On the Subject of PTS NC MAXes

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

  1. Demigan

    Why "should" everyone have spend certs, nanites and time on specialized units? How powerful "should" something be just because it's a tank? If the tank is just as costless as infantry, "should" it still be more powerful? If it cost 1 nanite? How powerful should it be? 50 nanites? 450 nanites? You are arbitrarily saying "it's a tank and you paid resources, so infantry should be squishy". But there is nothing that says how squishy they should be. It could be just a little squishy, or a lot.

    The main goal is to make people have fun. Screwing over all infantry "just because" is a bad way to handle your game, especially since the lionshare of your players will be infantry most of the time... Even ColonelChingles, who is heavily dedicated to vehicles, spends more time with infantry than he does in tanks. Should we screw over most of everyone's playtime by the relative few who use a vehicle or MAX "just because"? No ofcourse not!

    Terrible argument. We are discussing how the devs are effectively making the NC MAX inferior to the VS and TR MAX in almost every way, with only a few edge-case scenario's in perfect conditions for the NC MAX where they stand a chance to outperform the VS and TR MAX. But for some reason we can trust the devs on the Vanguard nerf? The Vanguard nerf was supposed to be a rebalance with the shield nerfed but otherwise equal hits as before to kill a Vanguard, they completely glossed over that it would take half a repair cycle more to fix a Vanguard compared to the other two due to how the repairgun overheats. That rebalance also forgets that the Vanguard is the worst performing MBT since forever.

    But that Vanguard nerf does prove my point: The shield is an extreme, and it makes it hard to balance. This makes it unfun to engage and due to it's comparative weakness less fun to use. The devs unfortunately don't know how to handle such things and just nerf the bejeezus out of it.

    My proposal is to rebalance the MAX, make sure it's action-factor is increased. More explosions, shrapnel, bullets etc and less "stand around and wait for Engi" or "stand around in specific spot to get kills, don't move out in the open". Balanced compared to their counterparts is absolutely not dumbing down the game. Unless you are doing things horribly, horribly wrong. A good rebalance makes use of the differences. For example I have proposed what would eventually become the Router. Instead of a building, I had proposed it as a Medic deployable with some limitations (only people in the base or within X meters can spawn on it so it only fuels a fight and is not used for reinforcements from elsewhere). This would rebalance the Medic as it would make the least used class have more power and use, it would rebalance the power between HA, LA and Infil as well as the LA and Infil would have more uses taking out the Medics and Router deployables. It increases the action, changes the way the game is played, increases the differences and uses of all classes and reduces the domination of the HA over the game. While they did build this idea for a while, they went for the Router instead, and it's a terrible terrible downgrade of what it could have done for the game.

    Rebalancing, adding to the game, it's not dumbing down. Not unless you assume I want the MAX's to become upgraded NS HA's. But why would you think that? gave a bare-bones idea and unless you squint half at it and was reading a HA thread at the same time there's no reason you should be coming to the conclusion that I want to dumb things down or make HA knock-offs for resources.

    And that's where the problem lies. You assume that everything is about killing. The example I gave about the Medic Router is what you should be thinking about. Something that adds to the game, changes how people play, changes how the game progresses and all without requiring to touch killingpower! Now ofcourse you can and often have to touch killingpower to achieve something, but the goal is not killingpower. The goal is to create a fun and engaging experience for both players of the engagement. Any weapon should be fun to use and have used against you. If you get attacked (not necessarily shot), you should have options like taking cover, using the terrain to approach or avoid, trying to get a superior position and range, controlling your COF, recoil, amount of bullets per magazine etc.
    Foodchains are terrible ways to balance a game, and you should be shot for such heresy. "Me went to terminal, me now have something that requires half the skill to use and can kill twice as much. This be fair cus it big and I pay resources for it". That's about the gist of foodchains and it is not a good way to do it. In some games where you have control over the amount of vehicles, planes, powerups and equipment available you can use it as the tank itself becomes the resource, and you give the terrain and equipment required for the enemy to deal with it. The tank is part of the foodchain, only there's no foodchain anymore as it's at the exact same level as everyone else due to the option for it's prey to also prey on the tank.
    • Up x 2
  2. Demigan

