As much as I love to see old RSS return, or even hear some words from the devs on how they came to the decision to butcher said bomb, their recent attitude change to an oath of silence would probably mean we'll get nothing...again.

Also, inb4oldRSSwasOP.

I wonder how much time it will take for it to get into graveyard2 (suggestions) or to get locked, but anyway I'm supporting this. The least they could do is come up with a decent rebuttal to the points made by the community about why they are wrong in either the balance subject and the "not bomb-like" subject.

Fashama...

Brandishes can act like line-bombs, and are the most OP weapon in the game.

Pulsars and Catalyzers act like ranged bombs.

The Winmillion is an awesome gun-sword, albeit extremely weak.

Avengers and Fausts shoot 'bullets', but DAs are arguably cone-bombs, the DA being OP.

Blitz Needles can act like close-range Swords, and outdamage them. Even compared to Brandishes.

Are swords meant to act like guns?
Are guns meant to act like swords?
Are swords meant to act like bombs?
Are guns meant to act like bombs?

Why can't bombs rarely act like guns or swords, since hybrids are already in the other families? There was no excuse to get rid of the old Sun Shards, and there still isn't. Bombs can only do AoE, but guns can do whatever the heck the devs want them to as long as they shoot bullets, and swords can be close-range weapons, guns, and AoE.

GH update is a step forward, but I'm not going to be happy with the actual gameplay until this is at least REASONABLY addressed, instead of some flawed excuse or a reason that makes them look even worse.

I'm not saying for them to trash every hybrid weapon in the game, because that would make the gameplay even duller. A few weapons that break the barriers would be great, but not having five in one family that break it and zero in another.

While Blitz could use a -20% charge damage nerf, it's arguably more balanced than Brandishes because you at least need to think before you use it...

I suppose we'll have to wait until the mythical balance updates before we'll get any info.

Oh, right, I forgot about Luigi's balancing mega thread. Trust the box; it knows what it's talking about.

Those are some great ideas; admittedly I'm too lazy to have posted on any already. I'll try and get some discussion going tomorrow, though.

@Op, I agree with all that you have said but we will never see the epic old RSS again outside of some outdated youtube vid. The best we can hope for now is that they will possibly give heed to the massive amount of feedback that was given on how to make these new shards work. Oh and please, for the love of God and the sake of all bombers, remove the radii ring that shows a bombers area of attack. The bomber is the only one who needs to see it not everyone else. Showing this in LD is like playing poker while holding your cards facing away from you, or you could always make a white line to show the arc of a swords first swing or the length and trajectory of a guns bullets. Ok rant done.

"And bombs aren't meant to be guns, the old Shard Bombs perfectly showed how bombs should not be."
I'm SO thankful that you're not in the dev team...

I was looking for this thread in the General section and nope, I couldn't find it. Then I said to myself "Eury" and I found this thread immediately at the Graveyard 2 a.k.a. Suggestion section. Same old same old.

@Byas

That puzzles me also but the decision process is the closest thing I could think of that could contribute to this poor decision being made. It's not the lack of data that support new shard bombs are inferior, but we have player's testimony also. And there is a need for ranged attack for bombers because the other two classes (swordies and gunners) have. So it's quite evident that this whole shard bomb patch decision is based on shaky assumption (old shard bombs are functionally, not very bomb like) and as a result of that assumption, an inferior bomb is created to replace a perfectly likable bomb.

I guess what troubles me the most is that there is something that is degrading the quality of this game. When people see it and point it out, we are met with maneuvers that only serve to make the troubling aspect more apparent.

Christmas is drawing near and I think it's a good idea to send a Christmas card, together with a formal reply to Three Ring's COO. At this point, if the COO asked "so what exactly do you believe is the problem". My honest answer is "the closest answer we could think of is the decision process that the Devs use. But we are pretty sure the problems do not originate from Eury or the GMs."

So if you guys have a better idea of what to reply to the COO, feel free to mail me in-game or post to forum. I would keep an eye on the latest Clockworks Confidential too, to see if there are bits of useful information that can be gathered.

Keep making threads like this.

Everywhere.

And never stop.

Welp, less than a day and it's already in graveyard number two. Looks like Eury only enforces the rules when threads relate to shard bombs and how the devs over at OOO made a huge mistake changing them.

I, believe it or not, played RuneScape for a time. The playerbase managed to convince RuneScape's even more vague developers, Jagex, to bring back the ability to trade freely, which had been removed in an attempt to stop cheating via macros. And this is RUNESCAPE'S community we're talking about- which is, or at least was, terrible.

Surely we, a more level-headed community, can convince Three Rings, a (slightly) more open company, to revert a decision based on what appears to be fear of a once-overpowered weapon type. Yes, in early Spiral Knights, bombs were overpowered, due to being able to lay three at once. The removal of the standard attack, however, changed that. Most Bombs are fine as they are- they do not need changes. This is how the Radiant Sun Shards were. Perhaps some tweaking was in order- lowering the range of the Shards some, and perhaps setting it so there was a 5* with the power of the old 4* RSS.

