Using Third Person for Tanks

I'd say thats just as likely as them implementing actual stabilized turrets.

What good would 'fixing' this do besides ruining the game for many of the more advanced tankers? With no incentive to change this, the fact that people have been able to take advantage of it is just a happy accident.

The 'good' is fixing it for its intended purpose. You're right it is a happy accident. But it doesn't mean its not going to be fixed. Its not how the tank was meant to be fired. There's no HUD when in 3rd person and I don't believe that was by coincidence.

Now I want to be clear that I don't think anyone using this is abusing the system. Its a clever use of game mechanics. But those game mechanics have unintended consequences. Meaning when they balance weapons on tanks, they have to take 3rd person firing into account. If they are fine with that. It will stay. If they are not, and don't wish to put in the effort to balance weapons in both first and third person. Then it goes.

Which do you think they will go with?

My personal opinion is that if they remove this ability from tanks. Then they need to look at other vehicle and how third person is used and possibly remove other 'tricks' used with third person on aircraft and other ground vehicles. Why should MBT be the only ones nerfed in that case?

Its been this way for years, this isn't the first guide on it. It's not damaging the game. Its not abusing the system but rather making the best of a system that is goofy at best. It improves the game. Its something anyone can learn to do. It requires a learning curve. Its not a straight up advantage. Its...the ESF hover ability all over again.

SOE isn't going to change it just because players are doing something they didn't intend without also having a reason that would improve the game. Your talking about SOE investing resources into ruining the game for some players without improving the game for anyone else. With no gain to be had whatsoever there is little chance they will do anything.

I mentioned turret stabilization specifically because if SOE was to 'fix' this it would be because they are finally implementing a real stabilized turret system to replace it. The two things go hand in hand.

People enjoy it, noone is hurt by it. Great. Its a happy accident because this mistake improved SOE's gameplay. SOE isn't going to invest time and money into making the game worse.

That said there may be some specific parts that may be changed. I wouldn't be surprised if they put in a patch that ensured recoil works right in 3rd person for example.

What the should do is disable shooting in 3rd person for all vehicles
its a First Person Shooter, not a Third Person..

They changed the origins of all projectiles to the first person camera. This is also true in third person.



Another thing of note is that the third person center aim is slaved to the first person center. There are some cases were the camera is mounted very low and you have to take that into account.

But the shell you see coming from the barrel, auto-converges with an invisible projectile, coming from the first person camera, as demonstrated in this video.

If you're going to use third person then use the reload circle as your crosshair. Then match that up with the turret on your tank (primary for Lightnings and secondary for MBTs).

For both the Vanguard and Lightning you have to use the left side of this circle if you want to be precise. Moreso with the Lightning than the Vanguard, but if you want absolute precision then taking this into account is necessary.

With enough practice it is even possible to accurately hit moving infantry over a distance, and it feels pretty damn good when it happens.

Although, a word of caution. After using it extensively for months I've come to the conclusion that if you CAN quickly and reliably hit with first person in a given situation then you should.

I find shooting in third person to be the best option in these two situations:
1.) Where the shot is extremely easy in third person, but something small could throw your aim off randomly in first person.
2.) When you have very little chance of hitting with first person but with third person you have a moderate to good chance of hitting.

Vanguard has the secondary right where you need to see which is bad enough, but the Prowler, that turret is filling the screen. Have to spot and then aim by icon.

Once in a while I used to get a bug where the main cannon would behave like the secondary, hasn't happened in a while, and I didn't even know what I had when it did happen.

Wow very interesting. I have been tanking since beta and haven't really noticed some of the specific things you mentioned. The most profound one, to me, is the steering drag effect. Maybe that is why I miss some EASY shots while turning on the go. I will have to learn to compensate for that now.

Good observations/testing!

You must be new to playing SOE games. But to give an example of things being changed. The Phoenix. Yeah.. they figured people would use it on infantry, but they didn't figure it would be used alot due to the long time inbetween shots. But the players proved that wrong and did it en masse. Therefor it had to be fixed. Was it OP? Probably not. Was it annoying, little bit to the ones on the receiving end.

You brought up the hover ability on ESFs. Yeah funny thing about that, its not as effective as it used to be. Still doable. But not like at release. So I have no doubt this will get fixed in someway. Probably the recoil like you said. But I wouldn't be surprised if they implemented a fix to disable firing in 3rd person. Thats been suggested before.

But like I said, if they fix MBTs, I'd hope they'd fix every other vehicle, wouldn't be fair otherwise.

