The VS as a faction needs some serious rethinking

VS used to have the best MAX, worst tank and mediocre ESF...

Imo MAG is the worst tank by far... (especially when you take its anti-air uselessnes in to consideration)
What MAG had going for it was the Saron, but they nerfed it way to far... you are much better of with Halberds... (and guess what the best use for a halberd is? Put it on a REAL tank like Prowler or Vanguard!)

VS Max is also worst by far... Comets cant hold a candle to Pounders, Falcons or Fractures... And although lock-down is situational you get ALOT more DAKKA for giving up mobility, with ZoE you get nothing for taking more damage, you are much better of with no ability at all than ZoE... Same TTK infantery, NO damage bonus at all against vehicles/planes while glowing purple and taking 30% extra damage... awesome ability indeed....

ESF? Some says Scythe is the best in dogfights... I totally disagree, while its thin in the front, its a big pancake... soooo easy to hit from the ground or above with a dalton...
Mossie=alot quicker more nimble and harder to hit
Reaver=you can REALLY feel the sting of the mustang and AH is a total beast if they get the drop on you...

And scythe drops like a brick when hoovering against ground targets...

Infantry weaps? Meh those dont really matter, pretty similar...

In dogfights, if the scythe pilot is looking straight back at the target, the enemy can not see its bottom/top.

Really? You might think thats why i typed "soooo easy to hit from the ground, or above with a dalton."?

Unfortunately no, ZOE is completely incapable of being useful in any circumstances now. As Ztiller said, the added damage bonus is capped at 10% and as far as I know it's also capped at a certain range (tooltip just says "close range damage). Couple that with the forced uptime (you can't turn it off) and noticeably reduced resistances to all forms of damage, you have an ability that is literally suicide to use and gives you little to no benefits. In fact, aside from the PALTRY speed increase that is barely noticeable, there is almost no reason for anyone to turn it on or cert in it.

The damage only applies out to 75 meters. It used to be 50, but they changed it to 75.

And you are? I did play VS a while ago for quite some time and aesthetics aside - t'was a neat experience. Besides - balancing should be done with all three factions in mind, otherwise it devolves into a "buff us - nerf them" merry-go-round.

If the ZoE system has not been changed since leaving the PST with it's big nerf: the damage boost at the time had a 10m range. Then falls off to nothing. 10% to 10m. -> nothing. I cannot confirm if that was ever changed, or pushed live as it was.

ZoE is only the right choice if you are sporting. dual ext mag nebulas, in a room packed with enemy infantry, after several allied heavies pepper the room with conc grenades. But honestly; at that point any high RoF weapon would perform the same.

Pre-nerf this way the case; I'll have to see if it's possible to dig up the posts on the PST forums still. I seem to recall it was drastically shortened.

What a load of bs, orion got much recoil (go try it in vr mode), actuly all vs guns got even ursa got way to much recoil, vs guns got the most recoils it makes no sense since we have no bulletdrop, we should have super low recoil. Tr guns got best recoil patterns.

Patch notes from April:

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/game-update-notes-april-16th.182835/

Or wait...is this only for the Comets?

Vs pop on cobalt been horrible sometimes around 25% pop, but we still win alerts with that low pop cause we outskill most nc and tr players by 3x times.

No one wanne play vs cause everything is bad about it atm, while nc got to much easy mode weps, they gota remove all 200 dmg weps, 175 should be max, god saw does way to much dmg, gd22 is way to good why is it getting buffed all the time and all vs wep nerfed, all vs weps should be buffed, they are all pretty bad, new skins wouldnt hurt either, this frozen fish art doesnt look good.

Jackhammer and minigun is way to good, while lasher is totaly crap unless u are a full squad using it.

Ravens maxes do to much dmg, its unreal how fast they take down tanks, half the dmg falcons and raven do would be okey, beeing 1 shoted by a flacon max is not okey or instagibbed in a vs max suit if use zoe is not okey either and not to forget punders wtf those weps r just sick, make screen shake and kill everything around in seconds op much? What do vs got? Comets who suck at ai u need 4 freaking shots to killsomeone while flacons instagibb, not fair, comets falcons, and pounders most do same dmg..

