Stats stats stats and stats ! NC hardmode version 2

My point exactly. KPU doesn't prove anything by itself, it merely indicates where we may need to look. People trying to prove things with it should be embarrassed. They are not the kind of numbers you can draw ANY kind of concrete conclusion from.

I know this is forumside and all, but people should still be ashamed of themselves.

As a NC AI MAX, if you lose a 1on1 versus a TR/VS Max in the 0-5m range, it means that you either unplugged your keyboard/mouse or turned off you display.

Seriously guys, "equal to TR/VS in the 0-5m range" ...

And in the 5-10 m range you just have to press the "move forward" key to get into the magical 0-5m range (combined with either charge or aegis, it is very effective)

The issue with the NC MAX is not that it cannot kill the other MAXs but rather you need to either purchase Grinders or extended mags to do so within 1 reload cycle and even then if the enemy MAX has rank 5 Kinetic armour you cannot win that fight and then you have to hope that your team is putting more damage into their MAX/support than they are doing to you/yours to blow through Aegis shield while you are waiting for that reload cycle to come up so you can finish the job.

Anyone saying the NC max is useless and they don't bother with them any more is either a lone wolf or lying but there are certain circumstances you come across regulalry during play where enemy MAXs have a distinct advantage because they can be unloading damage into you before you can return the favour, or damaging your shield while you are in a reload state meaning again they win as long as they are certed for KA 5.

TLDR - Stock NC MAX loses to stock TR/VS MAX and once a player has put a certain level of certs into their MAX then certed NC MAX loses to certed TR/VS MAX. With teamwork you can mitigate this somewhat but you have to work harder to get the same level of result from the NC MAX than other empire MAXs and this is purely because we have nothing beyond shotguns that are effective against enemy MAXs because our AV weapons are a major disadvantage against soft infantry so are not an option for performing that role which is also not the case for TR/VS MAXs

Er... no.

The Scattercannon, Mattock and Hacksaw don't do enough damage without a reload, so at 0m you always die in the reload.

This is with standard MAXs or with both MAXs having KA5 (+extended mags for NC).

The only way the TR or VS MAX could in fact lose in this situation is to do as you say and unplug their keyboard and mouse.

So can you explain to me how NC AI MAX win in that situation please? Given that it is mathmatically impossible.

Extended mags.
Is it possible? Yes. Is it fair? I don't think so.

Yes in a Standard TR/VS MAX vs a non-standard NC AI MAX with Extended Mags the NC AI MAX should win (although it is closer).

However if it is a KA5 TR/VS MAX vs an KA5 NC AI MAX with Extended Mags...... you're back to the same situation, 3 out of the 4 AI weapons cannot win.


So whilst it is possible to fudge a situation with a superior (more certed) NC AI MAX winning, when they are the same, the NC AI MAX simply CANNOT WIN without using dual Grinders.

Which basically makes all KA5 TR and VS AI MAXs effective immune to 75% of NC AI MAX weapons in a one on one sense.


Which is all made much worse by Dual Mattocks with slugs being by far the best NC AI MAX setup for almost every other situation, but vs other MAX.......... yet if you compare dual Mattocks with slugs to TR/VS AI weapon there are still massively subpar.








Or to put it another way when was the last time you saw a whine thread about NC AI MAX on the forum? There hasn't been any since the last round of blanket nerfs for very good reason.

If they ever give NC AI MAXs NS LMG AI weapon I guarentee there'll be a whine-fest, dispite them being no different to TR/VS versions. Why? Because people have got used to NC AI MAX being a bit pants.

I don't know the "maths" right now but I've got my experience.

Honestly I never played Mattock/Scatt/Hacksaw. I only use Grinders. Since I play MAX (2 or 3 weeks from now) and even before getting the extended mags, I never had any issues taking out an ennemy MAX in 1on1 and without reloading. With the extended mags I once got an engi + 2 MAXes that thought they were alone, with one clip per arm, point blank.

