Petition for Thermal Refund

While I personally believe the change is a good thing, I feel the "nerf" did indeed change the very function of the thermals and therefore a cert refund should happen.

This has always been the way it has been and SHOULD be done.

Change something so drastically that no longer resembles what it used to be = cert refund. This was a good honest way of operating and i do not see why it has not been applied in this instance.

See this is how you know they are in "cash cow mode" and will do the bare minimum to keep the game going until it's not profitable anymore, we should have had a response about this a long time ago. Pathetic management. Fire them.

how far was the spot range 150m? not exactly long range at 150m that's self defense range for a tank vs infantry, they would have been better off nerfing the air vehicles infantry thermal range down to 150m and buffing all thermal's vehicle sight range.

at least that way it becomes better at AV work but is still useful on defense for a ground vehicle.

problem is devs are in a 'buff infantry' 'buff infantry' 'nerf tanks' 'buff aircraft' repeat cycle.

Cease thinking. Logic has no place here! That said, I rather like the idea. Yet another better option for what to do with thermal optics.

No, it doesn't. Not necessarily, anyway.

But if one wishes to kill an enemy ESF without the pitiful AA, they had better hope the pilot is an imbecile and hovers close enough and long enough to lob a slow-moving projectile of death at them before they move in any direction slightly. 'Cause other than that, a group needs to focus-fire like the dickens if they want to even drive the enemy off.

As far as I'm aware, the only instant kills on an ESF are Vanguard AP cannon and a Decimator.

I killed a scythe with my Magscatter once. I wish I could see how many fighters have killed me.

I'm just making the argument that ESF really are glass canons, in a world where AA is comparable to a super soaker. As a baseline, just look at the stock nosegun. It takes an insane amount of bullets to kill anything any other vehicle except ESF, it melts ESF. Partly because of resistances, but mostly because ESF really aren't that tough. I just think it's a bad move to make the entire game suck as bad as AA. Just buff AA and let units still specialize and be good at something, just make sure they always have a counter from any one of the three pieces of the combined arms puzzle.

only fo AI weapons

The stock noseguns are pretty good harassers and the like as well. But then there's also the ever-present missiles and such, which do a hefty job against often defenceless ground targets.

AA could definitely use a buff, but I'd be more than happy to settle for a fire suppression nerf myself. That's one of the primary reasons why ESFs can be so hard to kill, even when under heavy fire from numerous different sources, not just AA.

I do feel that air often finds itself removed from the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors that is a combined arms game though. The cannon comes from the ridiculous firepower and versatility and the "lack of glassiness" I guess comes from the surprisingly high heath and speed and mobility and what not.

I can consent to that to a degree. FS is such a ridiculously good F skill is blows the rest out of the water, fighting a 3750 HP ESF is never fun considering thats CLOSE (4k) to how much HP an MBT or sundi has, however I use AA a LOT, I've gotten pretty consistent good results, it works fine in my opinion.

Also versatility is called into question here, ground vehicles feel staunch in their loadouts, which I can fight other ESFs with an AH (which god damn is it fun to piss skyknights off with) and still have a second tool for something else. I don't think all tanks should have access to an AA weapon at all times but for the love of god a mini bassy on the side of the turret could not hurt getting that last peck instead of waiting a painfully long reload.

AA works fine if ya' only open fire when the enemy is very close and doesn't have many/any obstacles to duck behind. Otherwise it doesn't really do very much.

I can't really say I want ground to have more versatility either, they're fine as is in my opinion. Why air gets so much more than anyone else is beyond me. I couldn't vouch for coaxial guns though. Can't give one entity too much power and/or versatility. Last thing we all need ESFs on treads.

As much as I love to complain about AG vs AA and AA vs AG, we need to make sure DBG sees our point that any major change to a core mechanic of anything that can be bought with certs or cash needs to be refunded.

Seriously, AH, PPA, Banshee, hornets, lwalpods, HE MBTs, any weapon that was designed to be anti-infantry; people bought thermals because it made anti-infantry weapons better at being anti-infantry. Yea, they were infantry farmers because that was their paper to the rock in the game. DGB changed thermals to now be anti-armor sights. Cool, can I have my certs for them back please so I can put them into anti-armor stuff now? Thanks.

Damnit, now I am one of -those- people that reposts! Uhg this feels dirty.

Fire Supression on the ESF is completely unbalanced in the game. How that got overlooked but direct Hornet damage was nerfed is just verification I made the right decision by cutting my losses in this game when I did. But keep in mind, that 4k tank HP is really more like 12k thanks to resistances. I don't tank, so I'm not sure of the numbers, but doesn't it take 4 Vanguard AP shells to kill a MBT where it takes 1 to kill an ESF? That's a considerable difference in armor, but not necessarily survivability.

