What if you designed the VS?

So apparently the VS was an afterthought, which was the reasons for the VS being bland when it comes to faction-traits.

Now imagine that Planetside 2 is still in development and Higby says to you "yo, I want the VS as a third faction like in the original game. Go make up some faction-traits for me will ya?"

What would you give the VS? Would you still have them build the Magrider or would you design a different tank? What kind of weapon-traits would you give them?

I think I would have left them out of the game, balanced TR and NC properly, and then instituted population caps and longer spawn timers for the over-pop side. VS are generally the least played on my servers, and are nearly always being farmed by NC. In fact, all of my servers feature NC farming to some extent, it's a pity I can't roll an NC character on my main server at this point.

Id give them more tentacles.

Bring back the flying VS Maxs.

Redesign the Magrider so it'll be the fastest MBT. Ditch the Magburn and replace it with a extremely short ranged EMP device that can knock out opposing vehicle weapon/engines/screens for a few seconds.

I'd rather them not exist at all. I'd opt for NS to join the war and fight rather than the VS, there are enough NS weapons in the game currently and coming soon (unfortunately) to build a new empire on them, hell they already control 80% of the vehicle types, and have at least 1 of every type of weapon including some exclusive weapons.

VS are just plain obnoxious and their existing traits, playerbase, and tactics make them a n absolute chore to fight. Hence the reason why my on my connery account i have 58% (36,000+) NC kills, and 42% (26,000+) VS kills a 10,000+ kill difference, i hate fighting VS because it's not enjoyable in the least. NC are typically more fun to fight against.

TL;DR: Would rather NS be in place of VS.

I stumbled upon that picture too, and the follow up one...

The laserguns would go pew pew, pew pew.

>:3

Their faction trait and ability should be: being purple.

That's it, that's all they get, no guns, tanks or anything. They just get to run around using their purple-ness to try to win fights.

I'd go back to what worked in PS1:

1) All VS weapons have a AP mode which means they can switch to damage MAXes, ALL vehicles etc. Not Deci damage but enough that you'll notice it and don't want to run your MBT into a platoon of infantry.

2) Magrider being the only MBT where the driver can shot (the other factions had to bring a gunner for that who had two weapons to choose from/TR had 2 gunners instead and a driver) but can't fire top gun at the same time AND the Magrider can drive over water (not as a big deal in PS2 as in PS1)

3) Jumping MAXes; VS should be about mobility and moving rather than heaviest weapons (NC) or overpowering Dakka (TR) and in line with this the VS ability should be jump jet (not as powerful as LA but enough to jump to second floor of a tower for example from the ground)

4) Make VS a proper long range faction; they have things like the Lancer but across the board VS should shine at 100m+ with NC being close range and TR in between. This means fastest weapon speeds, least /no drop etc. to force you to close in with VS. The downside is the same as today in the lower clip sizes on the weapons by comparison

5) Global regeneration boosted by Amp stations (one level of regeneration per Amp station held connected to spawn). All vehicles / MAXes have regen equal to nano plating level 1 due to the "alien armor regenerates itself". Give TR infantry faster to start HP regen due to drugs only military has and resources from killing infantry (their kill counts of terrorists awards them more resources to continue) while NC have faster shield regen (they managed to overclock the shield regenerator and bonus resources from killing vehicles (they scavenge resources of let's say 20% vehicle cost).

Today VS has such a mix of traits that they all blend and most of the traits tend to be applied where they don't matter (see no drop off on close range LMGs etc.) or make sense; esp. point 5 above is an example of how you can push diversity (not 100% sure they are properly balanced but gives an idea) easily with a trinity set up as well.

Just making it so using their weapons feels like an asset and not like a handicap.

Magrider with Cloak instead of Afterburner....

Not considering what has since happened (infantry's only ever scared of ESFs, playerbase wanting everything homogenized, etc.) as there was no way to know that 5-6 years ago, but still considering the limitations of the game engine:

-VS infantry guns have the lowest DPS of any faction, but the highest projectile speed (and are still affected by bullet drop though it would be hard to notice.)

-Magriders would be similar to how they are now, except their cannons would deal very low point blank damage and the projectile's damage would steadily increase while traveling. With the idea that magriders would be one of the most dangerous long-range ground units in the entire game (with the added bonus of being hard to hit), but if someone got close a magrider wouldn't have the defense, speed, or damage to save themselves.

