[Vehicle] OP Harassers and Vehicle Cloaking.

I'm relatively new to the game (a little over 100 hours), and so far two specific things have me left scratching my head in frustration (in the sense of "why tf does this exist"). Harassers playing a fast heavy tank role, and Flashes/Ants playing an invisible infantry bulldozer role.

I get it, harassers are meant to harass you, but two or three of them can delete an entire armor column of heavy tanks, light tanks, and busses. They're small and fast, so they're hard to hit, but when you do hit them with your "anti-tank" rounds from a heavy tank, you need to do it again 5 or 6 times before they zoom off and repair (assuming they're not already being repaired on the go from the back seat).

To preserve their purpose they should remain cheap, quick, and powerful, but they need to be paper thin when it comes to squaring off with armor (I'm talking 1-2 direct hits from a heavy tank sets the harasser ablaze regardless of what god tier upgrades it has).

As for the invisible Flashes/Ants, just make it so running someone over slightly damages the vehicle (like 1hp) temporarily disabling your cloak. This way we can at least witness the vehicle that wiped half our platoon turning around for a second ram.

I'm still relatively new, so I'm not entirely sure if many people will share the same opinion. Feel free to make a defense for the harassers and vehicle cloaking, as opposing opinions create opportunity for compromise (meaning we can collectively decide what the most efficient change could be that suits players of all playstyles).

Also sorry in advance if this is a touchy topic that forum mods hate seeing, I just feel like I'm losing my mind with some of the balancing in this game.

I would go on reddit, the mods don't read these forums unless you report someone for being toxic or whatever in them. It's however interesting to see these remarks from a new player.

Not only are you right, you also offer logical and completely viable/reasonable solutions that a majority of players who don't sit in infinite farming cheese machines have been asking for. Good on you.

I fully agree. They recently doubled the cost of a harasser from 150 nanite to 300, and the things are still dominating because they survive long enough to regenerate the 300 nanite, so no change. Hitting one 3 times with my AP lightning only for him to scurry away is infuriating. Given they get to straight up kill me any time our performance is even CLOSE to even, seeing them escape when I out perform them makes me furious.

The cloak flash posing a credible threat to an MBT is absurd, and the cloak ant is meant to be a defensive escape mechanism.

I do want to give credit where it is due. If not for our current lead dev pushing hard to get some things done, I do think that 2020 would have been the year Planetside 2 died. On top of all the other reasons to hate 2020, it would also have been the year that killed my favorite game. So, we have Wrel to thank for the fact that we are complaining about details of this game rather than complaining about its demise. But...I think he does a terrible job when it comes to letting his own biases get the better of him. The aspects of Planetside 2 that he personally likes to play are what get attention and power ups. The parts of the game he isn't personally big on either get nerfed all to hell or ignored entirely.

He seems to enjoy a light, fast, constantly mobile play style where you deliver damage in sudden shocks. Play this style, and the imbalance will be on your side. If you try to play for a heavy presence, try to pick a patch of ground and make it your own, you will get mulched.

Yeah the Harasser/Ant/Flash are a pain.

Yeah the Harasser has way to much armor and its extremely fast to repair. Its balance it completely off.

Invisible flash. If you don't have the audio bug all you get as a warning is the engine sound. Too hard to see as a fast moving vehicle. Planetside 1 was pretty balanced with it as far as seeing it while cloaked and moving. Flash's are also know to live threw Anti tank mine's which is completely ridiculous.

Ant. Again almost perfect invisibility even though it uses a rare resource.

And like the OP said what's the point of pulling heavy armor or lightning's when a 2 crew harasser can do the job better and a 3 crew with a lock-on launcher in the rear is the best you can get.

Right, I'm not sure why the developers of the game would think delaying the harassers deploy rate would solve the issue of how long they can survive in a battle. Not much logic went into that thought process. At their rate of survival, you can make them cost 2k nanites and they can still pull out another harasser immediatly after they die.

Personally, I look at the harassers as a cheap DPS role, its fast and outputs good damage, but it has to be squishy if it wants to actually have a nice fit in the game. I also don't understand why flashes have guns, that's just kind of stupid. It should just be a very fast and stealthy transport for two, that thing has no business countering armor, let alone an infantry zerg.

And on top of that they need to update vehicle zones to where you cant put them in impossible area's like inside bases, on top of tree's and all that crap.

