We do not want risk-free gameplay, neither picking your targets while invisible for a shot in the back, nor hacking with perfect awareness of your surroundings, while invisible.

Dear players,
We are removing all vehicles from the OMS gamemode. Ambush and OMS will from now on be infantry only, a traditional Team Death Match mode.

Thanks for yet another passive buff to nk's and shotties, that's just what this game really needed. Last I checked, balance trumped realism. But I guess balance dropped a rung recently. Thanks for the backpedaling changes -_-

The Assault Heavy Machine Gun has the same scatter as the Boundless Heavy Machine Gun and also hurt even less, so it uses nobody! The Boundless is all right, dear fixes the spill Assault=0 then takes it more players! It needs not more damage only the scatter is the problem from the range!

Please Rattati write me what you think!!!

My counterpoint is the assault forge gun isn't considered OP versus infantry. The only real difference between the two is how fast you can get the shots off. The assault forge lunks rounds a lot faster overall. The PLC is only faster for one shot.

PLC is also harder to hit with.

Wait, wait, wait, wait! Wait a second! You're telling me, everyone is asking to nerf REs and you are buffing them???

Are you kidding me?

I'll comment later about the other things that are really great, but this... Is really BS!

I got a few words....

Mid-Air Fist-Fighting.

I am so Happy.



You are all screwed

Imp, area denial for a sentinel should be, for example:...

Almost 1/4 of the map with the large hangar in the middle (not sure of the name...not sure if anyone knows the name) blocks all vehicle requests due to "location unacceptable" .

Way to take everything out of context griev. Reading comprehension. Get some. Look at what I actually SAY rather than what you think I intend.
...
Finally area denisl is not limited to RE traps. Area denial is any tactic used to DENY ENTRY into an area. This can be done with traps, ambushes, mines or overwhelming firepower.

Out of curiosity, Rattati - why are both of the new vehicle utility modules in high slots?
Great, I get access to fitting modules, hooray, I can still fit nothing more than usual because of the catastrophically high costs of the modules. I get a new tank module! great! Now I have nothing else to fit in those slots.

Why is it necessary to give all utility to the Madrugar, as well as making it near as durable as the Gunnlogi?

EDIT: I just realised that you're also in the process of (effectively) nerfing the effectiveness of AV against armour - it seems what's happening here is that the Gunnlogi's eHP is being (effectively) cut, on top of the Large Missile nerf - with the Large Blaster seeing so many repeated buffs, I'm really starting to struggle seeing a place for Gunnlogis.
I mean, hell - I can't even escape from a blaster Madrugar thanks to him being faster than me and also having space for nitrous without interrupting tank.


haha yeah missiles are the reason Maddies don't show up, but it's swarm missiles, not large missiles. Large missiles are even rarer than Madrugars.

So I don't know if you've ever tried using blasters against a Madrugar, but it's way more effective than using missiles on a Gunnlogi. Or using missiles against infantry. Or missiles against anything except a Madrugar who doesn't know you're there.

You can defend an open area. Seeing as map design puts the VAST amount of points in areas with plenty of cover --- no -- you won't be contributing as much to objective game modes as much with a laser.

I run a laser as well. And yes, there are some points on some maps where a laser (or a heavy with a laser like autocannon) could be helpful. But very little in relation to objectives.

Add to that the heavy extra large hitbox (and head hitbox) giving a heavy less ability to take cover and you have a sitting duck to RRs, Scramblers, Lasers, snipers, and forgeguns. Simply because any suit can post up anywhere and shoot at that heavy, duck behind whatever rock or hill is in the area, and pop back out due to their mobility. Cloaked scouts will be having a field day. Heavies can't move so -- LAVS. Or HAVs. Roadkills for hilarity.

Basically when doing area denial you need to control range. And to control range you need mobility. The thing heavies are the worst at.

Let's imagine tactics. Ok. hack point in this building. Large open plains all around. Lets put a couple of Sents on the roof with their laser like HMGs. That will be plenty good defense.

Except Laser.

Ok lets assume the HMG outranges the laser.

Sniper or cloaky shotgun.

