Balance Pass Post 1: Vehicle Weapons and the Harasser

When i first read the initial post about balancing and nerfing the Harasser, i was all for it. My first reaction was "Nerf that OP ******".

But, then i let the post sink in and played some more and fought a few Harassers in my Lightning (primarily drive that, as no one else i used to play with are on so my Vanguard is gathering dust.) and then i realized, the Harrasser doesn't need nerfing, if anything it set the bar at which the other vehicles need to be on par with.

One of the reasons why it appears so OP (ill get to the weapons later) is that as a whole package its really well rounded and put together; speed, agility, certs, armor, choices. They should be the basis for the other vehicles, with how the game has progressed and how Tanks are easily dominated by the plethora of AV weapons out there, the Harasser is somewhat suited to the new game.

If the Lightning and the MBTs (throw in the sundy too) were buffed to the Harassers level, then the Harasser would be easily dealt with by Armor.

Both Composite armor and their Chassis lines should be used for armor. (you could keep the current front/side armor certs, just buff them to the point that there is an actual choice between Composite/front/side - get rid of top just give it to tanks as standard)

As for weapons, I dont like the Vulcan in any form, that doesnt mean that its unbalanced. I just hate the weapon. I do feel however that the C85 modified should deal similar damage/damage type as the Vulcan (either both deal AV damage or both deal AI damage)

I also feel that the Harasser should only have AI/AA weapons, and should only really have access to the Basilisk and the Fury for vehicle damage, then it would still be deadly to infantry but not a counter to Armor, that being said both weapons can hurt a lightning pretty well.

As for the Armor changes in the OP, well. Id rather they just gave all tanks 4 slots which we can put whatever we want in each slot, then we dont have to worry about radar changing type, or atleast a second utility slot. Would allow more variation in tank set ups.

Or make it that each ESMBT, gets its ES ability as its own cert line that each tank gets as standard.

You do realize that the Vulcan is an AV weapon and the Enforcer modified is an AI weapon, right?

omg man, so well said! +1

Oh i do. Its more that one is a vehicle shotgun the other a mini-gun yet they do different types of damage, yet one is useless. And the other... well ive been killed both while in a tank and out of a tank by it.
Id rather the Enforcer deal similar damage to the Vulcan.

I think that the biggest issue with the harrasser is that unlike the other combat ground vehicles (with the exception of an uncerted Sunderer) is that it has the same armour value the entire way around. This means that positioning is only half as important as it is for other combat vehicles (only have to worry about getting to the side or rear of MBT/Lightnings, or staying to the front or side of certed Sunderers). I think that if it was altered such that there was less armour on the rear, nothing else would need changing.

And yes, the rumble set is already pretty dangerous, but realistically, I never see 3/3 harassers as its usually the gunner that swaps to the rumble seat when needed.

I agree wholeheartedly with the existing vehicles being way too fragile to incoming fire, it just doesn't feel like armor. The firepower is fine, but the fragility is not. The armor should definitely be buffed. The harasser feels correctly balanced for what it is, and it's a 3-man vehicle.
Also, to be honest, I'd be happier if they moved the Prowler/Vanguard back to a 3-man crew (ala PS1) with 1 person dedicated to driving, since it would be more effective, and is appropriate. Thing about it, the harasser holds 3, but a prowler/vanguard only takes 2 to operate?! Magrider makes sense with 2 crew, due to it's forward firing cannon. Also, I'd love if they'd put in a way to change your vehicle configuration near a vehicle terminal (much like infantry do) or at a special designated pad, at a resource cost of course. Having to ditch a vehicle entirely & pull another to change the secondary gun or loadout is a bit ridiculous, given the high resource cost. Just my thoughts.

I updated my first post with a more more details

I was hoping for more than just a buff, the whole idea of having a shotgun has an AI gun on a vehicle like a vanguard is just pretty useless and meh...

But oh well, at least it's getting buffed!

Joshua if you and the developers could look into the G30 Vulcan on the Prowler and make sure that the bloom and COF of the weapon is improved so it actually becomes an accurate medium range AV weapon I would be grateful. The Prowler variant is currently under performing because if one intends to fire it like an actual Gatling Gun the COF makes it into basically a short range weapon. Short range AV weapons are not ideal in tank fights which are typically happening at medium and past medium ranges.

What also must be taken into considering is in its current form the Vulcan meshes horribly with Anchor Mode. TR are not asking for an Instagib AV Gatling Gun, but we'd like one that is accurate and useful in medium range tank fights so we have a solid reason to give up the long range utility and meshability with Anchor Mode that the Halberd currently gives us. Thanks!

With napalm hopefully.

Enforcer is performing so badly it needs more than a slight buff to make it on par with the Saron and Marauder options

And still nothing that rationalises moving Proximity Radar to the defence slot.

And who else thinks it won't even be brought back to it's former version?

I have a horrible feeling they will somehow make it worse

For the C85, I have this horrible feeling they are just going to move some stats around rather than realising the whole weapon is just flawed and need to be redesign...

Never happened. It's not like the third version of the Enforcer modified is worse than the second one...
...
Oh wait...

as far as vehicle mounted ES AV weapons go, the NC Enforcer really gets the rough end of the stick. 650 damage per shot and 1 shot per second is nothing compared to both other factions' equivalents. the slow rate of fire and low DPS (650 DPS) leaves it vastly out-performed in a close-up fight, where the other factions dish out nearly 3000 DPS.
being able to "snipe" with the enforcer is of little comfort too as, again, the very low DPS means the first few hits will only serve as warning shots, alerting the recipient to your position and leaving ample time to get into cover.

balancing simply by DPS, the enforcer would need ~2000-3000 damage per shot to compare with the other factions, and balancing by damage per mag it would need somewhere around ~1400 per shot to compare with the vulcan.

There was a reddit thread about this new edit and I posted there but I wanted to post here as well so people can get a clearer picture of the harasser nerfs being listed in this post all in one place:

So you are all in the same patch (harasser nerfs):

• Removing resistance to small arms fire, C4, tank mines.
• Reducing resistance to tank shells.
• Reducing the ability to repair the harasser on the move.
• Reducing the speed the turbo recovers (this is huge).
• Removing the ability to detect mines with thermal.
• Reducing the damage of AV secondaries against infantry.
• Reducing the damage of AV secondaries to vehicles at range.
• Buffing AI secondaries AGAINST harassers.

This really seems like over-doing it when the vehicle already fit pretty damned well between a 1-manned lightning and a 2-manned MBT in power.

Stop trying to cure the symptoms. All of this is based on a vehicle system that is flawed at base.

You know what that flaw is? MBT's not being seperate driver/gunners. It takes out a massive amount of in-combat mobility that MBT's would otherwise have.

It would lead to more dynamic battles with armor moving AND firing at the same time. But nah, lets just keep them as stationary artillery pieces.

I agree, 2-man requirement MBTs would solve a lot of problems here and probably be a lot more fun when it comes down to it. There is already a 1-man pseudo tank option anyways for people who want to play that way.

Restrict FOV of the Harrasser weapon like in Planetside 1......Anyone?

But on that harasser version it made sense because of the design. This haraser is like a car with gun on the middle of the roof.