Implant system; How to make it better!

I urge you to keep this thread constructive. We have enough rants and it would be nice to see if we could have a discussion where we only talk about what we feel needs changing. So please try to stay on point we can communicate efficiently to the devs the feedback we want them to see.

These are just my opinions:

First addressing some common points:

• I worked for my implants. No, they were a result of you simply playing the game. Kinda sucks to lose them all but it was needed for the transition to work.
• It is P2W! Again, no, 750 certs for 9 implants is very generous considering many of them are fully functional at low/mid tier and if someone wants to blow money on an RNG system I'm fine with that. The main issue(as described below) is new player experiences and how it affects their first impression of the system.

Finally, the good things:

• No more energy. Finally. Equip it as a part of your load out and it is there until remove it(or if the implants gets revised again, hue hue hue).
• Similar to the point above but since you no longer need to worry about energy they won't simply stop working. Major quality of life improvement here IMO.
• More control. They now function as an optional layer of progression. I dunno about you but I certed in some very derpy things just have something to cert. Now you can spend 'em to get the implants you want.
• Most implants are useful now, unless you only focus on that one combination. There is a difference between needing them and wanting them though. I've experimented with combinations I didn't think of before simply because of "working with what I've got."

Now to the things that should be fixed or changed:

• Low ISO-4 return on duplicates. This needs to be changed to remove the stigma of being P2W. While I do not think it is, it is an excessive grind for free players and the return from recycled implants versus the cost of raising the tier level of implants is simply not well balanced.
• New player Quality of Life: As a new player you have tons of things to buy for certs. Tied to previous point, when it feels like it takes forever to reach something, that's when it starts feeling like a grind instead of fighting to reach a goal.

Agreed.
Although i personally hate the RNG system.
Allow players to cert whatever implant they want for certs, say 200 certs for 1 implant.
Then require upgrade certs, forget this new ISO-4 nonsense, its pointless tbh as you're just converting certs to ISO-4 once you have all the implants. Plus you have to go through a totally unnecessary process in order to do this (buy implant pack > Convert duplicates).
Could have 300 certs for lvl 2, 400 for lvl 3, 500 for lvl 4, and 600 for lvl 5. Thats 2,000 certs to buy and upgrade 1 implant to full, not to much to ask imo, especially since its done in blocks and you can use the implant during that time. (of course cert numbers would be up for balancing).

They need to forgo the ISO-4 and RNG and just keep it certs.
No reason for another currency, just creates angst.

I really must disagree that it isn't P2W, but that's beside the point.

I still stand by my previous suggestion of making implants account-linked. Personally I think this would really alieviate the heavy cert costs by allowing one to spread the payment over multiple characters without sacrificing their power.

I do think that either the ISO-4 costs need to be sharply decreased and/or implants should drop randomly as they used to.

Even as a BR100 my main still has a number of things I wish to cert into, and my BR30-something still doesn't even have one class maxed out yet, let alone 10k's of certs to get just the max rank Regen, BH, and Catlike my main holds.

I miss my trollpump, I mean adrenalinepump

While I mostly agree with what you wrote, I want to disagree with the above points. To address them in some-what random order :

2 - I'm not sure I agree that most of the implants are useful. It might be true if you do all the things, but that was probably true under the old system too. To run purely off personal experience, I can't really see any use in Safeguard, except MAYBE for MAX's. When I take a rez, I either "rez" already dead, or get away fairly clean. Safeguard isn't going to change anything. Ammo printer seems pretty useless as well. Apparently vehicle-dudes seem to like it, but I seldom vehicle, and I can't even recall the last time I ran out of ammo without having an engy-box nearby. Assimilate is basically useless because I'm just not that good. So that's 3 of 10, and I play pretty much all infantry styles. If I was more limited than that (and many people are) even more of the implants would fall away. I couldn't find a decent list of the old implants (and my memory is somewhat lacking), but the biggest problem was the single-slot. If we'd had two slots then, I can't think of any implants that wouldn't have seen any usage.

1 - 750 certs for 9 implants isn't that generous. I can't remember the exact numbers, but under the old system, 9 implants would've run you like 400 certs, and people were ******** about how expensive THEY were!

1, 3 - Yes, it very much IS pay-to-win, for the simple reason that, when you make the grind-wall steep enough (and the implants grind-wall is totally steep enough), it basically becomes pay-to-win.

4 - I'm really concerned about the new players as well. As of last weekend, the tutorial system is bugged like VR was, allowing you to get all the non-rare implants for free, and giving you 100k ISO to upgrade them (only like 36k needed, iirc). However, I doubt too many REAL new players would know enough to take advantage of that, and apparently DBG is planning to nerf the hell out of the 100k ISO, so who knows what position new players will actually be in. But I AM worried that this is just another thing that is going to put newbies off of PS2. It's hard enough to convince them that other guns are "sidegrades" when their NC HA with default SAW is getting roflstomped by a TR HA with MSW. Trying to persude them that implants that reduce your screenshake by 50% and regen all your health most of the time you survive a fight (all of which you have to pay for) isn't P2W.

