[Suggestion] The Ultimate Combined Arms Gameplay Thread

As im not driving to much in tanks I have to say i dont know how effective counter tactics to ESF are. I play most times as infantry or ESF. I just know that there are enough times i get shot down by the so bad AA secondary. Why? Because maybe 1 is not doing the job well, but if you have 10 on the ground you will get insta killed.

Its hard to balance things when you just look on a single isolated situation (1 tanks vs 1 ESF).

As said, if I have more time in the air without getting blasted out of the sky I also have no problem to give away my rocketpods. They have a short TTK because ESF have no time to hang around for long with the massive AA (flak and g2a rockets) that we have atm.

P.s.:
There is no other option to rocketpods, there is no secondary that makes sense beside the ABs and rocketpods are much more effective than ABs. Maybe the solution would be to give us some other toys for secondary so we have to make a decision.

The Ranger is really bad you need over a clip to kill an ESF, the Walker is decent but has a very high skill cap compared because it's a HMG.

Sure, if there are multiple AA sources, they will take you out. But there would be ways to balance those things out if there would be more real choices that would matter in the customization.

Let's say you would lose Afterburners for equipping a A2G wing mounted weapon, like the rocketpods or other stuff that we might see in the future like Bombs or ATGMs. But there would also be choices for the defense slot to make your plane tougher to take more AA for a set duration of time.

Ground attack planes like the A-10 or SU-25 have no afterburners, instead they are armored to take some amount of AA fire. They stick to the ground because air superiority fighters would easily kill them with long range radar guided missiles.

That's how the Air warfare roles in the RL work, you got your Air superiority fighter, your ground attack plane and the multi role craft that can do both but is not the master in both. And well .. strategical bombers(which we hopefully never see in PS2), gunships(which means close and prolonged air support, are both attack choppers and the AC-130 count as such)

Multi role fighters can do both A2A and A2G, but pure air superiority fighters will take them out and those multi role fighters have little CAS capability because of their speed(they are to fast) and lack of endurance against ground targets. They mainly deliver strikes from high altitude with guided munitions, something like rocketpods ... lol ... they fly to high and fast for those.

I know that this is a game but the RL is "balanced" by hard limitations, a principal that could easily be adapted into PS2.

Right now the ESF is a Air superiority fighter that actually can mount heavy A2G weapons, which you usually don't do for very good reasons in the real world. AA will shred those fragile plans to bits, while there actually have been reports that a A-10 survived a SAM hit and came back on one engine. Several more A-10s survived encounters with normal AA and AAA.

The A-10 has every system double backed up, even with hydraulics out, 1 engine gone and several feet of the wings missing it could come back! While a F-22 would wet it's pants after receiving 2-3 20mm rounds.

I recommend watching this documentary to see what's the difference between a A-10 and the other Fighters.

Infantry is the #1 threat because armor doesn't work like armor in this game.

Increasing HP without changing the core mechanics will only get the response of not 3-4 AV launcher needed to stop a tank rush but maybe 20...

At 20 launchers at 1 player each, we get 6 MBTs with 3 people each and a 2 Lightnings on the other side for equal teams.
The 20 launchers would stop a zerg, or much more than 8 tanks, and it's back to status quo.

Well, not really, as now there's 3 people needed to fully operate an MBT instead of 2; there's some artificial limitations on tanks working while not fully crewed.

If there are artificial limitations on a tank when it has an incomplete crew, what happens when:

-A player spawns a tank, but can't find 2 gunners for it, because they preferred to go with the 2 Liberators that spawned 5 seconds later?
-The gunners disconnect in combat or have to log out for whatever reason?
-The gunners exit the tank in combat and go into the shootout on foot?
-The gunners decide to get an ESF or Lightning instead of sitting in a tank for the whole day?

Oh, the tank is unplayable. Well, who's going to refund the resources so I could grab a Lightning?

I'd also really use that Lightning right now, because the enemy is making their own Lightning rush with 5 tanks and farming the 30 useless 1/3 MBTs. All the gunners are out in the field/buildings/base, trying to get hold of the control points, so they'll never be back in time...

Or scratch that, there's a bunch of other games with tanks that don't have this hassle at all.

I admit.. I'm playing way to much ARMA as of late ...

But yeah, I agree, we need mechanics changed instead of strait HP buffs for Tanks. If we want Tanks to be Tanks..

