Yes, Valor has incredible weapons, all around. A lot of people complain about SVER's weaponry being overpowered, or that the gap between our stopping power, and our loss of stability is too small to compensate, but I would, in a heartbeat, trade every weapon, straight up with Valor.

I would too, absolutely.

I am the most miserable bird ever. Started the long haul towards my Gotha Elite tonight, level 11 of 36. Our reflex sight is completely awful, I hate it so much, compared to the SVER one. It's bulky when aiming down the sight, it actually blocks the lower portion of your screen, and you feel like you're aiming down a cone.

It almost has the same disorientation as the SVER Optical for me, but the Raven and Valor opticals are things of beauty. I love them so much, I can't wait to get mine unlocked.

Using the DMR, I ratted off a quick Grim on the first game I played, but we quickly splintered off into different groups. It's a very strange perspective, going from a clan like PPH, who are respected as one of the big movers on SVER, up there with 3C and in my opinion, better than R*S, who seems to have fallen out of MAG, to a clan that seems to break off and roll mainly by themselves, in Death Dealers.

It's also a much different feeling playing as Raven, we're incredibly disorganized and a lot of our blue dots seem to be in the learning stages, as opposed to the majority of SVER blues, who seem to have their footing, or who have been around the block a few times, and have made SVER their home.

Not sure if I'm going to stay on Raven or not, I'll see if the experience improves, and what my thoughts become as I work my way up the ranks, and learn some of our big players and clans. If not, I'll probably be going to Valor, and taking DeathbyChair up on his offer to play with Valor's Last Stand. Anybody thinking about moving to a different PMC yet, or is SVER still comfy?


EDIT - Random stuff.

Turtle, you're a shotgun user. Here's a random trick that I used a lot, you might get some mileage out of it. The shotgun reloads each round individually, you don't have to go through the full animation to have something to put into an enemy's face. Don't forget this, and if you're ducking and weaving in and out of things, and need to reload, you can use the knife animation to stop your reload, and have a few shells to work with. You can knife air, or put it through someone, but it's saved me more than a few times, and let me keep killing.


Raven is....very timid. I got about three Sabotage in on my happy hour, since nobody was on, we were on attack all 3 times. Unfortunately, we also lost all 3 times, and a large reason for that was because almost every single player was too afraid to get up into the objective. I don't understand, but it was pretty consistent. If this keeps up, I'll pretty much be heading to Valor as soon as I hit 70. It's a shame, because I found a gun that I absolutely love. On the other hand, I love Valor's too, so I guess it's not all bad, and they get a better Reflex Sight.

The F-90 is an absolute monster. I cannot wait to get this thing upgraded, and I think I'll be dropping my plans to use the Gotha to get me through to my 70. It's got an insane rate of fire, the scope that it comes with isn't too bad, although it's a little strange, and it has 50 rounds per clip. It's pretty scary. The KP5 is really hit or miss, among players, I haven't seen one in a few days, but that thing is incredible. It's rate of fire isn't quite F-90 fast, and it's only got 30-round clips, but it's functionally an assault rifle with a super-quick reload. It has a ton of stopping power, is a headshot machine, and you can hop, hit square, and reload before you even hit the ground.

Teamed up with a buddy's buddies and redlined a few Sabotage games. I'm starting to understand how and why I see each match's top players getting such insane numbers.

Also, pfft. Sure, SVER is the best PMC... until you get into an Escalation game. Valor clearly owns that game type, with Raven picking up the matches that Valor doesn't win. Even with the boosted experience, it's a little frustrating to pull one's weight in a game and see his team still lose.

Nah, SVER dominates in Escalation. There's been a little bit of exchange, in holding double contracts, but we're starting to do it consistently, and not give them up as much.

The trick to Escalation is that it's very unforgiving to rolling solo. When PPH rolls up, and we get two squads, and a Platoon Leader, we do pretty damn well for ourselves, even fighting both Raven, and Valor.