While I like the idea, given that the state goal of the new implants is to provide a revenue stream for DBG, I can't help but feel that your prices are too low. For example, buying nanoweave armor on ONE class is 1,200 certs, and implants can apply to all classes. I also feel that, if DBG wanted to maintain the random packs system (and I think they would, especially in the case of the "rare" implants), there needs to be a premium over the random price for the guaranteed price. My suggested prices (sucked completely out of my ***) are:

R1 - 500 certs (decently high buy-in price)

R2 - 200 certs
R3 - 300 certs
R4 - 500 certs
R5 - 1,000 certs

Using this system, it'll cost you a base 500 certs to get the implant at the default level (still totally usable), 2,000 certs to get it to level 4 (most common "stopping" level) and 3,000 certs to max it out, for a total cost of 30,000 certs to max out all the new implants. To me, that seems high enough that some people would pay, but not so high that it falls over the "grind-wall becomes pay-to-win" trip-wire. Of course, RNG costs would have to fall fairly significantly in order to balance against the above!

I like both of these ideas.

You and me both, mate. You and me both!

The main reason I don't think that the implants make the game P2W is that they mainly add QoL improvements. There isn't an implant that gives you a flat out advantage over someone that doesn't have that implant (unless you plan to jump off a cliff).

In most cases, I agree with you..... but I have to argue that a dude using Battle Hardened 5 (50% less flinch) who's crouch-spamming to avoid headshots and screw with aim, while still moving at 90% speed with Catlike 5 is almost certainly going to outshoot and outmanoeuvre a dude of equal skill who doesn't have those implants. Those are flat improvements over somebody that doesn't have them.

I must admit I'm not a fan of catlike either. If anything, catlike should have been safe fall. Always landing on their feet and all that.

The problem is as someone who has enough iso to **** out my 2 starting implants I have zero intention of spending a single cert or dbc on implant boxes because there's no point, which effectively puts it on the same level as the last implant system for me, except now it's pay2win because some ******* out there is going to drop $500 and become invisible while I'm not.

A good idea for a thread. Less the moaning, more coming up with idea's how you would improve what we have! Although the guy above me already misunderstood how "useful" MC is.

My improvements:

• Give players ISO4 for participating in Alerts.
• Allow players to loot ISO4 from players who have higher level implants equipped, under the condition that they kileld them. The higher the difference the more ISO4 you can earn. This rewards players for defeating tricked out players. Not sure if the looting should happen just upon the kill or that you have to go to the corpse to get it. If you have to cross the corpse you would get more ISO4, obviously, since you would be less likely to be farming with a vehicle (especially if you deliberately equip bad implants).
• Give completely new characters say 3 extra random implants.

This I like a lot and it could be expanded to contributing in general for base captures/support(which could encourage more to go the medic/engineer route), same with vehicle play for taking out targets on ground/air. Basically to reward good behavior.

players should be rewarded equally whether on foot, in an aircraft or in a ground vehicle, for a long time this game has shifted from combined arms to infantryside pandering and the fact is infantry farm infantry most, so no. requiring people to actually get on foot to loot a corpse for more ISO4 is a bad idea and punishes vehicle players for infantryside's 'sensitivity' to vehicles.

infantryside needs to man up and realize this is not an arcade or lobby shooter like team fortress 2 devoid of vehicles, vehicles are there and if you ignore their presence and don't move wisely from cover to cover in a base they will shoot at you if they see you and try to kill you no if ands or buts.

if you want a balanced game don't argue for mechanics that punish players because the greater majority have it in for them for playing the game the way it was meant to be played.

let's face it vehicles have one role only, killing. why should they be punished for seeking the most effective way of doing it? that would be like punishing infantry for engaging in biolab fights.

Compared to the effort required.
A tank in general will have a lot less effort to get killstreaks compared to infantry. Tanks are also more likely to be used in farming exercises, and the last thing the game needs is more incentives for vehicle players to target the lowest of the lowest, and more incentives for all players in general to target the biggest, baddest and nastiest target around.

You shouldn't ever be rewarded more for "hey, I found a terminal, now I need less skill to engage almost anything non-terminal related due to the immense difference in speed, firepower, armor and health".

And that's a hard pill to swallow for many vehicle players. They think that they should be able to crush anything because they could find a terminal. But that's not how you keep a game balanced or fun, especially if even the most dedicated vehicle users like Chingles still spend over 60% of their time as infantry themselves. You don't want the gameplay that people encounter for the majority of the time to be crap, purely because "my tank should be powerful" ideology.

Just keep that in mind. Vehicles have an easier time killing stuff, they have less downtime because they are killed less often (7 to 9 minutes on average vs the infantry 1 to 3 minutes average).

