Noone has seen the nerf bat as hard as VS weapons on vehicles and infantry. To increase population on VS, it would be preferable to restore balance by improving these weapons and vehciles, making the faction fun to play again. The only time population increases is during an alert when faction hoppers move over.
The reason a lot of VS tools & weapons have been nerfed, has been due to being broken: as well, all sides see nerfs & buffs. They are being balanced.
Th They didn't for most of last year, not till CAI came out. The problem doesn't have much to do with faction balance, as one server has completely different results than another. The problem is pathetic kids hopping factions for an easy win when one faction starts to gather momentum for whatever reason. This is where pop balance through incentives and penalties comes in to play. Those players searching for the easy path won't find it by stacking population anymore. I don't play enough online games to know if it's a generational thing or not, but the lack of competitive drive in Planetside is just sad.
On the emerald VS pop is constantly the lowest during prime time. 31% at maximum usually being around 29 or 28% and that also comes together with double teams. TR even with 36+% pop decides to attack the lowest pop faction with Zerg walls, while NC is a mindless team with no strategy, organization nor coordination. And to top it all off, emeral VS has some people that love to ghost cap the off continent, and have some weird fetish for hossin. Factions need balance yes, but I feel VS got nerfed way too hard in some moments. ZOE right now is basically a "Kill Me, I'm Here" ability. Saron long range capability now faces a heavy bloom with a long bloom recover. Aphelion still good, but the majority don't know how to use it properly, since there is no tool tip explaining how the weapon functions. When comparing TR lynx with VS serpent, both hip-fire oriented High dps Carabines, the Lynx has virtually no recoil, faster fire and bigger magazine... While serpent has more damage per bullet, and a severe horizontal recoil pulling the weapon to the right in about 40º to 30º, which is super awkward to compensate for. After auraxin both, Lynx is just superior in all scenarios, hands down. Again, I speak for emerald... Getting harder and harder to play VS there. Constant low pop, constant double team. TR is zerg-only and fights VS and VS only 24/7 while NC is the most clueless thing ever.
What nerfs exactly did VS infantry get in the past? I've returned to the game 2 weeks ago, just wondering.
Unstable Ammunition used to be too good so they nerfed it. Fair enough that it needed a nerf but they overdid it. As a result no one uses the Canis anymore, or the MAW with that ammo type. In comparison you still see the Gladius and the Jackal being used extensively. The Magrider got its HE rounds nerfed to where they can't one-shot infantry anymore. Fair enough since it's **** to die by tanks shelling from a distance if your infantry. But its only the Magrider which got this nerf because "it can get in weird places". Alright, but then it is the weakest MBT so Vanu uses it for the only thing its good at, as an infantry support gun. So now that DBG's big data tells them that Magriders get more infantry kills than the other tanks they nerfed it. Result: Magrider is not worse at being an MBT and at being an Infantry Support Gun as the other MBT's. (We use Lightnings now). Harasser PPA being absolute **** as you can expend half a magazine on a single infantry with all hits and they won't die. Often the driver scores more kills by simply running over the infantry the PPA was shooting at. (We use Lightnings for this now as well). Scythe's nose guns got a nerf since the "scythe has such a narrow front outline". Then there's still the long standing issues: ZOE being not used at all since it's a "I'm here kill me while I'm weaker!" neon sign. Only faction which doesn't have the same MAX weapons as their Heavy Guns (e.g. Lasher MAX). Only faction whose Heavy Gun is utterly useless in a 1 v 1 and thus not competitive (= ****). Only faction which does not have access to 600RPM @167 damage. Alright we have a crappy Anchor now (MAW).
Ok, so a few quick things. Unstable ammo got buffed with the last major patch to make it actually be pretty good once again. At distances of 30 meters and up, it definitely starts to become worth using, and by 40 meters its honestly amazing. Plus, the Canis is the most used VS SMG based on personal experience. As for the Magrider, it can still one shot infantry with HE, but only with a direct hit. Considering that the HE cannon on the Magrider was the only MBT cannon without a four second delay between splash damage kills, it was kinda over performing. As for its current status overall, I don't consider it the weakest MBT, in part cause that implies there's a best MBT. Every MBT has its own set of tactics and play style requirements that have to be learned and applied to be effective. Ever seen a Prowler try to rush an enemy tank? It usually ends really badly, cause its not what its suited for. Same can be said for ultra long range sniping with the Vanguard. With its fire rate, its just not able to handle it effectively. As for the PPA on the harasser, I'll admit its not the best, but on the other hand, its been that way for quite some time. Plus, if you compare it with the Marauder for the TR, its arguably better, since it doesn't have an extremely limited range.
