Are NS sidearms too good?

But only if the lone wolf meets only one enemy at a time or plays as infiltrator. And who says it isn't earned to outsmart enemies instead of pushing with superior numbers? Saying that one player overcomes "dozen of enemies" is also quite the exaggeration

Sounds like an excuse not to try anything new. Of course it's a problem with infantry combat mechanics - flanking for example is less effective when groups of enemies have way more time to react to the flanking. The moment you shoot at somebody from the side his buddies will gun you down before you can archive the kill.

Instant death would indeed be gamebreaking -Call of Duty for example has the critique of way too low TTK. My point is that a lot of guns aren't effective enough to be used in a surprise attack.That's one of those mechanics used in duel heavy games, the ability to avoid the initial combat, turn around and start a dodge dance duel of death.
I can do that, the enemy can do that - and in smaller fights it's really fun, sadly it doesn't scale well into the bigger fights where there is neither room nor the opportunity to fight only one enemy

And again an exaggeration - It would be a problem if it's OHK damage, which it shouldn't and doesn't need to be. A bit more damage would make it easier to take/defend chokepoints, simply because it gets easier to decimate the defenders/attackers. The only thing that would break are the 30+ minute stalemates that require either an MAX or an Infiltrator rush to get anywhere

Certain strategies would become useful for once. What are the strongest strategies currently? Infiltrator flooding, MAX rushes and C4 dropping Light Assaults. Oh, and Infiltrators can't do that? I saw two infiltrators taking a whole base alone because they had a very easy time constantly slicing 12 people at the cappoint. And how many of those 3 people survive tha attack? If the room isn't filled with a bunch of newbies they will get outgunned.

And no, clearing a room with an automatic weapon takes longer than using high damage guns instead - simply because it takes a lot of hits with guns that are innaccurate and have small magazine capacities. If we take the default 30 bullet magazine with 143 DMG /bullet as basis:
30/4 headshots per enemy = 7 dead enemies when all bullets hit the heads (takes very long due to messy recoil mechanics)
30/8 bodyshots (average number) = 3 dead enemies and one at half heath (if all bullets hit)
Numbers change due to combination of body- and headshots. The biggest factor is the amount of guns used. That's why zerging is the single most effective strategy

Unique doesn't mean good though, the only unique feature is the big player numbers per battle - and as already mentioned, it doesn't work that well with the current gun mechanics that favor duels. That there is no limit on vehicles for example is the reason why the Infantry needs effective AT/AA weapons (the rocket launchers aren't effective) to counter them.
And the completely different weapon mechanics and abilities are the whole point of all of this - they don't support the whole concpet the game follows mostly.

The recoil is a whole other point, it's ridiculous for any type of shooter - they have a complicated calculation for horizontal recoil on top of CoF. A lot of randomness is involved instead of reliable patterns.
You're right that arena shooters don't have such recoil, availability of weapons and vehicles... now why does Planetside copy the gunfight mechanics of them? That's the crucial question.

The closest comparison I could make would be the "Warfare" mode from Unreal Tournament 3, just with lousy movement, too many players and inaccurate guns.

I don't really know the difference to be honest, RPGs aren't my cup of tea.

What I know is that there are several types of RPGs though:
- Action RPGs (Dark Souls, TERA, Skyrim, Fallout 3 and upwards)
- Round based combat (earlier Final Fantasy games, Fallout 1 + 2)
- Monster tamers (Pokemon, Digimon)
- Whatever the type of WoW, Dragon Age Origins or The Secret World is called
etc.

Each type has basic mechanics that were developed for them to work - if WoW would turn into an action RPG it would need to change core mechanics to make it work, a Dark Souls in the style of Diablo would need a mechanic change as well. Or imagine a pure FPS out of Fallout - it would have to change certain aspects to make that work.

