I can reiterate my post and expand upon it over and over as you try to avoid the issues I'm pointing out, and ignore that I'm suggesting an alternative weapon altogether yet still complain that you hate the CQC power of the shotguns. All that will happen if I do so is that you will continue to troll and filibuster your way through the thread till people get sick and tired of dealing with you. I know how this works. I have made strong points and I don't need to prove to you that I can kill the NC max since people do it every day. Move along and next time try bringing some french fries with you.
Reread my posts, there are no complaints about the CQC capability of the NC max. Telling you that they excel at short ranged combat is merely stating a fact. You think my post is trolling you simply because I'm disagreeing with you. I don't care if you don't want opposing feedback to your ideas, when you make a thread, expect people to disagree with you. What points have you made that could possibly considered strong? That shotguns are not good at mid ranged combat? With two shotguns firing at the same time, they can do reasonably well, there are plenty of youtube videos showing this. With Slug ammo their medium range capability is very good. Whether you want to believe it or not, the NC max can perform well at medium ranges, it just takes more effort than facing someone and shooting. Mobility is the weakest factor of all maxes. Getting from where you spawn to where you're going to make the difference in a max is absolutely meant to be dangerous. This is why you rarely see maxes out in the open. In fact the only maxes that i do regularly see out in the open are NC raven maxes, since they can likely kill anything that tries to reach them before they themselves are destroyed. Max AI weapons are not meant to be gods at ranged combat. Hence why they have no zoom, and their weapons have large CoFs. The vanu and the tr have a slight advantage at medium to long AI combat, while the NC max has a huge advantage when in close. You don't like this paradigm, that's fine. You want to ignore all of the options available to improve your medium to long range combat potential. I guess that's fine as well, but don't pretend like these options don't exist. I wasn't ignoring your suggestion of an alternative weapon at all. I was explaining why there is no need/ reason for it. No max has access to completely different Anti-infantry weapons. The vanu max has a variety of carbines, the TR max has a variety of min-guns, and the NC max has a variety of shotguns. The funny thing here is that the NC max can indeed change the performance of their max's anti infantry weapons with slug ammunition. This is unique to the NC max, yet it's something that you seem deadset on ignoring. This is one of the reasons why i was laughing at your post. At the end of the day, the NC max has the most variety when it comes to weapon selection, and has the best performance in CQC and AV roles. It does reasonably well in medium range combat, but can have it's effectiveness dramatically increased with the use of Slug ammunition. It has a defense ability that allows it to survive attacks that no other maxes can. It's an excellent unit, the only issue here is you. Learn to use it correctly, exploit it's strengths, reap the rewards. That's the name of the game.
If you're whining that you aren't getting enough kills in a max there is something inherently wrong here....
Spoken like someone who doesn't know that they're talking about. (What with ravens not having any cert options to "cert up" and all...)
Hacksaws are the only ones that are acceptable. -Full auto (they're CQC AI weapons, full auto should be the only option). -Lower damage (lowest per shot and per mag), meant for 1v1's where you have to get in close and not miss a shot if you want to win a max vs max fight. Where as the rest are all balanced for varying ranges outside shotgun range, but due to pellet spread they simply can't kill anything reliably. As well, slugs are just horribly useless on them. Other than hacksaws, remove the shotguns and replace them with 167 and 200 dmg variants of the TR/VS ranged AI weapons.
