I finally tried Hesh...and I would like to apologize

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by RabidIBM, Sep 20, 2021.

  1. RabidIBM

    After 8 years of playing this game I finally decided to mix up my tank ammo and actually roll some hesh to see what people are complaining about. My goodness, ladies and gentlemen this weapon is Spiffing Brit levels of broken! I had never noticed before because I am almost always either building a base or driving a tank. If I'm building a base I have unlimited access to Hornet ESF, in which case send more hesh because I like certs. If I'm driving a tank I roll AP because I'm shooting vehicles. Hence, any time I encounter a Hesh tank it's basically free certs for me.

    Now, on to what I'm apologizing for: There are a certain select members of the Planetside community who are self proclaimed elite players, and since they are supposedly the apex of skill, anything which gives them trouble must be imbalanced. These are the players who endlessly call for things to be removed from the game. Nanoweave, AtG weapons, Daltons, MAXes, shot guns, bolters, heavy assault overshields surface to air weapons before their range nerfs, literally all factions specific weapons, med kits, C4 and yes, Hesh. If we did remove all those things from Planetside these players would not be satisfied, they would come back with another list inside of a month which would be as long if not longer of new gripes. If you remove everything they say to they will wash the game out to the point that we are left with Planetside: Arena.

    Now, I have undoubtedly encountered someone in the past on this forum who was complaining about Hesh, and I know myself well enough to know that I assumed they were one of the above mentioned people and definitely got snarky with them. So to that person, who complained about hesh yet is not one of our usual "remove everything which kills ME!" gripers, who's grill I got into and got snarky with, I admit that I was speaking with the confidence of ignorance, and for that I apologize.

    Now, what to do with Hesh? Despite how many unearned kills I got from it, I still believe that with appropriate modification this weapon could have a roll in this game. Given that I am saying it is currently OP, that roll would be a diminished one from it's current position of power.

    In order to explain the value it could have I must explain how I used it: While defending The Ascent I drew a Hesh Lightning and moved around the base to any place where my own side's infantry were getting bogged down to use the hesh as a breaching tool to help my team advance. Things like my team getting suck at a cave entrance because of multiple engineer mana turrets, or them being unable to cross the ground to get to B point because of the enemies shooting down from the guard rail. The troops on my side seemed to appreciate the help, as they shot down many C4 fairies for me, an effort which was aided by my own use of proximity radar on my tank. That allowed me to ignore single infantry trying to flank and focus all fire on the tight clumps. My point here is that I used it to get stuck in with the troops and genuinely help them out (other than the couple guys I ran over...sorry...I was driving at 10kph while honking my horn, I really tried), I did NOT sit in a privileged position to selfishly farm up a bunch of personal stats without helping.

    So, what smart nerfs could be applied to hesh to remove it's ability to selfishly farm from a km away yet keep it strong as an option in the tool box of our combined arms game? First, it just does too much damage. I'm ok with high on hit damage, as a direct hit should be worth a kill. Beyond that it should retain it's splash area to serve its niche, but deal less damage in that splash area. This would make it more of a tool to zone enemies off of ground or back from doorways, rather than the "I can kill you without line of sight" weapon.
    Beyond that I can think of a few which could be justified by "it's a bigger, more massive round".
    1. Slower muzzle velocity. First off, give AP it's muzzle velocity back as having all rounds have the same bullet drop was a stupid idea. The more explosive round is heavier, therefore slower velocity. AP should be the fastest, followed by heat, followed by hesh. The slower velocity wouldn't matter much at close range, but would make it more difficult to range shots.
    2. Slower reload speed. The shell would still send a message to enemies to "get off that ground!", but the slower reload speed would decrease the farming potential, and make rival tanks that much scarier.
    3. Less ammo capacity. The shell's bigger, you can't carry as many. This would force the hesh player to address logistics. Not a problem if you're with the team, more of an issue when shelling from a km away. Yes, they can take ammo printer, I actually already take issue with that implant, but even if they do, what other implant did they NOT take?
    4. Shake the camera more when firing hesh. Again, not a problem up close and personal, but makes resetting the distance shot more difficult.
    5. And, if none of that does it, slightly knock the tank back when firing hesh. Again, this makes distance shots awkward. This one might be more difficult to program, I don't know, but for in game call it Newton's 3rd law.

