Players should be able to get to all cap points without being interferred with by vehicles. From there, pushing out of the base then they would have to clear the vehicles...this could be done by pulling other vehicles from nearby bases or organzing a push with AV/AA weapons. It just makes sense!
I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but I think all tanks and aircraft are currently overpowered and need to be nerfed down so they give an edge over infantry, not utter dominance. I'm talking tanks that are only as powerful as harassers currently. ESF's that require multiple passes to kill a single target and go down with a few bullets, liberators that have to constantly bombard an infantry to kill a single unit and take heavy damage from small arms. This is, of course, probably never going to happen. The current system allows 1 player to spawn a tank or esf and absolutely decimate enemy infantry units. Of course there is another option which would be tolerable under the right circumstances. Allow each class of infantry to have a viable AV or AA option. When I say this I'm not talking about c-4, which is a laughable excuse for an AV option since it requires you to be in melee distance of your enemy tank or directly above it. I'm talking about perhaps buffing the S-variant weapon grenade launchers to do half or more of the vehicle's HP in damage per hit. I'm talking about rocket launchers regaining the possibility of 1-shotting ESFs or dealing 3/4 of a tank's HP per shell, I'm talking about new options, like a laser designator system which calls in an orbital strike which can destroy armor. This is AV, what we have now is weak, allows the tanker to run away and heal up his tank, then come back and 1-shot multiple infantry units over and over. All for what, a few hundred AV resources they spent 5-20 minutes ago? So what I propose is either paper tanks and air vehicles, or actual effective AV and AA weapons available to all. Of course there would be some things which would have to change drastically. Lock-ons would need to be tweaked heavily as they currently require only a lock to be effective AA or AV weapons they would be OP with increased damage toward vehicles. A resource cost would also need to be added to AV options to keep them from becoming too prevalent. There would need to be some sort of setback for using an AV specific weapon, which currently doesn't exist as the s-variant weapons are already quite powerful at AI. This would be a complete balance redesign.
What you describe, would absolutely ruin vehicle play. When your vehicles become coffins on wheels (or treads, or jets), what is the point in even spawning them when instead you could prance through the field on foot with your armor-disintegration device, or simply redeploy to the next base? What we need is for resources to be reworked so that tank getting blown up actually means something. Make it harsher to lose your vehicle. Make it so people have to spend certs to unlock the privilege of using more than just a Flash. Then you'll reduce vehicle spam without making them completely worthless.
Of course it would change the current vehicle play significantly. But right now, vehicles are ruining infantry play because they're overpowered. Lets look at it this way, a single infantryman stands just about 0% chance against a single vehicle. The tank can move faster. The tank can kill the infantryman in 1 shot. The tank's secondary weapon (mbt) can kill the infantryman in 1 shot. The tank cannot be damaged by the infantryman unless he is A: a heavy assault or B: equipped with c-4 and able to catch up to the (faster) vehicle to hit it at melee range with BOTH C-4. If the infantryman is a heavy assault, he must hit the tank with every single rocket in his inventory, or he must hit the tank with every single rocket minus 1 if he hits the tank from the back arc. approximately 20 seconds of continued 100% accuracy required for success. These are all just factors of a TANK, whether it is an MBT or a Lightning, it is a little less silly with an ESF VS an infantry. The ESF can move significantly faster The ESF can kill the infantryman with a few shots (ok admittedly this is less likely to occur) The ESF takes a great degree of sustained fire by small arms, 3+ heavy assault rockets(lock on) or 2 dumbfire rockets to down from full health. Sure you could argue for the infantry to just pull his own tank to counter, but that doesn't change the fact that without a tank, the infantryman stood 0% chance alone against the tank. If infantry were able to destroy as I had suggested in my post (second suggestion), tanks would still be able to 1-shot infantry. They would still be able to move faster than infantry. They would still be immune to small arms fire. There are your benefits. They would have to worry about infantry who are equipped with AV weaponry, instead of just casually having to react to them after they've been peppered by a rocket or two. I'll admit I find ESF's around a base to be more annoying than anything else. It's quite annoying that unless I get a squad of guys together to target them, the single pilot in an ESF can do significant damage to multiple defenders.
It is working as intended then. You are not supposed to solo a tank. If tanks were completely free and you could pull one anywhere at anytime for free then yes I would be fine with nerfing it. As it stands, you are often pulling tanks from 3 or four lattices down the line and driving them to one base. Each unit in the game has a counter. Stop trying to solo everything.
Nice, so a tank taking on 5+ infantry is okay but 1 infantry taking on 1 tank is not? Stop trying to solo everything lol.
