SOE I waited 5 months to buy VS MAX weapons: Then you ninja nerf it after 24 hours!

Last I checked I had the #3 overall VS Max score across all servers. I loved my Max.
I've been sitting on thousands of certs and station cash for months. Despite having one of the top VS MAX scores I had only bought ONE Max weapon (the Nebula for my right hand) and cert'd into nano-regen and charge. I literally avoided extended mags because I KNEW even one month after release that the MAX weapon descriptions were so backwards compared to the stats that buffs/nerfs were inevitable and I didn't want to dump another 1000-2000 certs into weapons that would end up having their stats tossed around in a future patch.

So I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally I saw the GU07 patch notes. I saw exactly what specifics were being changed.

I logged on after the patch to test the changes. I spent an hour in VR training messing with the new nebula, cosmos, and blueshift. While I felt that the blueshift still needed tweaking, I figured that with 4 months to decide on these changes - that the nebula/quasar/cosmos stats were settled at that point. I decided that even if they buffed the blueshift at some future point, that I was willing to invest in the cosmos. I dumped thousands of certs into the cosmos and extended mags.

Then I log on today: Blueshift has been given a massive buff... well that's ok! And Cosmos has been given a massive nerf... WHAT?!

This is extremely disappointing after I was so cautious for so long. I feel for the mercy buyers out there but at least they made a choice before they had real numbers handed to them. The cosmos nerfs came completely out of the blue. People were actually comfortable with the cosmos' power before the patch and I felt the wide consensus was that OTHER weapons should be brought UP to its power level and not that it should be nerfed down. Needless to say I was cautious about spending SC/Certs before, now I feel downright paranoid.

best NC weapon was nerfed -> best TR weapon was nerfed -> fill in what's next

I can relate to that.
Spose you have to hope that recert item comes soon.
I certainly won't spend SC on MAX weapons anytime soon, I'm certain I won't ever get to use those again.
Couldn't they have just reduce it's firerate a bit and give it at least the same accuracy as a Nebula? -.-

When they do drastic switch-arounds like the Blueshift-Cosmos (with not a whiff of prior information mind), they should uncert and refund people affected by these changes. I bought the Cosmos, having tried it and found it to be clearly the most accurate because I wanted the most accurate gun. Now it is less accurate than default and a different weapon is more accurate.

Very bad business model if you want the trust of your player base. Trust = priceless. Missing out on the few dollars from people gullible enough to buy the Blueshift who already own the Cosmos is worth it to keep the trust and goodwill of your paying customers.

People who have spent SC in the past will likely spend it in the future, but not if they feel the rug will be pulled from under them.

The changes make perfect sense, but there are plenty of people who will be very annoyed about them coming completely out of the blue with no word on any of the VS MAX weapon discussion threads.

With the massive increase in exp gain, there is very, VERY little need to spend SC on anything except visual customization. This and the nature of weapons that are subject to change regardless on peoples ideologies of "But I paid for this specific stat variant of this weapon and changing it is fraud/theft/deception" and there really isn't a need to "buy" the guns.

As for purchasing with certs, with the new exp gains I mentioned its relatively cheap now.

The VS Max was widely held to be the worst of the 3. Even still I WAITED for the patch notes specifically for this reason: to confirm that the gun I wanted to buy wasn't going to get shafted.

Update: Higby doesn't seem aware of the undocumented nerfed... there may still be hope that it was unintended and not some ninja-nerf:

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/325317307628920832

Exactly, you don't have to buy anything in this game. If they pull stunts like this, people will stop spending money. It is not theft or fraud. It is probably perfectly within the ToS that nobody ever reads. However, if they want people to actually spend money for what is essentially some microscopic switches being flipped on a server somewhere, then they have to maintain trust and goodwill.

nah...that's not unintended.....they just ****** up, when they released the guns and now fix the mistake without telling anyone.

Higby posted in your reddit post OP. It seems like he is unaware of the changes.

Yup! I love how responsive Higby and the rest of SOE are to this sort of thing, definitely keeping me loyal!

