[Suggestion] Faction Diversity is Dying. It Must Be Saved.

For this kills faction-specific stuff, diminishing potential outlets for faction traits to be more apparent.
In this case, it'd most definitely be a bad thing.

Because if faction weapons are not locked out, What is the point of remaining loyal to a faction? There would be no point outside of red, blue and purple. I am not here to play call of duty, or Battlefield. I am here to play a three faction game with locked out technologies.

While you would be happy, I can almost promise you that more people would be upset. How badly do you think people would get pissed off because they got killed by their own factions tank. How many people do you think would still use Magriders if they could pull prowlers or vanguards? A lot more than those who would be happy playing a CoD rip off. Faction Diversity is the only thing that stops this game from being just another CoD.

Effectively, You want to make a duller game just because you feel nothing should be different and people should not be locked to using their own factions weapons. Trust me, The last thing you want is the VS turning your own prowler against you. It wouldn't make it balanced, It would simply make it unfair to you. Why should I get to use your weapons and vehicles when I didn't side with the TR? I shouldn't. Thats how it needs to always remain.


It will never fail to amaze me there are actually people who want to ruin this game just for the sake of everything being perfectly balanced.

This is the single most insane statement I have ever seen regarding this game. You are saying that weapon and gameplay balance, the only things that even slightly matter in a first person shooter, should be tossed for fluff. I mean, I dislike CoD anymore, but do you know WHY it is objectively the most successful franchise in first person shooter history? It has nothing to do with teenagers and fratboys- it is because for the most part the multiplayer is extremely tightly balanced. Nobody, anywhere, is playing a first person shooter, especially an online deathmatchy one, for lore. Nobody is stopping to stare at the computer systems inside NS Research Labs and getting into an extensive debate about the implications of respawning being a thing that happens in the lore. They are keeping their damn head down and trying to figure out how to get out there and blow up that AMS that's sending waves of people with guns at them.

Do you know WHY people quit a game like this? Because getting farmed isn't fun. Do you know how you fix the getting farmed problem? Rebalancing.

If anything at all should amaze you about this game it is that SOE managed to rip off the gameplay of the Battlefield series without actually managing to grab any of the balance aspects.

Junro, I completely disagree. We should have different specialities, that might have some scissors-paper-rock effect, but we want our factions to be more unique, more than just visually. But TR weapons do need fixing, somewhat.

No discussion of faction diversity or balance can even begin without the VS and NC first being stripped of any weapon over 750 RPM.

The TR's faction trait has been liberally sprinkled all over the other factions with NOTHING given back in return (and dont try and bring up the HC1, that thing is a piece of ****).

TR was nerfed right from the get go. First they got rid of flinch, which was the only thing balancing out our high horizontal recoil. Then, in someone's warped mind, they made the horizontal recoil EVEN WORSE resulting in the lousy weapon performance TR has to this day.

I remember being on teamspeak with Malorn when he first told us that they were "adjusting" the jaguar and other TR guns to be more "specific" in nature. AKA increasing the H-recoil in order to force people to buy more guns like the AMC. I haven't touched my 4K+ kill Jag since that patch went live probably a year and a half ago. I argued with him after the fact that SOE basically destroyed the entire TR arsenal and he said they needed to make money somehow and to buy NS weapons if I wanted accuracy and use the TR weapons if I just wanted to spray and pray.

Sorry Juunro, but I happen to play mostly for the lore. Planetsie two is a magnificent game and being able to coordinate as a team make it very enjoyable. Peoples in my outfit often like to role-play things, and having faction specific stuff helps a lot. Beside, what's the point of having everything on one character when you can have three without paying anything? You want to pull a prowler? Plays TR. You want to pull a lancer? Switch to you VS alt. You can access everything in the game without sacrificing its "soul".
How would it be cool to climb a mountain with my magrider if other faction could do it? Would you want infinite battles between two lock-own maxes being sustained by engineers, with the only solution being a grenade spam from one side or the other? You see the problem? If you were to give everyone everything, the game would actually be completely unbalanced. Lock-down ravens? Strafing Vanguards shields?! Is this really what we want?

Not only having one big faction would ruin the balance, but it would also ruin the soul of the game, this feeling you get when you see a VS zerg throwing a disco party in the distant auraxian night sky.

O_O Will truer words ever be spoken. . .

The diversity at least in design is something they really should look into.
Sound, Feel and looks should be noticeable.

I do hope they realize this and actually sit down and take some time into making the next set of weapons when it comes to that.
And go trough the existing ones on the design level just to see how they can make each set of weapon models feel at least a bit more unique.

