Love the Vehicle Buffs! But....

So, the vehicle(s) control the area and what happens exactly if there's no point to flip?

I think the idea is that the sphere of influence of the "point" is much larger then a standard point and you need to keep tanks inside of it instead of infantry to "flip" this style of point. the force that can keep the larger amount of tanks present keeps the point from flipping and or starts to capture it.

Well, that's what I thought but then Axiom said there was no point to flip... So, I guess this would make it harder to take a base unless you had enough people to help camp the vehicle points.

Hatesphere, pretty much answered what I had envisioned, Vehicles do not have to sit and defend a single point, but rather control an Area by keeping enemy vehicles out of it. The other thing to consider is a vehicle objective like this might not even need to be tied to a single base, but to multiple bases adjacent to this objective or it may just offer the faction that controls it a benefit of some sort.

For instance, lets consider the nice wide open area between Vanu Archives, Crossroads, Zeno Tech, TI-Alloys (one of my favorite vehicle battle grounds), we place a vehicle tower roughly in the center between those bases that allows vehicles to swap out their load outs without needing to spawn a new vehicle, this would be an objective that any empire that is that area would like to control, this would give vehicles an objective to fight over. Or maybe the tower increases or decrease the capture times for the surrounding adjacent bases, it wouldn't necessarily be needed to capture any of the connected bases, but it would speed up or slow down the process of capturing if your faction controlled the area around it.

We could even do the same thing for Air vehicles, give them an objective close to the flight ceiling, that wouldn't be influenced to greatly from ground vehicles or infantry, that would give that faction a benefit if their air vehicles could keep it under their control.

^ Now that, I like!

TLDR:
1) most Vehicles are currently motivated to Farm or do Holiday Events.
2) forcing players to play as one unit in a mixed unit game is lame.
3) If Infantry and Vehicles are tired of 1& 2, then SOE needs to add other objectives for Vehicles.

It has to do with what the STATED and UNSTATED objectives and rewards in the game are. And how these motivate/compel players to do things. And how much those things are what players and/or SOE want.

The game's STATED objectives are:
1) For Infantry: Cap bases
2) For Infantry OR Vehicles: Support or Prevent Infantry from Capping bases

The game's UNSTATED objectives are:
1) For Infantry: To Cap most* base requires Infantry, Kill/Death Stat is about the death of the Infantry player, some Directives, etc.
2) For Vehicles: Pumpkin Hunt and Snow Man hunt are mostly about vehicle play, some Directives.
3) For Infantry OR Vehicles: Destroying Infantry/Beacons/Sunderers to prevent Infantry from Capping, or doing things to get XP, Certs, Rank, Implants, and some Directives.

What this boils down to is this:
A) For PS2's STATED OBJECTIVES, all Vehicles are totally optional, Infantry is mandatory.
B) For PS2's UNSTATED OBJECTIVES, >>>>>>most Vehicles should Farm (often Infantry) or do Holiday events<<<<<.

Generators used to require Infiltrators or Light Assaults to destroy them and no Vehicle could travel through shields. Under that system, either Infiltrators or Light Assault were Mandatory. Why did they change it? Cause Infantry players don't want to have to stop playing other classes, just to spawn and play as Infil/LA, in order to complete the game's Stated Objective: >>>>>>>>forcing players to play as one unit in a mixed unit game is lame.<<<<<<<<<

===

* Some bases a Vehicle can drive/fly to the Cap point, hop out briefly to Cap, then hop back in their Vehicle. I think these types of base Caps are close to Vehicle play because they just require brief moments of exiting the vehicle, similar to what Vehicle players do when they repair their vehicles.

We should start a thread for "Alternate Objectives for PS2" or "Vehicle Objectives for PS2".

What kind of Objectives to games like World of Tanks have?

Becuase, We Vehicle Pilots perfer to use vehicles instead of infantry becuase the game allows it. If we wanted to run around and play Gun games with people, We would probably be off playing CoD/BattleField/TitanFall/*Insert FPS here*

Why do people make this game "sides" Does no one remember Planetside 1? That game YOU HAD TO CHOOSE. You couldnt just be everything with a simple change of loadout, Where you had SET certs, You were a tanker, a max, a Badass Heavy, A stealthy Sniper, And you had to wait Days+ to change.

