I think that they should make rocket launchers primary weapons so that HAs have to choose which type of enemy they will specialize in. Right now they can effectively engage any target without paying a single resource which is just wrong.
Aside from the fact MAX units cost resources, are on a timer, pay for their weapons(which aren't that much better than HA's in the first place) and resistance with mobility, and need an engi to have them on the leash at all times... Yes. Aside from all that, same argument could be made. So you see no problems with the fact that in a game with 5 classes one of them is used five times more than all others combined? None at all?
To be honest, I'm sick of them being so strong on the basis that my whole team are just Heavies and I can never get ammo on my medic. I'm a Engi player anyway, means I don't need anyone to help me But yeah I do think that the shield makes it a free win in a fire fight with another person, sure you can argue that your medic beats heavies all the time, but that is more to do with the fact that you are better than the heavy.
I'll never understand why this is such a hard concept for so many people to grasp. Heavy assault is the... heavy assault class. All the other classes are either support or specialized. They trade off head to head fire power/survivability for utility. This is the very definition of balance. And what is worse they are not gated in any way. e.g. anyone can pull any standard infantry class at any time. Going head to head with a lot of infantry? Pull heavy. Have enough heavies, not enough ammo / suppressive fire? Go engie. Dead bodies everywhere and no one to rez them? Go medic. Stuck at a choke point with no way to push through? Go Light Assault or possibly infiltrator.
Let me give you an example. In Battlefield 2142, there was a class called Assault. It was what PS2's Combat Medic was based on, though they probably used the Assault from BF3. Anyway, Assault could own any other infantry class in 1v1 simply because they had access to best ARs in the game. Did you see half the server rolling Assault at any given time? No, because being good in infantry combat was the only thing Assault was good at. They were completely helpless against vehicles(only class in the game that couldn't do anything about them) and while they could heal themselves, they were limited by the usual ammo pool. And it should be noted that BF2142 used magazines as ammo system - when you reloaded, the remaining bullets in the magazine were lost forever. You still needed Engineers to destroy enemy armor, you still needed Support to drop ammo kits. Recon was a wildcard. If Heavy Assault was simply the best 1v1 class in the game, no one would care. But it's a class that it's best in 1v1 in the game, AND it's the only class with anti-vehicle capability(in a game that doesn't have a vehicle spawn limit!) AND their ammo pool is so large they might as well not care about Engineers existing at all. It's three classes rolled into one. That's not balance, that's nonsense. Saying **** like "It's HA and some support classes" you only reinforce the argument.
What the hell are you talking about? A) the classes are based on things from planetside 1 that you once chose from pools dividing up x amount of battle certs into skills, vehicles, weapons and armor. The heavy assault basically has the 'heavy armor' which absorbed more damage (i.e. the shield) and a second primary weapon slot which is the rocket launcher. B) the ammo pool is so high that they do not need an engineer? Have you even played the class? Maybe the LMG has a huge amount of ammo, but it's the worst primary weapon in the game and the only bonus to it is you can spam ammo to suppress them, and enforce you know it your ammo is low. It takes 3-4 rockets to kill a vehicle, assuming you hit with every shot and they didn't escape to repair you basically have enough rocket to take on one tank or one sunderer. Aircrafts can outrun or deploy flares to escape rockets. C) this isn't CoD how much of this game is 1v1? Most the time you're fighting I'm squads or huge battles. The heavy assault is the class that runs into the room to try and cap the point, stands by the door to try and hold it, can help scare away vehicles or even kill them. They have no utility, and if you are in a good squad and everyone is running HA then you aren't in a good squad. All you can do as HA is be the first guy to run in a room, or be the guy to try and take out a MAX or vehicle. D) no other class has anti vehicle capability? So tank mines, c4, and anti vehicle turrets aren't anti vehicle capability? TL;DR heavy assault does exactly what they are supposed to do, they have their niche in the game and it balanced. Like every class they have their pros and cons. Not to mention they are only superior at infantry combat in the bubbles that their class is predicated upon. If you can't kill heavies as other classes then it's not a problem of balance. Some of the best players in the game do not play heavy assault, try telling them that heavies are overpowered. They have no problem sacrificing a shield for a much better gun.
