[Suggestion] The State of the Game : Vehicular Combat

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by strove, Apr 10, 2020.

  1. strove

    Final post of minor grumbles, this time on the topic of ground vehicle combat. This is the part of the game i enjoy the most, i probably spend about half of my game time these days behind the wheel. Having spent that long in vehicles i do have some gripes:

    1. Liberators are a ball ache and near untouchable but i cover the state of Flak weapons in another post
    2. Why in the hell do lightnings flip so easily, roll over a small pebble and it feels like these things are made of paper in a stiff breeze. Obviously this isnt the easiest thing to fix as its all routed in the core of the games code. I do have a request that would lessen this sort of annoyance, especially when vehicles cost nanites. Id like to see a refund of nanites if your vehicle is destroyed without having taken any player damage. This wouldnt solve the issue of vehicular physics but it would remove the annoyance of having lost your nanites because a pebble looked at you funny 10 seconds after spawning...
    3. God damn Magriders man. The power in being a hovering tank that can strafe has always been an issue, even more so once you give them a tubo boost that can rival the Harassers speed. Being raised off the ground can make it difficult to gauge how far away they are since your usual frame of reference is its position on the ground. So often, even if your predicting its movements, your shot will fly UNDER the hull. This could be resolved by simply increasing the under glow to make it clearer as to where on the ground it is. The strafing however is an issue in my eyes. Strafe speed is an often sought after stat with the infantry weapons that boast a .75 strafe modifier often being prised. Having an MBT able to strafe, especially at mid to long ranges makes tank vs tank combat near impossible to win. Not only is it a case of your skill vs their skill, you also need to win a rock paper scissors best of 5 to win. As best as i can see, the Mag doesnt really have any downsides to counter this strength either. It just leads to a lot of frustration at anything over mid range unless you get the jump on them and even then, they just boost to safety before you can burst them down... Perhaps reducing strafe deceleration. They can still strafe and can still get up a strafing speed fast in a pinch but less zig zagging for that rock paper scissors advantage...
    4. Harassers, i like these damn things but they are an absolute ballache to MBTs, as right they should be. I do wonder if they have a little too much HP or if the rumble seat repairs is just a touch too strong. Between the speed, the HP and 3 different souces of healing while on the go (rumble repairs, fire suppression and Ransack) Ultimately i like where we are at with them but sometimes they are so tough to get rid of while so cheap to pull and i do wonder if there is some merit to looking into them atleast a little.
    5. My main issue with Harassers is the TR vulcan. The harasser is a vehicle that excells at getting up close at the cost of the increased risk. They have 3 faction specific weapons.
    • An anti infantry weapons (PPA, Canister, Marauder (which probably needs a slight buff)
    • A long range AV weapon (Enforcer, Saron, Gatekeeper)
    • A short range AV weapon (Mjolnir, Vulkan and Aphelion)
    The mjolnir damage is high but with the arcing shots and slow travel time, you really need to work this weapon to get damage out of it, not to mention is sucks against moving targets. Going harasser vs harasser with a mjolnir is near enough an instant loss.
    The Aphelion damage is respectable but you get the most out of it by burst firing for that high damage shot which, again, needs some skill to get the damage out of it
    The Vulkan, which im sure im missing some resistance type calculations, as best as i can math, does the most damage out of the three anyway, is the epitome of "haha, bullet machine go brrr". Its effective at a surprisingly high range, suffers minimal drop and travel time and while the CoF does get quite high, the RoF more than compensates for it.
    I dont think the harasser weapons are something that should be fixed with raw damage changes, i do think the mjolnir could recieve a minor projectile velocity change without making it any stronger in terms of damage potential. This would help it deal with the high speed combat you expect from a harasser. I feel like the vulkan could see a decrease in its minimum damage at 50m, or potentially a reduction in that range to 40m. As mentioned, im likely missing some resistance stats but as best as im aware, the vulkan is the highest damage output harasser weapon so that may need a tweak too but honestly id be happy to see it just recieve a reduction in its effective range which would, like the others, require greater player skill and positioning to get the damage off without dying to return fire.
    Thoughts?
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  2. strove

    Side note. There was a thread i read that suggested porting some of the Valkyries weapons to Lightning variants and i think, for variety sake, this may be a decent thing to look into. It would broaden the range of weapons available to the middle of the road tank that has neither the speed of the harasser nor the sheer power of the MBTs. What you gain by allowing the guns to a single man tank with a balance of speed and health, you lose in not having the angles and manoeuvrability of being an aircraft. Its free content...
    • Up x 1
  3. TRspy007

    Vehicles are way too squishy, especially after the CAI.
  4. strove

    I actually really enjoyed the vehicle rebalance, the faster time to kill for VvsV combat means that it often comes down to positioning, flanking and picking your fights and allows lightnings a chance to win. Before when it took lie 10 rank rounds to kill an MBT the MBT with a gunner would turn around even if you flanked, got the jump on them and went for rear armour, they would still win...

    In terms of vs infantry, its *** for tat imo. If you let infantry get close, youll die pretty quickly, if you keep them at a distance you can farm for days. I dont really have an issue, if anything, maybe vehicle vs vehicle could be slowed down just a touch but even then...
  5. Campagne

    I think they should look at each of the harasser/MBT topguns again.

    In my opinion just prior to the CAI the ESAI guns, or at the very least the Canister, felt right for once in history. It wasn't just awful like it's been for almost its entire history, but was really only good at scary-close range. When it got within that range however, it was a good capable gun but still suffered all the penalties of a shotgun. Now it's kinda weak and lame again but not the worst iteration it's ever seen. Kobalt is just better for almost everything. I think the Marauder and PPA are probably in the same boat of inferiority.

    Something's gotta be done about the ES shot-range AV guns. I really agree that buffing the projectile velocity of the Mjolnir is a good idea, but I wouldn't discount decreasing the CoF and removing bloom instead. Vulcan's always been the best and probably still will be forever.

    The long-range AV guns need tuning as well. The Enforcer is just not good. The Gatekeeper is stupid effective at super-range still, it needs to be corrected. But it could also maybe be improved at shorter ranges as well. Saron is okay, I don't know.
  6. strove

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