Scat/HackMAX balance suggestion - from an NC player

Discussion in 'MAX' started by Phaze, Feb 20, 2013.

  1. Phebus

    Agree with you 100 percent, it's when hacky maxxes dominate other maxxes so easily with little counters that bother me, what is the counter for a scat max? 20 odd dead TR or VS including max units for these empires?

    We aren't vehicles anymore, we have really restricted ammo capacities and no travel skill to reload should there be no-one else around. In a way Max units were homogenized alongside all other infantry units when they are actually a very unique in their roles, that is a massive issue. Make the armor vehicle armor, loose the vehicle locks on max units so they can't be locked on to like they used to be restricting them to indoors and make heavy assault and other maxes the most effecting units to kill maxes.

    And like you I hope SOE fix what they have before they start bringing out new stuff to cash cow upon. but also that each unit has a counter because currently the scat max has no VS counter.
  2. Phebus

    The problem is that currently ALL maxxes are close range not only due to accuracy but also because of dependence on support units. Because of this dependence they tend to be indoor units and fight close range where damage is more useful than accuracy, this is why the NC scat is so totally OP, you're unlikely to find a scat max wandering about outside but you're also unlikely to see many other AI maxxes outside either, they've been pigeon holed into close combat fighting by accuracy issues, support dependence, ammo capacity and lack of travel skill and they all play to the Scatmax's strength of stupid close range damage. The concept of MAX not being armored units this and being able to self sufficient for any amount of time time round is floored.

    Presently the VS is weak in damage however it's accuracy is also not very good, I find that it is the weakest ai max unit. AA is standard but AV on each max leaves a lot to be desired.
  3. Matthew Clark

    what I am taking from this is that you want the following list of changes to be implemented:

    • TTK drastically increased for all MAXs through Increased Bullet Resistance.
    • TR/VS weapons to have improved damage so as to compete with NC MAXs, not beating them, but chipping away more than a quarter health at close ranges. Maybe bring them down to a quarter, or even a fifth?
    • AV weapons for all factions to start doing their job, probably by getting rid of the X pattern when firing both arms and increasing damage from the weapons themselves. Flattening arcs for TR/NC and increasing velocity for all three?
    • Accuracy increased for VS so they can operate at medium ranges.
    Is this a pretty accurate list of changes you specifically and others would like added in? Because if so, I would jump on your bandwagon any day. Its a good list.
  4. Devrailis

    I believe one of the reasons why you're consistently missing the point of the arguments that I'm making is that you're taking each solution and considering it in a vacuum.

    My posts have clearly laid out the need to increase the TTK against VS MAXes as well as their DPS potential by making them more accurate. You complain that by making MAXes more resilient, VS MAXes will still do little DPS against NC MAXes. Except I've already outlined that the most logical solution would be to make VS MAXes more accurate to increase their DPS.

    But then you say that increasing VS MAX DPS would not mean anything if NC MAXes can just instagib them in 1 second. Except, we were just discussing increasing the AI resistence of all MAXes (yes, doubling them if need be), so that the TTK becomes more maneagable.

    So then we go back to addressing increasing the TTK against VS MAXes. Except then you argue that that would not solve anything because the DPS potential of VS MAXes is too low. Except...

    You see where I'm going with this?

    Your logic is going nowhere because it is going in circles.

    You also seem to be missing the final piece here. AI MAXes should NOT be the counter to other AI MAXes in the first place. What you're asking for, implicitly if not intentionally, is for a VS AI MAX that can kill an NC MAX at range, and at point-blank. Frankly, NC MAXes should always have an advantage at CQC, faction differentiation, remember?

    The changes that I am proposing are intended to make AI MAX vs AI MAX fights stalemates, forcing one side, or the other, or both to rely either on rockets and C4 or to force them to pull AV MAXes out as a counter to AI MAXes. AV MAX weaponry NEED to be buffed to the point where they become viable anti-MAX weapons, that's something that needs to be done across the board - yet another increasingly obvious point that I and others have pounded out far too many times now.

    Read my posts again (you obviously missed the part where I said VS MAXes were not even that great against infantry, with a few qualifications). Then before you reply, read them a second time. But don't reply yet, THINK. There's a reason why I brought up reading comprehension. It's obvious you understand each point in and of itself, but reading comprehension isn't just the ability to understand the immediate point being presented to you, it is also the ability to connect related arguments and see the bigger picture. I can, you need to start.
  5. TintaBux

    #

    Just pick up Grinders, same damage as scatt but more ammo.
  6. Matthew Clark

    Ryko Nailo said:
    “Honestly I think NC are fine. If anything it's TR and VS who need buffs and everyone needs an alternate weapon or two. Well okay there's alot more then that but... eh screw it my personal dream notes would be:

