All right, let me start off by saying that this is not a place to argue over whether ZOE is OP or why it is OP, it is for me to discuss my opinion on how SOE's method of handling the problem is wrong. Now then. So I never really liked ZOE much (Nor do I play MAX much either), but I can understand why players believe it is OP. However, SOE is nerfing it far too hard. Currently, I view it as OP by a small margin, but still better than the TR and NC MAXES abilities by such a large amount that it needs a slight nerf, while the other two need a substantial buff. Now, seeing as most peoples' gripe with ZOE appears to be the movement speed and and the instant on, instant off, I would overall nerf the movement speed, and have the speed increase with each rank. At max rank, it would be slightly slower than it is now on live. Also, whenever ZOE is toggled on, a ~5 second activation animation is played, and the same for when it is toggled off. If the activation timer isn't enough, having it be a timer-based ability with something like 10-15 seconds at the first rank increasing to around 30 at max would force players to be much smarter with their ZOE, especially if they were forced to keep it on until it ran out. These changes would make Charge more competitive with ZOE, while still giving each their own unique flavor. Now the NC Aegis shield is something that makes me sad. It sounded like such a cool ability before it was released, but turned out to be rather lackluster. Currently the shield lacks actual complete shielding of the MAX unit from the front, slows down the user, and prevents you from reloading or firing. This effectively makes you an easier target for smarter players, and hurts the NC MAX's effective range even more, because it is difficult to close the gap on infantry to kill them with close range weaponry while crawling under a shield. To remedy this and bring Aegis on-par with the nerfed ZOE described above, the shield would need to offer complete frontal protection, as well as a bit of side shielding. Maybe increase the width even more to allow you to shield allies. Also, the shield needs to either not have a movement penalty, or have a much less severe one. Players should also be able to freely reload while using the shield, and attacking with it up should provide a sort of shield bash melee attack, identical in power to the MAX punch. Lockdown for the TR is also in a sorry state, being the most situational of the three. Given, a Lockdown mode will always be somewhat situational, but Lockdown in its current state is just bad along with being situational. Let's compare it to the Anchored Mode for the Prowler. While anchored, the Prowler gains a massive boost to DPS and Reload speed, while the user is still free to rotate in all directions. This full 360 degree rotation is something that Lockdown desperately needs to be competitive with Charge and the other abilities. Besides that, an armor bonus could also be applied while in lockdown mode, maybe just enough to survive that one pesky brick of C4. In summary, I believe that lockdown shouldn't only be useful for camping a corner. It should be useful enough that you might consider using it in actual fights. If you run into a group of enemies, wouldn't it be great to just anchor yourself down, tank their bullets, and tear through them all? If the MAX abilities were changed as described above, I feel that the MAX units would finally be brought into balance (ability-wise). So my questions to you guys are: If these changes were implemented, how would you feel about them? Would you do anything differently? Or do you believe that SOE has it right with what they're doing? TL;DR: Nope. Read the thing.
There is no doubt that VS got first prize when MAX faction abilities were being handed out. The NC have a long list of cons to Aegis. TR has a shorter list but not being able to move at all is a massive con and lockdown is massively situational and so marginally useful. Personally, I think compared to Charge which is the default MAX ability, it's basically worthless. I pretty much agree with your points. I don't think ZOE needs to be massively nerfed but it definitely needs to be tweaked, needs to be balanced better and perhaps Aegis and Lockdown need to be tweaked as well to make them more useful. ZOE is really the only MAX ability that's both an offensive and defensive boost that is actually practical to use in common situations. Aegis is defensive only and completely removes the MAX's offensive capability and Lockdown is just a joke basically. Just to summarize: ZOE: + Increased Speed (as fast or slightly faster than infantry) when activated + Increased Damage output when activated + Instant activation/deactivation - 30% reduced damage resistance AEGIS: + Partially blocks incoming damage as long as they are direct hits to shield - Shield coverage degenerates with damage taken - Massive speed debuff, slows down MAX - Requires recharge/charge time - Can't fire with shield up - Can't reload with shield up - Ability activation/deactivation delay LOCKDOWN: + Increased ROF/velocity by 15-50% depending on weapon + Decreased reload time - Can't move - Limited forward aiming arc - Ability activation/deactivation delay
And after the OP says this is not a place to discuss the live ZOE balance, the first response is discussing live ZOE balance. Well done, RobotNinja.
ZOE, looking at Higby's own graphs, is where it should be, with half of all Vanu using it and more experienced players favoring the Empire Specific ability (we chose our faction to have uniqueness). Lockdown and the Shield are not. It's easier to nerf bat the crap out of something then it is to think of ways to bring asymmetrical balance and boost the other two abilities to be on par. When given the choice, they're going to take the easy way out.
ZOE needs to be utterly demolished. 1. VS MAXes already were the top performing MAXes prior to them introducing the empire specific abilities. The thing was VS just didn't pull that many and they were the least used MAX. As Higby says, VS don't really use stuff unless it's really OP. Then they add in the ZOE, and boom you see this already high performing MAX suddenly get pulled a ton and you end up with this crappy problem we've been dealing with for the last 6 months. 2. The ZOE ability itself is just wildly over the top: Insta On/Off - No cool down or activation period. Get in trouble, flip it off with no penalty what so ever. Damage Dealt Increase - Made Comets insta-gib infantry and tear through vehicles. Increased Mobility - The one really huge downside to the MAX is mobility and ZOE not only negated it but then it buffed mobility even higher as well. Both Aegis (where you have to be backing up to block slowing you down further) and Lockdown limit mobility further as a trade off. Damage Taken Increase - This is largely irrelevant since not only can you flip it off, if you really get in trouble you can zoom away faster than anyone can actually catch ya as well as strafe repeatedly in some kinda super ADADAD action. Oh sure, if you get hit, it can hurt but you can usually speed around/turn it off and recover most of the time. So they're addressing this by giving it a cool down time where if you turn it on, you have to have it on and reducing the mobility which is the signature weakness of the MAX class. All things considered, it's pretty fair and balanced and really not that bad. It's situationally useful (used to overwhelm/overpower opponents) and leaves Charge a competitive alternative for it's defensive mobility. But, ya know, doom and gloom end of the world...
