And yet nothing will be done about forge abuse. You know in that match they had 2 or 3 forges on the tower that can only be reached by dropship, which because they are utter **** noone else can get up there after thee.first couple minutes.

Stupid question: wouldn't MD users be completely defenseless against one or two decent snipers?

Stupid question: wouldn't MD users be completely defenseless against one or two decent snipers?

Stupid question: wouldn't MD users be completely defenseless against one or two decent snipers?

1st match we got killed up top by the m/d spam from soul on top.

2nd match we got up top and had one forger (Himiko reigning down with the kamehameha), and doc holiday managed to get up their later in the match cause we killed each other 1ce.

3rd match our forger d/ced and we played with 15 for the whole match, no forger up top.

I'd love it if the splash radius was drastically reduced, as vehicles are big enough that you can hit them fine, and infantry would take a absolute direct impact to kill, instead of splashing people to death.

just my opinion though.

Not sure how to help the mass driver. But I know if you were getting 1-2 on you the hole game danny and fiddle must have been in quite the sync.

Oh yeah, because wasting 2 infantry positions on snipers INSIDE the compound is a great idea.

Oh yeah, because wasting 2 infantry positions on snipers INSIDE the compound is a great idea.

I think the ScR needs more range rather than giving the AR less. I'm mostly talking about optimal ranges here. The around 40m optimal the AR has is probably fine, but the ScR needs to have like 70-80m optimal imo.


I think the Breach AR might be changed entirely when the Rail Rifle comes out, if they even keep it in the game. The Breach AR is supposed to act somewhat like the Rail Rifle, so in reality it's supposed to be a long range slow firing weapon.

I don't see how this is relevant to the topic.

More of a waste than constantly and ineffectively throwing bodies at the enemy to be repeatedly slaughtered?

Maybe that's the problem?

If the entire enemy team is running MDs, then obviously nobody is left to counter-snipe, and they'd be like fish in a barrell for one or two decent snipers on your team which should, in turn, force them to alter thier tactics, shouldn't it?

(I'm not trying to be facetious or anything, I really am curious about this and why it wouldn't be a reasonable counter tactic in this situation)

Maybe that's the problem?

If the entire enemy team is running MDs, then obviously nobody is left to counter-snipe, and they'd be like fish in a barrell for one or two decent snipers on your team which should, in turn, force them to alter thier tactics, shouldn't it?

(I'm not trying to be facetious or anything, I really am curious about this and why it wouldn't be a reasonable counter tactic in this situation)

Okay, this is the second time i've had to say this in this thread:

You cannot fix broken mechanics by in-game means. The type of imbalance here needs to be fixed by CCP actually coding it.

I'm pretty sure most teams in PC already run at least 1 sniper most of the time.

I'm not sure how you would want him to clear out the compound completely. If you didn't notice there's a lot of cover in the compound.

Except the only broken mechanics are hit detection and aim assist. Once those are fixed, MD situations you are seeing right now will not be viable anymore.

I played a PC match yesterday. And wow, I got destroyed the second match. I'm willing to be that the majority of you, who think the Mass driver is in a good place right now, probably play Instant battle 99% of the time, like me. The problem here is that the random players (and also thanks to 400wp debacle) are pretty terrible and the mass driver is easy to ignore. I'm an Amarr Assault and specced into amarr ****, so to me, the mass driver was no more different than the Assault rifle. Just like some people are terrible with ARs, some people are terrible with Mass Drivers. Some people are really good with ARs, some people are good with Mass Drivers.

That's what I USED to think. Until **** hit the fan.

I played my first couple of competitive matches yesterday. The first game, I hardly died to mass drivers, died a few times to them but I felt all my deaths during the first match was fair. I think I went 14 kills and 7 or 9 deaths or something against Teamplayers.

Then the second match started and WTF.... Nearly every person I personally ran into had Mass Drivers and I must have died 10 or 12 times to Mass Drivers alone. This DEFINITELY put Mass Drivers on my radar. These things were inescapable. So I began thinking....


