Addressing the Heavy Assault shield

Discussion in 'Heavy Assault' started by Crowne, Mar 10, 2015.

  1. Crowne

    Yes, I know, I'm a terrible person.
    Yes, I know, ZOMG I should L2P (stay in school!)
    Yes, I know, my tears are your primary source of salt, which is actually really unfortunate as I really don't want to give you heart disease...

    I'm sure many people will come up with more similar comments in the responses. Such is life. It's not fun, but I believe in my freedom and right to speak.

    1. Gameplay discussion board
    2. Gameplay affected
    3. Post in gameplay discussion board. That simple.

    I'm encountering a very lopsided number of heavy assault units in situations where there is no threat of a vehicle at all. The primary reason they are using that particular unit is for the shield.

    The problem with this, from my perspective, is that it is far more tiring to constantly have to contend with heavies rather than a mix of infantry unit.

    As a non-heavy, we have to not only be better than the opponent, but we have to be better than the opponent + push F. This means needing to hit headshots, just about exclusively, every time. When every unit we encounter is using this shield, it means we have to commit that extra focus and eye strain every time while they just pretty much hit one button, F.

    I understand many people feel they need this mechanic to be competitive, and I don't want to ruin their gameplay. However, for people willing to take the deaths in stride with the kills and looking for diverse gameplay, this is really a poorly functioning mechanic.

    I'd really love to see a compromise of some sorts. One that allows the heavy shield to still be useful, but not something so inviting that everyone and their grandmother feels they must have it to compete.

    For those who feel many will quit without having this mechanic to rely on, I think we are selling them short. I think they will be able to adapt, and some may even feel liberated to use something other than a heavy.

    Okay, hopefully I've spoken well enough to be understood. I always enjoy mature, fair responses. Happy to concede if a good discussion changes my perspective.

    Back to the game... good hunting.
  2. HadesR

    With the majority of foot troops being Heavies I'm enjoying the EMP changes .. It's a nice crutch kicker
  3. Crowne


    Sweet, great tip. Kind of concerned I may affect my own team with a poorly thrown nade but nothing some practice and attention can't fix.
    Thanks!
  4. Khallixtus

    Yea, I play HA, and I say that without shame. And it is great knowing that I can go pick a 1v1 with anyone I want (that isnt a HA) and have a good chance of winning that fight. But I still wish for those times when I had the LA jetpack, or a medic heal/rez grenade. It is annoying that HAs can be used so much and so well for things other than anti-vehicle, but people want to be able to win fights. But every infantry has its place, but the things with medics is, you dont need many, just enough to revive the fallen, and enough engineers to place a mine or two at each door and place ammo packs, you dont need lots of those people. And Infiltrators are different altogether.

    Also, as HA, EMP grenades are terrifying, especially as I use NMG (still need a few hundred more certs for max adrenaline) and the recharge time is INSANE (45 seconds). It basically puts it out of comission for, well, a long time, and fighting LA's/Medics without overshield is actually horribly difficult. The fact that it removes normal shield makes me so vulnerable I literally go hide in the corner and hope they dont find me before my shields are back up, or at least a little bit more so. I don't things are likely to change, and definitely not anything major, so the best solution might be to find a way to counter the HAs, instead of trying to get SOE to weaken them, which has happened countless times.
    • Up x 1
  5. Eternaloptimist

    Addressing the Heavy Assault Shield.........

    "Hello Mr Heavy Assault Shield, why the hell am I trying to 1v1 you from the front when I am not myself a Heavy, a Max or in a tank or a long way away behind a sniper rifle or manning a Mana Turret?"

    Seriously though, there are plenty of counters to an overshield, even without considering a fast reaction time and a high RoF carbine or a mega-death revolver. in the hands of someone who is a decent shot.
    • Up x 2
  6. Vivicector

    HA, HA everywhere. Nope, really. Heavy Assault is the most played class, just because it gives you an incredible advantage in duel. In no other shooter there is a class with such an ability and no drawbacks. It is a constant imbalance in fights.

    Any other class have to use brains in fight in order to be effective. LA must choose positions and be on the move, but don't get caught in flight. Infiltrators must flank properly, since they have lower HP and can't shoot out of cloak. Medics must stay alive, they are a prime target for everybody and don't have direct fight advantage. Engies have to put their mines and turrets in proper position or they are dead meat. Only HAs can counter all those actions by a press of a button.

    I remember SOE trying to address the issue by adding a ramp up time. There was a great ****storm on forums, mainly caused by HAs who are too used to their iwin buttons. Some, however, supported the initiative.

