[Suggestion] Tank Overhaul: Just an idea, just to see how it feels.

So it is kind of obvious vehicles (specifically tanks) aren't in the best spot right now.

I don't believe the problem can be fixed by simply changing statistics around (Damage/Armor/Speed). As the inherent idea of trying to balance a one person tank against an infantry man is impossible, there are no benefits to being the infantry over the tank. At the same time there are always more infantry due to the nature of not costing anything and being so numerous.

So what I am going to suggest is a three part overhaul to how vehicles work in Planetside 2.

Step 1: Separate the Driver & Gunner roles on tanks.
MBTs are now divided between a Driver, a Gunner and a Secondary Gunner.


Lightnings are now a Driver and a Gunner

The primary reason is to kill the "solo tanker" concept. Planetside 2 is about teamwork, tanks should be a smaller mirror of that. Now when a platoon pulls a ton of tanks they are only pulling 24 partially manned ones, or 16 fully manned tanks, instead of the 48 they would currently pull. This reduces the number of tanks you have on the field at one time.

Step 2: Remove seat swapping from all vehicles.
In the place of seat swapping you will simply choose your role upon entering the craft similar to entering a vehicle in the first Planetside (Example on a Harasser the driver would enter from the front left side, the gunner would enter from the middle left side and the rumble seat rider would enter from the back).

This would remove solo Tanks and liberators from being a thing.

Step 3: Improve all vehicles stat wise.
With the requirement of multiple people in order to operate vehicles and the inability to quick swap seats requiring full or at least partial crews in order to operate the vehicle the number of vehicles being pulled will be drastically lower.

With the number of vehicles being lower the opportunity to improve how good the vehicles are increases. Allowing the developers to now be able to improve how well HE and HEAT cannons work without turning battlefields into death zones for infantry (as there will only be 1 HEAT prowler firing instead of 3)


PROS AND CONS (from my perspective)
+Less but more powerful tanks
+More teamwork in a teamwork oriented game
-Solo tanking is no longer a possible


So what do you tankers think? Would you be willing to try something like this?
What do you devs think? Is this even possible? I know its more complicated than just swapping around numbers but I don't think that is going to solve the infantry<->vehicle dispute by itself.

Hope you enjoyed my brainstorming.

No.

From what the forums tell me, separating Vehicle seats should make the said Vehicles naturally more powerful because each occupant can devote to their task, rather than one doing two jobs. If these three-seat Vehicles can't perform better with that alone to begin with, perhaps the premise is erroneous.

I'd like to see separate driver/gunner roles in MBTs however the lighting is fine the way it is.

Idc about the lightning, but this is something i want (driver gunner that is) the problem being the magrider though.

impossible for magrider without some serious model modifications.

Honestly, I wouldn't care if they made a cert line that let MBT's turn into 3 seaters and only did it for TR and NC.

Hell, make it a defense slot and give them side, front and top armor even for doing it. (slight advantage for being dedicated driver)

Your first premise is unfounded.
Hence your argument is invalid.

For the Mag, they could do an overdrive thing where a percentage of the DPS/Damage whatever was taken away from the Primary and added to the Secondary.

Sigh... honestly... this is an old suggestion. There was massive outcry at release about the Primary gunner vs dedicated driver setup. PS2 devs specifically choose the current layout on purpose... they went away from the dedicated driver/gunner setup that was in PS1 for specific reasons, and those reasons haven't changed. 2 1/2 years later and nothing has been done....
It won't happen now... its a large change, that would require balancing, updating cosmetic models, etc... would require too much manpower and the backlash from current drivers/gunners wouldn't be worth the risk for them.
The time to change this was in Dec of '12... not Summer of '15.

It's not a good idea to deliberately make the more unwelcoming for solo players. After all, most players are going to enter the game solo.

Some entering, and exiting animations would be nice.

Also make the tanks seem "heavier"

Meaning the Vanguard and Prowler don't slide around so much, behave like tanks that weigh several tons.

And the Magrider to behave more like...a ship on water, so it's not moving up and down constantly on small bumps. Idk how to explain it perfectly.

Also, Lightning to look "real", there's no suspension, track animation is abysmal.

And when you neutral turn the tanks, the tracks go forward or back depending on where you turn, instead of one going forward, and one back, or one going forward/back and one stays still.

In a nutshell, you're doing these things:

1.) Forcing drivers to choose between controlling movement or the turret even though they're capable of doing both simultaneously.
2.) Making solo tanking impossible.
3.) Buffing AI farm tools.

I don't agree with any of those.

Splitting the turret gunner and driver roles won't increase effectiveness as it adds arbitrary delay and complexity to tasks that you would otherwise not even need much (if any) conscious thought to do. If people honestly have trouble driving and using the primary cannon at the same time then splitting that responsibility won't help them. If you can't even coordinate with yourself then you sure as hell won't be able to precisely coordinate through someone else verbally.

This is the crux of the issue: This argument would have merit if gunning and driving took a significant amount of mental effort, but the reality is that they're just physical actions that come from your decision making. Tanks are slow and steady and you don't usually need to focus on the movements themselves, just the reasoning for the movement. Its like arguing that you would be a better infantry player if one person controlled the gun and another controlled movement.

The alternative argument is that you might be a good driver but not a good shot, but I really don't know how you can be experienced enough to be a good driver but not have learned to aim well. They're linked.

--------------------

If their argument is that it increases awareness, then that too is unfounded. As it is now, a driver and a secondary gunner is enough to keep a 360 degree sweep around the tank and I don't see why splitting the driver and primary gunner roles would actually increase awareness. If you're driving then you're looking where the gun is firing, and if you choose not to then you're trying to increase awareness at the cost of pure effectiveness in combat.

There's always the Lightning.

Creating a new tank to fulfill this would be a better idea

Before they make ANY more changes to vehicles, they need to fix the vehicle physics across the board. Vehicles in this game feel like driving a bar of soap across a frozen lake covered in oil.

I drive my lightening flat out towards someone, then I try to steer it. Nope. It just keeps going in the same direction sideways for about two miles before it even starts to make the slightest course correction.

How about when I try to turn my tank, it doesn't slide, it just slows down and turns. You know, like almost every single other game on the market that has tanks in it? Something like that maybe?

Sounds like a lot of dev effort to make the game worse.

Yeah, I had censored that part of the proposal from my brain because I didn't want to acknowledge how terrible it was.

You did nothing to back up your counterpoint.
Hence your counterpoint it invalid.

I'd be okay with this, though I think it'd be better to offer seperate gunner and driver as an option, but if it's mandatory, I'd be okay with it.

i love the idea and i have made similar suggestions in the past but people just dont like it

im a tanker through and through and having a separate gunner is WAY more fun, i loved the separate driver/gunner system in PS1 as it made the vehicle gameplay more rewarding and fun

people are used to this battlefield style of tanking though and dont even want to try a separate driver/gunner - they dont know what they are missing