Why Factionless Robots?

Why Necro a 6 month old thread to attack someone??? Seems odd, No? Kinda like your trying to pick a fight with some one who may or may not respond.... Though it is twin and I expect a witty retort.

I tried the Nanite Robots on the test server today. They have no empire specific stuff yet, like a Main Battle Tank, Aircraft or any type of special weapons, let alone even a max suit or nothing that makes them unique except the pure cosmetics with far less weapon choices than the other empires.

Nothing really made them outstanding or unique compared to the TR, NC or Vanu. As a veteran player in their present state and far few choices. The only reason to play them is for the novelty, to be honest I have zero incentive to pursue time in the underdeveloped fourth faction right now.

i don´t think paywall gated abilities or tools for this faction would be a good idea .. i believe this faction is primarily about using common pool tools .. thus nothing empire/factionspecific with maybe directive weapons/tools only ..

They have a long ways to go with these robots before they can be faction worth the price of a membership or hoping veterans will be interested. They are going to be like a unicorn.

So far I have seen no incentive to play them.

I lone wolf on one character and never play any other character. I am completely loyal to my Vanu character but don't really play WITH the team as I pursue team goals. What kind of player am I?

hypocrite .... unless by persuing teamgoals you mean winning for the faction or completing a common goal of your teammates, then you are simply a lone wolf who fights for the greater good ... i suppose ..

Get on your bike, Nancy. Nobody's doing the goose step around here. Shove that catch phrase up your jaxxy!

So here's the thing.
You are not a member.
You log into the game.
You are thrown on Koltyr.
You have to sit for an hour to get to play.
This equals no-fun.

Enter the robots.
You are not a member.
You log into the game as a robot.
You are immediately thrown into the game into the lowest population faction.
You get to game immediately.

Agreed that as a Robot that you can not play as a member of an Outfit, but, at least, you can play the game instead of sitting in queue for an hour.
You can still pick which squads you join.
You can still pilot(gun) EFS and MBTs if someone else pulls them for you.

I do think that sitting in queues is one of the main things really hurting the population of Planetside 2. (Getting stuck with only one map choice is another, but that is a function caused by the low population.)

The Robots MUST be accessible to F2P players. It isn't throwing them some kind of advantage. It's letting them play so that the All Access members have more people to game with.

The Robots are pretty much worthless to All Access members. There really is no reason to play them as an All Access member other than the novelty.

^^^THIS, so true
i've almost always had a subscription, and most of the reason for that was skipping the queues,
Why would I want to play always as the underpop, with far less weapons, less vehicles and no max?
Simply to skip the wait time? when I could pretty much skip wait times anyway for whatever faction I choose!

Now though I've cancelled my sub (courtesy of the ridiculous max nerf)
And being able to play anytime looks a little bit more attractive!
(Granted I can still choose to pick the underpop faction anyway and have access to way more stuff.
But it makes far more sense than being a membership "perk".

In general though this faction does need to have SOMETHING special, anything!
Because right now the sales pitch is just:
"do you want to be permanently underpop, with no ESF, no MAX, no MBT, no ES toys and vastly fewer weapons?"
And I just don't see how that is appealing to anyone, be it members, who I agree have absolutely no reason.
Nor F2P players who can simply pick the underpop faction manually.

So they do need something! But what?
4 implant slots?
Faster runspeeds/higher jumps?
Higher health/shields?

Remember, they'll always be joining the underpop, so it might be good that they bring some handicaps to help even the odds.

Absolutely NOT, this will not only get me to unsub, but quit the game. This is a clear cut case of p2w, more so then whatever we have now and developers have on table.

So much time and effort goes into stuff like this - yet there are many bugs, quality of life improvements etc that have gone unaddressed for years.

Why haven't floating land mines been fixed? Why is vehicle physics so poor? Why hasn't ZOE been fixed or replaced with something useful? Why don't we have a skill based Max AA platform? Why is base design so poor? Why are ADAD and crouch spam still a thing?

