[Suggestion] The Nerf Light Assaults Need

I think Light Assaults presently are very overpowered. Why should my opinion matter? I am an ASP rank 100 player that plays regularly and have been playing since 2015. I have played in multiple areas of play, infantry, armor, construction, and air. While I might not be the best player I have experienced all angles of the game, even command to some extent. I have characters on all 3 main factions and a NS Operative as well. '

With my credentials out of the way, let me get to the meat of this topic.

Mobility is a very tricky variable to balance in games, its a topic in many games, like WoW or LoL. The reason is, mobility can enable a player to be more active or more defensive than their peers, thus if you make mobility too strong, then it leads to major issues. In Planetside 2, the three main contenders for mobility are Light Assaults for Infantry, Harassers for Armor, and ESFs for Air. Both Harassers and ESFs have received balance passes in multiple areas like weapons (lolpods) and durability (Harassers), and while I still think Harassers and certain ESF noseguns need fixing, they're in lot better place than they've been over time.

Light Assaults however, have not received balance passes, instead they get new toys like the rocket rifle. I think on a fundamental level Light Assaults are OP but have remained less of an issue because of their lack of tools available to them. With the introduction of the Rocket Rifle, and Ambusher Jets, I think Light Assaults have reached the point in their development that we need to address some balance problems for the betterment the game.

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The main issue with Light Assaults has to do with their jetpacks, For something that is effectively a self-propelled mobility pack, the jetpacks make almost no noise and is not distinct to each faction in terms of sounds; I look at the infiltrator's cloak in this case because in a way that cloak provides a degree of mobility by enabling you to flank unseen to some extent.

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| Jetpack Volume |

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In real world logic, the only way to propel a person off the ground is with either a turbojet system (basically an airliner engine) or through a thruster system like that found on space shuttles. In either instance the sheer sound is way above decibels in any gunshot, vehicle engine, or explosive like a grenade. As a result, the logic behind the nearly silent jetpacks in Planetside 2 falls through from a real world perspective.

From a game logic perspective, the purpose of jetpack is to enable flanking, but also renders you visually invisible to the enemy because they don't even hear you coming. In a phrase, "Light Assaults do the Infiltrator job better than actual Infiltrators". That to me signifies that balance is all out of whack. Light Assaults are not suppose to be stealthy so why does the jetpack make less noise than a cloak? So from gameplay, the current state of jetpack falls through.

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| Jetpack Distinction |

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Another part of the jetpack that should parallel the Infiltrator's cloak is sound effects. There should be faction-specfic sounds related to the jetpack so we can recognize who might where, simply by listening. Seeing as Light Assaults are not meant to be a sneaky class, having indistinct jetpack noises enables them to land and in effect sneak around by sounding like friendly Light Assaults. This should not be the case and thus there should be faction-specfic jetpack sounds.

If I could suggest some sound ideas: TR would serve as the baseline sound fx as their faction tends to relate to old world technology and thus would have the most "ordinary" sounds, NC would be an experiment that would resulting in a louder and bulkier jet sound as if you where using 2 or more jets compared to TR's, finally VS would have something like an electric hum underlying the base jetpack sounds, indicative of futuristic and experimental jet power like that of ion power.

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To Summarize this post:

Light Assault jetpacks are the crux of their balance issues. Their jetpacks should be much louder and have faction specific sounds. The Light Assault is a flanking class, not a sneaking class thus they should be heard.

I think you need to recheck some stuff. For example the Harasser got a sudden and unexpected buff to it's resiliance and backseat repair making it far more powerful than it should. ESF have had several nerfs so that LOLpods don't wipe out entire squads in a single pass, but if you were to mount those same nerfed ESF weapons on a Lightning that Lightning would be OP as hell even if you mount the weapons individually. On top of that ESF have received numerous random buffs or indirect buffs. Such as AA turrets having their range neutered, receiving nanite auto-repair while an Engineer is inside, getting more types of afterburner and receiving an auto-granted radar in a way that screws over newbies even though it was designed to help those newbies.

The LA isn't OP. It's useful, yes, but not OP. At best you could argue that C4+Rocklet simultaneously is too powerful, and even that is more out of necessity as long as the devs do not offer a viable and fun infantry-based anti-vehicle alternative. You could for example split C4 into an AI and AV variant so that C4 isn't the jack-of-all-trades it currently is. You could also start adding other utility slot items to the game so that LA's might have a choice to pick something else instead.

