[Suggestion] Armor/vehicle vs infantry bandaid (possible fix?)

Im not sure what these stats are supposed to show... Can you elaborate on the reason you are sharing people's stats and explain the data?

Enough playing dumb dude, I've linked a few of my characters so you can see I have some experience (likely more than you) playing the playstyles you're acting like I don't know about. The ridiculous "advice" and unreasonable counters to the obvious broken mechanics suggest either

1. You are experienced, and are trolling.
2. You aren't experienced.
3. You're experienced only in the cheesy playstyles you're trying to defend with gross excuses, while attempting to act like others are the ones not playing the game and looking at the issue from both angles. In this case, you're a hypocrite.

Option 3 is what I'm leaning towards, I'd love to see at least ONE of your character profiles that can demonstrate otherwise.

If your next reply is again to avoid something that's clearly been asked a few times, then I'll assume you're in no place to make comments about "try the other playstyle" or the other attempts you make to pass off me and others who try to reason with your unreasonable suggestions as noobs. Therefore if you're not going to prove your somewhat experienced in the topic before accusing others of not being so, you can just stop replying here.

Thanks!

Oh, ok, so you are trying to say, "Look at me and my accounts! Because of my stats, I know what I'm talking about." Got it. I'm not playing dumb. I literally had no idea what that was supposed to show. Listen man, I am right. I am right because its perfectly feasible to take your teammates and instantly destroy a vehicle. Thats the type of gameplay we should be pushing towards. You should be able to work with anyone. The vehicles don't necessarily need to work together. They are vehicles. They are aircraft. They should be able to outgun any single person. If they work together, then lower tier vehicles should be able to destroy higher tier vehicles, but they should also have the ability to take on anything solo. It doesn't mean they will win, but in the right circumstances they should be able to. This is my main point, and I don't see any valid reason you have presented to counter that. Now instead of trying to insult me, please try to defeat my point using some form of logic against me instead of "My stats are better than yours. You don't know what you are talking about because you have less hours in the game than I do!"

With that said, I spend almost all of my time as Infiltrator. I spend almost all of my vehicle time in a Flash. I switch to Heavy simply to destroy things, Medic because I feel like it, Engineer to repair things, and everything else almost never. I pull a Tank on occasion to destroy things, I pull a sunderer when we need an extra spawn. I get between 1 and 15 FPS, 20 FPS on good days. My KDR is a 0.372 and my SPM is 106.03. I have almost 900 hours in the game. I rarely lead squads. Now if you want to evaluate whether or not I know what I'm talking about, be my guest. Here is a link to my profile: Tetsuyi - Player Viewer - PlanetSide 2 (fisu.pw)

If you still think that this game shouldn't require a higher level of teamwork to deal with bigger threats, suit yourself, but thats the way it is. Until people start to realize that they CAN get a few randoms together as long as they cooperate or they CAN lead a squad and tell people EXACTLY what they want them to, down to the letter, as long as they cooperate, they CAN destroy vehicles effectively with just a little bit of effort. This will contribute to the growth of Planetside. This experience of teamwork will be what people come to play for, not just a new update dropping. This experience is what they will stay for.

This type of gaming culture is something we should press towards. Its something most all of you remember fondly at one time, just some random dude helping you out and you become friends, or an epic battle you had with a squad. This idea of teamwork and changing the mindset of gamers to be more cooperative is what we need for all games, not just this one. That is why we game - for the experience. Why won't you at least try to create an experience worth playing for?

Nobody is gonna stat shame here or I'll be really disappointed.

I think what he's trying to derive is simply if you have enough playtime in the given playstyles to really have an informed opinion on it.

You're clearly not a tanker main (nor am I really) but I'm not sure you've spent enough time with the AV infantry variants to have a good idea about the dynamic in those playstyles. And you started playing after significant changes in that dynamic occurred.

Just as kind of a broad big picture you may or may not be aware of ..

