Nerfs/buffs are far too dramatic.

LOL!!!
SOE has been rather conservative with PS2 and its buffs/nerfs. Now I will admit by industry standards they use a sledge hammer when others use a nerf bat.. If you think SOE is extreme now you should have seen them in the SWG days and when EQ was in its prime they would use Kung Fu and a 20 ton wrecking ball. Back then they called them publish's, its was like a countdown to the Apocalypse when they announced a new update on the way.

Any Vet from those games can tell you hours of stories of having your little world smashed to pieces just in one update, those of us who went through many updates like myself.... Well sometimes I'm surprised that I'm even playing another SOE game.

I made a point not to include new weapons because of this. though your right that they change dynamics in many cases SOE rarely follows through with the changes in dynamics. IT doesn't take an incredible amount of foresight to tell that if you buff secondaries dramatically and add a new vehicle with that secondary then a vehicle which uses a primary would be completely outgunned. AKA lightning vs. harasser. Rather then change the dynamics of the game, they just nerfed the harasser.

I heard that was part of the games downfall.

This is supposed to be compared to the industry standard of course.

I did play other SOE games and, yeah, there is definitely a trend. I've seen them destroy games.

In my opinion they havent changed much since SWG. Although I quit when they turned it in to a WOW clone.

SOE are great innovators in the gaming industry. I think the balance patches show the downsides to this.

They get the big picture better then anyone, but they can really slaughter the tiny details.

Dramatic is fine depending on the performance of what's being changed... The issue is how many dramatic changes. The Harasser is a great example of too many drastic changes at once. The issue was that it was beefy and had strong weapons and could be repair quickly on the move. Rather than one dramatic change first and seeing what happened, it was across the board in almost every aspect of the vehicle. Apparently they nerfed it some more and I have no idea why... Unless your VS or put a Halberd on it, you're better off with a tricked out flash or decent lightning.

Oh my god, suddenly it all makes sense.

When you're playing along and your favorite thing is nerfed...

Usually I agree with you Tek but not this time.

Saron nerf hurts, but whatever. The extra splash just means now it will take more shots with less accuracy to kill inf (5 hits within 1m to kill non-flak)

In fact, I thought most the changes this time were rather small tweaks. You listed some of the biggest changes, but almost all of those were sorely needed.

Almost? No, ALL of those changes were needed.

I'm actually surprised you didn't list the C75 nerf despite it's also desperately needed implementation with how much you love Lightnings Then again, maybe you always have ran HEAT or AP.....

SOE uses the pendulum style of balance. Eventually, they'll find a happy medium.

right now, it's on the hard nerfs, then it'll be on slightly easier buffs, then slightly easier nerfs etc etc.

It causes frustration, but it is effective.

Walrus is suprerior. Hail the walrus

the changes shouldn't exceed say 15%, esp. since they are patching weekly. They do need to have other tools than "a hammer and a bigger hammer" for the tuning.

also, it's stupid.

People yelling at each other for the smallest slight (instead of talking normally) might be effective as well, but that's what you call overreaction.

Things get nerfed WAY too hard in most cases
Zoe once was EXTRENELY GOOD Now ZOE is the worst max ability NO actual benefits
Harassers are
Enforcer and Saron are <Halbird

When something is OP
Buff the counters/counterparts and if that is not enough
small nerf to the OP thing to put it in line.

Nerfs ruin weapons buffs make other weapons useful again.

I like how you used percentages to make it seem like these were huge sweeping changes. You should be a news caster.

The lightning is different. The nerf isn't bad at all. Its just stupid. Hooray the lightning now has another heat gun that you spam fire at infantry. I'm upset because I've used the viper because of its one-hit-kill main shot. It took skill, and it was unique. Now, we remove this, and keep the splash?? Punish players for aiming, reward people for just closing their eyes and holding fire??
Swing and a miss.