Valor's probably at a seeming advantage, because I'm willing to bet you're running into a lot of KEQ. They consistently put 20+ guys into those queues, and they're an absolutely massive clan, so they're able to put multiple full Escalation deploys out, at a time. I'll be nice, but KEQ really shouldn't be winning those, even with full platoons.

There are a few hidden truths about Escalation as well, for SVER. We, moreso than the other PMCs, need to have leadership with mics, and we need to make sure we have a line of communication. This lets us easily get a feel for how we stand on obtaining two letters, and opening D, as well as pulling out of the those letters in a timely manner, to get ourselves entrenched into D.

It's a little different for Raven and Valor, because it's incredibly common for them to actually swap wins, as well as work as one, simply to keep SVER from winning. Many a time, we've seen entire squads of Valor or Raven fight us tooth and nail for a letter, and then let another solider of the 3rd PMC come in, secure the console, and open up D. It's easier for them to band together, and make sure we lose, rather than trying to fight us, on top of fighting them, and still risk losing.


The other hidden truth, is that Escalation is very up and down for us, as SVER players. It's harder for us to get a feel for the game, and this will get better, as time goes on, and clans like PRO get a feel for the game, and start to build some strategy and approaches to it, for SVER. Usually, the game is won and lost at A, B, and C. For SVER though, most of our wins, and all my old Pop Quiz ribbons came from winning the initial two, and then taking all 32 SVER and digging incredibly deep into D. They often get shut out for the entire game, when we do this, for whatever reason, we're the best at simply digging our heels into a given D, and just never giving it up.



Escalation is also tough because sometimes you're at the mercy of terrible squad/platoon leaders, who just don't understand how the game works, and give poor orders, and your blue dots factor in, as well. Vash and I had one Escalation the other night, that we completely threw away a shut-out win on, because our Squad Leader somehow convinced our Platoon leader that even after taking D, we should simply hold on to A and C, and let them re-secure D. We could totally just keep taking those, and it would be fine, we'd win no problems.

They didn't think about the fact that Raven and Valor would figure this out, and easily crush us out of just one letter, and then allow the other PMC to obtain their second, to open up their D, and take the win from us. Had he listened to Vash or myself, and got all of SVER's players to head into D, and fortify, we'd have won it with no problems. It was a lack of understanding of the game type, and poor leadership decisions, that cost us that victory.

I'm back on SVER, as well guys, so look forward to some hawt hawt SASR-M and Tamsen action coming up. I'll be taking a tour through all the weapons again, since I deleted my character. Raven broke my will to play MAG so badly, with it's blues, that I would've rather given up on all my ribbons/medals/stats achieved in my x00 hours on the main, and start over, rather than slog through another 45 levels of the most timid players to ever play a game about shooting things.

Endlo-? In my SVER? It's more likely than you think.

(Yesssss)

SVER and PPH is home. Screw Raven and Valor, they're absolutely awful. There's no in-game imbalances that significant, I'm firmly in the camp that believes it's the players.

I can use my stay as both a Raven and Valor player, as proof. Raven was so miserable that I walked away from hundreds of hours in-game, all my achievements, my stats, all my banked CP, all of it, just to get out. Their blues are the worst in the game, hands down. They're timid, they don't carry medkits, and they refuse to push an objective, defend an objective, or do anything to advance the game. I've never seen a group of players that's more terrified of the redline, and refusing to jump down, and even try.

Valor players...are almost the opposite, but they still can't really do very much. They definitely struggle from the medkit issue as well, but they still don't use any kind of teamwork, and try to lone-wolf their way through everything. It doesn't work, and all you end up seeing is a whole squad of Valor guys who are 50+ meters away from one-another, and they have no hope of getting rezzed.

Valor has one saving grace, and that's VL$. Raven....has AIR and the Dark Flock, but if it weren't for those groups, these PMCs would be completely out of the running for everything. Even now, we're still holding strong to our Escalation contracts, and we've not lost doubles in anything, for a long time.

Zipper has tweaked every map, including Absheron Refinery, and while they do admit there are slight imbalances, they're also spread pretty evenly among the PMCs, and favoring their gametype. Copper Hills will always be the absolute best Sabotage map to defend, and Syr Darya will always be the worst. That's never really going to change.

