[Solution] VS Heat mechanic: one mag of limited capacity

Do you even have any of the directives weapons?

The point of the pooled ammunition IS to make sure the guns essentially stays the same. The heat mechanic becomes nothing more than a gimmick which gives you an "analog" short reload whose reload time is directly related to how many bullets have been fired.

The buff ends up being small but in a very significant and fun way. It creates a gimmick that is actually useful without being OP.

Unlimited ammo is ONLY useful if you're able to survive long enough to make it viable. In that one instance I was able to make it viable. I then went on and played another 90 minutes where I used no more than 150 rounds before I would die. So unlimited ammo wouldn't have done crap for me in that 90 minutes. The nerf that the other factions would demand, on the other hand, WOULD effect me.

You get "unlimited ammo" (which is has VERY little utility in a game where you get ammo for free with little effort in finding it) at a cost of reduced effectiveness of the weapon itself.

Unlimited ammo is essentially like no-bullet drop. It's useful in less than 5% of the time but the nerf that balances it out, effects you well over 80% of the time.

Now there are HANDFUL of weapons which might be useful to have "unlimited ammo" but they're already incredibly niche and barely even used in the first place (like the Lasher or Lancer).

I didn't want an explanation, I said I wanted this to NOT be forced upon me.

Yeah well they're looking to REPLACE the ENTIRE VS arsenal with the heat mechanic. And unlimited ammo causes a LOT of problems BEYOND just you firing your gun. There is getting ammo XP, ribbons, and directives for engies as well as it would mean finding ammo boxes for all the NS weapon users and RL's would be nearly impossible if the VS arsenal had "unlimited ammo".

NO unlimited ammo. If you want it, go play in the vehicles on BF4. Limited ammo is a VERY good idea. It requires you to go to the low BR engies to get more ammo which gets them the XP in one of the FEW ways they can really get any early on.

Once again, I WANT INFINITE AMMO. I don't care about your reasoning, I LIKE IT, and I want it as an ammo option. Anyways, only the Auraxium weapons have the mechanic, so you're saying we can't have a characteristic people would enjoy despite not even being released. We can do this all night. I don't want some ideas I dislike to be forced upon me; I want A CHOICE. So, deal?

Uh... No they are not. They are not replacing the entire VS weapon arsenal. It does not say that ANYWHERE. Great job spreading misinformation.

Dude they wouldn't roll it out on JUST the VS directive weapons and not the other faction's directive weapons unless they were planning on rolling the change to the REST of the VS small arms.

They already did it with the Phaseshift. This is just the first rollout of these heat mechanics on the small arms. If you are that short sighted to not see it, then you should not be on the forum giving your opinion.

If you want infinite ammo, play engy and drop the ammo pack every 15 seconds. Otherwise, be quiet because MOST people will NOT want infinite ammo in exchange for performance nerfs especially since the average infantry lifespan in this game is WELL under 2 minutes.

If you are ignorant enough to think they are going to force the overheat mechanic on every single weapon, Maybe you should just take your own advice and leave the forums.

The phaseshift was MADE with the overheat mechanic. It always had it. Anyone with half a brain could see that trying to force every single VS weapon on an overheat mechanic would cause a massive community backlash, it won't happen. Oh.. Wait... You can't see that.


Some weapons will probably get the overheat mechanic, But no way in hell will all of them get it.

Heat mechanics for all VS weapons will never happen due to the amount of processing and coding when SOE's schedule is so tight.

First ALL of them won't. The rocket launchers can't have them because unlimited ammo rockets would be SUPER OP and the other factions would whine until the human race went extinct.

As for "the devs won't because of community backlash"...Vortex, Phaseshift, Spiker. I could go on but you can see that we don't like the charge mechanic (in fact we hate it) and yet they STILL FORCE it on us.

So don't think the devs WON'T force stuff on us that we simply don't want.

