Game Update 04: Coming soon!

Exactly this. Running out of a camped spawn room is just stupid. How about spawing at another base, get an own tank and some other dudes and blow the attackers of the first base to bits.

Who the hell invented the idea, that this is primarily an infantry game? Wherever one can use vehicles because the area and overall terrain features allow it, one should. This pretty much is how real life combat is done.

Or perhaps you could use a vehicle to engage the vehicles instead of insisting on the odd ball idea that infantry should trump vehicles.

Have you used the rocket pods since December? You have to hit people directly with multiple rockets to kill them now....

Soooo, They're not unlocking the empire equivalent with SC? That's kinda really stupid.

Actually it means we have to make 2 accurate shots for every 1 accurate shot the other MBT's make.

No, it doesn't. One accurate shot will still 1HK. Missing by a hair and hitting with splash damage will no longer 1HK.

I think this is a phenomenal point and the deciding factor will be after these changes whether or not we, the community, are dealing with a silent majority of vehicle lovers. It sounds outlandish but for argument's sake we'll say 25% of players post on the forums, 15% routinely - based on nothing but a hunch...

If, overnight, vehicles are simply made obsolete then the case is strong that many will be looking for any venue to sound their frustations with one of the only shooters that allows vehicular combat on this scale.

Of course, if this is not the case, then I would expect PlanetSide 2 to become more-and-more a so-called 'traditional shooter' with the primary imputes on infantry combat.

boohoo?

you have two barrels and can correct for a miss and still land damage for a possible direct hit OHK or splash damage and an assist.

I'll start by saying I find this a little forceful to a member of the community that we are paying you to foster. I would not take such a tone with waitstaff or a secretary, and I pay you a lot more money, overall, than them.

That said, there are obvious holes in this argument, Mr. Higby, other empires do indeed take a reload between shots, but they only aim, calculate and have to 'land' the one for a kill. A prowler now must hit twice - and quickly, too - to achieve the same goal. I wonder to the percentage of 'lucky shots' in the game and making a shot need be repeated for the same effect is simply foolhardy as you remove that factor completely.

As I stated in a previous post (page 30) removing the superfluous barrel on the Prowler is a better solution than an effective 50% damage reduction to Prowler damage against infantry.

Phrased differently this is simply outlandish:

'the Terran tank now must shoot twice as much to achieve the same outcome as every other tank in the game.'

This is factually supported, and fundamentally flawed.

I love all the people ******** about the rocket launchers without even having played them once.

"TR will have low damage!" How the **** can you possibly know that?

It is a likely hypothesis if for no other reason than it was stated the TR weapon will fire several rockets. If all rockets were high damage the weapon system would be doubtlessly unbalanced and this is unlikely to go unnoticed.

In that statistically improbable scenario i could still 1hk 2 people. The gun is not balanced for that scenario.

Yep, and what it ACTUALLY means is that while endlessly running from C4/Tank miners, I have to make 2 rolling shots that count to not die. So now our softer less maneuverable tank that has the advantage of speed with a special feature that locks us in place.... has no advantage for its unique barrels set up. Blather all you want, this is just another step of homogenizing the game into Quake wars.

I think its safe to say a great part of the community takes issue with this feature. I admit it will take implementation to 1. Galvanize the community to be loud enough for action and 2. See how the nerf actually performs,

but overall this is a poor design decision.

Stop the QQing.

Your tank has the least drawback for missing a shot.
Your tank has the highest damage per reload.
Your tank has the highest DPS.
Your tank has the second highest projectile velocity (with lock down it should be even higher than the Vanguard's).
Your tank has the most effective HEAT shells out of all factions.

Seriously... just stop. You make all TRs look bad.
And most likely 3 shots will suffice for most people. So we are still looking at two full shots on NC/VS vs 1.5 shots on the TR side.

Great job on providing a regular stream of updates. That's definitely the way to run any MMO.

I would like to point out a few things based on the information you've provided to us though:

1. It is already dangerous running a tank due to the many things that can attack you, primarily rocket pods from ESFs and C4/tank mines from infantry. A lot of people use tanks, yes, but I think that's partly because a lot of people do not have the framerate to fight in infantry combat effectively. I am a Prowler driver, and I have no issue with the changes being made to my main gun weapons. I freely admit that HE rounds annihilated infantry. That is, of course, their job, but I can see how they may have been too effective at it. I simply want to suggest that they should still be *reasonable* at it. Please make sure they still are.

