You can certainly kill a standard ZOE MAX that is being played by a terrible player, for sure. I'm less certain you can kill a maxed out ZOE MAX (especially with dual Blueshifts or Nebulas) played by a decent or better player, they basically have to do something really silly to lose IMO.
Pretending that you can balance MAXes with a cost or cooldown is why we have the lousy MAX balance we have now. I mean this literally. In beta they had the option of either balancing the capabilities of MAXes, or adding a cooldown to them. They went with the cooldown option, and look where we're at now. Cost is a bad mechanism for improving balance. Address the underlying problem, don't tiptoe around the issue.
Until they bring all of them inline, or implement a rez limit, I recommend everyone just run around as something that can take out MAXs fast. UBGLs are really REALLY awesome against them and I feel under-utilized(unless it's a biolab fight LOLOL). They work especially well from above but they work wonders at ground level too with enough skill/luck. Plus the splash damage will eventually take out the engie/medic hiding behind them.
Yeah, the tactic for VS seems to be, attack, lose the attack, max crash....win. If the MAX crash fails they leave, come back 15m later to try it again. having played with the Mattherson VS, its become apparent why I have mostly VS kills. And yeah, overall MAX are rather annoying to encounter. the 350resource cost for MAX was a good step in the right direction for MAX spam but its still crazy to see like 30 max bust in a door all at once. Maybe a MAX cannot be rezzed, or if you rez the "MAX" you instead are rezzing the guy in the max and he pops out as the LA he was. it'd be basically the same thing if we could "rez" an MBT .....the MAX is not a man, its not living, its a robot..... I can now see the logic behind those who vote for no MAX rezzing. Also, the repair rate on MAX could be slowed down to lessen the Engi train that follows maxes around making them largely unkillable when done right. I do the same cheap last minute MAX crash tactic on my TR and it feels very cheap. I feel like a skilless noob scum when I do it, but the MAX is fun to roll, esp the TR one. lotsa dakka!
I feel like some people, when things go bad, say "Well, it's not working. Better pull a MAX" before saying "Maybe we should attack from a different direction." The way MAXes (and vehicles in general) work in this game inherently leads to spamming tactics. There is nothing to stop 20-something players from pulling a MAX at the same time and crushing all opposition. Unless the enemy also starts spamming MAXes that is. I regularly see people pull MAXes (or even tanks!) in fights of just two people on each side. (bonus points if the other player is not playing engineer or medic) I feel like many interesting small scale battles are completely ruined by MAX units. I can't really blame them for using any and all means at their disposal to win but it sure gets annoying after a while. Perhaps the idea of restricting the locations where MAXes can be pulled has some merits (requiring a biolab is definitely going too far though). The problem with this however is that you would also be restricting the ability to pull AA MAXes. The whole argument that MAXes (or again vehicles in general) deserve to be so strong because of resource costs and timers doesn't make much sense to me. When your vehicle/MAX is destroyed you can just continue the fight as a regular soldier. If you see MAXes as a temporary boost to your strength then there is really no reason why they should be incredibly powerful just because of that. The only relevant balance question here is whether the cost is balanced compared to the advantage gained from spending the resources on utilities/grenades instead.
Definitely most of this is true. (+liked) However it's worth noting that as TR you get the MSW-R which while not quite as amazing as the Orion is certainly no slouch at immediately hipfiring accurate, high-DPS shots onto a target. When I play my VS char the lack of a viable hipfire LMG (Polaris' low DPS makes it a joke) is a noticeable weak point, and I definitely miss the MSW-R (TR) and Anchor (NC) when playing that character. But again, the rest of your comments are entirely correct. It's really just the combination of superior damage and mobility that causes ZOE to be broken, providing fantastic defenses (evasion) against the tools best suited to actually killing MAXes. The killstreaks aren't even all that much different in ZOE -- my K/D and killstreaks probably aren't much better than other MAXes actually -- but the rate of killing is the key thing that makes them so broken. If I stomp around with Mattocks (NC) then I'm going to get a high killstreak, but I'm not going to kill fast enough (relative to respawning reinforcements) to make a huge push for my team. But put me in a ZOE and I'm going to cut out a really significant chunk of enemy players extremely fast, which actually lets my team gain more territory since we're overcoming their respawning reinforcements by a greater margin. So even if my K/D and avg Killstreak were the same in ZOE as with Mattocks, this would be a balance issue for how effective each MAX is for pushing towards points. (Which seems important, because I know devs are looking at MAX K/Ds, but probably don't have stats which would indicate that these high-burst killstreaks actually matter more for capturing a base.) Which leaves us with the only valid comment I've ever heard about ZOE balancing, that ZOE is actually becomes worse (relative to MAX Charge) in high-tier organized play than the other abilities (which become better relative to MAX Charge.) Mostly because if you're talking about two organized squads facing off, ZOE's shortcomings do come into play. Instead of being able to use your mobility to manage your engagements and force fights against 1-3 enemies at a time against a constant trickle of enemies, in organized play all 12 opponents are in there on the point: you're either engaging all of them or none of them, so your speed matters less (except for dodging rockets.) But while that's an awkward trait of the ability's design, the simple fact is that in the 99.9% of combat situations players actually experience in PS2, ZOE is overpowered. If they can find a way to rebalance it while addressing the ability's shortcomings in organized play, so much the better, but the first priority should be balancing it for the majority of players.