    Anyways, final thoughts/summary/TLDR:
    Hesh tanks should continue to be in the game as a close range infantry support vehicle option. However, their killing power and long distance capabilities need to be reduced. Playing hesh should be about assists, not kills.
    Also, sorry to those who I've been snarky with in the past about hesh.
    • Up x 1
  2. YellowJacketXV

    Why are you apologizing?
    HESH does what it needs to, which is destroy infantry targets. There's so many ways that any kind of infantry can make your day a living nightmare. Also, what else are people supposed to do when faced with a heavily encamped and crowded location but start spamming the splash damage weapons?
  3. Demigan

    AP rounds use the heaviest materials. Tungsten has a density of 19g/cm^3 while plastic explosives like C4 (used in HESH as far as I can tell) has a maximum density of 1.75g/cm^3 Even a cheap lead core AP round would still have 11g/cm^3 of density. So with a much smaller volume they would still weigh more. Besides that an AP round would use a Sabot to have the same diameter of the bore and use length to increase penetrating power.

    As for changing HESH. I have proposed switching to Autocanons before. Instead of using easy AOE you get to hit infantry with several high-speed projectiles.
    For diversity you can model them in already existing autocanons. Saron, Enforcer, Viper etc.

    You can keep AOE on such shells, but it would need to be small and more utilitarian. "I just unloaded an entire magazine near you, you'd better move". You could also introduce fragmentation rounds which instead of large AOE spray shrapnel away from the surface it hit, giving you range but semi-predictable hits on people around corners.
    This also helps tanks against massed infantry on high positions where a direct hit is required since you cant hit an object or wall next to a target for the AOE.

    Another important advantage is that if you increase the elevation range (fully possible now that the breach loads smaller rounds) you can make this the first set of skillful multi-purpose G2A weapons.

    This makes hunting infantry a bit more about skill and less about "I hit something in your postal code so heres some damage".
  4. VhynSeven

    Sooo...

    1-you get yourself in an advantageous position
    2-no armor to ruin your HESH tank
    3-no air to ruin your HESH tank
    4-full support of your team to ward off any threat
    5-you have the ideal target to shoot at

    So you basically got yourself in that sweet, perfect, golden scenario where HESH truly shines, and you use that scenario as a reference to call HESH OP, after calling it free certs for 8 years?

    At least use HESH for a month or two, then come back again and share your experiences if it is OP or not.
  5. Demigan

    1: not very difficult
    2: even before CAI the HESH was a suitable weapon for tank combat, especially flanking. After CAI the difference is small in tank combat.
    3: air can ruin AP tanks just as easily, or almost any ground unit for that matter.
    4: sitting with your allied infantry is easily done with any tank. Infantry is squishier and has a higher base situational awareness and C4 fairies going for your tank are basically free certs for them.
    5: you dont need an ideal target.

    You are somehow assuming that just because he was in a great position that HESH is A-OK. But the reward for being in the ideal position is too large (extremely powerful for little effort) and the HESH is fully capable of being powerful outside of its ideal position.
  6. Botji

    I have actively tried not to bring it up before because it would be bad if it spread but for whatever reason people are jumping down OPs throat as if he was very, very wrong. Facts are facts though and HESH TTK is mostly on par with AP when used against vehicles, Magrider has more or less 0 reasons to use AP aside from the velocity/drop with the requirement of having a gunner and decent AV turret like a Halberd(same TTK).

    Prowlers do need to reload one extra time but considering that with AP they can kill a Magrider with a single reload it doesnt seem so bad to kill a Magrider with two reloads(given they have a gunner and Halberd ofc).

    Vanguards are the only MBT that has a longer reload on their HESH compared to AP so they with the Lightning suffers a 0.25 second longer reload when using HESH but aside from that they have a similar TTK as with AP.

    Lightnings suffers the most since they dont have a turret to make up for the small damage loss of using HESH, forcing an extra reload to make up for it.


    It used to be that HESH was a considerable downgrade compared to AP when fighting vehicles/tanks but that was changed quite a long time ago but I think that just as myself most people still think thats how it is or are mostly fighting from as far away as possible which makes the velocity/drop on AP more valuable than the better AI ability of HESH.
    • Up x 1
  7. VhynSeven

    Well your assumption is dead wrong, please read again.
  8. JibbaJabba

    As someone who absolutely hates HESH...

