Whatever nonsense you try to call the MAX, the facts are plain: Outdoors, vehicles kill infantry. And that's fine, because many vehicles are viable outdoors. There are checks and balances. Indoors, MAXes kill infantry. And that's not fine, because nothing kills MAX. There aren't any checks. Things aren't balanced. PVP games are better when they're about PVP. Player vs. player. Which implies skillful competition. MAXes prevent that if they're fighting infantry (and are pretty dull in MAX vs. MAX combat as well.) So really it doesn't matter if you call them vehicles or force multipliers, or you say "they look big so they should be strong". What matters is the worse gameplay that results from having one indoor participant be overpowered and uncounterable.
I meaned the Fear part. When talking about balancing Max. I must say from the Max Point of View a Heavy Assault is overpowered! Two Rockets and you are gone anti Vehicle Grenade 75% dmg. It´s only my opinion but maybe give Max more resist against Eplosives(from Infantry) but for balancing a lower resist against Small arms. So a Noob has a better Chance to bring him down with a Rifle.
That'd imply I hate them because they're MAXes. I don't. I don't really hate anything. I love deep gameplay. Which is why I want balanced classes: so indoor fights can be deeper.
How is a heavy overpowered? I typically stomp several HAs each MAX life. Even if HAs beat me reliably, that wouldn't make them overpowered. It would only mean that something finally counters a MAX reliably. (The only remotely OP part would be that heavies are also great against infantry, and I've long suggested they get carbine/shotty for their primary weapon and LMG *or* Rocket for their secondary, so they have to choose between strong AV or strong AI.)
Honestly, I think what it implies is that I've been down the "MAXz OP plznerf" road with you before, and just find the rhetoric amusing. Your definition of an effective counter is too strict. You put too much emphasis on 'manpower efficiency'. Your analysis of KDR advantage for MAXs isn't robust enough to reference every third post. We're not going to agree on MAXs being fine anytime soon.
Well I'd like to see some kind of armor penetrating ammo attachments on the guns. Something that does reduced damage in general but bypasses the MAXs small-arms resistance, doing full damage to MAXs. Then you can choose to go anti-max but at the cost of being less effective against regular infantry.
Maybe I can`t handle those Heavys hiding with their Decimator in a bush because they heared me trampling 40 meters away. For me the AV Grenade and the Rocket launchers dealing to much dmg.
Yeah but they'll hit you with one decimator and you'll go "Oh, you're there." and activate charge to either kill them in ~2 sec (before they can reload) or run too far away for them to catch you (until you regen up to ~60% HP and come back to kill them, knowing you can absorb another deci and kill them.)
Right, and that definitely starts moving things in the right direction, but to really balance MAXes it would have to give you a higher than 1.0 expected K/D against MAXes (meaning if two equally-skilled teams fight, the players kitted specifically for anti-MAX work should beat the MAX-heavy team.)
Side A understand the whole picture of combined arms gameplay and consider that some elements of the game requires team coordination to overcome it if in an unfavorable situation, which would include distract and destroy, guerilla tactics, or concentrated firepower. Side B want to be able to go 1v1 against most things because his KDR is too valuable to be decreased in whatsoever ways an opponent might use. You want to test skill against a Max? take it down. alone, by yourself. You got yourself a boss fight. So, you'll ask for lightning to be vulnerable to pistol fire next? I mean, it would be hella skillful against him, since he's using a skilless tank. You got your own mindset about MAX (which is an evident dislike of them) and I have a neutrality POV towards them. Look at all my profiles, it's not a class I play often. I simply understand and respect it's value on the battlefield and play accordingly when I face one. Like when I face a lightning. Or an MBT. Or an harasser. etc.
If you take a counter and regularly die to what you're supposed to be countering, how can you remotely consider that a counter to what you're trying to kill? If you can't achieve higher than 1.0 expected K/D against your target, they've countered you. Because manpower efficiency matters more than resource efficiency. You don't win by being more efficient than your opponents. You win by killing every damn enemy on the point and having your infantry players cap it. And that's why, because SPM and KPH are also higher than infantry, MAX K/D being double infantry K/D is strong objective evidence proviing they're overpowered. All of which is important because it makes combat shallower. If there are no overpowered classes, combat becomes deep and interesting and won by skill. Unfortunately with overpowered MAXes combat is won by whoever brings more MAXes. So everything is very clearly rationalized and backed with evidence. There is no logical reason to consider MAXes fine.
