[Vehicle] What do you think about the current Tank Meta?

Regarding 2, I'm not a fan of the TR/NC/VS/NSO suffix meta. I like my characters to have unique names. Lord Annihilator (TR), Lady Annihilator (NC), CakeNinJazz (VS). It'll come to me in time, but for now I'll stick to working on my alts.

10. Part of the issue I find with RLs is down to aircraft. It feels like they just do plink damage, and when I try to bring down, say, an ESF with a lockon they just bug out and either the missile does barely any damage when it hits or they outrun the missile entirely. AA in general just feels generally underpowered right now, especially with A2G ESFs being so present in the game. Its a tricky balancing act, but one that definitely could do with some shaking up, particularly in that area.

The problem with infantry vs tanks is that tanks have the speed and time to get out of the way if they are threatened, they have the range to make it much harder to get hit and they have the firepower to OHK infantry that takes a shot at them.

Increasing the damage on those rocketlaunchers is but one option, and you could make them pay resources for such an option. But if you feel that the instagib potential is too great then there are other solutions as well. For example imagine if your shots nerfed the tank mobility? It becomes an easier target and it won't have as easy a time to get out of the way if it is threatened. Or imagine a concussive effect limiting the turret mobility? It then becomes harder to aim and fire at a target, assuming you take the time to reposition between shots so at the very least the tank has to roll the dice on if you appear left or right of the piece of cover you hide behind.
Such options are also great for adding teamplay elements, as you can coordinate infantry to nerf enemy vehicles giving other units a better chance of destroying them.

Other options are making infantry AV work in stages. For example imagine a rocketlauncher warhead that doesn't deal any damage on impact, but it leaves an object on the tank which will then slowly start dealing damage until it runs out of juice or is destroyed by small-arms/explosives. It can potentially deal a lot of damage or barely any at all depending on how fast they are removed, but that removal process does mean the players have to get out or ask nearby allies for help (or angle that side to enemy AOE fire and hope that damages it enough to clear them off).

Similarly you can have sticky glue to slow enemies down (spread by a damaging AOE ofcourse), chemical acidics to burn a tank with DOT and make scopes unuseable while the chemicals are burning the lenses, an object functioning like a malfunctioning repair-gun causing the nanites to slowly destroy the tank rather than repair it, hacking devices which mess with the vehicle systems such as the targeting computer causing a small COF to appear on all weapons etc.

Not everything needs to be lethal to tanks either. A simple device that distorts the visual area the farther away you are from it already makes aiming for players inside harder unless you get close and expose yourself more (also helps protect against snipers), or a deployable smoke-machine to create a wall of smoke which could also block and remove any Q-spots, deployable shield generators to absorb some damage before they have to recharge (and can be destroyed with a flank or while recharging) etc.

I have seen mobility kills in other games for AV weapons they do seam to work to make them easier to fight tanks and air as infantry. Not sure how it will go over in PS2 though.

Not sure about a dot in a FPS.

Almost every game ever with a flamethrower or other incendiary weapons has DOT.
One of the GES biorifles in UT has done a quick DOT.
Overwatch has DOT weapons.
Games with chemical gasses have DOT like Battlefield.
Poison weapons like in Turok deal DOT.
Unreal 2 even had the novel idea to fire genetically mutated spiders which when hit dealt a DOT before the spiders died as they crawled over the target and tried to eat it.

DOT's are functional in FPS's and are ideally suited for a more tactical gameplay as they can be used as area-denial or as drawbacks/advantages to certain weapons. Like limiting the total damage potential per second but still offering a lot of total damage if you succeed or offering debuffs while the DOT is in effect. A DOT can also happen as a small extra, like a rocketlauncher that deals a portion of its AOE damage in a DOT as it sets you on fire.

Alright, my 2c:
2. MBTs generally feel fine to me. Colossus was a necessary, but imho largely boring counter for the already boring and unnecessary [1] bastion. Lightnings are (or were, until the NSO update) balanced quite nicely. I've spent tons of hours in mine. Lots of people don't seem to like them, but most lightning drivers I encounter seem to use them like MBTs, which doesn't work so well.
3. Feels generally OK to me.
4. I don't like it. If they had simply added the Chimera for NSO and called it a day, I would've been fine with it. But since they also nerfed harrassers into oblivion at the same time, everybody is now basically driving a sundi, MBT or flash. So not only is driving harries no longer fun (to me), lightnings have essentially become about as useful as lots of players have seen them for years.