The Infantry -vs- vehicle combat used to be far deadlier in both directions.
Range was longer.
Vehicles had thermal scopes
Vehicle splash damage killed like direct shots do now.
Infantry mana AV turrets also had extreme range.
As did lockons. You could group fire a speck in the distance.
There were no implants to counter mines - mine guard was viable config for sundies.
Infantry rockets HURT. A heavy could kill two tanks without ammo resupply. Deci would set a lightning on fire in one shot from the back.

As a whole vehicles obliterated infantry in the open.
Infantry obliterated vehicles in confined spaces.

Now both sides are heavily nerfed.

In decent populated battles this had some of the intended effect, just reduce overall deadliness, nanite attrition and walks back from spawn / vehicle pad.

In reduced population or when players are not in tight dedicated AV groups it results in imbalances that didn't exist before. These all favor the vehicle.

Take the solo heavy at range in relatively open terrain...
Before: A tiny hill was enough to peekaboo with a lockon, the armor would close range to be effective but would take some damage on the way.
Now: Neither side could reach the other (this is a net gain for the armor that couldn't hit before) until the armor gets to 300m at which it is more effective than the lockons.

Or engie with an AV turret:
Before: Hard to hit infantry even on a turret beyond 300m. Hard to hit a moving vehicle with turret. Result: Could get a couple shots off before hit and those HURT. Skill of the both players was a factor.
Now: Land one shot, tank sees you. Abandon turret or dead.

You underestimate my C4 ability!

One of the beautiful things about PS2 is, as you grow as a player, not only are you more valuable to your teammates but you can also start doing things on your own. I can't describe the satisfaction of winning 3v12 with good mates or solo destroying 5 sunderers in a row with an AV MAX, ending the fight completely.

Being a part of vehicle zergs and Galaxy drops is another, equally as cool feeling.


A bit off topic, but it's why I play Planetside 2 : both individual and collective effort matter.

It has nothing to do with stats. I'm not claiming to be good or better than you or anything. One of your main arguments is telling others to try the other playstyle. To get to understand both sides. It's easy to get the impression you treat people who disagree with you as noobs.

I appreciate the fact you actually linked one of your characters. This unfortunately confirms my suspicion. You have very little playtime, and on top of that you have not even had the time to fully understand the class you main with, much less others. You barely played anything other than infiltrator and infiltrator flash, yet you seem intent on educating others about the hardships of other classes - you have little to no experience with. It's obvious by the things you say, but then telling others to try the class for themselves when you haven't done so yourself...come on.

If you get 20 fps on a good day, that would explain a lot about your stats, which for the purpose of this thread I care very little about. I would suggest you get a better rig, because obviously hardware goes a long way to improve your experience and elevate your "skill" ceiling. Obviously with such low fps it becomes glaringly clear why the infil is basically the only thing you can play. Nothing wrong with that I guess, just don' comment about stuff you don't know, and don't use the argument that people haven't tried the playstyles they are talking about - when they have spent more hours with that playstyle than you have overall.

That's not what I said. Everything in this game should be balanced around 1v1. Teamwork should be encouraged to fight teamwork. I expect infantry to team up to attack or defend a point. I expect vehicles to team up to fight other groups of vehicles. I expect vehicles to team up to fight teams of infantry and vice versa. I point out it's stupid for one tank to require multiple infantry players to switch to vehicles to counter it. It's silly for infantry to not be able to engage tanks at ranges tanks engage them. It favors a solo playstyle of farming easy kills out of harm's way, which is more detrimental to teamwork than anything I've suggested.

It wasn't this way in beta, or planetside 1. That's why I can speak of it and compare how much better and more fun the mechanics were back then. You wouldn't know based on when you've joined, but there was a lot more players back then, and a lot more teamwork! Surely the game was doing something right, right?

