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Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
375
   |
Posted - 2014.01.06 09:01:00 -
[1] - Quote
On patch night, I wearily predicted that a zero-sum vehicle game would develop quite rapidly whereby you wouldn't require infantry AV anymore simply because a tank does a better job at killing vehicles AND can also kill infantry , while an infantry AV player is no longer effective against tanks, and was never effective against infantry in the first place. The first night I saw two tanks, the next I saw five, and now it's not uncommon to see 7 tanks a side roaming about.
To be fair to the argument, and for an argument to carry more weight, I decided to switch completely to HAV vehicles and see what their issues were and how this could be improved upon to make a better game for everyone involved.
I ran two fits - a railgun fit and a blaster fit. The railgun fit was a sica with damage mods and hardener, while the blaster was a pre-fitted Creodron HAV I picked up in one of the promotions (forgot I even had it!)
I must admit it's strange after you start playing exclusively in a tank, because it feels like you're playing a different game to everyone else. First of all, capturing points becomes irrelevant, so winning and losing become ethereal concepts. Generally you just get on with the serious business of destroying anything you can, and in a tank, you have quite a selection. I'm always on a constant lookout for other tanks, because these are the greatest threat to me, and occasionally you have to be aware of hunter-killer dropships and turret installations, but that's it. Turret installations are great fodder and within 5 minutes of a battle if I'm quick off the mark I can be well on the way to 1000 WP just from destroying installations.
I lost 38 tanks during my many battles since the 1.7 patch - 30 of those were to railgun tanks and 7 to blaster tanks. I lost one tank to a manned railgun installation. I never lost a tank to infantry AV (RE's, Proximity mines, swarms/forges or AV grenades).
My comments:
- I run into terrain clipping issues a lot more in a vehicle. Sometimes my tank would veer into an angle when there is no noticeable terrain increase, sometimes I would just get stuck for no apparent reason and would have to recall my vehicle. This happens more often near any kind of structure.
- Not once did I ever run out of ammo, making the use of ammo limits and the resultant ammo expansion packs questionable. When I'm retreating after taking a beating I will swing by a supply depot anyway, but the speed of a tank makes it trivial. The blaster tanks have a massive magazine, while the railgun magazine size seems correct. Both have about 3-4 reloads which is comparable to infantry so the only suggestion would be to reduce blaster magazine ammo totals slightly to compensate.
- The reload mechanic I like, it gives a good "flow" to battle, and means you must manage both your heat, and your ammo magazine - not only must you manage when your magazine will empty, but also the rate at which you are fire to avoid over-heating - difficult if you are used to "fire until empty" infantry weapons. This doesn't need to be touched.
- Vehicle skills are at a noticeable disadvantage to infantry skills simply because there are few passive bonus skills. Despite CCP mentioning they wanted to have less "access only" skills most vehicle skills are "access standard modules at lvl 1, advanced at lvl 3 and proto at lvl 5". A lot of infantry skills don't work this way and this give vehicle skill investment less inherent value.
- Railgun tanks are particularly vicious because even through hardeners they can do incredible damage. It resembles infantry combat in many ways because if you get the jump on another tank in a railfit, you can usually do tremendous damage and in many cases outright destroy him if you do a quick, accurate alpha strike before the opponent can react. There are issues with railgun tanks - Although it was "fun" two-shotting dropships out of the sky from across the map, it didn't feel particularly fair. I feel a lot of this comes down to map design, as you can just sit on the redline and bombard the map with impunity with little chance of being hurt yourself (apart from another rail tank!). Maps need to stop having elevated terrain surrounding the burnzone and should have a redline below the "sea-level" of the burnzone to prevent this kind of behaviour. This means if a tank wants to stay in the redline, he can, but he won't be able to hit anything - again I iterate this is not a tank issue, but a map issue.
- My hardeners seem to stay on for a long time, giving me a big window for my hardeners and/or my damage mods. This needs to be reduced. When I activated my damage mods, I had enough left in my cycle to destroy an enemy tank, switch position, take out a turret, an LAV and then engage another tank. They also activate independently so if I have multiple hardeners and/or damage modes I can overlap them to almost have a "permanent" cycle of modules. This makes me less picky about choosing my engagements. This is a broken game mechanic. In so far as other tanks are concerned the choice of when to activate your hardener is more tactical, as other tanks have the same capacity as you - manoeuvarability, damage output and they also have hardeners - against infantry it's another matter entirely, but I've covered this in the next point.
