Yes, I know, this is probably the hundredth thread in a similar vein, but this one is mine. Hello, my name is Dimachaerus. I am a Vanu max addict on the Watterson server. I have dropped more certs into max than anything else in the game. I'm that one MAX who hosed you and your buddy that one time at the cap point while looking like a Gundam version of Gun-handed Skeletor. I remember the times in tech test/closed beta where the max had no timer and was a god of death. Those times are long gone, but we max junkies have adapted to our new lesser status. While the late beta and launch changes have made life better, there are a few things that just horrifically bug me about the current state of maxes: 1. Lack of travel mode. While maxes shouldn't be outrunning Flashes and giving fighters a run for their money, they really SHOULD have some kind of travel mode besides trying to find a sundy or gal. Honestly it just needs to be something that will let them keep up with armored convoys or lead the charge for an infantry push instead of being left in the dust. Could even use it to give the Maxes some more empire flavor, -Thruster assisted leg boosters for the TR max (they'd be the fastest, in keeping with the TR mantra of FAST DAKKA!) that divert power from guns and targetting systems (no shooting), and gives them increased jumping ability to clear obstacles while at speed. -Treads on the bottom of the big stompy feet of the NC max with thruster assisted balance and turning. Not as fast as the TR variety but a bit more nimble and with better braking and acceleration. Would also preclude shooting. They wouldn't be as jumpy as the TR maxes, but would be much more zippy and better in turns, thuse making themselves harder targets. -Low altitude MAG pack for the VANU max. Float a foot or two off the ground and thruster forward. A bit slower than the TR or NC variety, but just like the magrider you'd be able to strafe and cover rough terrain more easily. Could also have a sort of burst capacitor to allow for rapid dodges (mini magburner) in any direction. Yet again, precludes weapons fire. As with everything else, make it cost certs to get so it'll be an option for dedicated MAX users and not just standard issue for any zergling to grab. But PLEASE don't make it as ridiculous as current prices. 2. As has been hashed out many many many times, Maxes simply take FAR too much damage from small arms weapons. Honestly, it's faster for me to kill otehr maxes with my COSMOS (they're more accurate than BLUE SHIFT, try them out) arms than pretty much anything else. When was the last time anyone saw a max and said "oh snap! Here comes an armored unit, I should hit it with a missile/grenade/mine/c4!" All anyone ever does is insta-dogpile you with their pistol/rifle/carbine/lmg looking for the extra bonus points of getting a max kill. This would need to be balanced out with a reduction to MAX repair rates to keep them from becoming immortal god machines with engy support. 3. Lack of accuracy for AI guns. Yes, I know about the more accurate guns, I spent money to get the SC to use them and even still it's a complete crap-shoot trying to hit infantry beyond or closer than 20 or so feet. Give us less damage, reduce our fire rate, SOMETHING, just please let us actually hit targets when we aim at them? 4. Lack of any of the Empire Specific MAX skills. I want to be able to have jumpjets (Not floaty like the LA, but more like you just stepped on a mini jump-pad with a bit more control) on my max, I wanna see TR maxes going nuts with their dakka, I wanna see NC maxes holding the line with their shields up. Heck, come up with other stuff too, we'll love you long time! 5. Weapon diversity. MOAR GUNS PLZKTHX! Can I have Laser arms on my max? Can the NC get a railgun arm? Can the TR have a "rocklet" arm? Empire specific flamethrowers? Short ranged Plasma cutters to cut into vehicle armor? Give us nukes, knives, sharp sticks... Sorry got carried away there. 6. More customizability. let us tinker with our suits, make it run faster but sacrifice armor, make it tougher but slower, make the guns more stable but reduce our turning... Anything would be great honestly. 7. Optics. Please, for the love of [insert deity name here] give us the ability to cert into the same optic choices as vehicles get. Infantry get all manner of scopes in a wide variety of colors shapes and sizes, where's the love in our big roomy helmets?
