[Suggestion] Vanu isn't OP

Now that I have your attention the main problem that is the real problem is the other two factions don't have anything really unique, NC and TR play roughly the same infantry-wise, and their vehicles aren't overly different, what should be done is flesh out mechanics for TR and NC, give them toys to play with instead of new gun that does gun stuff.

Redesign the prowler because it is just... don't even try telling me I'm using it wrong, I'd rather pull a lightning than hop inside a prowler.

A lot of **** on Vanu comes from the fact they have a ton of toys and weirdness that the other two factions don't so they don't think about it, until they are killed by it.

TLDR make TR more than shoot fast and make NC more than shoot hard.

The phoenix is the most fun toy in the game solo.
In a group you just fly formation behind the missile that's calling the targets.

If you haven't teamworked a striker valk, then you haven't played

And the prowler?
You get double shotting turbo mode man!
And the shield? That is a super unique mechanic. I've seen prowlers projecting that thing into the door of a powerhouse building with a stack of engies outside and a stack of heavies inside.

C'mon man. TR and NC have great toys.

The vanu get... the magrider.

Damn right! The strongest flying A2A thing.

TR toys: Striker, Vulcan
NC toys: Gauss SAW, Phoenix, Reaver (IMO highest A2A potential),
VS toys: Betelgeuse (IMO useless), Magrider, Lancer (works in group)

Give more toys for TR, NC and VS! For example Flamethrower for TR HAs.
Mobile anti infantry turret for NC (e.g. AI turret on wheels + engineer, lasts 10 sec).
Front Shield for heavy assault class (the same blue shield like NC maxes have) for all factions.

The Prowler is a no purpose vehicle currently. It just shoots more than a Lightening but at an expense of being almost triple the size and with high cost.
The TR MAX is great just the faction ability is so stupid...You use a MAX to break through enemy defenses, why on earth would you want to stand still with this dumb pose lol?

Rampart shield is so bad on the Prowler but the concept is actually good, unique and could work well with the Flash quad bike.
The TR quad bike should receive a rework:

-Remove cloak, it's good if you want to be an annoying *****.
-Allow the Flash to deploy. Share no deploy zone with the Sunderer.
-After deploying the Rampart Shield will activate giving the vehicle the exact same effect as it does now - Shield from small arms damage, and reduce direct damage.

-Only thing I would change with the shield is make it smaller (main purpose is to shield from sniper fire) and fixed to the weapon so it rotates with the gun 360 degrees.

This could prove useful as a cheap defensive vehicle.
And lastly goes very well with the TR traits: Military production and firepower.
It would be pulled more often if it would have this unique purpose.

Every faction should have at least one (better would be 2-3) unique mechanic taht is impactufl and felt, like heat. If they all had something really prevalent, the minor flavours would from around that and make for a better faction feeling for everyone.

The Prowler was a decent defensive vehicle, the TR MAX unique ability is useless cause the MAX shouldn't be purchased for defensive purposes.
Basically if TR is supposed to have some defensive aspects to them, then I think the Flash concept would work out well.

This deployable Flash idea would also be a good combo with another Implant concept I had in the past.
I used to do a lot of construction and I noticed that it's mainly missing AT weapons.
So, I had an idea of an Implant (Engineer specific) that would increase the time before the despawning of your unowned vehicles to 25 - 30 min.

For example if you spawn a second vehicle, your last vehicle/s would despawn after a couple of seconds. I would like it if this despawn time increased to 25 - 30 minutes, with a max number of 6 vehicles.
With construction, together with vehicles you would be able to create some great defensive positions and new creative base designs.

And I guess if you switch class or just remove this Implant from your loadout, this effect will be removed and all your vehicles will despawn.


This idea would also make construction bases more viable, because the owner would then be able to chain pull their upgraded tanks, and park them somewhere nearby for allies to pick up.
The players spawning at construction bases are most of the time noobs that don't have many upgrades.
Currently it's a complete waste to spawn and defend Player made bases.

TR and NC have their own special mechanic guns like the Dragoon and the Charger. They're unpopular for a reason. It's much more expedient to simply shoot your opponent in the face with a gun that doesn't do anything "weird".

I'd rather shoot my enemy to death fast or hard than go into every engagement trying to figure out how to apply my gimmick.

This however, I agree with. I still wonder what would have happened if they had removed ammo from the entire VS faction and given them otherwise average guns that had no reload or bullet drop, then balanced the other two factions around that. Although in order for that to work they would have had to embrace the asymmetric balance concept a lot harder than what they ended up doing.

I completely agree. I think it's beyond past time that the TR and NC got fun, engaging yet not explicitly game-breaking mechanics similar to the VS having Heat-based ammunition. The game is begging for increased asymmetric balance but when you have one faction with fun stuff, and everyone else almost exclusively uses NS weapons, you've got a major problem.

It's not only the absurd imbalance of VS infantry weapons and general boringness of TR and NC infantry weapons - in a game that devolved it's combat into 90% infantry inside buildings instead of combined arms. By now the problem existed for so long, that some portion of the better players have gravitated towards the VS just for the Betelgeuse which negatively affected average faction skill balance.

The devs had a chance to fix part of the issue with the Doku weapons, but they didn't.
The Doku weapons for TR are mostly "different damage model" or "underwhelming weapon with unuseable faction flavor".
The NC weapons are equally bland - if I hadn't looked it up I still would not know what their specials are because those just don't matter in most situations.
Meanwhile VS got: Unstable ammo - incredibly helpful for players with bad aim. Another gun that profits immensely from heat. An Anchor ripoff. A carbine with effectively zero cone of fire.

