Planetside 2 is a game about large, combined arms fights. However, if that was all it was about we'd only need two lanes per faction (one pointing at each other faction) and the entire population would just zerg back and forth across those two lanes. But it's not like that... some people like smaller fights where they can feel they're making a difference. Some people love the game, but don't have the hardware to support permanent 96+/96+ fights in large bases. Some people like the varieties of challenge and playstyle available in varying size fights. Some people like to think that there's "strategy" involved in PS2 and attack smaller bases on other lattice lines in an attempt to draw enemies away from a larger fight to give their faction an advantage there. In my opinion, all of these are perfectly acceptable ways to play the game. But there's one thing that constantly and persistently destroys any attempt at having a smaller fight - and that is how vulnerable Sunderers are! A single HA or Engy can destroy any Sundy. An LA can destroy most sundies. Virtually any 1-man vehicle (incl. Harrassers and MBT's) can destroy sundies. And the biggest problem is that they can all do it without the attackers having any chance to respond. Now, in 48+ or 96+ fights, if your only sundy gets destroyed by a single player then your faction is morons and deserves to lose the fight. You should have 2-3+ sundies, and you can roll replacements almost as quickly as enemies can destroy them. In addition, if you dedicate a few people to protect your sundies, or suppress enemy vehicles with MBT's or whatever, it's not going to make a difference to the overall fight (although it is boring as **** for whatever poor shmuck is assigned to defend it if nobody ever comes to attack the sundy). In smaller fights, however, a single sundy is not uncommon and, because the defenders can pull a 1-man MBT at any time and destroy your sundy and kill the fight, you have to have at least a couple of dudes doing nothing but guarding it in case the enemy comes a'calling. Boring, as noted above, and additionally being two or three men down in a 1-12 or 12-24 fight is a substantial penalty for the attackers - and even if you start winning against their numbers, they'll just divert 1-2 men to gib your sundy then kick you out the base. And if you don't defend it, even if you're lucky and somebody spawns there AS the enemy arrives to destroy it, one or two dudes is unlikely to be able to stop a AV-mine-engy, C4-fairy, MBT etc. before they can a) gib him or b) complete the destruction of the sundy. And none of the above is even counting the l33tfits who will leave you capping an empty base for 3 minutes doing nothing, arrive 30secs before the timer finishes, gal-drop the point, kick you out, blow your sundy then sod off to do it to another small fight and leave you stuck respawning, pulling another sundy, getting all your dudes back together, driving to the base, running to the point, restarting the hack (since it's pretty much all the way back by now) and then doing nothing until they come back and do it again. My solution to this: Change the Sunderer Deployment Shield to have health inversely proportional to the number of players around. It's current 2,500-odd HP is fine for 48+ or 96+, but give it (all number obviously subject to balancing) 5,000 HP in a 24-48 fight, 10,000 HP in a 12-24 fight and 15,000 HP in a 1-12 fight. The stats are already there ingame, so it's not like you'd have to create something new to monitor player numbers. Make the defenders work for it in smaller fights, rather than being a straight-up-almost-guaranteed-IWIN button. Give the attackers a chance to pull back to defend it. That'll give losing defenders a better chance to retake the point and lead to a more interesting back 'n forth rather than a straight up "attackers steamroll in and win" or "defenders blow the sundy and instakill the fight".
Sunderers aren't vulnerable... they've got as much HP as a MBT and from some angles even more directional armour. A Sunderer is a truck, specifically an MRAP type vehicle. Sort of like one of these: It shouldn't be as durable as a MBT... not even close. Nor should it be able to take so many AP/HEAT hits. It's a truck that's been upgraded to resist mines, explosives, and small rockets after all. The secret to not having your Sunderer destroyed by a single LA, Engineer, or even tank? GUARD IT. It's easy. Just order 3 people in your platoon to stay back and guard the Sunderer. With both guns manned, they should be able to deal with most minor infantry threats. Against heavier vehicles like tanks or aircraft, they can serve as an early warning system to have your squad respawn at the Sunderer to offer more defences. Or if you've got vehicles in your squad (which you should, this being a combined arms game after all), just have them protect the Sunderer. Not like vehicles can significantly influence an offensive base capture anymore. Is it boring? Probably. Would you lose manpower? Yes. But is having coordination a much better strategy than buffing the Sunderer such that it has the HP of roughly 5 MBTs? Oh yeah. I can't even imagine how to explain a 19,000 HP Sunderer while an MBT has 4,000 HP (or 6,000 temporary HP in the case of the Vanguard).
My outfit rolls blockade sunderers at small-medium fights. We don't deploy. The sunderer is the vehicle support AND the squad deploy. Kills 2 birds with 1 stone, works pretty well too.
