Chose NC for hardmode gameplay. And it's hilarious once you realize that the majority of TR and VS players actually cannot aim and rely solely on the bullet spray, save for snipers (seriously, i'm standiing still at 50m and you can't hit me before I 3 headshot you with a Gauss saw?). If you want easy mode go join the TR. Join VS for supereasy mode.
What makes you feel that NC is unbalanced? A lot of our weapons are too nitch for their own good while a majority of VS and TR weapons have more general uses. Something I have taken from my BF3 competitive FPS background, General weapons rule the day. Most people would take the weapon that had the least downsides and also had the least upsides just so they could mitigate the chance of being SOL in a situation they did not see coming at them. If you could change one thing about the NC's balance, what would it be? Taking all empire specific shotguns save the Jackhammer and turning them into slow fire, hard hitting gauss weapons. What's your favorite aspect of NC balance? I like slow fire high damage weapons that provide better accuracy and promote aiming.
From an infantry standpoint (and just my opinion): 1. NC starter weapons, and NC weapons in general, have a slightly slower ttk than their counterparts and combined with a much lower rof means each miss penalizes NC more severely, thus NC must play perfect to remain slightly sub par. 2. Switch the mechanic so NC weapons have that slight edge with each miss penalizing them more so as is currently the mechanic. 3. Aegis shield is a great idea, but poorly implemented and feels unfinished, not enough splash protection and enemy can shoot toes for full damage.
What makes you feel that NC is unbalanced? If you could change one thing about the NC's balance, what would it be? What's your favorite aspect of NC balance? 1. the fact that the best gun we have is the gauss saw and it needs weeks of practice and 330 certs and high accuracy well outside reasonable engagement range, it often takes anything form 2 to 4 seconds to get a kill with any of our guns whereas all other faction guns are 1-2 MAYBE 3 seconds if their inaccurate, this is simply due to sheer rate of fire and mediocre recoil and the fact their guns are actually useful in CQC whereas we may as well use rocks and sticks. the differance has caused tr to have 5-1 numbers against us consistently easily doubling during events. our guns arnt even that accurate anyway whereas tr can basically use their basic Assault rifle at their best right off the bat with little to no investment of certs and especially time the carv is also accurate enough after adjustment to it that its basically a fully automatic sniper rifle, our "best" guns are supposed to be shotguns (right? made such a big deal out of em) and their... meh at best, mx suit... only good in tight quarters situation and burster for anti air otherwise just blowing into the wind, and against zoe maxes? just redeploy. one thing i would change? i would completely overhaul the damage calculation mechanic short of that? overhaul ALL infantry weapons in the game from one single gun rather than what you do now... which seems to be "make up the stats then uber buff with a specialty" my favourite nc balance? our best balanced gun is prolly the longshot and most of the time cant use it since infils are nerfed to hell for everyone
and dont use our best players as a reason not to do anything their that good because they HAVE to be all of us are FORCED to get good with our weapons we arnt babysat with them like the tr miniguns are or the vs tight cone no bullet drop guns are by the way what the f*** is up with that? i wasent kidding tr infantry ACTUALLY get a minigun, and if anything it does MORE damage than the one son their maxes... GET RID OF THEM OR ADD THEM FOR THE REST OF US!
1. NC weapons are effective but are very situational. leading to a feeling of always having the right tool for the wrong job. Poor mobility plays a part in this also. 2. A little more versatility and/or the weapons generally being a little more powerful to counter that lull in mobility. 3. The weapons that do work well... Jack hammer, Guass Saw and the Vanguard shield because these really shout NC and they work well for the most part.
1. What makes you feel that NC is unbalanced? I find the non-tower environments make it difficult to obtain positions that favor our infantry weapons, the Vanguard's shield feels too strong against Magriders, and using the Phoenix is a pain if you also fly. For more info, see: I invert the vertical mouse component while flying, but this doesn't feel normal and natural when using the Phoenix. So I have to change my vertical mouse control option when switching between flying and using the Phoenix. 2. If you could change one thing about the NC's balance, what would it be? Give our anti-infantry MAXs a better medium-to-longer-ranged option. 3. What's your favorite aspect of NC balance? The MAX shield or the hard-hitting Vanguard's main cannon.
