What would you do to MAX's to make them useful, skillful, balanced?

More armor and only one weapon arm.

I don't know that they need to be changed.

But the only way to change them that might address what most complaints seem to be about would be that.

Generally I take complaints about MAXs as people protecting their own KDR. If you don't have a loadout specifically for dealing with them then they are pretty much guaranteed to take down a few of you with them. Nobody wants to be the one to die, if they don't think there's a guaranteed rez coming right afterwards.

At the end of the day, the stats we have access to say that a MAX is a worse investment of Nanites than a bunch of grenades. Until that changes, people are basically upset because the MAX is the same sort of "I couldn't do anything about it" death you get all the time in this game, but it's been given the form of a player they can identify.

That pretty much sums it up. Even though people die from tanks, libs, the odd grenade or mine and are largely incapable of stopping it, MAXs stick out because they can be anywhere and while you can actually do something in shooting them, it's hardly enough to actually put things in your favor unless you're using AV explosives.

That's why I personally suggested something that doesn't just nerf the max or it's killing potential, but changes it into a more clearly defined role with obvious strengths and weaknesses even the most common zergling can identify without ever having played one before they run screaming to the forum.

You make some good points and they apply to more than just MAX balance.

I'd also say the it doesn't help that an experienced MAX user can pull off ridiculous KD while in one. I probably get fewer kills per minute most of the time while in a MAX than I would playing as infantry, but I die far far less and have much longer kill streaks. And there are some fights where you can really farm it up in a MAX.

Yep, but given the Devs are on a less lethality drive changes may well be happening.

this was naturally managed by the players in PS1, you couldn't be EVERYTHING (until the level cap raise).

i see no reason an amalgamation of that system and certs as they are now couldn't work. ie: you get 'class' points. start as LA/medic/engi only but you get some class points to spend. want heavy? 3 points. infil? 2 points. max? 3 for a specific variant or 6 for all 3.
the certs we have now work in a similar way as now, spendable on 'sidegrades' in the classes you've chosen.

you can reset the class points and spend them on a different set and upgrade those 'sidegrades' but those sidegrades will be locked. resetting the class points (once every 24/48 hours) won't refund the certs but you can reclass and gain access to anything you upgraded previously.

MAX is perfectly balanced because anyone can get them.

Infantry have a large number of options they can use if they do not want to play max, in the past 2 years I have never once felt I am unable to capture or defend somewhere purely because of MAX usage.

Get rid of them. The game is infinitely more enjoyable without them.

What would you do to MAX's to make them useful?
They are too useful.
What would you do to MAX's to make them skillful?
Nerf them, so you would need some skill to use one.
What would you do to MAX's to make them balanced?
Decrease health by 50%. Like dual wielded weapons is not enough..

It may be a lot harder to balance asymmetrical balance than balance that is essentially just a pallet-swap - but that's the stuff that great games are MADE of. What would Starcraft be if all the sides essentially had identical units with just different graphics and animations? Blergh!

-Stigma

People here really want to ruin maxes eh?
I read somewhere that only 4% of players play as maxes.

I dont think TTK or survivability is the problem, but rather there is no exploitable weakspot.
Please explain how a RAMS .50 cannot OHK a max with a headshot.
Just make some interesting, hard to hit, high damaging weakspot and they are balanced.

Thats because people are disgusted by them.

Pfft, typical NC to suggest nerfeing TR and Vanu maxes while leaving their own untouched xD

Jokes aside, if I were to change the max i would:

Remove charge
Reduce accuracy for TR and Vanu (either higher spread, or simply increase damage drop-off)
Remove NC slugs.
Increase base survivability (make kinetic and flak base resistance, possibly increasing it even further while completely removing the defensive slot from maxes.
Reduce turning speed on maxes. If you get flanked it's going to hurt.
Make maxes immune to conc and flash grenades.
Reduce sprint acceleration but increase top sprint speed.