Yes teamwork is a great aspect of the game. Explain to me why we can't have teamwork without fixing A2G, HESH spammers, infiltrators, and every other solo crutch out there that didn't exist (at least to this extent) before? I'm pretty sure you can still have teamwork without forcing people to bunch together in unfun gameplay to deal with a crutch. I just don't even understand how you even made that connection.

????????

That is exactly what I'm trying to do. Allow for 2 way interaction so players don't feel cheated. Give everyone a chance.

This one makes me sad because the friend that dragged me into the game a week after it launched stopped playing a long time ago. Most of the great people/players I met along the way have quit, are planning to quit, or just don't enjoy the game anymore yet still force themselves to play. It's sad how a game with such great potential and aa fairly impressive launch managed to kill itself off with lack of updates followed by a series of poor ones.

Teamwork, strategy, and territory importance have almost all been forgotten. All that's left now are mainly solo players abusing the broken playstyles, the only "teamwork" I see are huge zergs ghost-capping down lattices - with the occasional group of "good" players defending them off for a bit. Quite a sad state the game's at right now. In the words of a guy who used to lead the biggest outfit on emerald 'never has a better IP been given to a less deserving group of individuals'.

However I'll step back from my nostalgia for a second and ask what anything of what you just said about teamwork has anything to do with balancing vehicles.

I prefer the days when lethality was off the charts, Lancers sniped vehicles from 700m, 2-3 rockets to the rear killed most every tank, Raven MAXes were the bane of most vehicles, lock-ons from half the map actually did good damage on vehicles etc.

Now vehicles feel like invincibility sponges that just soak up damage before they magic it away with repairs in 5 seconds or burn and explode while being shot from 10+ enemies.

Likewise, unless they use Halberds or tank shells I've seen ground vehicles pour shot after shot and get barely any kills.


I wish they brought back the old vehicle TTK. I want my shots to feel deadly, not like beating a sponge with a stick. Range limits are stupid, just increase render range for such enemies that can hit you across the map.

I agree 100%. It's so busted now. You do so little damage vehicle drivers can just hover with their repair kits and ignore you. Back then, even 1 heavy with a Deci could mess up armor bad if terrain favored him. Now it's 5+ rockets per tank that can accelerate to 70MPH before you can switch weapons.

Engineer AV MANA turrets feel more effective versus infantry than actual tanks.

I don't recall simply telling players to "try out the other side." Again, my main argument is that teamwork should be required to deal with threats reliably and effectively in IvV combat. Sure, I don't have a lot of play time in other things, and yes, after time you gain a lot more understanding of how to utilize loadouts, classes, and vehicles more effectively. That is all true, but lots of the things I am saying aren't big, new ideas. I want everyone to benefit from a change, not just one side, and you don't have to experience every challenge someone has to understand what they are talking about, where they are coming from, and what a change would affect for them, but their input is helpful. That's why I think its better to start with a change in gaming culture, specifically in Planetside 2, before we try something that could distrupt the relatively unmentioned balance we have in the game, but sure, I would like to hear your thoughts on things you can add and change to make dealing with either side better.

Definitely, I have heard good things from players who played farther back in the day. But I don't agree that everything should be balanced around 1v1. Say you have a Heavy Assault with peak AV equipment, designed to kill vehicles and vehicles only. Thats great and all, and they should be able to use their gear effectively by their choice in positioning, playstyle, and their circumstance, but that doesn't mean that doesn't mean the game should be balanced for their 1v1. Its a tank. I'm not really sure how resource points should fit into the game in connection with this, I guess maybe as their force multiplier function. Pulling a vehicle makes you as powerful ax X amount of infantry, basically, so you can't be pulling them 24/7, no risk if you die, hence why the system is in place. So why should we balance X vehicle to be on par with Y class when X = 3Y? Does that make sense?

