NSOverhaul Progress 6/3/2021

Discussion in 'Official News Feedback' started by Mithril, Jun 3, 2021.

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  1. Mithril Community Manager

    [IMG]

    We're getting closer and closer to one of our largest updates this year, one that drew a lot of community excitement during the announcement back in November. Today we'll take a moment to talk about what's on the way for the Nanite Systems Operative faction.

    Quick stats for what's gone into the revisited NSO faction so far.
    • 2 New Vehicles
    • 4 New Weapon HUD Overlays
    • 4+ New Vehicle Weapon Reticles
    • 6+ UI Screen Updates
    • 11 New Directive Trees
    • 15 New Vehicle Weapons
    • 35 New Infantry Weapons
    • 40+ New Particle Effects
    • 130+ New Sound Effects
    Suffice to say, the team has been hard at work.
    NSO Faction Changes

    In this article we won't be going into too many specifics about the actual equipment (as you'll see articles dedicated to the new vehicles/weapons in the future,) but I did want to run through some of the major mechanics in play for the revisited faction.
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    Free to Play
    The NSO faction was released in 2019 as a members-only benefit, and this continues to be the case today. When the new update goes Live, however, the NSO faction will become free to play. Any account that already has at least one BR20 ranked character will receive a mission to learn more about the faction from a representative on Sanctuary. Doing so will unlock the new faction for you.


    A free to play NSO character is considered to be in a "Freelance" state. Freelance operatives function similarly to how they do now on Live. Each time you deploy onto a continent, you'll be assigned to the lowest populated faction to help balance out player counts.


    Freelance characters will not be able to join Outfits, and NSO characters will no longer be able to create Outfits themselves. All NSO Outfits will also be dissolved once this updates hits Live. We weighed our options here, and setting up free-to-play characters in this way gave us the cleanest distinction between what it means to be aligned to a faction, and fighting as a freelancer. This decision wasn't made lightly, and I'll understand if it feels bittersweet for the handful of NSO outfits that have found some success.

    Selecting a Home Faction
    All Access Members on NSO characters will now be able to align themselves with either VS, NC, or TR factions on a semi-permanent basis and be able to join an outfit in that faction. One of the main complaints surrounding NSO as a faction, aside from its limited arsenal, is that players wanted to be able to play with friends and outfitmates. This goes a long way toward addressing that complaint. Players aligned with factions can still opt into Freelance mode (for example, if you just want faster queue times or none of your friends are online,) on a temporary basis, while retaining allegiance to your Outfit. Additionally, you can also switch home factions by acquiring a new enlistment contract on Sanctuary. You'll need to leave your current Outfit in order to switch factions, however.

    Directives
    With the update, NSO will receive directives that bring it in line with the way each other faction operates, so players will see new Assault Rifle, SMG, MAX, Javelin, etc directives. This did leave the original Auraxium directive weapons in a bit of a weird spot, however. We've decided to allow these Auraxium weapons to become a legacy gift for the players who were able to grind them out before the update. Non-Auraxium variants of these weapons may end up in the Black Market at some point as well. I imagine this announcement might cause a rush to grind out these directives, but I want to stress that folks should do so legitimately (no stat padding, please) or risk losing their characters. You've got some time.

    Bug Fixes and Testing Cycle
    We've been addressing various bugs related to NSO since the start of the year, and while that list has gotten a fair bit shorter than it was, there's still plenty more left to do. When this update releases, we should have most of (hopefully all of?) the NSO-related bugs reported by the community resolved.


    As with the Containment Site update, we'll be reaching out to form another closed testing group before opening it up to the public. This helps us find any show-stoppers before the community-at-large is forced to deal with them, and allows us to more easily target specific areas for testing and feedback gathering.

    New and Improved Arsenal
    Gone are the days of only having access to common pool weapons. With the NSOverhaul, an arsenal of infantry weapons will be added with visuals and traits unique to NSO as a faction. Two new vehicles will also make their way into the NSO lineup, the Chimera Battle Tank, and the Dervish Heavy Fighter. You'll hear more about these in later articles.


    We'll also be revisiting the Javelin and allowing it to equip weapons, as well as changing the silhouette of the Defector and expanding its arsenal a bit.

    --
    While we still have loads of work ahead of us, we'll be entering the testing cycle (likely) within the next two weeks. From there we'll have a better read on how much longer it'll be before the NSOverhaul hits Live.
    Thanks, folks.
    -Wrel, Lead Designer
    --
    We are looking forward to your feedback on today's NSO Progress update!
    Hit that reply and share your thoughts below.
    • Up x 2
  2. B-96

    I don't think it's a good idea for NSO to be unable to sign up and create an outfit just because they're freelancers.
    The outfit abilities are already being utilized in this game to an extent that cannot be ignored.
    I think freelance NSO should be able to create an NSO-only outfit, and a membership NSO that chooses a faction should be able to create a faction outfit.
    In fact, even if they don't choose a faction, freelance NSO can play together among themselves.
    SolTech VS always maintains a population ratio of the late 20%.
    • Up x 5
  3. OneShadowWarrior

    This is very exciting news!

