[Suggestion] My Take on the Heavy Assault Problem

Everyone already knows the game is filled to the brim with HAs and not much else. Personally I find it both boring and annoying to only ever fight complete nubs who don't know what's going on and heavies. So much so that I can't just enjoy a bit of LA gameplay without a biolab or some such base structure to validate why I'm not using an LMG myself. --Catlike already cuts into the roll of a jetpack alone.

A lot of people have suggested to just remove the shield, add a lengthy delay, stop it from covering the head, or what have you. In my opinion, the best option would be to simply remove the shield entirely, but not just leave it at that.

In my opinion, the best way to solve the tiresome issue of armies of nothing but "l33t pro" HAs is to remove the shield completely, expand the arsenal, and give them some passive, built-in protection.

1. Removing the shield puts the heavy assault on equal ground with most everyone else. No more single-button action or soaking up half a magazine of ammunition to the chest.
2. Without an active ability, there is little reason to play heavy assault, which would simply swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. To compensate for this, I would have their arsenal expanded to include all of the following: LMGs, heavy weapons, assault rifles, carbines, battle rifles, SMGs, shotguns, rocket launchers, and sidearms. The loadout would be standard: [Primary weapon], [Sidearm], [RL].
3. To supplement the lessened combat capabilities of a shieldless heavy, max rank flak armour would be provided as a built-in passive suit upgrade in addition to the standard suit slot. This would take the place of the ability slot.

The idea behind all of this would be to make the Heavy Assault a versatile combat fighter with AV capabilities, while simultaneously restricting the previous raw skill-independent power of the class.

Thoughts, comments, and concerns? I know this is very unlikely to ever happen, especially this late into the game. However I genuinely believe this would be better for the game, and is an idea worth sharing.

My take on the Heavy Assault problrem is that there isn't a Heavy Assault problem. There may be a selective perception problem.

What you believe is that this would be better for whatever class you like to play. Heavy Assault is a class whose only role is to kill the other guy and slug his way onto the point. That means he's going to kill the other classes more effectively and/or be harder to kill.

One class is going to be the most common. There is never going to be an even split between the classes played because some classes are specialists. The HA represents the bulk of the players because he is the generic soldier, the main component of an army.

The reality is that it's not about the HA, it's about the knee-jerk reaction that people have whenever something is the most common tactic in a videogame.

I cant think of a solution that inst drastic.
Given how there is no suppression mechanic you cant really make the machine gunner class anything but a automatic riflemen class.

Before we can tackle a class being reliant on a crutch like this we would have to really dramatically change how weapons work.

the battlefield franchise has a pretty decent solution by having a suppression effect and making the machine gun class be more efficient at making use of it. On top of this utility they are also responsible for Ammo resupply.
A bipod mechanic also really give them a good utility for mid to long range combat. I think some of these could be translated well into planetside. Key word being Could.
But its a little late in the game to be making such a radical change to gun play I think.

Its already frustrating how much of a emphasis this game has on headshots for less then elite players. You also get punished for playing support classes by losing fights to shielded enemies at every turn.
This has always been a problem but I really don't see what can be done at this point.

Be it invisible snipers or shielded machine gunners this games has a unfortunate fascination with supplying crutches in combat as a class feature.
To take these away at this point would probably be worse then the frustration of the status quo to be honest.

The underlying problem is that there is little to no class distinction in base attributes such as movement speed, shield delay, shield/health distribution, etc. So naturally the class that simply has more HP will dominate infantry play regardless of "but it can't support!". The heavy assault has no significant tradeoff for its advantage and moreover it does not depend on other classes to any meaningful degree.

My personal complaint is that I am required to outplay a heavy while they do not have to do the same for me, and they are not any easier to outplay than the other non-stealth/mobility classes. There are multiple ways to alleviate this, but lowering their movement speed to 75% at all times is a good start. The tank/vanguard class should not be equally maneuverable.