As someone who's been really vocal about this is numerous threads (and as someone who's actually used the new heat mechanic on the Betelgeuse) I feel like the OP's proposed solution is really great and hope that the devs use it by outlining why I'm for and against certain parts of this mechanic.

First off, why I'm against the unlimited ammo part of this.

1. Unlimited ammo is a complete gimmick. If anyone thinks this is a good idea think about how a gun with unlimited ammo would have to be balanced... and if you need an example look at how well the Phaseshift turned out.
2. Our DPM is already the worst of the three empires. The heat mechanic as it stands now is a 15-20% nerf to our DPM and if this gets pushed to all of our guns we will cease to be competitive with TR and NC. Not maybe, we flat out will.
3. No coding will have to change with regards to ammo boxes, and VS engineer's won't get the shaft. (<3 you guys, always johnny on the spot with ammo for my HA and repairs for my MAX)
4. Keeping the heat mechanic, unlimited ammo, and our current DPM would be overpowered, and for the most part this game is actually pretty well balanced.

Why I'm for the heat mechanic.

1. It's super fun.
2. No seriously guys, it's awesome in a "this isn't OP but I haven't had this much fun in a while" awesome.
3. It feels very VS and it's fantastic to have something that feels like it's ours and only ours.
4. Actually having faction flavor for each empire is a good thing and something I feel the VS has lacked outside of the Magrider, Lasher, and Lancer.

Devs, please listen (read?) to what the OP is saying as this is probably the best way to implement a super fun faction trait from the empire that's really been missing one since release without it being overpowered, massively hurting a class, or requiring extensive balance passes.

Did you not read the AMMO FREAKING OPTION part? That means I simply want the mechanic to be an ammo OPTION for VS weaponry.
Option: A thing that is or may be CHOSEN. Please understand the words I am typing, man. If it is an OPTION, it means people can CHOOSE it.

Those of us in DA love the mechanic.

Simple solution (just to spell it out for those who don't understand the meaning of option):

Add a new ammo attachment to all VS weapons with the heat mechanic that gives unlimited ammo but means fewer rounds can be fired before overheating. Not only does this fix the problem, it also layers an extra disadvantage on those who use it in that they can't equip soft point/HV ammo. Hopefully that'll help to keep whiners from the other factions quiet, and will also mean the majority of players will likely stick with the stock option which will be a single large ammo pool as stated by the OP, thus not massively nerfing engies and users of NS weapons.

Although I don't have any of the directive weapons, I love the idea of a heat mechanic and hope to see it rolled out to at least a few, if not all, the normal VS firearms. It would do a lot towards making VS weapons interesting beyond a few fun unique weapons, and stop me from feeling like my guns were just a bland blend of NC and TR unique features.

First: The Eclipse and Darkstar both currently fire 25 rounds at full auto before overheat. Not 20. 25. Yes, that needs to be adjusted a bit higher, but not too much.

Second: The Betelgeuse fires approximately 40 rounds at full auto before overheat. That number of rounds fired at full auto is fine.

Third: The only problem currently with the Heat/Unlimited Ammo mechanic is that the delay between stopping shooting and starting the cooldown is too long on all three weapons. Burst firing the weapons with normal pauses doesn't give a benefit because the cooldown hasn't started. This can, and should, be adjusted so that the cooldown starts immediately.

Fourth: Different weapon types should cooldown at different speeds depending on their type and how they are intended to be used. Those which cooldown slower should typically fire more rounds before overheat. Those which cooldown faster should typically have the current smaller number of rounds to fire before overheat.

Fifth: Installing a Heat mechanic and then leaving an ammo pool is pants-on-head stupid. You are suggesting putting in a mechanic designed around this benefit, then removing half of the benefit. Understand the following. In Planetside 1 the NC trait was slow firing/hard hitting, TR was fast firing/weak hitting, VS was versatility (on the fly ammo switch). In Planetside 2 the developers swapped the VS trait with accuracy (that's where the no-bullet drop thing comes from), but then realized how much that impacts the NC and TR in order to make it useful (remember flinch and the horrible recoil/bloom on those weapons during Beta?). They finally figured out a way to return a bit of versatility to the VS with this mechanic. Engineers on the VS won't necessarily be screwed as there are quite a few suggestions to alter the VS ammo pack to work with this mechanic.

