MBTs, Harassers and impossible balance...

I wanted to comment because I heard that Harassers are getting a nerf as they apper to be OP compared to other vehicles.

I believe this stems back to the decision in BETA to allow players to effectively drive and gun MBT's single handedly. Lets preface by saying MBT's by nature are supposed to be the tankiest and highest DPS vehicle in the pocket, as the name would suggest, moreso than the Harasser (light scout) vehicle atleast. It does have higher armor. And it does have Higher DPS. Logic would suggest separate driver/gunner to unlock the full potential but SOE in their infinite wisdom chose otherwise and gave the power to a single player.

The OP impression the Harasser gives out (I believe) is because Harasser is a minimum of 2 players to play effectively. The Harasser driver gets to exclusively concentrate on driving and the gunner on gunning. More often than not in my experience, it is this compartmentalisation of tasks that allow the Harasser to come out on top versus MBT's. Driver gets to evade shots and plan movement. Gunner gets to shoot.

Now lets just consider that there are 2 players in the Harasser and 1 in the MBT, aggregate "power-per-player" would dictate that the Harasser SHOULD have the advantage, considering that there's twice the player count present. Its LOGICAL that Harasser should defeat 1man MBT every time. Its just absurd because of the vehicle descriptions of MBT vs Light Scout vehicle.

My point is that HARASSER doesnt need a nerf at all. Infact trying to balance the HARASSER by nerfing attributes will just compound the problem. The real issue about balance and the ground-vehicle war is that the MBT is not driver / gunner separate as it ALWAYS SHOULD HAVE BEEN FROM DAY DOT.

Making the MBT 2 man minimum would allow that MASSIVE CANNON and MASSIVE ARMOR to be used as effectively as it possibly can be, and would probably be enough to show that the Harasser isnt the problem.
With MBTs as 2 man minimum crew, it would be presented as a straight up choice of Tankiness/DPS (MBT), versus Speed/Agility, with no consideration to how many crew is available as it would be the same for each.

1 crew - get a MBT.
2 crew - get a Harasser.
Just seems wrong that the lowest crew requirement goes to (what should be) the more powerful vehicle.

Should be....
1 crew - get a Lightning
2 crew - get a Harasser or MBT

I still feel its ridiculous walking past MBT's thinking "Thats the Solo vehicle of Planetside2". It shouldnt be. Thats exactly what the Lightning is for, right? Doesnt the current MBT implementation make the Lightning obsolete anyway (exept skyguard)?

TLDR: The absurdity and imbalance of MBT vs Harasser is because of the inherent probelm with the MBT - No separate gunner. I forsee that balancing while still preserving this flawed aspect of MBTs will be tricky/impossible. Didn't even look to learn from PS1.

Balance will be impossible while VS is a faction.

Except MBT's aren't one-man vehicles. An MBT without a gunner is a free kill for literally ANYTHING.

The issue people have with MBTs is when there are 600 of them around a base, and that's not actually an issue with tanks, it's an issue with population and zerging.

The current state of tanks only encourages actual certed 2/2 tanks to join the zerg to avoid being stomped 1v1 by an ESF, Harasser, or infantry unit.

Balance will be impossible when TR weaponry is just a upgrade from the NS stuff

Balance is impossible while factions have different weapons.

Hell, I bet even if SOE ninjapatched all weapons to be identical people would still complain about OP/UP.

Don't worry, the Harasser is getting adjusted just in time to announce empire-specific buggies!

/tinfoil hat

Correction. Balance is impossible while players still exist

Stop trying to defend your OP dune buggy.

The thing never should have been given AV weaponry in the first place, let alone Empire Specific AV weaponry.

The above quote is very true. The vehicle is NS so all factions are equal. All Faction's Engies have the same repair gun, so that is equal. The difference is the attached weapon. Those were not equal.

I wish Forumside could have separated the weapon from the vehicle in all their complaints. Now we are receiving an equal but lesser vehicle which does not address the real problem. The Harasser could have been given 'NS only' weapons also, and this would have resolved the issue. The Basalisk would have been great to have as a fixed mount because it is probably the most customizable NS weapon.

The game is balanced, nuff said.

EDIT : Halberd is broken , remove plz.

The Harasser simply should not have AV weaponry. It is a bit absurd that it can take out any other land-based threat in the game with impunity. Lightnings are nothing but free points, since they can neither fight back nor effectively run away. MBTs can at least fight back, but not terribly effectively, unless they've got just the right loadout. Sunderers don't have much hope, and Flashes are just there for the Harasser's amusement.

The Harasser should have only been equipped with light anti-infantry and multi-purpose weaponry, not dedicated anti-vehicle stuff, because it's quite silly for a buggy that is as fast or faster than every other ground vehicle in the game, many orders more maneuverable, and just as well armored to be armed with heavy-hitting tank-killing weaponry. Broken, man.

Should have had:
-Basilisk
-Kobalt
-Fury
-Possibly the Empire specific AI secondaries, but that's a bit debateable.

That's not really true. A Sunderer with two Basilisks (or Kobats) firing on the Harasser is going to make it pop rather quickly, and if it's in route to a base, it can simply have the rest of the infantry hop out and use small arms and rockets, in which case the Harasser doesn't really have much hope (unless it manages to turbo away in time).

