If you want changes to NC weapons be honest about their strengths first.

First off, I will admit NC has some holes in its arsenal and could use improvements. However, this is not especially true for NC, and NC players downplaying/ignoring the strengths of there arsenal while complaining about the weaknesses just ruins their credibility and turns into faction bias noise that is completely non-constructive.

I will start with the weaknesses NC weapons have right now so you don't immediately dismiss my opinion here -

Hip fire. Most of the better NC weapons are best suited to using ADS even at fairly close ranges. Their hip fire class-specific weapon options are not as strong as VS/TR variants for a run and gun playstyle.

Movement. NC weapons lack the benefits VS/TR have with .75% ADS speed multipliers on certain favorites and/or better moving cones of fire.

So yeah, those two weakness both impact a certain style of play negatively, NC guns for the most part are not your run and gun weapons. They have some that are suited for this, but they are not as good as similarly focused TR or VS options. You have some non-class specific options, the Cyclone is very strong for example, but an SMG will lack the versatility better CQC LMG/Carbine/ARs might. Shotguns even more so.

But let's take of our blue and gold tinted glasses for a second and look at what players of other factions see in NC weapons that they don't in their own.

Accuracy. NC weapons in general are more accurate than VS or TR weapons. You have more .03 options and even a .000000000etc. in the aptly named God SAW. You can downplay this all you want, but knowing your first few shots will more reliably go where you're aiming is a bigger advantage than many seem to think.

Recoil. Okay, we addressed the hip fire and movement issues with NC recoil. Now it's time to dismiss something I hear way too often. "NC weapons are harder to master". This is WRONG. Horizontal recoil is harder to deal with/less intuitive to adjust for. There's some advantage to have recoil bias to one side or the other if you learn to compensate, but that advantage isn't making those VS or TR weapons easier, it's actually making them harder to use effectively/to their maximum potential. NC however have mainly vertical recoil to deal with - yes some of the weapons have fairly dramatic vertical recoil, but that's still simpler to deal with/more reliable than having more dramatic horizontal recoil. Bodies are tall in this game, not wide - well at least non-crouching ones. Now, I did just point out horizontal recoil to one side can be favorable, and that is sort of a downside for NC's weapons which mostly go side to side. However, the horizontal recoil is so minimal for most NC weapons, and on top of smaller CoF, that's not a major factor.

Velocity. Velocity seems to be kind of underrated. It's very important for shooting moving targets at longer ranges. All factions have some high velocity options, but NC has the better ones overall. There's not much to say here, because it's the combination of there more favorable stats in other areas combined with velocity that makes them.

Rate of Fire + Bullet Damage. Yeah, I said rate of fire for NC weapons. Rate of fire may be low on most guns, but it's on the high side for the 167 bullet damage guns, and the higher the bullet damage you're dealing with the more dramatic a RoF advantage becomes. A 652 RoF 143 bullet damage weapon is pretty weak compared to a 600 RoF 167 bullet damage weapon. Same for 577 RoF vs 600 RoF on 167 damage weapons to a lesser extent.

Now, these are somewhat harder to notice than the downsides probably. But use a Trac 5 AMC or Pulsar C and compare it to the Mercenary. It's no contest, the Merc is clearly superior. Same goes for TMG-50 vs. EM6. And there's nothing to even compare to the SAW.

So NC weapons are winning the longer range battle due to these factors, by a margin probably somewhat comparable to the disadvantage they're at for closer ranges.


Add that all up and you see where the holes in the arsenal are. All factions have these holes, but NC players seem to dislike having that run and gun/CQC/hip fire hole. Well, guess what, it sucks having a hole in your long range arsenal too!

I am all for sealing these holes for NC, but instead of acting like this is some unfair treatment and your guns are just sucky, I think you should realize in the interest of fairness VS and TR are lacking in some areas where your guns perform better and don't deserve to have their options in that area improved any less than NC needs better CQC options.

You want a Jaguar, or a Trac 5, or a Serpent or Solstice or whatever. You want an Orion or SVA-88, maybe even Carv for some odd reason. Well... I want a Mercenary. I want a SAW.

That's the state of weapon balance in the game and you're not somehow singled out and unfairly treated. You can argue whether CQC or long range is more important but it doesn't matter much if you prefer one play style to another, it sucks to not have competitive options for your favorite role.

This

This is a REALLY LONG list, but you show a good arguement

PAPER STATS IS ALL I SEE IN THIS POST. Real world NCs who have been playing since nov 12 know a different story.
We laid out very bare bones buffs and balances many MANY times.

So unless you have anything new. Please stop trying to speak for the NC.

And stop talking about the gauss saw. It didnt seem to help us During WDS.

