NC just doesn't understand

[Anarion]

You almost hate to admit it, but I've been travelling with the terrans for a bit, trying to be abusive with their weapons, and I think I'm starting to see some of what non-NC players have been on about...
I'd love to see that chart LesserShade, I'll search but do you have a link to it? If its correct then it adds some weight to what I was experimenting with last night.. The gauss is good, don't get me wrong, but I think either its RoF should be toned a bit, or its accuracy at extreme range should be scaled back.. It's already got a higher damage rating than the pulsar and cycler..
I guess ultimately the damage, range and even rate of fire isn't even that big an issue, its that with very little effort an NC trooper can just hold the fire button down at range and slaughter incoming troops.. With a cycler or chaingun upclose it makes sense, you're 5 feet away.. but when someone is 50m away and getting reamed by rapid fire gauss shells, well.. Seems to me that there should be some recoil on the gun if you choose to fire it full auto non stop like that.. So that accuracy decreases at range the longer you hold the trigger down; or at least moreso than it already does..
It isn't to say the rifle is unfair, but it really shouldn't have to take a massive horde rushing tactic just to close the 50 meters from the forest to the perimeter of the tower you're assaulting.. A far smaller group of NC held off a much larger group of terrans far too easily IMO last night, with very little cover of their own..
Sure, vehicles should be able to bring your troops in safely, but I wont travel down the path of the pheonix here.. And whether its myth or reality about that, the Terrans DO seem to use a LOT less vehicles than the NC in my experience..
I have to say I didn't experience much spam in terms of that rocket launcher in a large assault on an NC tower and base simultaneously.. I counted 4 out of about 20 or so NC with that weapon.. Still, I did give up flying a reaver after a very short period of time, as even when you thought you were out of range of the thing, a missle has followed you home..
Speaking as someone who's used the pheonix with some frequency (it IS probably the most fun weapon to use in PS), and as someone who's defended its merits; I have to say I wouldn't be at all upset if they took it down a notch further.. LoS being a decent trade off I'd think, for the power and accuracy of the weapon. Of course if no changes were made, I still think when people are reduced to BR1, you'll find less people willing to dedicate themselves for a month to get one, rather than everyone starting at BR10, and able to just wipe their characters (or make a new one) at BR10 as well.. Pheonixes are like candy, because no one has had to work for one yet..

I can also see the rationale behind the defence of the chaingun (I know it looks like I'm just selling the NC out all over), YES its absolute murder once you get up close.. Thing is, I got shanked so many times trying to get to the tower by gauss weapons, it makes it bloody even when I get in there with a chaingun and cause some havoc..

One final point.. We were getting hammered for a bit trying to assault a tower last night.. Pheonixes picking off our MAXs (that have to run from a nearby tower) and gauss cutting us down on the charge.. I was in a brand new squad, and while not the leader, I convinced the 3 snipers in our group to concentrate SOLELY on the tower walkways and coordinate as a team in nailing pheonix users (or gauss/sniper units too), anyone who tried to use that area to shoot down at us.. Pheonix fire trickled to almost nothing, MAXs started to inch closer to the tower and push the gauss troopers back, which brought up the chaingunners, and eventually we got to the base doors..
After a quick but bloody storming of the tower, we eventually took control.. Not at all an attempt to claim any responsibility for the outcome, but the rather a tactical point.. Weapons like the pheonix can be controlled if not stopped outright.. What I tend to see more often than not, even in a squad, are players acting individually not like they're in a group. Lack of coordination will kill you every time, because no one thinks its their responsibility to "take out" those units which are at the top of the target heirarchy..

Same thing with base assaults, sure pheonix users are hiding behind the walls shooting out at you.. That's when you take a decent size squad the long way around the side, go in through the back door, push your way to the control room, begin the cap, and then the outer defense turns inwards taking the pressure off the guys being pounded seiging the base..

