I like maxes, but I admit there is a problem there. Honestly this is something I've debated, but this guy is actually offering something resembling a reasonable post, so here we go: The problem with maxes: They are either Too strong, or too weak, for the situation they are in. So, lets say we're talking about a Biolab, in those situations offensively they are too weak, that is a situation where you need them to breach an organized defense. They don't have the HP or the armor to stand up to those kinds of fights. They are -Great- at farming in those situations, but you just can't use them to -breach- you use them to shave off a few enemies here or there. The only time they are bad effective, is if you crash... but max crashes, for all their value, OFTEN fail. Okay, so Biolabs aside, when we are talking about a 12v12 fight, even going 1v4, max suites are too strong, because they are strong Enough to counter people in smaller numbers like that, who are often too dispersed to focus fire and take them down quickly. There are plenty of Counters for maxes, you can rocket them, LMG to the head, C4, other explosives, tank mine traps... And that works both in favor of them being too weak, and too strong, depending on where you are at. In a 1v12, you can't really prepare for all the approaches, and you don't have the people, so your only option is to bunch up and wait for the max to come to you. In a biolab like situation with a stable defense, a max entering a room is hit by 14 people simultaneously, while walking through a door that has 3 turrets, and 15 C4 on it... you die instantly, unless you waddle in and out of the door, taking pot shots at people. The one time I have seen maxes work, as what I would call intended, are in open field battles, where they are primarily about AV. AV weapons are to a point were they -CAN- kill infantry, but it's not very efficient. Same way with AA roles, maxes can do really well if they are AA dual bursters, but when you start getting into using them to take out infantry you are either too strong or too weak, with no middle ground. What it comes down to, is that there needs to be some kind of solution, where you buff the usefulness of maxes in situations where you need them to displace infantry, but they loose usefulness in situations where it requires them to quickly react to a widely diffused group of people, and cut the overlap between the two. There are a couple things you could do to fix this: You could have heavy and light max suites, with heavy suites being more towards defense, and tanking a ton of damage, while light suites are more about offensive capability, but loose a lot of the defensive power. In this way, you could justify changing max health, based on which variety you use. The light variety would still be good against small groups, but not -As- good, because it has less health. The heavy variety would be less able to kill people (And too slow to use in a situation where there were 1-12 people who could easily just move around you), but could slowly advance and soak up fire to help breach a dug in enemy. You could leave the weapons alone and start only focusing on buffing maxes in terms of utility, so that from now on the maxes only gain things that will benefit groups, readjusting the XP so that it is less rewarding if you are using a suite to farm infantry. You can better define counters, by reducing general weapon effectiveness and raising the effectiveness of counters. But, you would need to balance this out by forcing "Anti-max" into a Role, that people can fill, rather than something that everyone can do. Something I would like to say again, is that whatever is done, we -really- need to boost specialization to make people Anti-Max... not just make -Everyone- good at killing them. Here is the thing, if we raise the overall effectiveness, spam makes it so that maxes become totally useless when you reach a point of critical mass, for anything BUT farming. The only way that will change, is by letting there be an Anti-Max Loadout, that if you don't have it, you are going to have a significantly harder time killing infantry. If you make people decide on being Anti-max suite, then what happens is that you make them into Proper Force Modifiers, where you can Counter them, but they can still be used to displace infantry. Further, teams that support them have a much greater role, stopping the anti-max weapons before they chew your max suite up and spit it out. I also kind of like the idea of a System that is anti-max... making it a weapon is problematic, because the possibility of spam is too great. Maybe the AI turret? You could make it be a damage type that causes greater damage to max suites and buff the usefulness of that turret, while introducing a clear Play and Counterplay idea.
hehe OP got owned by a max i guess, judging from the pic it wasn't too bad either. Honestly i don't have issues with maxes. Sure i might die but most of the general max users die fairly easy. Sure you run into some die hard max players that last considerably longer. But if you can kill their support they still go down fairly easy. Seriously do NOT forget rockets hurt them a lot even if they have flak 5.
If they were a balanced class that became overpowered with engineers, that would be understandable. But they're not. Even without support, MAXes will shred infantry. In an even-skill situation the MAX wins at a far higher rate than it should. MAXes being such a trump card in indoor combat deprives the game of depth. Instead of an interesting balance where you could say "if the enemy is using Tactic A, be a MAX, but if they're using Tactic B, choose another class" we get a game where the answer is always MAX. Balanced tradeoffs provide games with interesting choices and depth. If I die to a Skyguard as an ESF, I can respawn as an AP Tank and probably take out that Skyguard. There is no such counter mechanism for MAXes.
