[Suggestion] The Ultimate Combined Arms Gameplay Thread

1. Hooray for minimal enforced teamwork?

2. You misunderstand I think. I didn't wonder how you would deal with vehicles being pulled again once they are killed. I wondered how this "scarcity" system would stop vehicle drivers always having a vehicle whenever they wanted one. In theory with the current system all you need for a constant unbearable spam of "non paper" tanks, even with a 6 hour timer and 750 resource cost, is for people who spawn at warp gate to see if there is an empty tank waiting for a crew, and if there is not they pull one if they can and leave it there. This loophole could be closed but it's an example of the sort of scarcity this system imposes. I don't understand your comment about me expecting to solo teams. Surely you want the super tank so you can more easily defeat large numbers of people who you would no doubt think deserve to be cleaned up as they are lesser "lone wolfs" acting together in large groups or whatever way you are using lone wolf now.

3. I guess that restricting MBT to tech plants and warpgate would be a inconvenience that would stop some people using them at some times. If this changed just by itself then how much extra armour for MBT do you think it would be worth as a balancing measure? I bet most people would think none at all.

Dear God yes to 90% of what you said.

On the note of differentiation between ESF's. if an A2A ESF is the hard counter to a A2G ESF then the A2G model needs to loose some of its handling capabilities. Also the rockets should have some scatter so that they aren't precise and pinpoint.


Red orchestra 1 forced team tanking by having a driver and a gunner. That was the most fun tanking I have EVER had in any video game with tanks...


I'm not so sure about the rockets costing resources though..


Instead of buffing tank health too much I would first suggest changing the armor values even further. Tank frontal armor is very thick and should take only minimal damage from any weapon ( missle or ap tank shell ). Side armor less so, and rear armor being the weakest. Make tank battles even more about maneuvering than just hammering the frontal armour of the tank until it dies. Current MBT's in todays world have been on occasion hit multiple times by ATGM's, tank rounds, and other weapons to the frontal armor with no damage taken whatsoever.

It's annoying now when I sacrifice any infantry killing capability with a lightning AP and it still takes 2-3 rear shots on a MBT to knock it out.

Oh and lastly, gyro stabilized tank main guns. They've been around for a while, why are they not present in Ps2?

A few things I want changed.

1. Bring flinch back, whats the use of TR having a higher rate of fire if there is almost no flinch.

2. Fix liberators, give them better armor vs ground weapons but make it so they must deploy to unlock the main cannon.

3. I don't know why or exactly when but in early beta libs, and maybe other air craft, could free gun. when you used free look the gun followed your line of sight, we need that back.

4. Make sundies only available at warpgates, and only available at other large basses when a faction has a connected tech plant, like MBTs.

5. Give galaxies back an ams abilities but this time make them only able to deploy when above 100 m, also why don't gals have the prox repair/ammo abilities that sundies have.

6. SOE went the wrong way with AOE, I mean they decreased AOE distance but buffed some direct damage. I want them to nerf the damage but greatly increase the AOE for everything.

7. More small cover. Infantry needs more small cover around objectives. In combat you would never want to be running out side of cover for more than 3-5 sec. as it stands even when cover is available most often you will have about 7-10 sec to move from one cover to the next. Or you could alternatively give us prone.

Lastly 8. Bring back the importance of fighting over territory for resources. To much weight is put onto the importance of XP, which means people will always mistaken killing more enemies as the best way to get no matter what the devs do to curb this. Thus the only solution in my mind is to bring back the old resource system.

Oh and fix your ****, It was so broken today I almost had to almost cancel the training time I scheduled with my outfit that I worked on all week. And we never got a chance to use what we worked on in the fray because of all the bugs and latency.

On ESF's, I think where a pilot aims with his missiles are where they should hit. I'm already frustrated when I took time to line up a shot on infantry with my prowler, only to have the shell land to the right or left of the target because the turret is off center. ESF's should have to relie on skill, not luck on where their rockets land. I also think the distance and turning capability on A2A missiles should be reduced to an extent and the nose guns damaged buffed to promote more skilled based fights. If planet side 2 wants to be more fun it needs to raise the skill cap in certain areas, and this is one of them.

For rockets costing resources, the idea is that low skill cap launchers like the ESRL's and Lock-ons be attached with a small resource cost of around 25 resource per rocket, if people run out they can pull out the standard dumbfire rocket launcher. This way there is always a medium skill cap AV weapon for use and it will always be 100% free to use.