Great observation from a new player. Both the harasser and flash stuff are beyond ridiculous. They have their place for sure but currently they are operating well beyond what their place should be.

Hey there, first off, welcome to Planetside 2. I hope you stay to play. To answer your question. In time you likely would have figured out why all elements of this game are the way they are. There exists a balance that is apparent to players who dedicated themselves to the game. The only reason you are not able to see it is you are fairly new. The vehicles you pointed out are really and truly only deadly for the select few who have used them relentlessly, Harassers included. Against pros, they are all but useless. I am if you tried to use each one you would find that you die in them very easily. As a whole, think of this game as a Fighter. If you play them, you know to achieve balance they make each character to counter another, with the exception of the "Boss" character, which overall has no glaring weakness. The Colossus and the Bastion are your Boss units here.

The Harasser exists to be a counter for tanks. In the hands of a pro., yes a lone Harasser can do very well against a Main Battle Tank that is only manned by one person, however the odds are stacked against it in the worst way if the M.B.T. has even an average gunner. A group of Harassers are supposed to take out a fully manned M.B.T. with ease because it is X versus 1. (Sharks on a Whale) On foot if you encounter a situation where it is 2-3 against one, you are likely going to die, so the same applies to vehicles. Harassers can be countered multiple ways, and that is why they need their armor, but their main enemies are cloaking vehicles. They have the speed to pounce on an enemy and retreat when damaged, however they are loud, can easily be identified thanks to their weapon systems and there for found by these vehicles erasing their downtime needed to recover. A good enough player can destroy and entire group of Tank killing Harassers on their own.
Case and point:
The cloaking vehicles direct counter is everything else including themselves. A Flash is easily killed in one hit, which includes being ran over, so for your average player, a one on one fight against anything but people or itself, will more than likely end in their death. That was true even before the cloak cool downs were enacted. Now? The learning curb is so steep it is rare you see people playing cloak flashes on P.S.4/5. The few that do, are usually running a shotguns, which are no threat to anything but light armor and people, so easy pickings. (With the exception of T.R. which typically has the best of all worlds when it comes to weapon systems. They typically run Flamethrowers. "Pillager" even so,) If you find a player taking down a Tank with a Cloaking Flash, they put in some real time with it to be able to do so.

A.N.T.s? It is uncommon that you are going to find an ANT running anything that is of any REAL danger to a Main Battle Tank. A Bull Dog hits decent, but it requires a LOT of practice time to get used to the low shell velocity that translates into extremely high arching needed to hit a target at any distance. I have yet to find a soul able to hit a moving Lighting with any consistency with one, and an ANT cannot face down an M.B.T. with one, which means, A.N.T.s will spend most of their time retreating from a battle. A running ANT is a non-attacking ANT. (You would be better off with a Lightning.) A.N.T.s have VERY low engagement lifespan. They get one shot at an attack because their Cloak Requires Crystals, and unless the driver has taken the time to spend a TON of Certs and Merit to Maximize their A.N.T., they will not be able to escape without dropping their cloak before getting out of eyesight. Advantage enemy. If they are running Turbo, they are HUGE targets of average speed, very easy to hit, and run the risk of flipping themselves, doing self damage or killing themselves. Almost all of my friends to this day say A.N.T.s are too "squishy" to even bother looking at, much less taking the time to learn them. Which is why you will not see that many people TRULY using them. The one thing I found they can be forced to excel at, is killing Harassers, Flashes and for me Aircraft, but you have to be VERY good with a Ranger. For some reason people here say the Skyguard and Ranger cannot kill Fighters, but I drop them like flies with both, so it may vary with you. Sure it can run over people, but it is rare you are going to find people dumb enough to set up shop in an open enough area where an A.N.T. can get to them. Cloaking vehicles are unique and have potential, but they have glaring weaknesses that can be exploited just like everything else. You just have to take the time to find them. They do not need to be weakened in any further way than they already have been.

I hope this shed some light on some of the ins and outs. Happy Hunting.

I wanna smoke what you are smoking.

really? then then how come AA guns hit like a wet noodle against aircraft unless you bring a large enough number of them?

also in general it's a good idea to post in the default text rather then pick obnoxious colors if you expect people to take the time to actually read your posts.

harassers attack and defense are supposed to be their speed, but their armor is too strong for their speed class, a tank should have to deal with both the harasser's evasion and then have to land 3+ shots only to see the harasser start smoking and then run away fast enough that you can't kill it.

there's a reason why most games make you pick between evasion or mitigation defense types.