I'm not saying you can't truly fix the problem before, but its better to see how the balance works in peak performance before you do so. Otherwise your updates could throw off the internal balance of the game. We should exhaust ourselves trying to come up with new plays like this is the ***. We should be trying to come up with new plans to deal with vehicles and run as far with it as we possibly can, then see if it is unbalanced. When I get a new computer, thats exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to see if there truly is a way to deal with vehicles reliably. For the number crunching I have done, a Lib takes 4 direct lockon hits and an MBT take 4 rockets from the back. That means you need 4 players to instantly destroy one, supposing you get all hits. Well, is that feasible? Is that the way the game should be played? If that becomes the new meta, the new type of teamwork, the new gameplay, the new experience, how does that affect vehicle gameplay? If the community learns to deal with vehicles in that way, will they spawn more vehicles to counter that? Will they play differently? How will they play? Will they need buffing?

Thats why I want this idea to go through first, otherwise you will make a problem worse based on how the community adapts to it. If you create a new standard for AV, AI, AA, for anything in this game, and most of the community steps up, you changed the game and how it works, and that can be good or bad. Thats where the devs should come in, to balance things based on the community.

This right here is the grey area. A chance for both players? Should it be that way? You spawn a tank and are on even playing field with 1 dude because he's at a good place and there's little you can do to stop him? What if there are 2 dudes, 3 dudes, 4 dudes? Then why should you buy a tank? Is there a play-around for them? The way I am seeing it, it doesn't seem very fun for anyone in a tank to get killed by a few people that fast. Sometimes its not necessarily the game but the player's reactions to it. Dying isn't fun to anyone. It doesn't feel good, but the game doesn't care about your feelings. Its all about the balance, so where should it really lie? I don't think it should be with less players. Players should definitely be able to make a difference, but only if they are "good", and thats just hard to say. What even dictates if you are good?

And thats what I want to change. Its not necessarily that we can't beat them, but that we don't. We don't use teamwork, we don't use strategy, we don't use territory importance. There isn't that level of "this is a war and I should be thinking like a strategist, a general" in this game anymore, and thats what I want to bring back. We can beat zergs. We can beat armor columns. We can beat air squadrons. Its just a matter of buckling down and doing it, and not giving up so easily. Thats what happens nowadays. A platoon will drop in, "kill" the zerg, only for them not to clean up their mess and they are back right as soon as the platoon leaves. We should have intersquad communication. We should be networking between the different types of squads, as if the leaders were sitting around a table discussing their strategy. I had a good experience working with other squads, and that was great! We almost won the continent too, and thats the level of gameplay we should be acheiving.

And the teamwork has to do with balancing vehicles because if we already have to tools to effectively deal with vehicles in the game, rebalancing them could harm the internal balance we already have, and it wouldn't teach the players anything. If players learned to work with the tools they had, they'd have less to complain about. They'd invent new ways of dealing with problems and issues and find out that maybe they weren't so unbalanced. Then if things are bad, they can be fixed. Thats why we should do it in that order, otherwise we won't fix a single thing. A new problem will arise in the balance because of changes.

Ah, thank you Jibba. That clears up a lot.

And no, I don't have a lot of time with it. I play with a friend and he does more of the AV stuff, and I tell him what to do. It usually works out pretty well, but he doesn't play all that much and he's in the same boat as me in regards hardware. But I do think I have a grasp on it from the time I do play HA (I don't have C4 for LA), and how to play more effectively, where to aim, rocket placement, positioning, ect. Thank you for this post.

That's from this thread. And in others, especially the ones talking about cloak, you use the same argument of treating people like complete noobs or telling them to "try" the class for themselves. I hope it's clear now that at least for me, this is not the case.

Of course, this is a fundamental issue with the game, or at least the direction it took. The only vehicle that has a purpose in this game (albeit to a lesser extent now due to spawn changes) is the sunderer. Vehicles other than the sunderer (debatably the ANT as well) serve no objective, they have no real reason to exist, especially with the current spawn system.