    What can be done? Well, there are variants:
    1) Ramp up time. Around 2 seconds. So, HA will be able to use shield only when they expect the fight there (brains, brains...).
    2) Remove NMG, leave only resist shield in game. Any damage done before HA activates the shield will lower effective overshield HP. Resist shield is proactive tool, turning it on under fire is already a bit too late.
    3) Heavy with active shield must be auto-spotted on the radars in radius. Won't solve the main problem, however.
    4) Heavy may loose movespeed in general. Like, you know, that LMG, Launcher and NMG are actually heavy!

    I personally would love to see variants 1 and 2 in game, may be mixed together. They won't affect smart players much, but all that "in any unknown situation, press F and shoot" guys will suffer (well, I say, they will have to L2P).
    • Up x 1
  7. Zoobe

    The HA issue is largely of other lighter classes making. Going head on at HAs then crying due to the shield. Well, hey, that shield is for breaching rooms with Maxes, Grenades, Rockets. It is for fighting Vehicles. It is for standing in front of that medic who is reviving team mates and protecting them.

    Sure, it is useful in 1v1 infantry fights of course, but it is a far bigger game than that and PS2 is not about all 1v1s is it, no matter how we would like it to be. If you lose head on fights with HAs due to their shield, you put yourself in a position to lose, it really is a L2P issue I think.

    Kinda sad in a combined arms game all you see is this 1v1 spiel which is completely redundant nonsense.
    • Up x 1
  8. Hosp

    I wrote this is the past and quote it here as a reminder...


    (November, 2014)
  9. Stormsh7dow


    The Heavy is already to slowest, as it's lmgs are bad a hip firing you have to ADS thus limiting your movement speed stacking on the movement speed debuff the HA shield gives you. Not to even mention the HA shield is a beacon for everyone to shoot you since you light up like a Christmas tree, so i fail to see how HA has no drawbacks. Maybe if you have something called aim it's not hard to kill the HA that can't even dodge. Funny how you are talking about using brains, if you're running up to ha's with your medic or engi you're doing it wrong. Using good tactics the medics assault rifles wreak HA's and everything if you can aim them, even the engi with carbines works the same. LA has the greatest advantage against ha's. I'm sorry but you get the noob stamp for calling it an iwin shield
  10. qiray12

    If this heavy shield is about to get a nerf then i want to see a nerf to all classes

    infiltrator: no deep cloak and a bigger delay when cloaking and decloaking.
    engi: limited amount of ammo boxes and mana turrets.
    medic: limited amount of charges on your medic tool and a limited amount of revives, heal ticks on your grenades.
    max: make it a la when revived and make it auto spotted close range.
    la: lower amount of shields and a louder noise on the jumpjets.

    is this what you want for those classes, simple answer NO. then why get rid of the heavies core? yes the shield makes it strong in 1v1 but when you look at this game when do you actualy fight 1v1? as la and infil you can just jump ontop or behind them and kill them before they can react (headshots) a heavy doesnt have great options to sneak around with his ability cus you glow like a torch when you use the shield.

    not to mention you walk 20% slower with your shield up.

    just becouse you died a couple times to a heavy becouse they won cus of the shield deal with it, every class has its own strenghts heavies strenght is just to take more shots then other classes.
  11. Magma52

    I'm sorry, what?

    Which game are we playing? DOTA? World of Warcraft? I didn't realise that we were permanently consigned to the class we picked at the start.

    This is an MMO game where you can actually change class whenever you want. That is a very unique thing. Make us of it.

    Stubbornness and refusal to change class is the only reason people call for a nerf on the Heavy Shield. If I get beat by a Heavy and want revenge, I change to Heavy myself and go and whoop his ***. Simple. Job done. No nerf needed.
    • Up x 1
  12. Corezer

    I also feel the flat damage shields (NMG/Adrenaline) are OP, because they cannot be mitigated as a threat. If you use a nade to soften him up by 500 damage you are still at a disadvantage overall unlike with resist where any damage before they activate the shield mitigates the shield itself. A delay wont fix this it will only make the problem less consistent which is why I don't like the idea, I would go with 300 shield (sans 600) on an 18 second recharge (instead of 45) which is more durability over time and more consistent on if the heavy will have shield up when you encounter them, and it still has the same problem really but 300 isn't as much to surmount so I feel it will be a lot better, while still leaving them better for their role as the front line fighter.
  13. Zoobe

    300 wont assist a class designed for room breaching, fighting MAXs, AIR, Vehicles and point holds. It is 2 bullets, or 1 headshot. The game will simply become a MAX crash at every point in a building with no counter. This thread is beyond ridiculous. You think you want to nerf heavy, you will all be back crying about MAXs and being farmed by a endless stream of vehicles and air spammers at every single fight.

    Remove MAX, remove AI Pods and give LA back C4 vs Tanks, remove Sundy shields and yeh, no problem with HA 300 HP HA shields. Until all that cheese is nerfed, the last thing you need is weakened HAs
  14. _itg


    Not that I'm arguing for a HA shield nerf, but you could make the exact same argument if the shield gave you 10,000 HP and Higby hair. Just because each player can use an overpowered ability doesn't make it good for gameplay.

