It’s not really a lot of space for tanks like the M8 to work with without being in the gray zone.
Most of all, there is currently no requirement to ever force players to leave the grayzone, which means immunity to getting flanked.
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Thats why my post was saying time to open up the play area and push spawns back…
Ah, okay. I thought you were saying you wanted things just as they are now, my bad.
- Line of sight
- Boots on the ground to occupy the objective
I mean, prople have been asking for fixed bipods for years and it hasn’t come, so nah just suggesting something over and over definitely doesn’t mean the devs will implement it.
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Neither of those things are flanking. Also, line of sight doesn’t help when you can’t pen a Tiger anyway. Boots on the ground is easier said than done when the position oversees a huge part of the battlefield (e.g. D Day).
Are there options? Yes. On Pacific I often use my Vals to kill such tanks. I am not saying it is impossible, but I am saying it is A) Too powerful a strategy relative to effort (takes too much off the table while not being difficult to implement and on many maps offers a better vantage point than if they were close to the cap at points) and B) Simply not fun gameplay for anyone except maybe the tank.
Did you not bring those up as a question of “Why would a grey zone tanker leave the grey zone”?
Neither of those things apply to the tanker in many cases, so I thought you were referring to infantry. LoS is frequently even better in the grayzone* (in fairness a map design problem more than something inherent to the grayzone, but at this point something that would take a massive rework to fix across many maps), and is bailing out of a tank in perfect condition to cap the zone really a thing? I don’t think I’ve seen it once and I don’t see why it would be a thing if you can just fire straight into the cap from the grayzone anyway. If the enemy doesn’t have boots on the ground you are usually good to go, which is generally the tanks role.
I guess a tank that’s about to be destroyed, sure that’s normal, but that has nothing to do with gray zone mechanics. Outside of maybe just bringing us in a circle back to how to do so in the first place.
*Just off the top of my head, D Day, Monastery, and Alligator Creek. Probably a lot more.
Map-dependent. With few exceptions, firing as far as possible away from the objective highly limits what the tank can see (and consequently, engage)
It’s not a matter of bailing. What I mean is abandoning whatever vantage the tanker may have to close the distance to either get a better view, or suicidally charge the objective so they can switch to an infantry squad.
Even a “perfect” view of the objective and its approaches will be insufficient for a grey zone tank to kill all enemy infantry in, around and approaching the objective.
With HE, close enough is good enough. You don’t have to hit the infantry directly. For example, Alligator Creek the tank can’t fire directly into the trenches (with the exception of the pillbox), but a hit on infantry above the trench will generally kill infantry inside it. The trenches can also be hit down the side through the jungle iirc.
While I do see tanks charging the zone occasionally, the overall viability is overwhelmingly less than grayzone camping unless your team is out of tickets and you have nothing to lose. Tanks that do that simply don’t have the survival time to do much. Flamethrowers perform that role far more effectively.
Which brings me to my next point: I would like to reiterate that my idea is not to remove the gray zone. My idea is to simply expand the play area by setting the spawns further back, or by peeling back the gray zone a bit (allowing it to still exist of course), and putting a hard requirement on them leaving the gray zone eventually.
Time spent “flossing” for infantry in the proverbial terrain “teeth” is time not spent shooting at other incoming squads. It’s why extremely open objectives such as Ver-Sur-Mer and Airfield, with their near-perfect LoS can’t completely stem the flow of enemy reinforcements.
The risk for tankers has always been a matter of “do I want this firing angle in exchange for my safety?”
But at the same time, they’re not particularly strong enough to influence the outcome of a battle on their own, which means that, at the expense of keeping what is essentially a sentient battlefield hazard alive, one can just accept some casualties and carry on without ever needing to deal with the tank. That player is one less player manning the objective in a team of (up to) 10.
More than anything, I view tanks, and more broadly, vehicles as a means of padding your kills. You can kill all the squads you can see all you want, but unless you can absolutely eradicate every squad as they spawn, even that 10% left of the enemy team can wipe out whatever is defending or attacking the objective.
By necessity, a tank requires a team to have some backbone to hold the objective, and it only takes 1 competent player reaching the objective to begin to clear it out. On the opposite end, you can also kill all the defenders you wish as a tanker, but if none of your team reaches the objective, it’ll be all moot.
It’s certainly oppressive to play against under the ideal conditions, but a tank is ultimately dependent on its team, and I personally wouldn’t care about them unless they’re making a considerable difference- Because what you are suggesting is essentially permitting someone annoyed with a tank the ability to take a long detour to get rid of a tank, which distracts from playing the objective itself.
At the very least, it’s not as pointless as farming AI bombers with a fighter plane.
Your concerns regarding their abilities can be addressed by adding additional map obscurants that further limit their field of view and force them to move up, instead of moving the grey zone boundaries and setting up a funni system where tanks have to purposely be within range.
The choice I mentioned of “do I want this firing angle in exchange for my safety?” should remain a factor instead of forcing them to move forward through game mechanics.
I disagree. SOME tanks were specifically designed for, and used as, battering rams essentially. Those heavy duty, thick armor tanks are INTENDED to go through fortifications.
Unfortunately, due to poor balancing on multiple other fronts including how easy it is to break engineer structures, they don’t properly portray this functionality.
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Some were. Some weren’t. This game includes examples of both. Are you saying we don’t need more playable space?
Just got done with a game on the Moscow campaign that is a prime example of what I am talking about. Idk if we can upload replays here. Maybe we can link them for download?
T-70s have a nice line of fire at Quarry. As long as they are in position, often (though not always) behind the gray zone, Germany cannot advance.
