Now here me out!

All the screams of "OP" and "Unfair" leveled at tanks and Drop-ships that have gotten them nerfed into their present state, all of them stem from one source. The battle report at the end of the match that had those tankers and pilots going 30-0. It's jealousy plain and simple and it is completely understandable.

The spirit of Dust 514 does not lie in cooperation. Most players really don't give a toss if their team wins or loses a match, as long as they personally have a good Kill/Death ratio. When infantry looked at the battle report and saw that tankers and pilots were consistently getting kill streaks as long as their arms, they flipped out. Again, completely understandable. So they complained. And what followed next was the nerf hammer as our developer friends tried to compensate.

However! No matter how many times they nerf vehicles, it'll never be enough for some people, because we still have some remarkably good pilots still getting a lot of kills. Because of that relative minority, people are under the mistaken impression that vehicles are overpowered, when in fact they are all but unplayable in their current state. What needs to be addressed is that appeasing infantry players won't happen with more gameplay changes (i.e. vehicle nerfs), but rather with a simple change of philosophy that reinforces vehicles as support units.

Since vehicles are supposed to be support units, simply code it so that all the player kills that pilots and tankers get are assisted kills. Boom! Crisis solved. HAVs and DS can be gradually ratcheted up back to their chromosome levels of fun without people being envious of their performance. Pilots will get zero kills, but a lot of WP. Therefore infantry will care far, far less. After all, Kills are the only things that matter to these guys. If Pilots and tanks aren't topping the kill list, then they aren't a threat, and won't complain. And then we can all get back to having fun.

Psychology!

Crome tanks were mobile death fortresses. Even with several people firing on them they would rep and run. Impossible to kill.

So rock beats rock?

No, but shouldn't they have something else that can beat them?

So unstoppable...unless you run a tank...

So I guess that means tanks won't be allowed in pubs?

nobody is crying, just pointing out that 3 people with proto AV shouldn't just "chase away" tanks, it should kill them.

I never said I wanted to solo tanks, just that they shouldn't be UN-killable.

I've been running proto AV since Crome because tanks were so nasty. I and my team mates would switch to AV and try to kill a Gunnlogi and he would rep and run.

I already said I think current tanks need a buff, but they shouldn't be super tanks that can only be brough down by other tanks.

Okay. The overwhelming consensus is "pass." Alrighty, it was just an idea.

I am seriously curious though as to what tankers (since tankers are the only vehicle users in this thread responding to it, it seems), what should a tanker be willing to give up? There has to be a tradeoff, and the isk investment as painful as it is, doesn't appear to be it. The game economy is exploitable through infantry grinding, so money apparently has no value. I just hit 100 million isk. It wasn't hard at all, just boring.

So tankers don't want to be regulated to support. At all. It's everything or nothing? That's not conducive to negotiation. We've got to be willing to accept some kind of penalty for calling in a tank. What should it be?

Speaker, I've got five million SP invested in vehicles so far. That's where all my points are with this character. I'm not an infantry guy, and I'm certainly not an AV player. What I am, is a lateral thinker.

Yeesh, you're grouchy today.

Although I still think AV players should get more points for vehicle kills and shooting vehicles.