Hi guys,

We have been looking in to the Mass Driver and we have identified two technical issues that are causing problems for it. Firstly we found that the way we check for splash damage is prone to GÇ£missingGÇ¥ partially occluded targets. We have now improved the system to solve this problem (literally yesterday). We will be testing it internally to make sure it causes no new issues and to see if it requires any rebalance on the weapon.

We have also found issues with the Mass Driver projectile and client/server de-sync. In poor network conditions the projectile can GÇ£miss the markGÇ¥ making the weapon feel unreliable. We are looking in to this issue as well.

We are considering increasing the splash radius but we are hesitant to make significant changes to the weapons balance whilst we are still encountering technical issues with its performance. WeGÇÖll keep you informed on how the new splash fix works out.

Cheers

CCP Wolfman

At the same time I see perfectly your sarcasm, I do also feel you are comparing only the basics and making the TAR shine a little bit to much.

With the Chromosome MD, you could (which can't be done with a AR:
- Direct hit people, not only dealing splash damages
- Damage people getting covered
- Damage people on the other side of a corner.
- Damage more than 1 people in a single shot, Direct hit on one, splash on others.

I am definitely not saying the TAR ins't ok as is, but I don't think you can just say bring it back as it was when CCP is telling you they are fixing performances bugs in it and they rebalancing it.

I would definately prefer seeing a reliable MD, which hit the guy when I was dead on target, than a powerful MD which misses shots half the time, dealing splash dmg when it should have been direct, and no dmg when it should have been splash.

TL;DR Wait and see before asking for things you aren't sure of the impact after CCP's changes.

The DEV in this thread said as much. Be happy, they are fixing it.

CCP any word on a fix for the MD issues? Pardon my impatience.

Hi guys,

We have been looking in to the Mass Driver and we have identified two technical issues that are causing problems for it. Firstly we found that the way we check for splash damage is prone to GÇ£missingGÇ¥ partially occluded targets. We have now improved the system to solve this problem (literally yesterday). We will be testing it internally to make sure it causes no new issues and to see if it requires any rebalance on the weapon.

We have also found issues with the Mass Driver projectile and client/server de-sync. In poor network conditions the projectile can GÇ£miss the markGÇ¥ making the weapon feel unreliable. We are looking in to this issue as well.

We are considering increasing the splash radius but we are hesitant to make significant changes to the weapons balance whilst we are still encountering technical issues with its performance. WeGÇÖll keep you informed on how the new splash fix works out.

Cheers

CCP Wolfman

Hi guys,
...
We are considering increasing the splash radius but we are hesitant to make significant changes to the weapons balance...

CCP Wolfman

I'm seeing way too many people in this thread asking for half measures.

The two bugs that Wolfman outlined do not negate the radius and damage nerfs the weapon has received. Yes I was aware that sometimes a little bump, staircase or box could prevent an enemy from getting splashed, I don't care. Yes, there's a desynch issue with where the projectile lands. I don't care.

When the round does land, and when it does apply damage, it is pathetic.

I tried running the EXO-5 again with a single damage mod and it was terrible. The only reason I can stomach the game right now is that I run a Freedom with 2x damage mods.

Enough with these silly compromises you traitors are asking for, give us back the old Chromosome mass driver.

Wait, what? They nerfed it because of an office LAN party? If true, that's pretty unprofessional. I'm not going to pull punches on that either, it's down right selfish and unfair to those few who took interest in the weapon. It also makes me wonder how many other game mechanics have been nerfed out of personal gains and in reality discourages me from wanting to spend money on the game. Did my beloved HMG fall under the nerf bat too? When is a dev going to get butt hurt over **** **** strictly using the DTAR with modded controllers.

All the above can be attributed to rushing the product out for that 5/14 date. Uprising was way behind schedule and they made as many changes as possible, ignoring any and all meaningful feedback, eliminating the purpose behind having a damn beta. Just look at the patch notes, there's more holes in there than plot holes in a Quentin Tarantino movie trying to be avant garde. No matter how you look it it, Dust 514 could have used at least another 3 months of beta for bugs/fixes and a year at most to get all available content ready like the missing weapons and dropsuits.

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

you should go back a few pages and read the newest development.. they wont touch it.. wait for the next update

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

Also, how hard would it to be to work on rebalancing the splash radius, damage, trajectory, clip size and ammo capacity in the meantime. Even with the desynch, the MD is sub-par at best right now. I scare campers more by swinging the MD at them.

You guys do realize there has been a projectile bug fix already made but its waiting for a code deployment?

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

You guys do realize there has been a projectile bug fix already made but its waiting for a code deployment?

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was removed in Uprising.

I used to use the EC-3 and the Boundless in Crome, but something about the assaults seem off in Uprising, even after the buff. Maybe it's muscle memory or something, but I keep overshooting my targets.

Ballistics physics have always been weird with the MD. There's dropoff when you aim ~30 degress upward, but anything more than that, the rounds get some crazy lift, flying across the map. Even with the new trajectory, even aiming down feels funny sometimes. It might be because the rounds travels faster?