More and more I read about people who specced into vehicles whining about various things. Recently its this bogus claim that they are using LAVs to hit players because their vehicle skills are useless. All of this is BS, but it made me think about DUST as a game, and how AV just isnt very fun.

The main problem with vehicle/AV balance is the fact that it is not fun to be in a position where you can not reasonably expect to even damage the enemy unit. This is also why snipers are annoying. Nobody enjoys losing a fight they had zero chance of winning. Even a slimmer of hope is enough. A scout turning a corner and seeing a HMG in his face, he can TRY to dance and fire his SMG and maybe bring the heavy down. Will he? probably not, but its not a bad player experience to lose that lopsided fight.

But to see an LAV or an HAV and know "hey, my current load out makes it really impossible to do anything against this unit" is boring.

So why not spec into AV? Well, because that simply makes the problem even worse. Now, instead of having a feeling of "my loadout is useless against this one unit" you feel "well my loadout is useless against everyone except this one unit, which I still need help to destroy."

Forge guns are less of an issue with this, because they at least can fight infantry. But with Heavy suits being so situational and vulnerable, it isnt realistic to expect players to use it.

CCP needs to look at Battlefield and their balance or Halo and their balance. In battlefield the AV unit is provided with a good means of dealing with anti infantry. He does not feel overly gimped in an infantry combat. In DUST, side arm weapons are decent in situations, but you really are very limited.

Halo goes the other way, for most vehicals, the primary gun on most players can do damage. Banshees and ghosts can be brought down quickly by concentraited small arms fire. This means players dont feel useless against a vehicle they jsut need to coordinate.

It comes down to this, right now vehicles are treated mainly as an intrusion on a seperate game. There isnt really a balanced interaction between infantry and vehicles. It doesnt feel like an integrated game balanced for the two play styles to interact. It feels like vehicles sit on top of infantry gameplay, and if you want to interact with them you have to step out of infantry gameplay and go play with the tanks.

TLDR:

If you want stronger tanks, AV builds either needs to be better against infantry or infantry builds need to be somewhat effective against tanks. The all or nothing of DUSTs AV makes it boring.

Pretty much defines how I feel about the situation.

I think it's absolute BS that a single tank has to force an entire squad to go AV just to deal with it, sacrificing 40%+ of the entire team's effectiveness because they suddenly don't stand a chance against the 15 other guys who are running infantry.

When a Tank requires an entire squad to operate, I'll accept it taking an entire squad of AV to kill.

Pretty much defines how I feel about the situation.

I think it's absolute BS that a single tank has to force an entire squad to go AV just to deal with it, sacrificing 40%+ of the entire team's effectiveness because they suddenly don't stand a chance against the 15 other guys who are running infantry.

When a Tank requires an entire squad to operate, I'll accept it taking an entire squad of AV to kill.

Well stop being an idiot and getting close enough for AV Grenades to hit you, if you're close enough for an 8 meter track to hit you maybe you deserve to lose the tank.