What to do with the overshield is another tough-to-answer question. Having an ambush foiled by the enemy pressing F is not good gameplay. My recommendation is to put it on a 2 second wind-up that can be interrupted by damage, and increasing it to 1000HP or so. This would grant the HA a good breaching role, and would otherwise require foresight and smart usage for defensive purposes.

Another (unpopular) idea would be to drop all LMGs a damage tier to make them more of a fire support role. I'm iffy about this one; though while LMGs are the worst auto weapons in terms of accuracy and handling, the disadvantage can be negated by skilled users (read: leet heavy mains) within common engagement ranges. The large mags also ensure that said HA is almost always able to return fire when retreating from an unfavorable scenario, making chase + finishers difficult.

Some things to consider as we ponder the class' place in the meta:

-Absorbing damage is a "defender" trait, as prolonging engagements increases the time and opportunity for stealth/mobility units to swoop in with an unexpected extra damage source or otherwise lead them into a pincer movement. The HA and MAX posses this trait due to better durability, but the HA does not require support and is not slow. The NC MAX does this especially well, but foregoes the ability to return fire. The engineer can do this with the AI MANA turret (as long as no snipers or good aim are nearby).

-Ranged sustained fire is a "siege" trait, as the enemy is discouraged from stepping into the firing lane at any given moment due to how the high-mag size weapon is almost always aimed and ready to fire compared to weapons with frequent downtime. HAs and TR/VS AI MAXs possess this trait.

-Area denial, debuffing the enemy, and temporary DPS/durability boosts are all "breaching" traits.

• Area denial refers to using AoE to push enemies off of their "hunker" spot so allies can move up, or out of cover entirely for mopping up. The Lasher and frag grenade are good examples. (Off-topic: would love to have an NS grenade launcher for medics)

• Debuffing refers to reducing several enemies' ability to respond or hold out against an attack. EMP, concussion, and flash grenades fall under this category. Sources of smoke also count, but is not very reliable for well known reasons: the settings exploit and the fact that players can still be spotted through the smoke.

• Temporary DPS/durability boosts refers to granting oneself a direct combat advantage for a short period. The HA does this with its overshield. In terms of increasing damage output... only the TR and VS MAX can do that, but both are basically suicide buttons in common infantry scenarios.

Fine, but if you're considering the lower 90% of the playerbase that can't land all headshots, it's an "I win" class. The ability to passively soak up grenades, c-4, HE and rockets would still have it cemented as the backbone of an army, without the heavily weighted advantage in gun duels.

If most of the players play HA then obviously this is not a problem for them but for some of the minority who does not play HA.

Having said that, if you design a game where the main focus is KDR then the HA is the best choice: armored, shielded, widest choice of weapons and capable to engage everything else.

Couple it with implants to reheal and resupply ammo and it is 100% independent as well.

Fix the game design that creates an horde of HA players instead.

The HA's LMG already has a niche in mid-range combat and massive ammo capacities, not to mention a rocketlauncher. Even if you did remove the shield you wouldn't need to give them access to everything else to make them viable.

The real problem as I see it isn't that the HA has a lot of survivability, it's a lack of common objectives and scenario's where other classes can shine as well as a lack of metagame focus.
Currently, players focus mostly on KD. It's completely farmable but it's the most prominent thing they can use to get their epeen up. There's nothing wrong with using stats as an extend of your enjoyability of a game... But KD is currently not supporting the game's mentality. People prefer to farm their KD than try and break chokepoints or mess around trying to find new tactics or making a cool attack happen. So we need to remove the "deaths" part of KD, death is supposed to be irrelevant in PS2 anyway. Then add new statistics people can go for: vehicles destroyed, average damage received/dealt per life (one for infantry one for vehicles), points captured etc.
This gives players more things to try and achieve beyond KD, and encourages them to play the game instead of holding back or finding the most cheesiest method of farming.
Then, add more objectives to complete with different rates of succes based on what class you are. For example the Medic Forwards Station (which wasn't in the latest update? What gives?). It would give Medics a better role at pushing the frontlines without having to revive every single player, and LA's/Infiltrators would have the easiest time hunting these objects down compared to the HA that would have to fight his way through the thick of it. This already makes the HA less omniversally useful and gives the spotlight to other classes. Add a dozen more such objectives throughout the game that different classes can perform the best (and not be the only one's to perform it, just be the best at doing it) and you can rebalance everything without needing to nerf the Heavy in any way.

