There is a link between the rise of "infantryside" and the downfall of the games popularity

I already replied to the topic back on the first or second page. You haven't replied to me, and I didn't attack you for it nor expect you to engage me specifically. Now when I point out the misuse of the SJW tag you are deflecting about the topic. Believe it or not I'm trying to help you.

As you note yourself correlation and causation, it isn't that large a difference in population, the notion that a HE nerf would bring people back in the same way as actual added content, and lastly just because people leave doesn't mean that they are right (I can mention other games where actual damn brokenly OP things getting nerfed made people leave). I am also somewhat sure of memory that there were other changes at that time?

Exactly.

You are such an attention *****

I accidentally quoted you. sorry .

Well people are certainly going to think about the topic either way lol

Yeah, still doesn't make it right or make people change their minds.

I am not the Topic.


The Topic is the Topic.

While it's sad to see PS2 slowly reducing to a giant Heavy Assault drughouse, I don't think that's the only reason to the population decline. PS2 has had troubles to keep itself fresh over the years in any respect and I would like to see major overhauls across the classes and vehicles.

Problem is that majority of the game community don't care about balance over their own stats. Current meta of PS2 is very nonsensical(thanks to us players) and it's very difficult for devs to revert that anymore.

It's as if PS2 just simply doesn't work in the present time, compared to past where it's novelty could have been appreciated.

To everyone who agrees with OP and OP himself- what is your definition of combined arms?

Every one of you vehicle centric players keep throwing around "combined arms" every chance you get yet when asked how to achieve this mythical perfect "combined arms" meta the answer boils down to "make tanks better at AI".

I don't get it. Other than making the driver's stats look pretty, what is the point of pulling an anti-infantry tank? You're useless against vehicles, I can chase you down in my battle bus and club you to death with furies and you're useless at any sort of meaningful AI work because you lack the sustained fire capability and mobility something like an AI sunderer would have.

Tanks excel at AV. That's their role in the combined arms meta. On defence they wipe out any spawn options the attackers brought in, and on offense they are there to counter any attempt by the defence to screw around with their spawn options.

Pulling an AI tank is the dumbest way I can think of to waste 450 nanites.

AKA they are afraid to have a backbone.

Now I haven't been playing PS2 for as long as you vets, but I have been on the forums for about a year. I don't think infantryside is solely to blame for PS2's waning playerbase. Its a number of factors like the lack of a story, the endless fight over the same few bases and others. I highly doubt that you could identify any one reason as the cause for falling player numbers.

Also, you can't just dismiss other people's opinions by calling them an SJW. I like some of your suggestions and I can tell you put a lot of thought into them but you seriously can't handle criticism. The moment someone disagrees with you, you call them an SJW or a whiny manchild. This is a public forum, of course someone's going to have a different opinion.

There were. Directives, resource consolidation, a few other balancing issues.

But on the whole, taken with all the other evidence, it is very difficult to conclude that there was any problem with HE (at least so far as it was too strong).

1) Statistically few were dying to HE and it was not significantly more lethal than playing with LMGs.
2) The Devs themselves did not single out HE as overperforming.
3) The player base responded to the HE nerf patch negatively rather than positively.

I think considering the weight of the evidence, HE was unjustifiably nerfed.

True, but you can notice trends overtime.

The reasoning for the August 2014 Tank cannon nerfs do not add up with the facts.

Which is why the only rational conclusion is that these nerfs WERE NOT DONE FOR BALANCE, but for Emotional pandering.

That's probably true. There is no logical reason why HE should have been nerfed based on performance. The only reason would be to quiet infantry players who seem to resent that 1 time they died to an explosive instead of the 50 times they died to bullets.

To be honest, it looks like you were only itching to voice your opinion about AI tanks with this post. I'm kinda itching to respond as someone who has done a lot of tank AI work at it's thickest, but I'm not sure if it's worthwhile... it's not me who has been asking for a bunch of buffs and nerfs after all.
E: To add, I wouldn't use AI Vanguard nearly as much if there weren't already so many Vanguards using the typical AV loadout. I see no harm in having one outfitted with a Canister that excels against HAs and LAs

My definition of combined arms is simple: When it's working well, we would see healthy proportions of infantry, vehicles and aircraft throughout the game. It would be rare to have big fights with one aspect missing entirely, making the whole scheme more interesting no matter what you're specializing in.

