As a MAX user, it's obvious MAXes are overpowered

I know you know, but just saying you can definitely go 1 on 1 with a MAX. But like you said, they don't just stand there and go 1 on 1. Most MAX players who are smart know not to go 1 on 1 either. It sounds silly, but if someone runs out and sees you as a MAX and runs away, there is always that chance they're waiting for you somewhere with a charge already planted.

Actually, no the MAX is not over powered. When you do face a max that seems hard it is because they have high levels of their certifications. Go play a MAX with low levels and then play one with high levels. There is a marked difference. Also, it is how you kill the Max that matters. Grenades, C4, just sustained fire but the point of a MAX is to absorb a lot of infantry fire. They give up mobility, and they the weapons of the other classes, like the Heavy or Light Infantry can end their time quickly. It is possible to be effective with a MAX but it is also easy to get yourself killed rather quickly, especially if you think your all mighty invincible. What you can accomplish though is probably running into a room and getting a kill or two, but in the end you can do that with other classes too, just you can't be as brazen about it.

I think the MAX fulfills the wrong role. Right now it is a super HA in terms of killing potential. I think it should be one in terms of resilience.

People say that the MAX can be easily killed by explosives. True. People say that the MAX is an easy mode farm tool. Also true.

Imagine if the MAX had half of its current firepower but double its health. Right now the average TTK for a MAX against infantry is roughly half a second if I recall correctly. That would be doubled to a whole second. I think that such a change would lead to more interesting tactics and squad diversity rather than many battles being almost entirely dependent on who has the most MAXes at a given time.

Also, to the OP: you have a great name.

My max always has fully certed flak armor. I often stack this with T3 EOD. Even with all that protection, People can still down me if they do not play ignorantly and use cover. Even with full flak armor, Direct hits from the decimator still take out about 50% of your health.

A MAX suit is supposed to be overpowering... it's a MAX suit, it's right in the name.

The real issue is resource allocation coupled with the "you can do everything at any time" ethic in PS2.

Which is why you see 5 infantry trying to take a base while 30 vehicles roam around acting like great big suits of armor/taxis so often.

The combat multipliers and scaling are all out of whack in this game.

Still, since MAX suits are easily taken down by C-4 or HA rocket spam, most don't live every long.

Teamwork is the key here.

I wanted the MAX to be a tactical advantage. Seeing how PS2 is after all not about tactics(One other initial thought of mine), MAX as they are fit perfectly- Instead of a tactical advantage they are KD boosters. You bait the C4, dodge the rocket and spray. Use EOD(I use 1, more than enough), fully Cert your Charge(Because the rest suck except NC Shield) and buy your premier AV and premier AI. You're done, MAX MLGReady skills.

Be nice to your fellow Engineers, stop your Charge before you cross 3 rooms in and out twice(Melee key) and when you suspect a Sticky, DO NOT go all the way into a group of 10 friendlies; For instance in a Bio's tele room, stay just inside the shield and wait. You'll only kill those who stand right next to the shield(It's something).

I mean really that's all there is to it, but what I wanted were support abilities(Perhaps even Aura stuff), being able to shield your buddies effectively by going in front(Too low TTK to do this) ETC ETC, not getting my allies killed from attacks targeted at me while I can only feel sour about it. Not going on a KD rampage which then ends by 1 or 2 bricks of C4.

A good place to start would be the core of things, MAX need to absorb way more Damage but also deal less(And perhaps their HitBox should be wider so that you can effectively be a mobile cover for others).

Can I also say, Fracs need to be Lock On against both Air and Ground. WITH dump firing option unless they work like the Striker(SOE Y DIS NOT LOCK GROUND!).

Lock on Fractures will never happen. Or, to be more precise, it happened before and led to the Striker staying in a really sorry state for a long long time.

The best you can hope for is for developers to acknowledge that having soft lock on for ground vehicles is not a bad idea and merely adjust the range of acquisition to what they deem appropriate. By soft lock on, I mean the way coyotes work right now, or Striker against air.

