MAX Balnace Part 4: Everything AI - Page 5

Chewy · 2013-07-14, 12:32 AM

I think 4 days is long enough to warrant a bump seeing how nothing has changed yet.

Though I can say that the devs have seen this. Can't give any details about who, when, or what will happen sadly. But if Delrith tells me that he has talked to the devs about the MAX balance and that my work will be used (to a limited point Id guess) to help do something then I trust him on that.

On a side note Iv been hearing a lot of talk about NC outfits choosing to not play as NC at SOE Live. Any truth to that?

War Barney · 2014-07-16, 08:51 AM

Sadly still nothing been done and people still try to say that video proof with maths done isn't proof...

Ghost Runner · 2014-07-16, 10:12 PM

I just want a few more shots in my Max shotguns I think 10-15 would be ideal if damage stays as is.

But I would give up 25%-35% per shot damge to have a 50rd magazine capacity on my max for NC.

Chewy · 2014-07-17, 12:43 AM

I personally gave up on this. SOE has shown that they do not care for MAXes much at all compared to anything else. The simple fact that not a single MAX item has came out with player studio is proof enough for me that they think MAXes aren't worth the effort.

Every infantry class has, what, hundreds of helmets to choose from thanks to player studio with more coming all the time? Yet not a single one can be used on a MAX, even those that are so beefy that it would break someones neck if they put it on.

Why are MAXes treated like they are when you can't have a fight without them? Without MAXes most fights wouldn't even be fights. It would be fill the room with explosives and clean the mess all the time. But with MAXes you have to take a little more care as to make certain the MAXes are dead or they will HURT your push even unsupported. Might not stop a push unsupported but it will hurt like hell. You can't afford to randomly run about with MAXes around and have to think a little.

I just see no point in talking about this anymore. SOE has 3 options that would more or less end this debate and they haven't even tried as far as I know.

1- Redo one of each of a MAXes weapon and make into a weapon type that MAX is missing. Not going to happen without pissing a lot of players off and is iffy legal ground as a lot of players paid cash for weapons.

2- Make 1 weapon per MAX. A pure CQC weapon for VS and TR MAXes and a HMG med range weapon for NC MAXes. Still possible but I just do not see this happening seeing how MAXes have been treated. Not till the next revamp for MAXes maybe next year or 2.

3- NS weapons, 1 HMG and 1 shotgun. Less work and no need to make new models. Just reuse mounts for bursters and slap on the Kobalt and Renegade models to save time. Everyone gets something they need and an option for what they have.

If SOE was going to do anything. They would have long ago. Same with the Canister. Worse than a mule SOE is with shoving shotguns down NC throats. And I know stubborn jackasses, my Mawmaw gave birth to 5 with each of them having 1-3 more.

War Barney · 2014-07-17, 03:19 AM

The sad thing is they could make the NC MAX useful by just making a NS heavy machinegun for it, hell they could even make a NS shotgun for the others BAM suddenly theres a gun every NC MAX would use.

You are right though... 1 special new ability, tiny choice of weapons in comparison to other classes, very few suit/utility choices, they just don't seem to care or are waiting to do lots in 1 go.

I just wish they'd at least give us 1 long range option so we could have an effective range beyond 5m.

KesTro · 2014-07-17, 10:26 AM

You have to understand that MAX balance is something SOE has to be -very- delicate with. Too much or too little of something and you get a reaction almost equal to the airchavs(noisiest group if you ask me). As far as I was aware they have update plans for new weapons for the MAX's but I would agree that some tuning needs to be done to ALL the faction MAX's. It's just not a very high priority right now as they honestly are in a pretty good spot balance wise. You guys mentioned you disliked slugs but they really are a game changer. I use a mattock with slugs and a grinder without for dealing with infantry and other MAX's. Have had '0' problems with this set up for your average fight. You just can't spam the slugs. You have to wait half a second before firing another shot to be accurate.

The only thing I would say about the NC MAX compared to the others is that we can't lay down sustained fire like the VS/TR can. We dump our load in a three seconds then spend 4 reloading. (Don't know exact values, not looking 'em up this is just how it'feels'). I honestly wouldn't mind a damage nerf(small) to stop the instagibs if they gave us an ammo increase. 12 rounds is the largest magazine we can get with the grinder and the grinders can be incredibly unreliable even at 15m against another player who knows how to weave and abuse net code to make their player model appear to be moving faster than it is.

Chewy · 2014-07-17, 01:10 PM

I main reason I refuse to use slugs is because they deal far to little damage. 500-334 depending on range sounds like a lot, and it is when fighting nothing but infantry. The moment something bigger comes you will not be able to do anything about it.

A max damage of 500 per hit. You need 20 slugs to kill a MAX with stock armor (10,000), 14 if you get pure headshots. At KA5 a MAXes HP against small arms (any AI weapon more or less) becomes 16,000. That's 32 chest hits or 21.33 headshots making it 100% impossible to kill a MAX with anything but dual extended Grinders, and you can't miss a single shot with AT LEAST 20 hits to the head.