Dual basilisks are nice for forcing a Harasser to stay at a distance, but the halberd is a great distance weapon. Plop it far enough away, or in any environment with ample hills or cover, and it can still chip down manned sunderers without much ever putting in itself in range, or exposing itself for long enough, for dual basilisks to be effective enough against it. The Harasser simply shouldn't have long range high alpha anti-vehicle weapons like that, because they synergize way, way too strongly with its high speed, small frame, and advanced maneuverability. A Halberd Harasser has very few threats on the battlefield.

Harasser should only have had the same weapons the sunderer was allowed to have. All these exotic AV nd ES weapons just make it too powerful. Remove those weapons from the game and reimburse us with certs.

Yes, but having different weapons is still worth it, and you can achieve close enough balance that it effectively doesn't matter.

The harasser being the fastest ground vehicle with nearly the best armor and firepower is the problem.

So while you're right that it'd be far less of a problem with 2-man-required MBTs (which could simply be outright more powerful than current harassers), the fact remains that as it stands the harasser's combination of speed, power, and durability is too strong.

The harasser by definition should be a skirmisher (a harasser.) It should be lightly armored, but fast and with great firepower so that it works by blindsiding people, taking them out, then running away when the big guns arrive.

By contrast, the role of a heavy tank is to exert dominance over an area. It sacrifices speed in favor of armor and firepower, and so should win a stand-up fight against any one foe. Letting a 2-man harasser beat a 1-man tank is fine, but a harasser should just outright lose to a 2-man tank and right now it's way too close.

Now with the specific changes proposed I do think we may double-whammy the harasser into uselessness. Reducing composite armor with no other changes would by its nature reduce the effectiveness of repairing while moving. Similarly, just reducing repairs in the back seat would reduce the total possible value of composite armor. Because the two elements are force-multipliers with one another, reducing both at once has the possibility of being an unexpectedly large balance change.

But certainly the Harasser should feel flimsy. It's a fast vehicle. If you want firepower, you should choose either armor (MBT) or speed (Harasser). You don't get both.

It should have less armor than it does currently, it moves far too fast to be able to take hits like it does. The guns hit a bit too hard compared to what a light vehicle should do. It seems like it should need to run through while the gunner shoots, but they're perfectly capable of sitting around and camping rather than just quick runs through areas.

Last night I took 4 shots with each of my comets directly at a harasser, flak 4 and the gun on it still just blew me up. Later I checked the players page and that same player went on a 39 kill-streak, ended by a tank mine somehow. He was the only one to die from that tank mine which makes me believe he was the only person in the harasser and was just hopping seats and being perfectly able to dominate people in a 1 man harasser.

The buggies should definitely keep their firepower, a Humvee can carry a TOW 2, so buggies with big guns are more than justified and logical.
The armor nerf is deserved, they are light wheeled vehicles, they need to avoid being hit and only have the protection to hive a second chance for the crew, but never a third when facing AP.
Light tracked vehicles are on the button right next to the one with "Harasser" written on it.

As I wrote in the other thread - swap the controls over primary and secondary weapons - the driver gets the small gun, the gunner gets the big one.

That way the driver can still shoot stuff, much like a Lib pilot, he's got an excellent view now, with his/her view port some 3 feet higher than before, and a 1/2 tank is not helpless...

But it ain't useful either, leading us to WANTING a gunner.

The gunner should also have some fun. Give each and every AP projectile a 20% increase to damage, each and every HEAT round +10% to direct damage and splash radius, and each HE round enough splash to kill if it hits within 1 meter, and injure if it hits within a nice 8-10 meters away.
Since HE shells are big, they should also have a partial stun effect, proportional to caliber.
Let the game be less of a farm for HE operators than what it used to be just after release, but those big @$$ shells should shatter the Earth when they go off.
This would also promote infantry and tank cooperation - one stuns, the other goes in for the kill.

Finally, to allow the 2 man tanks to have an advantage over the one man tanks, the final word in any tank battle - the main guns should be stabilized, and come with 3x, or even 4x zoom optics.

This leaves the Magrider.

Swap the damage output between the main gun and the secondary. The driver still has a cannon in the hull, the gunner still has a turret, but it's the gunner that gets the Supernova.
The driver? A Basilisk might sound odd, perhaps replace it with some lazerz based thingy, and have the Saron as the driver's weapon upgrade.

Halberd and Fury are not an issue.

Got it.

No worries, the game is steadily nerfing its playerbase.

We'd be better off with less players.
Those damn players, playing the game.

It would hardly increase the power of the tanks if driver and gunner gets separated. Infact it might do just the opposite. As Prowler and Vanguard needs to stop or slow down to shoot accurately it would just make things harder to coordinate with the gunner.

So stabilization would be the key to solve that, but then again having stabilization even with the current system would increase their effectiveness a lot. And then we have the Magrider. Turret faces forward so the driver is more than capable of doing both shooting and driving. Separating those roles would achieve nothing.

Also imagine only being able to drive a Vanguard. Now that would be boring as hell. Harasser is at least bit more fun for the driver due to the speed and being able to do stunts and roadkills.

As being said Harassers power comes from the combination of speed, armor, no directional weakness for the damage and the ability to repair while on the move. Not because it has separate gunner and driver. Just adjusting one of these would balance things out quite nicely. I think SOE might be going too far if they nerf many things at once.