I truly don't. People complain about MAXes saying that with a solid support staff they're OP monsters that are cruise control for kills. Ok, cool. They have a support staff to do this. "But, I can't win this 48 vs 48 without pulling my own MAXes if they have MAXes! OP!" This is where I get lost. People talk about MAXes like massing them in the greatest numbers possible is an insta-win. It's not. Those MAXes need engineers and medics just to function. A lone MAX won't accomplish a lot and if there aren't any, expect them to spend inordinate amounts of time doing absolutely nothing looking for someone to fix him up. Let's compare Planetside 2 to any MOBA in existence for a moment. You've got yourselves classes and team compositions that function the best, you know what's in those team compositions? A whole lot of classes. I mean hell, Team Fortress 2 is similar if you pretend that a Heavy or a Soldier fills the role of a MAX, burly and much stronger with a support staff. Would you run a team without a tank and expect to win vs one that has one? Shorting yourself a class and complaining that they're running it is foolish. That teamwork and proper composition results in a force multiplier. You're not going to win vs (often) vs a team that has a solid composition if your's is terrible. (Sorry, 90% Heavy/Light Assaults isn't going to beat a proper team) Another way to think about it is if a MAX and its crew is like a Liberator and its crew. A good Liberator pilot with a good gunner and a Dalton is going to be scarier than two ESFs with rocket pods. Teamwork and coordination results in some really nice force multipliers. That MAX steamrolling around almost certainly has a lot of help, you're really not just fighting it. You're fighting it and its engineer and its medic and those two are very likely hanging out back having very little if any offensive contribution to the fight at all. "But, there's no good counters!" C4, rockets, open plains of really any fashion, concussion grenades, etc. "But, then they get revived and its a waste of my 100 resources! C4 is pointless!" Ok, if you killed that MAX with a C4 and its in a big group and you're alone, congratulations. You accomplished nothing of value, nor should you have really. If you have teammates, move up, secure that corpse. "But, they'll just buy a new one!" You can buy more C4 (MAXes are 350, C4 is 100, you can stockpile C4, don't you even try to convince me it's too costly) All the rage I see in-game or on the forums I've seen 99% of the time stems from either wanting to fight MAXes in some way that goes against every way you actually should. They're a great class, they're a lot of fun, and they really do require support.
Since they cost infantry resources they should be more powerfull than free infantry classes. I don't really see why people even complain and want to nerf everything that causes trouble to their playstyle. Try to adapt instead. It's not that hard to launch a couple of rockets at a slow huge target I don't get those amazing 40+ killstreaks when i play MAX against organized players. If i happen to battle the regular lone wolfs i have no problem shredding them to pieces but if it's decent squad it requires a lot of effort on my side, if i even succed. So i would not call MAX overpowered since success with that class is based of how good support you have and how smart the enemies fight. If someone tries to take me on in close combat they deserve to die for their critical error.
MAXes are just as much a risk vs reward class, they are WAY slower than infantry, don't have a rechargeable shield and most importantly, they can only deal with one specific task at a time, they either are an infantry brawler, vehicle killer or air deterrent. You could say to swap things up, but at that point you're inferior compared to the Heavy Assault, who deals more damage and DPS with higher accuracy.
The whole thing about them being revived after being killed. 10 maxes blocking a spawn room in a bio lab, one daring light assault manages to blow up three of them. Doesn't matter, they get revived. For their cost I think they should be an infantry killing machine but they should stay down after you get them down.
It would all be different if there was a Bases won/Bases lost ratio instead of a K/D ratio. It's not that K/D is useless or a bad metric. it's just promoted as the main metric everywhere. Playerssite: Kills, K/D, Deaths, Second K/D, kills per weapon DasAnfall: kills, K/D, Infantry K/D, Infantry Kills, Shotgun K/D, Shotgun kills, Sniper K/D, Sniper kills, Vehicle K/D, vehicle kills, aircraft K/D, aircraft kills. hell they have a K/D for every single weapon you ever used(with more than 50kills) how do they display objective based gameplay? both count how often you have been in a hex where the capture bar completly went to the side of YOUR empire. there is no 'This guy has fought 13057 battles and won 7557 of them and lost 5500. he also captured 9507 control points, 5600 in defenses and 3907 in offenses. He fought 55% against TR, 40% NC and 5% in threeways.' and MAXes with Support have a high K/D so everyone looks at them as the Holy Grail 'Oooh 8.7 K/D praise him' but seriously? MAXes are useless. i have yet to see a MAX that captures a point, Overloads/secures a gen, hacks a terminal, heals an ally, repairs a vehicle, detects enemies, or drives a vehicle.
I am one of those players who say MAXes are OP, because I know them to be. You can pull MAXes way too frequently with the amount of firepower they provide to a Squad/Platoon and they are extremely durable, can be revived and repaired in the fight. Yes, I pull MAXes alot myself and whenever I do, I rarely feel my actions have anything to do with skill when I can nearly instagib infantry. Yes, I have to watch out for C4/Heavies, but at the end of the day those "dangers" are a small price to pay for the things you get with the MAX. You don't understand people who "whine". I don't understand people who say they're fine, because they are far from fine in the state they're in. In my opinion though, we should wait till the resource revamp to see if that affects MAX pulling alot, who knows. Maybe then 1 guy can't pull an ESF, an MBT and a MAX unit one after another.
48v48 almost never happens. Most of the time it is 58vs40. Not a big deal? Well it is when you consider MAXs are force multipliers - they make imbalance even worse. Think of 5v4 small base fight in which 5 man team pulls one MAX. Can 4 man team win? Very hardly unless they are much more skilled. But when you discuss balance you have to assume both teams are equally skilled.
