(PTS) flak no longer protecting against direct hit tankshells

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/july-30-2018-pts-update.250012/

personaly not a fan

considering that tanks are armored and require mulitple shots and multiple explosives to bust ..
this weakens the aspect of "combined arms" to actualy be a thing in this game imo .. because how likely will it be that people go out as infantry to hunt down or support their own vehicles ?
and AV engineers going to have a hard enough job to damage tanks even ..
so this will lead to forcing players to use vehicles to fight vehicles or suffer the OHK capabilites from a target they at worst can´t fight back at all or at best only slightly damage unless being in a clear numerical advantage as non LA ..

and inbefore people ask me and others to get on PTS .. my ping there is A S S ..

tankers rejoice i guess ...you can now farm infantry easier once more ... ...

No, this is good for combined arms. Different unit types should be extra lethal to each other to encourage a mixed force.

Infantry are still in dire need of a powerful nanite-based AV, of course. (MAX and C4 doesn't cut it)

I personally don't love the change.

My main concern with it however it that it might just put AP right on top of everything again.

I agree though, this doesn't benefit or promote combined arms in the least. If anything, it gives an already solid multi-role tank cannon even higher consistency and worsen Flak armour as a whole when choosing between it and nanoweave.

Just to be clear on these changes, they're sort of give-and-take.

HESH rounds no longer OHK infantry, but have larger inner blast radii, and in the case of the Lightning and Vanguard, lower indirect damage. (1050 -> 800, 1050 -> 850, respectively) A few minor reload changes are in there as well.
HEAT rounds received larger outer blast radii.

The HESH/HEAT splash buffs improve the case for Flak Armor somewhat, though idk if that outweighs the buff to AP. But I don't tank that much so I'm far from an expert.

any vehicle with a kobalt, fury or bulldog is already lethal to infantry ..
and yes c4 is a horrible AV option with the exception of LA as that requires butttouching range on any vehicle
i am rather for any infantry (infils included) getting access to AVgrenades minimum and giving the medic a AV grenadelauncher (or rockletrifle, MAYBE archer) as primary option

still i don´t see this change encouraging combined arms when in fact what it does is to keep infantry off of openfield battles ... it´s even worse for engineers trying to repair vehicles fighting on the front ..
not to mention medics have jack against vehicles to find themselfes between healing/reviving engineers and heavies much less offering their own AVfiresupport ..

The Battle Rifles - AMR-66, Warden, and Eidolon VE33 - and the Assault Rifles - T1S, Gauss Rifle S, and Equinox VE2 - can equip the underbarrel grenade launcher which does damage to armor. It's damage value is 500 on direct hit. Its modifier let it do full damage against Sunderers, Lightnings, and MBT's, double damage against Flashes, and 750 damage against MAX's without Ordnance Armor 5. With Ordnance Armor 5, it still does slightly over full damage.

A direct hit is a direct hit, you should be dead. Infantry players advocate this, vehicle players advocate this, air players advocate this.

It doesn't disenfranchise combined arms because hesh will still have the explosive value over AP and now heat since it's AoE was also reduced by one meter.

Personally, I thought it was completely unfair. My AV heavy ran annihil, flak maxxed and ammo printer with regen, at long range it was painfully annoying for the tanks as they could literally do nothing to me unless equipped with a kobalt.

So even if they did get that one direct shell on me, which was already stupidly annoying to do at the max damage range because I could side step it, I could duck behind cover, regen everything and be right back up his *** throwing rockets at him. Even if I wasn't killing him I still made certs simply hitting him, while he got effectively nothing.

Also I which they compensated hesh for the vanguard with more splash being a bigger munion since prowlers are effectively buffed by this change.

Seriously, the amount of certs you made there have been a joke too...and sooner or later he would have gotten you by just coming closer. You never had a chance to win it tho(at least not if he wasn't an idiot).

Right, because he couldve totally gotten closer to the roof of a tech plant that his team was trying to fight at. And yea, I did make good certs up there. I made about 10, just by damaging and/or killing tanks. Oh and tank assists too. And sunderer assists.

You seem to assume that I am putting myself in the worst possible position, any heavy worth his salt would never reveal his location unless it was necessary and/or if he could easily get to safety.

