MYTHBUSTED: 200 infantry resources to kill 450 vehicle resources?

we have enough of these threads. Please merge SOE-MODS

so if im reading the OP right, his entire argument that c4 is balance is based on the exp or k/d side of the numbers?

that's... a little stupid man. no offense.

the argument here is that a light assault (which costs zero resources, and can go places no other infantry can go) can take between 1 and 2 bricks of c4 (which is between 100 and 200 resources) and INSTANTLY kill any vehicle in the game except for 2, most of which cost at least 100 more resources than the c4 did, and cannot be ressed in any way. once the c4 is on a vehicle, there is NO defense against death. yes, most c4 deaths can be avoided by situational awareness, but it requires being on guard, every second of your playtime. that is an unrealistic expectation, and should not be factored into game balance.

the argument isn't the hit rate, exp reward, or k/d of c4 users.

the argument is simply:200 resources should not instantly kill things which not only have timers to pull, but oftentime cost more than double the c4 itself.

Things that have a massively prominent battlefield role and are able to rack up at least 3x the amount of kills an average infantry soldier gets,

Sorry, no. If you want the ability to farm infantry by yourself in a tank, you take with it the fact you might get blown up.

Yes, but killing a tank is the most rewarding thing that can be done (unless you're truly fortunate enough to drop a brick of C4 on FOUR extreme menace players). It was being exceedingly generous to suggest that every -hit- (not even every kill; there are actually less of these) would result in a dead MBT and two dead extreme menace occupants, and yet even on that scale, you're still talking 1000 resources to 1100xp.

So the only way your argument would have any merit (suggesting something is underline completely useless is hilarious. It's far and away not the be all and end all of metrics, but it's a HELL of a lot more useful than 'TWO C4 CAN KILL A TANK SO MUST BE OP') was if you're suggesting that throwing C4 A: happens a vast majority of the time against infantry, B: is unsuccessful in scoring a hit in the vast majority of those situations, and C: is far riskier in those situations than in running up to a tank that can one-hit-kill the player (normally from two different players), can drive off, will more than likely have supporting players etc etc.

But you know what, that all gets into too much theorycrafting, and I'm too tired for that. What I'll say instead is that if C4's prime usage is NOT in targeting MBTs, then its cost with relation to the cost of an MBT is irrelevant in the same way as it's irrelevant that a Galaxy costs more than a Revive Grenade. Its balance with relation to MBTs may be worth discussing, but as is clearly in bold at the top of this thread, that is not the point of this thread.

To state it again, the point being made here is that using the cost of C4 in an argument for or against nerfing one side in the C4 vs MBT debate is to use completely irrelevant numbers and thus is entirely moot.

It actually makes his argument even more valid. He was setting up the best possible situation for the C4 user, assuming that all MAX kills yielded the highest reward. If none of the MAXes in this hypothetical situation were Extreme Menace, that means the C4 user gets even less XP for the 1000 resources he wastes per MAX kill.

Sucks when you're calling for merges to hide a well-made point whilst making no such efforts on the many 'nerf' threads that the same few of your put up each day...

No one is going to read all 40 pages of the first C4 vs MBT thread, nor the 20 pages of the second one etc. The problem is that the 'Nerf C4' lobby have monopolised the first one or two pages that people may have the patience to glance at, and filled them with bile and nonsensical rhetoric. This rhetoric is now spreading into the in-game community, creating a constantly negative environment based upon flawed statistic and cyclical reasoning. It is only fair that people are presented with the correct and relevant information, and not that they are expected to read through 40 pages of bile and deceit to find it.

Thanks for your concerns though.

