Faction disparity at it's core

I posted a general overview of factions for a new player the other day, here's an interesting read.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...come-to-vanuside-2.233485/page-2#post-3282771

Where's my recoil-less rifle? If it's standard issue, I must not have received mine. Are you referring to any particular weapon?

Bullet drop... You mean the bullet drop that the VS Bolt actions all have? Or the huge bullet drop of our Magrider primaries? How about the bullet drop on shotgun slugs, which was patched out of having no bullet drop, then left at slower velocity for nearly a year, as they "forgot" to boost the velocity.
No bullet drop means that almost every single example of small arms the VS have has an accompanying lesser projectile velocity by default. When i'm firing at a target within 50 meters, I really don't care about bullet-drop, I care about round velocity. That's not even 2 pixels of vertical adjustment with a suppressor (Which drops round velocity by up to 40%). I care about how best to lead my shot to hit a moving target. As most infantry combat takes places within 50 meters, no-drop rounds means precisely nothing, while we still have the lesser round velocity making target-leading more difficult.

No-drop rounds is valuable on precisely 3 weapons: The Lancer, the Vortex, and the Saron. For these three benefits, the VS endures almost universally slower rounds on it's weapons. Everything that no-drop would be valuable on doesn't have it. (Bolt actions, mostly.)

For this, the TR have generally lesser damage per round, and increased horizontal recoil, which cannot be compensated for. It makes their weapons effective as heck when targets are close enough, but generally, it shortens their range when compared to the NC (In my experience.) Weapons like the CARV allow for greater range, but for the most part, your average NC will have a higher reach.

Crippling performance? Oh noes! Lets take a look.

Sidearms!



... Oh, it must be terrible up there in #2 slot, on par with the repeater. I'll just be over in the corner comforting my beamer as I replace it with a Nanite Systems revolver. It's standard issue in the VS nowadays, or it should be.


Surely SMGs are worse! ... oh, 2 of the top 4 are NC owned, it's not like they have the only 200 damage tier SMG in the game or anything, nope nope nope.



How about LMG's? I'll give you this one - the Gauss saw isn't all that newbie friendly, it's roughy on par with the CARV though. (Yes, coming in at #4 is the Betelgeuse, which needs a nerf, before anyone points it out.)



Let's see, assault rifles... Well, you have the #2 slot overall, that's not bad, and you're above the VS by the same margin that the TR is above the NC.



How about carbines? Wow, these are really well balanced. I'd say no one has a clear advantage here, so call this one a tie.



Lets look at sniper rifles, now. Wow, the NC kind of dominate this one, which is no surprise, since you folks get a Bolt Action by default. That's... close to the best pistol, and the best default sniper, and the hands down best SMG lineup, the NC absolutely dominate anything the Infiltrator can do, in all cases - there's no contest here. i'm not going to post battle rifles, as the user base is teeny weeny, but the NC have the best one there too, by a small margin. (AF-6 Shadow)



Shotguns are roughly all copy / pastes of one another, with a small difference in recoil, so I won't be posting those either (They are nearly as well balanced as Carbines.)

So lets take a look back at the above.

Summary:
Sidearms: NC and TR Tie for top spot, VS uses the commissioner, as nothing else performs as well.
SMGs: NC is a clear winner, with 2 of the top 4 spots, including #1.
LMGS: The only clearly lesser performance for the NC with the Gauss Saw in 3rd. VS has the #1 slot
Assault Rifles: Pretty clear cut. TR has 1st, NC has #2, VS has #3
Carbines: These are extremely well balanced, no winners / losers.
Sniper Rifles: NC Win. Not by a little, they dominate by an obliteratingly high degree due to default bolt actions, while the TR / VS have semi autos.

Ranking
As a quick and dirty scoring system, 1 point for 3rd place, 2 for 2nd place, 3 for 1st.
2 points for participating in a two way tie, 1 for participating in a three way tie.