The (possibly partial) Stun fix made the Sun Shards line viable for the Clockworks. But the fact remains that the Shard bombs:
-Have very little damage relative even to other bombs, and far less area, so don't give me the AoE excuse
-PUNISH SKILLFUL PLAYING by causing enemies hit by three or more explosions to become completely immune to damage (they're probably a terrible choice for Lumbers AND bosses)
-Are terrible for Lockdown, when the old Shards were the bombers' answer to the Striker "clone loadout"
-Have an annoying "disappearing Shard" bug where Shards randomly either land or vanish at a certain distance from a wall

This is not the beta, Nick. Bombs are no longer overpowered. Wake the heck up.

Do you guys know the ZIP code for Cooperstown, ND?

Please help me remember it. Thanks!

- "Uh, I don't remember any blatant bumping after you gave the "friendly reminder"."

I can't remember of any either.

- "So it's quite evident that this whole shard bomb patch decision is based on shaky assumption (old shard bombs are functionally, not very bomb like) and as a result of that assumption, an inferior bomb is created to replace a perfectly likable bomb."

What's fishy about it is that they didn't even listen to the community feedback about the tweaks to make the bombs better while on the test server... It's like something doesn't add up, if it was the only motive why can't they make simple changes on the bomb? Plus people already gave a rebuttal about it being "not bomb-like", something like: the rules to "how to be a bomb" being completely unfair if compared to "how to be a gun and sword" as it limited the class gameplay to only AoE while the other ones don't have this kind of limitation and still no answer.

EDIT: Something to ilustrate.

@Fehzor, First of all, that was a discussion. It was a place for people to post their opinions on the shard bomb change. The genral consensus was that the change was bad.

Secondly, if OOO decides now is the time to finally enforce that rule, it would just show how they without a doubt hate bombers. There have been countless threads recreated, and countless more recreations of those threads. As far as I know, none of the people involved in those threads faced any punishment, or even a warnning. Heck, that isn't even the only rule they don't enforce. There are numerous necro, bump, troll, and spam threads and posts that litter these forums, none of which are locked, graveyarded, or deleted. Players who create these threads and posts continue making these threads and posts, without fear. The few that do get banned create alts and while this is against the rules, the alts remain unbanned.

Any action taken against this thread would show OOO's favoritism and tendncy to turn a blind eye whenever subtle but noticeable trouble starts on the forums.

That's just plain fighting dirty. What justification do they have for getting rid of that thread?

Are they going to tell us or are they just going to lock this thread too?

"I am Kazuja. And I see a whole army of my fellow knights,
here in defiance of tyranny(making a change for unneeded "balance" reasons and not listening to almost every player playing your game)! You have come to fight as free men. And free men you are! What will you do without freedom? Will you fight?"
"Two thousand against ten?" - someone shouts. "No! We will
run - and stay in-game!"
Yes! Fight and you may be banned. Run and you will stay at least awhile. And then stopping to play this game for good one day, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young players and tell the devs that they may take our accounts, but they will never take
our freedom!"

The whole thing up there is more or less directly from Braveheart(of course altered to fit the situation). It's not even supposed to sound that harsh, I just found it incredibly fitting for this situation.

So yeah, what is my point in quoting Mel Gibson's Braveheart speech?
If we stop with this whole stuff about shard bombs, we give them permission to do whatever the heck they want. They will completely ignore what the playerbase has to say. They will tell us that they know better than us, even though we are the persons that play the game for hours and days. They will continue pushing the bombers around, as it's pretty obvious that they don't see dynamite as dangerous weapons in comparison to swords. What'll be next? Will they "nerf" the vaporizers, because they are able to do the status job better than any other weapon? Or will they change the autogun to some sort of close-range antigua?
Of course, nothing of this can be proven, maybe they will do a nice job after this nerf? But one thing is for sure: Right now, they don't seem to care about our opinions at all. They may do requests/suggestions by users, but when they DECIDE something, we are just the stupid playerbase leaving their money at them. And if we stop now and keep the shard bombs just like they are, we signal them that we're okay with that.
I don't care about wether we get the old shardbombs back. I don't care if they stay the same with some buffs to actually make them useful. What I care about however is that we get a point across. The point that they actually have to incorporate the players themself when balancing stuff. The point that they aren't perfect and that we can help improving something. The point that a dev team and the community are actually a unity and that they have to act together to work properly.
I could've posted this on an alternate or something to keep my game-progress in case they start fighting dirty and ban me for not approving their decision. However, what'd the point of this post be then if I'm frigthened myself of standing up and saying "This can't go on like this"?

It's not an exclamation to start war against the dev team, because this would be completely counterintuitive. However, we should, in my honest opinion, keep pushing for a change. Okay, maybe the prior shard bomb was overpowered, but at least let us meet somewhere at the middle. Either buffing the current shard bombs or bringing the old back, albeit nerfed.
It's just important to me that we get to know that we made a difference.

You are free to call me insane, stupid, irrational or quarrelsome now. I just don't feel there's justice in shrugging a sizable chunk of the playerbase off just like that.