Had some more ideas while I was driving to work today: Keep the charge ability we currently have as the baseline sort of "travel" mode for the average un-certed MAX user, so that they're not totally screwed. Also, make the travel modes cause vehicle style "roadkill" damage, because a big heavy metal suit clipping along at 35-40 kph should kinda smash up any infantry it slams into. Make travel modes accesible without a cooldown, but they require a bit of warmup to activate. Also, if they ever DO get around to getting the empire specific abilities in, I'd hope they'd be more like the HA's overshield, or the infil's cloak rather than the once a minute crap for the vehicle abilities. Have certs in to improve them of course, just like the other classes abilities. Give maxes the ability to cert into scout radar, stealth, or maybe even the ability to actually help with a cap point. Would be awesome to play a more recon oriented MAX unit helping to sweep bases after a cap, or give groundpounders a bit more sensor intel. Give us the certs to actually customize our weapons back. There were laser sights to improve accuracy at one point, but why not have more options too, like stabilized arms that reduce movement bloom but not much of an overall accuracy buff, give us mods that increase velocity, but decrease damage, or decrease velocity and increase damage. Go nuts! Oh yeah, WEAPON CONVERGENCE, Please please please please pleaaaassee, give it to us. Seriously, grab any of the AV weapons, aim them into the air, and watch them finally converge, and then spread farther and farther apart at like 100 meters away from you. It's kinda silly, can my guy not move his arms at all while firing?
The state of MAX units is sub-par at best. Aside from the self-repair, and the first two ranks of the cooldown reduction, I see no reason to put any certs into my MAX. All of them are extremely overpriced and ridiculously underpowered. I'd much rather put my certs elsewhere. The MAX is by far the least polished unit in the game. I saw someone on the forums suggest giving it "vehecle-like" certs; with Utility, Performance, Defensive, and weapon slots. It's a powered exoskeleton, it should be the most customizable infantry unit in the game. It absolutely needs a larger variety of weapons... though I know they are at least working on that... Also yes, the MAX doesn't need any more HP, it needs resistance to small arms fire. As it stands, there is no need to switch to explosive weapons to deal with a MAX. Don't even talk to me about that garbage of a cert... Good post OP.
Yeah, the cooldown is rather steep, even with the massive amount of certs I've dumped into it. Next unlock for me is 400 certs, up from 200... for 30 seconds off the CD. Ouch, can we please make them 45 seconds, or maybe even a full 60 at the higher end? It's still a 5-6 minute thing, which in hectic base fights can mean I'm rolling around more as HA than max because medics still seem to think maxes are un-rezzable. Anyways, it's double XP weekend, and I'm stuck at work, damnit. Gonna binge tonight and see how many more certs I can pump into it.
I understand not being able to drive or fly. But the fact we can't even get in libs is a bit stupid. Travel mode would be appreciated, it sucks when you get left behind. Although I'd love to be able to cert a less location restricted drop pod. It's only really an issue when playing solo though. But it can get annoying in a squad when people just buzz off on flashes or in tanks.
A straight up buff for MAX units would break the game. MAXes are not *bad* (some dude in my outfit runs a MAX oriented squad), but are clearly not the promised "indoor tanks" MAX units NEED limitations in order to perform. I'm all for increasing the small arms resistance and better long-range accuracy but it should come with a cost. Like limited turn rates, lots of noise, seat limitation in Sunderers and Galaxies, manning turrets...
MAXs aren't bad they just have less customization than most guns in this game and you hardly ever see them
I would like to see the MAX autorun make a comeback Bring back the MAX surface 2 air missles. The VS starfire is a great gun. The sparrow heck make it a 1 shot per clip. The TR will need their own system but it is do able. Ballance? Low rate of fire so they cant take on more than 1 aircraft and specalized to where it is only godd against air. Flack you can still aim at infantry but SAM only works for air. Now I am still working on the certs but I will say that MAXs seem to take way too much damage from small arms. Maybe it is just me but I think of MAXs more of a vehicle so I would consider them to be almost immune or highly resistant to anti infantry firepower but weak and vunerable to anti vehicle firepower. However it seems the other way. Do the certs change this if they are maxed? What not to do: Do not let them be able to take control points (I am still wondering why tanks and aricraft can still capture control points without exiting the vehicle?) Do not take off the resource cost and do not remove the timer reducing it is good but not remove.
