Frustration Rant: NC MAX AI

my #1 wishlist in PS2 is a nc max version of blueshifts/mercies and then give tr/vs shotguns. Screw diversity I would throw money at soe for something like that.

How about this?

NC wants weapons with more ranged capabilities and the capacity for sustained fire, and the TR/VS think shotguns more than make up for their disadvantages and actually dominate this game.

Design two weapons. One NS MAX LMG and one NS MAX shotgun. Everyone wins. NC are happy, TR and VS are happy, SOE makes $, and then we'll see the truth as well.

May I suggest learning to use the Falcons & the Ravens. I especially love the raven's, they take practice, but once you learn them they are really good for mid to long range.

i never got the massive hard-on that seemed to appear half way through development for NC shotguns, i mean they seemed to progress well with faction traits, focus being on weapons like the gauss saw, the acx-11 and the reaper DMR, the only faction to get a OHKH infil weapon as default, and then suddenly, "hey we should put shotguns on the max, and then the aircraft?"

why the hell do we not have two large gauss saw's on the NC max arms? honestly, tr get chainguns, fits their faction high rof, huge cof bloom (you'd expect them to win in cqc) , the vs get their sort of (eugh cannot use the B word ending in -dardised even though its a legitimate term?) laser knock off thing, and NC gets a slow firing punchy HMG that has a heavy but controllable recoil making it effective at cqc but shine out to range, not this shotgun buisness

that way we could then share the shotgun love around , and let all you tr have another weapon that absolutely sucks with lockdown (good luck with that).

but hey maybe i got the wrong impression about the NC something about the flavour mentioning railgun tech, all the infantry weapons being focused around said railgun tech and working in a similar fashion to the "God-SAW" when i should have realised what they actually meant was heavily gimmicky shotguns

p.s. all of the people saying nc is fine 'cause inside? what is the distance between the landing pad on a biolab and the closest cover inside? its beyond nc range. so what youre saying is that we are so OP that we have to stand in c4 butt slapping range of door ways to stand a chance? when a tr/vs can backup into the room and stand where the engi places turrets, be completely safe, and get more kills (no reload ever)

dont get me wrong shotguns have their place, those tiny rooms, yes, but as the only AI ability for a faction in a game where the ground meta is so focused on how many maxs you have? its just not pleasant

TL&DR, why shot guns, we use gauss rifles, give me 2 gauss SAW's
/rant

The magazine size won't change unless it's coupled with another pellet number or damage nerf. SOE doesn't want to go back to Hackmaxes one clipping other MAXes.

The most of NC players fail to realize, that while TR and VS max weapons look heavy, they got very low dps. Lower then default carbine, slightly higher then repeater. 2 gauss saws, sure! But only after TR get 2 CARV's and VS get 2 Orions.

The thing is, only NC MAX AI weapons at the moment are not weaker then HA variants. You get 2 shotguns, each of them as effective as average infantry shotty. VS and TR MAX weapons are butchered versions of HA weapons.

Will i be OK with a TR max with 2 shotguns? Sure!
Will you be OK with NC max with 2 pistols? Doubtful.

I agree with the original post of our maxes being crippled because of their exclusive reliance on shotguns as our primary anti-infantry weapons. The biggest problem is our short magazine coupled with long reload time.

• Dual Scattermaxes with extended magazines can be fired continuously for a little over 3.5 seconds. Reload speed is roughly 3 seconds. You spend nearly as much time or more reloading as you are firing.
• Dual Cyclers with extended magazines. can be fired for over 13 seconds (no lock-down) before being reloaded. Their reload speed is slightly faster than the NC max at around 2.3 seconds.
• Dual Quazars with extended magazines have nearly the same firing time as the TR max with a comparable weapon. VS maxes have the fastest reload speed at 2 seconds.

