DUST Search - How long does it take to fix mass drivers?

CCP Wolfman wrote:

Cosgar wrote:

Once the desynch issues are fixed, could you please just revert the MD back to how it was in Chromosome? There was absolutely nothing wrong with the weapon. It was balanced enough for players good with it to stand out and had a huge learning curve for anyone who would think it was an "I win button."

The thing is, both those issues were also present in Chromosome. With the old values and these problems fixed I think we might have a monster on our hands Smile

That's why we'll be conducting tests to see what kind of impact the fixes have on the weapons performance before we make a decision on any changes.

CCP Wolfman

CCP Remnant wrote:

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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Cosgar's Alt Mikramurka Shock Troop Minmatar Republic 0	Posted - 2013.05.29 05:26:00 - [1] - Quote Jenova's Witness wrote: Seems like they're worried about the MD being some super OP weapon when it never was while they let the TAR run rampant without putting it in check. Hope this answers your question. CCP Wolfman wrote: Cosgar wrote: Once the desynch issues are fixed, could you please just revert the MD back to how it was in Chromosome? There was absolutely nothing wrong with the weapon. It was balanced enough for players good with it to stand out and had a huge learning curve for anyone who would think it was an "I win button." The thing is, both those issues were also present in Chromosome. With the old values and these problems fixed I think we might have a monster on our hands That's why we'll be conducting tests to see what kind of impact the fixes have on the weapons performance before we make a decision on any changes. CCP Wolfman I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to call bull* on what you just said on the grounds of this. CCP Remnant wrote:** 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). 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...
Cosgar's Alt Mikramurka Shock Troop Minmatar Republic 63	Posted - 2013.05.30 07:34:00 - [2] - Quote Buster Friently wrote: To Cosgar's Alt. I won't quote you because I'm too lazy to edit it down to what I want to highlight, which is that they nerfed the MD based on their in house testing. Here's what I have to say about that: If there's no problem on Tranquility, then there's no problem. Take your tiny playerbase of biased designers and remember that they are just that. Tranquility trumps all. The MD is really problematic now, and it needs some love. soon. I wholeheartedly agree. Knowing that they changed a game mechanic based on the equivalent of an office LAN party without batting an eye at player feedback is disturbing and discouraging. How many other game mechanics got altered for personal gain? Is that anecdote about Annie Oakley II killing CMDR Wang with a shotgun actually true? Did lasers get nerfed to the point where you can't even see where you're shooting the product of an intern getting butthurt and not the fact that the weapon was OP? Did Blam! try to solo a Surya with militia swarm launchers and not like the obvious results so they nerfed the PG to the point that they can only equip light modules? As long as CCP pulls this cloak and dagger **** behind a mask of vague transparency, my wallet will remain closed.