Since the PPA is becoming crap can we have old ZOE back?

Well, it was so conveniently correct.. who could blame him? You have to be completely oblvious to deny ZOE and it's effects on the game, vs EVERYTHING else. Yes the Striker was OP, but it was never anything close to what ZOE was.

Striker dominating vehicle fights had an indirect effect on infantry. It allowed Prowlers to farm undisturbed and Mossies to fly unhindered. Mossies were even nerfed because they were thought to be doing too well at the time, due to Striker keeping the air clean.

So yea, I'd say it's pretty much comparable in terms of affecting gameplay beyond the boundaries of that specific ability or weapon.

In any case, this discussion is pedantic and I don't know why I got dragged into it. Your weapon is op .... no your weapon is op ... etc reminds me of kindergarten children arguing about their toys.

You're dragging me back into it, but I'll bite. Once PPA gets nerfed, there won't be anything in the VS arsenal that stands out. Meanwhile, TR will still have at least three that heavily outperfrorm the competition (Pounders, Banshee, Prowler main gun).

Btw, when Higby made that comment, ZOE wasn't in the game.

You'll have to blame the OP's silly request. Trading one OP thing for a significantly more OP thing is not how balance works. Still though, I wonder how many people would actually agree with your assessment that the Striker = ZOE in overpoweredness.

Striker could only attack vehicles, while ZOE could attack everything, while having 3 times the durability, more effective solo ability, and faster movement speed. This is all on top of the fact that ZOE Max never required any type of real coordination to dominate the playing field.

How many solo Strikers did you see destroying your vehicles?

Now, how many solo ZOE maxes have you seen wipe out a squad or two?(There are videos of this on youtube.)

Orion certainly stands out on Forumside lol.

You VS are literally always complaining about your stuff but fail to realize that the other factions also have plenty of problems with their arsenal as well.

**Not posting again. Don't know why it is splitting my post into two.

Yea, the funny bit is that NC already have a weapon that outperforms Orion and now TR have their Carv pretty much made a carbon copy of Orion. It will be interesting to see results of these changes in the upcoming month.

And what a future will that be! Soon, vehicles can't do sht and infantry will not be able to fight for their lives. Stupid nerfing protocols

I'm not doing anything other than pointing out a selection of weapons that are blatantly OP, blatantly in need of balancing, blatantly in need of bringing in line with the "reducing excessive lethality". The PPA is / was on that list too by the way, but the difference is that Forumside (and no doubt Reddit etc) cried bloody murder about the PPA, and the end result is what we have today.

The Banshee has accuracy, near instant kill ability, and can be used on a platform that can get in and out away from any danger (up, around, over, under) at much higher speed unlike any ground based platform like a Magrider ever could. A Magrider simply cannot dip in and out of combat like a Mossie can, so mounting that gun on that platform makes it broken.

I'll disagree with you that ZOE was worse than Striker. The Striker pre nerf locked out entire hexes from vehicle and air, with VS and NC powerless to select anything other than flares / smoke (or accept that you were going to get hit). The 'fly through / around the terrain' bugs simply compounded the problem of a ridiculously overpowered weapon that had absolutely no decent counter. The game suffered massively for months as a result.

I'm not disputing ZOE was bad however. Someone said correctly earlier this week, mobility was given to a class that shouldn't have mobility, and it was correctly removed. However, just because ZOE was bad doesn't mean that VS now should repeatedly endure:

• A failure to rebalance for extended periods of time (Spiker, ZOE, Lasher, Phaseshift)
• Huge imbalance between weapons that are supposedly meant to perform the same tasks when used against infantry
  • Comet / Vortex (vs Pounder / Fracture vs Falcon / Raven)
  • Saron (vs Enforcer)
  • Lancer (vs Phoenix)
• A failure to address Magburner utility when compared to DPS increase via Prowler lockdown, or survivability with the Vanguard shield
• Inequality on such a basic level with regard to implementation and availability of pistols
• A complete lack of consistency in faction identity

Which is what you seem to imply with:

Explain, please.

1. For example, our whole LMG arsenal sucks. That's why we "abuse" Orion. Occasional we get players such as Datvanuman who uses Polaris like its his god. He doesn't abuse the OP orion.
2. Marauder is a good close quarter's weapon with high burst damage. Canister is a good close quarter's weapon with high burst damage. Kobalt is a good close quarter's weapon with high burst damage. And now PPA isn't much different.

An underpowered armament is not a reason to have one or two overpowered guns at your disposal. They should buff the bad weapons slightly if they truly under perform, and they should nerf the OP weapons to better standards, although they are still allowed to over perform a little.

I don't agree about the Kobalt, as it is much more accurate and much more 'gradual' damage. Also, it is available to all factions.
The Canister, PPA and Marauder are now all close quarters weapons with high burst damage. Each of the weapons uses a distinct method to achieve this. The Canister has a sh*tload of pellets, as in keeping with their faction. The Marauder shoots big grenades with a lot of drop off, which is a bit like the pounders, as in keeping with their faction. The PPA shoots energy balls with no drop off and an explosion on impact, as in keeping with their faction. Although they all achieve their goal in wildly different ways, they achieve the same goal. Isn't that part of what this faction stuff is all about? Distinct weapons, while they often still have the same goals?
Or did you want to have an AI weapon just as effective (or more effective) as the Marauder and the Canister, but with longer range! That is more in keeping with the faction.

