What is your #1 Balance issue in PlanetSide 2?

[Emperor Newt]

Currently population imbalance is the biggest issue for me. When you log in and see Vanu at 24%, TR at 32 and NC sitting at 44% and all you get as VS is a 1% increase in XP you just laugh and most likely go to another server as you will just get farmed.
For one they need to increase the bonus for underdog factions and maybe even need to cap faction population in some way.

What might play into this is that even with an organized team it is way to hard to impossible to hold a base against an unorganized zerg. Often it's wiser to just leave and cap something else. There is too little incentive to actually defend bases and also it's too hard to hold against a zerg.
Currently it feels more like to zergs rushing at each other and outfits flying around in Galaxies "backhacking" stuff and ignoring the larger fights. Especially on underdog factions as there is no use in fighting if you know you cannot win.

Also I think they should increase respawn timers on Galaxies and give the Sun a mobile spawn certification. But that's not really balance related

[Raka Maru]

Played a max for a bit today.

Couldn't capture points so had to yell for real softies to help. Was able to hold my ground against most units. It took a small squad to displace me when I wasn't lag killed. One guy just suicided into me with c4.

if I keep my distance from NC maxes, I survive a 1/1. The VS max is a monster tho, it's really close every time.

Maxes can't capture, so I ended up "guarding" the rooms. A small timer and maybe resource cost would help the ones complaining about the Max. For those who find it boring, don't bother complaining, 'cuz you are cutting into someone's play style again and we shouldn't listen to you cuz you're already bias.

When I finally unlocked dual bursters, I was disappointed that most of my kills were just assists because 90% of the planes I shot at got away from me. Do I need lockdown also to take down a single plane? I saw the planes swooping in on our weak AA, kill some of us then fly away to repair.

I don't think the pounder is working too well either, was wearing dual ponders and hitting every time, but still couldn't kill a tank after several clips, then got shot dead. Will have to test this more.

I hope they get this right, cuz I like my max suit more than my stealth suit right now since cloakers can't do much except snipe at the moment.

[Nausicaa]

Aircraft Rocket Pods - being able to gib a bunch of softies or a ground vehicle in one reload is just silly.
Lib Bomber Gun - you get no warning at all, at least in ps1 you had an audio que that you were about to be made paste.
Maxes - these need a recource cost and/or a timer/more counters, in a defensive fight theres no reason to pull anything else.
VS AV max - far too powerful against infantry atm.
VS Sniper Rifle - At the moment there is no upside to this weapon: it has the same shot drop as the other rifles and similar recoil to the tr rifle but also suffers from worse damage dergradation and the fact the shot hits above the centre of the reticule.
imho the shot drop needs to be drastically reduced (as was originally stated, its an energy weapon after all) and the targetting fixed so the shot hits the centre of the target (before shot drop comes into play)

[Bullseyebill]

The sniping needs to have the adjusting cone of fire again. I feel that would create more balance and stop the walking-snipe from pwning.

[Raka Maru]

Originally Posted by Bullseyebill

The sniping needs to have the adjusting cone of fire again. I feel that would create more balance and stop the walking-snipe from pwning.

I really liked that focus timer. And it didn't make me sick after 4hrs of weaving scope.

[KamiGaijin]

PLEASE NO REAL MONEY BOOSTS post I made earlier aside, here are some wild suggestions I'm gonna throw out here. Keep in mind that this is what I would like to see, it may differ from others:

Spawning.
Needs more spawning options. Gals are NOT filling the roll of an AMS or base tower the way it's needed. They either die too quicky, primarily because when you fly one in every single enemy for miles around knows exactly where your only spawn point is, or they require an army of engies to rep them, which cuts your offense down too much. And the nearest outpost may not be a good idea, since most don't have air pads and the the terrain on current cont is sometimes too rough to grab a vehicle.

Base capture.
We need more variety. Now I am definitely NOT saying make everything a 15min hack n' hold with a random LLU here and there. 15min hack n' holds were most of the time boring because they were uncontested, but if you were to, say make the base nearest to the enemy warpgate one, it would be contested most of the time. The rest of the bases could be defaulted as a mix of current point capture and LLU.
Plus, this one's kinda wild, but I'll throw it out there anyway: I think what would be interesting is if an empire, both attacking and defending, can choose what type of capture method is needed for a base and have a hacker with the right certs use a control console to change it. This would add a good strategic element to attacking and defending, based upon the current status of the fight. A swift ,organized outfit could attack a base, make it an LLU run, and grab it before the enemy can react, or an Alamo can make it hack n' hold to buy time until reinforcements arrive.

