The VS are, objectively, at a massive disadvantage. Thoughts from a nine year vet.

[thegreekboy]

Yes, the VS weapons are extremely underpowered. What gave it away? The high rate of fire, the lack of any recoil, or the middle of the road damage? Maybe a combination of all 3?

The VS are the most OP faction in the game. You guys shoot just as fast as the TR, do MORE damage, AND you have no recoil. What's not to love?

[Suitepee]

No. The VS are most definitely not at any massive disadvantage whatsoever.

Well except that they stole their entire look from the Halo Covenant, but aside from that....

[PredatorFour]

Vanu smiles upon us!

[ringring]

I love the word objectively.

[FreeSpeech]

Defending either the VS or TR is only done by those literally loving the fact they chose a good side. Not being able to transfer CERT points to other factions, what a stupid management decision.

[Mathematics]

Originally Posted by Anuv

I started playing Planetside in 2003. No other game I have played since has left me with the same impression that PS1 did. It's the best game that has ever made, hands down. The incredible balance between all three factions was managed extremely well considering the size of the battles. Every side had something going for it - that alone made for some incredible battles and scenarios.

But now? There's a problem. Unlike in the first game, with different pros and cons balancing one another out with each faction, the VS are now the most disadvantaged faction (by far) on several different fronts. The following are some examples.


Vehicles:
The Magrider's main cannon is locked in a forward vertical arc. You cannot turn the main cannon around in the same way that the Prowler and Vanguard can. This is, in my mind, the single largest disadvantage any MBT could ever have - so the fact that the devs decided to switch the cannon placement from PS1's configuration to this is completely unbelievable. The big draw of the Mag in PS1 was mobility. Now? All of that is now rendered inert by fixing the main cannon forward. You cannot engage new targets behind you in ANY reasonable amount of time. This is the single largest thing that anyone can do to design a terrible tank. It would be one thing for all the tanks to behave like this - but to have only ONE act this way? It needs to be reverted to the PS1 style, plain and simple.


The Scythe is, hands down, the worst aircraft to use out of the three. The corresponding air controls are terrible at the moment and that completely shows through with the Scythe. Whoever decided that the mouse X axis should control roll and not turn should be fired. To add insult to injury? The keys aren't even inverted. Has SOE even flown ANYTHING in a game before? Please, revert to Planetside's original air config. Again, having the Scythe be completely unique compared to TR/NC puts it at a huge disadvantage (much like the Mag).


Weapons:
The entire draw of VS weapons from Planetside was their ability to instantaneously switch between anti-armor and anti-personnel rounds by using the right mouse button. NC and TR had to carry AP ammo in their inventory and manually switch magazines if a MAX unit appeared - something the VS never had to worry about.

Now? There's literally no advantage to VS weapons at ALL. All weapons fire the same ammo - however, TR still have a high rate of fire and huge magazines, two very important things that provide a huge advantage in close quarters infantry fights. NC weapons still hit extremely hard too, again making their weapons very powerful despite their slower ROF. As for the VS? Their weapons have absolutely nothing going for them. When one faction has weak guns and high ROF and one has low ROF and high power being middle of the road is NOT an advantage. You get the worst of both worlds.

The battle rifles perform objectively worse in close engagements. TR and NC alike are able to kill VS who get the drop on them with much greater ease than the other way around. High capacity OR high damage are huge advantages to have - being somewhere in the middle is absolutely terrible. All VS players know the feeling of getting the drop on an unsuspecting soldier only to be killed despite half an entire clip hitting square on. It's extremely, extremely frustrating.

The VS sniper rifle is, objectively, the worst one in the game. The recoil is horrendous and it deals the least damage. The extremely strange "bounce" that the weapon does after firing makes it terrible to use under any circumstances. The awful scope provides zero help at that. It would be easier to score kills with it if iron sights were default instead of the current scope and recoil system.

The Beamer is completely unusable in its current state in relation to the TR and NC sidearms. The difference is night and day. Poor damage and a terrible fire rate make for a very useless pistol. The ADS mode is extremely cumbersome in relation to TR/NC. It doesn't help that the amount of time it takes to kill a given soldier is easily double to quadruple the time for TR/NC pistols. And, again, there's no ammo versatility advantage like in PS1. A complete downgrade in EVERY single respect.

The Quasar is laughable compared to the NC/TR anti-infantry MAX options. The number of MAX kills with this weapon can be counted on one hand in every major engagement. Terrible damage, slow ROF, bad accuracy, zero use. Again, so mediocre and middle-of-the-road it hurts. It neither has a huge ammo base nor hits hard, putting it in a completely irrelevant category.

The Lasher? I don't even think I need to write anything. So, so bad. The Minigun is better in every single way.


Color:
I'll never hate on the purple. Ever. HOWEVER, the color choice of the VS is a MASSIVE problem considering Planetside 2's engine. It provides a MUCH sharper contrast with the new lighting system and that is a big, big problem in battles that are indoors/at night. The red color of the TR is much, much more muted than purple against the black backgrounds inside most bases. Soldiers and tanks alike stand out in sore thumbs compared to both red and blue. It's extremely easy to spot a VS soldier in a dimly lit room than a TR soldier. Anyone can see that, plain as day. And that's a massive, massive disadvantage for anyone hoping to get the drop on TR/NC.

