Why play Infantry?(And an idea)

I'm sure I don't actually have to tell you this given how many times we've debated how to interpret the statistics, but here we go anyway:

The last values given by the Oracle of Death for the material I've cited were on June 17. At this time, there were 139 unique P2-120 HE users that were able to kill at least one enemy. There were 278 unique users for the GODSAW and 399 unique users with a Betelgeuse. That's 139 & 260 more users for each weapon respectively.

If I were to take the easy way out of this discussion, I would tell you that therefore those 260 more guns firing at enemies would obviously kill more enemies in an hour. However, I know you won't accept that, so here's some more information for us to argue about:

Here's those uniques again:


Here's the number of kills they all get:


Here's the time in hours that they get those kills in:


Here's the average number of kills those uniques get in those hours:


Here's the number of kills those uniques get per each of those hours:


Notice anything interesting? Any, trends, perhaps?

Source: http://ps2oraclestats.com/?stat=uniques&weapon1=1894&weapon2=1879&weapon3=4009

With a longer ttk, shooting skills matter more, but with a lower ttk, maneuvering and tactics become more important. Sure, noobs may get a lucky shot here and there, but the better player will still win much more often. You can't call someone unskilled because they consistently 1-shot players. Less aiming ability? Perhaps. Better situational awareness? Absolutely. Why should the ability to control a silly pointer be the ultimate test of skill? Having to out-think your opponent is what provides truly deep game-play.

Counter to Armor Zergs:

Processing..... Processing.....

New Idea Generated:

Valkyrie Sticky-foam Grenade Launcher

Disables vehicle movement and directional controls for 5 seconds, radius of 2m, clip size of 6, ammo count base floor of 24, non-stacking effect using Planetside 2 Beta EMP Grenade Code.

Achieves desired effect by delaying and bogging down armor formations using pop-over attacks and rapid pass bombardments of vehicle formations, disappearing behind terrain to avoid AA.

This creates windows in which AV defenses can be setup at the next base, or infantry/allied armor can be used to attack armor from more favorable positions. It also allows zerg rep/ammo sundies to be tactically detached from their supporting armor, causing un-aware MBTs to arrive in allied kill-zones with no logistical support.

Also enables hunter/killer teams with ESFs/Libs and VLG Valkyries, in which one Valkyrie immobilizes a vehicle for the follow-on aircraft to effectively target it with anti-vehicle ordinance.

Your receipt is number 498.

Thank you, have a nice day!

Hey. I don't need fast firing or sniper guns to OHK you. I'm can that perfectly well by solo headshotting you with a VLG with a sink rate of 4 ms from a range of 125m (+-5) at a 30 degree angle as you cross a 12m wide courtyard.

If that's too much cheese for you, I can always just use the 10 ton ninja star that its attached to

All the reasons why tanks should be cheaper rather than more expensive, and making the lethality between tanks and infantry higher instead of lower:

• Players are more careful with a more expensive tank, meaning more players trying to use cheese tactics or farming, reducing the overall enjoyment for more players.
• Even ColonelChingles has recently found out that even a dedicated vehicle user spends more time as infantry than in a tank. Making tanks extremely powerful because of "we pay much resources" means that the majority of the playtime is screwed over by vehicles
• Making vehicles tougher means there's less options for combined arms. The tougher vehicles are, the less ways you have for infantry and tanks to fight each other and both sides to enjoy it.
• We've seen in the old days that more expensive, time-bound vehicles does not mean there's less vehicles. In fact, vehicles survived longer, and vehicle Zergs were nigh unstoppable: Since the defenders would lose vehicles at a much faster rate and be on time-out much faster the attackers would always always be able to keep more vehicles active on the battlefield. The stronger weapons also meant that infantry gameplay was completely dominated by avoiding vehicles, which wasn't fun.
• At PS2's core, attackers are guaranteed to have vehicle superiority, that's why they can place Sunderers at the enemy base. Making tanks more powerful because they are expensive means that infantry can't fight back. Add the fact that defenders would lose vehicles faster and have more trouble mounting a vehicle counter and the attackers become unstoppable.