Sentinels will literally be unable to defend anything simply because before anyone hits them they will die. I mean, I like tactics, and counter tactics to Sents is a great thing. Unless there is no counter to that counter in which case no more heavies outside of forge sniping.

Oh wait -- you are an Amarr Assault just like me. You forget that 1. AmAss have more speed. 2.A shitton of HP for an assault 3. Smaller Hitbox and 4.A TON of stamina to use to help move around the battlefield. Basically all of the stuff required to be effective at ranged combat.

Lets try to force heavies out into the open so that the MinSent and Am Sent become the only SemiViable heavies and laugh at the GalSent and CalSent.

All this is assuming the HMG stays the only 1 of 2 heavy weapons. We might get more heavy weapons. Should they all be outside only too?

And the fact that ranged area denial suits need nano hives but heavies can't carry them.

Way too many holes in this argument.

And all of the above ONLY breaks the HMG. It STILL doesn't kick heavies out of CQC. All we will see is the overwhelming majority of heavies picking up light weapons. Only bringing out the HMG a small percentage of the time to shoot off of a roof when reds are rushing it (which the Assault HMG SHOULD be doing anyway!)

On an unrelated note.



Scouts will be making a comeback

I may be mildly annoyed with people trying to twist my intent right now. If that's not the intent, I apologize. I'm getting entirely too used to counterpoints being based on my words being used completely out of context.

Believe it or not almost none of my assertions about people's attitude are intended to be anything other than general.

If someone is being a douche it applies to them. If you are engaging in point/counterpoint and bringing something it does not.

I'm not calling you an idiot for disagreeing. I have a different perspective. You think area denial is better handle one way. That's fine. But why are we not allowing for other things?

You stated that removing the turn speed penalty was a bad move. If the sentinel was effective at long range and intended to get it's skull ripped off by anyone getting In close? Seems like balance to me.

However giving a sentinel a weapon that only works at point blank with a turn rate that allows anyone to circle around and kill you means sentinels are there to get farmed for warpoints. This is what happened before.

Rather than making sents ranged, the turn speed was removed and I facepalmed because what we have today was inevitable given the CCP nerf/buff cycle.

While the turn speed penalty was in effect, heavies utilized rifles to overcome the limitation. Because you can turn slow as hell all you want. At 60-80m it doesn't matter how fast the scout or assault can move you can kill them via hit point attrition.

That's why I say sentinel suits are better for open area. The raw HP allows you to win attrition combat while allowing weapons that don't require a scout suit to take shots at you.

Now this next point, which I also do not directly attribute to you, was that the devs removed the turn speed because popular opinion deemed that it was unfair for sentinels to be able to kill people at any significant range.

My problem is not any one person's ideas on a nerf. In fact even though I firmly disagree that it is the solution, is well thought out and grounded in the functional reality of the game.

My worry is that the people who want certain combinations of nerfs gaining traction. It's like what happened with the Minscout recently. One PARTICULAR nerf wasn't the killer. It was the combination.

And it wasn't JUST the sentinels. The assaults and logis were up in arms too because they were getting pasted by either HMGs or Shotty/NK from both directions.

Just because scouts were obnoxious did not mean that heavies weren't. That was about when I changed my tune about the HMG. I realized it would shift right back to Sentinel514 the instant scouts were nerfed.

Don't mistake me attacking your assertions with me attacking YOU. Just because I (wildly) disagree with you does NOT mean I automatically assume you are an idiot or 100%wrong.

My problem is the assertion that sentinels are supposed to be CQC. I don't remember or care if it is YOUR assertion. The fact that if we simply delete the HMG nothing will change because we'll immediately swap to rifles is real. It won't change the attrition war hellgrind meta in CQC vs. Fatties at all.

I firmly believe that if we want fatties to be balanced we need to make the optimal activity something other than turtling up in tight spaces with a logi indulging in a weird bromance.

I dunno how else to say it. The precedent is there, the logic is there, it's happened before.

But the rallying cry of the masses is "heavies are CQC. End. Stop."

Why is that? It only makes sense if they're trying to convince the devs that this nerf, then this one... then that...

Individually the nerfs are innocuous. Together they make the heavies into easy warpoint batteries. Counters that are dependent on the enemy to be a moron aren't counters. It wasn't with tanks, nor was it with scouts, nor now with HMGS. It'll never be a counter.