    General
    • Maxes running for 30 seconds enter travel mode gaining much faster speed (roughly 30 mph).
    • Medics are now able to revive Maxes at rank 1 and Maxes should now always display a revive icon over the corpse.
    • It's now possible at the death screen to Request Revive granting a small exp boost if revived and changes revive icon to be much more noticeable.
    • Maxes now have an inherent auto regen of 0.25% a second.
    • It is now possible to spawn as a Max provided you have resources and aren't on cooldown. It is still possible to change at terminals.
    • Changing class as a Max to something else now refunds half the resources and reduces reaquire timer by half its remaining time, if timer is already recharged the full resource cost is refunded instead.
    • Dead zone has been fixed, bullets should no longer travel through people at close range.
    Certs
    • Ammo Storage Container moved to Suit slot
    • Maxes can equip up to two Suit slot mods however doing so increases resource cost by 50%, may not equip the same one twice
    • New Cert category: Visor Mods, only one may be equipped at a time, such as:
      • Zoom Optics, these enable Tertiary fire to zoom your view including drop off reticles
      • Thermal Optics, these enable Tertiary fire to turn on a thermal view
      • Scanner Uplink, this passively enables a 50 foot personal radar
      • Enhanced Targeter, this passively tightens spread and reduces cone of fire bloom
    • New Empire Specific Ability slot powers:
      • New Conglomerate: Barrier Shielding: Lasts 5 - 10 seconds based on rank and lowers incoming damage by 50%, 30 second cooldown
      • Terran Republic: Lockdown: Deploys a small frontal shield similar to engineer turrets while increasing fire rate and reload time by 15-30% based on rank, takes 2.5 seconds to deploy or undeploy
      • Vanu Sovereignty: Dash Jets: Enables a 5 meter sudden dash in whatever direction is being held at the time of activation including straight up if jumping at the time or faking foes out by disappearing and reappearing in same spot if standing still or crouching. Can have 3-5 dashes stored recharging at a rate of 10-7.5 seconds per dash based on rank
    • Nano-Armor Accelerator: Changed to kick in after 8 seconds of no damage, repair rates increased overall:
      • Rank 1: 0.25% a second (stacks with new innate for 0.5% up from 0.4%)
      • Rank 2: 0.5% a second (0.75% total vs 0.5%)
      • Rank 3: 0.75% a second (1% total vs 0.7%)
      • Rank 4: 1% a second (1.25% total vs 0.8%)
      • Rank 5: 1.25% a second (1.5% total vs 1%)
    • Charge: Now reduces cooldown by 4 seconds a rank instead of 3 seconds a rank
    • MAX Flak Armor: Now properly lowers direct hit damage from rockets, not just the splash damage
    Weapons
    • Terran Republic Chainguns have received a 15% increase in fire rate and reload speed.
    • Terran Republic Pounders are now far less effected by drop and travel slightly faster.
    • Vanu Sovereignty anti infantry guns have had their accuracy stats altered, they are now based off the Cosmos current accuracy stats. Blueshifts have further received an additional increase to their accuracy to bring them to their intended role.
    • New Common pool Equipment: Siegebreaker Shields! These increase small arms resist by 5% and explosive resist by 10%, as well as lowering all frontal damage by 25% however these possess no ranged attacks only a slightly more damaging melee attack. And yes two can be worn at once if you are crazy.
    • New New Conglomerate Weapon: Heavy Railgun! This semi-automatic rifle has a slow firing rate but highly accurate and fast traveling rounds are capable of not only piercing light vehicle armor but passing thru multiple infantry however it lacks on ammo capacity so make those shots count.
    • New Terran Republic Weapon: Splinter! This weapon is the unholy merger of a fast firing chaingun and seering hot buckshot. With a high fire rate and a large number of shells per shot the Splinter is capable of showering an area in molten lead. Even though such a lightshow is capable of destroying heavy armor up close its fast rate of fire and high spread make it unreliable past short range.
    • New Vanu Sovereignty Weapon: Particle Beam! This weapon fires a constant beam of energy that explodes on contact dealing large splash damage, it features near perfect accuracy even over extremely long fire times and a massive capacitor to take advantage of that. It deals extremely high damage even to the thickest tank armor however this weapon suffers extremely hard from damage falloff quickly losing most of it's damage over just a few meters.
    I think Raiko created the best balance list anyone could hope for
    • Up x 1
  7. Phebus

    I don't know if you played PS1, maxes were pretty cool as they had the equivalent of tank armor, what made them point of discussion was their empire specific trains, specifically the VS max being able to jet pack much like light assault can now. NO class in PS2 does not have the ability to damage armor.
    Rather than increase armor wouldn't it make more sense to change the armor to tank armor like it was in PS? Then a max with ai would not need to be drastically altered other than AV being redesigned to actually work? Then the Maxxes would be balanced as they would have to use AV to kill other maxxes and in doing so would be a lesser threat to infantry. You say I am in a void and you are, I feel, you are being quite rude. I suggest that you are actually not looking at the bigger picture the max is not just an AI weapons platform where the entirety of the max require balance. Max should be invulnerable to infantry fire giving each class a role to kill maxxes with AV and explosive weaponry this can be done by changing max armor to have tank armor properties.

