Return to bfv vehicle resupply/ammo system for balance

A SOFLAM and a little patience can go a long way.

I've been playing the SOFLAM for a bit and it's really rewarding when a vehicle that I've marked gets destroyed, but those seem few and far between.  Do you even get an Assist when this happens? Seems like you should, if not.  I'll actually follow someone who I see has RL and spot vehicles around them, but without voicechat it's too cumbersome to get the message across that I'm willing to SOFLAM for you.  I'm getting desperate enough to try the trick where you target a vehicle and use the ammo crate to switch to the RL.

There's no visual indication that your target was hit or killed afaik. Either that or nobody is using my targets. It's a big missing feature for the soflam. 

Anyway this isn't as much about nerfing the vehicles as it is about improving the flow of infantry play. On matches with the best heli pilots infantry can be almost constantly oppressed by helis. Infantry should be able to focus on infantry not dying to helis zooming past constantly. 

I feel the issue with vehicles is more down to the classes, and lack of variety with anti vehicle weapons / gadgets.

If there was a rocket launcher that could lock on to land vehicles without soflam, and a separate dumb fire anti air rocket launcher with a higher velocity and proximity trigger this would make it quite a bit easier to get vehicles. It would also be good to have a rocket launcher that would follow crosshair like the TOW.

Similarly if there were a few more options for engineer gadget combinations (ie a specialist with a repair tool, or AT mines as their specialist gadget) then there would be more defensive anti tank options. Currently I feel vehicles get ripped apart if they sit in a hotly contested area because a lot of people have recoiless rocket launchers. However if they are moving around they can dominate.

Currently the issue is -

1. Hard to kill heli pilots on certain maps - mainly ones with rooftop capture points when the heli can duck and weave away quickly continuously, and it takes too long to get a lock.

You can get a lucky recoiless rocket shot but this would be a lot easier if there was a dedicated dumb fire anti air rocket launcher.

2. Land vehicles if they keep their distance and move enough to avoid recoiless rocket shots. This would be easy to deal with if there was a lock on rocket launcher (that didn't need soflam) or mines were more common place. A lock on / crosshair following rocket launcher would need a lot of tweaking to get the balance right.

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@Blesh wrote:

I've been playing the SOFLAM for a bit and it's really rewarding when a vehicle that I've marked gets destroyed, but those seem few and far between.  Do you even get an Assist when this happens? Seems like you should, if not.  I'll actually follow someone who I see has RL and spot vehicles around them, but without voicechat it's too cumbersome to get the message across that I'm willing to SOFLAM for you.  I'm getting desperate enough to try the trick where you target a vehicle and use the ammo crate to switch to the RL.

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No assist for the kill, but you get spot assists. I agree you should also get assists for the kill if it's from the M5 - it's dumbfire otherwise.

It works great when you are in Discord/Steam chat with someone with the M5, but can be somewhat frustrating when no one on your team reacts to the targets. This will improve with time, I think. One thing that bears repeating is that armour is difficult for random players to lock on to unless they're close to it. If I'm soloing with the SOFLAM, I tend to stay towards the centre of the map to maximise the lock radius and focus on helicopters.

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@SpudBug wrote:

Since there are many complaints regarding vehicles unbalancing infantry gameplay, perhaps a return to the BFV style of vehicles having limited ammo should be considered.

I think this may be more applicable to helis and jets. Requiring helis to return to base briefly to resupply might help reduce the frustration from infantry being mowed down by aerial vehicles.

I believe land vehicles should also have limited ammo but be able to resupply in conquest on captured control points, once they are no longer contested. 

I think that this would help the glow of infantry gameplay a lot. Tanks and other land vehicles might need a slight armor buff if their ammo is limited.

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The BF5 ammo system for vehicles was the overall best I've seen so far and adds some tactical thinking into vehicle gameplay and not just brainlessly shoot in any direction.  

The tank vs tank fights were overall the best in the entire franchise.