In planet side 1 the NC max had 3 fire modes available for his shotguns. Close Med and Far. Close was automatic med was slower firing and long was really slow. The ability to chose what fire mode could be an option for planet side 2 however up until this point nothing has been done. You could swap between these modes very easily and it fixed the problem of NC maxes being completely gimped outside of 3m. Im going to assume at this level of development and the current state of the game that bringing this back is not only too hard for them to do but also dedicating the manpower to it would be unrealistic. Therefore the sole place for these max's will be on head on charges into c4 range to get blown up easily by LA's flying above followed by camping it up in bio labs which is about the only thing they are good for. The fact that a NC max has to put himself within c4 range to be effective defeats the advantage this max has in most engagements. Allowing the other maxs to just sit back and wait. Locking down hallways or long distances with the NC max is pointless. Please dont even mention slugs they are highly inaccurate and their damage mitigation means your pumping all your shots into 1 guy just to bring him down before waiting half an hour for your weapons to both reload and inability to lay down sustained firepower. Ravens are an AV option and should do minimal damage to infantry along with all max AV options. They have still yet to introduce this fix (as seen in the games predecessor) QED the NC max is a breaching tool and close quarter engagement unit in most fights. If there were any stats on which empires max units get c4'ed the most and never get resed due to them putting themselves in high risk situations to get kills im sure the result would be NC. Its what we are stuck with when the solutions can be found in the original planetside 1. Much like many of the other problems that plague this game. You can come to the forums and post in here all you like it has been done for the past 2 years and nothing short of this falling on deaf ears has ever been the response. Your best option is to just stop giving a cr4p about the game because lets face it, the way things are going sony clearly have.
No, you don't know. What you're doing is making the assumption that everyone who has a gripe about something is obviously completely uninitiated with what they're complaining about. I didn't want to respond to this, because you're still missing the point, but your dismissive attitude bugs me. 1. Nobody with half a brain cell in their head will deny the CQC capability of the NC MAX. Yet the entire time you seemed to think we were upset at this for some reason. Don't bunch an entire faction up because one person makes a comment you don't like. It can and has one-clipped its VS and TR counterparts, and will continue to do so no matter what I say otherwise. A room full of infantry soldiers can be cleared with one good NC MAX and the support of a few teammates. Respectable NC do not complain about this faction-specific trait, it is a blessing bestowed upon us by the shotgun gods and I will die on my feet before I give my Grinders away. 2. The game is a team game, I have nothing to say here because that's all there is to it. Don't go solo, especially in a MAX. 3. Every slug is roughly equal to a shot from a battle rifle. Your aim is going to be sketchy, but if you're pulling an AI NC MAX, what are you doing engaging someone at longer ranges? Slugs are too unpredictable for the average player, and you're a fool to say otherwise. At close range, they're just shotguns with more chances to do zero damage because of the single slug you have instead of the wall of pellets you get from regular ammo. Ravens are also being nerfed, though their undeniable effectiveness versus infantry at long range is to be noted. That's what I'm griping about though, I don't /want/ to have to pull AV when I'm going to be nailing infantry at a range where shotguns won't work. I want a weapon like every other faction has, something that I can consider using instead of it being a kill-everything no-brainer everyone upgrades to eventually. It's goddamned guided dakka, give that to the TR or something. Or throw it away altogether. I want something faction-related, something 'hard hitting' like NC was originally advertised. Straight, high-explosive upgrades to the Falcon or something, Christ I don't know. Just do something with Ravens other than keep them as the guided monstrosities that terrorize players everywhere and instantly nullify any NC having any sort of complaint about their MAX suits. 4. Those shields have always been broken as all hell, though even when they work they're situational at best. Sure they'll block a frontal assault, but then what? You have shotguns, dummy. You're going into biolabs, buildings, and almost every tight space around short of the Virgin Mary with those. They don't block explosive AOE damage, which is why you're still dealt damage even if you do successfully block a rocket in your face. Guess what does the vast majority of its damage with explosive AOE damage? The 'ol number one killer of MAX suits worldwide, C4. That stuff tends to congregate in enclosed spaces, where most people you talk to will attest to the capability of explosives against a clumped up group of infantry swarming through a doorway. Your shield isn't going to do jack against that, pray for a Medic. The Aegis Shield appears to scare everyone at first, though that's only because every other faction is more suited to use it. You can't downplay something that's about as useful as any other ability given the faction's intended role, ZOE notwithstanding because that's been broken for a long time for the poor spandex-folk. 5. Ask anyone who isn't a mouthbreather with C4. But this point is meaningless in itself because you can kill any MAX with C4 provided the conditions are right. 6. ... Why is there a 6 when it just reiterates 1? You kids these days. 7. My gripe is what I wrote in 3. I'm allowed to be mad at my own MAX suit for being as broken as it is, for better or worse. I want us to keep our role as the shotgun faction, dominating CQC like no other faction can, but at the same time I don't want to limit the other factions and screw ourselves over in the process. If SOE handed every MAX suit a shotgun-type weapon, the NC some sort of automatic rifle-type weapon, and gave us something that wasn't "SCREEE, SCREEE, SCREEE" and capable of sending an entire forum into an uproar, I wouldn't be adverse to this. ... I wonder what a ZOE-enabled MAX in a biolab with shotguns would be like, now that I think about it.
