Curious, has Daybreak every given an explanation why NC consistently underperforms?

With the exception of Cobalt, NC is dead last in alerts on every server (and even on Cobalt its a very close tie between 2nd and 3rd). And back during the World Domination series, which was two years ago at this point, NC came up dead last as well.

If Daybreak were to come out and say "yes, we believe that the game is evenly balanced, and in the 3 years that the game has existed, across multiple continents and multiple servers, NC players are, on average, notably worse than VS and TR" I'll believe them. But they've never made that statement. As a matter of fact, they've never made any statement on why faction performance has been absolutely consistent for years.

So, despite all the minor little tweaking, all the new weapons, nothing has changed. I guess maybe I'm just a little curious. It is very unlike an MMO (or any online game really) with asymmetrical balance like this to be so consistent in player performance for so long. I recall early on in PS2's development the developers and Smed would talk about how open they were going to be with the community on game issues and this seems like its been a pretty major issue that SoE and now Daybreak have been silent on for a couple years at this point.

The guys at SOE a while ago explained that while the NC as a whole under performs, the stats actually show that the high rank NC characters perform higher then high rank TR or VS. This is because the NC weapons have the highest skill floor, but also the highest skill ceiling. If the NC weapons were made more user friendly, then they would also have to have their skill ceiling lowered.

Why would Daybreak/SoE come out and say 'Yes, NC are just worse players'?
The only thing that accomplishes is offending 1/3 of the playerbase and is a really bad move PR-wise.

In terms of balance, NC are good. They have the most capable and versatile arsenal that can adequately deal with any enemy threat. Their population fluctuates constantly from 20% up to 45% (at least on Connery), so that might be a factor, but a major variable is simply the players not utilising their tools to the intended purpose.

I just take solace in the fact that Server Smash has never shown any particular trend towards one faction or another having an innate advantage.

The main reason behind NC's lack of commitment for winning and doing their best is because, in my experience, NC just attracts players who want to play for fun. A lot of players i've heard who do have a mic just play to find a big fight, get certs, then leave like a normal video gamer usually does.

NC is harder for inexperienced and lower-skill players to use. Since that makes up a significant chunk of the game's population, that makes NC the least effective faction as a whole.

Some people will say all of the good players migrate to VS because they are said to be the best faction, or that the VS has OP toys in all the right places, but I reject those notions after playing all 3 factions and hearing people(scrubs) say NC weapons suck over and over.

Only the perceived disadvantage of TR.

They aren't afraid of saying the truth when it matters:

That's a quote from Holly Longdale, Executive Producer of Everquest and Everquest 2. The quote is referring to instancing original content raids on the new progression servers released over the summer. Interesting thing about it is that the progression servers are membership only. The casuals she is speaking of are still paying players.

As you all can imagine, the forums went crazy over such a statement. Some players just didn't want to hear such a harsh truth. She actually came out and said basically, some players will win, others won't.

With that said, they're not afraid of offending 1/3rd the playerbase, they'd offended 90% or more before. Well potentially offended. I didn't see Nagafen on that server, I wasn't apart of a guild that could lock down the new cycles. But I didn't complain, I knew that was going to be for the most serious and for the ones with the most time they could allocate.

So... if they came out and said, NC players just aren't as good or coordinated, I wouldn't be offended. However.. I seriously doubt this will happen simply because the NC aren't worse. I've been playing TR all day yesterday and pretty much the NC won most of the alerts. TR and VS just couldn't get a coordinating team together. Platoons wouldn't speak in platoon chat, outfits wouldn't speak outside their TS's in open platoons, no one listened to tactical reports (such as a mass of MBT's flanking from behind).

And NC won the world record event. No on one these forums have explained how that happened. In fact forumside AVOIDS that event like the plague. Their precious corrupted stats don't tell them why it happened. In fact the stats show NC losing in every category in every weapon and vehicle, KDR, KPU, KPX, whatever. But the alert was still won.

But of course, anyone posting corrupted stats do so because they are furthering an agenda. Its been done since World of Warcraft, everyone tries to get a little buff for their faction, class, weapon by playing the victim card. Gone are the days where players would try to justify their faction, class, or weapon choices.

I miss those days in MMOs and multiplayer games in general. No one wanted to point out their choice was UP. Doing so meant they had to choose something else or be left in the dust by guilds and groups. It made players compete with one another and the net result was everyone benefited from 110% given from everyone.

If I had it my way, it'd be that way again. Where if you solo'd it would be too rough. You'd have to find fights where other solo players where and leave the moment a single coordinated squad showed up. This way players would WANT to be in squads and groups to be able to do anything, even farming.

And that way when someone complains about x class not being powerful enough, we can tell them, "Ok you're right.. we won't invite that class anymore." And watch the argument turn around with people trying to justify its purposes and spot in squads. And then when people play x class they'll do everything they can to stay relevant.

Currently its, "My class is UP because of this." with responses of, "Not as UP as mine because of that."

And that is utterly ridiculous. You can replace class with weapon, vehicle, or faction. And that sums up every complaint on the forum these days.

It's because the NC weapons have the highest skill floor; their vertical recoil is massive, and this takes new and inexperienced players completely by surprise. Bear in mind that there are more players who aren't as familiar with this game than Battle Rank 100s. Standard NC weapons have the highest skill ceiling, meaning that better players should squeeze the most out of the guns and henceforth do very well in single combat against pretty much anyone else, even if their skill levels are similar. Though the skill floor is also the highest, meaning that the inexperienced portion of the NC, which accounts for a presumable majority, will not do very well.

