'Fire in the Skies' Update Notes - April 4th, 2017

(everlovestruck) #21

@HammerOfDawn21 said:

Until we include this functionality in a future update, teabag 'em instead.

So no more don’t be a dick t-shirts?

But t-bag is canon, it always triggers v57 if you crouch after a kill. It’s official

(frostyvampire) #22

No pirate Coaly :c
Disappointing :disappointed:

(Sithas) #23

[quote=“stayfreshshoe;d-36069”]http://i.imgur.com/jp76eth.jpg

[i]This damn airship.

You shut down the AA defenses. We got the thing out. Everything was peachy.

But the CDA? They’re not @$!# around. They threw down mobile SAM missiles quick-smart, and lit it right up.

The airship’s on a crash-course to the docks, and we’re plotting a ‘rescue’ mission.

If what we want is still intact, we need it more than ever.

Keep your comms open.[/i]

[/quote]

Shoe, i suggest you guys put this text in the loading screen when you are loading dockyard, and give similar descriptions to the other loading screens. It gives the game a little background story. Which would be nice.

(bgyoshi) #24

More grinding for this special currency you can only use in this event!

Oh well, next time, credits. Next time.

(Tanker_Ray) #25

@jooshoyes

Just came here because FINALLY SD did changed the balance(eventough it is quite slight.) after all those endless times.

MK.46 Thunder will always suffer more than Timik/Stark Thunder, alone, BUT I still think conc needs a bit further nerf.

20sec should be its goal. What I always wanted Thunder to be, was him being strong without any skill reliant situations. (Just like Fragger isn’t powerless when his grenade is on cooldown, but he still has its strong points like +20HP than normal 120HP male mercs as an proper Assault. Stronger than the others, BUT not unkillable because of slow movement speed, large hitbox.) Weaker than Nader/Fragger with skill usage, but stronger when fighting 1 vs 1 gun fight. (of course weaker than Rhino.)

I disagreed with @watsyurdeal 's removing flash idea long time ago because I thought Thunder still needed perfect neutralizing ability to cripple the enemy team,

but if SD isn’t going to fix S41 Stark Thunder along with burst rifles sitting on its throne, the top of weapon balance, Thunder deserves more nerf just like removing the whole flash effect, leaving slow only, or etc.

If they don’t touch the Stark,(Also the BR Fragger, the unstoppable killing machine) MK.46 will STILL depend most of the killing on conc, but Thunder acting severely strong at few vs few battle, as it always have been this way.

Personally, Timik Thunder is the most balanced in to middle right now but things will change.

There are complicated reason why Thunder is still weak at pub offense without spamming concs in to CDA’s choke point or 1 vs 1 situation for 100% sure win, but unbelievably strong at Ranked mainly because Stark is far OP from the others and DB’s Ranked format requires completely different stuffs unlike pub because there is only 5 people. (Which means unlike pub, there is less team mates to tank conc for you, and losing single team mates put you in to massive disadvantage.)

So let’s take this as ‘baby step’ balance change (Which took WAY TOO LONG), and see what will SD do to him instead.

He really should have 20 sec of conc FIRST, not a MK.46 buff without touching extreme conc dependence.

I rage all the time when i lose against burst rifles eventhough i landed constant headshot with MK.46, but this should be the second thing. I understand how frustrating your feelings were though.

If you hate burst rifle’s balance breaking part but also feel frustrated by MK.46, I recommend you to use T45/T72 Timik Thunder.

(bgyoshi) #26

[quote=“Tanker_Ray;c-224755”]@jooshoyes
There are complicated reason why Thunder is still weak at pub offense without spamming concs in to CDA’s choke point or 1 vs 1 situation for 100% sure win, but unbelievably strong at Ranked mainly because Stark is far OP from the others and DB’s Ranked format requires completely different stuffs unlike pub because there is only 5 people.
[/quote]

Another reason why Ranked and Pub need completely different balance environments, or they need to kill 7v7 pub and turn it into 5v5.

The 17s cooldown for Thunder is fine. It could even go to 18 and be fine.

But…

It’s literally so bad in pubs that I’ve stopped turning away from it entirely. I just got done with 3 rounds of 7v7 stopwatch on Min Lvl 20 servers and 2 enemy Thunders spamming conc nades did absolutely nothing to hinder our progress, and every time I was hit I just jumped around and started firing as soon as the flash was gone (if I even got flashed).

Like, it might as well have not been there at all. It’s really just complete trash in pubs now.

(SnakekillerX) #27

[quote=“bgyoshi;c-224782”][quote=“Tanker_Ray;c-224755”]@jooshoyes
There are complicated reason why Thunder is still weak at pub offense without spamming concs in to CDA’s choke point or 1 vs 1 situation for 100% sure win, but unbelievably strong at Ranked mainly because Stark is far OP from the others and DB’s Ranked format requires completely different stuffs unlike pub because there is only 5 people.
[/quote]

Another reason why Ranked and Pub need completely different balance environments, or they need to kill 7v7 pub and turn it into 5v5.