1. It's a game, not reality. Gameplay and fun trumps reality hands down. 2. Clearly you didn't actually read the whole post, so I'm not even going to bother responding to your comments as most of them have already been covered in the OP. Read it again, try again, and then I'll give it a proper look. That works fine, and is a great idea assuming 1) you can get them into the base in a useful fashion and 2) that everybody there is in the same squad. Any randoms there are **** outta luck, however.
I did read your post, and I addressed your "complaints" in my response. This is just a bad idea. Sunderers are already extremely durable... it takes 7 hits from an AP Lightning to kill a stock Sunderer, or 11 hits with a Deployment Shield. That's anywhere from 21 to 33 seconds for a 350 nanite Lightning to kill a 200 nanite Sunderer. For comparison purposes, it takes an AP Lightning 5 hits to kill another Lightning from the front... 2 less than it takes to kill a glorified truck (which is cheaper, no less)! Say the Sunderer has two gunners using the default Basilisks at maximum range. Each Basilisk hit does 167 raw damage, and you need 206 hits to kill the Lightning from the front. The 103 shots required (2x Basilisks) only take 21.5 seconds to spew out. So a 2x Basilisk Sunderer without shields can pretty much kill an AP Lightning, with only a 0.5 second difference. Getting that Lightning on the flank or closer than 100m would pretty much guarantee the win. Throw in Deployment Shields as they currently are and it's an easy win for the Sunderer. Why would this be a terrible idea? Let me paint you a picture. Say I'm chasing down an enemy Sunderer with my AP Lightning, trying to prevent it from reaching the next base. Suddenly the Sunderer decides to plop down and deploy, and because it's a small fight that Sunderer suddenly has 19,000 HP. Well now it would take my AP Lightning 30 hits to kill... or a whole minute and a half of constant shooting. Let's recall two problems with this which should have been obvious to you: 1) The AP Lightning only carries by default 26 rounds... meaning that it would literally not be possible for me to kill the Sunderer since I'd be 4 shells short. 2) It would still take those Basilisks 21.5 seconds to kill my Lightning... which is considerably less than the 90 seconds it would take for me to fire 30 AP shells. There is nothing wrong with Sunderers (except that at current levels they're already too strong). The only thing wrong are infantry players who can't grasp the concept that you have to guard certain things. These selfish players just want to be able to mindlessly charge in and shoot face without sacrificing any of their time with things like guard duty. Hence they arrive at the utterly ridiculous conclusion that a 200 nanite Sunderer ought to have 5 times the HP of an MBT... instead of, you know, getting better at the game and posting a guard.
I disagree. It is harder to take out an sundy in larger fight than in a small fight as you noted. So having the deploy shield sundy even harder to crack is not an solution. For the attackers there is few possibilities actually: (1) Not using the sundy. There are other options - beacon rotation, valkyrie, galaxy. As an additional bonus, if there is no sunderer deployed the defender has to fight first the redeploy system to get there or come with an aircraft. Without the deployed attacking sunderer they dont get to automagically spawn in it for defense unless they are 1 hex away already. (2) Who cares if the sunderer gets taken out if all you have to do is to hold the point 60 sec more. Have a medic with couple of braincells to rub togehter staying out of harms way and its perfectly doable in a a small reasonably even fight. (3) Hide the sunderer better. Often cloak is a better protection for the sunderer than a deploy shield. (4) Bring more sunderers than one? This is more than one man ghostcapping, right?
so you basically want any sort of shield sundie at small fights to ether be invulnerable or take a significant portion of the defenders to destory while the attackers laugh as they have deployed 3 of them while capping and taking the base effectively making every base attack undefendable against in small fights because most players are ether completely self-centered that they don't care about team assets or are lazy. if you want any sunderer to survive attack you have to defend it, it is ridiculously easy to defend a sundie in a small fight with the right weapons on the sundie and deploy shield you can shrug off attacks by ones and twos and a solo vehicle attacker easily, i should know i sit in my shield sundie cutting to pieces any infantry who foolishly think my sundie is like all others (undefended). ether guard the sundie or you lose it, how is this any different then control points? control points aren't mobile.
How to protect your Sunderer in small fights. Step 1: Use an alternative spawn setup. In large fights Stealth Sunderers are easily tracked down by the column of infantry coming off of it. In small fights this isn't the case. Step 2: Use a shielded Sunderer. A maximum shielded Sunderer takes a lot more firepower to take down. Subsequently they take a lot more time to die, giving you more time to react. Step 3: Actually devote a little time to it's defense. One given for all these players is that they need to get close to your Sunderer to be effective. Place a Spitfire, but especially place some mines around in likely places for enemies to visit. A mine at the back and front of a Sunderer is always a good way to kill an Engi dropping mines, or an LA/HA that tries to remain a little less detected by sitting at one end of the Sunderer rather than in the middle of the spawning troops. Step 4: Pull a second Sunderer. As much as players like to ***** and complain, Sunderers are cheap as hell and it's often not that hard to make sure there's two Sunderers up and running. This helps you if one Sunderer dies to keep the attack going, and it means that only one person then has to go back and spawn a new one, rather than that the attack stops until the new one is up.
