Lorhak Gannarsein
Legio DXIV
3377
   |
Posted - 2014.06.05 11:32:00 -
[1] - Quote
I'm a bittervet tanker who's been doing it for about 14 months now, I think. I've seen tanks go from their reasonably balanced Open Beta state (coordination butchered the Marauders, though I never had the opportunity to fight a spider combo, which is probably a good thing. They probably could have been tweaked gently downwards from here), to their wildly UP Uprising stage (we had upside down turrets because CCP didn't even test us. WTH.), and their wildly UP 1.7 stage (although I do miss my 3x Complex Hardener MLT Blaster Kaalakiota Tactical HAV).
I'm seeing a lot of debate about AV recently, especially with respect to the mighty Triple Rep Madrugar. Now, with the refund of vehicle SP from 1.7 I removed almost all my Blaster SP, and I've only unlocked complex reppers and fitting optimisation reasonably recently. I've spent quite a few hours forging these tanks, and many more railing them. They're killable by any means, but it can be exceedingly difficult.
Typically, the ways that I'm forced to counter these tanks is either with a damage-modded particle cannon, a combination of proximity mines, an IAFG and a bit of luck, or my IAFG and a friend. (REs work well here, actually).
Essentially, I'm forced to dramatically out-gear them, or significantly outplay them, or compromise the numbers of my team (which is only problematic when there is only one tank, in my personal experience).
This is a problem.
However, it's not the full story. The problem with the 3x reppers is that they out-rep most solo DPS. This is often not the issue.
Prior to my speccing armour, I was messing around and printing ISK in an MLT fit Soma. With 200hp/s there were two ways I was surviving. The first was DPSing AV infantry away with a damage mod (which should be less viable now what with the dispersion; 150m kills will hopefully be harder now).
The second, and what I feel is the real problem with HAVs at the moment, was my Fuel Injector.
The fuel injector has a moderately long active time, and a short cooldown time (which is to say 10s uptime and 20s downtime at MLT). The power of this module is that it near instantly accelerates your vehicle to max speed. The short distances and large amount of cover for heavy vehicles on most maps means it's incredibly easy to escape from AV, particularly in the high top speed Madrugar. The short cooldown means that almost before you turn around and re-enter combat the module is available again.
While I don't deny that armour repairers need a looking at, the Fuel Injector is the real problem module for vehicles at the moment. (Aside from damage mod shenanigans, but really, a well-timed fuel injector often beats those anyway).
BlowoutForCPM
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LAVALLOIS Nash
QcGOLD
187
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Posted - 2014.06.05 12:04:00 -
[2] - Quote
It would be nice if they would put back in all or most of the vehicles they removed. i mean, they removed them so they could redo the whole racial variants and such from the bottom up.
But since development is cancelled, it would be nice to get back content that already exists.
The big problem I find, is the lack of variety. People have predictable fits. You cite the fuel injector as an example. It should be a niche item for people who build hit and run tanks. But because of the lack of variety, it has become a common item. Which magnifies the problem.
If people had more vehicles and modules to choose from, like they used to, they might not all build the same triple rep, fuel injected Maddy. |
Lorhak Gannarsein
Legio DXIV
3379
|
Posted - 2014.06.05 12:20:00 -
[3] - Quote
LAVALLOIS Nash wrote:It would be nice if they would put back in all or most of the vehicles they removed. i mean, they removed them so they could redo the whole racial variants and such from the bottom up.
But since development is cancelled, it would be nice to get back content that already exists.
The big problem I find, is the lack of variety. People have predictable fits. You cite the fuel injector as an example. It should be a niche item for people who build hit and run tanks. But because of the lack of variety, it has become a common item. Which magnifies the problem.
If people had more vehicles and modules to choose from, like they used to, they might not all build the same triple rep, fuel injected Maddy.
This is actually a good point.
Perhaps significant bonuses would be a good way of reintroducing them; things like '15% per level to fitting costs of turrets', '10% damage per level' and half the general fitting capabilities, to show a vehicle literally built around its turret...
Or whatever.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that the problems with the current vehicles are far more insidious than simply 'too much repair' or even 'too much acceleration', and I don't really know what could be done to fix them.
I honestly wouldn't mind a rollback to 1.6 HAVs; they were painful to run, but not as ridiculous as these are.
BlowoutForCPM
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