The 17s cooldown for Thunder is fine. It could even go to 18 and be fine.

But…

It’s literally so bad in pubs that I’ve stopped turning away from it entirely. I just got done with 3 rounds of 7v7 stopwatch on Min Lvl 20 servers and 2 enemy Thunders spamming conc nades did absolutely nothing to hinder our progress, and every time I was hit I just jumped around and started firing as soon as the flash was gone (if I even got flashed).

Like, it might as well have not been there at all. It’s really just complete trash in pubs now.

[/quote]

Let me get this straight…

You’ve always had the ability to look away from Thunder’s ability as it was about to go off to help diminish the effect. (granted, it was not always easy to do)

Thunder’s ability was considered OP.

Ability received a debuff of 0.5 seconds of less flash and concuss.

You are now stating that you don’t even need to bother looking away from the ability and its weak now.

Are you trying to tell me that Thunder’s only killing potential was during the last 0.5 seconds that were removed? This makes no sense at all.

(bgyoshi) #28

[quote=“SnakekillerX;c-224795”]
Let me get this straight…

You’ve always had the ability to look away from Thunder’s ability as it was about to go off to help diminish the effect. (granted, it was not always easy to do)

Thunder’s ability was considered OP.

Ability received a debuff of 0.5 seconds of less flash and concuss.

You are now stating that you don’t even need to bother looking away from the ability and its weak now.

Are you trying to tell me that Thunder’s only killing potential was during the last 0.5 seconds that were removed? This makes no sense at all.[/quote]

This is the problem a lot of people struggle with in regards to Thunder’s ability. They see it as a Thunder’s ability to stun and kill an entire opposing team, when in reality, it’s a lock-down ability that allows Thunder’s TEAM to break defensive choke points or strangles by blinding and immobilizing the enemy. The .5 seconds drop isn’t what did it. Remember, the effectiveness drops off over distance. When you’re stuck in a max blind/stun, the .5 seconds is a relatively big drop, but not enough to kill the ability.

It’s the 20% reduction in the entire ability. So when you’re flashed or stunned at a distance, you’re flashed/stunned for .75ish seconds instead of a full second. Etc etc etc.

THAT is a big deal. That extra time allows the blinded team support to recover and kill the incoming team a lot quicker.

I now don’t need to look away from the ability in pubs because:

The Thunder also has to retreat from his own conc nade and it will take him 1.5 - 2 full seconds to reach me, especially if I’m around a corner, and at that time I’m no longer blind and can just shoot him. And since my team has a much shorter time to wait for the fall off, they can come support me with no blind and no stun a full second sooner than the Thunder can reach me.

With the extra 20%, the Thunder and team has enough time to round a corner and get some shots in before the blind ends, and the rest of the blinded team has only just started getting a full recovery by the time they can support.

It might not seem like a big change, but the 20% applied to the fall off distance is huge. And it helps big time that I can lose my blinded state before the Thunder can reach me, if I’ve been caught in a full blind.

The 20% reduction to blind was completely unnecessary. The 15% reduction to conc is fine for pubs and probably a very needed debuff in Ranked.

But this completely whiffed on the core of Thunder’s ranked problem: Multiple spammy Thunders is degenerate. Upping the cooldown to 18 or 20s and removing Merc stacking in ranked would’ve solved the Thunder problem entirely. The extra 15% to conc would’ve been a nice bonus.

But yeah, no need to retreat from or fear Thunder in 7v7 pubs anymore. At all

Also

That’s because you’re trying to look away after it’s thrown. You can very easily tell when Thunder winds up to throw a conc and have a ton of time to turn and retreat from the nade. It’s trivial, even. Thunder nades are best when tossed around a corner in surprise. Throwing them straight at someone staring at you is only effective against low level players that haven’t learned to look for the Thunder wind up. Unlike Fragger, you can actually run away from Thunder concs.

(Tanker_Ray) #29

@bgyoshi

This is why I’m going to write one article about the main problem of DB’s comp scene

- There is seriously huge gap between pub and Ranked.

@STARRYSOCK wrote similar article about this issue before.

Reason why pub/Ranked should be the same format.

@SnakekillerX Thunder was definitely OP Ranked wise, but not pub. (Unless you spam conc with over 2 Thunders every 15secs before.) Ranked = few vs few, which means its totally Thunder’s playground just like Arty and Kira loves Chapel.

Thunder can win full HP Rhino on the healing station by full stunning him, but also unbelievably, and extremely weak when focus-fired by +2 enemies, or even when you fully stun+blind one or two, there are plenty of team mates that will cover you in pub. Just hiding in to the right corner when you are fully stunned, will drag offensive Thunder in to your team mate’s line of sight.

