Is the Emerald VS More Dedicated To the Objective Than TR or NC

So when I played on Waterson (pre merger), my first character was a TR. I didn't really see much skill, teamwork, or dedication on there, and I wasn't able to see any proof that talented and intelligent outfits existed. I switched to the NC, and found several outfits that were pretty good, and a couple that were very high skill, very intelligent, and very dedicated to the objective. Since the VS is 100% dominant on Emerald (post merger between Waterson and Mattherson), I've been leveling up a VS character, and noticed that the VS is extremely dedicated to the objective. There are multiple high skill outfits with very intelligent members, and their willingness to suicide onto A B C points is something that I never saw on the TR or the NC — it would seem that the talented VS players lead by example, as many random public VS players adopt this mentality, and throw their lives away repeatedly, for even a .0001% chance to turn the tide. I've seen the VS successfully attack and defend bases that the TR or NC would never have been able to win, simply because the VS is 10x more suicidal



Has anyone else found this to be the case? If so, what are the factors that lead to the VS having so much more dedication? How can SOE and the Planetside 2 community convince the TR and the NC to step it up and match the Vanu's dedication?

Emerald VS are actually all professional gamers hired full time by SOE in order to give the humans (NC/TR) an evil nemesis to fight.

Every. Last. One. of them. PROFESSIONALS.

edit: I also heard they're all ex-Marines with sniper training and perfect discipline and dedication to the mission. If any of them fail the Marine physical fitness test they lose access to their player account and have their pay suspended until they can pass it. It's like 300 pull ups or something.

Agreed. I am waiting for my paycheck still, come on Sony, pony up.

Beyond the normal Faction differences, there are different cultures on each server... I believe Emerald's culture of tryhard objective based fighting has its roots on Mattherson.

During Beta... a bunch of older PS1 VS outfits with stable leadership decided to all settle on the same server (Mattherson). This gave them an edge in organization and promoted a very healthy outfit and leadership channels. They were already used to working with other outfits over a common goal and had done it for many years in PS1. Those relationships were already formed. New outfits forming on Mattherson came onboard and either learned from this or failed.

At the same time, TE formed on TR.... they grew absolutely huge... were effective and provided VS with an extremely hated enemy that galvanized the VS outfits. Even throughout the VS dark times (low pop, constant nerfs, etc)... the outfit play was enough to keep VS competative. When TE imploded and a power vacuum ensued... VS took over dominance... with ZOE the pop exploded and it became rediculous...... now pop has stabalized, its much more even, but the outfits remain and leadership remains and thus the goals of winning the objectives in the game remains.

We, honestly, have more players that care. Those that didn't, come and go, those that do care... find it fun to work with the others and thus stick around longer. Retention of those objective-based leaders is higher on Emmy VS because they are social goal-oriented people to begin with... so having others like them around promotes a positive feedback loop.

When Sol-tech was merged into Matt the outfits were either eaten up by the established outfits or learned from them and survived (trial by fire)... same thing is happening with Waterson... the strong outfits (from being underpopped) will survive, the others won't.

Emerald VS care about winning above all else. They just don't accept failure...
They are going to take the base, or they are going to die trying, then regroup and return to steamroll it mercilessly..

Emerald TR/NC care about killing more than they care about objectives.
They don't care if a base falls or not, they can shoot dudes at the next base just as easy.

Even the basic introduction of factions in the New Character screen shows a bit which type of players have a higher chance of chosing.

NC: any form of control is felt as oppression --> lone wolves or people who want to do only what they want
TR: authoritarian and conservative --> military role players or people who like giving/obeying orders
VS: intellectuals, technology --> people seeking improvements or people who know that 2 heads are better than 1 (aka teamwork and information sharing)

In the NC you have outfits of very few members having names like One Man Army, which reflects the ideology described in the character page of NC, I'm sure everyone can agree with me that the NC have the biggest amount of solo players without me needing to pull numbers.

In the TR, you have many outfit like 903rd, angry Joe army, BWC, a lot of outfit that have military themed names, and some of them have incredibly strict set of rules and hierarchy systems.