In the ability to lay down suppressive fire to pin the enemy down, the NC max has no capacity at all to perform this task. The other faction maxes are more than able to do so however. That means the NC max cannot serve nearly as well in an offensive role as the other maxes because it cannot force the enemy's heads down before the infantry can reach the enemy's position. The NC max can use a shield but he cannot return fire which makes his support more vulnerable to enemy fire. If an NC max pulls a shield and charges up the stairs, I'm likely to charge down and blast his engineer support with my shotgun before he can stop me. You can't do that against the other maxes because they're gonna be firing a wall of lead in your face.

Oh yes I will be an Einstein, the General Patton of the NC to use weapons with low ttk vs infantry and a long reload time after each shot (for the falcons) against a squad of twelve infantry shooting back. I will become the reaper of death!

I'll just leave this here:

You forgot the 300000+ kills with pounders.

Explain why KPU is a relevant balance metric by itself and why, even if it was, the above negates any of the points presented in this thread.

You, NC players are so funny to observe.
You're using exactly the same charts as a proof that "tank balance is fine". And as a proof that "pounders are OP". All the time... ALL. THE. TIME. Yet, as soon as the chart shows something from NC arsenal being too good, those charts magically become "Irrelevant". NC dudes, you're hilarious!

1.) What does that have to do with me? You're being ridiculous. The NC is made up of a random collection of individuals from all across the world with completely different sets of values, backgrounds, ages and levels of intelligence. Same with the TR. Same with the VS. You're doing some pretty intense mental gymnastics to assume that all those people are of the same mind.

2.) What does that have to do with the point I just made about KPU? KPU is still a pointless metric by itself. You still haven't explained why it is.

3.) So you're saying that if some random members of another faction make stupid arguments, you should dumb down your own opinions to match theirs (in this case, use KPU as a balance metric by itself)? That is ridiculous as well.

I don't get it either. I'd trade all of the NC Max weapons for any of the other empires, I do more reloading than killing as it is now. Except perhaps Raven which I think is fun to use and an effective way of getting rid of the spawn camping prowlers. The only thing NC Max had going for it was that it could reliably take down an enemy max in a 1on1 (Dual Hacksaws). Now I get ***** by Dual Pounders, the only times I own other Maxes is when I charge and get a jump on them (except of course when you meet people who can't aim). But then I also die - it takes _4_ seconds to reload emptied hacksaws - and they res up, while I don't have anyone with me due to charge.

I don't even want Maxes in the game, but since everyone and their mother is pulling one these days (TR Pounder/Mutilator farms at towers, VS Blueshift zergs in bases) I'm forced to. No matter how many maxes you blow up with C4, they'll just res up and only another Max can clear everything out reliably.

I'm growing tired of this ES trait of ours. Good damage (once perhaps, the damage of the other two empires are pretty damn close nowadays), very small mag size, low ammo count, longest reloads.

Just compare ESF AI weapons: Light PPA and Banshee vs Airhammer. I got 7 shots which I have to fire at relatively close range. Light PPA has 60 (iirc) which it can fire at any distance at anything. Banshee is just ridiculous.

Oh well, rant over.

Both Tech plant and AMP station capture point in inside a fairly large and open room. Those condition leave scatters (and Aegis) in a pretty mediocre position to "excel." You would be much better with a HA in those situation.

Useable? Yes.
Excel? No.

Use slugs problem solved

Slugs increase your effective range by 5-10m, but also make you worse against other MAXes and infantry at close range. They lower your already abysmal kills/magazine even more and they don't fix the slow reloads or lack of continuous fire.

Using one slug and one without does seem to work better than just pellets though, but it by no means fixes the problems.

He's actually right, KPU as a metric is useless for balance stuff

NC MAX is still the best MAX though.

Best for what? Just curious.

For the ranges MAX are useful at?

For MAX crashing a room?

For holding a room?

For all of that, shotguns with full damage >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> machine guns with rate of fire cut in half.

The increase in effective distance is a bit more than that. In VR, a single 6-round clip of a Scattercannon can't kill a target at 20 meters (need about 8 rounds), while with slug ammo, a single clip will kill a target at 30m fairly reliably (need only 3 hits). In close quarters, good aimers will be able to utilize slugs for getting headshots, also helps vs other MAXes.