Current Weapon Trends: Magnified

Out of curiosity, why do you believe this trend is important? I decided some degree of consistency is important, so I did round a bit, but a large number of values were almost exactly on the halfway points between damage thresholds. Is it really so bad that those weapons gain a larger functional mid-range, and does it go against current game paradigms strongly enough that it should be avoided so strongly?

Additionally, how would you feel such weapons should be represented if following faction trends leads you towards such a middle-ground?

I think the OP should of / could of added in the current values, just for comparison

I think the point of this thread was to attempt to give the starting weapons or weapons in general more fraction specific traits.

like if the OP took some damage off the TR weapons it would give him a good excuse to add RoF with larger mags to the guns.
just like reducing NC's RoF would be a great excuse to give them a damage buff, hard hit'n, slow fire'n weapons.

I will be honest. I would go back and add them if the edit window wasn't painfully small. Ideally I would gradually improve the post, but this forum really isn't into that.

I couldn't agree more. Although 40 bullets is nice it doesn't warrant having no 167 damage carbines. That's just atrocious.

TR and NC are quite competative in kills per magazine. NC generally one below TR or the same number.

Honestly, it is more a Vanu factional trait that their magazine size is too low. To compensate, they have significantly lower reload times.

The natural extension of the faction traits is actually something like:

NC: Good at long range fights without cover. Sniper-like accuracy and low damage degradation with high bullet velocity. Focuses on more of a thoughtful gunner type playsyle, with powerful initial shots and strong penalties for moving and shooting.
VS: Good at mid-range fights with cover. Quick reload speeds allow minimal downtime. High moving accuracy to be a more difficult target. Focuses on move of a run and gun skirmishing playstyle with minimal kills per magazine be fewer bloody conflicts.
TR: Good at short-range fights without cover. Large kill capacities and slow bullet speeds mean the best TTK for killing multiple enemies. Best at short range room holding, with the best ability to slay large numbers of enemies from a stationary spot in cover.

I think the more defining traits the better, and these are the traits as they currently stand.

If the point of this is to show weapons with larger factional traits. Then for me it only shows how the larger you make the gap the more broken the game play will become.

Certainly that is part of the point.

That said, I feel this imbalance is less true that you let on.

Take Vanu, who on the surface seem the most shafted by this exchange. who at a glance seem to be hit the most hard by this.

What do they have over NC?
Significantly better moving accuracy, and often better TTK. Better reload speed.

What do they have over TR?
Marginally better moving accuracy, significantly improved ability at range due to higher bullet velocity and a longer effective mid-range. Vastly improved reload rate, to the point where you could reload and spend your entire magazine in the time it takes for them to reload.

Their weapons would all have nearly the same run and gun ability as SMGs, while having enough accuracy, damage degradation, and velocity to be effective at mid or long range


Is it perfect? Of course not. As Vanu though, I would rather have these (even more) flawed guns than our current ones, just to help dig a clear niche.

Simultaneously throwing opponents out of that same Niche would also be nice.

So it is fine to let one faction simple have better guns for the sake of better factional differences?

I guess this is good way to show how different the factions are currently, if nothing else. In practice this would kill the game, or at least any semblance of balance.

That was the original point of it.

Out of curiosity, who do you believe is best by these metrics? I am going to assume it is TR, though NC's long range power might be what you are talking about.

If I am reading the number right the Vanu would be the strongest with the TR be a close second. The NC would be free certs pretty much.

Interesting. Why do you believe that?

Not saying you are wrong, but am quite interesting in the perspective.

Here's the first thing I don't like now. It's to be put in a role I don't play. How do you compesate for NC players who want to play CQB fights? Shotguns? What if I don't want to use a shotgun and because I don't want to lose out all my midfighting capabilities?
Also positional stationary fights for NC? Do you want to make them target practice for snipers?

First of all, this isn't so much a suggestion as an example.

Secondly, do you believe that factions should have inherent playstyles? To what extent do you believe this? Is it good enough that you can be nearly as good as other factions at CQC, but will fall slightly short?

From what I am understanding you seem to against factions having playstyles they are best at. Do you believe factions should be different at all, and if so how could this be done in such a way that it is meaningful, but not in the form of a preferred playstyle?

Both VS and TR still retain the traits of good CQC, but VS retain the much faster reload speed. Ad to that the lack of bullet drop giving them potential advantages at short, mid and long range, and VS having slightly better recoil and moving CoF. Point to the VS being the slightly strong overall fighter than the TR, but both of them greatly out class the slower firing and immobile NC fighter.