That's the same case for Planetside, they have the frame of a class-shooter with mixed military branches but filled the core with arena shooter mechanics (mostly gunplay, the cruicial part of a shooter)

The game isn't like other shooters indeed, because it's in an identity crisis. (See everything above)

Bringing the guns more in line with the Class-shooter concept would improve the game. Going from 7 to 9 body shots down to 6 for a kill and from 4 to maybe 3 headshots would fasten the firefights and make the famous big fights more flexible.
Going a bit less bonkers with the recoil in favor of reliable patterns makes the game more competitive.
And increasing effective range of automatic weapon by lesser bullet- and damage drop in combination with higher bullet velocity could break the necessity to get into a metaphorical huggin distance to the enemy.

I have two examples for good weapons at hand:
The Gladius SMG (NC) and the Arbalest assault rifle (TR), with their special ammo upgrades they are very effective guns and fit the Battlefield style frame of the game. The DMG of the Gladius (or NC typical weapons in general) should become the default of all automatics, paired with longer effective range like the Arbalest has (of course with dropping value over distance paired with the damage)

I'm an older player. I don't have the time to keep my skills honed and blow someone's head off while turning the corner like I used to, so my entire playstyle is based on not trying to compete with the skills I no longer have but by outsmarting my enemies. I know how to flank, and I know that the reward for flanking is more than powerful enough. Done correctly you can still kill several people, hell if you hit the jackpot you can clear an entire room by yourself right now. By cheapening how easy it is to kill players you do not reward flankers but give them the keys to the game.
If the lone-wolf meets more people he will benefit far more from having easy kills than their opponents. Their opponents need to be more careful how they shoot in case they hit one another, however you can simply open fire. If he is a fraction earlier than his opponents he can easily kill 2 or even 3 people in quick succession. Weapons with deep magazines and high ROF would become the defacto best weapons in the game.

There is a challenge in fighting multiple enemies at the same time, yes. That challenge needs to stay. It is far from impossible, in fact because you have more health you can accomplish such tasks as you don't die almost immediately when others get the bead on you (with a few exceptions). SMG Infiltrators are already kings of this type of combat, where you appear, murder one or two people and dissapear to recover and reload, then attack the next player(s) that come along. It's a dance of control, cover and predicting what your enemy is going to do and cheapening that to allow you to kill half a dozen or more in quick succession just because you managed to aim first is not the way to go. A lone wolf is already powerful, however having to cooperate with others nearby should be key here. The game needs to tools to let players easily team up and flank simultaneously, I've used discord with friends to flank enemies and clear entire rooms with just 2 people. You might say that "killing dozens" is an exaggeration but it is pretty much what you are advocating.

30+minute stalemates are the best battles. It means that there is a challenge, something to attack again and again to see if you can break it. Making it a cheap "well he got in a good flank once so now enough people are dead and my allies can instantly capture the entire thing" is not a good way to shorten battles. And again it will exacerbate certain scenario's. Capturing a chokepoint would only be possible through a flank, and that flank would be far too powerful once it succeeds.

And you want to make it easier for them? This is a perfect argument for my case: Don't make it easier. Don't make it cheaper to kill players.

Zerging is the most effective because there aren't any better tools available to work together. Making it cheap to kill many players quickly does not solve this, all it does is increase the frustration factor whenever you are killed by something or someone that you never had a chance to react against because you died before the latency system caught up.
I also don't see a valid point in "automatic weapons take longer than high damage guns". You are arguing for shotguns right? It takes longer for shotguns as you need to spend more time getting in close even during the battle, misses are far more punishing for your DPS and once you get in that fight you have to finish it there and then, rather than have the option of retreating and using the terrain and features your class have to your advantage and recuperate while taking down more.

Unique doesn't mean good, but it doesn't mean that using the run-of-the-mill crap is right for it either. PS2's problems do not stem from it's infantry combat mechanics, but the lack of small-scale cooperative mechanics, the bad reward systems encouraging farms and going for the easiest kills, the bad gameplay flow between fights, the encouragements to grief and zerg in order to capture bases rather than have a solid fight and the bad balance between infantry, tanks&aircraft are all the problems. PS2's gunplay is one of it's few saving graces.

You don't realize that arena shooters lack random mechanics most of the time or have tightly controlled randomized mechanics? For example almost every weapon in the UT arsenal is perfectly predictable.

