-----[center]PART ONE[/center]-----
I’ve recently picked up Dirty Bomb as it went into open Beta on Steam, and I’ve logged myself a few hours and quite a few games in it. Overall, the quality and enjoyment from the game exceeds the normal standards set today by most games in what usually seems to be a never ending Beta, but there are a few things I would like to point out that I feel can be improved on in order to help Dirty Bomb move from that Beta stage into a full release, well polished game.
First, I'm posting this in the General Discussion board because I couldn't find a General Feedback board that wasn't restricted to certain topics. I feel that if a General Feedback board was made than feedback could be separated from other discussions and would receive more attention if it happens to not fall under a specific category. Now on to my points.
Competitive Matchmaking
- Accept/Decline Times - Few things are more frustrating to someone looking for a competitive match than having to wait for a match to be found, then wait an extra minute, only to have the last person not accept and have to start the process all over again. The problem? The time given to each player so that they can either hit accept/decline is way too long. A minute is more time than the average queue to find the match in the first place. This leads to spending more time in queue waiting for the one last guy to get back and hit accept than you actually spend looking for a match. This also creates an inviting environment for people to purposely wait until the last minute to hit decline, or even hit accept, only to leave once they get into lobby (I will discuss this problem further in my post). The Solution? In order to create a smooth, faster paced matchmaking environment, I feel it would be beneficial to lower the accept/decline times to about 15/20 seconds. This gives the player enough time to tab back in if they are currently not in-game, or enough time for them to run back to their computer if they are away from it at the time. If it’s not enough time for a person, then they should be removed from the queue until they are ready to search again, and the other player who did accept should be put back into the queue as they are in the current build. Anyone who is removed from queue will be able to find a match quickly by queuing again because the queue times are not an issue at all. This will in turn create a smoother, quicker matchmaking system where players who were ready and waiting for their match do not have to wait a minute for someone who isn’t even going to accept, and may even improve the general attitude of players as they enter their lobbies.
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Players Leaving in Lobby - After my first handful of competitive games in Dirty Bomb, I began to notice a huge problem; leavers. And not just people who rage quit or have to go because a match is taking too long, but people who leave right as the lobby is formed, almost as if that was their intention in the first place. Currently the system in place treats them as a disconnect I assume, and gives them the time to join back in after the game starts, and if they don’t join in quick enough, it says they have abandoned, and allows everyone else to leave penalty free. The Problem? The fact that it even starts the game in the first place if not all players are present in the lobby is asking for an unpleasant environment. Even if the player manages to reconnect, the rest of their team is forced to play down a player for the first few minutes of the game, which are in my opinion some of the most crucial minutes. This causes the general feeling of the team to go down, and can lead to other members of the team leaving or giving up, and usually ends in a waste of time unless you’re able to scrap some Exp. by waiting it out. Most of the time, the player that left in the lobby doesn’t even reconnect, forcing their team to play at a constant disadvantage, which in a team coordination based game has a huge impact on the outcome of the match. The Solution? Even though the match is nullified if someone leaves, there’s no reason to force a team to play out a whole match when they’re most likely going to lose. If not all players are present at the end of the lobby timer, than the match should be canceled, and players present in the lobby should be put back into queue, while players not present in the lobby should be removed from queue. Because finding a match does not take long, and if the new accept timer system I recommended is implemented in some fashion it would make it take even less time, the time it would take to get into a new lobby, with hopefully everyone present, is not as long as it would take to wait in hopes for a player to rejoin. This way offers the quickest possibility of all players to be able to experience a full 5v5 match, from start to end.
- No Surrender Option - I could be mistaken on this one, maybe I didn’t search hard enough, but I was unable to find a surrender option in Dirty Bomb during a competitive match. The Problem? Sometimes, players leave in the middle of a match, which nullifies the option I suggested in my previous point but causes the same problem. An unfair, and usually not fun match ensues and players are forced to wait it out if they want to claim their hard earned experience and credits. The Solution? Give players an option to vote for a surrender if someone on their team has left long enough to be considered to have “abandoned” their team. The match can then end, giving all players experience and credits they have earned up to that point. This prevents the possible outcome of forcing a team to sit and wait for the match to end as the opposing team farms kills and objectives from them, and the possible outcome of the entire team eventually disconnecting, leaving the opposing team forced to wait out the timer in some circumstances this can be avoided by causing the match to automatically end if all players on a team disconnect.
EV Escorts
- Kira Laser/Not Being Able to Repair on the Move - I’m sure many players feel my pain as I type out this “problem”. When playing a map with an EV escort, there is nothing worse than sitting there and repairing the EV, only to have the entire enemy team switch to Kira when it’s fully repaired and bombard it with lasers, instantly killing it… The Problem? It’s just a simple balance issue in my opinion. Not with Kira, but with the EV escort objective. Her ability is simply too good of a counter for this particular objective. The Solution? I feel that because Kira offers such a hard counter to the EV, with honestly no negative effects as you can also kill the entire enemy team as they try to escort it with the laser, that the EV should have increased protection to the laser, or diminishing returns on damage as the laser sits on it, or as multiple lasers hit it. This will force players to come up with strategies other than laser stacking that focus more on the team play mechanics that Dirty Bomb offers so well. Another solution for this problem, and I think a solution for the objective in general, is to allow players to repair the EV even if it’s not fully destroyed. I find that this is balanced, as it forces to players to be completely exposed and defenseless and susceptible to enemy attacks, but it offers another option to the attacking team instead of just “stand guard around the moving vehicle”. Of course this could be even further balanced by reducing the repair rate of the moving EV, but that can be determined by implementation and feedback in the game itself.
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let’s see about part two of my solution.