I noticed how you always seem to think your way of fun is the same as eveyone else alot of peeple enjoy this game in driffent ways like flying driving tanks or doing ground work using special units with small numbers to complete missions, and complaining about sunderers not being tanky enugh try flying an ESF it one hit from all tanks and is only som cases alittle smaller then a sunderer so il end this like how peeple tell me when they removed my IR sights....get gut
1. ******* is dumb. 2. I support having a variety of playstyles, but what I support more is fun and engaging gameplay... for all players. Not just small groups of them at the expense of everybody else. 3. Unless you're very unlucky (in which case it shouldn't happen often), a tank isn't going to shoot your ESF down unless you have gone full ******. 4. "Get gut"? Seriously? From a pathetic scrub who can't even compete without thermals? My God, but you're clearly delusional.... Actually, no. That's not what I said. If you read it properly, you'll see that all I'm asking for is that it takes longer to destroy a sundy in small fights. You won't be able to insta-kill it with a single HA on a flash at the point when the defenders decide it's too hard to crack the assault. If you're planning to roll a 1-man MBT around there, it will still, absolutely, kill the Sundy. It'll just take longer than 20 seconds giving the attackers time to fight back (and equally, giving the defenders a reduced point presence to assault. I think it'll make for better game play. As for defending a sundy, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. My experience doing so (and 35% of my vehicle time is spent in Sundies) is that defending it against an idiot HA who footzergs towards you across open ground is easy, but defending it against a competent player who charges you with a jihadi-flash then fires rockets from point blank is basically impossible. 1. And yet, unless you want to park your stealth sundy in the back of beyond, giving the attacking force a substantially longer travel time, there are only going to be a certain number of places where you can reasonably deploy, all of which are easily checked by one dude on a flash who, since you're using cloak, can also easily insta-kill your sundy. 2. Ummm... no. I'm pretty sure my HA can destroy a full shield sundy in like 20 seconds. 2 C4, rocket, AV nade, another rocket, done. Likewise, my engineer. Place 3-2 mines, blow up. Deploy AV turret for point-blank final shot if necessary. Sure, if it's defended I'll probably get killed right after blowing it up, but still... job done, right? 20 secs is not nearly enough to get back and defend it, and even if I'm guarding it the guns are useless against a competent player and if I lose the 1v1 on getting out, Sundy will be gone before I respawn. And if the enemy rolls a 1-man MBT, you're just toast. No way you're stopping that. 3. As noted in 2) above, I don't seem to have a problem destroying sundies, and I've never had a Spitfire stop me either. The mines thing does work. Once. If the dude isn't expecting them. Which most people are, these days. 4. I admit that's a possibility, one that I usually try to apply. However, it's far faster to destroy the second sundy when the attacking reinforcement don't dry up than it is to get even the first sundy replaced in most cases. Either way, once again the fight is dead. I wouldn't even mind that much, if the defenders actually attacked your base in response - at least the fight is still going then. But it's far more common for one dude to just **** all over the small fight, kill it, and sod off somewhere else and that's what I object to.
sundie shield is 2500 atm you want it at 15000 for small fights, in other words to destory it efficiently you need 6 people out of 12 to destory ONE SUNDIE, if the enemy deploys more then one any attack will succeed if the attackers are PS2 vets due to the pop imbalance attackers can use against the defenders on the control points, even with 12vs12 mutliple sundies and 6 trying as a group to kill a sundie is 6 less on the points. time is not a factor for sundie defense, player stupidity and incompetence is. you are asking for 50% of the pop in a 12vs12 on the defender side needed to kill a sundie quickly and efficiently, sundies are cheap, fairly fast and tanky atm more then a tank. no amount of additions by the devs that are balanced will fix undefended sundies being killed. I have deployed many sundies and sat in the turret and i can tall you over 90% of all players i see who spawn on my sundie while it's under attack run straight to the infantry fight in the base rather then defend their spawnpoints, then some whine when the sundies are killed and demand someone *else bring a sundie up because their meatgrind has ended. i don't care if some dope comes at me with a jeehad flash i'll gun that idiot down before he can threaten my shield sundie. pro tip: the c4 on the flash may pop the shield but it takes a fair few rockets to kill a sundie. what needs buffed: player competence, player willingness to defend sundies. if you make no attempt to defend your sundies and it dies it's partly your fault and the fault of other teammates that made no effort to defend it. *because they are too lazy or self centered to pull a decent sundie themselves.
