Hello guys, I uninstalled DB a minute ago, and this thread is a post-mortem of the experience I had to help the developers better understand what drove me to quit, and how to improve their game. (I know Im not a special snow-flake, its called feedback)
Before I start let me say that there are many good things about dirty bomb. The artstyle is fresh, readable and well executed. The card aspect of the game is also a refreshing way to tackle loadouts, more later on its flaws but its a change. Hit detection is not catastrophic and the overal gameplay is fun even though there are elements that diminish it. Now what follows is what got me to quit in order of importance.
Cheaters:
Fear not, Im not the type of people to hackusate every time I die. Im also not the type to rage quit over a cheater every 10th game. I played other games before this one that I though were relatively highly populated by cheaters but it didnt stop me from playing. But oh boy, from the experience I had with DB, I was dead wrong.
At first, of course before reaching level 5, I played using the server browser, and cheaters werent really apparent outside of the competitive mode. So everything was fine. It is a whole another story when you finally join competitive. I didnt mind it at first, I would say I encountered cheaters every 5th game. I thought I was unlucky. But weeks are going by, and every time I play, there is one every 2 game and Im not exagerating. That is, in the gold bracket. Not only does it completely ruin the competive aspect, but it create a very, very, VERY TOXIC environment.
Wow, my playtime which was supposed to be enjoyable is now a PURE source of frustration and this is unacceptable. Every time a cheater enter a game, its 9 others players that you can potentialy lose. Its slowly wearing people down, especialy those who want to play your game seriously. It should be your priority number 1 to eradicate them. It really takes A LOT of them to make me quit a game. In gold bracket, competitive mode, they are rampant. Certainly because they exit level 5 with insane statistics and end up directly in that bracket.
The grind:
The grind in itself isnt too bad. It takes about a week and an half to earn 50 000 credits if you complete your missions by playing with a character you dont want to play with… and play both modes every session… and dont waste money “trading up” your cards.
Forcing someone to play a character that he dont want to play or isnt optimal for the situtation is a fun killer. The second you logging and you are greeted with a less than inspiring character mission is certainly something that doesnt help with player retention. Forcing people to do something they dont want to do, something they dislike, is a big no-no. Replace them with missions such as deal X damage, gain X xp, score X headshots, Heal X amount, Revive X people, melee kill X people, finish X people, complete X objectives(main and side)… you know, generalist missions that get done no matter who you choose to play with. Generalist missions that let you play as you see fit, without forcing you to do something you dont want to.
I certainly dont want to waste my game time playing as aura when I hate her gameplay, have no loadout card for her. dislike her apearance especially when what I am good at is completing objectives.
I say “force” because missions are the only reliable way to make decent money if you are a free player. I mean, even if you have 17 000 XP during a match, its not the pathetic 200 credits you win that will get you very far. Please, less emphasis on missions, but more on performances. Right now there are no reasons to play once said missions are completed and they are on 2 hours cooldown. This is a terrible mechanic anyway, get rid of the cooldown, drasticaly lower the income for missions if you have to and introduce much more fast paced generalist missions that actually follow the theme of the game, fast paced combat. Make them pop ingame as you complete them, congratulate the player with big $$$ symbols, fireworks and whatever you want. Then instantly replace them with another one. Motivate the player to play, and keep playing.
Loadout cards:
Whoever make the loadout cards need to be switched out with someone who knows how to min-max. Too many of them are really terrible. I understand that some cards have to be worse, it is inevitable that one card is better than the others… but some of them are just sad.
Right now, people choose a primary weapon that they like the most, then decide what are the least terrible augments coupled with that weapon. Add to that some out of place and useless augments and you have a depressing mechanic. For example, Its beyond me why Phantom only have 3 loadouts with the katana, only 2 cards have the chopper augment(one of them is not even with the katana) and none have the quick slash augment. What the hell? Redeye is a better phantom than phantom is. His smoke actually hide him better and even got the G41 loadout that make him better at melee.
Anyway, some augments are just too weak to ever be useful or even noticable. Get rid of them and replace them with actual augments that are not game changing, but not far from it. NOTICABLE buffs like “get up” and “potent packs” are perfect for Sawbonez… but you need to have near equivalent augments for his other loadouts otherwise its a no brainer, and that sucks.
PS: Let us “burn”(still in the card theme) Cobalt cards into lead or iron cards already.
Skins:
First of all, whoever thought that making the “ultimate” skin blue, in a game where one of the team is blue and the other is red is, sorry to be blunt, plain dumb. Its the best camouflage in the entire game, hell it makes you look like you are part of the enemy team.
Not only that, but this game is BEGGING to sell cosmetics. I didnt buy Rhino because his face is ugly as hell. Would you have sold an helmet to hide his ugly face, you would have made money off me. Im sure its the same for many people. Your character are very “personalised” and not everybody like that… It could all be solved with card sleeves. You are wasting an oportunity with ugly ass recolor that intelligent people wont even use because its a 1/9 chance that its a subpar loadout. Seriously, split them up asap, you are losing money right there.
That being said, I have no idea why you wasted time and ressource giving them personalities in a game where it doesnt even get noticed. There isnt any real story, there are clones of them all over the place dying over and over left and right. Nobody care about their backstory, it bring nothing to the game. The only thing that matter is their silouhette, so you know who you are dealing with. Hell, its probably why phantom was so popular, he have a mask. People can idendity to him to an extent, and really thats the only thing that people care about in a competitive multiplayer game. People decorate their character not for the others, but for themselves. Every body want to get ingame and think “my guy look damn cool”… I like rhino’s gameplay, but his IMPOSED apearance his turning me off.
TLDR and Suggestions:
Cheaters are rampant in competitve mode (gold)
Dont tell people what to play
Less emphasis on missions, but more on performances
Dynamic, generalist and fast missions
Get rid of useless augments, introduce truely game changing augments
Rebalance all the loadouts to diminish the obvious choice (min/max)
Invest into the Card theme (Sleeves, variety bundles, card terms et cetera)
Get rid the blue skin
Seperate the skins from the loadout
Sell cosmetics
Let us open case while in lobby
