I liked tanking mechanics back in 1.6, felt like the tanks had more weight..... but in many ways the tanks needed a bit of a buff and some reformatting, this 1.7 is a bit intense but that will slowly balance out over time.

I also liked it because in last 2 weeks I was progressively getting stronger and strong in my tank gameplay to where 44/0, 52/1, 64/2 were becoming entirely achievable on a regular basis (no this is not my main).

Good post. Detailed arguments supported with facts illustrating this uncomfortable gaming dynamic that has crept in. I think it's pretty clear now there's a problem - I think we're just waiting for some kind of CCP action, but I think this will be in 1.8 rather than some kind of hot fix (although they hot fixed one of the most ridiculous issues - the speed). I'm pretty sure by the end of the page your thread will be hijacked by one of the usual fallacies "it should require teamwork to take down a tank" or "My tank costs a lot, it should be hard to destroy" or maybe just some good old fashioned ones like "you're just not good", "you're not supposed to solo a tank", "you're just stupid"....

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 takers 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.

Best I've been able to come up with so far is that HAVs should be basically quite weak, but the owner can switch them into "crew mode" in which it takes 3 people to operate them, at which point they become beasts.

In crew mode the front gunner gets the driving controls; main gunner gets a limited field of view; top gunner gets the external view and is the only one who can activate modules. The tank gets a massive increase to EHP, and a significant increase in speed.

This then gets balanced around a tank crew of 3 fighting an AV squad of 3.

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.

you meantioned pre 1.7 balance without mentioning that all infantry was invisable outside the 50m mark.


alowing AV infantry to just stand in open spaces spamming without any danger whatsoever, and without the tank knowing where to properly retreat to unless he had boots on the ground.


tankers used teamwork in the form of AV spotters so that they diddnt get insta blapped by invisable people 400m away.


you realise that the numbers of AV damage as a percent of total heath havnt really changed right?

now its about 80% of the damage you used to do pre 1.7 when hardeners are on

and about 150% the damage you used to do pre 1.7 when they are off.


thats not a huge difference when all defences are up.

the real difference is AV isnt invisable anymore.

Unfortunately, this paired with the AV nerf would make skilled tanks and skilled tankers very, VERY hard to kill as the only real effective counter would be another highly skilled tanker . The only problem with militia tanks is they are too damn cheap. By increasing the cost you limit how many people would be willing to spam then over and over thought a game but you don't reduce the militia tanks ability to help destroy or slow down enemy tanks when they really need to.