DUST Search - MD a summery 11 points, All together fatal, separate meh.

CCP Remnant wrote:

KA24DERT wrote:

SirManBoy wrote:

The mass driver needs some serious TLC. Some arbitrary 10% buff isn't going to adequately address its extensive list of new shortcomings, including its damage (it needs far more than a 10% buff), its splash area, and its aiming. In its current state, the mass driver is a hot mess that no longer commands any respect on the battlefield, which means all of its tactical value is gone. This is especially true for logi bros who used it to enhance their support role. A mass driver used to scare people away long enough to make revives, throw down nanos, and make repairs. This is no longer the case.

Yeah, the MD has gotten hit pretty hard:

MD Specific:
1) Splash Radius
2) Misleading Smoke Trail
3) Damage nerf
4) Range Nerf

General, but hits MD hard:
1) Nanohive Nerf (my smg kills have gone way up.)

This has changed the weapon entirely. People can hide behind obstacles and be safe, People can run from cover to cover at a distance and be safe. People can charge at me and absorb my damage while taking me down (easier than before).

I've adjusted my playstyle to this. And am now finding myself charging into groups of enemies and using the MD like a blind man's shotgun. It works, but i'm not sure that's the weapon's intended role.

If the 10% damage buff is across the board, then bringing back the splash radius and increasing the range will bring this weapon back up to snuff.

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).


