Vehicle combat is very boring and unenjoyable.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by karlooo, Jan 24, 2020.

  1. NCLH

    What i think makes vehicles most unsitisfying is the physics. #SoapGliding
  2. Halkesh

    I like both the idea of modules damage and making positioning more important than TTK.

    Also, being able to reduce enemy mobility, firepower or vision by a well placed shot look like an awesome idea. However, I'd prefer to see the possibility to completely immobilize/blind/broke the gun instead of just a mere cripple tank so vehicles will be resistant by their health pool but vulnerable because of things like "mobility-kill", forcing crew to exit the vehicle for emergency repairs.

    For the vision on the MBT, I'd like to see 2 modules : a gunner vision port near the main gun and a commander vision near the highest point of the tank.
    • If the gunner module is destroyed, the driver will see a cracked glass effect on the side of his screen with a black circle at the center, making hitting a target outside of short range unreliable.
    • If the commander module is destroyed, the 3rd person view will be disabled and MBT driver will have it's screen border painted black.
    • If both commander module and gunner module are destroyed, the driver can't see anything.



    However, as someone pointed out : isn't making vehicles have a real goal more important ? I fear if we don't solve this problem first, module damage and vehicle TTK will be wasted dev time.
  3. Campagne

    I don't really see the point being made that vehicles don't have real goals and aren't important.

    They often kill far more infantry than infantry does unit for unit and destroy/prevent soft spawns infantry can't always deal with.

    There's also the matter of a lack of general purpose, as even with vehicle capture points no one bothers. Most players it can safely be said do not go for objectives and merely play as if the game were a TDM. People head to points because that's where the enemy is or will be. Vehicles aren't prevented from helping with objectives, they usually just choose not to.
    • Up x 1
  4. Trigga

    Firstly id say thats their reason to exist, and is intended balance.
    But then i looked at the numbers and they really dont.

    https://ps2.fisu.pw/activity/?world=10

    Check the top player lists, i look at this page regularly as a bit of fun to see whats happening on various servers, vehicle weapons are almost never listed. At the time of writing this (16:21GMT) there is not a single vehicle weapon listed amongst the top killers.
    The Engineer class which you would expect to contain the highest amount of vehicle users amounts to 17% of the total kills, whilst heavy assault amounts to 27% (again at the time of writing).

    https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...,6115&startDate=2019-02-03&endDate=2019-03-16
    While very hard to do, i have attempted to compare the kills per unit (since you mentioned unit per unit basis) for a selection of LMGs including the starter ones, AI MBT primaries and secondaries, and popular harasser weapons.
    Fell free to add more to the list if you want to check them out.
    Youll see that the KPU figures are always either the same or in favour of the LMGs.


    If anything vehicles need a buff ;)
  5. karlooo

    No, disable 3rd person.


    Well lets look at it this way. My idea to force each tank to have min 2 players will make it so an organized tank crew will dominate an unorganized tank crew....But the same thing happens currently.
    For example a squad of 2 people, both in their own tank (they both have flak AA top gun) will always win against one tank.

    Yes it will discourage solo players from purchasing a tank but would it be a bad thing? Less advanced combat vehicles on the battlefield, more options on the battlefield.
    I want to keep infantry combat as the core, as it is now, but limit some of the vehicles for squads.

    You know how there is a non stop stagnating fight in the middle of Indar? This is full of Solo players, which are a lot in PS2. The solo players can only go to where the fight is currently which is the middle and will always be. What if instead of the players being divided up into their own mini game, what if the leaders or commanders with the most powerful weapons would direct the flow of the battle.
    So instead of these players stuck in the middle for eternity, the leaders would sort of force or command them to go to this particular location....like an RTS game but with real players lol.
    So the players that want to go solo will be used as minions to reinforce a particular location.

    How will this benefit the gameplay? Less randomness, more consistent fights.

    This may not make sense right now but it can or maybe I'm wrong.
  6. Campagne

    This is not an accurate representation. Obviously infantry is much more common and is able to play in isolated areas where they are protected against vehicles. (Hence per unit not in total).

    There are also anywhere from ~1.5x to ~3x as many LMGs as there are normal tank cannons.

    It is rather needless to say however, that if there were no walls or buildings or various other exclusively infantry-access areas like biolabs or underground areas vehicles would dominate infantry in all respects, as they have done so in the past and as they still do so in open environments.