(continued below) |
Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
375
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 09:01:00 -
[2] - Quote
- Infantry are irrelevant in a tank. I never lost a tank to infantry and this should be a concern - I'm not an experienced tanker. I had a few ocassions where I was damaged by multiple forge guns but simply moved out of line of sight to regnerate, activated a hardener and retreated, or just exploited the recall mechanic. Infantry felt more like an annoyance at the best of times. Swarm launchers don't even deserve a mention. As soon as you'd see the signature trail of missiles, you could just turn a corner, move out of line of sight, or retreat out of lock range, at full speed, all the while firing at the player. If they were close, I tried what I've seen many people do now - just exit your HAV and shoot them with your assault rifle - they have no anti-infantry capacity!!! When hunting infantry in a more general sense, you realise, especially in a blaster tank, that they die quickly, don't move as quickly as you, and have few options to engage you. Hitting infantry in a railgun tank is harder work unless you're at a distance - I admit I wasn't so great at shooting infantry with my rail fit and am constantly in awe at railgun tankers that take out infantry running from cover to cover, this is just great skill.
- Amazingly, I got to experience "Jihad LAV" on two ocassions. On one occassion the LAV hit me, but I think because I had just gone over a hill, he didn't build up enough velocity to explode and trigger the payload. I only realised it WAS a Jihad LAV once I destroyed it and got the signature "+50 kill, +40 LAV, +5 equipment, +5 equipment, +5 equipment, +5 equipment". 2nd time I saw him coming and one shotted him with my railgun before he got close. Again, the kill points told me what I'd just destroyed. It's astounding these even exist as they are very much touch and go (no pun intended) but go a long way to showing the few options infantry have left to engage HAV's.
- The times my tank was destroyed, I sometimes managed to jump out at the last second to avoid death. Somehow this doesn't feel so "clean". In an open-top LAV it makes sense that you can jump out quickly enough to avoid destruction but in a HAV less so. I'm not an advocate of forcing a driver to "go down with the ship" but the exit shouldn't be "instant". It's not critical, but it could be looked at for alternatives.
- Lastly, the recall mechanic. It becomes second nature to exploit this. Apart from the couple of times I got stuck on terrain, I used this often. If your tank was badly damaged, you can turn a corner, recall, and voila! Your tank is now safe. Wait for the danger to pass, then summon it again at your leisure. This needs to be fixed, it's a clear exploit with many viable solutions.
To summarise, it has been an interesting experience but now that I understand both sides of the equation, the arguments remain damning. There is no way, in its current state, that the situation with HAV's is balanced:
- First of all, their skill system is clearly lacking and doesn't reward players for heavy skill investment due to the massive absence of passive skills (especially where HAV's are concerned).
- Secondly, the redline needs to be looked at. I don't want to mention railgun tanks specifically because its their innate range that gives them an advantage, but their range wouldn't be an issue if there was a different map design philosophy in Dust 514. At the moment, giant mountain-ringed maps with no hindrances to line of sight are commonplace. This means that railgun tanks profit from this to the detriment of anything that can render to be shot at, notably other vehicles- HAV's, LAV's and ESPECIALLY Dropships.
- Lastly, but definitely not leastly: infantry and infantry AV more specifically. As a former dedicated AV player before the patch I felt something was wrong, but now it's pretty clear that the situation is skewed - no reasonable person can attest to the situation being balanced. In the best case scenario, Infantry AV were an annoyance while I was in my tank, and their weapons woefully ineffective. The incredible speed which tanks have, and the access to modules that render them nigh-on invincible to infantry AV for the time it takes them to retreat all the way to the other side of the map have no counter, if you have the skills to fit multiple hardeners you risk very little as you can cycle them indefinitely.
My tactics when dealing with infantry AV were so mechanical they became 2nd nature after a few matches:
->Player hits you with Swarm/Forge : if it does serious damage activate a hardener. You now have around half a minute to go wherever you like with no risk, as long as you don't run into another tank, or you can kill the player who's annoying you. The player will sometimes try to run after you, but he has stamina and you don't, so you outrun him easily and can move out of line of sight before he's even targeted you again. Nothing can slow me down when I'm in a tank as there is no stamina issue, so no matter how dedicated an infantry AV player may be, he just can't catch me, as even at running speed my base speed exceeds him. This game mechanic needs improvement.