People complained about Flores Basin, and how SVER had roofs, and Flores then received them, as well, in addition to their fortress of a complex. Hell, their spawn on...G and H I think it is, is literally a grenade's throw away. That entire complex is built to defend. The AA on Flores is also a nightmare to get to, considering it's sandwiched between two bunkerlines, and highly elevated.

After starting over, as well, SVER are at a massive disadvantage in the beginning of their game. We really do have the worst starting weapons, in every category.

For Valor, they have access to an early KP5, which is one of the most respectable weapons in the game, and easily the best SMG. Their starting assault rifle, the M4A1, also an incredibly respectable weapon, it even has useable iron-sights, which is incredibly rare, among all 3 factions. Their starting Marksmen has 20-rounds, and is the best of the 3, from the hip.


Raven has access to the F-90, as well as the ATAC, much sooner than other PMCs would have access to anything similar. The F-90 has an integrated sight, that's better than their Reflex, in my opinion. It's much smoother to aim with, once you get used to the slight decoration.

The ATAC is still one of the most respected AR's in the game, and many players still put it above the Gotha, which was the "improved" version. It comes with an integrated Foregrip, saving players a fortune in CP early-on, when it doesn't exactly come rolling in.

SVER gets...the Vipera. Which still needs both the Reflex Sight, and the suppressor to be useable. The KP5 can get away with not having the Reflex, because it's so powerful from the hip, as well as having solid iron sights, and the F-90 doesn't ever require a sight. We have to spend a significant amount of CP, in any category, to really get a gun that's comparable.

Our first tier assault rifle, the AK-47u? It's a joke, it's easily the worst weapon in the game. I'm using it now, and I hate it. I've managed 3 Grim Reapers with it so far, which is amazing, but it's still by far the worst weapon in the game. I'd much rather have even a Raven handgun over it.

Our DMR requires a foregrip at the least, as well as a significant investment in the Marksman tree, to compensate for it's clunkiness off the hip, compared to early Valor DMR users, as well as to compensate for it's terrible capacity. The Raven/Valor marksmen get twice the capacity, with no real detriment, and the EBR is still incredibly solid being blindfired, even without a foregrip.

Any advice on getting lots of kills/CP? Those are what I really need right now, even more than experience and skill points.

Am I reading this right, you are no longer a bird?

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I'm at about level 67 or so, after I hit 70, I'll likely rent another slot.

Played a bit last night .. it was the first time I really noticed some horrible lag type issues (escalation). But had fun.

Poor interdiction, NO ONE plays that game, It's made the directives deployment useless, which I used to like cause you got 50% bonus and it tended to put you in the domination or acquisition games which I liked, now every time, interdiction and I have yet to ever have it fill and start before I gave up and left the queue.

I am no longer a bird. Raven was absolutely awful. It was so bad that I deleted my character, and chose to start from scratch again, on SVER.


As far as Interdiction goes...it's a bad gametype. It wasn't all that fun, and it was never very highly populated. Some clans, particularly BHD from SVER, are trying to push the community, and a few other clans, to queue it up every couple weekends. If I see one such get-together posted up on the forums over there, I'll be sure to post it up over here, and get everybody the heads up. I'll probably try to hop in for a few of those weekends, I need my Interdiction medals and trophies still.


Turtle, as far as getting kills, and CP...it's kind of tough. It depends on what ribbons you're getting, what's easily and repeatably obtainable for you, and how you play the game. On a decent defense, I'm usually looking at a Combat ribbon, a Silver Bullet, and sometimes Grim Reapers and Purple Sidekicks. On games where they push the letter a lot, or push us to C early, I'll usually pick up a Silver Cross, as well.

If you are in dire need of CP, I would suggest going to Acquisition or Domination, and being an engineer, and repairing things. Vash and I are planning on doing this over the next few nights, if you want to hop in our group, and roll in the Engineer-Mobile. On a defending Acquisition, if we can get a Commando in the back, we can usually net 1000+ CP on a single game. It's not too bad, if a little unexciting.

