The VS as a faction needs some serious rethinking

Let's look at some population numbers.

During the last month, the VS as a faction have almost never reached even 33%.

http://borderlinetactical.net/rsnc/world-population/?world_id=0&zoom=4[1]

Looking through the graph, the VS is frequently hovering between 28 and 31% population.

And if you look at the weapon usage stats on Dasanfall, the VS empire-specific weapons-usage end up dead-last in almost every single category.

http://stats.dasanfall.com/ps2/items/weapons

Why? Is it because the faction and our weapons are UP? I don't think so.

I think the reason the VS is underpopulated, is because we are the "mediocre" faction. The faction with all the cool stuff, that doesn't really get anywhere with it. The middle ground.

We have the trait of No-bullet drop. Except where a lack of bullet drop would be beneficial, and there it gets removed.

We have the trait of mobility. Except that our mobility gets nerfed whenever it becomes good, because mobility in a FPS is either OP or UP and never inbetween. So we are left with mobility that doesn't actually help anything.

We have the Lasher, one of the coolest and most entertaining infantry weapons in the game. Unfortunately, the Lasher is useful in so few scenarios that almost nobody uses it, ever.

We have the Magrider, whos primary trait is mobility. This however leads to the issue where Magriders just gets in the way of eachother in large clusters, and only work in smaller groups. Meanwhile the Prowler and Vanguard just get stronger and stronger when grouped together. We have the only tank in the game who becomes less useful the more allies it have around it. And in a game that is all about scale, this is not a good thing.

Not to mention a massive number of drawbacks placed on it to counter the Mobility trait it was given, and the lack of a unique MBT ability.

We have the ZOE, who like the Magrider is an ability that hates teamwork. The Riot Shield and Lockdown thrives greatly on cooperation and teamwork. ZOE on the other hand hates it. And even in scenarios where you can use the ZOE without getting in the way of your allies, it still completely lacks any purpose. It doesn't really do anything. It doesn't help in attacking or defending. It doesn't help in flanking nor escaping.
Even in the absolutely optimal setting, the TTK remains unchanged.

We have the Vortexes. Because if you for some reason would ever want to pay 2000 certs and 350 infantry resources, to get extra health on your super-long range sniper without a scope, the Vortexes are great. The reason nobody is using the Vortexes isn't because they are bad, it's because they are pointless.

We have the Phaseshift. A Semi-auto/Bolt action sniper where the semi-auto is impossible to use, and the bolt-action have the slowest velocity and shortest OHK range in the game. It lacks bullet drop, but the range is so short that you wouldn't have to compensate for drop anyways.

We have the Cerberus. While the two other faction got a new sidearm, we were first teased with a Lasher-sidearm, who later just turned into yet another semi-auto sidearm with no defining characteristics.

So we are a faction without a real trait. Our trait constantly gets screwed over whenever it's beneficial. We have tons of fancy ideas, all of which turn in mediocrity. We have some weapons who scale infinitely in large groups, like the Lancer and Lasher, but they are horrible for the individual. And then we have some weapons who just hates everything that have to do with teamwork, like the Magrider and the ZOE.

There are just so many great ideas, that gets stomped down into the dirt. Instead of empathizing on our traits, we just get half-and-half of everything.


The VS as a faction needs some rethinking of our weapons. We don't need buffs, we need better emphasis on our traits. We need our traits taken further out from the gray, and not just pushed towards the middle ground. And if our current traits doesn't allow that, then we need a new trait.

Agree with everything except Magrider.
Magrider is a brilliant tank.

Also if you wanna see something REALLY REALLY sad come and see Briggs VS.

They are underpopped and in general has the worst playerbase I have ever seen ever in any game......EVER.

They LITERALLY do not do alerts. At all.
It is empire policy.

I dont know if you remember their WDS score but the only people they beat (just) had about 15% pop at best and lost from just being outpopped whilst Briggs VS had a steady 30% pop the whole time.

I can safely say that Briggs VS is the worst faction in the world.
The empire is basically dead.

You wanna know how sad it is?
TR as an empire on multiple occasions has flown across the map to HELP VS defend their facility during facility alerts because otherwise NC would get an easy win. VS nearly always refuses to defend.

Eg.
Kwahtee amp is under attack on amerish.

NC pop on the station 24-48
VS pop 1-12

VS had 3% of the pop. in other words, one guy defending their amp station during an amp alert.
So in TR came in.
Still couldnt defend it.
We lost.

Sometimes the same thing happens but with us winning instead of NC.

During a continent wide alert?
VS is lucky to get about 8% of the cont population during an alert.

They never leave Indar.

Oh, its a biolab alert on indar?
they will literally have less than 2 squads defending it while the main forces (upwards of 100 or so people) will push an enemy tech plant or something while everyone else is fighting over biolabs.

