Higby Ask's ( via Twitter ) About Overall Balance ..

Forumwhine is OP.

Nerf the hell out of it pl0x and I will UPGRADE NOW!!!

I'd rather have a weapon reduction(Perhaps excluding AV), and a mobility reduction in exchange for a vast increase of survivalist. Like, PS1 MAX tankyness. 400 Rounds from a LMG, 4 Rockets, stock. Then, it feels more like an actual tank, and can be better used as a line-breaking tool.

the sun is way too blinding, also debris needs to be removed, it literally doesn't make anyone have fun

also add the new ar already

i get a good laugh everytime I die from 10 ESFs and my debris kills 2 underneath me.

How did it work in PS1 ?

Was it limited to who could use one ?
Was it able to be revived ?

This. So so much.

To use a MAX in PS1, you actually had to cert the MAX Armor use tree. And in PS1, the amount of certs you could get was limited, I think you could have 40 total before you reached max rank and then everything was unlocked for free.

MAX's in PS1 were completely invulnerable to small arms fire. Only specific AP Ammo would hurt them, and that meant you had to both have AP ammo in your inventory, and then for non-VS characters you had to swap your magazine out. In addition, AP ammo did less to standard soldiers then regular ammo. And I don't believe MAX's in PS1 could be revived.

MAX's in PS1 also only had one weapon, as opposed to one per arm in PS2.

Why does that sound a much better system than what we have now .. .. Guess it's the arcade consolesque direction the Dev's want the game to go in

They're not Infantry 2.0. Infantry are capable of a myraid of tactics and roles to be played in this game, and every individual death is nearly meaningless. MAXes shoot other players and vehicles and consume the resource with the most items attached to it. That's all they do. (Okay, NC MAXes can be temporary bullet shields for others but even that doesn't last well.)

Even with all the support in the world backing them, as fast as they are, they'd still get solo'd. Besides, the nimble player would be using C4, not rockets. MAXes are already at the point where you can't make their firepower stronger and not be completely unfair to anything that does get into their line of sight. The weapons are inidivdually already hobbled carbines or SMGs (of shotguns) for AI and shipshod rocket launchers for AV and you think, while it's not fine now, it'd be fine if we could do greater damage? We shall leave aside Bursters for reasons si should not have to recount. Even with a slower speed, it'd be instant death the moment you get spotted by the MAX and don't choose to run away within the latency gap. Heck, NC MAXes would need their entire AI weapon system redesigned to balance a stronger AI weapon system (and I'm sure some NC would like that, though still others would not).

I could have sworn TR MAXes had one weapon on each arm in PS1.

Or make "MAX revivability" something that has to be certed - like how Sunderers have to have an AMS bought through certs.

As for what needs to be nerfed? Nothing - just lower the Liberators health by 1/4 or so OR increase their susceptibility to AA fire and ESFs.

As many have said - this constant cycle of nerfs and buffs is taking the devs attention away from building the game into the game we all want it to be.

If something is "OP", it should be nerfed. Its performing beyond what the developers intended and leading to a poor gameplay experience for those that have to fight against it. See pre-nerf ZOE Max for an example. If something is "strong", it may or may not need nerfed. Maybe the other weapons comparable to it are weak and could be buffed instead. Of course, there will always be some debate on that line between what is actually OP and what is "strong". That's how I see it anyway.

Perhaps a better question would have been "Is there anything you feel is OP in the game right now?" balanced by a followup question "Is there anything you feel is under performing in the game right now?"

You also forgot a few other things:

Everyone had Armor that got reduced as you took fire, So maxes had a HP bar and Armor, and when revived their HP bar was back but the Armor was not, so a fresh revive was just as much if not more vulnerable then any infantry, as they had no armor to absorb any shots, small arms or larger.

Another difference was that Maxes couldn't be spawned at anything but a Tower or Base. making them need transport more then we do now, since you can spawn then from an Sundy right outside a base.

To be honest there was quite a few mecanics in PS1 that we don't have here that made Maxes work in a diffrent way then they do here, and I'm not quite sure what they could do to give us the same kind of balance.

The important thing here is that certs were always limited; MAX BR didn't get you everything unlocked. Atleast not for a long time after launch. It wasn't until almost half a year to a year after the Core Combat expansion came out that you could get enough Battle Ranks to get most-everything.

In Planetside 1 MAX's had, like every soldier, a Health Pool and an Armor Pool.

Unlike a regular soldier, a MAX had enormous resistance to Small Arms (>90%) while its Armor Pool was intact. While it was possible to take down a MAX with concentrated small arms fire, it was horrendously impractical. Switching from Standard Ammo to Armor Piercing Ammo, as Gundem mentioned, made this more likely but you sacrificed meaningful damage to infantry (who had the same resistance MAX's had to regular ammo, to AP ammo).

The MAX armor pool was also enormous compared to any infantry, including a Reinforced ExoSuit (PS1's "Heavy Assault" suit).

Upon death, a MAX COULD be revived. However, the MAX revived with only a portion of it's Health Pool and NONE of its Armor Pool. This meant that after revive the MAX was more vulnerable than any other soldier. It had to get to cover and wait for someone to repair and heal it. It's Health Pool could be restored by the Medical tool, and it's Armor Pool restored by the Nano-armor Tool.

This is where it gets tricky.