    Leave it in the game. It and the other tank rounds need a buff vs infantry. Hesh should kill unshielded non-flak infantry instantly within a substantial radius.

    Now give us back our F'n anti-tank rockets so we can actually deal with it. A rear armor shot from a decimator used to send an MBT driver into a panic. Now it tickles ... teehee... and HESH to the face for your trouble.

    It's not the HESH that's broken. It's every infantry rocket launcher in the game. Including G2A.
    • Up x 3
  9. RabidIBM

    I have to admit that I'm surprised to be getting so much push back for "Hesh is OP". Perhaps I did not adequately communicate just how utterly stupid some of my kills were. I'm not kidding, there were cases of "while I don't see anyone it's likely that there are enemies somewhere in that room" *punk* *triple kill!*. While I'm not saying that its roll should be taken away, I am saying that it shouldn't provide such easy cheesy kills.

    @VhynSeven Yes, I worked to set up an ideal situation for myself. That doesn't mean that I should have got as much reward as I did.

    @Demigan thanks for the info about munitions, it's good to have some real math behind everything. It seems like I was mistaken about the mass of the rounds, but not the volume if I'm reading what you said correctly. I don't think it really changes any of my points though, as a more massive round with a smaller diameter would tend to fly straighter. Conversely a round with a lower mass, therefore less momentum and a larger diameter, therefore more air friction would tend to suffer more bullet drop. Again, please do correct me if I'm wrong. Your mention of needing a sabot is what's telling me that the AP round has a smaller diameter.

    @JibbaJabba I fully agree about rocket launchers. I still remember when they first got their damage nerf because they also shortened the reload time. This meant that the reloads happened faster than the animations were meant for, so my character's arms moved like sped up film. In general HA launchers need a rework. They should be more cumbersome to use, but do more damage.

    Regarding Hesh vs AP, part of that would be covered by the slower reload I suggested, but it sounds like that would be unjustified based on the data supplied by Demigan. Maybe it's damage vs the heaviest armour types could be reduced? An explosion on the outside of the tank wouldn't do much to it.

    @Exileant I see you are being as disrespectful here as you ever are on everyone's posts. That's why I'm not responding to any specific thing you say.
  10. JibbaJabba



    Hehe, we know it's bad man. You can fire blind, then fire again if you get a red X. Just absolutely **** on the other players and nothing they can do about it. They will never be able to return fire. Maxes are broke too. The TTK on them is so damn long.

    But it's stuff that noobs need to play. A crutch.

    I look on recursion and see that guy that heshed me is like 0.4 K/D overall. He's not getting kills without that thing really.

    I'd rather they spend some time remedying the stuff that is broken and also heavily leveraged by more seasoned players: A2G, Solo libs, Cloaked flashes, fire-while-invisible cloakers.
  11. Demigan

    I focused mainly on the reload part. Trying to compare rounds is difficult because there is virtually no information on HESH rounds that I could quickly find, but apparently the square-cube law saves your view: the sheer volume of the HESH shell makes for a lot more weight than an APFSDS shell (Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot).
    That said, AP shells remain longer because that helps them remain aerodynamic and pierce armor better, which would make handling the shell harder (even an auto-loader has limited shells in the turret and the rest has to be fed to the auto-loader manually).

    HESH rounds are often fired at lower velocities to increase the spalling effect, otherwise the explosive filler is spread too far to properly deal damage. So that would be true as well. However one of the advantages of HESH as an attack round is its LACK of fragmentation, allowing allies to be closer to an attack without dying. That means that the AOE would be smaller as only the shockwave can kill.
    I'm heavily against OHK mechanics in a game like this. On a direct hit its fine, but the easy-mode "I hit near you so you are dead" needs to go away. One solution I have is to make weapons that previously did a OHK deal enormous damage and deal a debuff instead. A concussion effect after being hit close by a HESH round seems like a suitable fit. The tank can definitely do its job and any enemies they hit would be good prey for a second hit or allies to mop up.
  12. LodeTria

    You sat in one of the easiest to defend bases in the game, which has extremely limited routes for attacking vehicles to take, several easy chokepoints and a tower with massive vantage points to defend you from air threats and that's NOT privilaged? what are you smoking lol.
  13. RabidIBM

    @Demigan Your debuff idea sounds like it could work, I would want to see it on test before live though.