MAXes.
Maxes need a cooldown and/or resource cost. Right now I can pull an AI MAX every single time I die and solo several infantry, even HA's. I feel the AI MAX should be able to kill several infantry...it is a walking indoors tank after all; just not every single respawn.
Plus small balance issue: TR Pounder MAX can't kill anything. It has too few rounds in it's clip and the ballistic arc is a joke. You can't hit a tank that's 120m away.

Armor.
I strongly agree with what some others have said in this thread: Tank battles aren't happening because they die too fast. I can understand the lighting dieing the instant it sees action because it has always had paper armor. However, ground AV or Reavers shouldn't be able to kill a MBT as quick as they do now. And on the issue of driver/gunner: You forced the class system for certs upon us to make people work in groups, why do the exact opposite for vehicles? Maybe make a cert where the driver can remotely operate the gun from the drivers seat, but it will have slightly reduced accuracy and reload time.

Base turrets.
I have yet to find an AA turret that can actually shoot at aircraft because they can't aim down...which is funny because all of them are high up on bases/towers allowing aircraft to sit underneath them. Plus, the turn rate is absolutely abysmal; you have to run you mouse across you entire desk to turn it, and it turns too slow to track a moving target.

Base design.
First off, I like that bases are large and more open...but there needs to be some fine tuning. Some are too open making them impossible to defend against vehicles, and the others can ONLY be accessed from the air, making them impervious to land attack.

Sniping.
I had hoped that someone who is trained in sniping could actually hold a rifle steady enough to aim and shoot it...maybe add less bobbing in the crouch position? Or maybe add a prone position that holds the rifle steady?

Map.
The map needs a lot more work, primarily in the information giving area. Teamplayers want to be able to look at a map and tell where there squad/platoon is. Plus, I think an influence indicator to determine a rough size of enemy forces just like in PS would be tremendously helpful in allowing squad/platoon leaders in deciding where to go. And please, put in hack indicators and gen status...this information is VITAL to a commander.


Flying.
The flight controls seem just plain off. Turning with the keyboard is too sluggish and the mouse is too sensitive. Granted, I've always been a really bad pilot, using aircraft only as a fast means to get from one point to the next (Will ejection seats be out soon? <3), but I simply can't fly as it is right now. This may be just me though. As said, I'm not the world's best pilot.

I do have more suggestion, but I'll wait until I've played more and you have released more content (hopefully CE and hacking soon, because I'm a dirty bastard who loves being sneaky) to finalize them. Especially the class system. I'm undecided yet because I fell that with the current unlocks, the support classes seem to be highly underwhelming.

[MaxDamage]

Terran Republic AV MAX units.
The arc is ridiculous and it also lacks the option of timed denotation rounds.

Useless.

Almost no range..

[Setanta]

Originally Posted by Arkaiden

Da hell? Since when was the lasher overpowered in any way?

Sure, you could get 20 people spamming it down a hallway for it to finally be remotely useful, but some guy with a minigun farther down that hallway could kill all of you thanks to the slow speed of the projectiles and their extreme inaccuracy.

Which is how the Vanu used it, and did so successfully. In tower battles or anywhere the defenders where in a small space, the Vanu had an advantage with the Lasher.

The Terrans chaingun was pretty much a great all rounder and all ranges.

The Jackhammer was crud unless you were close where it had the advantage.


So the Lasher does almost the same damage as the chaingun with added splash.

Doesn't mean it was over or under powered, any weapon when used right certainly felt like it.

[Grendel]

My biggest issue is with a light assault flying over head, dropping a c4 pack on you, and one shot killing a max unit.

Umm...how is this a bad mechanic? Ever tried it? Any idea how hard it is to get close enough to throw C4 without getting splattered by dual heavy cyclers? It works exactly the way it should.

Holy shit, people will cry about ANYTHING.

[Hosp]

Biggest imbalance with the game is that to many devs are VS.

[Frotang]

Originally Posted by MaxDamage

Terran Republic AV MAX units.
The arc is ridiculous and it also lacks the option of timed denotation rounds.

Useless.

Almost no range..

NC falcon is just as bad, prettu mucn limited to an indoor only MAX killer, so NC have both AI and AV MAX limited to close quarters. I'd be fine with the shitty accuracy and arc over range if they doubled ammo capacity so missing 1 of three shots doesnt completely screw me.

[boblikesoup]

VS weapons bother me because it's obvious who is shooting them and from where so it's hard to be sneaky. In Vietnam Rangers used AK47's instead of M16's to trick the enemy. I think this should be a factor in weapon balance.

I also wish Ground to Air weapons would be more effective because air vehicles always have the option to fly away and, in large numbers, they just camp bases.