I have no idea why they haven't introduced gyro stabilization, maybe they want the Magrider to be the only tank that can fire on the move as some form of asymmetrical balance?

Thanks for your comment and feedback, I'm glad you found something to relate to in my suggestions and views.

Wow this thread is god like. I agree with everything you said. Right now, MBTs are useless as hell and I only use them for a quick cert farm by zerging. ESFs instant gib everything. Liberators are giant "hit me" boxes that can't do anything anymore.

I shall repost this on reddit.

Great post op, lets hope the Development team at all things planetside take some notice...............................

Thanks for the response, I was hoping I could get a few Galaxy Pilots to comment as well. In terms of your suggestions

1. I did think that the reduction in Flinch served as a huge buff and got rid of one of the few disadvantages for the NC, but I'm not sure what to suggest since advocating for flinch return would likely cause a tsunami of blue tears about recoil and whatnot.

2. What do you mean by deploy to unlock the main cannon? Do you mean their must 2 people in a liberator to unlock the main cannon? I'm not sure where I stand on that since currently Liberators are rare on the battlefield, and implementing any mechanics that would reduce their mechanics would only further marginalize them. If they became more spammy after the buff perhaps, but with the current level of AA and the gravitational pull effect on their shells has raised the skill cap (which I'm a fan of).

3. Interesting, I wasn't aware that was ever a feature.

4. Putting sunders on the MBT's old plan would make them harder to spam rush, however I'm not sure what the overall impact of this would be. It would place more value of Tech plants, but this could be very detrimental to a warp gated faction. Thoughts on the impacts of this, and the reason behind it?

5. This is a really interesting idea, the fact they are only deplo able in the air would actually be a good way to balance them and make it so they couldn't just be gaint mobile ground bunker spawns. Getting more opinions on this would be nice.

6. I personally hated when liberators zypher cannons had massive AOE, you could never escape them. I also have a current problem that I have to land 2-3 HEAT shells at an infantry's feet to kill them. The last thing I want to do is penalize aiming and encourage spamming huge AOE explosions. I will say that AOE was nerfed a little to far on most things, and that the inner radius splash circle had its damaged nerfed to hard.

7. Lol, who doesn't want better base designs with more cover? Less huts and giant empty buildings with stacked boxes, I agree!

8. Define the old resource system, not everyone knows what all this entails.

9. What did you think of my recommendations for the Galaxy buffs and the large proximity bonus circle as an incentive to guard Galaxys and Liberators?

Thanks again for the feedback, if you have any other dedicated galaxy pilots I'd love to hear their opinions too if you could bring them in here. (Does anyone know if the galaxy pilot Light Wolf A.K.A Wolf Air is still around, he was another epic Galaxy pilot)

Thanks for the compliment and even more for reposting this thread on reddit if you could try to repost the pictures and videos in the exact same way that I have that would be awesome too. Now I just have to find someone to Tweet the Devs so I know they'll look at it and hopefully respond in this thread.

Strongly disagree with most of the air changes.

Yes ESF's steal the Liberators role right now. The ESF's the issue though. One that won't be changed because they made alot of $$$$ off rocket pods and want to give solo players some way to solo every other vehicle in the game.

Giving lib's more armor will just have practically the same issues we had in beta when we got over buffed armor. Same with the Gal.

Planetside's balance isn't about 1v1, it's about multiple vs. multiple. Giving the liberator's 50% armor means people will pull 7 liverators and go level a capital. That's why there's (generally) small buffs. Gonna also add in here, everyone can pull a liberator or galaxy but not everyone has a skyguard or second burster they can pull.

I'm all for improving the galaxy but buffing it's armor isn't going to fix the issues it has.

Already agreed on all of the XP suggestions for the Gal (see wiki)

I don't tank often so I won't speak on it.

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They were still around last month. A month is a long time for PS2 though so can't say they still are for sure.

8.
http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/Resources?oldid=6407

Polymers Catalysts and Alloys. New system was put in around the 15th of October.

Polymers were used for spawning light armored vehicles (Lightning, Scythe, Liberator) and Catalysts were used for heavy armor (Sunderer's, MBT's and Galaxies) Flashes used Alloys, which were like infantry resources now.

I can kind of see why they got rid of the system. You could use all of your resources to spawn tanks and if you ran dry you could just pop over to your Lightning. That said, I perferred it simply because it brought everything together. Some one who spawned tanks could just crap out a Sunderer when it blos up to set up a spawn point. If you wanted to assualt and then pull a Sunderer or MBT you'de probably fall back on your lightning. There were more lightnings back then.

