[Suggestion] MAX shotgun overnerf has stayed for too long

i play all 3 factions and you're straight-up WRONG.
this isn't "what TR and VS have been experiencing for years" my TR and VS maxes have worked fine for years, as has my NC max.
NOW, my TR and VS max still work fine as they have for years, but my Gorgon Max (oops sorry, NC max) sucks butt.
so don't give us this "its been like this for TR and VS for years!" c%%p, because its absolutely incorrect.

similar CQC damage to TR and VS, vastly less range, vastly less sustain.
literally does nothing better, but most things worse.

yeah we'll just be quiet about that c%%p...
because why the fk would we want balance.

It would be 90 degree the other way now.

But imagine for a moment that wonderously all 3 MAX's have the same stats.
Now we would have one weapon that is good in CQC and unuseable beyond that range.
And two weapons that are just as good in CQC but mediocre beyond that range.

The first weapon will be used in one situation: CQC. the other two will be used in CQC but also when they arent as good and they score less.
Yet despite scoring less, the advantage of also having mediocre ranged options is a good one. You can damage hem before they get close, when in a pinch you arent forced to close the distance, Enemies that approach are slowed down more, taking bases takes longer for the opposition and there is more time to bring in enough forces for a defense or keep the enemy busy long enough for a capture. When it counts, the weapons with more options are superior.

And what do you know, the NC is and always has been the least alert winning faction despite being just as skilled and capable with all carbon copy weapons, and no one has offered a good alternative explanation for this? Hmm...

Can you still curbstomp infantry? yes you can.

So you lose the 1v1 vs other maxes. They've lost the 1v1 vs you for six !#$ years.

So yeah... GET. OVER. IT.

Just because something was strong for 6 years doesnt mean that it should be tremendously underwhelming. That is not "balance". Shouldnt be asking for weak enemies, but rather step the game up to take on strong enemies.

On Connery I can say that it's a mix between poor or no leadership, mixed with a population who simply doesn't give a ****. TR seems slightly more competent, but just slightly. At least TR usually attacks the right faction, albeit in an incompetent way. NC just doesn't have a hope. They only way they can possibly win is if another faction spoon feeds victory to them. All the while, majority of team oriented players went VS. And alert wins reflect this. It doesn't matter how skilled NC are with their guns if they're at the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone has theories as to why different factions attract different people, but whatever caused this segregation seems to be across all servers.

NC is my first and favorite faction. I specifically picked them because of a meme that showd VS as "easy, TR" medium", and NC "hard" mode. I quickly realized, as a new player no less, that the faction was hopeless. I went TR because I hated the spandex and silly VS weapons, but looking back I would have been happier with VS's teamwork mentality. But I still play the **** out of NC. They have my favorite tank, or at least the tank I do the best in, used to be favorite max, favorite ESF, and my favorite guns. And somehow, it's the only faction where I've got all the exceptional implants I want.

It is nigh impossible to be just as skilled in weapons but somehow have more team-oriented gameplay skills (even if it is just using it). It marks a different set of players with different mindsets and different ways of handling not just teamplay but also handling the weapons.

So to say that one team uses better or more teamplay is like having everyone on one faction win a small prize in the lottery while no one on the other faction(s) win anything. The chances are ludicrously small, and with time this should have changed as the randomness of player distribution would have made them change. Also as time progresses more and more veterans would play on different factions, meaning the leadership and willingness to teamplay goes with them. Yet again we do not see this back in the statistics.

There is no indication whatsoever that one faction has superior leadership. Since day 1, launch, the VS has claimed superior leadership while people have claimed the NC doesn't have any. Yet at day 1 there was neither enough experience nor enough data to support that notion. It is a fallacy that has persisted, and it is a fallacy that has been used to make people look the other way. "No it is not the equipment, it must be the skill".

Bruh I've got... 3000+ hours of playtime in my ASP 100 NC guy. Admitedly only 6% in a max but I've auraxed a few weapons. Last online: Aug 4th 2019.

I'll say it again. Stop your whining and get over it.


Edit: Also, your personal attacks (dumb F*, Scum) are noted and will be accounted for in future interactions. Grow up.

My personal experience is enough indication for me. I've spent quite a lot of time on all 3 factions, and I have a personal disdain for VS, yet despite my overall dislike of that faction in general, and desire to find nothing to like about them, I have to give them credit where credit is due. They're generally more organized and do what it takes to win, be that spamming Hives, spamming C4, spamming Galaxies, or spamming air locks.

And maybe it was just a fallacy, but as they say, where there's smoke there's fire. And instead of like minded personalities spreading out over time, it's a fact that life groups up with those that are similar. Even AI has been shown to weed out abnormalities. It makes more sense that those willing to work together would be attracted to like minded individuals. It makes sense that rebels are attracted to the "rebel" faction, and more mature players are attracted to the "civilized" faction.