    If you were around for the early days of Esamir, before the walls came up, you'll know what I mean.
    • Up x 2
  7. Trigga

    KPU = kills per unique.
    So the average amount of kills made each time the weapon is pulled.


    The top players list is just that, a top players list, it lists the top killers on the server for the last hour.
    This list can only list 1 player at a time, and the 'top' players almost always have the 'weapon used' as a infantry weapon.


    The stats dont backup your notion of vehicles killing more infantry than infantry do.

    It isnt 'rather' needless, its totaly and completely useless since that is not the case.
  8. LodeTria

    Another fun thing to do on voidwell is click alerts and find a prime time alert.

    For example, Emeralds Indar alert, the mighty totally op liberator this forum loves to rag on & should be nerfed into the ground killed... 160 people.
    This is a 3 faction vehicle, which scored less than the single faction VS ursa, which killed 168 people. The ursa isn't even that popular of a gun either.
  9. Demigan

    As I've said before about things like the Vanguard shield for example: Feeling is also very important.

    The Vanguard shield is a balanced tool, because the base vehicle it's on is so weak. Even with the Vanguard shield the Vanguard itself is arguably the worst MBT in the game. But how does it feel for the players fighting it?
    Well they feel like it makes the Vanguard a cheap ultra-tank that destroys any MBT with ease! They even call it the Iwin button!
    Despite that it's balanced, and in fact the tank needs a buff, there is no reason to keep the shield as it is. It isn't fun to play against. And any weapon has to be fun for both the user and the one it's used against.

    A common recurring theme in most discussions about OPness is the feeling of control, the feeling that you could have done something. Any weapon that prevents the player from protecting himself somehow is considered OP. And while there aren't a lot of Liberator users, whenever a Liberator turns up it's virtually impossible to properly counter it unless you spend way more people and resources. It's a flying tank with two primaries that outperform most ground variants. Everyone would want to have a Dalton, Zepher, Tank Buster or even a Shredder on their tank. I wouldn't even scoff at the idea of having a Duster on my MBT. And the Liberator brings two!
    So what can you do against it? You can't outrun it, you can't outDPS it, you can't take cover from it... The best thing you can hope for, the very best thing, is that the pilot is bad at flying a Liberator.

    If you kept the Liberator the exact same but added skillful weapons that could counter the Liberator as well as universally available options to protect non-AA vehicles, like a semi-permanent smokescreen above the tank that prevents it being spotted and properly targeted from above or a skyshield that can be activated to soak up a lot of damage then most complaints about Liberators would cease.
    Until viable counters are created, the Liberator is OP.
    • Up x 3
  10. LodeTria

    Since you brought up the tank buster, wanna know how many people it killed in the same alert as the one I mentioned?
    I'll give you a hint, it's a single digit number.
    The answer is TWO. TWO kills for The NC one, and TWO kills for the TR one. The VS one didn't even rank, so that's 0.

    The Dalton fares a bit better with 49 kills for NC, 25 for TR & the VS once again at 0 (I guess no-one pulled the super op mega vehicle during this alert).

    The Zephyer? Well let's see.
    It got a whopping 4, and it looks like it was the NSO varient. There was no NC,VS or TR zephyers apparently.

    Shredder? I'm guessing we'll see a smiliar trend of barely any kills.
    Only 7 TR kills, all the others were 0.

    For reference, the highest number of all lib weapons is the NC dalton at 49, The next highest NC infantry weapon is the gauss saw S varient at 50. That's an AWFUL gun and still scored higher overall, lol.

    Oh and since you brought up MBTs, The Titan Heat scored 53, the default noobie gun that's meh.

    All the numbers come from this alert if you want to see for yourself who the true farmers of this game are: https://voidwell.com/ps2/alerts/17/2967518/weapons
  11. Demigan

    It's an anti-tank weapon and you are counting kills? On a platform that has a low chance of killing bailing pilots? And then compare it to a HEAT weapon designed to attack both infantry and tanks?

    And I was pointing out that hard numbers and feelings aren't mutually exclusive. When you are attacked by a Liberator you simply have to hope that they are bad pilots as there is virtually no other defense against them. This isn't enjoyable as there is little you can do about the Liberator attacking you.

    Also one of the things that has been keeping Liberators in check has been the omniversal OPness of the ESF. A Liberator cannot escape from ESF and can mostly just hope the ESF gets in close and eats a Dalton round or sticks around for the rear turret to scare them off. This does not mean it's an OK system, as relying on a single unit in the game to keep you safe isn't a great way to achieve balance of enjoyable gameplay.

