Everyone can counter everything, and I hate it.

Please keep in mind, these are my thoughts, and mine alone. You don't have to agree.

What I would like to see, are more specialized roles for everyone. As the game stands right now, you can pretty much deal with any threat you might face at any time. Yes I understand there are a few exceptions. Nothing is ever 100%. But 90% or more of the time, you don't need to really change much to deal with something.

I want to see people forced to make more choices. I want people saying hmmm...do I pick my rocket heavy so I can deal with armor, but only carry a pistol for self defense. Or should I grab my bada** LMG to decimate this infantry, but I won't have anything to deal with armor.

I'm not just talking about HAs, I mean this across the board. To me, everyone should be able to do anything. But while you are fulfilling one role, you should be severely limited in others. Checks and balances. Tanks that are geared with AP rounds, that can't do squat against infantry, vs tanks with HE rounds that can't even scratch the paint on another tank.

No matter what role you choose, there is at least one other class/spec/vehicle that you're just helpless against. But that's balanced by the fact that there is another class/spec/vehicle that is completely helpless against you.

In my mind, this would create more diversity. Players would be forced to think more about loadups. What am I most likely to come across in the next few minutes. Imagine organizing your outfit for an attack. Do you say screw it and have everyone grab LMGs and footzerg and hope you don't run into armor, or do you leave some guns behind and increase your chances in case a couple tanks come over the hill?

Maybe I'm wrong. But I'm an older guy (37), so maybe I like more choices. Maybe more people simply want to run and gun. If so, that is cool. Just my two thoughts.

Infils can't counter vehicles. checkmate!

Medics are pretty piss poor at it too. If you let a MEDIC get you with C4, you deserve that death a thousand times over.

Also nobody but HA can counter Air, so no, everybody can't counter everything.

Also, considering how many HA's I usually kill before they finally bring me down, I find "counter" a bit of a misnomer... they can fight back but they're hardly a counter.

He did say that there are exceptions. Paragraph 2, line 3.

LAs are the new AA, new meta confirmed.

I didn't think we were counting MAXes (which can only effectively fight 1 thing at a time as well requiring loadout swapping to change designated targets... with some minor exception for AV weapons killing inf, but it's definitely less effective. If anything, the MAX ideolizes the OP's concept of choice)

Yo

You cant counter Ravens

Well due to everything being nerfed, you have limited options of what you can use these days and in the strikers case, what you dont use.

Specialization won't be a thing because this game caters to casuals and frowns upon teamwork.

If you could get an actual platoon functioning as a platoon, things might be different. With different roles assigned (not picked) to each member and having enforceable orders, you might be able to count on your AT soldier to be there when you need him.

But PS2 is all about chickens running around with their heads cut off. Very few outfits have the ability to work together well and to have the necessary discipline that would let specialization work.

It's not just a PS2 thing... all gamers are getting more incompetent as time goes on. In Battlefield 2 they had 7 different classes, each fairly specialized in their own role. But BF4 simplifies this to a mere four classes... and three of the four have access to anti-tank weapons (versus 3 out of 7 for BF2).

Personally, I would love it if they forced specialization on infantry in the same way that it is forced on Lightnings... you get one role and one role only (AI, AV, or AA). That would be the fair and logical thing to do. If I'm a Skyguard, I know I need to hang around AP tanks in order to fend off enemy vehicles. And if I was an AV HA, I should need to stay near AI HAs in order to stay alive against enemy infantry.

People who couldn't handle teamwork would leave, and to me that's fine. Game is better off with a more dedicated group of players who stay for a longer period of time.

yeeaaaaaaaaahhh

I polay games for fun, not to follow orders.

So thank effing god this isn't that.

AP Lightnings are exactly the kind of generally capable units that OP complains about. They can engage pretty much anything in the game.

In a real rifle platoon with actually competent people running about, you have fairly intense specialization.