    It’s what I have said for years. A goldmine of a fresh fourth faction that you guys can build and expand with your own signature on it.

    So much station cash can go into so much of the stuff you guys build from players. Looks like fun.
  4. RiP0k

    I'm glad there will be a full-fledged sub-faction. But I started playing NC in early 2013 and have never tried playing for other factions. So I will not go over to any other factions. It is dear to me.
    And as for the update itself. It seems to me that the other factions should not be deprived of attention. It would be nice to add a new weapon pack (or better (new class)) or a new technique for all factions. So that everyone has a holiday.
  5. Erosion139

    I believe it is a good idea to remove the NSO outfits and opt for allowing them to join faction outfits when they go out of freelance mode. The two modes is a good solution to the problem and for the most part satisfies the likes of both sides. I am so very interested in seeing what the MBT is like. I hope it plays some sort of support artillery role, in that the shots have massive arcing paths. However OP that might be, I just want to see more vehicles. Am hyped!
    • Up x 1
  6. Tungston

    For the Defector, I've put a lot of time into playing it and have some thoughts.. It may have been a bit OP to allow it to take points on it's own, however, it currently has a pretty limited roll to play in the game so I though it was too soon to take that ability away without giving it something in return. I think giving access to the kinetic and ordinance armor would have been a good trade off, as one possibility. Also, I've essentially auraxiumed the defectors one and only weapon 3 times over now, so it would be nice to get some other options. In the short term, maybe give it access to the bursters and gorgons so it can help with long range armor and air threats. Oh, as the time bomb.. it's too weak to be useful given what a player gives up by using it. It could probably use a bigger blast radius. and giving us the first 2 seconds of the timer to shut if off in cases of accidental triggering would be nice.
  7. Cheffeke

    Honnestly, it's been a while since I haven't been excited by an announced update. Regarding the previous ones:

    - By a first look, Bastion and Colossus look fun. But regarding long term, it has totally lost interest or related to rare events only (You said initially a specific skin for the ESF pulled from the Bastion itself, what about ?...). Feel unfinished anyway. Definitely need an update to play it like in Battlefield 2142, it would add more interest for infantry players (whom are the majority in PS2).
    - Wasn't excited by campaign result, but let's say I do respect the try there, and I understand it.
    - Containment sites have definitely broken Esamir by being easely defendable with 30 to 35% pop (and it was already broken since the shattered wg due to the massive lack of laticed and number of facilities to cap - like around 40 instead of 80 to 90 for other continents).

    These days, playing on Esamir and Indar (the freeze of Ti Alloys have done worst than expected effecton the battlefield due to the impact on latice links) is everything but fun. For our outfit ops days, we generally announce on our outfit discord like 30 minutes in advance the continent we'll play on. If we announce Esamir of Indar, we've a drop of players coming for the ops.And there is a very big issue, for my team, but also for the game itself.

    So coming back to NSOverhaul, as I said, I'm excited (a bit, let's stay stoic) and very curious. Glad you followed the wish about having premium the choice to join a faction and play for an outfit. Their addition in a real outfit squad will bring a serious new open field of squad compositions and combo due tu NSO equipment and specific Defector. THIS will be finally a blast for me I'm waiting since a while. And giving the opportunity for not premium to play NSO as well is a good thing.
    For sure, the first months, we'll see most likely NSO everywhere, but it will be only for the beginning.

    Next step, please, care the battlefields. It's a need to do something on Esamir and Indar. Esamir need definitely more facilities OR vehicule cap point, whatever you want. Some facilities take insame hexa-space no the map that could be cut a bit. And for Indar, if you have no other solution, I vote for re-opening Ti-Alloys, seriously.
    With only 4 maps (the same 4 since ages), it's definitely an important topic.
    • Up x 1
  8. Shortpower

    NSO should at least get a bot led outfit so they have some semblance of community available to them.
    Not allowing NSO outfits (especially considering there is literally already communities built around them) seems like an awful decision.
    • Up x 6
  9. JustGotSuspended


    So just to clarify, from what I understand if a player has reached BR20, a little "mission" will pop up and take him to the sanctuary, where he'll unlock a 5th (f2p) character slot upon talking to the representative.

    Is this going to be a slot restricted to NSO character creation, or just another regular character slot? Either seems fine, although restricting it to NSO might encourage players to join NSO, and also encourage purchase of more character slots if they want to have more characters on other factions.


