Is the Canis overpowered ?

The Canis is a most welcome addition, along the other two faction specific Submachine guns. I've been around for almost as long since the game was put online, spend many hundreds of hours playing mostly VS , then NC , a bit of TR , on various servers with different characters. Great game, as the concept of instant action , massive battles go, quite unique. Actually, it's the only one out there, tailed by garbage like Overwatch and various small squad based ones like the Battlefield franchise (i don't like realistic battles and weapons, it's a virtual environment, let it be sci-fi then) . But here is the rub. SOE dismissed it's designated coders once the game development stage reached open beta, and there it remains until this very day.

The Canis is of great design, but a few highlights worthy of mention, overall:

- worst possible hit detection processing across all major MMO FPS genre, greatly varies during the day
- huge HW resources demand, for an old DirectX 9 based game engine that is, when a large enough number of players are on line, it stutters, drastic framerate drop even on a higher end machine like mine ( 6700k OC'd to 4.6 GHz, 16 GB 3.2GHz memory, GTX 1080 OC'd to 2 GHZ , practically there is no difference between the 1080 and the 970 i just upgraded in hope of getting constant framerate close to 144 to be able to use vsync)
- server can't hold it's litter, got worse since the server merge , while the network ping is as low as 40-50 ms, the server latency spikes up to 100-150, especially when third world country players drop in massively.
- fortunately , since the dismissal of the old creative director and lead designer , M. Higby, the amount of unverified , bugged content release was significantly reduced
- no interactive community relations, though there was ( and seemingly, still is) a significant number of personnel designated to. Thankfully Tony RadarX was finally dismissed from the team, for no bug reports, player suggestions or requests would go past him.
- the overall attitude of SOE/DBG , their sole focus on content and balancing, with no desire to optimize the base game engine whatsoever. And those expensive but resource heavy debug/thread monitoring tools constantly on line yield no result, except increasing the overload of the servers even further...Adding further content onto a basically broken game engine just doesn't help, nor will it increase customer satisfaction, quite the opposite, for the decreased game performance it results in.

The Canis, on the other hand , it's not overpowered at all. Low firing rate, slightly higher damage and large cone of fire, it only helps if only low ping users are on line, which isn't the case most of the time. I don't know why, but a large number of south american and other third world country players choose the european servers to spam when the US ones would be much closer and have way lower latencies. This phenomena seems to increase the server load significantly, worsen beyond enjoyable the gameplay quality . Easy to trace , larger battles tend to reduce framerates by 100% or more in this case, and the most specific marker is , when taking hit from such opponents , hit Tab quickly , the normal 50-60 ms Server Latency will spike up to 100ms or more then settle. Network latency in this time remains steady, about same value as pinging google.nl . In battles like these only high firing rate weaponry is effective, nothing else.

The Canis is fun to play. Except since the last few updates, somehow high latency third world country lag spammers figured to play Infiltrator class during these hours, which seem to work for them, though i tried to use same to no avail. Quite annoying actually, atop of the terrible close-midrange hit detection problems during these hours, massive sniping results in frustrating gameplay at best. A few interesting aspects:

- fully cloaked Infiltartor takes headshot
- in closer ranges, when the opponent starts to decloak, player gets somehow 'frozen' , weapon doesn't fire even for multiple clicks, then just get killed by opponent. I tested a few times myself with reflex testing tools, i can react as fast as 160-180 ms to visual stimuli, that rules out any subjective nature of this assessment. Average folk do 250 ms.
- the long standing issue related to broken lag compensation, moving target doesn't show up correctly at it's coordinates, giving the impression of immunity to fire. This can be as bad as one empties a full mag of the Sirius onto the opponent, see the bullet impact on the head, body, then get killed by opponent in a single headshot. Hilarious.

The Canis is expensive, however. With all it's components ( 2 scopes, handle, suppressor, ammo, laser sight and optionally darklight) ties around 2500 certs. It's all right, for the company needs to coerce out some sort of income, and i fully condone with such policy. Free to play, but at least buy a few camoes and boosts, etc. to sustain development. No argue there.