    Looking at the Alert in question, why is it a january 14 report? Why not recent? Is it cherry-picked?
    • Up x 2
  12. Clipped!

    esfs cannot escape from a liberator that's tailing them (i've had this happen several times), and any esf weapon that is meant to be used against libs takes quite a while to kill them, especially with dodging dalton shots, and the tomcats as well. Personally, I think the dalton needs to be reverted back one step with liberators given a small increase in damage vulnerability to A2G warheads (25%) to ensure the TTK of lib on lib fights remains the same as was intended from patch notes, while giving back an actual chance for esfs to do actually something about libs, rather than just be utterly useless. Yes the wyrm is destructive against libs, but it makes you much more vulnerable to getting hit by dalton shots due to how you have to fly when using it.

    This on top of another tomcat rework so that it's ttk is actually relevant to the wyrm is also rather needed. 1.5 to 3 secs to lock, another 1 to empty the mag, and another 6 to reload is 8.5 to 11 seconds, excluding the extra time for impact. And since libs need four clips (8 hits) with the tomcats to kill without fire suppression or auto-repair (don't forget the one free rank form engi), that means you'll need more than half a minute to kill a non-combative lib with them due to time to impact and the extra reload needed from repairs. And even then you can easily add another 10-20 seconds for the extra time for maneuvering and another 10-30 seconds for failed locks (you will have to lose the lock to avoid getting hit one or more times) as even a single hit from that belly gun will wreck your ****, because even if it doesn't one shot you, it will mean you're dead with a half a volley of hyena missiles or half a dozen shots from the lib's nose gun.

    Compared to the wyrm which can kill a non-combative lib in about 20-30 seconds depending on range, doesn't suffer from the extra time increase of a failed lock attempt, nor does it alert the lib's pilot until it's already getting hit, and can be used on ground vehicles too! Tomcat's can't lock onto ground vehicle, nor can they dumbfire! And the lock area for the tomcats isn't much bigger than infantry rocket launchers, and is quite noticeably harder to keep something in the zone as you have to move your mouse in a very different and somewhat challenging way to keep the nose centered on them, rather than being a point and click adventure with the ground based ones. All that extra utility AND a much shorter ttk on the wyrm means the tomcats are left in the dust of the storage room for A2A on larger aircraft.

    What I'd suggest for a tomcat buff is them dealing more impact and less flak (libs and galaxies already take much more damage from A2A missiles than esfs), and small decrease in lock time against larger aircraft (libs/galaxies), a moderate reduction in reload time, and along with a small increase in missile maneuverability so that libs/valks can't just dodge them with ease while maintaining reduced hit rate and damage against esfs.
  13. Campagne

    Sure, but again there are way more infantry than tanks fighting infantry in infantry-only places. Go figure infantry kills more infantry. But if we were to put a heavy and a lightning on a wall-less Esamir and pit them against an enemy force comprised of infantry, you don't need me to tell you the tank would win every time.

    The stats absolutely do when you don't look for the top infantry players fighting infantry in infantry-only areas. It's obvious that vehicles decimate infantry, that's not even a controversial statement.

    Regardless, what's your angle? What do you want with regards to vehicles and their abilities to affect objectives?
  14. LodeTria

    It's literally the first prime-time-ish alert on voidwell when you go to alerts and click on one of my home servers, emerald.
    Since you're a connery boy I think, let's look at the first prime time alert on your home sever, I'll just post the highest amout of kills to save myself some time:

    TankBuster: 2
    Spur: 13
    Dalton: 30
    Zephyr: 0
    Shredder: 0

    And for fun, TR Claymore: 33

    Seems like a common trend is appearing, the lib can't really score alot of kills at all, even with it's supposed farmer guns like the Spur and Zephyr, with are targets that plentiful (infantry). Let's see how you cry about your beloved numbers now.

    From this alert: https://voidwell.com/ps2/alerts/1/2690818/weapons
  15. Demigan

    So you are just going to ignore that it doesn't list vehicle kills but infantry kills?

    And as I've just said and said before in especially the Vanguard discussion but other discussions as well: Numbers are a great tool to gauge if something is balanced or not, but how you feel is also important. It stops mattering if something is perfectly balanced if no one feels its a fun way to play the game. In most cases the balanced option will be the most enjoyable... But as seen with the Vanguard Shield it doesn't mean that balanced always is enjoyable and should therefore be changed.

