I was reading in a thread about tanks and had some thoughts. Historically, in tanks there is a balance between armor, firepower, and mobility. The NS lightning should be right in the middle, and generally at a lower tier. The MBTs for each faction lean towards the corner of the graph that their faction values. This is of course a generalization. As the lightning probably is more towards mobility than the dead center. Upgrades and equipment would move each thing around on the graph. If you were to put all the vehicles on the graph, you could see where the developers should add new vehicles. Of course each faction does not have access to all vehicles, freeing up space on the graph for new vehicles to be inserted, niches to be filled. Current vehicles: Phalanx Turret- Purple sub-corner Harasser w/halberd- Yellow sub-corner You could use more graphs like this to see how the factions should deviate from one another. Of course if every faction just kept to their own corner that could get a little boring, so maybe faction diversity should favor a corner, but then strive deep into "enemy" territory. Like if there were a new set of faction specific engineer turrets that were the opposite. A slow heavy hitting VS turret, a larger shield TR turret, and a low damage accurate high RPM turret for NS. It would shake things up. So, that was just some quick thoughts of mine. I wish there was more faction diversity!. I made a blank 3 way graph, take it and throw on what you think about the factions and their equipment. What 3 things would infantry have? or guns? jetpacks? Aircraft? http://www.eastereggproductions.com/visualsing_gameplay/3wayDistro.png
The major problem is any faction diversity attracts balance complaints......... even when it is pretty balanced. (although often it has not been balanced so complaints were fair) Which tends to give Devs endless headaches...... but without it a lot of the game loses much of its fun. In your specific example though you'd need an NS Main Battle Tank, not a Lighting which would be a Light Tank and can't really be directly compared the the MBTs.
Big problem in that these aren't the only 3 factors of a vehicle. It gets especially weird for anyone who uses a magrider because its the slowest tank with the least dps and average armor. Mobility is too general to be useful as a category here. Velocity, alpha damage, profile, maneuverability, turret type (fixed? not fixed?), acceleration. These all play a big role in the vehicles overall capacity but are hard to place in the triangle.
Yeah, I know all about whiners. I don't care about them. I honestly think the game would be more fun if it were unbalanced on a schedule. IE, this month NC get a new toy, next month VS get a new toy, month after TR get a new toy. The unbalanced play would be fun, I like being the underdog, and knowing that ill be getting a sweet new thing would make me look forward to it. In my example I say the lightning is at a lower tier. They could be more accurately compared if a 4th axis was on the graph, nanite cost. But the graph shows a proportional distribution of the vehicle's abstract potential, so any vehicle like thing can be put on it. For example, a wall would be at the top of blue, as it has no mobility or firepower, and is indestructible. But I wanted to discuss faction diversity in general, and how plotting things on a graph can show where open areas that can be filled are.
Yes, it is more complicated, but that's the point of an abstraction. I took the three axies of what are discussed when generally comparing tanks in real life, and applied it to tanks in the game to show how factions favor different areas of specialization.
The lightning isn't even on a lower tier for many reasons beyond nanite cost. Its the fastest tank, it has a low profile, it has fast acceleration, and it has the second highest main cannon DPS. It may seem lower tier on paper considering a 1 on 1 hypothetical, but that has no pull in actual gameplay.
I get ya. Its the magrider that really splits this in twain. Few of the magrider's traits show up in this and those which do score very poorly (slowest tank, worst gun by far). Many people argue that the Magrider isn't even a tank, and they may be right.
The problem isn't diversity so much as it is making those differences too far apart. if you design three ES weapons one per side and assign it a role AI/AV/AA all three should perform relatively equally, one might have higher projectile speed making hits easier, one might have a higher RoF and one might have higher damage. The problem arises when you give good mechanics to one or two and leave the third in a broken state that can't keep up with the intended purpose of all three weapons/vehicles/equipment.
I would say that it's ability to move in any direction at will pushes it deep into the manuverability corner. I don't know off the top of my head what it's top speed is, but it also has the boost upgrade available, and can cartwheel up mountains. Very mobile. I would also say that those people have a very narrow minded idea of what exactly a tank is.
I see you are new here. allow me to introduce myself i am Kirppu a 2 year player of planetside, and from my experience they(Devs) give you the finger for suggesting something. so sorry to burst your bubble but it's not going to happen. EVER
New? I have been here longer than you. And the Devs do listen, why do you think we just got Anti Materiel rifles? They totally did get rid of the suggestion forum though... -_-
