[Suggestion] Fix the empire specific ammo balance.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by 23rd enigma, Feb 20, 2024.

  1. 23rd enigma

    The Empire-specific ammo balance is out of whack. You have untsable ammo and disruptor ammo competing against each other. Disruptor ammo is completely useless, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone use it. Unstable Ammo, on the other hand, is one of the worst additions I've ever seen in an FPS because its purpose is to make poor accuracy punish the user less by increasing the bullet size by 300%. Such a ridiculous attachment should not exist, and UA can actually be insane with a LA. Since the bullets are so big, when you are drifting with UA, you will get a crazy amount of headshots flying over the target with unstable ammo. Sure, it reduces the headshot damage, but honestly, why do we have this "crutch" ammo? Remove it since it's just a bad idea all around.
    Finally, we come to an actually good addition to the game. Impact ammo actually makes sense to have in the game and opens up interesting loadouts with certain weapons. I actually really like it on the Torq and watchmen. I would suggest the developers remove both unstable ammo and disruptor ammo on NC and VS. Add impact ammo to both of these empires's so that you have more weapon loadout options.
    For example, I can see impact ammo being added to the Guass Saw S so that it can be 200–167 with a huge reduction in its magazine size. Another example could be impact ammo on Ursa, giving it 167 min of damage with a reduced mag size, or CME having a DMG tier buff with impact ammo. These are just ideas i came up on the fly, but I'm sure the community+devs could figure out a good way to add impact ammo and all the empires to make thier arsenals a bit more insteresting.
    • Up x 6
  2. UberNoob1337101

    My "favorite" addition ever is Unstable Ammo + Obelisk. Such a fun combo of getting 3-shotted at any range, because no damage dropoff + bigger bullets... if Unstable ammo stays in the game base damage should drop 20% but headshot multiplier gets increased to 50% (so it's 80% damage for bodyshots/120% for headshots compared to 100%/200% of most weapons).

    If Unstable ammo got removed from the game maybe we could also finally balance weapons that used to have it around skill levels properly and usable gimmicks instead of "here's 3 gimmicks that are useless and one that's OP" and Obelisk + Horizon being top tier stupid especially on lower skill levels.

    Tbh most gimmicks should get a revision, if they could make Nimitz reactor good almost all the time, then making Trident Burst, meme sidearms and useless traits good too isn't far off.
    • Up x 2
  3. 23rd enigma

    Yeah it's such a bad idea to add unstable ammo to the obelisk. How in the hell did this ever get approved by a dev. Who in the right mind would of thought thats it's a good idea to add that ammo on a 334 dmg scout rifle . If you miss your shots with the obelisk, you should absolutley be punsihed, but no you get a noob friendly attachments to "help" noobs with poor accuracy. In reality you get good players abusing the **** out of it because it's really easy, like you said, to spam 334 dmg body shots with this rifle. You already have OP scout /Sniper rifles and then someone with a big brain decided "hey lets add ammo that would compensate for poor aim"..... o_O:rolleyes: SMH
    • Up x 1
  4. 23rd enigma

    I have a new idea for my suggestions about adding impact ammo to all factions. My idea would be to add the "odd" damage tiers into impact ammo or even buffing these weapons to have this new proposed damage by default . Damage model I have in mind especially is utilizimg the pre buff trap 1's 184 damage from its old Stats. I think some weapons that can make good use of it would be the ursaa and the corvus, giving both 184 max damage instead of 167. Another odd damage profile for NC guns would be the executive pistol 222 damage, however 225 damage (minimum damage for some guns) exists for a better rounded number. I can see the NC-9 A-Tross having my proposed impact ammo attachment and it would buff it's maximum damage to 222. Or give the tross 184 as the min damage, buffing it from 167.

