LA/Infiltrators are built to surprise attack, a shield delay on HA will give HA no fighting chance!!

Light Assaults and Infiltrators make up for not being able to take the damage a Heavy Assault can by being far more mobile (LA's) or given a cloak(Infiltrators). Also, it's not invisibility within the ranges of SMG's, it's just a light refracting cloak that's easy to spot if you bother to pay attention and aren't constantly trying to be a twitch player.

However, the instant activation of a HA's shields took away a lot of the value of the Inf's and LA's respective specialties. With this adjustment it forces to HA's to do as they were intended for, front line pushing and general combat, not flanking and surprise attacks. It forces a Heavy Assault to pick and choose when he uses his shield, not sit on the corner of his screen as an I-Win button.

More skill ceiling increase, good good. Don't cater to Battlefield and Call of Duty kiddies, SOE. I want my Planetside to feel like Planetside, a combined arms game intended to have teamwork and strategy to be the most powerful tools, not tools who insist on being MLGProCODboyz

COD/Battlefield kiddies are the ones camping in some ceiling like 90% of LA.


HA are made up of players who prefer to rush in....A HA in some corner is a horrible HA, most likely.

Your first sentence is actually false. Infiltrators/LA do NOT have an advantage WHEN they surprise attack; their advantage is their ability to position more easily FOR a surprise attack. When the surprise has been sprung, they're still at a disadvantage to the HA in terms of damage potential and EHP. All this change is doing is changing that such that the advantage of the surprise attack lasts for a fraction of a second longer.

I'm not sure I've ever found a spot that is inaccessible to HA, aside from the largely useless positions like on top of internal walls in a Tech Plant building. It's certainly more difficult though, but that's the advantage LA gets (note that inf doesn't) in exchange for having absolutely no advantage once combat begins.

Once again, if a player is in an area you've failed to check and gets the drop on you, you've been outplayed. This isn't Quake and your twitch skills just don't hold much water here when compared to situational awareness and planning. This is a good thing for this game; a twitch shooter on this scale would be beyond boring for 99.9% of players.

The simple fact is that the game is boring as a HA-fest, and HAs are able to do FAR too much at present. Rather than redesign the class system to restrict HA (which I do agree, would be a better solution) they're simply making HA a bit easier to counter such that there is some downside to playing the only class in game that can readily take on all comers at all ranges and more often than not be at an advantage in each situation.

BS.

The LA and Inf have class abilities that aid them out positioning people. The HA has a class ability that protects them. Its as simple as that. AND that is entirely fair.

If the Overshield is supposed to be used Pro-actively, then why does it have a movement penalty? If the purpose of the Overshield has changed from a defensive tool to a positioning tool then it needs its movement penalty removed and initial activation cost removed.

When this change goes through, this will be second only to the Flying ADS nerf as Most Unwarranted Nerf.

LA is hardly way better.

HA has 1) shields of different flavors, 2) a OHK (against infantry) RL and RLs of different flavors (for free mind you, no resource cost no dropping the secondary), 3) HA has Concussion grenades (arguably the best non-lethal grenade in the game), 4) HA has the AV grenade (excellent against MAXs), 5) HA has a lot more ammo in the magazine and reserves.

LA has 1) slow-mo defenseless Luigi jump, 2) flash bangs.

Your correct that LA can more easily get into out of the way elevated positions. However, this can be achieved by HA as well. I challenge you to show me a single spot that a LA can achieve that is 1) worth a damn and 2) impossible for a HA to achieve. True, HA cannot obtain certain positions as easily as LA but with Gal spawning it is hardly impossible to get just about anywhere with any class. Moreover, good position does not necessarily mean elevated- especially considering that if you are in an out of the way elevated position then you are likely to be cut off from revives, ammo and any other team coordination. This is not even mentioning that the vast majority of cap points are in locations where the Luigi jump is completely useless.

I agree with you that the upcoming HA nerf seems unwarranted and personally I would prefer if SOE would at least show us what they are looking at (data wise) that leads them to this conclusion.

That being said, I think your focus on the Infiltrator and LA is somewhat misplaced.

The real assault class in PS2 is the Medic. The real AV class in PS2 is the Engineer (first, because AV is best with other vehicles and therefore Engineers, second, because of the AV turret, third, because of mines and fourth, because MAX is better AV than HA and they need Engineers).

HA is just versatile but pays for this like a Swiss Army knife- it can engage anything, it is just not as good as other choices. If you want to fight infantry, play Medic. If you want to fight vehicles, play Engineer.

IMO, infiltrator is fluff, HA is fluff and LA is fluff. Sure, they can be fun to play at times and there are specific things (like concussion grenades or "smart bombing" with C4) that are effective in specific situations but make them very niche and not nearly as important, especially in larger battles, as do 1) the number of medics, 2) the number of MAXs, 3) the number of Engineers, 4) the number of vehicles.

Hacking can be useful, the Luigi jump can be fun, sniping and SMG cloaking can pad your KD but none of these things win battles. Bodies win battles and that means medics. When pops are about equal in a hex then vehicles and MAXs can make a difference and this is where the Engineer comes into play.

The "strategy" in PS2 boils down to Medic+MAX+Engineer and (with the exception of early on when air was ridiculous) this has always been the case.

