Test Discussion Solar Amplifier Bug

This bug was not fixed sooner as we were not aware this was happening with the artifact (as tends to be the case with any bug until it is fixed - we don't purposely release bugs). When you look at rank 120 and 160, the damage was splitting correctly. The issue was only with rank 200 which the breakthrough for the rank is "Installs Empowered Channeling Tactical Mod" nothing about damage no longer splitting. The explosion not splitting at rank 200 is a bug that players have been able to capitalize on to deal extremely good AoE damage off a primarily single target ability. The concept behind the rank 120 was to give a small AoE component to Heat Vision (as it does, just rank 200 was broken) and that AoE was meant to follow through to every subsequent rank.

Good writing.
The orange part: When topics come to stuff like this, it always starts and ends on game forums. If this type of "rip-off" carried on to some famous game sites and publishers, Daybreak will take action onto fixing them bugs/glitchs etc in light speed. Because its some special case of customers got "baited" from a product, intentionally or not.

The red part: Agreed. Its taking so long to get a simple, proper answer/info on such a easy-to-spot problem. And when theres no statement from a green name, majority believes this is the intended way.

Tbh this is just a show of what happens when devs don’t respond to the bugs brought up by the community....the real question is the forums especially the bug/glitch section are used as a means of communicating “hey there’s something wrong here check into it”. Then for it to be unaddressed and then randomly fixed after months is the problem. It’s the principal. It’s a bad look. P.S. ppl still DC entering PCe since November last year.

This behavior of HV has been open knowledge for several months. Would it not make sense for the Dev team to work closely with renowned players like OC who spend a lot of time testing various aspects of them? That way critical balance bugs like this can get fixed ASAP.

This was reported by me and other players months ago and no response from the devs and the thread was closed, my issues with this that it wasn't even in the test server patch notes?

I can see why people are upset, it is not cheap to level these artifacts and why doesn't seals drop in game there should be a way for people to get the Seals of preservation in the game.

Artifacts - the devs should really test these better before they are released and not have the community do the testing this really should not fall on the community or the player base these are not styles but expensive items people spend money on. It is not up to the player to even find or look for videos, there are a lot of people that neglect to provide proper information that should fall on the Devs, to avoid people being upset like this.

What about players like me who have been away for about 1.5 years. I come back to the game and all the posts, videos etc recommend Solar Amp and HV for single target builds and never mention anything about a bug. So you spend time and money leveling it up only to later hear its bugged, gets nerfed and reduces the effectiveness of the arti. If I had known that upfront I may have chosen to not level it up (and spend money) or to level something else up. Players should be compensated in some way for the dev's bugs. Many other games do this! Don't let these forums fools you as they only represent a small subset of players that spend the time to read every post day in and out. Most players do not and rely on content creators or others in game and if they are unaware of a bug or don't mention, the player likely doesn't know about it either.

The Explosion splits properly now. The (admittedly small) burning tick you get for leveling to 160 does not split, meaning that the AOE is still pretty strong, and the Solar Amplifier and Enhanced Heat Vision will still be a favorite for bosses with groups of adds.

Problem with that is, the devs never came out and said it was a bug. Left it uo to the community to speculate and debate it. If they said "the damage not splitting at rank 200 is a bug and will be fixed" you would have me

All fine an good an thnx for the info, none of its relevant.
This isint a fix. Its a bait n switch nerf. The devs knew because as you and other said “everyone knew” “anyone who paid attention knew” “videos” blah blah blah.
So ok, then the devs knew (they arent exempt from knowing things about their own game).
“Fixing it” months or years after they knew an allowed ppl to invest anyway w/NO indication anything was wrong Is illegal actually when practiced in the real world. Ever heard of a lemon law? Thats the analogy.
This is not exactly the same thing as they will not even speak of it and ignore us BUT dont be so blinded to think this is not a planned dirty move.
Even in this thread you and others claim everyone knew etc yet you start out in that video explaining that it was ever only touched on and hi ted at an most content (guides, videos, etc) didnt explain why they say to use it so your also contradicting yourself. You either belive it was common knowledge an your lying in your video where u say otherwise OR your video is truthful and it is/was not common knowledge to the broader base in which case you have reversed tour stance here.
Cant have it both ways chief, nice try tho.
I love this game, its my fav game ever but whats dirty an wrong is exactly that. Like it or not this is over the top dirty and in this case (i dont offen say this) the devs OWE the community an explonation and reimbursement of metals used beyond 160 for their dirty tactics on this.
Bugs get identified an fixed, and that is NOT what happened here. This is NOT a bug, this is as DIRTY as it gets

