Longtime VS Player, observations on other factions

PREFACE: I've been an exclusively VS player since beta, and I've been seeing a lot of threads and hearsay about so-and-so faction's certain weapon(s) being over/under powered. I've seen so much of this, in fact, that I decided to devote a few hours to each of the other factions to investigate these claims for myself, and see what the hubbub is all about. Here are my observations.

NOTES:
-Please note that these are only my experiences, and obviously would not apply to everyone.
-I did not go into this with the intention of debunking any claims about VS being too easy or NC/TR being underpowered. In fact, my experience with VS leads me to believe that much of what people say is actually true. I simply wanted to see for myself.
-This should not be taken as a claim of actual imbalance or used as evidence for such, my only intention is to get a discussion going between players of the 3 factions on these perceived differences.
-I could only devote time to NC today (a few hours), and didn't get the chance to try out any vehicles, so I can only comment on the behavior of the infantry classes.
-Keep it classy, guys. No flaming, no goading, no trolling.

NC Infantry
-on average, I was actually every impressed with the performance of NC infantry weapons. There are issues which I'll discuss later, but on the whole said issues were less drastic than I had originally thought given all the complaints on the forums.
-Fighting against both other factions, I felt a disadvantage in cqc, and an advantage at range. This disparity was much more apparent against the TR, the VS less so. In both cases, the difference in performance mainly came down to ROF, but was somewhat offset by differing damage. Also in both cases, I did not feel as if either of the differences were insurmountable. More often I lost cqc fights because I lost firing discipline and did not control my bursts sufficiently - I panicked. I also was still beaten at range at times, mostly due to either sheer volume of fire or positioning.
-the recoil on NC weapons (particularly the horizontal recoil on the saw, which made it hard to control at range) was noticeably higher than most VS weapons. That said, it was not drastic enough to feel as though it were a handicap - it was rarely ever an issue in cqc, was still relatively easily compensated for, and the extra fraction of a second spent waiting for recoil to settle during ranged engagements was often offset by the fact that the minimum damage dropoff felt higher to me (1-2 less hits to kill, sometimes more).
-Where the recoil became problematic was during extended fire, between point-blank and mid-range engagements, where mag dumping is nominally effective. I definitely felt that NC weapons suffer in this department more than VS weapons. Again, it was not so drastic as to frustrate me - what this difference translated to was that the effective full-auto range was shorter for NC weapons, NOT that they couldn't do it at all.
-the bullet drop was negligible - it was not hard at all to learn and then compensate for it. That said, it is an undeniable advantage to NOT have drop rather than to have it. It's just not that big of an advantage.
-I noticed that NC weapons have slightly worse moving accuracy than their VS counterparts. This is a big deal, since standing still is a fantastic way to get shot.
-I LOVE the damage on NC weapons. The carbine, AR, and SAW all felt very satisfying to use at mid range, single firing or short bursting. Also, I'm not even sure that this is the case, but the projectile velocity somehow felt faster to me. Perhaps it's just my imagination.
-the Bolt Driver beats the pants off of the VS stock SR, hands down.
-in conclusion, there is a ring of truth to much of what people say of NC weapons as compared to VS ones, but the disparity is greatly exaggerated.

Will ad sections for vehicles and TR later.

Which weapons did you use? NC have a 845 RPM assault rifle and an 800 RPM carbine available.

The only weapon type where you are forced into low RoF is LMG.

If they would allow the picking up of other faction weapons after a kill we'd probably see a lot less crying on the forums.

Nice write up. As a full on NC player.. I suspected as much. The Devs have had too much time and too much energy devoted to weapons balance for there to be any LARGE infantry imbalance. NC have histortically been a bit more difficult to get use to/play.

I do not currently hear anyone in my outfit complaining (much) about infantry. I do hear a new problem with the reaver... but I dont fly.. so not for me to comment.

cant wait for the second installment.

I dunno.

I can see people knifing each other over looting rights, and maybe running off the battlefield to stow their favorite salvaged weapons instead of pressing the fight should lockers come back too.