There are a lot of good ideas on the board on how to change the core mechanics so things would balance out better.
Im sure most people, even if they bought stuff threw SC, would be happy to see some quality changes even if that means that they can not use the rocketpods anymore.

We all want a fair game, but im not sure if SOE has the balls to do the needed changes.

There are changes that could be made which would still allow the use of the current rocketpods. Just check the thread in my signature. Witch a deeper customization system for Vehicles, we could actually balance this to.

Under B. Weapons -> 3. Roles and Weapons

1. With an additional AI gunner seat this will help a tank behave like a tank by helping it to deal with unlimited 10 sec respawning infantry counters

2. By buffing rear armor to take .8-.9 damage multiplier instead of 1.2 this should still make a tank weak in the rear, but not to the point it's stupid.

3. Buffing Health to what I had suggested so the 450 resources MBT can take the type of damage I suggested will help a tank support infantry on the front line and behave like a tank.

4. Bengal Tiger I'd love to hear any suggestions you have for drawbacks of having the tank go 1/3 and having the driver in control of the main gun. Maybe 4 times reload penalty is too much maybe 2.5-3 times is more reasonable. If a tank loses his gunner, he should be able to retreat to find another one since he has more health, and should be able to fend off or deter a Lightning trying to chase him down. If tank spam is to be reduced their needs to be a fine balance so these new 3/3 MBT's are not spammed as 1/3. Having a slower reload speed as 1/3 allows you defend yourself while being repaired or finidng a gunner but is to much of a hassle to try and solo a MBT. Again I'm open to any ideas you have.

Thanks for the feedback tbot

1. Only ESF's and HA's can currently become the jack of all trades without having to sacrifice much utility in either AV/AI/AA

2. I think vehicle AA outside of the Skyguard can go as they all are mediocre at best. I do think AA Maxes need a range reduction and Skyguards need a buff so I definitely agree with you there.

3. I'd give you those changes for your rocketpods to. It's a very fair trade from both perspectives. I also understand where pilots are coming from and it would be nice seeing ESF's dog fight across the sky again without being interrupted by all the AA.

4. Is there anything else that you disagreed with that you would be willing to discuss?

Actually not to much, I think the root of all the problems is that SOE can not control how many units can be in an area.
How can you balance something if you have to keep in mind what will happen if you have 2, 5 or 50 of that weapon / vehicle type in an area?

Battlefield is way easier to balance (because of fixed vehicle and infantry quantity) and still, plains are OP IMHO and they always were in every BF title.

The thing that makes Plains OP is that they can attack fast, hard and will be gone before you can react. On top of that, Plains are the only thing with no skill limit. With a tank you can "just" drive around. Your not that fast and even great tankers will have to adjust their attacks depending on the surrounding. There is a max level of effectiveness you can use a tank, doesn't matter how good you are.

A plain does not have that problem.

How can you keep a vehicle in balance if it gives skilled players so much freedom of maneuverability + speed? And how do counter it if you can not control the battlefield?

What might work in a 1 vs 1, might be a big Charlie Foxtrot the moment you have multiple units of the same type.

1. With the new 3/3 MBT it would be a significant waste to pull it for a 1/3 purpose, it will also only be able to be pulled from warp gates or tech plants making them much harder to yeild in large numbers unless a lot of coordination was used. Having them be 3/3 team oriented vehicles would also cut down on the zerg numbers.

2. Biggest problems I have with ESF's is they are 1/1 vehicles, the fastest vehicle in the game, and by getting rocket pods they devistate AI/AV/and even devistated liberators and Galaxies better, while losing only minor utility against other ESF's and Liberators. We already concluded that doing things such as buffing the Skyguard and reducing burster maxes to close range AA would help balance things. I personally don't mind if MBT AA secondaries are taken away because they're horrible, they just annoy pilots which is obviously why you want them gone.

3. You make a good point in that even higher skilled tankers like myself can only do so much in a slow moving vehicle which has countless AV sources that can out snipe it. It's always a pleasure talking with pilots that understand where tankers are coming from.

4."What might work in a 1 vs 1, might be a big Charlie Foxtrot the moment you have multiple units of the same type." Care to explain that for me? I'm not sure exactly what you mean.

It means for example 1 burster MAX vs 1 ESF is more or less balanced (MAX is not balanced vs skyguard, but we agree on that)
ESF has a chance to retreat or if skilled can even kill the MAX and the other way around.

