SteelDark Knight
Ancient Exiles.
General Tso's Alliance
477
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Posted - 2014.06.30 18:18:00 -
[1] - Quote
In the past there was a role that REQUIRED gunners to be effective. It was the DropShip pre-ADS and it was horrible. The ultimate goal of any DS pilot was to go 0/0. For many, many months this issue was bitterly complained about from pilots and eventually the ADS was created to at least allow some participation by the pilot himself.
I'd really rather not repeat the mistakes of the past here.
There are many arguments about a "role" that tanks should play. Sadly, unless there is some hidden design team within CCP working on these things we likely won't see anything for Dust 514. For now the role has to be killing infantry because killing infantry is the basis for everything else such as ground AV and counter tanking roles. If a tank cannot kill infantry even with just the driver than there is no reason for all of these other roles as the game stands now.
I have heard many complaints about the large blaster. However, the problem was much more multifaceted than just calling out this one item. The fact is that a large part of the problem was that tanks were mostly invincible from infantry based AV. It took both of these things to be in place to create the recent tank issues we had. If AV had been more effective than Large Blaster complaints would have been much less.
Now, we have a situation were AV has been empowered via bug fixes, buffs, and damage profile corrections. At the same time we have nerfs to Vehicle repair, range, and turret damage and accuracy. In addition there are reports from CPM that acceleration is being looked at. All of these have swung the scales of balance in the opposite direction. Being a pilot is far from being an invincible killing machine now (which is as it should be) and I would argue not so fun and frustrating. Not because you get blown up but because your role has been taken away and on top of that you have very poor means to counter those whose roles are to counter you.
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SteelDark Knight
Ancient Exiles.
General Tso's Alliance
481
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Posted - 2014.07.01 23:08:00 -
[2] - Quote
Shadow of War88 wrote:
Its never changes in small portions with CCP. & is there a particular solution you would like to propose?
First I want to state that I sympathize with what the new developer group is trying to accomplish. It is not going to be easy and the majority of the time when you get it wrong you are going to alienate a good portion of your player base depending on which side of the aisle you are on. I won't claim that I have all the answers. Obviously, the overpowered tanks of the recent past needed corrected and I think CCP has done that in its recent set of balance changes. They were "right" more than wrong in the recent update.
With that said I think that perhaps they hit too many areas at once and may have tipped the scale to far the other way. In addition with the Large Blaster they did so in way that, while it generated the desired effect, is frustrating and feels unfair to players which is not something you want to do as a designer (and yes invincible tanks did this as well). I believe that any weapon in a FPS that by design doesn't hit were you aim the majority of the time and doesnGÇÖt give any ability to counter it is a poor design. They appeased one side of the player base by making it frustrating for the other. The player does everything he is supposed to but cannot defend himself because the random number generator decides his shot doesn't go where he aimed it.
I have a long list of things IGÇÖd like to see done such as making pilot skills more relevant (i.e. someone whom skills heavily in the area should have bonuses that match) but for this conversation IGÇÖll keep it simple and ask a question.
Would the blaster tank of the recent past have been anywhere near the issues it created if the AV buffs, Bug fixes, and defensive nerfs of tanks been in place then? To me that was the real problem all along and in breaking it and leaving it as it was for months a huge disservice was done to ALL players. There is nothing wrong with large blaster tanks killing infantry as long as the counters are viable and in the end tanks that kill infantry create a wide variety of counter roles and content.
TL:DR:
1# LBT's killing infantry is o.k as long as viable counters are available. In fact it is needed to generate the need for those counter roles. This does not mean return blasters fully to prior state but it does mean they need to be better than where they stand now.
2# Excessive dispersion with no means to counter it is bad design for many reasons
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