As for randomness, it is controlled randomness. You get the information you need to figure out how much misses you'll get, what distances to fight at. This combination of COF and recoil is also what helps define what range weapons are good at. This is one of the reasons why PS2's combat is so much better, as it adds the need to not always hit the fire button as fast as possible. The range and randomized recoil+COF can determine if you want to fire single shots, 2-shot bursts, 3-shot bursts etc. There are some weapons where at around 30m I'll fire 6 or 7 bullets at at time, others at the same distance I'll fire bursts of 3. It all depends, and that makes PS2's combat much more engaging as you are constantly looking for when your weapons are effective enough to get the job done without giving the fight to your enemy.

If your only expectations are based on other games rather than the experience the gunplay itself has to offer then what value do your points have? You are arguing for the grass is greener, without realizing that chemically painting PS2's grass to the same color will only kill the grass.

You don't seem to know how shooters work. Figure that out first before using them as "examples".

No, you simply try to force PS2 in a genre it does not belong to. Even if you were right, mixing and matching mechanics is what makes games. WOW became popular because it took the best elements of previous RPG's and mixed them together to form it's gameplay. A game like SuperHot mixes "turn" based strategy with FPS mechanics and resource management by only moving when you move, allowing you to strategize your moves and try to dodge shots or prioritize in a way you would normally not have time for. Mixing and matching is what can make or break a game. You argue that PS2's combat is arena based, I don't know why because that's not the case, but considering it's MMOFPS structure it is one of the few great decisions of the game to let it work like it does.

Class-based shooters like Overwatch, where all players have increased health to make sure that their classes can actually affect the world as opposed to purely their DPS and gunplay? In Overwatch it can take 20 bullets to take down many of the opponents. Are you really sure you have an idea of what shooters are and how they work? You have the wrong idea about Arena shooters and Class shooters, by the way Overwatch is also pretty much an arena shooter in it's setup. A great example of mixing and matching mechanics again, as COF and abilities and all that good stuff is mixed to try and get the result they want.

It already is reliable. Every shot you make you know how much COF growth you'll get. The recoil is harder to predict, but overall not disturbingly so and is a great additional way to add something players can try to control. If two players go up against each other and one is better at predicting and countering recoil while the other has a better understanding of the COF growth based on the weapon of choice and distance they fight at, there is no knowing perfectly who will come out on top. This is perfect as it allows players from different backgrounds and different skills to compete with one another without one immediately being blatantly superior, like many (not all) arena shooters have.

"Cheapen the loadout selection and knowledge necessary to use the available guns" is what you mean.

Yeah no.

The factor that the flanker would also be more vulnerabel is missing in all of this, if he gets spotted or expected the whole flanking move won't be successful at all. And it would spread the battle from one concentrated chokepoint to a more dynamic frontline if more people would actually try to flank

Infiltrators already have it easy with all the weapons they have access to. Giving the common infantry guns more punch would make it harder for them to cloak and run away

Not only shotguns - Revolvers, the Pilot pistol and Battle Rifles also are superior. I have no problem to simply outgun MG wielders with a battle rifle. That's what I mean, the MGs are mostly suboptimal as they don't have the specific assault rifle advantages - they lack the range of a rifle and the additional punch of such calibres compared to SMGs . Compared to the ingame statstics they have more range than SMGs, but the overall range for every automatic weapon isn't scaled well for the environment

It's all connected to the issue that the majority of weapons lack firepower (not only damage wise). Easy kills, farms etc. are a result of the diffculty to get kills the normal way in the big battles. The bad gameplay flow is, like I said, s symptom from the lacking efficency of the common infantry guns. The only way to break a tie is to go full meta and spam MAXes, vehicles or Infiltrators. Spawn killing would be less effective if the ones camping have higher risks of getting shot from inside.

