how did no one noticed the Neutron Star buff changes before it went live?

[(PSN)rexis12]

Since now that Nuetron Star has been nerfed, with the bullsh!t that is LoS of sight (Anyone whose played Ember is already cringing at that phrase) I have to ask...

How did none of the balance team whatsoever caught this before to went live? Did you just change the numbers and procs and didn't even bother to bring it to more than a single mission?

Because it's such a oversight that you didn't notice something like this.

[Numerounius]

All they did was change the numbers on a really bad augment that had one of the lowest playrates they didn't functionally change it when doing the augment pass. So I think with them making a slight buff increase to it they weren't expecting to to have stellar results as it did. Even if you did take it into one mission and press the ability once or twice on a standard Nova build you wouldn't really see any benefit. It isn't until you actually mod around the ability that you start to see how much it was improved. I am not quite sure but most of the use of it came from the helminth ability rather than an augment change for Nova as well.

I partially agree that with it being a helminth ability that it should have had a slightly more attentive approach to its balancing compared to the 15+ other augments they also had to playtest combined with everything else that came with that patch.

So I think it is very valid that the changes were not caught before it went live, just something to be aware of in the future.

 

[Ethorin]

9 minutes ago, XHADgaming said:

not quite sure but most of the use of it came from the helminth ability rather than an augment change for Nova as well.

They straight up said usage of the augment was higher than usage of Nova :D.

[cute_moth.npc]

It is the nature of a low testing environment. They did not notice that overguard was making it impossible to break a Nox helmet until the overguard was down, but the helmet being intact was giving the overguard crazy damage reduction for almost a month after introducing the mechanic for example ^^;

They really could benefit from allocating a bit more into pre release testing.

[Uhkretor]

Augments shouldn't be tied solely to an ability. If its meant for Nova then it should stay tied to Nova.

[Tiltskillet]

22 minutes ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

Since now that Nuetron Star has been nerfed, with the bullsh!t that is LoS of sight (Anyone whose played Ember is already cringing at that phrase) I have to ask...

How did none of the balance team whatsoever caught this before to went live? Did you just change the numbers and procs and didn't even bother to bring it to more than a single mission?

Because it's such a oversight that you didn't notice something like this.

Apparently neither balance nor testing is a DE strong point. 

How did no one ever guess this before now? :P

That said, out of all the crazy oversights over the years, this is a pretty mild one to make somebody lose their  ****, lol.

[BR31]

I think we're in an era, where the augment can be stronger in the hands of the original user. 
In this case nova can get an unnerfed version and the current one stays as a helminth for everyone. 

[Traumtulpe]

1 hour ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

Because it's such a oversight that you didn't notice something like this.

As others have mentioned, a lot of stuff just doesn't get tested at all. However, even when things do get tested and reported, it still takes DE months to years to fix even the most basic of issues.

For example, when we were able to try out Bonewidow on the testserver it was very clearly reported, by multiple people, that it's exalted weapon (Ironbride) had bugged stats. What happened was that DE creates new weapons by taking an already existing one as a template and merely modifying it (this is why sometimes wrong rivens can be equipped, or a weapons has lifesteal despite it not being supposed to) - except they forgot to modify Ironbride, and it still had the exact same stats of the weakest Arch-melee in the game, the Veritux. Not to mention that Arch-melee is so terrible in general that it's never worth using, ever.

If I recall correctly, it took them months after the patch was released on the live-build to fix the Ironbrides stats from being literal garbage. They are just THAT slow.

[trst]

It was one of sixteen augments buffed that patch. No dev is going to extensively test every individual thing to the level that players will when they also have everything else they have to work on. Especially when all that changed with said thing was buffing a few numbers.

And even if they did see that it was a considerable buff it's quite a jump to go from "oh that's quite strong now" to "oh this'll increase the usage of this augment 67 times over to the point that it'll be used more than the frame itself".

[(PSN)Unstar]

1 hour ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

with the bullsh!t that is LoS of sight (Anyone whose played Ember is already cringing at that phrase)

I'm genuinely confused, because Ember doesn't require Line of Sight...that's part of what makes her so great.

[Traumtulpe]

4 minutes ago, trst said:

It was one of sixteen augments buffed that patch. No dev is going to extensively test every individual thing to the level that players will when they also have everything else they have to work on.

If we all agree that DE can't balance and can't be assed to test in the first place, can we just get a testserver every single patch please? And a real one, not a "Everything-was broken-but-you-released-it-anyway-the-next-day" testserver.

[MutoManiac]

What? They nerfed it? Goddamnabit! Was fun for a few weeks. Leveled frames really fast even without boosters.