It certainly doesn't help that NC also got slapped with being the TK faction and generally caring mostly about "finding a good fight." The sheer amount of times where I tried to lead on NC while getting screamed at for "ruining a fight" or that they refused to abandon a farm was enough for me to just lone wolf or play with more organised outfits as a good little soldier. Plus, that during much of the early years new players were expressly told to go for VS/TR if they wanted a good outfit. Stuff like this affect both server and faction culture/perception.

But to go back on topic I think NC should have gotten slugs as their default. Plenty of cool stuff they can do with it through mechanics like on the Tengu/Horizon, both in terms of options but also make pellets less random and more skill based.

I've just checked, the VS do not use more C4, Galaxies or air locks than other factions. So this has to be a form of bias. Just like people likely believed with full conviction that the VS was superiorily skilled in combat despite there being no indication.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Shotguns were a bad idea from day one and should be replaced with machine guns. Shotguns by their nature will always be better or worse than MGs, never equal or balanced.

Even just a "Tenguization" of current MAX shotguns would help alleviate the issue a little bit I think.

Time for us all to dance this mess around again, eh?

Anecdotal personal experiences mean nothing and are tainted by perception biases almost every time. There's smoke coming out from somewhere alright, but that only means there's a fire not where it's coming from.

Perception bias.

I thank those of you who actually know what balance is and have a head on your shoulders. Please remember to take a few minutes to add to the petition-esqe post on reddit. And for those of you who are trolls or blind, currently shotguns kill MAXes much faster than MAX shotguns kill MAXes. That by itself should be a huge red flag for things being very unbalanced.

Even if the devs don't want to increase MAX shotguns effectiveness against infantry by much, they need to at the very least give them a damage bonus (percent or flat) against MAXes to allow them to more in line with non-MAX shotguns effectiveness against MAXes. They are supposed to be shotguns after all, and shotguns are highly effective against MAXes. Reducing the damage falloff severity or increasing the distance at which minimum damage occurs should also be considered, but not without that much needed damage bonus against MAXes.

There is very little evidence of NC players being worse players. We've seen plenty of stats showing that NC do very well with all kinds of weapons and vehicles yet somehow they can't seem to get it right as a whole. The punch-line or point I would say is a lack of consistency in leadership and such an explanation does not require a conspiracy. It is hardly a secret the NC got a bad rep right from the start (especially new players were suggested to go TR/VS). You do not win alerts and such with TactiCool outfits though but rather the largest zergfits + semi-organised players + consistency and frequency. This would certainly be made easier to pull off if players who are asking for team play gets funnelled their way.

As for changing faction, is there any evidence of a mass exodus? I mean, vets from other factions trickling in is going to be a drop in the bucket. My arrival, for instance, made me burn out as a squad leader. People claimed they wanted to play organised but when push come to shove they rather stay in their tank or enjoy the farm over winning. The word "tryhard" was often used as if trying to win was a reason for contempt.

There are plenty of parallells to other three-way PvP games where one faction is generally seen as the bad choice and, yes, it does come down to bias or in this case a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same is true for VS which got the "easy mode" brand very early on despite VS/TR performing on a similar level. We see people still pushing this notion and justifying it by mentioning Unstable Ammo (of course ignoring that it is a very recent addition). Pre-nerf ZOE and PPA are often mentioned as well despite long since having been nerfed. Equally I find the idea that "LOL, NC MAX used to be OP so an over-nerf is fine!" silly at best.

Though to take it back to the NC MAX. Almost every NC MAX thread was filled with a laundry list of excuses for why it was over-performing and why it was fine. Curious, is it not, how plausible it was to accept that the NC were just so good/used to their MAX they were simply using in its optimal distance all the time thus why it performed so much better? Take the Maggie discussion which actually had player anecdotes + data which supported it yet was hand-waved away because we do not have all the data and there COULD be other reasons.

So yeah, sure, bias is certainly involved but boy does it swing hard in both ways. I can certainly accept my personal experience doesn't paint the full picture but we are clearly talking from personal experiences here anyways.

I do not think the NC MAX is fine as it is and I think my suggestion would open the NC MAX up to get a better and more varied arsenal. Either that or change the ES ability to MAX charge to better synergise with buckshot platform the NC MAX now work around.

I think the real reason for this has always been for a completely different reason. Players in the very beginning suggested players not play NC because they performed horribly due to the flinch mechanic being way over the top initially, to the point where playing NC was close to impossible.

From that point and on the sentiment has been maintained because new players tend to suffer much more as NC than the TR or VS. It's better for someone new to the game to start with a Carv or Orion than to struggle with a SAW.

In regards to changing faction, I was moreso referring to players who play more than one faction. Many players play more than just their favourite but don't suddenly become different people. Personally I think "Tryhard" is just another fairly meaningless word thrown around to act as some vague insult, like its inverse "noob." People claim to want a lot of things but at the end of the day most people only want what's best for themselves. If that means a personal low-effort farm instead of proper competitive play then that's what they want.