Again I may be reading some of those numbers wrong, and I am having to use a bit of the current strengths as well since I cant really test these.

That is a fair description. Most people do not value reload rate as much as magazine size, with TR having twice as many potential kills per magazine and NC nearly matching that.

Recoil is actually almost directly proportional to damage, with the exception of Initial multiplier, which the NC has a major advantage in.

For the record, looking this over, I made a mistake transcribing the Gauss Saw's initial cone of fire which was left as a Copy of the T9 Carv. It is actually perfectly accurate at base, while stationary and aiming.


Anyway, do you find that long range is not a useful specialty? I personally find it a very notable advantage, but do you believe it a weaker advantage than the short range advantages of TR and VS?

Long range is nice, and the more range I can get the better, but are you going to use a Sniper rifle in a tower because it gives you good range when you leave? Mainly if i can get the range with out costing me to greatly close up sure all the better. And after testing the lack of bullet drop is very strong in adding to range combat. Yes I know you can compensate for bullet drop with skill, but inversely you cant compensate for increased speed at which VS can acquire a target at range be cause of the lack of bullet drop, or the fact that they suffer no real penalty for using a suppressor, like NC and TR do.

But often I see NC guns as having the Gauss Saw paradox basically. The Gauss saw has great burst accuracy.......if you stand perfectly still. How ever if you move even a little it has the largest COF of all the LMGs. So stand still and be a easy target and get great accuracy and damage, or move and get low damage and accuracy. And problem for all the factions like this only get more pronounced as you increase the degree of a factions trait. I would rather be able to run and gun, and most importantly dodge, then be forced to take a hit or be a easier target for good burst accuracy.

Yes, I am against factions having playstyles they're best at.
Yes, I know it's an example, still I'd rather shoot it down asap.
However, I also believe, that it's possible to achieve for each faction to appeal to multiple playstyles and not lose faction identity. You could make a good competitive high damage, low rof CQB weapon for NC which would rival TR ones as you could do high rate of fire TR assault rifle, which would have great ADS accuracy and fired in bursts would retain it's long range capabilities but would have terrible hipfire CoF and long reload, would actually be slower base hip movement than CQB weapon.
Also I do believe there is a way to increase difference between CQB weapons and long range weapons (don't know about universal, but I guess would be possible, if flashlight was and extra equip, not a rail one), if you would turn off a crosshair in hip fire stance, but make actual laser sight work normally: not visible unless there is smoke from the side and having only a dot on the end.
To balance that a bit, you'd need to adjust flashlight to work like semi laser which wouldn't be equipable by longer range weapons, which would simulate an old hip fire crosshair at shorter rangers (0-15/20 meters). It wouldn't reduce CoF like laser would, but still work well as indicator.

The Orion shouldn't have its ROF reduced since there's the MSR-W and the NC equivalent (the 100 cert one iirc)

Where's COF while moving?

Why is the mercanary more accurate than the gauss rifle/

TR, by a long long shot. Higher mag capacities + increased ROF + same STK as vanu weapons means that unless the TR get a severe accuracy (esp hipfire; they would have to miss ~10-20% more than other factions by default) penalty, there is absolutely nothing anyone could do against them in any base fight/fights at ranges shorter than 50m, which is the vast majority of fights. So, yeah ... this would be severely imbalanced by the fact that sub-50m is the default range for all fights in planetside.

CoF Reads as:
Cone of Fire: Stand: Aiming:.Still/Moving/Jumping and Hipfire: Still/Moving/Sprinting Crouch: Aiming Still/Moving Hipfire Still/Moving

The mercenary is more accurate than the gauss rifle because it is. These numbers aren't balance recommendations as much as current trends. Assault rifles aren't actually that good compared to carbines. They just tend to have higher minimum damage and bullet velocity. Their accuracy advantages are minimal.


Anyway, the difference is practically rounding error. On a practical level all NC weapons are so accurate when still and aiming that the differences no longer matter.


Oh, and this is in theory a demonstrative example of differences. If you were to try to make factional weapons like this, it would probably be a good idea to do it to all of their weapons, not just their base ones.

You will notice that they actually have substantially worse accuracy, especially for first shot. I truly do not know how good they would be like this, but I suspect less-so than you might think. The fact that it takes them more bullets to kill and that they have only slightly lower CoF bloom does alot of harm to their accuracy in this.