My 2 Cents on MBTs

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by BeyondNInja, May 6, 2014.

  1. BeyondNInja

    My background: over 100hrs in a Vanguard, probably 1/3 driving, 2/3 gunning. Also spent some time in Magriders and Prowlers. I really enjoy the Magrider's gimmick, but while I recognise that the Prowler is very capable as an artillery platform, I find it somewhat meh/boring to play as. From my experiences on all factions I'm also very aware of how much invulnerability ruins the fun of otherwise evenly-matched fights.
    Here are my 2 cents on how to make MBTs better for all factions:

    1) Give all tanks same health/resist values as the Vanguard for back, top and sides. Imo the Prowler and Magrider feel too flimsy. Put the front resistance of the Prowler and Magrider somewhere between their current values and the Vanguard's.

    2) Give all tanks main turret stabilisation. Turrets that shake all over the place when going over the tiniest of bumps make for stale combat at medium ranges.This can all be averted by playing in 3rd person with a dot on the centre of your screen but why not just bypass the immersion-breaking middle man by implementing 19th century technology in our futuristic tanks. If necessary make it a sight option.

    3) Give main cannons a rangefinder and make the mil-dots consistent across all zoom levels. Also reduce the unnecessarily large drop on the Magrider's main cannons. There's simply no need for the Mag's guns to have so much drop.

    4) Give all tanks access to a coaxial Kobalt for use by the secondary gunner, in the defense slot. This would provide a meaningful alternative to nanite auto-repair, that is more specialised for defense against infantry, than armour. Also move proximity radar back to utility.

    5) To compensate for the kobalt being available independent of other secondary gun choices, make the ES AI secondaries specialise in group suppression like the PPA, to make it worthwhile trading off all AV damage. ie Unnerf the Marauder's splash radius, redesign the C85 cannister to a NC-style bulldog variant.

    6) Reduce the Saren's COF bloom and increase first shot accuracy slightly. Slightly reduce ROF cap if needed.
    Scrap the Vulcan (it was fun while it lasted but it will always be either OP or not worth taking due to range) and give the Enforcer to the Prowler, as a fully automatic, magazine fed mini-missile launcher suits TR more than NC.
    Give the Vanguard a NC-style halberd variant. Preferably an armour piercing railgun. Does not have to have super-high velocity (mainly because all the fans of the original Saren would die of jealousy) but it just needs to feel NC.

    7) Redesign the Vanguard Shield to a resist-style shield. Make the shield's level once again decide its duration, such as 6-9s, and give it something like 60-70% resistance (this is a ballpark figure as I'm not sure how resistances stack atm), modified by directional multipliers. Slightly improve the vanguard's stock reverse speed to compensate for its greatly reduced effectiveness at low health. Could also possibly make it's resistance vary based on the vanguard's health, ie more effective at lower health, less effective at full health, but still does not completely negate damage at any point. This could add greater tactical value to when it is triggered (will be less effective/wasteful if triggered early, may be too late if triggered while heavily damaged).

    8) Fix camo coverage on the Vanguard's armour plates. Seriously, the front and side armour look atrocious.
    • Up x 11
  2. iccle

    Think i love you. +1
  3. WarmasterRaptor

    How about switching the gun responsibilities?

    Driver gets the present secondaries.

    Gunner gets the primary turrets.

    You get the stabilization that every secondary gunner has. Driver gets a better defined role and you'll actually see more 2/2 MAIN battle tanks operating at full capacity.
    • Up x 4
  4. Aesir


    This doesn't directly work for all Tanks.

    For the Prowler it would because the maingun is the strongest weapon, but in case of the Magrider the Secondary is already the stronger weapon in most cases (Saron, PPA). So by that the Magrider already runs under your suggested system. For the Vanguard, not much would change, they actually are relatively balanced out in TTK with one another.

    Though I wouldn't mind having a Kobalt as the Driver and give my gunner something between a current Dalton and the current Titan turrets. Like it was told to us in beta ... that we might get different turrets to change to the more PS1 style of approach to multi seated combat Vehicles.

