DIRTY BOMB UPDATE: Version 22519 - August 8th 2013

[Protekt1]

Why are people calling it agnostic? Are people aware how wrong they are using the word? Lol. Please correct me if I am wrong but as I understand the word means a person believes there is no way to understand whether there is a god or its nature in this universe. Its a metaphysical belief that I happen to believe in. What does that have to do with objectives lol.

[RasteRayzeR]

+1 for the feeling of the aim … really better

[Protekt1]

[QUOTE=Tast1c;461238]Atm it kinda feels every class is equally fast with any obj. So there is not a big reason to change the class during the match.

If there is a way bigger difference between “pro” and novice at defusing for example, then it might be even better. Novice classes can kinda support a fast defuse or do it on their own but that takes its toll.

Even if there are many novice trying to defuse, one engineer should be still superior.

Ok i just reflect that what SD already told us^^ just needs some tweaking, then it could still serve as class objectives only more liberal.[/QUOTE]

I had a real nice post written then browser crashed regarding this… Now I am on mobile so bear with me.

1. Make FOPs and medics do objectives the slowest.

2. Make soldier arm the fastest, engie disarm/build the fastest, cov hack the fastest

3. Only one non-engineer can repair Ev at a time. So 2-3 medics cannot insta-repair. Enginer will repair fastest and can repair alongside one non-engie.

Right now damaging the EV has low reward since everyone can repair it all at once way too fast. Dropping the repair rate for non-engie and disallowing stack repairs is imo a good way to combat this. I think this class-less approach to objective play has potential if tweaked.

[fer0x]

This update is quite good for me, except the classless objectives change… Too drastic imo.

[Ashog]

Why are people calling it agnostic? Are people aware how wrong they are using the word? Lol. Please correct me if I am wrong but as I understand the word means a person believes there is no way to understand whether there is a god or its nature in this universe. Its a metaphysical belief that I happen to believe in. What does that have to do with objectives lol.

Well yeah, probably not the best word for it, tho there seem to be some other meanings to it, not related to religion etc.
I think it actually originates from this post.

I’d call it rather like uniclass or ambiclass objectives, something in the sorts of…

[INF3RN0]

Weapons
Weapons feel a lot better. Soldiers still require lower body damage on MGs. I like all the new weapons as well. IS spread is like 0, but I still find hip fire to be really good. The movement incap during IS is good enough, and a Recon or Soldier should be used to counter IS campers anyway.

I miss grenades, but now I rely on those with the nades to do the job for me. The nades really do wonders against camping defenses and breaking through chokes, which in a sense makes those with nades feel more purposeful. I’d like to see some extra tools/abilities to compensate at the very least. Giving nades to all classes and just varying nade AoE for each would be fine by me too.

HUD/Performance/Looks

-No performance improvements here, just FPS drops. Post process is forced as well.

-The HUD is better, but I don’t find the team icons at the top of the screen helpful. I’m hoping you guys do some good stuff with the minimap.

Agnostic Objs

I already felt that DB had mostly agnostic objectives tbh. There were already a ton of global obj types, and I rarely saw much of the “focus down the obj class” strategy in play. That’s simply because there was so many other issues that interfered with that dynamic. I didn’t think that the old “handicapped obj class” method was that great either and I would like to see some sort of contribution from every class, but I’m not sure if this is the best way to do that.

I would very much like to see more detailed explanation of class proficiency or at least make it feel significant. The plant time feels much faster as well, which makes the proficiency stuff feel too minor. I’d be more willing to see much more significant proficiency stats for all objs and have them be very far apart. I’d also like to see equally interesting proficiencies for each class relating to obj type; build, destroy, escort, hack, capture, etc. Furthermore splitting up the obj type tools between just 2 classes instead of all might be more reasonable. Like I said already though, I don’t expect to see much difference from agnostic objs than previously because of issues in spawns and map/obj layouts.

Classes

Overall I think all classes could do with an extra tool/ability. They feel a bit bland, though now they are indeed more unique. Each ‘class’ still serves a fairly distinct purpose towards the defensive or offensive momentum/effectiveness of the team so that’s good. Again I’d like to see it expanded a bit more.