While I agree with the overall tone of your post one thing does need to be kept in mind regarding the following.

That's a pretty big hole when you take into account the distances that 90% of Infantry combat occurs at.

Overall NC don't need any major buffs , a few tweaks here and there is all that is needed.

Perfect and true arguments.

This is a common argument but 90% of my infantry vs. infantry engagements are not close quarters. You have some degree of control over your placement and can pull SMG/shotguns or a MAX like everyone else to deal with strictly indoor combat for point caps. I suppose it'll depend on quite a few player-specific factors though. As a light assault fan it's usually not too hard to control the distance I'll be most likely to engage at. Also, when I play in squad/platoon there're players with suitable gear for indoor combat so I don't feel forced into it when it's not my preferred environment

It's also possibly a problem with base design/game design in general, if infantry fights are so limited to close ranges I'd say something is amiss. But I'm not sure it actually is. And really, I think indoor combat right now is ruled by MAXes more than infantry of any faction anyway.

Regardless, I think I covered that in the last part of the OP. If I prefer longer range combat it doesn't matter much if I have great CQC guns when I'll usually be positioning myself somewhere better suited for NC weapons. That is why I have trouble sticking to the TR faction which I'd really like to. But they really, really do not have adequate long range automatics and in particular their carbine options suck for it compared to NC's. That's why I decided to go NC for awhile, until hopefully they seal those holes in each faction's arsenal a bit better. Trac 5 AMC just doesn't cut it.

Well there is a very "small" hole in your logic when you apply in to the big tactical picture. In the big tactical picture long range infantry combat is avoided as much as possible. Everyone wants to cross terrain bewen bases ASAP. Every single base is providing enough cover to negate NC long range advantage.
Once you are good enough at compensating for drop to snipe with SAW you will be good enough to land a G2A rocket on anyone dumb enough to stand still long enough to get killed with SAW.

I'd like to point out that this is only standing ADS accuracy. When moving generally our accuracy is worse than the other two faction's. We all know that mobility is very powerful in Planetside, so standing ADS accuracy is less of an advantage than you'd think.

The problem with the NC is the max and vehicles (enforcer and reaver) our infantry guns are fine (except the phoenix), hard to use for beginners but mostly fine

The accuracy is just a convenience item, all it does is save us the half second it takes to crouch. It only effects our standing and still cone, our moving cones are the same. The same could be said about VS moving cone bonus, but you suffer a movement speed penalty for crouching that doesn't come up for NC since it is only a bonus to or still cone.

Recoil may have been true 5 years ago, but ever since black ops, up-right recoil angles have been popularized enough that they are just as easy to handle for the vast majority of players coming here from triple a titles. (I'm sure some idiot will bring up a battlefield game or some Indie title that did angled recoil first, derailing this discussion into nothing more than an ****** stroking contest...)

I'll get back to this later, I'm preparing food for tomorrow.

I agree in pretty much all points here. The general infantry game is pretty well balanced, as a whole. A few tweaks here and there would certainly be appreciated, and perhaps switching our starting weapons up a bit might be a good idea, but NC infantry weaponry is generally just as competitive as the other factions' infantry weaponry once it's "figured out," in my opinion. Where the NC start noticing severe shortcoming is in their MAXes and their empire specific vehicle weapons, most specifically our shotgun based weaponry. These weapons are extremely niche, lacking any of the versatility that the TR and VS enjoy, and their reduced versatility does not come with a notable increase in strength within their intended "goldilocks" zones.

TR MAX Weaponry Ranges:
Strongest: 0-15m
Competitive: 15-30m
Falloff: 30-60m

VS MAX Weaponry Ranges:
Strongest: 0-20m
Competitive: 20-40m
Falloff: 40-80m

NC MAX Weaponry Ranges:
Strongest: 0-5m
Competitive: 5-10m
Falloff: 10-20m

Strongest= 100-75% of damage applied, all or most shots hit target
Competitive= 75-50% of damage applied, several missed shots
Falloff= 50-1% of damage applied, all or most shots miss


The NC's "strong" zone is approximately 1/3 that of the TR's, and 1/4 that of the VS's. In fact, our entire effective range is within the strong zones of the TR and VS weaponry. Insult to injury, our weapons do not outperform the TR or VS's weapons withing our "strong" zone to any notable degree. In fact, only one of our weapons, dual Grinders, can deal enough burst damage to stock TR and VS MAXes at point-blank range quickly enough to kill one before they overtake its and return enough to kill an NC MAX. For all other NC weaponry, or if the enemy MAX is running with Kinetic armor, it is necessary to spend an additional 1000 certs for two extended magazines in order to outdamage TR and VS MAXes within 5m. Within 10m, none of our weapons can kill a stock TR or VS MAX without extended magazines before they drop us. In a best case scenario, it could be said that NC weapons, within 5m, are *as* competitive as TR or VS weapons within 15-20m.