Also real-world logic is usualy used on this site if you don't have a good reason. In real-world logic the tanks would be heard from a mile away, any damage to tanks would require weeks if not months in a dedicated hangar with skilled and dedicated people with a massive supply train carrying the resources, equipment and parts to keep the tanks maintained and in repair, not to mention fueled and armed. Yet instead tanks are build in seconds, repaired in seconds for free, don't require fuel, their ammo costs nothing and they are extremely silent. This is for a large part necessary. Having a real-life shell clear out entire rooms wouldn't be good for the game, making those shells cost as much as real-life would mean you pay more than 10x that of a basic grenade. Saving up for a single tank would require several months of in-game play without spending a single nanite etc etc. We need simplifications and unrealistic elements to make the game function as it does.

Infiltrators are also a lot easier. SMG Light Assaults aren't exactly a big problem, SMG Infiltrators are far more deadly despite the sounds they make while cloaking and decloaking.

You also seem to have a problem with how players flank. 99% of the time a solid flank requires the enemy to be unaware of your presence until you fire. Now the idea of making jetpacks have more audible empire-specific sounds isn't bad in itself, but your reasons are horrible and the LA should be getting something in return for his loss in audible stealth.

I'm inclined to agree with the OP here. I don't think it would be out of line to make a louder noise on the LA when they jet around. They are already quite audible in small engagements, and faction specific noises wouldn't change much as if I hear a LA, and don't see any friendly Dorito moving like a LA then I know it's enemy. Go to a 96+ battle and all that awareness goes out the window.

The LA's anti tank strength is a bit much too. I remember when they didn't have the rocklet rifle, and frankly they weren't UP, they just had a specific role. C4 is nuts and has been since launch in 2012. The tutorial all but lies to newbies by telling them that heavy assault is the main anti tank class. If I see a tank I want to kill I'll go with LA far more often than HA. That right there tells you about their respective power in the anti tank role.

So, yes to more noise, yes to faction specific noise, and frankly taking the rocklet rifle should come at the cost of something else. It should be a decision to bring it, not a hand out. Maybe it takes the secondary slot instead of it's own dedicated equipment slot?

You could've just linked your characters, but whatever.

Nope. You're right, the light assault is currently too powerful, but it's not entirely due to their jet packs.

I can agree with the noise, although if you use noise in this game to identify your targets....gg dawg (pun intended), that's a seriously impressive feat. In a game with large chaotic fights and that's notoriously filled with sound issues, I wouldn't really consider sound the primary means of visually identifying targets, I'd say vision is. But that could be just because I decided to play on mute due to how buggy the sound became, maybe they fixed it over the years...from what my friends say no.

In real world logic, planetside 2 doesn't exist. There's no cloak, jet-pack fuel doesn't regenerate, etc. That's because the game is sci-fi and not meant to replicate the real world.

In the real world, while jetpacks do exist and they are apparently trying to develop more silent types, they definitely aren't practical or mean to be used reliably, especially not in a warzone.

So we'll leave out the real world logic.

Idk bro my eyes and ears are wired differently. I don't need to hear someone to see them coming.

Lol who said this? Because the person obviously doesn't know much of what he's talking about. Infiltrators are meant to be the easiest and most effective way to win 1v1s against other infantry. They excel at this. Light assaults are meant to flank, use their mobility to create chaos. They do this well. Where I have an issue is when it comes to their AV capabilities, but we'll discuss that later.

There's a key advantage infiltrators have. They are actually invisible both on mini-map and visually! They also typically have much better weapons. The light assault is visible. You might not hear a jetpack, but you can see a person slowly thrusting around. They aren't invisible, it's quite easy to see them, obvious to spot them, and dealing with them once you have a good angle isn't hard since there's 0 cover on rooftops and such. Plus while in the air they are at a significant disadvantage. They are not only predictable, but can't accurately fire back.

The sound of the cloak was meant to balance an ability that's so op it's rarely ever available in a multiplayer shooter. The thought was maybe if you can't see the dude coming at you because he's invisible, you might hear him. While maybe it works in miniscule fights if you're really close to one, realistically sound especially in this game isn't how you're going to spot your target. Infils half the time are too far for the sound to be heard, or decloak after they kill you (on your screen), or there's simply too much chaos for the sound to be heard - that is when sound is even working at all.

Sure, slap a noise on the jetpack I guess (which I'm pretty sure there is, now that I think about it), but that's not magically going to balance the class lol. Sure they can add it, make it louder, whatever. That's a minor detail, not a fix.

So to get this straight:

• NC LA - LOUD
• TR LA - NORMAL
• VS LA - QUIET

hmmmmmmmm. Sounds about balanced.

