What's with all the annihilators? Tons of them out there

they are powerfull

I bow down to your omnipotent teamwork, oh glorious one. I would however like to point out that sitting with 30 other guys shooting invisible rockets at people who can't see you doesn't require much organisation, in fact this feat of PS2 prowess could be achieved by a drooling mong who enjoys smacking his head off the wall and shoving marbles up his nose whilst he undertakes the arduous task of holding his crosshairs over something for 2 seconds.

As a mere pleb maybe the solution went above my head, but could you please elaborate on how to utilise the arcane level of teamwork employed by your outfit to defeat an enemy that has not yet rendered and is impervious to damage?

No one is complaining that G2A launchers can destroy an ESF, it's the fact that you can literally be killed by people you can't see or even damage. How hard is this to comprehend?

And just a little disclaimer for those who can actually read, as I know some illiterate mouthbreathing neckbeard will quote me with something alone the lines of "LOL LOLPODS R TEH BAD NAO": I've said multiple times that I think pods should be made anti-armour only.

i love how when the L2P table is turned on vehicle spammers they cant stomach it.

as mainly a ground pounder, i think the game has been immensely more enjoyable without the constant tank and pod spam.

Well with a 125Hz display, you always want to try to have higher than 125fps going. Crysis 3 maxed out, for example, gives me around 150~ fps. And I can certainly tell the different between playing at 125+fps and dropping to even 110fps. Everything is more fluid, and easier to track and follow. You look at a bunch of players accused of hacking on my server, for example, and not only do they call themselves pro gamers, but they also all have 120hz monitors. It's a night and day different. As for at what point I no longer tell the difference...well, if I have to set an FPS cap, I would probably set it for around 200fps. The reason for this is accuracy. Since VSYNC is terrible and causes input lag, the best alternative is to have the video card put out as many frames as possible, so that as soon as your monitor is ready to display a new frame, the closest thing to the "current time" frame will be displayed as opposed to one that could be delayed by up to 8ms. By going with 200fps as your limit, the maximum delay in your frame is 5ms.

As for Planetside and some other games, CPU limitation becomes more of an issue. I currently run the game with SLI disabled, and will be using one of the other cards as a dedicated PhysX card. The reason for this is to limit microstutter, and because again this game is CPU limited more than it is GPU limited currently. So I adjust my settings in a manner that will give me the best advantage for an FPS game. Which means...not all eye candy turned on. Eye candy (especially shadows) make it harder to spot enemies, for example.

In case I misunderstood the question, I'll try this answer as well. For a single 60hz 1080p display, a single GTX 680 would be enough. For a 120hz 1080p display, 2x 680's would be better for constant framerate. For a 60hz 1440p display, 2x 680's would be recommended. For a 120hz+ 1440p display, I think honestly the sweet spot is around 3 cards. I played with 2 cards (2gb versions) for a few months and I always felt it was lacking a tad. So I went with 4 cards. But I really think the 4th card is overkill and I could get by with 3 cards.

As has already been stated so well, rendering is the main issue. How can you fight a threat that doesn't render on your screen, but you render on his? Insane, tanks are useless because of this right now.

I think I worked it out. SOE release a new weapon, completely OP.

Now they just sit back as everyone buys it.

ka-ching!!

Whenver i'm roaming around in my Lightning/Tank, and get Locked every 20 seconds, I get annoyed.

Whenver I'm trying to defend an outpost, and a tank zerg shows up, I get annoyed

so which is it?

¨
Generally i think people get really annoyed by things they cannot affect the outcome off or fight back against. That is tanks/libs HE spamming or infantry lock on spamming.

Personally i love nailing a tank with a dumbfire rocket or with a base defense turret, while using my G2A lock on against liberators is boring. It is just so much more satisfying to aim and getting that hit with a lobbed shot. So give me a deployable anti-tank turret with good damage and decent range instead of all these lock on rockets.

¨
Generally i think people get really annoyed by things they cannot affect the outcome off or fight back against. That is tanks/libs HE spamming or infantry lock on spamming.

Personally i love nailing a tank with a dumbfire rocket or with a base defense turret, while using my G2A lock on against liberators is boring. It is just so much more satisfying to aim and getting that hit with a lobbed shot. So give me a deployable anti-tank turret with good damage and decent range instead of all these lock on rockets.

¨
Generally i think people get really annoyed by things they cannot affect the outcome off or fight back against. That is tanks/libs HE spamming or infantry lock on spamming.

Personally i love nailing a tank with a dumbfire rocket or with a base defense turret, while using my G2A lock on against liberators is boring. It is just so much more satisfying to aim and getting that hit with a lobbed shot. So give me a deployable anti-tank turret with good damage and decent range instead of all these lock on rockets.

