We've already seen how often balance is chosen over realism in Dust 514.


I don't think it's a good idea for HAVs, since they are supposed to be able to shoot under intense fire. Though I did have an interesting thought. When a turret gets hit directly (instead of the chassis, for example), it could suffer a penalty in the form of a "damage meter" (for simplicity's sake, it won't have a separate health bar, just a damage meter). The higher the damage meter, the less heat capacity the turret has, and the less accurate it is. When it's 50% damaged, for example, it can only handle 50% as much heat, loses 'focus' (let's call the reticule/accuracy mechanic that, shall we?) 50% faster, and regains focus 50% slower. When it hits 100% damage, it auto-overheats and isn't able to be used until the damage meter goes back down. The damage meter automatically goes down over time, and using a repair tool (infantry equipment) will remove damage from it more quickly (armor repairers won't repair it, as that would give an advantage to armor tankers. I also think this makes infantry more valuable to tankers).

The problem is basically that CCP's trying to do pretty much everything, with everything.

If you ignore the terrible balance relationship between HAV survivability and AV weapons for a moment, and consider the HAV.

Literally every large turrets' damage numbers are balanced around taking out other vehicles, whilst still being able to combat infantry. Those numbers in turn when used against infantry mean that they're pretty much always going to get instablapped by HAV, creating the 'unfun' experience.

CCP's all about toting the 'side grade', so why isn't there AV and AP variants of the turrets that allow a pilot to excel in one of the two, and disadvantage themselves against the other?


If specialization is indeed the key, then an 'all around' tank should (In equal circumstances, even though those do not exist) be less ideal and lose against an AV spec tank, whereas that AV spec tank will have a harder time killing infantry (Though ideally not impossible) and likewise with an AP spec tank having a hard time killing an AV spec or 'all around' tank in turn.


I do not think "HAV" qualifies as a role in and of itself, and that unless CCP allows for an actual specialization, we're always going to be struggling to find a good place for HAV to shine on the grand scheme of balance.


If we set aside the 'real life' examples of what tanks do, I think it's safe to assume that in a video game that will always be pretty much completely out the window. In certain competitive environments you might see some pretty amazing and organized infantry + tank maneuvers, but at the end of the day while you should aim for high end play when doing balancing work, if you set that bar at the /very top/ then you uaually fail to account for the daily 'stupid factor' of the majority of people on the internet, which will pretty much break any illusions you had about how people will use your stuff. (Failing to account for stupid and/or player greed has been one of CCP's greatest shortcomings in terms of gameplay design and balance thus far)

Someone phrased this best, but the new roles of HAVs are what was described as 2 min / sporadic battering rams with how active modules are going to change. So HAV pilot main role is essentially going to function as stall breakers.

I'm not sure if you've seen this, but...


I said this already. Furthermore, it was in the middle of the post, which I know you read from start to finish.

i think a lot of times when people think there op they forget how much these vehicle cost to run. i use a falchion that's got mostly proto on it and ill looking at 8k hp. i'm also looking at around 2.5 to 3 million in isk per vehicle. i better sure as hell take quite a few hits before i go down!

"Over time" is a very, very simple term. Unless specified, it almost always means gradually over time. Secondly, I didn't specify how long it would take because I'm not good with pulling statistics out of my arse. Thirdly, that's right, there's no way to repair it faster using vehicle modules (because that would be such an incredibly situational module that it wouldn't be worth it). Fourthly, why do you assume it will be easy to take a turret out of commission? They aren't made out of paper mache, you have to do quite a bit of direct damage to the turret or it won't be disabled at all. It would usually be a better idea to simply do whatever does the most damage to the HAV instead of disabling it's turret.