MAXs are underpowered

Seriously, why does a class cost 450 nanite, when it can be pretty much get OHKed by 90% of infantry?
Heavies can kill MAXs so damn easily with their launchers, it really makes no sense that this unit costs 450 nanites.

i totally agree with you,
it is disgusting that 3/5 classes have weapons that kill maxes in several clicks
(rocket launchers, archers and rocklet rifle)
hell, even medics who carry c4 can easily oneshot you.
and this slow moving cert pinata costs as much as an MBT or Liberator?!
and then they go ahead and remove charge too?! and in its place they give you a weak heal on a 1 min cooldown...
pretty insulting.

solution?
make Flak armour a built-in thing so the suit slot choices are auto repair or kinetic armour.
and also hugely buff emergency repair.

Taking the sprint away from the max was a sure sign that proves that the makers of this game know absolutely nothing about balance. Now it is a sitting duck for OP heavies and their multiple launchers. Not forgetting the big lump of c4 in the back pocket. Maxes are useless now that they cannot make a quick getaway from oncoming enemy fire. The max should go down to 250 and the Lib should go to 750 in my opinion

Solution? Learn to use them properly!

At best you could ask for a way to make MAX's less slow-moving bastions of death, and more something like a normal moving death machine.

But those complaints about "omg, something can kill me in two clicks!" are besides the point. So what if it takes two clicks? With a rocketlauncher the MAX has plenty of time to kill the opponent or retreat. With C4 you have the arming time and you need smart placement as despite the MAX's overall short range, the C4 range is shorter. and like every single infantry guy in the game: You need support. Ofcourse you can go at it alone and you can get pretty far regardless of the class you carry, but the cost of a MAX means you need to be more careful as you can't repeat a MAX lone-wolf action. And if you do use support you can be one hell of a force multiplier, well worth the 450 resources.

MAX units shouldn't even exist.

Well, I don't really know as I don't play Max. But I did shoot one three times last night with an RL without killing him because pocket Engineer (who stayed out of my kill zone so I couldn't take him out first).

MAX units are not underpowered as soon as they are full certed and using all of their weaponry.

A default MAX will be destroyed pretty fast if played as it comes. A full certed MAX is able to clean a building if not played as lone wolf. A full certed MAX can clean up lots of certain dense places outside of bases or is the perfect sniper hunter.

A full certed Anti Air MAX is a pain in the pilots neck. Full certed Anti Vehicle MAX units are a a pain in the drivers/gunners neck with long range raven, vortex/comets, fractures.

But the keyword is "full-certed". A MAX suit is costly in certs and nanites but a strong and multifunctional battle fist. Not for silent operation, not for surgery. But the unit that is there to break a wall or a door and to storm the hill as the first motivator.

MAX units are useful to take the incoming fire whilst other infantry units can spray or aim in relative safety unless the MAX is destroyed. Even experienced player are often disatracted by an incoming MAX to hunt this unit down whilst other units can slip inside a building or to a (choke) point.

Most important MAX suit is the NC MAX with full certed Aegis shield. This unit can take a full grenade spam with his shields to protect all the infantry around him. But you have to know that anti flak armour, crouching and an upward lifted shied, turnig to the next expolding grenade is effective to take all the damage and to deal with a small scratch only after that grenade spams.

Solo MAX units have not much worth, even certed. MAX units running in a group of other player (not even squad/platoon. No, lone wolve/solo player but with other players near) are hard to counter and able to break any point defence. But even as solo unit a player CAN do a lot if handled with care. This will need a very good awareness.

True MAX killer ar not the launcher or rocketrifle. A full certed MAX and equiped MAX can stand some damage. True killer is the Archer and second place Light Assaults dropped C4. Dropped HA´s or Medics C4 normally isn´t a problem because they can´t hide.

The Archer is often and normally a toxic weapon because in a heavy battle the archer impact goes under in noise and chaos and 2 seconds later the MAX is destroyed. In fact the loud Archer is like a silent weapon.

And finally and again: full certed is the keyword.

Edit: learn how to use emergency repair. I can´t say how often my MAX could stand and hold a strong enemy group i had to fight using emergency repair. Old charge was often the dead sentence shot down in my back whilst fleeing or the dead sentence charging valiant into a certain point and nailed by a single AV mine. To be to fast is often the argue for a heavy traffic crash and a destroyed MAX in planetside 2.

After i have adapted emergency repair it feels better than old charge. It gives a better stability.

5th of August 2014 when we had resource revamp MAX cost was 350 nanites. Only six days later at 11th they increased it to 450.

I don´t think they are underpowered when it comes to firepower.
What the developers do is, they ad one counter after another against MAXes and on top they removed the most usefull ability and gave a less usefull.

Maxes were completely fine with sprint. Removing it is just another catering to "competitive" players. Wrel's argument was to prevent them from disengaging. Why would you do that? It completeley messes up neccesary max-tactics. In low pop - tiny fights maxes will be dealth with if there are competent engineers/heavies/l.a's we all know this, and the time of solo-maxes runing small fights were pretty much over when sticky vehicle nades came, and now with the archer and roklet c-4 combo - it's even less of an issue.

HOWEVER in some max crashes you have to use charge to, well; CHARGE the enemy to get behind them and deal damage from behind/among them. Good luck doing that now

For a burster max - and especially after flak-blinding was removed you HAD to have charge to survive as ANY (bar maybe schyte) could tank a dual burster max long enough to one-mag him (AH and Banshee), you don't even need Hornets. Now if you move as much as 2 meters from spawnroom you are a 450 resources cert-pinjata for air in low pop - hell even in mid pop.