Ugh!

Wrong and WRONG.

COD players want all abilities gone or nerfed to the point that all that matters is twitch gameplay. They want to be able to beat anything head on through their own twitch gameplay skills without having to deal with hard counters to their class or vehicle.

Heavy shild is fine.
Cloak needs a buff.
Jump jets are fine.

Using abilities that are hard counters to certain tactics is FINE and part of Planetside 2. Removing or nerfing them is part of dumbing down the game so only twitch gameplay is left.

Nerfing a heavys shield won't be enough for them as infiltrators and LA's have their own unique abilities that beat twitch gameplay. They just don't notice it as much cuz they are being shot in the back of the head instead of being kicked in the front.

You know, i was about to say that the HA shield is fine as is, but you pose a goo argument. HA should be held responsible for better situational awareness.

At the same time, as a pure LA user, ive learned to just NOT take on HAs alone. It forces me to be a bit more judicial in who i attack and when. I honestly dont mind the HA shields. They are good at what they do. INF shouldn't try to be rambo and LAs should not be given easy pickings on everyone ( i say this as an LA). also, a side effect to the HA nerf will inevitable be a LA nerf (trust me, i will be picking off HAs left and right without that shield)- which i dont want.

LA/infiltrators do have an advantage with they surprise attack...A very good time advantage, a good player should finish off a HA, I know I do.

There is plenty of spots where HA can get at and LA can...LA has a great chance of avoiding choke points and flanking to camp in some weird place.


I play this game as a twitch shooter, and I have a lot of fun....I know people like you want this game to be like COD, where you die to a bullet because some guy in some corner, sorry that's not what I want for planetside 2.

Lots of people play Planetside 2 a twitch shooter in CQC...Thats a great thing...Positioning/ADS still matter in this game obviously but i love all the playstyles in PS2.

So no, the game is not boring at all...and HA is not even close to being OP as you claim.

Learn how to play, I destroy HA when im LA.

I was under the impression that the change to HA shields are intended to decrease their reactive survivability. I remembering reading that the devs felt it was an "I-win" button in 1v1 engagements. I'm guessing the intended application of the shield is to preemptively activate them before you get into a fight.

To think i almost believed that SOE did balance changes based on stats and not twatter whining .

Player: Whine about balance (in this case a heavy kills a non heavy [intended]) and not being able to win without effort
SOE: Sorry its intended
Player: Whine more
SOE: It realy is intended, if you cant beat em join em
Player: Whine some more
SOE: OK OK we'll nerf (the shield in this case) so you can win

If this isnt the case then can we have an explanation as to why its taken 1.5 years to nerf this balance problem , must have been obvious in the first month if HAs got more kills/score or were played more than the other classes.

HA can do the same thing every other class can do; pay attention.

And you'll still have the shield, you just won't be able to whip it out immediately in the middle of an engagement.

COD is not a twitch game lol....Are you people serious?

COD is a camping in corners ADS game...It's all about positioning in COD.



ADS games arn't twitch.

HIpfire = Twitch which COD is not really about.





I think Planetside 2 does a great job of making both hipfiring/ADS/Positioning useful.

This is imo a false challenge since the point is that to be effective the position needs to be achieved quickly.

However I am not going to argue the point because imo the LA needs a buff.

I would agree wholeheartedly about that if there was only a damage mitigating shield (overshield?), but they gave us a shield that is effective any time you use it then tell us we are using it wrong .

*Turn around, saw a LA
*Spam shield and both starting to shoot at each other
*HA shield turned on after the first 1 - 500 shield from the first layer is gone
====> More efficient shield energy
====> logic.

HA shield has been dumb op for a long time and this has been needed for a long time.

So are we nerfing the HA because of popularity? Please tell me the guy with the NC avatar is suggesting we nerf due to popularity?

That's why the classes are distinctive,a Heavy assualt shouldn't play like the other classes. An Engi should use it's turrets and tools to be effective and quite frankly it's role should be more of a supportive one than anything just like the medic who can both use shotguns by the way. When I say kill alot without dying I mean the players (who are the majority of whiners here) who want to go invisible and fly with access to rooftops and plenty of effective CQ weapons AND they want to negate the only advantage of the big slow tank class which if they were really any good they wouldn't have a problem handling anyway. The problem here is people are calling for nerfs on classes they don't use or who's specialty they can't use well or gets them killed alot when THEY try the class so they don't care about the people who do use them. In fact they want the heavy assault to be a sitting duck who they can run and fly circles around while invisible all this when the HA shield bonus isn't even that effective anyway and their dying has more to do with the HA naturally more powerful weapons.

ITT:

"you want this game to be COD"
"no you do"

twitch = quick scoping, quick aiming, fast headshots etc. Which is FINE but Planetside 2 is about tactics and abilities. Not just who can get the first shot off. If you think COD's all camping you must have only ever played deathmatch lol. There were plenty of modes were camping = lose the match. The players who were masters of that game had quick aiming skills or in other words twitch skills. (using iron sites or quick scoping) In other words if them players came here they would get mad that getting the first shot off does not mean they win anymore as players have abilities to counter that.

Ugh off topic