Limiting asymmetrical balance is a good thing

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Paperlamp, Apr 12, 2014.

  1. Paperlamp

    I commonly see people ask for faction traits to be more defined, telling players of factions "no you should not have anything like this because it's our trait" or whatever.


    I'm gonna clue you guys into something though, and I'm specifically looking at NC players right now: Asymmetrical balance already failed in this game and you killed it and I'm GLAD YOU DID.

    High RoF guns with low TTK dominate close range, so yes TR was going to rule and obviously NC was gonna suck because PS2 was very close-range oriented.

    The factions used to be more asymmetrical but it sucked. It sounds good on paper but when it comes down to it, it's not fun being the inferior faction for any specific range or task. It would mean factional advantages decide your encounters more often than how well you play and most people hate that in spite of disconnecting it from asymmetrical balance.


    But now that you got high RoF CQC weapons, you're coveting the things your faction has and it's getting irritating.

    Here's where I'm going with this: VS and TR should have access to 200/500 and 167/600 automatics.

    If you're NC and you disagree, then you should also support giving away all your 750+ RoF guns. I don't think many people would enjoy this extreme pigeon-holing of the factions but that's what asymmetrical weapons does to infantry balance.

    Doesn't matter than PS2 is close range focused, it's still not fair for NC to have the best automatics for engagements past that range - combat does happen there and VS/TR should have equally good weapons. Which means not watered down 526-577 RoF 167 damage guns, we should be demanding 167/600 and if not 200 damage guns, guns on par with their performance(0.0 CoF, low horizontal recoil, lower TTK than the 167 tier guns, devastating headshots).

    And don't give me any BS about the 125 damage tier junk TR get because it isn't lower TTK than your 800-845 RoF 143 weapons and really there's nothing special about the 125/900 RoF tier. Same is not true about 167/600 and 200/500 which have obvious advantages.

    Also no-bullet drop/fast reloads of VS are negligible compared to the entirely different style of weapon NC gets access to. So is the extra rounds on TR Carbines and ARs albeit it's more significant than VS's traits.

    I'm game for NC and VS getting some 40 round 143 ARs and Carbines. I want some TR carbines not to trade other stats for those 10 extra bullets too though.

    And for all I care VS/NC can have some weapons with 125 damage and ~900 RoF. And yes, I know many TR are enthusiastic about faction traits/asymmetrical balance as well but they're wrong too and we really didn't get anything good out of complaining about RoF. We should've asked for TTK on par with GD-7F/Serpent instead 'cause that's what really mattered.



    Asymmetrical balance in vehicles / air makes a little more sense to me although I could be wrong. Maybe it's just as bad - I'm not a real tanker or pilot, I just farm infantry with a prowler so I can't speak with much experience on that. Would love to hear some vehicle-oriented players speak about that.


    As for MAXes, they could potentially be asymmetrical but from the sound of it nobody wins right now: NC wants better range, VS/TR want to be able to instantly kill people at close ranges not to mention the insane burst against other MAXes. I'd be game for both of those things to be possible. Mattocks and Blue Shifts for everyone.

    They could even introduce this into the game in an immersion sensitive way quite easily by allowing unlocking versions of other faction's guns via some sort of intel gathering thing seperate from certs. It would make perfect sense in war to try to copy/use the best weapons your enemies are using and use them against them. But whatever, there are skull masks so immersion isn't that big of a deal.
    • Up x 3
  2. LucasPiazon

    I agree, I think faction traits should be purely aesthetic and shouldn't affect weapons stats and stuff like that.
    • Up x 5
  3. Paperlamp

    Prepare for the hate train brother in arms. It will be an honor to die by your side in the forumside fields.
    • Up x 4
  4. SuperMedicated

    Probably if you get a 200 damage carbine you folks at tr will whine about it being too weak or having too much recoil in such generalized way SOE will buff it for you only (as always), making an op weapon and everyone spending sc to get the wep asap, this will last 3 more months until soe decides to randomly nerf it until it gets useless and you beg for more op stuff to cheese on, restarting the cycle
    • Up x 2
  5. Paperlamp


    Best way to make sure we don't complain is giving it the exact same stats as an AC-X11.

