Everybody read this.

(Amerika) #101

Arty, IMO, would be used pretty interchangeably with Skyhammer if he simply had the same guns as Skyhammer. His artillery strikes are pretty useful as is in quite a few situations on some maps. Sometimes it would definitely be better to play Sky but other times Arty would be the superior choice depending on what was happening/where you were at on a map (and which map).

(triteTongs) #102

I’m not interested in dirty cup leagues, but I am interested in the built-in 5v5 competitive mode. When I hear the word “COMP” that’s what I’m thinking. Not the cups.

(tinyHouse) #103

A good example of a game that died because they listened to the majority of people whining about things being op and nerfing them is Loadout. Game is pretty much dead now. The casuals that complained didn’t even stick around, it was mostly competitive players that were still playing when the game was close to dead and everything got nerfed.

(Zuty) #104

Not to go off on a tangent …

I’ve been playing video games my entire life (~25 years) and I’ve studied heavily on the topic of game design and the many theories behind it for close to 15 years. The most important thing I gathered from my experience is that balance, in “perfect” terms, is impossible. What do I mean by this? Let me explain with a simple game we all know how to play: Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS).

Hands down, RPS is the most perfectly balanced game on the market! Rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, and paper beats rock. No matter what hand sign you throw, there is a 33% chance you’re either going to win, lose, or draw. But games like RPS get stale and need an update to stay fresh, otherwise why would people continue playing it?

A fourth hand sign is added to the game; let’s call this fourth sign Dynamite. Dynamite beats Rock (blows it up), loses to Scissors (the fuse is cut), and draws against Paper and Dynamite. This game is no longer balanced: Rock now has a 25% chance of winning or drawing and a 50% chance of losing, Scissors now has a 25% chance of losing or drawing and a 50% chance of winning, and both Paper and Dynamite now have a 25% chance of winning or losing and a 50% chance of drawing.

The Rock players get mad and call for a fix; so along comes a fifth hand sign Water. Water beats Dynamite (puts the fuse out), beats Paper (makes it all wet), beats Scissors (rusts them), loses to Rock, and draws against Water. Rock and Scissor players are fine with this (now each having a similar 40% W/40% L/20% D ratio), but now Paper and Dynamite players are both mad (now each having a similar 20% W/40%L/40% D ratio). Paper is upset because they’ve been here from the start of the game and want some respect. Dynamite players are even more upset, because they spent money to unlock Dynamite. All the while, Water is now becoming very popular in the meta (with a 60% W/20% L/20% D ratio) and all the new players start buying Water.

The Paper and Dynamite players unite and petition for Water to be nerfed. And after many topics, forum posts, and e-mails, they decide to nerf Water. Water now loses to both Paper and Dynamite and goes from a 60% win ratio to a 60% losing ratio. Now all the players who bought Water while it was good are outraged by this personal attack. And this cycle continues on and on into ad nauseam.

Hopefully my stupid little example helped to show what I mean by balance being impossible. Imbalance is a shape-shifting beast that will go from one extreme to the next and back again along the course of a games life-span. This game is still in beta and the developers have shown how deeply they care about the community, so I am 100% positive that they will do the right thing and keep listening to the community, learn from their past mistakes, make more improvements, then come out with a patch to retweak some of those improvements, and all the while continue to make a game that we all can agree is fun to play.

~Zuty

(watsyurdeal) #105

Well…that pretty much beats the shit out of a response I could have, so yea, this guy above me is Yoda. Needs more insightfuls

(Spyder) #106

There are way more casual players or “noobs” as you call them, since you prefer to try to put them down with name calling, then there are “pros” playing this game. If you turn the casual players off of this game, your turning away the majority of your player base and therefore reducing possible income which let’s be honest, is what this game was made for even though it’s free to play.