1) statistically few, still doesn't mean they weren't strong. You would need the KPM, KD, SPM average, how much it was pulled, how many and the list goes on and you'd then have to see if it was underperforming consistently (not to mention tanks often times have down time due to either refilling or driving, where infantry can often throw themselves at danger quite often). It is such a hard thing to completely have an idea of, which is problematic when discussing it.
2) But they did overall nerfs, which would indicate at least something being out of balance.
3) As I said that still doesn't mean it was right. I mean theoretically, if the HA had 2000 HP shields, 200 damage, 1000 RPM, 500 bullet magazines and was then put down to its current level, and that had people leaving, that wouldn't mean that they weren't overpowered.
Overall it might have been a nerf to prevent anger or frustration, I am not a big fan of those I will admit, but when it comes to something like HE even to this day when I was getting my auraxium on that cannon I got several call outs from people that I was farming etc.. Now of course I can to some degree say that it is often times peoples own fault that they die to it, but sometimes balancing has to be for the average not the highest players, and with HE and other splash weapons that is likely the case (hint, the marauder is pretty broken, and luckily not used a lot for those of us that still farm with it).
I could agree with a buff to magrider and vanguards HE, since they don't have the firing rate of the Prowler. That I will agree on.

Edit: HE was always rather rare in my memory, which then begs the question, how many people actually left specifically because of it? Because the numbers you gave seems rather much comparatively to HEs usage. And I highly doubt other people left because they wouldn't even be aware of its lacking power if they didn't use it.

It really wasn't but I understand how one can look at my post that way. I was just confused as to how nerfs to something that had always been useless for taking bases was the reason for the game's declining population and how buffing said weapon to still be useless for anything other than padding stats was the answer. Also couldn't understand what meaningful role an AI tank would play in a combined arms scenario seeing as the regular vehicle crowd is going on and on about buffing it and use 'combined arms' as the justification.

I understand if you don't want to respond but I'm genuinely interested in what you, as a non vehicle biased player, have to say.

This isn't an issue of logistics. Or even simplification or IRL systems. This is an artificial change to the game that completely flips the vehicle-infantry balance on its head.

The changes you cite are all there to simplify complex systems. And I can live with that. I agree it makes sense to have things like reloading to be simplified for the sake of fun. Infantrymen should not have to worry about reloading individual magazines. Tankers should not have to worry about refueling. Pilots should not have to worry about airframe maintenance.

But the fact that a revolver does more damage than a 20mm cannon is not like any of those changes. It does not simplify any dreary mechanic. Instead it randomly gives something that should do very little damage an incredible amount of damage.

48 tanks overkill? A combined arms battalion has 2 tank companies. Each tank company has 14 MBTs, making for 28 MBTs per battalion. So really we're just talking about two battalions' worth of tanks, which given the scale of conflict isn't unthinkable.

In terms of ratios, a 1 MBT: 1 Sunderer : 12 infantry ratio would probably work out well for combined arms. Plus air and all that.

And if the enemy was just rolling around in tanks, that would leave them incredibly vulnerable to air, which should be the counter to tanks. A pure tank force should be just as bad as a pure infantry force.

I find it frustrating that a 12.7mm Kobalt can't mow down a platoon. The easy solution to an enemy with a 12.7mm entrenchment would be to use a vehicle that was impervious to 12.7mm fire, such as a Sunderer or tank. Again, implementing highly lethal weapons encourages combined arms warfare and improves the game.

Small arms should be much less attractive of an option to use compared to heavier weapons. That would be a major balancing factor that would encourage the use of a combined arms force as compared to an infantry-centric force. You should kill enemy infantry far faster using vehicle-mounted heavy weapons than infantry-carried small arms.