Sixth: Most of your complaints are about how it is currently set for each weapon, mainly how many shots can be fired before overheat. There are two built-in weapon balance elements to this mechanic which allows the developers to balance individual weapons. How quickly a weapon overheats and how quickly it coolsdown. I agree that the current 25 rounds for the Eclipse and Darkstar is too little, but they're close. They could both use 2 more rounds before overheat, provided of course the Third Point is addressed.

Once those changes are done, I am sure you will see this mechanic is extremely useful, returns versatility to the VS player, and provides a unique faction weapon identity which isn't over-powered and doesn't require taking anything away from the NC or TR.

The phaseshift isn't unpopular because of its heat mechanic. It's unpopular because unlike other sniper rifles which have 1 balancing mechanic, it has three. And the OP is wrong. Leaving an ammo pool with this mechanic is just unnecessary.

If you want an ammo pool and all the VS weapons have this mechanic installed, use a NS weapon. Otherwise be quite because most GOOD players on the VS will want this mechanic with infinite ammo. See how that works?

Your complaint is based around how the mechanic is currently set on each of the three weapons. Yes, it needs to be tweaked for each weapon individually as well as one tweak to the mechanic overall (the delay between the end of shooting and the start of the cooldown needs to be shortened/removed to make burst firing beneficial), but it is a very liberating mechanic. Adding just two more rounds to the Eclipse and Darkstar before overheat, and reducing/removing the delay for the cooldown from all three, will make these weapons perfect as far as the mechanic goes.

Additionally the engineer ammo pack for the VS can be altered to benefit these weapons in some fashion. There have been many suggestions already regarding that.

Good idea, call it a built-in reactor or something. I'm in favor of this.

The ideas for ammo packs are good BUT very hard to balance. TR and NC engineers don't provide any benefit in terms of TTK or DPM, so I can only assume that vanu weapons will be balanced around being near an ammo pack, and weaker than TR or NC weapons otherwise. Again, this feature is usually only going to be useful for LAs and infiltrators.

No NO please! keep the unlimited ammo! Just because YOU think its gimmick doesent mean this goes for all of us.
I.love to run Spec pp operations behind enemy lines and infinite ammo is like a dream comming true for me! I also love the phaseshift because of unlimited ammo! I play engineer 90% of the time because I have unlimited ammo that way! on all other classes i run the ammo belt!
My solution would be to keep the old Vs weapons the way.they are but release a few new ones with heat.
Alot better than ruining this with OPs idea

Cant they just allow certain/all VS weapons to equip "heat mechanic" as a weapon attachment instead?
Changing the core of all the VS weapons to something that alot of people dont want seems like a drastic way to get people to leave.
Adding it as a VS only weapon attachment would give VS more faction identity and uniqueness without force feeding drastic changes down peoples throats.

NO OPTION. You give the VS the OPTION of infinite ammo and the OTHER factions will DEMAND it as well. There is a REASON the ammo implant (it would give you ammo back when you killed someone, or it would drop ammo on the ground for you to pick up off someone's dead corpse) was rejected by everyone.

Just because YOU want infinite ammo doesn't mean the VAST MAJORITY of PS2 wants it. In fact the vast majority DOESN'T want it. So shut up about it because it's stupid and has no place in this game. Infinite ammo is nothing more than a gimmick for the short bus riders.

The ONLY place infinite ammo is of any use is with the Stalker Cloak. Outside of that the performance downgrade isn't worth infinite ammo. We don't need ANOTHER useless option for our guns. We had flashlights for over a year and NOBODY bought them other than to waste certs and play flashlight tag while they waited for a base to be capped.

If you WANT infinite ammo, there is an option for it, AS AN ENGY. It's called your own personal ammo box.