For this reason, they were oriented around maximizing infantry farming potential; a low risk-high reward method of buffing your stats a bit after a tough infantry session. This creates gameplay that's very one sided, as I've tried to explain. It's either the vehicle is outside infantry counter distance and the infantry get pretty much instantly wrecked, or the vehicle gets instantly wrecked because it got too close to infantry. It's bizarre, and it's not very fun, because it leads to many vehicle users sitting comfortably at a distance farming kills that can not fight back, until eventually one guy who took a large time investment to take on the not fun task of C4ing the tank suddenly blows up the unsuspecting camper. No 2 way interaction, no room for "skill" or any other type of back and forth engagement/counter.

This creates some really stale and frustrating gameplay. We need to rework how vehicles are actually implemented in the game. Either fully segregate them from infantry, or somehow seemingly integrate them with it. Bases, objectives, etc....everything would need to be reworked with the intention of giving vehicles the same value as infantry. The costs can be removed so anyone can main whatever they want provided those things are all balanced in 1v1. Why 1v1? Because it's the easiest way to give everyone the feeling they had a fair chance of fighting back, and it scales up fairly as well. If you balance things around the basis that 'it's fine you need 5 dudes to kill one tank, it's a tank'. Well then by the time you've got a squad of tanks you need over a platoon of infantry to maybe counter them. Same with A2G. Oh yeah we need 3 burster maxes to damage an esf cuz AA stacks. Doesn't everything? How many people do you need to counter an airball?

Wrong. Dying can be fun. In fact, many times I had a good laugh, or lost a great duel to a respected opponent. No one cares about dying. What's not fun is dying to something you perceive as unfair. I have no issue dying to the 5kd 2kpm heavy who's been practicing years for a 70%+ hsr and doesn't mind giving me tips. I enjoy fighting, sure I might die, but when I kill him in a fair fight, or when he seems to find a challenge in fighting me as well, I feel nice.

When I'm on my way to a fight and suddenly die to an invisa dude or a banshee or a HESH spammer miles away, I don't feel any amusement.

It's a game. We don't have to make it realistic, only fun.

Everyone should be on the same level, no matter what they play, and do their best to win fights by being "good", as you say.

You spawn in and there's a bastion and/or a2g and/or HESH spammers denying any exit from the spawnroom. Why should you continue the "fight"? Why should you even play? The answer is simple: most people quit. Again it goes both ways.

Maybe the average player who wants to play a first person shooter with massive fights doesn't want to spend 30 minutes in an awkward ineffective playstyle to counter something just so he may be able to have a fps fight after he kills it.

As I've said I'm one of those people who clean out these types of players. Tank aurax, tens of thousands of C4 and rocket kills, a2g auraxes, C4 flash, C4 esf, cloak ant, solo nukes, cortium bombs, kakmikaze mines, etc...what more do I need to say I've tried pretty much everything and can conclude there's significant issues with certain aspects of gameplay, that need some addressing? And I've also discussed this with others.

Wasn't perfect in beta, but much better than now.

Oh yeah. Can you believe now you can deci a flash or an esf and they just drive/fly off like nothing happened?

And lol harassers and cloak ants/flashes.


Basically it feels like they've kept vehicles as deadly but nerfed infantry counters to the ground. They should pick a stance and apply it to both sides, not just one.

They nerfed both against each other but no way around it, armor will always hit harder. And the now drawn out engagement means the guy behind all the plating can disengage at leisure unless there is concentrated team fire. Individual infantry lack any alpha damage now.

On the lock on side of things both the AV and AA options are shrugged off now. Remember when the AV one used to scare harassers? Now only the Annihilator locks fast enough and it hits like a gnat.

On the vehicle side... lawd what they did to HE ..ahem.. HESH. All those deadly infantry are supposed to die by the fistful if they get caught even near the edge of cover. Now tankers.. for practical purposes have to direct hit with HESH same as AP. Silly.