It would be interested to have objectives that vehicles have a purpose to be in, So that we arent just Stereotyped into the Immobile *HE CERT FARMING KILLING MACHINE* That every person here thinks is the point.

Yes, When people make it easy for you to farm, its easy to farm, but its not fair to lump anyone who doesnt conform to modern "THE SINGLE SOLDIER SHOULD BE THE BEST GOTDAM THING ON THIS SIDE OF THE EARTH" Theory of FPSs, as 'ruiners of your beloved Planetside 2'

"Or help your team"

So when tankers blow up all the other tanks pinning you infantry outside, or destroy the sundies spewing enemies at you, we're not helping your team?

There is no radical transformation by having tanks be useful.

And yes, they should be able to NEVER leave their tank. It's a style of play that is entirely valid. (unless they die)

No you wouldn't. Because from what I can tell, most people who rely on vehicles in this game have bad reaction times and twitch skills. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I think most of you wouldn't last one day in those competitive FPS's if you didn't have a vehicle to slink into.

I'm not saying you shouldn't use vehicles, clearly you didn't get my point. But why the constant calls for giving you a "purpose"? Play the game to have fun.

Do you think the infantry side of things is particularly deep? Fight for control point, redeploy. Fight for that control point, redeploy. Gal drop, fight for control point, redeploy. Etc etc

I mean, that's not very dynamic either. It gets just as old and tedious at times as sitting in your tank. I don't think adding outdoor control points for you to vehicle zerg over is going to change much.

You have a purpose NOW. Hello? All the tools are there for you in this game, you just have to use them. People don't HE farm because there's no magical vehicle "objective" for them to go do. Come on. They're going to farm regardless.

We were doing aggressive Battle Sundy ops last night. Supporting base captures and enemy denial. Often driving them right into the bases, by the control points, and helping break stalemates.

It sure FELT to me that it gave me a purpose. That vehicles can be used to make a difference, and that I wasn't being shunned away from the larger metagame by being a vehicle driver.

But then again, I was driving a Sundy. A teamwork oriented vehicle with amazing synergy when used with infantry. Not being a lone wolf MBT spammer bored out of his mind.

The sunderer is only vehicle that can do thanks to blockade armour and natural high resistances.
Try it in an MBT kitted out for AI or even a harasser and see how well you do.

My hypothesis is that the vehicle buffs are necessary for the addition of the next phases of the resource revamp that will have bases draining their own pool of available nanites while requiring 'supply runs' to replenish said nanites.

Also, if vehicles are getting a buff, the Spear Phalanx base turrets need a serious buff as well. It's already difficult to keep them running as is. There are so many up-armored vehicles around nowadays because of High-BR players, it's very difficult to keep them up for a reasonable time.

I thought this was a "combined arms" game?

If the Sunderer is the best tool for the job, stop crying and dump some certs into one. You might even find you LIKE being a team player too. Stranger things have happened.

I can answer your question.

The reason people use vehicles, CURRENTLY, is because of these reasons:

1. They are Big.
2. They look Cool.
3. They do alot of Damage.

But what do vehicles actually do for you? Well quite honestly. Not much. They get you certs when you kill other vehicles and farm infantry. But do they actually help you take a base? I mean really, do they help you get that point?

Sometimes depending on the base. They can help. Some bases have places that vehicles can sit and bombard high traffic areas, or even the spawnroom itself. But these areas are slowing being fixed so this can't happen. This also boring for most tankers and also frustrating for defenders. Not good play.

Some bases have open air capture points. Vehicles do help take these bases. But they are few and far between. Half a dozenish per continent where there is literally 70+ bases. So less than 10% of bases in the game.

So for the other 90% of the game. What do vehicles do? Not much other than they are Big, Cool, and do alot of Damage. To put it simply, they roll around and kill things. While the infantry go in and do all the real stuff. And for objective oriented players they get to have all the fun.

Why can't objective and team oriented players also get their vehicle fix too? Well I believe they should.

I don't agree with the OP. I do NOT believe there should be a mechanic that the more vehicles in an area should net you a win by holding with more than your opponent. I do NOT believe that vehicles should EVER be Required to do anything in the game. The game focuses on infantry and combined arms.

So what I would suggest, and I've said it before, is bases need a redesign with new layouts and new dynamic structures.