Justifications:
The supposed balance behind maxes is their limited mobility. But this is currently a moot point, since charge completely negate this drawback. You can use it defensively as a get-out-of-jail card, or you can use it offensively against players who try to use your limited mobility against you, with kiting and such. This is the number 1 reason why maxes can perform so well without proper support which I want to change. A max that gets caught out should die. You already have a massive hp pool to keep you alive, if that's not enough.. Tough luck, you overextended and got caught out, bend over and pay the price.
Second is the range. This is to further define the role of the max: Siege breaking. You're supposed to walk into heavily fortified positions and flush the enemy out, if they're out in the open... good job, your work here is done and it's time for your aliies with more range to go to work.
Base survivability needs to be buffed. While on the whole this will all leave the max weaker then before, I want to reporpose and define the role of the max, not delete it entirely. By removing range and mobility, maxes NEEDS to be able to straight up tank whatever is thrown at them. Most people are already running kinetic armor so since I'm removing the main counters to C4 it makes sense to add flak as default as well.
The turning speed. Once again this is to further empahsize that maxes are a teamwork unit that relies on friendly support to function. You need allies to cover your back and sides while you deal with the fromt. The max would basically be a bull, with full force forward but lacking the flexibility to make sharp turns.
Lastly make maxes immune to flash, conc, emp really any disruptive grenade effect. This is to somewhat offset the (quite severe) nerfs I've suggested earlier and stop the max from becoming a complete walkover. Betwen the removal of charge and increased turning speed it would simply become wayy too easy to deal with maxes.
Lastly the sprint change is simply more of a QoL addition to offset the mobility nerfs. It would take several seconds to achive max speed but once there you would move at a fairly reasonable pace (there isnothing worse then getting stuck in the misdle of nowhere with no friendly transport nearby).

So, instead of having our current "super soldier" maxes that basically make you slightly slower while massively buffing your combat capabilities in every other way, we have a clearly defined Siege breaker, that is slow and predictable yet can take a crapton of damage and is mainly used to walk over enemy fortifications. Instead of simply charging in and killing everything you leave your enemies with a very clear choice: Do we stay and try to take this monster head on or do we fall back to a more open position?

Basically make MAXes like they were in PlanetSide 1: 3 Rocketlauncher shots to kill them but also longer TTK on their weapons.

I mean hey, SOE, why not use the WORKING SYSTEM and EXPERIENCES from PS1?

In 2003 MAXes could be killed with two Decimator shots, in 2004 it was nerfed to three. MAXes were also balanced in that they didnt do absurd amounts of damage to Infantry and Vehicles and AV MAXes were less viable against infantry. There was also a timer of 5 minutes, earlier universally on all three (AI/AV/AA) variants, later individually.
Why are we back to two RL shots now? Why do we have insanely imbalanced MAX weapons (NC AI indoor / outdoor discrepancy, AV being too strong and also too viable against Infantry)? Why do we have to put up with badly-thought-out acquisition timer problems*?

Why was sticking to what was tried and true for 9 years so bad?

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* = Insanely long acquisition timer for new players versus 5 minutes less for high-BR-players. No viable cheap AA option for new players (AA Max in PS1 was 2(!!!) Certpoints), leading to lackluster new player AA abilities. And now that system has been perverted due to the resource revamp removing timers altogether leading to MAXes being either too cheap or too expensive.

Yeah, MAX DPS can't drop below a certain threshold. But clearly the existing balance is way off with MAXes able to kill just as fast as any other weapon, but also survive twice as long.

A slow, durable playstyle is definitely fine to have. It just has to get balanced with the other classes.

I would bring back faction specific traits for MAX units from PS1

TR Max=Lockdown Mode

NC Max=Basically a tank all the time

VS Max=High Jump Ability (Allowed this max to Jump very high once and get over base walls to "max crash" a base

They could, but as I pointed out earlier in the thread the MAX weapons are less lethal than the normal infantry options (Barring some NC weirdness). If MAXs get hit with a nerfbat, that's probably going to be a full on infantry TTK pass.