Nerfs and buffs don't happen because of threads based on feels. Whenever they change a weapon, the explanation is accompanied with graphs and data that state why it should be changed.

If there's a spike in Mass Driver effectiveness, then yes, it'll get nerfed.

Have you thought that, perhaps, maybe, the general purpose weapon may generally be used?

It's a weapon that's good at many things, yet is outclassed by many things. My LR is almost an instagib rifle in its optimal, whereas the AR would tickle at the same range. The MD is a much better area denial weapon than the AR. The scram rifle deals with shields much better than the AR. The shotgun is much better than the AR at extremely close ranges. The sniper is much better at extremely long ranges. The PC (lol)... really has no place.

The AR is a weapon everyone has used in every other FPS game, and feels comfortable to use. It is an adaptable weapon, good at many things, yet is outclassed by other weapons when they fit their niche.

Of course, you probably stuck your fingers in your ears and started yelling to drown me out, because god forbid I don't hop on the "AR is OP" train.

Should add that I love my LR, and wouldn't trade it for any other weapon.

The flay was OP because of RoF, so they nerfed splash and dmg to make it nearly useless because everyone screamed "Its a sidearm!"

And you all realize the MD has been nerfed and buffed more than any other weapn in the game, and they finally have it just about right. I will admit splash is to big. The assault (which I use as a support logi) has way too big of a splash. It should be about where the regular is splash wise now. Maybe a little more. 6 meters is plenty for area denial. Why 8?

I get killed by MD more than anything lately (it's a CQC thing) but I don't want t. Ym nerfed. Or anything.
Just learn to deal with it or create the neverending pillow fight interrupted by AR fire.

It's depressing that I saw this thread coming months (almost a year) in advance.
Mass drivers have gotten nothing but buffs and fixes since I've played.

When I started- catastrophic hit detection, tiny clip, terrible sight, very loud, could see the grenade FROM THE MAP
Codex- hit detection improvement- still buggy though
Chromosome- clip size buff, sound effect change, no longer able to see the rounds on the map
Uprising 1.0- sight improvement, hit detection broken again
Uprising 1.2- hit detection completely fixed

I predicted that as soon as they're working right, people would start complaining.

Agree big time and kept making that point on the FP.

On the MD, I could see a small reduction of radius OR a tiny reduction of splash damage.
- I wouldnt want the blast radius on the standard ones to be much smaller than grenades.

This is stupid. The OP (and countless others before and after him) has made a specious argument (look it up). CCP, for all their foolishness, are not complete idiots. It may appear that they nerf any weapon that is popular, but that's not the case. Association is not causality.

We are the sheep, not CCP. When we start getting killed a lot by things, we follow the herd and the weapon gets popular. It's popular, because it's OP. It gets nerfed, because it's OP. That doesn't mean that popular weapons get nerfed, it means that OP weapons get popular. The LR got the living crap nerfed out of it and it wasn't THAT popular, not like the TAR, contact nades, and flaylocks were. I don't recall routinely seeing entire squads, or even multiple squads, running them. I do recall faces melting from halfway across the battlefield though.

Any effect popularity might have is to bring quicker attention to the OP-ness of the weapon. People have been QQing about the FG almost as long as the flaylock, yet it didn't get nerfed with 1.3. Why? Because it does what it's supposed to. The AR? No weapons is more popular, and man do I want to gouge my own eyes out every time that buster guy shows up to ***** about that; and yet no nerf.

The flaylock is a sidearm, not meant to be a primary weapon. The dev blog said straight out they intended it to be a high-skill precision weapon, but instead it was lol 'splosion city, so they changed it to work the way they intended it to. Same thing with the TAR, it was supposed to be a precision med-long range weapon but every a-hole with a wal-mart $15 modded turbo controller turned those things into duvolles to the third power. Seriously, this just should not be that hard a concept to understand.

Note: I really hope a dev reads this and comments, because confirming that this is their approach would save a whole crapton of threads that will inevitably follow.


TL;DR: OP weapons are popular, that's why popular weapons get nerfed. Because they're OP, not because they're popular.