Why do we need c4 for infantry vehicle balance?

Alright this is an honest question for all the c4 people. I see people in these c4 balance threads that are terrified that without c4 infantry vehicle balance will be thrown into chaos. The only class that without c4 would have no means of dealing with vehicles is medic. Ha has rockets, la has rocket rifle I guess, and engi has their shinanigans, so why does almost every class need the ability to one shot vehicles, and why will there be massive imbalance without this? Arnt infantry supposed to be unable to single handedly destroy vehicles?

It's not about the means to deal damage to vehicles, it's about their effectiveness.

The HA is the most used class, with the most omniverally available AV weapon. Yet throughout PS2 history HA rocketlaunchers barely even registered in the top 20 AV weapons. This is pretty much the fate with all infantry AV weapons: They just aren't effective enough to reliably deal with enemy vehicles. Enemy vehicles get chances to OHK the AV infantry each time they attack, the often short effective range of the infantry AV allows vehicles to stay in relative safety while still having good firepower against the infantry. Those times infantry do get a chance to damage the vehicles, the vehicles have ample of time to simply drive out of effective range or into cover and repair, never really getting in danger of dying to the infantry AV.
There are a few specific situations and weapons where infantry AV is effective, namely high-accuracy weapons like lock-ons or Lancers and fired from a high position like a Tower Base at range to keep vehicles at bay, and then only when it's massed.

C4 is just about the only current infantry weapon that will destroy enemy vehicles before they can escape. The only way this actually works is if the infantry can sneak up on the vehicle until it notices him too late, which creates the illusion for the vehicle player that nothing could be done. That last feeling should be avoided, which would mean changes to C4 or offering alternatives to C4. But because infantry is pretty much ineffective against vehicles without it we can't just remove C4 from the LA for example.

The best solution I can come up with is adding utility-based AV weapons. This balances out with vehicles as you would require resources to destroy resources. The advantage of such utility-based AV weapons would be that the vehicle player does get a chance to protect himself, but not enough to simply cruise out of range or into cover on a whim with little chance of dying.
My preferance would be to make these utility-based weapons powerful enough that ground vehicles can be equipped with co-ax guns and the like to upgrade their (CQC) firepower against infantry, then remove all those ridiculous walls that segregate infantry and tanks and allow them to murder eachother.

Utility-based AV weapons could be anything from LAW launchers, deployable large shields, distortion fields against long-range enemies, deployable stealth-fields, acid-launchers, virus-weapons that temporarily nerf (parts of) vehicles, grenade-launchers etc. So it would have both lethal and non-lethal options.

Because Tanks can destroy other vehicules and Infantry from very long ranges.
Sometimes you just need a single soldier who is able to flank / sneak behind Tanks.

A skilled MBT crew firing at a single Sundy during low pop times.
MBT crew will be able to dodge and destroy land mines (Implant), dodge long distance rokets from HA rocket launchers, LA rocket rifles will be useless due to short range, Enge'si Archer will be useless.
MBT crew will just take cover, repair then come back in order to focus the Sundy. Sundies will be destroyed again and again.

On a sidenote, HESH snipers are a pain too.

C-4 is needed to negate long distance firepower.

(I'll not mention indoor NC MAXes who are wtf as long as they are repaired by Engies.)

Because we nerfed every rocket into oblivion, made the range on the AV mana turret so close that it's dangerous to try and use, and gave every vehicle driver a mine spotting implant.

Face it, vehicles don't fear infantry. Tanks used to massacre infantry in the open, then get shredded by infantry in CQB. Now there is nothing to fear from infantry but C4.

We need it for balance because everything else is unbalanced. Kinda pathetic.

Vehicules (AIr and Ground ones) are spammed (more or less) by Infantry lock-ons.

Yes. To no effect. The vehicle will only die if: 1) It's coordinated focus fire or 2) The driver is an idiot.

