DUST Search - A Question about "Community Proposed Tank Balances"

Hey everyone,

I have a question that's been nagging at me for a while, and I'm hoping someone can help me out. I've read a couple tank threads in favor of buffing tanks in some fashion - either by making tanks beefier themselves, making AV weaker, or making AV more skill based. All of these suggestions have some truth behind them, (and should all be taken with a grain of salt, I might add), but one really stick out to me.

"Tanks should be tanks! It should take three to four dedicated AVers to bring them down!" (Or something to that effect).

I was doing some thinking on this as I walked out to grab some lunch. I was trying to balance the desire to make tanks easier to bring down with the desire to make tanks useful and affordable. So, I created a little thought experiment.

Let's say that, come tomorrow, tanks are somehow buffed so that it takes four dedicated AV players to take down a tank and three people in militia gear to "tie" with the tank. No one dies, they just come close. Let's also say that each fight is gear balanced. That is to say, it takes four people in militia gear to bring down a militia tank, . Finally, let's consider these battles taking place in Chromosome - 16 vs. 16 fights.

My brow quickly furrowed. I kept coming back to the same conclusion: "They just don't have enough guys..."

In an isolated incident, 1 (Tank) vs. 4 (infantry) sounds nice. It lets tankers survive the random blueberries who jump at their free AV gear unless they group up, while rewarding coordinated efforts on the part of the AV team. I kept getting drawn back to an actual match, though. In a match where two to three tanks are brought in - which isn't unreasonable. It happened to me just yesterday - at least nine players would have to be engaged with the tanks to kill all of them. If we take "dedicated" to mean "With a single objective", then there are only 7 people left to take letters and win the match, versus the 13 people on the other side.

So there I was, eating lunch and thinking: "Wow. So if that's the case, how can those seven guys win?" In my mind, they guys can't. And that's what I think drives the "tanks are overpowered" debate, at least in part. Some solutions make infantry guys have to chose between dedicated AV with little potential for payoff and losing.

To me, unless there is some type of synergistic effect between AV players - shields that are hit X amount of times in Y seconds receive Z% more damage - or more ways for a group of dedicated AVers to be more efficient - Stronger, beefier installations that can augment an individual's vehicle killing power while still being able to be countered (destroyed) - I can't balance this.

So what do you guys think about that thought experiment? How would you balance an game where there were three tanks out (within the rules of this thought experiment of course)? Thanks in advance.


