[Suggestion] Maybe stop being VS biased @devs?

"Unstable Ammunition" it makes their projectiles larger,
so if you shoot anywhere near someone you hit them instead of missing.

so the result is similar to the bannable offence of making players hitboxes larger
so you can hit them with shots that would miss,
hence why i call it "hitbox-hack ammo", because it is functionally the same.
a bannable offense has become a VS faction trait,
Wrel even gave it to their max, (in the same patch that he pretty much removed NC max from the game...)

TTK of unstable ammo is much higher than without... yes it helps land shot but at reduced headshot multipliers. If we want to complain about perks pick something worth while. UA is bad and I bet 95% vs pop avoid it. Talk about hit about of ESF or something.

oh dear...

"saw"
we've debunked this a million times, higher damage per bullet doesn't mean more damage,
last time i pointed out that CARV has a faster TTK, this time i'll do the math for Orion shall i?
nothing like spending 10 minutes working out calculations for someone to shrug off!
DONE!
both saw and orion have a 0.48s TTK,
the only difference is that misses with slow weapons are far more punishing to DPS,
so while both guns have the same TTK, a miss with SAW is far more punishing than a miss with Orion.

so there goes the "super op damage model" trait, NEXT.

"bullet drop"
yes you have no bullet drop, do you know how INSANE it is to have no bullet drop on sniper rifles and battle rifles?
TR and NC need to adjust for drop over long range, but not VS, as VS your projectile goes to the very pixel you're aiming at.
same with Lancer, i snipe snipers with that thing, no bullet drop is nothing to shrug off.

"heat mechanic"
your arguments above were proven invalid already by my first point about higher "damage" not meaning faster ttk.
you can aim your Betelgeuse at a doorway, and with proper burst discipline you NEVER need to stop ADS,
you never need to reload and you'll never run out of ammo.
your weapons also cooldown while stowed, so even in a pinch when you do shoot too long you can pull out your secondary,
shoot that for a few seconds and then pull your primary out again "fully loaded" and ready to go.
TR and NC have nothing like this, once you've spent your magazine in a duel, that gun is dead.

True, except in this game, a lot of people have bad aim and targets usually move. Also there are enough situations where people can't go for headshots and just spray. Most noticeable are VS MAXes with Cosmos and that ammo. They hit a lot more reliably than other AI options.


Back to topic.

True, and some stuff can be excused with that, because unintentional imbalance is something else than intentionally ignoring a fact. Not noticing Cold Heart is objectively more useful for VS characters is ignorant. Especially since there are enough complaints from people about getting this implant on non VS characters.
Aside from that, my point still stands that this is an incredibly lazy reward for an auraxium directive.

So what you are saying is, the 72 times I died today, most of which was to a singular Canis guy, had to do with this stupid ammo option? I WAS WONDERING WHY I WAS GETTING HIT WITH EVERY SHOT!

Yep!
All that fuss awhile back about "Drew (a dev) Giving hacks to his friends" A prank? Some truth behind it? Who knows!
Well Wrel gave a hack to his entire faction and called it Unstable Ammunition! XD

That is why you don't bother going for the head, you ADAD like crazy and go for bodyshots,
I usually hipfire my maw with a laser sight,
even at ranges further than you'd usually consider hipfiring with unmodified hitboxes.
Lasersight and hitbox-hack ammo lets you pull it off with ease.

the ADAD spam means i'll be dodging a lot of the other guys bullets,
while hitbox-hack means he can't dodge any of mine, I win the majority of 1v1 when using this ammo.
low skill, big reward, the hacker way!

If someone had the idea of making "unstable ammo", wouldn't it have been the more logical step to give it either a Lasher-like splash or a Godsaw-like AP-effect?
(And no, it would not neccessarily "steal" the unique trait of the Godsaw, because with the ammo equipped it couldn't switch, making it quite situational.)

So you would expect that the Cosmos is used way more and perform much better than other AI - but it isn't and it doesn't.

