DIRTY BOMB UPDATE: Version 17437

(Violator) #61

Not played the patch yet, but a load of people were moaning that the soldier should have the C4 as engy was doing everything now its a u-turn?

(warbie) #62

Or as someone else pointed out - think it was tokamak - it would make the soldier the suited carrying class as his 2ndry weapon is an smg.

//edit.

I’m not keen on the soldier class having C4 btw. It takes too much away from the engie.

(Anti) #63

Too many posts, condensed feedback! :slight_smile:

No, we think we’re going to change it so you can fire whilst carrying again, but we’ve not decided to what extent yet. It might be a few patches before you see any change.

Assault class is getting played considerably less than most other classes right now, that is why we’re trying C4 on the Assault for a bit to see how things change.

Ammo stations have only just gone in, their placement was a bit haphazard, now we’ll gather info about how and when they’re used and adjust them accordingly to ensure the Fire Support class is the main source of ammo.

As we stated with a recent patch we’re at a stage of development where we’re still doing iterative design in considerable chunks, that means testing and evaluating changes quite frequently. At this stage you won’t always see what you want in a patch and some changes may seem to come along slowly, but that’s the nature of this process, please bear with it.

Here’s a tapir :stroggtapir:

(INF3RN0) #64

I don’t mind assault being the one who plants, it worked just fine in etqw. I always find myself at the objective before the engineers as well. I think the problem is that engineer doesn’t have much of a role outside of objectives and defense. The class feels almost entirely defensively oriented really. In ETQW engineer had a lot more weight as yes it was the best vehicle class, but also because the class itself had a much more expansive role. Constructable side objectives, and a large number of construct main objectives also did a lot for the engy as well. Maybe we can see some kind of team oriented or more offensive ability added to the engineer if we can’t give him more to do? Maybe engineer is the one who should be refilling grenades? Offensive drone? Team oriented depots? I still think that engineer would feel a lot more dynamic if there were more constructable mini-objectives that mattered to the team. That way we wouldn’t have to change too much on the class itself, but it really does feel like it might get a demand for it.

(INF3RN0) #65

[QUOTE=Anti;434860]
Assault class is getting played considerably less than most other classes right now, that is why we’re trying C4 on the Assault for a bit to see how things change.[/QUOTE]

Well I’d say soldier ought to be played more, however a lot of people tend to play things that are more suited to their developed style of play more than deeply thought out decisions. Soldier is undoubtedly the best all-around killing class, though in certain situations (mainly long range, heavy cover) I would say the FOPS easily bests him. The rest of the classes are more ability based of course, and then there’s the sniper. The soldier itself is really quite great at filling out its role and you won’t ever see one not being used in a comp environment. Anyone who doesn’t play soldier might just not be a big fan of the slower moving frag oriented play style, or just wants to practice other classes. I find soldier to be the least intensive class to play/learn and has one of the bigger impacts on the outcome of a game, but I like to play other classes as much as I can to keep things from getting monotonous; though somehow I always get stuck with soldier duty in pugs :confused:. If people want to win, they will definitely have a soldier- but if were just having fun why not play with 8 coverts on your team :cool:.

(Samurai.) #66

i still need to play a few more games before giving my feedback on this patch, but generally very nice.

In regards to the engi, i think you have to remember we are stuck with the shotgun loadout version of the engi atm… i can more than likely see offensive engi’s being used with the smg/AR (w/e it was) and turrets loadout… as atm we have to navigate to close proximity without taking damage using the shotty which is by nature a defensive weapon (it’s easier when attackers are running towards you to get the obj) so i don’t see engi’s being a massive issue, although i do like the sound of constructing those ammo stations.

Shotty + Mines = Defensive Engi
SMG/AR + Turret = Offensive Engi

(Dormamu) #67

I don’t know why you don’t keep the ammo racks in the close proximity of the spawn and not all over the map, like in W:ET, empty until you take the spawn, limited number of ammo he can provide, upgradable by the engi to double the ammo capacity.
Not too happy about the C4 progress bar, it takes away the fun of guessing which dynamite to disarm first :D. Some will love it, some will hate it, 50/50.

(tokamak) #68

The Assault’s most fun toys got taken, the grenade and the flashbang.