Same goes for infantry/vehicle balance. The rocket launchers are only a threat when used in masses and the AA is designed to scare away aircrafts instead of taking them out. In a way the rocket launchers have the same issues that the automatic weapons have - mostly low projectile velocity, heavy projectile drop and not enough initial damage . (If I had to name a real life pendant I would say PIAT - the british AT weapon from World War 2)

I do realize that. I actually mentioned that the recoil is stupid for the duel heavy nature of most guns (IIRC)

Where in the game is the tab that tells me which initial horizontal recoil angle a weapon has? Or the numerical possibilty ratio of direction change while firing? (Honest question, maybe I just didn't find it yet). Randomness in terms of recoil is something that shouldn't determine the outcome of a fight, no matter how controlled that is.
The direction changing for the horizontal recoil for example can throw off the aim a lot, because it simply can't be predicted to a constant degree when it happens. That's quite unnecessary with the CoF in place and changing that for a constant number could at least give the guns a better feeling due to learnable patterns.

It's not really an expectation, it's the simple concept of taking a peek at the competition and common stuff that is the basic of a certain type of shooters. Planetside would still be unique without trying to re-invent mechanics by throwing different design choices in a blender.

I don't say that it's Arena shooter based, I said that it's Class-shooter based with Arena shooter concepts. Mostly the duel factor of infantry firefights, best visible when facing only one or a small group of players in a battle. Planetside as 16 vs 16 / 20 vs 20 game with some of the bases as maps would work great and those small encounters are quite fun. That doesn't scale into the huge battles, because those don't provide the chance for duels to happen that often and lead to just some luck kills once in a while.

Allow me to correct that: Overwatch is a Hero-shooter, a sub-type of arena shooters. In the classic arena games choosing a character was only a cosmetical choice. Overwatch, and recently Quake Champions, gave the characters individual abilities. Class shooters are usually the ones where players are just common soldiers (Battlefront/Battlefield, the first Team Fortress).

That only applies to vertical recoil (it usually goes up) - horizontal recoil has a somewhat complicated formula that makes it very hard to predict and therefor to counter. Especially TR trait weapons show this, as faster fire = faster direction change. Combine the horizontal recoil with the CoF increase that's bound to happen while dodging bullets at the same time as trying to hit a moving target and it shows that using the run of the mill automatic guns is suboptimal at best.

More like make the game more accessable for all players without the need to read online manuals and dying constantly. I played a lot of different shooter games, and there is next to nothing that helps in getting used to Planetside. Using the Sidewinder and Catlike implants on max. level was a good improvement to the usaeage of machine guns, simply because those add the movement speed that comes closer to the arena like fight mechanic of dodging.

Because?

I could go down one by one again, but most of it I quite literally alteady answered, often literally in the quoted part.

The reason that the flanker isn't mentioned is because he does not matter. Right now if you get discovered you are likely screwed, but have a chance to get away or into cover and keep the fight going. That I already mentioned. If it becomes a low-health cheesefest then it's more about who sees who first and fires accurately, as well as getting lucky once to get into a good position and nail half a room. From the flankers side being discovered prematurely is a fraction of the inconvenience, while the flanker succeeding is a massive Fyou to anyone there. This won't create some magical land where everything is OK, it will increase cheesefests as players look for even easier methods to get masses of kills.

And once again your whole "OMG SHOTGUNS" rethoric is one giant bias crying about things it doesn't understand.

"Looks at giant wall of text argument"
Yeah I ain't touching that. I will say that I'd probably side with Demigan on this one. I don't see too many issues with Planetside's gunplay, and improving the potency of a flanking playstyle would only serve to dumb down what tactical nature the game has further - rather than holding points and defending against streams of enemies, a coupld chuckle****s with the right build could just invalidate an entire squad or two of pointholders. You can already possibly kill someone in 2-3 shots with the right gun, making it easier to kill people will only empower those with better aim rather than, say, taking advantage of cover or other tactical options. People already hate that Snipers can one hit kill, and optimal TTKs are already around the half a second range. Giving people the option to reduce them further would only end in tears.

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Regarding the OP, yeah NS Sidearms are pretty damn powerful. Superior Alpha damage, significant rewards for accuracy, decent bodyshot TTKs, effective ranges varying from "better shotgun" to medium distances, the ability to use them on all factions... it adds up into a very effective package. Nerfing them is certainly something that should be considered, but also possibly a buff to the Empire Specific Sidearms. Every faction has sidearms that underperform and could use some love, bringing them up to par could help reduce the dominance of the NS line. You could say the same of more than a few weapons, however, but the sidearms are the biggest obvious one.