Often factions are identical or very well balanced in other team-based games. Starcraft for example, has multiple factions but also maintains proper asymmetrical balance. One of my favourite games, Red Orchestra 2, again has two distinct factions with inherently better and worse weapons where equipment isn't roughly the same. No one can say the German LMGs are worse, or that their pistols make for worse sidearms. Likewise, the Russians have better SMGs, the only silenced weapon in the game for example. Then to top it off there is the G41 compared to the SVT, wherein both are 10-round semi-auto rifles, but the G41 has a dual clip-fed magazine which can load 5 bullets at a time for partial reloads but takes much longer to load when empty, having to load both 5-round clips. The SVT just sticks a single magazine in and is done. High-leveled players can even start with the enemy team's weapons if they prefer if they wish.

PS2 does not have this. PS2 has weapons designed to kill in (almost) the exact same amount of time but each advantage and disadvantage means more or less. CQC to mid-range fighting power means much more than long range does and one faction features predominately mid-long range weapons. The majority of fights are shorter ranged and favour certain types of weapons over others. In RO2, some capture points have very wide radii and combined with the general variety of engagement ranges all weapons have a purpose. A bolt-action is great everywhere but an SMG is still likely to win in short range while suffering much more outside of that, while still capable of killing at such ranges.

There is no reason or evidence to ever believe the nonsense spouted by the two factions about the third would ever cause the third to act differently when there are many many other obvious factors at play instead.

I agree that over-nerfs aren't a solution. I still don't see why we keep getting them instead of just balancing things properly.

Well, in my opinion a lot of the reasons were legitimate. A pre-nerf shotgun killed barely faster than an MG can but suffers in every single way over it. A 0.2 second faster theoretical TTK wasn't causing the massive difference, in my opinion. Just seems unlikely.

I don't think the idea was that the NC only used it in the optimal range because they were good players or were smart at all, just that anyone who tried to failed and didn't often make it on the scoreboard. A Magrider can do more than fine with an idiot driver and no gunner because the platform can still be used to face-tank most normal vehicles and infantry, but a fool for a MAX with shotguns trying to hit someone at 20+ meters out is just gonna take 50 rounds about the face and chest and not kill a thing.

Not to mention the data provided in the thread wasn't objectively conclusive. It portrays the likely possibility but not why this was the case. Yes Mags do tend to rely on a gunner's DPS to succeed more than the other two MBTs do, but they also benefit the gunner independently to the Mag much more as well. There is no way to be sure how much of it was one thing or another, whereas the MAX is going to be stupid and die or be less stupid and succeed.

I don't think so. My personal experience is that MAXes suck but that's about all. The rest of my opinion comes from the data and while I can't say that means I don't have a bias it's at least not anecdotal.

I maintain the idea of just tossing shotguns out the window, as clearly they've never been the right call in my opinion.

I've been playing since 2013 as NC and still to this day i only have 1% in my max usage mainly because shotguns don't work in most situations like tr's and vanu's max. Takes 3 reloads of the shotgun to kill from a good distance. You never see a shotgun max on top of a cliff shooting down on players.

The reason the NC is losing more has been clear for years.
The most used weapons are the starting weapons, and the most used class of the NC has the worst starting weapon for the combat needed to capture a base.
The faction-specific arsenal is also mostly geared for longer ranges with higher punishment for misses than the other two factions. This makes them suffer in capturing bases.
The Vanguard has been tauted as the unkillable MBT murder machine since day 1 which was why it was OK that it scored less at AI and killing vehicles like Sunderers. But as lately has been proven the Vanguard even struggles to keep up with the other two factions, meaning that the NC has less chance to get their Sunderers in place and protected.

Also about the VS gunner thing. We see that with the Prowler which is a wonderful tank that people dont like gunning for it due to the main canon stealing kills. The only reason why more people would gun for a Magrider is therefore that it is fun and effective. This is backed up by the fact that per player there arent any less Magriders pulled. If the Magrider was as bad as claimed and only when a Gunner is available they would get ine then there would have been less Magriders pulled per player.

So in short: NC has the worst arsenal for the job and the VS Magrider is gunned for the most simply because its a powerful and fun tank to gun for. That is also why when I play VS with a friend we need to purposefully lock our Magrider immediately because people jump in quickly while on the other two factions they often dont want to. Asking around lately and many just dont enjoy it and want to do something else instead.

We've tried showing you the stats (which are all entirely against you idiots),
but you all continue to pretend that it is somehow fine.
And you in particular with your "get over it" BS are especially infuriating,

So when you ignore the stats and tell us to simply "get over" a massive imbalance,
what else is left but than to call you out as scum who doesn't want balance for factions that aren't your main,
and as an idiot who says things are fine when the stats clearly show that they aren't...


No, when there is a massive divide in performance we aren't going to "get over it",
So if that is all you come to these threads to say then don't ***** bother.

C'mon killers, that NC Max shotgun is equivalent to using a Turkey Leg as a melee weapon. That pellet spread kills more enemies behind me instead of in front of me. *rim shot*