They arent called light assaults right? So shouldnt heavy assaults be harder to kill? I mean what is all that excess armor made of styrofoam?
Agree with most of your points but LMGs the worst primary in the game? Biggest crock, LMGs are the best primaries in this game. No primary can compare with their 50m range versatility (most fights happen within this range) their combination of small COF/bloom, manageable recoil, high RPM/damage ratio (Gauss SAW, Orion, SVA-88, MSW-R) , large mag size and not to mention their attachment versatility on some of them.
I don't care. Hahaha, no. LMGs are best primaries, the only area in which they're slightly lacking is the hipfire, otherwise they're just bigger ARs. And yes they do have such a high ammo pool they don't need an engineer. How many people can you kill with 400 bullets? Even if your aim is terrible, at least ten. Then someone gets you and you respawn with full pool again. I dunno, I didn't come with the 1v1 argument, people who want HA to be the "main class" did. And why not? HA can drive a sundy just fine and a Sundy is all you need. You can heal yourself with medkits, since you have a rocket launcher by default it's not like you have much use for C4, and the ammo problem is largely nonexistant. When you die, just respawn at sundy and go back. What's the problem? All these are suicidal, and two of these can't even touch aircraft.
I think it is fairly easy to see how Heavy Assault is overpowered. Saying that Heavy Assault is sacrificing some grand utility for it's utter destructive capacity is a really false dichotomy. Ideal class balance would mean that, in a game with 5 classes, each class is in it's prime at least 20% of the time, and in PS2 that's not even close to true. Though this is a rough estimate, I think it's fair to say that at least 80% of gameplay is focused on infantry fighting infantry. With two players of equal skill, at the "Standard" base range of 0-50 meters engagement range, a Heavy player will win because of higher effective hit points. I think that's a fair premise if, again, we're assuming equal skill. We commonly are told, "learn to play." That's the rebuttal, and that's exactly what we have to do. I played Infiltrator long before SMG's were released, using only the Artemis. I can't tell you how long I was frustrated by *constantly* losing to a heavy, even in situations where I had shot first and had the advantage. My rifle had twenty bullets, and 12 body shots were needed to deal a kill. That's a small margin of error. Additionally, my time to kill is higher than his.... Do the math. So he wins in head to head, perhaps how it should be, if we're of equal skilled. So I learned what you needed to do to be an excellent infiltrator. Flank, Flank, Flank, Flank. K/D ratio of 2 for months with that kind of strategy, and I was pretty pleased to have found a way to slay a heavy using the playstyle I wanted. But then I realized even that step forward was still met with the following. On a whim, the shield would flicker on and I'd be gutted. Or a random turn would expose my barely-functional cloaking device. With no skill or thought, I was often minced by an opponent heavy because at the end of the day, he could nearly double my effective HP. I learned to live with it, and still play and do quite well with my infiltrator for at least 50% of my playtime. But I still wish my favorite class could be effective without an elaborate, demanding, risky flank, as opposed to someone who could have a pretty reliable chance of beating me even if I spend the time positioning myself and playing carefully. Because the real problem is that a Heavy is the best choice far more than 20% of the time. It is the best choice basically on any battlefield. If you live long enough to run out of ammo, that's honestly not the usual, unless you have no trigger discipline. You require far fewer heals than any other class because of the added regenerating buffer that is your overshield. You can deal with Vehicles with a rocket launcher. That same weapon can easily slay or suppress infantry. LMGs are highly versatile at all ranges and have huge ammo reserves. The *only* drawback of the overshield is that you move slower and are lit up, but again, that's a false balance, because the speed advantage is almost meaningless when both parties are ADS, or in CQC where no one can really jump or run fast enough to avoid shots anyway. And you can flicker the shield on instantly the second red flashes on your HUD. I think the class would be infinitely more balanced if there were a one second warm up time before the overshield clicked on, because then you'd need to make a conscious and tactical decision when to attempt to use the device, and it wouldn't be an over-powered panic button. I guess for a similar analogy, let's examine vehicles. Let's say, a Magrider, a Lightning, and a Harasser are on a battlefield and are attacking one another. Each vehicle has it's niche at which it excels. The magrider, is the slowest and toughest, the Lightning is quick and tough, and the harasser is the fastest and most frail (well.. sort of ;D These buggers are a bit OP right now too). Just because the Magrider is slowest and toughest (much like our heavy with his overshield), he can still likely be killed by an opponent lighting or harraser because even that strength has it's weaknesses: weak side, rear, and top armor. The speed really means something. With infantry, that doesn't exist, because the factor by which a Heavy is tougher far outweighs any other concerns of the other classes. No other class can move particularly faster or in such a way to mitigate (in a 1v1 scenario where both opponents are aware of each other) that huge EHP advantage. tl;dr Heavy is borked and too good at everything. Make it's shield warm up or give rocket launchers to engineers instead and we'd see role-balance improve.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find an army that employs as many snipers as they do basic infantry. Classes should most definitely not be even in terms of population. Just like in TF2 you don't want even one ninth of your group playing sniper, 1/12 in an organized squad is quite fine.
