Heavy vs Medium Tanks

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Ikalx, Oct 11, 2010.

  1. Ikalx

    Ikalx Member

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    Heavies are used a LOT in the game these days, while meds are critically underused - about only 10-15% of the time. Most of us probably agree that heavies are fine as they are (aside from NF models), but mediums perhaps need some tweaking to make them more viable. These days you only see them on the losing team, and quite often they don't lead to a win.

    This thread is for any suggestions you can think of to improve meds - be it a Grenade slot, a 3-slot ml/cn, cheaper costs/quicker times, greater maneuverability or some other innovation.

    Also, I kinda just realised that it's a bit pitiful to call them Medium tanks. "Heavy Tank" has a certain weight (heh) or gravitas to it, but "Medium Tank" just seems kinda lame. Any suggestions on the naming?
     
  2. Beerdude26

    Beerdude26 OnThink(){ IsDownYet(); }

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    BE's Imperial Tank sounds pretty badass. Perhaps NF should get a name change?

    Ol' Rusty?
     
  3. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    i call em Field tanks and battletanks in my scripts

    since thats what the germans called there mass production armor vehicles
     
  4. complete_

    complete_ lamer

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    3 slot cannon/ml
     
  5. Omneh

    Omneh Member

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    Medium tanks could be Main Battle Tanks or something instead.

    The turret tracking speed on heavies could be limited somewhat, by which I mean have the turret track your cursor at a fixed speed no matter how fast you move it to give mediums an edge in tank to tank combat.

    I would probably impose an upper limit on turret tracking speed for meds as well, but one considerably higher than heavies and generally not that noticeable unless you are spazzing out with your mouse.

    Aside from that, a general improvement of the speed and mobility of mediums would be nice, along with a decrease in the time and resource it takes to acquire them.

    Other than that, the speed of heavies could be slightly decreased (only slightly, I don't want them to be painfully slow or unable to climb hills) as well as their maneuverability, and the the time and resource investment required to obtain them could be significantly increased, to make mediums (or MBT's) a more attractive option in comparison.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2010
  6. MOOtant

    MOOtant Member

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    It's about research tree that gives you heavies and/or heavy's weapons fast and it pays off more than medium tanks.
     
  7. alucard13mmfmj

    alucard13mmfmj Member

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    give mediums some more efficiency when crossing shallow water =P... heavies should have 0 shallow water crossing potential because.. well they are too heavy and will sink into the sand. i think the moment heavies touch water, they blow up lol.
     
  8. ScardyBob

    ScardyBob Member

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    Mediums really only work if you can get roughly 2 meds out for every enemy heavy. So you would either need to reduce the cost of meds or increase the cost of heavies IMO.
     
  9. BitterJesus

    BitterJesus Member

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    Heavies need to be a lot slower than they are now. Think mammoth tanks in RA2. They're all powerful but slow and immobile as fuck. In fact, if there was a limit on turret rotating speed it would solve a lot of problems.
     
  10. alucard13mmfmj

    alucard13mmfmj Member

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    it actually depends which side your facing..

    BE mediums has a big disadvantage against NF heavy tanks. 1 homing salvo takes out like almost all the plate. sometimes its hard to rotate the bull to show a different side. even if its 2 BE mediums against 1 NF homing heavy, usually 1 medium dies and half the time the NF heavy gets away and the other medium is heavily damaged.

    against BE heavies.. its a lot easier. you can probably use a light tank to do some damage the BE heavy before the LT dies.

    depending on maps, mediums are even more screwed. if your fighting in a narrow map... mediums are pretty much boned because hard to rotate hull, traffic jams, and just the sheer fire power of 2 main weapon slots vs 1 main weapon slot.
     
  11. Ikalx

    Ikalx Member

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    Imperial Tank sounds great, I agree, but in the research it's "Medium Chassis" too, so that's what everyone calls them. If you changed it to Imperial Tank Chassis, that would definately be cooler :D

    Field Tank for NF sounds workable...but I notice the aircraft tend to be named for something (e.g. the Raven), perhaps we could use something with a bit more flair like that...akin to the "devastator, marauder, mammoth" tanks of other games. Like mongoose or jackal or something. Lol, I go overboard methinks.

    Is this a good idea? I can never tell. Most people suggest it combined with making heavies have 2x2-slot ml/cn. It's quite a big change and heavies would probably need to be reduced in price to reflect it. Nukes especially would be incongruous on a Battle Tank.
    I like this idea, but it's kinda hard to get right, isn't it? Too much and you'd just cripple heavies... How hard would it be to code though? Would we be able to test it out fairly easily and see the results?