Gunlogis don't use nitro, maddy's do.

Imagine what happens if flux AV nades become a thing

Sorry, i used google translator a little, but this i write without translator:
I want to say that i have big problems with my hmg, the shoots fly anywere, but not in the center from the circle (small point) the sprinkle/dispersion/scatter (didn't know the right word #english not good) by the assault hmg is unnecessary, because when you take it in short range (10m) you don't make more damage, because in near field with normal hmg you hit the enemy with "every" shoot and so the normal will winns against the assoult havy! Do you understand me now?

Honestly griev I'd love to see mass affect suits. Inertia as well.

But allow me to amend a half concept I have.

I feel heavy weapons rigged to dominate the long game and provide fire support should be clunky , and unwieldy in close. So if we take a ranged Hmg that has a 70-100 optimal then a scout or assault should absolutely have a clear advantage if they get within 20m.

By yhe same token breach and CQC weapons can't be clunky. Which brings me to the burst HMG. If you get a llittle too excited? It kills you. If you have excellent self control it's devastating. But it isn't the "insert logi, hold down trigger."

Because of how heavies work and how they do attrition combat if the long rang weapons got hammered in close and the cqc weapons weren't just casually easy to farm kills then we wouldn't have to worry.

Heavies would be a rock solid support platform that has flexibility if you change loadouts. It shouldn't be as flexible as a lighter frame or commando. I.E. you set up for a specific job. If sents worked more like that choices and tactics would matter.

It's why sure, were Rattati to adopt say my scram lance, even at level 5 if you hold the trigger down to the end of the magazine you're going to eat 720 damage because yhe gun won't seize, it'll try to kill you. On the ansent the DPS isn't as obnoxious. But the amsent would take 355 damage. Less to armor.

I loke heavy weapons to have good power. But they need exploitable drawbacks.

Yes, the dispersion from the assault hmg should be 0% , this is not OP, because you will also lose against other havys in cqc.

The HMG wouldn't need a NERF if you lowered heavy turn speed you know.

I see the return of Sentinels with light weapons.

IMO the profiles should be:

Laser = +10% / -10%
Explosive = -10% / +10%
Rail = -5% / +5%
Plasma = +5% / -5%
Projectile = +7.5% / -7.5%

Heavy Attack Vehicles
Our primary task was threefold; 1) make the GÇÿMadrugarGÇÖ viable, 2) add progression to HAVs to reward skill point investment, and 3) not break the game while doing it. We are not exaggerating when we say that this initiative has been the longest and most discussed topic in years. That said, we are really happy with the process, especially with our first time of using a community developed web tool to theorycraft and test the designs before implementation. Overall, we think we have accomplished 1) and 2), and we will see about 3) once the changes are live.

the turn speed thing was removed in closed beta before minjas existed.

There was some early hinkiness with the racial scouts, but yeah, by and large if a minja gets into knifing distance then either he's doing damn good, or you're a dumbass.

Can't speak for closed beta as I wasn't around but the turn speed for heavy frames was removed in 1.4 (Aug 2013) because of scouts dancing around them. Me Minja included.

https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1210968#post1210968

Ok. 5 pages to catch up on. I don't know how you guys spend so much time on the forums :/ To be completed in edits...

Area Denial:
Anytime anyone says anything "should be" a certain way --

It is very hard to take anything seriously. Not because they are necessarily wrong or that there isn't some reasonable rationale in there -- but that the source of their arguments is how they 'want' it. Requests are for when you want something a certain way. Arguments for change at the expense of others opinions should, as a general rule, avoid that.

Now that that is out of the way: that is one way area denial for sentinels could work yes. In fact, I was under the impression that this was how the assault HMG was supposed to work. But, as I have mentioned before in many other threads (and have not had anyone actually able to argue against it) that will only be an option in very limited situations. Situations that are not common on most matches - because remember, heavies can't move easily. They can't run around the battlefield chasing down an area to start denying at a reasonable reactive speed. So they often will (as they do now) stay put. Worse yet, there is no profit for the heavy. Low to non existent WP (and therefore ISK/SP) in the majority of situations as people will just avoid them, flank them and farm them.

