I am fully speccd with proficiency and was using an Exo Mass..

I CANT KILL ANYONE PERIOD at ANY range ...

Takes like 6 direct hits to kill anyone .. AND IM TOP OF THE LINE MD..

NO splash damage at all..

This needs to be corrected ASAP.. I dont know what you did to the range.. IM not even going there yet.. BUT the damage and RADIUS is RIDICULOUS>. ABSOLUTELY UNPLAYABLE..

IF you have a different opinion you are WRONG.. bye

EDIT: I know thats not being very specific.. so here you go..

Ok look let me try to break this down a bit more in depth..

Problems in order from Worst to least

TRAJECTORY: If im standing in a perfectly flat open field with no walls/rocks etc.. and my target is directly in front of me, my only choice is to hit his feet... and i gotta be very accurate .. since the weapon now shoots straight forward this makes it very difficult to land accurately... *remember we are already at a huge disadvantage on terrain with hills whether we are looking up (impossible) or down ..even if we manage to snag a rock outcropping and make it close to him.. the texture bug usually eats it up..WE NEED OLD TRAJECTORY BACK


RADIUS: (width AND height) This is where most of my frustration sets in.. Ok so we know you don't aim AT the MAN.. because for some reason even if you directly hit him it goes THRU him .. So all MD users have to aim at a wall or the floor.. I think when I started to really excel at this weapon was when i became proficient at hitting these walls at just the right time etc.. BIG PROBLEM.. the blasts are not radiating out correctly (or have been nerfed so hard as to not work) ..
EXAMPLE: theres a guy 10 feet away with his back to a wall .. I hit the wall and hes not injured.. Or BARELY injured ..where in the past that was a KILL/ huge dmg depending on suit/ shield etc.. Ive heard people saying its just a flat .. not 3D blast radius now.. that makes sense and is DRIVING ME NUTS...


RANGE: This gun at the top level needs to have waaay more range. A MD cannot effectively deny an area if they cant shoot more than 50 feet.. Ive had my shots "fading" into the distance at very close ranges.. the range was fine before..

DAMAGE: Ok Ive been thinking about this alot and.. I (holding with the last builds balance) This gun needs to

1. Be effective at lower levels

2. At the level 5 Proficiency with dmg mods this gun needs to have ability for 1 shot 1 kill on the "weaker" builds, this enables people at lower levels to be able to perform area denial with some success.. (this is why i loved this gun, because even when I was 1milllion SP's I could do some WORK) this got me hooked and kept me in the game.. then the payoff came when I was able to get Proficiency up with Dmg mods..


CONCLUSION
This weapon was pretty much perfect as it was conceived originally.. (kudos to the guy who invented the mechanics of this gun because it WAS original and DAMN fun) .. And im sure he felt a slight twinge when 50% arbitrary reduction nerfs completely ruined his VERY precise and balanced stats... I dont know how hard it would be to just copy and paste the exact stats from previous build and hit APPLY would be.. but thats the solution to this WEAPON ending patch..

Thank you and goodnight..

* I really could go on and on about all the bugs and stuff that I didnt even cover, but this is just what comes to mind ATM

About the contact nades:

Splash damage on all 6 shells of the Exo-5 (1 complex damage mod, prof 3) = 870 with a blast radius of 3.88.

Splash damage on all 6 shells of the Freedom (1 complex damage mod, prof 3) = 912 with a blast radius of 4.13.

Splash damage on all 3 contact grenades = 1200 with a blast radius of 6.00

Now I just need to figure out if I can pump out the 3 grenades faster than I can pump out the shells of my MD.

I know I don't have to go into skill requirements or fitting requirements for the above analysis, but needless to say, it's lopsided in favor of the nades.

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).

Wow, just... Wow. Are you so blind with rage that you're even swinging at people that agree with you?
I've been out of town working since before Uprising. Came home a few days ago, specced back into MD's, realized the nerf, checked the forums. We're here to provide feedback to the Dev's so they can get the MD back to being the great support weapon that it was. Just because people don't agree with you 100% doesn't mean they're against you.
I don't see how you can argue with a slight bump in splash radius being the remedy once hit detection is fixed. Perhaps 4m for standard, 4.5m for advanced, and 5m for proto? That gives proto a blast radius better than grenades, but not overkill. Others are trying to be rational here. I understand that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but seriously dude, calm the kitten down.

So are we still waiting on some kind of update as to how the fix is coming along?

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to call bull*** on what you just said on the grounds of this.


That underlined portion openly states that you guys took a weapon that was perfectly fine outside of flawed coding and decided to nerf it on the grounds of what went on in your little playtests over actual player feedback. I've already said this before in just about every MMORPG game I've played: there's a designed purpose for a game mechanic and then there's the practical use that gets applied. Whatever you guys were doing with the MD should have no affect on how we, the players discovered the practical use. Instead of taking joy in the fact that we found a cool way to use a designed game mechanic, you gave it an unwarranted re-purpose that almost every other weapon in the game can fill better.

I've been a customer of CCP for 5 years and I can confidently say that while your company's intentions are good, your methods can be questionable at times. For every Titan that gets a much needed repurpose, a battleship loses it's purpose as an effective counter to a cruiser class vessel. You guys already went through this with the HMG and it took a threadnaught by the majority of the heavy community to see the error of your ways. Both the HMG and MD are similar in this aspect because you guys made a bunch of sweeping changes for some crazy reason and without any concern to our feedback. The only difference is the heavies got to see it coming, we had to find out on the 6th. Hell, I didn't even realize the changes until I got on here that same day because it wasn't in the patch notes.

