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Inferior
Oct 19, 2012

I kept getting season levelling notifications whenever I get any XP. I'm not actually gaining levels, it's just the effect playing over and over again. Fun times.

Also, this stealth rifle nerf is total bullshit. Time to revise my build again.

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Psion
Dec 13, 2002

eVeN I KnOw wHaT CoRnEr gAs iS
we can all quit calling it stealth, it's in the patch notes (now)

continue calling it the regular bullshit M1A nerf, instead :v:

Olds
Oct 17, 2005

Psion posted:

we can all quit calling it stealth, it's in the patch notes (now)

continue calling it the regular bullshit M1A nerf, instead :v:

Despite the bitching, the M1a classic did damage far out of line compared to other rifles and needed to be tuned down. While it probably didn't need to be nerfed so hard it only does the same damage per bullet as its CQB relative, I guess it was their way of balancing it for PvP.

However even if it did legitimately slip their minds they were nerfing one of the most used weapons by players, it's still a terrible look from a team that turned the Merciless bug fix into "Massive nerfs anything fun."

Quill
Jan 19, 2004

Olds posted:

I guess it was their way of balancing it for PvP.

The fact that they keep making these rookie mistakes on balancing is too funny for words. Division 2 has been out for more than a year now. The team must have at least some members left who worked on Division 1 and have been through this, but at this point it's like watching a bunch of demented monkeys trying to play whack-a-mole.

UnknownMercenary
Nov 1, 2011

I LIKE IT
WAY WAY TOO LOUD


To be honest, the M1A Classic just showed how bad the rest of the rifle class was. Everyone will move to the MK17 and rightfully so, and the rest don't do enough damage to justify giving yourself RSI.

The Urban MDR, SIG716 and USC45 are at least fun to dick around in solo, but the moment group scaling kicks up prepare to break your fingers/run out of ammo extremely fast.

Inspector Hound
Jul 14, 2003

Works out fine for me, I sold my M1 without having the foresight to extract the goddamn "you have infinite ammo behind cover" talent, so good riddance to everyone who didn't rework their loadouts on the damned weed holiday.

What an I doing to unlock more weapons to craft at the bench? They just kind of unlocked during my first run through, now it's being a little vague about how to unlock new ones

Quill
Jan 19, 2004

Inspector Hound posted:

What an I doing to unlock more weapons to craft at the bench? They just kind of unlocked during my first run through, now it's being a little vague about how to unlock new ones

Taking over level 3 and 4 check points rewards you with a random blueprint. If you change the world difficulty to challenging it will instantly raise every CP to 3.

Inspector Hound
Jul 14, 2003

Quill posted:

Taking over level 3 and 4 check points rewards you with a random blueprint. If you change the world difficulty to challenging it will instantly raise every CP to 3.

Ah, groovy, thank you! Maybe I get the M1A variant...

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

So what’s the easiest lateral move for a m14 build if I’m digging the pop in and out of cover glass cannon play?

Psion
Dec 13, 2002

eVeN I KnOw wHaT CoRnEr gAs iS

Quill posted:

Taking over level 3 and 4 check points rewards you with a random blueprint. If you change the world difficulty to challenging it will instantly raise every CP to 3.

This is how I got all of mine, yeah.

There are supposed to be some new ways to get them in addition. Per the notes:

quote:

Blueprints
Added Blueprints from the general Blueprints pool to first-time weekly completion rewards of Invaded Missions.
Added Blueprints from the general Blueprints pool to the rewards of Daily Projects.

So look at your daily projects and see if the reward is a BP and look at invaded missions when those reset?

UnknownMercenary
Nov 1, 2011

I LIKE IT
WAY WAY TOO LOUD


Cyrano4747 posted:

So what’s the easiest lateral move for a m14 build if I’m digging the pop in and out of cover glass cannon play?

MK17 would be your best bet. Or maybe the SVD if you want to run a sniper build, but you're pretty much tied to the Sharpshooter class for its ammo regen.

Guillermus
Dec 28, 2009



UnknownMercenary posted:

MK17 would be your best bet. Or maybe the SVD if you want to run a sniper build, but you're pretty much tied to the Sharpshooter class for its ammo regen.

Gunner also regens all kinds of ammo. So you can use a LMG for general use and a rifle for plinking when needed.

Jose Oquendo
Jun 20, 2004

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a boring movie
LMAO. Coney Island is still bugged.