->If you're confident no other infantry are around: just get out and shoot him - if he's a swarm/forge user he only has a sidearm. Swarm launcher users often stack damage mods so have very little base ehp, they go down in half a second to most sidearms.
->If you've taken serious damage from multiple co-ordinated AV users - just go around a corner, get out of your tank and spend 5 seconds recalling your HAV! Now your tank is safe, you can find somewhere quiet to re-summon OR you can just use your current light weapon of choice to mop-up the infantry AV players (remember they have no anti-infantry capacity), then you can go back to killing infantry. The recall mechanic needs to be hot-fixed right now.
(last part below) |
Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
375
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 09:02:00 -
[3] - Quote
Before we go further, lets put to rest some of the fallacies that seem to plague this debate:
1) "It should require a team to take down a tank" - This a problem for many reasons:
a) This COULD be a viable argument if there were no set limits to engagements as there are in EVE online. Dust 514 has (for now) a 16 vs 16 engagement limit, so as soon as an asset provides you with a numerical advantage (be it soft or hard) then that asset is the most valuable on the battlefield. If a HAV requires multiple AV users to neutralise (soft numerical advantage), then the HAV provides numerical superiority on the battlefield as it only requires one player to operate. If a HAV required multiple users to operate or if dedicated infantry AV could neutralise a HAV on a one on one basis, this would not be an issue. This is not currently the case.
b) AV stands for "Anti-vehicle". A dedicated Anti-vehicle player sacrifices his anti-infantry capacity for the ability to destroy vehicles. His fit is ONLY useful against vehicles, and by definition should be effective ONLY against vehicles. If another asset provies you with the ability to destroy vehicles AND infantry, and with greater effectiveness (and similar cost) than a dedicated anti-vehicle infantry unit then naturally you will gravitate to that asset, especially if your anti-vehicle capacity is ineffective, as is currently the case. This is the creation of a zero-sum game and this is what is occuring now.
I've translated this analogy to make it dropsuit-centric so people can grasp how serious this issue is here:
You have a heavy suit, that can kill other heavies AND all other types of dropsuit - it can be countered by a light suit, lets call it the "anti-heavy" light suit. Now the "anti-heavy" light suit is not really effective on its own against the Heavy suit, even though that IS it's intended role, BUT it can also be killed by every other suit that exists, and it's not at all effective against other suits.
To take down a heavy suit you need two or more of these "anti-heavy" light suits to work in co-ordinated precision, timing their shots, taking cover, reloading asymetrically to keep the pressure up all the while avoiding the fire of the heavy suit AND other suits (again, from which they cannot defend themselves effectively). After doing this for a while, the players running "anti-heavy" light suits figured out that they could run a Heavy suit, which is more effective at killing other heavy suits than the "anti-heavy" suit AND they could engage all the other types of suits, without even resorting to teamwork - it's from here on out that everyone in the community came to the forums to complain about "Heavy suit spam" - since in every match it was not uncommon to see up to 7 heavy suits per side, completely dominating the map and making all other suits irrelevant.
2) "My tank is expensive so should be hard to kill" - Only a few people still spout this argument, but thankfully this is disappearing, and should not be an argument for either vehicles or infantry. An infantry proto suit can be prohibitively expensive, yet is not hard to kill. Price of an asset should never be a measure of power on the battlefield - it should be based on player skill, character skills, fittings and most importantly, game mechanics.
3) "I have to invest lots of skill points in vehicles, and you don't have to invest much in AV to kill me" - There is partial merit to this argument. After skilling into vehicles after the patch, I can attest to the fact that HAV users get shafted on the skill tree. I can't speak for other trees, but for the HAV tree, skills which give you a passive bonus are rare - most of them being "skill 1 access to STD, skill 3 to ADV, skill 5 to proto modules". Having said that, skills should not be the only factor when in play - game mechanics should be primordial.