When I recall my time in the military, we were basically 90% HA and only about 10% specialized troops (medics, "snipers", engineers (in Germany, those are called piooners), had no light assaults, though *g*). I spent most of my time driving offroad trucks and only used assault rifles, machine guns, AT rockets and grenades. And well, if you dont need to heal a lot, infiltrate something oder repair stuff, HA and LA (depending on playstyle) are the classes of choice, this should be obvious. Why should I run engineer without a vehicle and no one near to resupply? To pwn enemies with my carbine in the open fields? And I wont face anb enemy tankzerg with my medic. Face it, most of the time when playing PS2 you have to destroy stuff. So ppl chose the class best suited for that task. It would be up to SOE to shift the gameplay to favor the others classes a bit more.
You'd also be hard pressed to find a military where 50% of the soldiers have glowing force fields that nullify bullets. Don't use RL as an example. If anything, your example simply shows how much versatility belongs to the heavy and how limited and over-niched some of the other classes are. Granted, CQC infiltrators can be very useful to the team effort, but even look at their support value... Heavies get: Overshield. LMG/Shotty/BR. Rockets. C4 Infiltrators get: Access to incredible close ranged SMG/Mediocre Scout Rifles/Sniper Rifles Somewhat effective cloak. Motion sensor. Can hack a few things. Which would you choose 80% of the time? Balance the damn game. The game is about killing people and taking objectives and heavies are the most suited for that role.
Ive got the most hours logged as HA, but lately I prefer the Infiltrator with a silenced SMG over HA. The Infiltrator has so many tools...cloak, recon darts, terminal/turret hacking, bouncing betties...so much more effective vs infantry when played right. When we are trying to ninja bases, I dont roll HA. I like Infiltrator or even LA over HA. I [now] play HA when there are vehicles to kill. Thats about it.
It's a tradeoff. Yes, it gives you more health, but it also slows you down. You can't keep it on indefinitely, and it doesn't keep you alive but for a few more shots. And a couple head shots still brings down a HA pretty quickly. Not everything needs to be "plan to use it". There is enough in this game that already works this way, like with vehicles, that it isn't necessary to make everything a matter of proper planning. Doing this would be somewhat akin to making all weapons requiring you to spin up the weapon before it can be fired, so as to make it more of a "actively plan to use" feature. It doesn't make much sense, and if you get the drop on someone, even using the shield won't really save them. Medpacks take up valuable resources and rather a lot of them. If you're a dedicated infantrymen you might have a lot, but then you probably aren't also buying many explosives or MAX suits. The HA is the primary infantryman. That's what the specialize in: straight up brawling. And what is everyone's bug up their rear about lockon launchers? You have to sit there and aim while you lockon, and there are lots of counters to it, and with the newest changes, they might even be required to maintain the weapon's aiming at the target. It's less damage than a dumbfire weapon (generally) and can't be popshotted in most cases. It's pretty balanced. It can't repair, it can't res, it can't heal except for once per inventory station (if you cert into it and buy the resources). It can't aim as far as a sniper (usually), it can't hide, it can't lay down mines (if I recall), it can't detect enemies in a wide area directly, it can't reload its own weapon stores, and it can't move as fast or in as diverse a direction as the LA. It makes tons of compromises and gives up a lot of flexibility to be the premier costless front-line infantry. Generally speaking, if I can't kill a HA when I get the jump on him, with his shield up, I'm a lousy shot that can't hit the head to save my life. I don't prescribe it to the class' merits so much as my deficiencies. This would be like saying that an Infantryman in the army is the all powerful one because most soldiers are riflemen. It has little in the way of combat weakness yes, but it has substantial tactical and logistical weaknesses. There's always going to be more HA than anything else because they are the basic foot soldier of the game, and they are going to mostly be facing OTHER HA while Engineers and Medics generally support and fill out special needs, Infiltrators sow chaos and disallow infantry from standing in the open, and LA trade hitting power / survivability for mobility. Of all the things to complain about in this game, it seems beyond comprehension that HA would really be the focus of your ire.