These facts apply to grinders but I guess that damage is not that different as compared to aforementioned weapons. Maybe all of them (I guess I killed about 60 MAXes playing NC AI MAX) were noobs playing on a win95 computer with neither a keyboard nor kinetic armor. Or maybe I bought some limited edition of the grinder that has a magical additional damage input. I don't know.

EDIT : if you are using slugs, then I understand why you have so much trouble taking out ennemy MAXes

The maths is the maths, that is how it is.

If you only use Grinders then yes you are using the 1 weapon out of the 4 that can win.



The downside to Grinders is the large spread, which makes them decent up close with pellets but not so good with slugs or at any real range.

thats really weird, it has an armour value and you can hit in the VR and in the field with rocket launchers

First off, the "sample" you have there is not random so pretty much all of this goes out the window since we know that the difference between who uses the -P variant and who uses the regular variant is not random.

Second, even if you find a statistically significant difference between the -P variant and it's regular version this is no way debunks the metric. All it says is that, numerically, these values are outside a set confidence interval and that suggests that there is something that distinguishes the -P varianet from the regular variant. Now, this could simply be artifact (i.e. you draw a 95% confidence interval, there is in reality no difference but this sample for this weapon happens to be within that 5%; you have no way knowing whether you have made a type I or type II error, on the projected probability).


Regular version of the Cyclone; KPU = 12.80; Gold Version = 13.65.

Regular version of the Armistic; KPU = 12.04; Gold Version = 13.08.

Reguar version of the Eridani; KPU = 9.61; Gold Version = 10.32.

Regular NC4; KPU = 2.39; Facebook Version = 3.79.

Regular TX1; KPU = 2.37; Facebook Version = 3.14.

So, among the weapons that you can only have by performing extra steps (i.e. not just paying more but actually going out of your way to do something) we see that the "special" version performs better than the regular. Just as I hypothesized earlier that we would be likely to see the "special" versions that require extra effort and special steps to perform better. Why? Because the people that go out of their way to have the special little extra are more likely to be composed of players who are more dedicated to the game; hence, these may perform better according to the metric because this group is more likely, on average, to spend more time in game during the sampling period than the average player who has the regular version.

So? So is KPU worthless? Of course not. Is KPU perfect? Of course not. Are you trying to derail a thread because you do not like the what the evidence suggests?

What I find particularly distasteful about these forums is that there is evidence all over the place- from anecdotal player feedback, to KPU, to SPM, to performance in the actual game and in each case people who dislike what this evidence suggests will find anyway to discredit this evidence. I could very easily take the position that it is hopeless to ever know just how things are working out because statistics is not perfect and there is always a probability, however small, of repeatedly making a type 1 error. It is called solipsistic postition and it does no one any good.

There is something to convergent evidence and while I fully admit that there is always a possibility of making a type 1 error, this fear should not have us throwing up our arms and saying "balance is impossible to test". That is simply ridiculous. Moreover, I find it absurd that one faction would have to go to such great lengths to try and "prove" something that is so clearly apparent to so many people provided they have an open mind.

How about this, what, in your opinion, is the data necessary to show clear evidence of imbalance?

And? What's your point? That you can still get kills with plainly inferior weapon?

Thank you captain obvious. I don't think people realised that yet....

People stop complaining about the modified Enforcer! There is someone with an auraxium medal with it so it's a perfectly fine weapon!

Oh I get it. Somehow, none of the VS/TR MAX have keyboard. They move forward and around 10m, they become completly immobile for the overjoyed NC MAX.

And if they do the most horrible thing which is standing slightly farther away, don't worry! Them VS/TR MAX ain't *******! They won't be moving away while you slowly walk to them with your frontal shield up...

Then I'm above the maths !

Then maybe people should use this ONE weapon... People don't use ML85 modified, there is a reason for this. I guess that the fact that Grinders only cost 250 certs make people wary about it.

