[quote=“Eox;c-226318”]Or just bring back conc cooking.
Thunder would be much more bearable if his conc can actually be predicted and if he can’t use it mid fight.[/quote]
I never understood why they removed that in the first place. Thunder could have easily been tweaked from his release state into something decent.
[quote=“Dawnlazy;c-226324”][quote=“Eox;c-226318”]Or just bring back conc cooking.
Thunder would be much more bearable if his conc can actually be predicted and if he can’t use it mid fight.[/quote]
I never understood why they removed that in the first place. Thunder could have easily been tweaked from his release state into something decent.[/quote]
if cooking still exist for thunder, thunder would have been pretty weak since the blast doesnt hurt and people would start rushing thunder as soon as thunder move back because they have nothing to lose but a win situation at hand.
Unlike fragger which he can explode it on their face while jumping back, thunder cant have concussion exploding on his face since, yknow, it would blind him and render him useless.
then somebody gonna write the exact same thing as i write right now complaining to buff thunder.
I may be biased since I’m a Vassili main but I’ve also met snipers that are so good that just completely shut down parts of the map leaving only 1 or 2 left that the sniper can hunt down or have their teammates take care.
Burst rifles on any merc…I don’t think I need to say anymore.
Essentially sniper rifles and burst rifles are the strongest on any merc.
Which is a good thing since it promotes actual counterplay just like how you can bait a Fragger nade or just push him if he just started cooking and easily get the kill since it takes 3 whole seconds for the nade to blow during which he won’t be shooting back.
[quote=“Szakalot;c-226285”]
not sure why you think thunder is horrible on pubs, you can pick timik+drilled and just walk around the map racking up kills. Flash is still very potent, and just as undodgeable.[/quote]
When you find someone else on the forums who thinks that drilled Timik on Thunder is one of the most evil things around.
If only I didn’t have ammo problems with that loadout, or if I was able to have bomb squad over Sneaky, or just having toughness on that loadout instead of explody, I’d probably never even give a different loadout another look. OR anything that fixed the ammo problems…
Which is a good thing since it promotes actual counterplay just like how you can bait a Fragger nade or just push him if he just started cooking and easily get the kill since it takes 3 whole seconds for the nade to blow during which he won’t be shooting back.[/quote]
when you gets rushed as a fragger whos already pulling the pin you can jump while backpedaling and your enemies will think twice about continuing the rush because 140hp+frag.
when you do the same thing, with the same fuse time, as a thunder, you will be at the mercy of your own grenade since the thunder concussion dont deal damage and cooking at close range will also blind thunder. It will be a worse version of fragger AGAIN.
do you get it?
WORSE VERSION OF FRAGGER
WITH LITTLE TO NO UTILITIES
[quote=“XavienX;c-226336”]I may be biased since I’m a Vassili main but I’ve also met snipers that are so good that just completely shut down parts of the map leaving only 1 or 2 left that the sniper can hunt down or have their teammates take care.
Burst rifles on any merc…I don’t think I need to say anymore.
Essentially sniper rifles and burst rifles are the strongest on any merc.[/quote]
MOA is definitely near OP after RPM buff it got along with Felix.
But besides the fact Recon Snipers act so damn strong when their team has a proper merc composition, I think fixing Vassili’s 110HP is the most urgent thing.
Basically this is the main reason why he became so strong with MOA buffs, eventhough MP400 was nerfed a bit.
Let me respond as much as possible, without reiterating myself too much
Purely false on every level. You’re still under the presumption that flat-lining tools in competitive play is healthy for non-competitive play
And those matches will indeed be few and far between. Within the 1 percentile. For the other 99% of games, new players will have too sharp of a learning curve to ever want to continue playing. Unfortunately, this means the developers won’t generate new players, new interest in the game, or consistent income, and will shut down the project.
A point rife with the salt of a Ranked player that has zero touch with pub play.
I’d call it a pretty clear sign that a merc is OP and broken when players with 0 experience can dominate a game filled with experienced players with that merc/weapon. Currently, there are zero weapons and zero mercs that are lacking a learning curve of any kind, and the only abilities without a learning curve are ammo/health stations, which are support anyway.
Your entire complaint is that experienced players are too good.
Balancing public play is important for ensuring that new players have positive experiences and that experienced players continue playing your game. If pubs are out of balance, experienced players leave, and new players don’t stay. It’s very possible and very easy. The only requirement is having a healthy mix of experienced players and new players giving feedback. New players complain that a merc is too strong. Experienced players have the opposite feeling. New players complain that something is too easy to use or learn, or they aren’t being challenged enough, experience players also complain said thing is too easy to use. New players gripe that something is too hard to use, experienced players love how hard it is to use the thing, but agree it needs to be a little easier to use. Etc. And in order to prevent the game from getting boring, stale, and unexciting, you introduce new tools, new mechanics, new abilities, which often change the effectiveness of existing things, and require re-balancing old items as well as the new ones. That’s why it’s called balancing. It’s give and take, back and forth, until a happy medium is achieved.
