[Suggestion] Stop balancing every aspect of this game towards infantry.

Sorry but I laughed about this. You ever operate a Zepher with thermal Optic?
So it´s a never ending Story here to many different Play styles and Groups Flyboys. Tankers. mostly Infantry...
by every Nerf or Buff including suggestions Hating mode is starting.
And on top every Empire has its own Nerf-Trolls.

It is more original approach than simply increasing vehicle cost, however problem remains: when one side has more numbers in the region then strong vehicles will help them more than they will help the side with less players. Strong vehicles and MAXs only make the numbers imbalance aka zerging worse.

1)If you are outnumbered then your vehicle will get destroyed more often.
2)Having 10 pre-nerf HE Lightnings is much more advantageous than having 10 more infantry - with the current system vehicles can't interfere with the base fight as they could in the old days so attackers are forced to use infantry to cap the base (not so much on Indar though)

Just a side note, I wasn't saying I agreed, but if players are stubborn then SOE wants to appease them.

Oh for the love of... NO! Vehicles DO NOT need a buff!

They HAVE to die simply because of how resources and getting vehicles work! There needs to be adequate "bleed off" to maintain some semblance of a fun and healthy gameplay. Vehicles have to be "easily" killable by infantry simply because if they weren't, the number of them would stack higher and higher until you reach a point where no one outside of a vehicle even bothers to leave the spawn room, and no one in a vehicle wants to get out for the same reason. Sure vehicles will kill vehicles but by the time that happens most will be able to repull so we're back to the situation of "vehicle outside, can't do anything."
"Use teamwork to kill that tank!" That sounds so easy if there weren't five of those parked outside.

If you want a vehicle that's hard to kill and does damage that's "reasonable to the calibers and munitions used" then you need to completely overhaul the system by which you GET any vehicle in the first place, not to mention drive it. If you just buff it up to that level without putting in adequate limitations to who and how much can deploy what, you will break the gameplay.

For example, you first need to certify multiple aspects of using a vehicle. For tanks like driving, gunning and engineering for repairs. Each 500-1000 certs. So you need to cert into those BEFORE you can even get into a tank.
Then, you need someone in charge to ask for a tank. For an MBT I'd assume it's a platoon leader who puts in a request at a tech plant or WG for a tank, and then the platoon has to put in a LARGE payment of nanites and after 15 minutes of construction you get a tank. The platoon leader can then assign people into the tank. And has all the rights to kick people out of it if but can't jump in themselves. All because the tank isn't a personal farming tool, it's a platoon resource, for the platoon to use for a task that needs done, not for your own personal amusement.

You personally can't just choose "I want a tank" and boom you get one if it's basically what a tank is IRL. That sh*t costs money, A LOT of money to make. And then about just as much money and TIME to train the people to actually drive the damn thing. And then just as much money to keep it supplied with ammo, fuel and parts to keep the damn thing working. You can't just say "Oh the tanks in this game need to be more powerful because IRL they X" and not consider the fact that ANYONE can get one, the certifications necessary aren't THAT expensive if you're half-way competent, and damn near every other base allows for an MBT to be spawned.

Vehicles are fine. Don't mess with what we have, whatever weakness they have, have to be there to make sure we don't drown in the damn things.

Vehicles should have more armor... Infantry, or base design, should have more ways to deny vehicles from accessing certain areas in a base... Think PS1 combat engineer deployables and base design...

Excellent post. I'd almost say this should be prerequisite reading before people are allowed to discuss vehicle vs infantry combat balance.

Right now, easy deaths matches the never ending conveyer of replacement vehicles. Things like C4 balance, infantry AV, vehicle armor etc. can't have a major overhaul until the vehicles themselves become much less common and more costly assets.

Resources are far too plentiful at the moment; once we get the additional phases we can have more tactical, considered resource and vehicle use that's more fun for all parties and solves many balance issues (ex. grenade spam).

This is why resource availability needs to be tied to the territory population so that being in a zerg means your assets are more restricted. Likewise, being outnumbered means you can use lots of force multipliers and hopefully narrow the power disparity.

