[Suggestion] Request to rebalance weapons from scratch

All three factions are too similar in style and the more weapons and updates that are released the more similar the factions become. I was hoping for a more Starcraft like 3 faction feel than... well, any standard FPS, as it is right now

Can the developers please consider the following:

• Buff the hell out of VS weapon accuracy. When it's clearly OP, balance it by nerfing the damage per shot and ROF.
• Buff the hell out of TR weapon ROF. When it's clearly OP, balance it by nerfing the accuracy and damage per shot.
• Buff the hell out of NC weapon damage per shot. When it's clearly OP, balance it by nerfing accuracy and ROF.

In addition, I consider balance to be perfect when you have the following situation:
A member of the 4th faction makes a TR, he complains that VS weapon accuracy and NC weapon damage are OP.
He then makes a VS and soon complains that TR RoF and NC weapon damage are OP.
He finally makes an NC and soon complains that VS accuracy and TR RoF are OP.

Balance has now been achieved. Please stop trying to achieve balance by making weapons more and more similar to one another.
The only way to stop people complaining about X being OP, Y being underpowered, etc., is by giving them all exactly the same weapons. Balance in a game like this is achieved when people are complaining that *everything* is OP equally.

Here's an episode of "Extra Credit" on "Imperfect Balance".

Season 4, Ep. 22 - Perfect Imbalance

After much searching, I've also managed to find this article by Sirlin (the guy responsible for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and a few award winning card battle games I don't have any personal interest in), which is written as a response to the video above:

A Discussion of Balance

Both are extremely interesting watches/reads and I hope so one how has a say in the game's development notices either of them.

That would require that they at least double their balancing team from one monkey to two. It will never happen.

Distinct factions? What is that? Does that mean that one is stronger than the others?


In all seriousness though, I wouldn't mind if my magrider shot snowballs, so long as I got the spidertank back.

Gun balance can only be perfect when every faction have identical guns, which is how it should be in a FPS so we can let the player skill and only the player skill decide the outcome of a fight..
Example: Shotguns and sniper rifles, they are nearly identical.
You don't hear anyone whining about those do you?

Guns can have a different flavor, look, color and sound to fit the faction and that's it.
When you go beyond that you have...well.. the forum drama that we have, not to mention people ragequiting because of guns imbalances etc.

no thanks,its good how it is.

I kind of like your idea. I find it so boring that our guns can take the form of others factions when instead we should be learning more about weaknesses and pros.

I'm very surprised that so many people disagree. I'm especially surprised some people have argued that equipment needs to be identical in order to make player skill the differing factor while I would have thought the existance of esports competition for games previously mentioned like StarCraft and League of Legends would have disproved this right off the bat. But each to their own, I guess.

The issue is that gun preference can be very personal. A different style can fit one person very well, and another not so well. The result being that the person will feel that the first is more powerful than the second.
For example I get along with many of the NC weapons better than I do the Vanu ones despite being a mostly Vanu player. For someone else it may be the other way around.

Currently, there are threads about how OP the weapons are for every faction. Any kind of actual consensus however would be impossible without the kind of data that only the Devs have access to.

Yeah, riiiiight. Let's give everybody same guns it will be soooo much more fun!

But seriously, this "perfect" balance of yours is not only plain boring, it being the "only way to balance an FPS" is simply not true. Not to mention that PS2 is not a pure FPS, it has other warfare aspects(air, armour), thus allowing devs a lot of ways to make factions balanced with individual guns still being distinctively better or worse than other faction's equivalents.

The game balance is not perfect right now but having it "fixed" by giving everyone same everything is way worse. It's better to let factions have some advantage in one area while being bad at something else. Best tanks but bad infantry weapons, excellent LMGs but cr4ppy rocket launchers. A bit of imbalance will not ruin the game. Lack of faction variety will.

League of Legends Esport is honestly a joke, and StarCraft has the best and most experienced balancing team in the world, hands down.

Even ignoring that, a common pool of weapons would not negatively impact the game at all, though it is simply an alternative system rather than a fix for the current broken one.

I personally would prefer drastically different factions, but anything is better than what we have now.

you are right but kiddies like one faction being op if you had to pay for this game then we would get a good community hell even making this a five dollar game would help. That is the disadvantage of f2p.

Name me few of these 'many' NC weapons you preffer over VS guns will you?
For me, the only NC gun that can compete against Vanu gun (player skills equal and a pure 1 vs 1 face off) is the SAW and only at a 30+ meters range.
That's it.
There is a reason why the highest RoF NC guns are the most popular among NC classes that can wield them (GD-7F and GR-22).
It's because the game mechanics and the play style of almost everyone ( a lot of movement) favors High RoF + hipfire and the NC guns are piss poor at both.

Also, I would trade my GD-7F for VX6-7, Serpent, LC2 or Jaguar any day... it just doesn't perform as well as any of those (for me) even with the high rof it has.
I can't comment on TR and VS Assault rifles because I've only played the NC ones.

ive seen those weapons I say easy way is to buff nc reload speed to be better than most tr weapons the vanguard would be fine if the prowler reloaded slower and vanguard reloaded faster reaver give back the thruster on the bottom of it and see how op it is. I doubt the devs test anything themselves.

I don't need a faster reload on a 100 bullet magazine with slow RoF with a mandatory burst fire , thank you.
Other types of changes are needed, first to the flinch mechanics which I think Higby mentioned it will be dealt with.

think about the carbines. and tank guns

That is rather the point I was making. You find that standard VS weapons nicer to use. I found the Mercenary, SAW, Compact and Razor preferable to some of the Vanu equivalents.Two different people with probable different playstyles having different preferences in the weapon styles they get on with.

Oh you can give weapon types different characteristics across the factions as the OP suggested but they all should retain roughly the " same " DPS for their group ( SMG's, LMG's etc )

A high RoF Carv would feel and play different to a Low RoF Gauss but the DPS should be nearly exact ( maybe it is atm but haven't got the data for that )

If your play style is to plink at enemy from a safe distance, taking your time to aim, crouch, ADS, precision work.. then yeah, NC infantry guns will serve you better.
The problem is, enemy doesn't play along with that and you will get up close and personal with them regardless if you are defending or attacking a facility, must get into CQC to finish your objective.
And when it comes to CQ, 'playing to the NC guns's strenghts" as some like to say, meaning standing still or crouch, ADS and burst fire is an insta death sentence...
In CQC you must play the enemy's game of running, sprinting, jumping, hipfiring and NC guns are seriously handicaped in that department, especially the LMGs.

I'm not even going to try to judge how your playstyle interacts with your weapon choice. I'm sure that you personally find those opinions fit your style well. Myself, in CQC I've found that differences in who spotted/blindsided/opened fire on who first makes more of a difference than slight variations in weapons.
I'm sure that others find other factors more important.

If you are having difficulties with the default NC LMG in CQC, have you considered picking up one more suited for those conditions? I've trialed the EM1 and Anchor, and those seemed to behave more like the Orion than the SAW.

Sure, but when your faction has a handicap in the 'bread and butter' of the game play,( close range infantry combat ), you know, where majority of players spend their time, what then? Is that fair?

Realy?
For you maybe, the clear majority of players and ex-players disagree.
Have you checked forums and server general and faction populations lately?
Do you know how many people quit this game?
Maybe not all for imbalances reasons but it sure played a big role in many ragequits.
So no, the current system doesn't seem to work all that well...