That was kinda my point. I don't care for the old shards coming back. It's just the whole thing about them saying that the current shard bombs are perfect/at least much better than the old ones now, even though they aren't. We can't hope on a change in heart on the side of the devs, but there should at the very least be made some sort of compromise. Otherwise they'd just spit on the opinion of almost everyone of us.
Old shards are overpowered, okay. Maybe it was a bit too OP. However, they are so damn weak now it's not even funny. Yet they ignore our tweaks because we shouldn't question the magic behind developing a game.

It's more about bringing the point across that the community, to an extend, also is part of the dev team, and that it's voice should not be ignored like that.

@Kazu:
I don't at all oppose buffing the new ones, as they are tragically weak. I'd rather threads be made on buffing the new shards than pointlessly repeating themselves asking for the old ones back when it simply isn't likely to happen.

@Byas:
If I'd posted a comment as pointless as yours, then aye, I'd just be whining. But I gave him a suggestion about what to do instead as well as explaining why I feel his thread is pointless, thusly being more productive. Keep up, scooter~

- If I'd posted a comment as pointless as yours, then aye, I'd just be whining.
It looks like you didn't get the irony about you whining about whining :/

- But I gave him a suggestion about what to do instead as well as explaining why I feel his thread is pointless, thusly being more productive. Keep up, scooter~
It looks like you also didn't read that I just said "It doesn't work either, they ignored all the tweaks posted while on the test server", to show that your idea is just as "pointless" as the one in this thread, quite sad considering that the text was small. :/
Plus, they are two different ideas even if related. There's no need to stop one thread to make the other, and there are people like me who even agreeing with the new bombs tweak still think that the logic to take the old one is flawed and wants clarification, in the end agreeing more with this thread than the "tweak the new bombs".

- I got the irony you intended, but there's a difference between a pointlessly whiney post and a "ffs, another one of tehse. Right [solution]", which is productive, despite the urge to rip ones face off.
Well, people didn't like the update and are saying why they didn't like and giving reasons for it to change back, it's just the same as a "pointlessly whiney" about not liking an updated weapon and giving reasons for it change.

- "Oatmonster made a petition that looked exactly like this, but had more posts; go post on that to show your approval of the idea, don't make fifty threads."
You totally ignored the whole thread, read it and see how Oat's petition got locked for "bump" even when the blatant bumps had stopped after the warning and then it got deleted as people have started putting the node on messages subjects to spread the message, thus generating this thread... So yeah, you should get into the subject before saying something.

- Making new suggestions about how to improve the current shards merits different threads, as different suggestions can be made.
Instead of "change RSS" and "we want RSS back" and "return the old RSS" which is stupid and pointless, we get five threads, each with (hopefully) unique ideas about how to improve the bombs, each of which can rally their own support.
Go ahead and make one, after all you just said that we should do something instead of "whining", then go ahead and do it instead of whining at people who are doing something else. Aside from that people have different opinions, you have your opinion that it could do some good I still have mine that's just as "pointless" as a "give back old RSS" thread since there were lots of those while on the test server and OOO simply turned the blind eye to all of them (and this is during the test period where they "wanted" test feedback, imagine it now).

@Darkbrady, I'll give you a reason for this threads existence; OOO decided tHat instead od deleting this "duplicate" thread, they should delete the original thread. A thread that had started discussing the change before it was even released. If OOO finds it neccessary to only have one thread, and if the first thread can't be that one thread, the next best thread should remain.

@OOO, What's wrong? Can't stand being shown your horrendous mistake in the form of five simple numbers? Are you so desperate that you would delete a thread filled with valid comments, arguments, and community support? Was trying to silence the community by locking the dominant RSS thread not enough?

@Oat/Byas' last comment:
Fair enough. I did say keeping one "official" thread made sense, and I have no problem with it being this one over any others. I just think more and more duplicate threads are pointless when you have a main one to use.

-As for "asking them to undo all their work to change it" they already did it, or do you still see the old shards on the game?
The fact that they've already changed it once only serves to show that they won't be willing to change it again for some time. Who wants to sit and make a whole new bomb only for it to change within a month? Year down the line maybe, but it's still too soon for them to be even likely to considering it seriously.

-so I still can't see how this thread is stupid because of it and the buff x isn't
Because there were fifty of these threads all saying the same thing, while there's only one thread of each suggestion. The purpose of the thread itself isn't pointless; I believe heavily on making oneself heard as a community, but once there's already a main discussion, making seven new threads saying exactly the same thing is pointless. Refer to my first comment~

-I couldn't even bring myself to use that thing more than 2 times,
Just a determination to try and find a use for bombs that will otherwise sit in my inventory hopelessly. If a change or reversion happens, great, but I'm not going to rely on it to repair my arsenal; I have a weapon to use, so I want to find a way to use it. Primarily for LD, where bombers are extremely limited in real options; I'd like to be able to find a successful way to take back some ground as a bomber.
Then again, I am also relying on threads like these, and suggestions threads, to try and help repair the damage. Even a damage buff on the bombs would go a long way, so I don't expect they'll remain this way forever.
Unless they have a secret method of using them and are wondering if we'll discover it, in which case....I intend to find it! :D