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Silentstalker

PvE Query

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On 11/14/2020 at 5:51 AM, JintoLin said:

The job of an MBT is not just to soak up damage. The armor exist to allow the tank to get it's big ass gun in position to kill the enemy period. Evey other vehicle type is in support of the MBT, save maybe the LT. The LT only exists because you can't always get an MBT in location due to the weight of armor. So they stripped the armor off to try an get the MBT gun in position. The AFV's exists to get troops in position to capture things. The firepower on AFV's exist only to cover the troops, not engage enemy armor. The AFV's have limited ATGM ammunition, maybe only one reload.  Because AW is a game about killing hostile armor, if the balance is correct, the only class worth it's salt should be the MBT class.

Another thing AW messed up is ATGM's. Those weapons exist to allow non MBT's to engage MBTs but at long range. Given that AW has forces engagement ranges to under 300m ATGMs should be worthless, many don't arm the warhead until after the missile has traveled at least 150m.  

You're talking real life.  This is an arcade game.

The primary role of the MBT in AW is to distract the enemy, soak damage, and generally be a nuisance in order to allow the primary damage dealers on the team to engage from safety.  Yes, MBTs can also kill enemies.  That's just not their primary role.

The problem right now is that MBTs are too good at tasks that are not their primary role.  To balance the game and give every class a reasonable role, the power of MBTs should be dialed back in the ways I've described above.  Reward them for doing their job, but not for doing other classes jobs.  (The same is true for the other classes - they should be rewarded for doing their job, but not for doing anyone else's job.)

This is pretty basic game design theory.

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I gave an elaboration of my answers in the form, but I thought I'd share some here as well.

Coincidentally, on the day the PVE query came out, I actually had a chat with a friend who used to play AW, and whom I was trying to get to play again just so I had someone to platoon and chat with during games. I wasn't successful, and some of his grievances were things I felt that nothing much could be done about (the grind, mainly). Other parts however, I thought I'd share as part of my response.

Firstly, the variety of missions. As mentioned by other players, sometimes it can feel like you're playing the same mission again and again throughout the week. This can be easily solved by creating a wider variety of missions, and so I'm all for recycling PVP maps for PVE use. In all honesty, until Haskell pointed it out, I didn't actually know that Albatross used the same map as Umbrella and Snake Bite (And I've been playing since beta, so goes to show my skills of observation....). I think it would also help to just have more objectives such as taking part in missions, joining a larger push across open ground, or having to dig in and defend against waves of enemies. 

This brings me to a point which I didn't put in the query form, but I thought of afterwards. Maybe there could be the introduction of AI allies in standard missions, such as how it was done for spec ops? Personally, I quite liked the idea that we were just playing as one mercenary out of many, and having some AI tanks pushing forward with us would certainly help to build that feeling of being one part out of something larger and grander. It would also help to make the aforementioned objective types possible; an ambush where the AI vehicles are hit, a push with maybe two other platoons of AI tanks, or digging in with other AI vehicles. This would also prevent those types of objectives where the players are likely going to be shot at quite a lot a little less frustrating; the AI allies can draw attention away from the team.

I liked the special mechanics in spec ops, but only when you could do something about it. For instance, being able to shoot down the drones/gunships targeting you. I wasn't so much a fan of dodging attacks that you couldn't really do much about; it reminded me a little too much of bullet-hell type games. Dodging artillery, on the other hand, was something that I figured couldn't be helped if enemy artillery was to make a return in PVE. On the topic of shooting down drones and helicopters, I think one way of implementing that into standard missions would be to allow vehicles the use of their roof-mounted machine guns or remote weapons stations. That way, they have a way of fighting off airborne enemies should the team lack an AC-equipped vehicle.

On the note of vehicle-mounted machine guns, I'd love to see more missions where enemy infantry plays a bigger role, or even technicals. It would make the currently-introduced coaxial machine gun a lot more useful, I think. Having enemy infantry would also mix things up a little by having something different to shoot at every now and then.

As far as the story goes, I was okay with it until the latest expansion. I liked it when it was just mercenaries and corporations, and no world-threatening thing for us to stop. I understand that a storyline is very useful to a game, but maybe it could just be toned down? Like instead of following a team in its quest to save the world, it could instead follow maybe a character or a group as they rise from simple mercenaries to being a PMC in their own right. I recall from an old post on AW about the setting that there are parts of the world where even corporations would not set foot in. That would be a pretty nice place to have such a story.