Fragger

The MG really needs lower body damage and maybe reduced RoF. Two grenades would warrant the name and ability too. The nades should be his most attractive feature post patch.

Conker

I really think the conc nade is much less useful than the flashbang. Reduce the AOE and duration on the previous flashbang and replace it with the conc nade imo. Conc nades don’t help a team push into chokes as well as a flash quite simply.

Nader

The grenade launcher could use more instant and predictable projectile functionality. The nade feels a bit delayed and plops out funny. The weapon design is on the right path, however I’d like to see direct impact nades result in more AoE splash.

Slugger

Sticky mines aren’t as annoying as I expected. It appears that their most reliable use is on corners or door ways. I think they may require a bit of a trigger delay or possibly even a manual trigger. Friend vs foe sticky nades should be made more distinguishable (red vs blue).

BBQ

Molotovs can be annoying, but the class seems pretty solid. Not sure if ammo call vsays display ammo stations, but they should.

Footloose

A pretty nice medic if it’s your play style. The self revive isn’t much of a problem, but now you make sure to quickly gib this med whenever he drops. His aoe heal is nice for continuing momentum on the front line as well.

Ghostly

The camo is pretty easy to spot, however plenty of people seem to be oblivious to cloaked snipers lol. I still find the Recon mostly niche for those who want to use the sniper rifle, so I hope to see it get another ability/purpose as well.

Maps

Map6

Domination mode I assume? It’s pretty good fun and a step up from TDM. I think it will make for a fun mode for plenty of people.

Battersea

The best thing about this map is the dynamic objectives. The layout can feel really defensively bias at first, but I think we will have to play it a bit more. Ninja planting on the 1st obj becomes very easy when everyone is focused on the container crane.

[shirosae]

Why are people calling it agnostic? Are people aware how wrong they are using the word? Lol. Please correct me if I am wrong but as I understand the word means a person believes there is no way to understand whether there is a god or its nature in this universe. Its a metaphysical belief that I happen to believe in. What does that have to do with objectives lol.

No, you’re right. A very long and tedious nonsense cultural thing of insisting that atheism is about hating god or possessing the certainty of a religion has led some people to take the word agnosticism as being about the lack of belief in any gods (which is what atheism actually is), rather than being about knowledge. Colloquially they use it to mean ‘don’t care about’, hence the use here. OKAY INFOMERCIAL OVER

Ontopic: I had a little bit of trouble joining the UK objective one server earlier. It was showing 14/16, then vanishing, then showing 0/14, and then all the servers were vanishing from the list, and then spouting a no-message error box. It let me in after a few rotations of that. Sorry I don’t have more information to give out, but I’ll keep my eyes open.

[Dormamu]

Personally i dislike the open bar obj. and the lack of grenades.
-The open bar obj. because it feels like you want to promote an individual game-play instead of team-play, more personal gratification instead of team powa! Is like their is no other role than camp, spam, spec.
Is a bit hard for me to go from “Save the Engi, save the World!” to “This is Spartaaaaaaa!”
-The lack of grenades, because it’s more easy for me to learn how to time and throw a grenade rather than developing the muscle memory required to aim better Being able to support the team by any class he needs and also have 2 grenades (one to test the water and one to hit) is the best combo
For the rest of the changes, GJ! Tho, you can do better

[INF3RN0]

[QUOTE=Protekt1;461242]I had a real nice post written then browser crashed regarding this… Now I am on mobile so bear with me.

1. Make FOPs and medics do objectives the slowest.

2. Make soldier arm the fastest, engie disarm/build the fastest, cov hack the fastest

3. Only one non-engineer can repair Ev at a time. So 2-3 medics cannot insta-repair. Enginer will repair fastest and can repair alongside one non-engie.

Right now damaging the EV has low reward since everyone can repair it all at once way too fast. Dropping the repair rate for non-engie and disallowing stack repairs is imo a good way to combat this. I think this class-less approach to objective play has potential if tweaked.[/QUOTE]

This is much better sounding. Medic/FOPS already have constant duties, but if we do indeed continue testing this then what your saying here should most definitely happen. I’d also like to see certain classes be able to dual arm/disarm things. Multiple engineers can repair/disarm simultaneously, etc. That would make much more sense with this system and make for more interesting strategy.