You get three of these:



Two are Grenadiers, who have 40mm grenade launchers (which are significantly more effective than in PS2) to give the squad extra firepower. And two are Automatic Riflemen, with light machineguns. Note how we don't expect our machinegunners to also carry rocket launchers (because that's just a stupid idea).

And you get one of these:



Two medium machineguns and two AT infantry. Not only that, but each of these weapon system has assistants, because operating a machinegun or ATGM is usually a team thing. So we have people who specialize in reloading.

And finally you have the leadership element:



Often times the Medic is not actually part of the platoon (assigned from above). But you have the Platoon Leader, the Platoon Sargent, the Communications guy, and the Artillery guy (because artillery is pretty much the most powerful weapon that infantry have access to, though sadly absent in PS2).

So out of a platoon of... 40, we have:
6 LMGs
6 40mm Grenades
2 GPMGs
2 AT
1 Medic

Pretty much everyone else... the remaining 23 people... are just riflemen.

That's what we call specialization.

Really? Because Lightning AP KPH is fairly low if you factor out enemy vehicle crew. Somewhere around 8 or so. This means that it is less effective against infantry than the starting sniper rifles (15 KPH) and battle rifles (13 KPH). In fact, if you factor out vehicle kills with the default rocket launchers, even those are more effective against infantry than the Lightning's AP cannon (11 KPH). Anything that infantry can carry will result in a higher KPH than what the Lightning's AP cannon can give you.

To find something as poor as an AP Lightning in an AI role, you need to go with Harasser Basilisks (6 KPH) or things like that.

In other words, there are very few things in the game worse for killing infantry than the Lightning's AP cannon (AA weapons like the Burster or Skyguard deliver extremely low KPHs). It is one of the most specialized things in the game.

This.... is.... NOT.... MMOARMA

This is an arcady FPS.

For your sake I hope you someday get the MMOA milsim game you so desperately crave but it will never be Planetside 2... nor should it be really... A mil sim game of the type you want should be modern or classic military based.

SciFi shooters is entirely the wrong scene for this.

If anything, future war will be even more ridiculous. Orbital Strikes would vaporize half a continent, or more.

They can engage infantry, but the only reason they seem to be effective against them is because you need a direct hit anyway since HEAT and HE are basically a bad joke.
Also they might take potshots at air, but they definitely can't engage them.
The colonel is right, that is exatly what OP is looking for - or would be looking for if tank balance wasn't so screwed up.

... No they won't.
They might be CAPABLE of vaporizing a continent, but they won't.

Either you get some kind of MAD standoff and there won't be any significant war at all.
Or they simply won't fire it because reducing whatever you want to conquer to smoldering ashes is kinda defeating the purpose of waging war. Except if your one and only goal is genozide and simply exterminating your enemy.

This is just splitting hairs, but that's not really "war" anymore, is it? That's a genocide.

Don't want them rebuilding to fight you again do ya?

It was hyperbole and intentional exageration anyways.

Real point is we really don't know WTF it will be like, so making any assumptions is inane. Likely however, it will all be done with drones/robots.

Hey, maybe some clones too!

Really. Maybe it's just me, but I don't really feel threatened by infantry, nor do I have any particular difficulty in engaging them. At no point do I ever feel punished by a lack of AI for picking the AV weapon.

I suppose I can't spam it at doorways, but that... really doesn't seem like a big deal.

Well, it's how we (USA) won WW2 against Japan.

Just commit genocide against an entire effing city (or 2).

Course, that led to Cold War later, where we had the standoff you speak of.......

And yeah, there's 3 reasons to fight a war.
To conquer/subjugate, in which case, no, you don't want to vaporize everything (you might vaporize a bunch to crush their fighting capacity though)
To exterminate, in which case this is absolutely what would happen
In defense against an agressor attacking for either of the aforementioned reasons, and in which again vaporizing could well be a viable choice if available (back to what we did in WW2)

As per my post above this though, I wasn't really being serious

I like more specialized roles as well. The general adaptability we get now makes it too simple for me. Still very fun, but a bit more complexity would really make this game even more so, imo. I've always preferred more of a hard counter approach in the game.