Then we can add in ANTs so that the larger force has a chance of getting more assets but will be very susceptible to losing their logistics. Smaller forces won't have to worry about powering bases.

Vehicles in this game are meant to be disposable. Which means it is perfectly fine for them to be destroyed easily but it means it is okay for the current way of repairing them. If vehicles were made more durable repairing would need a huge nerf.

I wouldn't mind vehicles being more durable but at the expense that 5% of all damage taken becomes completely non-repairable. This would add benefit to deterring vehicles as even if you simply get a single shot on it is permanently weakened. At some point the driver/pilot would need to pull another one or risk getting so low on total health that even a hit would take him from full to dead. They could also add new defensive slots to this as well such as one that reduces the amount of permanent damage or one that drastically increases it (to say 20%-50%) but effectively doubles the health of the vehicle to make them very useful for strong push.

I like that.

You have the capacity to think of a better system than one that is currently in use and yet you say that everything is fine and nothing should be touched. The very foundation from which this game is build needs to be redesigned if SOE actually wants this game to last and make them money.

You're onto the basics of what would have to happen to help balance the mechanics of vehicle availability and lethality.

The responses to this thread have given me a few ideas that I'll post about once I've had time to articulate them.

Maybe around 200 kills with ppa on my VS alt, and 0 with the banshee, I don't fly.

They should just change name of the game to infantryside or redeployside

That sums up my feelings on this topic.

Because then infantry should be able to get weapon that do they same thing to tanks.

The reality is Tanks don't like to get blown to pieces by infantry and infantry don't like to get blown to pieces by tanks

Things like the striker and AV turrets have been nerfed for the same reason just the other way around

As an infantry only player I agree. This is a combined arms game, catering to infantry simply makes other choices of vehicle play less fun. I thought the point in this game was the many ways you could choose play it.

The actual real problem is lack of interaction.

If I'm a soldier running around doing soldier stuff, I can shoot at soldiers, they can shoot at me, it's a good time. When that tank 100m away hits within 1m of me with a HE shell and I die instantly, that's a bad feel. It's a much worse feel than getting one shot by a pump shotgun because I could have at least returned fire against that shotgun if I'd had the opportunity.

Vs that tank, I have no options. I can swap to a Heavy and try to charge it, but that likely won't work, especially if I don't have team support. He doesn't need team support to farm me, but I need support to get rid of him. (Granted supporting the tank does make his life a lot easier)


Yes, this is a combined arms game with a ton of people, so that's a lot more acceptable than a smaller arena based game. It's still frustrating and will drive players away and make the game not as fun as it could be to everyone because it's catering to you, the tanker who likes farming infantry from a distance.


I also understand they have a cost, which allows for even a little bit more leeway in how strong or abusive they can be overall, but at the end of the day there's nothing fun about dealing with a tank line that's 100m away that can't be killed by you or your buddies.



Yes, this is a simplified version of what actually goes on, but that's the basic premise. The stronger vehicle AI and ability to effectively engage AI from range, the less interaction there is with the majority of the players, the more frustrating the game is overall, which makes it less fun overall, which makes it less successful.


(If anyone is cheeky enough to bring up BASR Infils, they're horrific about this to, but they've got a lot of serious drawbacks to make them not a premiere class or particularly strong unless you're very good.)

The bottom line is that you are playing a combined arms game and not some arcade shooter like CoD. It is attitudes like yours that stand to bring this game down. If you are not willing to put up with losing to a force multiplier, then do not play the game. There are tons of games out there that focus purely on an infantry combat experience and they do it much better. This however is planetside, and it's the combined arms experience that makes it what it is. There are ways to address the complaints you are lodging, however the persistent nerfing is not the way to do so. It is possible to step back and address some key design aspects about this game that will prevent the frustrating scenario that you are describing, while still enabling every individual from boots on the ground to a tanker to feel like they have teeth. Nerf is a four letter word.

Also I am not a tanker, I split my time between HA and MAX.

The problem goes both ways.vehicles can't defend against infantry AV hiding beyond render, EON HUD doesn't let you spot tank mines in time to not run over them, and there's not much a tank can do about an LA that got into its blind zone to drop C4.

