[Poll] Vehicle gameplay - do you enjoy it? If not, why?

Perhaps you haven't actually played that much with the game's different tanks, like you claim. That, or you're just a really bad tank player who refuses to learn to play to their chosen MBT's strengths.

It's all fine and dandy, but the sundies do need something better against ground armor . The falloff of bulldog (compare it with the straight shots (often from miles away) of a vanguard helped by the secondary turret!) or even fury, the lack of punch (even at max upgrade) of m20(and using a walker against 'em ain't better), kobalt is as amazing (in any vehicle) vs infantry as walker is against air (but a liberator will easily erase the sundy with no effort,so,a bit of punch there too would be welcome) , but those two are useless against heavy tanks ( kobalt is effective against ESF and harassers), plus being a relatively weak vehicle makes any vanguard or even lighting tank having it super easy to cut the game flow (and battle) too easily. A bad thing (specially at some hours) as most players are lazy (or get run out of nanites all the time, specially if zerged base by base) to pull sundies, or are absurdly obsessed with K/d, while defending a sundy is often a way to get fragged fast, or prefer to save those nanites for indeed pull harassers and tanks, to get easy xp (or because is more fun to frag than get fragged...).
I think it is needed for game balance and to have less battles stopped (which is bad for gameplay, gamers retention, newcomers staying, etc).

If anything, there's another huge imbalance in the game, now, it is bastions (and maybe orbitals should be a tad more expensive to destroy/interrupt fewer battles). Besides Collossus, there should be a way to fully kill it from ground with much more common (and cheaper) elements than a collossus, even if th bastion keeping extreme life points. Like... once certain hot spots are broken from ground (maybe 2 or 3 extra more in the bottom side, make them tiny to make it dificult to aim to from ground, skilled players would be able to hit them, or give them a lot of life), once those 5 are down, it explodes.

But evem so, a sundy (quite more) powerful turret against armor is imo a bigger need.

I find the vehicle to vehicle combat to be ... ok. Infantry to infantry is much more fun. So I don't seek vehicle combat out on it's own merits. There is a metagame surrounding the placement and protection of spawn points. While interesting I've played it too many times and just don't have fun participating.

So if not for fun directly, then what fun is to be had?

There is Vehicle vs Infantry combat. Fun is to be had here but generally at the expense of others. It's not a fair fight unless the player stupidly makes it so.

I think new players, and veterans that just aren't good at infantry gravitate towards this playstyle. You see it when players shell the infantry fight from the safety of distance even when they are clearly needed as boots on the point. I did this stuff when I was a new player and it was fun at the time. To do it now would just be me crapping on others.

So that's it. Not a "hard no" to vehicles, but definitely not for me.

Been tanking in a lightning for a while, and frankly it's not fun. I love armor combat but the shell velocity, range, is terrible. Sometimes, I will directly hit infantry with AP and they don't die.

The concept of fun is extremely relative. You might find fun in farming: I don't (and I have been around since beta times), while I find quite fun in team play and global strategy, and both group and individual tactics. Defending a spawn point is also a team play effort (or should be, and often quite fun).

Also, it is a game of numbers. Once is not 50%/50%, well... a skilled/veteran platoon or a incredibly hard base (or both) can still do with a 45 -55), but generally, even a slight imbalance will finish the battle.

When people used more the voice commands (this is broken now, right?), and there were more pro platoon leaders it was mountains of fun... (am speaking only about both EU servers, though)

All that said, you need to leave room/freedom to the concept of fun. Some people find it fun to build bases, some just flying 24/7, some only driving, some just gunning, some as infils hacking everything and long distance camping, some to work in team play, some as lone wolfes (although IMO, by far the best way to win this game is team play. Someone said here how invincible harrasers are... Meh...much less than heavy tanks or lightings.... well, the many times I have, with other 3-4 skilled buddies, climbed up a hill, or tower, with enough infantry anihilator (AV lock-on) launchers and the harassers are done, or decimated...but that jointed effort, and number of skilled players (even to get 3 to do that is often a miracle! ) conciding in an common smart effort is not very frequent))

Also, air... well, lock-ons in the HA launchers or a pair of AA maxes and they are history (be it mosquitos, scythes or reavers, doesn't matter..the most sneaky pilots might escape, but you will interrupt the farming)...or even the fabulous walker in a sundy, with a good gunner, as takes some skill (specially to calculate anticipation)... and two skilled gunners in a sundy with walkers or rangers can put down a lib if is not fast to escape. When farming air to ground in a base...again, it's gotta be two heavies or two maxes with some experience. Not newbies level 12 in their first account.