No man, the issue with the light assault is it's rocklet rifle. The rocklet rifle completely ruins the purpose of a heavy assault, and makes the light assault a lot more potent than it should. Rocklet rifle should be removed, or placed in C4 slot. Sure, make the jetpacks louder, it's not an actual issue. Also allow light assaults to *accurately* hipfire other weapons than carbines while in the air.

I'd be fine with jetpacks having faction-specific sounds, but not with faction-specific volumes.

Heavy Assault has an extra ~500 health and lots of ammo.
Light Assault gets sick mobility instead of the health and ammo.
Infiltrator gets the first shot every time instead of health or mobility.
Medium Assault gets... Carapace Combat Surgeon and the best weapons on paper.

Outside of some particularly nasty weapons and combos, there really isn't anything that strikes me as overpowered in strictly IvI play. HA is the best farmer but only slightly, and only if you're nailing those headshot kills back to back to refresh both your shields. Getting the jump and putting your sights on target matters so much more than the class you're running.

Also, I'd take a Decimator over a Rocklet Rifle any day of the week and I cannot even begin to fathom a single situation in which Rocklet is better. The thing is a bare bones baseline that just barely makes ends meet. You aren't going to kill a MAX or combat vehicle with it unless you seriously outplay them.

I just find it really odd that LA is the one being picked out today. New tidal moon phase? They didn't even mention C4.

I would argue that the Rocklets power is 100% in relation with C4. Without C4 the Rocklet rifle just doesn't have the range or capabilities to really do something unless you do things like almost clip into a MAX while bursting or try to finish off a damaged vehicle.

I think that a small audible sound, audible enough in large fights but at short ranges of say 10 to 15m should be more than enough. It shouldn't be the hard sound of infiltrator cloak though, that would be going way too far. Subtle sound, audible. That is OK.

C4 is a bigger problem. It is currently just plain necessary so infantry has some way to effectively deal with vehicles without having to repeatedly expose themselves to OHK fire and then when they really damage their opponent just see them drive into cover or out of effective range to repair up. That doesn't mean it needs to stay as it is.
Example: split C4 into an AI and AV variant, so players have to choose and cannot use the ultimate target of opportunity weapon.
Also by creating more utility slot weapons you can make the choice for C4 more difficult. Imagine if you could equip 5 uses of the old MAX Charge ability for 10 nanites each. The jumpjet ability isn't activated by the F button anyway so that is OK. It's a useful ability and fits perfectly with the LA's playstyle. The delay between getting out of Charge and being able to fire was long enough that MAX's rarely used it offensively but rather to escape so players shouldn't be afraid of shotgun LA's charging them.
Or what about giving the LA access to a utility weapon like the Unreal Tournament Translocator gun? You fire a teleportation disc that has a small light and sound and with F you can teleport to it whenever you want (lets put a range limitation of 300m). However, if an enemy finds it and destroys the disc you instakill yourself if you try to teleport to it. If there isn't enough space to place the player as they would clip a wall or something the disk is simply teleported back to the player, who can also equip the translocator and teleport it back manually in case he wants to place it anew or he realizes his disk was broken. The Medic would also be a great candidate for such a utility as it's basically a miniture personal respawn unit, only you have to be alive to respawn there.

Add more of such abilities and LA's would only be carrying C4 when they truly intent to use it, rather than accidentally find a great target of opportunity and then use it.

Technically the rocklet rifle has more dps and is a bit more "noob friendly". It pairs way too well with the C4 imo. Idk how many vehicles and MAXes I was able to wreck because of this thing. Doesn't feel like a light assault.

Yeah infil and vehicles are the most unbalanced and cancerous things in the game currently. Light assault is strong, but saying it's op without even talking about the toolkit just seemed a little weird.

only LA nerf i'd like is C4 removal (but that goes for every class that isn't heavy and engi)

Why? If this were real life, the Heavy wouldn't be carrying explosives like that. The role of HA's is to run face first into their enemy or be the best shock troops to stop the enemy. LA's would be the best class alongside the Infiltrator to give C4 to as they are the one's who might have the time and proximity to actually deploy it. Gameplay wise it's too powerful on the Infiltrator unless the Infil has alternative C4 versions that function differently.