They have access to the fastest firing carbine in the game not just an 800RPM one

Gah, I got them the wrong way around!

They have access to a 800 RPM AR and a 845 RPM carbine.

At least know what you're talking about, Vanu have the Serpent which is also a 845 rpm carbine, with less recoil and cof bloom.

As a or should I say was a full time NC Player I can tell you that TR and VS weapons are vastly superior to NC weapons.

I now have a higher BR character on TR than NC and have a much better K/D than my NC.

VG is ok, but I find I do way better with a Prowler or Mag.
Reaver is a flying brick.
NC guns have way too much recoil and the shaking makes it worse.
Hacksaws are devastating in CQC but worthless outside 10m+

I have a BR29 NC.

The Mossy is better than the Reaver.
Prowler is slightly better than the VG.
MCG pwns everything in my path.
Hacksaws freaking suck to fight against in a Bio Lab.

I have a BR 36 TR.

Scythe is better than the Reaver.
MAg is better than the VG and the Prowler.
VSA-88 is a epic HA weapon.
VS weapon seem to do more damage than any other empire.
Hacksaws freaking suck to fight against in a Bio Lab.

I have a BR 28 VS.

Moral?

Grass always looks greener.

In the NCs case, it is better.

Funny, I just got through making my rounds to keep offline certs rolling and came away from my TR and VS thinking, "jeez its easy to kill with this rifle" "Man I wish I had this on my NC..."

Oh yea, the magrider is actually a fun tank to drive.

When claiming the Prowler is a better tank you had better be talking about only farming infantry.

If you are talking tank vs. tank then your bias is clear.

And FYI the amount of recoil does not decide its difficulty to counter. What makes recoil hard to counter is guns with unpredictable recoil. High recoil just means moving your mouse down quicker to counter it.

Depends on other things.

Do you have the AV weapons, top and bottom.

Did you get the drop on them?

Personally I think the Mag is far superior to the Prowler and VG just off of Mag burner. Such an awesome ability, and the panic on infantries actions when I Mag-burn up a cliff.....PRICELESS!

What's that? I can't get you? THINK AGAIN! RAWR!

That is incorrect, all factions have an equally fast Carbine. Check the weapon data. Our super fast carbine just has more recoil than the other factions and it is VERY noticeable.

Point out to me the 845 RPM TR carbine please...

:edit:

Here, filtered to carbine and sorted by RoF: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...NE&sortcolid=21&sortasc=false&rowsperpage=250

:edit2:

For people who know how to counter recoil, how much recoil there is doesn't matter in the slightest. Only how predictable it is.

Both 845 RPM carbines recoil in one horizontal direction only, so are very predictable.

Filtered the list to only show carbines then sorted by fire rate, The following are the only 845 RPM carbines. The RPM has been highlighted in red.


1 GD-7F NC CARBINE0 0143 @ 10m112 @ 65m2.7s/3s301500.3 ↑ , ←18 ↓2x0.5x0.1/0.35/30.1/0.21.5/2/5/71/1.5ADS: 0.06, HIP: 0.12845 rpm50011.25

2 Serpent VSCARBINE0 0143 @ 10m100 @ 115m2.65s/3.8s301500.22 ↑ , ←18 ↓2.5x0.5x0.1/0.35/30.1/0.21.5/2/5/71/1.5ADS: 0.05, HIP: 0.1845 rpm

Now compare that to the first TR Carbine on the list (number 3, again RPM is in red)

3 LC2 Lynx TR CARBINE00143 @ 10m112 @ 65m2.8s/3.5s402000.3 ↑ , →18 ↓2x0.75x0.1/0.35/30.1/0.21.5/2/5/71/1.5ADS: 0.05, HIP: 0.1800 rpm45011.25

The blue numbers show the recoil, As you can see despite the NC Carbine having a faster fire rate it has the same amount of Vertical and Horizontal recoil as the Lynx which is a slower weapon, It also has the same first shot multiplier as the Lynx shown in green.

