past four years, the DBG response will likely be 1) delayed to a point where damage is done, and/or 2) delayed + reactionary, further spinning the problem into new rabbit holes.

Reaction to bad decisions is as important to customers as is avoiding them. I work in a very similar job as the DBG guys, but for the financial sector, not gaming.

Example of a bad response: A few years ago a patch introduced a "feature" where you could be TK'd in your own warpgate. DBG let that sit for a year I think...and tinkered with a reaction to it because they were trying to solve for an invulnerability bug. It was griefer heaven.

What DBG needs is a code back out process. Not a duct tape process.

There have been quite a few posts by people wanting bombers in the game and now they have one (Valk + LA) but I have hardly seen any on EU servers so I guess they are not that easy to use with success.

The Rocklet thing is a bit of a distraction from the thread IMHO and I thought the normal forum anguish about a new weapon would have been dying down a bit by now.

C4 has been super powerful for a long time now and LA has been an effective way to deliver it for the same sort of time - could it be that this is by design, so that vehicles can't overrun infantry with impunity?

If this is their idea of a bomber, let me repeat something oft said: "this isn't what we meant."

(They also wouldn't have an excuse because our examples have been explicit about what we did mean.)

Sounds nice in theory but far too often you just see the faction who killed the sundies sit at that base instead of even trying to attack the next one, or redeploying to a completely different region entirely. I'd actually like to see more captureable spawn points like some of the amp stations now have, and more spawn rooms/teleporters for defenders as well.

Like you said people play this game for different reasons though. For me "winning" is having good fun fights. Territory/bases are just a place to have those fights but have very little meaning ultimately. That's also why I think the whole construction system is pretty lame. It's usually just people camping in some corner of the map not engaging in combat, not something that generates battles.

You can look up DonAlfrago and see when he's active:
https://www.planetside2.com/players/#!/5428153774079516721/killboard

I don't encounter them all the time, but DonAlfrago and his VS on Connery are the only large organized Air (usually ESFs) I run into that frequently. I flew with them a few times a long time ago, and I have had to deal with them as both enemy ESF and Infantry more often and more recently.

DonAlfrago's Gank Squad consistently has much more dominance impact in the game than other Air. Probably because they seem to invite/include random ally ESFs (so they always have numbers), and DonAlfrago as a Squad Leader is very good at prepping, dispatching, and managing the Air Squad.

People aren't playing the way I want them to.

Something must be wrong with something other than me.

What I'll tell you is that they weren't "determined". Key word there. I've been on the receiving end of that Walker as a mediocre LA and died over, and over, and over again, but no matter what, that gunner either misses, is shooting something else, or is just out of ammo, and with enough determination I usually win. If I had a squad of mediocre LAs at my side... Game over man, game over.

Wait so, you're telling me teamwork gets results?
Surely you jest.

You could probably kill that sundy with a squad of determined Infiltrators using explosive crossbows and AP mines and there's nothing wrong with that.

NO YOU CANT PROVE THAT YOU CA

You dropped this buddy, つ ^_^ ༽つ D

I'm loving this LA witchhunt that is going on lately.


So funny.

Now, eliminate all but one Infiltrator from your scenario; but, he still gets to destroy the Sunderer at the same rate as the original twenty of them.

If they gave us a dedicated spawn vehicle then balancing it around a troop transport with 2 guns wouldnt be a problem.

Lol. I remember that thing. Drove like a brick on wheels, had crap acceleration, crap ground clearance and the best part was you had to get out, run around to the front and THEN deploy it. Killing the guy before he got it deployed was clutch.

Also, hacking it while deployed (speaking of, I can only imaging the rage/hate posts if they ever allow hacking deployed Sunderers in PS2) and then driving off with it. Lol I miss that thing.

You never actually saw a sunderer in that game though unless it was a squad doing a novelty run. Why transport troops when they can instantly teleport to an AMS or just have an entire squad of mosquito paratroopers. (There might be some game play videos of the Trimmers mossy dropping to stop a console hack around somewhere, they were very very good at it)

I like PS2 version better. Being multifunctional is better than a never used vehicle. Having guns on an AMS is very nice too.

A massive, mixed player skill, PvP, shared space game, should be designed so that frequent and fundamental gameplay can be performed by the average player. If most player don't have the ability to do something that is frequent and fundamental, then that is a fail in the game design. And will lead to the frequent failure of fundamental gameplay.

To be fair, C4+rocklets isn't "the only problem", but it is the latest in a growing list of problems regarding the Deployed Sunderer. And it all really boils down to this problem:
1) Deployed Sunderers are a Design bottleneck. They are a solitary link in the chain for Average Player Infantry Deployment away from Spawn Rooms. And if that link is Designed weak and breaks too often, it shuts off Average Player Infantry Deployment away from Spawn Rooms.
2) Average Player Infantry Deployment away from Spawn Rooms is a ("the"?) major cornerstone for maintaining "fun fights" for most players. Excessively cutting it off removes that cornerstone.