I see more balance in the game than not. It's certain details that would help gameplay fluidity and balance, in my opinion.

While I agree removing it would be overkill, it is clear you didn't post to debate the issue, but whine for the other side. The harrasers do need some balancing for how good it is at most roles. It should be risky to rush armor in what is intended to be a light vehicle. It certainly has a place on the battlefield, but primary anti-armor choice seems a silly one.

Over all I dislike vehicle combat.
Key vehicles lack any empire specific equipment and lacking of more than 2 empire specific vehicles.

Lack of coax ale weapons on main battle tanks.

No class specfic equipment or vehicles. (why play anything but a eng for vehicle pilots)

vehicle to vehicle combat is a choir.
Typically only 1 side in a fight has a large force of vehicles thus the other has to fall back and attempt to put together a counter vehicle push or more likely change lanes.

I would suggest change in ESF, lighting and MBT weapon use.

IE the noise gun of a fighter controlled by the left click and the wing weapons by right click.

Give the lighting and MBT coaxial machine guns for dealing with infantry when you are low on tank shells or want to save them and to add dps against those damn harassers.

Bring back empire specific harraser varrents.
deliver and variants as gun trucks with 4 sunder style weapons.

Front line vehicle spawns. A large air vehicle that can deploy into a MBT spawn pad.

Vehicle salvage and hacking.
Have destroyed vehicles remain on the battle field for 1 minute and engineers can repair/salvage vehicles. (destroyed air craft crash to the ground)
Hacking inilftrators to hack unmanned vehicles (acceptation for deployed sundies)

Vehicle class equipment slot, changes depending on what class the driver is. Variable class specific gunner equipment slot.

Ideas that can be used for class equipment slot. Heavy, prevent repairs for a short time, infiltrator emp, medic long cool down aoe rez, engineer deploy ai mines.

I think all vehicles need a general redesign, MBT's are in an awkward place, TR Prowler is dog**** at anything useful, yeah we can bombard a zerg but that's it. NC Vanguard is solid NC could use some better faction specific top mounts, Vanu Magrider just pisses people off because of it's ability to run away, appear where you don't expect a tank to be, and kind of just be a general ****.

For Faction Specific vehicles there should be two choices, Fast moving Tank, and a slow moving Tank.

Vanu, make the Magrider the fast moving Variant, and them give a larger Hovertank with an actual Turret


For NC give them a smaller faster tank, and keep the Vanguard as their big tank


TR though...
Replace the Prowler with a fast attack tank with wheels

And then make their Heavy Tank a crawler tank and make the lockdown just sit the tank down to reallocate power more or less


You can also tell me I'm an idiot

It's either a game of peak, shoot and repair, which is super boring.

Or sneak up and instakill a vehicle from behind.

Then we throw cloak flashes, ants and harassers into the mix. Super cancer, the balancing feels weird, and vehicles are either near invincible or they die far to quickly.

Also there's the thing with terrain where non-vanu mbts and lightnings basically flip across every pebble they encounter. Another cancerous thing to deal with.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! There's also air vehicles, which grant you god like capabilities if you manage to pour enough time to learn the awkward mechanics of flying without getting deterred by the obnoxious tryhards that dominate the skies.

Finally, apart from 2 vehicles per faction, you're basically just fighting the same thing, so it's all about who equipped the right weapon, shot first, has the most repairs or just landed rear shots. It's also a funny thing I noticed some noobs don't know if it's a friendly vehicle or not cuz they are all IDENTICAL until that noobs ded.

Feel its worth showing what advantage the Prowler have since there are a few people here saying its garbage but only reason im quoting you is because im using a part of it below, not really singling you out for anything.

Target = tanks
Magrider FPC/AP: 1125 damage per shot / 409,09 DPS
Vanguard AP: 1275 damage per shot / 392,30 DPS
Prowler AP: 900 damage per shot / 514,28 DPS

Thats a 20,5% and 23,7% DPS advantage over the Magrider and Vanguard respectively.
This is also without using Barrage because if you press that glorious high skill button the AP Prowler has 720 DPS making the advantage 43,1% and 54,4% over the Magrider and Vanguard respectively.