    Here are my idea overall so far

    "impact ammo mechanic" to all factions . Some examples : :

    • Terminus - impact ammo reduces magazine to 25 rounds but changes minimum damage to 125. Add a new extended mag attachment as well .
    • Guas Saw S- impact ammo reduces magazine to 40 rounds but changes minimum damage to 167
    • Guass Rifle S - impact ammo reduces magazine by 5 rounds with 143 min damage .
    • U 15 recall - impact ammo reduces magazine by 5 rounds but makes minimum damage 167
    • ARn 203. - Impact ammo reduce mag by 6 rounds but minimum damage is 167
    • NC A Tross - impact ammo reduce mag by 5 rounds but Max damage is 222 OR minimum damage is 184
    • URSA - impact ammo reduce mag by 15 rounds but Maximum damage is 184
    • Corvus - Impact ammo reduce mag by 5 rounds but Max damage but max dmg is 184
  5. TRspy007


    the same dev that made amrs ohk for no reason? And made 1000 other nonsensical balance changes without ever addressing the game's fundamental issues.
  6. 23rd enigma

    I don't think the 1 hit kill is a problem, except for the imbalance between the ES AMR 1 hit kill ranges. NC AMR by far the best range and utility(AA) on top of it. What might be a problem is the big bullets and ASP shotgun secondary. Engineer having both a long range sniper and shotgun is a little too good.
  7. MonnyMoony


    So not much different to the MG-HBR1 Dragoon then which has explosive ammo. If you miss, no worries, the splash damage will get them anyway.
  8. 23rd enigma

    I would like to add the xmg 200.
    Give both the xmg 200 and ursa impact ammo with a magazine penalty. Increase the damage to 184 but reduce the mag to 50 rounds. ( changed from my last comment for ursa).
  9. 23rd enigma

    Explosive ammo is more situational than the 330% bigger bullet ammo. Explosive ammo, like the lasher, works better on elevated positions and it also has worse damage penalty than UA. UA ammo also synergizes so well with light assault and the Obelisk. Making it less important to aim well so you can pray and spay midrange really efficiently.
    • Up x 1
  10. 23rd enigma

    Please remove the built in unstable Ammo on the NSO Harbinger. That gun does not need it and it doesn't have the head shot penalty to balance it. .
  11. tobysstandpoint



    i can PROMISE you, anyone with a hint of skill with the dragoon will prefer the heavy magazine,
    the explosive ammo sounds great on paper but in practice the dmg is so low only an AFK player, or already extremely low health would die to it, while also losing out on a lot of body shot dmg in the process.

    with how low dmg the AOE (for the ROF of the gun) actually is, you would genuinely be better off with a couple more rounds in the mag so you can hit them properly.

    that is NOT saying i want explosive ammo buffed! on the contrary, i hate the stuff its a useless gimmic and doesn't promote skill, id prefer a higher velocity round (or just less bullet drop) for lower dmg or something that actually complements the long range capability of the dragoon lol.
    • Up x 1
  12. 23rd enigma

    I agree. Regarding an ammo attachment that's adds more velocity, NC have the SPRW ammunition attachment that only increase velocity without affecting the damage range falloff . That's perfect for weapon that might get buffed a little to much by the standard high velocity ammunition's damage fall off buff. The devs came up with good ideas already for new ammo types, just get rid of the annoying "for lower skill " noob assist ammo (kcap, UA,). Keep the SPRW, impact ammo, and sabot. Those 3 ammo types have potential to add variety and spice into the weapon pool FOR ALL FACTIONS .
    • Up x 1
  13. tobysstandpoint



    ESPECIALLY Kcap! XD ngl more of a handicap than anything as "lower skill" would be aiming for center of mass, not someone's feet lol
  14. TheMercator

    The damage falloff range buff from HVA is useless. Except for the Gauss Saw, no long range weapon drops for more than a signle damage tier, meaning that a higher min. damage range doesn't actually improve those weapons.
    Can we also talk about how there is an implant that basically does the same thing as Sabot Ammo for HA but on actual usefull weapons?
    In my eyes all the ammo attachements should be reworked again and the empire specific ones distributed over more weapons.
    • Up x 1
  15. 23rd enigma

    I agree with all your points. Soft point ammo adds enough range that it also extends the minimum danger range enough to make HVA look even weaker compared to it. But it still has a place IMO. The velocity increase itself can be nice in certain situations and with silencers. SPRW ammo is a nice balancing edition in itself since it's HVA without the falloff range buff, for weapons that would benfit too much from it. Make all Faction specific available to all factions and delete UA along with kcap. Delete unstable ammo from harbinger. Here are some ideas for weapons that would benifit from faction wide addition of ES ammo.