Jackal is a very confused SMG. Gladius has no Hipfire. Canis had head-enlarging ammo with head-shot multiplier. Magrider is a grand MBT. Which took TR's MBT's reloading speed advantage as well. Saron was, and is an amazing anti-armor weapon capable of precise ranged shots, or brutal rapid-fire. TR & NC wish they had something that versatile. PPA, sounds like when RNGesus isn't blessing a shotgun. Which is painful. ZOE was over-nerfed, but considering what it was capable of, is it any surprise? Hell, TR will say the same of their Lockdown. A Lasher max would either be incredibly crap, or incredibly brutal. Jackhammer's perfect situation isn't the grandest for max units. Chain-gun itself isn't exactly a 1v1 gun either: Only the Jackhammer is, and it is incapable of being a support weapon. Crappy Anchor, has more bullets, the same damage output. So not much of a crappy gun. Shocked, the Orion & Beetle updates didn't make this list. But that'd bring up the massive list of cross-faction changes. Each side has some long standing issues. TR doesn't like being glued to the floor, as a C-4 magnet \ sign. NC doesn't like the highly situational requirements for their ES weapons. It's not as if VS is the only one. Nor that VS hasn't had the over-powered things due to their nature, which resulted in balance passes. Which has happened to each side: Just VS is seemingly more vocal about ANY changes. If need be, we can look at the Canis's old Unstable-ammo, being defended as PERFECT & deserved for VS by VS. But that's kinda expected, when an ammunition enlarges the target's head for all extensive purposes while providing the head-shot multiplier at full: Some crave that advantage - let alone when Exclusive. It's an incredibly poorly thought-out ammunition type, given TR & NC's being no where near like it, in changing the game.
Unstable Ammos "headshot multiplier" means 5 bullets instead of 6 bullets ONLY if all 5 hit the head, otherwise it's 6 bullets with both headshots and bodyshots.
The old, the second version, or the New version? As well, on the old, when a body-shot or even a miss was a Head-shot, that 1 less bullet, and highest likely-hood of a head-shot makes that very potent.
second and new version. But as you mentioned, both misses and some body shots will count towards it. Overall, pretty darn good.
I can attest to that. It has been consistent for weeks now, hence why I'm playing my TR on Emerald way more for balanced pop fights against NC as getting zerged continuously is no fun. Also, there seems to be a lack of awareness for both TR and NC when an alert is on or becoming inevitable. A final problem is TR seems to lack armor. Sure, sometimes I've seen them surround bases with a lot of it at the expense of infantry, but otherwise allows NC to casually stroll in with two or three tanks and capture a zone easily. Popular opinions were Vanguard OP, Prowler junk, armor quit since CAS.
One thing I will say regarding populations is that there appears a trend where faction pop seems to be influenced by server region. Over on the Connery server for example, the TR has consistently had lowest pop, since basically the advent of the Connery server.
Your perception deceives you... though VS has actually had top population at some points. I'm guessing that's when people switch over during alerts for the wins though. Might be the time you play as well, but the population on Connery is barely over 1k players at a time anymore... http://ps2.fisu.pw/population/?world=1
I am aware of the total population. I have played during peak and non peak hours, and while the numbers do shift around, the general trend these days is vaguely even pop during non peak hours, and NC and VS heavy population during peak hours. Alerts also seem to not have a huge overall effect on pop distribution in my experience. Still, my basic point is that just cause one server has a below average population for a given faction doesn't mean they are weak and no one is playing them at all.
Connery is also a bad example to use... out of the 7 top peak times in the past week, 4 of them VS had highest pop and only one of those 4 I'd consider a big OP. 2 of the 7 is TR for the high peak times but off high peak times 7 out of the 7 days TR had the highest pop and usually not buy a little bit. One of the peak days TR was leading the pop but I"m guessing an alert made everyone wholesale to VS making their population the highest for the peak period. NC had 1 out of the 7 days and that was by a whole 2 people if a faction was going to complain on Connery it would be NC and boy do they like to complain. If you go further back TR is usually the dominate population for the average population of the server. If you like to use peak times and peak numbers fine, you also have to remember people like to wholesale switch factions as well during Alerts and you can see from the charts that it happens. You can almost see at the peak hours which faction is winning an alert and the quick switch of factions. If you look at the average of the whole playerbase you can see where the populations stand and have for along time and for me personally that's how I would judge an individual factions health. A single server that doesn't peak with 1k players anymore is probably not the server I'd judge anything by anymore.