The thing is that anything else outclasses the automatic guns - shotguns will outgun them in short range (2 shot kills usually), Battle rifles outgun them on range (not hard with the low range) and the NS sidearms kill faster than the automatic guns (like you said).

What purpose do assault rifles have ingame? The game already has a couple of chuckle f***s with the right build, what's lacking is the chance of fighting them back with the most common used weapons

Shocker.
Also 2 shots with a pump action in CQB is nearly enough time for a decent player to kill you twice.

No way.

Care to run those numbers?

What exactly are you expecting here? Automatic weapons being beaten by specialist weapons is a staple of basically Every First Person Shooter Ever.

Versatility.

Despite disagreeing with me you seem to finally get the point:
Automatic weapons don't fill the gap they're supposed to fill. No matter in which situation used, they aren't as effective as the other categories. Between shotguns and battle rifles are the NS sidearms, and it doesn't even takes long distances for the battle rifles to shine.
There is simply not a real need to run around with an automatic gun

You seem to fail at your own point. Automatics have the best short to mid-range capabilities. In CQC the shotgun *barely* beats automatics, specific battle rifles beat them at range. However automatics are far more versatile. They can easily be used in the shortest engagements all the way up to the longest engagements. Even a high-ROF CQC weapon like the Serpent can be used at long range if you have the trigger discipline.

They are easier, have the most common fighting distances as their best performing distances and have more versatility outside of their effective range.

But sure, a weapon that barely beats an automatic without any versatility is definitely better than an all-rounder that can trounce it at almost every range and is practically it's equal in the shotguns ideal range. /s

Automatic weapons aren't "jack of all trades" weapons, they only have the "master of none" side from that concept.

Ah so no weapon is master of short to mid range, the categories that most automatics fall into. Makes sense!

Sorry BlackFox, but I gotta agree with Demigan here. I mean, from an objective standpoint, if we disregard the starter weapons what do you die the most to? Do Shotguns dominate close range engagements metrics? No, I've been killed by a shotgun like 3 times in the two months I've been back, and I'm more likely to be bursted down by an automatic. Battle Rifles? Obelisk, maybe some Infils farming the things, but very rarely. Only very skilled players can hope to challenge an automatic in CQC with a Battle Rifle, and without cover and flanking maneuvers that make LA the go to for shotgun play, barely any shotguns can outclass an automatic past their ideal range due to RNGsus and pellet spread, and those that can come with severe drawbacks (Slugs and their CoF, Baron and its reload and lower damage, etc). Running a shotgun without using certain ASPs also renders you outright incapable of effective combat past 10-15m unless you run certain sidearms, and even then sidearms can be more effective than shotguns in that role (looking at you, Pilot).

"The Jack of All Trades" archetype you claim actually has a lot of different guns, with different roles, different ideal ranges, but they all have the same advantage over the "Masters" of each range, like Demigan said. Versatility. With an automatic, your average player can stand a chance in multiple fields of combat, from open field pushes to close knit pointholds like Biolabs. Even the most long range of automatics can stand more of a chance in CQC than a Battle Rifle, and while a Battle Rifle might outclass them at range, so do Snipers. And any indoor battle almost always favours more Close-Mid range playstyles.

Go ahead. Play a session of Planetside or two. What will you die most to Infantry wise? In 90% of combat situations, it will be Automatics (or Snipers maybe, but thats a different story). They have high usage metrics for a reason. Shotguns and Battle Rifles might be more "effective" at their optimal ranges, but the enemy doesn't care about that. If they see you, they try to kill you. If your first shotgun shot fails, they can backpedal and probably kill you. If you snipe with a BR, you'll either get countersniped or an enemy will try to approach you. You can't be at optimal ranges all the time, because your foes won't just line up and present their ***** for you to kick. Automatics give you the versatility to not be totally **** on if you are at an "unoptimal" range. You might be right. But the community, gameplay, and metrics disagree.