Not getting dragged into this, except to say PPA got it's indirect damage back on PTS, and they are buffing it slightly from the massive nerf it received.

Its hard to find period when TR had less than 3 borderline OP toys along with plenty of good reliable stuff. And when people cry nerfs, defenders mention high dps, speed and ammo count as fair faction traits. When VS have like 2 undoubtedly better in their class things (PPA and Lancer) and tons of borked stuff its nerfed because, oh humanity, AI gun with working no-drop faction trait, surprise-surprise, kill infantry at range where no-drop supposed to be effective.
VS have their mediocre trait removed from all guns where it could be useful, TR got to keep their always useful big mags on everything, TR already have more than VS, how happens that PPA got nerfed before banshee, pounders and lockdown prowlers bombardments?

Shows what you know. NOTHING.

@OP

No dude. You won't. Ever. The old ZOE broke the game and made a huge number of players leave this game, most of them for good. The PPA is not nearly as broken but it's blatantly way to easy to use.

This is currently being fixed, so now, NOW YOU HAVE OT GET A LITTLE BIT CLOSER LIKE THE REST OF US.

Who betide the Vanu, I guess. You got to aim and risk your neck like everyone else. The horror, I tell ya, it's... horrible.

Here is some life advice for you that everyone else has learned by now: Adapt, overcome, deal with it.

Just out of curiosity, when Vanu still fit PPA to there Mags and Harrasholes, still get into spawn camps (like all fractions do) and still kill lots of people with splash, what are people going to do next?

Put another way, is the perception of overpoweredness driven by a given weapons clear dominance in many situations (as opposed to a situation it is design to dominate in) and backed up by cold hard statistics, or is the perception of overpowerdness driven by a given weapons popularity and frequency on the battlefield?

This is a genuine question, not $*!£ stirring.

Granted, one might argue that if a weapon if being used a hell of a lot, it might be because it is OP and therefore the clear choice. However it might be that the other options are just so meh, that that given weapon stands out (as many have suggested with the Orion (although I happen to think the Vanu LMG range is pretty good and that too many Vanu buy into the Orion hype and overlook such gems as the SVA, Polaris and Flare)).

For example, I think Harrasholes as OP. When I suggest that here, I find myself outspoken by people saying that is nonsense. But I keep dying to them. All the time. As a heavy, if a run into a MBT or a Lightning I will attack and sometimes win. With the Harrashole I die more often than not. Is it OP, ir is it that I die a lot to them so consider them OP?

ZOE is an odd one. I used zoe to get to the fight quicker. Once there I would switch it off as you died faster. Against one or two opponents it was great. Against a room you just died before you could do anything with it. In swarms, then it was great... but here we are again... was it considered OP because it was statistically superior to everything else, or just because there were 12 maxes all running ZOE, regardless of its actual performance?

Another thought. If something is perceived, rightly or wrongly as being OP by many posters, does it get hit with the nerf hammer, or do SOE put all the forum froth aside and simply look at the stats? Do we, in fact, shoot ourselves in the foot with such almost hysterical shouting about X and Y?

Discuss.

NC have one weapon that outperforms the stock LMG for Vanu? What is this blasphempy?! Wanna look up the stats for SVA meanwhile mate?

How is the PPA becoming crap? It's more deadly at the intended range for AI secondaries. It's only losing two things: It's spamminess and that fcking ridiculous range.

Am I the only one who sees the benefit of this new PPA? I"m not talking as an NC. I'm talking as if I were VS.

Can you imagine 2-3 Harassers with this thing defending a capture point? Or flying about and suppressing a spawn room?

Yes you'll have to drive more, yes you'll have to dodge and repair more at the closer range, but it's going to be INSANELY good at chokepoints. Better than the Maurader, and miles ahead of the Canister.

Canister will still OHK at short range but limited by need for high aim. Maurader lacks range and requires some skill to use properly. The new PPA is very much still a spam suppression weapon and will continue to be very effective IN THE RIGHT HANDS.

It's just no longer a blatant farm tool for scrubs who like to shoot at doorways and spawn shields.

I fail to see where ZOE made a huge difference in that video, except for maybe dodging that one rocket near the end. The guy was mainly facing what looks like bf1942 bots.

You need to add the Fracture to that like, and orginal Magriders and too a degree orginal Scatmags (although NC had so many built in disadvantages at that time, not so much perhaps).

The thing with the Striker 1.0 is that it was never really that OP'd as in individual weapon, so much as what it did as a force multipler - this is basically gave utter Air superiority to the TR and a less ground vehicle superiority.

I don't think anything else has ever had the overall effect on the game the Striker 1.0 had..... even though other things have perhaps been more OPd in an individual sense.