Mar. 16, 2023 - PTS Update (MAX, A2G, and New Abilities)

Overall good changes! :O
But max should absolutely survive a brick of C4 if they can no longer be revived.
The orbital strike resistance suit is nice,
but currently max has no option to take anything other than ordnance armour
because the C4 resistance is absolutely mandatory.

these changes are a joke ... cool maxes get cheaper for no longer being reviveable (and likely still die to roadkills from a 50 cert quad) but still can't survive jack against vehicles and c4 ... oh and the NC AI nerfs because of course ...
meanwhile esfs (which are still a litteral pain in the wrist to fly for beginners) get buffed against lock ons which required 3 heavy assaults for a quick kill anyway and now lose what little potency they had to begin with ... skyknights rejoice ...

... yea i do not ask this lightly ... but seriously what is wrong with you guys? ...
HOW is this supposed to be combined arms ?

this change will basically turn aircraft into even a more dominant plattform than it already is
meaning if you play as infantry or a max you can not under any circumstances go out without being blasted or riddled by aircraft a2g
you are forced to use aircraft against aircraft (good luck with that) as even vehicle antiair is still absolute scrap (they have no lock ons to begin with so whatever)
or otherwise have little choice but to stay within the confines of a base ...

you are widening the gap between platforms to fight each other and limit the space were they can effectively fight
infantry by this point is only able to fight other infantry
vehicles fight other vehicles and farm infantry and maxes (what would be even the point to spawn the latter anymore?)
and aircraft fight other aircraft while farming everything else



infantry and maxes should be able to defend themselves against vehicles and aircraft and/or support their own with the appropriate loadout
vehicles should be able to defend themselves against aircraft and/or support their own aircraft and infantry/maxxes with the appropriate loadout
aircraft should support ground ... not just entirely wipe the floor with it !



you want feedback?

this older thread here STILL applies
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/i-v-a-balance-and-dbg´s-stingyness-on-customisation.258775/

No they won't. You're coping hard and you know it. Max is not an infantry class, stop pretending it is.

Or just don't let the max be revived. It's a force multiplier. They do not deserve to be revived.

Maxs are what make the game more interesting. Some flashbangs and concussion with a Light Assault C4 rush fixes that problem up quick.

I am onboard with the make the shield a default passive(maybe with Sunderer shield upgrade path of 10s->6s),
but that extra delay when broken must be removed, it mathematically does nothing compared to nanite auto repair.

After doing some math I would say that, from the front, Forward Shield's average effect over it's up and down time equates to having an extra 920 HP over 40 seconds. This of course, does not account for capacity for it absorb huge amounts of damage in one activation time of the Forward Shield, 18000 effective health for 8 seconds.

However, I don't believe the Forward Shield concept can't be fixed, it actually is a pretty good way of reducing damage without denying/reversing progress or interfering with weaknesses. Suddenly gaining health is also very strong I would say have the Nimitz shield recharge in 10 seconds and have an ability that forces it on for those 10 seconds.

Alternatively, I believe a more spread out Forward Shield may have a more desirable effect. Maybe something like a 67%->50% front damage reduction, 8->12 second duration, and 40->36 second cooldown. That would see a major reduction of it's potential damage reduction and an improvement in it's availability and average reduction overtime effect.

Also I would have the new defensive item, cap at 1000 more converted shield(2000 shield / 4000 hp) and adjust it's regen to keep inline with a 10 second recharge. You need to take hp damage some times, or else your just making something more OP than the Forward Shield.

Dont really like Faction-Specific Class Abilities - while TR has best AR weapons in game, VS got Infiltrator buff, and NC "really needs more" HA players... why dont equally buff all factions medics only. Since max can't be revived, medic class needs more love.
About Max nerf - reduce cost of max suit. But overall, NC Max has no versatility, like other maxes, wide-field bases make shotguns useless. From the other side - maybe other faction will pull more maxes then nc, that's will be annoying.

Theres going to be a lot of kneejerk to the max change i feel, but it does raise some questions. Is it wise to nerf the NC weapons at the same time as a major overhaul?
What effect will this have to the use of maxes in live play, max crashes become much less favourable if every max you lose is not only a stall on the push, but that player now has to respawn and start their push from scratch. If youre using maxes to hold a point, your time is almost default limited, each max death on a point is a loss of the max, and the player.
C4 and Mines still being a near instant kill on a 1 use suit will sting too, though how much so is to be determined with the reduced cost.

Alternatively :
Revives for maxes cost the max player nanites
or a max player can be revived as a standard infantry class, engineer would be thematically appropriate
Or allow a new medic ability that allows for max revives, niche, especially when replacing the two existing options, but viable squad play.

All three options hamper the ever present max issues the devs seem to be taking a swipe at. The nanite upkeep puts a limiter on your aggression while rewarding more measured play. The infantry revive allows pushes to maintain itself beyond the maxes life. The medic change could allow some more variety in medic loadouts in certain situations, though perhaps niche.

It will be interesting to see how things shake up in any case.

basically making the max more of a vehicle than an infantry unit (which in my mind it already is), being able to exit the suit before it dies, or die with it if you dont do so quick enough. That at least gives the player a chance to survive being in it.

