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Goric Rumis
Dead Six Initiative
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Posted - 2014.01.03 01:05:00 -
[1] - Quote
Although AV is mostly useless right now, the vehicle balance really isn't that far off.
That's going to be a controversial statement. Let me explain.
My condition as to how well vehicles are balanced is not how easy they are to kill. It is and always has been to what extent they ruin the game for infantry. I hated the heyday of Replication with a passion because the overpowering vehicles frequently made the entire game utterly pointless. While Chromosome wasn't as bad, there were still times when vehicles caused me to just give up entirely. The fact that I don't feel utterly hopeless on today's battlefield suggests to me that the vehicle balance, while not as good as some of the outspoken tankers seem to believe, isn't as bad as some players are suggesting.
The main problem is that their domain on the maps needs to be limited. With vehicles dominating open landscapes, more of the installations and null cannon interfaces need to be placed inside facilities where infantry have a chance both to make a stand and to fulfill a purpose beyond playing tag-along with tanks. Vehicles should be supporting infantry, rather than infantry filling in holes where vehicles aren't effective. Most structures are too small, too open, and too simple. With better map design, infantry could dig in for a long siege where having vehicle supremacy would definitely confer an advantage but wouldn't dictate the entire conflict.
Take, for example, the three-tiered in-ground facility with the CRU on the second floor and the null cannon at the bottom. If this were re-designed to put the CRU at the top (within reach of vehicles), a supply depot on the second floor and the null cannon at the bottom, having a vehicle above would enable enemy infantry to capture the top spawn point, even while the defenders are still able to spawn through the null cannon. The supply depot could then be used to refit into AV to push back the tanks and re-capture the topside CRU. In this way a single null cannon is transformed into a three-stage conflict: (1) capture CRU to permit infantry spawn, (2) capture supply depot to cut off AV and secure topside position, and (3) capture null cannon. And this is not one of the largest or most complex facilities.
This is exactly where vehicles need to be: Vehicle superiority is advantageous when it comes to entering into a facility, but once you're there you will still need strong infantry--not just one or two players with the ability to throw grenades into foxholes. This separates the vehicle gameplay from the infantry gameplay to a certain extent, so that vehicles mostly fight one another and infantry mostly fight one another, but the overlap is significant enough that they both impact the ability to win any given match.
Limiting the ability of tanks to engage infantry solves nearly every other problem, and does it without artificially limiting the sandbox: players won't want to play tanks as much because there are a lot of places they can't go; teams with too many vehicles won't be able to take points as easily and will be unable to defend their points if enemy infantry manage to break through; vehicles will still be tough and still serve an important function in the game; and players could still viably do all-vehicle battles (provided the number of vehicles doesn't need to be limited for performance reasons).
AV still requires some buffs to be viable even in this circumstance, but in the current iteration we have to accept that infantry AV today is primarily about pushing vehicles back from a position and less about destroying them. With respect to this, creating tactical positions that are specifically useful for AV to fight vehicles will be important. These tactical positions would generally be elevated, accessible from inside a structure, and provide cover that is occluded against vehicle splash damage. These again increase the variety in gameplay by providing positions that are exposed to infantry but protected from vehicles--a map-based rock-paper-scissors scheme that mitigates AV players' relative weakness against vehicles but still leaves them open to infantry assault.
TL;DR: The maps are too open, so that if vehicles dominate they are able to dominate everything. Re-working maps to limit the ability of tanks to engage infantry solves every other problem, and does it without artificially limiting the sandbox or returning tanks to paper-thin status. Infantry AV still requires buffs that can be made partly through map design, but its role has fundamentally changed from destroying vehicles to routing them. |
Goric Rumis
Dead Six Initiative
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270
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Posted - 2014.01.03 06:33:00 -
[2] - Quote
Very good points, Adelia. I recognize map design can get very complicated when you're trying to design it from all these angles--it's really sort of reverse-engineering battlefield tactics taking into account all the various options people have. It would be great to see more functional verticality in these maps (not just the scenic verticality of tall towers and hulking structures).
There are a lot of options once you start to build tactics and game mechanics into the maps, something that's been better with the recent pieces (looking at the Gallente Research Facility) but is still sorely lacking on most of the older maps.
The Tank Balancing Factor No One Is Discussing
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Goric Rumis
Dead Six Initiative
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272
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Posted - 2014.01.03 19:45:00 -
[3] - Quote
A response to Stinker Butt's response, which had some good comments:
Stinker Butt wrote:I've been playing this game since early in closed beta, and we average a new map about every 4-5 months. So waiting for new maps to be made and old to be redesigned is extremely unlikely.
I will concede that the effort would take a lot of time, but I won't concede that it isn't the necessary solution. The temporary solution will have to be something that leaves tanks weakened, but it should only be seen as a temporary solution while the maps are improved.
Stinker Butt wrote:And second, making maps where you don't really need to deal with the problem, doesn't really solve the problem.
But this isn't avoiding the problem. Suppose we take vehicles out of the equation. On a perfectly flat, open map, snipers appear to be overpowered. They are able to kill anything in sight. Suppose I'm a shotgun scout on that map--obviously I'm not getting any kills, because I consistently die 300m from the nearest enemy. Wouldn't adding more cover and more CQC areas to the map solve the problem of the ostensibly OP sniper, without having to nerf the sniper's weapon?
I'm proposing precisely the same kind of change for vehicles: that infantry are more able to control the terms of engagement. The problem is not necessarily that vehicles are too strong (although I still believe they are), but that the maps are designed in such a way that they can always engage in an advantageous manner, without any drawbacks. Re-designing the maps to give vehicles places where they can engage at an advantage (open spaces between structures) and places where vehicles and infantry can match one another (the areas surrounding structures) is just good design. Balancing out their extreme dominance of open spaces is the fact that they are entirely powerless to enter structures, at least on their own terms, and therefore absolutely need good infantry if they hope to win.
If you suppose for a moment a team of 12 tanks and 4 infantry, versus a team of 16 infantry, the team of infantry should be at an advantage because it's able to dictate the terms of engagement--but, all things being equal, the same team may be at a disadvantage against a team of 3 tanks and 13 infantry. That's balanced: People playing a variety of meaningful roles should do better than everyone doing the same thing.
Giving AV a position of strength at these structures is critical to making it work. Right now AV engage tanks from wherever they can happen to find a little cover, and in my experience (with forge guns) it's almost always too exposed, too accessible to enemies (or too inaccessible to me), and insufficiently elevated (unless I'm a mile away). If you want to dominate the domain of vehicles, you bring a vehicle--but if you don't, there needs to be a viable option to get the job done, and that's AV.
Stinker Butt wrote:1 minute isn't that long to wait to instantly become the most OP person on the map.
My problem with the wait time is this statement. There shouldn't be a minimum wait time to become the most OP person on the map. There shouldn't be a "most OP person on the map." Everything has a counter, and everything has limitations.
The Tank Balancing Factor No One Is Discussing
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Goric Rumis
Dead Six Initiative
Lokun Listamenn
277
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Posted - 2014.01.06 23:20:00 -
[4] - Quote
I agree that CCP is headed in the right direction with the Gallente Research Facility. But it can't just be new maps that take these factors into consideration. The older maps need to be re-worked to operate with similar principles. Until all the maps are balanced in this way, vehicle balancing will be a haphazard patch that will either crush infantry or leave vehicle users dissatisfied.
We do need a short-term solution, but it should be understood that it's temporary (other than obvious items like hardener stacking).
The Tank Balancing Factor No One Is Discussing
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