That team also has 25% more people, they should win anyway. And for any, "Well it's hardly an even fight with numbers the way they go or zerging" Ok. That's relevant how? Let's say it's a 58 vs 40. That 58 has a whole lot more people and are very likely to win, what do MAXes have to do with this? The 40 are staging an effective defense with a bulwark based on MAXes and support staff? Cool, sounds like teamwork and an effective strategy is working by utilizing a class that is literally only good at one thing, not dying.
Lets say that you might sometimes win when enemy outnumbers you 25%. Lets say on average it will happen every fourth battle. What if the enemy outnumbers you 25% and uses force multipliers such as MAXs? Chances of winning become even lower. You will now win such encounter perhaps one time out of twelve. See why force multipliers are such a problem in a game which doesn't force team balance? Again, if teams are unbalanced as in 58v40 scenario adding force multipliers in the mix only increases the imbalance doesn't it? MAX is only force multiplier which can fight in infantry ecosystem ie. indoors and inside base walls. And lets think about it from individual player perspective. Do you prefer rushing into a infantry blob, getting a kill or two and then dieing or do you prefer rushing into a MAX and dieing instantly?
You mean to say force multipliers are troublesome in a game that doesn't force you into a competitive composition? Welcome to just about every online game in the history of forever. If you're outnumbered and using a bad composition of classes and the other team is using a good composition of classes, meaning they're at least somewhat organized, you deserve to lose. (See: Team Fortress 2 with Sniper/Spy heavy teams, MOBAs, WoW with no healer, the list goes on) Short and simple. If they set up a team comp that's good and outnumber you, you should not win. Now let's think about it from a player perspective, Why should I expect to get a kill period if I rush into their huge ball and die instantly? That's the worst tactic I can even think of.
I don't know why there is a need to even have MAXs its os unskilled and not fun to face against especially when you rush indoors kill 6 guys and at next corner you meet lame MAX.
Now how often do you actually run into a room, 1v6 and kill everyone, then run out only to be stopped by a MAX?
I guess once a day but that is not only instance where I hate them. They just ruin game experience for me they are just too easy to operate and can stop highly coordinated attack without braking a sweat and like dealing with one is hard enough they pull few of those.
Guess the only answer is to get rid of MAXes, huh guys? Because if you're losing already (58 vs 40 = you're losing) it hurts to see them pull those MAX units and taunt us with them while we cower in the spawn room. ... this sort of complaint alongside 'Oh my god so many tanks nerf tanks they are pinning us 5 people in our spawn room when there is 40 infantry outside BUT THOSE TANKS WAAAH' just makes me roll my eyes now. Such a tired excuse. You lost the base, face it and move on.
If I'd get 5$ if I get revived in MAX and 5$ for being repaired right after that as people complain, I'd ride a Bugatti. But I don't.
"They stop a highly coordinated attack..." ... without your own MAX units, of course. Because you know 'they take no skill'.
Why don't we use a simpler example? let's assume everyone here are lone wolves a) 3 infantry & 1 max vs. b) 4 infantry outcome: a) wins (as it should) a) 2 infantry & 1 max vs. b) 5 infantry outcome: a) will usually win (90% of the time) (2 infantry waltzes in, max shreds one up, shreds the other to a half, conpanions finish. The other three waltz in and it's 2 infantry + max vs 3 infantry... max usually wins unless his opponents are very skilled) a) 1 infantry & 1 max vs. b) 5 infantry outcome: a) will win most of the time (55-70%) (2 infantry walk in and see the max, and they die. A max will require about 4 magazines (30 rounds per magazine) to kill. The companion of max will easily get one more kill if he's behind the max, though for arguments sake let's say the person who died managed to unload a full magazine into the max. The other two do the same, but it wouldn't be enough. Let's say for arguments sake one person has 100round-clips, and manages to unload the enough bullets/switches to a rocket launcher to kill the max. As the max goes down, it wouldn't be standing still wondering whats going on but shooting aswell, so it dies and in the process kills one person. It is now 1v1, but one person is either reloading, or taking that crucial 0.5 seconds to readjust there aim, and he dies.) So there is one person living. That person was the companion with the max. Because of the max and with little teamwork involved, his 'squad' won a 2 vs 6. As long as the max can aim and shoot, it doesn't need skill to win the match. When on the loosing end of that 2 vs. 6, you see that maxes are OP. Of course, all of that is assuming no-one flanks the max and plants a C4. edit: holy crap wall of text TL;DR maxs are effective even without support, and can almos easily be considered "OP", but one just need so flank it and c4
Force multipliers are troublesome in a game that doesn't force team balance. Team balance as in equal number of players on both teams. Think of CoD or Battlefield. Most server have team balancer option turned on precisely because unbalanced teams aren't fun. Planetside not only lacks this option but individual players can also spawn their own force multipliers such as tanks, aircraft or MAXs. Actually quite the opposite. Almost every FPS game has forced team balance and limited number of force multipliers(vehicles) on the battlefield. Bad composition of classes is a different subject entirely. What I'm focusing here on is uneven playing field caused by population unbalance and resource income unbalance. If the team has better force composition and is more skilled then that team should win yes. What I don't like is winning due to having more numbers. It is not fun and it is dumb gameplay. Imagine playing a type of chess in which you randomly sometimes get more and sometimes less pieces than your opponent. Population imbalance is bad for a number of reasons which I hope are apparent to most of people. Actually tactic works rather well if you do it as light assault and come from a direction they aren't expecting. But anyway I was using an extreme example to show how even when being totally outnumbered you could still have some fun as long as you don't bump into MAXs or vehicles.
