Why be a NC?

This is the meat of it.

Average-Poor skilled players(Most forumites) aren't too good with the higher skill cap on the NC weapons. They perform worse with them than an average guy with a CARV. But a high skill NC will perform better with a SAW than a high skill guy with a CARV, imo. NC weapons are designed towards better players, if they were dumbed down to the point of TR and VS weapons you'd see dramatically higher scores.

TR weapons are incredibly easy to use, but have almost no skill ceiling at all, with VS being somewhere in between.

However, balancing on averages just dumbs down the game as a whole, and caters to the lowest common denominator, which has been proven to be a poor balancing method. Which is why I always claim it's a bad idea to just refer to usage stats because it's all an average. But that's what SOE does. Because it's easy.

Accuracy (less recoil) > High ROF > Damage is usually my priority when deciding what weapons are best for me and it also seems to be the trend for productive players in popular shooters like COD and BF. The guns with higher damage profiles, but slower fire rates and higher recoil are typically not the most used guns by good players.

xFactor (formerly known as RivalxFactor) is probably one of the best BF3 players in the world. His most productive weapons were the ones easiest to control and had decent to high ROF. When he (briefly) played PS2 he mainly used TR and VS because their weaponry matched those characteristics. I think both he and levelcap (another top BF3 player) mentioned it's not a good idea to use slow ROF weapons because things like framerate drops will also decrease ROF making a slow ROF gun even slower. Most encounters are CQC to medium range, so ROF with accuracy is king!

The top kills leaderboards primarily feature TR and VS players - there's probably just 1 or 2 NC guys in the top 10. That says something for both NC infantry and vehicle weaponry.

Personally I haven't used vehicles much, but I definitely prefer TR and VS over NC in regards to gun play because it's simply easier to get kills with their stock weapons even compared to NC stock weapons with cert upgrades.

Sounds like what your looking for in terms of that.. is the ravens, not machineguns though :<

Strikers are stupid because they ignore terrain, flares, and IR smoke.

TR Has amazing anti-air

TR Has amazing Air-to-air

TR has amazing Air-to-ground

The fractures are insanely good and made better with lockdown. (I was being sniped across a valley by them earlier)

ZOE max moves as fast as any regular infantry.

ZOE MAX gets the one bullet less benefit at level 4 (after spending over 1100 certs)

The reduction in resistance has caused my MAX some serious grief.

What does the NC have?

They have a camera guided Decimator (The phoenix). With the damage multipliers, the Phoenix does identical damage to vehicles, and one-shots ESFs.

The NC also has the Enforcer. 10 rounds of fury at 300 m/s.

The NC starting Infiltrator weapon is a one-shot kill with a headshot. (Other classes have to pay for that)

The NC starting LMG can be equipped with a compensator, high velocity ammo, and an advanced forward grip. It also has a slow rate of fire (which helps make recoil extremely manageable) and a 100 round magazine.

Then there are the Ravens. With some practice and skill, you can just gib infantry left and right, then take out vehicles.

As for the shotguns, I call ******** that they can't do anything at range. They are just as effective at medium range as well. With the new addition of the aegis shield, you can absorb insane amounts of damage and close distances between you and your enemies. Although it may seem bad by yourself, take a deep breath and think about how the VS felt with the low damage Lancer. By yourself, the Lancer is absolute garbage... but with a coordinated attack, it's devastating. So look at how the high BR soldiers utilize their ability.

I witnessed three NC MAXes hold a point and prevented any enemy from advancing. A MAX would come in and fill a place of another MAX when their shield is drained. It was being used as mobile cover, and there was nothing the oncoming zerg could do about it. It seems the main strength of the NC is defense, and slow advancing offense.

Every faction has strengths and weaknesses... make alts and talk to high BRs and ask them what they think about particular weapons. Learn your strengths and weaknesses and plan around them.

so. those things I see zooming around at ATV speeds are what? hackers? then I guess all the vanu on connery are hackers.

Use it, then tell me how fast it is, if it was as slow as you say, It couldn't outrun infantry as it currently does.

I have a BR42 NC character on Briggs and it has always been the faction with the most people. You should try VS on Connery or TR on Helios (now merged) if you want to experience being heavily outnumbered. You should be taken to court-martial for dishonouring the flag, and whinging in the face of the enemy.

NC have the best ranged infantry weapons (and up close, shotties are all carbon-copies), the most fun ESAV, and strong but situational MAX units. The MBT and ESF aren't great, but do their job.

Right now, the pops on Connery/Helios and Briggs are (VS/TR/NC): 30/35/35 and 34/34/32 respectively. Hardly imbalanced.

Dry your mince pies and get back to the front.