It will both look like and be a corpse within seconds, most likely! On-topic: Remove shotguns, give automatic weapons to NC MAXes similar to TR/VS MAXes (although 200 damage model may be a tad too much on a unit that so easily hipfires headshots). But it's probaply never going to happen because a large silent majority (or minority? We don't really know) of the NC MAX users wants to hold on to their shotguns and paid certs/SC for them. If we want to give NC MAXes a selection of BOTH shotguns and automatic weapons then VS/TR deserve to get 900 rpm versions of the Onslaughts/Nebula's.
Well my idea with better wording might be a good idea So first new stock arm fro NC max. (Based upon the Gauss Saw). The arm does 200 dmg up to 10m and 167 after 85m. The arm has ca. 250 rpm so with both it will be 500rpm in theory. Dunnu if the accuracy should be the same as the Gauss Saw. Second the arm for 250 certs aka alot of ammo. (Based upon the GODSAW). Pretty much the same as the stock, but with 50% more magasine size. Third the long range weapon rivaling the Blueshifts and Mercy (Based upon the EM6 and Anchor) The arm does 167 dmg flat out at all ranges like the Mercy (125) and Blueshift (143) does. The arm have ca. 300 rpm, 600 rpm theoretacly with both arms equipped. Dunno if accuracy should be the same as the Anchor or EM6. Fourth the CQC beast. (Based upon the Cyclone and Bandit) The arm does 167 dmg up to 10m and drops to 125 dmg after 50m. The have ca. 328rpm, 656rpm in theory with both arms equipped. accuracy has the Cyclone or Bandit.
I like it, however I do feel that the Hacksaws should be left in simply because there are some power threshholds you cannot exceed without making them shotguns, and the NC are the "shotgun faction" when it comes to CQC weapons (case in point, the Jackhammer, Canister, Magscatter, etc). There is one other thing: You've downplayed the rates of fire by cutting them in half. The best example would be the VS' Quasars, which are 167 @ 10m 143 @ 75m, and have 337 RPM (674 RPM combine) which would vastly undercut our proposed "CQC Beast" weapons. As well, the TR's Muta's and Heavy Cyclers are both 400 RPM per arm (800 RPM combine) with 143/125 damage. The TR's onslaughts (their CQC beast weapons) are 492 RPM per arm (984 RPM combine) and 125/100 damage. So comparing the CQC beast weapons (using two of the same arms)- TR Onslaughts have a 0.4268 TTK VS Nebulas have a 0.4225 TTK But our proposed CQC weapon having only 167/328 RPM (656 dual arms) would have a massively lower TTK at only 0.4573 seconds. To get as near as possible to an equivalent to the VS/TR versions, the combine TTK of both arms would have to be between 704 and 710 (352-355 per arm) for a 167 equivalent. But again, the NC are intended to be a powerful but large target, and hacksaws are well suited for this. So all-in-all, I like the idea, but up the respective RPM on most all of these weapons to output as close as physically possible to the same TTK as their TR/VS counterparts and you would have a wonderful set of weapons indeed. Weapon stat source: http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/MAX_Anti-Infantry
w Well sure I just took some fast numbers anyway, but with the Hacksaws being keept and how annoying they are at range with an expereinced max sapmmer with slugs on it. Well since I have abosluetley no idea how to calculate ttk I guess you can qoute me back with more fair rpm's
Moin My only problem with NC MAX AI weaponry is the poor accuracy while moving. Slugs are good enough for mid range, I can't understand how people aren't able to use them properly. Aim, click, win. But you have to stop moving/crouch, which is a massive disadvantage in PS2. You're just asking for a rocket to the face.