What makes you feel that NC is unbalanced? NC feels like playing counter-strike while VS/TR feels like playing Call of Duty. If you could change one thing about the NC's balance, what would it be? More versatility instead of being shoehorned into a smaller niche than VS/TR normally are. What's your favorite aspect of NC balance? The few faction specific outliers that work(ed) for the NC: Vanguard, Gauss SAW (before the LMG rebalance nerfs, recoil/reload/equip were too much), Jackhammer.
This is exactly what ran threw my mind when i read her post ... i agree totally . not being the greatest player I'll admit but by time i switch to the proper weapon for the situation and get back to the area of battle i need to run back and switch again because the situation has changed .... no i usually just use what i have on me at the time .
In regards to this, that is NOT what I meant. That's just silly. Keep in mind I am being very general and some weapons will not always fit the below statements: NC weapons cater to players who love burst fire weaponry. They primarily have slow firing (by slow firing this does not always mean projectile speed), heavy hitting weapons. If you're NC, you like to ADS pop shots> take cover> get closer> repeat. Your goal is always to engage at closer ranges and rarely to hold down the trigger mindlessly. As someone who can get a Jackhammer kill at 30-50m, it's all about knowing the weapon - bullet drop, recoil, RoF, CoF, pellet burst, etc. Range is not the only thing that matters with a weapon and if you know your weapon well enough, range isn't always a major factor.
This is what I imagine "smart" NC player is doing. First the player has to determine what the minimum length of time he has to use a weapon before switching. He can't be constantly running back to the terminal since that would negate the purpose of fighting if all you're doing is switching weapons. So suppose you say you'll stick with a weapon for 5 minutes minimum before switching. Second, you have to determine what weapon to use. To do this you have to survey the battlefield. How many friendlies, how many enemies? How far away are the enemies? What is the composition of the enemy? Where are the enemy sunderers? Could there be multiple sunderers? Is there a zerg about to hit the hex? After going through many of these questions, you believe that you'll be fighting at some range with some probability, some other range with some other probability, etc, in those 5 minutes. Finally, you make a determination of the weapon based on the probabilities and how well each weapon performs at each range relative to all other choice, which will probably be complex to calculate. This post is a bit of exaggeration and I know no one is doing it, but the greater point is that expecting players to use niche weapons in niche situations demands that a player knows a lot about the game. Even then, the niche weapons don't really have a clear advantage. On the other hand, a VS player using the Orion will have an advantage in most situations the game presents.
Wait, what? We should be getting closer? The ranges where NC weapons have the greatest advantage is longer ranges. Once you get closer, weapons like the Orion and MSW-R dominate. Most importantly, PS2 base design forces people in close range encounters where the Orion and MSW-R dominate. I'll refer to Glorin's posts on this: http://np.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1d4e84/what_is_the_best_worst_advice_youve_heard/c9mutsy I have the Auraxium with the Jackhammer. It's just a shotgun with a slightly tigher COF and a burst to resemble a slightly better pump action shotgun. At 30-50m, it's always better to have an LMG at those ranges.
Oh for sure! LMGs are definitely better at the 30-50m range than shotguns. I was just saying the main point you were originally hitting at was that you needed to go back to the terminal to get a new weapon every time you engaged at a new weapon range. I was simply stating that you don't have to do that if you know the weapon well enough. Not that each weapon is perfect in every situation. I mean, the whole point of my original comment that started this discussion was stating that certain weapons are better in certain situations.
I agree, and would like to elaborate on this. Currently, the only burst gun in the game with a <1.0 first shot recoil multiplier (aka the number that determines where shot#2 will land) is the TR's SABR-13, a gun that is absurdly lethal. How about maybe some NC guns get that perk? Gauss Rifle Burst and Compact Burst come to mind, but a 2 round alt fire mode for guns that are never going to be used up close (Warden, Reaper, X11 generally, etc) and already have low FSRM's would be great as well. Better burst is fantastic as a faction trait, but I feel like presently it's not really so cut and dry. The TR/VS can burst and kill as well with guns like the T5, Orion, TMG-50, and just about any high ROF gun in the game. The best burst fire gun the NC have is the Carnage, which is more like a VS gun than an NC one. If the Reaper and X11 were changed to 200 damage SABRs....oh my god, I can't even imagine how awesome that would be. Also, slugs being 1 cert options would go a LONG way toward quieting the people on both sides of the line of FREEDOM AND TRUCK NUTZ AND SHOTGUNNING BEER WITH OUR SHOTGUNS who are seriously unhappy with our MAX. Much larger reserves (if not magazine sizes) would be wonderful as well, or at least for our "inaccurate but powerful and lots of rounds in mag/reserve" Grinder.