• Cheaper tanks means a tank death is less relevant, meaning players will take more risks and tank players have an easier time doing what they like. It also means less frustration if you die to something unpreventable, like accidentally running into several enemy tanks, there's less frustration about the situation.
• More lethality between tanks and infantry, such as tanks getting coax guns and new abilities while infantry gets more (utility) AV weapons, means that it's easier for tanks and infantry to be in the same area fighting over the same goals without one side instantly dominating "just because you had the skill to walk up to a terminal".
• Higher lethality between infantry and vehicles means that the fight between attackers and defenders is easier balanced.

As for Chingles his "well infantry farm infantry!", we've been over that before. Infantry spawns and has a choice: Do I attack that tank that I can only really beat with C4 and complete stealth? Or do I run at an enemy where I have a more-or-less 50/50 chance of winning the engagement? Ofcourse, 95% picks the latter option. Besides that the combat between infantry is far faster, and it doesn't matter which infantryman wins it still is a kill added to an infantryweapon. In the meantime infantry attacking tanks is a constant fight from cover to avoid the OHK shells.
Tanks are also more often busy with attacking tanks, which simply takes a while. Mainly because infantry doesn't really stand a chance fighting tanks it means that infantry are more often busy with shooting each other than wasting time on something they can hardly kill at all.

As for Chingles his "well vehicles are infinitely more expensive!", we've been over that before as well. Imagine if players got 50 resources a second... How much would it matter that tanks cost resources? Nothing, right? Because even if you died to mines in front of the pad you would have all your resources back by the time you respawn. Now imagine if you got 50 resources per 10 minutes. Suddenly you need to wait one and a half hour to get those resources back!
So what's the repercussion of losing your tank? That you have to wait on pulling the next, right? Because resources are bound to time. So... killing someone and leeching 10 seconds, more if you include the time it takes to return to the battle, is essentially the same thing as you temporarily remove players from the battle. Killing infantry does cost the dying player something. Time. The same time that it takes for a vehicle player to recuperate his vehicle.

[Omitted pictures for space reasons...]

I do not understand.

First you show that there are about three to four times more Battlegoose uniques than P2-HEs

Then you show that they get MORE than three to four times the kills of P2-HEs

You go on to show that, naturally, the Battlegooses also have a LOT more playtime than the HEs

Then you show the kills per unique - which is totally irrelevant. It only shows how many kills a player got on a weapon on that day
on average. It ignores playtime and K/D completely. It could have been achieved in a 24h marathon with 2 deaths or 20 minutes with 40.

And lastly you show the KPH that proves the Battlegoose superior than the P2-HE (that also has access to the ANCHOR MODE!!). Although its not surprising, since the first two already showed that.


All of the data you presented (except the KPU, which holds no valuable information at all) supports what ColonelChingles said.

And what trend am I supposed to look for?
The only trend I can discern is that P2-HE kills seems to kill less people since may.

And if I should see a trend looking at several of the graphs.... thats not how it works.
A trend is a development over time visible on the same metric.

In ADHD land where 10 seconds of being out of combat is an eternity. Kills don't matter, vehicles have no value, deeper strategy is nerfed because of that, nothing matters but bringing a bigger zerg to the party. If it weren't the best option, then every single server and faction wouldn't have arrived at that universal tactic. It's just sad. Units need value, and this game needs logistics. Without both, this is just a crappier Battlefield or CoD.

I think the main reason why Infantry is so popular compared to vehicles in this game is, because the gameplay is so stationary. You have bases every 50 metres, your enemy can inifinitely respawn, and capturing a base takes quite some time.

That's probably why most prefer infantry. Not because they are more powerful (lol), but simply because it's more convenient to hop from base to base battle, instead of using a vehicle where you often don't have much to do in this game, except camping on a hill perhaps.

lets not pretend that is how it works.
reason 1 why an LMG will have more kills per hour than a tank:
a large part of this game is spent indoors with tanks simply sitting around outside of the base.

reason 2:
you know that your heavy is expendable so you have no worry about running into a room, killing a few people and dying before respawning to do it all over again, i know i play way more conservatively in a tank than i do as expendable infantry.

reason 3 to not pretend that an LMG is in any way as effective as a HE tank at killing infantry:
your squad of 12 is pinned down in a small canyon, something comes over the cliff to face you at around 50m away.
it is either a single dude with an LMG or a HE tank.
are we honestly going to pretend that the dude with the LMG would wreak the same havoc that the HE tank will?
the HE tank can kill everyone in the canyon in several shots, the dude with the LMG might kill 1-2 guys before dying.