The thing is, even with the current balance infantry stand a much greater than 0% chance against vehicles. We see this every day when a skilled light assault outmanuvers and blows up a tank before the driver even knows they're around. In order to kill the vehicle as a lone infantryman, it takes skill and tactics, as it should, to bring down what essentially is meant to be a force multiplier. Even now, in a pitched battle it would be insane to say that there is only one heavy assault in a base actively trying to engage and destroy enemy tanks. The damage models, as is, are balanced accordingly. Infantry are -supposed- to work together to bring down that tank. On the other hand, that teamwork should also be an accomplishment. Something those soldiers in the field can feel good about. If vehicles melt in one or two shots from a lone infantryman, that accomplishment means absolutely nil. Further, with vehicles being balanced in power around that of lone infantry, they will have to be made easier to pull than they currently are, meaning even more vehicle spam than we have now if they're to be effective. I would still propose that the better solution would be to leave vehicle strength and infantry strength where it is, and instead focus on rebalancing resources so killing vehicles matters more than just having the driver respawn another immediately after being killed. This also seems to be the direction the devs are taking as well, judging by the Roadmap.
Its a tank. If you can't find a way to kill it than too bad. C4 works great for me. Tanks mines work wonders in choke points. Rocket launchers are fantastic for killing tanks (and they don't cost resources). Your main complaint seems to be that a tank can take on infantry. I don't know about you but you seem to have an infantry bias. Especially since you want ESFs to be even more likely to be shot out of the air by infantry small arms. Or you can just use the current AA that already smacks aircraft down with little to no effort. Use AV against tanks Use AA against aircraft Its so simple it is maddening when people want vehicles to be even weaker.
Welcome to combined arms. Each weapon system is designed to dominate in its envelope of effectiveness, and also offer compliment to the other systems' envelope of effectiveness, thereby creating synergies where each weapon expands its usefulness. Being outside of ones envelope of effectiveness (and/or being) unsupported will yield unfavorable results. The key to succeeding in a combined arms environment is to place the enemy in more unfavorable conditions than the enemy can place you. Proffesional soldiers do not blame "the base" or anything else. They look at the situation, what happened, and how they may do better next time. Forumsiders would be well served to do the same, or they will be forever confounded by the combined arms riddle.
I dont think you will get a lot of flak....I think you will just be largely ignored because what you say here is just ridiculous. Infantry have so much AV capability through the heavy, Engineer, Max, and any class that can carry C4. Anyone can pull a heavy Assualt or Mana Turret (if certed), as many times as they like, with no cert cost. Infantry are not supposed to be able to fight a tank one on one.....EVER....under any circumstances (looking at you bullsh*t C4)!! You have your own armour to fight the opposing armour, plus an infinite number of AV infantry who can keep respawning indefinitely. If a single infantry could go toe to toe with a MBT because the tank only had "an edge" over the infantry, tanks would be utterly useless. Tanks are in fact extremely weak, not in terms of whether they can kill a single infantry, but in terms of how easy they are to kill with the multitude of AV weaponry in game (AV Infantry, Armour and Air).
I am glad the responses to my suggestion have thus far been relatively constructive considering the suggestions themselves are definitely too radical to ever become literally implemented. I do agree that it's not impossible to take down a tank in certain circumstances such as av mines and long range artillery. But the thread is about bases where tanks are pinning down spawn rooms. The problem is that there is no effective battle tactics for defenders unless they have vastly more numbers to account for tanks being too tough to break the siege. You don't know true hopelessness until you have a radar equipped tank hunting you as an infiltrator. Lol of course I am biased. Just being candid here when I know the suggestion isn't going anywhere
This is now only a serious problem on Indar. Yes it still happens on Esamir and Amerish but not as much. A number of the bases on Esamir have walls and the re-design of bases on Amerish has produced a many bases where the fighting is effectively infantry only. A re-design of Indar is certainly now required, as is a re-design of the bases on Easimr to be honest. The walls are a poor substitue when you look at how well the devs have done on the Amerish bases.
Get off Indar. Go to Amerish. There are dozens of bases on Amerish where vehicles are easy fodder once they get within 50m of the capture points. Many of the capture points are underground or indoors, with very few "open" crossing points to cover. Other bases have lots of rocks around, or multi-story buildings or trees galore. They did a very good job on Amerish. Still a few places where they have too many solid walls that are too long, but not as bad as Esamir where infantry need to walk 100m out of the way to move forward 5m. (The walls on Esamir are just horridly done. They need to use more rocks / trees / terrain around bases to make it more organic rather then creating some silly "octagon" base with walls.)