Overwatch balances for pubs.
TF2 balanced for pubs.
CS:GO balanced for pubs.
Every other game in existence balances for pubs and, if necessary, creates a SEPARATE balance for competitive play.
Competitive games will never make money without a pub scene holding it up.
Overwatch doesn’t make money because the ranked scene is good.
It makes money because brand new scrubs and early adopters are still joining and playing.
You’re not focused on making the game better at all, you just want Ranked to have a perfect balance and the only way to do that is to make every weapon identical in every non-aesthetic means. Competitive players will always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
always,
.
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ALWAYS,
find a way to abuse game mechanics, find the strongest weapons, find the most degenerate strategies, find the most ideal average strategy, because the goal is to win. Not to have fun.
Balancing a game for competitive only is a death sentence for your game’s income.
Just stop. I’m one of the highest levels in the game, having pubbed regularly since I started playing shortly after then game went into open beta. There has never been anything even remotely like a “pub meta” in DB, not even in min 10 or min 20s. What ultimately wins or loses a pub match is at anyone’s guess, there are no clear patterns to it. And I say this, again, having 1500+ hours in game (profile not Steam), with the most of those being in pubs (people that only play DBN level up quite slowly and don’t rack up much time).
Also ranked isn’t what I’m talking about either; ranked essentially plays like a pub except without any drop-in drop-out of players and also has no real sense of metagame to it. The only time that a ranked match plays like that is when it happens to match only players from the competitive community, then it essentially plays sort of like a PUG without roles.
What is even your ground for balancing anything for pubs? How are you ever going to extract any serious frame of reference from matches that are comprised primarily of level 7s that downloaded the game because it was free, played for a few days and left? Consistency is the key in determining what works and what doesn’t work, which is something purely unattainable in pubs, as for the zillionth time there is no pattern to how pubs play out.
Obviously Dirty Bomb as a whole is a game that takes time to get good at because of the very nature of its gameplay, this isn’t because of the mercs, if everyone was Sawbonez with the same default loadout it would still take some time to become decent at the game. Regardless of that, once people know what they are doing there are clear cases of mercs and weapons that are just flat out unfair and will consistently put you at an advantage against other people who also understand the basics of the game, such as the aforementioned cases of Grandeur or Thunder.
…which is why competitive matches are the only serious reference for balance. You can clearly see what works and what doesn’t because competitive players are the only ones with any incentive to make such a discrimination. Anything can work in pubs because conditions are never predictable.
140HP doesn’t really matter when you don’t shoot for anywhere between 2-3seconds and just take hits for free, you will melt like butter most of the time.
But Fragger has been nerfed since then and in my opinion is finally a well-balanced merc unlike his former OP self. If what you are saying is logical, then the opposite would also apply and Thunder would therefore need to be a “better version of Fragger” to be worthwhile, but I think that they can indeed balance both well enough to not get much of a “power creep” feel. The concussion can do many things that sets it apart:
-the concussion effect area ignores player hitboxes unlike frag grenades which makes it guaranteed to always hit everyone in the area, unlike frags which can kill the guy in front but not hit the one behind
-the flash effect has a considerably longer range and as such can be cooked to immediately go off around a corner and temporarily disable players who are at range
-this also makes it easier to reduce the impact of being pushed while cooking since you can immediately just drop it behind you far enough to avoid the concussion, but it will still make the other guy go blind if he doesn’t kill you fast enough (harder since you have better base HP and will actually be able to shoot soon after)
And above all counterplay, something which Thunder severely needs in his current state.
@Dawnlazy the thunder we have right now is arguably the most “functional” ever since the nerf, it has better firepower and hp than fragger but weaker ability since it doesnt deal damage (and some bugs fixed).
if you didnt notice, thunder counter is deployables now. Thunder dont have emp anymore and cant disable sentry, health station and proximity mine. By the time he was able to disable the deployables, the enemies already gaining their vision back and thunder need to retreat or die horribly.
what thunder needs is merc limit.
Thunder is now in a functional state because splash damage actually fixed all the bugs that went with each conc nade you threw.
He would’ve been completely fine in his first iteration, if there wouldn’t have been a million bugs attached with, like showing the whole HUD while being flashed, including enemy markers or things just not flashing you because there was a pebble in the way.
You simply can’t balance a merc that is so broken, you don’t even know how good he is, the same way you can’t build a proper house on a muddy foundation.
We already determined in 600 different threads that play time and level don’t really matter. You can be a nice high level and still have absolutely no idea how to properly balance a game. You can also know everything there is to know about a game without ever playing it yourself.
You should try reading what I write in my posts, I’ve explained it there multiple times, like a broken record.
