Please SOE, less MAX more tactics.

Currently MAXs are far too pivotal to the game. MAXs perform much the same role as infantry, but mostly do it better. The exception is long range combat (where the MAX will still probably still win 1v1 if you try to face-tank it's wild spray). However with the way the game is currently set up, long range takes a back seat (all the way at the back of the bus) to CQC and Mid range around points. The open environments are mostly a playground for vehicles rather than infantry.

This creates two problems, the first of which is that peak MAX pop is king. Currently the winner of a given fight is usually whoever brought most MAXs. Note that this isn't over time, the peak MAX is what matters. 20 MAXs at once will beat 100 MAXs pulled in dribs and drabs. This is because MAX units, unlike every other force multiplier, can be revived. This means MAXs suffer no attrition, it isn't possible to eat away at them with guerrilla attacks taking them out one at a time. It's all or nothing. This creates the undesirable situation where only winning attacks are rewarded. If you don't win when you pull MAXs to counter their MAXs you are down everything and they are down nothing at all. This becomes a serious problem when the gen-room of a bio-lab becomes a MAX convention centre.

The other problem is that inter-faction MAX balance is far, far too vital. Even back in the darkest days of the NC when the Magrider was king, the Reaver had convergence issues from hell and our infantry was stun locked by flinch in every firefight the NC managed to be a viable faction because our MAXs were king. Who cares if our Inf couldn't shoot straight when they only need to rep, revive and give ammo to the MAXs? Who cares about tanks when the points are inside a base? When MAXs are unbalanced between factions they cause greater ripple effects than perhaps any other unit or weapon. This is due to two things. If your MAXs are worth 1.2 enemy MAXs then the enemy needs to pull even more MAXs to overcome your peak MAX. OP things are also pulled far more than UP or balanced things, which means factions with OP MAXs have higher peak MAX than other factions.

So what are the fixes? Well there are several that I can think of. The first is that MAXs could be brought into line by introducing MAX hunters. This would need to be a rock, paper, scissors type balancing. MAX hunting units would have to be weak to infantry so that people have to pick the correct composition to crack a defence or break an attack. One option would be adding an anti-MAX ammo to all infantry weapons. This would go through MAXs' small arms resist but do 1/5 damage to infantry. The second would be to balance MAX AV to be anti-MAX as well. This would mean keeping the current PTS change where all MAX AV weapons don't suffer any convergence and making sure to keep them balanced. The third option is designing and introducing a totally new MAX hunting unit; maybe with EMP weapons that disable MAXs for short times or that can gap close fast to hit MAXs with a huge power sword.

Revives could also be retuned. There are two ways to do this add an anti-revive tool or nerf revives. Personally I'd love to see the LA get an anti-revive grenade that dissolved all the corpses in a wide area. But I'd be happy for any class to get pretty much any tool to countered revives. Nerfing revives is also an option. Personally I don't like this as much as an anti revive tool. Revive could be limited in much the same way as BF4 by reducing the time limit to 5-10 seconds before a corpse becomes ineligible for revives. Revives could be limited by count, so that you can only be revived 2-3 times per respawn. My least favoured option is introducing a resource cost to revives either generally or specifically for MAX revives.

TLDR: Skillsuits need some work

I will say this much, MAX's cost resources to spawn and therefore deserve to be able to farm infantry

It takes what? Strategy?
How much? A conc grenade? C4? A rocket launcher?
To kill a MAX.

You say you want strategy then whine about things that require only the simplest fundment of strategy to take down.

Sounds like your idea of strategy is everyone the same class, same armour, same ability.. and it's the same pitch of whine in all games that have variety.

Your suggesting that there should be a MAX hunter class is ridiculous, what do you think HA/LA are?
Also your want for anto max small arms ammo is funny, because in PS1 MAXes were immune to regular small arms ammo - and you had to spec anti armour bullets to even damage them at all with small arms weapons.

It's been done, and in PS2 they just said screw it, you can shoot MAX units with bullets because TTK is lower in this game.

They already implemented what you suggest in PS1, and in PS2 they did away with only certain builds being able to take out MAX units. Now EVERY kind of troop can.

You already have it too easy.

Lol what ressources? You don't even do anything for these ressources, just afk in warpgate then go spawn a MAX. Certs are much harder to get, so with your logic, if i spend 1000 certs on a new carbine, i should be able to get a K/D that's 100 times better since i spent ressources right?

Unless you're using a ZOE MAX in its current incarnation with an army of engis, good luck with that.

It really doesent take that much to down a MAX in this game tbh.
A few (free) rockets to basically strip your enemy of infantry resources isnt too much to ask.

I have heard that being said before. When did they change it?
I have been playing PS1 on and off since 2003 and i cant remember having a problem damaging MAXs with white ammo, while AP ammo being more of a hassle to carry.
Yes, it did extra damage to MAXs and vehicles but having to reload my MCG just for that one MAX wasent worth it.
Only time i carried AP ammo was for mossies hovering outside towers tbh.