The moment you have several MAXes standing unpredictable somewhere on the map its getting OP. You dont know where they are and can not react on it as you will be dead before you can.

Same with the eng AV turrets or the lock ons. There is a critical mass that will insta kill you, you can not react anymore and you cant even see them till its to late.

That is OP in my eyes and also frustrating, but im sure 1 AV eng vs 1 Tank is quiet balanced.

Every class can heal itself.

This. Annihilators and strikers ruin the game. You become anti-everything.

Good points, but I'll have to disagree with you. You make a lot of assumptions of things that haven't been test yet, if the devs would proceed with OP's ideas. Also, base design improved a lot since launch and they're now way more infantry friendly. You're exaggerating. On spawn camping, I think crewed tanks would discourage it because they wouldn't fit the role of taxis anymore and they'd probably be less numerous.

Well, I'm going to have to have to disagree with you in a few ways on the 1V1 when it comes to the ESF's 1.5 sec TTK with rocketpods since that happens regardless of numbers. That being said I feel a tank out in the middle of nowhere shouldn't survive against an ESF since an ESF should be able to outmaneuver the tank and perform multiple strafe runs on it.

1 Camera guided decimator is OP when it's coming from 300m out and you have only a few sources of cover to hide behind. The rockets don't render, and you don't know where the infantry that shooting it is.

1 Lancer is OP if it's coming from 600m+ away in the deserts of Indar, ontop of a canyon or mountain, and most places on Esamir

1 Striker isn't OP because it's just like the Annihilator in a sense, you can pop smoke, hide the center of your tank behind cover to prevent a lock, or point the nose of your ESF down the missiles go into the ground since the tracking system on them is so bad. It is certainly devastating in large battles with multiple people though.

1 AV turret turret is OP because it doesn't render from 800m+ away, the rockets don't render from 400m+ away, it 5 hits a Vanguard from the front, 2 hits from behind, and if you're in a Prowler you have to land not 1 but 2 shots for it to blow up. It spawns unlimited amount of times, fires unlimited amount of times, and the engineer can bail after the first shot I land and set up else where. You can also shoot multiple rockets at once from far range if you have it upgraded which instagibs a tank. If you have 3-5 Av turrets it can stop an entire armor column in its tracks. The rockets at range also go through vehicle force shields at amp stations and tech plants making them useless to hide behind. It's by far the most OP weapon against armor, second to only the 1 second TTK of rocket pods.

Have the main gunner operate the biggest boomstick, just like it is in the Liberator, with the driver operating the current secondary, and the secondary gunner having the choice of weapons the Lib's tail gun gets (Magrider would be a special case here... I don't really see how a Walker would work mounted on the hull floor).

I'd also still like to see the vehicle spawning priority and timer thingy I wrote about earlier- that would definitely limit the population of tanks.

People will continue to get MBTs anyways if they're quick to get, even if all they really need is a Flash. I've been attacked by a Galaxy zerg (courtesy of Iron Vanguard, VS, Cobalt), and practically all of them were 1/12.

P.S. Do we really need 3 man tanks as MBT's? That's pretty much a really major redesign.

Bump

1. 2/2 MBT's would work, but I'm all about teaming up with buddies and increased dakah for tanks to make them feel like real tanks. As I stated before, on the test server they already have coaxial gun utility slots for a MBT so a 3/3 MBT wouldn't require a total redesign. The Prowler is already designed to be 3/3 based upon the giant gap in it's turret (look at my avatar ) It also isn't hard to slap on a Kobalt somewhere on a Vangaurd next to an Enforcer that doesn't look dumb. Only the Magrider would require some minor redesign to make it 3/3 as I put in the Magrider Picture, or we could just buff their damage output a little to keep them 2/2.

2. Your vehicle priority timer could work and I never said it was a bad idea. I just stated that if we had that idea then we shouldn't make MBT's only spawn at WG's or Tech Plants. I think it should be one or the other or else we're limiting MBT's a little to much.

Thanks, I really appreciate the help and support to maintain this thread so players can see it and post constructive feedback. I've been told by SOE staff that the developers were forwarded this thread and have seen it, so it's likely they are closely watching it for good feedback. I'm going to attempt to keep this thread on page 1, and keep it as constructive as possible for the developers to get the feedback they need to make the necessary changes to fix gameplay and balance in PS2.

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/327621145257967616

Hooray! A step towards the right direction.