Simple, but sadly these kind of comments tend to be ignored. If ppl cry about 1 vs 1 engagements... play the **** heavy assault class, its designed for that! should heavies be crying for sniper rifles? ammo packs? healing tools? stealth? turrets? geez ppl its not like you have to pay in order to play heavy assault... its a simple class with one purpose, which you should be choosing if the situation demands it! This is no common MMO where you have to stick to one class! do you even realise that? have you even though that this might just not be the game for you?!
The one thing I'd suggest to change about HA class is anti-infantry effectiveness of their tool-slot weaponry. I'd say it would be better if they had to choose whether they want anti-tank or anti-infantry launcher in that slot.
Nothing more than the fact that you'll see more ESFs than Galaxies. This game isn't TDM, and it isn't Call of duty or anything else. The classes have roles, some are soldiers, others are force multipliers. 1 engineer can feed ammo to a whole squad while repairing a MAX. 1 infil can hack a full base. 2 or 3 medics is enough to keep a squad alive.Then you have other people who need to be slightly better at killing / engaging tanks. This game is not just kill the other guys. But killing the other guys is still a big part of the game, not sure what else to say. In an infantry fight I want as many MAXs and HAs as I can get whilst still having the support in place to keep them alive. Engineers are NOT for shooting people with their guns. They're for driving, and repairing / ammo. Medics are 1/2 way between, they're pretty good at fighting, but are more useful to finish off the guy that killed the HA and then revive the HA. Why shouldn't the Combat classes be better at combat? It's like complaining that Liberators are better at ground attack then Galaxies are. The Liberator can ONLY kill. The galaxy is a transport. Main battle tanks have more firepower and are tougher than sunderers! Sunderers have AMS and troop transport. Tanks are for killing, and slugging it out with other armor.
Let me state my opinion here: The heavy assault is not overpowered. Each class has its own abilities which make it different. I play as medic and engineer, just because of how much more XP I can get. The HA is made for those who are good at combat, and have experience with killing. I used to be horrible at playing the heavy, and I took up medic. I made over 500 certs in one day, and put it into the engineer class. Using these certs, and the special abilities that the engineer had. I was able to pull in more kills than 90% of the HA on my team. This shows the balance of the classes. WIth light assault, and infiltrator, you can ambush enemies and get them from behind, making it easy to wipe out entire squads of enemies. People don't look at it this way: Each class has its own attack style, that you have to learn and use to master that class. The HA is used to attack from a position in front of the enemy. The heavy therefore has the shields and special ability functions which allow him to survive a fight. Attacking from behind is the only way to get guaranteed kills on most other classes, except for engineers with turrets. The heavy is not overpowered, it is just a good class for head to head combat. If you cannot kill them easily, you are obviously doing something wrong. I have my good days, and bad days, good times, and bad times, but never do I think that any class is unbalanced. Personally, I would like to see all the weapons be buffed a bit, to make it easier to kill vehicles. Killing players is not the game, and if you just enjoy killing, go play some COD. This game is about tactics, and all those crying obviously aren't using them. Go play something like Arma 2, then you will see unbalance. This game is all about team work, and strategic attacks. If you are running at the enemy head on, you are going to get killed in seconds by HA.