This guy needs to be able to influence combat better, he needs to dictate the terms on which the rest of the team engages and adding C4 really doesn’t do anything.

In generally I disagree with nerfing things into oblivion so early in an alpha, this goes for the grenade, for the instant heals and well, anything that got reduced in power so quickly. If you keep doing that you stay in a really safe basic game where nothing can be unique without standing out and being overplayed. However, when you got multiple ridiculous abilities you can consider them and fine tune them laterally. It should only be the last resort if all other ways of balancing out have been tried rather than a kneejerk to find balance as fast as possible.

The way Heart of the Swarm got tested is a great example. Blizzard simply gave all three races ridiculously powerful units, space ships that fired from half the map, units that spawned ridiculously resilient smaller units indefinitely and mines that obliterated entire armies if they got the chance.

It resulted in huge cries from the testers declaring Blizzard insane, but Blizzard stuck with it, they let the meta game have its way first and only changed the unit if they could offset it with modifications somewhere else. Returning back to the base game’s equilibrium was not an option otherwise their expansion would become inconsequential.

If you want classes to stand out then it’s essential that more needs to be done than considering classes on a case by case situation. It’s too easy to point at something and say ‘well that’s too powerful’ if you ignore all other powerful abilities in the game. If you then respond to it with taking the power out of that ability then eventually all we have left is gimmicks plastered on top of an ordinary shooter.

(nailzor) #69

With this class being the “heavy” so to speak, on paper I would expect to see mostly killing traits if one adheres to the Keep It Simple strategy, with optional primary heavy weapons that can be chosen beyond just a machine gun. Being focused on the real life “dirty” feel of the game, surely there is some new tech in the future that the nerds have conjured up and threw into the hands of the not-so-smart Assault class because he is the only one strong enough to carry it around :slight_smile:

From what I see the class least played is covert ops - I’m sure Echo can prove me wrong but that is what I notice the least of. I guess if we want more people to play him we should make him plant C4.

(Mustang) #70

The new scoreboard is just perfect, very nice job!

I’m glad the Solider has C4, every class should be able to do a main objective, Engie already has construct.

Just need to balance out map objectives to make sure there are equal number of destroy/construct/hack/whatever.

(Maca) #71

Oh my goodness that sentence gave me such a weaponboner. I guess I can understand the mentality of making assault the way it is now, so that it’s much more similar to the other classes in the way he plays, so he can’t be declared OP that easily.
But part of me really misses the old system, where assault/soldier was purely the guy that had powerful weapons. Perhaps SD could make the assault weapons very high risk-reward type things, like every time he shoots some sort of lightning cannon he gets electrocuted 20% of his health.

(tokamak) #72

Exactly, this is just following the path of least resistance.

(drfraggot) #73

[QUOTE=iwound;434785]Whats the point in having two scoreboards. Because people dont like kills on the scoreboard its now separate but below.
so its just unclear. If your going to show the info why not just have it on the one board.
Hiding the kills away in a sub menu or just reducing the size of the kill info is ridiculous tbh.
just put them all in. the kill info is not just for yourself but seeing the others helps, plus the other info.[/QUOTE]

Exactly what I said. Not sure how some of you guys think the new scoreboard is “perfect.” It actually strays from keeping things simple and easy-to-use for the average user since information isn’t displayed in one convenient place.

Doesn’t matter. It’s an inconvenience and an extra step in the process of logging a bug or suggestion. Alt-tab and Esc-tab functionality should be one of the first things to get out of the way in order to focus on the bigger and more important issues.

[QUOTE=Ashog;434734]How can you be sure just after a few hours of testing the patch?? Please don’t jump to conclusions, let’s test a bit more.
At least I don’t want to post any suggestions that could change a part of the game on the long run, and that just after a few rounds on pub…[/QUOTE]

Maybe because I actually sat in a server and tested the time needed to kill the class compared to every other one? I’m not jumping to conclusions, a 20% increase in health is pretty substantial in a game where not all shots made can be head shots in a timely manner. It’s your opinion whether or not it should be in game as it is mine.