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Piercing Serenity Faabulous 271	Posted - 2013.04.26 06:44:00 - [1] - Quote Hey everyone, I have a question that's been nagging at me for a while, and I'm hoping someone can help me out. I've read a couple tank threads in favor of buffing tanks in some fashion - either by making tanks beefier themselves, making AV weaker, or making AV more skill based. All of these suggestions have some truth behind them, (and should all be taken with a grain of salt, I might add), but one really stick out to me. "Tanks should be tanks! It should take three to four dedicated AVers to bring them down!" (Or something to that effect). I was doing some thinking on this as I walked out to grab some lunch. I was trying to balance the desire to make tanks easier to bring down with the desire to make tanks useful and affordable. So, I created a little thought experiment. Let's say that, come tomorrow, tanks are somehow buffed so that it takes four dedicated AV players to take down a tank and three people in militia gear to "tie" with the tank. No one dies, they just come close. Let's also say that each fight is gear balanced. That is to say, it takes four people in militia gear to bring down a militia tank, . Finally, let's consider these battles taking place in Chromosome - 16 vs. 16 fights. My brow quickly furrowed. I kept coming back to the same conclusion: "They just don't have enough guys..." In an isolated incident, 1 (Tank) vs. 4 (infantry) sounds nice. It lets tankers survive the random blueberries who jump at their free AV gear unless they group up, while rewarding coordinated efforts on the part of the AV team. I kept getting drawn back to an actual match, though. In a match where two to three tanks are brought in - which isn't unreasonable. It happened to me just yesterday - at least nine players would have to be engaged with the tanks to kill all of them. If we take "dedicated" to mean "With a single objective", then there are only 7 people left to take letters and win the match, versus the 13 people on the other side. So there I was, eating lunch and thinking: "Wow. So if that's the case, how can those seven guys win?" In my mind, they guys can't. And that's what I think drives the "tanks are overpowered" debate, at least in part. Some solutions make infantry guys have to chose between dedicated AV with little potential for payoff and losing. To me, unless there is some type of synergistic effect between AV players - shields that are hit X amount of times in Y seconds receive Z% more damage - or more ways for a group of dedicated AVers to be more efficient - Stronger, beefier installations that can augment an individual's vehicle killing power while still being able to be countered (destroyed) - I can't balance this. So what do you guys think about that thought experiment? How would you balance an game where there were three tanks out (within the rules of this thought experiment of course)? Thanks in advance. TL:DR I've been bothered about requiring four people to kill one tank. I drafted a thought experiment, and the AV team did not have enough resources to both kill the tanks and win the game. Without some type of team bonus or assistance, AV guys have to chose between wining the game and beating the tanks. What do you guys think?
Piercing Serenity Faabulous 271	Posted - 2013.04.26 08:46:00 - [2] - Quote @IronWolf and Noc: So you're saying that this "steamrolling" effect that infantry guys bring up in regards to tanks works both ways? Its not that I didn't think that was a possibility. I just haven't watched it happen. Which isn't to say it hasn't been happening in the background. @Char.: I agree with you in principle. Protosuits are expensive to me (relative to what I make in a single game). If I buy one, I'd want it to hold its own against militia gear. However, something you said troubles me: "The purpose of AV is to keep tanks at bay. If a tank is to be destroyed, it SHOULD take multiple highly skilled AV mercs to take it down," There's no money in that. In my eyes, if you carry that example to its extreme, AV would dry up save for the few who run in militia gear for a few matches to pay for one match of AVing. I know that my situation is similar if not exactly what tankers do now, but we're trying to move away from that. I guess my new and more refined question is: "What do you think drives this to such polar opposites?" It sounds like Iron and Noc were saying "Three proto forgers are to tankers as three Sagarises are to blueberries", or something to that effect. Although the roles have switched, the steamrolling problem is still there.
Piercing Serenity Faabulous 271	Posted - 2013.04.26 16:54:00 - [3] - Quote Sorry it took me so long to respond. I had a chemistry and Chinese test to take @BOZ MR: The short answer your question is: "I purposefully ignored that because it introduced 'noise' into the thought experiment." The longer answer is as follows: I picked one tank vs. four infantry because that's something I'd seen quite often on the forums. Because no one posted what 1 vs 4 meant to them - killing the tank versus distracting it - I decided that it would take four AV guys to kill a tank. This decision gave tanks more hardiness, in my opinion, because it takes more people to kill a single tanker, minus any complicating factors. "Minus any complicating factors" leads to my next motive for thinking through that experiment the way I did - less noise in the experiment. The purpose of my thought experiment was to represent the problem as I saw it - a case of too few resources to deal with the "problems" of tanks and victory - as simply as possible. I agree with you that 3 AV guys could all focus on one tank and resupply, or focus on two tanks and leave the third for later. But the more you think on it, the more complicated it gets. "Now one of the three AV guys uses a breach forge gun while the other two use assault forge guns. The breach forge gunner has two damage mods and weaponry three (3) and has a DPS of ..." ad infinitum. We could go into detail about how the battle plays out, compare our findings to the average AV player and see how likely it is that our specific battle happens. But as far as my thought experiment is concerned, we don't have to do that. I equated "It takes three to tie" with "Three AV guys doing everything they can to kill the tank - focused fire, distractions, ambushes - will tie with one tank doing everything he can to survive". More simply put, I didn't focus on 'how' that battle played out, just the result. So that's why I didn't focus on the way the tanks were brought down. @Halador Osiris: I don't think that's the answer. You seem to think that AV response is reactionary. That is to say, no one comes into a match with AV. They only pull out AV gear to defend themselves against vehicles. I don't think that's the case. I believe that the ratio of "SP spent on tanking skills / SP in the community" to "SP spent on (Non-vehicle) AV skills / SP in the community" is much more in favor of tanks. If you make tanks weaker, I think you would encourage more people to attack them. @Takahiro Kashuken (And retroactively) Char.: I don't think arguing in favor of tanks on the basis of their price is a strong argument. Not to say that it is invalid - we buy dropsuits and vehicles because we think we are paying a good price for what we can do with that item - but it is very subjective, varying from person to person. My Type II assault suit has 401 shields. It is possible to pay for a more expensive dropsuit, weapon, etc, but have equal shield and armor. I kill advanced suits all the time in that suit. Should those players feel offended that they lost their fittings? I use that example to (try to) emphasize the point that the base value of the item does not correlate exactly, or strongly, with the actual value of the suit. There is no real value for a suit with a base cost of 40,000 ISK and with AR Pro 5. You are essentially adding one complex and one enhanced damage mod, would you say that the cost of that suit was: (Price of suit) + (constituent parts) + ( parts that would be there due to skills)? That's why I personally dislike the ISK argument. @Ivan Avogadro: I agree with your first point in that, the way Tank vs. Tank and AV vs. Tank fight is built, the current system is unsustainable. Let's say that Slap, Zitro, Caeli, and Charlotte are in the same game, and they all plan to use their tanks. They are divided evenly between the teams. Curiously, they constantly run into the situation above when they queue for the next battle. They keep on fighting each other. While dropships are priced in a way that two teams competitive players can be fight and make a large percentage of their losses back after one match, tanks can't. The difference between Slap's payout per match and the cost of losing even a single tank is so large that all four players would have to pause and run as infantry to rebuild their wallet. I disagree with your second point about map protection because of the current map layout. The maps aren't built that way.