What you seem to be advocating isn't combined arms, but tanks that can do everything without the need of combined arms.
Infantry is useless in the open field against tanks, even when protected by a base tanks are immensely tough targets to get rid off that can change the entire way people have to approach their goals.
Infantry doesn't farm infantry the most. Infantry simply prefers to attack a target where the victory chance is more or less 50/50, rather than "even if I win, there's a high likelyhood my opponent simply escapes, repairs up and returns not a minute later". Also considering that the most dedicated vehicle users already spend more time as infantry than tanks, it's not hard to figure out that there's simply more infantry around that shoot each other.

Example:
1 tank vs 1 infantry. Tank wins, one infantry kill for the tank. If the infantry wins, one tank kill for the infantry.
1 infantry vs 1 infantry. No matter who wins, it's an infantry kill. So even if vehicle and infantry population was evenly matched the infantry would get infantry kills twice as fast than the tanks.
Yes yes there's a lot more to it... but not in the favor of vehicles. Vehicles project so much power, infantry prefer to steer clear. If they have the choice to go up against a tank or an infantry guy, they will pick the infantry guy almost every single time. It takes less effort and it has a higher chance of success. Look at a base that's being assaulted, preferably one where there's practically no vehicles around. Then look at what happens if you pull a vehicle: Suddenly the places you are projecting your power drain of infantry as they pick different routes. You can't achieve that on that scale with a single infantry. And it proves that infantry prefer to avoid a fight they can hardly win.
Just like vehicles or aircraft avoid fights they can hardly win, or gives them a lot more trouble than another fight they can pick. Why attack those tanks over there if you can attack these squishy infantry who won't have a lot of ways to retaliate?

It's not an arcade lobby shooter, but it is in many ways an arcade-type game. Also the exact reason why tanks can't be extremely powerful is because it's not a lobby game. In a lobby game you can control the amount of vehicles and their placement. A single supa-dupa tank on the battlefield can have it's counter lined up on the other side, and the population will be more or less even.
You don't have that in PS2. There are no restrictions to how many tanks you can bring to a fight, regardless of how many your opponent brings. That means that no matter what you do, it needs to be balanced. Since vehicles aren't always useable by one faction (IE the defenders who often lack vehicles due to having lost the vehicle battle previously) you have to allow infantry to fight back as well.

That said, most players consider "combined arms" to be "everyone has a role, they don't step on each others roles". And that's a terrible idea. A better way to do combined arms is "everything is good against everything (depending on loadout), but each unit type is geared to be better at a specific role". This doesn't just mean "infantry are good against aircraft but tanks are the best against aircraft", it also means that using a mixture of units together works best. That would mean that 5 tanks would be worse off than 3 tanks and 2 infantry. And those would be worse off than the team that brings 2 tanks, 2 infantry and 1 aircraft. But you are never prevented from fighting back regardless of the unit type, as long as you get the right loadout.

I'm not punishing them, I'm preventing cheese tactics from dominating. A tanker has an easier time collecting kills regardless of how tricked out the infantry guy is, so he would have an easier time farming ISO4 compared to infantry. All because he could access a terminal? That's neither fair nor good gameplay for either side.

Let's face it, that's exactly the problem. Vehicles have only one role (an exaggeration ofcourse since vehicles are the primary spawns and transports in the game and required/used to attack just about any base), and they are already working on expanding those roles by adding vehicular capture points, both for achieving secondary goals (capturing a secondary spawn) as well as primary goals (capturing vehicle-specific capture points that will eventually capture the base). Not to mention that vehicles are instrumental in taking down PMB's in the first stages of the fight, although PMB's still require infantry to finish off targets within the base after which vehicles can crush the base.

Rather than moan about "oh dear, the current roles are unfulfilling, let's make sure those roles are powerful enough to ruin the experience for everyone else" you should be coming up with extra roles for them to play, enhance the game rather than cater to your own needs regardless of how much it would kill the game.

you are advocating that infantry should be rewarded more because they are infantry, many bases have adequete cover, tanks are not very tanky any infantry doing it right can kill a tank, a good chunk of bases there is good cover against ground vehicles, the problem is on the infantry's side they ignore anything at range like vehicles as long as they are not getting hit themselves even if allies are getting hit

infantry have and always will farm themselves more then any vehicle, infantry cannot really hide from other infantry, base fights are mostly indoors and grenade and c4 spam has gone up since the resource revamp. a grenade of all things is more effective blast then a HE cannon.

i don't think tanks should crush everything, i think infantry need to stop being crybabies and actually fight vehicles the way they are supposed to, ether with clever solo play, good teamplay or pulling their own vehicles, not asking for constant nerfs to vehicles all the time to try and make planetside 2 an arena shooter.