I wouldn't even mind if VS got the fancy stuff, as long as TR and NC got usefully flavored stuff too.
Imagine things like the Butcher having a 3 second reload per 50 bullets. 150 magazine size stays. Ammo reserve up to 1000.
Imagine the Godsaw having normal magazine size and the AP rounds would be an underbarrel instead of the same ammo and doubling as emergency switch against infantry when running out of ammo in the main magazine.

It's about time the NC and TR get something and VS gets the garbage to level the playing field.

Afterburner for Vanguard. I don't mind.

Examples, please. Preferably with numbers

I beg your pardon? Some of the best guns in the game come from the TR and NC Doku lineups. The Kindred is the best carbine by a long shot and the Vanquisher is similarly powerful but has better competition. The only category the VS clearly had "the best" in was Battle Rifles with the Obelisk, and that one is a lot closer to its competition than the other two are.

Gee that's one apiece, sure sounds like bias to me.

To combine with the heavies running strikers to present the most formidable AA threat in the entire game.

....and then take it for granted and never do it. LOL!

HAHA the Kindred.

Folks this is THE OP weapon of the game. Just nobody knows it because it doesn't show up right in the numbers.

It's a spin down but if you are using any gun right you are bursting anyway and literally won't notice. (It's full speed for 7 rounds. Burst varies on range 3-5)

Net result... Basically an 800 RPM 167 damage model carbine.

I'm working on some black camo directive and have other guns to work though. Cannot wait to get back to this thing. It's completely sick.

I'd rather have nanite repair systems or the fire suppression than use lockdown, it's not a good ability and reducing your mobility without gaining a defensive benefit is not a great trade off.

*698 rpm

Kindred has still around 3.5% less maximum damage per second than the Serpent or GD7F.

Lasher kills almost as many people as the Banshee on a daily basis. Except A2G costs nanites and has far less impact on most fights than infantry. https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?stat=kills&category=all&weapons=4906,7540
Or lets compare it to the Thumper. Which can be used on ALL factions instead of just one. Same amount of kills tho. https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...06332&startDate=2019-05-23&endDate=2020-10-20

Betelgeuse usually kills around twice the amount of people daily than the other factions' directive LMGs combined.
https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?stat=kills&category=all&weapons=1894,1924,1879

Since fights in this game revolve around capturing or holding points most of the time and almost all points are inside buildings, VS has the best option for high and low skilled players.
High skilled players will use the Betelgeuse, because it has virtually no downtime. It never has to reload. It "prints ammo" at up to 7 times the rate max ammo printer does on the Orion. If it's close to overheating, switching to secondary or medkit allows the user to stay in combat, and in the meantime the weapon cools down and is useable again. The downside of having no attachments plays almost no role. The Betelgeuse is accurate enough from the hip, and the forward grip isn't needed in typical engagement ranges inside buildings - especially for a skilled user who knows how to burst and can handle a straight upward recoil with low shake.
The Lasher is the opposite. The only skill required to use the Lasher is being able to distinguish between a wall and a door. It enables low skilled players to easily hold doors they wouldn't otherwise be able to hold - everyone who wants to enter that door already lost HP and is an easier target. In bigger fights with multiple Lashers the effort to push through a door is a lot higher than against other weapons, and compared to the required skill for the Lasher is certainly too high.

The issue with the Doku weapons for TR and NC is, that most of the faction flavor is useless.
BX-Adapter on the Jackal is useless because of the chargeup. It's like if the Yumi was a shotgun with a magazine size of 1.
Impact Ammo on the Watchman, will absolutely best case, reduce the amount of bullets needed to kill a target from 10 to 9 on long ranges. At the cost of 20% magazine size.
Vanquisher Ammo types are too situational to be of any use.
Promise special is being more accurate the longer it's firing. And firing for extended amounts of time while having to maintain line of sight to the target is essentially yelling to the other enemies to please kill the dude moving with a 50% penalty and giving away his exact position.
It comes down to the Doku weapons having different damage models, but they have nothing that really sticks out for TR and NC. They offer nothing that couldn't be done in almost the exact same way with other weapons.

As a mostly HA Vanu player I agree that Lasher is the #1 weapon for defending the doorways. It is extremely effective in groups (e.g. when running platoons). A squad or two of players with Lashers can totally block entrances.
The best Lasher loadout is extended ammo and the ASP token to get heavy weapons instead of pistols.

Betelgeuse isn't that good. From time to time you have to wait a little for your shield and overshield to recharge. This time you can use to reload your "ordinary" LMG. I'll agree to exchange Betelgeuse for Gauss SAW (default NC LMG) it has much more higher killing potential. Unfortunately there is no option to do this.

AND THE STRIKER IS OP !!! You in ESF can't kill a Valk with Striker HAs and one or 2 engineers inside. Even 3 ESFs need luck to kill such a Valk. STRIKER must be nerfed, booo!!!

Vanu players don't play for fun.
Vanu hunts down Fun where it's being had, and crushes it with Overpop that doesn't teamkill itself left and right.

Y'know what the only fun they need is?? When their crosshairs are tracking over heads, and then the bullets all go to that spot instead of dropping or veering off randomly and killing friendlies. If all their guns were as inaccurate as everyone else's (that's not NS) they'd all quit tomorrow and play whatever competing games offer something closer to the Hitscan shooting they're all accustomed to. They need an across the board TTK nerf because their DPS is just too d*mned close to the other 2 factions' DPSs while having even better Upsides.

This is pretty funny

Boo! Seems you've never played for VS. I play for all 3 factions and see, that TMG-50, T32 Bull, Carv, MSW, Gauss SAW, Anchor, Promise are not worse at all compared to VS LMGs: Orion, Flare, Ursa, MAW, LSW, etc.
All 3 factions have access to NS-15 which is great LMG: it has high accuracy, and very low reload time. Fast reload gives a significant advantage in close combat.

During the prime time (19:00-22:00) all 3 factions perform the ~same.