They also have to make so u can turn on and off zoe, as it is now its total crap, they also need to remove dthe extra dmg u take in zoe, its not fun gettign instagibbed by a rocket just cause u are using zoe.

They need to get rid od the charge up thing on phaseshift, that new nc sniper gun is freaking op u getting headshotted miles away.

Nc tanks are doing way to much dmg, vanguard ap rounds do to much dmg, its not even fun, vanguard heat do like sme dmg as vs ap? And this iwin shield needs to go even if it only absorbs 2000, but that is 2000 to much dmg and make tank vs tank duels very unfair.

Magrider need less drop on main gun, and it should be fastest tank by far, its not fair a freaking prowler is faster, buff magbruner alot, should give 50% more speed imo.

Ursa got to much recoil, and this freaking GD-7F how can i have so fast firerate and so little recoil, I DEMAND it to be changed to a 700 rpm gun, why do nc have such a fast fireing gun again?

Both ursa and flare needs to shot faster 100 more rpm would be okey.

Scyte is to easy to be hit with dumbfire, it must be smaller like mossys, cause atm its a like pankake. Magrider needs to be smaller aswell so u can see ppl when using 3rd view, so u cant have to driver over half ur squad in intense battle.

Overall tr guns and nc guns are way better then bs guns, why should we only have 75 mags again? If both tr and nc can have 100 magazines why cant vs?`

Both prowler and vanguard workds really well as antiair, while a magrider can just sit back and get ***** by all air and cant even shot back most of the time.

Nc maxes do way to mcuh dmg, i basicaly got instagibbed yday by a scattmax while using zoe, how is that fair? Tr maxes r ballanced if it would not be cause of this op pounder, but nc maxes are way outa hand.

No one wanne play vs cause our mbt sucks, our max sucks, scytes sucks in mass fights cause way to easy to dumbfire when going down on taregts, all vs weps r pretty dog if u compare them to nc and tr weps.

No

The Magrider does have significant down-sides, but due to the PPA it is probably the premier anti infantry tank. Only thing I would really like is the ability to use the Magburner as an escape from AP+AV stealth + racer vanguards / prowlers. Currently, the necessity to turn around is brutal. Otherwise, you should have a decent chance in most other situations.

If you're getting hit by dumbfires in a scythe that is going to be your fault 95%+ of the time. AP Vanguards, now that gets annoying I'll grant you.

VS weapons aren't particularly bad, they're just boring.

With regard to a few other points of yours...

Use Charge on your MAX, you can then kite NC MAXes. ZOE is not viable, but neither is Lockdown, and NC MAXes don't have a reanged AI weapon. With regard to !AX AV weapons, I do agree that perhaps the VS ones are underperforming a little. Though I double auraxiumed both Comets during the ZOE OP era, so I would think that.

Ursa does NOT have too much recoil, it is one off the lowest vertical recoil 167 damage weapons in the game and the first shot recoil is very low. I don't like it's horizontal recoil, though it got a small buff in April. The problem with the Flare is it is just a crappier Guass SAW S, needs something, but 100 RPM is just ridiculous.

Serpent is only 250 certs and is comparable to GD-7F. My only complaint is the NC version gets better bullet velocity. VS gets lower vertical recoilrecoil, but higher on first shot and with a crappier angle variance. Not a huge difference.

Phase shift is pretty poop, though the charge is very quick. The NC Railjack is not really an upgrade to the Long shot/Parralax, because it has a 0.2 sec firing delay, harder to learn with pay off if you keep leading.

That particular change was limited specifically to the comets. I'm not having any luck with my search either unfortunately.

Just a random thought however; I believe I have the answer to the VS's "identity" mechanic problem. What they need, is a Discharge system.

