Those VS and TR who complain about NC Weapons

That depends on how much TR is buffed and how much other factions are nerfed.

Infantry gameplay is fairly balanced, only slight buffs and nerfs decide the FOTM.
For example:- Striker gets nerfed, many leave TR, ZOE gets nerfed and many leave VS.

Even a single weapon can cause huge population changes.

The patch is still not out yet, we can expect many last minute changes such as the "removal of x2 burst on inquistor" and the "shot delay on railjack"

Its not over till its over. April balance patch will not be over until the patch hits live.

I think the devs have mostly learned to ignore this sort of feedback, and for good reason. The infantry gameplay is as balanced as it has ever been. The Gauss SAW has the lowest damage-per-second of any of the default LMGs and a longer TTK. It's not any better than the other weapons overall, and is atrocious in close quarters. It's called asymmetrical balance and god bless Higby for sticking to his guns and not catering to idiots who will never be happy.

Of course, this begs the question as to why the upcoming "balance" patch is going through in the first place.

You have to remember than in the patch where NC population grew, often refered pretty erroneously to as the "NC buff" patch, the only actual real buffs were minor buffs to the AC-X11 and GD-7F, the rest was nerfs to everyones hipfire and non-SMG .75 ADS, which were both over performing.

The NC weapons didn't really perform much (if any) better and the VS/TR weapons didn't really perform much worse (even the .75 ADS ones), yet the perception was that somehow NC were buffed and were now "better", when the reality was the game had largely been brought into the best balance it had/has ever seen.

Who the hell compares weapon balance by cert price? This was a waste of the few seconds I spent watching it.
Also, you need to spend 1k certs to compete at CQC with the Orion and MSR-W? Guess how many certs TR and VS need to compete with the Gauss SAW at long range. You thought it was 1k? Guess again, TR and VS just lose at range against the Gauss SAW, no matter how many certs you have.
People don't complain about NC 200 dmg weapon because they are OP or something, they complain because NC has access to all NC specific guns ( 200 dmg and 167/600 rpm guns ) while also having access to VS and TR "specific" guns.
NC hard mode? ROFL
Guess that's why you have the lowest overall pop...oh wait...

The 200dmg weapons are hard mode. The Jackhammer is certainly not hard mode. I just wish TR and VS had faction specific equivalents to the 200dmg weapons. TR seems to be getting 125dmg primaries which may be that equivalent for TR, but they're a little too easy to use and definitely too versatile by how they're looking so far. Hope VS gets class uniques as well.

The problem at launch wasn't the NC LMGs, it was flinch mechanics. Being a fixed amount per round hitting, regardless of damage, is weighted so heavily in favor of high ROF guns it's incredible. The bane of every NC's existence back them was an Orion/CARV heavy because they could just shield and stun lock you.

I bet it didn't seem like that big of a deal to you guys - the NC didn't have any guns capable of doing this to you and the VS were like 26% pop at best. I assure you though, the only reason it wasn't the most infuriating mechanic of all time is because of how Liberators/lolpodders were at launch.

The most hard mode NC weapon is the GR-22, because it's a poor imitation of an inferior type of weapon (high ROF) most everything else we have is boss as hell and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Does anybody here who has used it think there is any gun that even compares to the Reaper for sheer "oh my god this is so fun"?

Not to mention that up to PU2 all those complaints were thoroughly backed up with in-game performance figures (from a variety of metrics and time points) that showed an obvious and systematic bias with high ROF weapons tending to outperform low ROF more or less across the board. NC were dead last in a variety of categories and in certain categories (like Carbines) every single NC variant could be shown to perform worse than both TR/VS equivalents.

THE PHASESHIFT.

lol jk

I raise you one H-V45; it's just so much fun to mow people down with it.

Psh, it's just a disco GR-22. If you guys had any other ARs that weren't outright awful and boring you'd be shelving it like we do the GR-22

Want to make any statement you make completely ignored and irrelevant?

Finish your post up with a conclusion that your faction is "Hard Mode"

Now where's that ignore button?

Heresy! The Corvus is the most accurate full-auto gun in the game! (Ignore it has by far the worst TTK...)

Isn't the GR-22 like, the second most used AR in the class for NC? lol

I like the Reaper DMR and the Carnage BR/AR though, they're pretty cool.

It's cheap and spammy, so a lot of people will be drawn to it that would probably do much better with the Gauss Rifle (which is a bananas good gun). I expect it will be shifting toward the vastly superior Carnage now that it's free with the quiz.

I love the Corvus, but it just doesn't have the strength to stand on its own, and that's pretty much what it has to do.

