Is there too much focus on vehicular combat?

On the rare occasion that people dont teamstack to hell and the game is over in 5 minutes, such as when 5 BSID members join and they ALL go to brenodi making it 4-7 or something rediculous like that (this is an example, dont bother denying it ), once heavy tanks and nukes are researched, thats ALL people do. They will sit in heavies with nukes which makes infantry completely useless because nukes will instagib any infantry within a short distance.
So the question is this:
Is the game too focused on vehicular combat? As many of you like to make up the excuse "its part of the game!", thats all good and well, but perhaps vehicles are too powerfull in the later stages of the game when a grenadier has next to zero chance to take out a tank because the thing will just launch a nuke at it.
Maybe infantry should have something to make them more effective against vehicles, and not totally useless, for the most part.

 

It has been suggested many times that infantry need a boost for later games. Not sure what their plans are for it though.

I guess you'll hate to hear that prices and stuff are being changed so there'll be more tanks battles in the game =P

 

We just need more vehicles and make them quite cheap so even the losing team can buy them. I don't see any bigger problems. You probably just had a stacked game.

BTW this game should be focused on vehicular combat. Tank battles (and aircraft battles later) are the thing that gives biggest fun. I hate to repeat 100x times to my team "GET A VEHICLE!".

 

Yeah tanks are a big help to me espically when you need to go somewhere far for a ref

 

I think the late game focus is fairly well balanced between vehicles and infantry, though I agree that it might lean towards vehicles. The main cause for this lean is that atm research only affects vehicles, so the vehicles improve while the infantry remains the same. Any problem would be resolved when integrating infantry into research.

 

I think I would be great if infantry became of more use during the later parts of the battle, usually I'm the only engineer/grenedier (depending on the situation) running around without a vehicle later in the game (mainly because I was never the best tank driver, then again I've only driven a tank 3 times). A nice infantry boost later in the game would be great (& hey once the aircraft are released, I might be more involved in vehicular combat)

 

I'm pretty sure the game is supposed to be more about vehicles... if you don't have any vehicles in the end-game, you are losing, and that's why you don't get vehicles. I can understand a little boost for infantry when aircraft are released, but I'd have to see aircraft in-game first.

Sounds to me like the OP just got out of a 8-5 game, and is just a little angry.... (And yeah, I'm gonna deny your lil' jig about BSID, just because you apprently think are the god of truth on an internet forum.)

 

Just wait until my map's done. Poor tanks can't win building-to-building combat. Oh, sure, you can fire a nuke into the windows from a distance but then everyone will just switch floors or get behind a wall. If you get up close, the only window you can fire it in is maybe the first or second floor ones, which means the grens will be upstairs with an engy resupplying/healing them, whilst they pound your silly tank or drop mines down.

EDIT: Oh, BSID Reaper, quit trying to connect to me when I'm testing my map. You do realize that trying to download a 20 meg (and growing!) bsp file off a 56k (28.8kbit/sec up, or about 3K) connection is completely futile, right?

No sneak peek for you!

 

Sounds fun, I can hardly wait

On a side note, I've always wanted a map based around an abandoned steel mill, or refinery, warehouse complex, or even a junkyard. Something that rebels would use to hide out in.

Anyway, yes, this mod is based on armor combat, but more often than not I see as much infantry as I do tanks. Doesn't seem like a problem to me.

Infantry research is a must. After the small arms get balanced out, only the 'basic' weapons should be available at the start, rest are unlocked one way or another; Research upgrades, skill 'certificates', etc? Well, doesn't matter too much, since people just like to use the first choice of guns anyway.

 

[rant]
Tanks always win the day in the end... Infantry can be used ALONG with a tank... (A friednly tank covering That grenadier thats mining the bridge for a retreat, or an APC raining bullets in utmost random directions to provide cover for the charging infantry to take that ML farm out) Stuff like that... It turns into a problem when people do not use tanks mixed in with infantry... when 10 riflemen are trying to shoot a tank down with pistols... or an engineer trying to deconstruct a Med tank with 3 phase... In almost every game I have to scream "GET TANKS, GET INTO TANKS" and "YOU CAN'T WIN WITHOUT TANKS" that it is becoming annoying... You want to use infantry? Fine get into an APC along with a couple of Tank escorts and rush the enemy base... get out and kill everyone in the VF... But to use infantry alone is frustrating for the commander...