I'll say the same thing about the saron too. Its too strong against AI, so, lets punish direct hits, and give it double the inner splash. You know, I'll be honest. I hated the saron change because I only read into the first part. Thing is, does SOE realize that this is a net buff???
You punish those people who meticulously aim the saron in a strafing vehicle, and reward those who just spam the fire button? uh, ok. I'm sure that'll fix the saron's AI situation.

But, what about nanorep mr. ronin? For me. Its trash now. Over. 12 seconds to start repairing? I've switched every loadout to stealth. That nerf was for ESFs. Shouldn't have effected ground. Waste of certs.

But I'm not talking for just what I care about.

• The enforcer. That was far too much. I just...Why would anyone want that gun over a halberd? Maybe I'm not an authority on the subject, but they nerfed its DPS hard, and nerfed its reload speed as well.
• Prowler heat/HE. The prowler has taken enough at this point. The nerf was pretty big too. Fair, not fair. I don't know, but it seemed pretty big. It feels like they are taking away every perk firing 2 projectiles would have, and now its just a cosmetic feel good thing. You want my opinion. Nerf its freakin velocity. If each shot is so weak tell me why it has the second best velocity/drop of all the tank guns. Meanwhile Mr. V.S. Nodrop is lobbing freaking potato rounds.

You may be right, for now. I think I'm right on the call about SOEs general behavior. I just chose to call them out because of how senseless and directionless some of these patches were. I might be a bit bitter over them directly lowering the quality of my game thx to a lack of insight.

I am a news caster.Noob.

In some places it may be silly. In others, not so much. Enforcer, prowler, nanorep. This are the big ones. I could see it if its some obvious thing, like the shield. OK. we all know the shield is straight dope, but nanorep might as well have been nerfed by a random number generator, and it was nerfed hard.

I'd rather it not scale based on time @ NAR.

IF it's underperforming they can just reduce the cooldown to 10 or less. Same with the shield.

Well, NAR was a bit OP... I was just about to start maxing it on my Lightning and ESF but I'm glad I held off now

I also thought the Viper nerf was a tad silly and the wrong approach. Reduce splash damage and reduce AV damage, leave it as a skill weapon for killing infantry... oh well. It's more area suppresion now I guess and HEAT is better for direct shotting with some decent damage to surrounding inf or near misses. I am glad Viper was nerfed though if I'm a bit confused on the approach

Prowler splash radius should be a good chunk smaller than HEAT from the other canons... it got 2 of em. It's been the best AI tank without having to specialize in AI since forever. However I think they should have left HE alone and buffed HE on the other tanks. Prowlers were pretty much the last users of HE... now no one will use it at all. HEAT and AP both feel right... HE has been trash for... hell I can't even remember how long.

Saron..... ehh... I think it's funny it's been outperforming the Enforcer ML85 since the RoF for accurate shots is the same, they were both 2HK, and the ML85, at the time, had almost double the ammo. Also VS have access to the PPA which is a great AI secondary if that's what you want, while the ML85 is STILL the best AI weapon for a Vanguard. Odd nerf but I get where they're coming from... Saron is AV, if you want AI, take the AI gun (At least our AI option is a good one!)

I dunno, nothing is (nor will ever be) perfect, but I think a lot of these changes were in the right general direction.

I think they're also trying to close skill gap with some weapons (Saron, Viper) because they're having a ***** of a time with retention of newer players, so easier to use weapons with lower skill ceiling will help add overall balance to the game between players of disparate skill levels. Better skill will always have an advantage, but they don't want god mode activated by someone who can hit a moving target... while on a platform moving under control of another player... with ease and where players without god skill are just permanent helpless canon fodder.

So they're nerfing some stuff to make it more even across factions or equipment options, and they're nerfing skill so you can't god mode with superior, nearly unattainable, skill.

I've always thought their nerfs and buffs were a little too late in coming and sometimes not accurate. Why not buff something then maybe tweak it a week or two later? Play the game a little bit and get a feel for it? Do you really have to let something sit for 2-3 months before you change it? I don't think the community would mind as long as you get the balance right. That's just my opinion though,

-Teneth

this is one of the worst "balance" patches, it will take SOE 6 more patches to restore a real balance