I like to think that i play infantry because i like it better than tank or esf or max and not because of power or anything.
I could like flying (i mean fight against other esf not farm infantry) to be fair but most of the time 20 min after spawning my esf i cross Mr Super Fighter comming for a "fight" from 4000 meters away from any base he could capture just for killing me (because who care about objective right) and after that just wait for me to spawn another esf...
Add to that the frustration of dying getting kill by the debris of the esf i take down and it's just *SALT MODE ACIVATED*

Flying ESF is also pretty difficult. You die very easily in this. You can get a lot of kills if you farm infantry, but it's still very difficult to not die to enemy skyknights.

In ground vehicles though, you are usually much safer than as infantry. However, like I said, why use a vehicle when you have a base every 50 metre anyway, and you'll just end up camping there, when you also can use infantry to actually get in the base.

That's the thing with this game. It's all about base fights mostly. And for this playing infantry is just more interesting than sitting in a tank camping on a hill.

Lets not pretend that that is NOT how it works.

Your reason number 1 AND 2 are reasons why tanks make less kills and infantery more.
They are reasons why infantery is MORE EFFECTIVE than the tank.

Because 1: They are NOT locked out of entire regions in the game.
And 2: THEY ARE ***** FREE

What you say is true, but the conclusion that this means tanks were more effective than the statistic shows is in my opinion not.
They are simply part of the problem why the statistic looks as it does.


If something is expensive I expect it to perform better than stuff thats free.
If something is only usable in certain areas that, lets be honest, do not really matter due to lack of objectives there, then I expect it to utterly dominate the less restricted unit in this area.
The tank does neither - its a toy.
Tanks have to drive around in gigantic vehicle zergs to preserve some kind of effectiveness and survivability.
And sardines are NOT the first animal I usually think of when talking about tanks.


Also I see your reason 3 and raise you a couple issues with that: 1. That never happened to me - ever. With the sole exception of Magriders a couple years ago - and THEN the problem was the PPA.
2. ... and when the tank is over the cliff he can't shoot you anyway, because hes tumbling to his death due to lack of traction.
3. If you imagine a cliff differently than me - a squad of 12 guys can simply pull out their rocket launchers, blast the tank thats stupid enough to drive at 50m and revive the ONE GUY the tank MIGHT have killed with his HE shells that have the impact of 1/4th of a frag 'nade.
4. Lets not forget that HAs also have a rocket launcher and grenades. And those grenades, unlike HE shells do hurt quite a bit - even though he carries less of them.
A situation that virtually never happens doesn't make an argument because it COULD, in theory, happen.

This game is all about having fun,you have fun with infantry play infantry you have fun with vehicle play vehicle

I started as main medic and now i main infi but i at the same time play a lot of engineer latly cause i just have fun and also i certed my lib just cause i can.Its all about having fun

I find vehicle/air play extremely boring. If im playing a game that is a chore/boring then im wasting my time.

Edit: Nevermind my post, i missed the part where your post says its about kill efficiency and not fun/preference.

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Talk about shooting yourself in the foot , LMGs are on that list because the sole purpose of a HA is to kill , He doesn't get distracted like other classes no reviving or fixing or scaling tall buildings nope he job is to kill in the front lines its how he earns his certs its all that class was made for.
However the fact that you state tanks are weak made me choke on my cornflakes , Consider that all tank drivers are engineers and the fact they can pull out of the action at anytime and heal up also add to the fact that landing C4 on them rarely happens , Or the fact that rocket launchers need about 4-5 hits to kill one if you carry lock on even worse as the tank can use terrain to hide.

