Foundation Seldon
Gespenster Kompanie
Villore Accords
46
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Posted - 2013.07.11 18:10:00 -
[1] - Quote
I made a short little quip about LAV balance in a post in general but I feel like I'd like to use this to expand my thoughts on the subject. I've been playing LAVs since way back when they were effective anti-infantry vehicles before Singularity (basically back when Small Missile turrets were extremely powerful) and am using them now when their anti-infantry capability comes primarily from running people over. What attracted me initially was never their ability to kill however, it was the potential for a Logistics LAV to support infantry on the battlefield. Sadly their ability to act as support vehicles then, as it is now, is woefully underrepresented and instead of addressing this we've added a second vehicle variation that again leaves us with an underrepresented role. In this I'd like to share my ideas as to how to better carve effective niches for these vehicles on the battlefield.
Scout LAVs -
The Problem :
You sacrifice one's fitting ability with decreasing PG / CPU on a vehicle type that's already fairly fragile and decide to replace it with a marginal increase in speed. The difference in speed unfortunately is really quit minimal for what you end up having to sacrifice in the ability to fit effective shield / armor modules.
Defining Their Role :
My suggestion is a fairly simple one, if we're going to have a Scout LAV then give it an ability that fits their class name. Give them an always on, passive, Scout LAV exclusive module that allows them to provide information on the location of enemy units within a certain range in the same way that active scan modules work on vehicles in their current form.
Logistics LAV
The Problem :
I touched on it before but right now the problem is that there's little to no reason to go through the trouble of using the Logistics LAV exclusive Dropsuit Repair Module. The camera control is cumbersome, getting someone to stay still for long enough to get the healing is difficult while in battle, and losing the lock on is far too easy. What we're left with is a situation where people are going to ignore whatever support they can provide on the battlefield and use them as Murder Taxi's instead. Ultimately I'm better off simply jumping out of my LAV, grabbing my repair tool, and manually doing the job instead of having to rely on the LLAV's system.
Minor Problem (Probably easier to address in the short term) :
The Remote Repair module icon looks exactly the same as the repair module one uses to heal one's own armor. I'd like to not be confused as to why my Camera freaks out after trying to rep my own vehicle and realizing that I've picked the wrong module. Unfortunately there's no effective way to really cancel out of this view without activating another module or getting out of the vehicle entirely. Differentiate the icons between armor repair for vehicle and armor repair for dropsuits while inside the LLAV.
The Solution :
The main issue is that you've jerry-rigged the support capability of a Logistics LAV to be analogous to a Repair Tool x Swarm Launcher hybrid when the obvious solution is to make it more like a Nanohive. It's simple, give it a module that produces a field like the Nanohive that will repair armor (far less than a dedicated repair tool would heal on a single target) and provide ammunition to dropsuits within a certain range. Support capability renewed in a far more elegant fashion.
Overarching Balance Concerns
I don't want to spend too much time on this but obviously there's an issue with LAVs in the current form of the game. The only suggestions I'd make are as follows :
1. Reduce HP of free Militia Vehicles
Obligatory really, they're far more durable than they need to be for free vehicles.
2. Add damage taken to Vehicles when running over dropsuits that scales based on amount of HP dropsuit has left.
This serves a lot of purposes I feel :
- It discourages the use of running people over as the primary source of damage for a vehicle
- Encourages having a gunner in the back to, at the very least, soften up a dropsuit for a kill
- Helps out the Heavy dropsuits who are the most vulnerable to LAVs in their current form, running them over will HURT.
3. Reduce top speed / acceleration of LLAV variant
Encourages their use as support vehicles instead of murder taxis.
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