Why NC has the lowest win rate on all servers

- Bad weapons?
- Underpopped?
- Moronic players?
None of the above. The NC actually has the best population on most servers and there's no reason for NC players to be worse than VS or TR players. I main NC but I play the other factions too and to me the NC weapons are some of the best. No, I think that the reason why NC is loosing on all servers is slightly more complicated than that.

See, according to Bartle's taxonomy (which is an important theorem in game design) there are 4 types of players:
- the Explorer : likes exploration and exploitation of the environment
- the Achiever : likes all kinds of challenges and achievements
- the Socializer : enjoys social relations with other people
- the Killer : trains to become the best as an individual



Now, think about which factions attract what types of players:
- the VS with their sciency stuff and all that talk about mind over body attract rationalists, who consider having an advantage a result of their strategy and a proof of better thinking. They will always try to put themselves at an advantage even if it seems borderline unfair to the other factions.They like to have wide knowledge of the game's mechanics and exploit them. Thus VS attracts mainly Explorers, Achievers but also Killers due to their advanced weaponry

- TR value cooperation and tactical play (Strength in Unity), and their weapon favour high DPS and versatility. They attract leaders and players who are generally willing to cooperate. When I first made a TR character I couldn't believe how much more social and helpful others were. Like when I spawn a liberator as an NC I have to wait half an hour for someone to hop in, as a TR it's almost instant. People generally stop when you ask for a ride and I've even seen a public platoon with actual leadership. No wonder TR attracts Socializers, Achievers but also Killers due to their high DPS weaponry

- the NC value personal freedom and skill. Hard-hitting, low RoF weapons are also considered hard to use (of course only a few NC guns have this trait but a new player doesn't know that). They attract people who want to achieve perfection or simply have fun. These people are mostly unwilling to cooperate though, as it would limit their freedom. They also do not mind loosing as much as dying and consider any kind of advantage (like having a vehicle or overpop) as unfair. NC attracts mostly Achievers and Killers thanks to their hard to master arsenal.


So, by looking at it this way it becomes clear as to why we associate certain factions with certain traits
- No faction zergs as hard as VS or has the patience to drive vehicles where they were not supposed to be because the VS gathers the most Explorers (who like exploiting the system)
- No other faction has the coordination of TR and dreaded outfits like the Red October because the TR has the most Socializers and leaders and players willing to cooperate.
- No other faction is as disorganized as NC because they lack either of those. It has many good players but they lack guidance and they generally refuse to cooperate.They hardly ever even switch classes or try a different approach, they'd rather bang their head against a wall and blame their team,blame their opponents or blame OP stuff. "I main infil therefore I can't do anything against a tank. Cowards, they would have no chance in a fair fight". Also for most people it probably seems like the "good" protagonist faction so many new players join the NC which results in having a large percentage of inexperienced players at all times.

I refuse to acknowledge hacking terminals through walls as a sign of skill

It's like hacking **** through telekinesis alone

youre looking a little too deep IMO.

i think NC being the worst simply because they are hard for newer players, and that they move on quickly to try another faction and stick there, leaving a constant base of newbs. Not because theyre the good guys. really, theyre only the good guys in their own eyes.


also, who wants to be the F'ing good guy anyway?

Read another thread running by the subject " 2v1" u will understand that.

I have recently had an argument with another player (who coincidentally was Vanu which confirms my theory) who deployed a sundy on a tech plant A-point. I called it a blatant exploit and he called it "science" and a "great strategy which enables an individual to have a great impact on the battle". I said it's obviously an exploit since the devs are constantly adding poles on every staircase on Auraxis to prevent people from doing that and he just asked me "how many players got banned for that. None. So it's not an exploit". Obviously wrong but hard to argue with.

The TR has ruthless commanders and blind followers and weapons that fire the fastest and strafe side to side and don't have an issue with zerging.

The Vanu are religious zealots and are often suspected of cheating and/or hacking with their "easy" weapons with little or no weapons drop and don't have an issue with zerging.

The NC are rebels with the highest weapon damage with down-up weapon bounce and increased inaccuracy as fire continues - and, yeah, they are bad about listen to orders, are often more concerned with their k/d than anything else, and, apparently, have a higher team killing percentage than the Vanu and TR combined. Meanwhile, NC leaders are looking for even fights to challenge themselves.

I don't think that it's that simple nor that is has anything to do with the lore behind it. Unless you have some research to present us about this I doubt that what you're saying is true.

What I heard from people who have switched from NC to TR or VS is that they did it because the TR/VS weapons are easier to use and easier to get good with. NC weapons are too strikt in a niche. The fact that the Gauss Saw is the default weapon isn't helping the new players either. Especially since the Carv and the Orion are on the other side for the newbies.

