why is splash damage being reduced for everything

i know why this happened to the prowler but why everything else

because

Because the guys making the game seem to be of the opinion that splash damage is too powerful?

I mean, the other option is that the makers of this game just really like screwing with vehicle players and do not actully like having a job, they just live to troll.

"Prowler splash is OP" - Fix by nerfing everything...

Because it's excessive and in some cases even penetrates past solid walls where it shouldn't.

Don't worry, it's still going to be possible to lock down spawn buildings completely. Perhaps just no longer with 4 prowlers.

I'm actually wondering if it's to make it look like the prowlers being balanced, while actually keeping it as strong for infantry while just nerfing everything.

I.E - It mentions splash damage needs 2 hits for infantry, is this JUST for the prowler, or across the board? If it's just for the prowler, then splash isn't really getting a hard hit for everything else, if it is across the board, then the prowler will be killing infantry in 0.5 sec while the other tanks 3.75/4s if they hit both rounds.

That said, splash is really too strong. I don't really agree it needs to be nerfed on things like the fury or bulldog though.

^ this. There was too much splash in this game they are toning it down. Its not going to be as bad as most of the forum posters will have you think.

Maby they should remove all AOE weapons from the game tank canons, mounted granade lunchers(both from wehicles nad planes) and so on

They buffed the splash radius on the Prowler's Marauder secondary. Doubled it, in fact. An increase in killing area by 400%.

No I think you don't understand. The other two MBTs shoot one shell per reload, the prowler with his two barrels can shoot two until reload. So before it could basically kill double the amount of infantry before having to reload, now after this change it needs both for its splash damage to have the same...uh..deadliness than the other tanks.

This is splash damage against infantry only.

What's still possible is, if the prowler pilot is skilled enough to direct hit infantry with each shot, then he'll still be able to kill 2 inf with direct hits per reload (and possibly some more collaterally with splash damage).

Prowler is still a beast but no longer can just blindly spray explosions around with the same efficency.

And since prowlers fire a burst, they're the best weapon to get around the new "can't die to splash in one hit" rule.

I know very well what the prowler can and can't do. That isn't an issue, nor has anything to do with what I said.

Take a look at the patch notes.

Vehicle Weapon Changes

• Prowler P2-120 HEAT & HE rounds have had their blast damage reduced from 1000 to 700.
• Full shields and health infantry require at least two rounds to be killed from splash damage exclusively.
• This does not affect direct damage.
• A direct hit will still kill a full health infantry in one round.
• Most vehicles are immune to tank blast damage so this will have little effect on vehicle to vehicle combat.

Now, if that was Directed towards the prowler, it should look something like this:

Vehicle Weapon Changes

Prowler Changes:

• Prowler P2-120 HEAT & HE rounds have had their blast damage reduced from 1000 to 700.
• Full shields and health infantry require at least two rounds to be killed from splash damage exclusively.
• This does not affect direct damage.
• A direct hit will still kill a full health infantry in one round.

All Vehicles

• Most vehicles are immune to tank blast damage so this will have little effect on vehicle to vehicle combat.

But since it lists the prowler on it's own bullet point, it points towards the other bullet points being towards ALL tanks.
Also, the magrider and Vanguard get splash radius reduced but it doesn't say anything about the prowler getting it. So if these stats are still right (well, just before the update)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Amnj8jnZLDIOdDRjMURYRlY0bDlpNjNfSW11MV83X1E&gid=0
Then it shows the prowler still keeping a radius of 10, but with lower damage.
Basically, it's poorly laid out update, which is further shown by
Prowler P2-120 HE

• Time to reload increased from 3125ms to 3500ms
• Vanguard Titan 150 HE
• Time to reload decreased from 5000ms to 4750ms

The above should have vanguard as a title, not BP. Same with it below going on about the walker. In other words, it's a mess.

This was implemented for fairly obvious reasons if think about it.

This is a game, with a competitive element. If you take things to the other extreme and a tank shell (or other explosive, I'm not biased) has a q kilometer blast radius of splash damage, one would quickly abandon all weapons aside from explosives. There would be no aiming skill required for tanks or thoughts about placement for mines/c4/nades etc.

So the more splash radius is reduced, the more skill or thought is required. I welcome this.

I wasn't stupid enough to spawn somewhere like ti alloys and get tank spammed, but as LA I would often get killed by friendly splash on towers. If this encourages actual aiming rather than mindless spamming with high reward...bring it on.

Violence

Prowler HE and HEAT was OP vs Infantry due to the double gun.
The Vanguard Titan HE was actually worse at killing infantry than the HEAT due to the reload time.

This nerf was needed on the Prowler but not universally.

Ah I see what you mean. Yes there are some layout issues with the patch notes. At some point there's a new headline on the same "height" as a bullet point and not in bold etc.

Just treat them as such. There was an overall blast radius reduction as it also affects Liberator weapons etc. Not everything is perfectly documented. It's better than most things I've seen so far and I've been working for over a decade in IT.

Seriously, I see your point but I wouldn't worry.

If I had to guess, I'd imagine they looked at the score/min people were pulling in vehicles vs. the score/min infantry were getting and adjusted things to compensate.

Because splash damage is skillless bull****.

That spreadsheet hasn't been update post-GU2, Prowler HEAT now does 1000 damage per shell, and vanguard and prowler heat shells have faster projectile speeds.

Eh, if players still need cross 30+m of open space after exiting the spawn shack, it will not help anything.

Considering many people have coined the game "Explosionside 2" since release ....

I guess SoE wants to shed that nickname.