honestly because of HA i quit the game i played only few hours but that class is just overused powerhouse in 1 hour session around 90% of enemies i ve been spoting were heavy assaults, this class has just too many tools to wreck everything on its way and no hard counters.

That's not necessarily true. This playerbase is the epitome of "if you can't beat'em, join'em". That's why you see 50%+ pop on a singe faction every single day. I'm sure a lot of people would rather play something else, but they just got sick of losing to worse payers because of a shield. I've left plenty of games because the meta was just so dull or annoying. So maybe those people just picked up and left.

I don't see a huge problem. HA is probably my least played class and I kill plenty of them as other classes.

By landing all head shots on an ADADADAD spamming, laggy target. Good for you. What percentage of the playerbase do you think can shoot as well as you? Keep in mind the casuals that fill this game, the 90% of players who can't land headshots like a pro. That shield is a hard counter that many people will never have the ability to overcome.

There are some distinction in base attribute for the MAX and the engineer (he have 2 sec faster delay before his shield start to recharge).
MAXes are also the reason why you can't give base 0,75 move speed and passive reinforced defense to heavy.

There is a supression mechanic due to the personnal shield.
A bipod LMG and an ammo box ? say no more, it's called the engineer class with the AI mana turret.

Fire supression mechanic don't work in a game where cover can't protect you while you're supposed to be safe from enemy and where people don't fear death (because it's a game and because medic revive you in less than a sec)
Let's take engineer shield barrier as example :
If you hide behind it, 20% of your head can be shot at
If you're too close of the shield barrier, your head+limb will go through hit and enemy will be able to shot at them.

Make cover useful, then you can start to think about fire supression.

Altought I disagree that HAs win only because they have a shield (I play HA and most of the times my shield is off, especially at night), you are basically saying that HA is the preferred class to kill other players.

Now go beyond this a little bit.

Why kill other players and avoid to be killed is more important/satisfying/rewarding/... than defending a point, repairing a Max or a vehicle, rezzing or healing other players, deploying a sunderer, capturing a base or locking a continent?

Answer to THAT question first, otherwise you will nerf HA and people will move aside and play LA immediately after, because it is the next best class to kill other players and engage with C4/rockets ground and air vehicles).

The core of the Heavy Assault Issue/Problem has 3 main components:
1) most new players when playing Infantry are extremely confused, frustrated, and put off by HA's shield ability.
2) many experienced players don't like current HA for some combination of their opinion that: HA is too common on the battlefield, HA shield is too good, HA is too effective vs. more targets than other classes, HA is heavily used in Hardcore Organized gameplay, HA has access great weapons, HA can use implants to get past limitations of the class. And that HA should be nerfed.
3) many experienced players like current HA and in their opinion the HA should not be nerfed in any way.

I personally don't like the current HA, but I also don't like the current state of most units in the game. Regardless, I feel it's item #1 above that is the biggest actual "problem" with HA. HA shield and the other damage mitigation tricks in PS2 continue to be a dumb bad joke to most new players, and it doesn't make sense to protect a tiny % of the units/items (HA, MedKit, etc.) at the cost of most new players disliking and leaving (and bad mouthing) the game.

Lol, you make a lot of assumptions don't you? I don't consider myself a particularly good shot. There are many ways to counter HA without landing head shots. If you face them head on and they have a shield and you don't, then yes they'll probably win, but that's what the class is for, they're front line troops. So don't fight them head on. Flank them, get above them, get behind them, run with a squad etc etc etc.