The only real problem here is the render distance.

Although as a Mag driver I am dismayed at the constant lock on but I have cert'ed up IR smoke to its max so I can cope with it. The problem I have with the Annihilator is the invisibility of the missiles. Normally if someone is using a regular lock on missile I hear the lock, see the missile launch and can pop my IR smoke or jink behind a rock or tree to lead the missile into it. With the Annihilator I hear the lock and then bang impact. The only way I have to tell where the missiles are coming from is the damage indicator. The missiles need to render.

Currently, though I play all classes, I was focusing on the 3 faction tanks and Maxes, and I tell you what, it is impossible to have situational awareness when you cant see them due to them not rendering, and the popping in and out effect, never mind the invisible rockets. Nice to charge up a hill and have 6-10 infantry render suddenly out of nowhere.

No use in having large open terrain with render as it is. I am sure this is a priority right no for them, but tanks and maxes are not fun at all atm, and the render gives inf an unfair advantage. So many shots wasted on people popping out of render, they know how to use it to unfair advantage.

Here is looking forward to render/performance improvements, I have faith.

The same way you know what is causing the threat. Infantry. And this is coming from a person who drives a tank and also flies. This is where you need infantry to work with the armor. Even in RL, infantry isn't just fodder, they are suppose to work hand in hand with armor and air. In urban and non-urban situations, Infantry has had one advantage over Armor and Air, their ability to be able to pop out of different locations because even with all the advances we have, there are ways to also mask heat. And our current age, we have civilians mixed in with the dangerous elements, so while some factions will go to the extreme and shoot through, not other factions will be so indiscriminate.

And going back to the game, we have no civilians, but at the same time, infantry does not have the means to create proper means to ambush tanks or air because combat engineering does not exist. Combat Engineering being able to build barricades, tank traps, pits, trenches, reinforced bunkers. This game only has two troop transports, one of which is on a serious cooldown time and the other that can only be gotten at a Tech Plant or Warpgate. And those two are rarely pulled because the pilot gets NOTHING for the effort, and only the Sunderer with an AMS and possibly the Repair/Ammo defense will make it sort of a worthwhile, but at the same time, it's a HIGH PRIORITY kill target.

While I would love to have the rendering of infantry to show up for vehicles at range... The sad truth of it all, I might just lean again to not wanting it possible for vehicles for one simple purpose - To encourage infantry to be part of the battle as much as the vehicles. While yes, this means air jockeys will complain about the lockons galore, the simple fact is, the mass number of air or ground vehicles also counters the mass Lockon infantry situation as well. Last night on Connery as NC, we had people using lockons while on Crown. How was it countered? A lot of armor and air. While some air units were going down, others were up. Armor was still shooting and also the one thing people keep ignoring that bypasses all defenses... Deploying on the base. I've died due to the random LA, Engineer or infiltrator dropping in on the base and picking off people because they were ontop of a position grenading or shooting people being focused on the armor or doing other crap and that is from drop podding. Even with the mass rocket users and AA, at least 3 Galaxies did attempt drops.

On the flipside, Helios had a group of TR try a lockon squad, which was about a squad or 2, where they were trying to pick off VS near their warpgate. It was successful in picking off handfuls of vehicles, but they were also taken out by infantry and vehicles too. So again, the fact that a lockon group was getting picked off by infantry and vehicles which was doing the job of picking off vehicles, both ground and air... Suggests the 'invincibility' of it is not without flaws.

The big problem is render distance.

It is a skill-less fire and forget weapon to use that is too effective and safe for how easy it is, compare it to how good a sniper has to be, hitting a small moving target, with bullet drop, with sway except for the small period of holding your breath, when they are able to shoot back at you and damage you, it's a joke. A single squad doing galaxy drops with a rotating squad beacon can camp the hell out of a warpgate (Especially the canyon in Indar since it's hard to get tanks / infantry up there). If you're on the ground rolling out, you're boned, if you're in the air you might survive but you'll still have to guess which cliff the enemy is on.

The more people doing it, the lower the render distance becomes eventually making sniping a non-option, infantry rushes still put you up against the shield of the HA, air can't see them, ground had an even bigger problem. There is a critical point that once it is reached all air / ground can not move in and infantry are thrown up against a pop-in wall of heavies making it effectively stall any push, very frustrating when trying to cap a map.