This is why your high play time has given you nothing in the way of critical thinking skills. Here we go:
Stark and sniper are the strongest and most used weapons in the game, no other weapon can compete, the meta is stale
Nerf them
Timik and BLSHLOK are now the strongest and most used weapons in the game, no other weapon can compete and the meta is stale
Buff other weapons
The buffed weapons are now the strongest
Nerf them and also nerf Timik and BLSHLOK
Shotguns are dominating everyone because no one can kill low HP mercs fast enough anymore
Nerf them
Fraggers and Fletchers are too good at locking down areas of the map, their grenades are unmatched in power
Nerf them
Healing stations are too strong, their life gain DPS is faster than guns, and Rhino/Aura is pretty unbeatable
Nerf them
All you end up doing is reducing the effectiveness of everything, until everything has identical stats and use. It doesn’t matter what you change, what you nerf, what you buff, SOMETHING will ALWAYS be too good in Competitive play. Without making everything the exact same, there will always be broken and degenerate mercs, weapons, and tactics in comp. It’s fully impossible to balance Comp in a way that makes pubs fun. You can’t do it. Pubs make money, Comp doesn’t make money.
You’re not talking about pubs
You’re not talking about Ranked
You’re talking about DBNation kinda PUGs and tourneys, a group of DB players that might make up 150 out of the 2500 players playing DB at any given time. Their largest tournament had 21 teams, they average 10 teams per tournament. Like I said, you’re literally trying to cater to 6% of players.
Pubs are balanced, right now, and pub players aren’t complaining. There’s nothing out of balance to fix, and the game needs new players.
This is why SD created dedicated servers for PuG community players, so you can play with your own custom rules to balance it in your own custom way without destroying the rest of DB.
You have nothing new to offer this conversation.
As a side note: You have 1500 hours and you don’t know how to counter Thunder?
Okay, rofl
Much more than 6% of the active playerbase has the same balance concerns.
[quote=“bgyoshi;c-226443”]
We already determined in 600 different threads that play time and level don’t really matter. You can be a nice high level and still have absolutely no idea how to properly balance a game. You can also know everything there is to know about a game without ever playing it yourself.[/quote]
Lame. You’re just moving the goalpost here. I mentioned my level because you said I’m “out of touch with pub play” which isn’t valid since I’ve pubbed the hell out of this game.
You haven’t, at any time in this discussion, mentioned anything that resembles a process for proper balance that doesn’t involve competitive play. I have thoroughly explained more than once why balancing for competitive play is the way to go, because, again, it is the only scenario in which you can see the consistent performance of weapons and mercs in matches where there is a narrower skill gap and everyone knows what they are doing.
Slippery slope fallacy which has never happened in any game I’ve ever played. It’s NOT about nerfing anything that is effective, it’s about nerfing what is visibly broken and can be repeatedly demonstrated to achieve such results over and over again.
[quote=“bgyoshi;c-226443”]You have 1500 hours and you don’t know how to counter Thunder?
Okay, rofl[/quote]
There isn’t any counterplay to Thunder. You throw the concussion at someone, then click their head as they can’t move or aim and kill them. I’d love to see you upload some videos of yourself killing good players after getting concussed while they’re shooting you.
@Dawnlazy you dont need counterplay when you can do prevention with deployables.
but yknow people in competitive are smugs with big head it seems, why would my idea should be accepted right? They are the best player ja?
They didnt even try to balance other mercs like bushwhacker and fletcher but when people are doing well with thunder
‘oh nonono that shouldnt happen, its broken’
go plough yourself
seems comp players are a joke.
you know what? i got some story for you.
i played Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG few years ago, the card effects are described on the description, but the TCG pro-competitive player sets up “rulings” of their own to balance the game up
(note that yu-gi-oh was at the point that any kind of deck can win if youre smart enough)
turns out this “Rulings” is actually abused by the pro-comp players to work their way up in the world championship. They are using no brainer decks which for “no reason” why they didnt put any ruling on that overpowered cards/decks.
short version: pro players made their own rules for the game but abuse it when they are against newbies, The judge (also pro players) dont help either.
oh, also yu-gi-oh becomes sh*t when they nerfed cards to be “”“balanced”""
i dont trust few people having more takes in policy making for the many in the community.
@GatoCommodore dude, what counters what deployables? the only deployable that has any real stopping power is the hp station, and it needs 1-2 babysitting it. all the other deployables are just tactica aimed at slowing down the opponent; when is turret ever going to kill anyone, haha.
as far as balancing, fletcher has been whined about for over a year now, its just that its not quite as broken as thunder who was banned within a week of the <1sec fuse patch. Obviously people whine more about whats broken, not whats underpowered.
Id be very surprised if you got any opposition to bushwhacker buff ideas, from the comp community
No, you can’t. Healing station does nothing when they can’t move and you can just click their heads.