(If used properly a gren's mines will stop an entire rush and cause a sort of a trench warfare to occur... Unless someone is smart enough to detonate them and allowing the tanks to roll in... But I have never seen this kind of actions on pubs)
[/rant]

 

Well you have to remember that isn't always the case, APCs will drive off with 2 or three other people, by themselves, & right into a couple of MLs, mines, or few grenediers with itchy trigger fingers. And to tell you the truth I've never seen anything being escorted, it's usually one guy gets there, then another, & then a few more, then a mini base and so on.
As for "a sort of trench warfare" I've seen that only once... on emp_escort. My mines vs. some other dude's mines. Though in the end mines became useless when all the grens on both sides had the mine defusal skill.

 

just earlier we were about to lose because we were being attacked by alot of tanks,,, but i sneaked into there base with mines and flipped there comm and instantly won,, ahah and too think if they all werent in tanks they could of stopped me,,, loll

 

I dont think its bad except when it just degenerates into arty slugging it out - if nothing else can get close to the arty as both sides are pounding away with HE arty on a narrowish entrance way and both seem too scared to go for the other arties and are happy with the kills they rack up when someone non-arty tries to join in...

pah

it wouldnt be quite as bad if the armour was even more limited on arty than at current - so a lucky shot, or sneaky gren could get them - no more "oh, oops i've run past a hidden ml and a gren, i may just as well shoot straight up and keep running, or drive around a bit etc"

maybe it'll be better with planes being around, tho i'm still miffed it sounds like air combat will be mostly, probably all, missile based

 

Arty won't be ultimate weapon when aircraft will be in game.

 

MrBojangl3s, my little "comment" is not only true, its SAD that its true and someone is actually denying it. 99.9% of all clans/groups/squads or whatever you want to call it on ANY game WILL try to get on the same team as their other members at any cost, even if it makes the game completely unbalanced, because when that happens, the not-so-skilled players usually get shunted to NF, and 5 to 7 man squad of players who ARE skilled sit on BE. So you get teamstacked not only in number of players, but also on the skill of players. Thats why one team will be decimated withen 5 minutes. Im going to go ahead and guess your a member of BSID, and if I am right, then I can see why you would reply in such a manner. HOWEVER, BSID was just used as an example, and, while I do not know all the members on the clan, I know the ones which keep recurring on the in-game teamstacking. This was not supposed to be the point of the thread though.
The point was supposed to be the viewers thoughts on how infantry compared to vehicles, and if some agree that vehicles are given too much power later on. Vehicles are supposed to be powerfull, yes, but there is not a chance in hell that a grenadier, or even a group of grenadiers can take down a heavy tank with composite armor and around 12 nukes at his disposal. It is simply impossible, because even if the player driving the tank misses, the massive AoE of the thing will usually kill the players. Last night I was in a game on emp_slaughtered. I was on the NF team, and for once we were actually winning. BE built a compact base inside the south east canyon and we had around 5 tanks down there. Every single one of them brang some nukes with them, and firing just one caused all infantry, most of the turrets and an armory to instantly go boom.
So to counter act this:
Perhaps we should have another vehicle which is especially outfitted for nukes, this would do the following:
A. It would promote teamwork in having other vehicles or even infantry escort and protect the "Nuke Tank" on route and while it was blowing up an enemy base
B. It would decrease the amount of nuke spam that goes on in nearly every game.
C. It would give infantry a chance to actually fight one another instead of having a lone engineer saved from 10 rifleman by one tank that happened be nearby.
Im not saying that the missiles in a tank should be removed, just that the nuke seems to be too powerful to have 12 carried around by every single heavy on the map. Maybe there should be a limit on how many of these "Nuke Tanks" could be created? Maybe they could carry around 25 nukes to make up for so few available vehicles? More than likely they should not have any other type of weapon.
There is a flaw here however. Should such a tank be created, in all probability some idiot will get in it and fire all the nukes at passing infantry or a stray turret or two.
So, maybe you should only be able to fire a nuke from the tank when you acquire a target of sufficient value? As in, lets say your driving along in the tank, theres a few infantry near you. They are all souts, and cannot harm you. So theres no point wasting a nuke on them is there? But you know that someone who is either triggerhappy or just plain greedy for kills will fire a nuke at them, and thats one less you could be using to destroy the enemy base and win the game. Therefor, the nukes should be only fireable at structures. This is not saying that they will no longer damage infantry, you just wouldnt be able to shoot them at infantry out in the middle of nowhere, but should a group be sitting in an armory while you bomb it, they would of course die from the "theoretical" explosion.
If your aiming for realism, then most high school students know that nuclear weapons spew massive amounts of radiation into the area where they are fired. Then, maybe there should be a lingering "radiation" effect, that will harm any biological thing which comes in the AoE. Not an instant kill type thing, but a slow damage effect over time. This would mean that once you bomb an armory, the infantry can no longer go in it or they will be harmed by the radiation. And there is no cure for radiation poisoning, so that little health box in the armory shouldnt be able to help you.
This sort of thing would make engineers think twice about placing a turret in the middle of a choke point all by their lonesome, because one nuke can take that turret out and irradiate the area, making it hazardous for you to cross to assault the enemy base. Even though most players do not think that deeply on tactics, this would add another strategic layer to the game. The commanders are supposed to be the strategists, I think, so they should be ordering the players on where to go for setting up ambushes or assaults or other good things like that. Then again, issueing orders to each and every member of the team in a 30 player game is not only time-consuming, but annoying as well. Thats why squads were created, so that the commander could order GROUPS of people to one area instead of one after another. So maybe players should be required to join a squad before they can spawn?
Enough of this, I have gone completely off track in this monologe and Im sure I will be bitched at for talking so much at one time.