    @LodeTria I agree with you about vehicle access to The Ascent. I was very frustrated when I first learned that the northern road doesn't actually get in even though it looks like it should on the map. Regarding privileged positions, I was close enough to the people I was killing thag they got to shoot back, which is not normal with the average hesh user. I had to use my fire suppression system as fire suppression several times. Part of what makes the average hesh player so easy for me to kill when I'm rolling AP is that they are intentionally far from the fight. This means that they players they are killing have no opportunity to shoot back, that being the privilege I refer to, but they have no friends to save them from AP either.
  14. Somentine

    If a tank is pushing up with Infantry, supporting and being supported, in a place where it can actually die, then I might still get mad about being splash killed 8m behind a wall but it fits the idea of 'combined arms' and is way less BS.

    The problem is that is almost never the case, as tanks that do that typically die pretty soon (which should happen), so they stay away and play safe.

    Which is why they then add walls to stop that, which is then why tanks go even further and higher up on mountains, and the cycle continues.
  15. YellowJacketXV

    Honestly, I think the fix would be easy. The main reason HESH is such a go-to is because it not only has impact damage but the AOE damage is also there. This is what causes the high damage on armor as both hits do damage. It must also be acknowledged that the goal of HESH is anti infantry support.

    Why not just reduce the impact damage and make the AOE damage geared towards a damage type that is resisted more by armor? Then, all ya gotta do is change the weapon to fire rounds over time, maybe 3 or so for lightning, with a slower fire rate? This would mean you still get the AOE splash support for those dug-in areas yet it would have a TTK that wouldn't be just a "gotcha" moment. The damage model would also be more consistent, covering the area it has to for relevancy while not being just some "anti-life" bomb.
  16. Demigan

    A correction here: almost all vehicles are immune to AOE damage. You can test this by firing next to a (friendly) tank. You wont deal damage to them.
    Only C4, AT mines and AV grenades have a special AOE that tanks dont have resistance to.

    You can also check some data here: https://planetside.fandom.com/wiki/Vehicle_armor_and_damage_resistance
  17. VhynSeven

    From what you've said, I take it that you were trying to break through an enemy infantry nest located in an enclosed space, while your team was providing support to you as well.

    That means that your achievements weren't yours alons, it was the constant support of your team that allowed you to keep shooting and killing the enemy. Similarly, there was a high density of enemies in a place where they couldn't move around a lot, which in turn greatly increases the efficiency of splash damage.

    Sometimes the circumstances just line up perfectly with what you are trying to accomplish, leading into better results. That doesn't necessarily means that HESH is weak, but calling them OP based on that scenario isn't right either.
  18. Clone117

    I dont see how hesh would even be that great since all it has is a 2m blast radius. And youd still have to hit some1 directly in order to kill. On top of which the other shell types will perform similarly. If not better in other scenarios. Its not exactly capable of temproraly breaking a strong defense giving friendlys a chance to make an effective push.
  19. Demigan

    You dont seem to use it very often?

    At 2m it deals 800 damage. 3m still does 550. 4m 200 and at 5m 50. Just imagine being able to 2-hit anyone within a 6m sphere of the impact. A single shot near the entrance of a chokepoint forces everyone away, letting your allies move in immediately. Should infantry try to attack this weapon quickly destroys them, an easy method is aiming near the legs of your target since a hit is a OHK and a miss will deal splash. The same cannot be said for AP rounds for example.

    Its like complaining that a battle rifle cant OHK players. Yes its true, but the point is to use multiple shots. HESH's strength is in its much more consistent AOE and how easy it is to hold any ground or force enemies farther from the cover's edges so they dont get killed. HESH is powerful and easy, and that is the complaint.

    Many here have tried to pass HESH off as not actually that powerful with "oh but in that situation ofcourse it was powerful" sentences. The truth is that HESH remains powerful outside of that, too powerful for how easy it is to use.
  20. Clone117

    I suppose ill have to drop some certs on it. I still mainly use heat tho id rather have a coaxial bassy turret to use. Still, the aoe doesnt seem all that threatening. Medics and engies can easily repair any damage hesh can inflict within an entry way. I just dont see it breaking the overall defense. It might support and contribute in some cases. But it can still be overwhelmed. And the entryways would still be nigh endless meat grinders.