it's alot easier for me to score kills as infantry then in vehicles, many of my vehicle based infantry kills are infantry foolish enough to choose routes in a base the expose them to my fire while they completely ignore my presence not realizing even a few of them could destory or force my retreat.

you are doing nothing of the sort, your idea to give infantry more for avoiding 2/3rds of the game dynamic will not stop cheese tactics employed by anyone even infantry. equal play should be equally rewarded, a good play as infantry will rack up kills just as much as a good tank player, in both situations your success rate is based on your own skill and the enemy's skill.

if i'm sitting at 200m and hitting people in the base scoring some kills and nobody tries to stop me then it's their fault for dying.

i've been on these forums long enough you should realize i'm not crazy about making tanks super powerful but actually making a game where the 3 types of play are balanced and rewarding.

infantry can whine about vehicles all they like but tanks are not powerful, tanks retreat from infantry, it takes 2 c4 bricks to kill a tank, a gal is more tanky then a tank. tanks were only powerful at launch.

i play as infantry more then in tanks and i can tell you it is easier and more reliable to go after kills as infantry verses infantry and unlike vehicles it doesn't cost you any resources to respawn.

tanks have always needs more roles, the problem is rather then making those new roles management again and again have decided to listen to the whiners and nerf vehicles instead, some nerfs are warranted other aren't, the phase 1 lethality nerf with the lie of the phase 2 lethality nerf for infantry is a good example of a stupid nerf done to appease infantrysiders

I am advocating that rewards should be given based on the effort and time required to pull something off.
You are advocating "Tanks should get the same reward per kill, regardless of how difficult or easy it is to achieve".

If a tank takes more skill and effort to pull off a kill, it needs to get rewarded for that. If it requires less... Why should it be rewarded with the same amount as someone who requires more effort?

Bases require cover to support infantry. In fact its so bad that the developers practically segregated infantry and tanks near bases. Does this mean it's all well and good? No ofcourse not! Only when the game is balanced so well that tanks and infantry can go toe-to-toe with each other inside bases, taking the average amount of each fielded into account, will the game truly achieve greatness.

That's like saying Galaxies aren't very tanky vs a Rocklet rifle "if you are doing it right". Or that the balance between a Heavy and Engineer in a 1v1 is A-OK "because if the engineer does it right he can kill him". The point isn't that "if done right" you can accomplish something, it's about the effort required and the chance of success.

Have you looked at the infantry AV weapons lately? Ever noticed how 90% of those weapons don't have the range or firepower to deal with tanks? There's only a handful of infantry-AV weapons that work, most of them are short-ranged, and the long-ranged one's require a high-ground for infantry and enough space to get large groups of infantry to fire at the tanks simultaneously.

This is on the same level of "let's give the entire VS faction only pistols to use, because if done right you can get the kill, right?".

Grenade and C4 spam has never been that big. A grenade costs resources per shot (1/7h a Lightning cost, and a Lightning gets +/-30 HE shots for free), has less range, has less staying power, doesn't have direct-damage (which HE weapons have, hence they can deal more damage anyway) and is less likely to score a kill than an HE shell anyway. That's why if you actually look up the stats, even the Lightning HE gun has almost the same accuracy... But more kills per player.

And "infantry farm infantry" is, as I just explained, nothing more than a bullshi t reason. I might as well say "vehicles farm vehicles" or "aircraft farm aircraft" and then say "see? So now tanks and aircraft need to be nerfed, cus they farm each other, cus that's a reason, apparently".

Well glad you think so! Because here are some golden words: Infantry need clever solo play or good teamplay. And what do tanks need...? Do they need to be clever? No they can just roll up to an enemy base and start shelling, the worst thing they have to think about is "what paths can infantry take to get to me" and "where do I have a nice view where I can shoot some Planetmans". But hHow many "teamplayers" are there in the vehicle world? And we aren't counting "tank that rolls up next to another tank and happens to shoot in the same direction". At that point practically no vehicle will have teamplay, and infantry will have a lot more because they more often than not require to make use of other players to engage vehicles.

What you see as "ignore my presence" is basically "you know you are being fired at, 70% of the infantry does not have weapons capable of fighting vehicles straight on, there's no sense it spending any time looking for the threat as that only means you are longer in their view and getting shot at so you have to run and keep running to get to safety ASAP".
Oh, and the 30% of Heavy playtime has those rocketlaunchers that won't win a direct engagement against tanks anyway.

And no, it's not easier to score kills as infantry. That was the point I made in the previous post as well. If an infantry fights an infantry there's always going to be an infantry kill, but the result is more or less a 50/50 deal. In a tank vs infantry fight, most of the kills will go to the tank. In fact the difference is so great most infantry doesn't even have anything to deal with the tank anyway! They can't do anything against a tank engaging them! And still you claim that tanks have it harder to kill infantry?