What I personally found on Miller is that it's easier to use vehicles on the TR and VS. This is because the TR and VS consistently have air superiority. The times where I see the NC having air superiority then the TR and VS loose that fight. At times the NC air is so underwhelming that there are Mossies and Scythes are zooming around our warpgate shooting down anything coming out.
When I asked the skyknights who switched they told me the same thing. The Mosquito and the Scythe are both easier to use then the Reaver. The Reaver apparently has to sneak up on the other 2 and surprise them. The Reaver has the biggest hitbox from all sides and no health advantage to compensate for that.

You know what, that's a great idea. I can create a straw poll. If enough people take part in it we will be able to prove/disprove my theory for good. I will probably create it in another thread soon.

But honestly from what I've seen it's not just a matter of weaponry, it's a matter of mentality. And each faction seems to have a different mindset.

If Vanu was defending that tech plant, then yes. Somehow defending teams can do that. I even made a thread about that.
I cannot tell if it's intended or not but it's definitely a pain to require a whole coordinated assault to undo the actions of a single individual

I tought about somthing like that months ago, but this guy got it the best.

im sorry but NC players really are stupid in the extreme. and its not even down to being new most of the time.

me and my gunner when hes available always managed to do about 10x what the zombies seem to be capable of, not even miraculous stuff either.

most NC have:
No coordination, all running around on their own (I run on my own too or with the 1 guy i will allow to gun for me since i know hes not a dribbling moron. this alone would be fine if not for the other factors below)

No sense of hearing (the saron is not a quiet weapon, and when its right behind you, theres no excuse for not turning to deal with it, but so many times i will see harrassers or magriders just swanning about behind the enemy lines and no other vehicles will even so much as turn to acknowledge there is a threat.)

No map awareness (and even if they somehow magically didnt hear the rediculous squeeking bike horn sound of the saron behind them, it shows the tank on the map, but even so, you can see when tanks finally realise their imminent demise is at hand their turrets turn to their rear with genuine surprise. more often than not because im the only one that noticed i have to try and deal with the problem myself, and when im running a lightning i die, because like 99% of magriders are 2/2. while im staring at the map i have to right click and pm each tank in turn and tell them to turn the **** around because theres a magrider behind them)

No Aiming skill at least in tanks, (and in the rare, rare case that somebody actually is able to notice the enemy at the same time as me, they fumble around for literally years missing shots. if i can see a sunderer somewhere and i start shooting it, if its being repaired, i NEED these morons to be on point with their aiming, especially against VS, and im even constantly telling my gunner we get about 8 seconds to blow up a VS sunderer once its found before the hoards of heavys come running to defend it. are they on point with their accuracy? are they balls.. they must be vertically crosseyed, like one eye points down and the other points up.

Can not see the glowing blobs tanks shoot. maintly a problem against TR, but many NC tankers seem incapable of noticing the giant glowing orbs being thrown around in order to 1. locate the enemy, 2. pick priority targets (i.e ones in places that other allies cant reach easily, now, this might be down to graphics i dont know, i run on full so maybe thats just me, but tanks are not difficult to spot, you can hear their guns like a kilometer away, the giant glowstick they fire is a dead give away too, but again, you can see people in genuine surprise when they start taking fire from a tank that is clearly RIGHT THERE, with all the glowling lights coming out of it. and when combined with the point above, they just die and its really a completely unecesary death.

Found the whole thing kind of irrelevant, but I just wished to tell you that the reason nobody jumps in your liberator is more of a skill-level issue. It has nothing to do with NC or any other faction.

Personally i am not good to be a vehicle gunner. I have no experience with all this different turrets installed at different vehicles. No knowledge about turrets recoil, range, bloom or whatever and how to use sitting in a weird moving vehicle versus weird moving targets.

If i try to be a vehicle gunner (especially airplanes) lots of shots are missing and i am really not a good backer. It´s for all faction but if i play NC i am most inaccurate of all factions.

And that is my reason to ignore usually callings for a backer. And i suppose i am not the only one with that motivation.

Sounds exactly like TR.

It's not an issue with any one particular faction.

I am playing all three factions, but...

- i was (like many) starting up as NC
- frustrated changed to TR, finding out that ppl there are more willing to follow orders/WPs
- now am mainly playing Vanu, since i got the feeling, u find the most organized and best trained ppl there

- might be, NC is attracting the most "lone wolves", since they stand for freedom and rebellion
- might be, there are many new players that just cant manage the recoil of these (actually good) weapons

But for sure, i very often feel that NC got the most Rambo's / headless ChickenHeros, that just run into the enemy ranks, spraying their magazines like bullets were candies.
Why? I really dont know ...