Could you do Electric Tesla Ball next? It doesn't split damage and you generate supercharge faster than the actual superchare generator power i.e static push.

I maxxed mine for the Empowered Channeling bonus as well as the extra direct damage. The AE explosion damage was a nice little bonus but hardly OP. Considering how much it takes to get an Artifact to 200 I thought it seemed in line with what we should expect for maxxing one out.

Personally speaking, I came back to the game about 3 months ago. My damage sucked with my old 160 artifacts (EOG, Solar and Scrap). A league mate told me to level my Solar to 200 for the extra split damage and go for trans+strat. My damage skyrocketed once I did these.

Offtopic: I get that the artifact system is a norm in other MMOs and the added revenue helps keep the game afloat and new content coming. I've invested a lot in it too. But, Spytle's mantra was Skill over Stats. There was a sense of gamer honor in that.

Come back to me when you look up the definition of bait n switch and then detail me how this situation even remotely is applicable.

Once again you don't actually either know what the lemon law is or you don't understand what it means to think it applies as an analogy. Lemon law lol don't know what standards they are failing to meet when the increased non splitting explosion damage wasn't even in the description and the artifact itself is still the best single target might power with the highest base stats out of any of the might artifacts. But keep thinking you know what you are talking about here.

You can even go to my munitions video and I directly mention HV does more dmg because of the bugged splitting so I show both rotations. If I made a video to tell thousands of players that heat vision does OP damage but you have to get to rank 200 and then the devs fixed it you'd have players with actual legitimate issues that they paid for it based on what I said and then it was fixed, unlike now where players are making baseless accusations like yours.

Simply put, bait n switch is when you purchase one thing and then get another and that is EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING.
the company was perfectly happy to ignore this “bug” and collect revenue on it.
Looks to me like revenue for it has slowed so now its time to “fix it”
~prove me wrong devs because i really want to be wrong on this. Do the rite thing here!

We bought this art an metal an cats an seals etc to get these to 200.
If there was a bug they should have read the comments an fixed it BUT they didnt.
It was supposedly well known bu your own claim and i read theough tons an tons of old comments an threads an i see where ppl have tried for months an months to get their attention to fix it.
Well, that ship has sailed. If i buy a honda an the company made a mistake an put a ferrari engine it guess what, they dont get to come screw with my car a year later because it was a mistake.

DC messed up here, they were neglegent at best an their QC on the product they sell didnt Catch this and thats fine, thats what testing is for and feedback is for. If the devs chose to ignore that for months an months then this is now on them.
They made it, they packaged it, they sold it, they ignored the data and info.
Its not a week or 2 later where it comes to light an they fix it. All was fine till just now months an months later???
****

This was posted in the bug thread months ago. Unlike other actual bugs, this was not flagged as "Confirmed" or even "In Progress" and no dev ever commented on it. Non-split powers already exist in the game, so the concept was never without precedent, especially given the ambiguous description and the other quirks of the artifact that we're now forced to assume are also bugs (ie. how Solar Amp removes HV's PI application unless it runs uninterrupted full duration and the complete loss of burst damage & PI application if target is forcibly changed after 2nd last but before the last tick).