2. I am very, VERY concerned about the new empire specific rocket launchers. The Vanu and the NC ones look like they'd eradicate enemy vehicles with not a whole lot of risk involved, with the Lancer being an antivehicle sniper weapon and the Phoenix giving the user a lot of protection if they are adequately guarded, which I'm pretty sure they will often be. The TR one seems strong but does not offer this kind of protection. I would recommend the following:

a. The Lancer (Vanu) should have a prefire delay, meaning after you release the charge it should take some short period of time to fire. This time should probably be based on how long it took to charge the weapon. Also, any target within crosshairs should receive a warning (lock-on is fine) so that they have a chance to move. This would encourage situational charging of the weapon (different lengths for different situations) and encourage strategy.

b. The Phoenix (NC) should give a lock-on warning to the target. I'm sorry, but if it functions as you stated, this weapon is going to be ridiculous. Even with a lock-on warning it's going to be difficult to avoid. IR smoke, by virtue of obscuring sight may help somewhat but I think it's all we can do to give a tank warning that they need to move NOW.

c. I would also like to point out that forcing a tank to move is going to make it difficult for it to fight back, so it's not a free pass to tanks/aircraft. Without these changes I see a lot of vehicles dying very, very often in ways people are going to scream about. With these two above changes I see a lot of tanks running away constantly, which is also going to be troubling, but not as much.

3. I'm going to echo some other people here in saying that it is not a good idea to simultaneously nerf a game aspect and buff the danger level to it. If it goes badly, which it looks like it will, you're just going to have to patch to rebalance it, and it may cause you to lose players in the process.

4. As a possible way to help tanks, please consider expanding proximity (not scout) radar to a reasonable level (100 or 150 meters at max) so that they can at least find the infantry that are going to assault them. I feel this would go a long way towards helping the problem in a way that involves strategy, which is always good.

I don't mean any disrespect but your information is incorrect.

We're the middle ground to the Vanguard, your statement that we have the 'second highest' sounds impressive but you're considering only 3 empires. Our DPS is exactly what we're discussing and it's the DPS that's being dropped. HEAT also is being reduced per 'reduction in area-of-effect damage' for all vehicles mentioned on page 1. Your statement of 1.5 shots is innaccurate referencing Higby's statement that TR will now need to reload for infantry kills, this makes it at least 2. Equal to other empires, which is also what he said.

This seems aggressive and doesn't add much.

That is what I liked about PS1, each fraction had their own weapons that did different stuff. the vehicles rules the open ground whilst the infantry where deadly in urban environments. I put my MBTs long range ability to good use to suppress infantry from a distance. now i cannot even do that with the amount of lock on fired missiles around and i have the 2nd level of smoke. Even the dumb fired missiles are incredible accurate over a large distance. now on top off all this I wont be able to kill infantry with my HE because it will have the same blast radius of a 40mm HE grenade IRL (5m dia) i know this isn't RL but u think well a tank has a ton of gadgets and firepower, infantry should be scared. However they arnt, one LA does a simple flank and your dead. You are either dead because you have smoke to stop the 50 lock-ons or you are dead from a planted explosive because you couldn't put on proximity scan. This game is going like BF3, cant even kill infantry unless you shoot them with the main cannon 50 times.

1. Follow your own advise and stop QQing about the prowler or other tanks in general
2. Get your facts straight before you post... This makes you and the VS look even worse... seeing as most people agree VS is ez mode
3 the appropriate solution to a "problem" if there ever was one, is not nerfing the Prowler, but Buffing the Mag, and Vanguards splash damage.. or here is a novel idea.. BUFF FLAK ARMOR.. A CHOICE THAT CAN BE CERTED INTO BY INFANTRY!!!!!
4 the correct facts are as follows;

1 Prowlers DO have several draw backs
* least armored tank
*largest rear target
*large side target for other tanks to shoot at while strafing.
*Anchor-mode kills any advantage our tank had with speed, making us a setting duck, with the weakest armor.
*You must land both shots to do considerable damage against opposing tanks, 1 shot simply means that you are dealing sub optimal damage (which is the case mot often played out the greater the range)

2 Prowlers do not have the highest damage per shot, they were 50% of the vanguard originally... now post patch 60%.. thus we do not have the highest damage payload per reload... the only way that statement is true is if every time we fired both shots we hit our target.

3 Yes, the Prowler can have the highest DPS, BUT this is only true if one assumes that both shots always hit their target, but this is life and fortune is never that favorable, so most often times were not hitting with both shots.

Yes the prowler has a higher projectile speed, and with lock down it is higher however we have to trade our maneuverability for higher fire rates.. a fair compromise,but its still a compromise none the less. considering we make ourselves easier to hit by just about everything so we can squeeze off a few more shots before we get blasted to charred remains.

...Cloaking for the flash? So we can now come out of nowhere and run over enemy infantry like ghostly cavalry?