The game impact of units has changed significantly since launch. Some units are different, some didn't exist, some can be spammed more, most have been bolstered by player experience, etc. And these cumulative differences make for a different meta than existed at launch.

At launch it was a sea of Infantry. Multiple ally Sunderers at a battle. Lack of Certs into Resource AV or Vehicles. All making it harder to take out a Deployed Sundy. Now we have new Units and Weapons and Defenses that didn't even exist then, typically few or 1 ally Sunderer at a battle, Vehicles dominating the spaces between bases, etc.

As kill methods and buffs get more powerful, kill defense methods and buffs have tried to keep up. As defense methods and buffs get more powerful, kill methods and buffs have tried to keep up. And so too have common player behavior changed to affect variables, like how players support their team or what they focus on doing. It's all these things Stacking, combined with the Deployed Sunderer bottleneck that have created this problem. C4+rocklets are just the latest notable tip in the scales.

If DBG realistically expanded the Average Player Deployment methods, we would not have this problem. If DBG looked at all Deployed Sunderer kill methods and curtailed them (not just C4+rocklets), we would not have this problem. If DBG looked at motivating players to setup (and/or defend) more Deployed Sunderers, we might not have this problem.

Makes sense.

These 2 groups can play together fine (or at least co-exist fine), and have in the past. But they will struggle to do so when:
1) as you say, with all the possibilities given to get the upper hand in PS2
2) when the "win con" becomes too focused on specifically killing the balanced battles with equal numbers for fun: when the 2 groups chase after the same type of carrot, and there is only 1 carrot.

If DBG expanded the Win Cons, these 2 groups would be less at each others throats. If DBG expanded the methods (beyond just Deployed Sundys) to sustain balanced battles with equal numbers, these 2 groups would also be less at each others throats.

SOE/DBG has yet to get someone in Design/Management who really understands complex systems. Also, SOE has a career record of making games reliant on large numbers of average gamers for financial success, and then not pursuing/supporting the interests of the average gamer in their games. I do not expect these things to change.

For the record, "some AA ESFs" won't be able to stop a Full Protection Valk. Not sure if it's just the repair bug, or someone hacking to get protection beyond that level, but some Valks are pretty much functionally unkillable.

Zaspacer: Double thumbs up on your post above. Points well made.

I am saying basically that, just not as well. The method's available to neutralize a core and important aspect of game play are far stronger and far more "fun" than the defenses to them. The destroyers of deployed sunderers (which are the thing that makes a battle possible) have initiative and incentive based on THEIR timeline.

People who say "Defend your sundy" miss three points:

1. When I deploy, I defend, and I have pretty much everything certed out (people arent aware of that, I know).
2. Defending them has been largely nullified by OP tactics.
3. Defending them means long periods of missing out on the fight for a brief moment of BOOM your dead.

• I have zero problem with well coordinated Valks [insert any other coordinated play here]

• I have big problems with imbalance that detracts from, and eventually destroys, core game play, and therefore the game itself.

Warhammer Online suffered an ignominious end due to never addressing glaring OP aspects of game play.

The time to address an issue is early, not late. I say that as a Rank 120 Procrastinator, Grand Marshall of Putting-It-Off, General of Delay. I know the results of delay. So should the team here.

We want to keep players, bring in new players, and create more cash flow and buzz for DBG in general and PS2 specifically. It IS a great game. Let's keep it that way.



PS: that PS1 mobile troop spawn thing in the post a few above looks like a garbage truck. How fitting that an NC guy is driving it...taking out the NC trash. Probably full of crushed PBR cans and beer nut package wrappers.

TEMO HYPE THREAD?????
THIS IS SUNDY POLICE. DROP THE ILLEGAL SUNDERERS (>o.o)>

Don't get excited, you love to see yourself in game enough...

You guys loved Valks before Valks were part of the Hipster life. Now combined with a bad game design..that and just LA's in general are the new cheese.

The sooner it is addressed, the better for the game. Let's keep players active, and get new players. Let's see if DBG can react faster than 9 months...

Or if they think the situation is fine...well...Warhammer Online was "fine", Everquest Next was "fine" and Landmark was "fine".

Let's keep the cheese to a minimum, mkay Cheeser? Let's keep doing better than "fine".

In my days there were no rocklet rifle. We used something called the explosive bolt crossbow.


For the record. this thread is beyond ********. Please don't make it a sequel to "Remove c4 from LA or buff tank HP."
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/remove-c4-from-la-or-buff-tank-hp.237426/