THE ISSUE: Any Competitive Matchmaking System in a game heavily relies on the balance within the game. Something that is definitely holding up the balancing within Dirty Bomb’s Competitive Matchmaking System is the fact that newly introduced Mercs are allowed to be played in ranked games. An example of this would be Phantom. As we all probably know, Phantom is unbalanced in his current state. Not overpowered, just unbalanced. In my recent ranked games I’ve been seeing people play Phantom, and it always seems as if the team that has 1-2 Phantoms on it has a blatant advantage. When you throw such a new and un-tested feature into a Competitive scene, it can turn out very poorly, just as it is in Dirty Bomb.
THE FIX: I suggest that a Competitive Cooldown for New Mercs introduced into Dirty Bomb. In Competitive Matchmaking, newly-released Mercs would have a 1-2 week cooldown. This way, players would be able to figure out the unbalanced parts of this new Merc through Pub games instead of Ranked games. After the 1-2 weeks of potential balancing, they would then be playable in Ranked. This would prevent a potentially unbalanced Merc from being let into Competitive Matchmaking, therefore improving the experience for players who want a competitive feel to the game.
This is just a suggestion. I’ve seen it done in many other games and it has actually helped a substantial amount with character balancing. The numbers could be messed with, I don’t really care. I just know that myself and many of my friends would find it more enjoyable if new Mercs were temporarily banned from Competitive games.