    Yeah I noticed this. I was updating my research sheet and it seems like, even though Heavy Tanks have a 2min extra time on the way to getting them, it's done pretty quickly in the scope of things.

    And a lot of researches seem to be much quicker than they used to be. Sometimes by as much as 3 minutes. Also the ROF on HECN is really low compared to the killing power of guided/homing/upgraded (vs rax), although that's another story.

    And also again, most people stick to only getting missiles on NF and only getting Cannons on BE - rails. There's no UML/HECN sorta combo's anymore, that's all fallen by the wayside. The idea that a NF heavy tank would shoot a cannon at you is crazy, as is the reverse for BE now. That's a completely different way from how it used to be.

    MKII's were expensive, but people used them because they were free, and used them miles and miles more than mediums are being used now. The gap in price between lights, mediums and heavies isn't actually all that great right now, it's hard for me to think of a res cost for a med, without it seeming almost as cheap as a light tank. But perhaps that's what we need - mediums just being seen as "upgrades" and not a next level of tank to be skipped on the way to heavies.
     
  12. gezor

    gezor Member

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    havent seen mediums for ages, no1 researches them, except the newb comms.

    heavies should be some kind of a super unit. slow and expensive, but very powerful.
    increase research time for heavy chasis and maybe reduce the time for meds. and/or make heavies (research) more expensive.
     
  13. Sprayer2708

    Sprayer2708 Member

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    Field tanks? I would say "Assault Gun" is the translation for "Sturmgeschütz", "Armoured Vehicle" for "Panzerkampfwagen", "Tank Destroyer" for "Jagdpanzer". So "Field Tanks" = "Feldpanzer"? never heard that, sorry blizz. Since tanks which are not designed for main combat usually are designed for a certain role in combat, they will be named after that role. The "Medium Tank" is just a weakly Main Combat Tank, so what about "Useless Piece of Shit"?

    This.

    Alternative: Make Heavies unable to wear 3slot anything. Allow Mediums to do so. Maybe get more 3slot weapons.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2010
  14. alucard13mmfmj

    alucard13mmfmj Member

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    Remove machine gun slot from heavies so they are vulnerable to infantry. rail guns and missiles suck against infantry, so it would work.

    give mediums 3slot MG so mediums could possibly have a role in support fire and anti infantry for the heavies. reduce speed of heavies so they are more restricted in tank movement, where they cannot traverse up a path that is too steep.

    i think when people envision heavy tank.. they envision a slow moving, heavily armed and armored, clumsy, and prone to break down. at the moment, heavies are like abraham tanks and mediums is like a canadian tank with its toy wagon with a mounted cannon that is being driven by a bicycle (meant to get blown up)
    [​IMG]
     
  15. Dubee

    Dubee Grapehead

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    level 2 turrets and med tanks should be seen a lot more than they are. Simple solution, make level 3s and heavies take a lot longer to get.
     
  16. -=]Kane[=-

    -=]Kane[=- Member

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    To fix this prob you should simply increase the cost of heavys by 150-300 res,
    because meds are still almost as expensive as heavys (if compared to their use anyway), that's what I said months ago and it's still undeniable the same problem, meds are not used because heavys are far superior in efficency to costs ...;)
     
  17. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    who cares what a tank costs if the main difference is that you can keep the bigger one the whole game? id still research heavies, but maybe start to lock the vf. also, now with wages, the tank prices barely play a roll - at least for not completely noobish players ...
     
  18. MOOtant

    MOOtant Member

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    Meds drive awfully and their main weapons were much weaker than heavy weapons (nukes, rails...).
     
  19. ViroMan

    ViroMan Black Hole (*sniff*) Bully

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    shouldn't meds drive better then a heavy... after all they are not clumsy heavy tanks.
     
  20. -=SIP=-

    -=SIP=- Member

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    For me the research duration difference between mediums and heavies is too small.
    When you want good mediums you need nearly the same time and resources as for heavies.

    Research:
    Medium with absorbant+gas turbine+HEMG+UML --> 690sec, 3950res
    Heavy with absorbant+gas turbine+UML --> 755sec, 4525res

    Tank cost:
    Medium: 605res (14plates)
    Heavy: 850res (24plates)

    Therefore mediums are only an option for me, when I'm low on resources. To make mediums a valuable tactic on high res maps the time difference for research must be much larger then 1 - 3 minutes. And as already suggested heavies should also cost more.



    Also the anti tank MG heat should be lowered, because this mostly hurts mediums. For APCs the heat still doesn't matter much and for heavies you have enough firepower with your cannons or missiles.


    Ikalx:
    Maybe you want to summarize the suggestions in the original posting.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2010

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