On the Subject of PTS NC MAXes

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Campagne, Feb 2, 2019.

  1. adamts01

    You guys need to remember that NC Maxes have far and away the best ability. Gun vs gun arguments are silly to focus on since NC Maxes are invulnerable while reloading or when they bite off more than they can chew. That's a monstrous advantage in itself.
  2. Demigan

    Having tried them out myself:

    The shotguns have a far more unique character per shotgun. The Mattock's for example have a 50m damage degradation and still good accuracy for the pellets which allows it a relatively solid kill chance on ranged targets up to 30m, something the other shotguns don't have. Compared to the Blueshifts and Cosmos this ability is a laugh though.

    Cosmos aren't as super-powered at range due to the COF, but easy-mode in CQC (15m or so in this case). They can sustain fire for a long time and murder anything with barely any aim required. Blueshifts are still better at range and in CQC their accuracy allows aiming for headshots, but because you are a MAX it depends on the situation and skill if the blueshifts or cosmos are going to be more effective. The average player will probably just wreck bodies with cosmos and not sweat about aim.

    The rest of the shotguns are designed for their intended ranges (which is not much), but VR is not going to tell us if they are still any useful. Only live firefights will show us if the NC MAX can still do anything effectively against enemy infantry. The damage reduction is a giant nerfbat to the face, but the heavy reduction of RNG could be just enough to keep these weapons viable... Although the lack of sustainability and range compared to the TR and VS MAX is almost certainly going to make the NC MAX obsolete compared to their capabilities.

    For the emotional guy who hates NC, ZOE nerf was aimed at one ability that was ridiculously over the top OP, but it didn't make the VS MAX useless. This nerf is aimed at the NC MAX as a whole, every AI weapon it has available. If this is as bad as it looks, then the entire NC MAX is going to be a ridiculously weak unit to use. And again the VS MAX was not made obsolete by the ZOE nerf.
    • Up x 7
  3. Inogine

    It was pretty bad when I tested it. I'm still amazed that VS now have the single most effective weapons in the game... nearly overwhelmingly in the infantry department. Looks like that lead is being cemented as well. I'm not usually one to cry "********" but it's looking pretty rough. VS max now outperforms the TR max in its role hands down. It's also more mobile while doing so. It also has more dakka while doing so. It's also more accurate while doing said dakka if the PTS I messed with last night is any indication.

    NC max however is little more than a HA with bulkier cardboard on him and a shotty... Only he now has nothing remotely effective at range... Unless RNG blesses him with headshots on every pellet.

    Again, need to get a buddy to log in and have a few rounds of max against max and infantry madness but we'll see. Testing so far was constantly pacing back and forth hitting the furthest targets in the range in VR. Up close it's really not much different than any ol' shotty and some are downright worse. All those big barrels and it barely does the job of a common shotty.
    • Up x 5
  4. Inogine

    I suppose I should add a little something else to the fire. With TR and VS maxes you can blow through multiple targets relatively quickly during side stepping. Easier now with the VS max actually. Due to reload speeds, capacity, and effectiveness the NC max can not do this anywhere near the other two factions. I foresee that the infantry swarm will wash over'em fairly easily while they're stuck reloading trying to just get two kills back to back.

    The new shotguns do have more personality now, but their effectiveness is down the drain. I main TR so... take away from that what you will.
    • Up x 2
  5. Liewec123

    i'm convinced it is 1 of 2 things.
    1. the bias of a dev who loves VS.
    2. a sad attempt at selling Gorgons.
    (which before now i have always considered terrible, but might be my go-to NC max weapon if these terrible changes go live.)
    • Up x 6
  6. HomicideJack

    I'm a TR PATRIOT and I think these changes are absurd. Wrel's bias is really showing.
    • Up x 4
  7. LordKrelas

    I wonder if NC & TR, are ever getting their special tricks, like on their Maxes.
    Given, VS is having a lovely helping of their new trick everywhere.
    While TR is getting nada, past the Tank changes, and NC is seemingly getting ham-fisted.

