[Vehicle] Current MBT Balance

Don't exist? Check here: http://planetsidebattles.org/ServerSmash/tournament2015?utm_source=PS2 Launcher&utm_medium=PS2 Launcher&utm_campaign=PS2 Launcher

You probably have to make the silly charts yourself in excel or open office, but all the data you need is there.

Both of you and anyone reading this, think about that long and hard. Why are tanks useless in SS? And then try to explain why they are NOT outside of SS? Why would you balance a Vanguard, Prowler, and Magrider against each other if they are total crap to begin with?

Look at the first SS in that link above. With Cobalt and Briggs. The Vanguard got 12 kills, Magrider not even listed (assuming it wasn't even used). 22,000 kills were made total. So MBTs in that accounted for .05% of kills.

Of course its used quite a bit more in regular play, but for what? Seriously for what? You both just said they are too slow, too weak, and easily countered. So why are we even discussing balance between them? They're useless platforms, and we're wasting time by discussing inter faction balance. Who the f- cares if a Prowler gets 10% more kills when those kills are negligible?

The discussion should be that MBTs and Lightnings like Flag pointed out, are not used in Organized play and what should be changed to make them viable in such. When you balance Organized play, the changes trickle down to standard play. Not to mention the data in organized play is easier to work with and less corrupted.

We don't need stats to tell us what we already know. We know MBTs have no place in capturing bases and winning alerts. You all already admitted to that. They get kills, but they don't get kills when it matters. But yet everyone in this thread wants to run to their stupid charts and point at balance 'problems'. That's short sighted and you all know it.

The situation needs to be fixed so there's a purpose for everyone (standard play and organized) to actually have a role with MBT. Not seeing who's the best at camping a spawn room.. because lets face it, that's all those charts show.

And if you think the numbers are too small (aka not full servers) try the world record event (being a world record.. it was an alert with way more people present than any live server ever had or will have). MBT's fared slightly better there at .8% of the kills. http://ps2alerts.com/alert/2327

... 12 kills was enough to warrant getting a mention?
In other words, tanks flat out aren't used enough to give a solid foundation from which you can draw any conclusions whatsoever.

0.05% of the kills in a match is flat out insignificant - only conclusion from it is that tanks aren't justified nanite expenditures (or time for that matter) in the SS environment.

By the way, I was aware that there were fringe kills by tanks in some server smashes but nowhere near enough to use them to determine tank balance.

So, when I said the numbers don't exist, I meant in an amount that is meaningful and/or useful.

The main difference is that tanks matter on live servers because the opposition is in general less good at the game, less focused, and less try-hard than what you find in SS. SS is about min-maxing, live play ... less so. Not to the level of SS, at least.

However, the SS viability of tanks is a separate topic than inter-tank balance.
I just opposed the idea that SS stats can be used to balance tanks.

In regular alerts the mbts have 10 times the kills, they have in server smashes.
A server smash is all about 2 factions using galdrops and redeployside. There is hardly any fighting between the bases. Thats why you don't see many tanks there.
In normal gameplay however, they can be a decisive factor, esp. when 2 zergs are clashing.

How do they matter when they can be ignored in live play just like they can be ignored in SS?

If the general population got smart (especially those who hate tanks) then you would see similar things in live play. As I've said in other threads about tanks, the only reason they are used is because they can get a kill or two. But never when it actually matters. They're big, they make satisfying explosions. But they don't stop your base from being capped.

I'm not going to support balancing turds, crap, and stool against each other. Because thats what the three MBT's are right now. That's a waste of time. Cause you are right about one thing, Tanks are not worth their nanite costs. They shouldn't cost a 10th of what they do right now.

They have no purpose in Organized Play, and no purpose in Standard Play.

I thought zergs were the end all and be all of PS2? Why aren't they zerging in SS's? Hmm maybe that's because zerging isn't as effective as everyone believes it to be.

I am of the second opinion; which makes the most sense (to me) for 'perfect asymmetry.'

I suppose the one way to evaluate this, would be to use something like XP gained over time (raw, not including boosts/membership) as the function (perf) and each of the equivalent weapons from each faction as the category (N), to see if on average tank drivers/gunners can earn about the same amount of XP (+/- 5%) regardless of faction. Not sure if that data is available.

Seriously? what percentage of player time is spent in server smashes, and what percentage is live servers?

There is at most an average of one two hour server smash every two weeks for a total of two hours play time for ~480 players at a time, compared to the total population of the live servers running 24/7.

A far more common situation is live server alerts, which have data in a similar format, which has a far more different result.

for example, here is an alert from yesterday just before prime time, where the TR had the Esamir bonus...

http://ps2alerts.com/alert/13682

Prowlers (not MBTs added together) were the vehicle which killed the most players across the whole alert, even more than NS vehicles (like the Lightning) which were used by all three factions, and they got a total of 14.3% of all the TRs kills that alert.

http://ps2alerts.com/alert/13691

If we look at the next alert (which was fully prime time) Prowlers still accounted for more than 11.7% of TR's kills, and MBT's took 6% of all the kills during the alert. Which is more than 100x higher than the "0.05%" you cited for server smashes.

In SS winning is pretty much everything, hence the min-maxing nature of it.
For live play, people are free (in a sense) to do things they find fun. For me that includes the Magrider and pushing the physics engine limits at times.

Live play = play for fun, whatever that means for each individual.
Server Smash = Play to win (which is fun for some).

