Disagree Recon. As an exclusive MD user last build. The MD is designed to be a suppression weapon and that radius was needed. Now one can argue that the base plus the operation skill made it a bit too large no longer requiring even the simplest bit of aiming.

That said in CB the MD wasnt the offensive juggernaut that it is in pubs. I used a Freedom with prof 3 and 2dmg mods and it really couldnt get kills agaisnt protobears. But it was just right enough for suppression.

Its arch now being smaller makes it a more direct attack weapon in which it isnt all that effective.

It really needs its arch so it can server its real purpose in organized manners. A high perch mortar like suppression weapon which it did well but not exceedingly well in CB's.

Pub data is not a good measure of MD activity because most ppl ran adv or lower gear and mostly shield tanked so once shields were gone(or eaten up using stacked dmg mods) kills were very easy to come by.


THE final and most important point is that with FF in PC the large radius is as much a liability as it is an assest. Those who play the weapon sloppily will simply end up killing their own teammates.

Now i can agree with you that because of its splash levels people rarely used the assault or breach varaints. but in truth the assualt variant wasnt an issue of radius but a insignifcant level of dmg, it simply wasnt enough of a factor to force people to take cover. I havent looked at the uprising levels but if they followed a similar model where the radius was larger at the cost of splash dmg then it will still be worthless.

The MD, like almost every other weapon, has optimal conditions where it thrives. Height advantage, clustered enemies, enemies focused on something else.

This, unlike the AR, means you can't simply calculate effectiveness based on raw DPS.

Factor in disorientation caused by smoke. Factor in splash damage, the potential for a user to have flux grenades multiplied by the average accuracy of the flux grenade hits, factor in the inaccuracy of the AR user, etc. etc.

The MD is still powerful. My KD is steadily rising despite horrible games where it goes as low as 0.4 and I exclusively use the EXO-5, and I still manage to resupply and repair my teammates. No proficiency in MDs yet either.

Why should I care about a long rant of yours defining what OP is? And how does everyone using a weapon make it easy mode? Most people use AR because it is familiar to them. Easy mode was heating a Viziam and then passing it over someone for a split second and instamelting them. Easy mode was throwing MD rounds at their feet WHILE KNOCKING THEIR AIM OFF WITH THE ROUND (something you MD users like to not mention). Easy mode is Swarms that auto track their target. Easy mode is using Scouts maxed with speed mods because you know the games hit detection sucks. I could keep going, but Id rather not.

AR is actually less easy mode than most of these weapons. You have to stay on target for every single shot in order to get a kill. This is definitely not true for especially the MD. Oh, you aimed a little to the left too much? Oh well, splash damage! Get over yourselves, the MD is now a lot more balanced than it was in Chromosome. Stop freakin crying.

Seriously the apocalypse is coming cause ppl have been agreeing with the most hated of IMPS this week. Someone actually agreed with Proto in another thread.

I think we have ventured into Bizzaro forums.

lol. You're the one crying about how hard the poor ittle AR users have it. Lol. Enough said.

Lol no, it wasn't. Maybe it was changed for Uprising, I haven't had the pleasure of facing something other than lolTacs enough to know yet.

There is a lot of stuff bugged right now though dude, the best thing we can do to help fix that is to make sure we submit bug reports for everything we find. I know I am guilty of not doing this enough.

Back to the MD, I don't remember having camera shake for a while, but I do remember it moving my reticle. Does it not do this anymore?

You are half right. Flux (and Locus) ARE broken. It isn't the MD that is cutting through your massive shields like butter.

This, pretty much.
CCP may have apparently tested the MD internally and decided it needed a nerf, but given how effective their testing seems to have been, and as someone who has actually played properly with the mass driver, I have no faith in that assessment.

Irony is that you put down people who complained about the Damage and (extra) Range nerf on HMGs while being upset over the Mass Drivers Splash Damage and Blast Radius nerfs.

I agree Mass Drivers are not now and were not a "win button" in the last build either. Would love to hear from a Dev how it was decided to neuter them.

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).

Sorry if this request comes across lazy, but I'm on my iPhone reading this thread.

Is there a link or another thread that has confirmed the 10% damage boost to the MD?

yeah I agree this is lame. My hope though is that after they fix the code the network game with MD will match their experience with LAN and hopefully MD will do what we all expect it to do.

Yet another issue to think about....at long range, when you have to shoo above them and train the leaf sight a full body's worth above your sight does not reveal their HP marker anymore. You now are unaware of the affect of your weapon.

I check here every day, If they comment I'll be cooled out, If not there is tomorrow. I wonder why we got embargoed?

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