(Maca) #74

There has been long discussions in the past about getting rid of scoreboard K/D but showing as much information as possible about the players own gameplay. The reasoning basically is, that showing K/D on the scoreboard can lead to non-objective oriented behavior, but people still want to get as much info about their own performance as possible. This new scoreboard seems to be taking things to that direction.
I don’t really understand your argument that it doesn’t anymore show things in one convenient place. It never did show information about your own performance, ie revives and so on, so it never showed all important information in one convenient place. This scoreboard is exactly the same as it was previously, now there is just EXTRA information on the bottom. And K/D was removed.
It’s yet very early clunky looking version, there are just the very basic things, and no weapon statistics, which was what many people were asking for. But when it gets more refined I’m positive they’ll be able to put the data there nicely.

(Kl3ppy) #75

[QUOTE=Mustang;434912]The new scoreboard is just perfect, very nice job!
[/QUOTE]

Almost perfect. Its perfect when the scoreboard doesnt show the enemy’s classes.

At the end game stats I would like to see the kills the guy with most kills had, or what accuracy the most accurate guy had. Also would it be a nice thing if I can see my own accuracy.

(meat) #76

[QUOTE=Anti;434860]

Assault class is getting played considerably less than most other classes right now, that is why we’re trying C4 on the Assault for a bit to see how things change.

.

:[/QUOTE]

Well now Engie is getting played alot less. I guess that was bound to happen when she lost her c4. Running arround with her nerf shotgun, and only being able to plant mines when there is no construct objective is going to cut down on the number of Engies. At least the assualt class has a killing advantage over the Engie class. I am suprised that it wasn’t being played more before this patch

(mortis) #77

My proposal: standard engy gets c4, but pay-for-play players can add certain class elements to a custom player type, aka an assault type character who also carries c4, or can drop med packs, etc, but not allowing them core powers, building/repairing objectives, revives etc. I still think engies worked best in W:ET and to a lesser extent in ETQW.

(drfraggot) #78

[QUOTE=Maca;434936]There has been long discussions in the past about getting rid of scoreboard K/D but showing as much information as possible about the players own gameplay. The reasoning basically is, that showing K/D on the scoreboard can lead to non-objective oriented behavior, but people still want to get as much info about their own performance as possible. This new scoreboard seems to be taking things to that direction.
I don’t really understand your argument that it doesn’t anymore show things in one convenient place. It never did show information about your own performance, ie revives and so on, so it never showed all important information in one convenient place. This scoreboard is exactly the same as it was previously, now there is just EXTRA information on the bottom. And K/D was removed.
It’s yet very early clunky looking version, there are just the very basic things, and no weapon statistics, which was what many people were asking for. But when it gets more refined I’m positive they’ll be able to put the data there nicely.[/QUOTE]

The problem is you are looking at it from a game mode-specific perspective. We’re alpha testing the whole game here, not just Stopwatch and Objective. People that play Deathmatch will definitely want to know everyone else’s K/D ratio since that’s what the objective is in that game mode. The same goes for the other game modes in public servers. I see where you’re coming from for Objective and Stopwatch for competition, but at the same time, there will never be an entire population abiding by rules in pubs. It’s just not possible. And just because everyone else’s K/D ratio isn’t shown, what would stop them from narrowing in on their own to try to keep it high? The competition among K/D ratios is eliminated, sure, but the fact that people will always do what they want is not. And doesn’t the additional information such as revives and such just serve as other things a player can narrow in on and focus on? You’re trying to eliminate the competitive nature of the game that could potentially take place in pubs in that holding a relatively high K/D ratio and completing objectives is a difficult task when competing against players trying to do the same.

In my opinion score, kills, assists, deaths, and ping should be displayed directly on the scoreboard for everyone and below the scoreboard there should be all of the additional information that was added in this patch (revives, healing done, etc.). For competitive pubs and private servers, there can be an option to set the scoreboard accordingly.

(Maca) #79

Yeah sure deathmatch should have K/D, it’s just currently played much less and requires much less balancing in general, so instead of creating different scoreboards for different game-modes in this closed alpha they just “ignored” deathmatch for the moment.
And yea I personally do not know if K/D should be removed at all or if just the kills should be showed (TF2 style), but I’m guessing SD is testing this to see if we can say that our gameplay or game enjoyment changes into one way or the other if we can’t see K/D anymore.

(tokamak) #80

Doesn’t seem like a problem considering objective is the main game- mode.

For TDM it would be highly appropriate of course, it just doesn’t have a place in the objective mode at all.