This is the reason why if tanks are rare and hard to get, anti-tank weapons also have to be rare and hard to get. Project Reality is an excellent example. In Project Reality, a heavy AT launcher could generally expect to one-shot any vehicle in the game. The heavy AT was dumbfire, but had a high velocity and flat trajectory giving it an impressive range. It was also pinpoint accurate as long as you held perfectly still long enough to stabilize it. The catch? Your team only got one heavy AT for every 16 people on your team and no squad could carry more than one (plus you had to be in a squad to get one in the first place). This means even after they rolled out the 128 player servers, your 64 player team got *drumroll* 4 rocket launchers. In addition to this it only carried one rocket, and resupplying one would burn up an entire small supply crate or ~4 ammo bags (which the rifleman class only carried one of, and had to resupply from larger ammo sources just like everything else). So if you wanted to gather your rockets together and set up a nest, you'd need a constant convoy of trucks or helicopters delivering ammunition. Then to top it off once you've got a fresh rocket, you've got a 30-second setup time after switching before you can fire. No rocket-fu for you. Oh and that holding still to stabilize I mentioned? That only takes about 5 seconds... but turning counts as moving. If you turn slowly you won't lose as much stability, but don't expect to take snap-shots. Obviously EC probably won't have to go to quite the same lengths, after all our AT weapons probably won't one-shot anything most of the time. They might be more comparable to the light AT, which any squad with 3 or more people could pull one of. Light AT also had a shorter setup time, was more forgiving of movement, and only required two ammo bags to resupply one rocket (so you could get a couple off a small crate).
I like how the topic jumps from Vehicles were just too powerful in Planetside 2 despite everyone on the team having AT to this.
The problem in Planetside 2 was directly caused by everyone having AT. Because everyone had AT, the AT had to be pathetically weak. PS2 was a game built entirely around spam. Is it any wonder then that zerging was such a dominant strategy? If it wasn't for infantry's ability to abuse the render distance gap, the only thing a group of tanks would need to overrun an AT nest is more tanks. Similarly, Annihilator nests only worked because of the render distance gap. If it wasn't for that, it would only take two liberators (crewed by a total of four people, because who needs the tail gun?) to wipe out a 12-man Annihilator nest. Obviously, we would like to not have such a gap because that's BS. When AT is less common though, then AT can be more powerful. This creates a more satisfying experience for both tanks and AT teams: AT teams get to actually feel effective against tanks because they don't have to herd 12+ other people to get a kill, while tanks get to feel effective against infantry because most infantry lack AT weapons.
Do keep in mind that the dev's have already said that every class will have anti-armor capabilities. That's not saying we all get rocket launchers or lascannons, but at the very least, I foresee krak or melta grenades, maybe even melta guns. The abiding theme for vehicles would be to stay at range, to avoid the punishment you'd take if you tried to close on all that awfulness.
When somebody pulls an aircraft, you get something that can shoot down aircraft. When somebody pulls a ground vehicle, you get some anti-vehicle gear. The problem with PlanetSide2 is not that vehicles are overpowered. Believe it or not, but a tank is supposed to be able to kill infantry. The problem with PlanetSide2 is that people never compensate. They go to the forum and cry for nerfs. Then the nerfs happen and you ruin the game for people that used that vehicle. If you never played with (1) an Outfit, (2) an organized outfit, or (3) just don't know how to compensate for a situation, then don't blame the game for having vehicles that can kill people. That being said, I do like having infantry-only zones (that PlanetSide2 has), but I don't need the game to be a walking simulator. I am going to quote a lot of people from PlanetSide2 when I say: "If you do not like how this game is, then maybe you should stick to Call of Duty." Not all games are for everybody. Like The Witcher is not for me... I accepted that and did not go to The Witcher forum to ask for a patch to the game. For EC, if you do not like running into vehicles all the time, then consider sticking to Space Marine (the game). When you are ready to join a read war-game and can accept that you can't have a war without vehicles (even if it is Grottz in buckets with wheels attached), you can come play Eternal Crusade. Gentlemen, this is a war game, not a multiplayer team vs team game. There will be tanks and all kinds of threats. You can adapt, or you can die. Best regards, Akalonian
Perhaps this could be simulated by making the most effective anti-tank weapons cost requisition to field? The devs have already suggested that loadout points could be "overclocked" for a requisition cost. That would simultaneously give players the opportunity to use anti tank stuff without overly oppressive external regulation, but restrict that based on resources to prevent spam. This is an important point because so far EC is looking very similar to Space Marine, but SM had no vehicles. If devastators can freely deploy with lascannons and rocket launchers at the same frequency as tacticals, that's going to cause serious vehicle balance problems. The trick with that is to make sure that vehicles can be useful at range for purposes beyond simple spam. Are there some good precedents for vehicle objectives in combined arms games that don't simply involve bombarding infantry?
As far as I can tell there are three issues that plague planetside 2 and EC is addressing them all. There is no real answer to the zerg in ps2 and it is going to be mitigated a lot by the fifth faction npc tyranids. Planetside 2 has campaigns called alerts. These alerts only last at most 2 hours and really reward people that jump over to the winning faction. EC is going to have campaigns that are a week or longer. There is no barrier to getting into a vehicle. Because soe monetized every weapon then it kind of makes sense money wise to put people into a vehicle as quickly as possible so they will spend that money. The consequence of this is huge powerful vehicle zergs. I dont have the citation but I recall reading where you will have to certify ingame to get into a vehicle. A few things that have been considered by BE I think will keep this game fairly balanced and fun for years to come.
Seems like what people are getting at is coordination via positioning and resource allocation, rather than coordinating rocket spam. A lot of vehicle combat in PS2 feels very impersonal - you can't tell who you're shooting, and you can't tell who's shooting you. Just two crowded sides of spray-and-pray.
Welcome Dulu. Good post. As I see it coming together the Requisition Point(RP) mechanic and the strike force command structure should ensure that vehicle spaming is not prevalent except for what would be in character for that faction. So SM could have a decent size formation of bikes but not huge swarms of Landraiders as the RP cost would be way too high to deploy that many of them. It's a simple but I think elegant solution to zerging ,(which were just a Tyranids rip-off in the first place).