    So again: We could keep the Liberator perfectly the same, but if we introduced proper counters to it (and most aren't even lethal ones!) the complaints would simply melt away. Why is this proposition a problem for you?

    And it's not like there aren't idea's to make the Liberator a vehicle that more people use, but in a fun way. I've personally done a few posts on how we could upgrade the aircraft in the game by for example not making the ESF the only air-superiority aircraft in the game and allowing all aircraft to be equally capable in A2A... In their own way. Having a variety of options where each target can both attack and defend itself differently against other aircraft you get a massively fun and varied playingfield.
    And that's what I'm missing from your post: why are you using these numbers? Everyone else has an agenda. They want to prove something needs to be buffed or nerfed or changed. Yet you seem more intent on saying "Demigan normally uses numbers and now the numbers aren't conclusive! Take that!", which isn't very productive.

    Also: Miller here.
  16. LodeTria

    I doubt the spur is killing alot of vehicles, nor is the Zephyer or The duster (which also scored 0 btw). What's your excuse for those? Why are they doing so poorly then?

    The libs numbers are terrible, but somehow it's the most op **** ever. These 2 sentences can't both be true, so which is it?

    So you want to add even MORE counters to a vehicle that doesn't really do all that well. Why? The lib is struggling pretty hard these days, adding even more counters to it won't go well.


    You and the infantry bads that infest this forum here are always spouting some dumb **** about vehicles, but sadly the numbers aren't lining up for you this time and you often make it a point to brag about "DA NUMBERS THO!". I'm just throwing it right back in your face.
  17. Demigan

    Gee I wonder why the most toxic and badly balanced area of the game isnt played as much as the rest of the game...

    You and the other aircraft fanatics that infest this forum have gotten enough buffs for themselves and nerfs to all their counters. What is missing is a fun, fair and balanced way to learn aircraft. A proper interplay between ground and air units. Naturally the air jockeys are horrified at that prospect and want to keep the gameplay in their favor and keep everyone else out of it.
  18. Trigga

    But thats not what you said, you said this:

    Open reponse to topic:
    There seem to be a heck of a lot of players in this thread that dont play vehicles, or play a small amount to get stats so they can pretend they do.
    Infact out of the 2 players who i recognise as Miller, ive seen 1 of them once in my 249 days and 17 hours of game time.
    Funnily enough he was killing friendly spawn beacons so he could get revives during an event, but thats another topic.
  19. Campagne

    I'll forgive you for getting confused as it has been a whole week since I last posted that. Obviously the top players in the game (plus the cheaters if there wasn't any overlap) will be in infantry-only areas killing infantry. Tanks can kill infantry way easier but not when they can't see or access the infantry in the first place.

    As such, the top leaderboards feature the predominately more abundant infantry weapons. When examining data for a trend, you don't look at the outliers. You're starting with your conclusion and working backwards trying to find any evidence of what you already hold to be true.

    I play on Miller, and I don't recognize you either. Anecdotal is anecdotal I guess. :rolleyes:
  20. Trigga

    Im not confused mate, you said, unequivocally, that vehicles kill more infantry than infantry do on a unit by unit basis, i even quoted it.
    Ill quote it again:
    I provided you with stats that show undeniably that the KPU figures for vehicles are lower than the KPU figures for infantry, even the starter infantry weapons.
    How did this convo start camp?
    You made a statement that vehicles kill more infantry, what was the first line of my response?
    ill go back and quote it:
    My first thought was to agree with you, and state that they are supposed to do that.
    What did i then go on to say camp? ill quote it again:
    I clearly state that my opinion was changed when i looked at the numbers, as in my 'conclusion' as you put it was altered by the stats that i looked up.
    If you can provide stats that discredit mine ill be happy to see them, as, and ill repeat again, I AGREED WHEN YOU SAID VEHICLES KILLED MORE INFANTRY, the stats changed my mind.
    Unlike you i am open to the possiblity that i am wrong, i can accept that when shown evidence.
    Knowing that these are the sequence of events, why do you then accuse me of being biased?


    Why do i have to repeat and repeat and repeat myself, why can you not read and understand the first, or second, or third time?
    Its almost as if you have this impression that i am a vehicle main and am trying to defend my OP wagon, but how can that be if you dont know who i am?
    Youre not by any chance forming a conclusion about me and are now trying to skew my posts to make me adhere to that are you?