Since I doubt there'll be a rendering change, it does need a nerf but it shouldn't be over-nerfed.
-Make HA's render like maxes? Being able to be seen from farther away means they can't just stand out in the open.
-Make it lock-on and laser guided? That way the heavies still have to point at what they are shooting at.
-Have a slower velocity at the start, allowing vehicles to get to cover easier? Currently you can duck behind a rock and the missile can still have swung around and be coming straight at you.
-Minimap where the missile is coming from or where it is?
-Show lock on in third person? (and fix the problem with the sound not playing)
-Require a tracer to be attached to a vehicle first? That would require the same bullet drop / lead / aiming snipers require.

Nothing to do with if you have a floaty tank. ALL vehicles have the same problem with the Annihilator. The problem has nothing to do with RL. The problem is game mechanics. Vehicles render before infantry so you can safely sit there with your annihilator and be confident that no vehicle will know where the hell your missile is coming from because we don't see them. This is not a problem with ordinary lock on missile launchers. They allow the driver to see where the shot is coming from and find positional cover while returning fire. Annihilator needs a lock on range nerf or the game needs to render better. I would prefer if it render better.
The reason there are so many Annihilators now is because infantry has figured out they can spam them to their hearts content and not have to worry about the vehicle seeing them. People pick up on unintentional exploits rather fast.

Problem with this argument is that it seems to say that before the Annihilator there was no other Armor lockon, which there was. What the Annihilator does that makes it feel OP is the fact that it can lock on to Air and Ground, making it the Go to Launcher for defending an area since you don't have to choose which to be effective against.

The reall issue that crops up is that because of its effectiveness as an all around defence, it is far more prevelent then any other. When they have to choose what lockon they can carry at any time it opens up holes in the defence vs vehicles since they could go all ground, giving air a chance to get in and vice versa. If they split their lockons evenly then it increases the chances of survival of each.

Teamwork OP.

Actually, it had NOTHING to do with a floaty tank for the case of the squad shooting at the VS. One of them was a lightning and same person in lightning pot shotting people as infantry.

You also deftly ignored the reason I pointed something out in RL that comes to mind with this situation. As much as everyone likes to believe the superiority of optic systems that should allow seeing into various places for sources, it is also rarely on all the time. Ambushes are often pulled off without knowing, for sure, where they attacks are coming from for a good while. And lastly, infantry, when they put themselves into a position, they often make the position a blind. In this game, there is no way to make the cover or blind.

Now I have no problem with the system reporting where the missile is coming from before it hits. I encourage that as a tanker. But I also pointed out a fact that at this time, the Lockon situation is not 100% exactly as specified though. I mean, literally, I drove a tank and yes, lost it near crown, but more annoyed with the 'hits' where I couldn't see the missiles coming to do something about it more than say the lockon being the range issue. At the same time, it sort of encouraged me to want infantry to be up there more than me, which means the curbing of vehicleside complaints. While where I was at was a bottleneck that would hurt vehicles, again, it also discourages lonewolfing vehicles and packs as well, as again, even with the multiple Lockon groups, it quickly falls apart with more targets to try and focus on and also having infantry coming in from behind to tear them up makes the need for combined arms action more.

biggest annoyance with the dam annihilator is it won't stay locked on the same target. You can't even control it by keeping that target centered. If vehicles overlap, criss cross, move forward/backward while side by side, it is impossible to maintain a lock and the timer restarts. learn to use this and smoke/flares as smoke flares also bug out the launcher in general. Had it stuck in lock mode before and also not able to even start a lock, equip gun shoot, equip launcher works again.

The annihilator came about because of all the whining about how the other G2A had a dumbfire mode and was fast. It was used against armor/air/infantry. Slowing it down was silly as it made it useless for everthing and people bought the new toy that was being sold annihilator (no dumbfire-infantry happy/ air/tank sad) Cash grab maybe, forum whine about original G2A maybe.

All rocket launchers have always had 2 uses (lock-on,dumbfire to anything) actually preferred that over (lock-on only) it takes for ever to unequip annihilator and switch to Gun.

No matter how you create them, 2 out of 3 playstyles will be upset. If you made them lock-air only, lock-ground only, infantry only well no one would buy them.

You know what? Screw it. The Mattherson fight proved that the game engine is incapable of supporting combined arms, so we might as well fix the game for vehicles.

Make vehicles and MAXs render at the same distances infantry do. This will fix the game for vehicles and MAXs, because if you can't see a bipedal humanoid creature 20m ahead of you, you sure as hell shouldn't be able to see a vehicle either, that's an unfair advantage. Maybe then infantry will understand just how much of an advantage the dynamic rendering gives them. The Annihilator and its other lock-on buddies will cease to matter because by the time you see a vehicle, it's in range for dumbfire rockets.

Problems solved. Balance restored to the game.