Sidearms: Two way tie. +2 TR, +2 NC
SMGs: NC has 1st and 3rd, +4 NC, +2 VS
LMGs: +3 VS, +2 for TR, +1 NC.
Assault Rifles: +3 for TR, +2 NC, +1 VS
Carbines: Three way tie, +1 TR, +1 NC, +1 VS
Sniper Rifles: +3 NC, +2 for TR, +1 VS
Shotguns, +1 NC, +1 TR, +1 VS

Totals
NC: 14
TR: 11
VS: 9

So, uh...

Where the potato is this weakness you speak of? The NC is the one faction with a top performer in every single category.

Yes yes, the TR have big magazines and high ROF. But more often than not their weapons are plagued by horrible cone of fire and bloom problems. TR being able to fire a bajillion rounds per second doesnt count for anything when only the first one hits.

I do agree though, NC's gauss saw is pretty hard for newer players since you have to be so darn accurate. The LMG title is misleading.

I came in expecting constant bad dramatic posts and then see a bunch of chats and go "that's gotta be stormy"

Lo and behold =p. And hey the spiker and Beamer aren't all bad! And you forgot to mention no bullet drop also works well for Eidolon! See your whole argument gone! Aha! Not really.

NC like to believe their weapons are bad Tomane up for the fact they deal with player issues so often.

Then burst your TR weapons, just like VS weapons require you to (and NC, who knew? you have to burst your weapons pretty much on all empires - what an interesting fact...).
Or don't, keep holding M1 until the mag is dry and enjoy your mis-managed weapon.

To preface, all you've done is study infantry weapons. And when it comes to infantry weapons, actually, Vanu's damage falloff was eased a few patches back. At range we pretty much hit as hard as TR. It was necessary, and I'll explain why later in this post.

Focusing on infantry weapons provides a false positive in faction disparity, because the overall balance works out when you factor in vehicle weapons. But, focusing on infantry weapons:

Sure, your weapons have higher recoil, but you do have more heavily damaging shots. Nowhere does this combination shine more than the NC SMG lineup. Seriously. Those weapons are brutal. They hit harder per shot than TR and VS SMGs, but fire just as fast. Yeah, it takes a little practice to hold them steady, but your practice--your skill--is rewarded substantially.

The above paragraph pretty much describes NC infantry weapons as a whole. You don't just have a higher muzzle velocity, your shots hit for more damage. Recoil can be compensated for. It rewards practice.

And, it was for precisely that reason--reward for skill--that VS dropless weapons had their damage falloff eased.

Damage falloff is a completely arbitrary limit. You cannot account for it no matter how skilled you are. No amount of practice will make your shots hit harder at range. The problem became readily apparent during and shortly after beta. Once upon a time VS bolt action sniper rifles had no drop, and that was compensated for with greater damage falloff. In short, VS snipers were a total joke. We couldn't even one-shot a sniper in the head inside 250 meters. It was BAD. So, they gave our bolt actions the same drop as TR, and extended the falloff. The experiment was a success.

But what about other VS dropless weapons? They realized that dropless shooting was a defining VS trait, so they couldn't just turn all our weapons into laser versions of TR weapons, so they tried another experiment: They eased the damage falloff on all the other dropless weapons in our inventory, while retaining the dropless feature. There was fear it would be overpowered. Well, as it turns out, it's not. Our weapons' performance improved a little bit, but not that much.

In this way VS weapons, TR weapons, and NC weapons all provide different and substantial rewards for skill. VS weapons provide extra accuracy as you become skilled. TR weapons provide you with extra damage potential per clip with increasing skill. And NC weapons provide you with shorter TTK with increasing skill.

So, there you have it.

That's the great disparity you're talking about.

B-b-but I'm TR... Full auto and max dakka are the only thing I know! Everyone knows that sustained full auto fire is the only way to

TACTICAL SUPERIORITY

Everyone has an opinion, and I certainly have mine - Numbers, stats and analysis speak louder when "But I think this thing is x, and that thing is y!" So I tend to use stats first

And yes, the Eidolon is quite nice (I didn't forget it, I ignored it ) - not enough people actually use the thing to make it a major player. Besides, the TR gets more kills overall with the AMR-66


I'll spare the screenshots, since there are only 3, but...

