Everybody read this.

(Amerika) #81

[quote=“Anaconda;53240”][quote=“Amerika;53232”]That’s exactly what the PTR is going to be used for. Let people try out changes. They don’t always know the exact reactions people will have from the various groups. So they are going to set it up where we can all play the game and give our feedback before a change is implemented.

So give it time. The game is still tagged as beta and despite what some claim that is very relevant here. They are still trying to figure out the best ways to implement features, get feedback and make changes.[/quote]

Nonsense. They go by what the majority wants because it is there customers. The majority wants Phantom to be completely useless and want the melee to be totally nerfed. So that’s how its gonna stay.
[/quote]

Developers do react when there is a very visible outcry from the player base. Or many do (and some famously do not). But their job is to actually identify the issue and fix it in regards to the way THEY want their game to play. Which might not actually match up with how you want the game to play. They do not have a poll going on each and every change and balance it based on the popular results and then make changes based on that poll. You might think that based on your perspective in regards to certain topics but that’s purely coincidental.

Sometimes changes are made and they aren’t apparent until a lot of people have tried it out. I don’t personally see the melee swing change to be more than a minor nuisance. This mostly has to do with me rarely ever using the secondary melee button (which is what the Quick Melee bind uses) and the fact that I already have pretty low sensitivity. I am bothered by it incredibly less than somebody else using the Quick Melee bind constantly and higher sensitivity. My point is that changes might not be apparent to a small group of people, like the dev team at SD, where it’s more apparent after a lot of other people try out the change. That’s why we are getting a PTR.

Also, there is a difference between making a merc “completely useless” and making a certain play style much less viable than it previously was while retaining other play styles.

(Anaconda) #82

They didn’t just nerf him. If they did,

“Katana does less damage in stab attack. Invisibility lasts slightly less time. Cloak protects less from damage”.

That’s a nerf.

They did an unbalanced complete destruction of him, taking away every feature and making everything else useless. Now the class has absolutely nothing of value that u cant get with another class. They might as well have just deleted him.

(Anaconda) #83

And in the process, they broke melee for every other class as well. Its like they don’t want people to run and gun, they want everyone sitting back sniping.

(watsyurdeal) #84

Because chances are you would have lost them anyhow, the thing with casuals is it doesn’t guarantee a strong player base. They’ll play a game till something that looks interesting come along, and if the game has no depth, because everything has been changed or nerfed into the ground to cater to them, they’ll leave. Because they will feel like they’ve gotten everything out of the game, there’s no drive to improve or keep playing.

That and they are marketing this as a competitive shooter…why would they do that if they are balancing around players who have no intention of taking this game seriously?

And for the record, a casual player isn’t someone who rarely plays. My definition of a casual is someone who doesn’t want to dedicate time to a game, they just want to hop in and out, without having to practice or work on getting better.

(DMaster2) #85

[quote=“Anaconda;53271”]
They didn’t just nerf him. If they did,

“Katana does less damage in stab attack. Invisibility lasts slightly less time. Cloak protects less from damage”.

That’s a nerf.

They did an unbalanced complete destruction of him, taking away every feature and making everything else useless. Now the class has absolutely nothing of value that u cant get with another class. They might as well have just deleted him. [/quote]
Personal opinion. My only minor complaint is that they nerfed the whole melee a tiny bit too much. Also nothing is set in stone, if the devs feel that Phantom need a slight boost they’ll do so in the future.

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;53275”]
Because chances are you would have lost them anyhow, the thing with casuals is it doesn’t guarantee a strong player base. They’ll play a game till something that looks interesting come along, and if the game has no depth, because everything has been changed or nerfed into the ground to cater to them, they’ll leave. Because they will feel like they’ve gotten everything out of the game, there’s no drive to improve or keep playing.

That and they are marketing this as a competitive shooter…why would they do that if they are balancing around players who have no intention of taking this game seriously?

And for the record, a casual player isn’t someone who rarely plays. My definition of a casual is someone who doesn’t want to dedicate time to a game, they just want to hop in and out, without having to practice or work on getting better.[/quote]
Yeah it’s a chance. A chance they might remain (and it’s not as if Phantom was balanced in the first place, as some diehard tried to claim) and enjoy the game while it was certain all of the ones revolting would’ve leaved the game if Phantom was left in that state. I started a while back, but if i installed the game after phantom release and got raped continuosly by phantoms i couldn’t even see i would’ve uninstalled the game in a couple of days, that’s the reasonable reaction a lot of new players have. I myself started playing again more since the Phantom nerf, because now it’s actually a decent playfield with few Phantoms and the ones that remain are way more careful when approaching instead of going rambo on your back. And even when i play as Phantom myself i can finally have a bit of challenge, because i can’t cleave people off anymore easily.