    Perhaps the most controversial announcement in this post, and for good reason. This brings about a multitude of issues:
    1. Free to play NSOs will no longer earn merit or have access to the tactical slot?
    2. Currently paying members will lose access to their outfit and resources on NSO, and not be able to create one - even on the faction they choose?
    3. Every time a paying member wants to switch factions, their loyalty and merit is reset?
    I don't feel this was the best way to go about it. At least not through such a brutal transition. I would keep NSO outfits, simply so players can generate merit or group themselves as "mercenaries". For the paying members, I would create a system where they can associate with an outfit on each faction (if they choose not to join an NSO outfit). So for example, if we have a paying NSO which chooses to go on VS, they play under outfit X. When they switch to NC, they are associated with outfit Y. When they are TR, they fight for outfit Z. They aren't kicked out of each outfit when they switch factions, their characters don't lose merit or anything. They simply are associated with 3 separate outfits. A big reason why this would be fine is because many outfits already have alternate outfits on other factions. Also it would be much more practical for the paying member.

    I mean the whole point of paying to be NSO was so you get to choose which faction to play. If you need to reset loyalty and merit and keep joining/leaving outfits to do so, it's kind of a big hassle that mitigates the advantage of being able to pick factions. Might as well just log on to an NC/TR/VS character respectively.

    I don't feel this was the best decision either. These directive weapons were quite possibly the best designed in the game to be "directive weapons". I'm sure the new ones will be cool too, and I wish every directive weapon of every faction would get an overhaul to make them as satisfying/rewarding to unlock and play with.

    But what we have here are weapons that have already been tested and loved by the community. I would find a way to keep them as directives. Either have them as secondary directives (keep the same requirements/directive trees as now) on top of the new ones that will be added. OR add them as directives of directives. For example upon auraxing V,W,X,Y,Z new directive weapons, you unlock these "old" directive weapons as one big bundle. That way the f2p players who were eager to test them and the paying players who were working towards them can still get them.

    Perhaps even add a much need "knife" directive tree to unlock these directives? Or the auraxium slasher?

    I agree with the legacy gift to players who stuck to NSO until it became f2p. But give them something like a cool camo, helmet, armor or even a flare gun or something. Create something for them, don't just lock access to directive weapons everyone enjoyed and wanted to try out! We don't want them to constantly be getting pms of "what a kappa" only to reply "sorry dude, you'll never be able to unlock it". There's a lot of "rare" weapons out there that I feel frustrate players because they are impossible to get. Like the NS-TMC-01, Recruiter edition tank weapons, and more. Give everyone a chance to unlock these weapons, just make it more of a challenge to unlock it if you want to make them more "rare". Maybe make them DBC exclusive. But don't deny the majority of the playerbase access to them, it's frustrating!

    This I really like. It will give some more importance to A7 and the market, asides from the bizarre forgotten "meme" it currently is. However it's also a reason we need to keep the directives for the NSOs, so they can get the auraxium variant instead of the basic A7 variants everyone on all factions will have access to.

    I also have one question regarding a rumor I heard. Will NSO operatives be healed and revived only by engineers, not medics?

    Asides from these concerns it seems promising, the majority of the issues seem to be getting resolved, and I'm surprised it's almost ready to be on PTS. So good work, I guess we'll soon find out how it plays on the test server, but I would definitely recommend looking into the outfit and old directive weapons, which are the 2 major red flags I take away from this post.

    Thanks for clearly sharing the update in a nice format and allowing people to share concerns, it really makes a difference.

    Props to the team!
    • Up x 6
  10. Accolgate

    I spoke to my pals in my outfit, and some friends, we're all very excited for this update.
    I think this will really spark some life into the game for all of us, we've been talking about the rumors of this update on and off for months.
    I think this is really cool personally.

    I think its a shame you guys didnt go the way of "NSO premium players queue to play any faction when they want"
    and NSO for outfits would be NSO only outfits, kinda keeping the merc feeling whilst allowing nso fits to play together.
    But i also understand that it'd eliminate the desire to play any empire other than NSO for a loooooooot of people.

