I dare any NC who doesn't want their precious hacksaw nerfed to create a toon on a different empire on a different server and just TRY and take a bio lab from the NC. Mani on Esamir is particularly nice. The TR will bash their head against that one for hours, then when the NC want it back, roll in the hacksaw MAXes and they'll have it inside the half hour.
TR and VS do very tight biolab holds on a regular basis as well. Scatmaxes are not the reason biolabs are hard to capture. They're hard to capture because they're designed well an with an organized force you can use that design to get far. You really are just whining. Scattmax blow chunks in any other situation of combat. They are literally only situationally useful in Point blank range. They're not fun to use. Reloading every god damn second for three seconds is so very repetitive and dull. If anything change scat maxs FOR that reason alone. They're absolutely boring, and the only reason anyone enjoys them is they can drop a target AT POINT BLANK RANGE very quickly. Honestly give us something more creative to reflect our empire than boring shotguns that everyone can use. Our jackhammer is a joke, our maxs are situationally useful in one area, and there's not a damn thing unique about them. So yes, PUH-LEASE, chane them into to something that isn't a ****** gimmick in 80% of the game. Maybe then people like this guy will find something else to pollute the forums about. You're just beefing on something that prevents you from faceroll charging a room. If you want to cry nerfs or buffs do it for something meaningful. Maybe ask for other MBTs to be brought more on par with magriders in hill climbing, or complain that the reaver is a flying brick with no form of benefit whatsoever. Complain about the lack of a metagame, or how we need more vehicles added to the game. You won't do that, though, you'll just keep whining about anything other empires have over your empire. You want no challenge. You want no thought process.
It became apparent this weekend that most NC are now realizing the power of the hacksaw, given I saw a huge increase in their usage. Hopefully, people that play with this thing are honest enough to admit how out of whack it is at the very least against other Maxes, but quite honestly, in close quarters combat. It's going to get worse. I'm a HUGE fan of infantry combat and there are a couple things that I don't think people are seeing with regards to the future: 1) Most importantly, if you're using a hacksaw at most often > 15m, you're obviously doing it wrong. The bad NC I see in AI maxes are mostly bad because they assume the max armor means they can charge a group and mow them down. The AI maxes are exactly like shotguns - you want them very close to you. The NC I hate seeing are the ones that use doors, corners, or other obstacles to ensure I have zero chance before I die. PS1 players that were good with the Scat Max will be phenomenal PS2 NC Max players. As light assault, I tend to just run from hacksaws now. It's not worth it in most situations. 2) SOE is starting to focus on infantry combat. They're adding corridors and planning to increase the ability for infantry to play a larger role. If you're in the camp that thinks the hacksaw is bad currently...get ready for it... 3) If you can't see the writing on the wall yet, you will see it VERY clearly in May (Roadmap: Class Revamp: MAX). Personal shields as the ability for NC Maxes. So now you take all those bad NC that like to rambo their hacksaw and think it sucks because they die without killing anyone and you give them the single most useful tool in overcoming their lack of tactical ability. The good NC no longer have to set a fight up in their favor...they'll flip the shield and destroy you. And a lot of you think it's bad NOW?
On the one hand I can see why NC get a fully functional shotgun per arm because of the nature of the weapon (and its effective range). On the other, TR/VS weapons can't be as powerful as a LMG, but maybe 75% instead of 50-60% would balance things out . (Because LMG's have a much broader range of effectivenss). In a perfect world TR/VS would get a slight buff to their MAXes as well as the option to spec into their own faction specific shotguns. NC would also get the option to grab dual chain guns or w/e the arm guns are considered. This is one area where homogenization isn't a bad thing. Don't get me wrong, there is still room for faction specifics like hacksaws or what have you.
So does that mean NC will stop whining about other faction ESF's and Tanks? No I didn't think so. So why should NC keep their OP'ed MAX then? Nerf bat swings both ways.
