Dirty Bomb Closed Alpha Progress Update - August 6th 2013

(Kendle) #21

A bit on the fence with this one.

On the one hand I played RTCW / ET primarily because it was class-based, in that I could pick a class and perform a role that no-one not of that class could, attaching a degree of importance to what I was doing. However classes define not only what you can do but also, and crucially to a certain extent, what you can’t do.

When I moved to DOD, a game in which anyone can drop an ammo pack, anyone can drop their weapon and pick up someone else’s, and anyone can take a flag etc., I found it actually quite liberating not being shoe-horned into a role that stopped me doing things my class wasn’t supposed to do. Carry that forward to BF3 (which I’m back playing at the moment) and I can’t imagine how Rush mode would work if only the Engie could arm the charge on an MCOM for example.

I think is quite a brave decision and look forward to trying it out, but it’s a radical departure from the RTCW / ET way of doing things, making the “captures the spirit of ET” tag even less applicable (which may or may not be a good thing).

(Rex) #22

Allow me a silly question, but does the medic repair the EV with his defi? :smiley:

(mfzor) #23

b1g~ update!!!

(Volcano) #24

he uses the shockgun silly goose

(infamousDB) #25

I’ll try to give some constructive criticism, because these changes will not only affect the gameplay. These changes might result in changing the maps (since i’ve not played a lot of hours (but surely enjoyed them!) I don’t know all the map names.

Personally I think the change from Class to Character based load outs is a pretty good idea. Since this will allow more strategies to be effective on a map. With more combinations of abilities the new combinations will allow some pretty interesting tactics to arise. The negative part of this is that it could be harder to form a team. The chance that a lot of players prefer the same character is pretty big. If the abilities are split too much, you would have people playing a character that doesn’t fit their playing style. This could ofcourse result in a negative result for the team. I think the character based gameplay is more of a change to keep the public servers alive, but might kill the competitive gameplay.

Classless objectives:
If anyone can plant a c4, it will be a lot harder for the defending team to defend certain spots. Killing and gibbing the engineer will give the defending team time to regroup, reposition etc. If you change this to a classless object, the defending team will never have a moment of rest. This means that it’s a lot easier for the attacking team to plant the c4 (this will also take away some of the exciting parts of planting and defusing the c4’s). Thus to give the defending team a the same advantage as the defending team it might be needed to adjust the maps a bit.

Removing frag grenades:
At the moment I don’t have the feeling that grenades are being spammed. If you compare the amount of grenades availabe in DB to for example ET or RTCW, the amount of available grenades is a lot less. In DB ammo packs won’t give grenades, thus leading to less grenade spam. This was a feature in ET and RTCW that enabled the grenades spam. Also I personally prefer to have at least one grenade. Not just to “spam” away, but to throw the grenade strategically. The grenades have or will be downsized in power and that should decrease the feeling of “spam” even more.

Alternate Weapons:
This is an epic update in my opinion. I do feel like the some guns are more my style, but the character isn’t. This will force me to use a weapon that doesn’t feel comfortable to me. Ofcourse there should be difference between classes/characters (not that we have medics with soldier weapons).

Anyway that’s how I feel about the upcoming updates. I am willing to try them of course, so my opinion might change after I’ve tested the updates :slight_smile:

(iwound) #26

Classless Objectives - great, hilarious, exciting & fun. lots of variables.

No frag nads. - i understand for testing. but to later limit to only a few characters would
definitely make those without extremely less attractive to use. some characters have little
as it is. a decision made on stats? id prefer either a 1,2 or 3 loadout. if none then they would need
a replacement. ie an new offensive weapon for medic.
a direct replacement with something equally powerful but diverse and interesting is good.
an example a medic throwing a poison syringe.

totally ‘radical’, cant wait.:stroggbanana:

(Wezelkrozum) #27

Yes, and (s)he can regen the EV to full health with his/her medpacks :wink:

(stealth6) #28

It’ll be interesting to see how you implement it. My initial reaction is frustration, but depending on how it’s implemented I could be wrong.

The first “problem” that popped into my head is that C4 objectives are going to be a lot harder if you can only plant 1 C4 and everybody can disarm it (if I understood that right). Atm as an attacker I just focus on taking out the enemy engineer (and gibbing), if everybody can disarm it’s going to be so much harder.
With the current system a slightly worse team could still win as attacker if you manage to plant and then take out the defenders engineer. It would still require some luck, but it’s possible. If everybody can defuse then …

We’ll see how it pans out.