I don't expect SOE to change the Vanu's color, of course, but it is a VERY important thing to consider when designing the lighting system.



I've been a part of the Planetside universe for almost a decade. I point out these things only to enhance SOE's balance of all three factions and to ensure that players feel compelled to take part in each group equally. People who join one faction for a big advantage (whether it be a gun, tank, or something else) will be a huge problem otherwise upon release. And since this game requires three factions to be balanced together? All the more reason to mention this stuff.

Thanks.

I like how you used the word "objectively" in the title, and then proceed to completely omit objective data from your post.

Regarding Magrider "disadvantage", why the hell would you NOT want to completely turn around to engage an enemy behind you? Do you realize that you take significantly more damage from behind?

[Lonehunter]

I feel like Anuv is playing a completely separate game then me, did someone figure out how to run a private PS2 server? That seems like the most logical thing at this point...

[Kendrick]

When people make the OP or UP claims... do they actually spend time playing the different empires? Specific weapons/vehicles in each empire are better than the equivalent of other empires... but it's the whole picture that needs evaluating. Personally, I find the Vanu firearms to be *very* powerful at longer ranges due to lack of bullet drop... but those rocket launchers are just awful. When I play NC, the Scythes seem to dominate the skies... could be better aircraft or just better pilots in the empire... dunno.

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by Lonehunter

I feel like Anuv is playing a completely separate game then me, did someone figure out how to run a private PS2 server? That seems like the most logical thing at this point...

Yes, he was playing a different game, several months ago. You see those numbers above someone's name on a post? Those show the date the post was made. Balance was different in September, surprisingly enough.

[maradine]

This is why we don't necro threads.

[JimmyOmaha]

Twice necro'd? o0


This thing is gonna get locked, heh.

[KaskaMatej]

Originally Posted by Anuv

The Magrider

Single best piece of equipment VS has. In the open it's the best MBT of the three, in cramped placed mediocre. I can't say Maggy is bad at all. I always read some QQing of Maggies being OP. ALWAYS! Mostly from NC because they QQ the most. :P

Originally Posted by Anuv

The Scythe

All three ESF are nearly carbon copies of eachother, apart from Mossy' speed. Manoeuvrability is the same on all accounts.

Originally Posted by Anuv

There's literally no advantage to VS weapons at ALL. /.../ You get the worst of both worlds.

We have no bullet drop. And not that much vertical recoil. The biggest problem with VS guns is, they are bland. They don't feel unique. IMO.

Originally Posted by Anuv

The VS sniper rifle is, objectively, the worst one in the game.

That's not very objective, is there. Also, sidegrades.

Originally Posted by Anuv

The Beamer is completely unusable in its current state in relation to the TR and NC sidearms.

I do agree with you on the Beamer part. It's worse than NC's Mag-shot or TR's burst machine pistol.

Originally Posted by Anuv

The Quasar

Also agree with you on Quasar. It's bad compared to Cycler or Scatter cannon. Good luck getting a kill at more than 10 metres and less than 15. (the math is deliberate).

Originally Posted by Anuv

The Lasher

It's good. It fires orbs. The lash, a little. Is as weak as Beamer in fire power and slow ROF and orbs speed and it's really a grieving machine. Though, not as bad as you make it.

Originally Posted by Anuv

Color

TR and NC also QQ when they fight against VS at night. The purple is actually the best default camouflage at night in this game. Actually, of all, at night at least.

I need to say, your "objectivity" is very subjective. All of the above are "IMO", I play only VS, I haven't played PS1 but I play PS2 since it came out of tech test. Again, all of the above are my opinions.

[FreeSpeech]

Sniper the worst one? Hardly it's like a 1 hit kill!

You do mention some of their worst guns in that big list, but then nobody ever uses them! It's Orion and Cycler constantly which are basically spray and pray sniper miniguns in comparison to anything that NC can dish out.

Pistols, who cares about pistols, when are you using pistols outside of an Infiltrator?

And personally I can live with the colour and design when I know my guns are owning people with minimal effort.

Oh and Scythe maneovering capabilities are beyond the other factions.

[ShadetheDruid]

Originally Posted by FreeSpeech

Pistols, who cares about pistols, when are you using pistols outside of an Infiltrator?

You'd be surprised, I regularly go on a pistol "rampage" as a HA when i'm rocking my Warden and need something to use at close range.

[boogy]

For months I've been giving the VS the benefit of the doubt as not being the OP faction. But this last week or two it's no longer undeniable. They're guns are out right OP, no downside. In Beta they had a counter to their low recoil and no bullet drop. That was damage degradation. But we saw you can't degrade damage on a close or med range gun without making them useless. In early Beta their guns sucked because of this. As a result the were buffed and damage degradation was removed. Now their gun's upside has no counter. It's the complete opposite to the NC. Their guns have an existing evident counter to their hard hitting characteristic, which is sucky recoil. VS have none implemented. Their only counter is their purple spandex resulting in low populations.