Krom Ganesh
Holdfast Syndicate
Amarr Empire
971
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Posted - 2013.12.23 20:15:00 -
[1] - Quote
*sigh* I'm starting to sound like a broken record.
The issue with tanks is that there is no easy way to balance them so that people who use them and people who fight them are happy. If they are powerful and cheap as they are now, dedicated AV players become exceedingly rare (as we see now). If they are not powerful and cheap or powerful and not cheap, tankers will be upset (as we saw before 1.7). This is because CCP has designed the tank to be the most effective killer of everything. This leads to bad balance with no simple way to fairly rebalance tanks with everything else.
Simply put, tanks are way too versatile and effective. The only way to balance that is to make it so expensive people will only run it when they really need it or there is almost no chance of losing it (which means it won't be a viable role due to infrequency of use), reduce its effectiveness (then no one will want to use it), or reduce its versatility.
Ideally, I would like for the V vs V and V vs I balance to be like this:
Heavy vehicles should be very effective against all forms of vehicles
Heavy vehicles shouldn't be very effective against infantry
- As it is meant to be the heavy hitting vehicle, the tank should absolutely wreck other vehicles... but this should come at the cost of effectiveness vs infantry. They should be still be able to kill them, but it should be more of a pain than it is worth if there are other vehicles on the map.
Light AV should be effective against light and medium vehicles
* Additionally, light AV should either also be effective against infantry or be extra effective against vehicles, but not both
Light AV shouldn't be very effective against heavy vehicles
(Light AV in large groups (4+) should still be able to combat heavy vehicles with good coordination)
- The greatest asset of light AV should be its versatility. Weapons like the PLC can be effective methods of fighting infantry. However, weapons like the Swarm Launcher cannot be used against infantry and thus should be even more effective against light and medium vehicles though not through damage such as the Swarm having increased range over other light AV and its tracking capabilities.
Heavy AV should be very effective against all vehicles
Heavy AV shouldn't be very effective against infantry
- Same as heavy vehicles, heavy AV should give up its ability to effectively fight infantry for the ability to effectively fight all vehicles. However, while heavy AV should be quite deadly to tanks, Heavy AV is still handheld weaponry and shouldn't be as effective as a tank for taking out a tank but it should get the benefit of being cheaper and being a smaller target.
Medium and light vehicles should be effective at fighting infantry and other medium/light vehicles
Light vehicles should have less power and defense but have great speed and handling
Medium vehicles should have good power and defense (not tank levels) but be slower (again, not tank levels)
Medium and light vehicles shouldn't be very effective against heavy vehicles.
(Same as light AV, medium and light vehicles in groups should be able to take on heavy vehicles)
- These are the vehicles that pilots should look towards to fight infantry (along with their non-combat roles like troop transport)
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