(acQu) #29

Essentially most of the classes are still there, so it still has that aspect on it, where you choose a class to fulfill a role in your team. It is just another way of looking at it imo. Old games tampered alot with that, for example the restrictions on weapons to classes, some mods removed that constraints, but still, the classes were there. With DB characters it essentially stays the same. There are healing abilities and that character is basically still a medic class, just from another perspective. I find this quite lol, as you can also greatly promote it as a ‘new’ game, even a revolution in FPS :smiley: (yes it is a bit like LoL so not quite that of a revolution, but still fairly unique for FPS games nowadays).

I am just worried abit about the objective gameplay. Also the engineer class is mostly removed imo. He has a turret currently, so he might still be an engineer by doing ‘mechanical stuff’, whatever that could be, e.g. repairing other characters items and such.

P.S. slight hint, i know it is random and nothing new, but i always wanted to have a “Bunsenbrenner” for the engineer, erm … actually i can’t find the word for it, little brain lag currently :smiley: But that would be cool and differentiate it from the plier ability, as you could do other stuff with it and still be sort of an engineer class character.

(Kl3ppy) #30

Yeah, drastic changes to test. I’m really looking forward. What bothers me a bit is the “free selection” of weapons. If its completly free, we will see many medics with the fop guns. But as long as it is like anti said, it should be no problem because the medic is.more close combat where as the fops is medium/long distance combat.

(Bangtastic) #31

its simple: you have the freedom to choose chars and classes at the same time :slight_smile:

btw for comp matches, you could also elect which chars are kicked out of the selection as well as maps.

(Rex) #32

Reminds me of LoL… I think this would cause a lot of problems in different areas.

(Kl3ppy) #33

the defi is only needed when the EV needs a jump start :wink:

(Anti) #34

Just to be clear, not all the changes are in this next update. You will have class agnostic objectives and removed frags, you wont have alternative weapons and classless slots in the barracks, those will come over time. Ability balance changes will also come in over time.

(Nickeee) #35

Crazy stuff, really looking forward to the patch :slight_smile:

(Violator) #36

Wow quite some changes there :o. The ‘classless society’ should be an interesting test, but I’m concerned that there will be one optimal loadout that everyone will end up using which will detract from the variety we have with classes (rambo engi-meds). I also think C4 objectives are going to be hard yards for the attacking team as stealth said.

Nades RIP nooooo :frowning: Frag nades I’ve not found a problem with, the flashbangs & concussion nades have been fairly useless though (esp concussion).

Other than that looking forward to testing :slight_smile:

(1-800-NOTHING) #37

reason i’m not playing as engineer more often is that both the loadouts suck at long range.

is this going to be changed*, or is this still going to be part of the “class definition”?
(*not with this update, obviously, but in the future?)

and is the reintroduction of grenades considered primarily for “classes” with already superior (mid-long range) offensive capabilities?

(Anti) #38

[QUOTE=1-800-NOTHING;460581]reason i’m not playing as engineer more often is that both the loadouts suck at long range.

is this going to be changed*, or is this still going to be part of the “class definition”?
(*not with this update, obviously, but in the future?)

and is the reintroduction of grenades considered primarily for “classes” with already superior (mid-long range) offensive capabilities?[/QUOTE]

Previously we’d said Engineers would have a short to medium range combat focus, now we’d judge that per character. Somebody like Proxy will always be geared towards short range, that’s just part of who she is and also helps opposing players understand what they are about to face when they go into combat, but now we could pursue a character with mine-like abilities and longer ranged weapons as an alternative to her.

Having defined combat ranges for characters is something we feel is important. A big issue with Brink was that we gave players too much variety (and the vast majority of players want choice) and it meant going into fights you were always unsure what guns your opponent had and what abilities they’d throw at you. Characters as they exist in DB will mean you should always understand who you are up against and what they are capable of, but it doesn’t limit us that much in terms of the weapons and mechanics we can introduce to the game.

(Humate) #39

Wouldnt most teams opt for a 3/2 split of medic/fops, if every class can complete the objective?
Looking forward to trying it out. :slight_smile:

(SockDog) #40

This sounds like a fantastic shake up on the original SD OBJ formula, actually looking forward to trying this out and seeing how it works. +1 to SD for trying something radically different.

I’ve always thought this would be a strong point for comp. Have both teams configure a set of abilities pre game and then play them off the other teams. Adding a LoL/Dota selection and denial system would mix that up even more. It’s something I’d be dead against in a pub game with fixed classes who could only do fixed objectives but SD might have figured a way around that with this also.

Competitive teams can expand on the metagame and play to their teams strengths, the focus being on the actual players rather than the ability to leverage class abilities around a specific map.