Before anyone claims "Oh hur dur, they could've just gotten an infil and snipe you", well no, they wouldn't and couldn't. I had resist shields too. So on top of being immune to direct tank hits I was also immune to the almighty headshot, I could stay exposed for however long I wanted (aka first sight of damage duck), turn shields back on, pop out and shoot another rocket, never dipping too far below my shield energy because it was 15 seconds worth of it.

The best they could have done is go up the tech plant themselves, with a light assault or SMG infil and shoot me in the back. Since that never happened though I guess by the rules of planetside I must be OP because no one could respond to me or remove me from that position.

I think the removal of tank shell resistance on flak armor is a good idea for tank-infantry balance. However, my main concern is what's the benefit of flak armor at rank 3 now ?

You're wrong.
HEAT have a 5m outer blast radius, it was nerf to 4m
HESH currently deal 1050@1m and 800@2m, it was nerf to 800@1m and 800@2m
Meanwhile prowler HESH can still two splash kill and was buffed at it.

How about this as an idea.

"Supercharged ammo" for launchers. Basically works like an extended ammo clip and would be attached to one of the weapons free slots - but instead of granting additional shots - it increases the damage output of any rockets fired by 30-50%.

The crucial thing though - it would require nanites to charge up (like nades and c4 does) - taking perhaps 10-25 nanites per shot depending on the waepon. A full charge would only hold enough to cover the initial ammo pool of the weapon it's attached to - but not any extra ammo gained through ammo packs or ammo printer. Once depleated, would need to be recharged at a terminal or sundy - just like nades and c4

Why would the Anti-Armor weapon one shot infantry on a direct hit and not the Anti-Infantry weapon itself (HESH)??

People might pull MAX AV if it didn't cost as much as an MBT. *shrug*

What about a "medkit" that double your damage against vehicle and airplane for X sec instead of healing you ?

FPC, VPC, Titan HESH and Titan AP will be able to OHK a flak-infantry on a direct hit.
Flak armor allow to survive a direct shot from Prowler, Lightning and Vanguard/Magrider HEAT

Rly?
Like showed off here, most guns did score a 1HK anyway. But in a game where a damn tank shell is slower than a pistol bullet and creates less splash than a handgrenade, one can be sure infatry complains on every buff for vehicles!

Man, vehicles were, earlier in the time, MUCH more lethal! *Dreaming of 9m splash dalton, 4m splash HE...

Well...

all you need to do is to look at the HESH spam topic for info and their whine. they complain about hesh killing them sometimes then when the devs nerf it but also return the ability of tank shells to OHK on direct hit (so they can actually defend themselves at close range) infantry whines again.

one tank gun is ALWAYS going to be on top, would you rather it was precision AP or imprecise HESH? one has a higher chance of not damaging you due to not having any splash at all and you still complain about it.

yes it does, if more people use AP it means that shots that would have hit you as an infantryman were the tank running HESH will now miss and you have to be directly exposed and in LOS of the tank for them to hit you when they are running AP.

they can't indirect fire you with AP by using base surfaces to hit you with splash.

you'll never be happy until tanks are no threat to infantry due to crappy weapons or OP infantry carried AV weapons.

when you choose between HESH and AP you are picking ether splash or precision. considering the recent whine about HESH any unbiased infantry player will conclude it was a viable change.

i guess you are use to the changes where tank users lose something without gaining anything or are flat out deceived with a 'phase' rebalance plan.

for years flak armor had a use before the tank guns were indirectly nerfed by the flak armor shell resist type and it still does, flak as always protects you from indirect explosive damage as it always has, this protects against hesh, heat, grenades, C4 and rocket splash.

it's not a nerf to flak armor people will still carry it as they always have.

please look at the HESH spam thread it's been shown that launchers has the same damage as tank guns on top of being smaller targets to hit, infantry's strength is numbers, launchers are designed the same way that AA is, you need a group to be effective.

Good change. It's an armor-penetrating tank shell, direct hit, takes skill and luck to land. Armored vehicles should be a threat to infantry as opposed to running away. Getting hit or hitting with a round directly and still being alive wasn't right.

It's not my point.
I complain because unless i'm proven wrong, flak armor will have the same effect at rank 3 and at rank 4.