For any of these weapons (even Mattock), slugs are not a solution to make these weapons more versatile. It just gives you the opportunity to try to be able to with some luck maybe hurt or even kill someone in the 0-25 m range instead of insta killing them in the 0-10 m range, that's it. I somtimes use slugs on my grinders and I tried scatt/mattock + slugs in VR: the accuracy is not that much better... But maybe in reality things are different, I could not try until now out of the RV

The data regarding the harrassers (for instance) is much more significant than your figures for the cyclone (for instance). Why ? Much more kills and thus people involved (greater "sample") and much more difference in value (difference much greater than the potentially existing standard deviation) considering Vulcain vs. the rest of the world (for instance) than betwenn cyclone and cyclone gold (for instance).


I'm not at all a pro in statistics so please Maths *****, walk away. But the reasoning is there.

Have a beer and relax dude ! and btw read my post again
Yes it is less versatile than other MAXes but one can't say that it is totally useless as lots of people argue on this thread. That is my point.

That thing is a killing machine in towers and biolabs. I'd rather not see it buffed than losing its amazing firepower in CQB.


The problem for you guys seems to be that one cannot take a NC MAX and walk around to perform a slaughter (which is quite easy with TR and VS MAXes). -> NC MAX cannot be played as a lonewolf -> NC MAX requires teamwork.

Good news, this game is neither Call of Duty nor BF but PS2

You are so full of ****. Pre shotgun nerfs you might have killed 2 max and an engi without a reload. Now you won't even kill the engi and max. If you don't kill the engi first, the max will get repaired fast enough you can't kill without reload.

No wonder NC lose, they have idiots like you.

First, let me say that I hate the idea that folks want to make things even. I hate the fact that people want the weapons to be exactly the same. I like variety and find fighting across factions causes me to fight differently. This keeps me coming back to the game.

That said, the NC have some interesting issues.

A really crappy aesthetic and weapons that can be difficult for new people to use are front and center. Couple this with lag issues and shot loss with slow firing high damage weapons and it doesn't add up to a happy newbie.

Because of these things the pop imbalance in favor of the other factions continues to grow. Now, every once in a while the NC catches a "zerg wave" and we see how devastating the weapon systems can be when the other factions are outnumbered. This is true for all factions, however, as we have seen.

4th factioning exacerbates these issues a hundred fold.

While I hate to admit it, the NC do need to have these things resolved. How will the NC be compensated where lag is concerned in a redesign?

I have no idea since they built that as a pillar of their faction.

Perhaps they could go the route of Railguns and "Metal Storm" type weapon systems to make up for it.

I think that fits pretty well and can satisfy the spam warfare necessary for newbies and still fits the low-tech "shotgun" aesthetic.

To be fair, I have yet to do any rigorous data anlysis with the data.

Honestly, it is hard for me to see the point because the people that are convinced need no convincing and the people that are not already convinced appear as though they cannot be.

The whole exercise has me feeling very empathetic with Zarathustra and I think perhaps I am just done.

I guess it was bugged. I did not once before C4ed Mags from under.

If it was this way before, then devs were so right to nerf it... A balanced weapon does not almost OHK any unit at sight. NC AI MAX weapon damage is fine. The only potential buff would lie in effective range but certainly not damage ! And BTW when a grinder MAX is played as part of a contructed team, it is still a killing machine. Units are not intended to be played as a lonewolf and there are still very competitive NC MAX players. As stated in another post on this thread, this is not CoD or BF -_-" Now I wonder who is the idiot

It doesn't tell you what you were doing in that time either. I use the Lynx for both my Light Assault and Engineer classes. I get a lot more kills per hour as light assault because I'm directly attacking infantry more often in that role.

I'm also engaging enemies from a very different perspective when playing LA. It's often from a flank or a position of height where it's not people's first spot to check. That gives an advantage already regardless if I have a better gun or not. When using the same gun as Engineer, it's almost always in a defensive role where I do not have the initial advantage. This alone affects my KDR on the same gun very differently for 2 different classes.

As engineer I'm almost always using the class for it's benefits, such as repairing, ammo packs, AV turrets, piloting or driving. Same gun and attachments on both classes 100% of the time, but wildly different stats in different situations.