Before the update, I could get quite a bit done as a lonely player with a lightning, i.e. take out sundies, one, maybe two other lightnings per fight, perhaps some infantry and have a decent standing against harries. Just had to be careful & sneaky. Since harries are gone and everybody is driving around in MBTs, my best chance with a lightning is to get the Viper and try to attack MBTs from the rear up close. I occasionally did that (with the Python AP) before the NSO update, but now I feel like that's my only real option. At least if I'm not in a group. And I don't want to have to play in groups all the damn time (cliche NC, I know).

Generally speaking, I think that nerfing harries (and lightnings) has made vehicle fights stale and less fluid. Heck, even fighting against harries boring, as they need to run for cover after 1-2 shots, repair, attack again, rinse & repeat...

So no, I do not like the NSO update very much and really hope vehicle fights do not stay that way.
5. The viper is/was terrible as the starter weapon for lightnings and should perhaps get buffed a little (but not much). Skyguard - not sure. Rn it's not very interesting to use, but making it actually interesting would probably be a massive nerf for aircraft. But vehicle guns generally seem to be balanced quite nicely.


[1] Bastions could have been very fascinating, if fighting inside/against them added some more depth to the game, i.e. if infantry fights inside bastions were a thing and perhaps connected to alerts.

They could even work it into the 'lore' that wow, the NS scientists have been working on some crazy experiment to weaponize the dreaded Esamir Storm and are proud to present the new NS ThunderStrike Dumbfire + Lock-on launcher for both land and air vehicles!

When dumbfired it does kinda meh damage but any deployable + MAX suits in the blast radius gets a power surge effect that messes with them a bit and does some DoT damage(basically EMP+fire effect). Vehicles on the other hand only takes the meh damage but are hit with a decent doze of the Esamir Storm charge and behave as if they were in the storm area for the duration until they lose the charge, multiple hits stacks the charge and when it goes critical, instead of the vehicle just going *pop* as it did in the storm, its struck by lightning dealing quite a lot of damage but also discharges the vehicle.

Personally I would love it simply because aircraft would get really sad when hit by it since they lose a lot of their ability to fly(just as it was in the storm). The meh damage the actual rocket does would still keep it decently balanced even though it would have both dumbfire and full vehicle lock on ability it still needs follow up from others to get the kill or a lot of time for a single dude to throw out enough rockets to really do anything with it.

And yeah, would let them reuse some of the dev time they spent on the Campaign and basically copy-paste from there to create it so probably not a huge project to actually get into the game. They should obviously bring back the tool to discharge the effect as well to give the receiving end a counter play option and remove the charge faster instead of having to wait it out, even though it might mean relying on others or getting out of the vehicle themselves.

Would be fun for everyone disliking Magriders as well since they just go *flop* and scrape around on the ground!
Saying that the launcher might actually be too effective against them and the ground vehicle lock-on might have to go.. though a lot of Magriders have the Recharge ability so perhaps it would be fine.

Except for the lock-on part I agree. Lock-ons should not be added, but rather altered. Lock-ons are low-skill and not that much fun to use. "aim near enemy and wait", with tons of frustrations like "a twig passed your view as you aimed at the target" or "some ally walked in front for 0.0001 second so now your lock is gone!".

Lock-ons need to be changed, here's two idea's:

1. Lock-ons are altered to fire-and-maintain missiles rather than fire-and-forget.
   • The angle of lock is reduced, so you need to aim closer to the vehicle center to acquire a lock. This allows vehicles to shake the lock.
   • Lock-on time is heavily reduced.
   • You can now fire without a lock and lock on after firing. If a lock is broken the lock can be re-acquired, or an entirely new target selected.
   • Some missiles can have a slow turn-rate, encouraging players to fire into the vehicle path before locking in. Such missiles would naturally deal more damage than faster and easier to use missiles.
   • All missiles lose the ability to do a 180, if the missile is passed the target it's not going to lock-on anymore.
   • This missile type would best be as an AA version, as ground units would move too slow in general to be useful.
   • Many smaller missiles could also be fired.
   • If you aim at a target who used smoke/flares your launcher will stop locking for a few seconds, this can be used to protect other targets as well.
2. Lock-ons are now laser-guided.
   • Rather than keeping current lock-ons, all missiles are guided to the target instead. Missiles can be fired instantly.
   • The combination of turn-rate and velocity of the missile determine how easy it is to hit targets. Rule of thumb: The slower and less maneuverable the more damage the missile will do.
   • Slower missiles could also be manually detonated and have effects when you do. Such as a shotgun-blast forwards or an EMP attack etc. To make this easier, some missiles could have a distance meter to the nearest enemy vehicle/aircraft/infantry, depending on their role.
   • Missiles could have other effects to help hit targets. Such as coyote-style tracking once it gets close to a target, flak detonations (although with smaller flak detection ranges than the ridiculously large 8m we have now), "flak" detonation ranges where they use a secondary effect like EMP or launch explosive shrapnel in a shotgun pattern etc.
   • If someone uses smoke/flares and you aim at the target your launcher stops it's laser-tracking for a moment. This uses an invisible and otherwise non-functional lock-on COF to determine if you are aiming at a target that used it.
   • This is a good method to add a variety of skill levels to such missile systems, it still improves aim over dumbfires as is the role of lock-ons and adds potential alternative attack modes to deal with a variety of targets and situations.