While I agree with you that making "drastic switch-arounds" is bad business the trouble is they were dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. For months now we've had people demanding refunds because they brought the Blueshift based on the in-game description which advertised the Blueshift as the most accurate VS gun, and of cause nothing kills consumer trust quicker than items not functioning as advertised. In fact it's even my opinion that it's the Blueshift that caused the myth of the VS MAX being inferior to the TR MAX.

If they adjusted the two guns to function as they were advertised to they would annoy everyone that brought the Cosmos. If they kept the Cosmos as the most accurate they would annoy everyone that brought the Blueshift because even if they buffed it, it still wouldn't be the most accurate which is what they paid for. Basically they couldn't win.

However there is still hope for Cosmos owners as Higby wasn't aware of the nerf so there is a chance, a infinitesimally small chance, that it isn't intended.

Submit a ticket with customer service immediately to ask for a refund/exchange. I can totally understand how pissed you can be at this, but try and be civil with them, and they will probably work with you. I do expect that there will be some kind of followup on this issue, SOE isn't blind to how this will affect people. I expect they'll offer the ability to swap cosmos/blueshifts, though I'm not sure in what form.

Personally I'm a bit peeved that they stuck with the long range model, I think all the max weapons *except* the long range variants are quite allright... though we'll see, they know what they're doing. I'm ridiculously glad they didn't touch my quasars in any great way, I love those guns.

I totally believe Higby that he doesN#t know of everything, that's a minor decision that a Creative Director shouldn't need to concern himself with.
Thing is, the Cosmos would probably be fine with Nebula Accuracy.
Or Quasar Accuracy and a slightly reduced RoF, maybe 320. Something that makes it a slight tradeoff to the base weapon, and yes, they ALL, would need a small buff.
It's not the final stats, it's suddenly nerfing a weapon to ****, with no warning, no obvious reason, and after a patch that was said to be a rebalancing and didn't do that, months after a MAX guide that advertised the Cosmos as the most accurate. It's a horrible combination of misunderstandings, and I won't be surprised if the final answer is
"Yep, was a misunderstanding! Sorry about that! It's a really a nerf.".

Except it wasn't a myth.

The Mercy was more >15% more accurate than the Cosmos and had 8.2% more DPS. Which, made it the highest DPS ranged MAX weapon (TR and VS) and also the most accurate by quite some margin. Plus it only had 10 less bullets than the default cycler.

The Tr MAX with those WAS seriously much better the any VS MAX loadout, any suggestion it wasnt is simply stupid.

True.
Well, to be fair, the cosmos (according to this outdated sheet) had a lower max CoF, so sustained fire would barely effect it's accuracy and make the 75 rounds useful for room clearing.
I'm pretty certain that sheet will be updated during the day, so the link might not say much tomorrow.

If there was an actual myth, it's that the VS MAX was generally seen as useless by many players to the point I(in a VS MAX) would see them leave cover and shoot me in CQC without even attempting to move. Quite the fun days.
My favourite was always TR Infiltrators with Pistols. Sure those Pistols are awesome, but it must have been a punishing experience nonetheless.

My suggestion post would solve so many gripes and problems with the MAX weapons right now, they should bleeding hotfix it in.

The smg pistol? Its pretty terrible against a MAX. I think i earned a record for longest time time spent 1v1ing a scatmax with it. Halfway through i think he just gave up trying to kill me and waited for his blind horde of teammates to shoot me.

...In your opinion.

As UnDeaD_CyBorG pointed out the Cosmos had a lower max CoF on everything except jumping which was identical. Plus its crouching min CoF was identical to the Mercy. Lets not even mention its sprinting CoF. So no it didn't have >15% accuracy.

It's also worth remember that the Cosmos had significantly more damage per magazine than the Mercy.

The only real advantage the Mercy had over the Cosmos was the extra DPS. However not everything is about DPS nor can you see everything relevant to balance on a spreadsheet. Let me put it this way; if you take a VS MAX and a TR MAX, give both of them completely identical weapons and completely identical loadouts, which has the advantage? Hint: it's not the TR MAX.

P.S. As a word of advice throwing around the word "stupid" doesn't add any weight to your argument, quite the opposite in fact. Especially if your argument isn't 100% accurate.

So is blueshift the best VS max weapon now?