This is obviously a problem. We have 1/4 the range, but are not rewarded for the HUGE sacrifice with any additional power inside our much narrower window. In fact, 75% of our weapon systems are widely outperformed unless we invest a huge amount of certs into upgrading them, and that's just for dealing with point-blank default TR and VS maxes that have picked up a second AI weapon! You talked about having strengths and weaknesses, and I can appreciate that. If NC MAXes are intended to have extreme shortrange as their strength, than that's okay. As long as we actually have a marked advantage within that range, and the range is at least wide to take advantage of it. Right now, we don't, and it isn't.

The Enforcer Modified faces similar challenges, having an extremely short range compared to the Marauder and PPA, and not enough performance to make that limitation a fair trade.


The regular Enforcer I find no major fault with. It's a wee bit underwhelming, from a "Wow Factor" standpoint, but overall I feel it's pretty well balanced and capable.

SOE needs to change its approach to NC ES weaponry. If we are to be saddled with shotguns, then they need to either make sure that our shotguns have a huge bite and large staying power (extend our magazines by 2-4 rounds) to make up for their extremely short effective range, or increase our effective range by at least a factor of two (reduce pellet spread by half). Give us a competitive zone that is more closely aligned with that of the TR and VS. Strong: 0-10m. Competitive: 10-20m. Falloff: 20-40m.



Alternatively, just give us something other than shotguns, because MAN do these things whiff right now.

I think this is the main point most NC try to make though when we ask for minor tweaks or different starter weapons ( In regards to the Gauss shouldn't be the starter LMG ) and that is as a new player you shouldn't really be at that disadvantage until you have unlocked a new gun .

To me anyway from a purely balance perspective, the starter weapons should all pretty much perform the same within the same distances, and when you start to become experienced with the game is when you need to cert into different weapons for more specialization ...

For myself and older NC players granted it's not an issue since we have unlocked weapons more suited to hip fire or CQC , but for new players , the players any tweaks should really be aimed at it can be an issue.

I can kill moving targets at decent range with the SAW just fine. It has good bullet velocity and access to HVA.

I also have spent a decent amount of time shooting out from bases at attackers at fairly decent distances, NC HA is great for this and the occasional outdoor battles which do happen even if they're not as frequent as I'd like. When I need to create longer distance between me and my targets I can play LA instead to find good vantage points, or hang back as a medic covering friendlies and healing/reviving as necessary.

This is also not a hole in my logic considering I ended with -

I also didn't suggest NC was overpowered or underpowered. They could be underpowered, but that wouldn't change the fact that they have better long range options for infantry weapons. Realistically though, faction vs. faction balance is way more dependent on air/armor/MAX balance than infantry weapons anyway - a base camped effectively by those only really needs infantry to hang out at the points to keep it capped.

I think the Merc is adequate as an all-rounder. The SAW....yeah it shouldn't be a starter weapon. Not sure about the AR, I've been doing well with it personally(I play lots of medic for certs until I hit a comfortable number of key unlocks) but I'm not new anymore and already have a feel for similar weapons.

Excellent post. Seven thumbs up.

SOE: I'm willing to shell out $40AUD for AF19 Mercenary and Gauss S Compact for my TR engineer. Keep it in mind.

You cant stay at range forever. Your going to have to take or defend the point if you want to win.

This is actually noted in my post. Movement is important but I don't think NC guns are that crippled by losing more accuracy while moving. Standing ADS is fairly viable for mid-long range. You can move between bursts at long range, and CQC is often decided more by who gets the jump on who than who has a better gun for CQC - unless a shotgun is involved of course.

Personally, I like to open while standing and then drop to crouch - sometimes with a jump to the side - in "duels" at medium range. It seems just as effective if not more than trying to strafe side to side. Since people tend to aim for chest/head area, dropping to crouch both improves my accuracy and usually makes them miss key shots while I'm staying on target.

Also, if you look at many of the NC weapons, while they lose more accuracy to movement, they don't necessarily drop below the higher RoF/lower bullet damage guns that have lower accuracy overall. It ends up in many cases being an NC gun with .03 Stand ADS and .3 move ADS, vs. a TR or VS @ .1 and .3. The Solstice is one of few exceptions to this.

ADS + moving COFs are only worse for 200/500 damages weapons (Gauss saw/Reaper DMR/AC-X11).

167 tier weapon are more accurate on ADS+move than 143 tier one thanks to less horizontal recoil.