We all love the Canis, along with the rest of faction specific weaponry. But we mustn't forget the game engine needs optimization, and the lag compensation algorithms need either to be disabled, or rewamped, etc. Country IP based filtering may be another solution, for no fancy weapons design will improve player satisfaction. Maybe it will for a few living in the Netherlands, Northern Germany or other closer location to the servers themselves, if very low network latency counter compensates. Just take a look at the forum submissions, 7 out of 10 is a negative criticism, most of them related to unsatisfying gameplay. All are rooted in broken hit detection, this can manifest itself for the player as one weapon is overpowered, the other not, etc. Factions don't need balancing, weapons, shields, etc no need to nerf or tuning. Why do people so little Light assault lately ? For it became weak, it's shields, jump jets got dumbed down due to "balancing" . No need for that, the base game engine needs a few optimizations, that's all...

Thank you in advance.

Canis is broken AF. it shreds through a MAX in 1/2 a clip. LOL. Maybe play one of the other factions and feel how it feels to play against a gun with which even the BIGGEST fps noob CANT miss. The projectile impact size is by FAAAAR too large. I made a new char, leveled it to 15 bought canis, upgraded it to max, played for 2 hours and got bored of how easy it was (it actually made me angry). You don't even have to aim to hit someone. Go play an RTS or something if you cant aim, your trash guns are NOT welcome here. PS. You dont have to aim near the head for Canis to count it as headshot, lol, you shoot someone in the chest and it says "Headshot" total fricking joke. Also scythes and your tanks? lets pretend they arent broken? is there any point in spending certs on vanguard/prowler or reaver/mosquito? Put the best pilots on scythe versus reaver/mosquito and scythe will win 10/10 times. Same with Magrider vs other tanks. NERF CANIS AGAIN AND THEN NERF VANU SOME MORE. Sucks when skilled players play on a faction designed for no-skill players. They get all the advantages, that's why I'm NC. VS and TR are 90% kids trying to be badass with their cyborg/goth chars. TR is still okay, at least they need some skill to kill, VS though, its like playing the game on EASY.

/popcorn
there is no point in spending points in the magrider and especially the lightning either.
cause you know,Vulcan and Mjöllnir harrassers.

"the long standing issue related to broken lag compensation, moving target doesn't show up correctly at it's coordinates, giving the impression of immunity to fire. This can be as bad as one empties a full mag of the Sirius onto the opponent, see the bullet impact on the head, body, then get killed by opponent in a single headshot. Hilarious."

Are people using lag switches or some **** there? I'm on a 2mb line from South Africa and PS2 servers are mint (160ms), if I click on the face its a headshot, if I click on the body its not. SIMPLE. Those times the person kills you in one shot you just got out-aimed mate. Take it on the chin and move on. Some people are FPS gods. Some aren't. Perhaps you just dont realize the bullets are physical entities in this game? ie. They have a travel time and you need to lead ahead of your target if they are moving...I land 500m headshots with my sniper on people running diagonally across my screen, but do I aim ON THEM? NO, you need to read "Bullet Velocity" consider which class/gun killed you, and then sit back and realize your ignorance is what got you killed in the first place. BYE NOW.

Yeah mjollnir harasser is broken, and thats why I dont play on it, its boring. what is the point? If people find Mjollnir harasser satisfying then shame. Game is already populated by 90% newcomers who have no clue. Playing Canis vs those people, or mjollnir, its literally more boring than playing CS:GO vs bots. If you find it satisfying then I pity you )

that's not the point. you just read the colored text, skipping the rest...

More of this post is about the servers, than about the weapon itself...
Like for example, your mention of the 'great design', has not a single line about the weapon.

This entire section makes more sense with the title "Multiplayer is of a great design, but has these issues"
Rather than "Canis", which is a gun.

End lines

For a total of 15 words, this sentence is actually about the weapon, and is as vague as possible for why "We all" love the Canis.
As well, says as if faction balancing has no need for tuning, as Hit-detection is the sole issue..
Yeah as obviously Hit-detection makes or breaks a fight between a weapons of entirely different stats slanted to one side..
LA's haven't had a shield reduction.
Nor had their Jets nerfed, in fact, they got a new jet, finally: Optimize the engine sure, but does that affect balance? No.
Is it related to it? A theoretical gun that is superior in stats, does not mystically become the equal of others by this.
Nor does an inferior useless gun, become mystically better from it: Not unless the thing killing it was an engine failure.
Which is highly improbable, to be why a weapon is inferior or listed as useless by the general populace..
As how easy do you think it is for a Gun to literally fail to fire or something along those lines, that would be fixed like this?

