[change the] Starting mercs

[Juan518]

I reccomend dirty bomb changesthe starting mercs to skyhammer and sawbones, i think this is better because sawbones is more run i gun and new players that have played FPS are used to that. And if you already had sawbones you would recive and obsidian loadout or something like that.

[SpinnerzNQ]

They might do that in the full release of the game. It makes more sense since Sawbonez requires better teamplay and caring about you teammates, rather than just placing a health station in a crucial spot and then just shooting people. I like the idea of getting obsidian loadouts for pre-bought mercs, but if they did that they better give us an obsidian Skyhammer too.

[Mr-Penguin]

They might do that in the full release of the game. It makes more sense since Sawbonez requires better teamplay and caring about you teammates, rather than just placing a health station in a crucial spot and then just shooting people. I like the idea of getting obsidian loadouts for pre-bought mercs, but if they did that they better give us an obsidian Skyhammer too.

But everybody already owns Skyhammer, which would completely defeat the purpose of an obsidian card.

[RyePanda]

They might do that in the full release of the game. It makes more sense since Sawbonez requires better teamplay and caring about you teammates, rather than just placing a health station in a crucial spot and then just shooting people. I like the idea of getting obsidian loadouts for pre-bought mercs, but if they did that they better give us an obsidian Skyhammer too.

No. The easier mercs should be given to new players, not the harder ones. New players are less likely to have good teamplay and care about their teammates.

[JJMAJR]

No. The easier mercs should be given to new players, not the harder ones. New players are less likely to have good teamplay and care about their teammates.

I completely agree with this. Easier roles would be seen as overpowered in the low level and cause less people to buy the game. I’ll give an example of how this could play out, coming from another game irrelevant to Dirty Bomb, but highlights the point of how easier mercs need to be given early.

An asymmetrically balanced game has two factions.
One faction has very powerful equipment, and is characterized as being able to overpower anything in their path.
The other faction has the advantage of information and stealth, which allows them to avoid or divide the powerhouse faction.

The faction with the advantage of stealth has eight roles, same with the brute-force faction. Three of which on each faction aren’t made yet, but the roles on the stealth faction are as follows:

Pure stealth with mediocre stats.
High speed and melee abilities.
Area denial.
Healing.
The Rhino.

Two roles from each faction are free. The rest you have to pay a 15$ package for. If you have enough experience in Dirty Bomb, you’d know how to deal with a Rhino. This game has the same strategy against that class, except without snipers.

Guess which two roles are free on the stealth faction?

[Eox]

Seriously : Skyhammer and Aura are perfectly suited for new players. They are easy to play and do their job very well.

[CCP1151]

A new player can put down a heal station, and help their team immensely.

A Sawbonez would run around only healing himself, and maybe not even realise he has a health pack.

[Rawr]

[quote=“CCP115;107013”]A new player can put down a heal station, and help their team immensely.

A Sawbonez would run around only healing himself, and maybe not even realise he has a health pack.[/quote]

I agree with this. With Skyhammer, players can see what its like to play as a fairly bulky, good assault merc that can also provide fire support. With Aura, they can experience a fragile but quick support medic with in your face shotgun tactics. Overall, I’d say Aura is the most user friendly of the medics for newer players.

[bizarreRectangle]

Medic overall is not noob friendly. Aura’s squishy-ness makes it a bit hard for new players to play. Sawbonez just gives run-and-gun potential which skyhammer already gives. I’d say keep it as it is.

[streetwiseSailboat]

Aura’s great for newer players because Sawbonez might forget to drop his med packs or be completely selfish with them. Aura only needs to drop her station and she run off screwing around yet still provide a source of healing for her teammates.

[HoopleDoople]

When I was new I stayed far away from Aura because she was very difficult to use effectively in combat. Low health and a shotgun was a very dangerous combination that ensured I almost never got kills with her. Sure her healing potential was high, but outside of defense I never could effectively utilize it because I had no idea where my team needed the healing station.

Luckily Phoenix was on rotation my first week and he made for a phenomenal beginner medic. I was playing with my friend in servers with no level restrictions and almost always near the top of the scoreboard despite being only level 3 and having no clue how to play the objectives properly.

I think the devs agree with me and that is why they selected Phoenix as the merc to giveaway. Of course Phoenix has been misused by newbies as badly as Aura (healing station? what healing station?), but with a better tutorial to teach players the class I think your average beginner Phoenix would be far more useful than your average beginner Aura. At the very least, Phoenix would offer a much more enjoyable experience to newcomers and make it more likely they stick around.