No. What this game needs is defined roles for vehicles and aircraft that encourage them to gear against their own type. For example, if aircraft were to receive the defined role of the resource system by incorporating a transportation ship that aircraft now have to defend or attack...you ensure that the majority gear themselves against enemy aircraft. Further Explained Here: Auraxium Mining Outpost, Air oriented balance and resource system! If this was done, the majority of aircraft would gear themselves against other aircraft rather than ground forces because... A: It's a role a defined roll that they need to perform in order to help their faction out. B: Most pilots absolutely adore those aerial dogfights. The same type of situation needs to be created for ground forces. Right now, the development team wants to use the resource system to kill two birds with one stone...encouraging ground and air to interact with this system. Personally, I don't believe that this will work because ultimately aircraft will still be gearing themselves primarily against ground forces...thus the problem remains. So, instead, I'd rather see the resource system go to air and give new armor oriented roles to ground vehicles. For example, this thread here details (Read through the comments.) the possibility of putting tanks into a medieval siege oriented role where they are needed in order for infantry to breach the defenses of a base so that they can capture the points...but until the shields are destroyed by armor, infantry can't get in. This creates a system much akin to the old medieval method of castle sieges where you needed the siege weapons first...and then the infantry. So, now you have the majority of vehicles and aircraft gearing themselves against their own type rather than infantry. What's delicious about this idea is that now you have a minority who will still choose to engage infantry, which means combined arms remains prominent within Planetside 2. With the sheer lack of aerial and vehicle support, however, this vast minority is going to be very weak against infantry................................so we BUFF vehicles and aircraft. Right now, vehicles and aircraft are balanced around the potential volume that can transpire within any one area at a time...rather than independently balanced. What this means is that they are watered down from what they should be...leaving most of your pilots and vehicle drivers feeling very weak for what they actually are.......................and simultaneously, infantry still feels the heat of too much pressure from these sources. SO, right now the system doesn't work...but if we do everything I have detailed above...there's only going to be a small volume of aircraft and vehicles who harass infantry...meaning that they can be buffed against infantry to compensate for the fact that there are a massively reduced amount. Now... Vehicles feel like vehicles, powerful. Aircraft feel like aircraft, devastating. Infantry don't feel so strained by the sheer volume of vehicles and aircraft, smaller volume geared against infantry. Instead, you have a more watered down combined arms that leaves vehicles and aircraft a very powerful force upon the battlefield...but at a number that's reasonable and capable of being taken out by the superior volume of ground forces. Meanwhile, the majority of vehicles and aircraft will be geared against their own type to perform their dedicated roles. !EVERYONE WINS!
A simple fix, make most of the facility underground like they did in PS1, yes I know the bases were all copy and past. But truth be told it didn't matter how many tanks and aircraft you had once you had the courtyard you had to push inside the facility(oh nohez, NOT TEH CHOKE POINTZORZ). Once inside, facilities were laid out so the defenders had an advantage. There was usually 3 ways into a base but you could get coordinated to defend them. Bases (other than a biolab) currently are un-defendable once the enemy has 2 ESF's and a liberator in the sky. So a total of 6 players(2 ESF pilots, 2Lib pilots, 2lib bombers) can dominate a facility and destroy any hope of defending it. Pull a skyguard you say, we their sort of effective but the projectiles are to slow or they need to add a proximity to aircraft explosion. Again read the first sentence.
Vehicles are not infantry. A tank is a tank, not another infantry class. One Infantry can easily tank on one tank with the help of range, cover, terrain, all sorts of things. Vehicles have plenty of disadvantages.
Soldiers die. Officers lay back in their chair, sipping their cup of tea as a lieutnant bursts into the room: "Sir, our troops are dying by the hundreds !" "We have reserves."
But then you sit there in your tank forever and shell spawn doors and bases. Killing 100's of infantry while 30 mins later you are finally killed and can pull another vehicle to do it all over again. Logic goes where? If the base design actually defended against vehicles I wouldn't have so much of a problem (and arguably many other players as well). However there are so many ways to shoot in or down onto bases. And there's no way to fight back really. You are really safe inside the vehicle shelling the base for easy certs. There's very little risk involved for you.
Everyone acts as if the only thing tanks are used for is farming infantry. Tanks fight other tanks whilst supporting infantry. They are a bullet sponge that takes damage to destroy and can dish out it's own damage. Tanks (as a bi-product and HEAT being the default) are also rather good at farming infantry, which was not an intended purpose as that would be poor game play. Play on Amerish and use the tunnels at the Tech plants/ Amp stations for getting out of spawn camps. Anything could camp a spawn, vehicles just happen to be very good at it.