1. NC:
Slow firing Gauss rifle that kills people in three shots. Fair accuracy, not too much recoil, supersonic velocity, disgusting rate of fire, reload will take virtually a whole millennium.
2. TR:
Bullpup with respectable accuracy, good recoil, high RoF, nice magazine size, but no so good damage and reload will take slightly longer than the MSW.
3. VS:
Knockback cannon. Horrible RoF, heat mechanic, overwhelmingly low damage. Upsides? No recoil, very small CoF, continuous fire upon an enemy deals massive flinch, and can be charged to push people at bone-crushing speeds. A.K.A A far more deadly Force of Nature from TF2. I would love to see these, really.

This posts speaks volumes. I recall that "update" as well. The update from hell for TR and the update from heaven for NC...aka PU2. The Jag was also my favorite weapon at that time and I haven't touched it since. TR is still digging out of the PU2 hole the Devs put us in. It took someone with a warped sense of reality to upgrade the entire small arms line of NC and at the same time wreck TR's.

Support bump to OP; Game needs more faction specific flavor, less all-faction crap.

Well said and well written. I would also like more faction diversity.
Please, SOE, stop changing the color of our weapons and calling them different. I'm looking at you, Battle Rifles.

I have noticed that weapons seem to be given more detail that would otherwise be faction specific, Like the Saron getting a heat mechanic. This is a decent start, But it makes me curious why the developers or RadarX won't even acknowledge the thread to let us know "Hey, We hear you and are going to work on it!"... With all the views this thread has, I am almost certain at least ONE of them was a developer.

Faction diversity died about the time the 1st NS weapon released. Its been dead for along time and it wont be saved. Its about time we trade in our Blue/red and purple and pick up a neutral White/black NS costume and call our selves the Terran Nanites Sovereignty. Then, claim we are fighting a war over who gets the biggest share hold of the NS company.

Trade in our Gauss SAWs and Polaris, Carvs and cyclers, pitch the mossie, scrap the scythe. Lets abandon our Vanguards and drown the prowler. We shall ride into battle in Collosus tanks, Sundys and lightnings. remove all faction symbols and raise the NS flag high.

We all thought the Emerald VS were winning, when in all actuality, the real victors of the Auraxian war is the Nanite Systems.

There are very few real differences with the factions.

Its what maintains balance.

You can buy any type of gun in any faction to match your playstyle.

Its more about what everyone else uses. You can tell the difference in a large battle.

But really what are the differences other than vehicles.

Actually, I am pretty sure that you guys still have some weapons with fire rates over 900 that no other faction has access to. So reducing the fire rate from 750 isn't going to matter. Another thing is that you seem to be mistaking More Dakka for faster firing, When it really means you can fire longer before needing to reload because you have more bullets. It does not necessarily mean the fastest fire rate (which TR does have with its 900+ RPM weapons).


When I say faction diversity, I mean more completely different and new weapons that are not simply clones of one another with the three faction "traits" glued to them. If you showed someone a battle scene, They would say the only noticeable difference between the factions is the tracer and armor color, and the two faction specific vehicles each faction has. We need more faction vehicles and weapons that reflect their factions technology and function. No more of this single chassis vehicle/weapon design that is only different by a hardly noticeable differences and a streak of your factions paint.

I swear.. If the first post had as many likes as it does for people who have viewed this thread, Pretty sure a copy of this forum would be sitting on higbys desk in a nice red letter with the words of "Make this happen." Written on its front. I can dream, Can't I?

"more dakka" is a lie also.

gauss saw anyone?

who in their right mind would give a weapon 100 bullets that do 200 damage a pop?

soe, thats who.

That is a slow firing empire specific weapon. If you guys had it, You can bet it would probably have a bigger mag.

Well put. Why they got rid of so many faction specific is beyond me.
I don't know if NS should be removed, but more so just be all purpose weapons that meets in the middle of the 3 factions that people can pick if their playstyle doesn't fit the faction specifc (ie. TR RoF) but they love the faction.

I always thought it was just that NC has all the high-damage guns, best AI maxes, best AI ESF, Vanu has the best long-range maxes and tanks, and no bullet drop, and TR has the Carv and an awful lot of dedication.

Well, we also have the Prowlers main cannons.
Which usually get a lot of hate, because cleary TR doesn't deserve to have an edge since Magrider mobility and Vanguard sturdiness are obviously completely useless.

Aside from that.... MCG maybe? Killing enemies by holding the trigger at an average 1.3 (moronic) TR to 1.0 enemies killratio?
And our MAX has the pounders. Those perform really well against infantery and enemy MAXes if the enemy has the decency to stop moving (which a lot of them have, no wonder they think they're OP). Absolute worst crap ever against vehicles though, except maybe for a suicide mission to kill a sunderer or something.