PU02 December 2013, 6AM PT (1PM CET)

I am not happy.

I think this patch just goes to show the devs have zero ability to effectively test weapons for balance before making them live.

Furies are ALREADY getting rebuffed, after a nerf like a single major patch ago?

By nerfing harrasers' abilities, repair AND weapons, you are going to make them no longer viable. Reducing the tank shots they can take by half basically means stay away from mbts period. A vanguard with an enforcer now is even more potent.

Finally, I was a big halberd guy. Hitting infantry at range and twitch firing is a skill which should not be overlooked. By nerfing the gainers damage and velocity at range, you are hurting players at the high level of the skill cieling just for being good players.


Patch is for the lowest common denominator agsin

Their solution to game balance: NERF EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!1111

That being said, everytime they nerf something they make a new way viable. We just have to find out what that way is. From a first read, it sounds like battle buses with furies just went up a couple pegs. Let's go TXR, and find something new to make folks whine about.

Overall this patch looks alright to me... What's gonna be really frustrating IMO are alot of these AV choices... Between vehicle secondary AV nerfs to the MAX AV nerfs... we're in a little bit of trouble, gonna have to depend more on the Heavies rocket launchers, Anyone with C4, and Engineer AV Turrets.

Liberator Tank Buster NERF, bwahahahaha!

It sucks when they do that, but it's pretty much going to happen. ESFs have been getting nerfed consistently since beta (when they were admittedly broken).

It is really easy to get very pissed off. I'm simmering about the changes to the rotary nose guns, myself. Can't let it get to you though.

Road Runners (and Skywatch) are not effective because we use the most broken toys. We're effective because of our team work, tactical decision making, and adaptability to the meta. We're going to adjust, figure out the new way to be effective and then ram this new way down our enemy's throat. A few months from now, that'll get nerfed too and we'll start over.

Being mad, even if you're justified in being mad, won't bother SOE. It won't get the nerfs reversed. We're going to just have to roll with the punches and adapt. This is never anything I want to hear when I'm raging about the latest incomprehensible change, of course, but eventually you have to accept it.



I read that as 1/2 tank shell less damage. Meaning if you're only taking damage from the tank shells there is little damage change, but if you're taking some constant fire, each tank shot is going to burst a little harder now.

My ideas on the changes are a little like this:

Your speed is going to be more important than it was. You'll have to be closer, but it is harder to hit a closer speeding target. These changes will make your mistakes cost you a lot more, but doesn't eliminate your ability to move fast and drop a lot of damage quickly.

Like the old TR in PS1 - when they give you crappier weapons, it only means you're going to get better as a player to compensate. I have full faith in the Road Runners. You guys rock, have rocked, and will continue to rock.

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As far as the ESF changes go:

Basilisks got a steady buff across the board and a bonus against ESF class armor (light armor). Dual basilisk sundies are going to be nasty against air now. Attacking a sundy solo was stupid. Now, it's almost suicidal. This doesn't change Skywatch tactics too much. We still need to attack together and drop the sundy with massed fire and too many targets for them to run off.

Rotary changes across the board means no relative change in ESF strength vs each other. Your rotary is now less effective against infantry and most armor except for light armor. This is actually how it should have been from the beginning. Getting to use a dedicated short ranged anti-air nose gun against ground targets or at range was bogus. This is going to force me in particular to make decisions instead of just running rotary and rockets.

The rotary minimum damage, max damage, and damage fall off ranges were nerfed hard. You're going to have to be much closer if you want to pile the max damage onto your opponent. Reverse thrusting guys who like to engage at medium to long range while flying backward are probably going to be switching to default nose guns for this play style. If so, TTK will go UP across the board. This is good news for team tactics - longer TTK for single ESFs increases the advantage of using a team. It also means teammates have longer to respond to each other and help each other out.

I don't think this going to hurt us as much as the guys who fly around trying to solo everything. If we tighten up our flying and continue to focus our fire, we're going to come out of this on top.

For some hard numbers on ESF changes check out this data sheet:

docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aq6ae2rl8qLddG1Oa25zV3NaU2JzU2FTV1daSW5rTnc&usp=drive_web#gid=5

Don't read too much into these numbers - there are a lot of factors that aren't accounted for in data sets like this, but it is a decent view of comparative changes.

FYI: a current bug is that ESFs take three Decimator hits to kill vs. pre-patch 1.

+1 on Forty's comment... do they test these updates before they crank them out? My kid can generate a checklist in Word for chrissakes.

Specific to ESF only. They likely forgot to tweak some damage modifier for the Decimator.

In other news, this screen greets me when I log on:

i.imgur.com/X5BvG2F.jpg

Scared the hell out of me (my character!) until I realized Connery was down. Looks like there is a hotfix being deployed, along with some server instability issues.

Q/A BABY!

**EDIT**:

Don't tell anyone this, but I am very convinced that something didn't go right in the patch and the Vulcan actually got a buff. 4 separate incidents yesterday my gunner killed 3 vanguards and a harasser at full health with a single magazine. You could NOT do that before.

Yea vulcan is supposed to do more damage at close range as the role of the gun is intended as such.