Lack of diversity caused by the community?

PS2 is a great game and I'm playing it since the Open Beta started.

But it seems that the progress of the game gets slowed down by the community. Since the first day people are whining that X is OP and Y should be nerfed. Everytime one faction gets something that makes it stand out from the other factions it gets nerfed and adjusted to the demands of the whiners.
People seem to be pretty biased and only care about their own faction, the others suck and don't need anything special. The differences between the factions are getting more and more blurred (The main differences are the colors and music). Yes, there are thing like the MBTs and ESFs but even those have been adjusted that even their old descriptions don't fit their current stats.
The Faction specific advantages (NC-Damage, TR-RoF, VS-Bullet Drop and agility) are so weak that they don't even matter.

The game feels most balanced since the launch, but at the cost of diversity. Now we got Long range sniper rifles and SMGs which have the same stats for every faction. Shouldn't the weapons be more special?

What about more drastically changes like Faction only weapon classes? Longe rangesniper rifles for VS only, Pump actions for NC only, etc.? (Or just adjust the stats more depending on the factions?)

This isn't ment as a flame thread to the whole community or SoE (you guys still do a good job), I am merely interested in more opinions. What do you think about the diversity and the role of the community in the whole development progress? (Do you have any other ideas which could help the factions to become more unique?)

- Neko

Also:

This game honestly isn't out of Beta yet so IMO it's too early to start giving factions drastically different weapons. The only Empire Specific weapon systems that are really any different from each other are the Jackhammer, MCG, and the Lasher. However, these weapons take a ton of time to get proficient with so why would anyone want to learn to use them vs other weapons that can do the same or do it slightly better? I think what the devs are focusing on now is the much more important route than giving stronger diversity to the factions for the time being.

Your talking Utopia man.....full uniqueness? No whining?

To be honest, I have been playing games for 30 years...and I haven't ever played with a community that whines as much as this one.

Its like raising a kid. When the child asks for something and doesn't get it, and throws a tantrum...do you give them the item or teach them a lesson. I would love to see SOE take something where people were whining and just made it worse because they can't deal with it.

Plus you dang teenagers nowadays think you know everything. I remember when all we had was 16 colors in a game....and you had to create custom configs for your system to start so you could get 8 bit sound....that's right....I got more gray hairs then you have pubes.

Sorry, I don't want to sound harsh, but don't refer to my age if you don't know me. I still got an Atari XL 800 in the basement (doesn't work anymore tho. ). And no, I have seen worse communities (and you still have to distinguish between every single person, one whiner doesn't make a bad community.) just look at LoL, thats the worst community I ever experienced in all the online games I played (and that are a few).

Age has a direct reflection on maturity....a 30 year old can (most of the time) make a much better argument than a kid who hesn't even had his voice crack...sorry bro that's just life. Get used to it.

A brilliant player-retention strategy, this. What could go wrong?

Oh look, another player who thinks he's morally advanced to all the others because he instead ignores the flaws. Nothing new here.

And thats exactly the point. Do an argument about the game/thread and don't try to get your days worth of doing an argument about a person you don't know anything about. Stop trying to snatch away the thread and stay to the point, I want to hear some more opinions about mine stated above (and maybe start a constructive discussion) and not some useless babbling. There are enough other threads out there to do exactly that. Thank you.

You asked about diversity, I replied. My response both held valid points and humor. The point of true diversity was that its Utopian in thinking and that it will never really happen....someone will always have the upper hand. The rest of it was humor. Calm down and step away from the redbull.

The lack of diversity is caused by the need for balance.

The sad reality of competitive FPS is that you need everyone to be even in a 1v1 right up to 10v10.

It's not like balancing an RTS, because every avatar has a player playing it. You can't have a faction that specialises in numbers, because by definition that faction would need to have more people, and for balance, those people would need to be weaker than the other factions. Who wants to be an ant in an army of ants if you can be a hornet?

There could definitely be more differences now they've sorted out things like flinch etc, but they needed to be far more thought out in the first place (flinch, for example, should never have made it out of beta). The reason there's no diversity now is not because people complained. Yes people did complain, but they were right to do so.

When you say 'high damage, low rof', seasoned FPS players know that means 'high skill ceiling, steep learning curve'. Great weapon for specialising into, but the starting weapon for the main class of one faction whilst the others get high rof, high accuracy (noob friendly)? That's just not thought out.

What SHOULD have happened was everyone has vaguely similar weapons to start with, but their unlocks are faction-oriented. The TR weapons should have got faster, with higher recoil to pay for it. The NC weapons should have got slower, with higher damage to justify it, and the VS weapons should have increased accuracy, with decreased range to balance it. (Not up for debate on whether those are the right traits; they're just examples). Sadly it didn't, but hey, we've got ESRLs that're nice and diverse, ES MAX weapons and ES buggies coming out (haven't tried yet) etc. It's not all doom and gloom.

Agreeing with you on that point. But people don't have to be weaker, just the manner how the damage can be achieved could be modified without making one faction "the weakest".

Yes, especially when you don't have to get other guns, when some of the stock weapons are the best you can get.

The launch of the game was quite flawed with the awfull flinch mechanic and the ESRL are a step in the right direction, we have yet to see what the new ES items will bring, I just hope that they won't get "adjusted" to the other factions demands.

"To be honest, I have been playing games for 30 years...and I haven't ever played with a community that whines as much as this one."

players get more greedy/whiny/lazy and selfish on each generation its just a fact, online game forums are exellent place to witness it, just imagine what kind of windbags will be the next genration of players who are childs of current whiners , its not going to be pretty.

You must have played tons of console games then or never visited forums before.

PS2 probably has the least amount of crying, and most of the tears are justified...."MOST".

The problem is NC don't spend time on forums etc like TR/VS requesting for buffs to them and nerfs to NC and each other. Most threads are all about buff/nerf requests from TR/VS, and often these requests are massively overrated and SOE listen because they go over board with these request, when most are unjust and unrealistic, it ruins the balance of the game.

TR/VS need to take a leaf out of NC's book and just get on with the game and play, instead of coming to the forums and making these requests, yes you see some minor stuff from NC like this also, but it's nowhere near the scale of the TR/VS nerf/buff requests, as you can see on the forum all the time. This is making allot of people leave the game and putting a downer on the PS2 community spirit and image.

I feel you, I started as NC before flinch was removed and we were considered UP. Now most of the forum threads are about the NC being OP (Even if no real changes have been made). But this is exactly what happened since the launch.... all the time people are searching for something which can get nerfed. (My dibs are on the SAW )
But I still think the game is pretty much balanced right now .

Fix'd

That's how it is.

Infantry vs infantry, its pretty well balanced , no need to change that, each empire has their own taste and strengths. Main balance issue is with infantry being more over powered compared to vehicles, as per the in coming MBT health increase, and MBT vs MBT, ESF vs ESF.

SOE should put all the weapons to common pool to speed up the game progress. It is a win-win for all. I don't mind losing the uniqueness of a faction, but at least make those people shut up..

Alternatively, they could still keep the uniqueness by making the weapon more accessible to some factions e.g. more ammo, cheap cert, less resource, 10% less cool down etc

The SWToR forums would like to have a word with you

So, why use a faction system then? I think that would ruin the style of the game. The differences between the factions are what gives the battles the little "extra". I like the idea of NC using gauss- and VS using alien technology. If everyone has the same stuff we could just run around as NS-Troopers fighting like in any generic modern shooter like BF 3 (It's not a bad game, but it has nothing unique either).