Recoil should not be based off of rate of fire. Recoil should be based around the presumed caliber of the weapon. Smaller bullet, less recoil, larger bullet, more recoil, etc. Right now it feels like recoil is simply based off of rate of fire which as a TR main I believe is absolute horse@#$%. Guns like SMG's and the high RoF carbines should feel like they have virtually no recoil while the heaviest caliber weapons should feel like they kick like a mule.
It would indeed make some sense and players would know what to expect. Nowadays recoil is a mess of pseudo-random effects: recoil angle (prevalent right, prevalent left, all over the place), and size, horizontal tolerance, FSRM and a lot of other oddities. Note: RoF affects recoil frequency, not recoil per se.
Higher rof weapons already have lower recoil. For example Gauss SAW - 0.55 vertical T9 Carv - 0.4 vertical
It actually makes some sense, a low-ROF high-damage weapon that has the same DPS as a high-ROF low-damage weapon would have expelled about the same muzzle energy and damage potential and thus have the same recoil. Although in reality a larger bullet is likely to deal more damage with the same muzzle energy than a smaller bullet against armored targets so in reality you would experience more recoil if you ever fired a smaller caliber weapon with the same damage output per second as a larger caliber weapon, if only because the bullets themselves need higher muzzle velocities to make up for the lower muzzle energy.
No. Not because it is a bad idea, but because I don't like catering to people. We need no more assists. Planetside 2 should be a hard game, something you have to get used to. I don't want to have to change recoil patterns for the new players to enjoy the game. Planetside 2 is a hard game, and it should be. I don't care if that scares new players off, because if you cater everything to them, the veteran players may leave too.
You say this and it's almost like you don't understand that currently NS weapons have miniscule recoil compared to other faction weapons. I'm just saying things should be more consistent.
Then screw with the damage or increase the recoil. Make them reward headshots much more than bodyshots, like the Tomoe, or make headshots less rewarding and keep everything the same.
NS weapons typically have lower fire rate. Their whole thing is lower fire rate but better accuracy and controllability than faction specific weapons.
Rate of Fire and damage dealt should absolutely be balanced by recoil. I understand that it might be difficult to control cheaters who use macros to compensate for recoil, but at least it would be a step in the right direction. The only factor that should be balanced by reload speed should be magazine size.