Tank/Liberator Changes Update

I heard that they are also going to buff the Rate of fire for it so the shells come in rapid succession.


They are not overly changing the zepher, they are just making it A decent medium between the daltons AV and the Dusters AI.

SOE I hope you saw my Suggestions for buffing the vector & Spur.

it would really improve the weapons roles & usages.


Also...... the problem with the tank buster is that it can theoretically 1 shot everything.

The Tankbuster basically turns the liberator into a Video game Boss battle. lol

Then I suggest keeping and iterating on the changes on the test server until the community reaches something of a consensus before letting them go live. In their current form they have the potential to completely ruin the existing MBT balance.

Right but it didn't start that way. It started off as Dalton=AP, Zephyr=HE, Shredder=HEAT (in a perverse way). When they added the Duster it became the obvious HE gun and the Zephyr got kinda lost. It was still the HE gun but they left it with some AP/Heat capability. The Dalton is basically HEAT since it does so well against infantry. (looks like they are trying to correct to pure AP which would be good)

If that is truly their goal with the guns then screw it, take the AP/HEAT/HE gun straight off of say a lightning and be done with it. My worry is the Zephyr is somewhat balanced as an HE gun now and they are going to overbuff the Duster and make it a noobsauce-rage-quit machine.

So now where the heck does the shredder fit? I always envisioned it as an AP type gun with some secondary AA capabilities and some kinda crappy AI capabilities.

I appreciate the response but I would really like one out of Sony .... What is the *vision* for the guns? Tell us what you are after with them and we can give better feedback.

they won't/aren't, and the duster will not be like Tank HE rounds.

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...rry-i-found-the-real-tank-patch-notes.189835/
Just... please use Klypto's ideas as inspiration.

And once again your idea of "balance" seems to be to make things that feel powerful feel like crap so people won't bother using them anymore. Liberators were fun, what the game needed was a fun way to counter liberators, instead, as always, what we got was the removal of fun.

Every time something get's out of hand, whenever people start using something too much, your response is never "Hey, people enjoy using this, let's make more stuff like that", it's always "Hey, people enjoy using this , let's make it boring so that they start using the less fun things".

I think you've found the perfect way to make the most bland game humanly possible.

Libs would be a lot more fun if they did more flying and less hovering.

Unless by "fun" you mean "It prints certs!"

scrooge mcduck's favorite vehicle in PS2 was/is the liberator.

So long as tank buster gets its long overdue nerf, I'm happy.

Since tank reversing is being changed, can this bug finally be fixed?

Non-inverted tank reverse turning speed has been broken for over a year.

Careful what you guys do with the tanks because there's more dedicated AV tank drivers than you think. As a Battlefield player, DICE completely ruined that game and I'm now playing your game after also spending around $250 or so. I don't want to quit it, but if you go with these boring changes I sure will eventually, just like I did with BF. Already fed up with the lag issues (Indar had 300 MS as normal today during the alert) performance being random, etc.

MBTs are fun to use with AV/AV setup. Don't nerf that. Buff the Magrider now that it lost its best feature (stabilized turret). They're my enemy and I'd love to see them get buffed.

Also, you have to buff the Vulcan or not nerf the Halberd. I bet 90% of the Prowlers use the Halberd if not more. AV/AV doesn't hurt anyone, what we choose to do with the tanks is up to us. You won't force people to go close - you'll just annoy people and force them to play the game less.

First step is to NOT nerf the velocity of the shells or adding any gravity to anything. Buff the Magrider's AP or strafe speed. Baby steps please. One of the most interesting things (for me at least, as a tank driver) are the long range fights. That's the reason I started playing this game and I hope you keep that in the game. What you're planning to do will ruin that.

It's already hard to hit targets at long range if they're moving, now imagine that with less velocity (lockdown scales less then) gravity nerf and the fact that tanks can go fast in reverse now (back to cover etc). You're changing TOO many things at the same thing which will lead to things being bad.

I have seen you listen to us plenty of times (even tho some people say otherwise, they're just annoyed, so am I). I believe you can execute this very nicely if you would just listen to us.

There are too many things that you would have to nerf in order for us to go close and I don't want those things nerfed just to make MBTs viable in close. That's bad. Plus even if you did that, MBTs are supposed to be long range (like in any other game). They'll never work unless you nerf C4, mines, MAX AV etc, plus buff the armor to balance the 1v1 MBT fights. It's just too much work that will lead to other problems. All you have to do here is focus on the Magrider and leave out those velocity/gravity changes. It's not hard.

Have a feeling the range of the MBT is getting nerfed for only on reason: Console players. If you're going to consolise this game, count me out.

The duster could use another buff. Currently, the Duster and the Lasher both share the same muzzle velocity = 100m/s

Think about that for a second.

Dear Kevmo,

I appricate that some dev finally made some statement and I am glad to hear about possibility of not letting al those changes go live.

As someone already wrote- you designed tanks to be on longer range. To be long range vehicles. Not becasue of velocity, gravity, drop etc. but because of infantry counters to tanks like mines, C4, Dumpfires, AV Maxes, AV mana turrets. Those are reasons of long range, not velocity. Up close every tank, especially AP one is just juicy cert cake to eat. Think about it.

Second- right now tank balance is fairy well. It was established after 2 years of many tweaks, changes and other things. This changes will casue (becasue they must, as they are HUGE) another 1-2 year circle to balance everything again to achieve such a point.

In my opinion (and most tankers) it is not worth it.

Right now you should just give tanks stabilization, remove/nerf HE cannons and buff Magrider a little to compensate for other MBT stabilization.

Vanguard, Prowler, Magie, Lightning. Everything now is in really nice place, better than ever. Why to destroy it completly? Why not small, small tweaks and changes, slowly. So many changes at once- they will casue havok in balance and gameplay, no matter how good they are.