NC tends to have a lot of high recoil weapons that are best used crouched. This is all well and good when you have cover but it tends to simply expose yourself to more head shots because of a condensed hitbox more often than it benefits.
hmmm....A topic on NC Max units....hmmm...TR only myself but I could not imagine how lonely one must feel being a NC Max stuck in a small room waiting for action when there is about 323432vs23425 outside the doorway fighting staring at each other....I mean yeah walk in a room with a scatmax and low ceiling...Id almost think your either hoping to get really lucky or just plain suicide. yet....loneliness turns to anger...so what does said NC Max do...walks outside small doorway to shoot a target at 25m only to find a c4 throw between his legs from some random flying light that just "happened" to be randomly flying above him or 10f away and does an Olympic throw and lands a c4 perfectly. Yet find themselves on a KM with no KM themselves because they were so OP inside a room with no action yet find themselves getting kicked in the balls outside a door. Don't see too many NC maxes running around trying to be Rambo...even with their shield. As an infy only class Ive killed many shield baring NC maxes just for the fact they have no range, put one in the open and its game over....even with ravens, self guided or not, ravens are not godlike, put a raven max on a hill and yeah vehicle spamming kill heaven....yet I find a TR mortar lawler doing the same thing on....a hill. Yes give them the three fire option as mun said....I was there too, it was a nice feature and gave nc what they needed. I play max as support quite a bit myself at times when its needed. I get what mortar lawl that can drop other maxes in no time, one reload is that's needed if any. I get three options for my cyclers, omg cqc blasphemy, omg haz too many rounds in one clip, or omg....did I just kill someone at 200m with cycler x_X My two cents. I hate NC, would never play them but I can agree that they could use a small change in weaponry. There is a complaint for every weapon, class, vehicle...the question is which ones can we actually make valid and change gameplay somewhat. Even giving nc max a long range weapon, any max with an even contested area will find survival to be a 50/50 in open gameplay, theres a place for everything. Any max in the middle of a 200km flat field is not one regardless of weaponry.
So here is somethign interesting then for you with your Stats: Not looking at Default Starter AI weapons. NC: AF-34 Mattock Left: 243 users, 35.69 KPH AF-34 Mattock Right: 284 users, 37.38 KPH AF-41 Hacksaw-Left: 499 users, 27.47 KPH AF-41 Hacksaw-Right: 596 users, 28.07 KPH AF-23 Grinder-left: 484 users, 28.56 KPH AF-23 Grinder-right: 709 users, 30.18 KPH AVG users: 469 Average KPH: 31.225 TR: M6 Onslaught- left: 198 users, 26.25 KPH M6 Onslaught-right: 214 users, 28.27 KPH M2 Mutilator-left: 819 users, 21.89 KPH M2 Mutilator-right: 978 users, 24.88 KPH MRC3 Mercy-left: 463 users, 26.73 KPH MRC3 Mercy-right: 625 users, 26.58 KPH AVG users: 647 Average KPH: 25.76 VS: Nebular VM20-left: 274 users, 28.86 KPH Nebular VM20-right: 313 users, 30.01 KPH Cosmos VM3-left: 580 users, 23.77 KPH Cosmos VM3-right: 747 users, 27.94 KPH Blueshift VM5-left: 603 users, 29.11 KPH Blueshift VM5-right: 717 users, 28.75 KPH AVG users: 539 Average KPH: 28.07 What I find interesting is that the most pulled overall here is the TR, and yet the NC consistently have better KPH with their AI Maxes then the other factions. This would least me to believe that while you might not pull as many maxes, they seem to be a lot more effective then the other factions at doing their job. Another interesting thing: Most uniques to least is TR,VS,NC with about 100 diffrence between each of them. Highest KPH is NC,VS,TR with about 3KPH diffrence between them. So looking at that it seems that about 100 users accounts for a 3KPH variance between the empires. Kind of interesting, and makes me think that if the populations were equal then the KPH might also be equal. I would assume that if one was massivly underperforming then there wouldn't be such a Steady variance like this.