The person who can't hit Max with c4 9/10 times either don't have arms or have alczheimer disease...

all of the C4/LA apologists in this topic act as if we play the game in a vacuum. yeah in a perfect 1 vs. 1 world an MBT is always going to be able to kill an incoming LA with C4.

however this is planetside 2. you're fighting battles with hundreds of enemies. even playing as prudently as possible, with every possible threat homing in on your MBT, including: lockons, liberators, ESFs, MAXes, other vehicles: you simply can't see everybody coming. it's even worse at night, you might as well not even pull MBT at night. at this stage in the game practically everyone has certed C4 on their LA, so the problem is only getting worse as the game ages.

it's a statistical inevitability that an LA is going to sneak up on you while you're occupied, say, actually fighting a real tank vs. tank battle, and instakill you with C4 (as if this game didn't have enough cheapshot OHK tactics). and no, your gunner can't always protect you. often your gunner is (shocker) helping you fight off other vehicles or dozens of lockon heavies. the lightning tank is so much more effective than MBT because it can shoot, scoot, keep moving, and run away frequently enough to avoid LAs with C4.

and to anyone suggesting scout radar, must obviously not play MBT. with so many lockons having IR smoke or vanguard shield is mandatory. only TR get the luxury of using scout radar because they don't have to deal with strikers. if you don't roll IR smoke as a VS/NC, you might as well not even use MBT.

it's really a toss up between LA + C4 and mana AV turret as being the worst thing for MBT drivers, but the fact that both are still as overpowered and cheap as they are, MBT is mostly a waste of time.

My argument is nothing to do with the K/D.

The flaw in your argument is that you state 'take between 1 and 2 bricks of c4 (which is between 100 and 200 resources) and INSTANTLY kill any vehicle in the game'... without factoring in whether those 100-200 resources are successful/well spent or not.

What the 11% accuracy statistic shows, is that for every 100 sticks of C4 thrown (10,000 resources), only 11 of them actually hit a target (which may not actually be a kill, or even the correct target; I am being exceedingly generous with the math in this regard by assuming all hits kill an MBT with two extreme menace occupants).

So what you're actually saying is that a LA can take two (one can't kill anything except a flash, and good luck planting that) sticks of C4 costing 200 resources and can INSTANTLY kill any vehicle in the game ONE IN TEN TIMES THEY SPEND THE RESOURCES. Not one in ten times they run head long at the enemy and hope for the best. Not one in ten times they drop pod onto a beacon hoping to get to the tank. One in ten times resources are actually spent, they will get a result. This means that 900 in every 1000 resources invested in C4 are wasted.

Now further to this we must factor in that C4 has essentially a finite, stepped reward curve. You may get a kill assist. You may get two. You may get a kill, two kills. You may kill a MAX, maybe two. You may kill a tank, maybe two. There is a finite amount of said killing that can occur in that 10% of the time that you actually hit a target, subject to how many targets can be in your explosion radius.

The best possible result here (aside from a dozen MAXs in a tiny room, which is a nonsense) is 2 MBTs with 4 Extreme Menace Occupants, granting 2210xp. That's almost impossible, of course, and far more likely is a single MBT with 2 Extreme Menace occupants for 1100xp. Whichever you prefer, this is the most that your 200 resources are likely to achieve in any real sense. This is achieved (less than) 11% of the time (as when no hit is scored, clearly no target is killed and no XP is scored).

Now you compare that to the 450 resources spent on an MBT. These may be wasted, in that you may get killed and fail to get any XP in that time, but that is entirely down to user error and is the same risk inherent in every activity in game. Regardless of duration, you have had the benefits of the cannons and armour, you have simply failed to capitalise on them. On the other hand, you can make your force multiplier last eternally, meaning that for 450 resources, rather than earning 20kxp in an hour, you can earn 60kxp (3x higher than infantry was the last metric we had on MBT score/hour). Your 450 resources essentially become better spent the longer that you are able to avoid losing them.

In that hour's example, 450 resources has earnt you 40kxp you wouldn't have got without the spend. The maximum 450 resources would have gotten you in C4, even with 100% accuracy, and always killing two MBTs full of extreme menaces is less than 10kxp. Factor in the 11% chance of hitting your target though and you're actually looking at 1kxp. That means you could scale down your tank life to 2 minutes and still be doing better than with C4 that automatically kills two MBTs and 4 people with every hit.




It's apples and oranges, for sure, but the premises (and the correction to the mistake in your instantly kill any vehicle... assumption) are far more important than the theorycrafted conclusion.

Given the stats linked to earlier, that would apparently be almost the entire player base of this game.

Yes, it's true that those stats don't go into detail. It's entirely possible that C4's "accuracy" against MAXes is higher than the average, but I think it's absurd to claim that C4 has a 90% kill success against MAXes. Even if it did, it's irrelevant, because MAXes can be revived at no cost to the MAX user.

