so the PTS stuff went live...

all NC max shotguns now deal less CQC damage than Mercy,
(grinders have a 1000ms ttk...)
better get some gorgons because all of your faction specific max weapons are now utterly useless.

those dune buggies (harassers) that melt tanks are now even tankier,
because who doesn't love buggies soaking a million tank shells.
their tank gun resilience was buffed and their rumble seat repair rate was increased.

Airlock, the only aid that new flyers have against skyknights was nerfed
and skyknights have been given even more power from a new high damage weapon.
hope you didn't like part time flying, because you're banned from the sky now, elitists only!

and thus ends my subscription...

what are your thoughts on these changes?

I think I'm looking forward to knocking the dust of my NC toon and playing some Max with it again. Thing was OP as fark and when you seal clubbed a bunch of players with it, it felt icky and you couldn't really claim there was skill involved.

I'm curious to see how it plays out on live, particularly the Max vs Max combat which was utterly broken before.

oops

A2A missiles were'nt a danger to these so called 'skyknights', which probably refers to anyone who has taken the time to get good at flying an ESF.

A skyknight is someone who refuses to group with other players and gets angry at other players who 'interfere' with their duels.

Sorry that some people are better at flying.

Whenever i see new pilots i ask them if they need any help. I teach them about using pitch buttons, analog throttle, how to reverse and how to tell if their sensitivity is too high.

Contrary to popular belief most pilots don't want to roll around burning down noob pilots who cant even fight back. It's boring.

It took me 3 days flying in a reaver before i got my first A2A kill. It was hard because no one would help me. Then i met a good dude named Cylindricalbox and he took the time to explain some things to me.

Some people enjoy a challenge. Everything easy isnt fun. Like locks and coyotes. If you cant improve at something it gets very boring.

There is no other aspect of this game that allows players with no skill to win.

New players get owned by veteran infantry and tank players but we dont have weapons that aim themselves for those parts of the game.

They need an air teacher guide. So i would click a box that puts my name on the menu and any new pilot could send me a tell and ask me any questions that they have about flying.

Maybe allow different factions to join groups with each other in Koltyr so that we can duel and they can rapidly improve.

One day i met this guy in a scythe and he was just terrible. I think i was playing NC back then. I said, "hey lets go to pts and do some dueling, you will learn a lot faster that way." I was probably what you would refer to as a "skyknight" at that time. Well after about two hours of dueling i couldnt beat HIM anymore.

What we need are better ways for willing players to help new pilots. Not ways for new pilots to kill without skill which invariably ends up making the air game less fun for everyone.

As new players get better and learn to aim and dodge incoming fire, they too grow to dislike these 'noobtube' weapons. Why? Because they are soon no fun to use or fight against.

MAX nerf is very fine.

Harasser was too strong before and is possibly even a bit stronger now.

Not sure if pilots will really use the lockon counter(if they don't then it won't have any impact). No skill lockon was not fun before(for neither side) and will be even less so in case they should really use the counter. Time to buff bursters, skyguard and maybe locklets....forget about lockons.

This patch reseted all my personalization and even. directive don't work (we can't even see what we have to do)

...I'm deeply concerned for the TR - now 100% of the population will be either driving or gunning a Vulcan Harasser instead of only 80%...

Patch probably meant some kind of good, but things are going to get bad for NC before they even go back to normal...across all servers at that. I can't help to feel sad for NC.

Didn't tanks get buffed too though?

Saying airlocks were what helped newer pilots is just wrong, it's like saying they couldn't survive in the air without them and that's kinda how cheese works. Hoping these changes will put them in their intended utility/solid option spot they were meant to be in the first place.

Voting with your wallet, I see. You're absolutely free to do so.

its broken now, just the entire opposite way,
in a max vs max fight EVERY nc shotgun is at the bottom of the list, and that is in cqc,
the greater the range the more hilariously wrelled the ttk difference becomes.

outgunned at EVERY range by TR and VS, and that is for the 2 seconds of sustained fire...
compared to VS who can fire their cosmos for twenty damn seconds,
more damage at every range and 5x the sustained fire.
"very fine."

I am sorry for your loss as MAX main on the NC :/ I pulled some short straws as VS Infiltrator, I know how it's like :/
However, NC and TR maxes were scary and VS was just there...I second the idea behind giving the Shotguns some more individuality to do different tasks.

Valkyrie (My Fav Aircraft) got buffed on it's guns, I even consider trying the Pelter.

VS Max did get good Buffs, that is nice (for me).

The Harasser Buff could get very very annoying....i thougt Magrider would get buffed (afterburner etc.)
However it provides an even Buff on wich TR will benefit the most. (Vulcan )

I am looking forward to the Dagger and what stats it will/does have. I wish it is wielded upside down lile the old knives back then, but i wouldn't be angry if it's not and I hope it doesn't have the same 08/15 stats like the other hundred knives we know.

Yeah, I know it works out to basically HALF the DPS that it previously had but that puts it's DPS roughly equal to the other two so illustrates just really how bad OP it was.

I'll check it out over the next week or so. I think my ops is on Purple tonight and we expect trouble from Red so I won't see it a ton.

It sounds like NC Max drivers are just gonna have to get-gud and maximize that one tool they have that remains awesome: the Aegis. And if it turns out they just all utterly suck then I'll be running Gorgon+Aegis if I need to pull one.

