Balancing Tanks

Its obvious to anyone who plays Dust 514 that its a shooter cut from a different mold than any you often see in the genre. Take snipers for instance, historically a one shot kill weapon in most games, in Dust, snipers are more of a 'wounding' weapon until leveled up considerably. Even then, the mechanics like scope sway and small clip size punish poor marksmen who seek out the sniper role as a means of getting easy kills with little risk. Racking up cheap kills just isnt going to happen.

For this reason, the tank is puzzling. The Dust 514 HAV is easily the most dominant vehicle we have seen in the FPS landscape, it crushes new players and non-AV savvy veterans alike. AV fits almost have to be dedicated to their destruction or they can control an entire battlefield. Some of the fault lies on past shooters where players were trained that a specific amount of RPGs or mines would destroy or cripple a tank. This is anything but true in Dust where every tank experience is unique and each must first be identified, sized up and then focused on. We are curious why the decision was made to require team coordination to destroy a tank, but not to operate one.


Thats right, we're saying the dropship model is almost perfect and its odd why all dominating vehicles don't require the same kind of group effort. The tank driver also operates the main cannon? Thats odd and not at all like tanks operate in reality. Gunners and drivers are separate and in gaming, it would make for a much more cooperative and balanced experience. Dropship pilots are nothing without a team of gunners and we think tankers should also require teammates as well. Make 'tanking' more of a cooperative effort since its so potentially dominant. The tank driver should control movement, nothing else. When they finally make their appearance in Dust, we can't imagine jet pilots who will fly far above the range of infantry weapons and rain down death with no risk to themselves. They will probably be one pilot vehicles but we cant see CCP allowing any kills of the cheap variety. There are still a few holdouts [ Mass Driver, Scrambler Pistol, LAV Roadkill] but balance is at the core of what this game is about. Cooperative gameplay dictates that each and every asset on the battlefield be tuned correctly. EVE Law firmly states that you 'dont fly what dont want to lose' and so we fully expect that jets will have a function as well as a means of countering them. As it currently stands, tanks allow one player to rack up kills in a manner that seems inconsistent with this games core beliefs. We would like to see:

1. Tank Drivers have access to no weaponry. While the tank driver should be able to switch to a 'gun seat' the vehicle should lose its movement abilities when they do. Each weapon on a tank should require a separate operator.
2. A disabled mechanic where critically injured tanks can no longer move. Its odd to see tanks within an inch of destruction speeding along like they are brand new.
3. Give tanks finite ammo. In the interest of balance no asset on the battlefield should have infinite ammo. We are obviously talking a lot of ammo, but a limited amount nonetheless. Even blaster tech should require recharge at a supply depot at some point.
4. Tanks like all vehicle assets should have locks that the operator can control preventing anyone from entering the driver seat or the vehicle at all.
5. It would be nice to see RDVs have the ability to recover assets from the battlefield that the operators no longer require use of.

 As always, we'll continue to attempt to help promote and publish ideas that help establish, enhance and grow the Dust 514 community as much as we can. Have any ideas that need sharing? Would you like to join our staff as a writer? Be sure to contact us at magww@live.com