Why NS vehicles actually don't make balance any easier

You can balance things in 3 ways.

1. symetrical balance (every faction has same weapons/vehicles... optionally with different models/textures/sounds). Lightning tank.

2. asymetrical balance (good - mediocre - bad stat system which SOE tried but failed at it). Faction specific tanks.

3. hybrid of 1 and 2. Harasser.

Every tank should be balcend around 3 core stats with 1 stat in good, one stat in mediocre and one stat with bad rating:

1. mobility
2. armor
3. damage

so it should like

Prowler: mobility mediocre, armor bad, damage good
Vanguard: mobility bad, armor good, damage mediocre
Magrider: mobility good, armor mediocre, damage bad

But this is imposible to implement because there is also air and infantry. Tank with low armor would suck vs both airn and infantry so they had to up prowler in this regard but it unbalanced its performace vs other tanks. They tried balanced vanguard vs buffed prowler by giving it shiled but that shield is ******** OP vs magrider. They cannot buff magrider because it would be once again nightmare for infantry like it was before GU02. I could strafe-circle around tree faster than could infantry run and outstrafe rocket launchers.

So they tried option 3 with harasser but they failed again because u cant give everyone same platform but different guns. Side with better gun will logically dominate.

The only right and fair option is stick with symetrical balance. They should make new NS tank outperform all 3 faction tanks, discard them and make second generation of faction tanks with same stats as NS tank but different look/sound.

I'd wager its no bigger than current MBTs and is just an NS MBT, with capabilities between the prowler and Vanguard, weakness/strength wise not necessarily power wise.

Good points OP. The concept of a super heavy tank is just stupid in my eyes. They will just get the Bismarck-problem and nothing else.

By the name of the tank and the idea that the main cannons come from that weapon in the Tech Plant it sounds like the Commissioner all over again where every faction will have available the most NC platform (i.e. the NS will be more NC than NC).

Still, as others have pointed out, it is too early to say anything definitively. Yet, if this is going to be the like Commissioner, then I would kindly ask why there is a trend to make NS items more NC than NC. Though, no use getting all worked up just yet (despite the sneaky fear that it sure feels like the moment NC start seeing a semblance of balance they start back up stepping no their toes).

Probably just my overreaction but I think we all realize SOE does not have the greatest track record in terms of great ideas.

That would be a possibility if it weren't for the name - Colossus.

Might be interesting is there was only one per continent, you get it from owning the cap or maybe having all the techplants on a continent.

Or that carrier. Not quite sure of the name. The Bastion?

But that picture doesnt look like the ones we have either. Comparing the drawing versions to each other, yeah they look pretty similar. I know i might seem to be dodging the point but similarity isnt necessarily relevant to size either.

Im generally against crewed super tanks although many people like them.

Well the other part of this, is they have been saying for some time, that SOE was considering a multi-man tank to sit above the MBTs, so this concept art is a confirmation of something that had already been hinted at.


As to the OP: I get where you are coming from, but the thing that made the harasser OP, was that it was just too powerful in the role it filled. It is a dune buggy with a gun mounted on top, yet it was something that easily stood toe to toe with Main battle tanks because of it's armor.

What we are dealing with, with the Colossus, is different. Here we have a vehicle that is massive. It looks like it's built like a brick **** house, and will hit like... well a tank. I don't see it filling that role Too well, unless it is a jack of all trades weapon. As 1-2 hits on a tank would kill the opposing would be hilariously overpowered, you can't really scale up the damage with it's size and expect it to be worth while. Also, there are at Least 2 seats, could be more, this thing could be a 4-5 man vehicle. It can't really be pushed into a role that would overlap with the MBT, or what you'll have happen, is the marginalization of the MBT... and they seem to want to avoid making too many things be totally useless, so making it the MBT 2.0 would go against what they have tried to do thusfar. I imagine what will make it so good, will be a nearly limitless health pool (It's the only thing you can do, to get a vehicle like this to stay alive for any worthwhile period of time on the battlefield). I'd love to see it so that it can only really be damaged by AP, or requires 2 people to pull it (And 1500 resource), or any number of similar things.

I'm going to be very interested to see what they do with this thing and hope we get more on it soon.

The thing on the side is probably a ladder. Now think how goddamn big it is.

NS vehicles don't make balance easy (absolute statement.) They make balance easier (relative statement; comparing NS things to ES things.)

When more factors between two things are the same, balance is easier. I'm not sure how you could dispute that fact. If each empire's version of the Colossus was differently shaped, differently sized, had different weapons, and had different speed and handling, the vehicles would be ES and the vehicle would be harder to balance. But in all likelihood, most or all of those factors will be the same for the Colossus between empires, making it easier to balance.

Let's take the colossus for example (why not), first, we'll give ES examples, then NS examples:

The TR version would have to have two things done:
1. Be designed to fulfill a specific role and not overshadow the Prowler's role, and;
2. Have VS counters designed around it.
3. Have NC counters designed around it.

NC version:
1. Be designed to fulfill a specific role and not overshadow the Vanguard's role, and;
2. Have VS counters designed around it.
3. Have TR counters designed around it.