It's being used by half the VS because it invalidates using Charge, unlike Aegis and Lockdown which serve as alternatives where you're actually giving up something for your bonus.
I agree with you, the cool-down is definitely something that was needed. Being able to simple toggle on and off ZOE at whim was never a good idea. However, the way ZOE is currently nerfed on the PTS is just too much. They've reduced the damage bonus to the point where it does nothing in most cases, so all you're really gonna get from it at this point is a bit of a speed boost for taking a ton more damage (Given, I don't know if the speed on PTS is still enough to let you dodge enemy fire as easily as before, if not then once again the extra damage won't be too much of a problem). I'm not saying its the end of the world. I'm saying SOE needs to stop taking the easy way out by just nerfing one OP faction specific item into the ground, because in the end you end up with three useless things. Given, having every empire have something that is crap is better than two having crap and one having something great, but wouldn't you prefer it if your Lockdown and Aegis were both made into competitive abilities, instead of remaining crap? All factions having something fun to play with would make the game much more enjoyable then just having one faction having something fun, or all factions having something useless. Really, all I want is for all three factions to have an ability that would actually be considered a sidegrade to charge, while still remaining fun to use. At the moment, most TR have no reason to use lockdown, and while Aegis can be good, its shortcomings need to be addressed. To be honest, I wouldn't mind that at all at this point. ZOE has caused so much division among the community that it may be better to just remove it entirely, and give us something else.
They should've gone with jumpjets. MAXes in trees and on roofs? Hilarious. Also, easily dealt with. Light assaults are sneaky, but easy to kill, especially in the air where they're slow. Forumside would've been filled with MONKEY MAX pictures and much less anger.
Half != Invalidation. I don't know why you would think that. Half means that both are equally useful. Overall, half of us use ZOE, the other half use charge, meaning that ZOE is a viable alternative but has not over taken charge. Now, experienced players use ZOE more often though, since being able to handle you empire specific ability SHOULD be better than the default ability in the right hands. Just like using a Marauder is better than using a Fury for someone that knows how to handle a Harasser. How many TR do you see pulling Fury Harassers? Almost none, because the experienced people know better and can use the Marauder better. Just like experienced people know better and can use ZOE better than charge. The idea here is to make each faction unique, with distinct abilities, not to water down ZOE until it's another bland useless ability or a glowy version of charge. No one else uses their abilities because either A) They're extremely situational like Lockdown or B) They need some fine tuning like AEGIS shield (which I have seen used to amazing effect by some NC, they're just few and far between). However that requires a lot of work. It's easier to stop the complaints by nerf batting it. Especially when you're catering to an audience where people think "half" means the other option isn't viable when it actually means the other option is viable... 1 out of 2 times.
I feel sorry for your certs refounds and to spend it into charge like TR do since the launch, and all your free certs you earn since ZOE release. i'm still waiting my bought with certs striker refound and the future prowler lockdown nerf refound.
That's where you're wrong. It's overpowered by a huge margin and turns most biolab fights in favor of the vanu basically on its own.
I stated in the OP that this was not the place to discuss that, and clearly labeled it as MY OPINION, which I further elaborated on inside the post itself, if you would care to actually read it.
I did actually read your post, I just thought it was quite cheeky of you to write something like that. OK, but I'm not sure what that discussion is supposed to look like. Sure, Under the assumption that ZOE was only slightly overpowered a large decrease in utility would have been uncalled for, but all my experience has shown that that simply isn't the case. It's essentially a hypothetical discussion of hypotheticals. You'll still be able to use ZOE to burst down other MAXs, still be able to shimmy around rockets, you just won't be able to do it all the time and won't be able to chase down, outrun, or outflank infantry. That last one is the major thing, moving faster than infantry fundamentally unbalances the MAX, as the only disadvantage a MAX has compared to infantry is its mobility. It's more durable, carries more ammo in a magazine, and it can fire for sustained periods of time without its COF blooming to useless levels. If it can also close the distance whenever it needs to it's going to dominate the battlefield which would be bad enough, but the other factions have no real answer. They just suck the fun out of whatever is taking place. By the way, ZOE now behaves the same way it did back when it was a TR ability.
Ah too bad. Not really interested anyway, because; Just here to say, after all these months, you guys are used to that OP ability, and now seeing that it is getting changed/nerfed, this long wall of text is just a glorified QQ in my eyes.
Thank you for the constructive response. I'm with you that the ZOE MAX shouldn't be able to outrun infantry. That, along with the instant on and off is what made it OP in my mind. I just don't feel that the damage boost of it needs to be nerfed as well, as it is already a very small boost in most situations that won't help you much. If the change makes it so that all it really does is increase your speed, what is the point in using it over charge? You are correct, I should've made the point of this thread more clear. What I guess I really wanted this thread to be about was how to make all the MAX abilities competitive with charge, while still remaining equal with each other, and kinda expressing my frustration that SOE seems incapable of doing so.
If you actually read it, you would see that it is not QQ at all. I was suggesting better ideas for the nerf, like giving the TR and NC alternatives to charge some actual utility while nerfing ZOE a bit so that they are all in line.