    Cheers, awesome work guys, i look forward to playing with it, me and the guys were really excited reading this news.
  11. Liewec123

    a bit disappointed about the outfit loss.
    i have a solofit for my NSO with a few colossus tanks and a whole heap of javelins, gonna miss being able to summon down a javelin.

    i like the idea above about factionless NSOs atleast being able to join NSOnly outfits.

    glad to see defector finally getting a new model and weapons.
    (i'm personally hoping that the finished version will look something like Ymir mechs from mass effect!)
    [IMG]

    also do you know if the javelin hitbox bug is getting fixed? currently if you try to shoot over the seat the hitbox is way higher,
    i love to use javelin as mobile cover and it'd be great if the hitbox of the seat matched the seat itsself!
    • Up x 3
  12. BlackFox

    Sounds great and all, but without a balance update it's nothing else than running around as robot skinned target for Infiltrators and A2G farmers
    • Up x 2
  13. Horst1375

    I'm a nso vet because I like to play with my friends on all fractions
    and with these changes they will take the complete reason for NSO TO EXIST

    If I could only join 1 outfit anyways why should I even play nso ?
    I would lose all my armory and merit stuff if I switch ...
    Playing 3 characters at the same time would feel more like nso than actually playing them

    I would rather have my old weapons than a (even more) broken fraction
    they COULD add the new outfit system as a possibility and not destroy nso as it is working right now


    Or at least give (membership)Freelance Nso's still the rights to their outfit (even if on the other side, like it is now)

    BTW the new weapons and vehicles are a good idea, but this outfit thing is really killing it
    I can't wait to get kicked out of my own outfit because my membership run out . . .
    • Up x 2
  14. Myxomorph

    I'm ok with most of this. Scrapping my outfit is slightly annoying due to throwing away all my loyalty and armory stuff, it's not the end of the world for me. I understand DBG probably doesn't like solofits as it kind of defeats the purpose of outfits in general. All the cool new stuff should make up for it though (fingers crossed for a pump action shotgun)

    Most of my gripes with NSO are aesthetic and aren't mentioned here, but ill give my 2c anyway:
    I hate all the BROWN on the NSO covering up all my camo that I paid for, but I especially feel like Defectors don't fit aesthetically with their role, their faction, or PS2 as a whole. The hobbly sparking spiky robot motif doesn't portray their weaponry or Seraph Shield well, doesn't fit in with the sleeker NSO infantry, and doesn't stack up well against the other MAX units in the game, which look way more badass. Someone said they are getting a revised model already, I just hope its more imposing, and not too brown.
  15. zerotheliger

    please dont remove nso outfits. thats actually gonna kill the faction for me. ill just stick to the 3 empires instead cause atleast i can still have a community there.
    • Up x 3
  16. SgtBlacksmith


    Please reconsider this decision! I see no reason that the current NSO directive reward weapons can't be retained as the rewards for the Assault Rifle, SMG, etc. directives. They are very unique and interesting, totally deserving of those award tiers. Bringing them back as non-Auraxium variants will simply be painful to many members of the community. Many players enjoy collecting items, and this message means to them that they must burn themselves out grinding through NSO directives with a strict time limit. If they fail to complete a directive before the update, they'll never be able to get those items. This is not healthy for the game or its players! Fear of missing out is a very real thing, and (even though it's probably unintentional) this message will stoke that fear amongst the player base.

    I would recommend immediately making a follow-up post which makes it clear that the NSX-A weapons will not be unobtainable after the NSO Overhaul goes live.

    I am not personally interested in trying to unlock the NSX-A weapons before the update comes, as it's simply too much work (I don't have a single auraxium yet...). However, I would still be greatly disappointed if they became impossible to acquire. I'm quite loyal to the TR so I'm waiting on the possibility of locking my NSO character to the TR before investing much in it, so it would be personally frustrating if I grew attached to my NSO character and were unable to unlock these weapons, even if a poor man's version of them were later added to the A7 shop or what have you. Those are my sincere thoughts.
    • Up x 4
  17. SgtBlacksmith


    This seems like a poor solution. NSO characters aligned with an empire can join outfits, but freelance (F2P!) characters can't? Free to play players need outfits more-so than paying players do. Getting players integrated into the community of the game is incredibly important for new player retention. If new players decide to try out the NSO faction, they may come to think there simply is no community in this game!

    The best solution in my eyes would be to leave NSO outfits alone, but restrict their membership to freelance characters, while aligned NSO characters can join the outfits of the empire they're aligned with. This way, no player is denied access to the community aspect of the game.

    I am personally interested in building an NSO outfit once the overhaul hits, and to simply make that an impossibility would be... painful. Please reconsider.
    • Up x 2
  18. SoulSkorpion

    Making NSO free to play is, I think, an excellent thing, and far too long coming. Making people pay to balance the teams for you was probably one of the dumbest decisions DBG ever made.
  19. rajawaya

    Noobs when they first start out wont be able to join the NSO faction, they will have to complete the mission that becomes available at battle rank 20 and then create and use a NSO character after that. It's simply that most noobs joining the game wont even know the mission or the faction exists except for hearsay or other means.
  20. JustGotSuspended

    Or can noobs bypass this battle rank requirement by buying membership?

    Are people with membership granted NSOs as default or do they also have to go through the same process of unlocking the faction as "new" f2p players/accounts?
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