Would love to see a proper three player tank with a dedicated drive, main gun and secondary gun. The driver and main gunner could even have different abilities that change how the tank plays. Perhaps the driver has speed boost abilities or an abilities that drastically increases the tanks climbing ability allowing the tank the climb steep cliffs for a temporary period of time. The main gunner could get an ability that buffs the gun and changes the projectiles into explosive rounds for a small amount of time similar to how barrage on the prowler works. I know it's not practical but even a tank with optional rumble seats for infantry to ride on would be fun to use just for the multicrew potential. The gameplay possibilities are more interesting when multiple players can control various functions of a single vehicle together.
You want more teamwork within a tank and yet your first instinct is to give the driver his driving abilities and the gunner gunning abilities etc. Instead of adding a new vehicle that is very hard to balance it's firepower, necessary crew and fun factor to the rest of the game why don't we buff existing vehicles instead? For example the secondary turret on most vehicles is pretty much the least intensive thing in the game, you spot, you shoot and you coordinate sometimes when to shoot. That's it. You could add abilities for the turret to use that help the vehicle overall beyond "my gun is now more effective". Buffs to the vehicle or nearby players/vehicles, nerfs to enemy vehicles/players, calling in special deployables etc. Even better but harder to create is having abilities tied to a single vehicle energy supply, and letting all occupants fire off several types of abilities from that supply. Since you share the ability energy you need to coordinate more so energy isn't wasted.
this is one thing the abomination (who's name we don't dare say) did well, vanguards required a driver who was solely responsible for driving alongside the main turret gunner and the coaxial gunner. the ESF is going to be a 2 seater, so i wouldn't call it crazy to imagine the MBT being a 3 seater. plus there is the name, "Chimera" (which in mythology is a creature with 3 heads) guess we'll just have to wait to see what they do with it!
Really? Can you provide some information? Is it the PS:A Vanguard? But why did it do well? Because you are already in a small team against other similar vehicles or because the vehicle would actually be useful and not a drag in PS2? I would rather see a 2-seater weaponized Valkyrie without rumble seats than 2-seater ESF. It would offer a far superior options for gameplay.
because i feel that strong things like libs and MBTs should require a crew to be effective, imho its backwards that the driver of MBTs also controls the big strong powerful gun and his friend controls the little support weapon on the roof. i thought you'd agree that it'd be much better from a balance perspective if the driver was controlling the little support weapon and the gunner controls the main gun. or even better, the driver just drives and the crew need to communicate
I think that almost every vehicle or item should be effective without a crew, but more effective with a crew. Even worse in my book is overspecialization where one of the crew does significantly less or less entertaining/rewarding jobs. On a Harasser it's still OK to have a driver and gunner seperate since driving at high speeds and controlling the boost+abilities is an engaging task. But for an MBT where most of the driving is done before the fight? That isn't very interesting at all. Rather than saying "you drive and do pretty much nothing else while I sit in a turret and do pretty much nothing else" we should let the crew do stuff all the time and be effective all the time. Giving control to the main gun of an MBT as driver is crucial to keep the vehicle useful to the driver, otherwise any Harasser or Lightning is vastly superior a choice until you get a gunner. But if you need a gunner, then pulling 2 Lightnings is still vastly superior. Approach it from the other end. Rather than nerfing players by taking away control of the gun and seperating jobs, start adding mechanics and features that complement each other: When driving the people in the gun turret do nothing but look around. Give them access to abilities and mechanics that are useful out of combat. Spotting devices, deployables to reinforce a temporary position or short-duration buffs to the vehicle movement that require timing on the gunners part to help the driver get around. In combat you also need more to do for players with low-effort jobs. The MBT driver currently guns, drives and has an ability to use. Gunners spot and shoot. Give those gunners more to do! Use a directional shield to reduce or absorb damage, deploy a fragile repair/damage reduction module, fire an ability to nerf the opposition in some way etc. Things that synergize with the other crewmembers are preferred, such as the fragile repair module which requires the gunner to deploy in a suitable spot but the driver to stay with it and make sure it's not easily destroyed. The point here is that segregation so players are forced to cooperate is not a good way to encourage it. Worse, any time things go wrong you will see the things your crewmates did wrong that you had no control over and have something to blame. Crewmembers should only add to the vehicle and teamwork, they should not be a requirement to make the vehicle useful. Also lets give them an easy system to communicate. For example holding the in a vehicle unused melee key opens up a radial menu with several simple communications tools like "go there", "hold fire", "open fire" or "threat over there". This removes the need for voice-comms and allows randoms to more easily communicate, besides that such visual information is faster, doesn't interfere with other information being transferred and stays available for longer allowing players to see it when they have time. This will be massively useful as it will also help dispell that filthy thought that randoms are useless for teamwork. Well if you don't have simple tools for those randoms to communicate with others then ofcourse they can't work together easily! There's no need to force them into squads or whatever, communication and teamwork should always be available to all players for a solid foundation.
I'm all for this here. There is a game on ROBLOX (just look past the fact that it is ROBLOX for a second) called Deadline, and it is a tactical 1st person shooter, and it uses a system like this. You are able to edit what you want to say, and by holding X and using the scroll wheel, you can choose between what you want to say. I think having a system like this, where you can customize the things you want to say for specific scenarios, maybe having at least 3 "voice loadout" tabs to switch between so you can make use of more commands, would be a nice tactical addition so we can work with randoms relatively easily. Maybe if we are looking at someone or pressing a key while looking at them, it'll send a radio message to that person so we can tell a specific person what we want. Things like that would be fun. I could go either way with you and Liewec's suggestion. Whatever's clever. I do favor addition more than subtraction though.
Editable messages is great! With the same anti-swearing system as chat for those who want it ofcourse. And if they are contextual it would be even better. Aim for the ground, aim for an ally and aim for a spotted enemy and you get a different radial menu, each sticking to that player for a certain duration. Perhaps you can even edit the duration, allowing players to let the message stay for up to 10 seconds. Players can also edit how long they see the message should they think that 10 seconds is too cluttery, as well as a maximum of messages visible that they are comfortable with. While we are at it, why keep it vehicle crew only? If you are infantry anyone within X meters should also be able to see your messages. You can then hook it up to squad and platoon too, and even the map draw system so individual players inside a squad/platoon can communicate quickly with locally relevant information without needing to use the voice comms and interupt anyone else talking. Allow players to set priorities and the amount of messages that are allowed to be displayed at once, so that squad/platoon messages are visible first if you want that. You can also let squads and platoons communicate to people outside their organization. Players would see such messages from anyone, and messages from a squad/outfit could have a different symbol to indicate their squad/platoon status. Suddenly you can communicate much more easily between players and have some more teamplay with each other. With more individual messages able to be displayed to catch peoples attention. "VS scum over there!". ">>bonus checks here<<" "tactical superiority", "ground pounders warning" etc.
Belated edit: If the devs are going to think about upgrading that anyway, lets complete the system. Each message you communicate is specific for a unit type. This being infantry, tanks or aircraft. Infantry-centered messages can be available up to 100 meters, vehicle-centered messages up to 300m and aircraft up to 600m. That way an infantryman can communicate with aircraft within 600m. Since an aircraft sending an infantry-centric message would likely be useless the range is increased when you are inside a vehicle. It might also be useful if an infantry-centric messages get communicated to vehicles if they are in close proximity so they can be warned without needing specific vehicle messages to be send.