Play all three factions, and I think it largely comes down to this:

Most played class is the Heavy, across the board. The NC's default HA weapon has a ridiculously higher learning curve than the VS or TR. A new player trying to use a Gauss SAW in CQC is in for a world of pain. It would be interesting to see how the game worked out if, instead of the SAW, the default NC weapon was the GD-22s, a gun far more easily used at close range and generally much more forgiving.

On Emerald it's due to a combination of half of the NC playerbase sitting on a hill with a sniper rifle, roleplaying a scout sniper, and the other half absolutely scared ****less of getting out of their tank/sundy long enough to capture a point.

So, I can't speak for PC, but I have found some patterns within the American PS4 servers. Note that this is coming from a former outfit leader from RaTL who has characters and playtime on all factions, but it attempted to avoid the politics that did not effect my own outfit. While I feel my perspective is a solid one, it isn't all encompassing.

The NC were the first to create large scale organization on most servers, but many were just large scale zergfits with actual organization being limited to simply corralling members into the same area.

The TR responded by forming large scale outfits and inter-outfit communications, with groups such as RaTL, RMA, 187th, and TRHW. These groups neared or even matched the size of their NC counterparts, but tended to have stronger chains of command and a more organized structure.

The VS formed multiple smaller outfits, but were even more organized than those of the TR, if less interconnected.

With both other factions having individually created forces dedicated to countering the NC Zergfitting, the leadership behind the Zergfits seemingly fractured do to frustration with their reduced success. I heard from several friends who ran in the NC outfits that the leaders began significant infighting, which ultimately is what caused the disintegration of the NC zergfits (though as I have no firsthand knowledge, I take this information with a grain of salt). Regardless of the reason, this saw the end of the feared NC Zergfitting.

Since the fall of the Zergfits, the NC seemed to avoid creating large outfits, instead breaking into many smaller outfits. While this may seem like an indication that they have little interest in cooperation, the opposite seems to be true. While the NC players have little to no interest in the politics of Planetside, and don't seem interested in long-term alliances or outfit mergers, they are the most likely to form impromptu groups and short term alliances with memebers of other outfits to handle an immediate issue.

The large TR outfits continued to grow for sometime, becoming bolstered by server mergers and new players looking for large active groups. Eventually however, the tight inter-outfit communications became problematic. Some leaders grew an ego, others simply disagreed on the direction to take the faction. It was a credit to their abilities that little disruption reached non-leader members, but there was significant drama at the top. This caused many leaders to tire, and the quality of outfit curation fell as a result. Inactivity increased, some leaders broke away from their outfits to create smaller ones (often taking other members with them in the process) and eventually the TR leaders decided it was time to properly close up shop, and the outfits were shutdown. Meanwhile, GOON was quietly gorging itself with new players and members from closed outfits. It lacked any actual structure, but gained enough players to put the now defunct NC zergfits to shame, albeit the vast majority of GOON players are god awful.

Despite attempts to reorganize the TR into proper large organized outfits once more, GOON remains seated at the top, taking in too many players for other outfits to properly get off the ground.

That said GOON is not a large threat in and of itself, as most skilled players will have nothing to do with it. Vets instead tend to run in small groups or outfits, typically no larger than a squad. There is a certain level of respect that these groups afford one another for no other reason than the recognition of skill, but the frayed nerves from the period just before the fall of the organized outfits have not yet healed in their entirety, and some indeed may never.

The VS seems to have remained more stable, though this is admittedly the perspective of an outsider. While their outfits never grew as large as their TR counterparts, they also never went through that selfsame crash. Additionally, the VS outfits always seemed far more independent, operating together when convenient or coincidental, but otherwise acting on their own. While the core veteran population of the VS has dropped to roughly the level of the TR, they are much more concentrated. Where as the veteran groups of the TR and NC are quite spread out, you'll find most of the high tier VS playing within 2-3 small outfits, and while the connections between these groups are less robust than those that connected the former TR outfits, they are on much friendlier terms.

The only downside to this is it unintentionally separates the VS by skill level, meaning that unless 1 of those 2 or 3 outfits is present, the VS will have significant difficulty winning an even pop fight with the other factions, as more skilled players will be interlaced within the general TR or NC populations. If 1 of those VS outfits is present however, the odds are rather drastically reversed for similar reasons.

That's about all the information I can provide, so I hope it helps.

As NC, i can agree to most of those. I dont care about KD, but i do care about my objectives. I will usually attack sunderers relentlessly until i can blow it up. There are also so few people talking on mics thats its hard to coordinate.

The lack of coordination is a huge problem for the NC. I had my mic in to see if anyone else was on, but i ended up talking to myself. Later on, i literally wrote in the chat that a huge convoy was coming and that we needed heavy assults. All i saw was a huge group of infiltrators shooting at lightnings and prowlers. I got pissed and just chode chose to take care of the problem myself. (I got a good amount of certs from blowing up all those prowlers)