The KPH is higher due to the situational-ness of the NC MAX. While its next to useless in anything other than close quarters, once in close quarters it completely dominates. Most people figure this out quickly and only deploy MAX suits when in CQ environments, easily racking up the kills in this specific situations. It needs a rebalance to bring it back in line with the other two MAX suits. Nerf its CQ effectiveness and buff its medium-long range effectiveness.
I believe if you add in the default AI weapons it shows VS actually use the most AI MAXes over the TR. Regardless, the explanation for the stats is simple; NC MAXes, being very situational, only get pulled in ideal circumstances. VS and TR MAXes are in every fight, every base. NC pull MAXes predominantly in Biolabs and occasionally other bases where they can easily camp doorways. NC MAX stats are overinflated because they're used to camp. By adjusting ScatMAXes to give them some more long range utility (I don't mean they need to be as effective at range as they ate in CC or even to be as effective at range as VS or TR), it would pull NC MAXes out of their comfort zone and probably actually bring their overall stats down but benefit the empire as a whole. I firmly believe that a large reason why NC underperforming on Alerts is because there are too many situations where the NC can't properly defend or can't properly push because pulling a MAX is too much a liability.
So that's a little counter intuitive to me. Your wanting NC maxes to be pulled more, and by doing that you'd give up their Situatinal advantage? I thought the Whole point of the Max unit was for just those situations, so why dumb it down so they are pulled more but are less effective. I'm honestly confused by this, am I just misreading your thoughts? With the constant compaining on these forums about maxes (tend to be around removing them entirely) I get the feeling that doing changes that would encourage them be pulled for more every situation use to be a detriment then a boon. What would be interesting though would to to see what would happen to the alerts performance if no one had maxes. If your reasoning is true then it would balance out. Personally I highly doubt that Maxes are the sole reason for NC under performance in alerts, or even a major factor. There are probably a ton of other issues (for example NC tend to have some of the higher TK rates, no idea why tbh) then just a max unit.
The point is, that by making NC MAXes more forgivable at range they'll in turn be pulled in a greater variety of situations. So ultimately they'll be overall more useful to the faction, but because they would no longer be pulled exclusively in Biofarms, you would see an general reduction in KPH. As for the TK rates, I think that's pretty obvious as well, higher alpha damage weapons means one or two errant shots are more likely to kill a teammate. And with Alerts, I think NC MAXes are a large part of it, but the overall reason is that NC struggle against masses of infantry. Alerts are where redeployside shine. Being able to lock down a spawn point is the key to holding a base. From a MAX perspective, the NC can really only hold down the point itself, they can't really be used in the space between the spawn room and the point. And even then, TR and VS both have about 3x the kills per mag than the NC, so even though the NC MAX is best against small groups of infantry (like 2-4), the TR and VS scale up and can better deal with larger masses of infantry because there's less downtime to reload. On top of that, tanks play a huge role in holding down a spawn point. VS can get to angles that the other factions can and TR can lockdown spam. The Vanguard's poor AI performance is well documented. I've said it in other threads multiple times, the NC struggle in Alerts because they're a 1v1 faction in a 100v100 game.
TR is probably the most pulled because they've got the most usable default MAX. I'm aware you left those weapons out, but this means newbies are more inclined to pull their MAX, so they're more likely to stick with it and buy better weapons later on. On the other extreme, NC has a godawful starter MAX, which no doubt alienates a lot of players from ever trying to upgrade their MAX. I'd also note that these effects would tend to push the TR KPH down (more casual MAXers overall) and NC KPH up (only serious players will look past the crappy start to make the MAX good). In fact, we see this trend in the numbers.