Velocity nerf is uncalled. There is enough open spaces in PS2 and range of tank is already worse then tanks from WWII. We adapted to it and made it work. Do not please destroy it. It is same as with Dalton. Velocity nerf is no good for tanks and wouldn't be good for Liberator.

And Enforcer change? Please, this weapon suffered enough and it is viable, nice and useful. Don't make also NC to pull only halberds. Leave our Enforcer. With PPA it is last remain of ES weapons that we can be proud of. Don't destroy it.

Hope to see you on PTS and in feedback discussions later.

As for Libs. Good.

Alright Kevin. I'm going to try and not be my usual cynical self. But I beg you to at least respond to this post as I'm going to put a lot of effort into making it as constructive as possible. You say you are listening, prove it.

1. Why do you intend to make MBT combat closer oriented? In 2 years of development you have expressly designed MBT's to not be close range oriented. The addition of instant kill AT mines and C4 / the power and abundance of infantry and Max AV / The complete closing of bases and design of maps to give infantry hiding spots literally everywhere all combine to make close range MBT combat an utter nightmare.
2. Do you really think a reverse speed buff is going to make Infantry AV somehow not work? With the prevalence of hit-scan, high speed, wire guided and lock on AV no reverse speed buff in the world is going to make up for having to get closer. We will still need to hug cover but now we will be even closer to infantry who can use the cover better for AV or for suicide rushes.
3. Do you really think the range nerf and reverse speed buff is going to help against C4 suicide rushers or AT minefields? The reverse speed buff and shorter range are only going to draw us closer into hard counters that insantly kill us. Is mineguard now mandatory? Proximity radar? Have you given ANY thought to the fact that you are attempting to force us closer to people who can merely suicide rush us with relative ease over and over again using the plentiful terrain you've placed literally everywhere? Do you think having to constantly dodge suicide bombers is "fun"?
4. Are you prepared to buff MBT's or nerf MBT counters? By forcing MBT's into shorter range you are literally doing a complete about face to your entire design philosophy regarding armored combat. You are forcing us into death zones and yet you act like it's no big deal and you are just testing things. You are changing the entire balance of MBT combat you have chosen to pursue for the last two years and act like it's nothing. Are you prepared to undue many of the nerfs you've put onto tanks now that they are forced to get closer? Are you prepared to nerf some of the counters to MBT's? If no to both questions then you are literally just trying to completely change MBT gameplay for some unknown reason into something that you have designed MBT's not to do for the past two years.
5. Do you have ANY experience actually tanking on live? Is your entire basis for this change some MBT firing HE into a tower window when that tower is already being camped by infantry? Why are these changes even being suggested considering literally no tanker is in favor of them? What possible basis do you have for making these changes when they are completely counter to a 2 year long design philosophy regarding MBT's?

If we don't get some response to these questions then even more people are going to lose faith in you. These changes weren't even asked for and fly in the face of 2 years of balance decisions. As it is, it seems your entire purpose is to make us die more and utterly ruin whatever small amount of fun could be had by playing an MBT. An entire playstyle which required you to treat your vehicle like it was made out of paper mache and surrounded by siezuring elephants covered in nitro glycerin and those little fireworks you throw at the ground to make them pop,

I would really like to understand from the dev perspective why the push to make tank combat close range combat?
What philosophy is driving the change, what numbers are you looking at that we can only guess at?

Increase Duster accuracy or don't bother buffing it at all.

The tank situation as I see it-

You basically have three different factors: speed/agility, armor and firepower.

Speed/agility allow for both application and mitigation of damage, armor is the most straightforward and least complex variable and firepower is more complex than it seems because you have to account for real world ease of use and how easy it is for a player to actually effect damage application- things like projectile velocity, projectile drop, turret stabilization, blast radius etc. all have a large impact on on-target DPS.

Currently it looks like the Devs want to further reduce the uniqueness of the three tanks and make them as homogeneous as possible, which is a bad thing. If anything, we need each tank to be more defined, more empire specific and more focused to be excellent in one area and weak in the others.

My concepts:

Turret stabilization: great. Give it to all tanks. Done. This increases their overall effectiveness vs. all targets at all ranges.

Vanguard: should be the lowest top speed, slowest to accelerate, most armor (by a large margin) and have a high velocity, flat shooting main gun with very high alpha, but long reload, resulting in baseline DPS with which to base the other two tank guns on.

Prowler: second fastest, medium acceleration, medium armor, faster firing main gun with less alpha damage than the Vanguard, slower projectile velocity and more drop but the most DPS of any tank.

Magrider: fastest tank by a large margin, strafe speed is only 10 Kph less than forward speed, best acceleration/deceleration of any tank, to include strafe accel/decel. Least amount of armor, medium rate of fire main gun, medium alpha, total DPS is equal to that of Vanguard, less than Prowler, very fast projectile speed, very flat shooting.

The issue with the current tanks is that they're all too close together with respect to overall speed, hitpoints, damage output etc. The tanks should be more polarized, have larger differences between them stat-wise and have very different play styles while still being effective.

The Vanguard and Prowler will be much slower than the Magrider, but they can quickly orient their turret towards targets without having to move the whole tank. Magriders will be able to get into/out of battle quickly, but they have to be facing their target to bring the main gun to bare, which is a huge downside, and also a big reason why they need to be fast and agile (with respect to turn rate and strafe speed) to keep the main gun on target.

I hate that I have no fine control while aiming the main gun on a Magrider like I have on a Vanguard due to the need to orient/aim the entire tank. If you're sitting on uneven terrain it's a big problem. With a turreted tank you can simply stay in place and very precisely aim the turret.

This will never happen. Ever.

It almost did about these suggested tank changes.