Balance suggestion for few classes

(Hexa) #1

I’ve spent about 70 hours playing DirtyBomb and I’ve got quite good touch on how classes play, i have few balance suggestions which I’d like you to take into an account… Obviously it most certainly is down to subjective opinion but I think it might be nice to hear everyone feedback :slight_smile:

Mechanics:

Instant resurrection:
For me it ruins flow of combat, very often you can see situation where one player stands in the corridor and when you kill him he just continuously keeps getting resurrected, while this is acceptable as medic usually stands aside and focuses solely on healing it is easy to counter such situation. The real problem Seems to start on longer distance team fights when enemy team has medic as game looks pretty much as following:
Kill 2 enemies -> medic resurrects them while you’re firing either at their bodies or at the medic -> medic takes cover behind immortal targets -> rinse and repeat

While obviously you can say that you should “gib” people there isn’t always a chance as it takes about 4-5 headshots from SMG to gib downed player, knifing doesn’t work on long distance combat and in situation where you end up in 2-1 situation changing weapon to knife or targeting downed opponent might cost you life, and if you kill medic you still end up with enemy who has roughly 40% hp and shield.

Currently dirtybomb has system for charging defibrilator in order to resurrect people with bigger amount of HP, In my opinion it would be great if game would require defibrilator to be charged for each resurrect, that would still make medics extremaly useful as they could charge in and resurrect teammate but they wouldn’t be able to quit combat to spawn themselves immortal cover.

Or actually maybe making people easier to gib with guns would make it more balanced, this might be way to make medics more vulnerable if they attempt to save teammate as you could take them out before they can res them.

Aim Punch:
Many people seem to be claiming that SMGs are op as they deal too much damage, same goes to Bushwacker’s turret… I think the reason why they seem to “kill faster than all other weapons” is different, SMGs have very high rate of fire which is really powerful when you add aimpunch to it. It might be good idea to make aim-punch based on amount of damage you take, it would still be there, it would still be useful for notifying players that they’re getting shot… but it would leave players more space to fight pack as their screen wouldn’t get epilepsy attack.

Though I believe that good sound notification, and screen space blood are good enough indicator of being shot… there’s no need for aimpunch in competitive game, just look at Quake or UT

Time to Kill:
TTK in this game is really nice though it feels a bit too short when you score headshots… it leaves opponent no space to react which is especially hurting for shotgun users on longer distance, maybe making headshot multiplier 1.5 or 1.6 instead of 2 might be a nice tweak(though it might break certain sniper rifles)

Classes:

Fragger:
Isn’t grenade radius a little too big?
Decapitation radius could be reduced as well.

Bushwacker:
Sentry turrets seem to react too fast, it’s almost impossible to pop-shot them without getting shot once or twice.

Again, whole thread is based on my personal experience after we’ve had a chat about it with 5 of my friends who also have similar amount of time spent playing; I would appreciate reasonable discussion regarding it :slight_smile:

(capriciousParsely) #2

I agree with everything besides the part “which is especially hurting for shotgun users on longer distance”. Shotguns are too strong atm, even at range. Or did I misinterpret you?

(avidCow) #3

If you reduce HS damage too much it wont really be worth the effort to aim for the head except perhaps as an opening shot before aiming at centre of mass.

(Hexa) #4

What I meant is, shotguns are high risk high reward weapon so while they have ability to oneshot you, ever bullet that doesn’t hit you doubles their time to kill(1 - 2 - 3 seconds, etc.). On the other hand if you miss bullet with SMG it rises your TTK just slightly.
Furthermore shotguns due to their very nature have pellet spread which means that they (should) never hit you for their full damage.
What that means is, on longer range shotgunner is likely to require two or maybe even three shots to kill you even if he aims for head, if you have SMG it’s really likely that he won’t have enough time to fire second shot or third shot.

(watsyurdeal) #5

Instant Resurrection

Well, if it wasn’t instantaneous there would be no point in playing Medic aside from healing

The problem in my opinion isn’t reviving itself, but rather trying to deny a revive when you manage to down more than one person and you’re trying to finish them all off before they get upped.

Also, not all explosives gib downed enemies easily…which is bullshit imo, it only makes sense as a mechanic to deal with Revive chains. Like nader, and if her direct hit nades finished off people instantly, ultimate clean up class.

Aim punch

Aim punch serves as a counter to Sniper, period

Vasilli does not need the Focus augment, none of the classes that have a Sniper Rifle should have it.

Time to kill

It’s fine as is, headshots and landing them separates you from the lesser players. Learn to aim first, then you can come back and talk about how it affects the game.

[quote=“sensitiveCurry;23605”]What I meant is, shotguns are high risk high reward weapon so while they have ability to oneshot you, ever bullet that doesn’t hit you doubles their time to kill(1 - 2 - 3 seconds, etc.). On the other hand if you miss bullet with SMG it rises your TTK just slightly.
Furthermore shotguns due to their very nature have pellet spread which means that they (should) never hit you for their full damage.
What that means is, on longer range shotgunner is likely to require two or maybe even three shots to kill you even if he aims for head, if you have SMG it’s really likely that he won’t have enough time to fire second shot or third shot.[/quote]

Then here’s a thought…flank, get behind people and shotgun them down

The maps have plenty of routes to allow for this, you should be able to figure it out

(Hexa) #6

Thing is… I’m pretty decent at aiming and that’s exactly the reason why i think it makes people go down slightly too fast with x2 damage multiplier :slight_smile:

(Szakalot) #7

wait until you stumble upon people who know how to dodge. wont be so fast anymore

(worthyStew) #8

I would never have said that Fragger nor Bushwhackers turret are too strong. Fragger seems pretty solid and Bushwhackers turret is a good defense mechanism. However I find them very squishy. But I play Rhino and never played Bushwhacker so could only say from my point of view as a victim of turrets.