It's less popular (by far) than Mercy - about as popular as the Scattercannon (right arm, not the default left)
https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...16012&startDate=2019-09-16&endDate=2019-12-17

...and it's performance is generally lower than the Mercy too
https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...16012&startDate=2019-09-16&endDate=2019-12-17

Scattercannon has both the highest (optional right arm) and lowest (default left arm) performance. Strange but true.

no worries about that unique NC trait being stolen...
because Wrel's already done it.
and he put it on a VS sidearm.

i was a bit sceptical about this so i removed scattercannons for a better view, and then took a step back.
it appears that it is only around october/november that mercy's have been catching up to Cosmos.
and now the gap is once again widening, wonder why those two months were special? (genuine curiosity.)
anyways nice try! XD

i totally agree that Cosmos aren't as popular, partially because they are BUTT UGLY, they look like tiny priceguns...
but also because everyone holds Blueshifts in some godly pro status, Cosmos are a true underdog.
(and blueshifts look amazing)

They messed up the effectiveness (over buffed) Cosmos in the March update - which was rectified in the August update - I quote:

Cosmos VM3 (VS MAX)
Maximum damage from 167 to 143
Minimum damage from 143 to 125
Dev Note: The bigger bullets of the Cosmos, despite the headshot damage reduction, has made this weapon overperform when attached to such a high health pool target. We're going to keep the unique aspect of the weapon while trying to reel in that performance a bit.

Is 5 months too long ? I would say so (even though that's pretty quick for DBG) - but now let's add Hacksaws into the mix and pre the NC Max nerf, they were outperforming all others. How how long ? Well just keep scrolling...
https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...16025&startDate=2019-02-08&endDate=2019-03-19

yep but they still stayed ontop of Mercy all throughout September,
it was only October and November that they fell to Mercy levels, and now they're climbing back up again in December.

sure, you asked for it!
we can clearly see that Cosmos have kicked the *** of Hacksaws since the day wrel nerfed NC max to the ground and gave Cosmos Hitbox-Hack. March 22nd 2019.
the performance flipped almost EXACTLY,
Hacksaws went to the level of pre update Cosmos and Cosmos went to the level of pre update Hacksaws.
Wrel wasn't balancing the game, he was flipping the balance for his favourite faction.
even after the august patch you can clearly see Cosmos kicking the *** of Hacksaws.

but thankyou for bringing up hacksaws anyway,
their uselessness is a good contrast to the awesomeness of Cosmos and a fantastic way of illuminating Wrels bias.

Except nothing can match the damage and burst-accuracy - mostly vertical recoil, which is controllable - of the SAW/GODSAW at its intended ranges, and the headshot kill potential, giving it a higher skill ceiling with a higher skill floor of managing CoF by not firing right after sprinting, falling, or jumping, and bursting as needed. The TTK assumes all shots land. A Carv has terrible uncontrollable horizontal recoil (many TR guns do, Butcher is worse) plus vertical recoil 2x first shot multi, 0.4 vertical recoil, (0.8 first shot kick - orion has 0.9):

GaussSAW
Horizontal, Min/Max: 0.175/0.175
Horizontal Tolerance: 0.525

Carv
Horizontal, Min/Max: 0.21375/0.21375
Horizontal Tolerance: 0.9

Orion
Horizontal, Min/Max: 0.22/0.22
Horizontal Tolerance: 0.8

"Phaseshift is the only Bolt-Action sniper rifle with no bullet drop" with a very poor Muzzle Velocity: 550m/s and what I'm pretty sure is the greatest first shot recoil of 4.5 in bolt-action mode with only 2 shots before overheat

VA39 Spectre Min Damage: 260 after 200m Muzzle Velocity: 570m/s
Phantom VA23 Min Damage: 260 after 200m Muzzle Velocity: 525m/s Max scope zoom CSZ (4x)

Scout Rifles - this and battle rifles are the only place no-bullet drop actually helps
Nyx: Muzzle Velocity: 540m/s
Artemis: full auto scout Muzzle Velocity: 530m/s Fire Rate: 652 RPM Min Damage: 125 after 60m

Battle Rifles
Eidolon Muzzle Velocity: 570m/s Fire Rate: 333 RPM Min Damage: 225 after 75m
VE-LR Obelisk no silencer option Muzzle Velocity: 550m/s Min/Max Damage: 334 Fire Rate: 185 RPM
Revenant: Muzzle Velocity: 620m/s Min Damage: 225 after 95m

By comparison, a good bullet velocity is in the range of 600m/s+. Parallax (with bullet drop) stands at: 650m/s.

NC's railjack Muzzle Velocity: 850m/s with a trigger delay and the lowest bullet drop on a proper sniper rifle.

Also I'm pretty sure from my own testing NS bullets have lower bullet drop than NC & TR weapons with the exception of the NSX Daimyo which has really bad bullet drop.