Unless they changed it within the past 2 years or something, or maybe im just remembering wrong

Oh really ? you know you don't get resources while afking right ? maybe it doesn't cost resources because you don't have any certs into explosives from c4 , grenades , mines , medpacks , AI-mines. as A person that maxed out his utility cert lines , my resources get ***** , so when I gather 350resources , I expect to use them on something powerful and lasts a while.

SUDDENLY GREEN MAGE

This post implies fighting against/with a bunch of MAXes is deep/interesting/balanced; it's not.

When the only valid "tactic" for taking a biolab consists into throwing more meat than the enemy can chew you've go a problem. Same for AMP station or Tech plant resecures, it's all about throwing a bunch of MAX units, and have your green mages revivng them faster than you can take them down.


The MAX is not a indoor tank (as it should be), it's a bulky infantry (and it should not)

And then those infantry that get farmed get frustrated and quit and then we have a population problem. You try telling them "well he paid a lot of resources for that MAX..." and you're going to be given the bird.

MAX's cost resources while the rest of the other classes don't, it seems unfair to not give them an advantage over the other classes

If it's a matter of "throwing more meat" at it than the enemy, that's a product of poor defensive base design, not MAXes. Don't make the same mistakes SOE does and strike at the wrong thing trying to hit the mark with something else or blame one thing for another thing's fault.

I'm sorry, I can feel just as frustrated fighting other MAXes as standard Infantry and fighting other MAXes as a MAX; but, all the same, everything, their grandmother and their dog has it out for the class as soon as it spawns. There's already a plethora of tools that trivialitize combat with the MAX (that are also useful for standard Infantry v Infantry combat, so it's not like the player has a devil's choice). The most common class in the game comes equipped with a 2-3 shot MAX killer as a default slot Tool (read: weapon). Everyone else can just wail into just the same, though it can take longer, but weill still help in the end. People constantly talking about a hard limit on MAX spawns act as if MAXes already don't have one of those. If you wanted to lower the length of time by a little, you might seem reasonable; going from 60s to the range of 5s is nothing short of an over-reaction.

Large groups of anything in this game are overpowered. Unfortunately, for a game about large scale combat, it has large gaps where it has failed to balance a large number of the same unit at once.

Suddenly, MAX with no health and a free kill... I cant believe this is a problem for people

I personally think that MAXes should be treated like indoor vehicles, costly, non-revivable, but an absolute TERROR to have an enemy one in the room with you.

They should be slower, tougher, and require squad support to truly shine, but also require an organized squad to take down. They should be the terrifying spearhead of a coordinated assault, but boned if caught alone or separated from their teammates.

That's my vision of what the MAX should be, not the glorified HA they are now.

fix'd

Killing one MAX isn't too bad. Sure you need to know where they are, be prepared and either out number them, out skill them or luck out. But I honestly have no problems with MAXs when used 1-2 to a squad. They serve a useful role as the siege breakers. But when you get 50%-70% of a platoon rolling MAXs you have a whole different ball game.

Something needs to be done about overstacking MAXs.

I'm really not sure how you got that from my OP. What class do you think I want everyone to play? What I want is that nothing should be no-duh obviously the best strategy, like stacking MAXs currently is. I want MORE variety in tactics.

Sure we have it too easy against the true MAX users who used their limited cert pool to specialize in a specialist unit. Well if this was PS1, but in case you hadn't noticed this is PS2. In PS2 there is no counter to the horde of skillsuit users who derp a 250 cert AI arm on to be "infantry++" other than a skillsuit horde of your own.

There are some people who actually hate MAXs and don't want them to be able to farm. But this is essentially what a "force multiplier" is in Planetside 2. Its a thing that makes you stronger than usual so that you can complete tough objectives (or farm). But all the rest of the force multipliers suffer attrition, when they die they're dead. You can eat away at a tank zerg one at a time. The same isn't true for a MAX zerg. That is what is currently ridiculous about them.

The problem is not that we can't kill a just rezzed MAX or even kill MAXs full stop. Its that the infinite revivability of MAXs means that you have to clear them all out or by the time you respawn they are all back up and fully repped.

Nine thousand times yes!

Good luck with that. Vehicles share the same problem, they can't be made too durable due to how easily spammable they are.

If you destroy a tank you actually destroy it, not merely tickle him so he fell on the floor and is revived by a green mage. There is currently no point in trading fire between enemy MAX forces around the biolab teleport room. All get a revive.

Biolab fights suck right now, they used to be a lot of fun. For that matter, pretty much all bases aren't as fun as they were before they started putting up walls that kept the defenders in more than the attackers out, removed turrets from amp stations, and make anything but a 3 maxes backed by 1 engineer and 1 medic the best possible thing to have in a BioLab. Its really hard to think of weapons and vehicles added to the game that have been a change for the better, or a base redesign that is better than 6 months ago. But the overpowered MAX units are one the least fun things in the game for anyone who isn't currently a MAX, and that's just stupid game design.

On the other hand, it's kind of hard to 1-shot a tank. Not that it can't happen under certain conditions, but it's rare, while getting 1-shotted as a MAX is rather common.