I have zero confidence in Massive at this point. They need another come to jesus moment like in TD1 where they realize that the player base loving hates the state of the game. They put everything on hold to unfuck the game and we got pretty good results.

Morter
Jul 1, 2006

:coolspot:
Seashells by the
Seashorpheus
Hey folks, I haven't played in about a month. Is the game fixed y--

:ohdear:

Fabricated
Apr 9, 2007

Living the Dream
I'm not sure why they seem so dead set on making the enemies spongy to the point that for it to not feel like poo poo you have to run full glass cannon. Who loving cares if the game is easier if it encourages more build variety?

Psion
Dec 13, 2002

eVeN I KnOw wHaT CoRnEr gAs iS

Morter posted:

Hey folks, I haven't played in about a month. Is the game fixed y--

:ohdear:

well they need to hotfix because regression testing is a lost art, I guess, but overall gear 2.0 did a great job and WONY is some spectacular map and level design so I guess it depends on what you want fixed

Aesis
Oct 9, 2012
Filthy J4G
Finally got myself an Eagle Bearer thanks to UnknownMercenary and 6 other goons. Totally unexpected turn of event that started with playing raid at 4 AM for me tbh :stare: Took me 3 completed runs btw.

Frustrated
Jun 12, 2003

The new notes might as well read Classic M1A removed from game. It feels like a well rolled Bulletking gunner build might be one of the better red builds now.

On the bright side the drone doesnt instantly get smashed by elites anymore at higher difficulties. My striker drone / turret build felt a lot stronger and it made doing a lvl 4 control point super simple. It's not the fastest, but it's probably the safest way to play now that it works.

tweet my meat
Oct 2, 2013

yospos
True patriot still seems useable despite the heavy and unnecessary nerf. Definitely not as tanky but it's still a solid support build. I wonder if they bothered making the white flag buff actually functional for teammates while they were busy gutting it for no reason.

Roman
Aug 8, 2002

SotG is saying that ASAP (no date yet) they will revert the current M1A nerf, and only nerf it 20% in PVP after that.

They will adjust guns and gear individually after that but they will not just "raise everything else up, to the M1A," although there will be buffs to other things.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Lol lemme guess the official forums rioted?

Frankly I don’t have a problem with them doing pvp balance poo poo but just balance it separately from pve . Seeing them do a different nerf for the 14 classic for pvp is a hopeful start.

Aesis
Oct 9, 2012
Filthy J4G
I managed to notice something during SoTG stream.



:vince:

Kibayasu
Mar 28, 2010

I think someone in the Discord a while ago had a good thought, one of the main problems with the enemy design as you reach heroic and legendary difficulties is that they don’t have to follow the same rules as the players.

If we want armor then we give up weapon damage but a regular Outcast enemy has more armor then we could dream of plus a gun that will kill you in 5 seconds at most no matter how much armor you have.

If we want really good drones then we have to lose health and weapon damage but once you get up to heroic and legendary a black tusk drone operator will kill you just as easily with their gun as they will with their suicide drones. Its the same situation with any enemy type with a skill similar to a player skill.

If we want to use an SMG or shotgun or pistol then we have to be really close to the enemies but a Hyena shield enemy will gently caress you up just as easily from beyond assault rifles ranges as they will from shotgun ranges. A shotgun in enemy hands - although I believe this was just adjusted though I don’t know to what extent - has triple or more the range of a player shotgun.

This is repeated across every faction and almost every faction enemy type. If every enemy is has huge levels of armor, with the most dangerous skills possible, and a gun that will kill you in 5 (at most) seconds at almost any range then only actual variety in enemies is what they can kill you with. The only option left for players is to kill them as fast as possible because armor doesn’t matter and damage skills aren’t fast enough.

Reducing the M1 Classic’s damage would make sense if it was an outlier in a system that otherwise worked well but everyone using it is a response to a problem within the system itself. “Fixing” the M1 Classic just makes the system even worse.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Aesis posted:

I managed to notice something during SoTG stream.



:vince:

What am I supposed to be seeing here?

LuciferMorningstar
Aug 12, 2012

VIDEO GAME MODIFICATION IS TOTALLY THE SAME THING AS A FEMALE'S BODY AND CLONING SAID MODIFICATION IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS RAPE, GUYS!!!!!!!