[Mustang]

Why are people calling it agnostic? Are people aware how wrong they are using the word? Lol. Please correct me if I am wrong but as I understand the word means a person believes there is no way to understand whether there is a god or its nature in this universe. Its a metaphysical belief that I happen to believe in. What does that have to do with objectives lol.

You are wrong (and a little bit right, but mostly wrong :)), that is the dictionary definition.

In technology terms it means something that is so generalised it is usable in many contexts or can be shared by many systems.

For example you wouldn’t find terms like “frontend”, “backend”, etc. in the dictionary, but to us computer geeks we know exactly what you mean.

So agnostic is the correct word to use, another word would be independent.

EDIT: Here is a decent enough explanation: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_exact_meaning_of_agnostic_in_the_IT_technology_terms

Tech agnostic means that the issue, skill set or other aspect being discussed is not specific to a single technology. The issue, skill set or other actually can be true or applied to any/multiple technologies. For example if a component is “operating system agnostic” it does not care what the operating system is. The opposite of agnostic is proprietary - this is when an issue, skill set or other is true for a specific technology. For example if a component is “operating system proprietary” that component will only work with that OS.

[Protekt1]

Okay that makes sense. I did not know there was a technology specific use for the word.

[montheponies]

agnostic | Definition of agnostic in English by Oxford Dictionaries

[rookie1]

[QUOTE=Mustang;461250]You are wrong (and a little bit right, but mostly wrong :)), that is the dictionary definition.

In technology terms it means something that is so generalised it is usable in many contexts or can be shared by many systems.

For example you wouldn’t find terms like “frontend”, “backend”, etc. in the dictionary, but to us computer geeks we know exactly what you mean.

So agnostic is the correct word to use, another word would be independent.

EDIT: Here is a decent enough explanation: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_exact_meaning_of_agnostic_in_the_IT_technology_terms[/QUOTE]

Thanks Mustang for the well explanation…I was thinking like Protekt1

[Hundopercent]

First Impression on changes.

So far I like the classless objectives. When I’m on team Ernie and they’re vacuuming into a choke poke I can easily sweep and complete the objective.

New Classes:

Soldier - For all the bitching I did (and boy did I bitch) I actually really enjoy the new soldier. So far I find her very well balanced (so far, this can and probably will change) and connected with multiple receivers (Inferno was looking like Jerry Rice tonight.) My primary complaint is her secondary and special. Her primary is situational and because of that I think her secondary should be stronger. I think an AR would compliment her better. Her special is seriously blah. I mean lets put this on paper. I can pick an Lt, that summons jets to drop massive nukes across a large radius…or I can drop a nade when I die. It’s not even close in comparison when it comes to that unique defining feature. Anyway, enough about her (please do not make direct hits a 1 shot kill, that’s what makes her so wicked to play right now.)

Lt - I really like his primary, I didn’t tinker with the secondary (or even switch to it.) Molotov seems ok, I like that it’s instant area denial but I would almost want less damage and more AoE for a bigger denial area. His ammo station is strong but there is something I just don’t like about stationary ammo/health stations. I feel locked into a position in a game that requires you to move a lot. It just feels very weird and unnatural. If I could pick up the station and move it some where else (like the milk jugs) maybe that would satisfy me a bit more so I know in my head, worst case scenario, I can take a big risk and move it.

Medic - Not really a fan of this guy at all. When I used my heal I don’t believe I was healing myself and thus immediately makes him worthless as a medic. If you can’t stay alive to heal and revive then you are worthless. His ability is easily counterable but still kinda cool. Not sure about the bitching on this either, it’s time to learn to gib kids. So basically, where I stand with him is, you can get gibbed before you revive, and you can’t heal yourself, basically all you are is a downgraded Lt with a ****tier weapon. AKA trash tier.