Giant misconception here: My idea isn't to give infantry more for avoiding 2/3rd of the game dynamic. In fact I also gave hints to encourage attacking tougher targets, IE tanks. While you are proposing things that will only make infantry avoid tanks even more, I am proposing idea's to encourage infantry to take on tanks, and for tanks to take on tanks over infantry.
But ofcourse, because I started with "well vehicles already have it easier" I hit a nerve, and that part of the idea was ignored/lost.

"well if I have superior weaponry, range, firepower, armor and enough speed to always stay at 200m range no matter what they do, it's their fault for dying! Especially because those infantry are completely dependend on their cover, and can easily be stomped when they get out. So they just have to leave that cover, move into terrain where they are at a massive disadvantage, then try to engage me, because it's their fault they die".

How about we change all tank weapons to have damage falloff. It starts at 1 m, and ends at 10m where it only deals 1/10th the starting damage. "Well it's the tanks fault for not getting closer".
Keep in mind that if you compare the above scenario with that of how infantry currently has to engage tanks, the tanks with damage falloff still have it easier to engage infantry than current infantry has against current tanks.

Yes I do know, and I was surprised to see this type of argument from you.
I want tanks to be extremely lethal, I want infantry (assuming small groups of infantry) to be just as lethal back. I want resources to destroy resources by giving infantry various class-specific AV utilities. Hell I even proposed idea's where vehicles become costless or almost costless so that vehicles can be pulled just as easily and much as infantry. Because the game won't thrive if something is blatantly better "just because I paid some resources" or "because I could find a terminal". The only way the game thrives is if everything is rewarded equally compared to the effort it takes.

There's a reason why infantry that just spawned yields almost no XP, because it's too easy to pull off (they should do the same for vehicles that spawn). They nerfed the reward to disencentivice spawnkilling.

Tanks can whine about infantry all they want, but infantry is far less powerful. C4 costs resources and requires a lot more skill to deliver to the tank. It's a short-ranged weapon, used by an infantry guy that is slower than the vehicles it's chasing. The only way to accomplish a C4 delivery is to be unseen by the target (and often it's allies) until it's too late. While the tank doesn't need such a thing. All it needs to protect itself is to spot the C4 infantry in time, and it can murder infantry from longer ranges regardless of the infantry knowing it's there or not.

So? I play as infantry and tanks a lot, and I can tell you that tanks have it easier, especially if you find a good farm place. Want to start a "did too! Did not!" fight, or do you want to try and prove your point?

The question we would have to answer is simple: Should something that requires less skill and effort to pull off, get the same reward? And then we can discuss: How much effort and skill does it take to use a tank compared to infantry?

Regardless of the roles of vehicles being expanded or not, the whines about vehicles are justified.
Also have you seen how many whiners there are amongst the vehicle users? "blah blah blah infantryside and oh poor us we can still OHK infantry from longer ranges we still have better armor we still can get behind cover faster we can still avoid the most lethal infantry-AV weapon by simply spotting them in time or even just moving about occassionally and we can outrun any infantry and we are pretty damn important for spawning and transporting those squishy infantry to their bases because any infantry group without vehicles would mostly just get pasted when they leave their base but oh poor us vehicle users we've been nerfed so many times".
It doesn't matter one wet shi t how many times you've been nerfed. As long as the gameplay suffers and is only enjoyable for a few, it needs changing. Yes, nerfing wasn't the best option, but it was better than leaving it the way it was.

a kill is a kill, a tanker gets the same exp for killing an infantryman as an infantryman does killing another infantryman. nether is particularly hard to do, the difference is the required skills are different

it's never going to happen unless you nerf vehicles so bad they are barely worth pulling because some infantry wil lalways whine that vehicles are too powerful regardless of the reality. vehicles stay at range at bases due to C4 attacks by light assaults, but then again you probably don't want C4 nerfed to uselessness

it's called asymmetrical balance the heavy is designed for pushing the front line and taking more fire, engineer is more designed around fire support at range with turrets and support, i play engineer most of the time so i understand this all too well

infantry AV relies on you getting closer to them in numbers, that sort of thing doesn't stop light assaults does it from solo killing vehicles?

in the past it wasn't that big with the resource revamp greande and c4 spam went up due to cheaper costs per grenade and let's face it you can replace a grenade mroe quickly then a tank after all you get 75 resources a minute

tanks and vehicles do need teamwork the difference is that infantry by their nature need numbers against tanks (or skilled play) to win if they stick to infantry attacks, if you really want a vehicle gone, pull your own vehicle and kill it.

if you are getting shot at and you and some of your allies don't go back to a terminal to pull counters then it's your own fault and theirs not the vehicles, react appropriately to the situation instead of playing like it's team fortress 2.

it is easier to score kills as infantry then tanks, if i spend an hou as infantry and an hour in a tank i can be sure that any playtime as infantry will yeild more kills on average due to being able to chase down and kill enemies by being able to hunt them down in cover i can't get LOS on in a vehicle.