    Overall most of the changes are things that have been said so many times I don't even know anymore ... and I agree with most of them or would do similar things.
  5. FaLI3N

    Yes please, give me full control of the tank and the saron at the same time and watch me plink at everything from render range whilst dancing about like a freakin ballerina :D Or the PPA.. god dam it would be so much better than the VPC.
    • Up x 1
  6. dstock

    Doesn't the Saron already have perfect first-shot accuracy?
  7. Frozen-K

    If the magrider and prowler got armor buffs, the vanguard would need one as well, as it's meant to be the heaviest armored tank between the three. Making them less flimsy would help though. Having C4 not instagib the tank at full health would be a plus too, but have it disable/burn the tank with enough time for the driver to realize what happened and try to do something about it. Still a high chance of losing the tank, but not instant death (assuming the tank is undamaged before the C4).

    Stabilization is desperately needed. It'd help give tank battles a more flowing style instead of stopping to line up shots. Rangefinders would help immensely, and I'd also propose buffing the magrider's main cannon to have no drop (it's an energy shot) would justify its slower projectile speed. It'd also give its cannon a distinct advantage for ranged fights (albeit with another offset).

    Coaxial kobalt would go a long way in making that weapon see use on an MBT. Buffing the AI options for the NC/TR to the PPA would help get them to use them, since the marauder and C85 modified are kind of bad in comparison.

    Redesigning the faction specific AV weapons would be good too. Vulcan needs to be completely scrapped in favor of something that's more useful at range. It is nice at close range, but anything 50m past it's basically a 1v2 in terms of tank battles.

    Just my two cents.
    • Up x 1
  8. Flag

    I wouldn't change the resist values, but flat out give them more base HP.

    But that's just me.
  9. WarmasterRaptor

    Every MBT tank would finally get to be mobile, not only the purple ballerina. ;)
  10. BeyondNInja


    I know this is a very popular popular suggestion, and it definitely has its merits - I myself gun for dedicated tankers more often than I drive, and I've always liked how the distinction between primary gunner and driver/pilot works/worked on harassers and libs.

    However its a bit of a larger scale change/redesign issue than I was intending to suggest here. All of these changes were intended to make MBT combat and use directly better without any huge game-changes that would impact newer players just getting into tanking (without a dedicated gunner) or make tanks unfeasible off-peak (ie when no dedicated gunners are around - pub gunners are frustrating enough atm without the responsibility of controlling the main cannon).

    tl:dr I think its more of an overall design decision for SOE than something that fit with the other changes I suggested here.
  11. FBVanu

    YUP.. that's the answer..

    MBTs could also use a 4th slot.. put anything in it that you got certed.. would make all tanks more customizable and give better variations.. more fun.

    Gun stabilizing could make it too easy..? Same for a range finder. Too easy..?? Not much left to skill and experience after all those buffs..
  12. Arkenbrien

    I am a huge fan of the original Saron, and this would kill any last hope of the VS ever regaining the gun that made the Mag back. But sure, you can have a railgun if we get the old Saron. But SOE will probably pull the whiny pouty-face pathetically illogical typical "but it can't be a halberd' excuse.

    The moment the MBT does not die to 2 C4 is the moment I will weep with tears of joy.
  13. FaLI3N

    Every tank already is mobile you all just refuse to learn to aim with 3rd-person. I do it with racer 3 over all bumps and crappy terrain in a lightning that also has an off-center turret that is harder to do it with than the MBT's. I also did it with both the vanguard and the prowler all the time but now I am not the best at it because of all my time spent using the lightning's off-center shots.
  14. Gundem


    That'd actually be a huge nerf to C4. Right now, a single brick brings a MBT down like 75%, so I can take down 2 MBT's per life by waiting for a rocket or two to hit them first. Not that it's really balanced in the first place, but meh.

    Also, if tanks were to get turret stabilization, the Magrider would need HUGE strafe speed and acceleration buffs, as well as a major main gun velocity. If tanks could accuratly fire on the move, Magriders would just be demolished by even Lightnings in it's current state.