9. Is interesting but also aside from the and gunner xp one of the only things i really agreed with.

Med/Resto and being able to eat 5 of them.

In skirmish sized battles I currently have my greatest success with my Vanguard, I do not fear air with it since I can counter it and work myself around it to outlive them most of the time. Also I run with an outfit that get's AA very quickly, after the second Tank up we also have a Skyguard up ...

Right now I do way better in terrain that should be bad for Tanks because I actually have cover and Infantry has to get closer to kill me. I always mount a Kobalt, which surprised more enemy Infantry than you can think, since it's like being a bulletproof HA.

I get killed mainly in open terrain were I have little to no cover. The open fields are currently being controlled by Infantry, since they outrange Tanks.

You could say I drive my MBT non stop in C4 distance and do better because of the Kobalt and the fact that Infantry can no longer use it's range advantage against me. Sure this is not the average thing, you need quite some situational awareness to do that effective.

Tanks might get into those positions quickly, but they can not stay there for long. Right now I play in two gameplay modes... Medium Range support with lot's of cover around or close and dirty right next to the Infantry, hotseating my Kobalt or if I have a competent gunner.

On long range you can not effectively engage Infantry with a Tank, it's just a waste of shells and time you could spent trying to find a way to get a good medium range location and actually be useful. Which is sometimes not possible because Infantry has the high ground.

Ground Vehicles reign currently in no area over anybody, Infantry does that and if there is no AA present, Air does that to. Tanks no longer have free reign over any kind of terrain or combat range, their current sole purpose is to have big guns pointed at a Spawn room and shoot the crap out of it. And the I see spawn suppression as a degradation of Armor...

Armor should spearhead the way to the next base, this does not happen, it's even less likely to happen once the new base designs and the Lattice will be introduced!

As a Tanker you can not relay that Infantry will keep you save, since they do not have the range to kill what kills Tanks. Only Snipers could do that to some degree but medics can rezz those shot down HA's and Engis quicker than Snipers could kill them.

Hell, Infantry can't even keep their Sundy's save against a lone guy on a Flash ... How would I trust them with watching out for incoming LA's. They look far less above them than I do because they have to fear less from Air than I do.

Nobody ambushes Tanks anymore they just shoot them down over long range. If it would be an ambush in a very narrow road through a canyon like the road between Hvar and Quartzridge or the one between the Palisades and East-Canyon Checkpoint I would say yes.. this is an ambush and an unfavorable terrain for Tanks, but this now rarely happens because Infantry no longer needs to do this to kill Tanks. Also those really hard counter terrain areas are very rare. Tanks get totally owned by Infantry on Esamir now because it is so open, I actually like fighting on Indar more now as a Tanker because I actually have cover!

3-seated MBT's, with stabilized guns and stronger rear armor can atleast use their mobility to atleast play more aggressively, since they will have more health. Tanks in PS1 made hit and run attacks if the battle was even to big for them to handle. They used mobility and terrain to their advantage. PS2 Tanks cant capitalize on their speed because they can either move or shoot, but not both!

I disagree with some of your points, but otherwise, an excellent post all around. Allow me to respond in a few points:

* Heavy balancing: I agree, the class is too powerful. I believe a heavy should have to choose between having the activated shield, and using any launcher but a light, dumbfire one (much like in PS1 you could carry around a Decimator as a “just in case” anti-armor choice, without dedicating yourself to it).

* Missiles resupplied for infantry resource, only at terminals: ... this is a crazy idea, but I like it. Three caveats though: A: Resources lost ONLY if you actually FIRE the missile and B: Would need many more terminals, possibly to the point of having engineer-deployable ones or ones mounted on buggies. C: Infantry resources are stretched extremely thin as is, though, and a pain to resupply the consumables. If this goes in, prices should be slashed (from 75-100 to 40s, more like), and a “spend IR on stuff automatically” should be added so you’re never at 750 and wasting them.

* One of the reasons I like the “missiles cost resources” idea is that it adds another factor to balancing the AV options, cost efficiency. The Striker might be a better option than the Annihilator, but it might be made less cost efficient.

As for your specifically MBT points.