A MAX that can't fight MAXes is useless to me. With just about any of the TR or VS AI weapons you can go to around 20m without needing to reload in basic tests, without extended mags. Yes it will take a moment longer to kill something but you WILL kill almost anything you set your eyes on within reason. That kinda of flexibility is just godly. Playing in the Merger Smash as TR, I got to play as a certed Onslaught MAX and my god did I feel a power I have never felt before as a NC MAX. Never needing to stop shooting and being able to hold entire hallways by myself for minutes at a time. Only needing help when other MAXes come or there is about a squad coming at me. My NC MAXes can hardly handle 3-5 players and they all need to be so close I can read their faction ID cards.

All I want is something to normalize MAXes. AV weapons are in a nice spot with an option for long and short range, AA is just one weapon, but AI has nothing to base balance off of thanks to weapons types not being shared. At least with the Vanguard you can use one of the 2-3 AI NS weapons for your needs and ignore the Canister. MAXes can't do the same. EVERY other infantry and vehicle class has options to fill gaps be it NS or faction weapons. But yet again, not MAXes.

MaxDamage · 2014-07-17, 03:32 PM

I made a guess as to what your faction was based on the cherry picked statistics you chose to publish out of context.

I scrolled down to your sig.

I was right.

bites · 2014-07-17, 06:42 PM

880 Hours in a suit reporting in. I generally run slugs, and agree with the "niche" loadout issues ... but those are part and parcel of being a specialized unit ... sometimes when I'm Rock, Paper kicks my ass ... other times I get to scissor the shit out of them for it.

Originally Posted by KesTro

The only thing I would say about the NC MAX compared to the others is that we can't lay down sustained fire like the VS/TR can.

This would be the only issue I have with the NC MAX ... other factions have more bullets per mag than I do in my entire AMMO pool for both guns .. and it sucks.

Range and mag sizes can be worked around with careful positioning (or aggressive play-style), but the fact we can only reload 4 times total .. is pretty stupid and really frustrating.

Lack of ammo kills me more than anything ... and I have the Auraxium MAX punch to prove it.

(and before some smart ass posts ... no ammo loadout is not an option .. ever).

Chewy · 2014-07-19, 04:52 PM

Originally Posted by MaxDamage

I made a guess as to what your faction was based on the cherry picked statistics you chose to publish out of context.

I scrolled down to your sig.

I was right.

You seem to have not noticed that I made all of this over a year ago. This is a very old topic and one that you yourself might have already taken part in back in October of 2013.

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/....139234/page-7
Post #136, are you the same MaxDamage? If so then even back then you never bothered to look before jumping into a debate. Saying that I wasn't doing fair tests and giving your own person biased opinion with zero backing. Even though I put everything I had out for everyone to read in the OP of both topics with a big old warning label.

Do not blame me for your lack of looking before jumping. I very clearly stated that you had to at least look into the links given (they still work by the way if you still haven't seen them) to see the details and what I was basing everything off of. It isn't my fault if someone doesn't even bother to read the first few lines of a post.

If you are not the same MaxDamage, then ignore my rant and take my apology. But this is still well over a year old. Also the last balance pass for any of the MAX AI weapons came about 8 months ago that did next to nothing. Could have said less than nothing if not for the Mattock damage drop off range changes.

War Barney · 2014-07-22, 03:31 PM

I guess he didn't want to look into it cos if he did it would be indisputable proof that the NC MAX is god awful at everything but short range.

How about this as a idea to balance it! the NC MAX is awful at every range over 10m so lets make the VS MAX do its normal damage at 50m BUT at 0m it does almost no damage (like how our MAX does no damage at 50m) and the TR MAX does normal damage at 30m but does almost 0 at 0m and 50m!.

Its perfect, that way all the other MAXs will only have 1 range they can be used at as well instead of being able to work fine at multiple ranges.

Chewy · 2014-07-23, 06:15 PM

There's wanting a balance, then there's just jacking shit up. Forcing TR and VS MAX weapons into a limited role would have a beyond massive backlash that SOE would be smelling their own livers for months from how far the community would drive their heads up their own asses.

Shotguns in games have crap range because they have pellets and shoot many of them at once. You HAVE to limit their range or the things would be far to strong. In real life, well lets just say that bring real life into gaming isn't a good idea outside of sims. VS weapons would likely overheat in a few shots, TR weapons would be great from being well made and maintained, and NC weapons would be falling apart at all times if real life wan brought to PS2.

No point in fucking over 2rds of the game with a change like that. Best thing to do would be just add NS weapons for MAXes. All factions get to have something they need, all players get something to play with, and everyone gets to shoot everyone at will.

Gatekeeper · 2014-07-24, 04:48 AM

Personally I'd say this issue is clouded by three things:

1) AI MAXs excel at short range, their effectiveness beyond that range isn't really that relevant - being the best AI MAX at medium-long range is like being the best donkey in a horse-race.