    After all NC loves having the least effective at anti-infantry Anti-Armor-Gorgon as their best weapon, past an furthering situational niche for 5 entire AI guns.
    But at least they're not all near clones, finally... though now they're hilarious , let alone with VS getting something that is either useless to their Operators (as Blueshift) for the situation, or damn-grand at it, as they couldn't use the previous.
    All the while TR is left in the cold, to watch NC be hammered, and VS praised.

    What a lovely cycle.
    • Up x 2
  8. Inogine

    • Up x 2
  9. XRIST0

    Good, the NC Max is ridiculous and always has been too overpowerd indoors .. they drop you instantly, the other factions max's kill you fast yes but its not an instant death.
  10. pnkdth

    Imagine the difference if they had released this as a MAX overhaul, with each faction getting their ES traits enhanced. Indeed, they have a dedicated fan base who (like in Inogine's post) will actually go in-depth, crunching numbers, testing for them. This means they could easily involve the players in the design process BEFORE they've narrowed down and chosen a single path. Instead, they drop something new for only one faction and that will inevitably cause problems. Well, I guess the NC MAX overhaul is a new thing but yeah...

    For instance, the Cosmos would have made much more sense as a low capacity weapon or having an even lower rate of fire.
  11. Demigan

    Due to the TTK and the latency system, yes they often do kill you with an effectively instant death.
  12. Pacster3

    Keep on crying but in fact not much changed. NC will still rule CQC cause they are the only ones that can reliably stop C4-fairies and Heavies before they can even switch to rocket launcher and shoot. That's all that really matters for MAXes.
  13. Demigan

    The guy does all the work, and then still misses the point?

    Even at the ideal range 2 out of 4 shotguns are inferior in TTK to all other MAX weapons, 1 is inferior to most and almost equal to the rest of the VS/TR weapons and one can potentially do a OHK but don't count on it and when you do have to fire another shot it's going to be worse than the other two, and this only get's worse outside of the ideal range.
    To compound this you have worse range, still more RNG due to the pellet spread, a magazine that empties faster (even with his suggestion) and the reload is about as "good" as that of the other two MAX's long reload even with his changes. In fact his changes make the shotguns overall worse against infantry, and only allow the NC MAX weapons to be useful against the VS and TR MAX in it's ideal range, and still most of the shotguns would be worse at killing MAX's than their VS and TR counterparts.

    So there is quite literally no advantage anywhere to using a MAX even after this guy upgraded the weapons.

    On one hand I wonder how the devs could come up with these idea's, on the other hand it's pretty much the same "try and miss" we've seen a thousand times already.
    • Up x 2
  14. Liewec123

    LOL tell us another.
    Did you even read the numbers someone posted above?
    https://prnt.sc/mg2ha8
    At all ranges NC max weapons do the least damage of the 3 maxes,
    With the least range, worst dropoff, vastly shortest sustain fire, vastly smallest ammo supplies
    EVERYTHING about them is worse than the others, they literally have nothing that they do better...
    (Whereas before they had damage to make up for no sustain fire, no, low ammo supply, big pellet spread, long reloads)


    In cqc the ttk an enemy max with grinders or mattock is DOUBLE the the ttk with ANY VS or TR MAX weapons
    Yes...with your shotguns in cqc you deal less than half of the damage as the other maxes.
    But yeah "not much will change."

    Also just for laughs check out the 20m ttks...
    https://prnt.sc/mg2ha8

    These changes CANNOT go live, and if they do I will lose absolutely all faith in the devs.
    It is the complete opposite of balance.

    As I've said before DOUBLE THE MAGAZINE SIZE for a start!
    • Up x 2
  15. Inogine

    To be fair, he's still trying to balance it while making it so the NC max doesn't "delete people" which was what got'em originally nerfed in the first place. Far cry better than the devs are doing.

    If I had it my way, people would be ******* terrified when a max enters the room. Be it a NC, TR, or VS max. But people want their easy outs and wanna nerf everything into the ground so... yeah. Air's a good example of that and we've discussed that in another thread.
    • Up x 1
  16. Demigan

    The cost and skill should be weighed against how easy or hard it is to get the resources in the first place. Since its not hard to het the resources and in many cases isnt hard to live long enough to regain enough resources (especially if you count the time enemies spend respawning and returning to battle) it means most resource weapons are OP for their cost.