1. I am in favor of cert-gating all vehicles. Yes. even the Flash, which at 1 cert, would introduce players to the idea of unlocking vehicles. This would give new players a simple gauge of “start with this thing, the stuff that takes 100 certs ought wait until you see a few of them in the field and get a feel for how other players use them”

2. True. However, I feel AV mines deserve to be that powerful.

5. Personally, I believe MBTs should A: have more health B: still take higher damage from the rear, BUT the super-effective attacks we have right now ought be limited to hitting the glowing “reactor”.

As for ESF vs. MBTs, that’s a problem with the rocket pods being retartedly strong and versa. They ought be nerfed twofold by A: the reactor change above B: their anti-armor damage cut in HALF, with a more hit-and-run less burst damage dedicated anti-armor variant introduced.

1. 3/3 tanks... yes and no. I think PS1 had it right. Vanguard with co-axial secondary, Prowler with 3/3, Magrider with driver-controlled Secondary (twin-link it for 1.5x the RoF) + weaker turret plasma cannon.

4. Changes to cannons... I disagree. That’s not where the problem is right now.

5. Relatedly: Lightnings must be made MORE appealing choices - empire specific cosmetics, abilities, turrets etc

8. Those numbers are good... assuming it’s impossible to repair the MBT between all that firepower landing. You seem to be completely disregarding that. Forcing the MBT to pull back for lengthy repairs sounds good but... not very fun (and a great XP farm) for the engineers. As for how would I make it work? Let’s say... freshly repaired HP are “soft” for... a minute, maybe? As long as a tank has “soft” HP, it takes double damage from all sources. Otherwise, wearing down a bucket of HP that is the tank would be impossible due to constant repairs. Putting damage on one should feel like progress that isn’t trivial to erase.

This is a somewhat delayed reply, but it is something that I feel just has to be said:
k/d ratios mean nothing when it comes to gameplay, game mechanics or balance!

yes that is an impressive killstreak but it gives us no information relevant to this discussion. I would much rather know:

Where was your tank positioned relative to your army, the enemy and nearby allied forces?
What kind of forces did you have, were nearby, what was their postion, formation and compostion?
What kind of forces did the enemy have, were nearby, what was their postion, formation and compostion?
Did the army has a whole advance, retreat, hold or turned in a rolling battle?
Did this change during the negagment and if so when and why?
Did any side receive reinforcements? If yes, from where? How many? How did they influence the battle?
Was this in an open field? A base? Mountains? Did only one side have cover? Did you have cover? From what did you have cover? Did your targets have cover?
What did you do between shots? Were you repaired? Did you have a secundary gunner?

On a more subjective level:
Did you have fun playing your tank in this way?
Do you think others also enjoy playing their tank like this?
Are other playstyles supported or even possible?
Did your enemy have fun facing our tank like this?
Do they have other ways to face you?

But above all else: What was your role in this engagment? Did you storm forward with the infantry? Did you hang back and provide suppresion fire? Did you take aimed shots or just wild bombardments? Did your contribution helped your forces to advance? Or were you trying to get kills?
Do you think this is the role tanks are supposed to play in such an engagment? Do the game mechanics support or counter this role?

What I'm trying to say is that k/d ratios are useless when discussing the role of a vehicle because they only show a very very superficial result and explain nothing of how the game was played. We really need much more information before we can use this data in any signifcant matter.

I only posted that because a video of tank dying quickly was posted as evidence that tank are now utterly useless. All that video shown was a tank steaming directly at a base in the ravines with no support. I used different tactics than that. If you think I misunderstand tank tactics and am maybe just a k/d ***** because I kept my tanks alive and got kills then I dunno.

If you are interested in how I was playing at that time I can tell you a little.

The AP prowler was pulled because my platoon was defending a base and needed support to deal with armour. Mostly I was flanking and taking out targets attacking the base such as surrenders and tanks. I was not in the ravines in se indar, but I moved around some.

The Lightening was probably pulled to use to screen infantry actions.

I can give you three examples were you can get those killing streaks.

1. You have a good position and get totally ignored by the enemy. This rarely happens but if you have a good feeling of positioning you will pull it off more often. This pretty much relays in the enemy being stupid, something I would not relay to much on.

2. You have the Infantry zerg around you and terrain to use to your advantage. And mainly provide firesupport.

3. Small scale battles, were Tanks still hold a lot of power and can actually heavily influence the battle.

Those are some prime examples were you can do good in a Tank... but outside of that small box you get horribly murdered if you try to Influence the battle to much as a Tanker.

I didn't mean to accuse you of anything and, if I offended you, I do apologies. No offence was meant. It was a somwhat ranting post aimed at using only k/d as an argument but it does indeed seem agressively aimed at you. Once again my apologies.