In short (I know, hurray!) I can see now a bit more clearly what people think is unbalanced with the pheonix.. However I also see more clearly the flipside of the coin, that some people are complaining without ever having tried to develop a tactic to get around what they see as an unbeatable weapon..

my $0.04

[1024]

If you changed everything so that it would be even, that would kind of defeat the purpose of empire-specific weapons and vehicles, now, wouldnt it?

[Airlift]

It is ubertarded to claim the gauss is overpowered in the same post that you claim the Chaingun is not. Furthermore, it reeks of lobbyism.

[Lexington_Steele]

Anarion, by your same reasoning, it is not fair that NC have to Keep TR at a distance to stand a chance.

If you are nerfing NCs long range advantages, you need to nerf TRs short range advantages.

[Cygnus]

All of the weapons are supposed to be equally worthwhile. That's the design document, as far as I can tell. If all of the empire specific vehicles and weaponry are going to cost the same number of cert points, they absolutely MUST be equally as useful.

All of the changes the devs have made so far (and have said they'll make) have fit this pattern, fixing the Vanu vehicles and weaponry one by one, toning down the Phoenix, and tweaking the NC Shield.

This isn't to say that they can't be useful in different ways, ie if the lancer and striker are meant to be better at killing infantry and air vehicles respectively...I can live with that.

However, it's my opinion that there can still be diversity if you retain the current payload delivery styles, but tweak them to have similar effectiveness rates.

Assault rifles are straightforward in this regard. Since we aren't talking about balancing the empires, only the weapons, the rifles must be equally useful. In my humble opinion, the gauss is slightly more useful than the cycler.

Take the fact that the Jackhammer isn't very good and the fact that most of the NC choose the gauss rifle. That slight advantage 1 on 1 becomes quite sizeable with 30 on 30.

[LesserShade]

Phoenix use and towers always seems to boil down to this scenario when I'm assaulting:

Phoenix and sniper's on the roof supressing incoming enemies and a few scattered soldiers and MAX on the ground near the doors to mop up anybody that made it close to the base.

If I can manage to get through the doorway, I immediately go for the roof rather than the basement. The basement is suicide unless you have at least half a dozen friendlies in the tower lobby with you. Once on the roof, commence with the carnage. Most of the time the snipers have tunnel vision and the phoenix users are stuck on missle cam, so it is just a frikken field day mowing them down with the weapon(s) of your choice. Then you can use the roof to thin out the forces guarding the doors on the ground.

Once there you can live off ammo from corpses and hopefully get some medkits too. The easiest way to take a tower from NC is to get on the roof, secure it, killing their ability to keep the fight to a long range. Use the roof to kill or keep the ground troops occupied so that your ground force can move into the lobby. Once you start pushing down the stairs to the first landing it'll be ugly, but you've pretty much won the battle at that point.

Anyway, once they get the frikken CC out of the damn basement, these BS tower struggles aren't going to be near the problem that they are now. I swear, I would much rather let the NC take a nearby base and cap their tower while they are spawning at the facility, and then move on the facility after that. It is so much harder to take a damn tower than it is a facility.


Ok.. as far as the damage table thing goes, I believe RocketFodder came up with one, but that was like 3 weeks ago I think, searching the beta boards for it will be tough. I hope that he moved the data to an external site. At the time he said that he was gathering data for TR and NC.

[Lexington_Steele]

Originally posted by LesserShade
Ok.. as far as the damage table thing goes, I believe RocketFodder came up with one, but that was like 3 weeks ago I think, searching the beta boards for it will be tough. I hope that he moved the data to an external site. At the time he said that he was gathering data for TR and NC.

Rocket's table was garbage. It was mainly speculation and guess work.

Yes there were numbers on how many shot to kill something, however some of the numbers were wrong and the table did not mention anything useful about reload time, recoil or take different ranges into account.

In addition there have been adjustments made to many of the weapons since then, and the beta boards were recently wiped.

[Lexington_Steele]

Originally posted by LesserShade
Phoenix use and towers always seems to boil down to this scenario when I'm assaulting:

Phoenix and sniper's on the roof supressing incoming enemies and a few scattered soldiers and MAX on the ground near the doors to mop up anybody that made it close to the base.