I am a loyalist. While I have spent a lot of money on the styles of the other factions I do not really use them. And definitely do not swap during the reward phase. (More is more, no matter how little when it came to my main.) However that is only because I am not a Battlerank 100 A.S.........P. Swapping during an event is not about experiencing all aspects of the game it is about sheer underhanded enhancement. It would not be so bad if out of the blue like 20 of your teammates vanish from a base and help double the size of the enemy. I look forward to joining the scum who do so once I hit max rank.

but is it pay to WIN if you can only join the losing side? XD
how would you make people want to willingly play these huge handicaps?
because currently they only appeal to the niche group who want to actively impede themselves as part of a challenge.
(like trying to reach BR 100 as a pacifist with 0 kills, that kinda thing)
i see no other reason why anyone would actively want to ALWAYS be undergeared on the underpop faction,
and pay to do it too!

Remember though, global overpop does not necessitate local overpop.

Imagine fighting against even an equal number of enemies but half of them are super soldiers with some of the most competitive and popular weapons while more heath and shields and a host of other advantages. Or better yet being outnumbered in a base by these NS soldiers.

They must be identical to regular infantry stat-wise if they are to benefit the game at all.

so again the question must be asked, why play them?
even as a f2p player i can choose to play the underpop faction to skip the queue,
but then i get to use all of the ES toys, use a max, use an ESF, use an MBT etc.
so who (besides people with weird longings to handicap themselves) would want to play this,
let-alone PAY to do it?

they come with a ton of rather HUGE downsides, and zero apparent upsides.
and people seem to be against giving them any upsides to compensate.

You may have to give "something" to those robots to make them worthwhile opponents and not just cammonfodder

Starting from scratch as NS Operatives they need to re-certs equipment (armor, tools, abilities), rebuild implants, weapons and - speaking about weapons--they will have no specialized weapons to choose from: all NS weapons are kind meh and outgunned at range or cqc by better suited ES alternatives.

So those robots will be heavily handicapped at the beginning.

On top, jumping factions they won't work with their outfit or squad anymore.

Hey, don't ask me, I think it's stupid.

But I also think it shouldn't be made extremely unbalanced. I'm sure there are at least some players interested in them regardless of the disadvantages.

Now let me just stop you right there.

There is a third kind of player: One that might have a favorite faction but isn't really loyal to any one. This player has multiple characters, possibly even multiple ASP 100 characters. This player is interested in fighting the fights to win but doesn't care a ton what team they are on when the win occurs. They do NOT switch to a winning faction during an alert (that crap is insulting, bro). They switch to the lowest pop faction because: 1. There are no queues! and 2. There are better fights (more enemies to shoot) when you're underpop.

I know this third kind of player exists because I'm one of them.

The Nanite Systems robots are designed for me. Or more specifically they are designed to **leverage** me to help *you*.

No need to thank DBG, no need to thank me. Just don't be all hateful.

The NS Operatives haven't even shipped and I already have unlocked every weapon for them. This includes things like the NS-15... y'know that low DPS headshot machine that happens to fire tight as a drum and does a quad-dink at *any range*.

I'll hit battle rank 15 in a day, battle rank 30 in a week. My guns are unlocked already so it won't take much to max adrenaline shield, nanoweave and a couple medkits then I'm off to the races... Buy a couple boxes every 10 BR or so and I'll have core useable implants promptly.

The NS Operatives won't need any "something" to make them competitive. Given the player type that these things appeal to, watch and see if everyone isn't terrified of them within a month.

And the faction jumping? If the bulk of your outfit is running NS toons you'll be playing with them all the time no matter what.

That's great, more power to you but have you considered that not everyone is a +BR100 // 100 KPH // 50% HSR ?

Have a look at player population to understand you need to find ways to keep as many players as possible and make them have fun, unless you want to end up headshotting the static targets in VR because there will be no players around...