I agree that the video is also little more than anecdotal evidence at best. But in a way it shows more than the list. As you said, you could immediatly deduct that a large part of his [the tank driver in the video] failiure was due to his positioning, terrain and the fact that he was alone. In the same way, a video of someone scoring a massive killstreak would also give much more information. I did not mean to attack you, but I do refute your argument as being incomplete.

Using the AP prowler to 'hunt' and counter charge is indeed one of the few roles that are still somewhat viable to tanks in my opinion. How did the screening with the lightning go?
What can you tell me about the opposition?

Can't remember exactly what happens there but typically I would patrol the space between the spawn and where the infantry is headed looking out for bad guys. This sort of situation the opposition is probably all types of everything but mostly infantry since they get everywhere. It's not a front line role obviously and things like the engineer turrets and lancers make the screening role very hard very quickly.

Thanks for clarifying some of my questions and giving good feedback. A few questions though.

1. How would you balance ESF's/Rocketpods? You can't remove them but you can balance them, everyone had the Annihilator at some point but that didn't stop them from making it not brokenly OP.

2. Back in Beta the problem wasn't just that they had more armor, aiming was easy as pie, the AOE was massive for the Zypher/Dalton, and their was no gravitational affect on the dalton/zypher. Now there is gravitational affect which has raised the skill cap, and AOE has been reduced, which is why I suggested buffing the armor.

3. If not increase their armor from flak by 50% what changes would you make so they wouldn't get instagibbed in large battles?

4. I don't often see people pull 1/3 liberators, and typically it requires a team to pilot a liberator these days. Everyone can pull a Liberator with no zypher/dalton, but that doesn't make them a threat.

1. Minimal enforced teamwork which costs zero resources initiate, zero resources even if you fail, and have a attempt to do so every 10 seconds with no penalty. All to kill a vehicle which has minimal enforced teamwork to operate it, 450 resources to pull it, can only be pulled in a select few locations, and has other conditions to pull it? Yes, and this seems very balanced from an infantry standpoint.

2. I'd deal with them by pulling out my zero resource cost Dumbfire rocket launcher and shooting at them behind cover with a few friends. I don't want a super tank nor have I ever indicated that. I want a tank that requires a team to operate that a single infantry has no hope of soloing and a tank that infantry will not look at as "Free XP!" and instead think " HOLY COW A TANK, GET TO COVER AND CALL FOR BACKUP!" I have never indicated I look down on lone wolf people as lesser people, everyone has their place in a combined arms games. People acting together in a group is not a lone wolf at that moment, that person is being a temporary pack wolf of a temporary pack. I almost never lone wolf, because I don't get the same satisfaction as supporting infantry making pushes and being in the middle of an allied infantry rush.

3. I bet most people would think you're wrong on the unjustified armor increase. I would increase MBT health based on what I already stated at the beginning of the thread, and I justified it with a very detailed set of restrictions and penalties I already stated. Lone Wolf Players have agreed with my suggestions all the way up to BCP, and other outfit leaders/ captains. The suggestions I made benefit all people except for solo C4 kamikaze Light assaults, people who like to abuse imbalanced AV weapons regardless of how it harms overall gameplay, and people who like to pull a MBT to solo and get a few kills before discarding their tank in a flaming ball of scrap metal.

The video I posted was not to showcase proper tank tactics, but to show you how fast a tank dies to a few infantry. In the video immediately after the Tank gets hit he pops smoke to cover an escape, which does nothing against the Phoenix but stops a few lockons, and precedes to retreat with his front facing the enemy to minimize damage loss. The Tank didn't sit still, it actively retreated immediately after getting with the least vulnerable part of the tank facing the enemy and it counted for almost nothing.

Dealing with slow moving armor in this game is easy if you have good aim and it isn't a certed Magrider. TankvTank combat is the most balanced it has ever been. So naturally pulling a AP Prowler in a scenario where you had platoon support for a armor primary threat (Ironically the least dangerous type of threat) would result in a positive occurrence. If you had been slowly advancing with infantry in the video I posted you would've died the same way, the rockets where coming from the upper levels or the center of the platforms which the infantry could do nothing about until they fought there way up there, by which time you would've already been dead by Phoenix Rockets. If you had been advancing with infantry beside you, you would either have to run them over and try to escape or sit there are die a fast death as you approached the NC Tower and the intensity of Phoenix rockets and lock-ons increased.