To non-AV guys making vehicle threads:You don't AV.
You have no idea what it's like to see a third of your PRO swarms swerve into hillsides or simply vanish on the way to a target. You don't know what it's like to see a third of your Lai Dai throws "miss" because their guidance systems aren't as reliable as some tankers assume.
You don't AV. Stop thinking you know how it's supposed to work.
It takes less than 300,000 SP to get a Sica which takes more than 3 Haywire Wiyrkomis. Fact
You don't know what it's like to have to deal with blue dots that want to jump in front of every Swarm volley you fire. They get indignant that you won't use an AR like they do.
You don't AV.
So what do they do? They park LAVs in your path. They melee you when you're lining up a shot. They make you think you're taking fire and panic-launch Swarms on the wrong angle. They throw grenades at you. They shoot you some more. They run you over in their LAVs to prove they can teamkill.
Every weapon but a Swarm Launcher counts as a direct threat to us. I remember during every build, seeing AV guys dying to ARs, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles on a regular basis. That obviously did not happen when in a vehicle.
You can't, as a pure tanker, tell the full story of how vehicle vs. AV should work, because you're biased. You've only played one side. Yes, the opinions of tankers, Dropship pilots, and legitimate NON-MURDER TAXI LAV drivers are valid and important. But so are the experiences of the grenadiers, Swarm guys and Forge Gunners who hunt those vehicles down.
Way back in E3, when tanks were arguably at their most powerful, and inarguably at their cheapest (with SIcas and Somas being handed out LITERALLY FOR FREE), I started out as an AV player. I ran Swarm Launchers, and I got pretty good with them. Back then, you could use Swarms for anti-infantry - they could be dumbfired and would explode on impact. No homing against anything but vehicles, but they were still a credible threat. I rarely used them in that way, preferring to save my limited ammo supply and switch to my trusty SMG when confronted with a soft target. I was, as an AV player, interested in the discussions of vehicle vs. AV balance, and I said my piece from what I believed was a well-reasoned perspective. I forget who it was, but someone made a thread much like this one, and I thought about it quite a lot. I created an alt, and I got into tanking for myself. I learned to drive (and I still want the optional L2/R2 LAV scheme on tanks, because shoving it all on the sticks is a horrible idea) and I learned to build a tank. I've sat and watched as Shield Tanks went from underpowered to overpowered and back, as Missile Turrets were broken OP, then "fixed" via nerfing everything at once until they stop doing anything, then fixed into moderate usefulness again. I know that vehicles and AV both need work, and I know this from experience on BOTH sides of the argument, not just one.
There are too many people on both sides of this problem who seem to think CCP can fix everything by only addressing one side. They can't. We need more tankers who are willing to listen to the AV guys, and we need more AV guys who realise that vehicles pilots/drivers know what we're doing too.
Can't we all just get along?