    Bam. Nobody arguing about the value of having less velocity among other downsides for the 5 extra rounds like w/the Cougar AKA watered down Razor.
  6. SuperMedicated

    Do try it at the vr, you don't want that weapon, you might want a 600rpm 167 damage one though
  7. Metalsheep

    Personally and as a 10year PS1 veteran, i disagree.

    Planetside and its combat was always about asymetrical balance among the empires, with NS weapons having a middle ground between the three.

    However, having said that, i would like to see a return of Looting from PS1. Even though faction weapons were unique to their faction, you could still loot an enemy players corpse and pick up/use their faction specific weaponry. You just couldnt pull them freely from an Equipment Terminal. (or their ammo, in the case of VS weapons. They used exotic energy ammo only VS could aquire so youhad to kill VS to keep their weapons fueled.) but you could store them in Weapons Lockers for later use.
    • Up x 6
  8. Syrathin

    What he said.

    As much as a like the idea of us all being unique little snowflakes in our three color clone war, It just seems like it's too much of a challenge getting the balance right between factions. Honestly I think there's too much to reasonably try to balance with air, Infantry and tanks all having their little perks.
  9. Phazaar

    Asymmetrical balance 'failed' in the early stages because the weapons were not balanced and the faction traits were ill-thought-out and badly applied. NOT because asymmetrical balance cannot work.

    Taking the example you alluded to, CQC dominance of high RoF TR weapons in the early stages of the game... Flinch was the largest contributor here, it flat out meant that the more bullets you hit them with, the more advantage you had, so high damage per shot weapons were redundant.

    Second to this, TRs faction traits were applied with no negative attributes, whilst NC were not. NC got high damage per bullet and high first shot accuracy in exchange for lowest DPS, massive recoil+bloom, low mag size, low reserve ammo, long reload times, and most crucially, absolute absence of hipfire accuracy. One advantage (and a tiny secondary advantage, that due to the former issue, was completely redundant) in exchange for half a dozen disadvantages. TR on the other hand, got highest RoF (massive advantage due to flinch), highest DPS, highest damage per mag, most reserve ammo, great hipfire accuracy, relatively low recoil and bloom (compared to similarly executed weapons in other FPS games), and the price paid? Not having high damage per shot, low DPS weapons (in an environment where, once again, as I can't overstate this, high damage per shot was a disadvantage), high horizontal recoil (rather irrelevant given CQC domination) and the longest reload times (which is the least relevant factor to your actual kill potential when rounding a corner against an opponent when you can keep shooting for 33% longer, and kill 33% more enemies per magazine).

    Three distinct advantages, all more meaningful than the NC ones, combined with other 'advantages' (more like absence of expected disadvantages when comparing to similar weapons in other games), all for the price of two mediocre disadvantages, and a 'limited' weapons selection (if 'limited' is a fair term to use to describe 'none of the less useful weapons').

    They weren't balanced, and their performance was suitably incomparable. Hence, the problem was not asymmetrical balance, it was simply the absence of balance. Now we've got better balance; advantages and disadvantages well distributed all round, and performance is much more in line than it ever was before. With that as a starting point, we can push each faction further into its 'own ground' and get a diverse and interesting game, that won't suffer the emboldened issue as long as we're careful and intelligent about implementation. Sorry, but your plan for Battle-of-Duty-side isn't required here.
    • Up x 13
  10. Paperlamp

    It's my most used NC carbine already, and yeah I do want that weapon.
  11. Alarox

    The reason we have 143 damage, 750-845 ROF weapons is because there isn't a damage profile for 167 or 200 damage weapons that is competitive with that DPS. Without those weapons we wouldn't have anything to compete with yours.