The problem with the system I suggested is it's not "fun" in a "for the masses" kind of way. It's too much fiddling, this isn't ARMA or any other milsim game and it should not try to be that simply because those games do it better.
I love to drive my tank. I love to fly my liberator, I love my MAX and frag grenades on my medic. I pull an MBT when I feel like I need one. And that is exactly the reason why it has to die or else every Jack, Jill and Juan with 450 nanites is going to be in a tank. And that particular system needs tweaks.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all in for any changes that add meta. To put much more importance of the chain of command and cultivating a community that develops these commanders, class users and drivers. Competent, able and trusted people for any number of roles. People and outfits you can identify and remember as being good or even great at a role that they have chosen for themselves. Not "Jack of all trades" but specialists.
I do have a dream where if certifications were much more limited (even capped) so you have to specialize in some aspect of the game and thus become renown if you do specialize and become really really good at something.

"Combined arms" gets thrown around but I believe people seem to miss the point of what that should be in a game: Cooperative teamplay utilizing multiple forms of gameplay in a single instance.
Just because you put a person in a car, doesn't mean that person's a racer in a race. And for that same reason a tank with a soldier in a game doesn't automatically make for a "combined arms" game. You need synergy. And planetside 2 is short on that.

But this is planetside 2. And we must accept this game is "casual" in it's design. You want a gunship? You can have a gunship. It won't be Hind or Apache or AC-130 (depending on what you mean by gunship), but it's still a gunship and it goes pew pew pew.
Same for everything else. It's fun, it's what keeps people playing.
Vehicles themselves are "fine". The system to get them is not. It needs tweaks. A lot of them, the resource system is nowhere near close to being done to really give an impression of completeness. But people want to play in the way they want to play and simply saying "You can't play like this anymore because nyeh" not only would make more people leave, but it would go against the direction and "essence" of what this game is. It's the Saints Row of massive online shooters.

But, ok. A little less extreme way to curb vehicle spam is a "two pot" nanite flow. This is off topic so anyone else reading this can just skip
So an single infantry has, lets say 350 resource cap. And MBT costs 450 so alone, he can't afford it. But when he's in a squad, even if just him and a buddy, there's a second resource pool, the Unit resource, lets say that thing is 500 nanites. What this means is that if you're running infantry, you can always keep your grenades and other consumable going (unless you use them fast enough to run out) but larger vehicles will be out of the reach for solo players. So you have your 350 nanites, you buy an MBT and you pay your 350, and the rest 100 is taken out of the squad pool.
Trick here is that the personal pool regenerates at 50 per minute like now, but the Squad pool only regenerates when the squad is actually doing squad stuff, be it squad revives, resupplies, captures etc. As long as it's the squad doing it together (or just in a certain radius of the squad waypoint or mission area) your squad resource pool will refill.
Caveat: Squad resource pool does not scale with people in squad. You might get a boost when it's a platoon, but it's the same 500 if it's just 2 people, or 12. This is to put more cards into the hands of smaller units. I know the name of the game is "Size always maters" but right now, there is no incentive to run a small, elite unit of players, who work together like clockwork over just pooling people into an area. By giving smaller units more flexibility in this way, you might see a resurgence of elite squads who hold their own against forces times their numbers. If they mess up, no amount of resources will save them, but this little leg up would allow for more varied ways of playing this game effectively.
But what about those people who don't want to join a squad just to drive an MBT or like to go off on their own without draining a random squad? Well, there is a solution: Facilities. What if certain facilities gave discounts to these high costs vehicles at all times? So you can pull an MBT when solo, just at a techplant. Libs at Amp stations and ESF's at few select air themed bases, and the WG too. So even if you don't have one of those facilities you have access to those vehicles, you just need to get it to the fight. Logistics!

They're the ones who buy all the helmets.

I can wholly relate to the infantry love vehicle hate discussion but don't have much passion left to make suggestions that would have any affect on the game other than simply waiting SOE out for the time they get to the oft neglected unintentionally sidetracked roadmap and the features that would bring life to the vehicle game.