Yes, but not going back to the terminal means you need a good all-around weapon and not the niche weapons the NC is known for. The best all-around LMG the NC has is the Anchor and that's still worse than the Orion in my experience for close to medium ranges.
I was once with a girl who lived in New York and, while walking through the park, we stopped to play a game of chess with a homeless man. Apparently, the homeless would often play chess with someone for a dollar, and if you beat them...you could play again for free any time you wanted. As you can imagine, they were incredibly good at the game and worked towards maximizing their performance so they could continue making money. The one she played against decided not to use his queen, and when he asked me if I knew why...I answered. By removing his queen, he placed himself at a significant disadvantage, but this would also improved his performance by learning to compensate for this downright debilitating handicap. If you can defeat your opponent without your queen, just imagine what you can accomplish when you start using that piece again. This is what they mean about not wanting to inadvertently create godmode players amongst the top end New Conglomerate players. You give back the queen, and you watch these players become downright omnipotent. With that said, I have to admit, fair is fair... Statistical balance is what you strive towards in a game, you don't balance off of sheer frustration, nor do you balance off the fact that a group of individuals have compensated for a handicap and you fear that removing that handicap will allow their skill increase to truly shine. Eventually, the remaining factions will adept to the new difficulty of engaging their boosted New Conglomerate players, we just might have a lengthy period of frustration until that adaptation occurs. People might complain for a while...but we all knew right out of the box that the NC got a bit shafted from launch. Personally, I want to see a complete overhaul of the weapons to include faction flavored mechanics unique to each faction...and if that was done, it would negate the fear which they possess due to the need to adapt to new mechanics in general. It would be a lengthy endeavor though...but ultimately for the best, and I think that the majority of the NC would rather my idea for weapons than what they have been given...but I could always be mistaken. The NC should have been truly based around Gauss technology, and their mechanics should have better reflected this. It would have given them powerful short and long range capabilities while restricting them with limited magazine sizes, long reload periods, and a potentially short charge up mechanic which would equate to low firing rate. In compensation, they would have had downright devastating damage output, good accuracy, great bullet velocity, and a piercing effect to their ammunition that permitted it to nail one target and continue on to additional targets at the cost of reduced damage and bullet velocity. This would have ultimately made up for the charge period of their shots, but left them with a "Make every shot count" methodology to work with. I'd just really like to see the game turn towards a path where each faction feels unique, where you actually FEEL like you're using a different type of technology when you're running around out there on the field of battle.
The thing is you are forced in to CQC if you want to take a base and bursting drastically increases your TTK.
Its really not that complicated. 1) ROF is DPS king. we do have good ROF weapons, but too many of our weapons are far too far off this to be competitive. VS and TR tend to have very weapons for which this is true. 2) Many of our best weapons are suited best to medium-long range, CQC is what takes points and a half descent outfit knows that galdropp avoiding engaging us in the field. 3) VS and TR maxes are highly effective at putting down suppressing fire in the open, our max is CQC only. 4) I really hope the nanoweave changes help, but trade off between damage at range and recoil is currently too high. 5) Most of our weapons (medic is espeically bad, Gr-22, Carnage, nearly the same gun for example) lack distinctness, those that are distinct e.g. Reaper DMR or the Vehicleshotgun are far too gimmicky to be actually useful. 6) likewise its all well and good saying 'we don't exploit our strenghs' our strenghs are by and large, CQC maxes and a good anti-tank tank. The former is for sure highly useful, but comes at the cost of the max otherwise being next to useless, likewise with the latter. Vanguard is woeful at anti-infantry which is a vehicles primary threat and generally speaking is the greatest threat to loosing a point.
At least half of my 4500 SAW kills are in CQC. You've got an overshield and nanoweave for a reason - just ADS, and click on the head. The SAW will kill someone like this in the kind of time frames that will earn you hate tells. If you want a traditional CQC option, just grab an SMG. The Orion is great and all but if you want to be covered in CQC situations a Cyclone is a damn fine choice.
Okay, let's steer this back to the three questions I proposed originally before things get derailed. Otherwise, I will close the thread and leave it at that.