• Pull MAX (+350 cost for MAX user)
• Kill MAX with C4 (+100 cost for C4 user)
• Revive MAX (+0 cost for MAX user)
• Kill MAX again with C4 (+100 cost for C4 user)
• Revive MAX (+0 cost for MAX user)
• Kill MAX again with C4 (+100 cost for C4 user)

...and on and on...

Massively off-topic, but thanks for your contributions.

I would like to state though, if you're in such a high intensity tank battle that neither you nor your gunner can move/shoot/call for backup/call to retreat etc when an extra LA comes along, then clearly you're in a very balanced fight. So what happens now? You've got 2v2 in a tank battle... And the opponent has extra reinforcements in the shape of a LA gliding from a nearby tower? Well now it's 2v2+1, and what does that make? 2v3. And what does that mean? If you die, you've died to a superior force. Just the same as if you're dogfighting and your enemy pulls you over the top of a Burster nest, the extra player unbalances your battle. For that matter, just the same as if the guy who got behind you with his C4 didn't have C4 at all, but had a Decimator. Still an instakill if he makes sure you've taken a couple of shells. Just the same except that the guy with the Decimator doesn't have to take any risk in getting close to you, spending resources, potentially wasting those resources in dying, or requiring more than two shots...

Just for the salt in the wound, I play Scout Radar on more or less all of my vehicles, even my NC ESF, and I do just fine. It's about sacrifices. You sacrifice the ability to ignore lock ons for the ability to 'ignore' (or rather, put no effort into addressing) LA. So now ask yourself, which is a bigger threat, and which is a bigger annoyance? Next you'll be telling me that it's not fair that you have to choose between side armour and top armour on your Skyguard - how're you supposed to fend off those missiles if you don't have side armour, but what about Daltons if you don't have top armour?! DUN DUN DUNNNNNN! DILEMMA!

And that's with 100% kill efficacy with every stick of C4.

yeah whatever, you knew what can of worms you were opening with this topic. jesus Christ, everyone has to be cute on the internet nowadays.

I was freaking out about 10% accuracy...
I must apologize for my bad english I suppose

I wonder what happens if 2 bricks of c4 explode near infantry. If you have 1 brick 1 meter away, and another 1.5 meters away, does the 1 meter away brick kill the person first and the 1.5 meter brick doesn't count as a hit / kill.

Also a lot of C4 never explodes because the person placing it died before it detonated. That is a lot of "fires" that can NEVER hit.

C4 users only travel as fast as the infantryman carrying them. MBTs travel much faster, their guns... even faster.

C4 users have a small shield and health pool and are susceptible to all damage. Tanks have a high armor pool.

C4 has an effective range of 5m unless dropped from above. Tanks have a large effective range.

C4 costs less than MBTs. MBTs make up for this on a better versatile role.

C4 is used once for a MBT. An MBT has many rounds with many load outs.

C4 has base certs spent on it. MBTs can have thousands of certs able to be spent on it.

C4 is basically used for blowing the frack out of one target. MBTs have the ability to blow the frack out of multiple targets.

The only real difference here is pulling a loadout for infantry costs nothing, but purchasing C4 costs resource. Pulling MBTs costs resource but additional rounds cost nothing.

Honestly I don't see how C4 and MBTs can be compared in this manner, they are both used as different tools.

I would absolutely disagree that the fix to this issue is to increase the cost of C4.

I think they should reduce the cost of C4, but disallow it to one-shot tanks. I'd be fine with it costing even half of it's current cost if that were the case.

PS2 is not balanced around 1v1 encounters or the difference in resource cost

stop blaming C4 for your own stupidity

the easy fix to the entire situation is to give c4 a similar damage model to rockets.

125% dmg to rear
85% to sides
65% to front and top

that way people who use it as intended and sneak up to a tank can instagib but the la air bombers will either need to waste more res or get down and dirty and plant it on the rear

Harassers should die with one. How brain dead do you need to be to have someone walk up to your vehicle that is capable of hitting 120 KPH with turbo and drop a brick of C4 on it? Much less two...