4) *NEW* "Swarm launchers were always meant to counter light vehicles, and forge guns should be for heavy vehicles" - Yes, This appeared only last week, but lets deal with it here for the sake of argument. First of all, infantry weapons aren't classed by their opposing suit frame, they are classed by their damage type, range and fitting slot. A shotgun can kill a heavy frame just as well as a medium frame. A nova knife is the same. A forge gun can also kill all types of suits as well as a scrambler pistol or a rail rifle - they have different ranges, damage attributes and resultant damage will depend on the fitting and attributes of the suit, as well as engagement range, the character skills and real life skills of both players.
Classing Anti-vehicle weapons by their opposing class of vehicles would imply
a) They are ONLY effective against this type of vehicle
b) Their effectiveness is optimised against this type of vehicle
c) All HAV vehicles are homogenous and all LAV vehicles are homogenous
d) All infantry have access to each type of AV weapon
If you take the above list sequentially, the are so many exceptions to each rule that it quickly falls apart. Forge guns are also effective against infantry and vehicles, and are effective at engaging light vehicles and dropships. Swarm launchers aren't so good against dropships even though these can be classed as a light vehicle. Forge guns can only be wielded by one particular suit frame, HAV's are not homogenous,etc.
The solutions to the issues above are diverse and many good ones have been proposed already in the "feedback/requests" sections of the forum, which unfortunately, few people read - everything from different ammo types on infantry AV, to webifiers, going by vehicle capacitors, turret turning speeds, linking mulitple hardeners, etc. Ulysses Knapse actually has an impressive 4 part post on lots of vehicle changes which would benefit both vehicle and infantry alike here https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1609
*Nails a leg of honeyed lamb to the foot of the post and backs away slowly* |
Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
401
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 11:01:00 -
[4] - Quote
Nitrobeacon wrote:I agree with most parts, but to add to this, I don't think that cycling hardeners is a big issue. First of all, doing so in a Gunnlogi requires 3 hardeners, only one of which will be used out of the three, so a Gunnlogi who uses all of their modules instead of "cycling about 1 out of 3 high slots" will utterly destroy the cycling tank, so for Gunnlogies I don't recall this an issue.
Armor tankers only need 2 hardeners to cycle, but then again a guy who activates all hardeners has better survivability against another tank.
To be honest cycling is just a very risky move, you are vulnerable to tank to tank 1 v 1s as he likely used both his armor hardeners while you are using 1 out of 3/2
Also cycling adds to tactics of the gameplay, cycling is used when you need constant toughness, while 2 hardeners all tanked up is used for a more "I really need to take hits right now, there's two tanks over there". It makes one require a knowledge of the surroundings, and decide whether they need to take small hits via cycling or critical hits through dual hardening.
Hey there. Thanks for reading and for replying. It's true I have less experience in tank vs tank combat and the tanks I ran with the skills I had didn't permit 3 hardeners so your comments are completely valid. In the tank vs tank combat I image tactical usage of multiple hardeners might be warranted depending on your situation - I just wonder how this can be tweaked to be able to balance it out against infantry AV...
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Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
411
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 11:35:00 -
[5] - Quote
PEW JACKSON wrote:@ OP, do you think WP for AV would help the problem with tanks?
In concept I think it's the same as 4 guys with mlt repair tools on a heavy.
Solo, the heavy will die due to concentrated fire and weak reps.
1 repairer and he has a little boost to his effectiveness.
Add 4 mlt repair tools, and that heavy will start wrecking face.
I think the problem is AV spreading themselves too thin.
I understand the disparity between needing 1 pilot, but 2-4 to deal with him.
Wouldn't it be easier to give AV more incentive to group up?
35 WP for every 1000 ehp dmg dealt to enemy installations and vehicles.
Even if no tanks die, players will run av more because of the WP payout
and now the potential kill shot that they may get.
I've run AV squads before and there's not much incentive for me to do so other than
having little to show for it.
I've been in squads running dual breach forges that completely wrecked tank squads.
Same with dual proto swarms & flux combo.
Reason we don't see more of this? They don't make much of a profit.
Vehicles can now profit with their roles. How about we do the same for the counter.
Hey there - thanks for reading the long post and replying. I think your suggestion is a valid one, and if I remember correctly, CCP wolfman stated that is something he wanted to get onto the cards - getting WP as a reward for damaging a vehicle, even if you don't outright kill it will surely force more people to run AV fits, as long as it's implemented to avoid WP-farming.
