I enjoy this game. Despite all of the negative nancies, crying, and doomsday predictions, it's a fun game. It isn't perfect and there are of course issues that I'd love to change (flash buggy, 3x loadscreen, flicker bug, etc.) but it's all minimal compared to my biggest problem in the game: Vehicles. When I load the game, I'm infantry. A person with two legs and a gun. And as soon as I leave the building, I'm met with an armada of tanks and airships. Vehicles I can do essentially nothing against unless I spend certs. The free HA launcher only does so much - it can handle a tank or a damaged sunderer, but it can't do squat against an aircraft. To deal with something that people can get for free, I have to spend 1000 certs or $7.50. Out in the field away from a class console, you have to rely on mines or C4 - which, by the way, is class-specific and doesn't carry over if you buy it. An Infiltrator can't do jack. Lack of reasonable counterplay aside, it's decidedly less fun. Having 50 tanks and 10 aircrafts sit on a base until it caps is significantly less fun than having 200 infantry assault a base against 200 defenders. Infantry gameplay in this game is, above and beyond, more fun than vehicle. I know a lot of you have been part of those awesome fights where it's just a bunch of guys and gals shooting at another bunch of guys and gals. Few tanks, few aircrafts - just guns, grit, and glory. Of course, I know vehicles are a very big part of the PS universe and an intrinsic part of the game - much like friendly fire, though it enables a degree of griefing. I'm not asking to get rid of vehicles entirely, that'd be ridiculous and isn't really what I want. My suggestion is simply to create servers or continents wherein the only vehicles allowed are flashes and sunderers.
No, the reason why tank spamming is so widely abused is because the blitzkrieg strategy is astonishingly effective in real life (the same way with air support and bombing). Taking away its effectiveness would make this game tactically unrealistic, which is not and should not be the goal of the developers. I am all for continents that feature terrain encumbering to tanks and aircraft, but removing those altogether is silly. Also, a single soldier is not supposed to be able to take down a single tank if they meet on equal terms, otherwise there would be no point in having armor. Instead of what you suggest, I propose more countermeasures such as artillery, fixed anti-tank guns, and a system for sunderers (and some other vehicles as they are added) that can deploy mines in bulk. Also, even without artillery, blitzkriegs can be stopped with an organized resistance. Two days ago, Azure Twilight obliterated a major tank rush by the Enclave in the mountain pass from the Quartz Ridge Camp to Hvar by properly using terrain advantages and setting up points to shoot from. Also, infantry battles are not uncommon, they just do not occur in the open field as often as tank battles.
I'm not arguing its effectiveness. I think it's incredibly effective, in fact - probably too much so. I just simply feel that taking out vehicles, sans flash/sunderer, would make the game more entertaining. Putting in your suggestions would help the situation, but I feel infantry combat is just so much more fun when there aren't vehicles around to piss on everyone's parade.
They just need to alter base designs so vehicles (air more so) can't just AOE damage spam right up to the cap point & spawn.
Well, altering base design is nice, but there's plenty of vehicle v. infantry outside of a base that needs to be addressed.
No one else is tired of aircrafts you have to pay to fight? No one else is has experienced and misses the huge infantry v. infantry fights?
Fun thread, it was nice to consider for a moment. It would never happen but it's nice to dream. It's just not the direction the developers want to take this game, they like overpowered tanks and aircraft. A good example, Higby was asked over a video interview to comment on rocket podding when it first became a big problem in the game, his response of a very long, very unprofessional laugh followed by the suggestion that anyone tired of getting killed by overpowered aircraft should just fly one themselves. That's the lead developer.
It wouldn't help. Already on Waterson the most feared vehicle in the game is a battle bus. Full Blockade armor, tricked out dual basilisks, and racer chassis. It can take 7-8 AP tank shells and decimate anything with both .20 cals trained on target. I have seen these things take out 2-3 MBTs with ease.
MY suggestion is spending 100 certs on the Rotary hopping in your ESF and learning to fly for Air. Most kills in the air are with that baby. Don't forget 100 certs for flares though or else you will be plonked by A2A quite often. When it comes to ground units if your side is not derping, MBT's stock gun is generally the best in my opinon as its good enough at both softie men-men and vroom vrooms to make a difference. Likewise with the lightnings if you learn how to use it. If not the AP gun is what 500. I personally think the complete lack of infantry capability is too much of a trade off. Yeah thats right, I rock around with my HEAT VG. What people don't really ken with vehicles si that... you know hitting from the back, or the sides at a push hurts them way more right? The Armour is directional. And as I've been saying a few times now, the effective counter to EVERYTHING is organisation. Join an outfit with coms if your really struggling. I think people lack imagination.
TLDR; I do not want to spend money or the time to cert into more effective weapons to counter vehicles. Nor do I want to spawn a ground or air vehicle to counter those enemy vehicles. I want to play one role as infantry ONLY and be able to counter every situation in this game. IMO Infantry gameplay is more fun than a vehicle, therefore either vehicles need to be nerfed, infantry buffed or a new map that caters to my desires be created for me, so that I can continue to play for free and not move on to one of the hundreds of other FPS titles that revolve around Infantry, rather than the combined arms approach that is Planetside.
No, I do not feel that money/certs should be required to counter something which people get for free. You got me. Guilty. I'm sorry, but spawning an air just to combat air is bad design. Imagine if the only way to beat a Heavy was to play a Heavy. Would you then say "Heavy is the frontline fighter, a medic shouldn't be able to kill it." Correction: I think the infantry play in this game is significantly more fun when there are no vehicles around to yuck everyone's yum. Of course it's my opinion. What am I, an ambassador? Nice try at trying to make me sound like a needy, entitled child. I'm not demanding a server be made so I can play ball with my rules, I'm letting the developers know that there's interest in something like that - an idea I've seen before, external to me. The infantry gameplay in PS2 is extraordinary and I would love a place where people could experience more of it without vehicles to lessen the experience.
Seriously dude, MBT HEAT is stock, its a completely viable counter. Likewise the stock Lighting gun is doable as well. Whats important more than anything is flanking vechicles and doing it in an organised fashion and in force, not what your doing it with. Again like I've said, organisation is the counter to everything. A stock sundy, rolling out and put in a flanking position and then ******** HAs with stock launchers, will stop even fancy smanshy vehicles. The Stock ML on the HA could be better sure. But the decimator arguably the best in game, has the same mechanic for use. All the other launchers trade off damage for the ability to lock and in the case of the annihilatior are just a pain in the *** to use. Where as the AP cannon. I certed up for, at 500. trades off any infantry damage for a bit more than the heat on vehicles. So I personally use the stock HEAT on my vanguard opposed to it. and Roll it only on the odd occasion there is a heavily armoured sundy about I know I can chase down. Or during absurd magider spams with no infantry in which infantry damage is not a problem. The issue is more than anything else, flanking them. hitting them in the side or preferably the rear, 4-5 people in stock MBT's even against the zerg = kerboomsies. The only.. only exception to this in my opinion is the 1000 cert/700sc Dalton for the Lib. However, this is only 'the best' counter to vehicles if the airspace is clear and its also a ***** to use. Most Lib's with daltons however are perfectly chewupable by anyone who can be bothered to cert 100 into the rotary. I'm sorry, but based on the evidence I have thus presented. I don't think its as bad as your making out.
I didn't need to make you sound like a needy, entitled child, you did that all on your own. I just pointed it out.
Or, you know, you could get your own aircraft for free and fight them... I know, it is a bit revolutionary idea, but you will thank me later.