VS version:
1. Be designed to fulfill a specific role and not overshadow the Magrider's role, and;
2. Have TR counters designed around it.
3. Have NC counters designed around it.

Now the NS version:

1. Has to be designed to have a specific role while not overshadowing the Magrider, and;
2. Has to be designed to have a specific role while not overshadowing the Prowler, and;
3. Has to be designed to have a specific role while not overshadowing the Vanguard
4. Have TR counters designed around it.
5. Have NC counters designed around it.
6. Have VS counters designed around it.
7. Make sure all counters are equally effective across all three factions against the same exact vehicle.

This isn't even taking into account how it meshes with every other vehicle each faction uses (example high mobility magrider and harasser meshed very badly)

The ES versions' list is longer, but actually easier to balance correctly. You don't have to find this magical sweetspot that perfectly fits within all three factions. As a bonus, even makes the players of the factions feel like you give a damn about their faction.

And for crying out loud, faction ******* flavor! What's the point of three supposedly unique factions if they all use the same vehicles?

Edit: I really need to wait before hitting replay, way too much editing.

The Magrider, Vanguard, and Prowler all fill exactly the same role. If they didn't that would be a balance concern. But they do, meaning this entire post you've written out is based on some false assumption that empire variations are more than just playstyle variation. But that's all they are: playstyle variations. So the Colossus won't have to worry about relating to 3 different roles (one per empire), but just a single Tank role.

The Colossus is probably going to be the meanest tank to be hit with bar none, a real weapon to break a stiff resistance at a base and eat any tank one on one for breakfast. To bad this game is not one on one. It actually gives the current MBT's a new role in the hunting and ambush of the super tank, and it will probably have to be pulled from a Tech Plant and escorted to it's objective.

So we could ambush it with infantry and a Sunderer, Tank Mines, A2G ESF's and Libs, Gal Drop it to kill the people supporting it...

Yeah, sounds fun!

I got your solution right here- posted from the devs a while back -

The solution? Sure, you ahve the collussus, but you also add THESE




Of course, you'd have to have a slight buff to normal MBT's right now in terms of armor , .... but empire specific heavy tanks

quad barrel prowlers, raulgin Vanguardss- and something for us VS...

What if they can only be spawned at a tech plant and cost tons of resources ?

I guess its wishful thinking, but the devs said something about resources system update and wanted to make bases more important. that way even if it somewhat makes the other tanks obsolete it won't get out of hand as the faction would have to have the tech lab (and the added resource cost would make it harder to spawn the thing multiple times)

edit: The new resource system would play really well with this kind of limitation actually. It is supposed to be a pool of resources per base rather than player, so once the tech lab runs out of juice no more NS tanks. The more i think about it like that the more i want it to be true >.> ... like, a real reason to own a base wow.

What's funny is I remember we had a thread a few months ago where we had tons of ideas for empire specific multi-crew tanks, and an NS tank wasn't even on the table.

So what do we get? An NS tank. >_>

Even if all the MBTs fill the same "role", the methodology of how they fill their roles ( the playstyle as you call it) is the most important part. That's the whole entire point of multiple factions in the first place. By your logic we should all be using NS guns, RLs, mines, everything because "playstyle" differences make balancing hard and inconvenient.

A Vanguard and a Magrider might fill the same shows, but any idiot would tell you it's a completely different game driving the two MBTs.

NS vehicles completely fail in that regard. SOE just needs to suck it up and decide to go ALL NS or ALL ES, not this inconsistent style of both.

Different playstyles within the same role doesn't strongly influence the vehicle needs of an empire though. The tanks just aren't that different that you'd have to worry about the synergy between the Colossus and each MBT being noticeably different for different empires.

What you will see are unpopular tanks getting used significantly less often, but really that happens right now with the Lightning. Previously it used to be that you'd only really want to pull a Lightning (over ES MBT) for Skyguard work, but maybe that's some of the hidden genius behind making the Viper overpowered: this patch you may want to pull a Lightning for heavy anti-infantry work too, leaving MBTs as the superior anti-vehicle tank and better generalist tank.

Also I don't know where you got the idea that only ease of balancing mattered. I love games with asymmetric sides, and think it's nearly always worth it.

I also don't know why you'd think that only ultra-asymmetric or symmetric can work. A mix of ES and NS stuff is completely fine.

Lastly it's probably worth pointing out that the rate of new content is probably the more important benefit of ES stuff (both a strong benefit financially for devs and a good benefit for players who get to enjoy new stuff.) When you compare the two extremes of all ES or all NS, the latter literally offers 3 times the amount of content. Which is why a mix of stuff makes sense, because it lets each empire have quite a bit of content, but also have quite a bit of uniqueness.

I fully agree. It is too early to suggest a super heavy tank before such things as medium tanks, heavy tanks, etc. In addition, we have too many NS vehicles as it is, and any new vehicles need to be empire-specific at this point. Making everything common-pool is not only counter-intuitive, it is the mark of laziness.