Its also why the Magriders people remember are these ones: "Vanu Magrider just pisses people off because of it's ability to run away, appear where you don't expect a tank to be, and kind of just be a general ****"

The other ones that dont play like that, they all die, very quickly. Also why I dont really like the Magrider currently or for quite a while actually, I dont enjoy sitting on a hill shooting at enemies hundreds and hundreds of meters away but that is the 'correct' way to use a Magrider since anything else typically just involves you exploding over and over for daring to get close to a fight.


Oh yeah, Harassers need a quite heavy resistance nerf so they dont take tank shells like a frickin MBT. Would be kinda nice if tanks didnt take +50% damage while Harassers only take +20% damage from tank shells, Harassers literally have better armor than MBTs have against tank shells.. comon devs.

Yeah the DPS is nice on the prowler but the shape is ******* ridiculous, Lockdown is good only in bombardment since it takes away mobility which can often lead you to dying. And numbers often don't mean much when it comes to gameplay, numbers are nice when everything else is sterilized.

Magriders are awkward when they try to fight like a tank, but their floating makes it awkward to hit them, their strafing and dashing can be rough to fight against. They're super maneuvarable and it makes me jelly.

Harassers get away with a lot more **** than they should, I would know since I mained harassers for a long time before I gave the game a break during the time I hoped on MWO

Yeah those things are infernal.

It's simple, usually when I see one I don't even try fighting it, I just hit the accelerator and try to make it to a group of friendlies or a building/cover so I can hop out and redeploy.

It's super annoying too just pull a tank only to be greeted by a harasser that shreds your light tank faster than the game allows you to exit it. At least they increased the cost of harassers a bit, and lowered the paper tank's cost, but really, there needs to be some balancing. The harassers ability to simply shrug 4-5 shots and turbo away through awkward terrain makes them the esfs of the ground.

At least ESFs running into terrain explode instead of getting borderline impossible to hit by bouncing around.

My main issue with vehicle fights is about Harassers too. They're the only ground vehicles that can drive right through the middle of a significant amount of enemy forces and survive. It takes so much simultaneous shooters/gunners to kill, it's ridiculous. At least their weapons should be nerfed so that they can't rush in/destroy Sundy point blank/escape.
About ESF's I remember a time when a single hit from a Decimator could kill one but that's been nerfed. I can hardly understand why as someone who's stupid enough to hover 5m above ground to farm infantry deserves to get one hit shot.

The harasser is supposed to be the glass cannon. It is supposed to hit and run. Go in, try and get the risky move to attack the MBTs in the back, get a kill, disrupt the enemy lines and sprint out. If not having primary anti-armor choices, what then?

It feels to me you have never actually played a harasser bar a few minutes. Tell me the truth. The problem is that tanks are too weak versus most things, not the harasser itself imo. And honestly, I am a MBT main, I couldn't care less for harassers. But I don't want them to suffer the same fight as my vehicle, who is shooting pea balls at an atrocious velocity currently.

The problem is it's not made of glass precisely. MBTs are weak enought ATM but Sunderers aren't, and some Harassers (depending on equipment) can just get close, stay long enough to destroy the Sundy , and flee !! I can see no glass in the equation.
MBTs were nerfed ?!? Harassers should be treated the same way.

I'm of the opinion they should just make everything OP and work their way from there

That or they could just revert to beta, or even PS1 (mechanics).

Honestly the play seemed much more balanced when each faction had their niche based on their trait, and each vehicle behaved in a correct way against others.

groundvehicleplay is basic at best .. there aren't many events or areas in which pure vehiclecombat happens on the ground it mostly is a thing of static aggresive vehicle column engages defensive vehicle column at base
or a solo or vehicle dou hunting sunderers or stray ants ...

vehicle captureable bases may have added to that a bit, but there still could be areas in the terrain between bases that could be made more intresting for pure vehicleplay ...


aircraft controlls are still scrap, to the point it causes me wristpain, and you can't make propper use of a controller or set sensitivity on keypresses .. as well as the lack of being able to yaw with the mouse a.o.
weaponbalance and flexibilty of secondary esf weapons are still scrap

AA balance between air to air and ground to air is still scrap allong with groundvehicles lacking options other than just dps guns .. don't come at me with mbt maincannons or halberts as AAoption ...

the general I v V v A balance is still lacking were infantry and maxes should get more options against vehicles
and doesn't require many assets as most are already there ... but that's just aside

I really like anti infantry tank pls dont nerf it even more. I feel like they already did something with rekoil and long distance shoots. They defenetly nerf it too much.