So ZOE max ability makes you take a bit more damage, but you deal out more damage and move faster. How ever for TR you are immobile, and unable to take cover from everyone who spots you. Am I missing something here or is there flaw in that balancing idea?
The TR ultimately deal more damage than ZOE, but the ZOE get a speed boost atop of what damage increase they get. I believe both the TR and NC MAX abilities need buffed to match ZOE, but most want to see ZOE nurfed instead. Problem is, in my opinion, everyone wants the speed buff taken away from ZOE...but doing that would make it sub-par in comparison to the other MAX abilities. So either the NC and TR MAX abilities need buffed...or a completely new ability needs to be devised for VS.
In Starcraft, the Terran starting unit is Marines, who get a ranged attack that can hit fliers. The starting units for Zerg and Protoss are melee, ground-attack only. So obviously Starcraft is completely unbalanced, right? Of course not. It's asymmetric. What makes the game interesting and replayable is not how parallel everything is, but how different it is. Now in Planetside it may be that ZOE is a poorly-chosen ability. (I personally favor countering it by creating weapons that punish fast-moving enemies.). However, the analysis has to be more than just a point-to-point comparison. Lacking a bigger picture, comparing different max abilities (or MBTs, or ESFs, etc) is silly.
That analogy is really quite terrible. It's not that they are different, but that one is similar to the other but does it much better. Any how, just read it's getting nerfed so I'm content. Also I played a Vanu MAX with zoe rank 1 for a bit to see how it matches up in comparison to NC/TR MAX's. Lets just say, the only reason I died was because I wanted to redeploy across the map.
It's only terrible if you didn't understand it. Analogies are tools for explanation, not proof. To clarify: you can disagree and say that Planetside isn't, shouldn't be, or should be more Asynchronous than it currently is. All valid points of view. But Starcraft shows that the whole can be balanced despite pieces that aren't, which is why the criticism needs more context.
You're pretty much just ignoring the fact the abilities are similar in what they are supposed to accomplish. Except one is stationary in doing so, making it the most vulnerable of the two. You're rambling about some point about some assumption that I want both abilities to be the same, when my point is that one has a clear disadvantage that can not be controlled by the player while the other allows the player to move about and control their level of exposure to enemy fire. Once again reiterating my point that even though both are supposed to increase damage output, one is far superior than the other. So my complaint is that they're too similar, but one is just better at its job than the other. I'm sure there's a starcraft analogy for that some where.
To match the TR with the current VS MAX you would basically have to make the TR ability a pure passive damage boost with no anchoring required.
And what about get out the damage boost ? IMO that will be fair.... NC: A shield that BLOCK damage , no amo buff damage buff or other... VS: A speed boost, no damage buff or amo or other TR: Damage and Rate of Fire buff but can't move. I find that pretty fair... So either you choose a block thing, or an avoid thing , or a damage+ (but can't move) thing. It is pretty much the basic stats in every Rpg (despite the magic) I find that fair...
To be perfectly honest, I hate the TR ability. I don't like immobility at all, even if I can see how much of a defensive benefit this can be in certain situations. So, I really don't know what to do with the TR, but the NC could use a more enveloping shield that covers a small portion of their sides in combination with the direct front to ensure that they can't be nailed from a diagonal but frontal assault. In combination to that, someone said something about being able to use the Melee attack while being shielded or something to that effect. Either way, either this needs to be done by buffing the TR and NC MAX units or a completely new ability needs devised for the VS MAX. If the speed buff is removed, it's just an underwhelming damage buff at the cost of increased damage, no one will use that because it's just not as effective as having Charge to escape those tight situations. Sadly, it's the speed boost everyone loathes. Many VS would be perfectly fine with having the damage buff removed, but the speed buff is what everyone dislikes...and the ability to turn it on and off instantaneously.
Yeah but if that cost you a 25% or 50% + damage taken , and no boost for your damage, I think that will be more fair: A boost speed for a debuff resistance.
I think many VS would be fine with that, but I don't believe that the majority of the TR and NC would be. From what I've been reading, they don't care about the damage boost...they loathe the speed boost and want it removed.
From what I've been reading, that's not even the general consensus. The majority seem to want it flat out removed, but I might be already with a bit of a tweak/tone down on such. Still, if it goes too far...it's just not going to be worth as much as Charge, and it'll just be more prudent to make an entirely different skill. I still think buffing the other MAX abilities is the way to go.
Damn I wish that Planetside was ACTUALLY like this… Unfortunately we are all just copies of each other with different skins. All are weapons are virtually identical, all our abilities/certs ARE identical, our aircraft are basically the same and the only thing with any "flair" are our MBTs. Why can't the empires be radically different with completely separate weapons/abilities/vehicles? It's too late at this point, but I still hold out hope that the devs start to swing that way at some point…
NC's shield is the only one not utterly flawed in concept. All of them are flawed in execution and suck compared to Charge, excepting a handful of overly situational uses. I say scrap them all and refund everyone's points. Not that I expect this to happen. More likely ZOE will be nerfed six feet under, and I'll just keep on using Charge. They already did this, months ago, and it's been crap since then. I agree. Over-balancing leads to sameness and stagnation. However, if everything isn't the same, you get people who will cry that whatever they have isn't as good as whatever someone else has. It doesn't matter how well balanced they actually are, there will always be a situation where one has the edge over the other, and while this is the very thing that makes them interesting and worthwhile, it irritates many people. IMO, this point has already come to pass. The more I weigh my options and compare/contrast them with my combat experiences, the less purpose I see to ZOE. Charge saves my virtual life at least a dozen times a play session, if not more. ZOE would have not only prevented these saves, it would get me killed just as often. I frequently disengage with a sliver of health left, having taken far more than enough damage to be killed if ZOE was running, or had I lacked Charge.
FFS! wasn't this game supposed to be about SIDEgrades, not UPgrades? Whatever you give MAX units in the ability slot, it should not be better than "Charge" but different to it. Now think about the current state of the game... Now smash your head into the wall... No, don't do that. To be honest, I don't find ZOE to be such a massive problem ATM. It is a nuisance, but no more.
Both strafe speed and general acceleration were nerfed in early June with Update 10; it was part of the "Reduced acceleration/deceleration speeds of MAX units with Zealot Overdrive active to minimize third person warping." fix. I found the effect to be quite pronounced, even crippling, and dramatically reduced my ZOE usage after that point. When started playing regularly again after the latest performance updates, I gave ZOE a shot for a while, and then abandoned it pretty much entirely for Charge. The new resource cost for MAX made ZOE too wasteful to bother with, if I wanted the option to always be in a MAX.
Ah, I may have not been playing prior to that fix, or at least not playing MAX. I've been playing very infrequently as of late, so it's probably a matter of me having just not been playing the MAX before that update.