Engineer - Love the new shotgun. I feel like I’m Mike Tyson dropping a wild hook and connecting right into the facial region. I’m a major fan so far and will probably play him a bit more because of his primary. As for his special, it’s exactly what I thought it would be in the spotlight. A spammy, annoying, gimmick. I strongly hope you scrap his special and give him something else, something more creative.

Sniper - Haven’t tested yet, I was having too much fun running my Oscar Meyer hotdog stand up and down the streets of London.

Jump height is feeling nice, hit indicators are a bit thick for me but better than before (I will manage), it feels like the hitboxes are bigger or something was changed. I felt like I was landing a a lot more shots and it just felt nice. Not sure what was changed (or maybe I’m imaging things) but it feels like a step forward.

HUD looks a lot cleaner, I’ll have to keep playing and I’ll notice things that bug me.

Start to LB feels better, so far, I was only able to play it once tonight though.
EV changes feel good.

Suggestions:

Fluidity - It’s still not there. I strongly suggest you guys consider removing sprint cancels for reloading and specials. It’s becoming more and more obnoxious the more I play to a point of where I get frustrated and just leave the server sometimes.

Engineers diffuse/repair at normal speed. All other classes take 2 - 3X longer. It’s too fast and makes engineers less attractive as a class. In addition, someone can assist an engineer to repair/diffuse even faster but 2 medics can not assist each other.

Soldiers - Same as my engineer suggestion

The Ugly:

The new classes and removal of grenades have left an almost empty feeling to the characters. They feel incomplete. Medic, has a 1 shot heal every 10 seconds or so, blah. Soldier drops a nade on death, blah. Lt has a nifty nade but still nothing compared to the AS/Arty. Engineer can strap an Always pad onto a wall shoot it for more spam. It’s better than the other but still just kinda meh. I don’t feel it makes him unique. I was far more entertained with the weapons than the specials and I feel that’s a flaw.

I don’t miss the nade spam, but I miss having a nade. It also feels like the my character is incomplete without it. It’s hard to explain. This could be mostly because I’m used to always having a nade. Side note: Are you able to cook nades anymore? I didn’t see a slot for it except for the quick nade which is about as worthless as a medic that can’t heal himself.

Am I the only one that wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more drastic specials? Like an engineer with a massive robotic arm that can extend and grab a player to his team or grab a teammate and pull him/her to him for safety etc. I know the comp players are probably grinding their teeth right now reading that but lets be honest we will make a ruleset and certain characters will be banned if it gets too retarded.

Getting Late…mind drifting off. All in all, not a bad patch but needs some serious tweaking to be more effective. Also, more patching, can you guys do this like every 2 weeks please.

[INF3RN0]

[QUOTE=strychzilla;461309]
I don’t miss the nade spam, but I miss having a nade. It also feels like the my character is incomplete without it. It’s hard to explain. This could be mostly because I’m used to always having a nade. Side note: Are you able to cook nades anymore? I didn’t see a slot for it except for the quick nade which is about as worthless as a medic that can’t heal himself.[/QUOTE]

I quickly learned to go on without it and to be honest I think I may actually enjoy the fire fights a lot more now. You can still prime nades, but just on the updated ‘dazzler’ aka ‘fragger’ now. He get’s 1 frag grenade as a special on c/d, but I think he could use 2 tbh.

[QUOTE=strychzilla;461309]
Am I the only one that wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more drastic specials? Like an engineer with a massive robotic arm that can extend and grab a player to his team or grab a teammate and pull him/her to him for safety etc. I know the comp players are probably grinding their teeth right now reading that but lets be honest we will make a ruleset and certain characters will be banned if it gets too retarded.[/QUOTE]

I strongly agree here. With the nades gone the classes feel a bit dry. I also don’t really enjoy ‘gimmicky’ abilities, but you may find some strategy involved in the new stuff after more play time. The sticky mines could be more creative for example, but the problem has to do with their function being centered on instantaneous flat damage. The best way to use them is to plop them all together, which basically makes them a mine you can put on a wall.