Now for a question, not related directly to the above.

Why exactly buy every or so many attachments for the Canis?
Why buy the suppressor at all?
Legit question there.

I respect the way you think, but it is utopic and egocentic. Just beacause you wont play OP stuff because it is boring to you, it does not mean nobody wants to or does. E.g. you want to win, at all cost, guess what to choose: The OP, the normal or the UP toy? Sure, if you like a challenge you can pick the non-op stuff, make some archivements for yourself and laugh at the enemy if you humilate him. But you would be better off with OP stuff.
A game is played for fun, winning is fun (and beeing rewarded), OP stuff helps winning. That is the typical mindset.

The canis is a nice, new toy, i also like the idea of unstable ammo (UA).
It is not well balcaned, once you know what to do. I suggested some changes to it:

A) Remove headshotmultiplier (and maybe COF penalty), add 85 splash damage
B) Keep everything as it is now, lower damage tier by one (167-143)

WORSTgameEU: "I'm on a 2mb line from South Africa and PS2 servers are mint (160ms)"

That's exactly the point of one of the highlights... ****** net atop long network path. It's detrimental to the majority of users who chose one server or another to have the lowest latency... . i have 3 ISPs , one DSL 5/1 Mbs , one 100/100 Mbs broadband and another PPoE of 20/20 Mbs . The DSL one has the highest latency overall, 70 ms ping. Mint my ****.

Not to mention somebody played a few hours with BR 1 , earned 2500 certs to buy the Canis with all bits and bobs, no long time experience with VS, and throw comparisons ... i'd label it "lousy argumentation" then completely disregard.

Weapons aren't *broken* , period. None of them. Base game engine is crap, and none of the *developers* lift a finger. Rather push content , and tweak some config files then call it *balancing* . Maybe the Spiker or the Hunter QCX , but that goes to the "who cares" category anyways.

One of the major appeal of Planetside 2 is it's arsenal. All weapons behave different, and significant difference between faction specific weaponry. There is no imbalance in the factions, seasoned players know that. If there is, you get used to, play them to your advantage. The new continent lock system forces players to switch between factions, or wait very long periods to join battle (boring and won't happen...) , which if annoying, was indeed a *very* smart pull by the developer team.

The infantry classes are imbalanced now indeed. Practically it's not worth playing Medic or Light Assault any more, both are weak. They tried to remedy by implants ( Carapace) or addons ( that small shield thing) , but it's not the same. Medic , Engie and Light assault should have about 2/3 strength of the Heavy, with their increased mobility kept as it is now, to make it worth playing again. You can't take on a heavy with any of these, unless the opponent is complete newbie. Back in 2012-2013 you could play solo with medic quite fine. Got even a few of it's weapons auraxiumed .

But worst is the hit detection problem. Idunno, whoever claims to have played CSGO or similar ( 4x4 squad based, garbage by my opinion) games, those are lightning fast, have true real time hit detection, at least if you play with immediate neighbour countries. Nothing like we have it in Planetside 2. I'd refrain myself from throwing in half-arsed comparisons, it doesn't help. The only thing would is to make the maintainer to somehow listen more to community needs, and prioritize engine optimization instead of adding continuously new content.

Has anyone wondered, why there are almost no server smashes any more ? Just to think about...

btw LordKrelas , you're a pretty smart guy. Unfortunate it is, you aren't one of the developers...

To answer the last question only, it's simple. I'm a collector, and i try all the stuff, in all combinations, on the battlefield itself. It's not the same , by a long road, as trying in the war room, against static dummies.

The rest, i won't answer, but you got the point of that long litany. Just do an Quake 3 or Unreal 3/4 Tournament session against a few friends, then drop into Planetside , then pull your hair when a set of nasty south americans oppose you, playing from a ****** 1 Mbs dialup connection...