Takes at least 2 players to make a Harasser feasible. That's a same 350 certs but 2 players vs. 1 against a Lighting. Harassers resistance to AP should be weaker though, 2 shots should finish the damned thing unless they repair it before the 2nd shot. Don't get me wrong, as a solo player I hate them, but the same goes for Liberators, I cannot find any excuses when I die to them, because there's a team of usually dedicated players cheesing it high and low, and the rest of us get to wish we were them.

Often as a Lighting AP, I have prevailed against harassers, but you cannot miss any shots, and you have to run the right loadout. To the OP, I also find myself wondering who was the genius that thought cloak was a good idea for a shooter. I see no reason for it other than it being a crutch for bad players who can't play fair and square any shooters.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Planetside isn't the only videogame with vehicle warfare in it, so being new to Planetside doesn't mean you're new to balanced vehicle mechanics. I'm an avid player of countless open warfare and RTS games, both realistic and sci-fi, all featuring complex balancing mechanics that I'm way too familiar with. The issue is that a Harasser is statistically a heavy tank, this is not an exaggeration, in many categories it outperforms MBT's in terms of damage resistance and in many more categories it's identically resistant.

Below I will list all of the differences between Harassers and MBT's for all damage resistance types (A resistance of 100% means the vehicle is not affected at all. A positive number means incoming damage is reduced by that percent. A negative number means incoming damage is multiplied by that percent, dealing extra damage):

Harasser Advantage:

• C4 (Harasser -75%) - (MBT -100%/-140%)
• Tank Mine (Harasser -60%) - (MBT -100%/-140%)
• Tank Shells (Harasser -20%) - (MBT -50%)

MBT Advantage:

• Small Arms (MBT 100%) - (Harasser 87%)
• Heavy MG (MBT 87%) - (Harasser 85%)
• AA MG (MBT 85%) - (Harasser 80%)
• Light Anti-Vehicle (MBT -20%) - (Harasser -25%)
• Gatling Guns (MBT 75%) - (Harasser 60%)
• A2G Warheads (MBT 0%) - (Harasser -20%)
• A2A Missiles (MBT 20%) - (Harasser 0%)

All damage types not listed are identical stats, meaning the Harasser is equal to a MBT in every other category of resistance. Only 3 of the MBT's resistance advantages are greater than 15%. So the only significant resistance advantage MBT's have over harassers is small arms and air attacks. On top of these stats, you have directional resistance which also heavily favors Harassers:



We can get into damage stats as well, but it's not the damage output harassers have that I'm concerned about, it's their resistance stats that practically outperform heavy tanks. They're too fast for infantry or armor to reasonably deal with, so you're left primarily with air as a counter. Unfortunately air itself has a great amount of counters and a large learning process to operate, making harassers just that much more untouchable and OP.

Of course harassers are an equal counter to other harassers, but with that being the only reasonable land counter, than it might as well be the only land vehicle other than support vehicles like Ants and Sunderers. I appreciate the long response, but it essentially boiled down to "learn the game and get good". Of course you can overcome overpowered elements of the game with finesse, but with an unbalanced element you heavily limit strategy, create an unfair environment, and force players to rely on metas.

Thank you HexJei for the detailed break down, it's very informative. Exileant is someone I wouldn't put that much effort into. He's one of those guys who likes to abuse the OP stuff, but wants to imagine that he is actually good, so he'll deny balance issues until he's blue in the face.

again, another psychedelic post that seems to reflect what you've been eating.

I won't bother explaining the obvious, but while I can agree the bastion is a "boss unit", the colossus definitely isn't.

It dies insanely fast to the bastions its meant to kill, and most important, dies from mines. An engineer can easily drop 3-4 mines and take out a deployed colossus. Not very "boss" like to me.

Solid analysis, I'm seriously impressed and starting to doubt you're actually a new player. If it isn't glaringly obvious from the guy's post, he's a known troll. I would avoid any attempt to even reason with him, he's playing a different game in a different world.

I'm really curious to see how you perform in game, do you have a character you want to link?

One more thing, the devs don't read these forums, so anything important you should try posting on twitter, reddit or youtube if you have 10k subs and would like the possibility of a dev reading it.