^^^^ Which is why the ZOE should lose its mobility bonus but keep everything else about it unchanged. Add a duration and a Cool down. Right now its a perma super suit mode.
I can usually pull maxes none stop, simply due to making resources back from killing people in my skill suit. they are fun to play, but they shouldn't be able to be spammed with the current regularity.
They should be rareish. The main stay of this game should be Infantry, not tanks, MAX, planes and w/e else. Infantry. Sundys should be coveted and sought after. Highly important to defend and kill. High respawn cost, long respawn timer. Add some skill into this game rather then the I got the bigger zerg I win it is now. RIght now its just a massive, rush to defend the post, no matter the cost, how many guys there are...and if someone does not do it, they are camping or are a noob or something.
if you cant make sure that said max stays down because you lack the manpower to kill medics in the area then why not use rockets? 0 resources lost on that. im not against it if they would make maxes not possible to ress, but that would need to go inhand with them at least needing 2 C4 bricks to die. when i die in my max i dont accept a revive anyway so not so much of a change for me. Pulling a max and one of the many C4 fairy drops a brick on you or 2m from you and you die to it is just plain stupid at a max cost of 350. at least that is my view on it. -edit- with the resourcs changes they plan to do i hope they will add some way to specialize in what you want to pull. you want to fly 24/7 and dont use your tank, specialize in it so you can pull 10 mossis in 5 min if you like but on the down side you can only pull one or two tanks. something like that.
I think MAX resource cost has been increased quite enough. It's very difficult to have enough resources in rapidly moving combat, even if the only time you lose a suit is when you redeploy. I don't die often, but I'm already forced to walk far more than I find entertaining. No opinion one way or the other about revives. I don't see a particularly good reason to remove this, but when I play a MAX, I'm often going solo, or am otherwise in a situation where I cannot rely on being revived, or wouldn't want to be revived even if it was possible. Why? It's a mixed mode, combined asset, game. What about it requires infantry to be ascendant over everything else? The only things ZOE has going for it is the mobility advantage and the lack of a cooldown. The increased damage is a mediocre edge that cannot be properly leveraged due to the downsides that come with ZOE. Loss of Charge is a huge disadvantage. Increased visibility is a huge disadvantage. Loss of significant damage reduction is a huge disadvantage. There is a mystique, a misconception, surrounding ZOE. It's held by many VS MAXers and their opponents, but the reality of the matter is, that if ZOE disappeared and the same people kept pulling MAXes, they would remain just as effective. ZOE is, at it's best, a side grade.
Apparently they are thinking of tying MAXs to the new Interlink Facility the way MBTs are tied to Tech Plants.
IMO - A bandaid to MaxSide2, make it so that in order to revive a max you need both an engineer and medic in sync to revive. Also make it take double or triple the time it currently takes to revive a MAX unit.
No, it's what I believe. Most VS MAXes believe ZOE is an upgrade and this is evidenced by the majority of VS MAXes slotting ZOE, if they have the certs to do so. I have ZOE 5. I played a VS MAX for about six hours yesterday. I slotted ZOE for exactly none of that time because I was never in a situation where it was better than Charge 6.
Wait what...side grade!?! How can an ability that removes the main disadvantage of the standard MAX suit be a "side grade" in your world? Its like having perma charge. i dont know what is most broken: a) the old ScatterMAX b) the current ZOE MAX.
What? I need to learn something whereas to kill other maxes I just shoot rockets into them? BUT I REFUSE! I dont wanna die to disco lobster! Because I can run away from NC and TR maxes, survive, prepare and kill them solo or not. GLowing lobster is just too mobile to be hit by rockets. You either hit him when he is unaware or if hes just BR5 noob. I dont say it is impossible to him him with decimator, but hey, its FAR easier to hit NC brick of blue and yellow.