Having gone straight from the VS to playing the NC, I am relatively well acquainted with game mechanics, and my aiming is also semi-decent. Henceforth, I do very well with NC weaponry. Though they're definitely harder to use, all-in-all. At least, some NC guns are. The GAUSS SAW is very hard to use having tried it straight from the Orion, though some weapons, like the Mercenary, are in my opinion much better than their Empire Specific counterparts. Moreover, I'd argue that the NC has the best MAX by far, in anti-infantry and anti-vehicle respects. The Reaver is also pretty good, though the Vanguard is not when compared to its competition.

This was an interesting argument 3 years ago. But seeing as 90% of new players leave (stat from Daybreaks Executive Creative Director) before BR10. This doesn't apply. The majority of NC players are going to be Vets and know how to use their weapons.

I would have agreed with you in 2012. But now that isn't the reason. There's not enough new players to support that.

Twitching on bullet impact given NC hard hitting guns was NC's main feature.
Battle hardened implant totally nullified that faction trait.

To balance that, i suggest having a new implant to decrease strafing speed handicap.
Now you can strafe ads with that SAW like an orion!

NC have the higher skill cap weapons and very few bullethoses.
in the hands of a good player a slow-firing hard-hitting weapon is godly,
in the hands of an average player it becomes more punishing than it is beneficial.

The twitch isn't as bad as it was in 2012. Back then TR were hard to fight because of the volume meant more than the damage.

Implant that increases ADS. If that stacks you'd have 1.0 ADS Orion or even 1.25...

Or more likely because there isn't a scrap of evidence that is remotely true, all NS weapon stats show players are players are players.

Although when you look at NC LMGs, for example, amazingly the NS LMG is the NCs best performing LMG barring the GODSAW and Anchor, which perhaps has something to do with it:


1894 - Betelgeuse 54-A | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 65.75
1879 - NC6A GODSAW | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 50.94
7236 - LA1 Anchor | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 48.85
1924 - T9A "Butcher" | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 47.25
7254 - MSW-R | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 45.47
7276 - SVA-88 | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 43.85
80 - Orion VS54 | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 42.01
79 - T9 CARV | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 40.87
301003 - TR NS-15M | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 40.77
7253 - T9 CARV-S | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 39.77
301002 - NC NS-15M | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 39.64
301001 - VS NS-15M | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 39.53
7275 - Pulsar LSW | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 39.27
7233 - GD-22S | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 39.00
7234 - NC6S Gauss SAW S | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 38.81
7274 - VX29 Polaris | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 38.51
7235 - EM6 | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 38.49
7257 - T32 Bull | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 37.80
7277 - Flare VE6 | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 36.80
7278 - Ursa | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 36.52
78 - NC6 Gauss SAW | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 34.80
7256 - TMG-50 | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 34.72
7255 - T16 Rhino | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 33.66
7232 - EM1 | Q4 KPH | Daily Average: 32.78

It has to do something with one thing only - leaders.
No weapons or vehicles matter. Only good leaders.
And the side which has good outfits and leaders will win.
Its not the fight between factions, its the fight between war leaders of planetside.

Loosing alerts doesent translate to bad weapons/vehicles.

Its dangerous to present statistics as "evidence" when you dont know how to properly read past the shallow surface.
Because some people are going to believe you, and spread the misinformation to others.

This is a valid point, though bear in mind that a lot of players from other factions may choose to experiment with the New Conglomerate after a set period of time playing another faction. Some never do, and stick to their standard faction. Though a lot of players will try out other Empires later on, which in itself provides a whole new learning curve that is understanding how the weapons behave, faction principles and umbrella philosophies, and simply learning how to use the weapons utilized by said faction. Moreover, at least on the Miller Server where I play VS as my main, I still bump into an awful lot of new players, many of whom are NC. Their Battle Ranks are low and their skill exemplifies their inexperience.

While it is true that most, if not all, players back from 2012 will have matured and mastered their faction of choice, there will be new and fresh blood flowing through the player-base. Likewise, eventually experienced players will choose to throw in the towel and stop playing. I still see far more sub Battle Rank 50-60 players than those above - heck, at present, I'm one of them.

Besides, there's never going to be one black and white answer for this question anyway. This may be one of the reasons, though there may be a bigger and more prevalent one elsewhere. Personally, I really can't see much justification behind the potential argument of "NC is under-powered, and that is why they lose so many Alerts". This seems unlikely, although aspects of the NC are hit very hard by the asymmetrical balance meta, (for instance, the Vanguard is without a doubt the worst MBT, though its AV role is balanced quite erratically by the beast that is the AV MAX - an example of indirect conceptual balance relating to asymmetry; frankly, I don't feel that it works).

Fundamentally, there are probably a whole host of reasons why the NC lose the most alerts, supposedly. Whether you agree or not, there isn't going to be a right and wrong here, unless there are statements that are blatantly untrue. What I said may be a contributing factor by some small degree, though as you say, it might be completely untrue. Though there will most definitely be more than one reason, and some will have more of an effect than others.

yea, nc got dumb players but they got good **** they dont know how to use.

Ive been playing as NC a little and there equipment definitely isnt under powered.
Infact they have many platforms or small arms that are by far the best in class.

id tend to agree, a lot of alert victories are about leadership and organisation.
I personally beleive TR get a dirty end of the stick weapon wise, but come alert time it makes no odds. Its whos telling who to do who OR of course who's got the biggest numbers (or some max saturation).

Answer: The NC is too busy TeamKilling each other. I first started as NC and had to leave due to all the TKing.