I disagree. The problem is that 1 player in a HAV is more effective than 1 player in a dropsuit.

What the...?

Tanks are meant to be more effective than soldiers... they are... tanks you know?

You fail at reading. He didn't say the problem is that vehicles are more effective than dropsuits, he said the problem is that vehicles are more effective than dropsuits for the number of players they use.

I feel that another contributing factor is how fast the gameplay is. We are able to respawn and call in a new vehicle really quickly (within 10-20 seconds of death) which means effort going into the destruction of an HAV is significantly less useful. If we had longer to wait between spawns (in general) then infantry would be much more careful and the loss of vehicles would be at least a timed setback.

If we had spawn times increased to say 30 seconds (as an idea) with spawn uplinks still reducing this significantly and then introducing 'vehicle depots' or some such where vehicles can be spawned in (ie, not everywhere) it would reduce how quickly equipment can be redeployed. Supply Depots already have the vehicle call-in mechanism, if we restrict vehicles to requiring a Depot to call in (and increase the number of Depots accordingly) we could make gameplay much more engrossing.

TL;DR - Increasing spawn time and restricting vehicle call-in locations would improve gameplay by making people more wary of actually dying (ie, less, "Leeeroooooy! *URGK!*"....*5 seconds later*..."Leeerooooooy! *URGK!*")

Just a thought...

What the...?

Tanks are meant to be more effective than soldiers... they are... tanks you know?

Just like in a real battlefield, there needs to more people than vehicles. Vehicles need to be limited so that for every tank there are 3 people who can possibly take it out.

What's the purpose of a tank in your opinion? It is not a dropsuit. It's a high damage potential vehicle, a threat, a massive area denial instrument.

It's the vehicles to players ratio.

16 tanks out of 32 players is broken. It wasn't like that before, because tanks used to suck. Now they are fairly potent and a tank team will always win against an infantry team.

Make this game at least 24 v 24 really quickly (unlikely) or just decrease the amount of HAV allowed per team until the first one is done.

AV is not useless. Tanks are not exaggerated (MLT tanks actually are, you shouldn't have that power with 0 SP invested and a bunch of ISK), but you simply can't take out 8 tanks with 8 infantry players, if tanks require teamwork to be destroyed.

You can't.

This is the problem, the only one.

Tanks are supposed to be powerful, high damage, area denial instruments - as you describe. And that works perfectly and is a lot of fun in an unmetered battlefield (ala Planetside 2). If one side shows up with 20+ tanks the other side can call in 40+ infantry to counter. Tanks show up to mow down infantry, more infantry is called in, balance is restored and happy chaos ensues.

Except in DUST you can't call in more infantry. The balance isn't around numbers (like EVE) where if the one side shows up in 50 Battleships you can just blob them with 100 Cruisers and call it a day. DUST is only 16 vs 16. So when single players can make themselves vastly more effective by calling in a tank then the balance is thrown off.

There are several ways to fix this.

1. Limit how often tanks can be called in by a team so that when a tank is destroyed is it not immediately replaced. This also limits the amount of tanks on the field at one time.

2. Require multiple players to operate a tank for it to be effective. A driver and gunner. Two infantry are lost to gain one tank.

3. Make tanks not as powerful so that they are as effective as a dropsuit.

4. Remove match caps so that we can call in more people when needed (like Planetside 2).

All of these have problems.

1. Makes AVers compete for the right to call in a tank. So if 2+ AVers are on a team and only one of them can call in a tank then that screws the others.

2. Makes the guy who called in the tank have to front the entire bill for a 2 person vehicle. And they're basically stuck as the taxi driver to some other players fun (tank gunner).

3. This is stupid.

4. The way I think everyone envisioned DUST when they first heard about it but for some reason CCP chose the PS3 as their platform so it's not going to happen for at least 10 years, if ever.

On a normal day I would not care but after real long day at work I get home and just want to shoot some people in the head. So I start up dust and play 1 or 2 matches before I make dinner. I play around with my laser rifle and amarr medium assault suit because I like being a slave-hoarding amarr bastard. Any 50/50 kill death ratio will make me happy.

But then tanks show up.. and more tanks.. and I get killed again.. and again and again. You know the story. So I get up and say to myself lets show these bastards. I get a suit with a swarm launcher and couple of damage mods in mid. As in the eve future vision youtube clip it clearly shows that swarm launchers 1shot tanks.

Reality disagreed with me at this point. As I spotted a tank and planned my epic attack move. Launching my first set of missile the tank driver didn't even move(probably because he didn't notice any attack). While running(more walking) I load my second set of missile and shoot them into the bastard he still doesn't move. Reload would take to long, so I throw a anti-vehicle grenade at the tank. Still he doesn't move. So I throw my second grenade at it. And still he doesn't move. As I grab my last grenade the tank is still at 50% armor.

The tanks turret swings towards me killing me in a few shots turning his/her armor repper and overdrive on. Being repped back to full armor and drive away with 80km/h before my body hits the floor. F*ck this sh*t (as if you didn't knew this are naughty words) and for the first time I just turn my Ps3 off mid-game.

30min later... I log back on .. on my alt .. grabbing a tank and killing all this small mercs/ants with my mobile battle-fortress of doom with giant rocket engines and superman stickers on the side.