Now The Serpent has Even less vertical recoil whilst still having the same fire rate and damage as the NC carbine which is still 45RPM faster then the TR's closest. It does however have an increase first shot multiplier but this only applies to the first shot.

So please tell me where the TR 845RPM carbine is so that all factions do have an equally fast carbine, And as you can see i know what i am talking about by the stats and i can make use of them.

Whilst all the above weapons all have the same COF whilst standing, jumping or moving the Serpent has less of gain per bullet along with the slower lynx. however this is a very marginal difference as you can see it is only 0.02 difference on the NC carbine from the hip and a 0.01 difference when using the sight.


Whilst the Lynx also has less gain per bullet it fires slower then both the NC and VS weapons this is expected but the VS matching it is not.

Again the slower lynx shares the same stats despite being a slower carbine it is no more accurate then the Serpent or the GD-7F and does no more damage, infact it has less DPS then both andd shows an imbalance between the carbines.

Lol, I know rite, Magriders don't give a ****. Cliff? What Cliff? Hello boys

Less Lag + Rate of Fire + Projectile Speed = You Win due to the way this game handles client server prediction. Try it, you will see that the server favors fast weapons over client player action in every fight. Projectile Speed is very important.

Hey guys. I got a chance to try out the NC-specific vehicles today. Not much to add, but I'll post it here as well as append the original post.

NC Vehicles
-optics for both the Vanguard and the Reaver were nice and clean - functional yet simple. I kind of wish it were this way for the mag and scythe as well.
-Right away I noticed the handling on the Vanguard was pretty poor compared to the Mag - Turret turn rate while in first person was pretty close to Mag turn rate, but acceleration and deceleration was lacking. The biggest issue by far, though, was the turret deviation with respect to the chassis - or rather, lack thereof. With the Mag, the barrel elevation is largely unaffected by the chassis' elevation or delevation unless it surpasses max/min barrel elevation, because the Mag hovers over rough terrain - it's a smoother transition. But on the Vanguard, the barrel would stay fixed with respect to chassis elevation, which means that firing while moving over rough terrain was an extremely difficult task. This is a clear advantage that the Mag has over the Vanguard (and probably the Prowler), and needs to be addressed.
-However I did like the positioning of the barrel on the chassis. It was up much higher than I was accustomed to, so I rarely ever had to worry about low objects in my firing lane, which was a constant annoyance in the Magrider. I generally found it much easier to use partial cover and go "hull down" on hills in the vanguard compared to the Mag. As a result, I had a much, much easier time targeting infantry, especially infantry close to the tank itself.
-Try as I might, I could find no real disadvantage with the Reaver compared to a vanilla Scythe. The acceleration, deceleration, top speed, and afterburner speed were all pretty much identical. In fact, the reaver felt more responsive in general. Banking and rolling were much easier than in the Scythe - the Scythe feels... floaty by comparison, for lack of a better description. I also found that maintaining altitude at low speeds was generally easier. This meant that both dogfighting and target strafing (which I didn't do much of since I only had rocket pods for 30 minutes) in the Reaver was actually marginally easier.
-Breaker rocket pods felt marginally easier to use, since one less pair of rockets to be fired meant a fraction of a second less time spent strafing. This meant being slightly less vulnerable to return fire and other aircraft.

EDIT: nevermind, apparently I can't edit the original post

did you make your jump before or after game update 1, i found that update put NC small arms more or less on par with TR. VS is still above the curve

I dont have enouph personal experence with the different ESFs to give first hand experence but I can say this, reavers are biger and easier to hit, most folks find the cockpit vew to provide worse visability (though i have no idea how big of a deal that is), and the AI weapon nosegun is realy bad (untill mag size certing is jsut about maxed) while the PPA is a damn fine gun.

Mine was after, when I seen that they don't seem to care much about how lacking NC is I pretty much jumped ship. I still play NC from time to time but I have mostly spent my time on TR with VS thrown in.