    There are many ways for the MAX to go without it becoming infantry. The current "slow and heavily armored with weapons" approach is simply bad, as it is too extreme. It either works too well or you are screwed when you go outside into more open terrain. Speed up the MAX, reduce it's resistances, give it a range of abilities and weapons to make it unique. You can still have a MAX be a dominating presence. We have implants that allow you to push back enemies upon activation of the emergency repair for example, that could simply be part of a more powerful ability. Shoulder-mounted weapons, heavier abilities to breach an enemy position, short-term area-denial weapons, fortifying a position with deployables. These are just a few of the things MAX's could do without becoming glorified infantry units. But clinging to the current MAX because you don't want it to look too much like infantry (even though it's just a slow infantry with lots of armor and dual weapons right now) is archaic.
    • Up x 1
  3. HippoCryties

    Sigh* . MAX mains will be MAX mains( even if u ain’t one). CBA to argue with these brain dead 40 year olds
  4. Inogine

    I don't pull maxes. ;D But I suppose I could make some joke about kids these days, but there's no point to that. You're a hater, even if you're not is essentially what you just eluded to logic-wise. Wanna rethink that there, champ?
  5. Inogine

    It's bad due to the commonality of said platform. I also don't see how that will keep the max idea alive as it essentially does turn it into another form of infantry but with a nanite cost. Also, it's slow while walking, but it doesn't fall that far behind infantry while sprinting. It's simply harder to get moving initially cause... well armored mechanized suit.

    Also the error with some of your proposals to me comes from having a now mobile murder machine. It'd still be extreme and not solve the issues that people have with them. You also seem to be offering up more heavy damage options as a "tradeoff" and that is a big no no as we now have speedy maxes running around murdering everything. So you make'em not heavy damage options. Also a big no no as now they can't kill anything for the trade of in survival ability any better than a standard HA. You're creating just another pitfall trap to end up exactly where we are now.

    The answer is measured usage in my mind. Some form of limiting amount that can be pulled per designated area. You can possibly pull more than that at the warpgate and fly/bus them in (creating more work for troops covering said area), but no more once the allotted amount is in could be pulled once the area in question has said number within. Still allows them to be used to smash into an area and take out opposition, but if said assault fails, they're out of the area in those numbers. Defending maxes have roles, so do assaulting ones. Pipe dream, but one possible real solution without kicking the ball further down the same line of nerf and unnerfs.

    Also Demigan, those are words I never expected to see you say given our discussions of AAA against air. "And that's where the problem lies. You assume that everything is about killing."
  6. csvfr

    You're attacking a strawman here. I said tanks should be more powerfull than infantry, not because of the resource cost. But I also see that the purpose of the tank price as a limiter on their numbers, not as a way of measuring balance according to a power per nanite metric.
    But you are screwing over infantry by nerfing the MAX. An outnumbered team will have less options to deal with intra-base population imbalances and be forced into the spawnroom more quickly than before. Engineers will also be made redundant to pull as an indirect effect of the nerf. Similar concepts exist in nature, killing all snakes or spiders for example (which most people don't like) would leave the planet filled with rodents and flies. That's why a foodchain is a suiting analogy to consider in balancing the game.
    Spoken like a true hypocrite. A tank is killable by infantry just not with the rifle. A handful of heavies can easily overman, and if you destroy it by explosives alone there is a big XP reward.
  7. adamts01

    You guys are missing one key feature. Tanks can't go inside rooms. Liberators can't fly inside bases. Their firepower is limited by terrain and structures, to give infantry some space to shine. They're all 450 nanites, but tanks have different balance needs than Libs, which need different balance considerations because they can go everywhere infantry can go.
    • Up x 1
  8. HippoCryties

    No Adam, that’s too difficult for these geniuses to comprehend
  9. Demigan

    The commonality is already there, all that I propose is to change the exact value's of the MAX. Then once that's done, throw on things that make the MAX even less like infantry than it already is. When you have the choice between keeping the MAX too powerful for it's cost one moment and too weak the next, or the choice of making the MAX subjectively more like infantry (it already is infantry), then the choice should be easy. Especially when you can heap up a bunch of abilities and weapons that make it less like the other infantry classes.