I remember the pheonix ruining the game. I don't know how that is comparable. The pheonix was absolutely OP. It was one of the most unfair, and unbalancing things the game had ever seen. Infantry died in droves to an enemy they couldn't even see. Ruined the game for TR and VS.

No, they are never getting rid of the reverse maneuver. SOE thinks its great.

You can only do this with tanks FWI.

Only because it was done in mass. If this tank thing is done in mass, who's to say we won't see a change?

so you posted a vid with a crosshair overlay? I also like to live dangerously.

I am. I'm encouraging more people to learn how to do it. Many people have been looking for a way to fire better while moving. Its been a sore point for a huge chunk of the community.

The pheonix wasn't OP because it was done in mass. It was the most OP thing in the game regardless. One hit killing infantry without LOS with a camera guided rocket? Remember back then the rockets were far more maneuverable too. There is no justifying it.

I think he was saying its built into his monitor. It's not a software overlay so it shouldn't cause any problems. I haven't seen one of those monitors before but I imagine it'd be like changing your gamma/brightness. I find paper to be the classy way still. I learned that from good ole AVP to help aim head bites with aliens, and hipfire the sniper rifle.

overlay, monitor feature or pen. it is all the same outcome, it doesn't matter how you do it. the difference is you can't detect the monitor feature or the pen ... unless you're derp enough to make a video of it ofc.
the unanswered question so far is however, if anyone ever got punished for a crosshair overlay. and I'm kinda glad to see such videos then, because they're really pushing for an answer.

It is not required to use anything to get the center of your screen to do this, the reload cycle or hit indicator provided by SOE in third person is enough.

Yes, using an overlay or any other means to mark the center of your screen is making this easier. But you ultimately don't need them.

If SOE should post an announcement directly stating that marking the center of your screen(with what ever means) is against their policy ... than I will stop using any of this other than the reload circle and hit indicator. So far, to my knowledge we are not allowed anything that directly interacts with the game. None of this does it.

I rather see that this finally pushes SOE into giving us a proper solution to mobile ground Vehicle combat ... which is way more enjoyable, atleast in my opinion. Than the current trench warfare ...

Gotta love the irony. Aesir is technically breaking the TOS by using a 3rd party piece of software. You and I are not because you use a third party piece of paper, and I use a third party bit of blu-tack.

+1 for this, very good info, especially for lightning drivers since being on the move 100% of the time is the only way to survive (using AP).

I usually suggest people that want a crosshair to buy a small bit of screen protector plastic (such as those for tablets etc), and then put down a small piece of tape on the top sandwiching one of those semi-transparent plastic sheets in the middle. The screen protector will not harm your monitor at all or leave any residue of sorts, which is a good idea when doing something like this.

Mumble overlay, empty chatroom, custom X-hair as your avatar, contact list centered = handing out 150mm shells at full throttle #legit

Didnt use it in quite some time though, gave up on using van when I can fly a lib that is tankier.

been playing since tanarus and infantry were big. in tanarus they made a whole arena based on the quirky mechanics of a force missile causing people to fly off the map if they were near a ramp. far from fixing it they flaunted it and made a popular arena where tanks could only use force missiles in a arena full of ramps. that was fun. they had vanguards lightnings and magriders back then. the prowler didnt exist though which helps explain why its so ugly.

i watched higby demonstrate the pheonix and they didn't consider infantry at all.kind of a lack of forsight in their part. ultimately they changed damage mechanics substantially to put a stop to it. that's why esrls do 2.3x damage to vehicles, which has made damage values totally confusing. i think most people are unaware that pheonix and charged lancers do some of the highest alpha damage among RLs in the game. a sniper rifle back then didn't even one hit kill infantry on a headshot if they had one point in nanoweave and your telling me a camera guided rocket that one hit kills infantry without any LOS isn't OP. i think the biggest complainers were the poor snipers who were totally helpless against a RL.

i didnt pay attention to the whole bit on esf balance, but i tried to keep up with the gist of it. soe changed afterburners so that esfs could spec into it. the community fought back to keep so all esfs can do it and soe obliged. SOE has said themselves that they didn't intend for the reverse maneuver but they like the way the community has used it. i dont know if they actually scaled it down. it seems effective to me.

pls forward the threads about people demanding 3rd person firing be removed. i have never seen one.

Does anyone have any rules of thumb for aiming when you have a spot icon but can't see the actual target (either because of tree leaves, smoke, or just distance)? I feel like if there is an icon there, you ought to be able to work out an aiming point relative to the icon to get consistent hits, but I never seem to be able to, even on tanks. The engineer AV turrets appear to be impossible to hit this way (or at least I have never hit one myself when the icon was all I had and I could not see the operator or turret).