I've been a part of this nerf/buff merry go round we've been on for so long, that I've grown jaded by any hopes of a significant change in quality of play. I started as an AR assault, and because of the nerf witch hunt that's makes forum warrioring part of the meta game, I ended up as a logibro with a MD. My weapon got nerfed to the level of a potato launcher, and my suit is probably next thanks to CPM members QQing about the entire logistics class, even though their base stats are completely horrible compared to the other suits and the other racial suit bonuses could need some work. What makes it funny is I'm a Minmatar logi, which has remained unchanged since the E3 build.

You guys have the audacity to make these huge sweeping changes, turning a deaf ear to feedback and now you want to play it safe after the fact? Really? You got an AR on the loose, that literally stops people from wanting to play because it's an exploit and you're worried about a grenade launcher that's supposed to act like a grenade launcher. At this point, I don't know if I should be laughing or looking for another game to play.

And to add insult to injury, the standard Flaylock out damages the Freedom MD and don't even get me started on Fused Locus Grenades being back despite feedback against it in the past...

Smokey don't give up it's just these forums.

Seriously these forums can be notoriously bad. I'm not kissing any a$$es here but CPP is a pretty serious company, and this game is still being worked on intensively.

I've posted on a fair number of game forums and this is the only one that has inspired me to lay down some gratuitous s**t.
There are some really smart respectful people here, and some real idiots too. Just don't take it too seriously and pay attention to what happens with the game and it's changes. Patience, thick skin and or indifference will see you through.

Smokey don't give up it's just these forums.

Seriously these forums can be notoriously bad. I'm not kissing any a$$es here but CPP is a pretty serious company, and this game is still being worked on intensively.

I've posted on a fair number of game forums and this is the only one that has inspired me to lay down some gratuitous s**t.
There are some really smart respectful people here, and some real idiots too. Just don't take it too seriously and pay attention to what happens with the game and it's changes. Patience, thick skin and or indifference will see you through.

If they're playing in their office Smokey, I think will. They have to know they made a huge mistake. Great thread btw. Makes it worth throwing my controller after firing at a guy 5 times and not even seeing a hit marker at an afk heavy. I even moved my television and ps3 to my corp ceos appartment and he witnessed it. He said "now I know why you don't want to play".

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).

Because I feel The need to remind CCP at least once on each of these pages that this nerf was bogus and not based on months of beta, here's the quote again.

I will be here every day until I manage to help this community get the mass driver back to what it should be. I have used logic and numbers in my posts and so have many people who actually care about what happens to their weapon without any other response from CCP.

CCP. Respect the community and not some sad little programmer who got OWNED by a mass driver and emorage nerfed it.

CCP. Tell your programmers to play the game from their homes instead of in the office among themselves at least one hour a day as a study on how the game works in the wild.

CCP. Stop making ninja changes. Make the updates window include ALL changes, not just the ones you want people to know.

Im just curious why they put all of they power to rewriting ARs (3 times now i presume) and for MD there was just one BIG NERF an nothing else. BTW i saw somewhere they put their intntion to buff LR. I starting to feel like they want rifle-only friendly game.

I can't dispute any of what you're saying Cross, but why is it that so many here are using the MD in logi suits?

I run an armor tanked Gal assault with complex damage mod and shield extender, flux nades and nanohive. I'm currently experimenting with a double repped and double plated suit. I personally like the double plated fit better, but I really don't have enough games in with the double repper to accurately compare.

There are so many situations where the MD is the wrong weapon to have, that I'd be pissed without my SMG. With the logi being slower and no sidearm, I'd think that any AR would be a better weapon choice for a logi. More versatile, more ammo, more even damage distribution.

I can't dispute any of what you're saying Cross, but why is it that so many here are using the MD in logi suits?

I run an armor tanked Gal assault with complex damage mod and shield extender, flux nades and nanohive. I'm currently experimenting with a double repped and double plated suit. I personally like the double plated fit better, but I really don't have enough games in with the double repper to accurately compare.

There are so many situations where the MD is the wrong weapon to have, that I'd be pissed without my SMG. With the logi being slower and no sidearm, I'd think that any AR would be a better weapon choice for a logi. More versatile, more ammo, more even damage distribution.

The MD was a good support weapon for a class that can run support. We don't want the weapon rolled back to make it easier to get kills, we want the tactical aspects back for the weapon. Defending points, scattering squads that use blob warfare, herding enemies away from a downed ally to raise them. All that is gone and the MD has been downgraded from a weapon of terror, to a potato lanucher that you could instill more fear by swinging it.

I get it. As far as a weapon of terror, I still get primary'd as soon as I loose my first shell. So someone is still scared of it.

I honestly feel that just having a reliable trajectory and consistent explosions that damage people within the blast radius would go very far in reviving our role. I would like to see the Chromosome arc come back, and maybe a tertiary skill to further increase the blast radius, but I'm not trying to be greedy.

It's not greedy when a game mechanic is altered based on personal opinion when a company prides itself on transparency through attention to player feedback. Aside from the occasional person crying nerf that would get shut down by players that have been on both sides of the weapon, there wasn't any feedback warranting these sweeping changes. Even with the desynch issues which are entirely unrelated, having the Chrome equivalent of the MD now would only be fair since EHP had been significantly buffed and nanohives were nerfed, which starve the weapon as well. At the very least, we would have some semblance of a fighting chance. Instead, we get stuck with a lower ROF AR that just happens to shoot grenades when they want to work when a sidearm with similar properties does the job better.
Also, after next week our discontent will fall on blind eyes when fused locus grenades begin selling for in game currency.