    It is too slow, that's one of the reasons why MAX's are so horrible in open area's. This is also why the VS MAX in the ZOE era were suddenly capable of doing stuff in open area's we haven't seen since.

    So when I say you have the option to remove one arm so you can ADS... That's a Heavy damage option? Halving your DPS for better accuracy? I think we've found part of the problem here. Also shouldn't you have a talk with csvfr? He's promoting the murder-machine route pretty damn hard.

    And again you throw the "now they are no more survivable as a standard HA" in my face. I already corrected you on that. Why are you so insistent on repeating one potential scenario of my idea that I already admitted wouldn't happen because it wouldn't be useful for the game overall? There's a thousand other ways to make the idea happen without making it a standard HA, hell I mentioned more about maneuverability options so you should be complaining that I'm trying to make the HA nothing more than a glorified LA, but hey just repeating stuff that I already debunked to 'prove' your point works I guess...

    Unworkable pipe-dream. Limiting numbers isn't what PS2 is about. If you pull all MAX's you should have vulnerabilities compared to a mixed army that the enemy can exploit. Mixed, teamworking factions should simply win over an army of MAX's. Unfortunately the game barely has any teamwork to speak off with the standard teamwork being "oh I happen to be close to allies and firing in the same direction".

    Ah allright, you assume everything is about killing when it suits you. It suits you when it kills when it's a MAX or an aircraft, but when it's a counter like AAA against air... Nope you can't have that!
  10. Demigan

    It's not a strawman. Yes you did say tanks should be more powerful than infantry, but the moment that becomes true we should think of how much more powerful it should be than infantry. We could make a tank that costs 750 resources, but it would need to be so powerful that it would likely ruin the game for everyone and everything. That's not good, so we can't make a tank that expensive or powerful.
    450 nanites isn't exactly hard to come by. But the power you get is out of whack compared to infantry. This is the whole point I'm trying to get across to you: Just because infantry "needs" to be more squishy than tanks, we still need to determine how much more squishy they need to be. A lot? A little? We now have a lot more squishy and it makes the game less fun for most players. For the game, making it as fun as possible is the goal. So making infantry less squishy is the way to go. One of the ways to do this is not to make infantry more resiliant, but give them better teeth against vehicles. I proposed resource-cosing AV options time and again, nanites destroying nanites. Properly executed we could remove the ridiculous walls segregating infantry and tanks (that's how squishy infantry is now, to have any semblance of fun they need to be segregated most of the time). Done properly we could even add more firepower to tanks in the form of co-ax guns, gunner abilities, new AI-oriented abilities like EMP strikes and a scanning-pulse that spots any infantry in a sphere/cone etc.

    I'm not nerfing the MAX. I'm rebalancing it so it has more situations it's good at, while it doesn't become too good for it's cost in certain situations.

    Just for fun, tell me the idea I proposed. See if it is anything like what I actually wrote down.

    They'll have more options as the MAX will be suitable for more situations than before. Also this is a strawman as the most likely users of MAX's would be the overpop, they can pull more of them and have more security to traverse the area's the MAX isn't suited for.

    Engineers wouldn't be redundant, you obviously did not understand what I proposed. Also the MAX isn't even close to a predator on the scale you make it out to be. And honestly this is just the result of trying to make the MAX the perfect tool for outnumbered people, while in reality the outnumbered people will be facing more MAX's.

    I think you need to look up the word hypocrite.
    A tank might be killable, but as you say it takes a handful of Heavies. This isn't easy, hell I can easily take on a handful of Heavies in any tank and have done so many times. The proportion of skill, manpower and teamwork required to take on a single tank is completely imbalanced, giving the tank ludicrous advantages compared to the infantry and only because the owner went up to a terminal.

