Are NC every getting better max usefulness ?

Lol this is the same **** I've been reading for 10 years on planetside 1 forum.

Alot of players look at KPH, KPU, and other stats when comparing weapons. These stats include alot of JUNK data from newbies, trial runs, and random derping around by cert farmers.

What should be done is look at stats where it matters. Such as the stats in an alert where all teams are working to actually win. Alerts that happen on Jaeger are a good start. Maybe even the world record event.

For example, MAXes attributed only just under 6% of kills in the world record event. Here's the breakdown of kills:

291 VS AI
984 TR AI
1148 NC AI

74 VS AV
421 TR AV
111 NC AV

132 NS AA

365* VS Total
1405* TR Total
1259* NC Total

3161 AE Total

*Values don't include burster kills.

This shows AI MAXes for NC aren't that bad.. however the devil is in the details. There was over 19,000 kills for NC, and only 5.9% was by MAX AI weapons. That's not a great representation. But wait a minute, why is this true? With the current resource system, why wouldn't people spam MAXes like you see them do on normal servers? I mean personally, MAX weapons account for 11% of my personal kills. And despite the avatar, I'm not really a heavy MAX user.

Well this wasn't on a normal server. It was sign up only. It was a major coordinated event. Each side was playing to win and not to farm or earn certs. That tells me there is less of a point to using MAXes in coordinated play compared to live play. Still useful. They were used for a good number of kills. 3000 in 2 hours isn't nothing to scoff at. Especially when not everyone is going to play a MAX.

Point here is that we need to examine viability based on role. Not compiled stats saturated with corrupted data. Even the stats I show doesn't tell the whole story. It gets closer. But not quite. Its only one event. And the MAX class may not have gotten a chance to shine depending on where the majority of fights took place.

http://ps2oraclestats.com/monthlystats/

Considering NC AI max weapons KPU and KPH, yeah NC maxes really needs buffs

/Sarcasm

PS2 isn't 1V1 max game and destroying a max at 80%hp (if not 100% depending if no kinetic, grinders and accuracy) in less than 2 sec with an AI weapon is just insane.

Without mentioning that spread combined to high damages are enouth to kill/damage more than one guy with a single volley.


I already saw a single max cleaning a full squad at mani fortress with a clip of dual shotguns in 2 sec without giving enouth time for anyone to pull C4 or rocketlauncher.
nothing else on the game would be able to do this, even a full betlegeuse squad.

When I'm fighting NC and I hear a MAX stomping around....if I'm not a heavy I always run. I find a corner I can take a pot shot at him with or throw a sticky nade and run. If I'm a heavy...half the time I pull out my rocket or C4 only to get shot by another infantry guy I didn't expect.

When I play my NC with dual grinders...people run when I round a corner. when I walk around with my VS max people rush me. I can feel the difference. It just comes down to.....you have a short range weapon...so don't get yourself stuck in a Long range fight. Which is really no different then using any other weapon/vehicle in the game.

Well, just wait, if those NS MAX weapons do go live, there's at least one mid/long range AI weapon, something us NC will finally be able to have.

The tears of the VS and TR will be tempered by the NC tears at (if I remember correctly) the NS MAX shotguns.

(sigh) OP.... get real.

For your ignorance, you earned a slap. Don't worry. I'll be open handed.

NC maxes are brilliant. So what if we don't (yet) have midrange AI guns. Slugs, Falcons and Reavers do Great to Wicked Awesome. Learn how to use em and you won't feel a need to cry foul on the forums. Trust EViL. NC's handicap is minor when you learn to overcome it. Our advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Vet Tips:
Slugs on shotguns will gain all the reach you need against infantry in the majority of fights.
Hacksaws for short bursts of extreme power.
Mattocks for accuracy and some finesse.

Falcons will splash damage groups of footies, and smash vehicles and other maxes. Always pair em with Aegis shield. They are one of the most underrated guns in the game.

Ravens are one of the NC's best tools. They're for outdoor work. Best against vehicles, but pretty damn good against infantry. Accurate as f and their range is insane. If someone can't rule with them then they don't deserve to play this game. Period

So you link an old video?