    In PS the max system was not overpowered and the max v max battles were specialized affairs so that the couldn't just use the strategy 1 gun fits all, and that is the problem with the max V max battles currenty. I often went into bases as AV max solely as a counter to other maxxes. The issue is not AI weapons for me, the issue is that max units are ridiculuosly vulnerable to ai damage and for this reason the scatmax is overpowered. If maxes were only vulnerable to AV and explosives it would make the game more fun. As it is the scatmax just sits in a base at a capture point, as the capture point is a primary objective you can't argue that scat max is skilled because other empires have to capture that point so it's similar to spawn camping in reality. All the scatmax player is doing is farming and yes I have done it too.

    I'm not going to discuss this with you any further and therefore you can have the last word which will probably include another passive aggressive personal attack but I suggest that if you can not post in a forum without attacking someone in some way then it is possible that the forums are something that you should avoid.
  8. Phebus

    Yeah it's pretty accurate but I think the armor should be equivalent to tank armor so explosives and rockets kill maxes but with the inclusion of grenades and without the inclusion of ability to lock on so maxes can be used outside. PS almost had the maxes right apart from the empire skills which were a bit far out there.

    AV max needs changing because they're rubbish for all empires.

    Max V max fights should be AV affairs not AI affairs so if someone is just out for infantry kills, then they will pay when an AV max or a heavy assault with decimators come along and annihilates them, it's a choice, either a kill ***** or be a team player and this fits PS2 ethos fairly well.

    Then the ai could be adapted by VS accuracy a large amount (restricted by the inability to zoom), TR recieve (effective medium range) a larger clip and greater ammo capacity and NC could stay as they are as captures take place in bases they are still effective AI control. The NC max should always be the greatest killer at short range.

    Maintain clip sizes but increase ammo capacity and give special function run speed of 40 or so then maxes can work away from engineers for a longer period of time. This is a major max restriction. They cost resources but are toally impotent if they can't rearm and you loose them if you redeploy.

    Do this and then there is a really good counter for any max unit and the maxes remain balanced when fighting each other. Av you could either increase accuracy and increase projectile velocity as you suggested or put 3 shots in a clip and increase velocity.

    Another possibility is that if you take a max back on full health and you re-equip to another class then this reduces your max reclamation timer by a limited amount as some players would love to specialize in max like any other player specializes in the other classes but is currently unable too.
  9. Phebus

  10. JDS999

    in my eyes nc should have best cqc max, our esf, and mtbs are subpar makes sence that our max should be best at something. but im sure it will get changed somtime bc 95% of cap points in the game are cqc.

    oh 1 c4 can instigib a max so im sure if something does change ppl will whine about rockets and c4
  11. Matthew Clark

    I agree with tank armor. Although the MAX is technically an infantry class, I can't really see a shotgun penetrating the like 6-8 inches of armor it has in any situation. They should receive enough of a health buff to survive 2 C4 imo opinion as well, but that might a little too OP.

    We agree on AV being rubbish on all empires with serious change needed to bring them on par with 2 heavies firing dumbrockets.

    I agree with your assessment with exception that every MAX should receive a decent CQC and a decent mid range, with each faction having its specialty having a noticeable increase in effectiveness at their best range. Vanu get their usual wonkyness with accuracy and such.

    I think MAXs should get travel mode and +ammo, although there is ammo capacity if you are constantly running out, and it does really increase your effective solo timer. Solo always does require a fairly substandard build unless you are infiltrator because the game is meant to be played on a massive scale.

    The new counter to MAX units will be large amounts of troop rocket fire, anti tank mines, or getting hit directly with 1-2 AP rounds. To compensate for the new lack of weaknesses, give each MAX a slightly larger size so they are more easily targetable.

    Last will be unnecessary if other changes are implemented.

    are we on the same page?

    our MTBs are the best in the game. If you aren't convinced then you are doing something wrong. Try adding in AP rounds with Kobalt secondary on top of Vanguard shield along with Mineguard and a racer chassis. If you can aim properly with that, you will always win in a tank battle 1v1, possibly even 2v1 if you're an excellent driver/shot.

    I'm really hoping the implement Phebus' suggestion to make the armor tank armor. That would solve the issue of C4. hopefully
    • Up x 1
  12. Phebus

    I believe so yes, thx for the summary of my really lengthy posts :)
  13. Matthew Clark

    no problem. The problems that many intelligent people like yourself face is that there are so many people who never learned that reading a full two paragraphs won't actually kill you. In fact it doesn't even hurt.