(RuleofBooKz) #107

an issue obj based FPS games had been subjected to for a long time was this dichotomy

  1. Game should be about teamwork. people playing their roles. Working together = game is won.

  2. Game should be about kills. kill all bad guys. Dead bad guys = game won

that is not easy to balance

Lots of pro players like to talk up teamwork but they kno its really just about top kills.

Why is this important? Because it means players will ask for different things to be changed for when they envisage how they want the game to evolve

Phantom is a good example. He had no team play aspect. He was the anti teamplayer his only role to DM. But he got loads of kills! some “pros” are going to respect that and want to keep him like that. Some pros - who really want the game to be about teamwork and roles etc will not want that and so like the nerf.

(watsyurdeal) #108

Well…yea but it could also be that he had no other utility. I mean Vasilli can throw motion sensors…so why doesn’t Phantom have a second ability on top of his cloak? It helps him get kills but what can he do for team besides that?

And before you mention Fragger…he is an assault class…so it does make sense that his role is dealing damage.

(AlphaUT) #109

Agree, Bad players, especially the bad players can’t just face their skill level and don’t know how to learn , rather to complaining about how OP a merc or a weapon is than just do research for tips or post some really useful question in new player section, or get use to all the weapon and mercs, so that they can have a good idea how to against those weapon or mercs that they think is way too OP.
Have time to just waiting for nerf, why don’t u just player more and learn more ?

What i see in min level 10 server is that if one team is getting lose, Phantom does shit to his team, play other merc is much more useful for the team than play as Phantom. For those who were keep saying " oh! Phantom is too OP, we lose because of one Phantom" for me, it is just like your team don’t know how to deal with it. Thinking about Phantom is way too OP, you already lose the game

(Amerika) #110

The designers already said they are not balancing the game around RPS or anything like it. They are not taking the TF2 route because in TF2 you have should have all classes in and each one counters another class. Example: That’s why a fully invisible spy works…it is supposed to have a counter at all times. However, in DB, the game is not like that because not all classes can and should be in the server at all times. So the analogy holds water if DB was designed in that manner but it’s not. The game has to be balanced whether or not a counter is in the game or not.

I hate to draw comparisons to MOBA’s since I am not a fan of the genre but DB’s mercs are definitely designed more in that manner than TF2. In a MOBA you don’t need one character to counter another directly. Yes, there are matchups that might allow one character to have an advantage in some situations but DB is not designed or balanced around requiring it. Especially with the sheer amount of mercs the game could have when everything is released.

(RyePanda) #111

Though I agree it is crucial to listen to people with more experience, listening to just pros might (notice how I said might, it could be great to listen to only pros too.) not be the best option. Halo 4 had a patched based only off pros who favored semi-auto / burst weapons, so the patch massively favored those and unbalanced the game further. Is this the same case? No. But everyone’s opinion should be heard (This game does needs players to make money) and even if you are a “pro” others’ opinions need to be respected, and players with less experience should be able to enjoy and succeed at the game too (every good player starts as a newb).

(Zuty) #112

I hope my post didn’t come off that way, it was just an easy example to work with. I love DB so much (maybe a little too much) and I am going to be taking this ride for as long as the games around and still fun to play. In many ways, DB reminds me of beta and vanilla WoW, but I won’t go off on another tangent and explain why I feel this way.

DB is going to go through many, many, MANY changes in both the near and distant future. Mercs will get boosted, nerfed, boosted again, completely rebuilt, nerfed, and completely rebuilt a second time. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. As long as I continue to have fun playing DB, it doesn’t matter to me how many changes are made to the game. If the changes work out, that’s awesome. And if they don’t work out, it’s a learning experience for everyone (players and developers).

~Zuty

(Haplo) #113

Competitive MM is a jumped up pub. No FF, no class restrictions, broken matchmaking and rampant cheating. Unless you’re pugging or playing in a league then it’s not comp.

(Haplo) #114

Even then it’s a strike with situational usefulness, like Stoker’s Molotov. You’d see him more perhaps, but I still believe that Hammer would be the go-to.