Lastly, I think AW's biggest draw is that it has an actual PVE mode. WoT sure doesn't have one, at least not permanently, and WT's PVE is to me, quite a joke. I stuck with WoWS for as long as I did only because it had a PVE option, but it lacked variety, and the missions it had were tier-locked. With these games I mentioned, PVP is their main focus with PVE being more of sideshow. I think if AW does the opposite, putting more focus on PVE with PVP having a smaller focus, it would be able to carve out quite a niche for itself amongst the vehicle-arcade-semi-simulator group of games. 

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On 11/16/2020 at 11:38 AM, knutliott said:

You're talking real life.  This is an arcade game.

The primary role of the MBT in AW is to distract the enemy, soak damage, and generally be a nuisance in order to allow the primary damage dealers on the team to engage from safety.  Yes, MBTs can also kill enemies.  That's just not their primary role.

The problem right now is that MBTs are too good at tasks that are not their primary role.  To balance the game and give every class a reasonable role, the power of MBTs should be dialed back in the ways I've described above.  Reward them for doing their job, but not for doing other classes jobs.  (The same is true for the other classes - they should be rewarded for doing their job, but not for doing anyone else's job.)

This is pretty basic game design theory.

If mbt's are to be the "MMO tanks" of AW, then they ALL need way better armor. And I mean along the lines of each mbt should be nearly, if not entirely, impossible to take damage if hit from the front, including missile chip damage. They would also deserve their VR back as well then so they could "gather" enemies to them.

AW is not a typical MMO and those mindsets should not be referred to or even used here. And AW PVE is not a raid dungeon either. While there is several mbt's that could do such damage soaking for the team, they are too few and far in between to say all mbt are the "MMO tank class" of AW; especially with the armors the mbt's were given.

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MBTs don't need to be the "MMO tanks" of AW, but they do need to have a defined role.  As do the other vehicle classes.  And those roles need to be balanced.  Without defined roles, some vehicle class as a whole is going to be too good or not good enough.  Right now MBTs are pretty clearly too good because they can basically do everything and honestly don't need to have any other vehicle class on the team at all - 5 x MBT is by far the best "single class" platoon that you can put together, rivaled only by 5 x Terminator which is really an OPAF class by itself.

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If I may give my two cents on the issue of balance...

I think one reason why MBTs might be so OP right now is because most of your other targets are armoured vehicles, which is what MBTs were designed to take on and destroy. I can't think of a way to make MBTs less OP without making them feel unrealistic. I think the MBTs of 0.33 are about as close as we can get to IRL values with regards to armour, reload speed, and damage without MBTs actually making every other class obsolete. Using damage falloff is a pretty novel way of balancing a class, but I think maps would have to be bigger before you actually feel the hurt from sniping at range with an MBT. Personally, I've never felt that the damage falloff was affecting me in any significant manner (Unless I'm just that aggressive of a player and never noticed it)

A direct way of balancing things would probably return us to how things were in 0.32, and I wasn't much a fan of that, either. I guess one way of balancing would be to just nerf their view range even further, making them dependent on other vehicle classes to find enemies. That would come with its own set of problems, of course, but apart from pushing reload times up into an average of 10 seconds again, I can't really think of much.

An indirect way of nerfing would be just to make the other classes feel a little more useful. Introducing airborne targets would make AFVs or anything armed with an AC seem a lot more attractive, I reckon (though of course, MBTs would have to be given their own, limited form of AA in case players get put into an all-MBT team). Maybe there could be maps with rivers that are impassable to MBTs but can be crossed by amphibious vehicles? That would also allow for the introduction of true amphibious capabilities instead of such vehicles simply drowning at a slower rate. MBTs would still be able to use a slightly longer and maybe more indirect route, but amphibious vehicles would be able to, say, take a more direct approach to completing secondaries, or even just to rush to stop a cap.

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On 11/14/2020 at 8:34 AM, Haswell said:

 

Really the only thing that might need to be done to the MBT is remove more view range.    I will be honest,  my Leclerc view range rivals a scout,  and a 4 second reload will put a lot of fire down range.   Speed,  Average Armor,  good mobility, and a better then average gun.  its on the top end of the spectrum.  

With the Chipping damage and in PVE going against ATGM Spam 3-4 T-15 will decimate a MBT with all that spam and the million round a second autocannon killing the MBT gun....With all the changes to the AI (Targeting MODULES exclusively now) and the chipping damage the MBT is not the end all.  

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