Zerging was only ever "easy". If you get away with it it's also "effective", if a bit wasteful.

Fights in live depend a lot more on Sunderers for spawning, whilst in SS it's Galaxys or spawn beacons, with sunderers being there but not nearly as vital for spawning. They are far more used as force multipliers on points than spawning since they can help fend of defenders and provide squad spawn right onto the point.

MBTs are good at destroying sunderers, which is why they are more useful on live than SS. Hardly anyone pulls AA in SS because they just either leave the air there or get their own Airforce to deal with it, whilst in live air can be completely denied actions at a base.

Would you mind coming back when you can quote the number of MBT kills on Esamir and not the other continents? As much as I like using live alerts to quote stats compared to stats in general, they are still heavily corrupted. Lets say for that alert I decided to take a Vanguard into an unlocked continent and farm up 50 kills. Not too hard in 2 hours time.

I'd have jumped the Vanguard kills by 6% on my own.

But here's the best part.. and my favorite. In BOTH alerts you quoted where the Prowler outdid the Vanguard and Magrider put together.. TR didn't even win the alert. And here you all are.. trying to tell me MBT's matter in standard play? Try again. This time don't disprove yourself with your own facts.

All you've shown is TR is pretty freaking stupid and loses alerts because they stick to using useless vehicles.

I agree, MBT's are excellent sundie hunters. But look at what you need to be able to use them:

1. 450 nanites
2. Warpgate or Techplant connection
3. Tank Terminal
4. Defender or attacker when Defenders pull their own MBT's to deal with your sundies.

Doesn't justify thousands of certs spent to make them 'awesome'. Don't get me wrong. I won't lie that MBT's are big, sexy, and get kills. And I understand that we all want them to be the epitome of freedom, order, or spandex, but that just isn't the case right now. We all know it. We just have to be honest about it.

No, but you have an organized command structure in SS. You do not have that in Live. Live has something akin to a bunch of monkeys fighting over a banana.

In SS, everyone starts at the WG on even footing. In live there are 3 factions, people are already all over the continent. There's no need to rush everywhere in an ESF/gal. There's also the fact that not all factions have A. equal pop and B. equal starting terrain.
There's alot of reasons people need to redeploy everywhere in SS and tbh, redeployside is f****** stupid, and its no fun which is why alot of people don't do it.

So what are you doing on the live server if not trying to win, and why should the devs balance around that?

Better question is, why don't you want the MBT to do more than get a few kills?

You know what. You're sooooo right. Lets buff tanks, and nerf bases.

Give tanks moar armor and HP.

Give tanks the co-ax mgs THEY WERE DESIGNED WITH *eying devs shoving concept art in general direction*

Give lightnings the ATGM and mg combo

get rid of most walls in the game.

Increase sundy and gal cost. Gals to 500 and sundies to 350.

Totally agree with Taemien now, tanks need to drive at least 600kph too. They're too up.

I suggest you take a bit of a break from the discussion. I have a solution that doesn't involve buffing or nerfing anything. But first we have to get off the idea that quoting corrupted stats can somehow lead to a good discussion on balance.

For example you brought up an interesting point:

Doesn't it bother you that redeployside is the only way to win an alert? That your MBT has no impact? That is where any change should be focused on.

It was an Indar alert not an Esamir alert, I just mentioned that TR had the Esamir bonus, which is why they used so many MBTs.

Alerts tend to use far more vehicle combat and ground mobility than Server Smashes, therefore MBT's are far more useful in them.

Personally, I've found judicious use of MBT's has helped win a lot of alerts, be it; killing AMS's, spawncamping, killing spawncampers, destroying vehicle pushes, pushing as an infantry support tank (HE + Kobalt/Halberd with proxy repair sunderer behind).

If you don't mind me looking up your own MBT usage, I see that you have a grand total of 443 kills, 211 vkills, with a SPM of 153.57. If I am looking at the wrong character, by all means correct me, but I'm thinking that maybe you're finding that MBTs underperform on live play, the problem might not necessarily be with the MBTs...

ITT: I'm less nerdier than you because I play the red team.

I wish we can setup a Car Wars style arena battle matches to see if all MBTs are truly equal. What would you think the results would be?

Driver Only

• 1v1
• 1v1v1 Battle Royal

Driver & Gunner

• 1v1
• 1v1v1 Battle Royal

The only way we are going to make MBTs and Lightnings relevant in the grand scheme of things is if we get more people to use them. They cost too much both in nanites and certs for being limited to select areas. If tanks were made more disposable people wouldn't feel as bad for pulling and then leaving them, just like how sunderers & harassers are treated now.

I don't mind pulling a harasser for a fight in between the bases and then dumping them when they are no longer of use, or simply going back to the terminal and pulling a AI harasser instead of AV for little nanite cost. I couldn't do that with MBT or Lightning.

MBTs should cost 350 and lightnings 250 as a feeler.

1v1s - prowler and vanguard both beat the Mag, ... Vanguard can probably kill the Prowler if shield is used, but anchor mode isn't.

1v1v1 - don't think you'd be able to a do meaningful comparison there.

I like my ideas lol.

My last point about making them go 600kph. Is a joke yes but their speed is why no body uses them in SS. In live people rely on sundies to take bases generally. Tanks are reeallly good at killing those.

*eyes mountain in 1v1v1 fight while in mag looks back at previous posts*......