Remember that these kind of games need a big amount of people playing it, even if super casuals. Not only for the money they give to the devs, but also to not let the game die (because if only the hardcore pros remain the game is certainly doomed).

(watsyurdeal) #86

Alright well here’s another way to look at it

When is the last time you remember a death match centric game being made?

Halo, Quake, Call of Booty, those are all I can think of.

Dirty Bomb is a team play shooter, there’s no disputing that. So how do we differentiate from who is a good audience to listen to and who isn’t?

Why not listen to people who play as a team, rather than for themselves? Imo, that’s another casual player trait, playing DM only in Team Based shooter. They won’t use their mic, they won’t stick with the team, and when they play certain classes they don’t do their job. Medics that don’t Revive, Vasillis who don’t throw out motion sensors, Proxies who don’t go for plants and defusals. This sort of players are selfish, anything that prevents from having fun their way they’ll complain about.

Team players will typically complain about something if it can’t be dealt with as a team, doesn’t add anything to the game’s objective, and so on.

If you actually LOOK at the Phantom threads, one of the most common things you’ll see, especially now. Is his lack of team use, doesn’t mean players can’t use him to benefit their team, he’s just not viable enough. He was a good DM class, but nothing more.

Those same players are discussing fixes for him to make him more useful, like balancing cloak so it actually IS effective as a stealth tool, something nobody else has, and giving him some way to maybe deal with deployables since that’s something nobody else has either.

They’re trying to give him a purpose, as opposed to others who just wanna nerf him to the ground because he ruins their fun.

And that really is the center of it all, what kind of fun are you looking for?

The kind of fun that comes from good teamwork and getting shit done? Or just shooting people without having to focus on a bigger goal?

That pretty much sums it up, Splash Damage should listen to the people who wanna play this game as a team…aka, the “Try Hards” and Competitive crowd.

Look at TF2…now…when is the last time you heard people using their mic in that game? When’s the last time you can honestly say you had a good time playing the game with a team? That’s where Dirty Bomb could be headed, yes plenty of people playing…but nobody wants to play on a team, they want the glory but none of them work together.

(Anaconda) #87

, if the devs feel that Phantom need a slight boost they’ll do so in the future.

False. If the majority cry to developers that Phantom needs a boost, then they’ll do it. Developers just go by what the majority wants, they’re in this to make money, not make a “balanced game”, which they’ve proven with the Phantom nerf.

(DMaster2) #88

Well i agree that the pros opinions should have more weight. What i’m trying to say is that it’s wrong to label the “casual” opinion as bad and useless period. Because they also play the game and play a part in it, either by supporting it and keep playing or try it and leave. That said i think devs should just pursue their vision for the game balance first. Then if there are outbursts like phantom’s ones then they should put a fix soon. They did it with a decent speed and it’s not like people weren’t expecting it. But that doesn’t mean they’ll keep tweaking him and other mercs in the future. We had 2 weeks of pain before, now let’s try for a couple of weeks how this work out.

(AnemoneMeer) #89

Here’s the thing. There are and will always be more casual players than hardcore players. Different things have different effectiveness levels at different difficulties. Things that demand more counterplay than user ability get less and less effective as both sides get more and more skillful. This means, plain and simple, it is entirely possible for something to be UNDERPOWERED at high level play, and OVERPOWERED at medium level play at the exact same time. You see this with scout and heavy in TF2, both of whom are not powerful in competitive play, but can dominate a server in skilled hands. Likewise, Soldier is actually pretty bad in low level play as people can’t lead rockets well and control themselves in the air perfectly while doing so, but is pretty much the mainstay class of high level play. fighting games tend to see this with Grappler archetypes as well.

It’s wrong and gamekilling to simply look at the professional players. They are not your main playerbase, and to balance properly, a game needs to be balanced for all skill levels as best as possible. It is perfectly fine if Phantom is not capable of seeing use in top tier play, so long as he is fun and good in pub servers. His core mechanical design is largely useless in competitive, where everyone is calling targets and communicating and has far more skill. The very advantages stealth give go away in that sort of situation, and to make him strong enough to see competitive play means to make him completely broken in pub play.

(Haplo) #90

This thread is an ouroboros. Some rehashed QQ, same reasoned response. Rinse, repeat.

(watsyurdeal) #91

[quote=“AnemoneMeer;53315”]Here’s the thing. There are and will always be more casual players than hardcore players. Different things have different effectiveness levels at different difficulties. Things that demand more counterplay than user ability get less and less effective as both sides get more and more skillful. This means, plain and simple, it is entirely possible for something to be UNDERPOWERED at high level play, and OVERPOWERED at medium level play at the exact same time. You see this with scout and heavy in TF2, both of whom are not powerful in competitive play, but can dominate a server in skilled hands. Likewise, Soldier is actually pretty bad in low level play as people can’t lead rockets well and control themselves in the air perfectly while doing so, but is pretty much the mainstay class of high level play. fighting games tend to see this with Grappler archetypes as well.