 

For future posts. Please use paragraphs.

 

Come on, Bojangl3s, you know we are the kings of stackage

Anyways, coming back to the original topic. Yes, the game focuses on vehicular combat. The only possible reason I see why it could be considered a Bad Thing™ is that there currently are very few infantry upgrades to counter (or at least stand up to) the tanks.

However, I believe this is intentional and fits into the game's progression. Let's not take into account specialized maps (Escort, District). You start off with infantry only and few resources. As your team captures resource nodes, more choices become available: you can spend the resources on weakly armored/armed vehicles right off the bat , or you can dump them into research, or expansion, or defence, etc. There are many effective strategies, but the longer the round lasts - the more dependant on vehicles you become. Researching becomes more important as your early rushes begin to get stopped short by lvl 3 turrets and the enemy keeps pushing back with better technology. At this point defending the resource nodes becomes critical, as the team with more resources can get better tanks (and more of them), squeeze the enemy into a corner and eventually win.

Of course we'd all like to see infantry play a larger role in the mid- to end-game and I believe new infantry-specific research trees are in the works. But the devs will need to balance those upgrades very carefully, as not make foot soldiers invincible and therefore invalidate thousands of resources spent on vehicle upgrades.

 

Mystry, I didnt read your full post there (over half) and I assume you were playing on the [On|E] Server. If so, then you should know the server has a research_multiplier of 3 and like a refinery_multiplier of 5. Any balance issues you encountered with nukes or whatever, tank spam, are because of their server settings and have nothing to do with balance on servers with normal settings. (and empires in general)

edit: This is btw one of the things im a bit sad about, the servers most people play on right now (stormed and [On|e]) do not have the standard settings, only the official did, and tbh I liked it the most, now that the official is down and the Donated one doesnt run too well (read more than 8 players) theres no choice left

I hope I can get some money to chip in for our BSID server, so we can have a good server with the default settings

 

Mystry: You saw our stacked game yesterday. I didn't have enough time to order some of us to join BE. I was too busy with destroying your base, sorry.

It's quite natural to play with your clan but when you have more than 3 people it's easy to split in 2 teams and also enjoy the teamwork. (We didn't join 1 team)

Don't write such long posts because when I see it I stop wanting to read it.

About nukes: it's such specific map's design. It's one big chokepoint. No place to run away or anything. Anyway nuke tanks aren't ultimate weapon or anything. They are useful but won't kill everything. For resources used to build a nuke tank NF could build 3-4 light tanks. 3 vs 1 fight is very easy even when fighting against nuke tank.

 

Stormed uses default settings. (It was changed week ago)