To put it simply, the bases need destructible sections of walls, floors, and ceilings that have high resistance to infantry explosives (you could use C4 and rockets, but you'd be there a while) but can be blown open relatively easily by vehicle heavy weapons. Doing so would do one of two things:

1. Provide an alternative attack route to an objective.
2. Deny an alternative route for defenders.

In either case, the defenders (owners of the base) could repair these sections with engineers, but doing so is obviously hard as the destroyed section makes them exposed to concurrent fire.

At no point would vehicles be required as opening or denying routes in this manner would NOT be required to take the base. You could drop in as nothing but infantry and take a base as normal. But using vehicles would allow you alternate routes that give more options and throw the defenders off guard.

This serves the following purposes:

1. Makes non-transport vehicles viable in base captures without requiring them and zerging doesn't make things any easier than it does now.
2. Gives more vehicles a chance to fight each other (defenders will need to learn to pull them from previous bases).

Imagine if you could directly Gal drop on a Biolabs's SCU gen by blowing open a section of the roof. Or attack a Gen directly from blowing the wall next to it at an Amp Station? Or perhaps blow a bridge/tunnel leading from a spawn area, requiring the defenders to expose themselves as they rush to the various points and gens?

This doesn't make bases harder to defend. Well it makes it more complex. It now requires the defenders to think as much as the attackers have to. They can't simply just pile people on point and wait for the attackers. They have to proactively deploy vehicles in a defensive posture around critical points. Something that isn't done very much now.

The sunderer is the only tool for that job & many others. That's not combined arms.

But then again, I was driving a Sundy. A teamwork oriented vehicle with amazing synergy when used with infantry. Not being a lone wolf MBT spammer bored out of his mind.[/quote]

Lonewolf MBT? Try MBT 1 of 6, AP loadout, Hunting down Enemy Sundies and vehicles, To INsure that the rest of my platoon has the ability to maintain a cap. Vehicles have saved and lost bases. Alot of people seem to forget that Vehicles are the Hard counter of Vehicles.

Im never Bored of MBT, If i am, Im not going to play the game, No reason to force myself to play the game if im bored.

The Sundy is a great vehicle. But between battles, You probably have the most boring job, Sit deployed. For 5-20 Minutes, and watch out for stealthy engineers and LAs...

Not all tanks are Mountain clinging HE death machines. I Poll my vehicles to hard counter vehicles, Destroy spawns, destry HE spammers, and Secure Victory's for my team and Faction.

Since INFANTRYSIDE always get to ask for features, Beg for nerfs, demand change, Why the **** cant Vehiclesiders ask for some extra shiny meta, Since thats all you guys ***** about, Meta this, Meta that. There is no meta, There is no ENDGAME. You Push the Line until the other faction quits/Switches to the other fight, or the alert is over, and your team locks the cont. Then you just switch and do it again. INfantry gets on point, Locks down the Spawn, Gets certs.

Vehicles follow the wave, Kill any other vehicles, and get certs.

The meta is at the hands of Command Channel and the player him/herself.

Lots of infantry oriented players complain about HE spam but in truth, relatively few HE tanks are pulled (there are 5 times more AP tanks).

Same with the MBT secondaries - nearly always anti-vehicle weapons. Most MBTs are pulled with the single purpose of killing other vehicles. Sure they can take pot-shots at infantry - and can shoot at a spawn room - but that is not the reason why they are pulled; more 'trying to be useful' when there are no more enemy vehicles.

Maybe if there was something else to do, it may stop that ? It isn't much fun anyway...

Basically what the second guy who responded to OP said. Vehicles are doing exactly what they're meant for, supporting, protecting, transporting infantry so they can take the objectives. If you dont want to leave your tank/plan that's fine, but they are doing their jobs. Or you can play Warthunder

If anybody wants to see less vehicles running around looking for something to do in bases all that SOE has to do is increase the vehicle despawn times to 15 minutes (or longer).

Suddenly drivers can assist in pushing into a base, then get out of their vehicles and assist in taking a point or two... you know, cause with the current miniscule 5 min timer they are kind of stuck inside their expensive metal cans.

Also, sneaky infantry can run around blowing up unoccupied vehicles, and drawing some infantry away from capture points.