I'll never agree that current AA is fine. I want some real OHK missiles with real missile mechanics. And for as annoying as he can be, I think Demigan's AA auto-cannon proposals are spot on. His ground world theories of how air works are a mess, but the basic mechanics of his ideal skill-based AA weapons sound great.

This is why I'm fine with removing splash damage from Hornets. LOLpods should even get a fire rate and reload speed nerf to make them still sting armor but not actually have the dps to kill it. Hornets were not only the jack of all trades, they were the master of most. Now they're just weak in every area. But on the ground side, I think most vehicle guns should be standardized a little. There just aren't enough vehicle players and not enough coordination in PS2's target audience to have AP tanks, backed up by AI tanks, backed up by AA tanks..... Leave the AP canon alone, but let Heat win if he gets the jump on you and let HE be a real threat if he gets a serious jump. And maybe And I really don't understand why there's a Vulcan, Walker, Kobalt and Basalisk. Let them keep their own little niche, but standardize them a bit. Maybe let the ammo pool, mag size and reload speed make more of a difference. So the Kobalt would pretty much never run out of ammo and reloads near instantly but the Walker or Vulcan would do AI work just as well. That would be cool. This might also help every vehicle fight back against air even if they're not specialized AA.

Good lord, seems like every time I log back into the game I find that half my loadout has radically changed or been broken altogether. This is really frustrating.

I've been playing this game since 2014 and silently endured all the ill-conceived changes that were introduced over the years. As much as it annoyed me, I still managed to find ways to enjoy the game, and thats what kept me playing all these years. Sadly, its now starting to reach a whole new level of frustration that is killing my motivation to continue playing altogether.

It seems like every few months, I have to switch my gear and learn a totally new playstyle to compensate for some stupid bug or game change. The changes are becoming so significant and frequent that the game doesn't even feel like the same game anymore.

The game feels so unstable that I now have to stop and think about whether I really want to spend any more time certing additional gear and adopting certain playstyles when there is an increased chance that it will be negated by some sweeping changes a few weeks or months later.

On the flipside, some of the changes have improved the game and made things more interesting. For instance, I really like the construction system, the addition of ants and valks, the cool new weapons, etc. Whenever you guys add interesting new content like this, I consider it a welcome change. What isn't welcome is when you guys royally **** weapons and equipment I spent lots of time certing up and then don't even refund the certs.

It is my understanding that this change was brought about due to a large volume of complaints about long distance A2G farming made possible by the use of thermals for locating enemies at range. While this is certainly a valid complaint, I seem to recall that the detection range on thermals had already been lowered.

Last time I played, thermal optics seemed to have significantly lower range than they did a few years ago. Now, if this still proved to be too high, then why not just reduce the range further? Why radically change the entire item into something completely different from what it was before?

The *only* reason why I spent all this time certing up thermals is to help me spot infantry on the ground when they are well camouflaged or at night. I don't have a massive 4K monitor like some of these more affluent gamers do, so its a little harder for me to spot targets on the ground without thermals, especially at night.

What you guys have done is completely eliminated the reason I certed this equipment. This isn't a minor change, you've completely replaced the equipment with something else that does nothing like what it originally did. A refund is absolutely in order here.

Now, I honestly think this is a very bad decision and should be reversed entirely, but if you do choose to keep this change, it would be a pretty colossal disservice to the many players who have supported you over the years who used this equipment only for it to be reduced to useless dead weight that is literally worse than having no optics at all.

For the people saying that this is a good change and the certs shouldn't be refunded, I think you'd be singing a very different tune if a radical change like this was made to your favorite weapon or attachment. It's like changing an extended mag into a foregrip, or if they changed C4 and tank mines to have no effect on MAXes or vehicles and serve as anti-infantry weapons instead. Would you also think a refund was not in order if that happened?

This is a radical change to thermal optics that turns it into a completely different item with a different purpose (which is apparently none, since the new replacement optic is useless and you're better off with no optic at all). A refund is in order, but the entire change should preferably just be reversed and the effective range of thermal optics - if indeed too high - be reduced instead.

Due to the severely unstable and constantly changing nature of the game at this time, I don't even want to log in anymore. Every time I do there's some nasty new surprise like this. If this doesn't get refunded I might just give up playing for good. Don't see the sense in investing any more time into this game only to have it change again and become a different game altogether that I no longer enjoy.

The Flash has SLIGHTLY less HP than an ESF.

The Harasser has more HP by almost double.

As we don't allow petitions on the forums I do need to close this.