Used to be if you hit a tank in the back armor with a Decimator it dropped health enough to induce panic in the driver. An HA playing peekaboo with a tank in close quarters could actually kill it **solo**

Out in the open that same tank would rip the HA to shreds from range using thermals that highlighted infantry.... also nerfed.

The effects of whining about OP stuff is cumulative. Eventually you end up with some boring vanilla crap with the occasional imbalance that now sticks out like a sore thumb like C4.

Want to "fix" C4 against vehicles? Easy: Give vehicles back their AI thermal sights. You'll have greasy C4-Fairy guts everywhere.

Want to "fix" C4 against MAXes? Easy: Give them back their charge ability.

In the whole rock-paper-scissors if one of them is OP you can fix it with a buff of the others rather than always going for the nerf.

Basically, it boils down to kill efficiency. Heavy spam has always been a thing, and in turn, infantry rockets kinda kept getting a pass by the nerf hammer ( also because of the whole one shot killing thing).

LA rockets are... well... just not great. I have tried using them and only them to kill tanks, and trust me, it is bad.

Engineers don't need C4, but at the same time, it fits with their theme.

Basically, as much as I hate to admit this, the best way to destroy vehicles solo right now is C4, and by a huge margin.

Best way I can see to remedy this, and fairly quickly, is to make the LA rockets actually feel threatening, and put more power back into the heavy rockets. It relieves some of the issues if nothing else.

Keeping in mind that I fully agree that the MAX needs something to improve their issues with C4, I am also unsure if charge is the way to go ( if only cause I feel it might get looked at in the same way that ordinance armour currently is). Charge was often treated as a sort of " get out of jail free card" and I say this cause frankly, that's the way I always looked at it, and I know I am not alone in that regard. Which is kinda why I prefer the option of removing C4 resist from ordinance, and removing the MAX suits -65% resistance.

Not saying it's a bad idea to re-add charge, merely that it would not be my first pick for a solution.

It's needed so the primary infantry-side player-base can continue to ignore vehicles. Much like how redeploy still exists even though it completely breaks the game.

Supposedly, it's so that infantry can "dominate" in area's in which they already do. The thing is with a large portion of the roster being able to avoid/AV vehicles already, I personally vote that engineers should get a sort of specialized grenade launcher, vehicles get a "become not garbage when not shelling a base from 300 meters away" buff with a mainturret secondary and C4 gets removed from everyone except engineers.

The excuse to counter maxes is also pretty laughable, since I've been getting consistent results of 2-3 people (or just myself dueling it with a shotgun, getting my damage in a safe spot and then running and coming back) simply leadstorming a max before he can do anything at range or solo arching several maxes at a time. If it's too much effort to specialize into actually picking your ******* fights instead of a cure all kill all with C4 then the game is just going to remain stagnant because this is a hindrance on design space.

Well, when it's one-shot to die vs 7+ shots, if you have the weapon, most are bright enough to debate not engaging.
Without re-deploy, Aircraft could easily harvest certs at warpgates, while battles not involving aircraft would take quite a while to start.
Given every sod has to travel half the map first, unless flying a Galaxy, praying for A2A to not exist.

So essentially, since Infantry avoid trying to land-mine, and rocket-launcher-poke-vehicles-to-death while being easily mulched at range & up close by Vehicles, instead fighting something they have better odds of surviving...
Engineers get a unspecific grenade launcher, and vehicles get a secondary-weapon for drivers, while everyone but Engineers lose C-4..
IE, adding additional weapons onto tanks, and removing the only weapon able to keep up with a Tank's lethality if it allows it, is removed at the same time, that could've easily killed anyone using it - and will ensure the death of any Engineer..
Okay, so what exactly is Infantry to do at <300 meters, when they're dead at >300 meters?
Pray the vehicle decides to sit there for all the rockets in the world, while the vehicle is lobbing basically one-shot kill shells at a distance?
Avoid anywhere the vehicles can see?

