Atiim
Living Like Larry Schwag
5867
   |
Posted - 2014.03.19 01:51:00 -
[1] - Quote
Alena Ventrallis wrote:Everyone is bitching about tanks, and rightfully so. Tanks as it stands are slaughtering everything left and right. This is as it should be, TO A POINT. A tank should be powerful and deadly, otherwise they have no use. They should not be so cheap as to lose 4 and be able to turn a profit. I should also not be able to get the same effectiveness from militia to proto modules. This is part of why tanks are hard to kill except by other tanks. For no SP investment, and not even 10% the ISK investment, I can run a tank that rivals a 10 million SP invested 500k tank. This is what cause them to be imbalanced. Because everyone and their mother can run them so easily and so cheaply, with almost no difference in performance from militia to proto. Thus the tank spam we have currently
Imagine, for instance, that the militia RR did the same damage as the proto RR, and the only difference was in the charge up time of the rifle. Why would anyone run the proto rifle when the militia one does the same damage for a tenth the price and a third the fitting cost? So I've come up with some ideas to make a proto tank as powerful as all tanks are now, while making militia tanks weaker, and giving AV some way to counter a tank either militia or proto.
Changing Active Modules
Currently, the only improvement in modules as you ascend the tiers is the cooldown time. As a tanker, this means that a militia hardener is just as effective as my proto hardener, so I gain no advantage beyond less downtime running my proto hardener. This should not be. I should have an advantage running my proto gear against militia gear. So let's redo modules to improve in efficiency, while retaining the same uptime and cooldown as you go through the tiers.
So currently, shield hardeners have these stats:
Basic Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 100s cooldown
Enhanced Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 80s cooldown
Complex Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 60s cooldown
I would have them changed to this:
Basic Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 120s cooldown
Enhanced Shield Hardener: 70% resistance, 24s uptime, 120s cooldown
Complex Shield Hardener: 80% resistance, 24s uptime, 120s cooldown
This gives my proto hardener a distinct advantage over a militia one (I can take more damage) while emphasizing the "wave of opportunity" concept CCP has for vehicles. It also means that even if I run 3 hardeners at max skills, there will still be a period of time where hardeners are down. If need be, perhaps even a cap on the number of modules of one type that can be fitted.
I'd rather see the hardener stats changed to this:
Militia / Basic Shield Hardener 40% resistance, 20s uptime, 120s cooldown
Enhanced Shield Hardener: 50% resistance, 22s uptime, 110s cooldown
Complex Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 10s cooldown
Along with this, I think it's about time we separated Hardeners into Light and Heavy categories, similar how the Plates, Extenders, and other vehicle modules work. I think by now we've all watched Judge's explanation as to how simply buffing AV or nerfing hardeners will have a negative effect on other vehicles, so by separating them we can focus on balancing HAVs without having negative repercussions on Dropships and LAVs.
Also, 70% and 80% would completely break the balance against AV weapons as we know it, as well as breaking the balance against Assault Dropships. We have to remember, the current philosophy is Waves of Opportunity, not Waves of Invulnerability. I don't even want to think about what would happen if we have 70% and 80% hardeners cycled. I think that's about the time where every Infantry unit hits the "Leave Battle" option.
Alena Ventrallis wrote:
Tank Prices
Pre-1.7, tanks were insanely expensive, with some tanks breaking the 1,000,000 ISK barrier, while being annihilated by a swarm fit that costs about 150k. This was utterly imbalanced, and it is good that CCP changed them. However, they also reduced their price, and this is a large part of the reason that they are spammed as they are now. Currently, a militia tank sits at around 60k with no extra mods. This tank can easily kill a tank that has invested 500k into his fit. So let's change the base hull price, and slightly reduce the price of modules to compensate. This way, a militia tank can remain powerful, but it costs money to access it. This, along with the module improvements described in the previous section, mean that spamming militia tanks is not as effective as skilling into them and fitting them with good modules.
To be honest, IGÇÖm a bit weary with increasing the price by too much. While I do agree that you should not be able to lose 4-5 HAVs and turn a profit, I believe every role should be able to turn a reasonable profit. If we made HAVs cost about 900k ISK, what would happen when they are lost? YouGÇÖd be forced to run another role to grind ISK, and are effectively locked out of a role that you spent a majority of your SP into.
I agree that there needs to be a consequence for loosing a tank, but lets not make it to where only the wealthy and elite few can afford to run HAVs consistently.
[...]
AV > HAV > INF > AV | Not: HAV > AV GëÑ INF
[s]Text[/s] <-------- That's how you make a strike-through
-HAND
|
Atiim
Living Like Larry Schwag
5867
|
Posted - 2014.03.19 01:52:00 -
[2] - Quote
Alena Ventrallis wrote:
Infantry Counters - AV
So now we get to what should and should not kill a tank. Currently, swarms have horrid damage propagation through the tiers, with proto swarms being the only viable counter to a militia tank. I think proto swarms are actually right where they need to be. An armor tank must flee them even with hardeners up, and a shield tank can resist them and keep on repping. So let's then bring standard and advanced swarms up to proto's level. Current swarm stats are:
Swarm Launcher: 220 dpm (damage per missile), 4 missiles
CBR7 Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 5 missiles
Wikyromi Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 6 missiles.