I would not recommend a damage increase but rather I would recommand a rate of fire increase. This way it is a sacrifice. You loose the ability to spray-and-pray but you can focus down your fire. If you let loose the entire clip and it was not on target you risk being vulnerable during the lengthy reload process. Kinda like the sacrifice of a scatter max and this would also mean that the inherent benifits of charge would apply.
Well that's a crock of ****. There's 101 things I want in PS2. Like pretty much every feature from PS1 that didn't make it in, which is pretty much everything about PS1 that made it great. Sanctuaries, lattice, opening/defending a new cont, gen holds, hell I wouldn't even mind them introducing battle islands just to introduce a bit more infantry combat. But in this particular thread we're talking about the NC MAX. I was not raging at the scatmax, I am raging at the Hacksaw. I don't see the reason the devs decided to introduce the hacksaw; the NC don't like it because it's a one trick pony with nothing but CLOSE RANGE (not just point black, a hacksaw can down a MAX at 10-20m easily), no one else likes it because at close range it is completely unrivaled. The worst part is I like infantry combat, I did in PS1 and I do in PS2. But the only place I can get real infantry combat is the bio lab, everywhere else can be easily overrun with tanks and libs. So yes, I'm pissed off about the meta game, and the MBTs and the lack of sanctuaries et al but in this thread, I'm pissed of about the hacksaw ruining the sole infantry only area of the game.
Spoken like a person who does not know how to play the MAX class to effect. Bring the team work line into play shall we? I play all three Empires and have yet to invest in a secondary AI weapon. I've seen plenty of combo max from all factions manage to hold an area with/without medic/engineer support, though we all know that type of support basically makes or breaks the max class being a dominating force for extended engagements. TR- That chaingun is excellent indoors, you get door and corner peepers and that beauty of a chaingun can slap them down for their cowardice quickly. By far my favorite combo with it is the anti-vehicle, because you can pop the ground after they tuck away and if they've not stepped out you stack the damage or finish them off with the -ever so slight- radius of the AV explosion. Granted this is team supported no upgrades, but one can dominate. I have seen and been in with teams that feature the double rainbow of Mercy and as long as that Max is fed ammo (much like all max), the bodies stack and stack regardless of foe. Outdoors with the burster, I personally have enjoyed long stays in a Max suit playing TR against ESF and infantry alike while defending areas or supporting attacks on points. VS - I hate glowing stuff and techno/dub-step(have it muted for VS) but they have a good, naked alien creature. Though I feel limited indoors with only one AI weapon, the AV weapon compensates for the weakness so it's almost the same thing I have said about the TR great max, is true here.Supported with a team which generally is what goes down, the VS max against infantry and other max units does a good job all around and has the advantage of stealth at night. I love ambushing with the lanky naked creature.( I don't know how many kills I had on Connery using the VS max, but there was plenty. Now I've moved to Jaeg for VS and am working on light assault/medic.) NC - I own twin burster and falcons at this time. Stock scatter cannon alone fails to have enough ammo to go against stock TR chaingun/vehicle/burster max nor VS weaponry of any nature without being lucky or having the drop on the target. The limitation in ammo and if you do manage to get out of a fight with either enemy factions stock Max either by killing or fleeing, you're low on health or ammo if not supported. I have seen how scattergun max suits can hold their own and slap the enemies down, but it requires ammo management and support. Usually I'm the engineer repairing and restocking or the medic reviving. The NC max seems to get wasted quickly as long as foes use tools at their disposal. Also the scattercannon max unsupported against double Mercy I have seen face planted many times, again probably due to the need to juggle. The scattercannon style requires aiming to plant those healthy meat shots in on anything, with the limit on ammo, it seems to play to what the NC class is about. Maintain aiming and recoil control and you do your damage, do not, the ROF of the enemy will slap you around silly. If a scattercannon Max is over run, it seems always that they're laying infant like on the ground amid bodies which medics are trying hard to bring up. Yes scattercannons hit hard, that's why you use your strength, burst control and use cover as a TR or VS max and remember to try to stay moving, you'll usually be okay as long as you're not taking secondary flack from the NC angry drum rifles.