As far as getting a lot of kills, it's tough to say. The shotgun, in my opinion, really benefits from the motion sensor. This lets you sneak around a little bit, and it gets you a better heads up for large groups. Make sure that you stick to cover, and weave in and out of it, since your weapon isn't fully-auto, you do sometimes put yourself at a disadvantage in terms of range, and firepower, compared to assault rifles, or SMGs.

Personally, I would suggest trying out some other weapons, but that's also because I hate the shotgun. I've had maybe 3 good games with it, and I had 12c armor on, and a Motion Sensor, during those.
Right now, I'm trying to get back to my normal style, which is a bit sneakier, and ambushing with my Vipera and knife. It's been a while since I've played like that, and I'm used to being able to take a group of guys head-on with my Tamsen, so I'm still falling into that, but I'm still finally putting up decent numbers again.

My planned loadout right now is something like ....

Vipera-2 with Small Suppressor and Reflex Sight - 6c
IZ-443 with Small Suppressor - 2c
Medical Kit - 10c
Sensor Jammer - 4c
Motion Sensor - 8c
Improved Light Armor - 4c

I'm pretty happy with that. My only main concern/tweak is maybe dropping the small Suppressor on the IZ-443 and going up to the medium armor, to be able to survive a .50cal shot.

It's funny - that one Acquisition game we played, I got a lot of exp. and CP, but I repaired almost nothing (mostly due to not having a clue where repairable stuff was); I made a killing (ironically) in healing.

Because the med kit gets you tons of points, when I used to play I would get 500+ points in a game if I play well. And you can repair barricades, doors, vehicles, bunkers, turrets and probably some other stuff I don't remember anymore as I haven't played for a few months, mainly because no one on my friend list plays anymore.... I am on SEVR so if you wanna play send me a FR on the PSN and I'll confirm when I get home on Tuesday and maybe get in a few games.

I"m with you, Tim, on the Directives boat. All that it puts me in is Interdiction, which I have never had the chance to play, because of the pitiful number of players. I liked Domination, and Aquisitiion as well, especially since the game is long and I get a chunk of bonus XP.

Turtle wrote:

It's funny - that one Acquisition game we played, I got a lot of exp. and CP, but I repaired almost nothing (mostly due to not having a clue where repairable stuff was); I made a killing (ironically) in healing.

just look around for the big plumes of black smoke, run to them, fix em. btw, respec points come very fast, get strong engineering when going for cp

I don't think the engineering buffs really make much of a difference, when you're repairing. I've never really invested in them, and I've had plenty of 1000+ CP games. I had one earlier where I got a Grim Reaper, Combat SMG, Bronze Field and Gold Field engineers, and pulled over 1000.

I guess it depends on how you conceptualize your role, and where you're more comfortable. I'm a slayer type of player, and want to focus on my gun and knife game, so I don't invest those points, choosing instead to be able to fix in a pinch, while keeping our engineers alive if I have to. If someone is more comfortable with a more dedicated field support role, then it would make sense that they would invest in becoming a more efficient support player.

To me, engineering is a way to grind out CP, and in Domination and Acquisition, the best defense against things like this, is to redline the opposition. It's such a powerful tool, to control their spawn, and the routes of travel they have, and minimizing the safe space they have.


Edit - Zipper is stupid. The 12c armor was an awful idea, and needs to be rebalanced. It seriously makes the Vipera unusable. I'm punished for wearing light armor and for wanting to use the SMG. The KP5 has enough stopping power to skate by on 12c wearers, and the F-90 has such a high rate of fire that you drop even 12c on headshots incredibly quickly, but the Vipera's rate of fire, even with 3 points from the Close Quarters tree, is nowhere close to it. It's ridiculous that I have to give up on my loadout/CP build plans, because I can't kill people who wear the Heavy+.