then base the reward on the kill, don't tie it to corpses to reward infantry play, because that's exactly what you propose and infantry with a working brain will avoid vehicles with decent cover and stay at range if they don't plan on engaging said vehicles/

there are many ways to counter vehicles, it's not the vehicle users fault when the quality of the victims is low, if vehicles are stomping any attempt to break out or pull your own vehicles, redeploy down the lattice pull some armor and repair sunderers and smash them.

this is a tactical and strategic game yet infantryside doesn't want to engage in strategy, again your agenda shows to nerf vehicles, tanks fight at range because infantry are a threat at close range, infantry will continue to whine about tanks till the end of the game because they do not want to have to deal with them.

tanks don't need be super powerful, they need a couple of things tweaked IMHO and some purpose behind it and less nerf culture from DBG regarding them and more focus on the bigger picture and looking at exactly how most infantry go about destroying them.

giving vehicles objectives that are worthwhile will solve the farming issue infantry hates so much to deal with because rather then most sitting on a hill shelling a base will be securing objectives and any kills they get will be a result of going for those objectives.

if you can't get in range for C4 then get a couple of peopel with decimators, infantry may be slower then vehicles but they are much smaller and easier to conceal in terrain for ambushes if you can't ambush a vehicle you can ether stand at range with more accurate AV weapons or pull your own vehicles.

using a tank does not take less skill then it does for infantry the only noticeable differences is vehicles have more range, more resistance to explosives and can't mvoe around so freely as infantry do.

i can sit on a hill in a decently popped fight, that doesn't mean il rack up kills easiler, smart players that stick to cover and go for thier objectives with a decent amount of skill will prevent that.

air vehicles? sure, ground vehicles? not so much vehicles are a force multiplier it makes sense that they would have more range, speed and be larger then infantry, the best counter as a small group or solo is ether skillful use of infantry AV weapons or pulling your own vehicle with infantry in support to increase your chances.

And this is exactly part of the problem. Despite it being easier you still get the same reward? This is a large reason why people prefer to farm rather than play, even though their enjoyment might actually suffer...
Imagine the perfect game, everything perfectly balanced. Now add 1 weapon that is vastly superior to everything else, can kill faster, shoot through walls, hit any target etc. It would also destroy the entire enjoyment of the game... What would happen?
Players would enjoy the game more if no one touched the weapon, but it's more powerful and humans are designed to look for the most efficient method to accomplish a task even if it reduces the enjoyment of the task (because boredom=safety in the early days of man and these people had a higher chance of surviving long enough for children). So people would start using the weapon ad nauseum and destroy both the game and their enjoyment, and with it the enjoyment of the players who don't touch it.

Vehicles stay at range because there's barely a reason for them to get close. And it's easy to see why:

• Vehicle turret rotation speed only comes into play in CQC scenario's.
• Infantry AV effectiveness goes down much faster than the effectiveness of the tank's weaponry
  • This in turn causes infantry AV users to expose themselves for longer giving the tank more time to shoot them.
• Infantry is slow, if you are farther away they have to cross more ground, giving you more time to shoot them.
  • And when infantry finally manages to catch up, you can reverse faster than they can walk
• With more range, the elevation range of the turret means less.

There's no reason for tanks to get close. They are effective enough at range while their opponents aren't. You can say "but it's because C4" and that's correct, but not because C4 is powerful against tanks but because even if C4 wasn't powerful the tank simply has no reason to get closer as it's own turret rotation would limit it.

Yes exactly Asymetricabalance. What you are describing is simply an asymetrical system, but there's no balance to be found. At best you can argue "but I paid resources!". Well your resources are on average far more efficient than any of the resources infantry can spend, especially when compared to grenades and C4, and your time overall is better spend as well.
But despite that, you still expect the exact same rewards?

This goes passed my point. I already mentioned the differences between the infantry AV weapons. And while a C4 fairy can solo a vehicle, it requires a lot of skill. Just keep in mind that if the LA is so much as spotted the vehicle can avoid the entire attack and has basically a free kill.
You could say "but hey, did you see how many vehicles C4 kills?". And yes, C4 kills a lot of vehicles, and 95% of them was sitting at a base shelling infantry. Because apparently it's worth more to not pay attention to your surroundings at all and throw even the most basic SA that infantry do have out of the window when you start blowing up infantry.
There's tons of countermeasures in the game already. Placing a Spitfire already warns you of incoming C4 fairies, just moving about once in a while makes you an unattractive target, using radar equipment (and now without the "but they can use implants to stay invisible till it's too late" argument!), or just knowing how the terrain looks like and keeping an eye on the likely routes an LA is going to take. Most of these are easy, they cost less effort than the LA needs to get to you since the LA needs to have the exact same SA but has a higher risk of failure.