If every class needs an ability that results in ‘flat damage’, they could also use something that serves a tactical purpose too. Straight auto damage devices like mines, turrets, airstrikes, etc should all offer ample means of being easily avoided or countered rather than being guaranteed damage of course. What would be nice to have as well is a multipurpose catalyst ability/tool for each character too. For example something like the flash bang or conc nade don’t output damage, but you can use them to increase your opportunity to output damage whether that’s following them with a grenade or rushed gunfire. I’ll gladly give the grenade to a single class if I get something to replace it; after all grenades do make the chars that have them feel a whole lot more necessary for certain situations now.

Another thing that may be too much, but sort of caught my interest in other games is some creative combat dynamics. For example, in ETQW you could deploy a shield suddenly and deflect a grenade back at an enemy, though it was simply meant to absorb damage. In TF2 the pyro could deflect an incoming rocket with precise timing of his afterburner. Shooting the Quake plasma gun at the side of a wall let you maintain momentum mid-air. Micro abilities of this nature that add potential for interesting counter play or just creative methods of play would be something really cool for DB. Just being able to be creative with the way you use the abilities themselves is what allows them to become much less ‘gimmicky’. I like having to make lot’s of choices during and out of combat involving location, style of engagement, use of tools, etc. I like to shoot a guy in the face as much as anyone else, but I get much more excitement when I’m chasing down a fleeing medic trying to heal up or simply hoping in and out of cover during a duel. I really value plain and simple aiming skill, but then I also like to have creative thinking and dynamic game mechanics in the mix.

[Kl3ppy]

Jus my thoughts about the update after playing yesterday evening

Characters:
I like the new characters. I played mainly with the new Fops and the new medic. First I was a bit sceptical about the self revive but seen it in action, its not overpowered. Its actually nice because the new medic forces the players to gib the enemy. I got killed by some self revived medics and I was mad at myself because I just could have avoided this by gibbing. The cool down of the self revive is ok, so no revive spam fest
The fops is nice, the gun feels nice and the cocktail he has is also quite good. The only thing I would like to change is the ammo rack, it gives the ammo too fast, slower the refill speed and it should be perfect.

Classless Objectives
The idea is good, but as already stated, a lot of tweaking needs to be done to improve this. There should be still the main class for the objective. The assault should be the class for planting c4, therefore the planting speed of the assault needs to be the fastest. The current speed is ok, but lower the speed of the medics/engies/covies/fops planting c4, maybe cut it by 50% or 66%. This would make a step back to the class based gameplay but not at all.
Same goes for engie at build/disarm and the covie for hacking. Medic and Fops should imho the backbones of the team and their main task is to support, right now you just need these 2 classes. Same for repairung the EV, the engie should be the main repair classes. The engie needs to have the fastest repair rate but the other classes should be able to repaitr it but the rate needs to be significantly slower than the engie one.

Removal of Grenades
Imho, its not as bad as it sounds. The idea is good, but removing nades from all classes is a bit over the top. I have no problem, when the fops doesnt have nades, he has other explosives. Same for the soldier with the grenade launcher, conc nade and frag nade, the 3rd eye for covie and the engie with sticky mines. They have explosives, they dont need the nades. But the medic needs at least something to get camping spots cleared. The nade is the perfect tool to do so. I would lik to see nades coming back to the medic and to the 2 engies (the turret guy and the mine girl). But only 1 nade and no rechargeable nade. For the covie I would like to see some sort of EMP nade which disables the EV for a couple of seconds.

Gameplay Changes
The EV changes are great, now London Bridge makes a bit more fun. Cant say if the speed increase with more players around the EV is enough or too much, but the idea is great, only playtesting will tell if its good or if it needs improvement/slow down. Classless Objectives is already adressed above

Hud Improvement
What I’ve seen so far looks promising. Need to put some time in changing the HUD to my favorite style, didnt want to waste time in the cfgs yesterday
The only thing which annoys me a bit is the bar on the top showing the classes and health of the enemy. For me it would be ok, if only my teammates are shown there. The enemy classes shouldnt be shown, neither on the scoreboard when pressing tab, nor on the Hud. If the classes are shown, there is no surprise effect because you always know which classes/mercs you will play against. Looking forward to see the new minimap.