Roman posted:

SotG is saying that ASAP (no date yet) they will revert the current M1A nerf, and only nerf it 20% in PVP after that.

:lol:

Kibayasu posted:

...one of the main problems with the enemy design as you reach heroic and legendary difficulties is that they don't have to follow the same rules as the players.

I don't think this is an inherently bad thing. The enemies are AI and they cannot meaningfully "think" or respond to specific situations the way human players can.

The problem seems more that a large swathe of the tools players have available to them simply aren't (a) balanced for high-level content, (b) competitive with other options, such as the M1A.

Guillermus
Dec 28, 2009



Cyrano4747 posted:

What am I supposed to be seeing here?

They don't play the live version of the game. SHD 14 is some serious "not launching the game for weeks".

Aesis
Oct 9, 2012
Filthy J4G

Cyrano4747 posted:

What am I supposed to be seeing here?

SHD lvl 14, Season lvl 11, only one district done per manhunt. I’m not using this just to bash out for lack of play time. The fact is, it indicates they just look at meta and decide how to slash it instead of actually trying out for themselves.

Massive said two things in tonight’s SoTG. ‘Don’t want everyone to use same gun nor build’ and that ‘Exotics are not supposed to be BiS but rather something to build around’. Sure, but that ultimately means the game itself should be worked on in order to support and allow for more variety. Players are not using cM1A simply because it is ‘efficient’ (exact word that came out in SoTG), but because it is the only viable enough gun out there due to many reasons.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

I was wondering about that but if it’s a dev account I could see doing a lot of playtime on ginned up testing accounts.

Olds
Oct 17, 2005

Kibayasu posted:

I think someone in the Discord a while ago had a good thought, one of the main problems with the enemy design as you reach heroic and legendary difficulties is that they don’t have to follow the same rules as the players.

If we want armor then we give up weapon damage but a regular Outcast enemy has more armor then we could dream of plus a gun that will kill you in 5 seconds at most no matter how much armor you have.

If we want really good drones then we have to lose health and weapon damage but once you get up to heroic and legendary a black tusk drone operator will kill you just as easily with their gun as they will with their suicide drones. Its the same situation with any enemy type with a skill similar to a player skill.

If we want to use an SMG or shotgun or pistol then we have to be really close to the enemies but a Hyena shield enemy will gently caress you up just as easily from beyond assault rifles ranges as they will from shotgun ranges. A shotgun in enemy hands - although I believe this was just adjusted though I don’t know to what extent - has triple or more the range of a player shotgun.

This is repeated across every faction and almost every faction enemy type. If every enemy is has huge levels of armor, with the most dangerous skills possible, and a gun that will kill you in 5 (at most) seconds at almost any range then only actual variety in enemies is what they can kill you with. The only option left for players is to kill them as fast as possible because armor doesn’t matter and damage skills aren’t fast enough.

Reducing the M1 Classic’s damage would make sense if it was an outlier in a system that otherwise worked well but everyone using it is a response to a problem within the system itself. “Fixing” the M1 Classic just makes the system even worse.

To exacerbate the issue the AI follows the same logic; when you see snipers, drone operators, and medics rushing you because they have far more health/dps than you, you know something is broken.

A related issue is "flinching"; it appears the threshold to cause enemies to flinch from taking damage (and thus be momentarily stunned) is much higher than it was in TU7. In TU7, I could reliably cause flinching with an AR as long as I kept up my headshots. In TU8 the only gun I've seen reliably flinch enemies was the M1A classic. Its a big part of why sustained fire weapons are not as good in higher difficulties (that and hit reg but that's a separate issue).

Guillermus
Dec 28, 2009



The enemy behavior is erratic when it comes to enemy types compared to div1.

This is of course my own experience soloing heroic content (both missions and control points) but I play a lot of with goons and happens often:

Scenario 1
Enemy classes/types working as intended: medics stay behind trying to heal/res downed NPCs, grenadiers stay in cover throwing grenades (from ridiculous distances), gunners try to get into a position to mow you down and "assault" and rushers do that, go towards you trying to flank or melee.

Scenario 2:
Enemy AI breaks and every one of them just push forward, throwing grenades (that often damage their own) and you play Serious Sam backpedaling several hundred meters until you find a chokepoint to slow them down. This usually ends when somehow, another patrol spawns out of thin air or from a door behind because the game decided to. As you are in heroic, no matter the amount of armor you have, you'll get burned in a second.