    And finally, we can keep the Vulcan in it's current state, but it'd need a major overhaul.

    Remove the spin-up, reduce the magazine size to Tank Buster levels, make CoF bloom static at 1.5, reduce damage drop-off to 100 meters starting, ending at 250. If needed, remove extended magazine cert, increase magazine size to 40 and slightly increase reload.

    Finally, put it's damage resist value on a separate table, so it gets low infantry damage but a huge tank multiplier.
  15. BeyondNInja


    I disagree. This is an unnecessary quality of life issues that bog down current tank combat. Skill should be about positioning and movement - not about who gets the luckiest with their randomly spasming tank turret.

    As for the rangefinder - its not something that's 100% necessary as its quite simple to overcome. But its again a basic quality of life thing that would add to immersion. And it wouldn't remove all challenge from hitting targets because if the gun stabilisation was implemented moving targets would be much more common (hence still requiring compensation on the x axis).
    • Up x 1
  16. BeyondNInja


    Well that's exactly my point - why force people to work around something by playing in 3rd person if they want the immersion of 1st person? If you put a dot in the centre of your screen in 3rd person it doesn't even require a significant amount of skill.
    • Up x 1
  17. Flashtirade

    Turret stabilization would help the Prowler make use of its speed in combat. I'd be okay even if they chop off some of the Vanguard's top speed and increase the acceleration to do so. I don't know how the Magrider could be compensated, maybe more powerful strafe acceleration or quicker turn time (less drop on the main cannon is something that needs to happen regardless of stabilization so I'm not listing it here). But it needs to happen.
    • Up x 1
  18. Frozen-K


    The C4 thing is mostly to justify the cost of pulling an MBT. 450 resources + tech plant required compared to 100 resources per brick + any terminal out there. Plus right now, infantry look at tanks and think "Oooh, exp pinata!" Squishies don't fear tanks anymore, especially when anyone that isn't an infil can carry C4. What I'm saying is it'd be like a sunderer taking C4's without blockade armor. It's still going to die unless something is done immediately, and if the driver bails to save their tank, it's sitting there, and the person who C4'd the tank can still kill the crew.

    Stabilization is good and you bring up a fair point about the magrider. However, I'd consider buffing its reverse speed and strafe over forward acceleration. Another 10-15kph going backwards without rival would help it dance. Projectile speed I'd be less skeptical of since I'd prefer making their shots not drop instead of this massive drop right now. It would help the magrider cannon feel very different than what it is right now with its terrible drop. It'd be fun to test that.

    Vulcan I don't believe will ever be balanced without making it extremely overpowered or extremely useless. With the way they set it up, it's either an accurate bullet hose or its just shooting into the wind not accomplishing much (in its current form). It'd be easier to drop it in favor of a rocket launcher system (like the NC's enforcer, which isn't really NC to begin with either).
  19. Akashar

    You know that something is wrong with a tank when people having avatars of enemy tanks are like "let's give it a buff, it's complete crap right now" :)
    Glad to see people seeing thing for what they are! :)
  20. MGAMIKA


    What, you need to be in 3rd person in order to hit things when you are at speed??

    I don't find it hard to scoot and shoot at 85-95kph in my Vanguard in first person. If they are moving it is slightly harder but still doable, if they are not moving its as easy as cooking 5min noodles (anyone can should be able to do it). Hitting infantry or ESFs at that speed and you most likely have a 1% chance of hitting them (see Magburner abusers users in their habitat).

    In other news still trying to break the 100kph mark (without trying to do stupid ways of doing so, eg falling off a cliff).

    A little more HP and tougher armour would be nice (C4 bypasses armour so HP would have to be buffed quite a bit).
    They cannot give us a resist shield, because we could out rep the enemy tank fire or if we could not rep almost useless.

    Give our Enforcer to the TR and we can get a single shot Railgun (not like the old saron). Maybe one of those mass drivers instead??