    Also the reward for destroying it alone is just as big as destroying it with a group, assuming you are the one who get's the killshot. Which is another thing: You get to spend more time, skill and have a larger risk than attacking anything else, but you are likely to have less reward for that work unless you get the killshot? Well thank you very much for that 'great' experience!
    • Up x 1
  11. csvfr

    The power difference / squishiness of infantry should be proportional to the XP reward for killing a different unit. Killing an infantry gives 100XP, destroying a tank gives what, about 500 or so? Thus if the tank is 5 times as powerful as the infantry it is still fair game, because even if the infantry only gets to kill the tank on 1 out every 6 tries, and the tank wins the other 5 engagements, the net reward is still equal for both.
    I was talking about the on-topic proposed NC MAX nerf.
  12. DarkStarAnubis

    Cyrious made a nice video some time ago about Max [un]balance:



    His solution is wonderfully simple: Maxes should be treated as vehicles and be bigger in size so they will be unable to enter buildings at leisure.

    Yes, I can already feel the rage and salt coming from Max players "But we DO spawn Maxes for the SOLE purpose of chasing and killing puny infantrymen INSIDE buildings!!!" so of course it will be never be done... :)
  13. Twin Suns

    Just change the name of the Max to Bob. Nobody's intimidated by the name Bob. It's loveable, it's cute.....friendly even.

    o7
    • Up x 1
  14. Demigan

    I understand where this comes from and if it could work like that it would be completely fair and reasonable, and is definitely something we should strive for. Unfortunately it wont work completely like that. We also need to look at the skill requirement, the chance of combat resulting in either side escaping successfully, who dictates the engagement and where. From that point of view, the tanks have too much power and infantry is too squishy. My solution remains giving infantry resource-costing weapons and abilities that can equalize the difference, and preferably give tanks a reason to get more abilities so they still feel like rumbling mass-murdering tanks but could very well be destroyed just as quickly. Then we dont need infantry to be segregated and we get full on explosive fun.

    Then its a miscommunication, you wrote "but You are screwing over infantry by nerfing the MAX". I assumed that "you" meant myself, rather than the devs who I think everyone except a few ******** people can agree are off their rockers by nerfing the NC MAX so far that only one weapon can be superior in it's ideal range if RNG is favorable and only when facing infantry not MAX's.
  15. Trigga

    What about the Planetside 1 route of no MAX from the AMS?
    Only 2 MAXs per sundy, in special seats.
    Only 2 MAXs per galaxy, again in special seats.

    Of course all this was suggested to the devs, and the reasons explained, during the BETA over 6 years ago, but they didnt listen and certainly couldnt admit that PS1 did anything better.
    I see little evidence this mentality has changed unfortunately.

    Swinging the nerf hammer back and forth is all they seem capable of.
  16. HippoCryties

    Lol just remove that ****. WHAT IS ITS PUROPSE xD!?
    Honestly though , all it’s good for is mowing down helpless infantry and killing ESF.
    They ruin fights and the only good they do is remove banshee farmers
  17. JibbaJabba


    As requested I am correcting you. You are wrong. You've spun up a nice strawman of your own making and are arguing with it quite well. :)
  18. Trigga

    LOL you make no argument.
    Calling it a strawman is admitting im right.

    And you didnt answer my question, probably because the only answer is YES.
  19. Trigga

    You should also brush up on your reading comp.
    I said correct me if im wrong about your preference for aim skill.....

    I cannot be wrong about some1 not playing the game to the ruleset of said game, and then demanding others do the same being moronic, because it plainly is.
    Lets take another game as an example, basketball.
    You have decided that despite needing defensive players on your team that you only want attacking players, and therefore have signed 0 defensive players.
    You of course lose most matches.
    You then attempt to be-little your opponents who do use defensive players, and use the to effectively cancel you out of the game, calling them cheesers or defense ******.
    You then blame your opponent for your own silly mistake.

    Thats what youre doing in game, you cant hide behind pride or any other buzzword you can think of, the only thing that matters is who won the game, it wasnt you because you wernt willing to do what was necessary.
    Is quite a simple concept to grasp.
  20. JibbaJabba


    Dude. Do you know what a strawman is?

    You said this: "But on a less comical point: its great that you value aim skill over everything else"

    YOU are saying that *I* value aim skill over everything else. I don't.

    You have made up this point that I never made, and are now arguing with that point.

    Now you are patting yourself on the back for winning that argument?

    It's a hilarious example of exactly what a strawman is.