Nice to see a good thread, to much question spam and repeated polls since the founders program started.

For now the devs are thinking on 24 hours cooldown and a high resource cost for hero and elite classes no info about vehicles afaik but IMO tanks should have a long cooldown and high cost, group transports and bikes should more accesible, personally I wouldn't worry about tanks, in PS2 can be a pain but in 40k a guy with a fusion/plasma pistol or a powerfist can really fuck a tank, being Eldar and knowing Warlock is our more popular class I expect to see a lot of singing spears being throwed at tanks and a lot of rage when the tank gets destroyed by a support class

I don't know about you, but if everyone in Planetside 2 were to utilise this kind of playstyle, it'd be pretty damn hard to get repaired/resupplied/healed/revived.

All these uninformed Planetside 2 comparisons are starting to tick me off, especially since they all seem to be posted by terrible Planetside 2 players/players that haven't touched the game since its launch in November 2012.

I've got 51 days played. I've played off/on since launch. While I have had an opportunity to check out Hossin, I've only seen it for maybe an hour as both instances I logged onto Emerald & Vanu locked the continent prompting me to log off.

I'm not claiming everyone is guilty of this behavior, but its pretty common. Especially if you have a membership/alpha squad boost. If you play wisely, you essentially have infinite resources.

Everything discussed is reasonably argued and makes sense, I give my vote.

This is the kind of post that developers should read and keep in mind, we all want this game to be as perfect as possible, being nice for new players and not allowing us, the FP, let some bullies.

I look forward to the second part.

It's not as common as you claim, not on the server I played at least. Infantry is dominant in Planetside's current state, with the myriad of AV options available for them.

I played Ps2 on and off for a while on Connery primarily and this is mainly what I've seen. Tanks and aircraft are fairly rare except when a zerg gets started. I usually just avoid the zerg or stall it while a butt load of troops flank and take another position. There's never a need to fight the zerg and the delay on actually capturing the locations is what counteracts the tank zerg. Smaller outposts are doomed, but the bigger bases are perfectly fine as long as the shields can hold.

Quartz Ridge camp is/was the most hilarious place for AV nests.

Honestly, on the first impression basis here's what I'm seeing:

There seem to be 3 crowds:
1.) People who are up to date with the info about this game, like the way the devs communicate and are likely candidates if not Founders pack members already.
2.) People who know absolutely nothing about this game claiming its either P2W or lol alpha shit or doesn't have race X. Will not play.
3.) People who are vested in the 40k universe, but just aren't sold on the 'promise' bE is offering as they have been burned too many times.

Nr 2 will only be fixed in time and persisting with the bE ideologies (Miguel is doing a fine job of this)

Nr 3 will only be fixed once the project is more 'realized'.

TLDR: All we can do is wait.

I don't want balance in the way Planetside 2 does balance. I want balance in the way QW:ET did balance.

Planetside 2 has every faction as essentially carbon copies of each other. Sure there are minor variations between some of the tanks, some of the aircraft, and how some of the weapons handle. By and large however the factions are essentially the same.

QW:ET had factions that functioned in very different ways from each other. Everything was different, from the way medics and infiltrators worked, to the vehicles and weapons. It was asymmetrical warfare at its finest, with balance not made at the individual weapon or class level, but rather made at the faction level.

I want Space Marines wearing power armor to be tough. I want Terminators to be almost indestructible. I want orks to charge into battle with 10 AI controlled gretchin in tow. I want Eldar to be fast and agile and specialised. I want to see demons corrupting the Fallen as Chaos matches through. I want to see Orks blowing up when their weapons malfunction.

Screw balancing 1vs1 fights. Instead aim to balance the faction as a whole. Then later during release if there are population imbalances start bringing out Tyranids against the overpopulated factions, while giving AI troops/squads to the players of underpopulated factions.

First of all I want to echo that we don't know much about the game's specifics at this point in time. So most of the discussion is based on conjecture.

That being said, there are general principles and lessons to be learned of similar games.

In any case what I would like to point out, is that one must make a crucial differentiation when it comes to balance.

When it comes to MMO-PVP games there are TWO distinct types of balance. One is the well known gameplay balance that is common to all PVP games. The other is faction balance. Faction balance is more of a meta-balance and is only present in MMOs where players choose a certain faction to play for.

While getting gameplay balance right is an absolute must and basic necessity for the game to even get off the ground, what will make the game shine and rise above the rest is a well thought out system for faction balance.