(goodField) #9

The solution for the Revive is much the way it is in Battlefield - if its even truly a problem. A certain amount of time has to pass before you can be revived again, in BF4’s case its 15 seconds. Here it could be much shorter – 5 Seconds would give opposing players plenty of opportunity to reload, disengage, or re-engage the medic.

(fierceZenith) #10

personally i think aura needs to be nerfed badly. she’s so insanly overpowered. as you already said shotguns are way to strong. in addition she’s super fast and even aible to heal herself, i mean come on. my suggestion is to the shotties less strong over all (short and long range included). other than that the game is pretty balanced concerning the mercs. except for that airstrike which can be pretty dang annoying when there are skyhammer’s.

hope that proxy and aura are getting nerfed pretty soon.

(goodField) #11

Well. The thing with shotties is. They fire a lot of booletz at once, and have the same damage multipliers as the other guns. While they have lower overall damage – if any of those pellets decide your face is a nice neighborhood to settle down and start a Head Trauma, you are gon’ git rekt s0n. The fix for them is to readjust their Fall-off Damage Range. Aura has a certain playstyle (its almost identical to Proxy’s but you don’t seem to mention her). She’s got high DPS and mobility but if she gets winged her only option at survival comes in camping her med station - which makes her an easy target for explosives, Vasilli, or another Speed Shotgunner.

(Hexa) #12

Well, In competitive I’m starting to find nasty trend of 1 engineer, 3 medics and one attacker… I swear no matter what you do its close to impossible to deal with it as resurrects as they currently stand are just broken… you kill, you change target, enemy gets shielded, you wait, you kill, you never gib coz it takes another TTK to gib downed opponents and pressing E is just faster.

Even tried it with nader… not gonna happen, grenades dont explode on impact when you hit downed enemy so medic has time to res teammate, get killed by grenade, get ressed by ressed teammate who was immune to explosion and we’re back at the starting point…

Also suggestions dont count if you don’t show video proof that its viable “you have to flank the resurrected guy and kill medic” sounds easy on paper, but isn’t so easy when resurrected teammate waits to heal back up and starts firing in your face while you’re attempting to go around him and make yourself an angle.

(IJs) #13

I’ve been somewhat afraid of this myself, how are others finding this?

I’ve only been playing about a week (just a couple of days before open beta started, around level 10 now) so I don’t have a ton of experience, but lately in public games I’ve seen most teams running with 3-5 medics in a 6v6, and then some other random merc(s); generally a mix of Proxy and Skyhammer. I’m hoping to get into the competitive matches eventually since I’d like to play with friendly fire and more team organization. It seems easy to discuss ways to kill the medic balls, but in practice they’re not always going to work (assuming equal skill,) and even when they do the medics will respawn within 20 seconds and it needs to work again. I’m sure this is because all of the new open beta players happen to have access to these mercs and they’re easier to use, but it’s not so much that it’s common as that it’s so difficult to combat unless the opposing team is just more experienced.

I definitely feel like Aura is the easiest merc to use and the hardest to combat thus far. I recognize that there are strategies that work well against it such as explosives and snipers, but what other mercs require specific counters? Against any other merc, even sniper from long range, I feel like I can compete with any merc I’ve played thus far, but with Aura I feel like I’m at a disadvantage right off the bat since I have to sink about a third of a clip into the heal station, all the while hoping they’re not good enough to get that one hit KO meatshot or that their teammates aren’t coming in on my flank. Sometimes it seems more viable to get a couple headshots on them, but I suppose I’m not quite good enough to land 2 or 3 in a row consistently yet before she ducks away or gets the shot off on me; sure I can do it fairly frequently, but if the player is of equal skill they’re going to be bouncing off walls and/or running all around me so it doesn’t seem like it will always be so easy, and of course they could just headshot me once if it was so easy to do. Aura is also probably my most commonly played merc and I felt like I was almost cheating with the shotgun, getting one hit KO’s with very sloppy aiming on my part, so I’ve been trying out an SMG loadout lately.

On the other hand, I like where Sawbonez is at since he seems a bit more strategic; if they don’t play carefully I can run up and snag one of their health kits or grab one they left behind, and it takes them enough investment to heal themselves or others that they have to focus on support to do it properly, or they have to dedicate to combat for a brief time.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like all drops except for Aura’s heal station can be utilized by enemy players as well; why is it that the heal station is an exception? It seems like enemy players being healed by the station would be a great deterrent to the charging medic balls that seem so common right now, which run in and instinctively drop a heal station on the objective or wherever they see you and start strafing in it spamming shotgun blasts. I try to be careful about where I leave my ammo stations as Kira since I don’t want a Fragger or Rhino to find a convenient ammo dump they can use to mow down my team.

Nonetheless, been digging the game. It’s been a lot of fun, looking forward to more! :smiley: