new Lets talk about blufor Tanks on I&A

[kman]

Hello

Playing about ~2 months on the I&A, I noticed one think that is quite capable of ruining the fun of the game.
I'm talking about the friendly tanks - mainly Slammer or rewarded Kuma/Varsuk.

While I appreciate, that the tanks are very helpful when the server has only few players on - allowing to deal with AOs quicker - they are absolutely not needed when there is more people online.
Competent person/persons in a tank can take whole AO by themselves unless destroyed by CAS/Kajman - I know this for a fact, because I did so on one or two occasions.
This leaves most people just arriving to AO as spectators which is just boring.

I would like to raise a debate about availability of these vehicles on regular I&A.
I'm NOT talking about when the ZEUS is on - he can spawn them for players if he finds it appropriate for mission.

My thoughts about removing the friendly tanks:

PROS:
+ no easymode for blufor that could leave majority players as nothing but a sidekicks
+ removal of blufor tanks can also be used to reduce the spawn times of opfor CAS - one of the main sources of grief for the transport Helis and HQ bombardments, like if the opfor Buzzard was not enough

CONS:
- tank toy will not be available to play with (unless Zeus grants it)
- can be frustrating when server is severely underpopulated and you lack this option to deal with AO combined with nasty side missions like "enemy AA" or "enemy Artillery"

PS: I did not included less armored vehicles like Marshal/Mora/Panther/Cheetah and their reward counterparts, because these have lower firepower and need to be played much more carefully, since they can be destroyed more easily by enemy RPGs/Tanks/MRAPs/APCs..

I would like to know what community thinks, thanks.

[PiranhA]

Competent person/persons in a tank can take whole AO by themselves

 

Competent persons can always take a complete AO by themself with or without a tank with or without a blackfoot or whatever. It depends on the number of friendies and the time they arrive on the AO wherever they get demoted to spectators. 

 

The time it takes to travel to the AO is the biggest deal for being a:  tank-driving-weapon-of-mass-destruction-and-letting-no-one-else-make-a-kill-type of guy-ish.

 

Im okay with how it is.

[kman]

Competent persons can always take a complete AO by themself with or without a tank... with or without a blackfoot or whatever. It depends on the number of friendies and the time they arrive on

 

...The time it takes to travel to the AO is the biggest deal for being a:  tank...

 

The travel time is certainly good point, althou its randomized by how far the AO is.

 

The fact that - ultimately - even squad of footsoldiers can take AO is realy irrelevant.

There is huge difference between that and tank onslaught and even super capable and coordinated squad is not taking away all the fun for other participants, not to mention you can join that squad to play together. I'm talking about EU1/2 ofc.

[TheDirtyHO]

Removing the tank is not the best idea in order to use the tank to its best you need 3 players to coordinate and work as a team. I have saved loads of squads by using the slammer in this way ie mobile cover so medics and get downed players, taking out a t-100 that's moved up on a squad and so on.

 

I understand were you come from 1 person sitting on a hill killing everything is not fun they should be with the infantry supporting the attack as the tank is meant to be.

 

So removing the tank would make problems not really solve any. Its a asset just used incorrectly, don't punish the tank its tool punish the user lone wolfing, wasting assets etc.   

[zissou]

How about more at enemy? Also when you say they're op do you mean fire power wise or due to the optics (thermal, sit on a far away Hill and just kill everything)?

Tanks are difficult the distance issue tends to make it a player who is aware of the gameplay around who drives to the ao. But yes they can be op. Like everything fun in i&a it can be abused.

I can't see a scenario where we remove tanks but if anyone has suggestions on how to better integrate them into gameplay let us know.

[lexota]

How about more at enemy?

 

More AT would be an extra challenge and would reduce the amount of people going solo with a tank i think. Once they get to the AO and they get picked of immediatly

they probably dont want to drive a long way back to the AO on respawn

 

Maybe CAS? Don't know what the situation is on eu1/2 atm....

[Jason.]

I don't think adding more AT enemies would help as there's quite a lot already and the problem is that the tank will just sit outside of their range.

 

I agree with the others here that I don't think tanks should be removed, and that it's low speed is the main balancing factor.

 

An idea that just came to me is maybe another enemy attack helicopter could spawn in once the AO has ~50% of enemies remaining (and if the radio tower is still up).