Pretty much that^ Let's also not forget that scaling based on hex populations, why not have all vehicles apply too! Because tanks aren't tanky verses 96+, or maybe ESF so it takes 8 lockons to kill one ESF, because that's fair right?!
1) I noted, in the OP, that the actual numbers would need testing.I was simply throwing out the concept. 2) It doesn't need 6 players. It needs a single engy with AV turret. Or a Fury Flash. Or one Harrasser. Or one Lightning. Or a one-man MBT. And even then, the attack doesn't have to succeed, all it has to do is draw the attackers back to defend their sundy and the rest of defenders can recap the point, then push the sundy themselves. That creates a far more interesting gameplay experience than "oops, sundy's insta-killed, dead fight". 3) Yes, I've defended my Sundy too, and yes, most players are stupid. But you tell me.... do you honestly believe that we're going change the majority of the playerbase? Really? I don't. I think changing the game to suit the players has a far higher likelihood of success. 4) Finally, you know what the problem with defence is? It's boring. You can sit in your sundy, doing nothing, for an entire 10 minute fight because nobody tried to blow it up. But if you step away for even 30 seconds, that's plenty of time for somebody to arrive and kill it. This is a GAME. Good game-design and fun-factor are more important than "reality". 1) Oh wow... a whole 11 hits. From a, as you yourself noted, default 26 round magazine. You can kill 2.3 sundies with that. And heaven forbid that you spend any certs upgrading your ammo capacity. It's not like I spend a bunch of certs buying Shield upgrades and weapons etc. 2) A whole 30 seconds, you say?! That's forever. I could do anything in that time! Oh, and while we're on the topic of cost, that 200 nanite sundy you blew away? That's just the first one. There's nothing stopping you rolling another 300m around the base and immediately blowing up the second one as well. And even if you're cheap and haven't upgraded your ammo capacity, the ammo tower is less than a minute away. Now you've destroyed 400 nanites of sundies with your 350 nanite lightning, and are about to start working on your third. 3) A sundy is a huge bloody target. Usually stationary. If you miss it, well.... dunno what to tell you. Lightnings... not so much. Also, lightnings are mobile not stationary (or they should be, at least) . Seems fair to me. 4) Soo.... because it's cheaper, my 2-man vehicle shouldn't be able to defend itself against your one-man vehicle? Also, if I've only got one-gunner (i.e. me), it will double TTK to 40-odd seconds which, by my math, is a bunch longer than your own 30sec TTK. So you still win there. And even that is assuming that you're dumb enough to just sit there and tank my fire while you reload. If I've parked in a garage, it's dead easy to get an angle on me where you can hit the edge of my sundy and I can't fire back. If I'm in the open and there's terrain around, hide behind it while you're reloading. Even 2:1 you'll still win. If I'm in the open and there's no terrain around, keep at range. Your AP gun is way more accurate than my twin-basi's. You should be fine. 5) Quit whining about the exact numbers. I said in the OP that it would need testing, and I was only throwing the idea out there. I'm not committed to 15,000 HP. Given your comments that probably does seem a bit high. But that still doesn't invalidate the idea. 6) As for your "just guard it" comments, please see my response to that in points 3) and 4) to the comment above yours.
Reality is not a factor in PS2. If it were, both Air and Infantry could OHK Tanks... from ridiculous distances. And that's just with conventional arms, not even factoring in "future" tech. This doesn't make sense for the current game. It isn't reliably effective, ties down units in a way that will lose equal fights, requires coordination that the vast majority of players don't have access to, and just isn't done in game. At the Server Smash level they don't do it. At the Standard Game level they don't do it. It also doesn't fit with what players are rewarded to do or what players like to do.
2)in the time it takes to bring down a current shield sundie the enemy can react and kill you, the only change needed is for people who have spawned on a sundie to be made aware it is under attack when the shield is taking dmg rather then only after the sundie's health dips. from the shield first taking damage there is enough time usually to redeploy back on the sundie and defend it. 3-4) no players are not going to change, but player stupidity is not a reason to buff undefended sundies so they are ether cannot be killed quickly by skilled players (thus making skill useless when the random masses finally think 'oh enemy there shooting my mobile fortress, free XP!'). think about it with a lot of hit points sundies that are heavily defended (this does not mean garrison units like chingles thinks, but a mix of garrison and reactionary defenders) will become even harder to destory. defend your sundies or lose them it's that simple, the problem is players are self centered and rare if ever react to enemies attacking the sunderer since 'they are cheap, fast and easily replaced, oh and i'm too lazy of self centered to defend it! sunderers do not need survivability buffs to make up for player unwillingness to defend sundies, my solution for you, when there is a base fight and you are the attacker and there is one sundie that isn't yours, redeploy pull a shield or cloak sundie, place it in a convenient spot (shield) or concealed spot (cloak) the same players that don't defend sundies put cloak sundies in sunderer garages.
