[Suggestion] The possible future of the vanu sovereignty.

I haven't played Planetside for any consistent amount of time for the better part of a year. Plenty of reasons why but nothing to the effect of I hated this game. But with a new comp and peripherals I'm back in the gunner seat to rip the NC and TR a new one. Or at least respawn trying. I decided to post this because something has occurred to me. The Vanu Sovereignty are a boring faction. There is no longer a core theme inherent to the VS. At one point in time (in a galaxy far far away) we used to be the "mobility" faction our faction specific weapons had .75 ADS multipliers and that's really all I can think about ATM but the faction feels stale feels non unique. I mean I see we have some heat mechanics... Meh (minus the beetlegeuse am i right?) but all in all i don not see a trait that we are centered around. TR lots of Dakka, NC heavy hitters (looking at you gauss saw) but for the love of Christ what do the VS have as a theme any more? I'm not ******** about balance, Quite frankly I'm sick of the word. What I,m asking is what makes the Vanu special???? I get it we have some gimmicks here and there but overall I feel like the middle child that has to mimic the other guys for parental acknowledgement.

I wanted to write this privately to a dev or maybe and suggestions box but in the 3 minutes i looked I didn't find one.

VS have accurate weapons and average faster reload time.

On fast reload, the average reload of TR weapons is (Carbines, LMG, AR) : 2.45s ; 4.24s ; 2.70s
On fast reload, the average reload of NC weapons is (Carbines, LMG, AR) : 2.15s ; 4.18s ; 2.11s
On fast reload, the average reload of VS weapons is (Carbines, LMG, AR) : 1.96s ; 3.54s ; 1.98s

Now I didn't check all values for accuracy, because between hipfire, ADS, vertical recoil, horizontal recoil and tolerance, bloom per shot, there is a lot to cover and I'm too lazy for that. But when I tried each faction in VR Room, I felt that VS weapons tend to be more accurate than their TR or NC counterparts.

Well that may be true but to me thats really not the distinguishing trait I'm looking for.

I have been playing for one year perhaps, maybe more but sporadically. I have characters in all the factions and try to advance them more or less at equal pace (in terms of BR).

I would say the OP is right. VS weapons have no ... "personality". That is not to say VS weapons are bad (some are: sidearms are utterly crap for example) but there isn't a common, unique trait or characteristic with the exception of heat mechanics.

Sure you have no bullet drop, but it is merely QoL for a good sniper: I am a lousy one but after determining the bullet drop of a sniper rifle in VR and equipping a Sweeper HUD implant I can score kills with TR and NC rifles beyond 400m. It just takes some practice.

I think DBG has tried to inject some uniqueness when they introduced Unstable Ammo, but it was a disaster with the Canis (basically OP, but more as a by-product of the head/torso/legs hit-boxes mechanism than a design issue) and with the MAW it is so nerfed to be useless. When they introduced the new ES Battle Rifles they decided to play safe and added the well known heat-mechanism instead.

The Dragoon is one of my favorite guns on TR. I just unlocked the Obelisk on VS, and oh my god, that thing rocks. No reloading, infinite ammo, no bullet drop, no damage falloff, you can run a flash suppressor (unlike TR), and automatic hip fire for when you get jumped. Seriously, don't complain about the new VS BR.


OP:
All of their asymmetrical balance is either so small that it's pointless, or so great that it's broken. This is made even more difficult when we have such a simple game where there's only one way to do most things. Think about NC Maxes. If crashing and holding points in rooms wasn't what the ENTIRE game was about, that thing wouldn't be broken. If landing all headshots, which requires aiming down sights, while spamming ADADAD wasn't meta, then VS could keep their .75 movement speed. If spawnroom bursters didn't exist, then VS would have an edge because it could take advantage of the Scythe outperforming other ESF for the majority of players, countered by TR's best AA launcher, countered by NC's best Max for base fights. If we had more fights in fields, then no bullet drop from VS would come in to play.

The end solution is giving the players more options in how to complete the objective, then these meaningless faction specific traits don't seem so meaningless. With more mission variety, there are more opportunities for small faction traits to matter.

If higher average accuracy and faster reloads aren't a trait, then why don't you create some traits instead of complaining "we ain't got no traits"?

Then it is not "VS does not have a trait" but "I have issues with VS trait".

What kind of trait are you looking for ?

Let's not be a revisionist here... VS rifles were the #1 HEAVY HITTERS. Same DPS as TR's LMGs and Carbines, also (in part due to:...) tighter more consistent Spread patterns, hardly any recoil OR Drop, and could even be supplemented by High Velocity ammo in some cases. Your "Theme" wasn't just unique laser mechanics and faster ADADAD dancing, it was literally an Artificially raised Skill Floor that often resulted in you taking Hexes easily with a 45% pop against 55% Defending pops. ...ESPECIALLY back at launch when us N.C. jobbers were completely unable to shoot back at you due to game breaking degrees of Flinching we had to deal with



If ANY faction should be complaining about Identity crisis right now, it should be the T.R. b/c the whole overly-aggressive Population balancing Queue crap in the game now (I mostly suspect only exists to push Subscriptions for ppl to cut in line) has taken away their only advantage which was the 40% server pop they could still occasionally muster on specific evenings to give both our other factions something to really chew on

Tears fix nothing.

I think Vanu weapons should be balanced/nerfed further due to how easy they are to use and get kills with. I have to really put my skills to test when I'm fighting Vanu, countless times TR are getting destroyed by Vanu at a base and I will manage to flank get some kills and push up, only to find that I'm alone as I look around and all the TR coming to help just keep dying left and right. It's sad and only when I play with my outfit do we have success against Vanu in even fights, otherwise it's a slaughter and embarassing. When I play Vanu I feel untouchable usually finishing with a KDR of 4 or higher, and that's with a Low BR character with stock weapons.

Smells like troll in here...

The TR Victim complex is strong with this one.

They also have less (or no) bullet drop because they tend to be energy weapons.

True they don't have bullet drop (except on Sniper Rifles), but since this feature only get releveant at longe ranges, only Scout and Battle Rifles will take advantage of this. It is more a gimmick than a real trait in my book.

I play TR a lot, and I have the feeling that TR has the worst player base in term of teamskill.

No such illness.

Everyone knows its VS victim complex, thats the only one that exists.

We could go back and forth on this, but that'd just be pointless.

Quit spamming Banshees and we'll stop spamming the Battlegoose.

I play NC, almost exclusively these days.

Stop spamming Phoenix rockets, then.

VS has some of the most interesting loadouts available. One I'd like to use again in VS is Lasher with assassin 5. You have a weapon that doesn't require LoS, but now also constantly tracks whatever it hits. Ingenious.

I did a gunslinger pistol loadout on NC as a drifter LA, but damn I'd love to do it with the spiker. You have a charge blast pistol which can be enhanced by the use of drifter LA as it operates on a whole other movement mode.


That's the faction flavor I can't brag to have in NC. All I got going for me, is that I have a shotgun for everything and SABOT rounds to pierce all teammates. But I've done everything I could with this stuff.

Stop spamming Lasers then.