Do we then get further reductions to infantry as infantry even more so avoid vehicle contact?
As the logic seems since Infantry try to avoid fighting Vehicles, is to buff vehicles in response..
Which is akin to "They aren't setting themselves on fire, drench them in Gasoline"

For Maxes: That is thing, I'm kinda not seeing the point often enough about, with C-4.
But vehicles?
If infantry avoid vehicles, who can one-shot them is a problem, your solution for that, shouldn't be to increase the reasons to avoid vehicles.
Unless your goal, is to ensure that vehicles are avoided, due to be screwed if fighting them. To then buff vehicles?

The main problem is that infantry can be spammed for essentially nothing and C4 for next to nothing.

Sure, tanks might be force multipliers. But infantry are essentially free and their deaths are meaningless. You could slaughter a squad over and over, but they'll be back as strong as ever in a matter of seconds.

Meanwhile infantry only need to make it past the tank's defenses a single time, and it's a permanent bye-bye tank. So long as the infantryman has not actually tossed a pack of C4, the infantry lose absolutely nothing while the tank risks everything.

And that's what's fundamentally flawed about PS2's supposed "combined arms" system. You could make tanks absolute killing machines (which they never were statistically, even prior to the uncalled for HE nerfs), but their tactical value would be limited if infantry could just come back again and again.

The solution?
Make spawning most infantry classes cost resources.

Say all current infantry classes become "specialist" classes that take 150 nanites to spawn (not included consumable cost, which would be extra). Additionally, any consumables carried by the infantry would be "lost", and would need to be repurchased each time. This means that a player can be killed up to 5 times before they need to wait for more resources (less if they have a more expensive loadout).

On the other hand, add in a new "Medium Assault" which is the standard infantryman of PS2. Very basic equipment, limited to a rifle and a non-explosive sidearm. These Medium Assaults would be free to spawn and would represent the standard infantryman that is supposed to make up a bulk of a force instead of specialists.

Now infantry actually have to risk something in their suicide charges. That seems fair, as tankers and pilots have to risk things as well (their costs would increase as they'd have to spawn a 150 nanite Engineer on top of their vehicle cost). No longer can infantry just mindlessly charge vehicles or take stupid decisions in engaging them. And if they're really terrible, then they can always jump in as a free Medium Assault, but one that is at the complete mercy of armoured vehicles.

Now vehicles would have real value, as the enemy forces could actually be reduced through attrition. Proper vehicle use would render the enemy force weaker, as it should. A dead HA or LA who was killed enough times wouldn't be coming back anytime soon, meaning that the side with combined arms could actually prevail against a no-longer-infinite infantry force.

Frankly this would also improve infantry combat as actual tactics would matter in infantry-on-infantry play. Doing a direct assault against an entrenched opponent would lead to a weaker platoon when it respawned, which means that better tactics would be required.

The aircraft farming the warp-gate would soon find them fighting a much larger force since, you know, everyone would have to travel. The fighting on a continent would start to spread out all over the place, rather than a few lagfests at tiny bases. Vehicles of all kinds now actually have a role of preventing troop reinforcements of getting to a base.

With re-deploy, you just press U and make any vehicle & logistics worthless and make defenses too easy like they are now. This then leads to zerging with massive numbers since it's the only way to win, and why the lattice barely moves anymore. Why bother attempting to stop people coming out of the warp-gate when entire PLATOONS can just press U and go around your blockade?

Do not ever try and pretend redeploy has had a positive effect on this game or is even needed.

AV turrets and Launchers relied on infantry not rendering to be useful. Sorry, but that just isn't balanced. And rockets are still plenty deadly up close, as most vehicle guns were nerfed to the ground against infantry. 2 or 3 heavies with default launchers absolutely dominate close quarters. And since 90% of infantry are HAs, vehicles farming are either due to unaware players or zerging, not balance.

