I think tanks and AV would be perfectly balanced right now if tanks cost about 4x as much. Quadruple the price and people won't be inclined to keep spamming tank after tank because one tank loss and u probably break even for the game or even go negative. This will reduce a lot of casual tankers spamming cheap ass militia tanks.

If the constant flow of cheap tanks were reduced than a smart AV/tank squad could remove the tank threats or at least keep them at bay.

Increase the price and a lot of the problems with tank spamming will solve themselves.

Basicly I am not all against cheap (or cheaper) HAV's. HAV Pilots need a way to make profit with their passion like all of us. But they need multiple viable counters as well and in this regard CCP has somewhat screwed the hole balance.

Also the tank is the only vehicle where the driver can drive and shoot the main gun (I now ADS could this as well but the ADS is variant).

IMHO HAV spamming would not be a problem if std AV would be a viable thread to them. And by AV I do not mean only the FG. Currently it takes more than a whole clip of a std SL (on max Skill) to bring down a militia tank without any modules fitted. Halfway properly fitted militia HAV can take a whole clip of a Proto SL thats a bit of. Sure Forges still work pretty good but heavies are fat and slow and even easier targets for tanks and infantry than medium/light AV. So unless they are tower forging even forge gunners are a threat that can be easily dealt with.

as much as you made some valuable points about HAVs , there were so many flaws in your arguments about HAVs . You like so many others pointed out that tanks were viable in 1.6 if you utilised team work how ever no matter how much team work I used when piloting havs I could still be popped by invisible solo av users who required absolutely no team work , only the ability to gain high ground and spam. Yes with extreme team work i.e. 4 people could operate a hav i.e. 3 inside gunning and 1 with a logi lav repping but all 4 people could be solod by 1 assault forge gunner this was not balance nor fair.

Now in 1.7 havs actually have a chance to react and blackout of situations rather than being instsa popped. it is more than possible now to pop maddys with cbr swarms and gunlogis with forges and plasma cannons ( I have tested all 3 and still able to solo tanks when I catch them on cool down) I personally like to run missiles or rails so I depend on my co gunners for anti infantry , this build actually requires allot of work to make std havs viable and cost effective ( if I loose 1 gunlogi im grinding 2 games to pay for it now apposed to the 5-10 games back in 1.6.

The real problem isn't std havs being op its mlt tank spam is op , since the release of 1.7 my primary job as a dedicated tanker ( over 15 mill sp) has been to demolish enemy tanks and I have popped over 600 since the release of 1.7 granted about 80% of them were militia tank rambos but if your team even has 1 vet tanker on your side youll see an end to the enemy's tank spam in minutes. just my opinion.

I don't like not having remote reps and shield transfers, I liked using those modules on HAVs. It really did help and was pretty fun but I never gained WP from it. I do like seeing the vehicles but I wish the logi modules were still there. I could keep a good HAV pilot on the field with reps and teamwork but now there is nothing to do except blow them up. Many of the HAVs only have the main gun now, that isn't always fun either.

I think it is absurd they can get out and put a tank back in their pocket if things don't go their way.

Usually they get out in full proto gear and gun me down anyway.

Tanks should:

1. Stay spawned once spawned untill end of match, period.

2. Tank drivers should only be allowed to wear a certain dropsuit (if any at all).. Come on now a guy driving a tank in a heavy dropsuit that can bail out and attack on foot in an instant? Yeah, ok.

I see in a lot of threads the issue of a dedicated anti-vehicle skill tree for infantry, which if specced into would calm one side of the argument, notably a) The skill investment in tanks is disproportionate to the skill investment required to build an AV fit - which if we sum it up is basically investment in a forge/swarm and some AV grenades (excluding suit of course, which is mutualised with your other skills). The AV tree could have lots of interesting stuff, like the ability to use webifier grenades, increase damage on certain weapons that are exclusively AV, give immunity to vehicle scanners, etc.

These are just ideas to bring to the storm...

They removed both 5% per level to shield/armor skills, also did it with PG/CPU skills

These 4 skills are availible to infantry

I love how experienced tankers are saying MLT tanks are the problem. It shows a lack of integrity. Many have taken the stance of claiming to not kill infantry. They are trying to pin the blame on the ability to call in cheap MLT tanks.

lets ask a few questions.

what do you think is going to happen to the price of STD tanks if MLT goes up?

How will nerfing MLT tanks help the fact that AV can't effectively counter tanks?

what are these crusaders going to shoot at when there are no MLT tanks?

if it takes 3 AV to deal with a tank and there are 3tanks, how many are left to fight the other 13 guys on the ground?

Do people honestly believe the smoke screen these skilled tankers are putting up?

Be honest here because I play both sides. How many rail tanks does it take to stop vehicles from coming in?

If you don't have a skilled tanker how will you deal with another skilled tanker?

IMO these guys are incapable of seeing anything beyond their own turret. Its the tanking mentality. I have it too. When another tank on my team gets popped in always thinking "better him than me". I think this is something like that. What they do not realize is it will be more like "first him then me".

one more question.

After you get rid of your scapegoat, what will you hide behind?

I personally believe we will then have a crusade against OP tanks and it will come down to buffing AV. Its obvious really. So we see the tankers care nothing for the infantry they are now painting as the victim. They are just buying time until CCP gives us the means to defend ourselves. Its all very short sighted.

a final question. Why wait for balance?

I'm a dropship pilot, and I'm getting pretty ******* pissed that any tom **** or harry can call in a damage stacked sica and camp the redline all game, denying my 8+ million SP and 500k ISK investment because he can hurp a durp de durpda durp so far back in the redline he rarely renders, yet he can still ******* hit me from across the map if I slow down for even a second.

This

Game

Is

Giving

Me

Dia

Be

Tes

Yes, people talk of the recall mechanic and it's been distorted from its original use - originally it was if you no longer had a viable tactical need for your vehicle you couldn't just leave it there to be destroyed ,so you recalled it OR what happened a lot more before but happens a lot less now is you got stuck on some map oddity and just couldn't move...

what I see a lot of now, is people recalling while they're taking fire, to save their burning HAV/LAV/Dropship from beind destroyed. Yes, the easy solution is only being able to recall from the redline OR:

1) Having an RDV physically come and pick it up - it takes just as long as the delivery and adds the risk of
a) the RDV being blown up -> recall failed
b) Tells the enemy you are recalling something, so they can do something about it

You could also add the redline restriction to this and this means anyone who wants to recall anything has to scurry all the way back to the edge of the battlefield and not get their RDV shot down in the process.

Of course it wouldn't solve the problem of redline sniping - but that's another issue altogether...

Wrote this before the change, still applies and is why current tanking model will NEVER work.

Tanking issues