    Air isnt a good example as the skill is out of whack. It has a higher skillfloor, but an absurd power for reaching that skillfloor. Being extremely skilled in dedicated AA weapons does not reward you much as barely any skill is required on the aircraft's part to avoid this. In the meanwhile being moderately skilled in A2G will give you immense power, including the power to simply move to another area with less resistance. Something no other resource-gotten group really has without sacrificing their equipment.

    For the MAX's to be both enjoyable and effective they need to be less extreme. On one hand they are extremely slow and limited in most ranged combat, on the other hand they are extremely durable and have great overall staying power (except for the NC MAX that used lots of damage until PTS).
    To make this more enjoyable you need to push the differences between normal infantry and MAX's closer. Make MAX's more maneuverable and add a range of maneuver abilities/options to make it more attractive (options for more defensive power also available, but as a choice and will change the way you handle the MAX). In turn the weapons can be altered, such as sacrificing one arm for ADS modes and abilities (but as a choice, you can still grab a two-armed version). This comes at the cost of lowered resistances against small-arms, but could allow a portion of the health be converted to shields so the overall MAX has higher vulnerability but an easier time getting back into the fight.
    • Up x 2
  17. Scrundle

    It's never going to stop you know, so long as the NC max has shotguns and those shotguns are capable of one or two shotting people then those people will always complain because it is a matter of perspective. From their perspective they turned a corner and immediately died with no chance of counter-play. This is completely understandable and a normal human response, even if there WERE actions they could have taken.

    It doesn't matter if for that shotgun to one-shot someone the stars must be in correct alignment and the MAX player must have made the necessary blood sacrifice to the RNG, the person on the receiving end of it is going to feel unfairly put upon. Numbers don't come into it at all to be quite honest. All people do this and I am in no way intending to insult or belittle.

    Available options at this point are to get rid of the shotguns and replace them with something else or change the shotguns again and again and again in incremental steps until they are no longer shotguns in anything but name.

    Personally I would suggest that we go with a solution inspired by the old Scorpion (How I miss it), a weapon which launches a small bundle which explodes after a certain distance and then releases its shotgun spread. It solves the problem of shotguns around corners because at such close range they won't have armed and therefore will be like getting shot by a burster shell. It gives NC MAX players a mid ranged option AND the very mechanics of it imply a small optimal window of use which can easily be tweaked to the developers' tastes. Numbers, as useless as they are to this argument, can be altered from there with different weapons launching bundles capable of firing varying amounts of shot, in varying spreads, at varying rates of fire.

    Either way, for as long as NC MAXes have shotguns that can kill, people will complain (And their complaints won't be entirely without merit).
  18. Inogine

    And thus we have a difference of opinion. ;)

    Pretty much no one wants maxes to exist is what I'm gathering more and more. Which Arena will supposedly fulfill. We'll see if that's gonna be just infantry stomper #2423, but it's not what I play Planetside 2 for. I used to like the diverse amount of options prior to everything being nerfed into the ground or blended together so that nothing stands out anymore. Alas.
    • Up x 1
  19. JibbaJabba

    Overall:

    It's the "instagib" that's the worst sore spot in NC Max balance.

    The reduction in damage, and a wide bloom I think helps immensely with this. The increased mag size is necessary to keep it from getting over nerfed. But... that doesn't seem to be happening. The mag sizes went up but the extended mag sizes dropped. The cost for the extended mags is wrong now, and the net mag size hasn't really gone up like it *needs to*.

    Extended mags need to keep current values.

    The reduction in ammo pool is also just plain stupid. That does nothing to mitigate the OPness of the NC max and just places a stupid NON-FUN burden on the players.

    TL;DR..
    Keep extended mag sizes, don't touch those.
    Keep existing ammo pool, don't touch that.
    • Up x 1
  20. RookFett

    Wonder if the devs will refund any and all certs I put in the NC max - since I probably wont use them much now.