For those PlanetSide 2 players wondering what changes would be coming for the NSO faction, Rogue Planet Games has a blog post for you. The team dove into the upcoming changes, detailing some of the most critical adjustments to the faction, including opening it up to free-to-play players.
The first major change to the Nanite Systems Operative faction is the simple fact that the RPG team is opening it up to all players, not just those who pay a premium. This means that so long as a free player has a character at least BR20 rank and completes the mission that is presented to you, you'll be able to take advantage of the NSO faction benefits.
Free to play players who take advantage of this will be labled "Freelancers," and while the new NSO changes will let you take part in the content, deploying to the lowest population faction to "balance out player counts," it does come with some restrictions.
"Freelance characters will not be able to join Outfits, and NSO characters will no longer be able to create Outfits themselves. All NSO Outfits will also be dissolved once this updates hits Live. We weighed our options here, and setting up free-to-play characters in this way gave us the cleanest distinction between what it means to be aligned to a faction, and fighting as a freelancer. This decision wasn't made lightly, and I'll understand if it feels bittersweet for the handful of NSO outfits that have found some success."
All Access players will be able to permanently align themselves with one of the various factions on what Rogue Planet calls a "semi-permanent" basis. The team cites player feedback for the change, as players wanted to be able to still play with friends.
"One of the main complaints surrounding NSO as a faction, aside from its limited arsenal, is that players wanted to be able to play with friends and outfitmates. This goes a long way toward addressing that complaint. Players aligned with factions can still opt into Freelance mode (for example, if you just want faster queue times or none of your friends are online,) on a temporary basis, while retaining allegiance to your Outfit. Additionally, you can also switch home factions by acquiring a new enlistment contract on Sanctuary. You'll need to leave your current Outfit in order to switch factions, however."
Also coming with the NSO changes are new directives that will "bring it in line with the way each other faction operates." This means players will see new directives for Assault Rifle, SMG and more. However, the team admits that the Auraxium directive weapons are in a bit of a weird spot. As such, the team is allowing Auraxium weapons to become a gift to those who got them before the update goes live, though they do stress you've got time to grind ("legitimately") before the update goes live.
You can check out the full post on the PlanetSide 2 website for more details. While there is no timetable for when the full update will go officially live, the team at Rogue Planet Games states they we should see testing begin in the next couple of weeks with the update coming out down the road after that.
