[Suggestion] Bring Vanguard repair time back in line with other vehicles like before.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Klypto, May 17, 2018.

  1. Klypto

  2. DIGGSAN0


    Show me facts about that they did reduce resistance ONLY on the Vanguard
  3. LordKrelas

    I'd love if the Shield was replaced with something else..
    As Presently, it IS the entire tank.
    Everything to do with it, involves the Shield dictating the encounter, tactics, and how the Tank is buffed, nerfed or adjusted.
    A shield that is all-mighty in dueling a single opponent, and borderline situational to useless, outside of it.
    Buffs to the Tank, enhance this Solo Nightmare experience, due to the Shield.
    Nerfs to reduce this problem, Screw the tank in every other field.
    If it wasn't a straight "I got an Overshield" ability, but something less dominant, it could be easier to balance, and less controlling of everything of the Tank.
    It's quite literally the Heavy-Assault's ability, but with a vehicle unable to be head-shotted.

    Also, that Prowler nerf is demented heavily.
    But to clarify; Why NC is stuck with the murderously hard to balance situational weapons & Abilities?
    Shotguns, Overshield Tanks, Piercing Ammo (I lul at this a bit), AV Ammo, Railjack-Range (with an entire firing delay)
    It also seems the most situational tool that is hard to balance, without buffing the hell out of it in the situation or nerfing the hell out of it in every other situation..
    How the hell do you Balance a Barrier on a heavily-armored Tank, with Cooldown, against a Cooldown-less Barrage DPS tank, and a gliding Agility tank?
    It'll either eclipse (which it does, in the situational of a duel generally), the other tank so damn hard, or be so damn useless it ain't funny.

    So perhaps this is a grand time to suggest Replacement abilities, so NC isn't the situational-Empire, where either they are mercilessly specialized to win, or are screwed by the situation.
    • Up x 1
  4. Klypto

    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/pts-update-04-18.245553/

    It's right in the patch notes from when they started testing CAI.

    Vanguard previously had higher resistance values than other tanks:
    http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/Vehicle_armor_and_damage_resistance?diff=next&oldid=86674

    68% was very high and allowed an extra AP round or two of survivability (the effect of 1 point of resistance % increased with each point when it factored into the table below it)

    Ever since June of 2012 it was this basic philosophy:
    • Vanguard maneuvers / turns slowly but can take several more hits from the side and front.
    • Prowler moves and accelerates fast with the potential for high DPS
    • Magrider strafes, reverses quickly, and can go to weird places.
    When they made the move to simplify resistances they maintained this by making all the resistances the same level and then increasing the vanguard HP by 2000 points instead of 1000 points like the others.
    This nerf preserved the same tankiness the vanguard had but raised the repair time by 20% and reduced repair effectiveness in combat or any prolonged battles.

    This is ON TOP OF the already existing nerf to repairing any MBT. Before it use to take 1.75~ charges of the repair tool to take a sliver from death Vanguard or any MBT. Now it takes 2.1 charges for a Prowler or Magrider with more than that for the Vanguard.

    If I was around when this was going on I would have said something about it.
    • Up x 4
  5. DIGGSAN0


    Soooo according to the Info you have given me i can see that the Vanguard has the SAME RESISTANCE as the other tanks but MORE HP

    Now let's do a little bit math here:

    Before "nerf" Vanguard had

    8%Front
    7% Side/Top

    MORE Resistance (Health) than the other Tanks
    So it had 8-7% More Damage which it could have take than the other Tanks.(Except Rear)

    Now we do consider these Percentage as "HP"

    8% of 5000HP is 400 HP more than other Tanks on Front ONLY
    7% of 5000HP is 350 HP more than other Tanks on Side/Top ONLY


    Now after the "Nerf" you have got 1000HP more on all sides....

    Which is a Resistance of 10% on all Sides


    You have now +10% Resistance more than the other Tanks...on all Sides
    • Up x 1
  6. DIGGSAN0

    Edit: 10% Resistance = 500HP
    Ahhh sry you Have +20% resistance more....


    Aaaaand that is not enough...there is passive Resistance increase because the Percentage of 6000 HP is more as on 5000HP

    Excample:

    10% of 6000HP = 600HP
    10% of 5000HP = 500HP
  7. frozen north

    You are correct here. As it stands, the situational nature of the shield is it life line, and its always been that way ( along with the challenge of balancing it, and why it is what it today).

    I will say though, that it does seem the devs are trying to push all tanks to be like the vanguard as it is now ( where survival and death in combat is determined by who ever has their faction ability off of cooldown). I say this since, well, that's what the new barrage mode is for the prowler. A temporary power spike that then leaves you with a bunch of down time while it recharges.