This behaviour was well understood and documented for as long as it has existed. It was always a selling point of the artifact and despite this being well known and documented in all circles, ig, on the forum, and elsewhere, no dev ever commented on it. The only thing meaningfully affected by this was ranged trash clear AoE balance vs melee trash clear AoE. With the non-split, ranged trash clear AoE in raids was a balanced option with less potential output than melee but a higher degree of consistency, safety, and reliability to compensate. Will have to test when this goes live but it's likely melee-range trash clear will become the only competitive approach to trash clear aoe... meaning one more artifact slot for customers to think about. As such, as a consumer, everything about how this was handled rubs me the wrong way and this is the kind of dev behaviour that affects my consumer confidence and tightens my wallet.

Obviously the devs can alter the game however they feel like. However, when there are years-old actual blatant bugs and glitches with powers that have been already confirmed then seemingly ignored, I'm dubious of the intent when an abrupt change is made that affects player artifact expenditure very shortly after a prec balance change resulted in a lot of players changing their artifact investments over to might already. These kinds of changes to artifacts should really only occur in tandem with 2x Nth xp weeks as a customer service measure so that players can at least move their exp around if they're not happy, for which there is precedent (eg Venom getting auto-lvled to 200, Nth week coinciding with prec changes).This is bad customer service.

I feel that descriptions need to be a lot more specific if the intent is to make these kinds of from-the-hip changes. Ie. as detailed as those in the og lpve powers thread from way back, that indicated base damage and split behaviour. This would honestly be more palatable if it was marketed as a balance change instead of a bug fix, as it was never acknowledged to have been a bug despite the previously linked bug post and it being fully understood by the overwhelming majority of the playerbase. This is an arbitrary decision undermined by the fact that devs ignored all knowledge and information about this universally well known feature for almost a year exactly (of which that timing is also bizarre).

Maybe I'm one in a million type of person, but getting this artifact from 160 to 200 is not something I can get just by needing to "dump nth metal into something". I guess there's some low LOW chance that someone chose solar amp without knowing much about it, from the whole LIST of artifacts to choose from, and decided to level it up to 200. But come on. For reals?

Look obsidian,
My issue on this is With the devs not you.
I dont want u to think im attacking you or anything. The dev team did this to themselves when they ignored this “bug”.
I watch all you quantum videos an tutorials an such And think u do great job in general at tryin to be helpful and informative but layin any of this anywhere other in the openly negligent team is just absurd.
Its their game and their forum. They CHOSE (for whatever reason) to ignore this for months an months with no communication.
If im wrong, show me the thread where the devs said they were looking at it an what the result was.

Till a dev comments and explains how/why they ignored it for so long AND why they think its ok to sell it as it was performing then change the performance WAY later u need to prob pipe down. If your good with it then these complaints arent for you. These are for the devs to address and what i want addressed is IF they are gonna treat their customers rite on this or not

Wxactly and thats why i have defended it And the devs multiple times in the 3 months i have been back as working properly. The devs silence and not acknowledging it is actually telling us its all good. Its on them this time an while i defend plenty im not gonna defend them on this. Its big this time IMO an they need to do rite by their customers On it because of the time/$ it takes an there was no prob letting is take the time or taking our $ so i have no prob with the devs doing the rite thing and reimbursing.
Thats compromise and understanding and not too much for customers to ask.

Everything said here was spot on. Agreed 100%.

Batuba, no offense intended but there were multiple posts and even entire threads over this issue ever since it was first discovered. If none of the developers or whoever screens the forum on your behalf caught wind of it, you might consider paying closer attention in the future. If I'm not mistaken, the cap for the artifacts was raised with the release of Metal Part I, which was roughly a year ago; so what, this issue went completely under the radar, despite several posts, threads, livestream comments, etc. for over a year? It doesn't reflect well on anyone.

Aside from that, the artifact is going to need better incentive for players to get it to 200 now - the stat percentages max out at 160, and the Empowered Channeling mod at 200 doesn't even work and needs to be looked at.

No one cares about your misleading self-promoted videos, this ban evading account you post them on, or your condescending opinions. Stop ruining testing and feedback threads by making them all about yourself.

Chasing a bug? As dedicated as you are, I highly doubt you would be unaware of such practices. So with that said, I don’t think anyone was chasing a bug. But of course people were chasing non-splitting damage. And the one person who reported it as a bug got lambasted.