Balancing MAX units

I'll just get right to it:

- No revives for MAX suits. It can take a significant effort to take down a MAX, and that should be rewarded not just with higher XP, but also by permanently taking it out of the fight. It's too easy for MAXes to sit at chokepoints getting repeated revives when they occasionally die to C4/rockets right now.

- Slower turn and sprint speeds. Right now, MAXes aren't really that much less mobile than infantry. Allowing infantry to more effectively harass them when they're unsupported would reduce the number of people pulling them to run around being a solo juggernaut with auto-repair and just farming KD/XP. Of course, they'd have to put a real limit on turn speed, not just something that can be overcome with mouse sensitivity changes.

- Accuracy reduction. This is more for VS and TR MAXes, although Mattocks may be questionable. Right now, MAXes do so much damage that accuracy scales incredibly well and makes MAX AI weapons not so much sidegrades. Most high BR MAX units are using the high accuracy options for good reason, albeit there are a few exceptions with odd preferences. I think MAX weapons need to be differentiated by something else, and shouldn't be able to cover such large areas as VS and TR MAXes can right now.

- Aegis/ZOE/Lockdown adjustments. Aegis needs to be faster so it can be used more reactively, ZOE needs to be less obnoxiously bright and annoying, lockdown needs to be removed and replaced with something more practical/less situational. Pretty much everyone knew it was going to be a bad ability for a MAX, should probably have never even made it live.

- Comets probably need a buff. They are clearly the worst first gen AV MAX weapons right now. It was stupid when they could kill infantry w/ZOE up w/just one shot from each arm, but right now they just feel like a really weak version of the falcon with no drop.

- NC MAXes rely too much on expensive extended magazines. They're nice for VS and TR too, but way more of a game changer for NC to the point that the NC MAX hardly feels complete without them. The cost should be reduced, can't see any better way to deal with this. They also need more bullets, my TR and VS MAX last way longer w/out needing a resupply.

- VS/TR AI weapons should probably have smaller magazines, even compared to extended mag NC. Right now they can kill too many infantry before reloading relative to NC, and at longer ranges as well. NC's close range advantage is considerable vs. single targets and for close range MAX vs. MAX, but it's not really a fair trade off to being able to mow through larger numbers of infantry from longer distances with a VS/TR MAX - which also means VS/TR MAXes can utilize cover more effectively as they don't need to close as long of gaps to be effective.



FWIW I play TR primarily and MAX is my second most played class only behind engineer. I feel that MAX is too often the ideal class to pull for too many situations right now, and that there's not enough downside to crowding an area with MAX spam currently.


This is also assuming a meaningful resource revamp isn't on its way to make the MAX feel like more of a special unit rather than just an improved infantry unit on a short timer that costs a usually trivial amount of resources that you can get back easily while using it.

• I don't care about non revives, but I'm a premium member. The proposed change will hurt the free players.
• If you make the MAXes any slower, it'll be child's play to kill them. It's already rather easy to kill an unsopported one. The supported ones are beasts due to the support.
• It's a misconception that MAXes have good DPS. Their theoretical DPS is equal to a low tier carbine without the ability to ADS and with better hipfire accuracy. People don't die because they are outgunned in a straight fight, they die because they are outlived.
• ZOE is useless. I doubt even if 1% of the current VS use it. Removing the glow won't change that.
• The problem with the VS weapons were that they were adjusted with the old ZOE in place. Now that this is gone, the weapons will obviously underperform.
• Can't really say anything about the NC MAXes right now without some recent stats.
• Only if you lower the TTK of the TR/VS MAX. Fielding an NC MAX is like having a insta-death bubble of death around it. This does not happen with the TR/VS MAX.

I assume you are a premium member. I'd love to hear from people that can't resource boost their way into MAX suits.

• Not a premium member.

• It will not be child's play to kill a MAX, I'm not saying turn them into snails, just make them less agile and a bit easier to escape.

• You're right that the DPS isn't higher than most infantry weapons, but being able to hip-fire at longer ranges does reduce TTK in a practical way and it's easier to track targets/keep tabs on multiple targets. Perhaps its the hip-fire aspect that's making the higher accuracy weapons so much better though, rather than the damage.

• ZOE is not useless, it's still fairly strong just for the mobility increase. The glow is more of a QoL change.

• Don't think VS weapons are underperforming in general, just comets.