[trst]

9 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

If we all agree that DE can't balance and can't be assed to test in the first place, can we just get a testserver every single patch please? And a real one, not a "Everything-was broken-but-you-released-it-anyway-the-next-day" testserver.

I'd argue that preventing a few things like this from happening isn't worth the time, effort, investment, and development slowdown a constant test server would cause. As they never catch all issues/bugs anyways and this isn't the type of game that would benefit from additional issue filtering for every patch anyways.

[Surbusken]

1 hour ago, trst said:

It was one of sixteen augments buffed that patch. No dev is going to extensively test every individual thing to the level that players will when they also have everything else they have to work on. Especially when all that changed with said thing was buffing a few numbers.

And even if they did see that it was a considerable buff it's quite a jump to go from "oh that's quite strong now" to "oh this'll increase the usage of this augment 67 times over to the point that it'll be used more than the frame itself".

That's gulping on the kool-aid right there.

 

You have to ask yourself what all the stats, that weren't mentioned, were. Or maybe why they weren't mentioned, didn't fit the narrative maybe?

 

What is 0.00001% x 64.

It went up because no one was using it before, and now no one will moving forward.

 

Multiplying something with 64 doesn't tell us anything. But it sure sounds like a giant number!!!11 Amirite!?!?!?11

[Lionsheart89]

They aren't exactly known for paying attention to the little things. Or the big things for that matter.

[Leqesai]

57 minutes ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

I'm genuinely confused, because Ember doesn't require Line of Sight...that's part of what makes her so great.

Ember requires partial line of sight on her 4, and her 3 does require line of sight (with vertical LOS limitations to boot).

[(PSN)Unstar]

13 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Ember requires partial line of sight on her 4, and her 3 does require line of sight (with vertical LOS limitations to boot).

I'm not sure what "partial line of sight" means, I'm curious to learn more of what that means? 

All I know is that with Ember's 4 I can hit enemies that are behind floor-to-ceiling walls and nowhere near the edge. (I wasn't really considering her 3)

[Leqesai]

Just now, (PSN)Unstar said:

I'm not sure what "partial line of sight" means, I'm curious to learn more of what that means? 

All I know is that with Ember's 4 I can hit enemies that are behind floor-to-ceiling walls and nowhere near the edge. (I wasn't really considering her 3)

Partial line of sight insofar as it relates to what you physically see on your screen. It won't target enemies that are outside your actual line of sight. It is more like "Camera line of sight" I guess.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

What even was the buff?

[(PSN)Unstar]

1 minute ago, Leqesai said:

Partial line of sight insofar as it relates to what you physically see on your screen. It won't target enemies that are outside your actual line of sight. It is more like "Camera line of sight" I guess.

Hmmm, if I understand what you're saying (that the line of sight must either come from the camera or Ember) then what I'm experiencing with Ember's 4 is different, as there are times where there's an enemy that is completely behind a wall that neither my camera nor the frame would have line of sight to (without drastic displacement), but a ball of fire still rains down on them.  If I remember perhaps I can try to make and upload a video showing it off.

[Famecans]

2 minutes ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

What even was the buff?

Neutron Star + Harrow = Boom💥

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

Just now, Famecans said:

Neutron Star + Harrow = Boom

Ah ok, understandable.

[Leqesai]

7 minutes ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

Hmmm, if I understand what you're saying (that the line of sight must either come from the camera or Ember) then what I'm experiencing with Ember's 4 is different, as there are times where there's an enemy that is completely behind a wall that neither my camera nor the frame would have line of sight to (without drastic displacement), but a ball of fire still rains down on them.  If I remember perhaps I can try to make and upload a video showing it off.

What I'm saying is, if you are looking towards a wall and there is an enemy behind it the ability will still work. But it won't target the enemy directly off-camera (like if they are behind you or to the left/right of your field of view.

[Voltage]

2 hours ago, Ethorin said:

They straight up said usage of the augment was higher than usage of Nova :D.

Wow, it's almost like Helminth is to blame not the augment. I gaurentee Pillage usage is higher than Hildryn, Eclipse higher than Mirage, Roar higher than Rhino, and Xata's Whisper higher than Xaku.

Cringe observation skills there, and nerfing Nova included instead of just the Helminth version completely contradicts the original intention that Warframes would not be balanced around Helminth.

[(PSN)Unstar]

6 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

What I'm saying is, if you are looking towards a wall and there is an enemy behind it the ability will still work. But it won't target the enemy directly off-camera (like if they are behind you or to the left/right of your field of view.

Ah, gotcha, so they have to be in your camera's view "cone", even if they are obstructed by a wall.  That vibes!