Strongest ******* guns in the game? AP Vanguards that can destroy any tanks? Strongest rotary? Coolest ******* intro music? Blue?
But...
You carry the ugliest armor ever, Worst female voice in the game, and Ugly armor again.

I thought about the question for a while and there are many attractive weapons that the NC has. Scatmax with dash into an enemy group = total carnage. The Gauss Saw is superior as well and the weapon.

But..I can't..I just can't...join a faction whose main design inspiration is Walmart!

Sorry.

Are you hip firing at everyhting, ffs. The SAW has 0 COF ADS. 0.

The Pulsar C is a slower firing Merc (your default carbine), if i can win vs shotugns with AN EVEN slower firing version of your default carbine, then I'm sorry but wtf are you talking about. The pulsar C is an NC style weapon available to the VS, fyi.

Try actually you know, playing the game.

NC briggs population isnt low enough to convince SOE. Yes, there a major drop in pop prior to GU09, 38%->30%

On Miller we're seeing a drop in NC population with most outfits noticing a drop in activity and several outfits that have been around and populated since beta fragmenting. Whether this is just the impact of '4th faction' or other factors I really don't know but it is certainly concerning.

pretty sure, its not concerning 4th faction leaving. Its most likely existing player based leaving due to frustration.

Look at the map. You will see TR dominating every event. Even while they are dominating the event, the NC are close to warpgated on Indar. At this stage the NC are just fed up with the Striker spam, the Fracture Maxes, ZOE, Lockdown AA AND at the same time the other factions have stronger ESFs and the TR have a much higher DPS tank.

NC population will continue dropping, and if that is why SOE has made them the significantly weaker faction, then mission successful. However may of those players will just quite the game outright. Less players = less money for SOE. Was it worth giving the TR the Striker, the Fracture, a better ESF, a better tank and lockdown mode? Whoever is in charge of this game will eventually have to answer to the accountants as to why the population and revenue collapsed. These bad decisions are why.

the Gauss SAW is amazing now...

since flinch was changed the NC are on par if not better in most cases... plus they have a few weapon that are TR style (low dam/high RoF, higher RoF than even TR actually) if you are more comfortable with that

wtf are you kidding me after 4 months of nc total domination on 40 % pop at last at all times you a re saying nc is underpopulated? as long as nc have gauss saw they are still the best faction

Freedom. Must be Freedom.

Don't worry, you'll be back to 40% world pop once you get your precious north warpgate back. Every faction goes through this. I'm not surprised TR population peaks the server since the rotation.

To be honest there is not much on the NC side left that I enjoy.

A Vanguard with AP rounds and Enforcer is a great (if not the best tank) when it comes to destroying enemy armor..... And that's about it.

The Phoenix is for me pretty much ruined since they patched this new effect after detonation.

NC MAX unit can be considerd the worst. I know you can still insta kill Inf. by shooting with booth weapons at 5m or less and you still kill enemy max units when they come into this range but only dumb or new players do that. Effective mid/long range weapons are non existant. AA capability (look at the ZOE and lockdown threads). The new anti armor weapons are the only one that are forcing you to exposed for a long time. The new shield is a completly useless ability. Can't find a single advantage over sprint when used in real combat. Yes I know multiple max units using it bla bla bla.... C4

Don't even want to descuss the Reaver in detail. It is an inferior ESF in every way. On paper it may have some advantages but ingame during battle it has none.

Infantry weapons. I know many consider the SAW as the ultimative weapon. There is not much I can say about that besides personal experience. I think that in cqc it is one of worst weapons ingame. Mid/long range is ok as long as you are using controlled bursts and "stand still" while shooting. Is that an advantage? You decide. EM6 nerfed but still a good weapon.

Why do I still play NC? Well I played NC before flinch changes, before ther Phoenix and and and.... I like how the weapons look like and how they sound. My friends are here and although we haven´t won a single Alert on our server in a long long time I still have fun. 110% bonus exp. during alerts due to low population is way better than than the 10000k you recive for a win.

Myth

Nc weapons are harder to learn. They are not. Easier actually. Since the addition of recoil going up per bullet fired in a more logarithmic arc, slow firing weapons are impacted by recoil less during sustained fire.

Nc leads to ******. Being nc will not make you chase after your sister with list in your eyes. That's just you. Being nc has nothing to do with it.

Nc will make me like country music. Well you can't account for taste...but could be why everyone is so mopey. Listening to hillbilly rock is depressing.

.

Not really. New and low-BR players get roughly the same mileage out of their default LMGs regardless of faction. Or maybe NC players are just generally better than average and their skill makes up for their "hard-to-use" weapons?

Yet there doesn't seem to be any real differences in performance when looking at only high BR characters.

What alternative do you propose? Polls? Expert panels? Magic 8-ball?