    And unfortunately, I really think that that is not the way to balance armour. I think lockdown and magburner represent what the devs should strive for in abilities; things that expand your combat/ tactical options ( magburner) or have you make trades of one aspect for another ( such as lockdown rendering the tank immobile in exchange for firepower). It makes it such that combat depends on making the right call for the right situation, rather then just face rolling your keyboard while mashing left click whenever a cooldown is over.

    And seeing as how wrel sorta of offhandedly mentioned the idea of a magrider rework back when the prowler changes were announced, I do really think this is the path we are heading down; where tank combat is decided by nothing but cooldowns. Which is the single worst way to have tank combat be set up.
    • Up x 1
  8. adamts01

    Good points, but the problem with infantryside and Cloaked Fury/Deci Flash meta is that a lockdown prowler is free certs. And a little speed boost means jack **** in tank combat. Nothing has been able to stand up to the Vanguard's on the move ability. Lockdown could get a defensive bonus. I'm not sure what the Mag should get. More front armor? More dps? It's great for farming but it really got the short end of the tank vs tank stick.
  9. frozen north

    Ok admittedly, this probably stems from me being and working with other tank mains, but to me, lockdown as is ( cant move but can shoot fast), is a perfectly fine ability.

    Again, I am likely biased about this, since my average prowler run involves several dead enemy tanks before I get killed ( or get bored), so to me at least, its lock down is perfectly fine. It's trade off has gotten me killed when I have failed to respect it, not denying that, but its huge boost in firepower has allowed me to go on complete massacring sprees with the thing when I do respect the abilities weakness.

    Again though, this likely has a lot to do with A: I have a crap load of prior experience in other tank games where correctly judging a situation is basically the difference between life and death and B: I have had a lot of practice at planetside 2 tank combat, particularly with the old lightning, magrider, and the prowler.

    Which is why when I heard the devs say that the reason for replacing lockdown was " it being too situational" ( paraphrasing from the post), I practically screamed " Bull s**t!". Its a glass cannon ability, but I would also not have it any other way personally.

    TLDR: I find its a perfectly fine ability, and I also find barrage and utter gutting of the prowler, but maybe that's just because I have gotten used to the thing, and have managed to figure out how to work it frequently and effectively.
    • Up x 1
  10. LodeTria


    There was tonnes of feedback during CAI, which they promptly threw in the bin as usual.
    • Up x 1
  11. Klypto

    Idk there was that thing with tank changes that they tried before. That ended up not happening with only getting partially stabilized turrets but it looks like increased gravity snuck right back into CAI two years later after I left. Granted what they posted was kinda insane.

    I don't understand this need to decrease range. Map design demands that tanks engage each other at 200-600 meters at some places. Making the weapons slightly harder to use at range doesn't change this.

    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/patch-notes-6-13.189799/

    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...rry-i-found-the-real-tank-patch-notes.189835/
  12. Klypto

    This is incorrectly calculating damage resistance.


    A magrider AP use to do 1785 damage
    All tanks had 4000 HP

    A vanguard has 68% front resistance taking that down to 571.2 (damage = 1- resistance/100 * damage)
    The vanguard also received a very special 13% resistance to AP rounds. bringing the final damage to 645.456

    This means it would take 7 hits to destroy it from the front.
    A prowler has 63% front resistance for 660.45 damage
    Prowlers received a standard 15% resistance to AP rounds. bringing the final damage to 759.517
    This means it would take 6 hits to destroy it from the front.

    With the current FPC at 750 damage it takes exactly 8 shells to kill a 6000 HP Vanguard from the front.
    To kill a 5000 HP prowler it takes 7.

    In this very specific case the tankiness here has dropped slightly in comparison to other MBT's (if the gap between two numbers remain the same by the numbers both increasing the same amount the impact of that gap decreases).


    Now what about the sides?
    Vanguard - 624.75 - 705.9675 - 6 shots to kill
    Prowler - 749.7 - 862.155 - 5 shots to kill

    Current side damage 862.5
    Vanguard 7 shots to kill
    Power 6 shots to kill

    Again we see the same gap decrease.

    For rear hits of it use to take:
    3 shots to kill a vanguard
    3 shots to kill a Prowler

    now it takes
    4 shots to kill a vanguard
    4 shots to kill a Prowler

    Nothing really changed aside from the standard all tanks are tankier.