Scenario 2 happens too often with medics bum rushing you with the added "homing" grenade feature that you can see them not even flying in an arc but in a straight line just do dive behind your cover, making any roll or fast movement futile. In both scenarios, blinding enemies just means that they go out of cover, towards you or even flanking while shooting with I'm sure not the intended accuracy. Black Tusk chungus are the worst offenders because their right arm bugs out while holding the minigun aiming to the ground yet keep shooting you. Of course the model bugs out and the ammo belt vanishes but you can still hit that if you know where it should be.

I have enough gear and builds to deal with the insane NPC damage and health pool and have patience but sometimes the game just puts the pedal to the metal and decides to straight up avoid any resemblance of AI and does this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urzVVW0ZS-U

Kibayasu
Mar 28, 2010

LuciferMorningstar posted:

:lol:


I don't think this is an inherently bad thing. The enemies are AI and they cannot meaningfully "think" or respond to specific situations the way human players can.

The problem seems more that a large swathe of the tools players have available to them simply aren't (a) balanced for high-level content, (b) competitive with other options, such as the M1A.

Should the enemy have some inflated numbers to make up for their inherently limited behavior? Yes. Should the every AI enemy be good at literally everything because they have limited behavior? I don’t think so. Those guns aren’t balanced for high level content or competitive because they can’t do enough damage fast enough to make up for the damage enemies can do in the time it takes to get through their armor.

Almost any enemy will melt through a player’s armor at nearly any range with nearly any gun no matter how much armor the player has. The only strategy that works to counter that is to do the most amount of damage in the shortest time possible while limiting your exposure to as few enemies as possible.

If a player has to shoot an AR or LMG for 5 seconds to do a large amount of damage that is too long and they’ll take too much return fire. If a player has to be close enough to fire their SMG or shotgun they are opening themselves up to a flank or melee attack or just putting themself in range of too many enemies at once and that is too close. If a player sets up a mortar turret or uses a bomber drone or any number of any other damage skills they aren’t doing damage quickly enough and risking the entire run.

Kibayasu fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Apr 22, 2020

nerdz
Oct 12, 2004


Complex, statistically improbable things are by their nature more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable things.
Grimey Drawer

Aesis posted:

SHD lvl 14, Season lvl 11, only one district done per manhunt. I’m not using this just to bash out for lack of play time. The fact is, it indicates they just look at meta and decide how to slash it instead of actually trying out for themselves.

Massive said two things in tonight’s SoTG. ‘Don’t want everyone to use same gun nor build’ and that ‘Exotics are not supposed to be BiS but rather something to build around’. Sure, but that ultimately means the game itself should be worked on in order to support and allow for more variety. Players are not using cM1A simply because it is ‘efficient’ (exact word that came out in SoTG), but because it is the only viable enough gun out there due to many reasons.

That's the dumbest conclusion you could reach with a company full of test accounts that they can set the numbers to whatever they want

I'm not saying they understand their game and balance, mind you

Jose Oquendo
Jun 20, 2004

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a boring movie
Any word on if they are going to fix Coney Island any time soon?

Guillermus
Dec 28, 2009



Jose Oquendo posted:

Any word on if they are going to fix Coney Island any time soon?

Will probably take the same time it took them to fix the bounty spawning in the Federal Rerver in NYC.

Aesis
Oct 9, 2012
Filthy J4G
Tbh I wouldn’t mind anything as long as the game isn’t frustrating to play, be it looting or just having fun. But currently getting either one shot or trolled by bad loot roll (if any) can be annoying.

Jose Oquendo
Jun 20, 2004

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a boring movie
On a more positive note, I reconfigured my level 30 Eagle Bearer to a level 40, and hot drat, it's good.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

So pissed I burned my lvl 30 exotics now.

Guillermus
Dec 28, 2009



Cyrano4747 posted:

So pissed I burned my lvl 30 exotics now.

I burned the EB I had like two weeks after WONY's launch so pretty much :same:

tweet my meat
Oct 2, 2013

yospos
Wait they're seriously reverting the m1a nerf? Why the gently caress would they do that? That thing was completely busted in pve and will continue to stifle dps build diversity as long as it exists unnerfed.

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Aesis
Oct 9, 2012
Filthy J4G
cM1A nerf was based around PvP according to SoTG. I’m sure it’ll be nerfed sooner or later, just not by 40%.

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