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Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 81	Posted - 2013.05.10 23:23:00 - [1] - Quote The Nurf we got was never important enough to communicate to us in the first place. None of the MD threads have received the grace of even a Dev "noted looking in to it" I'm guessing there aren't enough MD users to warrant limited and expensive development attention. but to re-outline the issues in as comprehensive manner as possible here goes: 1, blast radius got nurfed (but not so low that the MD user cannot kill himself). 2, Damage got nurfed 3, smoke trail doesn't follow actual flight path and with new damage radius if you hit a target with the smoke the actual damage is too far away to actually hurt the target. 4, the blast visual effect occurs at a time that does not appear to coincide with when the damage is actually assigned to the blast radius. It is really hard to hit a moving target with a projectile that takes 2-4 seconds of flight where all your visual cues are misplaced in time and space. 5, Nanohives were always a requirement for a MD user they now have been nurfed some and this really hurts (a lot) 6, Scanning and the minimap is now less precise for everyone, but the MD user is the only class that kills itself if its target is too close. with the exception of the FG all other weapon types in surprise close encounter could just start spraying and preying. 7, Shield tanks got bigger. MD already must carry a nanohive it seems kinda silly that they also must carry Flux and their engagement range then necessarily corresponds to the player's throwing arm (plus the detonation timing of the flux). 8, in removing the death sound sometimes a MD user can kill a player but have to spend some time making sure they didn't miss ant the target is still near and looking for them. The white smoke of the blast hides the +50 and the corpse disappears because the damage we do is sufficient to render the target unsurvivable. 9, with the lowered blast radius, proper jumping seems to be able to completely negate the MD's blast damage. 10, It appears that in some circumstances our rounds just don't plow up. 11, Some times a fired round that appears to blow up right next to your target does no damage to the target. I believe for the above reasons the nurf went far beyond whatever play change intended. Individually all of these issues are survivable for the MD, Some of these are really minor but when you add all of these together the MD has lost its place as a viable support weapon. There still are, and there will be, those few of us that still can place a round on a target's feet in almost any circumstance. They are not normal but yes the top 5% of MD users will be able to adapt because they are just awesome..there are the rest of us to consider. The old MD could kill bunches of people if they decided to group up and stay grouped...If you didn't want to die stupidly you didn't have to hang in a conga line. The MD's role was to either flush the entrenched or pin the mobile. We did this by using our intimidating blast as a threat with teeth. With the blast radius and damage nurfs people aren't intimidated, we have to shoot so close we may as well just hit them. When we cannot actually hit them dropping a round on a corner where your opponent is hiding used to either back them up or make them charge, now the blast is so small they can just hang out because you cannot make them move. We can still kill but our effectiveness at our role is gone, now we are a direct damage weapon, just like all the others in the game. I would be really curious to read the MD's K/D and other usage data, from my experience We never dominated the K/D ranks, Some of us could of course, but what was the overall effectiveness of the MD and what is it now?. I've never heard why this was done, I'm curious as to the reason. I know there aren't many of us, but a few moments to clue us in would be really appreciated. CCP what is the role of the MD in your eyes? how do the changes that were made support that role? Do you have any plans to tinker with the MD in the future?
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 86	Posted - 2013.05.11 01:12:00 - [2] - Quote RECON BY FIRE wrote: 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). If the MD user's target was more than 1 second flight time away any full speed movement would clear you from their blast radius. If you choose to go toe to toe with an MD that already has your range and elevation figured out you have made an error in Chromosome. Now if you are a half second away any full speed movement clears you. If the MD was easy you would find it dominating the leaderboards (this is one reason I would kill to see its actual usage data(this kind of data exists for dust)) The Dust playerbase is not so honorable that they would eschew a weapon because it was easy and it increased their kills too much, they have demonstrated exactly the opposite behavior. The citation of a couple situations that an MD will preform well is easy. Actually using an MD across varying terrain over the course of 5-10 minutes of a game where you need to reload where you run into people near and far across cover and out in the open is an entirely different matter. Even still, RECON BY FIRe, that isn't the point... What does CCP Think the MD's role is? Most MD users believe the MD is a support weapon used to disrupt the enemy. Maybe we are wrong. If that is the MD's real role, does CCP believe it can fill that role now? I don't believe it can, maybe I am wrong. I think what MD users would like is some kind of answer about what CCP expects from us. I don't think anyone in the MD community wants to rehash arguments about situations where a grenade or grenade launchers are unsurprisingly good.
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 90	Posted - 2013.05.11 14:08:00 - [3] - Quote LOL You have to go to an HMG thread to find info on the Mass Driver. CCP USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION. Stay on topic. https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=786096#post786096 Thanks Cosgar for finding this. CCP Remnant wrote: KA24DERT wrote: SirManBoy wrote: The mass driver needs some serious TLC. Some arbitrary 10% buff isn't going to adequately address its extensive list of new shortcomings, including its damage (it needs far more than a 10% buff), its splash area, and its aiming. In its current state, the mass driver is a hot mess that no longer commands any respect on the battlefield, which means all of its tactical value is gone. This is especially true for logi bros who used it to enhance their support role. A mass driver used to scare people away long enough to make revives, throw down nanos, and make repairs. This is no longer the case. Yeah, the MD has gotten hit pretty hard: MD Specific: 1) Splash Radius 2) Misleading Smoke Trail 3) Damage nerf 4) Range Nerf General, but hits MD hard: 1) Nanohive Nerf (my smg kills have gone way up.) This has changed the weapon entirely. People can hide behind obstacles and be safe, People can run from cover to cover at a distance and be safe. People can charge at me and absorb my damage while taking me down (easier than before). I've adjusted my playstyle to this. And am now finding myself charging into groups of enemies and using the MD like a blind man's shotgun. It works, but i'm not sure that's the weapon's intended role. If the 10% damage buff is across the board, then bringing back the splash radius and increasing the range will bring this weapon back up to snuff. 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).