Crying nerf to the HA shield has been a thing since forever and I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people make out. And I don't play HA much at all so I'm not defending it as my crutch.

This game is entirely about capturing points. Vehicles spamming HE aside, heavies are the best tool, with zero nanite cost. They're the backbone that defends a point, captures bases, and locks continents. I also don't see Campagne's suggestion as a game-breaking nerf that would drive everyone to flood the map with LAs. For starters, he's suggesting giving them Flak armor for free and opening up every weapon but snipers to their disposal. That means C-4 and grenades won't be nearly as powerful, and the rocklet rifle would be useless against them. Not to mention the complete gimping of vehicle HE spam against bases, which would be a good thing. Then stack Nanoweve on top of that. It's not really that bad of a deal. What it does do, is level the playing field as far as gun battles. It turns gunfights in to skill vs skill, especially at the torso-shooting skill level of the majority of this game's players. I go for headshots all the time, and normally do alright, but I don't assume that the rest of the community has an alright time just because I do. In the end, the best shot and best positioned player wins. I'm all for this change.

To fix heavies.

First, remove the default overshield and replace with the resist version. One of the reasons for resist shield not being more popular is that it only prolongs an engagement due to stopping a portion of damage. Thus it lacks the "I WIN" nature of the other two shields. Thus by making Resist the default HA is brought down a peg and getting the jump on one actually means something.

Second, increase the rate that Adrenaline shield uses up energy so that it won't be possible to keep it up for more than 10 to 15 seconds at best. Second when active give it some hefty downsides - my suggestion being a 50% movement penalty, inability to be healed by any means, and drains the regular shield.

Finally, change the default overshield as follows. When active it disables all the HA's weapons and other abilities and when deactivated it starts an 8 second cooldown (decreasing with rank) before it can be reactivated. In exchange the shield becomes much stronger - granting a large boost or even complete immunity to non-environmental damage for the duration. In effect changing the shield from a tool for winning one-on-one fights to a team-focused tool tailored for breaching, closing with vehicles, or surviving grenade spam preceding a breaching attempt.

Personally that is the way I can see Daybreak going. They established the precedent when the Vanguards shield was changed from blocking 2k damage to a straight resist based on side. Given that HA''s overshield uses the same mechanics as the old shield and - unlike the Vanguard - are by any measure grossly overpopulated, its only a matter of a time before they get the same treatment. The real question at this point is will the HA "mains" get enough sense to help shape the solution that brings the HA down to the same level are the rest of us, or will they continue to throw tantrums to keep their crutch for a few more months only to get smashed into the ground via nerf-hammer?

This game is entirely about constant pressure on a point. I wish it was worthwhile to take a scenic walk and get work done on a flank, but even then you're better off bringing a Sundy on the flank so you can pour HAs out of it. Or get a Gal or Valk and dump HAs on the problem. Or throw up a spawn beacon and drop HAs from the sky.

And as far as flank, get above, get behind, use numbers.... Out-playing them has to do with skill and coordination, not balance. And in most of those cases, out-playing them could be better done with another HA. I have noticed that the best players can absolutely wreck with LAs and Infils, but I wouldn't balance the game and say those classes are nearly as useful for the vast majority of the playerbase. I don't necessarily think the HA is crazy OP, but it is leagues above any other option, and I think Campagne's suggestion would leave it much better than the other classes for general combat while leaving less to chance when you round a corner and more to skill, which I'm completely for in a fps.

HA itself is working as intended, it's just that the other combat classes offer nothing but more risks and less rewards in this game design. Most bases clearly aren't designed for any benefit of infiltrators or light assaults, as infiltrators will easily get caught in crossfire and light assaults will be completely exposed when trying to reach any point of interest.

Meanwhile, heavy assaults have no trouble covering their ***** in bases full of cover and choke-points. If they don't succeed the first time, they might as well keep pushing on through the short route to objective until the limited flanking possibilities have been exhausted