-Scythes would have the option to equip a laser as the nosegun to be balanced like A2A lock-ons and the infantry guns I mentioned above: it would take no effort to land hits but the laser wouldn't be able to out-damage another well-aimed nosegun. Maybe it could use the overheat mechanic instead of ammunition, too.

More lasers and hover-vehicles. And AV plasma weapons that deal damage over time, like the Comet from PS1.
(Also, some sort of plasma empire-spesific hand-held grenade)
And try to find a way to balance the MAX getting a short vetrical hover/"jump" mechanic.
The heat mechanic would be an empire spesific weapon attachment for some weapons (i say some for balance purposes), and would give the weapon some sort of tradeoff. Like worse TTK/magsize/accuracy or something.

In short, i would try to give the VS some cool unique tech stuff and mostly borrow and rebalance things from PS1.

Wierd. I bet you made the paintings.

They'd be just about the same.

However, me being a Transhumanist in real life, their image would change drastically.

Their troops would be cyborgs, post-humans, androids, and more.

Things like soldiers with the legs of General Grievous or something, or perhaps human but with alterations like red eyes, purple eyes, whatever.

Tbh if you have an army of Transhumanists, they'd be drastically different.

That's probably what irritates me the most about the VS being a Transhumanist myself, they look like nothing a Transhumanist cult would look like.

If you ever check out discussions among Transhumanists and what not, they always talk about having humanoid bodies, but not necessarily human, and I mean constantly. That, or having perfected human bodies, meaning extremely attractive and all that lovely stuff.

Then of course the furries join in...and we get the cat boys and girls. Which is fine, I suppose as long as I don't see some dog/human atrocity. Keep it to the ears, eyes and tail, and I won't feel the need to complain.

But if the VS were truly modelled after a Transhumanist mindset, they'd almost all look extremely inhuman. You get everything from impossibly beautiful (By human standards today, cuz we're ugly little sad monkeys) people, to something like the Vanu Max.

The point being, you would know RIGHT AWAY that it's a group of Transhumanists because they wouldn't really...look human.

So as you can guess, it takes alot of mental effort for me to play the VS because they're far from what I envision for such a faction =(

IMO the best example of how VS weapons should be is Phaseshift from PTS (as it is now). Heat mechanic, no bullet drop but some downsides like big recoil (in some fire modes). I mean why SOME VS weapons have no bullet drop and some not. Aren't they use the same tech?

some weapons proved to be rather OP (like slug shotguns which VS were using as semi-auto sniper rifles in the first year )

0 ammunition and a cooldown/recharge mechanic on all non explosive weapons. The vs "ammo pack" would reduce all cooldown/recharge rates by 10/15/20/25/30% in a 20/24/27/31/35m range.


Magrider I would keep but instead of magburn I would give it an energy redistribution mechanic. For 6/7/8/9/10 seconds kinetic damage is reduced by an extra 10% and is used to power the weapon systems, decreasing reload speeds by the amount of damage received within the duration of the effect. So, you're in a fire fight, you activate Kinetic Energy Transfer (KET) the next hit does 20% of your HP, is reduced by 2% and reduced your reload speed by 18%. Next hit does 10%, reduced by 1% reload speed is now reduced by 27%.


VS MAX would be completely different. It would instead have 75% of its HP as energy shielding that shares the same energy pool as the weapon systems. It recharges at a rate of 10% per second. Firing 1 arm depletes the energy pool by 10% per second. Essentially you'd have to balance offensive and defensive use of the energy system. Get 2 carried away with excessive firing and you'd leave yourself exposed and extremely vulnerable. Don't fire at all and you'd be extra hard to kill. Essentially self repping by 7.5% of your HP per second. Engineers rep tool recharges the energy pool at 75% of standard MAX repair values. ZOE would remain the same.


That's what I've got for now. Might have some more ideas later.

More like the Borg Collective in appearance and weapons with more spikes and prongs and blackened bits

Weapon discharge noizes more like tortured air due to high energy discharge passing through it and not weedy pew pew.

All vehicles would be floaty, including ES variants of NS.

Papa Vanu would be a machine voice.