    Guass Saw S with Impact ammo. Makes the minimum damage of the guass Saw S 167 but reduces magazine by 25 rounds.

    U150 recall impact ammo. Makes minum damage 167 but reduces magazine slightly.
    .
    Buffed (184@10m-143@30m) Ursa,and Corvus from my ideas. SPRW ammo is used instead of HVA to avoid buffed falloff range and SPA is removed. Xmg 200 Is included here as well but with 184@15m and 143@45m.

    Pulsar LSW and Pulsar VS1. Impact ammo makes min damage 125 but reduced magazine size by 6 on VS1. Reduces magazine by 25-35 rounds on LSW.

    Razor GD23 - impact ammo makes min damage 143 but reduces magazine size by 6 rounds.

    just some ideas and would ask for more community feedback.
    • Up x 1
  16. karlooo

    What if we had no faction specific ammo, since it's just a stupid distraction, this side is unhappy, that side is unhappy... and rather stick to faction wide types as we had before, and add in a new one, with more strategical uses, that removes tracers from your shots, but at a cost of a large chunk of velocity? That'd be especially great on battle rifles, since their tracers are massive.
    • Up x 3
  17. 23rd enigma

    I Agree. Make all ammunition types available to all faction on certain weapons . That includes attachments like the SPRW, manitcore, disruptor, impact ammo, and smart feeder. Many used for balancing purposes when compared to regular ammunition attachments. Delete the ammo types that make gameplay worse, Unstable ammo, Kcap, explosive, and lashing ammo.
    • Up x 1
  18. tobysstandpoint




    I hate explosive and lashing ammo with a passion

    aoe weapons makes choke points so much more annoying to push even if grenades aren't being spammed.
    the thumper feels like the only real answer to infantry pushing up/over a hill so i have some lenience on it but even that i'm a tad grumpy on.

    kcap and unstable ammo is simply a "skill issue ammo" altogether and does nothing to actually help someone improve at the game.

    I also agree that allowing all factions the same ammo types would greatly help with balancing issues. I like Karlooo's idea of making a tracer less ammo type for marksman rifles... but i think there should still be SOME amount of tracer, maybe significantly reducing the time it stays in the air would be great, but completely removing tracers would make marksman rifles so much harder to deal with as the opposition. or if complete invisibility is the truly desired outcome for the rounds, maybe simply make them appear on the minimap for longer ranges? this way its harder to spot them in larger pop areas (being that there are MANY targets on the map), but also cant be abused in lower pop because they'll be easier to spot, but still not nearly as easy as a massive tracer round that stays in the air for a few seconds?
  19. 23rd enigma

    A good example of SPRW ammunition being used to keep the damage range in check for a CQC weapon is SPRW ammunition on the Gladius, NC SMG. If it would've had High velocity, Its range would be way too high for an SMG. I also think SPRW ammunition makes sense on things like scout rifles, that don't need the penalty of a lower max damage range.
  20. 23rd enigma

    I hate that past Devs were trying to "help" noob/bad players with these attachments and don't realize they are making thier own objective worse. Same situation as old Nanoweave 20% small arm resistance. They made nanoweave black 20% gun damage on the body so that noobs can survive longer, but it did the complete opposite. Good players got buffed because Headshots bypasses nanoweave and bad players got wrecked either way. Same thing is happening with Unstable ammo(by far the worse one) being used by skilled LA players. UA allows the guns to be so much easier to use when you're flying as a LA. Noobs won't be able to take advantage of high mobility LA plays since they probably don't have enough skill to jumpjet impulse surf. Please devs remove unstable ammo already and replace it with something else. And Kcap ammo... make it exclusive to these weapons : Tengu,Kappa, and the PMG-ARX Shrodinger. Those weapons would make sense to have an attachment like KCAP since the player can't control the spread of the pellets.


    I also have a question to the community. Would a Guass saw S with impact ammo be OP? 476 RPM with 167 dmg min damage and less ammo per mag.

    [IMG]
    • Up x 1