The point is to make lock-ons not as cheap and boring as they are now, with flaws that are as annoying as the lock-on warning you can barely stop. It keeps in mind current protections, adds ways for vehicles to dodge and avoid getting hit, adds skill levels if you want to deal more damage by using less maneuverable and slower missiles. Seems an upgrade to me.

Can you imagine any kind of terrain on Auraxis where the Vanguard could win a race vs another tank? Or even finish close to another tank?

With the Racer Vanguard only being like 9% slower than a Racer Prowler and as stupid as it sounds, the Racer Vanguard is the same/slightly faster than a non-racer Lightning tank and faster than a non-racer Prowler so yeah, I kinda can imagine it finishing close to another tank.

Not sure if you were trying to ask a hard question or prove the point I was making that the Vanguard is not a slow tank. Its not a agile tank or even have decent breaks from full speed but its not slow.

I feel like all the pro tankers move to Prowler because of highest DPS and speed, it's just better for flanking and farming.
Or Magrider because of mobility and simply fun, you can do some tricks and it has high outplay potential unlike Vanguard where you just press F and W.
I can name several well known tankers on TR and VS but almost 0 on NC (at least on Cobalt).
Assuming equal skill Vanguard comes out on top because of the shield but on live servers equal skill isn't always true. And all the high skill players are in Prowlers/Maggies so...

How are you people so bad at this game?
It goes, Magrider/Vanguard>Prowler, if you lose to a Prowler in 1vs1 or at long range engagement then you are just bad at this game, prowler is literally Lightning 1.5.

Prowler is still the most overpowered tank in the game, it can wipe any other MBT instantly with the help of a Gatekeeper gunner from 1km away. It also can one-shot an ESF or infantry while having 2 tries making it the best anti-air solution in the game. There's a reason why 90% of the tank and air outfits choose TR. They should balance vehicle warfare because there's a definite TR superiority in that aspect of the game. The developers were letting them go away with overpowered vehicles because they had new players with less game experience, but in Cobalt they have the most active ASP 100 characters atm and having overpowered vehicles makes it really hard for other factions. They also brought free NSO faction so the factions are now balanced in numbers and experience. I think it's time to balance vehicles.

You must be a new player, like I said to VS player who accused me of cheating, go play TR before making a judgement. I have, Prowler is incredibly weak MBT.
Also, if TR is op, why does TR always have the lowest population of all factions?

It's not weak. Vanguard is strongest, just press F to win, Magrider/Prowler highly depend on skill, terrain and distance.
Prowler is good for farming kind of like Betelgeuse, not the strongest 1v1 against good players but against lower skill enemies it's the best because of speed and dps, you can get lots of kills quickly.

Because they don't. VS have the lowest population on most servers.

Im ASP 91 with my main, and I play TR alt on Miller, so I know how OP Banshee and Prowler is.
Low TR population problem is only on NA region. Americans probably don't like the lore of TR, they choose to play NC instead. I play on Both Cobalt and Miller EU servers, TR has the highest population on these two while VS has low population. Every battle on the map has at least 4-5 prowlers here. Most ASP 100 players play TR on Cobalt so you really feel the unfairness of the vehicle game. People join TR just to farm with Prowler and Mosquito, even some old VS veterans switched to TR. A Prowler with a gunner destroys Lightning or Magrider like in 1-2 sec without giving chance to retaliate. The new Chimera tank is weak against Prowler as well. Try playing on Cobalt against TR, you will be surprised to see the count of "Prowler+Mosquito only" outfits.

Lol, I played on Miller for years, im from Europe and even then we were lowest population (pre 2016).
Damn, you must be horrible at the game then, Prowler was always bad, only MBT that has no defense mechanic and it does less damage than Vanguard now even with Barrage, you are either constantly being outnumbered which I doubt since TR always has low pop or like you are so horribly bad at this game. Magrider and Vanguard are literally easy mode, one can strafe and has turbo while other has dmg reduction shield and 1k hp while Prowler can do 1k damage more over 15 seconds. You are just horrible then

We see again the capacity for humans to read into things.

Now, the first truth is that none of the tanks are really all that different. They are all trying to have some distinct flavor, but even the magrider with its hovering and strafing isn't really that different at its core, or statistically.