Obviously the MAX couldn't carry either of these with it (though it could carry health kits which healed both health and armor). Soldiers could cert into both the Medical tool and Armor tool, so it could be a one-stop revive, but it took time. It also consumed "ammo". In Planetside 1 both the Medical Tool and the Nano-Armor Tool ran on tubes of nanites. The were essentially magazine fed.

Getting a MAX from DEAD to READY TO GO. Would consume a full tube of Heal-juice and two tubes of Armor-juice. It also took anywhere from 1-2 minutes (the repair and heal tools were not super quick like they are in PS2).

As Gundem mentioned also, MAX's in Planetside 1 only had the weapon on the one arm. While they could kill, and kill effectively, they were more armor than firepower. Roughly equal to a foot soldier in terms of lethality, but slower (in all aspects of movement) and with armor that would make PS2 Lightning tanks jealous.

Now that PS1 is Free to Play, I would strongly recommend giving it a download. The graphics are old, the gameplay is old, but even if you just go in and visit VR to see how the weapons and various sytems worked, you will come to appreciate why many of the PS1 vets want PS2 brought closer to PS1.

I would say that that Air is OP and think that the ability to hover is a OP aspect.

I think that turrets on bases should take more dmg to destroy depending on what type of base they are on ( small to large base )

I think that the revamping of some of the bases was done in a way that did not have great planning and some bases are poor looking and a hassle to even find your way out.

I think that that scout radar is OP because every vehicle can have it if i remember right and every person for that matter with the crossbow .

I think the distance that vehicles and turrets and such can hit things from the other side of the map is a bit OP

Maybe we should stop worrying about spreadsheet balancing and add, you know, actual depth, gameplay, logistics, and scale to this "Massive Multiplayer First-Person Shooter."

Game often times feels more like I'm bunny-hoping from TDM map to map until we make the base our color.

Again? We still have a ~1000+ posts long thread about TR, you might want to dig trough there while you have some spare time..

Oh, if Higby should read this: Please give the TR Inquisitor the 2x burst again it had on PTS for some time. It would make that pistol a real choice between the Emperor and the Repeater..

Posting this here in case Radar X didn't see this comment on Reddit, hard to miss since it was the top comment by a land slide , but here's what I think about some things in game regarding balance.

1. Vulcan is still horrible on the Prowler. They need to buff the Prowler's version range back closer to where it was pre-nerf except make its competitive range around 200 meters, and taper off until 300 meter at which point the damage then goes to Increase its projectile velocity and lessen the damage for close range enough to balance it out.
2. .Increase the DPS on the Enforcer or revert the nerfs, as there isn't much reason to pull it over the Halberd after the nerfs.
3. .Make the Saron 2 hit infantry again, there was little reason to nerf it against infantry and all it did was make the Vanu pull the Halberd. It's basically Halberdside 2 right now because the ES AV secondaries are all in a bad state...
4. Buff the C85 and Marauder to have medium effective ranges like the PPA and DO NOT NERF THE PPA as it represents the only effective ES AI secondary.
5. Drastically reduce the deploy and undeploy time of Anchormode, and give Lockdown for the Max a defensive buff while deployed and lessening the time it takes to undeploy.
6. Unerf ZOE some more.
7. Give Aegis shield Maxes better splash damage protection and better coverage
8. Make the Striker shoot Coyote Missiles or high velocity dumbfire rockets, as having an Empire Specific Rocket Launcher which has the "unique" ability to lock on is uncreative and boring.
9. Buff the duration of the Magburner so it's more fun and more useful.

Give me back my Air Hammer of Thor and Press F to Win Vanguard Shield and we'll talk.

This is much more balanced. I especially like the Striker Idea, give it a real flavor of the faction rather than just NS+ weaponry.

The TR is the most 'bland' of the factions, but holy **** their weapons are effective in teh right hands. First night I got hte Lynx+, i hit 44-10 with no certs in it.

Being an NC player with both TR and VS alts, alot of the 'flavor' and uniqueness the NC gets is frustrating yet fun. Ripple fire with Phoenix is hilarious, the GodSAW is pretty powerful but has a high skill ceiling, and the weapons that are considered 'best' are much more situational. Even VG Shield is situational since if you're facing off against two tanks or infantry, it's NOT press F to win as you still need to run. The Air Hammer was (and is still) hilarious to use, but the uber aggressive style needed to play it balances out how hard it hits. You have to get close enough to take small arms fire, which i'm shocked I don't get hit by as often as I should (especially when i forgo the Air Hammer and just try and run people over)

VS has the same problem with the Lasher, the Lancer, and their "advanced" AV Max Vortex. Sure it's a nightmare for Libs/Gals/Armor, but Infantry laugh as they throw C4 and bullets. The Striker definitely is very situational and not well balanced - i'd rather use the Grounder every time and it needs a rework, not a buff or nerf.

TR weapons already fire faster and more accurate than their VS or NC counterparts, making them do more damage. As nice as the GodSAW is in the right hands, more 'common' hands will find the CARV accessible. In the "right" hands, the CARV is a monster at any rang

The thing that annoys me most in game are probably the spear turrets. Just the rate of fire, being constantly one shotted as infantry, being shot by them from the next base over, being in a tank and having to just focus fire my cannon on them to try to keep it down. And they are always being hacked so I get shot by them from all sides.

No MAX revives, that'd do it just fine for a while.