AV nades sacrifices infantry killing potential to kill armor. The problem I could agree with you though, is that they might be too effective against infantry to be a sidegrade of the standard frag.
If you understood combined arms, you would note that competitive matches field 40-60% MAXes, and realize they were overpowered. K/D is not what I care about. I care about winning battles. The strongest way to achieve this is to go for high KPH (which results in lower K/D than if you're optimizing just for K/D). And MAX optimizes for everything: you get slightly better KPH while also having double K/D. I don't intentionally play to lose, so why would I consider playing HA vs. MAX? That's stupid. You don't intentionally choose inferior weapons, you play to win -- and then if playing the win creates a shallow game, you post about it on the forums in the hopes the devs create a deeper game. But there's no point to playing badly on purpose.
No, because the MAX is a vehicle that costs resources while infantry are free. AP ammo would just give every class a better way to combat MAXs for free, if it worked the way you suggest there would be no reason to even pull a MAX. (Which is obviously what you want.) It's not going to happen though, the MAX is a part of PS2, you should accept that because that's never going to change. The Skyguard is outclassed by the Liberator, but it can still kill one.
The resource cost is irrelevant. If you let players orbital strike a base and kill all enemies, it just wouldn't matter if you slapped a 750 nanite cost on that (or even a 1500 nanite cost that sent you into negaitve nanites.) It would be bad for the game's combat. MAXes need to be balanced in a way that's good for the game's combat first, and then if they still deserve a nanite cost they can have one. But the nanite cost should not be used as a justification of a shallow status quo. And if there were no ESFs, it would be really bad that Skyguards have a shaky win rate against Liberators. It's already not a great example, since Liberators are still one of the most dominant things on the battlefield.
The resource cost is not irrelevant, your views on the MAX and the changes you want are too extreme. I think you need to find a more balanced solution that doesn't contradict the reason you pull MAX in the first place: siege breaking. If MAXs were easily countered then they wouldn't be able to do their job which is tanking damage and pushing the line. Changes on the MAX: Now I agree that their anti-infantry damage particularly ranged damage is too high. I have suggested toning down their ranged AI damage, then making them tankier and more short ranged with deadly melee power. That way they can slowly push the line forward, while they can’t exploit having powerful armor while taking ranged potshots at softies. In this scenario, if you don’t have the tools to combat them you can easily escape (take charge way too) and regroup. This I think would more specialize their role in infantry fights. Changes for anti-MAX: I have suggested AP ammo that bypasses (amount to be determined) the small-arms resistance of the MAX allowing you to specialize in taking them down, at the cost of doing reduced damage to regular infantry. Other ideas would be making EMP grenades temporary freeze MAXs for a couple seconds, as it currently seems they don’t affect MAXs much besides visually. I think you need to think more on the team scale than the individual. What team based methods for combating MAXs could be added that don’t contradict the purpose for pulling the MAX in the first place. You seem to be looking for a way for a single infantry soldier to easily dispose of MAXs (other than what tools already exist) and that is never going to happen. But if you can find something in the middle ground as I have suggested, you might just get somewhere.
Defender-biased situations are a product of level design. If a base is too resilient, giving players the option of an overpowered playstyle will not change things because defenders can use the overpowered thing too. In fact in this case they benefit defenders more than attackers, because the defenders have a much easier time reviving their MAXes than the attackers do. So if the level design is the problem, you fix the level design. (And many bases, Biolabs especially, do need this fix currently.) If you're talking about taking Charge away and reducing MAX effective range to close range only, then well...our discussion is over because you've successfully balanced MAXes. Those changes would make a huge difference in how players are able to counter MAXes (by forcing longer-ranged engagements, and not dealing with my MAX magically teleporting directly on top of them with MAX Charge after they shoot that first rocket.) And when they're balanced their cost could be reduced (or removed.)