Quite simply -- it makes the HMG heavy the least flexible suit in the game with the lowest WP generation. (Which it actually already is.) Barring certain very specific instances, no one will use the HMG. As I have said 1000 times, so much so that you and most everyone else has started parroting me, we will have light weapon wielding heavies. In CQC. The concept of a slow suit with a large hitbox means heavies will stay in CQC.

This also pigeon holes all the other potential heavy weapons to be released into the same kind of outdoors area denial weapons. We will have a tons of heavies in Ambush, and few to none in Skirm (or FW, or PC.)

But this still all is a separate to the fact that this is how some people want heavies to be. A few vocal minority player's opinions. As if that should trump what CCP decides the Sentinel's role to be.

the same rant... Plus:

This also pigeon holes all the other potential heavy weapons to be released into the same kind of outdoors area denial weapons. We would have a tons of heavies in Ambush, and few to none in Skirm (or FW, or PC.) No one has addressed the idea that map design predicates the current Heavy heavy combat doctrine. (at least not in opposition to my assertion. plenty of people agree with it.) No one has disagreed that different socket design and more open area hack points would limit heavy spam significantly.

But this still all is a separate to the fact that this is how some people (especially you) want heavies to be. One of a few vocal minority player's opinions. As if that should trump what CCP decides the Sentinel's role to be. Some of us think they should be point defense as opposed to area denial. Funny thing, the heavy as well as the only heavy AP weaponry is designed around that philosophy. So I'll stick with CCP on this one as opposed to arrogantly assuming I know better and/or have my opinion trump the game's designers...

Hotfix Echo HMG Changes:
I was not sure if the HMG applied its damage too far out. In fact, i felt it didn't and argued against it. That's because I never fired my HMG at anyone outside of 15 meters. For that I used a side arm. But on my assault suit I started seeing heavies gun me down from 30+ out. Even then it was only 10ths of a second slower than it was when I stumbled on one close. Then I changed my tune and realized, yes HMGs have too much range for that much DPS. I am still starting to rethink dispersion patterns because of it.

So happy about the range nerf for now. There was also a damage nerf (more than 10%) on HMGs as well (except for the Assault HMG.) I think premature, but ok, let's try it out.



The HMG is essentially a flame thrower yes. The Sentinel is 'currently' the king of CQC yes. There is nothing wrong with that by itself. The problem is, heavies can stay in CQC and be relevant to the objective in Skirm, Dom, FW, and PC at ALMOST EVERY HACK POINT. There is CQC everywhere. HMG heavies have 2 large weaknesses: slow and short ranged. Meaning: can't control range -- every other suit gets to decide the range -- and can't shoot outside of its range. Since there is CQC by the points everywhere maps currently mean that heavies can eliminate their single 2 biggest weaknesses.

Heavies are super easy to kill outside of CQC. Just move away from them and pin them behind whatever cover they have while they get flanked, or, if they have no cover, kill them as they can't shoot you. If there was open ground access to most points, or if more points were completely out in the open then sentinels would not be defending them. This issue with heavies being the kings of CQC would be changed significantly with different map design.

I think it's going to be great, you will be able to reposition rapidly. Grenade spam is a not a big issue in our game right now, and nanohives were not being used much except by dedicated logis. If scouts are going to use one slot to be able to throw a few grenades, then good for him.

Myo has no stacking penalty, so min assault and cal assault should jump higher because of the extra high slots?

realistically does anyone think people will spec OUT of AV?

My bet is no

On a side note, a positive side effect of making grenades and REs only resuppliable at supply depots is that blue dots will no longer deplete my nanohives within seconds of deploying them

a lot!

This is so painfully obvious, and more than a little worrying. Nadespamming isn't a huge problem currently, but it certainly exists, and the main limiting factor on it is... the number of hives available. Now. Will this change tip the balance too much? No idea.