I see this as a better solution to countering Blufor Armour as an armed Orca/Kajman is a serious threat to tanks.

 

I know that there is already a 50% chance of an enemy heli spawning in at the start of the AO, but this is often taken down by the time a tank rolls in, or at least the tank driver will be aware of its presence and will therefore stay away to avoid being engaged. But spawning one in some time after the AO started means that the tank is already at the AO and would be within range of the helicopter, so it would be a nasty surprise! 

[Equastro]

Problem is that the orca / kajman is also a threat to any other vehicles, but the same goes for AT personnel too. Instead of spawning in another AT helo, it's also possible to increase the spotting range of the AT AI. Though I'm not sure if that also has any effect on the lethality of the rounds because of a possibly greater loss of velocity.

Regardless, I think it's pretty balanced already. When an AO is far away, sure the tank will hardly face any real dangers anymore because it took so long to arrive, but at the same time, it is also less fun or rewarding because by that time it usually doesn't have any real fancy targets anymore to shoot at either. So imo it's a balanced sort of trade-off.

[enex]

I have never seen slammer to solo the entire AO.

 

Also worth noting is that as soon as enemy jet in in the air being that close to AO or

between starting point and AO, without friendly jet, Slammer is basically dead meat.

 

I have only started - you have enemy squad where there's at least 1 AT, enemy

T 100s, Tigris (who btw have no issues on taking out your tracks and optics)

artillery, gunships...

 

Which brings to conclusion that as much as tanks are powerful they are also

weak, and removing them won't add anything to the game.

 

Quite the opposite it would detract from gameplay since you would remove piece

of combined arms warfare)

[DerRoteKoyote]

set the difficult level from easy to normal and the story ends the will flank you from all sites thats fun uiiii

[xSniper1982]

Honestly I believe the best solution is to replace the Slammer UP with the regular Slammer...
Not having the Commander Machinegun will make it less likely that a Tank will drive in to engage the Infantry.

Meaning they will be used more to remove Armour Targets and to provide mobile cover for the guys on the ground.

That removes the need for more AI or for any other major tweeks.

[enex]

The real question is can tanks really complete AO on their own?

 

Cause I game pretty often and I have never observed this.Have you?

Neither have I noticed players complain about it.I mean if they couldn't

have fun and shoot at enemy, I don't think  they would come on server

or be silent about it.

[xSniper1982]

The real question is can tanks really complete AO on their own?

That's not really the real question, but just to be sure, I'll answer it anyway.

 

Yes it can be done, yes it has been done, but people don't really talk about it because it doesn't happen often.

I myself have managed to Solo AO's just by switching between UAV and Sniper....

It's not hard if you have patience.

I have also managed to complete certain Side Missions without firing a single shot, by crawling and using smoke grenades.

People will find ways to complete Missions with what is available given the right circumstances.

[kman]

Just to not get sidetracked: its not about soloing AO in 2:00 in the morning, its when 30+ppl are online and arrival of Slammer is unnecessary overkill.

 

A thought: Is it possible, to change spawning conditions for objects based on number of people online ?

[xSniper1982]

Just to not get sidetracked: its not about soloing AO in 2:00 in the morning, its when 30+ppl are online and arrival of Slammer is unnecessary overkill.

Like I said man, if they remove the Slammer UP - and use the Slammer - then with no Commander Machinegun the Slammer is less likely to go into the mission area where there are more infantry... they'd be a sitting duck.

[enex]

Like I said man, if they remove the Slammer UP - and use the Slammer - then with no Commander Machinegun the Slammer is less likely to go into the mission area where there are more infantry... they'd be a sitting duck.

 

Problem being that Kumas and T-100s will obliterate already the weakest tank of them all.

 

As it stands slammer is one of the slowest and weakest tanks compared with the other.I don't really care about

MG on top, it's more about extra armor that it carries.

 

To put things more into context - I'm type of guys that push tank alongside infantry into AO as appose to

people sitting on top of the hill 1km and half away and picking off targets.Having regular slammer will

not help my type in that case.

 

I just don't think removing features from the game or reducing capacity is way to go when people should

be the one to blame not equipment.

 

There are AT guys, Gunship, enemy planes, mortars, enemy tanks, long distance to travel, slow moving

recently reduced repair points - changing to regular slammer or removing tank, because of rare incidents

would not benefit anyone.