I think it won't address the entire problem though - with more people running AV fits there is the chance that two or more AV users are in the vicinity of a HAV which is usually enough to neutralise it, if not outright destroy it if they sync themselves correctly BUT it still won't address the zero-sum game. If it still takes more than one infantry AV to destroy a HAV, a tank will do a much better job, and lets not forget the tank is completely viable against infantry, which is not the case for an AV infantry user.
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Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
417
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 11:45:00 -
[6] - Quote
PEW JACKSON wrote:Justicar Karnellia wrote:
Hey there - thanks for reading the long post and replying. I think your suggestion is a valid one, and if I remember correctly, CCP wolfman stated that is something he wanted to get onto the cards - getting WP as a reward for damaging a vehicle, even if you don't outright kill it will surely force more people to run AV fits, as long as it's implemented to avoid WP-farming.
I think it won't address the entire problem though - with more people running AV fits there is the chance that two or more AV users are in the vicinity of a HAV which is usually enough to neutralise it, if not outright destroy it if they sync themselves correctly BUT it still won't address the zero-sum game. If it still takes more than one infantry AV to destroy a HAV, a tank will do a much better job, and lets not forget the tank is completely viable against infantry, which is not the case for an AV infantry user.
I think swarms should get a 30 dmg per missile buff along with a 100% speed buff. It'd be a big number if I had to count all the times tanks survived being out in the open due to slow swarms.... Target sighted, target locked, proceeds to fire 3 volleys. Tank gets hit by 1 and makes it to cover before the third hits due to slow swarm speed.
Completely agree - the numbers could be debated ad infinitum but what you say is entirely correct. By the time a swarm launcher starts doing damage on the tank, he's already out of harm's way OR the driver got out and shot him (This is still my favourite counter for a one on one encounter with a swarm user)..... there are so many fixes... slowing down tank native speed, having the activation of a hardener slow you down so you can't just run away, webifier grenades, slowing effect on swarm impact, capacitors, etc. but yes it's one way to go. |
Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
426
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 12:21:00 -
[7] - Quote
Blaze Ashra wrote:I like this thread but I have one issue.Vehicle modules affect all vehicles, not just HAV's. Nerfing the hardeners would effect LAV's and dropships as well, and we don' t have anywhere near as large a PG/CPU pool as HAV's.
You're absolutely right - the intent is just to illustrate the infantry/HAV discrepancies. I don't pretend to know anything about dropships or LAV fitting, and of course, nerfing modules that are used by multiple assets to balance only one asset is always a hard-sell as it has such knock-on effects.
Hardeners are necessary in current tank on tank combat - they introduce an element of skill and tactical timing is key. I think the ultimate balancing will be through other means.
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Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
433
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 13:04:00 -
[8] - Quote
Bayeth Mal wrote:My main forges and my alt tanks. I've been working with some people to show how fairly straight forward strategies can work wonders.
Join chat channel "the sentinels".
Formed by Morte Deamor (spelling) we're training in combining AV with vehicles and frontline infantry to win both the vehicle and objective battle.
And it can be a hell of a lot of fun
Edit: Forgot to say this was a great post! I disagree in a couple of areas but mostly good stuff!
Thanks for stopping by - it was a bit long. Feel free to disagree, I am not an expert tanker by any means but my main angle was the HAV vs infantry AV ... of course as long as it's constructive it can only help the game get better.
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Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
448
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 14:21:00 -
[9] - Quote
PADDEHATPIGEN wrote:Love the post  I do have a few things to ad. I start by saying that I have NO HAV skills at all so I only use militia HAV's, I fitted them with BPO's, and militia scanner, dmg mods, hardeners and speed mods. My sica cost 59.565 ISK to restock. My soma cost 71.475 ISK to restock. On the other hand I have 31+ mill. SP invested in infantry skills and I'm fully trained in USELESS swarms and av nades. My AV fit is all proto and cost 117.930 ISK to restock. There IS something wrong.
Hey there. Thanks for stopping by.
The skills argument definitely has some merit, but I'm always reticent to start using the total cost of an asset as an argument for balance even though it has gone some way to producing the "spam" effect in play. The counter to a an in-game threat doesn't necessarily need to flow through something that is of similar price - a proto infantry suit can be brought down by a skillfull militia player BUT the counter must be effective, if that is indeed it's only role. That is not presently the case.