On the other hand. I carry hives on many of my fits, to resupply ammo for myself and squadmates. Particularly important if I am running an MD fit, or have had to use my flux nades to clear equipment clusters (often enough). Having a blueberry nade/REspammer walk by and suck the hive dry before I get a full MD magazine out of it... is distressing, and bam, that's on average 1/3 of my resupply (worse case, my entire squad's resupply) gone in an instant. I have stopped bothering to carry triage hives for the most part, as they get spent so fast (alloteks, in particular, get sucked dry by nade users) or destroyed so easily, they rarely feel worth it to waste a slot on. Now, if I have more spare ones, using them seems less wasteful. Triage hives in particular really need this buff.

I am not all for avocating removing nade resupply from hives altogether... but maybe it needs limiting in some other way other than just increasing the nanite cost (as that would lead to the same issue of nadespammers using up everyone's hives, and no ammo for anyone else)... Would something like a hard limit of nades resupplied per hive be worth looking into?

Removed all vehicles is so so much better though. One of the biggest reason I did not play Ambush, Now if they could only put the smart into smart deploy and meta lockout so it not a proto stomp it just might be fun.

No one called using nades an exploit? Other weapons have been nerfed before, if they got too powerful, then buffed again, then nerfed again... grenades aren't special. And, no, nades aren't nearly at their most powerful at this moment, but they are far from useless.

But if you haven't recently run into someone sitting on hives and tossing nades like a champ... well, I'm happy for you. Not a huge issue, like I already said, not the current fotm, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and doesn't mean making it easier won't tempt more people into doing it again, and doing it more. This is the potential issue we are trying to bring up, not saying that nades currently are some huge problem.

CCP rattati don't you dare rip a hole in lore just to give us Anti-shield swarms >:(

Everyone would use ammo that does better in CQC.

ADS. If the ADS even tries to take out the swarmer, the swarmer will shoot- keep knocking it's aim around and the 350k isk ADS only has what 3-4 shots worth of tank against a 28k isk swarm launcher.

@ CCP Rattati and Swarm Rhetoric

The mechinics of how swarms work is the issue. With a certain range Swarms are mathermatically garunteed a hit, and beyond a certain range Dropships mathematically are garunteed escape.

Before the hotifx Delta changes, the mathematics were heavily stacked in the dropships favor. Hit Afterburner, and you escape beyond a point where swarms in flight would never catch up. Toggleing a switch required very little pilot skill then. No matter what a swarmer did, the math was stacked against him/her.

Currently the situation is inverse. Hitting afterburner will not let you escape from swarms in flight, just from swarm lock on range. Now the math is heavily stacked against the pilot. Swarms in flight will always catch up with a Dropship. Hitting a switch doesnt work anymore (which is fine) but niether does any combat manuevers a pilot may pull off.


tldr: before it took little skill to dodge swarms no matter how good the swarmer, or how much work the swarmer put into his/her tactics, today it takes little skill to land a hit with swarms no matter how good the pilot.

The question is how do we bring skills of both parties into play? This is much more important than nerfing.

How can we get swamers to be more involved in shooting down thier ariel foes without over-exposing them to infantry any longer than necessary?

Curious how the new blue pills well affect ewar. Scouts are going to be likely to use these, and they take up a high slot otherwise used to enhance scan precision, meaning it will be easier for medium suits to avoid the passive scans, meaning we may see less armor stacked tank in medium suits.

Ok, some of us have real questions about the patch.
Please flame about ADS versus swarmers on your own posts, there are many. There is nothing about an ADS in the patch at all.
I have serious questions about uplinks going into holes for people to spawn now that we can jump, how the heat build up for the SCR is going to be toggled and how the heat versus dispersion will impact the burst HMG. Also I want to know if they have improved ladder detection at all because if I can jump some jumping starts to ladders could be beneficial. People also asked about the LAV sensor mods being skill based because the range doesn't increase precision, so scouts will still be invisible.
My last question is about if the advanced cloak device is coming down in CPU/PG, why leave the proto where it is at? The current hinderance to it makes it a commitment for suits, so I was curious about the logic.

Exactly my though as well ^

I would prefer a slow ROF monster which is hitting like a freight train.

In fact, I wouldn't mind making it soo different it becomes a "new gun" (Auto-Cannon) instead of a variant of the HMG, with its own progression and skill tree. It can still share the model with the HMG, and will be only distinguishable by its sound.
(Just a thought...)