Balance & Performance
I’m not sure if the tweaks and optimization improved hit detection, but I have a much better feel for the weapons, and I actually hit what I aim for. Good job on this level.
The ironsight is now useable, I like it. The recoil is fine, spread also. I need to spend more time testing IS to see if the movement punishment and the fov punishment is enough to balance the improved accuracy.
What a real let down in this update is, is the “performance improvement”. The average FPS dropped by 20-30% at least for me. I hoped for better performance over the time, but the last 2 updates didnt improve the performance, they rather worsenend the performance on the FPS side.

The 2 new maps
I like the concept, its something complete different. It makes fun, need more play testing the mod, but it looks promising

Overall, the update is pretty fine for me. There are some things that need some rethinking (nade removal from all mercs) or tweaking (objective speed for the classes/mercs). A lot of new stuff to test, that’s what I expect from an alpha.
Game on!

[DarkangelUK]

I played a few games last night so will comment best I can.

Grrr-nades
I miss grenades, when I’m dead waiting to spawn, I can see a bunch of them gathering and can get back there relatively quickly but know there’s just nothing I can do… maybe take 1 guy out with my gun if I’m lucky? He’ll just get revived anyway. Instead of grenades, can I get a panzer? There doesn’t really seem to be much in the way of a downside to grouping together in DB, in ET/RtCW you’d purposely spread out a bit so your whole team wasn’t obliterated… and I mean properly… need more ‘overkills’ that send players straight to respawn and bypass the downed state.

Shooting
I actually thought this was ok, a few times last night I managed to down multiple players with 1 clip and still have bullets to play with. My only gripe is the amount it takes to gib, seems to be a helluvalot! Do headshots count for gibbing so you can gib quicker? Can you boobytrap downed players with mines and the downed player doesn’t set them off? I’m getting off track, shooting good, would like a more prominent sound for headshots.

Ammo Stations
These were handy for choke points, but felt like there was far too much molotov spam for a some games… 3 guys with molotovs and an ammo station felt OTT, literally was a game of ‘the floor is lava’. This also brings me back to grouping, you generally had 2, 3, 4 people hanging around an ammo station and they were just being frivolously deployed… if there was a fear of a panzer wiping you out, people would put more thought into their placement and certainly wouldn’t sit on it.

Ladders
Can we increase the climb speed please? Felt very very slow! That is all.

In General (maybe not even patch related)
There’s no fear of dying! No one cares, they just rush and go hell for leather. I saw people sprint past mines and grenades hoping to survive and knowing that they’ll just be downed, or go head first into groups of 3/4 enemy without waiting for backup. Why care? I’m gonna spawn in a few seconds any way.

There’s no fear of grouping! Already covered above. Even if the soldier has a wide area grenade to take most of them out, they’re still just incapped and a medic can get them all back up… add some overkill.

The maps… I don’t have enough time for this one…

I haven’t played in a while and probably have some things wrong so apologies if I do and please correct me for not paying attention.

[Volcano]

I would like to play but it seems I’m getting error 3 when launching the game

[Anti]

Why are people calling it agnostic? Are people aware how wrong they are using the word? Lol. Please correct me if I am wrong but as I understand the word means a person believes there is no way to understand whether there is a god or its nature in this universe. Its a metaphysical belief that I happen to believe in. What does that have to do with objectives lol.

In this context:

adjective
relating to agnostics or agnosticism.

(in a non-religious context) having a doubtful or non-committal attitude towards something:
until now I’ve been fairly agnostic about electoral reform

[usually in combination] Computing denoting or relating to hardware or software that is compatible with many types of platform or operating system:
many common file formats (JPEG, MP3, etc.) are platform-agnostic

[Protekt1]

[QUOTE=Anti;461332]In this context:

adjective
relating to agnostics or agnosticism.

(in a non-religious context) having a doubtful or non-committal attitude towards something:
until now I’ve been fairly agnostic about electoral reform

[usually in combination] Computing denoting or relating to hardware or software that is compatible with many types of platform or operating system:
many common file formats (JPEG, MP3, etc.) are platform-agnostic[/QUOTE]

Yep I understand its just jargon. Thx for clearing that up.