Well Chaingun fire doesn't damage Sundies, so I guess we can consider this user error. There's nothing wrong with the stock TR MAX, NC has by far the worst stock MAX.

I was thinking about those multitude of times there's infantry around the Sunderer, and you're trying to hit the Sundy with Pounder at the same time you're shooting at the infantry with the chaingun, and it just doesn't work unless you're right on top of them because of the elevation necessary to hit with the Pounder.

Or like going after a Harasser where you can damage them with the chaingun, but you're constantly flipping up and down to get both guns in, whereas the VS and NC MAX are straight shooters with little or no elevation change to get both weapons going at the same direction when combining AI with AV.

NS LMG AI arms are supposedly coming, until then Mattocks with slugs and extended mags.

It's HMG and it's most likely basilisks for MAX.

Hope those weapons coming soon. I kinda like basiliks and to shotguns for my MAX i also wouldn't say no^^
Even if those basilisks will not be such precise as the normal MAX AI guns, i could imaging using them to be quite fun.
But hey, i also consider countersniping infilitrators and hunting MAXes with dual-bursters fun

That's interesting, and in some ways more useful, but a bit strange if TR/VS basically get NC shot weapons and something new, and NC get something new, but not the equvierlent of TR/VS weapons and just more shotguns.

This is such a small sample size that it seems irrelevant. For example, the data shows that TR have about 4x as many vehicle kills compared to the other factions. Does this mean TR AV MAX weapons are 4x better than their counterparts? Does it mean that the TR's AV weapons are even any better at all? No. This kind of stuff can have ridiculous results based on something as simple as "one of the TR platoon leaders really felt like spamming MAXes for AV duty that particular day" or "The VS made a few foolhardy vehicle rushes into an entrenched TR MAX position".

I'm also not sure how you can just brush off that "junk" data from newbies and cert farmers and such. Those are a part of the game and including them better represents Planetside 2 as a whole than some very specific, out of the ordinary event.

Personally I find it pretty much impossible to say who has the better MAXes because they are so wildly different. I appreciate that they aren't alike though, since I value significant faction differences and think it would be a shame if DBG went ahead and gave every side same-y MAX weapons. I wish there was more crazy, unique stuff like the NC MAX and the Magrider.

edit: though now that I think about it, I do believe NC has the worst MAXes overall for one very specific reason: cert cost. Exmags are absolutely mandatory for the weapons to be effective and slugs are almost as important. As someone who has both of these things on his NC character, this doesn't matter to me personally, but your average player who hasn't put many certs into his MAX is going to have a much better time if he's TR/VS which have AI weapons that are perfectly fine without any investment.

Because it represents the true nature of combined arms. It shows what works, and what really doesn't. The point I was making, is if coordinated outfits and teams are NOT using MAXes on the whole, then there is something wrong with the MAX's role in the game. Which means all they are useful for is farming. That's bad. And the reason why is because certs spent in a medium that is only good for farming becomes USELESS once farming is done. And eventually you will reach BR 100, complete directives, and have everything you want. There has to be a reason to use such mediums beyond that phase.

I noticed MBTs have very little use in the event as well. Even less than MAXes. Yet MBT spamming and zerging is an everyday practice. And it confirms my statements in the past (on other threads) that they are useless in Alerts. Sunderers ironically enough accounted for the most vehicle kills. But sundies provide a reason for use. This is a bit of a tangent, but is important as this thread caused me to delve deeper into whats going on with vehicles and I realized that MAXes are actually in a similar problem.

That problem is lack of a role. Now.. I want to say that MAXes are in a slightly better spot than vehciles. You CAN use MAXes to crash into a point for an attack or a counter attack. While vehicles cannot. So MAXes may not be in too bad of a spot. But outside that, what are they good for? Good for AA? I could see them being good at AA. Personally I've swatted down some serious Air rushes. But only 132 kills in 2 hours for the event? That doesn't seem spotty to you?