    If we do the same thing using prowler 1200 to now 600 AP rounds we see:


    Front Old:
    V: 384 - 433.92 final - 10 STK
    M: 444 - 510.6 final - 8 STK


    Front Now:
    V: 10 STK
    M: 9 STK


    Side Old:
    V: 420 - 474.6 - 9 STK
    M: 504 - 579.6 - 7 STK


    Side Now:
    V: 420 - 474.6 - 9 STK
    M: 504 - 579.6 - 8 STK


    Rear Old:
    V: 5 STK
    M: 5 STK


    Rear Now:
    V: 5 STK
    M: 5 STK


    There's No Change at all now. This is because the prowler received an increase in reload time. What's interesting though is that despite the reload speed changes, magriders could take an extra AP round than they had before.

    I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say we have increased armor. I actually didn't do the math before posting this thread but it also looks like you pointed out that the vanguard not only got nerfed in repair time, but no longer has as much of an advantage of it's inherit traits as it use to. So basically a double - I mean triple, let's not forget the needed shield changes, nerf with a buff to acceleration.

    Thank you for pointing that out.

    I might revive the oracle of death to collect tank statistics and run comparisons now. Top weapons and different factions have different impacts on fights than just examining the main guns in a bubble.

    With the old vanguard stats, the tank performed worse than the other tanks at everything but shooting down ESFs. This went on for about 3-4 years. Looks like that was changed too. I can only imagine what the stats are going to be now.

    And honestly, I don't really care that my tank is less tankier than it use to be when compared to other MBT's.
    I don't care than we don't have the old shield.

    I just don't like spending 40-60% more time repairing the tank. Just make all MBTs 1.75 charges like before. It was already painful for years and now it's much worse.
    • Up x 1
  13. adamts01

    I absolutely hate lockdown, but I hate that they're taking that ability away from players who love it even more. I would like extra faction specific options, not the removal of what we have and what many like yourself love.
    • Up x 2
  14. Klypto

    I also just tested Nanite Auto Repair.

    Looks like they messed up when they changed the system as it takes longer than the expected original 64 (+12 to start) seconds to repair a vehicle from above burning. It's using the old baseline of 4,000 HP repairing 50 HP per second and takes 96 seconds to repair a vanguard and 76~ for other tanks. The tooltip is completely wrong now.

    Guys come on. wtf How many other tilting surprises am I going to find?


    They should have just kept the old resistance system and modified it. That system at least worked.
    • Up x 1
  15. frozen north

    I can completely respect that. I love it myself, and I do think more faction options would be a better solution.

    I mentioned this before, but I think that players should be able to decide between lockdown and barrage mode, not be forced to one or the other. I also think more faction abilities should be added to the other factions.

    And heck, going back to what I mentioned about preferring abilities that are not " if you have it off cooldown and they don't, you auto win", I would take having one of each variety for each faction. One that's sustainable ( built around trade offs or expanding options), and one that's a powerhouse with a down time. At least then people get to choice a style of tanking that they use with a bit more depth. It adds more variety to gameplay, and in my book, tank combat is one place that could stand more variety.

    But unfortunately, this is not the case, and we are stuck in the current situation.
  16. LodeTria


    Hmm well:
    Top guns were nerfed.
    Fury + Deci Cloak flash is the strongest AV around, kills faster than MBTs from behind.
    C4 armour does nothing for lightning.
    Prowlers can 1hko ESFs now, but not daltons.
    HE is almost as good as AP now, with only a minor damage increase between the two.
    Harassers are weaker than ever and die very easy to tank cannons, but cannot deal damage very fast now. so Glass cannon without the cannon.
    Infantry AV rockets reload faster & have more rockets. They got a very minor damage decrease, resulting in an overall buff.
    Flak armour stops direct tank shells of all types now.
    Flak guns of all types were made OP.

    CAI messed the Vehicle VS Vehicle game up so much, and now promotes infantry farming instead.
    Infantry-side loved this update, despite the increased farming, any chance to **** over vehicles.
  17. Campagne

    Eh, no.

    In fact I personally reject every single change made from the CAI. The only good thing to come out of it was rocket launchers finally having enough ammo by default to kill a tank without perfect accuracy against the rear of the tank.

    Decreasing damage while increasing reload speeds does increase theoretical DPS but in practice is worse against everything but deployed sunderers. This is because kills now require more shots against everything which leads to more vulnerability when attacking enemy vehicles, which now can all run HE without much penalty, while still resulting in higher survivability against infantry for vehicles across the board.

    Once again you speak out against your own perception of a group of players while having your head buried up your rectum like an ostrich in the sand.
  18. Klypto

    I made a mistake. These should be -13% and -15% respectively. The math is right I just didn't add the minus sign in when I made that post.