The second truth here is that by basically every stat, the prowler outperforms the vanguard when you are actually looking at results. You can call on whatever delusion you want here, but what really matters is the final results for how these vehicles matter in the game overall. A tank that had a perfect aimbot, for example, would be a better tank than a tank with 10% more dps and health, despite the fact that experienced players could outperform it under ideal conditions.

I imagine such a tank would get players like you whining about it being cripplingly weak, even as it had far more kills per hour and user on average.

You are just too damn arrogant to interact with reality meaningfully. You talk about super idealized stats in a vacuum and insult everyone who disagrees as "horrible" while you are, provably, wrong.

What? In which parallel universe they arent really that different?
One is a hovering tank that can strafe, impossible to hit at any longer range, has turbo and can climb things other two cant, not to mention incredibly accurate secondary (Saron).
Other one can take incredible amount of damage and does highest damage (probably dps now as well), has damage reducing shield on short cooldown, used to be slow to offset it being almost indestructible but Wrel as a fanboy buffed them so they have no flaws anymore, just like how he buffed Magriders and reload time, only Prowler received a nerf.
Prowler has Barrage, 1 extra shot over period of 15 seconds, wow, just wow.

You are braindead if you think they are the same. This game isnt balanced as long as such imbalances exist and it shows in population as a best indicator which faction is the weakest.

Wrong. There are far more factors in play regarding population, and your maths is wrong to boot. Lets go from the top.

The Magrider isn't impossible to hit at range, though its strafing and sleek profile do lend it an advantage. However, the Saron isn't the best secondary for it - its accurate, yes, but only for the first shot, and you have to space out your shots to maintain accuracy. Its generally seen as inferior to other options unless you know what you're doing, and I haven't seen it that much in gameplay. I'm sure you can do excellent with it, but Halberd/Aphelion seem to be much more popular picks. The Magrider offsets these advantages with the worst damage per reload and a higher learning curve.

The Vanguard does have the highest damage per shot, at 850 for AP, but it doesnt have the highest damage per reload - that stat belongs to, surprise, the Prowler, at 600 damage per AP shot for two shots, giving it a total of 1200 damage per reload. And it generally has a lower reload speed as well. This gives the Prowler the best DPS, not the Vanguard. The Vanguards shield is mainly from the front, does much less from the sides, and its slow acceleration and rotation speed makes it more vulnerable from the back. The shield lasts 8 seconds and at best has a 40 second cooldown - which is higher than the other MBT abilities. If it works, great, but if the enemy baits or avoids challenging it, they can move in while its off cooldown. It making you invincible from the front makes it perfectly good, but it isnt as flawless as some believe.

Also, I believe Wrel is universally considered a Vanu fanboy, since he mained a VS Light Assault.

Lastly, Prowler got barrage as part of a rework to its ability - Lockdown became a passive activatable buff to projectile speed, barrage took the reload. it lasts 15 seconds, has a minimum cooldown of 35 seconds, and has a 30% buff. Taking the P2-120 AP, it has a minimum reload speed of 3s, and takes about half a second or so to launch all its shots. over 15 seconds, assuming a 3.5 second time to unload and then reload, thats about 4.3 shots over the time period. 3s reduced by 30% becomes 2.1 seconds. This makes the new time to unload-reload 2.6s, giving the Prowler a total shots fired under barrage of 5.76. So yes, it is about one more shot, to be fair. but its a pretty damn big jump, could easily be two shots if my maths or the activation timing is off, and the benefit of being able to get your shots off faster than the opponent AND get an extra 1200 damage on them cannot be overstated. A lower reload means a lower TTK, better odds of winning a fight, less punishment for missing, and much more.

The statistics clearly show the Prowler has a clear benefit over the Vanguard, meaning its far from weak, and that can be seen reflected in gameplay. Sure, they're asymmetrical, but thats half the fun. No MBT is necessarily easy mode, but the Prowlers lack of a defensive ability doesn't make it garbage, it just offsets that with offence instead.

Its even "worse" than that since tank shells do 50% more damage against tanks so a Prowler with AP is doing 1800 damage per reload while a Magrider is doing 1125 damage per reload.
Its important because it means a Prowler that reloads once is able to do 3600 damage while a Halberd shooting twice does 1440 damage 3600 + 1440 = 5040 damage = dead Magrider/Lightning/Harasser.

So a Prowler sits on enough firepower to kill 'most' things with a single reload and it has a ability to speed up that reload by 30%. The crazy damage also means a Prowler can kill a Magrider from behind with a single reload even without a gunner if they can get all/most rear hits.

Prowler with the 2 shots hits a bunch of sweet spots to kill stuff with damage/reloads.