I kinda like the unique abilities, personally. They each feel quite in line with existing equipment, making it so that a TR medic isn't suddenly better than another medic for example, while still adding some uniqueness (which I personally like to have when I want to play different factions), and potentially new niche play styles.

The TR Medic Triage Pulse is the one that originally felt the weakest to me, because despite giving out healing comparable to Nano Regen, the cooldown timer means that it's unlikely it will be ready for me to use when I need it, aka, when I took damage I did not see coming. But after using it for about an hour in 5v5 combat on PTS, it proves to be quite useful when activated in prevention, just before peaking out a doorway and getting in a room; at least, that's when I noticed its effects the most, on myself, but on my teammates too. If the 25s cooldown could get some charge when using Combat Surgeon, it would make it a viable strategy to fall back and focus on reviving an ally, if you find yourself in a situation where you could use some healing or want to push a choke point, but the cooldown is too far away. Assimilate 5 should likely be allowed to work with it too in the future.

I realize the MAX changes are controversial, and I will start by saying that as someone who mostly plays infantry, I am pretty biased against MAXes. Overall, I think these changes are welcome, and even if they feel radical to some, I think it's not a bad idea to test things out to see what sticks and makes the game both healthier, and still enjoyable by most.

I haven't had issues with the NPC changes. The repair drone has some hitbox issues preventing the engineer to deploy other utilities (reserve hardlight barrier, for example), but I think that has already been reported. I feel like, technically, Robotics Technician should work with it, but in practice, I don't know if that's a good idea, as it could make the drone's health too high. Something worth considering? On that note, Ordnance Dampeners aren't affected by Robotics Technician, when Hardlight Canopies are. I don't know if it's an intended omission, simply something I noticed

can someone clarify if this is dmg the Max recieves or it dealing?

This is a joke.
You're nerfing the A2G weapons slightly and at the same time you're buffing ESFs?
So A2G ESFs will just take a few seconds longer to farm the same amount of kills?
You're making it unrewarding for players to deal with A2G infantry farmers.
While A2A still has to deal with this lockon ********.
While A2G will just laugh at you for once again not solving this simple problem.

Reduce the range! Reduce the time to lock on.
And stop increasing the TTK for both sides.

On the MAX:

As noted, the revive change will likely not be good. Players are going to be even more careful despite the lowered cost. And “careful” in this case means “hold area’s where they are hard to kill, the same area’s players already hate them at”. In the meantime MAX’s would be used even less for any other tasks, if at all.

A better alternative:
Increase the MAX speed to be similar to infantry.
Decrease its effective HP against small-arms. Something like 4000 EHP should be plenty.
Reduce the cost to 200 nanites.
Add an in-build auto-repair that at max rank takes around 20 seconds to repair fully from 1hp.

These changes would help the MAX be less min/maxed. It can push with infantry, its not too costly to risk, its not so tanky that regular small-arms aren’t a threat, it isn’t so extremely dependent on engineers anymore to stay in a fight but does take longer to regen giving infantry with their quick recharge shields an opening to whittle it down.


As for lock-ons, can we finally dump these crap mechanics? They don’t work as-is. Here’s a few simple alternate versions you could add:

- laser guided, multi-missile magazine missile.
Your missile works like an AV turret missile. If it gets close it has a 0.5m flak detonation range to make hits a tiny bit easier. 4 hits to kill. It has a magazine of 4, but only one missile can be in flight at a time. Firing another one causes the previous missile to stop being laser-guided. That means that you COULD dump your magazine but scoring 4 hits in quick succession would be hard unless the plane is hovering. Longer range targets increase TTK as you need to guide longer.

- dumbfire flak warhead.
Just launch a rocket with a flak warhead that mauls the target. High speed versions would deal low damage while low speed rockets deal high damage. That concept can be applied to any of these options.

- maintain lock missile
Instead of fire-and-forget you need to maintain lock, but the lock is achieved much faster and can be acquired after firing. The lock-angle (how close to aim on the aircraft) would be smaller so you could attempt to escape the lock, if only temporarily. The missile’s agility can be adjusted, if its not agile you might need to lead the shot before locking on, which would be interesting in itself.

These options all don’t need to be as DPS constrained as current lock-ons due to the skill involved. They also make it more enjoyable to use the G2A launchers. Also the G2A launchers can get secondary roles against ground targets so they can be picked before aircraft arrive. Dealing with G2A should be par of the course, not something you can avoid.

While i dont agree with the post im gonna say, i think most maxes that arent defector can speed up to be slightly faster then infantry when revved?

The Max changes to being not revived is a very stupid idea. While I hate Max's with a passion making them not able to get revived makes them useless as hell outside of ranged fights. All you get is C4 dudes auto killing Max's even more now with more benefits to taking out a Max ever then before... How is that even thought as a good idea? Max's can already be easily killed by Engies but this is just silly. The whole point of a Max is to what? Oh, right tank... Without them being able to get a revive they will just be used less and less making fights way more boring.
Not to mention this means that Phylactery will again get a massive nerf making it nearly useless if Max's can't be revived.

Then you got the class abilities being a bad thing. So, every faction but Vanu gets abilities for others... How is that fair? Lol. You got 2 of them healing people and the other is a massive damage resist. Vanu gets a speed boost... That is beyond silly. How does that even make any sense? Give everyone else abilities to help their team while shafting Vanu to some stupid speed boost that doesn't stack with other speed boosts.