(Admit it, they sound like some kind of beat-nick drum solo). If the charge is used, which it will be if the scattercannon max is wise, pray you're not indoors, if you are, well that's just part of the strength of the NC AI Max, just ask yourself where your team was and wait for a revive or just re-spawn like a good PS2 and if you're any type of max player, your timer and resources will have you back in your cybernetic suit in no time to try again, this time hopefully with the knowledge of how it all went wrong. (PS: Videos detailing someone using the double scattercannons with skill does not make up for the amount of people who, three weeks after buying their scattercannons, can't even assist with a breaching situation without killing two or three friendly and dying themselves. )
makes me lol every time, you pick a video of someone who has a fair grasp on burst and recoil control 95% of NC cant shoot the gauss saw that effectively, it requires control where as the carv and the orion are more noob friendly( meant in the kindest sense).. heck i would say the orion is as accurate hipfire as the saw is ADS
I'm for option E; Increase the small-arms resistance of the MAX to 90%. (from 80) This would qualify as option B, but it'd affect both sides, and infantry. It'd change a lot of things, some heavy assault weapons could no longer "one-magazine" MAX units, and it'd effectively prevent hacksaw-MAX units from killing another MAX in one extended magazine. Well, it'd be possible but they could only miss 0.27% of their pellets to do so - unlikely. What makes this a bad idea?
Increasing small arms resistance would solve it, too bad that buff would also 'break' infantry combat. by that I mean the amount of whine from all non-MAX classes, about how it broke it would be tremendous (especially considering you'd be able to get up to 95% damage reduction with kinetic armor) I don't disagree that it would be the solution MAX players enjoyed the most.. Which is why It's probably not gonna happen So therefor you have to work within the system, and within that system NC MAXes are too powerful or TR/VS MAXes are not powerful enough.
Agreed, I'd trade in my dual hacksaws for them sweet sweet chainguns anyday. Its just so damn hard to hit someone with enough pellets in close range when they are actively bouncing around me.
In any case, they'd still have 2000hp with 25% (or was it 35%?) explosive resistance, you could mow them down with explosives - grenades come to mind, as does C4//proxy mines//rocket launchers//lots and lots of infantry fire (approximately twice as much infantry fire as now - and considering the speed at which MAX units currently die to numerous infantry, I don't see it as such a bad thing. It's the reason I want to change the small-arms damage resistance as opposed to just doubling their HP. The change would require a substantial infantry cost increase just to keep the number down. (double? triple? more?) Here's where we get into trouble though - they'd be just as weak as they are now to explosives, and if we increase the cost, and the infantry adjust their strategy to "run away//use explosives"(as they should), MAX units will still be easy to kill, and therefore easy to lose, which means MAX players would now complain(legitimately) about explosives being too effective against MAX units. So perhaps the ideal answer is to increase the HP just enough to endure one more (explosive of choice), and increase the small-arms resistance to 85-87.5%. Though as I haven't looked at the numbers for this, I can't give anything exact. Their weakness should be explosives, but if we're tripling the resource cost you should get something durable. Why do I want them to be stronger? I don't play as a MAX that much, I'm mostly medic//engineer//heavy. (or some vehicle) When I see people complain about the Hacksaw, I understand why purely based on the numbers - those things are death machines which could perhaps use an increase in their refire time just to slow down their infantry mowing. But when they complain about it in MAX duels I see another problem - their small-arms resistance. In that light, changing the small-arms resistance would solve numerous issues the "MAX community" has raised regarding the infantry versus MAX dynamics, which I tend to agree with. That, and I just like the idea of lumbering juggernauts that are a bit difficult to take out. While you said the MAX players would like it, you never said what you thought about it beyond that it has potential to cause problems in infantry versus MAX fights, which I fully acknowledge, though I think that such a "problem" should exist.