Well duh... Anyone of importance or real significance knows social media is the REAL world. Where else can you self inflate your ego by hating on whom you disagree with...
(sarcasm off)
I wish they actually read the forums, not only do really good ideas pop up now and then but they could get the pulse of the community.

^

Every single day that passes playing this game, my point just grows stronger and stronger. I just left a game because me and my friends (3 vanguards) just spent over 10 minutes trying to kill 1 harasser. We hit him at least 50+ times with tank shells, but he'd just zoom off to repair and then come back.

Multiple times all 3 of us would land a direct hit before he zoomed off, but he was able to out repair it on the go. The only reason we eventually killed him was because we caught him on that ice lake where there isn't much cover to repair behind. I'm pretty sure my friends wont play the game again which is unfortunate, their main attraction to this game was the vehicle warfare.

The only reason I stick around is because I like the concept of the game, large scale warfare and strategy. I'm worried the game is too old for them to really care about balancing it, but it'd be great to see.

I smoke discipline, and pray. Christ gives me the skill. My example of your quote of me takes place at 2:55 of this video.

Toke a bowl with me?

Stats, will never equal experience, Hex. You asked for what an explanation for HERE because you are too green to know. I am trying to stop you from turning into a sniveling crybaby that thinks sitting around with a calculator and links to inaccurate sites due to padding and just over all ignorance is the proving your point, like, Rabid, Demigan, and the late Campaign TRY to do.... You have not played the game long enough to know much more that what you see in your deployment screen. I have been playing here for 7 years. I have been a vehicle specialist across many games for almost 2ice as long. It is a guilty pleasure to delve into the detail and inner workings of what the creators of games were going for when it comes to balance. You do not have enough Certs to truly test anything with only 100 hours under your belt. The simple fact is, YOU are unable to hit them; but do not confuse your current skill level with imbalance. Me using an A.N.T. is just one way to kill them in a single hit. I am a P.S.N. Player, we just not to long ago GOT our A.N.T.s. Do you know what I was using to kill them before that? A properly set up Lightning, A fully maned M.B.T. Flashes and LIBERATORS; and it was not until I decided to challenge myself and I started going after M.B.T.'s with a Cloaking Flash, did I even realize they could be effective against Harassers. When I did, I had to practice and "get good". Heck, one of my earliest Harasser kills was with a bolt action Sniper rifle. Nothing should come easy. If you want easy, go play a Gem Buster game. You have a few rubes here that cry about vehicles because they do not agree with how they are used, and because they cry, they feel it is their duty to be stupid enough not to use them to prove a point. Because of this, they know nothing about their capabilities or weaknesses, nor can they think critically when it comes to them. The ANT, Harasser, and Flash fall into that isle. Do not be like them...
The turrets in this game are built for point and click, they are blindingly fast and can easily keep with a Harasser passing by even at W.O.T. Example at 4:31 of this video.

One full barrage from even a Viper is enough to make it heavily smoke. That takes 65-75% of its life. Harassers need their armor to deal with how deadly everything is. Further more, Harassers are larger than lightnings, so they are not small. They are faster than you are used to, but as a whole ALL of Planetside's vehicles are slow. 120 k.p.h. is not even 75 miles an hour... That is pathetic for a car. A Flash cannot even do that. I know people who can kill Harassers in a Battle Bus layout of a Sunderer. You read me right... A wimpy tail Sunderer. None of them have a problem nailing a Harasser with even Decimators. But there are plenty of infantry Rocket launchers that remove al lot of the guesswork from aiming at speedy targets. A Harasser will not out perform an M.B.T. All you need to do is set up this test race. Have 4 people, on 2 different factions. Each side pulls an M.B.T. and Harasser. Meet up, One side gets into a Harasser and fully mans it, the other gets into an M.B.T. and fully mans it. You both aim at the opposing empty vehicle from whatever angle you think the car has its advantage and fire away at the same time. After you see who wins empty vehicle race, you then fire at each other, again from whatever you thing the toy car will stand more of a chance. You will find our really quickly the advantage you think is there, is an illusion. The M.B.T. will win every time. The issue is not the cars armor. It is missed shots on your target.
I know it seems harsh, and I do not say this to be mean, but yes, all you need to do is practice and get better. The reality is anything can kill everything, all you have to do is look for an opening and wait for the right opportunity. LITERALLY. Just 2 days ago I shot down a Liberator with my Crossbow held by my Infiltrator. He was rather shocked, and refused to give me my Dap on that feat.