So yes, you correctly highlight one of the issues. |
Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
453
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 15:01:00 -
[10] - Quote
Scout Registry wrote:@ OP
+3. Nice work! Agreed with each and every word of this.
Thoughts on "Militia Tanks are the only Problem"?
Hey there. Thanks for reading all that.
I don't think it's a specific tank that's the problem. It's the core game mechanics that underpin them and their associated counter-measures. The effect of the imbalance is more strongly felt because there are other overlapping factors in play all of a sudden: the reduced isk cost of militia tanks, the increased effectiveness of militia tanks against infantry and the reduced effectiveness of infantry AV fits. If one of these factors had not been modified the effect wouldn't be as pronounced - if pre-nerf swarm launchers and forges were in play today, would militia tanks with hardeners still be a problem? perhaps...
What I do hope, so they don't swing the pendulum back to the other extreme that they reinforce infantry AV gradually - BUT this is going to be an issue because at the moment the patch cycle is delayed until at least february, so the detrimental effect on the game of the current mechanics will be felt for a lot longer than is needed - so they might have to hotfix something or introduce the changes in more than on step, which is a risk.
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Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
453
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 15:04:00 -
[11] - Quote
Takahiro Kashuken wrote:Scout Registry wrote:@ OP
+3. Nice work! Agreed with each and every word of this.
Thoughts on "Militia Tanks are the only Problem"?
@ Takahiro Kashuken
The only mercs in your corner are mercs like Spkr.
What does this tell you about your position? That the majority that play dust are ******* idiots and AV players are terrible players
I don't think insulting the majority of players will really improve this game. Also, you degrade your credibility by resorting to profanity.
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Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
460
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 15:28:00 -
[12] - Quote
Leadfoot10 wrote:Great post by the OP.
Reading his account, I'm a bit surprised an assault forge or AI-aimed railgun never took him out.
I'm not the best tanker in the world, that's for sure, but they got me more than a few times early in my 1.7 tanking career.
Hey there. Thanks for reading through my giant block of text.
I admit I think the only advantage I had was that as I had spent so much time as AV (I have swarms to proficiency 4 and forge gun is on the way to proficiency 4) my reactions were very much attuned into "know thy enemy"... the forges are definitely the more "threatening" of the two AV weapons right now, if they can be called that at all... and they have to have a good height advantage and clear line of sight - I was careful to keep moving a lot when I get hit by forges... or just move behind a structure.. or just recall my vehicle (I still can't believe they haven't removed this)..
I did get killed by a turret installation, but it was manned... once tanks are on the field turret installations don't seem to last long at all. :)
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Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
466
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 15:31:00 -
[13] - Quote
IgniteableAura wrote:I'm alright with lots of tanks on field but I think if CCP could isolate infantry from tankers it would help.
Map design is going to be the most important to av balance. Gal research outpost is the Best example of this.
I think all your points have merit but I also think with advanced map design it would fix a bunch of them.
At the end of the day, should infantry be able to take out tanks? I think infantry av needs to be high burst low range dps. Currently av is garbage
Hey there. You're absolutely right. I think map design is key to balancing some of these issues. I don't know what the climate is for dropships (would be interesting to get their opinion) but I couldn't believe the range railgun tanks had when I first jumped into them. Although it is "fun"(the dirty cheap kind of fun where you're laughing a lot but know what your doing isn't really fair) just two-shotting dropships out of the sky from a mountain in the redline... I couldn't help thinking that too many maps resemble giant craters.
EDIT: sorry forgot to answer your last question - I guess that's for CCP to decide as it's a core game mechanic issue - but then we'd be changing the game fundamentally as you'd have two parallel games (a game within a game so to speak) of infantry vs infantry and tanks vs tanks, sharing the same battlespace, and then if one of these populations can kill the other, but not the other way around - this would cause one population to migrate to the other (infantry would become tanks) and pretty soon you'd see no infantry at all and could just dispense with that part of the game altogether. It's a bit of the problem right now, the zero-sum game - if infantry av cannot take out a tank, just call in a tank instead. |
Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
474
|
Posted - 2014.01.06 16:00:00 -
[14] - Quote
The Attorney General wrote:Replying to post #3 1. I don't think that it should take more than one player to destroy a tank. I do think it should take more than one to do it quickly. The amount of time and firepower is something that needs to be debated. Quote:A dedicated Anti-vehicle player sacrifices his anti-infantry capacity for the ability to destroy vehicles. His fit is ONLY useful against vehicles, and by definition should be effective ONLY against vehicles. Unless we are talking about logis exclusively, an AV player does not sacrifice his anti infantry role, he merely minimizes it. An SMG is still a potent weapon for fending off foes, and depending on the vehicle being attacked, you might have fluxes as well. Not helpless, just not optimal. The same trade happens in tanks. In order to pop other tanks, you trade away infantry effectiveness. I would posit that everyone can agree that the blaster turret is the best for taking out infantry. It is horribly outclassed in tank v tank fighting. By running a blaster, you are making yourself vulnerable to a specific counter, just as an AV player makes themselves most vulnerable to other infantry rolling up on them. I need to get more baked before I deal with more of this.