Flak armor work live this on live server :
Rank 1 : protect against normal explosion
Rank 2 : also protect against light AV
Rank 3 : also protect against RL
Rank 4 : also protect against Tank shell
Rank 5 : also protect against C4 and Tank mines

By looking at PTS patchnotes this is how flak armor work on PTS (I didn't tested it, it will takes days to download the PTS client)
Rank 1 : protect against normal explosion
Rank 2 : also protect against light AV
Rank 3 : also protect against RL
Rank 4 : no get nothing ! you lose, good day sir !
Rank 5 : also protect against C4 and Tank mines

So my question is : now that rank 4 no longer protect against tank shell, what's the purpose of rank 4 ?

I'd rather have a balanced system with proper sidegrades, not a gun that does everything the same or better. HE ought to keep its OHK splash and AP should lose its direct OHK. Failing to OHK an infantryman doesn't make a tank defenseless, far from it.

No, it doesn't. HE tanks won't have to be pulled nearly as often now that AP will do the same job with faster shells. Rather than infantry relying on friendly AP armour to take them out and HE tanks relying on friendly to take out enemy AP tanks, now AP once again do everything themselves.

They can't kill me with indirect fire in any case now. Personally I'd not waste my time with HE when AP is just better now, following the PTS update.

I'll be happy when there is balance in the force between infantry and vehicles. I doubt will ever see the day though. Not while some certain forumsiders continue to do their best to extinguish healthy discussions on the topic by making such stupid and bases statements.

except tank guns are different and do things differently, HESH is splash based infantry specialization, HEAT is a generalist and AP is for primarily anti vehicle work, just because AP is anti vehicle does not mean it shouldn't OHK infantry, at close range with evasive infantry 2 hit kills on infantry is not a viable defense against them.

as it is now with or without OHK tank shells, tanks retreat from infantry to keep the range open so they aren't overwhelmed by numbers. tanks have had OHK capability for overwhelmingly most of this game's lifespan, it's never been OP or unbalanced for an infantryman to be OHK by a direct hit at any range by a tank shell, it's harder to hit infantry the further away they are, even more so then to do it with a sniper rifle due to the velocity difference.

all your position is 'i occasionally get killed by something i can't fight back against solo, devs plz nerf'

HESH can and does kill people with indirect fire, just because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

your idea of balance is to nerf tanks till they are never pulled again, your idea of balance is having tanks as ineffective killers even in direct self defence against a solo infantryman.

there are many annoying ways to die in planetside 2 that you couldn't have fought back against due to conditions at the time, yet nobody complains much about mines or snipers it's always beat on the vehicles that rarely kill people with HESH.

tanks outside of fighting vehicles and killing infantry have no role. once the enemy vehicles are dead their choices are kill the fight by killing the sundie, farm infantry, fight as infantry or log out.

do you really expect tankers not to kill infantry? seriously you infantryside antivehicle types cry hard about tanks yet the deaths to HESH and tank guns are actually low on the list and percentage of attributable deaths.

it all boils down to 'it's annoying to die to, lets whine hard enough so they get nerfed' with a little bit of 'i don't play that aspect so nerf it hard'

back when oracle of death was running it clearly showed infantryside's antitank bias for what it was, infantry died more to infantry explosives (mines, C4, rocket launchers) combined then to all the tank guns put together.

you'll never be happy til vehicle play is destroyed so you can pretend this is a pure infantry game.


anytime i pull a tank, i could be earning more certs as infantry and get more kills, that cuts the feet from the argument that tanks are powerful and deadly to infantry overall.

If AP is best for dealing with the biggest threats and main targets (if you'd believe a few forumsiders here ) while still having the highest ease of use while retaining an identical instant TTK on all infantry, why would anyone ever choose a weapon universally (slightly) worse against everything just for a bit of extra yet likely not lethal splash damage? There is no real choice to be made here, in my opinion. There is one weapon and two slightly worse versions of it.

It's been pretty friggin' overpowered in the early days. I'm sure you've seen that old video of the Prowler firing into a spawn tower? With the killfeed continuing for a full minute or so afterwards?

Actually if you read above my position is against the total loss of any semblance of sidegrades, which for tank cannons was already faint.

My idea of balance is that of balance. A real foreign concept to these forums I know, so I can't be too surprised it's beyond the reach of some given the esoteric nature surrounding the philosophy.

The rest is irrelevant drivel. Don't take personal issue with me, only with my ideas presented to the topic. If nothing else come up with something new why don't ya'?