One thing people bring up time and time again is the fact that Heavy Tanks can take too much punishment and regularly destabilise the game - being able to be countered only by itself. This thread is about what can be done to make them more part of the game and not something that sits on top as a tacked on piece. I am of the thinking that perhaps they should be more of a sideways upgrade to the medium tank - able to carry more weapons but perhaps less armour. This would make them more destructive, but also quite destructible, and the resource cost for them would be lowered. The idea would be to have it be more of a choice between a behemoth or a field tank, not a medium and heavy per se. I would also like to throw in, for people who haven't been here incredibly long, that originally heavy tanks had ONE slot for each weapon type, the BEHT having a 3-slot CN, and the NFHT having a 3-slot ML.
I think they go way too fast considering their damage output and their amount of health. I think the biggest problem is a heavy tank can just run away, repair and be back in 30 seconds flat, there's no risk in a heavy, you never feel scared or in danger unless the tide has turned so badly that you literally have nowhere to pull back and repair. It sucks because vehicle combat is really fun at other points in the game, standard vehicles are actually really fun to drive because you can die super quick, grenadiers are actually a threat, other vehicles can take out out in seconds and you need to make split second decisions on whether to stay, retreat, or bail the fuck out and just run away, whereas in a heavy you're only concerned when armor drops below 50% or you're out of ammo.
Hull repair still takes ages it got slowed a LOT a while back and hasnt been sped back up, but in heavy tanks they have shitloads of hull HP anyway, and most of the time they don't even get down to hull before going for repairs. I don't think it's fair to nerf engineer repair speed because heavies are OP though, people are already taking repair upg as their 3rd or 4th skill nowadays anyway.
How the fuck can they even get to that 3rd slot without the points from building? Anyhow, I agree that heavies are unfun compared to mediums, but I think that crappy balance has more to do with the plate system than anything else. You can't just make heavies slower currenly, or it would make them not able to drive over a speedbump. If a new system with proper weight and stuff gets put in , sure. Right now the only thing that i can think of is making the heavy inaccurate on the move and making it impossible to fire both primaries at the same time( so no 10 homings at the same time or instagib HE, making combat a little less about burst damage, at the same time easing the "you are at 99 heat, but can fire two HE that take up 30 and instagib someone" problem.
Revives give 1 point each? 4 guys on the enemy team take down your squad, get 1 point each. You revive your squad, 4 points for you. Rev engy is stupidly good at point farming.
Repair upgrade is generally safer, if less lucrative. I often take repair upgrade as my first skill because it's an easy way to get ten safe points to revive, which helps me go the distance to 30 then 60. But if you know you're going to be in a jeep killing buildings and attacking the com, then revive is clearly better.
Problem here is that you probably won't live long enough to do all that. Rev engines make the common mistake of walking around with the calc instead of switching to it, so they get shredded damn fast. Also recovering bodies is hazardous and will get you killed alot. Depends alot on the people you are playing with. Rev is worthless if you have rushing dudes or noobs with you. And the "engine" pun is intended.
Except I'm good so I maintain a good k/d while simultaneously farming shitloads of points from revive.
It works for me, I used to take repair upgrade all the time but honestly trickster taught me to stop doing that, if your team is good you dont need repair upgrade early because you should have 3+ engineers around to build whatever you need.
similar to what? TO WHAT?!? You revive upgrade plebs, speed upgrade + scout squad leader is the only way to go.
I always take speed upg unless I'm engineer. Literally nothing else comes close, ammo upgrade? get a squad, damage upgrade? aim better scrub, accuracy upgrade? lol empires is laserguns
Take repair upgrade at your first spawn and switch to revive when your forward rax is up. But I'd say this quite depends on the situation. Damage upgrade genuinely sucks, that's true. But Ammo upgrade and Accuracy upgrade are not useless. EDIT : Derail detected.
Ammo and accuracy are okay, I just meant for your first spa- oh fuck this is heavy discussion. at least we're still talking about empires.
I liked empty's idea about having a offensive tank and defensive tank. It'll fit people's play styles too, some like sitting at a distance shelling stuff and others like rushing right to the front. Research will need to be changed though, no one should wait for 6? minutes for these new heavy tanks. I do agree that heavy's speed makes it real difficult to deal with if you are in anything but another heavy, even then that isn't a guarantee.
Empty, I said like a week ago, that not one thread has managed to keep ontopic for two pages. This thread has been derailed by yourself and yours truly in 4th and 5th post. We deserve a medal.
No worries. I was more thinking along the lines of the fact that Mediums have 4 plates per side and they're tough, but can be beaten with some effort. Mechanics wise, they have a good footing because it takes about 2-3 infantry to kill one. They're also fairly dangerous but won't really steamroll you. Heavies on the other hand can have 6 plates, and that just isn't right. I was thinking about having them at around the 3 plate mark, but having them carry more weight for weapons. Alternatively, you could nerf the heavy hull health right down and leave plates at about 5 max, but where most of its health would come from those plates.
So you want mediums to get better at tanking and heavies better at shooting? Wouldnt that flip the unexisting veh damage/ armor skill balance?