If you aim a doorway that long, any of 3 things will happen. You'll get flanked from behind, or sniped/grenade/C4, or the chip damage you accumulate preventing overshield recharge will result in death.

Against a competent player, if 30 rounds in CQ IVI isn't your kill, it's over. In longer ranges you take cover and reload. Underboss and Commissioner (nerfed equip time) are also good options for continuing a kill streak. Auraxium guns also don't apply cross-class, so no Betelgeuse on Engineer. Obelisk with a shotgun on engineer, or LA Eclipse with an SMG (none of the VS ones have heat mechanic, neither pistols) are the only real options.

The Betelgeuse has one monstrous drawback, no attachment options, and no pre-installed laser sight, making the Orion superior to any scenario but point-holds where engineers or terminals are out of reach.

UA should be flat-out removed, and the Horizon reworked. Nobody benefits from low skill floor low skill ceiling attachments while blinding oneself and the enemy. UA option forced balancing already made the Maw a worse Anchor instead of modified along some other unique aspect. Release day Canis should have never made it to live, and the gun's own weapon properties had to be buffed after being neglected for a very long time, again another forced balance pass the Maw never got.

Side note, LAs should not have rocklets. Ambush jumpjets are also too strong versus the other options, despite their recent nerf which I believe also applied to aerial combatant implant.

You're missing the point entirely - do I think the NC AI Max nerf was too hard ? Yes I do - as I said here https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...ing-vs-biased-devs.252960/page-2#post-3542331

However I do object to people suggesting that it's some form of VS Bias - things have been over buffed and over nerfed over the years for all factions. I-Win shield proved particularly difficult to balance (and i'm not suggesting it is in balance now).

"only" 2 shots before overheat? thats double the shots of TR and NC.
before this new NSO thing was released Phaseshift was the only bolt action with more than 1 shot per rechamber.
and also the only bolt action with infinite ammo and the only bolt action without bullet drop,
(note i don't count daimyo, because that isn't sniping, its hurling bricks, its used in a completely different scenario.)
"only 2 shots" is quite a big "only".
especially when it doesn't even need to be just 2 shots,
you could pop a head, pop another, pop another, pop another.
it only takes a brief moment to manage the cooldown,
and hey, if you do the VS exclusive Xmas event you can get the implant perk of faster cooldowns...

Battlerifles? k lets talk battle rifles!
Obelisk is hands-down an improvement over Bishop and Dragoon,
all three share the same stats, but Obelisk has the usual VS perks of infinite ammo, no reloads and no bullet drop,
and because that wasn't inordinate enough they threw in an attachment to let you hipfire it like an SMG if the enemy gets too close.

Critical chain implant exists which (despite being broken still?) helps rechamber speed of all bolt-action snipers. I'm curious how it will compare to cold hearted implant, and I doubt they stack as the general rule is nothing stacks. Refire time isn't that bad on bolt-action, and no need to even scope out with attachment options. Also no terrible recoil on every bolt-action charged shot. Overheating 2 shots results in significant down-time on Phaseshift, and again, the bullet velocity of that hybrid sniper is really poor which acts to balance its other features.

No bullet drop is indeed great on scout rifles (Nyx mainly), and battle rifles, but that's really it. No advantage in any way otherwise, except maybe on turrets like sauron, which is terrible for infantry and splash damage, and aphelion, with relatively slow bullet velocities and with the wide beam that catches on anything in the way despite doing armor penetration.

why would recoil matter on a bolt action when phaseshift is the only one that can fire more than one round anyway?

You lose track of your target as the scope moves up if a follow-up shot is needed. Players react instantly to getting shot or hearing sniper bullets fly by, and so may move behind cover. Where exactly they moved to is important, but with the Phaseshift it's hard to know.

The Phaseshift does perform pretty average (often worse) to other traditional BASRs. The best performing BASRs are the low magnification BASRs (Ghost, SAS-R, TSAR) and tier 2 BASRs (SR-7, V10, LA80). The Lasher, Lancer, and PPA are also quite uniquely meh. Now NSOs are apparently VS too (which kind of make sense since inevitably technology wins). Borrowing stuff here and there is also what NS does and they are, after all, the merchants of war on Auraxis.

Unique traits does not mean better. Unless you guys believe the NC MAX units are awesome cause they are unique in using scattercannons.

Little did the Planetmen know that the Planetgods would only shift their affection to a small race of robots who will someday inherit the world of Auraxis.