All this does is encourage camping-maxes that refuse to push, MAX'es that farm instead of pulling their weight in a fight. It also further skews max-ability imbalance as it indirectly buff TR and NC maxes as their abilities isn't ZOE. And anything that isn't ZOE is good. The rep ability itself is super-meh. Maybe if it repaired 50% of the MAX health instead of 20% but I'd rather have charge.

And again - teamwork. Campy maxes and engineers without rep-points. Lack of engineers in fights are big enough on Cobalt atleast - I don't see how this encourages more.

MAXs have so many things to worry about now the power to cost ratio is massively out of whack.

Pulling one without an engie behind you is a waste of resources. You are better off just chucking grenades at infantry or just trying to C4 vehicles as a LA.

Pulling one with an engie just means you stay in an area and farm infantry as you don't want to run forward and risk losing your MAX.

Yep. Basically this. You try your hardest not to annoy he enemy too much, lest they pull archer engies or Deci HAs.

Also, NC MAXes are much more useful (can actually be used sustainably to hold a point room, due to their much faster TTK against infantry.

yeeeeeeeehhhhhh no. what shouldn't exist is NC and VS MAX having 2 guns that was a TR thing

that could work or maybe the devs should get the idea of them being a weapons platform out of their head that would help. they seem to think MAXes are just frames for holding massive guns they have armor or they should. lets refer back to planetside 1 shall we, the Mechanized Assault eXo was a small tank suit that had way more armor then anyone else and were a ***** to take down but the trade off was you are slower, can't do anything like open doors, ride in most vehicles or hack a base but you could take a licking and then some also you could kill things with ease. the standard infantry had at max 200 armor a MAX had 650 [it also had a run mode]

whats sad is that PS2 MAXes are weak, cant kill infantry worth a damn cant kill aircraft and do jack **** to ground vehicles. i feel less safe, less useful and less armored/survivable when in a MAX hell i feel more safe as a cloaker. the MAX utility's and ability's in PS2 are garbage and you have to give up something to use them: lockdown archer bate, shield C4 bate, zoey [how ever the hell you spell that] everything else bate, charge oh wait that's gone it was the only thing that would keep MAXes alive longer is gone.

if only the devs would treat them like the walking tank that they are and give them some love instead of nerfing them cause people think they are ruining the game. **** like a run mode built in or some more utility would help as maining a max is hard and a joke as of right now.

joke: i can hear you *stomp stomp stomp* going to put a C4 brick on the wall now *stomp stomp stomp* *BOOM* *sigh* back to healing

that is indeed what max should be doing, but it just isn't practical when you're dead to 2 rockets.
a max breaching a room is merely a bit of bonus xp for the people in that room.

i'd much rather hurl 9 sticky grenades into the room to get a whole mountain of kills and cause chaos for the same cost as that dead useless max.

This thread isn't for real, right?

Nah just someone who think we are already in April don't worry

I think they should be vehicles... You should be able to get out of them and play your class and then get back on them... Though I also think they should be able to be transported.

I think PS2 people don't see that if they do this the max vvould be used a lot more though it vvould not need any balance... because it vvould be an extra for everybody.

The bias against maxes is very strong. And i can understand. You cant 360 noscope a max with your lmg or sniper rifle and have to switch weapons to kill them and that messes up livestreams and compilations of killshots so they have to be easy to kill. And thus the massive amounts of nerfs to maxes over the years. I use maxes alot and ill be fine with the removal of them. Just give me my money back from the cosmetics and guns. Now with maxes gone you can have fun trying to shoot down esfs and libs with rocklet rifles and lockons when trying to push from a spawn. It will be fun to watch.

While I agree with both of you to an extent, to me the problem comes down to a balance issue that (if I'm honest) I can't actually see a solution to.

Yes, if you play a solo MAX, your 450 nanites could almost always be used more productively elsewhere. There's NO WAY that a solo MAX compares to a 1/3 Lib or a 1/2 MBT (at least, imo). And even 9 sticky's or frags is likely to net you more kills in a busy point-room than pulling a MAX in most circumstances.

That said.... you put a decent MAX player into an organised squad, and watch the tears roll down! The bastard becomes almost unkillable - got a pocket engy for minor damage, can retreat behind his allies when necessary, has cover while reloading, a medic if he goes down etc. etc. etc. In an organised squad, I'm not sure that 450 nanites is enough cost!

So how do you balance those two extremes? Since there's no way to base the cost on what a player is going to do with it, I can't think of a better way than what DBG did.... give it an intermediate cost and hope for the best.

Will wonders never cease?!?! A SECOND No0T idea that isn't completely moronic and that I actually support.

I could totally get behind the idea of a MAX as a "vehicle" that you could enter or exit. It would be awesome to see the back-plates peel sideways, allowing you to step out of the suit.

It would also make solo MAX's slightly more viable in that you could repair them yourself as an engineer. I'd love to see some of the other class abilities feeding into "your" MAX suit to encourage other classes to play them as well. Maybe some version of overshield for HA, extra mobility (but probably not jumpjets) for LA, a healing aura for allies for medics, NOT cloaking for infils. Maybe perma-recon, sort of like the current Scout Radar or whatever it's called.

This has the potential to be EPIC! I love it!

No. A perfectly optimised squad of MAXes, engies, and medics (with one infil for scouting if no one is running a detection bolt crossbow), will always lose out to a squad of heavies and archer engies (with scouting as well from either an infil or detect bolt), given both squads have similar levels of coordination. And the latter squad doesn't cost any nanites.

Perhaps given the right choke point, an NC MAX squad could be superior, but that is a problem with NC MAX weapons, not MAXes as a class.

I concur. The end times are upon us... Dark days loom on the horizon my brethren, we must steel ourselves for what is to come.

And make it hackable when unoccupied.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Thanks, I actually said this long ago I hope they consider it in combined arms upgrade.