Crossbow : Explosive Bolts, The new universal AV

It's pretty ironic in fact that every time a new weapon is released there are two kind of users: the former complaining because a weapon is exactly the same as another one or is underperforming, the latter cryng that's op.
Personally I believe adding a side weapon that let kill tanks is the worst idea I've heard since beta. The crossbow as it is right now shouldn't go live.

Exactly what I want to tell you SOE. SIDE WEAPON that let you kills vehicles (even harm it) is WORST IDEA. If you need revive- you wait for medic, you need repair- you wait for engi, you want recon- you wait for Infil, you want destroy spotted vehicle- you wait for bloody Heavy Assault or MAX, who has DIRECT-CLASS tools to do it. Giving everyone SIDE-ARM weapon to make dmg to vehicles is gimping HA usefullness on battlefield and MAX. Those are AV classes, and should stay so. NOT EVEN ONE CLASS should be able to do things that other is dedicated for.

If all classes will have AV, I want healing bullets for HA, repair grenades for Light Assaults and Cloak for MAX- why? Because that how you seem to think SOE. You made each class to have a role, so dont give all of them weapon that is against role of some classes.

That being said, I have nothing against crossbow, even for all classes. But it should remain silent weapon for AI use, and not AV. WHO THE HELL would go against tank with Crossbow??

Repeating after poster above: The crossbow as it is right now shouldn't go live. Explosive bolts must be removed.

Dont kill each class role please, this is main reason I picked your game.

Too late, it's already had it's duration cut to a third, and is just as visible as all other cloaks.

Suggestion: Split NS Crossbow into 3 weapons with fractional costs and balance separately as suggested here. Create variants for Infiltrator, LA, and other classes.

• Restrict explosive bolts to Infiltrators who don't have c4, and possibly LAs.
• Balance damage, bullet drop, and bullet velocity separately to suit the classes using the variant.

Infiltrator AV Balance considerations

1. Low XP streams - 50-60 thousand kills needed to reach BR 100

2. No c4 which is useful against maxes as well

3. Inability to destroy vehicles

4. Stalker cloak might need a separate balancing like for everything else

• • Not allowing explosive bolts with Stalker cloak, allowing vehicles to see Stalker cloak (and only Stalker cloak better)

LA AV Balance considerations

1. Limited utility/abilities of class

2. Has c4, but only means of getting certs is destroying vehicles with c4.

AV capability balance considerations

• Planetside uses weapon resistances to determine per vehicle damage. These can be used to balance for Maxes, Sunderers, Tanks separately for each weapon variant so there shouldn't be much concern about a class being too OP against a particular vehicle.
• Sunderers should have stronger resistance to explosive bolt damage. (Currently the OP galaxy-is-a-super-mobile-spawn-beacon mechanic allows instagibbing sunderers anyway).
  • Maybe 15-20 shots? (fire team of 8 firing twice). Then again, a couple of infantry with c4 can take a Sunderer out.
  • Tanks should have weaker resistance than sunderers.
• Infantry Damage: It might be a can of worms to balance splash damage against clusters of Infantry, while not providing new abilities. A lot of bases funnel infantry and have tiny spaces with gens/points. Might be simpler to remove damage vs infantry.
  • Payload could be metal eating nanites only affecting tanks/maxes, instead of explosive damage.

Crossbows with Explosive bolts should be Infiltrator only. There you go.

...Or a Light Assault with C4

Or a Medic with C4

Or an Engineer with Tank Mines and C4


Yeah. Infiltrators should be the only class with access to explosive bolts.

I just tested this and it took something like 18 shots to kill an MBT to the rear and more shots than I could equip with max rank of ammo belt to kill one without critical hits. Yeah, this is pretty balanced, any tank that does to this was probably going to die to a rocket launcher or enemy tank anyways.

This might not be so balanced out in the field for tanks attempting to flee from being destroyed, only to have an Infiltrator uncloak and finish the job after they have eluded the danger. Not saying that it's overpowered just yet...but it has potential.

I do this already with a flash and basilisk, nobody seems to complain. Burning tanks are a huge target in an open feild and if I don't get them, someone else surely will.

While this tends to be true, people typically justify it through the fact that you pulled a vehicle and invested into the weapon attachment, wraith cloaking device, so on and so forth. You're essentially counted as a vehicle to vehicle pilots...rather than just another infantry soldier with the ability to harm them.

I for one am very excited about the possibility of an AV sidearm for every class. I have been asking for this for ages. I'm sick of having to play HA everywhere because the other classes are helpless against vehicles (which is the majority of outdoor enemies).

And what's so bad about giving other classes the ability to throw recon darts, is it gamebreaking in any way? Giving players versatility, and crossover possibilities between classes is an excellent direction to take imo. The whole class system is inferior and limiting, and needs to go away. I hope they are intentionally slowly transitioning from classes to loadout-based specialization (like PS1).

They should add a Universal Nano Device next. All classes can use it. Goes in the pistol slot. Can repair and revive at half the speed of respective engineer and medic tools.

Yeah lol. I'm hoping the duration goes up a bit when it hits live. My hope is that the devs wanted to test the cloak with a long duration and a stupidly short one just to get data. Then a middle ground will be put live.

As for being just as visible well I continue to rely on the blinkered unobservant stupidity of many players.

as someone who has practically BEGGED for an AV option on the infiltrator for quite some time…. the current implementation of the x-bow is a bad way to do it.

if it makes it to live, this is going to be infiltrators + shotguns all over again, and the class still hasn't recovered from that

Truth be told, I've never wanted a direct damage oriented answer to armor...it's one of our weaknesses. Indirect ways to affect them, sure!

• The ability to hack ammunition turrets...
• The ability to affect their HUD, aim, and mobility through EMP grenades...
• The ability to eventually hack them within a balanced and viable method that makes our entire hacking system exciting...

Never cared about damage though. Someone once told me that you needed to use an EMP grenade on the vehicle in the original Planetside in order to hack the vehicle...who knows what the development team could come up with.

i agree that we need SOME answer, and lord knows that i would love it if i could hack ammo towers or air pads to let friendly armor/air resupply at an enemy base/ base that we are waiting for the cap on.

but having a squad of infiltrators ith stalker cloaks and explosive tipped darts just doesn't seem like the right answer. the current status quo of staring at an enemy sundy and being as effective as a wadded up kleenex vs a prison wall isn't tenable either.

and EMP grenades have been broken forever. i'd rather not have to use resources on an otherwise useless specialty grenade just to get a chance to hack a sundy.

From what I heard, the EMP grenades have been fixed for the most part...I just wish they did more than they currently do. Either way, I don't believe we NEED to use the EMP grenades to get a fair and balanced vehicle hacking system, it's just a thought. With that said, vehicles need a lot of work though...but the development team seems to think a huge problem that keeps armor from being properly balanced will be solved with the resource system...so we'll see.

If that's true, vehicle hacking should be doable in my opinion.