It’s wrong and gamekilling to simply look at the professional players. They are not your main playerbase, and to balance properly, a game needs to be balanced for all skill levels as best as possible. It is perfectly fine if Phantom is not capable of seeing use in top tier play, so long as he is fun and good in pub servers. His core mechanical design is largely useless in competitive, where everyone is calling targets and communicating and has far more skill. The very advantages stealth give go away in that sort of situation, and to make him strong enough to see competitive play means to make him completely broken in pub play.[/quote]

And to all that I say this, so we should nerf something because pubs can’t handle it?

So Rhino, Fragger, Vasilli, pretty much any class a good player can use and dominate with, we should just straight up nerf?

No, that’s a terrible solution, because that’s entirely based on the skill level of those players. You shouldn’t balance the game around the lowest level, you should balance it from the top and it’ll scale down. If good players can handle Phantom even if he’s a very powerful class, then he’s still balanced. It simply means not so good players have no clue how to deal with him, nor have an understand of how he works.

And if you really want to discuss Phantom go look in the merc discussion, it’ll be a lot better that way since we’re getting off track. The main crux here, is that if the devs want to make a game they have to figure out their audience.

Whether you like it or not, it’s pretty clear their audience IS the comp scene. So if they wanna keep that audience happy, THAT is who they should be focusing on. And the changes made for that environment will scale to others.

Besides that, Pub play doesn’t follow the same rules, so of course it’s going to seem out of whack. Like merc spam or the maps being cramped because there’s too many players.

(NXA-Orellien) #92

There’s a great video discussing the issues when it comes to balancing player skill versus ability power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w

…not every day that you see something defending the value of the noob tube…

But its a major point to keep in mind. Dirty Bomb of course needs to be balanced at high skill levels, that’s not even in question. But something to remember is that every single top-tier, excellent, nigh-unkillable e-sports god started out as a complete and total noob.

It’s probable that most-to-all of Dirty Bomb’s competitive players are those that cut their teeth on other FPS’s, sure, be it Enemy Territory, Marathon (my first FPS), that ‘fish’ game or some other one. But it’d be nice if someone that’s never played an FPS before to be able to get into Dirty Bomb, figure things out, get better, learn the tricks and secret strategies, and learn to dominate in the competitive scene in the fullness of time.

I highly doubt that we’re done balancing Phantom, Sparks, Fletcher, Proxy, Skyhammer… or really any of this. All we ask is that you keep voicing your feedback, trust that we’re looking at the whole picture, and avoid being a private detective to other players :).

(Haplo) #93

But that’s not clear at all, or even true. Dirty bomb has 11,000+ players. There are around 500-600 players playing in the Dirtycups league. That places “comp” players in the extreme minority.

(watsyurdeal) #94

[quote=“NXA-Orellien;53339”]There’s a great video discussing the issues when it comes to balancing player skill versus ability power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w

…not every day that you see something defending the value of the noob tube…

But its a major point to keep in mind. Dirty Bomb of course needs to be balanced at high skill levels, that’s not even in question. But something to remember is that every single top-tier, excellent, nigh-unkillable e-sports god started out as a complete and total noob.

It’s probable that most-to-all of Dirty Bomb’s competitive players are those that cut their teeth on other FPS’s, sure, be it Enemy Territory, Marathon (my first FPS), that ‘fish’ game or some other one. But it’d be nice if someone that’s never played an FPS before to be able to get into Dirty Bomb, figure things out, get better, learn the tricks and secret strategies, and learn to dominate in the competitive scene in the fullness of time.

I highly doubt that we’re done balancing Phantom, Sparks, Fletcher, Proxy, Skyhammer… or really any of this. All we ask is that you keep voicing your feedback, trust that we’re looking at the whole picture, and avoid being a private detective to other players :).[/quote]

Why can’t I upvote him more

Thanks man

(Haplo) #95

So if if an NXA employee says basically the same thing as Amerika, I and several others have been repeating ad-nauseum you say “Thanks man”. If I knew that’s all it would take to get you to stfu, I would have changed my name.

(watsyurdeal) #96

For now, but if you want to look at long term, if those 11000 stick around, then the comp scene will grow.

But if there’s no incentive to stay, no challenge, no team work, no real reason to take the game seriously, then they’ll be gone.

So it’s pretty much up to the devs to pick and choose

And the reason why I praise people like Amerika and Orellian cause they actually know how to talk about stuff that matters rather than make childish comments and insults.