2) However good your theoretical testing is, it doesn't necessarily translate into real-world game situations. No one unit stands alone in PS2, and even if the NC AI MAX weapons are weaker in theory, this might not translate into any real difference in practice.

In fact, if the majority of key AI MAX encounters are MAX vs squishie at point-blank range, then the NC AI MAX may be overall the strongest.

IMO analysing kills/score-per-minute or other real-world usage data of various MAX weapons is probably the best way to work out overall balance.

3) The three factions don't need to be perfectly balanced in every situation in order to be balanced overall. For example, if TR have the best AI MAX and VS have the best tank and NC have the best shotgun this may be balanced overall (I'm not saying those things are true, it's just a theoretical example).

Anyway, all that said - I've got no objection to the idea of adding new NS MAX weapons to give NC mid-short AI effectiveness and TR/VS point-blank punch. Whether or not there's a problem now, this seems like it'd be a fun addition - so long as it doesn't erode the unique feel of the factions too much.

While we're at it, if they could buff the Vortex so it can actually be somewhat useful against infantry, that'd be nice - either that or nerf the bloody Raven

Chewy · 2014-07-24, 02:06 PM

For NC MAXes, point blank and long range is between 1m and 15-20m where is gets to being more or less pointless to fight. Most rooms in the game are bigger than this. Never mind crossing courtyards in bases.

For TR and VS MAXes, point blank and long range is between 1m and 40m for the same reasons. You can cover entire rooms and hallways with most if not all of their AI weapons. They can even cover open ground between buildings in more open bases without much trouble.

If you want to see just how small 15m is go the the first page and look at post number 12. Even back then before the blanket shotgun nerfs NC MAXes still couldn't reach past 15m with their old weapons. After all of the shotgun nerfs, their range and raw power is even less.

It isn't theory. Shotguns are not comparable to HMGs and should never be. They are almost as different in weapon types as you can get. Shotguns aren't even comparable to any other weapon in gaming from then being so damn hard to figure out how to make them fair. To lock one faction to one and another to the other is never going to have any kind of balance in a game.

Just look at the 2ndary AI weapons for MBTs. The PPA is an explosive HMG, the Marauder is a grenade launcher, and the Canister is a shotgun. What one of the 3 is pure shit, what one is in the middle ground, and what one is the PPA?

War Barney · 2014-07-24, 05:42 PM

Originally Posted by Gatekeeper

Personally I'd say this issue is clouded by three things:

1) AI MAXs excel at short range, their effectiveness beyond that range isn't really that relevant - being the best AI MAX at medium-long range is like being the best donkey in a horse-race.

2) However good your theoretical testing is, it doesn't necessarily translate into real-world game situations. No one unit stands alone in PS2, and even if the NC AI MAX weapons are weaker in theory, this might not translate into any real difference in practice.

In fact, if the majority of key AI MAX encounters are MAX vs squishie at point-blank range, then the NC AI MAX may be overall the strongest.

IMO analysing kills/score-per-minute or other real-world usage data of various MAX weapons is probably the best way to work out overall balance.

3) The three factions don't need to be perfectly balanced in every situation in order to be balanced overall. For example, if TR have the best AI MAX and VS have the best tank and NC have the best shotgun this may be balanced overall (I'm not saying those things are true, it's just a theoretical example).

Anyway, all that said - I've got no objection to the idea of adding new NS MAX weapons to give NC mid-short AI effectiveness and TR/VS point-blank punch. Whether or not there's a problem now, this seems like it'd be a fun addition - so long as it doesn't erode the unique feel of the factions too much.

While we're at it, if they could buff the Vortex so it can actually be somewhat useful against infantry, that'd be nice - either that or nerf the bloody Raven

1. they effectiveness beyond 10m IS relevent as most fights happen beyond that range, as chewy said you can sort of fight at 20m but 10 is where you need to be to really see any benefit. As for best at short range... VS and TR have instakill on infantry at the same ranges NC do, the only advantage we have is a small one over MAXs at point blank range.

2. Chewy has covered, as a addition if anything this testing makes the NC MAX look better than it is normally as its harder to aim our shotguns and people rarely stand still.

3. They are NOT balance overall, the VS and TR MAX get AI guns which can kill things 50m+ away while still having a instakill at very close range. NC get a 10m range and to kill MAXs slightly faster at point blank range....

The NC MAX is just awful, to be specific SHOTGUNS are awful for a MAX, think of it like this, would you be happy if you could never use any gun other than shotguns ever again? of course not, people rarely use shotguns except when they enter mainly indoor close range fighting as they are so awful at everything but point blank range fighting, our MAX has no option to not use shotguns, we are stuck with an incredibly niche gun while the VS and TR get the equivalent of a LMG, perhaps not as good up close but capable at every range.

And to make it worse its more like if LMGs could 1 shot people as VS/TR MAXs still get a close range instakill