My issue with Heavy armor is that there's no penalty for wearing it. Maybe I'm too attached to the old builds of the game, where move speed was determined by the weight of the armor that you wear. There was a noticeable gap between Heavy armor and Light armor, and it gave the + armors a lot of value, because you could marginally increase your protection, with a minimal penalty in your speed. Now, entire squads of Valor guys are taking advantage of their powerful CQC weapons, they have the best SMG and the best shotgun, as well as powerful and cheap Assault Rifle options, that let them take full advantage of their 12c armor. They essentially get to carry a rifle for 6c, and they get to overcompensate for it's ranged shortcomings with the insane protection their armor affords them.

Even Raven have the same options available, if they choose to oversimplify their loadouts. The Vipera has completely fallen from grace, because it struggles to handle the new threat that the armors allow. It's rate of fire and stopping power aren't adequate to handle the output of damage that it takes to drop 12c armor guys. I love my Tamsen, don't get me wrong, but I hate that I feel forced to choose between the Tamsen and the SASR-M, just to put myself on an equal footing. I feel like it was a mistake on Zipper's part, to either introduce the 12c armor-class, or to remove the penalties that came with the heavier armor. As it stands right now, it punishes players who want to wear lighter armor, and have more complicated loadouts, because as it stands, you can wear 12c armor, and have an SMG, or an LMG/MMG, and have a huge damage output, while still taking quite a bit of punishment, and really have no penalty other than losing out on your electronics.

Sounds like I'm going to love this armor. Especially after last night, when all I could do was suck.

Finally reached level 60 earlier. From a level 70's perspective, how close am I to 70?

Just over half way there, I think it takes about 112,000 xp for level 70.

Yeah, the grind from 60 to 70 takes a while. I think it took me about two days of semi-consistent play on Escalation to get it squared up, and then I did another run from 1-70 in a few days, with the Escalation bonuses.


I'm so close to breaking my MAG disc in half. I'm so tired of how the game has devolved, and it's quickly becoming a chore to play.

It is?

You seemed pretty in the zone once you got your Tamsen back last night.

I don't think that the game has changed that much. You've played it soelly for two months, and you're burnt out. Play another game.

dumb question, you would think I would know this by now

what the heck is a "tactical refresh" sometimes in association with a scan ... what does this mean to me as a grunt

A Tactical Refresh is an ability given to OIC's. It resets the cooldowns for your squad leader and platoon leader abilities. Normally, when you call in a strike of a certain type, there's a waiting period before it can be called in again. Refreshes reset that cooldown timer for you.

Endlo- wrote:

A Tactical Refresh is an ability given to OIC's. It resets the cooldowns for your squad leader and platoon leader abilities. Normally, when you call in a strike of a certain type, there's a waiting period before it can be called in again. Refreshes reset that cooldown timer for you.

so, as a grunt, it means nothing to me? Should I be looking for sometihng, or doing something that helps me or my squad leader when these happen, or is this basically communication from the head dude on the wrong channel?

As a "grunt" it only really serves to give you a heads up, in regards to a barrage of strikes. Most OICs usually use their broadcast channel, and not their leadership chat, so it's pretty common for them to announce the Jam and Refresh times to all the players.

As far as helping yourself out when Refreshes drop, just try to avoid the colored smoke, really. A really common Domination opening on defense is to jam their networks, and this disables their CNIs and prevents them from seeing the map as a whole, setting waypoints, and setting FRAGOs. It's real use is to prevent any kind of strike or leadership ability from being called in, it's damn handy.

Close to the end of a Sensor Jam, you'll often get a Tactical Refresh. This allows you to have bombarded them with 2-3 strikes, per Squad/Platoon leader, before they can really get their offense together, and co-ordinated again. It's a good way to keep them under control while we get dug in effectively, and it keeps them disoriented and respawning.



Refreshes also have some slightly more tactical applications, the reason I was wishing our OIC would've called in even one that game, was because our AAA went down early, and given where that one is placed, it's hard to get behind it, and start to get it back up. Had I been able to call in a second Censer round on the second Helo, it would've bought us a fair bit of time to get back there, and try to get it up. Once we get that up, we start that cascade effect of getting the rest of the frontline back up.