I'm curious to see what certain NC outfits do that have crutching on maxes as a core of their playstyle.

I've said it before, but the NC max should get a machine gun. We can even give the NC's shotguns to other factions, tr can get the hacksaw and the vs can get the mattock.

But isn't it, literally not even half the Sustainable fire, more than double the reload, and not even half the range?
For identical DPS, to those with the above?
Sacrificed range, sustained fire, and reload time, for RNGesus?

You can only do so much with the Aegis.
You also can't kill anything while using it; So even if it saves the Max from being killed in the moment, it won't for long.

Why they chose to make NC, the CQC specialized while the other two were General-pattern, still astounds me.
As yes, It was either OP or useless: As Specialized Shotgun.

Hot damn do I wish for something less... situational.

No other max gets invulnerability during it's reload. The poor clips and reloads on the NC max have always been mitigated by this.

I'll see how it plays out. I think we're gonna separate the skilled max drivers from the unskilled masses that have been using them as a crutch because they would get dunked on if playing infantry.

DBG knows this is a big change and they'll be watching the metrics closely. Wouldn't be surprised at all if this is one of those times a second round to tweaks comes.

Breath everyone.

It's not even invulnerability: and Given the weapon range, You'd need it, or a blessing to get into range.
Let alone the reload times & constant need to do so.

Skilled Max: Getting that RNGesus luck at CQC , if NC.
Skilled Max: Murdering your target from any range if you can Land the shots, if anyone else.

Like, Fantastic, I get DPS equal to an enemy with more ammo, more range, and less reload time.
I have a frontal shield, where I pray for no smart enemies, or multiple enemies; Or Archer-Fire.
Which also only works, when I'm reloading: So if I am not unable to fire, I'm taking fire with either equal DPS or None.

Invulnerability.. What a notion.
Yes, it actually shields from 1 direction, if not archer-fire, but it certainly isn't Invulnerability.
Not to mention, the opposing enemy has the same DPS when the Max is able to fire: And has the DPS when the NC is unable.
It's akin to having the firepower of a tank in melee, while Your enemy has the same power across an entire baseball field.
Even if you can reduce the enemy's effectiveness at murdering you without ability to return-fire: The moment you aren't able to perfectly block it before a bullet hits when you hit dry, You aren't equaling them, They're pulling ahead.

The Shield, is so the NC Max can actually begin an engagement not half-dead.
As TR & VS can open fire, to get stray rounds if nothing else to damage the target while closing the gap.
If NC tried that, if target was hit at all, they'll stuck into a reload, while having wasted a critical amount of ammo.

Now, if you do get into range finally, You have the same DPS as the Max that could open fire the moment they saw the target.
Sure hopefully, It works out, But that's NC being more limited in Capability, for... Literally no Benefit.
CQC as a requirement, to do the same or worse, as the Enemy Max, that has no such requirement.

Actually lets look at it from another perspective:

The DPS is equal now, but the NC MAX has:
Less magazine capacity than the other two even when fully upgraded
More RNG because they suffer from both COF and pelletspread
astronomical damage degradation compared to the other two MAX's, both in terms of range at which the damage degradation starts and how much damage it degrades.
Longer reloads.
More punishment for misses.

So, what does the NC MAX have in return for all these downsides? It used to have more DPS... Now it has nothing. At what point would it have had a reasonable DPS compared to all those downsides?

I have always been of the opinion that extremes should be avoided. We see this with PMB's for example where the time put in would require such a huge power reward that it's just impossible to balance properly. NC MAX's have so many downsides that it becomes extremely hard to give it a proper DPS... And even if you do the downsides restrict the NC MAX in what situations it can be used in.

The solution is to make it less extreme. Why the astronomical damage degradation when you already have the RNG of the pelletspread and COF to reduce damage at range anyway? If you reduce the reload time and increase the magazine size they can be dangerous for longer and require less DPS to make them useful compared to the other MAX's. This is a way to balance them, not by nerfing one thing and giving virtually nothing in return. Well we did get something: The COF was reduced but due to all the other nerfs that happened simultaneously it's an empty gesture.



For those who said "we'll see how it goes", the changes we have now are because of the following site:

https://ps2.fisu.pw/activity/?world=10

Looking at all worlds with more than 50 players, we see the NC MAX behind on every server. In some cases the NC MAX is scoring even below a 1 KD. While the other MAX's score more than 2 KD on each of those servers.

Let's keep an eye on that site for the comming weeks, it'll undoubtedly prove that the NC MAX was ridiculously overnerfed.

Does it count as invulnerability if the MAX is actually using a resource to take the (frontal) hit somewhere else?

So basically, a lot of NC MAXes have got to die for this second round of tweaks to happen...?

When face to face with another max, that single target is fairly easy to shield from. And we all know people are ignorant about the limitations of the Aegis. Heck, some people still try to fire through the little hole in the front instead of those exposed pixels at the shoulder or toes. /shrug.

Well, Yes. If that's what happens. If it doesn't then I doubt there will be another round of tweaks. What answer are you expecting?

In case you haven't noticed thousands upon thousands of maxes died unfairly at the hands of NC Maxes. Those players dealt with it for six years. If the new tweaks turn out to be super bad, you'll likely see them corrected within a month.

JibbaJabba is the voice of reason in this thread. Heed his advice and do not jerk the knee.

This is a BAD sign under any circumstances. haha