And in discussions like these, AV mines are always ignored. Because it's the tankers that want to be wankers and place these no-skill almost-no-risk explosive packages around.

In the past it was more because grenades had a huge AOE and bad IFF detection so half the time you could be standing on two grenades and not know it until they went off and killed 6 dudes. C4 also had a much much larger explosion, to the effect that placing two could wipe out large sections of the airpads on biodomes. Nowadays you have to be much more exact. In fact, since July 2015 the amount of kills, playtime and amount of uniques (players who used it and got at least one kill) made by grenades has been steadily going down. That might be a little bit unfair because the playerbase has been dropping due to the aging of the game, but it's still true.

And in lobbygames this is perfectly acceptable. But in a game where at it's core one faction is almost guaranteed to be at a disadvantage this doesn't work.

Why pull counters if it doesn't have an effect most of the time?
Why pull counters when it would prevent you from recapturing area's and give a higher chance to your opponents to win the area?
Why get 5 people to try and counter 1 tank if that means your fellow people are now outnumbered when trying to recapture points or pushing enemies out of the base?

If you look at the game right now, vehicle destruction starts to become a priority by the time the enemy infantry is almost pushed back to the Sunderer. Before that the time spend on tanks isn't worth it as getting the killing blow is too tough and you risk too much.

And I'm not saying this is the fault of vehicles, but the current design of vehicles and infantry AV.
You can't claim it's all A-OK "just because it's a vehicle and it should be harder", or that the infantry should try harder even though trying harder won't achieve anything but enhance the freaking farm capability of the vehicles most of the time. If the balance is screwed then it doesn't work.

On the other hand, you don't need to hunt down enemies behind cover as a vehicle, you can just OHK them with a bodyshot. And if you use HE you can flush them out of cover or even finish the job.
Also while infantry has to be concerned about each individual infantry, a tank can say "well that one got behind cover, but I can see 3 other places where infantry are bound to pop up/have already popped up so I'll just refocus attention to them".

Also if you check up on the actual KPH's of weapons you see that HE and HEAT rival or surpass most weapons. And if you add the time that infantry is dead to the formula (because that doesn't show up currently since you aren't holding a weapon when dead) then AP guns quickly start surpassing almost all infantry weapons as well. And if you start adding a top-gun...
So no, infantry weapons overall don't score better.

I proposed two things. One was to reward on the kill, one was to reward upon looting a body from a kill. Don't act like I was only proposing the thing you disagree with. You can just say "well if vehicle users get nothing at all from that second system it's not fair is it?", at which point my answer would have been "yes you are right, so we go with the first one, but still change the ISO4 gain based on the weapon used to prevent farming methods".

There are many pistols which can counter infantry, does that make it OK to remove all other weapons and say "well since there is a counter, it's A-OK"?

It's not about the amount of counters, it's about the effectiveness of counters. HA rocketlaunchers are the most prevalent AV counters in the game and they score... Barely anything. HA rocketlaunchers aren't effective! It's like using a pistol with shorter range and so small a magazine that you have to reload for each kill against other infantry. Yes it's a counter but it's not effective at all!

Don't hide behind that bullshi t. How much tactics and strategy does a tank need? Practically nothing. How much do infantry need to counter vehicles? Tons!

It's a tactical and stragetic game allright, but tanks are one of the things that detract from that more than they add.
Hell, here you are trying to stop methods that prevent farming, which is using the cheesiest tactic to achieve the fastest rate of kills, IE using vehicles most of the time. But you are claiming I am against tactics and strategy? Come off it!

Vehicles will whine about infantry till the end of the game. There, just as true. Does that change anything? No it doesn't! That's why I don't use that "argument", why do you use it then?
Ofcourse, the difference between these two statements is that infantry wants to avoid vehicles altogether, why would that be? and vehicles want to have more involvement with infantry IE blowing infantry up... and at the same time less involvement as they want protection from infantry... Sounds a lot like tankers ask for more than infantry. Infantry wants to get away from tanks for... What reason could that be? And tanks want both more protection and killingpower while still gaining the exact same from a kill? That's not asymetrical balance, that's "let's screw over one portion of the playerbase cus reasons, I guess".

How infantry destroys tanks:
Step 1: Get a big weapon that prevents tanks from reacting as if the tank can react it can escape with it's superior speed, it can kill you with it's superior firepower and it can tank you with it's superior health and armor.
Step 2: Don't get spotted while getting close, just getting spotted is a death sentence if you try to deliver your big weapon.
Step 3: blow the clueless tanker up!

Alternative version:
Step 1: Hope there's some large area of high-ground nearby that tanks cannot reach and has no wall behind you were HE shells can detonate and kill you with AOE.
Step 2: Gather a ton of infantry AV at this high-ground, main properties of the AV needs to be high accuracy and hit chance even on moving targets
Step 3: Shoot tanks.