Hey there. yep, more than one player to kill one other asset is a zero-sum game so unless we're changing fundamental game mechanics this isn't viable right now (it could be later if there are unlimited engagement sizes like in EVE online).
The rest of what you mention is debatable, but this is a forum so we can debate. :)
I know I can hold my own with my submachinegun - I have proficiency V on it and even extra reload speed, and if the range is right - I can defend myself , but I wouldn't class myself as anti-infantry, especially in my swarm fit - I fit two damage mods so my shields are even less than my standard build, but of course I'm not here to argue fits.
It's interesting that you mention blaster tanks vs other tanks - I admit when I roamed around in my blaster tank, I died to other blaster tanks (who were just better than me) and railgun tanks, who just really destroyed me. I feel that the tank vs tank part of the implementation does seem more or less balanced - which is the problem when you go to balance an asset because of it's effect on infantry - how do you balance it without having a knock-on effect and upsetting the balance that was achieved for the tank vs tank part. I feel the solution will come less with touching at tank mechanics - even thought modules could be tweaked, but most of it will be on the infantry side with some doses of improved map design.
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Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
474
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Posted - 2014.01.06 16:03:00 -
[15] - Quote
Takahiro Kashuken wrote:Scout Registry wrote:Takahiro Kashuken wrote:
That the majority that play dust are ******* idiots and AV players are terrible players
Takahiro Kashuken wrote:
Doesnt matter when i see the stupidty in every match to begin with
You're right, Takahiro. They are stupid meanies. Every last one. Now run along like a bigboy and go play outside with Spkr. The grownups need to get back to their grownup conversation. Grownups lol I doubt it OP cant even reply to my post, maybe because im right
There's no need to - your post indicated you didn't comprehend the purpose of the post, and your follow-up posts indicated you're not really capable of, or interested in, a constructive solution to the issue.
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Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
478
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Posted - 2014.01.06 16:12:00 -
[16] - Quote
KAGEHOSHI Horned Wolf wrote:Tweeted it to some CCP guys on Twitter.
I was hoping the wolfman would have succumbed to the lure of the bait I placed...
*Glazes lamb with another coat of delicious honey sauce* |
Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
550
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Posted - 2014.01.07 13:29:00 -
[17] - Quote
Thanks for all the positive feedback. As it's on CCP's list of things they're looking at for 1.8 it will be interested to see how they balance it without sending our tanks back to a pre-patch era. |
Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
565
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Posted - 2014.01.08 08:31:00 -
[18] - Quote
Reign Omega wrote:Great debating here, I just wanted to pop in another of my 2 cents. Bear in mind we are only currently dealing with MLT and STD hulls for vehicles, while the rest of the vehicles are reworked. Some of us were here during the tyranny of the sagaris and Surya, and the comedy of the vayu and fashion bears mention. Imagine current AV vs stronger versions of any vehicles....
Yes you're entirely correct - I didn't keep the vehicle roadmap in mind - of course balance should be a process, and not a collection of patches. Hopefully they will mimic the EVE online structure whereby balancing is done each and every patch to most of the content that needs it - so a dedicated team for this seems like a good idea. |
Justicar Karnellia
Ikomari-Onu Enforcement
Caldari State
666
|
Posted - 2014.02.07 14:27:00 -
[19] - Quote
Not sure why this thread was resurrected but I think the point has been made - CCP and the CPM and most of the community agree there is an issue, it just remains to be seen if the proposed changes can bring the game mechanics back in line. |
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