[Hint: one would expect the lower his ping, can farm out those 150ms laggers like sitting ducks, now there comes the big surprise...]

The Canis has great design, both in looks and functionality, but is a mediocre weapon all things considered, primarily because of the long spin-up duration. I would use it if I were a spandex-wearing ladyboi, but Jackal it is for me.

Unstable Ammunition, on the other hand, is broken overpowered.
There is no other way to put it.
It is a built-in hitbox cheat.
It either needs to go, or get hammered into the ground (which is happening).
It has no place in an FPS game.

"the canis is not overpowered at all"

Sorry OP that is just utter BS trying to defend your fave new toy.

I have played PS2 since Alpha Squad and the Canis is the second most OP infantry weapon we have EVER seen in Planetside, the first being the original under barrel grenade launcher IMO.

It has a nerf incoming already the PTS (2x HSM down to 1.2x) and I would bet it will be nerfed again after that to reduce the size of the projectiles fired from the new ammo type or reduce the damage profile.

It's damage profile is FAR to high for the mechanics (might have worked at 125 damage profile), the fact you CANNOT miss unless you literally have no eyes doesn't help the matter either.

It also makes the whole lag issue of dying round corners more promminent....

TBH im not sure how the devs let it get into the game in this state.... its outright laughable!

I don't care if you call it OP , it's an interesting weapon. It sounds cool , it looks cool. Go ahead and nerf it to oblivion and turn it into an other niche weapon that no one will use a week later.
I was hyped when it came out , not anymore.
I bet anyone in here that the Serius is gona be 100% better after the Canis nerf , thus no reason to use any other SMG.

oh wow, you posted almost more BS than he did.
yes, UA is broken cause it extends the hitbox far enough to completely negate any movement the enemy does.

No it's damage is not far too high, no it would not be better with a 125 damage profile. 125 damage with a 500rpm would make it so unbelievably weak that flareguns would outperform it.
and no it does not make it "impossible" to miss. in it's first iteration it barely doubled the hitbox size, which is immens yes,but it's also comparable to just being a few meters closer and you can still miss easily even at close range,otherwise all shotguns would have 100% accuracy.

After a few more hours playing with it. The Sirius is still superior. And that *can't miss with it" , is just large heaping pile of horsesh1t. It's harder to handle than Sirius, slowly spinning up indeed, not exactly fit to take down more than 3 foes in fairly close quarters. If i was up for a vote, i'd rather leave it as it is, or add another ammunition type eventually. Why doesn't anybody complain about the Tengu ? Or better, why doesn't anybody use it ? That is the question.

because the pellets fly in an RNG pattern that easily causes it to miss 25%+ of it's damage turning it into: *drumroll* a canis without an increase in firerate and with wven harder damage dropoff when you are already at the minimum range to have 2 pellets miss.

Well, the Chain Saw has a much larger magazine and firing rate. I saw TR dudes cause massacre with it, while the Lasher is one sorry weapon compared to it. Not to mention the Jackhammer, the auto shotgun is preferred over. I don't see how one weapon will cause any faction imbalance. Don't see any complaints against it, any more.

On the other hand, adding an item in, creating hype around then, when people bought it, many of them with real money or indirectly, by certs obtained using boosts purchased , then dumben it down to unusable or undesirable, well, technically that you can call robbery. Or scam, for that matter. I hope DBG doesn't do that , would hurt their already weak reputation.

Though, this kind of attitude was long ongoing, even when teh game was maintained by SOE. They've put an shameless idiot up front to tell ye "f'.uck you, play it as it is, it's free" . The RadarX , back then. Once again, can't be more grateful , finally they got rid of him. Was utterly useless anyways, just to put someone on the payroll for nothing.

Totally bro.... -.-

Canis is DEFINATELY NOT overpowered, compared to the imo. Balanced jackal and the GODLIKE(in a good aimers hands, and even worse in a good infils hands) NC 200dmg pop-pop headshot beast I can't remember the name of now.
The unstable ammo is however and will be tweaked today and evaluated on the go by the devs.

The thing I REALLY like about UA though, is that it rahpes the God damn ADAD lagdancers