Any other scenario: Don't bother.

Tanks don't need to be super-powerful you say? Well infantry currently doesn't stand a chance against tanks the moment they leave cover. Sounds plenty super-powerful to me. So if you don't want vehicles to be nerfed further then infantry needs to get their AV buffed.
What I want to achieve is that both teams can enjoy the fight, that they both feel they actually could have prevented getting killed. With the current times to kill each other, tanks by having longer reloads when missing and infantry by needing lots of shots and reloads to finish off the tank, it isn't an enjoyable fight for the infantry. You need to expose yourself over and over again to OHK fire and try to blow up a target that can outrun you, has a better range than you and can hop behind cover/out of effective range and repair up whenever it wants to. And that's assuming you actually have a Heavy equipped and not the 70% of the time that players are other classes.

The TTK for vehicles needs to go down. On the other hand, vehicles need to have an easier time dealing with infantry and be encouraged to get into CQC or at least ranges where the infantry AV weapons are also effective. So the lethality of tanks vs infantry needs to go up to achieve that.

"Worthwhile" is a biiig spectrum. We are talking about XP, sense of achievement, enjoyment in achieving it and possibly most important of all because we are trying to stop farming: KD/statwhoring.
People farm because they want to get high XP and KD values. If those are absent from the stats then you don't stop farming much. You have to add and prioritize new statistics like achieving goals for people to statwhore, and make it even easier to spot who is farming for KD and who isn't so these people can be called out on it and have less recognition from their statwhoring, and make sure even the farmer himself realizes it. Then there's the farming for XP and potentially ISO4. If you set your mind on grinding for certs and implants then you want to get as many kills and certs as possible, especially if you can get ISO4 from killilng. What's the most farm-ready thing in the game? Vehicles. If the new goals and objectives for vehicles aren't just as lucrative you don't stop farming at all. You do reduce the amount since players who aren't geared to farming at all will try to achieve these, but you don't stop it, and with it you don't stop the imbalance.

Keyword: "Can". Because more often than not you can't find enough space or terrain for ambushes with infantry in the way you describe, and gathering a group of players, communicating with them and moving about through terrain to kill a single tank that can be pulled, driven up to a base and then do nothing but lead targets is the biggest difference in skill and effort you can imagine. This isn't balance, this is giving infantry the middlefinger. Especially since this group of players often won't have to deal with 1 tank but multiple and the enemy infantry.

And tanks don't need to move around as freely as infantry do, in fact most tanks just turn into turrets of destruction because... they have the range, resistance and firepower to do it. This is exactly why it takes less skill. Infantry needs to dodge, use terrain, use cover, control much more drop on AV weapons, needs to be aware of enemy infantry positions and directions, control COF when protecting themselves etc etc. And that tank? All it needed to do was find a way to the base, drive there, park somewhere with a view and start shooting. Oh if he's "smart" he'll plant a Spitfire nearby for protection. And frankly that's the most tactical thing the tank has to do: Plant a Spitfire, look around once in a while, lead targets he's aiming at.

And if you are just as smart as the infantry players you don't have to sit on a hill and you can get more kills. Or you just stick to your hill and get more kills than the infantry does anyway.

Vehicles are a force multiplier, that doesn't mean they have no limits to the extra force they can get. If they get too much force multiplication for too little, it's unbalanced.

Let's not get bogged down a vehicle VS infantry debate here please.

If you wish to continue please suggest something which could potentially move the game forwards.

For example, any way you could see implants adding vehicle combat in a meaningful way?

I don't know how you can say that. Implants make a significant difference. It varies widely depending on the situation, of course. Every one of them give you an advantage on staying alive and providing support for your team. Alive vs. dead is pretty radical difference, and these implants do help keep you alive.

Ammo printer will keep you in the fight when you run out of ammo, at least some of the time. Sweeper will save you and your vehicle (let's see, a functioning MBT vs. a rubble pile). Cloak....can cloak you. Regen gives you 9 lives....etc, etc. They all give a significant advantage.

Implants are potent stuff. Now, if you're normally a 1 man wrecking crew, or running with an elite squad that just plows through everything, then I could see you not getting much from them since you're accustomed to cleaning up anyway.

Ammo printer - QoL improvement. If you have it equipped it will NOT make any difference when fighting someone else. It literally only saves you time from having to run back to the spawn room/engie. When was the last time you ran out of ammo anyways?

Sweeper - QoL improvement for those that never bothered to learn to look out for mines

Regen - once again, when fighting someone else it will NOT give you an inherent advantage, it mainly saves you time from finding a medic that will heal you. Also, there is the bio-lab benifit that does the same thing (although slower).

Cloak - Just ask Demigan

Battle-Hardened - Out of ALL the implants, this one arguably gives you the biggest advantage in a 1v1 situation, but still, 50% resistance to flinch is not a HUGE game-changer.