Let's bring them to:
Swarm Launcher: 200 dpm (damage per missile), 6 missiles
CBR7 Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 6 missiles
Wikyromi Swarm Launcher: 235dpm, 6 missiles.
This makes them useful at all levels, while still conferring advantage to using proto.
Forge guns will be taking a huge hit in 1.8, losing 15% damage to shield at prof 5 and losing half their power from damage mods. To be honest, I find this alright for the most part. An unhardened tank will still die in 4 shots to a forge gun. However, this also means that hardened tanks, especially shield, will be able to sit there and laugh as they try to kill them. Therefore, if CCP really does want them to be mainly anti-armor damage, we should emphasize that. Give forge guns a 5% increase in armor damage, up from the current 3%. This will allow them to deal more damage to armor tanks, while being less effective vs. shields. There is now a tradeoff. a prof 5 forge gunner will lose effectiveness against shield tanks, but subsequently gain effectiveness against armor tanks. This can also be applied to the swarm launcher and plasma cannon (a 5% increase in damage to their respective damage profile) as well as whatever Amarr AV is released down the line.
I have to disagree with that part where you state that shield based vehicles should be able to resist and repair through a vehicle.
To begin, this throws balance completely out of the window, because it requires a dedicated AVer to spend an outrageous amount of SP to remain viable against both vehicle types.
It costs 5,907,480 SP to max out the skills for the Swarm Launcher. Take the SP and double it because youGÇÖd need an Anti-Shield AV weapon to remain viable as an AVer. Now weGÇÖre looking at a whopping 11,814,960 SP. And thatGÇÖs just for the weapons alone. Throw in some accessories such as Weapon Upgrades and now weGÇÖre looking at 12,436,800 SP. This is far too much SP for a role that is only useful when someone brings out a vehicle; which wonGÇÖt be a guarantee once they are no longer broken.
Some could argue, well vehicle users have to spend that much SP, so why canGÇÖt you? Well for one, a vehicle user can use their vehicle at any point and time, and still have use for it. While there are some maps that limit how useful a vehicle is, they can still manage to be of some service with it. AV on the other hand, relies on the enemy team fielding a vehicle, which as I stated earlier Is not a guarantee, and it wonGÇÖt even be close to one once HAVs are balanced. Half of your SP for a role that has only 1 use, and its use will sometimes not be used at all? That doesnGÇÖt sound right.
Furthermore, there is still only one Anti-Shield AV weapon in the entire game, and that is the Plasma Cannon. If you make it to where Anti-Armor AV weapons are useless against shielded HAVs, then everyone will flock to the Gunnlogi, as the only effective way to destroy them (using conventional AV) would be either the Plasma Cannon (which isnGÇÖt effective at all), or another HAV. I donGÇÖt believe I need to explain why making HAVs the best or only counter to HAVs is a bad idea (at least in its current state) and how it is bad game design.
Awaiting your next post.
AV > HAV > INF > AV | Not: HAV > AV GëÑ INF
[s]Text[/s] <-------- That's how you make a strike-through
-HAND
|
Atiim
Living Like Larry Schwag
5868
|
Posted - 2014.03.19 02:08:00 -
[3] - Quote
Sir Dukey wrote:
Missiles tanks only good at taking out Armor tanks, Massdrivers only good at taking out armor. What makes swarms different?
BTW- A foregegun is more Anti Shield tank Armour. An armor tank can rep through a FG hit at 250 armor a sec while when you hit a shield vehicle, you completely stop the shield recharge and you can keep the recharge stopped even with a Breach FG. Breach FG is one of the most useless things to use on an armor tank because they can rep right through the damage.
2 Damage Mods on a Missile Turret will literally beat the $#!t out of any vehicle.
Mass Drivers are not only good at taking out armor; though your argument is a bit dishonest considering how you can carry a grenade that instantly wipes the shields off a shielded dropsuit (at STD tier) while even the Allotek Flux Grenade will not completely strip the shields off a shielded dropsuit. Along with this, Mass Driver users don't have to worry about their enemies shields being repaired instantly from a Shield Booster, while Anti-Armor AV users will. Don't forget about the fact that no dropsuit will have a 60% resistance to Flux Grenades, while Gunnlogies do.
Nope, the Forge Gun is Anti-Armor. You seem to forget that the possible damage modification you can received will be cut in half (due to the Damage Modifier nerf), and that your Proficiency skill will only affect Armored HAVs. So good luck with that.
Comparing AP weapons to AV isn't really a good basis for an argument, as their uses and engagement terms vastly differ.
AV > HAV > INF > AV | Not: HAV > AV GëÑ INF
[s]Text[/s] <-------- That's how you make a strike-through
-HAND
|