You know, TR can use sniper rifles as well. Phoenix users are a snipers dream. They are targets that are forced to sit still for an extended period of time.

As far as the towers and how difficult it is to take them, I do not beleive you should be able to spawn MAXs at the towers.

If they take away the ability to spawn MAXs at the towers, the towers will fall more easily. (however some Vanu people are strongly against this because they feel their AI MAx is what keeps their faction competative.)

[glsauron]

Originally posted by Anarion
Thing is, I got shanked so many times trying to get to the tower by gauss weapons, it makes it bloody even when I get in there with a chaingun and cause some havoc..

OK, so they are even according to that part yet...

but I think either its RoF should be toned a bit, or its accuracy at extreme range should be scaled back.. It's already got a higher damage rating than the pulsar and cycler..

Which is it?

BETA MEMBER: Can Hamma or other PSU god edit the Cert page to mention the prereqs? I wanna see if the certs Im thinking of getting are possible. And it helps in general.

[Kyonye]

heavy assault weaponry for all factions are good in one way or another. the minichaingun for TR fires at a high rate with practically no recoil but isn't that accurate. the NC jackhammer is powerful weapon that if hit once or twice say goodbye. the Lasher is also pretty good, but, the only way a lasher is useful is if you are in a base because the actual orb isn't that fast moving so to hit someone you would need to be in an inclosed area. over all, they are good in one way or another.

[LLMerc]

GLSauron:

He said the chaingun is even to the gauss ....

Chaingun - heavy assault weapon, 6 certs total to get (2 for medium assault, 4 for heavy)

Gauss - medium assault rifle (2 certs)

Do you think they should be even? And BTW, they are not even. Chaingun is better, but only at close range =) Gauss will kick your ass at medium/long range.

[Geiden]

You know it's kind of funny about the fuss the phoenix has raised of late. It's not like it's come to a total shock to most of you. The vast majority of the people in Exclusive Beta have been following this game for over a year now. When the weapons were first disclosed last summer, EVERYONE was talking about how hard it was going to be to balance the Phoenix. Likewise, there was also a LOT of concern over the prospect of chaingun superiority inside bases.

My only beef with the TOW is it's ability to be used outside LOS. I think some possible tweaks to offset this would be:

a.) Reduce it's effective range by shortening it's timer.

b.) Reduce it's maneuverability. If you do this through a speed increase, then the timer must be shortened accordingly to keep range reasonable.

c.) Reduce it's damage (I'm not fond of this idea, I think NC weapons should do more damage per shot just slower))

d.) Increase it's reload time significantly

e.) Change the weapon to laser-guided like in Half-Life. This would fix a couple of things... It'd force the user to have LOS (to a certain degree) but the user would also not be totally defenseless while guiding the missile.

[LesserShade]

Ah yes, the beta board wipe, I forgot about that.

I think you are better off suiting up as a grunt or maybe better yet an infiltrator to try to deal with AV NC. Sniping is great if you can find a place to get a clear shot on a guy that has a weapon that allows him to stay out of LOS of a target. I think the idea is to figure out how you can muscle your way into the face of an AV user and get to him while he's fumbling with the guns.

Yes I completely agree that you shouldn't be able to get MAX from towers, however once they move the CC out of the basement, that will help quite a bit with tower assaults.

[Led]

BTW, whoever says the VS sucks, has never apparently run with/into a good group of them.

Last night the NC totally liberated Ceryshen, starting from no bases, to owning the entire place, in eight hours. That was some of THE most intense fighting yet. Those lashers HURT! I also had the opportunity to use one on several occasions, and wow, it was a murder machine.

Altough I did notice one thing. The lancer runs on ROCKETS? Whatthehell? :O:

[LesserShade]

Originally posted by Led

Altough I did notice one thing. The lancer runs on ROCKETS? Whatthehell? :O:

exactly! what is that all about? I have one in my locker but I'm out of ammo :/