    On the other hand, the fact that one ability may be much stronger than the others isn't necessarily bad for gameplay, either. A prime example is the medic's revive ability. Realistically, it's FAR more overpowered than the HA shield could ever be. A single mediocre medic can make a bigger impact on the battle than the most MLG of heavies. But no one complains about it, because people like revives, since they keep fights going, and it feels good to get a second chance, and a third, etc.

    I guess what I'm getting at is, the HA shield discussion shouldn't be about whether it's fair or unfair. It should be about whether any proposed change will make the game more or less interesting.
    • Up x 4
  15. Akashar

    Yeah, if only we could switch class whenever we wanted instead of being stuck with the same all the time. That's too bad, I would really like to play something else than HA, and overpower all of these helpless souls who got the questions wrong. I mean, truly, HA is the only class that should be played, no other has anything on it, they're just cannonfodder.+1 to you man, +1.
  16. Erilis


    You're not a terrible person OP, don't say such things! But you may not be taking the right strategy towards fighting HAs as Eternaloptimist and some others have pointed out.

    I've been playing for maybe a year or a little more and I can now confidently say that I can take down a HA 1v1 one out of four times as another class (LA for instance). The shield is designed to give HA an edge in battle. Their class is meant to be at the front lines fighting against not only other infantry but also vehicles. Other classes such as infiltrator, medic, engineer, and even LA aren't really meant to attack the enemy head on but rather play a more supportive subversive role.
    If you see a HA do not attack him directly. Try to attack him from the sides, behind, or at a distance before he spots you. I personally have never seen any problem with the shields and I pretty much never play as HA. Focus on strategy, that's my advice. Best of luck OP!
  17. Erilis


    Right on the money _itg.

    Typically in game design you want various classes with unique abilities that are more powerful in some area that other classes aren't, but the caveat being that they can always be countered, usually via abilities or strategies that may not work on another class. All this creates the illusion that the character you pick is unique or somehow stronger than the other classes when in actuality it's just a different flavor. Unfortunately it can also create the illusion that your opponent's class is genuinely stronger than all other classes.

    Arguably no game is going to be perfectly balanced but there's certainly a pattern where players only see the strengths of their opponents and either fail to see their opponents' weaknesses or the strengths of their own class. My older brother did this a lot when I played board games with him when we were kids... More often than not, it's sore losing, really...
  18. Zoobe

    There is never a situation where you can not expect your enemy to go full cheese on you in PS2. Wipe a small five man squad of HA and LA as LA in a 1-12, and hey presto, 2 maxs, 2 engys and a medic back at ya.
  19. Crowne

    Thanks for the helpful responses folks.

    • I'm finding the EMP with grenade bandolier helpful from a teamplay perspective. I'll often wind up dying while getting a good angle to hit the most opponents, but it is satisfying to notice enemy colors disappear from the map as I wait for respawn. That has been pretty effective so far.
    • Of course, well aware we can all choose to go Heavy all the time. That isn't really addressing the issue though, but would instead make the situation even more perilously boring and linear.
    1. I have no problem with a 1v1 situation if I come upon a heavy. I might win if my aim is great. We may both die, if my aim is great. I might get a quick trip back to a spawn. Such is life, we all know that logging in.
    2. What I was addressing, largely, is the massive preponderance of heavies we are seeing in situations such as biolabs. Encounter many tanks in biolabs? Need to counter air? Yes, there are maxes, and on a max crash the heavy isn't always the best counter.
    3. Again, 1v1 isn't the point at all. 1v1, v1, v1, v1, v1 is the point. I think there should be a way to design an effective shield, that is fun to play, but doesn't make it so appealing that it becomes the fall back for every MLG wannabe and their grandmothers.
    • I get the sense that people are really holding on tight to the one thing that seems to work for them. Personally, I think that is a detriment to overall gameplay.
    Every class experiences changes. There is no reason Heavy should be any exception to that.
  20. Crowne

    You should be able to say that about any class. The fact that you need to go HA in order to say that, to me, is a problem with HA.

    Also, as HA, EMP grenades are terrifying, especially as I use NMG (still need a few hundred more certs for max adrenaline) and the recharge time is INSANE (45 seconds). It basically puts it out of comission for, well, a long time, and fighting LA's/Medics without overshield is actually horribly difficult.[/quote]

    LA's cannot use the jumpjet while affected by EMP, I've seen them hop around quite confused as they try. You are no more affected by EMP's than any other class EXCEPT Medic and I would absolutely support having their ability affected by and EMP as well, just like everyone else.

    You are NOT out of commission just because you don't have your shield during an EMP, like everyone else.