Removing stuff is always the wrong option. Alter it, change it's functioning. You can gain a lot by simply splitting C4 into an AV and AI variant. You can gain more by adding different C4 trigger methods, detonation methods and costs. One "C4" does a DOT damage until it's shot off with explosives or small-arms. Could allow Infiltrators to attack vehicles as the vehicle's occupants need to get out to clear it. You can have a time-bomb version, one that needs to be shot to detonate, one that can only be deployed rather than thrown, a half-brick version so you can throw it farther and spread damage at less chunk damage, one version that allows you to deploy and detonate only one at a time (pairs well with half-bricks) etc.

This way you can give utility explosives to everybody, and tailor them to the class so it's not OP or UP. Now many here would immediately go "yeah lets pick the worst traits and give the most useless C4 to the LA", but that shouldn't happen as there are plenty of ways to counter C4 fairies and there have to be ways for infantry to effectively deal with vehicles. Until there are viable alternatives to C4 for infantry to deal with vehicles the LA can never lose the current AV C4 capabilities.

I'm surprised because you always bash people who use "if this were real life" arguments because they hold no ground ina sci-fi game.

In any case the heavy assault class should have explosives to make it a heavy assault lol. Only thing I see that might warrant removal is the medkits/restokits.

Alternatively they could just let people run more than one suit slot which is long overdue, so people can wear flak and nanoweave to balance explosives damage themselves.

Sure splitting it into many different items would be the best way, but also waaay more work than DBG would do,
I know they won't remove c4 from LA either but I can still hold a fraction of a slither of hope that it might happen XD
Stranger things have happened after all, NC got their max back, who'd have saw that coming?!

This solves several game issues in one sentence.

That was kind of my point. People often seem to get stuck in "if we add X only class Y is allowed to use it" for strange reasons. The "HA needs explosives and LA can't because he needs to be light" argument is most often the reason given. But if we are going to be using "real" logic based on "heavy means it carries heavy stuff and light means light stuff" then we might as well steer it into the right realism.

In modern day the terms of light and heavy infantry don't really exist (just tried to find a proper use for the terms), but if you were to assign them then Heavy Infantry would paradoxically carry the least gear with them as they travel as mechanized infantry groups. They would be equipped with harder to wield gear like large mortars and large machine guns which would be harder to carry and get into position.
Light infantry is only "light" in terms of being able to carry all their gear with them. Which paradoxically means they carry more stuff at any one time than heavy infantry who get the choice to leave stuff behind when leaving the vehicles.

Since it's hard for heavy infantry to get into a position where they can deploy explosives they are more likely to carry rocketlaunchers and the like. Instead light infantry carries this stuff.

I don't think it's a huge problem.
Copy-paste the C4. Alter the first to have a different damage type, less damage and slightly smaller AOE. now it deals little damage to infantry and loads to vehicles.
Alter the second one to have a damage type with little damage to vehicles, give it a grenade-icon when players get close and you have an AI variant.
You can easily alter other stuff. The cost and how many can be carried. You could simply remove the secondary button so it cannot be manually detonated but only shot to cause it to explode. You could make a new damage type and make one c4 type deal that damage and be immune to it. Then you use it as a deployable: you activate it and it will deal a small AOE damage every half second until it's removed, and now you already have a DOT weapon you could call a thermite charge or something like that.

All these idea's require copy-pasting and adapting of existing statistics, this could likely be done in one week by a single person. Especially considering we already saw a similar development cycle when the Rocklet Rifle was being put on the PTS.

It would exacerbate several other game issues that are more impactful to the game.

translocator would be too powerful tool if properly used: trow a disk at your spawn, jump to an enemy sunderer, throw some c4, teleport and then detonate c4.
Even in UT competitions (WCG, ECL so on) translocator has been disabled.

Yeah! Except I proposed this was a utility item. So you can't carry the translocator and C4 simultaneously. Also this isn't a tightly controlled competition with carefully made matchmaking.

Always nice to see people so desperate to hate something they stop reading and just throw out some nonsense.

Out of curiosity, what would removing C-4 from a couple of classes exacerbate? I am not seeing it personally speaking. That's not to say it does not exist I just don't understand where you are going.

As I already mentioned in this thread, the ability for infantry to effectively deal with vehicles. All vehicles can get out of effective range or into cover easily with time to spare while throwing high damage or OHK weapons right back. The only exception are AT mines and C4. AT mines are used most by the vehicle players themselves so they don't complain too much about how low skill, low danger but high reward they actually are. C4 on the other hand can only be used from stealth and requires you to approach the vehicle unseen, but if successful blows the vehicle up before he can get out of range or into cover.

Although if history serves, I doubt that explaining this to you will have any effect.

I have seen every class get called OP at one point or another.
Except Engineer.
Buff Engineer.

/thread