• NC MAX has enough disadvantages balancing its close range TTK, it is much more situational right now than VS/TR AI MAX

A dude with MAX icon asking to nerf MAXes into oblivion. Oh the irony.

I do play MAX quite a lot though -

https://players.planetside2.com/#!/5428153774133126705/weapons

But I think it's obvious they're imbalanced right now and make infantry combat worse for every other infantry class.

I actually should wait until TR get better infantry weapons to try to get MAXes nerfed(though I don't think into oblivion), but eh.

I'll just quote myself on this one.

The speed boost is quite significant and makes it much harder for heavies to rocket you. It also lets you use movement offensively when you need to, whereas you can't shoot during a charge.

*sigh* If you're good at MAX it's not because it's OP. You're just good at MAXes.

The same was any class can posses higher threat than MAX with proper skill.

You'd have to be quite far away for the rocket travel time to be significant enough to make it difficult to hit them. At that point, you're already using primary instead even without ZOE. Unless you're suggesting heavies can't hit the broad side of a barn at point-blank range.

As for the second argument, again, what's the point of speed if the enemy can still hit you just as easily. With the negligible damage output increase, you're not gaining anything. At least charge has some avoidance in its favor.

You can peek in and out of cover more effectively, you have more control over your movement than with charge, you can strafe around groups of infantry making it harder for them to shoot you without friendly fire, etc.

There's a lot of value in faster movement.

The problem with negating revives is that it makes the game frustrating. In addition it would encourage max to stay in the background and snipe enemies instead of charging enemy lines.
Imho the only change max need is to be more tanky wnd deal less damage to infantry.

How to balance maxes:

Select every file that relates to max's

Press the delete key.

Next step: ESFs!

Nah, it's useless. You drop your MAX to 7000 hps from 10.000 for no practical benefit. There is a reason nobody uses ZOE any more, it is really THAT bad.

Peeking with a MAX is a death sentence as it's too predictable, needs to be at close range to be worth it and will easily result in a rocket to the face. Really, you might be able to get a few kills the first time but the infantry will pull rockets after that and will hit you even without ZOE.

More control? Just point and activate. That's all the control you need.

If you're running circles, you're already at point-blank range. If you want us to properly circle around and still shoot, then the angle velocity needs to be high enough that it exceeds ADS angle velocity (and not hipfire angle velocity as MAXes use hipfire themselves) and have weapons accurate enough at ADS range. Good luck with that.

MAXes are fine as they are. What they need is:

1. Making their faction-abilities (lockdown, ZOE, Aegis) usefull and rework them. Now they are all useless so SOE can finally rework them all.
2. Make Flak Armor viable option, because now there is no reason to pick it over Kinetic or Auto Repair.
3. More customization for MAX

Maxes are fine. I am dedicated MAX player and I can die as fast as with my HA if I play cocky or stupid. One C4, 2 rockets and I am deead, not mention tank direct hit, rocket pods and massive fire from ~50-70 meters, where even Blueshifts wont help you.

Maxes are fine, they stomp noobs who run in front of max "rumbo-style" and is dem hard to keep alife if there are experienced players around, expecially LA and HA. Playing MAX i learnt to look on every cell, floor, roofs above and aproach any room with 10x causion.

MAXes are fine. I often solo MAXes with my Decimator-HA wit Concussion nades so the are nowhere OP. I think they should be little tougher against explosives since I feel bad when I solo MAX.


Stop with this MAX threads. It is L2P issue. Good HA is MAX killer.

Maxes are working as intended.

All we need is rework on the special abilities&AV-options and more customizations.

Just removing revive and making it 50 point cheaper will be good start for now.

I agree, but lots of MAX heroes will complain that you're over nerfing them. The only point of your's I dislike is making MAXes unable to be revived; there's way too many random one shot mechanics in this game, and mindless heavy assault just spamming rockets everywhere that anyone can just die out of the blue completely out of their control, whether they made any mistakes or not. So MAXes should still be able to get revived, but perhaps only a timer, like if they're down for 30+ seconds without a revive, you're forced to respawn or something. Otherwise I like your points, MAXes are far too prevalent in this game, and it gets really annoying seeing them all the time knowing how long it takes to kill them, regardless of their actual talent as a player

Restoring ridiculously nerfed dumb fire rocket launcher accuracy to previous state would be fine fix for reducing MAX population as now most of my rockets seem to evade every MAX that almost cover my screen when fired from the hip.

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...es-are-dumbing-down-infantry-gameplay.170465/