I'm killing MAX suits left and right with my C4 medic & Shrike HA. Yeah it SUCKS that a lot of times our missiles seem to just pass clean through their Model which NEVER happens against normal infantry hilariously enough (when will this bug ever be fixed?). But... I've even gotten a few of them down as Infiltrator thanks to careful placement of Betties and the equipping of Grenade Bandolier. I think the problem most people have with MAXes is that they're trying to attack them the same way they attack everything else; IE: HEAD ON RUSHING. ....when it's obvious that the MAX was designed to always win against that approach. No, the way to handle a MAX is either by making it the Rusher and luring it into a trap ... or just whittle it down a safer distance when it's being too reluctant to be pulled into that trap. Eventually its own reluctance to move up will allow your allies to build the trap around it
Skill being equal, in the tank vs. skyguard fights, the skyguard will die 9 times out of 10. The skyguard is heavily countered. Whereas with C4 vs. MAX the MAX will die maybe 4 times out of 10. So even though the C4 user is the one attempting to counter the MAX, it's the C4 user who gets countered, losing more often than winning. So no, C4 isn't even close to the counter that tanks are. It's not even a counter -- C4 users get countered by MAXes.
And how the hell did you determine that? An "equal skilled" tank driver is not going to kill me in my skyguard because I only pull my skyguard and use it behind a lot of friendly armour. My targets are enemy air. The enemy tanks can't even see me. Far more likely to be killed by multiple Libs. When C4ing MAXes they don't see me coming from above.
Leave MAXes alone, They are in the Perfect valley of Balance, Strong enough to hold their own, but not too strong to wipe away entire legions of men Solo. In short, a Solo MAX is a DEAD MAX.
MAXes are so hard to counter Destroying MAXes are a lot of fun and i would not want that removed. It's a pretty good source of XP to since more often than not they are extreme menace kills
Eh. I'm starting to support the OP's point of view. It's like when you're playing in a TF2 server with only a few people and two of them go medic heavy. It becomes no fun for everyone else, and the only counter is medic heavy.
I determined it because MAX TTK vs. infantry is faster than a C4 user is able to kill a MAX. Given equal skill, the MAX is going to win. Same deal with tank vs. skyguard (except the skyguard then has the option to pull air to counter my tank, while the dead C4 user has no infantry option that can consistently kill my MAX.) Hiding behind armor doesn't really matter in the theoretical situation, since it implies I was overextended when I was the ESF which means I probably wouldn't have died to him in the first place. Note also how your skyguard is hiding behind another class to offset a clear disadvantage -- when's the last time a full-health MAX worried about hiding behind an infantry class to offset a weakness? Never. The clear and obvious fact is that MAXes can't be countered with an equal amount of equal-skilled infantry classes, and that's the fundamental balance problem.
I don't know if BR80-100 players are more skilled than me, but i still take them out with my HA when they are in a MAX suit more often than not. C4 and anti vehicle grenades does wonders to. But i think they should at least make them unrevivable so taking them out matters. Right now MAXes gets killed and then instantly revived again making stalemates in biolabs impossible to break. I get lots of certs killing them but i still want it to matter somehow.
Not even close. All of my MAX play is "solo" in the sense that I don't group (so get limited engineer support, and often have none). But MAXes still provide me with my highest K/D and SPM, meaning they're by far my most effective class. And the same was true for virtually every individual player's stats I looked at. So solo MAXes aren't "dead", but rather an "I Win" button to easily kill 3+ same-skill players (or 30+ disorganized rabble.) The sheer power of MAXes is why you see so many in any competitive match -- when you're playing to win it would be stupid to avoid taking the best weapon for the job, and MAXes are that best weapon an unusually high percent of the time. Anecdotally I've wiped away entire squads of men solo with a MAX (in situations where the same wouldn't be possible on a balanced class.) In fact in the other thread I described an alert-winning push with me (MAX) and 2 friendly infantry where we cleared about 2 squads worth of enemies who were camped on the point. I think I got 16 kills in that one (the other thread has the real number for sure) while another infantry reported 7 kills. While this anecdote mostly shows skill imbalance, again I'd point back to any competitive match where the two teams are evenly balanced and you can see that even when skill is balanced players are using tons of MAXes and the team that uses them best wins. It deprives the game of potential strategic depth for everything to revolve around one overpowered class. That's why outdoor battles are so interesting: vehicles are much more closely balanced than infantry classes. It's not perfect there either, but at least when someone kills you in vehicle A, there is some vehicle B that will counter them. No individual vehicle is strong against everything (and for the vehicles that are nearly that strong, they represent genuine balance issues and (like MAXes) those should be balanced.)
MAX's are fine. I just wish that the VS MAX looked and sounded as awesome as the TR MAX. Also.... charge up weapons are stupid. By the time you've charged up your weapon, the target has already f'd off.
There should just be armor degradation after each death in a MAX suit. So every time that you are revived in the suit you lose say 10% of your small arms resist for example so that they just cant keep getting chain revived behind a wall of other infantry with no downside.
What kind of question is that? Obviously if the LA+C4 user is being crafty and flanky, then we're assuming the MAX is being equally aware of his strengths/weaknesses, in which case the MAX will usually win.
It's an obvious question. You say that given equal skill the MAX will win. If you can't determine what equal skill is, then it is impossible, and ridiculously illogical , to make your statement. So is this your answer? Does equal skill between a MAX and an LA mean that they both know their strengths and weaknesses?