But seriously anti-tank weapons that work(without a few mill sp) are needed or more players in a match or weaker tanks(remove blaster turrets orso). Because now it feels like tanks are the only thing that can kill tanks.

I disagree. The problem is that 1 player in a HAV is more effective than 1 player in a dropsuit. And since match sizes are fixed (16v16 or 24v24) a team fielding more HAVs will MOST OF TIMES be more effective than a team fielding less HAVs.

I disagree. The problem is that 1 player in a HAV is more effective than 1 player in a dropsuit. And since match sizes are fixed (16v16 or 24v24) a team fielding more HAVs will always be more effective than a team fielding less HAVs.

To fix the problem either HAVs need to become less effective or require more players to operate. I prefer the latter as it keeps HAVs as powerful vehicles (which they should be) while keeping them in check.

So, when team A calls in 3 HAVs they now are down 6-9 players to operate those 3 HAVs. This allows team B to switch out some of their players to AV (to counter the HAVs) and not be at a disadvantage in dropsuits over the enemy.

I disagree. The problem is that 1 player in a HAV is more effective than 1 player in a dropsuit. And since match sizes are fixed (16v16 or 24v24) a team fielding more HAVs will always be more effective than a team fielding less HAVs.

To fix the problem either HAVs need to become less effective or require more players to operate. I prefer the latter as it keeps HAVs as powerful vehicles (which they should be) while keeping them in check.

So, when team A calls in 3 HAVs they now are down 6-9 players to operate those 3 HAVs. This allows team B to switch out some of their players to AV (to counter the HAVs) and not be at a disadvantage in dropsuits over the enemy.

I think the best solution is to make tanks co-op vehicles, requiring at least a gunner and a driver. Although this presents one major issue in that you don't have a buddy to communicate with or something like that, so my proposal is as follows:

Tanks are able to be piloted by a single player but they have a drawback. In order to operate all core systems a solitary pilot must stop the HAV in order to man the main gun. Switching seats could take a very small amount of time, say 1-1.5 seconds, with a skill introduced to perhaps lower the time it takes to switch. Utilizing a second pilot allows for the vehicle to be on the move at the same time as gunning, much as our tanks currently operate.

Another suggestion is to hinder solitary pilots by making their main gun overheat much more quickly, take longer to fire between reloads, or to lower ammunition capacity in the "magazine".

Personally I would like to see any one of these, especially the need for solitary pilots to switch seats to man the guns.

This turned out to be a very insightful study on the HAV issue. From the first post down the line you can see a progression towards a particular conclusion, and the last 5 or 6 posts really are the assessments that CCP needs to follow.

Kudos for Dericks, bogeyman m, RINON, and Ghermard for their conclusions...

Dericks' post hints at something that is going on with MANY of the players on the map IN RESPONSE TO THE HAV CHANGES MADE IN 1.7. Many of us players log onto Dust with a specific goal today' (win 5 matches, find a good squad, hack 3 cannons per match, whatever),... but being harassed by HAVs infesting each map distracts us from our Dust goals, pesters us into resenting the blasted HAV plague, and derails our matches into a wasteful 'deal with the tanks' session instead of the potentially more satisfying objectives we originally set out to do.

Ghermard's post reveals that the PLAYER BEHAVIOR using tanks has changed from the previous patches. 1.7 is enabling HAV operators to abandon most of their potential ( arguably, responsibility?) toward accompanying and close-coordinating with your team. I can attest to the fact that MOST skirmish matches aren't decided by HAVs at all anymore (lots of players just THINK they are). In reality the HAVs mostly (though not always) are off on their own installation-bagging and HAV-chasing spree through the ENTIRE MATCH, and the MCC victories were decided by the tiny few of us footmercs who learn to "not get roped into fighting those 5 random HAVs--just wait and let each one drive away"... and then we diligently resumed and hacked that null cannon as usual.

Bogeyman's post hints at the idea that 1-player HAVs are damaging to the game. His post also endorses an HAV driver being dependent on at least one fellow teammate to be truly effective in this game--and I agree with that. Just like the standard Dropship is encouraged to be effective only when its interacting with fellow players... an HAV operator should be effective the most when she is WITH teammates, not passing them by.

Rinon's post, to me, represents what EVE Dust 514 seemed to be trying to make a cardinal focus: Co-op gameplay. The REAL kind. Even if we don't "require" the driver to need a crewman like in Rinon's proposal, Dust should at least always "persuade" and reward team or buddy assistance in everything possible. Giving a driver the destructive independence to no longer need anything from his team anymore,... is fine for other shooter games, but shouldn't be allowed too much in THIS game.

Patch 1.7's HAV changes came out a month ago, so I'm don't complain about the HAVs anymore.
I play each match with this confident attitude :
"When an HAV player is accompanied by infantry or gunners, she's a threat and a victory-tool... but bopping around as a loner they're just pests--let them stop by and blow some clones up, they'll quickly leave (they almost always leave because loner-HAVs aren't concerned with map objectives); as soon as each one leaves I can go back to whatever I'm doin'."
...It is a wrong attitude for me to have each time I play the matches . Because I know Dust was not intended to be played like this. And with the posts you just contributed, I hope the devs'll see the fact very clearly.