A plan - Symmetrical vehicle combat -> Bringing back counters

Well I think it has more to do with the actual mechanics. Cannons are all essentially the same in term of how you use thme, they may have more or less arc, travel a bit quicker, have splash, etc. But missiles have huided, homing, dumb-fire with no arc and so forth. In some situations one of those mechanics is always more useful than another and when you can have twice as many of that useful utility I think it tips it in your favour. A good example is NFs dual homing salvo on say vehicle training, it is very strong.

 

I believe that is a flawed logic, misleading. First of all, effective against rails means nothing, it's about projectile speed and damage type. Rail gun is not unique in this category but only more advanced. But yes, absorbant would be more convenient for NF probably. However that's what makes the teams different. Weapons used more frequently by a faction is what gives them character. BE has another armour to replace absorbant, that's debatable, I can't say.

None of the above suggests absorbant would be a bad choice for any stage of the game depending on many factors. It's the cheapest armour, the lightest etc.

The counter system is still in Empires more or less; it's not mathematically accurate and it doesn't need to be, it only needs to make sense. Isn't security in charge of this or..?

If code wasn't buggy and cannons could be made immune to gravity, there would be no difference between a shell and a rocket.
I find that disappointing.
To me rockets deal raw explosive damage while shells deal both explosive and kinetic damage.
I don't know how this would affect this but I really don't like how identical weapons, cannons and missile deal the same damage to reactive armour. I've always seen reactive as antimissile but tweaking resistances is the only way to do it atm.

 

Well making weapons function the same, kind of defeats the whole point of having different weapons, Its boring. You want there to be wild differences between everything to feel unique and fun.
But if they are too divergent and you can stack them up then things can feel a bit overpowered.
But anyway even if that were the case with no gravity on cannons - NF still have access to the most Utility in missiles which was kind my point. Doesnt get rid of the fact that Missiles can be guided, homed, dumb fired, have no momentum, etc. I liek that the weapons all feel different and I'd like to see more of that & more weapons. hats really what the game would benefit from, however it comes about - more weapons and choices.

 

I use the term "Hard Counters" when I refer to a tank with the counter having the upper hand. However, when I use this term hard counter I do not intend it to mean that you are guaranteed going to die against a countering tank, it's just they have the advantage. You should still be able to manuever and deal damage, but not as much as if you were countering.

It's not like soft counters where, the example is ranged cannon. Someone is destroying you at close range so you start engaging them at range with the ranged cannon. While this is sort of effective, it obviously never leads to any deaths seeing as they just retreat out of range a bit and repair.

Hard Counters refers to something like Tank A is fighting Tank B. Tank A counters Tank B, so Tank A wins. No questions asked, guaranteed win for Tank A. Again, I do not think this should be the case as it does NOT allow for a dynamic battlefield that can change. When one team counters,they will most likely win.

I think what we refer to is something like a Medium Counter, something that gives an advantage but not ungodly OP. Currently there is 1 research meta, if you do not get this you are basically griefing your team. With a "Medium" counter, it gives the team who is countering an advantage in the tank vs tank combat but the other team still can fight back. However, to efficiently fight back and give your team a better chance, you still want to research the counter to what the other team has to make your gear even better. I clearly remember this back in the day, when Absorbant was the only thing that really countered Rails, and rails had an advantage vs Composite and Com armor.

By adding in "Med" counters, it makes each research path almost equally viable, allowing variation and promoting variety for the player to choose from when equipping their tank along with helping the team whom knows the counters (which could be listed IN the research tree). This is I think the best solution for variability and viability of all research by far, having a system of counters that don't immediately destroy but definitely help in killing other tanks.


As for what you said against Infantry, I think the only class that should pose a threat to light/medium tanks is Grenadier. He is the class specifically designed for tank killing, giving the other classes the ability to kill tanks only weakens the role of Grenadier. Tanks need to be deadly, but also have blind spots for Infantry to sneak up (See Blizzerd's post on tanks having a turret turn speed and possibly slowing all tanks down).

 

Yea because I think mid-late game should be more medium tank combat, having Heavies be end game. End game, as I remember with research costs, it didn't really matter on the balance of Heavies as they raped shit which I think was the intended purpose. The game should be balanced around Medium combat where it is already KIND of symmetrical rather than heavies.

Heavies should be feared, they shouldn't be like they are now.

 

I agree that heavies should no longer be over abundant and dispensable such as they currently are. A stable, progressive build-up is preferred, personally.

 

I agree this game should be more combined arms, I think this is the first thing you and I agree on. This game would make for SUCH A GREAT combined arms combat game it's really astounding it is not the focus. The necessary steps to go there are make tanks much more deadly to each other, to infantry, slow down tanks, make them have a turret turn speed. But even if these aren't added at least counters will make tanks dealdier to each other. Then if Grens get a slight buff then tanks would need some infantry cover from grens so that brings in Riflemen... then there needs to be "medics" such as engineers to heal them as they get in combat and then it will make it combined arms.

However, I think Medium's are the main balancing point of this game. Heavies should be the end game tank, you get it to literally push through and end the game. They should be expensive as to not be used, and if lost it should be a big blow. Mediums are ALMOST symmetrical so balancing around Mediums (And having counters) will make for a good system for heavies to be balanced around at the end (Albeit they get 2 of 1 weapon, but if there is a variant of each like Bio ML and Bio Cannon it is still asymmetrical but approaching a "symmetrical" balance).

Also, regarding heavies as "Upgraded Mediums", if the their cost can be increased by a LOT and make them rare on the field then they essentially won't be that much of an upgrade. They should be siege breakers/Line breakers for their cost but an expensive loss if lost. We use to see this version of a more "expensive" heavy through research cost, where it cost to get mediums, 2 types of armors, 2 types of weps and 2 types of engines before you had to save up 3k to get heavies as well. I think this is what made them so good in the end game because they weren't around at 20 minuets.

 

absorbant is not just a counter to rails. its description reads "Absorbant armor is engineered with strong materials able to undergo excessive plastic deformation. This allows the armor to reduce damage received as a projectile's speed increases."
this means it is good against all fast projectiles. its just that nf has no fast projectiles. brenodi can dual load their rail cannons and take out a building in under a minute, but for the longest time nf had only one 3-slot missile and it was for nukes; the slow projectile that takes forever to reload. now we have two 3-slot missiles but no weapons to go with it. the fastest missile is slower than the slowest cannnon.
i feel the problem is with the weapons, not the idea of cannons vs missiles.

putting a cost to heavies wouldnt fix the problem. it never has. all it does is allow the winning team to research them and the losing team not too. ive seen a lot of games recently where the losing team came back from what seems like a certain loss. this would change with heavy research cost added back in

 

With the TD getting added, this will also be a possibility because they will have a way to kill enemy heavies/tanks while supporting infantry are around them.

 

what does a tank destroyer have to do with nf missiles and vehicle weapons?

 

It might, currently nothing is working so why not try to add more?

Might be a system that requires 4 cogs and it only has 3. TD's could be cheap and quick to research to allow a losing team a chance.

 

I'll quote paradox's explanation on why that is a bad comparison.

Adding in TD's theoretically will allow for teams that don't have much to come back like they can now. It will also make it combined arms like as they will need cover from infantry attacks.

 

Although I'm against adding stuff just to add stuff I actually like the idea of a TD esp. because the *need* infantry as support as opposed to the other vehicles that can get by without (exc. for the jeep).