Marginally off topic but still relevant in my old and knackered head!

Was just looking at server pops and granted I only play on 3 servers, and only NC or TR, but if the weapons are balanced, which I believe they are(no sarcasm unusually for me), then why the quite noticeable trend towards NC over this past week? Just an observation on my part, I have no stats etc, it just makes it worthless for a mediocre player like myself to log into my TR toon lol

youll never get good weapon balance as long as guns that have a faster RoF are *more* accurate than ones that shoot slower. the fact that something like the SAW--which gets much worse as soon as the stupid CoF kicks in as you strafe--is less accurate than something like the Carv is mind boggling. Carv will certainly beat you up close, and at long range itll still work damn fine because youll spit out enough bullets with enough accuracy to give the SAW a run for its money. having to burst with the saw after 3-5 bullets is how you have to handle it, whereas the Carv will likely get to 10-12ish bullets before he has to let up for a second and keep firing. Having to burst fire much more often for less bullets is a straight up disadvantage, it drastically lowers your ttk, and is made better by the fact that 200/167 has a worse ttk overall vs bullet hoses anyway. throw anamolies like the good ol' orion into the mix and it gets even more asinine. even the 800+ guns do fantastically well outside CQC, but they luckily are held down by bloom more so that the situation isnt THAT much worse. but that 698-750 range? it handles everything with great versatility, especially 750. thats the sweet spot.

jag, carnage AR, orion, MSW... back months ago, there were clear winners in gun categories, and even today after all the balance runs they are still top in class. the .75 ads still has a fairly undervalued advantage, but the sweet spot has kept them all squarely intact. no sane person will learn to burst fire when i can just grab one of those and not have to learn how period. its wedging everything apart, and i feel as though we've ignored it for too long.

also, not to entirely crap on a group, but you can see a bit of this in the current TR weapon lineup. they certainly needed a look/sound pass, i agree on that 120%. ability wise? they are solid. "uncontrollable h. recoil" on their weapons is easy rectified by--get this--burst fire. take the jag, where you can get about 3-5 bullets out (foregrip assumed ofc) and you have to stop for a split second before firing again lest your rounds go everywhere. thats really not an indicator of being UP, that really makes complete sense. if you could poop out half a mag before you lost control you'd be, quite frankly, much MUCH better off than anyone else, as in massively way too good, esp when compared to the big hitters.

realistically, the TR are in a very good spot (hold up before you light torches and brandish pitchforks) and the guns define that. now, something like, say, the carnage will make your guns look inferior, and the truth is that yes, the carnage is better. the issue isnt the TR guns, its the fact that the carnage is just wayyyy too good and versatile when i can put 15+ bullets in a tight group before losing control, and its far from the only offender. and yes, i did just say that about the carnage AR. hell, look at the gd7/serpents of the world. i dont blame the TR for wanting their own version, because those are both head and shoulders above the rest.

we can all go on about long range NC guns in a game with control points inside, but i believe we need to be a little more truthful. theres no inherent NC-must-suck trait or anything along that line, its just that this sole game concept is counter-productive to good fighting and the NC, by nature of faction traits, see this in play the most. Aiming is one of a few large parts of FPS games, but a lot of what we use takes a major chunk out of that. it shows.

Credit where it's due, I was expecting a wall of text like this to veer off at some point into wild hyperbole but it made good points through and through.

I think what it comes down to is how I view things (how convenient, I know!) which is that the gun is just window bunting and the real thing that matters is acurracy while burst firing. I've got 5200 SAW kills, 2k Reaper kills, and something like 1.6k X11 kills, the majority of all these being in close range. I actually prefer the 200/500 guns for CQC work because as soon as you see that headshot indicator pop you've won, guaranteed. That I can tap fire 3 headshots and kill out to render distance is icing on the cake.

The bullet hoses just seem to be be 75% downtime and fighting COF bloom the entire time. The highest ROF gun I can stomach anymore is the Cyclone, which with exmags is a ridiculously lethal little gun.

One fundamental flaw in your spreadsheet. You're making an assumption that the average accuracy is consistent across all ranges.

Except at 50m the NC6 will miss less then the T9 and VS54.

In close, yeah VS and TR should win, but at range, yeah, the Gauss SAW will prolly do better...

... and then starts shooting Higby Phoenix (aka guided Decimator) from spawn.

300m for Phoenix
450m for Lancer

Seems legit...

I'd say because other empires than NC may need some identity? We have unique 200 dmg weapons, knowing at least TR have a distinctive trait (RoF), they should get their distinctive weapon for this trait, don't you think?