I bring out a Stuka. Almost immediately after destroying the T-70, my team begins to capture and eventually takes the point.
Next T-70 spawns in, cycle repeats. 4 times. -In a Val, it has happened up to 5 or 6 times in some games.- (oops, not the whole cycle, but sometimes 2 have to be killed before the team can advance so 2 tanks for 1 advancement)
The value of the tank is in preventing enough players to arrive at the spawn that even if one good player makes it through, the rest of your team can overwhelm them by sheer numbers. The value of the attacker is in being able to consistently destroy those tanks, with a much better vantage point than mortar if not spotted by teammates (in my case a mortar would have worked as well as they were spotted). The value of the fighter is in preventing the attacker from continuing to be able to do that (I was eventually intercepted, first game as Stuka).
As a tank, you are literally a mobile machine gun and AT gun rolled into one (most of the time). Don’t tell me you’ve never struggled getting past effective mg crossfire. Don’t deny its value, everyone knows that experience.
They are far more than “a means of padding your kills.” “unless you can absolutely eradicate every squad as they spawn, even that 10% left of the enemy team can wipe out whatever is defending or attacking the objective.” If 90% of your team can’t handle 10% of theirs, the game was lost. Your team can positively swarm them if that’s the case. Most importantly, your team can synergize better. Look up Lanchester’s Square Law, and put that on steroids. 90% of yours vs 10% of theirs means an absolutely overwhelming difference in skill, that’s not the fault of choosing to play a tank that’s just a bad team. No class would have fixed that. Maybe flamethrower for amazing players.
I won’t say I haven’t had games like that, but unless you are an excellent flamethrower player (which implies actually having it unlocked) simply no class will be enough. If you play MG, you get sniped (or you kill the sniper and the base gets taken). If you play engineer, people can’t hit anything so it doesn’t matter. Assaulters, riflemen, etc have to reload often and that’s usually when you get killed when dealing with too many players at once.
Speaking of flamethrowers, tanks are usually one of the best responses, alongside snipers. In fairness it does depend on how much cover the map has.
So while you seem to think that vehicles are primarily for “padding kills,” fact of the matter they are usually an excellent way of either preventing enough infantry from getting to the zone to make the capture, or eliminating whatever the other team has that’s doing that to your side. It’s rock paper scissors.
I find what I call the “boots on the ground or nothing” mindset to be ultimately shortsighted. Okay, you got to the cap. What now? It’s you versus 5 players, because they have a tank pinning/killing most of your team. Let’s say you brought along an rifle squad. Great, that’s a lot of capturing power, but one of those players also brought a rifle squad, so that’s a wash unless you are a much better player. However, one of them brought an assault team and they’re hiding out in the buildings, so you need to find them. Two players are playing snipers, they have both sides of the building covered, so going outside is risky. And the 5th player has mgs, they’re hiding out somewhere. Sure, you could chuck a grenade and hope to get some kills, but that goes both ways, except they have more of them.
All that even presumes not only that you made it there in the first place, but that if you didn’t clear it the first time you can repeat your success.
If you are passively waiting for the enemy team to reach the cap instead of positioning so they can’t even get close, you are asking to lose and not actually playing the objective.
“Do I want this firing angle in exchange for my safety” A) “Safety” is relative. Being virtually unkillable due to an arcadey mechanic gone wrong is very different from having alert infantry in front and around you that will pick off enemy infantry you never knew you had to worry about. My suggestion doesn’t remove that factor at all, so idk why it is brought up. More space means you will still be safe, just not invulnerable. You can lead the infantry or they can lead you, both have their merits, I agree. But “safety” in the form of some wizard zapping your enemies out of existence if they come within 100ft of you is not a fun gameplay mechanic.
And what exactly do you suggest for terrain changes? Let’s start with Monastery.
To be honest tho, i dont really mind tank camper all the way back there. I can go to plane or just build AT gun to kill it, because its big giant target for me to shoot.
The problem is, defender can hunt attacker rally point when attacker cant hunt the defender rally point because all of them inside grayzone, which noticely unfair for me, they dont have any ticket to worry about, they can spawn every single time like nothing, but attacker,they destroy rally point, meaning enemy will well prepared and kill you instantly when u run to objective.
My solution is “Make the grayzone size same for attacker and defender” its not fair when defender can hunt rally point without getting hurt by greyzone while attacker eat all dmg from grayzone.
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I support this.
Given the absence of matchmaking, “winning” a match is essentially having the more popular side that isn’t chock-full of bots and console players. So long as whatever is attacking the objective can kill the defending bot waves, that is sufficient.
If only that were true. In a full player lobby that doesn’t consist of nothing but console players, tanks can be more difficult to deal with, but the majority of games, in practice, consist of a token few human players that can be overwhelmed with a difference in equipment or better tactics.
Not to mention, if a tank fails to kill enemies on approach, this gives the enemy the opportunity to place a rally, which would mitigate exposure to the tank even further. Instead of a long arduous 150-200 meter walk to the objective, it can be reduced to 40-50m, at an angle the tank would no longer have the ability to fire on, except for bots coming from the fixed spawn, which may (and usually does) distract a tank until it’s too late.
Of all the tanks to bring up as difficult to deal with on quarry- This?
What part of Monastery? The gate objective? That’s already relatively easy to approach and capture, even without additional cover.
Another thing I do like to add to this already awesome post is that devs should give players to deal with camping tanks ie more vehicle slots, better pen for at weapons etc
This image is not mine, but they were complaining that despite their performance in vehicles, they could not win the game.
I wonder why.
That is also a good point I think, there needs to be greater consideration there.