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 91	Posted - 2013.05.11 14:38:00 - [4] - Quote Medic 1879 wrote: Yeah I love watching the smoke tracer thing I fire hit someone square in the chest they take no damage and then a second later theres an explosion about 5 meters behind them. Although is it just me or is it odd that I can now take out a shield LAV with one flux and one MD round and armour ones with 1 flux and 2-3 rounds used to take allot more I think. You're right, things are strange, I took out an unshielded tank with a full clip..thats not right.
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 92	Posted - 2013.05.11 15:20:00 - [5] - Quote Medic 1879 wrote: Thog A Kuma wrote: Medic 1879 wrote: Yeah I love watching the smoke tracer thing I fire hit someone square in the chest they take no damage and then a second later theres an explosion about 5 meters behind them. Although is it just me or is it odd that I can now take out a shield LAV with one flux and one MD round and armour ones with 1 flux and 2-3 rounds used to take allot more I think. You're right, things are strange, I took out an unshielded tank with a full clip..thats not right. Yes I have managed that feat as well just didn't want to rub the poor HAV drivers faces in it lol they have enough problems at the moment. The first step to correcting a problem is admitting we have a problem. Hi I'm Thog and I have fired a Mass Driver for 9 months, I want to kill people but can't, I enjoy killing tanks but shouldn't be able to without serious help.
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 96	Posted - 2013.05.12 00:09:00 - [6] - Quote Deluxe Edition wrote: KAGEHOSHI Horned Wolf wrote: RECON BY FIRE wrote: Get over it, MDs were easy mode and everyone that used one enough to get used to how to shot it knows it. Splash damage was way too big. If you don't like the splash of the base variant use the assault. Otherwise, once again, get over it. NO The MD did less damage per second than the AR even if all the grenades were direct hits (I did the math). The mass driver also contained less damage per magazine, meaning you could kill less people than the AR before needing to reload. There is also the fact that its almost useless at longer ranges because of the grenade arc which makes aiming require more skill, and the slowly traveling rounds which makes predicting where your targets will be. The only thing it had going for it was the splash damage and splash radius which made it very balanced; now splash radius sucks. If anything is easy mode (not necessarily overpowered though) it is the AR. ... mass driver direct hit is a 1 shot k/o it most cases, especially armor. MD has been Nurfed the OLD Freedom HIGHEST LEVEL MD was 270....that wasn't a one shot kill then, it isn't a one shot kill now. I don't know what you are talking about but at least use last builds stats to be wrong.
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 101	Posted - 2013.05.12 16:05:00 - [7] - Quote I don't give a flying flux about no grenades, I'd like a functioning weapon. A weapon that does damage when it hits a target a weapon that does damage where the visual indicators would lead you to believe it does. A weapon that damages 2 targets if they are both in the splash radius A weapon that doesn't require a second weapon to be slightly effective This recon fella doesn't believe anything about the MD needs to be effective, he doesn't even like the fact that we can use a crutch weapon to make the primary weapon slightly effective. It doesn't matter that a Dev thinks the MD is broken (for whatever reason it may be) Recon by Fire will still find some way to disagree with anything an MD player suggests. Individually all of these issues are that we have posted about are survivable for the MD, Some of them are really minor but when you add all of these together the MD has lost its place as a viable support weapon. This is the issue. This is what we need to focus on.
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 110	Posted - 2013.05.13 23:59:00 - [8] - Quote Honestly, by now I'd have thought someone GM, DEV whatever, would have posted something in one of the 3 or four MD threads. Should we be more troll'y? Would Spamming the Forums be more effective? This is kind of demoralizing. Thog sad...
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 112	Posted - 2013.05.14 14:46:00 - [9] - Quote Nothing seems to have changed, does someone feel like looking through the HMG thread? maybe they posted there like the last time. Lord forbid that they post an a relevent topic.
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 112	Posted - 2013.05.15 14:30:00 - [10] - Quote I check here every day, If they comment I'll be cooled out, If not there is tomorrow. I wonder why we got embargoed?

Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 113	Posted - 2013.05.17 11:18:00 - [11] - Quote Cosgar wrote: Thog A Kuma wrote: I check here every day, If they comment I'll be cooled out, If not there is tomorrow. I wonder why we got embargoed? This is why I quit being as vocal and helpful as I once was. CCP is giving off the impression they're more concerned with how a female scout's gams look under dynamic lighting than fixing core gameplay issues or would rather base a game mechanic's balance off an office LAN party over 8 months of beta testing and feedback. This is why I'm going to get a respec and spec back into the AR again. No use in bringing logic into an argument when the squeaky wheel always gets the grease. I figure I'll squeek a bit every once in a while and see if i get some lube.
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 124	Posted - 2013.06.04 13:41:00 - [12] - Quote Still no fix? I've stopped playing, but I'm still curious.
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 126	Posted - 2013.06.10 23:58:00 - [13] - Quote still nuthin?
Thog A Kuma Planetary Response Organisation 126	Posted - 2013.07.02 17:57:00 - [14] - Quote Anyone try the MD in 1.2 yet?