What I die mostly of are shotguns, revolvers, Battle- and Sniper rifles (In direct combat). The reason I don't get killed by automatics 90% of the time is simple: I outgun them with the specialized weapons. It's not that hard to close the gap between carbine (etc.) and shotgun range and with a little bit of training it's not hard to wreak havoc with a battle rifle (the AMR-66 became my gun of choice for combat). I bet most people use automatic guns because they are easier to use in comparison and there are more of them to choose from.

Camikaze78 did a video on the new NS operative weapons, and the way they are designed is a step in the right direction. If that could become the basis for automatic guns it would improve the gameplay a lot.

Agreed. Currently the way automatics are designed, they are outclassed at any range. Their max dmg range is in the same boundary or even less than shotguns and smgs for example. Past their max dmg range, you may as well be shooting rocks at the dude.

Sure, they can be considered more "forgiving" or easier to handle than some of the specialized counterparts. But once you master the battle rifles for example, you can perform much better at any range than with other weapons. And it's important to note that no matter the range, automatics are always outclassed, since they don't really follow a unique dmg profile.

The NS weapons pushing the max dmg range of these weapons a bit is a great step forward. It actually helps the automatics have their own territory, becoming actually a bit more oriented towards mid range combat.

I smell someone's pants are on fire.

Could you tell us your character name(s)? Then we can check Fisu similar to this:

https://ps2.fisu.pw/player/?name=blackfox&show=weapons

Note the very last column: Killed By. We can use this to determine what you are killed by the most.

We can also ignore that and simply use Voidwell:
https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...79,80&startDate=2021-01-13&endDate=2021-06-25
(Voidwell only "remembers" one category so you have to re-add shotguns and Carbines in this case).
If we check the list of Uniques and KPU we see that most shotguns are simply worse off compared to LMG and Carbine automatics. This is because of the sheer volume of automatics present. There are almost as many starter LMG's present on the battlefield as all shotguns+Battle rifles combined. The starter Carbines are less than the shotguns and Battle Rifles combined, but again this is comparing only the starter weapons to all Battle Rifles and Shotguns.

And even the starter weapons are close to the KPU of the specialized shotguns and Battle RIfles.

The best thing is that the KPH calculation in Voidwell is based on all weapons simultaneously. And every hour the starter LMG's alone kill more players than all shotguns and Battle Rifles combined easily. Similarly the starter Carbines kill more than all shotguns and battle rifles combined.

So your experience is absolute crap. If we start looking at all automatics and not just the starters of LMG's and Carbines there is simply no contest. Less than 10% of all kills is made by shotguns and battle rifles.

See, you're just proving Demigans point. The stats don't lie, and your "experience" is evidently a combination of higher skill level and personal preference. Sure, you can dominate with a Battle Rifle or a Shotgun if you hard lean into them with enough skill. You can do the same with Snipers. Automatics. Vehicles. The reason you die to Battle and Sniper rifles is likely because you keep a distance to get the most out of the BRs, meaning those are the guns that can challenge you the most. Do you use a Light Assault for Shotgunning? Then you'll naturally be more able to approach opposing automatics via flanking, like I said. Do you have a Fisu page we can check to back up your statements regarding what you get killed by? NS sidearms dominate compared to regular sidearms, and we proved that with Data. Demigan challenged your belief that the specialised weapon types out-did automatics with data. Can you offer evidence, even from extremely skewed data, that your opinion is true of the rest of the games population? Otherwise, your statements are only opinion, and we can thus argue about them all damn day.

See, there's a big problem with that video. Some of the NS automatics get a default 15m starting range, out to 20m with soft point. This is basically a faction trait, not what should be the standard. Cami says himself, they get better effective ranges and reward accuracy in exchange for fire rate and damage compared to the Empires as standard. Sure, most weapons have a 10m initial falloff, 15 with soft point, but some guns have very limited damage degradation which allows them to function better at longer ranges. If your gun only falls off one tier of damage, it's generally more capable of operating past that initial close range. This is the case for all automatics, they have different damage tiers and values, typically adhering to certain models.

