Exactly, tanks are p2w noobery. Nuff said.

You just proved yourself wrong, appreciate it, saved me the time

Dusters, we have tried finding a middle ground with tanks but it just doesn't work. Right now, they are too expensive to specialize in and make money, but a very, very tiny pocket of the community still calls them in and rapes faces. Nobody is happy, this way. The infantry get stomped by a few special tankers and the other tankers are poor. We need to stop trying to make the middle ground work, and try going to the extremes.


My question is: what should the role of a tank in Dust be:

1) A win-button that is so prohibitively expensive SP (20 mil SP to reach god mode) and ISK wise (20 mil/tank) that they would only be seen in the biggest, most important battles, piloted by the most elite tankers against the most elite tankers,

OR


2) Squishy, throwaways that are so cheap, that one can be lost every match and still have a profit made.

1) A win-button that is so prohibitively expensive SP (20 mil SP to reach god mode) and ISK wise (20 mil/tank) that they would only be seen in the biggest, most important battles, piloted by the most elite tankers against the most elite tankers, fighting for the richest corporations in New Eden.
a. these would be almost unkillable by anything short of a full squad of proto AV or another tank of the same calibre- im talking 18,000 HP, cannons that do ~4000 damage/second, and reppers that heal 1000 HP/s for thirty seconds, with the ability to have 70% resistance modules on for a minute straight...WITH ONE MODULE.
b. these would be the most expensive things anyone can buy short of a clone pack or an MCC. They would cost more than 2 cruisers in EVE. They would be so expensive that if one was brought into a pub and got destroyed by another tanker or a FULL squad of AV, that mercenary would have to play 80 games to earn it back.
c. there would be no room for specializing in anything else to use these tanks. They would take 20 million SP to use to their full potential, so there could realistically be less than 5 people in the game with these, anytime soon, as of now.

nothing in the game should be safe except the free starter fits. the bigger the **** you want to pull out, the more it should cost you match after match. proto should just give you an edge when all that matters is winning. you should not be using it to stomp for profit. PRO suits can be popped by STD guns, and PRO tanks should not be immune to STD AV. stop trying to make HAVs safe and affordable.

I specced into my STD HAVs the way you specced into your STD AR. What makes your AR so special and my HAV so pathetic that it is a practical impossibility (except for a rare, exceptional few) to run a profit running it?

Why is it that your SP is so much more valuable than mine that just because you specced into something means you should be able to run it profitably and mine, which is far more SP intensive to make remotelyeffective, should not?

nothing in the game should be safe except the free starter fits. the bigger the **** you want to pull out, the more it should cost you match after match. proto should just give you an edge when all that matters is winning. you should not be using it to stomp for profit. PRO suits can be popped by STD guns, and PRO tanks should not be immune to STD AV. stop trying to make HAVs safe and affordable.

Ye but how many milita does it take to kill proto?

Like its around 3 std AV to kill basic vehicle

So proto vehicle would take 3 proto AV

it takes about 2 good STD AV to kill a good STD HAV. i think that's about right. ADV AV is about 20-25% more powerful so ADV HAV should be about 20-25%% stronger. and then PRO should be another 20-25% on top. so PRO should be about 50% stronger, which means it should take about 2 PRO AV, 2.5 ADV AV, or 3 STD AV to kill.

this idea that "my PRO tank requires PRO AV to kill" is so wrong. PRO doesn't mean you get to ignore all those gross unwashed STD players. it should be mainly about tactics, not about how much free time you had in the last 6 months. you let 3 dudes sneak up on your solo tank with no support, you should die... regardless of who has how much sp or isk.

I don't like either choice, to be honest, as you offer extremes.


I would like current prices with the old Marauders, that would be perfect.

Nope

3 proto AV to kill proto HAV

Im not going to let 3 std AV kill a proto HAV what would be the point of that? 1 proto AV could still solo that proto HAV so it wouldnt be an upgrade

Just stick to running infantry

one for forge guns being charged up

I agree.

The issue here is that everyone wants to try and balance them around Instant Battles. It seems that even CCP have been trying to do that.

You can't balance assets around "pub" matches. Improvements to matchmaking should help keep a level playing field in those matches, in which case we can hopefully get some balance decisions made around well organized groups going against each other, as they do in PC.

The only real problem I see with tanks as they are is due to the nature of pub matches. People always say "you need dedicated AV", or "the reason you can't deal with this or that vehicle is because you nubs don't switch to AV" bla bla bla. The problem is not that one person goes dedicated AV, it is that without dedicated AV players on a team tanks (or for that matter some murder taxis) often require coordinated strikes from a team. Eg. 2 or 3 people switch to AV and the others protect them. This kind of coordination is virtually impossible in most pub matches.

I don't want this to be COD either and I think that people should join corps, and squads etc. But the way tanks work at the moment any team that doesn't have some amazing AV player or a good squad with decent AV will just be completely blown away by one tank. Honestly all it would take to fix that problem is either to have vehicle free game modes, or just more areas of the maps that can't be accessed via vehicles.

Dust shouldn't be COD, but it isn't World of Tanks either. The majority of every team should be infantry, so tanks, dropships and LAVs should be the exception, not the rule. The vehicles need to be important, and something of a force multiplier, just as logistics should be (instead of the preeminent weapon on the battlefield...I'm looking at you Caldari Logi).

the point is PRO is not a comfy blanket of safety where you grind for 12 months and then you no longer have to worry about danger. welcome to 2013, we don't balance by grinding anymore. you can have 5 billion sp, your tank should still be killable.

if you don't want to be killed by 3 skilled std av, instead of whining about how much elite SP you have, just use a little skill and effort and don't sit still in one spot while 3 dudes set up nanohives all around you.

I don't like either choice, to be honest, as you offer extremes.

Yes it is

If i bring out proto tank and the pub match enemies all have milita AV then i will be king, it will take the entire team to kill it or if i screw up

Well then... good luck with your game where you're invincible and people log on errday for the honor of getting beat up by you, our king. Sounds like if someone ever makes a game like that it will be superfun.

Thanks

I was king back in the early days with proto dropsuits and ARs but no complained because AR514