The whole story is told when you look at the amount of kills performed by Libs and ESFs. They are rather low. I've seen a SOLO player get more kills in a Lib in two hours than 1100+ players did total in Libs in that event. What the heck is going on? No farming. That's whats going on. The leadership know that cert farming isn't going to win them the event so they go for tactics that will ensure they win.

What does this have to do with MAXes? Makes Bursters useless. Just like the lack of MBT, Lightnings, and Harassers makes AV weapons roughly obsolete. You said that TR had 4x the AV kills. Most of those were from Pounders and we know how useful those are against infantry (ironically Ravens didn't have many kills at all, which kinda blows my mind). So I have to assume that's where the disparity actually is there.

Point here is that MAXes are reactionary in nature. They rely on opponents to be able to function to their full potential. Think about it, when do you pull MAXes? When you need to MAX crash a point, you pull AI weapons (or weapons good for AI in the case of some AV weapons being used in that role), if there's tanks, you pull AV. If there is Libs and ESFs you pull Bursters.

But when do you pull a MAX before you know what you will be facing? You don't. Well infantry can be like this too. What launcher do you use on your Heavy? Well.. you 'can' get away with the default or deci until air shows up and be good. And for other classes your preferred weapon (as long as its not a non-slugged shotgun) will be.. alright for whatever you're charging into. But you wouldn't do that with a MAX.

Is that a problem? I don't think so. The MAX seems like it should be the vessel for reaction. If you need that extra muscle in an area of expertise, you pay 450 nanites and pull beast specialized in what you need.

But this slaves the MAXes usefulness to the usefulness of its targets. And that is why I believe they only accounted for 6% of kills. Right now 2/3rds of those are pretty useless in organized play.. for the most part. Sure there is some bases where the control points are exposed to vehicle fire. But not all. And I'm not suggesting that all should be.

But what needs to happen is bases need a redesign with vehicles (air and ground) in mind. Not only in mind but in some cases, the focus. To give you an example (and you're getting the abridged version), is that we need destructible (with high resistance to Infantry explosives like C4 and rockets) tunnels, walls, ceilings, and other things that make vehicles viable for all base assaults. It doesn't mean vehicles are required (just like a deployed sundy isn't 'needed'), but sure as heck makes it easier.

By doing so, you increase the number of vehicles in coordinated play and increase the usefulness of MAXes. Then we can get better numbers in there to see how well the MAXes are doing. And the best part about this is, those cert farmers and derping zerglings aren't affected. They can do what they do as normal. But coordinated play gets more interesting as more options are at their disposal.

Semi-Automatic Slugs are not the same thing as a weapon that has a magazine capacity of 100+ rounds and has an automatic fire mode. Being able to enter a room and hold down the mouse and move from target to target is completely different then entering a room having to stand still or crouch to hit infantry 25+m at the other end of the room or down a corridor and then suffer from a 3-4 second reload after firing 6-10 shots.

Does AI maxes get changes buffs since this video?
Nope.

I could have made a thread about "X" weapon 3 years ago, it would still be viable if it havn't been changed and didn't received direct or indirect buffs/nerfs.

And http://ps2oraclestats.com/monthlystats/ stats are from those last 30 days.

Our maxes are just fine, in fact - i would argue they are more powerful than VS or TR if used right.

Those events are a prime example of redeployside. Something that doesn't work with MAXes nor ground vehicles. Remove that and even the ability to spawn at galaxies and the story would be quite different.

That doesn't explain the 132 burster kills. Or the low amount of MBT or Lib kills.

You can't honestly tell me that all Libs total across 3 empires get less than 344 kills on a normal server in 2 hours during a regular alert. In fact they do double on normal (non-Briggs) servers during their primetimes.. and that's with less than the population.. remember the World Record Event SET a World Record.

That's what makes this so profound there was way way more activity going on here than in a normal alert. AND it was all coordinated. There were no cert farmers and no KDR padders. Just peeps going in and trying to take bases. Was their redeploying going on? Sure there was. But its going on right now, on a random server on a continent that isn't even in an alert status.