I disagree with maxes being overpowered. You didnt state what faction MAX you are using and there is a difference. I have all my certs for my MAX. I have 3 loadouts, 1 with Hacksaw, 1 with falcons and 1 with burster. BTW its the NC max. Currently I am a MASTER max. I rarely use the hacksaw weapon because it is too slow to reload. I have used the falcons very much with great success but the last 2 patches, they have nerfed the falcons by decreasing the distance of the target to get hits. They also added a curved trajectory which before the falcons went in a straight line. I am not as successful hitting tanks since last 2 patches. I have also used the burster quite a bit for anti air. That part seems to work fine but cant use my shield went I have equipped with burster. BTW I have never killed an opposing faction max. Tried every type of weapon but seems the NC max are not up to par with other factions. I have requested strategy information how to use the NC max on a one to one with other factions. No one seems to know how to succeed. I have also reported a bug but no response. For some reason I am not able to fire my weapons while I am being hit. Also with falcons, it will not reload while I am hitting the fire buttons. It keeps recycling the reload. But yet the same configured max of my friend does not do this and we tested. He observed what was happening and it didnt make sense.

This is just another of the changes (from PS1) I really don't understand, in PS1 MAX were tougher (relatively), but did less DPS (relatively) and that seperated them from general infantry much more.

Making them much tougher, but less deadly, opens up so many more options for play with MAX and play against MAXs.



Admittedly the big issue with this would be AV MAX which might be tricky to balance (AI and AA should be relatively simple).

Through resists you could keep the vehicle vs MAX (and AV MAX vs MAX) relationship the same.

If you want to reduce MAX damage and buff their HP keep in mind that this also would require a rebalance of AV weapon damage vs infantry. If you only nerf MAX AI weapons pounders will start to truly dominate.

Yeah, that's a very good point.

Yeah hopefully, basically a ghetto AV/AI system from PS1 really.

Maxes are NOT overpowered.

They operate fine as they are, and easy to kill if the get ouit of position, or are caught by numerous infantry.

No changes required.

Only thing that's funny in there is that resources don't mean anything now that you get 450 back in like 3 minutes and that's like, average estimated life time of a br30+ MAX.

nice try

You get 50 per minute, 75 if you're premium.

F2P:

• First MAX pull at 0 mins, down to 300 resources
• Second MAX pull at 3 mins, down to 0 resources
• Third MAX pull at 12 mins, down to 0 resources
• And so on, every 9 minutes one MAX pulled

Premium:

• First MAX pull at 0 mins, down to 300 resources
• Second MAX pull at 2 mins, down to 0 resources
• Third MAX pull at 8 mins, down to 0 resources
• And so on, every 6 minutes one MAX pulled

Considering the current resource gain, medics should lose the ability to revive MAXes. Alternatively, upon revival, half the cost of a fresh MAX should be deducted.

If resources were 50/minute, wouldn't that require nine minutes to earn back 450?
(Two minutes to recover the resources required to be able to reclaim MAX a second time, assuming you started from 750 before the first MAX.)

From the Medic or the MAX?

In PS1, a revived MAX had no armor (of which it normally had half a ton) but just Infantry health (of which it had about the same as normal Infantry; it just felt like less in practice). In the spirit of that system, what if MAXes only ever revived with a single bar of health and the upgrading of the revival tool had no impact on MAX revival efficiency? With the current revive time limit, that would ensure frontline MAX revival is not practical; they'd get up and fall back down easily, either to stray shots or concentrated fire, and, for the Medic, they'd take the same amount of effort regardless of how highly the tool were ranked. Exposure time could not be mitigated. The enemy would need to be pushed back considerably by other allies.
If things like Charge get in the way, just drain the meter upon revival so they can't.

Why would you nerf the max? Arent they supposed to be juggernauts of the battlefield that need to be killed by teamwork?

If that difference comes at the cost of game depth, then something deserves changing.

• If you have a 16 vs 16 infantry fight, winning that battle comes down to a wide variety of important factors (positioning, medic use, aim, etc.)
• If one side pulls 8 or 9 MAXes, that side just wins. Winning has come down to mostly one factor: who pulled the right mix of MAXes?

If MAXes were counterable, this would be improved. This would ideally be done through loadouts. And no, those 3+ C4/rocket users I kill in my MAX each life are not "countering" me. They're using the best weapon available to them, but those weapons don't raise their expected win rate above 30-40% (which means I'm countering them.)
PS2 will still be different from other FPSes if it has balanced classes. But it shouldn't have one class be the class that all infantry combat revolves around, because infantry are already trash outdoors and they deserve their one place to be useful (indoors)!