Casual vs Competitive (READ: kids who can't aim vs talented shooters)

The Mass driver cannot exist as it currently. No matter how you balance the weapon, it will either ruin competitive matches, or it will cease to become relevant at all even in casual matches. You see, when a competitive player uses non-Area of effect weapons (ARS, SMG, Semi AUTO rifles) against another, there are two competitions going on in the duel

1) Who can deal the most damage, the fastest
2) Who can avoid the most damage

When you give one of these very skilled players a Mass Driver, guess what happens? He can't miss. His helpless opponent cannot dodge, strafe, run for cover at all. He has essentially denied the helpless man the "2) Who can avoid the most damage" rule of this game. ALSO, he has crippled the helpless man's ability to just "stand his ground" and out DPS the Mass Driver because the MD jerks his screen around and clouds his vision with smoke. There is no reason to use any other weapon in a competitive match, (actually I take that back there needs to be a Forge gun sniping objectives). I try and go the High DPS route with my proficiency lvl 5, 2 cmplx dmg mods, charge shot imperial scrambler rifle, but all the DPS is meaningless in a duel with Mass Drivers. I could kill other suits/guns just fine if I got a bead on my opponent fast enough. But those MDs were impossible.

B-B-But Mass Drivers Takes Skill!

If you think the Mass Driver takes a lot of skill to master, then you are probably really bad at aiming and shooting. Play instant battle and you will see how terrible Mass Driver users are. Play PC and see how devastating Mass Drivers are.

The difference is that the MDs allow bad players (who would have terrible aiming) to, thanks to splash damage, have "decent" aiming. These bad players can now complete with ARs and other weapons in casual public matches.

on the other hand...

MDs allow skilled players (who can aim well consistently) to have flawless aiming. Because of the splash, the damage per splash, the smoke, and the screen displacement... the MD will out DPS anything mid/close-mid-mid/long (AKA AR territory) range.

So you still think the MD takes skill? Because of the projectile and time of flight? That's okay. Not trying to offend you or anything, but if you think an "easy-mode-splash-damage-black-hole-for-armor-instakiller" takes skill, if it took you weeks to master the MDs trajectory....

Conclusion

...then you are a bad player.

Did I say they had to clear out the compound completely? No, I didn't.

Only that they do enough damage to force your opponents to change their tactics, then they might not ALL be running MDs, and then your infantry guys might have a chance.

1st match we got killed up top by the m/d spam from soul on top.

2nd match we got up top and had one forger (Himiko reigning down with the kamehameha), and doc holiday managed to get up their later in the match cause we killed each other 1ce.

3rd match our forger d/ced and we played with 15 for the whole match, no forger up top.

I'd love it if the splash radius was drastically reduced, as vehicles are big enough that you can hit them fine, and infantry would take a absolute direct impact to kill, instead of splashing people to death.

just my opinion though.

Not sure how to help the mass driver. But I know if you were getting 1-2 on you the hole game danny and fiddle must have been in quite the sync.

Snipers have a limited view point. They cannot easily traverse the compound in order to get an angle on MD users who are constantly moving, assaulting objectives.

The enemy team DID have (a) snipers and forge gunners. So it's not like any of our snipers would have been invulnerable.

You are oversimplifying.

Did I say they had to clear out the compound completely? No, I didn't.

Only that they do enough damage to force your opponents to change their tactics, then they might not ALL be running MDs, and then your infantry guys might have a chance.

I fail to see how 1 sniper would make a team switch to something else instead of Mass Drivers. Last I checked any other weapon besides the Sniper are just as defenceless against the sniper.

If you did manage to get a sniper into a position where he could dominate key areas of the compound, I'm sure the other team would have their own sniper countersniping him, or if that's impossible send someone else out to take care of the sniper, while the rest of the team keep doing what they're doing inside the compound.

"Fail to see..." or "refuse to see..."?

One mass driver, not so bad. Two mass drivers, pretty annoying. Three or more in one area and it's a death trap. By itself the weapon isn't that bad and be countered. In large numbers, yes it is horrible.

Overall this game has a problem with "spam" tactics.

So what's the difference between you being stomped by point and shoot ARs, and you being stomped by MD users? Especially when the AR has more than double the amount of usage the MD gets?

competitive DUST 514 in a nutshell

MD by itself isnt a problem as this dude said its when its spammed it becomes a problem just like any other weapon in the game or equipment (lookin at u uplinks) or nades

game promotes spam tactics