Ever play Perfect Dark? Think the Maulers. After X amount of time of not firing the weapon; it will fire at max-charge. After a single max charge, the weapon will function at normal shots until X time period has occurred again.

A degree of a discharge system already functionally makes sense with the current VS arsenal due to the already incredibly high (on average) FSRM on most of the weapons. That initial higher damage shot has quite a kick.

For balance sake it might have to be made so that discharge shots are incapable of receiving bonus damage due to headshots; there is a fine line between flavored alpha damage, and instagibbing opponents. (Which is absolutely not what I'm trying to advocate here.)

It could be carried further; perhaps only the first shot out of a weapon gains the bonus. Playing toward the VS's (on average) low reload times.

Recoil is (in my opinion) not really different in the TR,VS and NC, i have tried them all for a while on the PTS.
Our MAX weaponry (and many others) have at most a .1 or .2 bloom advantage.
Amount of rounds in a target in a small amount of time? See above points.

While it's a cool idea, and one that could be undoubtably easy to implement (or not, what do I know ). I'd like to see more heat mechanics and AOE effects in our weapons. Nothing crazy AOE wise, but enough to stand out as a faction trait.

Heat mechanics would be easier I would guess, perhaps make it so all our weapons have a heat bar that needs to be vented (reloaded) every once and a while. Ammo packs dropped by VS engies would reduce the heat build up by a certain amount, still making them beneficial to be placed strategically.

i play on briggs and whenever there is an alert all i could see is like only 20-30 people go for it while all the others stay on indar

you just copied it from here https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...uld-be-allowed-one-200-dmg-weapon-now.187240/

While I wouldn't like this to happen to every VS weapon, I'd like it to happen to those that currently lack a proper niche.

• Put all the ammunition for a weapon in one large ammo pool, with a heat bar like the current Phaseshift. If you hold down the trigger and fire full auto, you will overheat and need to "reload" in around 1/2 to 2/3 of the current magazine worth of shots, but with careful burst management, you can empty your reserves without reloading once.
• A weapon does not exactly have ammunition but has "charge". This drains at a constant rate when you shoot, though does not exactly correspond to a shot. Each shot has the same damage. When the heat bar is low the rate of fire is higher, but as the heat climbs, the weapon becomes less efficient, and rate of fire drops, kind of like a reversed Mini Chain Gun. This gun rewards accurate burst control.
• I like the Perfect Dark Mauler concept posted by Koldorn, however, I would suggest that auto-charging only occurs while you are ADS (to prevent it being a hipfire run and gun weapon), and the charge results in firing a very fast 2 shot burst, followed by normal firing. This may be interesting on some of the low RoF 143 damage weapons.

I would love to see VS getting some art remake. That frozen fish look isn't very appealing.

Yeah would love a remake of the weps, all sound boring and looks ugly.

VS won't get proper faction trait at this stage of the game anymore. Too much "work" has been put into the hundreds of weapons and it would take way too much work to make them feel, look and sound unique and apart from other factions. VS players could disappear from the game and they still wouldn't give VS their own unique trait that would serve as foundation for designing the entire faction.

It was there at the beginning: Alien weaponry and looks. That concept has long since disappeared from both the new and old weapons. Lasher is the last truly different weapon that is even remotely viable. ZOE is terrible. Not only is it completely useless mechanic but it also has got to be the most unimaginative concept for MAX special ability I could think of.

I wonder what the designers were thinking:

"Ok it's time we gave MAXes their faction specific ability. How about we go with the old designs from PS 1?"

"We can use the old design for NC and TR, but is it really wise to give VS flying MAXes with all the VS nerf whining on the forums? It would give VS MAXes "unfair" advantage over the other faction specialties, even if engineers can't fly with them to give support that MAXes actually need to be viable."

"You are right. Let's just give them this "berserk" ability that makes them glow purple, move slightly faster and take way more damage than it gives for the MAX. Ok I think we are done here. Let's get to coding!"

It's sad really, how much the entire faction screams "MEH" when you play them.