(AnemoneMeer) #97

If something is worthless in competitive, and overpowered in casual, is it worth making it completely gamebreaking in casual to make it viable in competitive? Is it worth driving away players, who are required to keep the game afloat, in order to cater to your competitive scene? No. Plain and simple. The goal should be to make sure that both competitive and casual players can play and have fun in their own ways. If this means a few mercs who have extreme power in casual and are worthless in competitive stay that way, that’s fine. You can’t balance everything for all skill levels all the time and doing so is a wasted effort.

The USA economy thought that if you gave tax breaks to the rich, the money will trickle down. Non-sequitor, I know, but this is the same situation. Not everyone is a tournament player waiting to happen. Not everyone will put in the time and effort to “get good”, especially if they’re hit with a giant execution wall out of the gate. This is INCREDIBLY apparent with the low adaption rate of fighting games, which are largely balanced from the top down. Yes, they have a thriving scene, but at the same time, they have incredibly low new player to competitive player conversion rates, and low player retention rates as a whole. And they get your money up front. Will the average skill level of the playerbase get better if the game is balanced around competitive play? Yes. Will the average playerbase size get smaller? Also yes.

This is a free to play game. It can’t afford the loss of revenue from deciding to toss away all the casual players nearly as well as a purchased product. F2P > P2P conversion rates are hardly 100%.

(Haplo) #98

I’m not looking for praise, just some basic reading comprehension on the part of the person I’m arguing with.

"For now, but if you want to look at long term, if those 11000 stick around, then the comp scene will grow.

But if there’s no incentive to stay, no challenge, no team work, no real reason to take the game seriously, then they’ll be gone."

That is true. That also has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with the recent patch changes. It’s like conversing with a wall…

(watsyurdeal) #99

[quote=“AnemoneMeer;53370”]If something is worthless in competitive, and overpowered in casual, is it worth making it completely gamebreaking in casual to make it viable in competitive? Is it worth driving away players, who are required to keep the game afloat, in order to cater to your competitive scene? No. Plain and simple. The goal should be to make sure that both competitive and casual players can play and have fun in their own ways. If this means a few mercs who have extreme power in casual and are worthless in competitive stay that way, that’s fine. You can’t balance everything for all skill levels all the time and doing so is a wasted effort.

The USA economy thought that if you gave tax breaks to the rich, the money will trickle down. Non-sequitor, I know, but this is the same situation. Not everyone is a tournament player waiting to happen. Not everyone will put in the time and effort to “get good”, especially if they’re hit with a giant execution wall out of the gate. This is INCREDIBLY apparent with the low adaption rate of fighting games, which are largely balanced from the top down. Yes, they have a thriving scene, but at the same time, they have incredibly low new player to competitive player conversion rates, and low player retention rates as a whole. And they get your money up front. Will the average skill level of the playerbase get better if the game is balanced around competitive play? Yes. Will the average playerbase size get smaller? Also yes.

This is a free to play game. It can’t afford the loss of revenue from deciding to toss away all the casual players nearly as well as a purchased product. F2P > P2P conversion rates are hardly 100%.[/quote]

There’s no reason mercs like Arty, Phantom, Fletcher, Proxy and Aura can’t be more effective and potent in comp and still be balanced.

It’s all a matter of how they want to balance it. They could easily make Phantom completely invisible, but disable all actions while cloaked, so he has what he needs to get behind in like a sneaky beaky type, but isn’t going to lethal until he’s revealed to the enemy.

They can have Aura’s healing station like it used to be, just be easier to destroy, so people who focus on the station first, can cut off the source of heals and finish Aura off.

Fletcher’s stickies could use some bug fixing, and maybe some tweaks to make it gib under certain circumstances.

Arty could get his ability tweaked to be a constant barrage of artillery to a specific spot on the level, so he’s an area denial sort of guy instead.

There’s a lot of things they can do that can make each merc balanced for both comp play, and pub play. It’s all a matter of how they want to balance them, what niche they want each merc to fill, and the best way to go about it.

And I do believe balancing for this competitive setting is best because it encourages strategy and team work assuming equal levels of skill. Which is what the whole game is about in the first place.

(Haplo) #100

In EVERY shooter there are classes that simply don’t get played in comp. THAT’S OK!

No matter what you do with Aura, her healing station has only situational usefulness when compared to Sawbonez or Sparx. You can mess with her healing station all you want AND SHE STILL WON’T BE PLAYED MUCH IN COMP.

Unless you make Arty’s artillery an immediate point and click (like RtCW) there are too many downsides compared to Skyhammer. He’s already " an area denial guy" as is - if that isnt how you’ve been using him, then you’re doing it wrong. But at the end of the day, Skyhammer’s A/S is STILL just more all-around useful. Arty STILL WON’T BE PLAYED MUCH IN COMP.

Fletcher is already used in Comp more than the others listed, but for people who can aim the combination of Kek-10 (even post nerf) + Turret is just pretty hard to pass up. So do you nerf the Kek more just so you see more Fletcher? WHY?

All of this is OK.