In the mean time for any VS feeling down on their luck and who want to feel like a total powerful bad *** I'd recommend the Mattherson Vanu. They are the highest skilled, highest BR, and most highly coordinated Vanu in the world. The Vanu are not dead as a faction, sure their traits could use tweaking to be cooler, and anyone who thinks the Vanu on their server are dead please come join Mattherson Vanu and join one of their many great outfits instead of quitting on the Vanu.

On a side note the Ultimate Thread Dedicated to Refurbishing the VS As a Faction would probably interest you Ztiller --> Ultimate VS Thread

Unless you're a friendly foot soldier anywhere near a Magrider. I swear I get run over by Magriders almost as often as I get killed by enemy tanks. Doesn't matter where I'm at, they always find a way to drive over me. That might have been part of his point. When I play VS - I have to stay away from Magriders so they can maneuver (and even then I'm not entirely safe). I can't support them very well, they can't support me either.

Use these stats:
http://ps2-stats.com/

VS has like the highest gun with the SVA88

Those dasanfal stats aren't so good. All the high ranking guns on ps2-stats really ARE good guns, even if they aren't my first choice.

I agree, but the magrider and lancer have their uses.
Magrider: Stupidly high skill cieling, the only 2 reasons that the devs can't buff it are:
a) Whining of TR/NC
b) The destruction pro-magpilots will wreak.
Lancer can be used to go AA or AV.

Also, VS weapons (excluding about 3) are cloned fish frozen in purple carbonite. We need more diversity. Period.

Prepare for a wall of fire and angry comments, friend.

It seems like all the factions on Mattherson are highly organized. The problem is that on the remaining 8/9 servers, the VS are struggling, and struggling hard.

The SVa88 have been nerfed pretty hard in the last patches. But this thread isn't about weapon balance, but about faction design.

Doing alerts as the under populated faction is more often than not unfun and complete waste of time, as both of the other faction first double team the low pop faction and swallow up their assets, then proceed to fight each other. Global alerts in particular are very bad for the lowest population faction, but if you pop is low enough, then even continental alerts are unfun and a complete waste of time.

Perpetually low population also eventually saps the faction of it's best players as they become disenchanted and look for greener grass elsewhere.

All faction weapons are cloned w/e they are....

Yes, the Tross and TORQ are most certainly cloned, in fact just as much as the Terminus/Equinox.






/Sarcasm

thats the thing!
They usually have more pop than TR!
the difference being TR nearly ALWAYS does alerts and we win heaps.

VS will on rare occasions actually have dominating pop (eg 38%) and what happens?
Your platoon lead says 'guys we are NOT doing the alert, we are going to take this opportunity to go and grab crossroads and crown back and take tawrich off TR'
Their pop still be around 8% during the alert whilst TR will have only 27% world population yet 55% of the pop on the alert continent.

Its nothing to do with empire pop, they just dont do alerts period.
Its common knowledge, ask anyone on Briggs if VS do alerts.

2 guns dont count lol.

And they barely look any different then other guns of the faction.

Besides, if thats the logic we wanna use the Ursa looks different atleast.

well, VS with low pop holding half Indar

All factions need some art done.

Art, devs. You're pretty great at your jobs, but please give us FACTION ART!

Miller? Or Matterson?

Noticed on Cobalt that VS do fewer and fewer alerts... often because they are 25-28%... Just not worth the few% bonus to get in a bunch of 3to1 fights... you make more getting even fights outside the alerts..

I agree on everything.

I started thinking the exact same when I started spending more time on other factions couple weeks back. I was about to start a lengthy post about it but decided not to.

VS have no defining trait. TR have weapons with high rate of fire and NC have hard hitting weapons. VS doesn't have one defining trait that would be the empire specialty. Only weapons where projectile drop matters are sniper rifles, but VS sniper rifles have just as much projectile drop as any other faction.

VS are "meh".

I agree, as a VS player on Briggs myself I can say that we are extremely under populated.
I tried to participate in every alert when I was playing, but unfortunately either we lost after a few minutes (yeah, before the alert even ended) either barely anyone from VS participated...

Well, VS specific weapons are all decent when used by 3 times as many People as TR and NC equivalents.
and if we use it 3 times as much everyone cries. "nerf the PPA" sorry mate, just 3 times as much VS using it than NC and TR using theirs

Yup, we need faction diversity in general. People should come out of a fight going "yup, that was the VS" and not "yup, that was a clone of me and my weapons with a different skin".

The VS should feel advanced with different weapon mechanics, design and all around ability. AOE, DOT, beam, etc. Our weapons and vehicles should be vastly different from the other empires, not clones of theirs. Who says something can't be different and balanced?

What happened to EMPIRE SPECIFIC anything in this game? Most of the stuff coming out now is NS, be it a new weapon or vehicle. Look at the Valkyrie… Another NS toy…

Give us cool sciency feeling weapons with exotic mechanics SOE! Give us unique ES vehicles that handle in a completely different manner from the other empire's.

Give us SOMETHING to start and separate the empires. I doubt there will be a single player who's still here that'll object to an overhaul of the three factions so that they stand out and not together.

-Q