Besides, this is the PTS. It might be tuned before the final update. And more than a few people have expressed dislike with some of the guns. Its a matter of opinion, and we will ultimately have to wait for more testing and the full update to make a concrete decision.

Ok, I checked the statistics site for my TR main - the top #5 of my deaths causes are:

#1: Gauss SAW
#2: Orion
#3: AF 19 Mercenary
#4: NS Anchor
#5:Betelgeuse 54 A

So basically guns either with high damage output or reasonable accuracy
Didn't play long enough on other factions to get reliable data. But like mentioned earlier in the thread, automatic weapons are the most used weapons, so it's more likeley to face them.

Ok, let me rephrase my claim:
Automatic weapons aren't a big threat as the specialized weapons. They leave way more room to fight back than the other categories

You can flip the argument about specialization on it's head :

Automatics will always win against shotguns at mid-long range.

Automatics will always win against snipers at close range (CQC snipers shenanigans excluded)

Automatics will always beat battle rifles because they're simply better. Reaper DMR and A-Tross make battle rifles look like toys, and you don't need to wait for recoil to re-settle, giving you tons of burst damage and DPS over battle rifles.



I do use auto shotguns and CQC bolters a lot, but I wouldn't call the rest of the specialized selection stellar.

You've just listed the most rounded automatics in the game. They're all 500RPM/200DMG, 600RPM/167DMG or 750RPM/143DMG, with straightforward recoil and solid DPS.


And IDK about the last point. I've been chain headshotted and clapped by vets a lot more with automatics than with specialized weapons and vice versa, but that's just my experience.

Well most people who are "good" at the game will turn to automatics because they typically offer higher sustained potential.

This is the one tradeoff most of the extremely good 1v1 weapons have. Snipers, battle rifles for example are extremely adapted for efficient extermination of small concentration of targets. In general they balanced these weapons over having the capacity to engage 5-6 targets in a row.

Automatics often have double, triple, even 10 times this potential.

In a 1v1 though, you'll often lose against these weapons if the other guy knows what he's doing, because they are inherently better at any range. The exception here can be made with shotguns, where they trade damage drop-off for complete domination in their effective range. People often get the misconception that stuff like battle rifles and sniper rifles - the 'long range' weapons are less effective in CQC. This is false, they are actually much more effective in CQC than at range. And if I make you fight a 'skilled' player with the eidolon in CQC for example, you're going to be begging him to switch to a Betelgeuse because you'll have practically 0 room to react before dying.

These weapons are much more accurate, easier to use, and have much better ttk than automatics. However, because of their ease of use, their potential for chain engagements is capped much faster than with automatics. They are overall designed to be efficient in eliminating individual or small groups of targets.This makes automatics a better choice for chain engagements, longer runs with more aggressive plays. However, lesser skilled players who need a cheap kill will obviously turn to the snipers or more easier to use weapons that pretty much 'guarantee' a kill. I can't tell you how many times I ran out of ammo just maining with my pilot because it was much more effective than my Betelgeuse. I would switch from goose to pilot and never switch back lol. Only issues that arose were running out of reserve ammo or engaging 5+ targets at once with too small mag. But much more effective than the betel.

But yeah don't worry, if a 'skilled' player needs a quick kill, they'll switch to a revolver, or sniping loadout instead of an automatic.

Also lol is this conversation even about NS sidearms anymore

You are Sadly Mistaken.

1. Effective everywhere != Better everywhere. You can kill people at short range and medium range and even longer range in the same life with a good Assault Rifle. Good luck doing that with a Shotgun.

2. Either you were too lazy to do the math comparing the TTK of NS Sidearms vs. Primaries or your pants are on fire.

3. Battle Rifles being competitive with Automatic Rifles at shorter ranges is predicated on a top ~1% level of accuracy possessed by maybe a couple dozen players in this game. Not a good argument.

Congratulations.
Yes. This is the point. Make automatics too strong at every distance and you end up with the Battlefield 3 scenario where everyone uses the M16A3 for 3 years.
If you can use a Swiss Army Gun for every engagement why use a specialized weapon?