AMR-66
Kills: 4417 Uniques:635

Eidolon VE3
Kills: 4212 Uniques: 552

Warden
Kills: 4087 Uniques: 601

Even the AMR-66 with it's 4417 kills doesn't compare to the 22nd LMG (of 25 total) on the list, the T9 CARV-S, which has 5244 kills. And the SVA-88 (11th overall LMG) gets more kills then all three Battle Rifles combined. xD

By comparison? The beamer sure is! The VS gets more kills with the Commissioner then with an ES gun, and a default no less - that can't be said of all that many other small arms. Generally, performance is better on an individual basis for other guns, but the total kills for defaults are highest. Offhand, I can't think of another example among the entire small-arms catalog where an empire scores more total kills with an NS gun then an ES gun.

... Actually, having taken the time to look through every category of small arms just now, that is the only example of this. Nowhere else does an empire have a top-ranking NS weapon over all the ES options. There's a fun fact for ya

I love the Spiker myself, though. I tend to lug it around on everyone but my Light Assault (Who gets the Blackhand, for sniper oriented shenanigans.)

24x200=4800
30x143=4290

It's all very weapon dependent .. Some weapons NC have the best ( Most easily controlled recoil ) other times they have the worst ..

Ie: The T1 Cycler has more easily controlled Recoil compared to the Gauss Rifle , where as the Trac-5's recoil bias is atrocious compared to the Merc ..

So in reality all factions have the choice and methods to lower their " Recoil difficulty " .. It just needs them to pick the right weapons ... So it really is a kinda non-factor in cross Faction balance ...

Tacticool* superiority.

Aka "only VS zergs" and "tactical overpop", etc etc....

You didn't even mention higher damage. THAT is what the NC is about; the VS and TR can easily land a shot that'll sting you, but when you encounter a piece of electromagnetically propelled metal traveling at supersonic speeds, you'll drop to the ground because the near miss put a whole in your arm. Could it be implemented better? Hell yes. Is it there? You bet. The NC has an incredible arsenal, and I would personally base other factions' traits on what the NC have (NC have what they advertise, but the same isn't true for the other factions).

[quote="Stormsinger, post: 3287096, member: 168828] slice! [/quote]

Not many people care about battle rifles anyway and I think the reason for comi and such is that they do so much damage and unlocking them gives them to everyone. They are too good all round to warrant using others much.

Why don't we just stop replying to this so RadarX doesn't have to go through the trouble of locking it? This thread was doomed from the moment it was made.

200x144=28800
143x210=30030
167x180=30060
143x240=34320

Wait, you need your complete ammo pool to kill 2-3 guys? Are you hipfiring?

He's also bunnyhopping and spinning in midair at the same time.

if you cant land all shots on enemy with Reaper DRM - u must be cheater

How I know most peeps in this thread know not of what they speak

You used the word bullet drop for vs, there are only a few weapons that don't have bullet drop.

Nc have the most manageable recoil barring the gauss saw. The arsenal is actually quite nice and very little horizontal jitter. My favorite being the gd7f and the nc gauss rifle.
Vs fire rates and recoil make the vs weapons workable but with moderate horizontal jitter. My faves are the orion vx67 and the hv45
Tr have 10 more bullets with longer reload times and some default weapons have higher rates of fire. Well with these jaguar, trv, tar, t5amc.

All factions have clones of the other factions guns.
All factions use asymmetrical balance with all available assets. Comparisons of gun to gun without considering the entire arsenal is folly.

You never know if these people are serious or not, scratch that, offical forums theyre prolly all mouthbreathing dribblies who do hold MB1

TR = High RoF and Large Mags. Becomes unwieldy at range.
VS = Controllable Recoil and Fast Reload. Low damage per mag and slowest Bullet Velocity.
NC = Hard Hitting and Fastest Bullet Velocity. High recoil (which honestly doesn't matter since the weapons RoF is low.)