MAXs can only ride in galaxys and sundeerers. Libs are excluded from teh ability to carry maxs. To be honest I think MAXs should not be allowed to enter any gunner seat but only allowed to ride in strictly passenger slots.
MAXs can be brutal death machines but it just is way to easy to kill. One clip to the head is all that is needed to kill me, it's pretty sad. Friend told me they took out headshot increases but I guess they put them back in. It also don't help that 50% time if I am fighting someone in 5-7m; none of my shots will land. I put 110 rounds into some guy point blank but no dmg what so ever...not even hit markers. This is does not happen sometimes...it happens ALL the time. I have to always make sure to fight 10m+ or I won't hit. I really feel that we need bit more mitigation vs small arms fire. Like I said, I have been one clipped far to often now. Big scary robot that dies just a bit less faster than a HA. Yea... Anyways, can anyone tell me WHY they decided to make headshots do double dmg to MAXs? It's a massive weakness that people are capitalizing on just like making sure to go toe to toe so MAX can't even hit back....
okay sorry but which one you are asking why? Galaxies and sundeers are the primary transport vehicles. In the first game they were the only vehicles to have MAX passenger slots and they only had 2. Now any passenger or gunenr slot in a gal or sundy can be manned by a max. For why MAXs should not be in gunner seats for gal and sundys. Well simple MAXs were not made to fight from inside a vehicle. Makes no sense to have a humge powered armor suit only to man a medium machine gun from a galaxy. heck your own suit weapons would do more damage.
The only real issues with MAXes that need to be addressed are quality-of-life issues. Changing classes at a terminal should refund some resources and/or reduce the acquire timer by a bit. This would alleviate a lot of the mobility concerns people have. They need to be shown as dead to medics, possibly even give them bonus xp for reviving, to encourage medics to try to revive them. That's about it. More stuff is coming, this isn't an issue. There are a lot of cool ideas floating around, but I'll just let the developers develop. Survivability is fine. These aren't PS1 maxes, they dont cost nearly as much as an MBT so they should not have the survivability of one. They should stay low-cost low-stength. Certing into armor can give you quite a lot more small arms resistance (more than the tooltip says, research is being done).
A travel mode that takes a few seconds to activate/deactivate (during which you can't shoot) would be interesting without having a major impact on combat viability. Scout Radar on a MAX would make you an immortal god assuming there was an engineer somewhere in a 50m radius that knows what his repair tool does. Just have the Engineer drive his Flash indoors for the same effect currently. Class just needs more dev time as a whole.
Some great ideas here, I've fallen in love with the MAX (pathetic as it currently is) and I dearly hope it gets some quality Dev attention. Here's to hope! -Quiiliitiila
All discussion of MAXes should take into account that they're supposed to be squad tools, not really a viable solo class. They can't self support like infantry can, their weapon kits are inflexible, and their utility is limited to short range conflicts. Nor are they really effective in small numbers. But when they are in their element - namely a MAX crash from a galaxy or sunderer - they shine, and can simply overwhelm an enemy position. Namely though it's that squad tool thing. They need engineer support, they need transport, and they're far more effective in groups where they can be used aggressively. I'm pretty sure that's all on purpose. I don't see them getting travel modes or other things to make them more independent without receiving some other nerf to either effectiveness or availability, like longer timer / higher resource cost. /// i do think MAX suits are a bit too vulnerable to infantry weapons, but I think they should be mostly armored to the front - take less damage there, and more to the rear.
Indeed, their AI weapons lack any kind of range prowess. We're talking about a super-powered advanced exo-skeleton mech suit, yet an ordinary guy with an LMG can have far better accuracy. While he's standing upright, unsupported and unmounted! The spread could use a reduction. It doesn't matter if you are a pro shot; enemies outside a certain range will not even feel the touch of your piddly AI guns. In fact, I think I've killed more infantry with my Comet AT gun than I have with my AI arm at range. Logic; the Devs has not!