I do think that the AV turret needs help. Maybe make it a remote turret you could place, then laser guide the missile while on foot? Same with the anti-infantry turret? You could possibly hide the AV launcher, but the soldier would have to be exposed, just not a stationary sitting duck. But its limited range needs to stay.

Just make it a weaker spear turret like it should have always been. You now have to aim it, like tank cannons do, and you get your range back but only if you can, you know, aim.

I completely disagree with units that don't render dealing effective damage to other units.

You act as if the loss of a single tank is of any great importance to anyone. Infantry are as free as free gets and everything else is just one step behind. Tanks are essentially free after existing for a few minutes and can be replaced in mere moments just as infantry can.

A permanent removal of a tank? Not in your wildest dreams. Thirty seconds later and another one rolls hot of the pad. There is no risk and there is no major loss. The only thing either side has to lose is time, the ratios depending on circumstance.

Don't pretend like there is any special risk verses reward situation for tanks as if they cost Daybreak Cash for every spawn or sucked up certs to repair. Tanks lose nothing more than everyone and everything else does.

ur so full of it, tanks are free, unless u consider AFKing in the safety of your warpgate while alt tabbed to youtube to be a "cost"

They cost a resource with no value, is no cost.

Not completely true, resources cost time. Every 60 seconds is 50 resources.
You kill infantry, it costs them time. 7 to 10 seconds of spawning, all the time required to get back into the fight. Average infantry lifespan is 2 to 3 minutes, considering one infantry dies in the engagement they have it means that on average it takes about 1 to 1.5 minutes to get into an engagement where one dies and another lives to get into another fight. When fighting tanks it takes even longer to get into a position and you waste a ton more time trying to whittle it down/approach it and then die.

So you could argue that with killing just 5 infantry, you have already payed for your tank in full.

There's ofcourse more, Chingles likes to ignore the fact that killing gets you something. I'm not even talking XP and certs, I'm talking a way to achieve the goals of the game. Killing infantry can allow friendlies to push up, can make it easier for friendlies to hold a position, can force enemies to take alternative paths and make it easier for friendlies to funnel them into chokepoints. These are incredibly important features.

And while vehicle players keep trying to make the argument of "infantry players don't want to interact with vehicles" and "infantry players only want to instakill everything", the truth is the exact other way around. As shown with bases like Quartz Ridge before it was finally given a mostly adequate setup, any time a vehicle has an option to fire into the main lanes of a base it becomes nigh impossible for the opposing team to fight there, and that's including times where C4 had far more firepower and AOE. Vehicles asking for C4 to be removed or nerfed are asking for ways to become virtually invulnerable to infantry.

Let's face it, the walls that segregate infantry from vehicles are there to prevent infantry combat to become dominated by vehicles, because vehicles have far too much firepower and infantry don't have the means to effectively deal with them.

We could not have more inverse opinions. I believe you should only be able to spawn a tank like once every 3 hours, hell even make the thing stronger and more worth while being in. Maybe even make it so you need to have killed 100 infantry to have earned the tank. Maxes should be the same, a little rush of overpowered capabilities at the offset that you can only pull one a day. Give it its charge back. Make the VS one teleport through walls. Make the TR's gun fire faster and make the NC's max be able to rush again.

I think for people who enjoy tanks in most games, generally just like to easy mode. Theres nothing wrong with that sometimes. Sometimes it just feels good to roll through and kill ten people. But when you can do it all day.

I also don't entirely disagree with you about infantry lives needing to be pointful, maybe even increase the timers on base caps but have infantry deaths reduce it so it is pretty much the same but if you didn't die often the cap takes a long time or if you died a lot it can take even less time, because lets say you wiped the entire team guarding A point and there were like 30 of them in the room. I think you have sufficiently dominated that base.

I'd say the walls are there because most players don't take pulling a vehicle as a option "We get shelled, damm these vehicle shi****" Even tho I'd say to be a good vehicle player is way harder than a good infantry player and is more dinamic in my view.