Tanks were not introduced into this game as anti infantry weapons I'm pretty sure the devs intended tanks to fight tanks with some form of anti infantry defence , However I don't think the devs intended on tanks camping spawn points or ignoring other tanks so they can farm infantry.

NC tried to take an TR base last-night they bought 5 lightings and TR had no tanks but guess what they couldn't take the base due to there tank drivers just sitting there instead of helping the few infantry they had , They thought that firing blindly at spawn points would rack up some kills while there poor infantry were getting farmed.

In PS2 land where infantry die 50 times faster than vehicles and 6 deaths already means 1 minute out of the action, add the time to get back to the front, which easily adds 10 to 30 seconds depending on the player and position and the time you spend out of the action because of death rises quickly. This becomes especially true when fighting vehicles, as vehicles tend to be much much farter out and to effectively engage them you require at least a minute or more each death to get back to the engagement. So yes, vehicles, who usually kill multiple players in their lifetime, are pretty good at consuming time, and thus the most valuable resource in the game.

Yes they do. Kills mean you can control area.

What are you snorting again?

What "deeper strategy" was that? "Sit on a hill and bombard helpless infantry with huge AOE shells"? "Completely dominate a base because infantry doesn't stand a chance and the attackers are guaranteed vehicle superiority"?
Please do tell me what deeper strategies we get if vehicles become more powerful and expensive.

And making vehicles expensive and powerful wouldn't change that. Fighting Zergs is done through encouraging teamwork, synergies, making sure players working together are more powerful than the mindless Zerg.

Units have value, and while the game needs logistics it needs a very narrow form of logistics to prevent the playerbase from getting bored due to spending more time traveling than doing actual fighting.

Cant flip the point in a Vanguard....

the point i'm making is that one guy with an LMG is far less of a threat to infantry than a HE tank,
a HE tank shelling a sunderer with lots of planetmans at it will be multitudes deadlier than one little dude with an LMG.

i'm not sure why people are even trying to pretend there is a competition between the two.

log on your HA with your LMG, get your friend to log on and pull a HE tank, have a 1v1 and see who wins.

The only objective is to out-zerg the enemy, one area at a time. If vehicles had more value, it would be worth sending a small squad in a Valk or on Flashes to kill that Skyguard behind the front lines, that could be single handedly wrecking friendly air. If units had more value then it would be worthwhile sending a squad to a base to destroy AA turrets ahead of an attack. Right now, killing AA turrets doesn't really matter, it's all about killing them faster than they can do damage while they're being constantly replaced. Strategy in this game is about applying constant dps, which is pretty mindless compared to the thought out and surgical strikes we could have if important targets died and stayed out of play for a while. The quicker units are back in the fight, the more zergs and numbers matter, and the less strategy matters. I agree it's a fine balance, and you don't want a transportation simulator, but the crazy amount of re-spawn options in this game and spammability of everything is it's biggest downfall.

Well in your scenario the infantry are out of their optimum area of effect, the tank is inside his optimum area of effect.
So id expect the tank to win.

However, reverse that situation; the tank is sat underneath a bio lab, 12 infantry rock onto the airpad.
Who is likely to win that one?
Considering the tank cant even aim at them, id say the infantry.

If i had a 1v1 vs my friend in his prowler, me as HA, it would last an eternity. Id take cover inside a base where he cant kill me, lets take an example of the A point at Mao Watchtower, im sat on the A point at Mao Watchtower. He is outside in his prowler, he tries to shoot through the wall to kill me, he fails as walls are indestructible, he shoots into a few windows, fails to kill me, drives around the tower in circles as he hopelessly tries to get an angle on me, he fails.
Now considering the NC own Mao Watchtower at this time, im doing my job, im achieving victory for my empire by defending the A point. He is wasting his time, he is achieving nothing, getting nothing, doing nothing.
TBH, id say in this scenario i win. Neither of us is getting any XP, neither is really having fun, but thats equally my fault as it is his, i could grab a vehicle of my own and attack his prowler, he could exit his prowler and attack the base.
But in terms of the games goals, the 'win / loss' criteria, ive won the battle (even tho there wasnt one).