    I don't even want an 845 ROF weapon. I want a CQC 200 damage weapon. I want 167 damage weapons with 650 ROF.
    • Up x 3
  12. DrPapaPenguin

    Unfortunately there will always be VS with no bullet drop, so NC and TR will point fingers and ask "Where are our traits?"
  13. Paperlamp


    While some of the issues here were problems with the early game, fixing them isn't the only thing they did to solve the problem.

    NC got TR style weapons is part of what happened. If we were to take away the GD-7F/Carnage/GR-22 I don't think NC would be particularly happy about it. The GD-7F is the most used NC carbine among high BRs, and the Carnage the most used NC AR as well.
  14. TheFamilyGhost

    Balance is boring, and played out.
    • Up x 1
  15. Nocturn0l

    Your suggestion would make the game boring.

    If you want 200 damage weapons play NC, i think that's what you really should do instead of complaining that TR has no equivalent weapons. It is freedom of choice, if you don't like the TR weapon selection you can play any other faction.
    And stop complaining ffs, do you see VS/NC complaining that they want 40 round carbines and ARs? Because i can tell 143/30 weapons run dry faster than you can say "reloading". Hell, NC doesn't even have a good CQC LMG, sure some people have voiced their opinion about that, but they aren't whining every day about it.
    • Up x 2
  16. LibertyRevolution

    They should just start everyone with NS weapons...
    Then as you progress you could unlock sidegrades that have more empire specific traits.

    Imagine if all HA start with a NS-15m and a Decimator, all light assaults have a NS-11c, and all medics a NS-11a.
    A level playing field, no more threads about who's starter guns are better. It would be glorious!
    • Up x 2
  17. Reaver027

    Take a look at what PS1 did. Most of the weapons were common pool and just very few were empire specific.
    Perhaps something like that could work in PS2 as well.
    Have 1 weapon of kind be empire specific and have the others be removed or be made into common pool weapons.
    Thats way it would be much easier to create some kind of balance as well.

    Instead of having 19 LMGs in total we could go down to 9 in total. Currently every empire has access to 7 and with the changes 7 as well. 2 long range, 2 mid range, 2 close range + 1 faction specific gun.

    But that would remove money making possibilities for SOE so it will never happen.
    • Up x 1
  18. Paperlamp

    NC is not an actual choice. Can't stand the aesthetic or ideology.

    And complaining about NC not having a good CQC LMG is helping my case.


    This would be a major improvement. As long as the empire specific weapons aren't superior versions of common pool weapons(Lasher and MCG rather than Jackhammer) it'd work well and empires would still have some fun/funky stuff to play with.
  19. Jaedrik

    Sure. There are plenty of games that are tons of fun and have weapons available to be used by any faction, they're not boring in the slightest. I say make the guns interesting and balanced, no need to go through the work of trying to balance the factions beyond special ES weapons.
  20. Epic High Five

    NC guns, even after the PU02 balance pass, tend to underperform compared to factional counterparts.

    Also, I do support giving away our 750+ rpm guns, not only because I don't use the damn things but because it means the TR/VS would lose all 577+ rof 167 damage gun. We lose, what, the GR-22? The Blitz if we're including SMGs? The 7F would be the only "loss" here and even that gun is totally outclassed by existing NC guns.

    Paperlamp, I've been reading your posts this last week or so and I've gotta say, it REALLY sounds like you want to play NC and not TR. It sounds like you enjoy it way more. Maybe you should spend some time in blue/yellow instead of having a freakout about how the TR aren't the NC

    "I don't like their aesthetics/ideology" aside, this isn't an ala carte game and you need to choose what's more important to you. Irrelevant lore and how your space barbie looks, or actually enjoying the game?


    THEN WHY DON'T YOU COME ON OVER HERE AND USE IT

    Whitewashing the game so that it's all everybody using the same stuff in the same way would kill this game, on top of being stupid in general and anathema to the F2P model specifically.
    • Up x 10