You can see it in GOKU's outfit name the way people see the VS. Goku in Dragonball is the incarnation of dedication, perseverance and will to improve one's self.
Futue Crew, and crew members on a ship are most of the time considering each other almost like family. They are close together and willing to help each other.
The Vindicators, coming from vindicate and can be interpreted as seeking the truth (which is pretty much what scientific curiosity is)


Even though you could say that NC being the lone wolf faction should be the one to be afraid of deaths the most and then refuse to sacrifice the most, fighting for freedom also has a relation with heroism, which will make NC try to push as some kind of selflessness. The problem is that they do it in streams and in line instead of in groups.

The TR are the faction on Emerald which loses the most, and that even with equal pops. This comes from the fact that a military hierarchy and set of commands is inefficient when it comes to a game when people are not forced to fight against their will. The hierarchy system slows down and adds a rigidity to squads and platoons which makes those inapt to react to situation changes quickly enough.


As history and social sciences have proved us many times already, education is far more efficient than control when it comes to maximizing a society's well being. Control is only a delusion the powerful have to think that it maximizes their own well being on the back of the controlled.


Even if we forget that part, a lot of people are acting like ''sheeps'' especially in high quantities (psychology of masses) and will follow the leaders (winning faction/outfits) and DA is ''World Champion'' from CC, and may you want to admit it or not, it does make a difference.

I suppose, since the VS has this Japanese anime theme going with their outfits, they have this warrior code of shame, too. I imagine the rare times Goku loses a base, the ranking Goku officer is forced to commit ritual seppuku to erase his incredible shame. I know that'd motivate me to win win win.

we're not dedicated to the objective we're just the only faction willing to put down the sniper rifles, climb out of the tanks and actually shoot the people on the objective

And have my own faction nerfed? I'd rather come to Forumside and blindly defend everything that my empire owns while ignoring all data, logic and reason than admit fault or have my favorite farming tools even slightly modified in a way I find disagreeable.

Such blasphemy! The Inquisition has been contacted. Pray to your gods.

I play on both Connery and Emerald. On Connery the VS dominate even more so then they do on Emerald (so yes it can get worse). To me its not factional difference in organization, as Emerald has a lot of extremely experienced NC & TR outfits.

I don't think its organizational capabilities that results in VS dominance across both servers.

I don't play TR so I can't speak to the average TR experience.

But between the NC and VS, the short answer is: Yes.

The long answer:

You - and Emerald VS - will find very very often that in a 48 / 48 hex fight, NC will have.... 3 or 4 guys actually on point, maybe, and inevitably, one of those guys will be a sniper infil, who isn't dropping recon darts. Naturally, the VS will flood in, sweep us away like a tide of unwashed spandex and then lock down that point hard while 95% of the NC are off goodness knows where taking potshots at magriders 500 meters away.

It's not always this way. Every once in a while, an outfit like VCO or TAS will show up, actually realize where the point is, and start piling bodies on it. NC has pulled some great reversals when the right folks show up in the right numbers, but by and large, most NC just don't seem to understand that the only way you are going to lose a base is by losing the points.

Dear NC random, generic cutpaste corridor #3712943 that you are sniping down is not at all relevant to your holding of the base. Neither is generic hill #4928374 from which you are sniping at random VS BR 13 who is also 600 meters away from the point.

That flashing A that is slowly turning purple? That's where you need to be.

From personal experience on TR side, we tend to have more rivals within our own faction than on the others.

Seriously. We don't get along very well.

Don't forget religious fanaticism. I almost chose VS when I started this game, but that was the deal breaker.

If I could take 90% of forumsiders, and wrap them all up into one post, this would be it.

Yup.

This is about as succinct of a definition as you get.

It's possible for the TR and NC to match them, some one just needs to step up.

The only difference between Emerald VS and any other faction/server, is that they are faster to bring out the proper counter to a situation.

It's been like this on Mattherson since I started playing on there (a few weeks after the game went live, before that I had a TR on Waterson). VS have always been the most aggressive on Mattherson/Emerald about winning alerts and playing objectives. That base of tight, disciplined outfits--plus GOKU, who I don't think really qualify as "disciplined" as such--gives VS a big advantage.

You are right. However, they had to give extreme negative sides to each faction or else this wouldn't be a ''war game''.

Fanaticism is a drawback? Heresy. REPENT BEFORE YOUR EMPERORS JUDGEMENT.

Or something. Don't mind me, I've been using the warhammer 40k voicepack for Recursion.

The only thing we're disciplined at is /y spam.

Well, there's that other thing but it involves leather instead of spandex.