Greetings to you too and once again thank you so much for updates and opportunities to provide feedback. It is nice to read about the changes to the UI and the Spectator Mode and planned, upcoming changes. I am also thrilled to read that it is your “last closed alpha progress update”, which means that you will move on to a new level. Or? Congratulations on the progress so far and I wish you all at SD in general and the team that works on DB in particular continued success.
I was glad to read about the focus on characters. Honestly, I had not really understood that they were a big part in your marketing strategy and for the players’ in-game experience. I thought DB was a team-based multiplayer online shooter, but it turned out that you aimed for a character-driven multiplayer shooter. Nevertheless, it all sounded pretty solid and rational, so I read all that you wrote with great interest Anti.
“At the heart of Dirty Bomb are its characters”. This is a rather bald and perhaps misleading statement. I mean, aren’t the weapons and gadgets and the objectives at the centre? But I might be wrong here, and after some though and reflexion I do appreciate the fact that your game (DB) will “fight” against other games out there, and that you need to release a game that is both top-quality and “special”. Hence, the focus on character, I understand that now. It is quite clever to use the term “unique Mercenaries”, because it is tough and “selling”, still rather neutral (non-offensive).
On a side note, the illustrations (character art), is really good. Job well done there.
Your plan, on paper, was to have characters with distinctive styles, capabilities and weapons, but, as you say, you have not really managed to do that so far.
You provided four examples why this is so:
“Specific map objectives force players to ignore their preferred play-style in favour of the class that can do the objective, or the objective goes un-done and the game is spoilt”.
Is there really anything we can do about this? I mean, there will always be character-specific objectives, e.g. “We need an engineer”. Or are you suggesting that all characters should be able to do everything? Will it be a good idea?
“We’ve not made character abilities as unique and powerful as they should be to make the character stand out. A good example is the underwhelming Airstrike ability on Skyhammer.”
OK, makes sense. Keep on working with this. I think it is really important that the characters’ abilities are as significant as possible.
“Class archetypes have prevented us doing more interesting and unique ‘hybrid’ characters, we’ve not always ‘followed the fun’ to use a common design phrase.”
I guess this is one of the drawbacks of having a pre-planned, deductive way of thinking and working in game development. When I make custom maps, I have a more inductive way of progressing. Although I have an overall, basic plan, I always ‘follow the fun’. It can lead to some pretty cool things–not that my (pathetic) maps are anything like your triple-A stuff 
“Fixed weapon load-outs for each character provide a barrier to players who prefer specific weapon types, but that want to use that character’s abilities.”
Might be true but if you offer too many unique weapon load-outs, there are risks too. I mean, one of the things I disliked with Brink, was that there were tons of weapons and I never understood which ones to pick to optimize my chances. It might be due to my dull brain, but still: I do not want to fall down in a game and thinking to myself: “Did I lose that duel because I got powned, which I can accept, or was it because I fail at deciphering all the weapon choices at match start?”.
You then describe a number of upcoming changes:
Removing classes, and focus on characters as individual. There will be medics and engis and such, but they will be able to play much wider roles on the battlefield. This sounds promising. We just have to test this. It will, hopefully, allow a player to pick almost any character and play the type of role that he or she wants, i.e. defence, attack, support, sneaking et cetera. Let’s see how it works out. (You also talk about giving the players freedom to choose secondary weapons, which also could work out nicely.)
About the classless objectives: Do we not have them, already, in some maps? First stage on Camden, for example, all members of the attacking team can flip out their PDAs and start hacking that railroad switch. Or are you saying that all objectives from now on will be classless? Or that you will just increase the ratio of classless objectives? Oh. My. God. In the next paragraph, you lay it out clearly: all characters will be able to plant, arm, diffuse, repair, construct and so on (if I understand you correctly). This will indeed be a paradigm shift. I like rad ideas. Let’s test this!
About removing frag grenades from the load-out: OK. We’ll test it. Your arguments are solid. By the way, the throwing mechanics of the frag nades have been good so far, in case you are wondering. Their arch (in the air) is nice and has a natural feel to it, and it is nice to bounce them off a wall, around a corner, if the need arises. Since they are so good, with minor tweaks, I do not see any rational reason for completely removing them from the game. Come on, a game needs nades. So, as you say, one way could be to give them back to a specific character.
In sum, it all sounds like some rad ideas, and let’s test them. But aren’t you afraid that you, at the same time, will waste time? Do you have the funds, resources to keep testing all these ideas? Well, I guess so, otherwise you wouldn’t ship this next update.