Very very ironic, because this shows how much he depends on his conc for his own kills. He is an Assault, but he depends on his HP more than RHINO does, because his own firepower STILL only comes out from his primary weapons, and sadly, his most dmg output - Stark AR is public weapon. (MK.46 being his OWN weapon, and performing worse than public weapon. This pretty much shows how weak he is without conc, since onlything reliable is his 170HP.)

This is also the reason why I still think pub is much more balanced merc/weapon wise, eventhough quite a lot hates 8 vs 8 for clusterfxcks.

(OwynTyler) #30

tfw only few days passed but you already got everything available for “Vectors” currency… :expressionless:

(n-x) #31

Thunder should just be played differently from Fragger and should be nerfed/buffed in this direction. Meaning, your whole team tactic should be different if you have a Fragger or a Thunder as your Assault.

Fragger is generally speaking the man for making huge amount of damage in a small area. You throw the grenade into enemies and follow up with your primary on everybody who survived but got damaged by the explosion, and your team is taking care of everybody getting away from it. So he kills in a small area and makes the enemy team scatter.

Thunder I would like to see the other way around. You throw the concussion grenade into the enemies, holding them there so faster mercs can advance and kill the blinded enemies you as Thunder dont really participate in the rush but take care of the enemies not affected by the grenade, securing your teammates. The concussion grenade should not be there for your personal advantage.

This way both assaults would have advantages in certain situations. If the defenders are behind cover in a larger area which is further away and hard to see into, so you cant exactly pin point where they are, Thunder would be the better assault, because his area of effect is just bigger and the stun would give your teammates enough time to rush the defenders.

Fragger would be more suited to breaking through lines with one decisive fast attack for which Thunder is too slow.

But the first and most important step to balance Thunder in ranked is to make a one merc per team rule to stop the conc spam. Maybe a cockable conc grenade with a way longer cool down and a shorter effect is an option. So you really have to make it count and your teamwork has to be good. But when you can make everything happen it is a really strong tactic.

(hoyes) #32

@Tanker_Ray

All right after trying Thunder in ranked and pubs I have to say the only clear difference I feel is the cooldown. It is the only thing that handicaps Thunders power directly without hurting the effectiveness of the conc. The changes to the time on the effects feel minute, yet still enough to make a difference, albeit small in size.

I mainly play mk46 thunder since it is the only type I really enjoy, and thus the nerf causes the gun to suffer since the mk46’s power is directly proportional to the CD of the conc, whereas he will feel unchanged for timik or stark, since they are strong guns by themselves (especially the stark).

I jumped to a bit of a false conclusion as I had yet to play Thunder when I posted, since I was actually excited that Thunder had got a nerf, as it would make me feel like less of a d!ck when playing him and not feel that I have a insta-win ability if I were to press Q.

I agree there needs to be more. Not just the cooldown, but to affect how easy it is to dodge the grenade. I really think that the fuse time needs an increase to what it was almost a year ago, to 1.2 seconds, accompanying the nerf to durations.

Not only would this change make the conc more avoidable, but also less punishing to the victim if they are hit by the effects and did notice the conc was coming.

This must be accompanied with a stark nerf to fully affect Thunders viability at all scenes. The stark and 170hp is one of people’s main complaints about Thunder, but we saw how bad Thunder was a 160hp, so no, that will/should not happen. He needs the hp in order to act on the conc effectively, not the weapon. The stark nerf will just make him less frustrating in 1v1s as well as the rest of the cast that have access to this weapon.

(OwynTyler) #33

fragger throws nade, mates rush in, finish foes

except foes aren’t blinded or handicapped after that, they can just shoot you in the face right when you pop up from your shelter, or they can already be healed up via medpacks

thunder throws nade, mates rush in, finish foes

free kills, cuz enemies are blind as newborn cubs and 99% handicapped anyway = no escape from justice free fragging

That’s not even close from being the “same way of playing”

(Tanker_Ray) #34

@jooshoyes

Oh damn, just realized I forgot to wrote about the fuse time.

YES! 1.2 sec fuse time, After 2016 Feb patch. It was perfect.

There are still sure a lot of people who just wants cooking for his conc, but I think 1.2 sec is enough.

I felt Stoker’s buff was really touching, and second thing that came close to me was the conc’s CD, most definitely. Pretty obvious since everyone knows Thunder is conc spammer.

mk46’s power is directly proportional to the CD of the conc, whereas he will feel unchanged for timik or stark, since they are strong guns by themselves (especially the stark).

Especially this part.

I want to press agree button like hundred times with this.

As someone who used Thunder more than anyone, and been crying out for Thunder’s HP/MK.46 being strong, not the conc, (For over 1.5 years in this forum…)

Totally disagree with those people who saying his HP should go back to 160. I understand their feelings, but doesn’t change the fact this is just completely bs idea.

But one additional thing I must add is, if burst rifles are toned down severely, Vassili’s HP has to roll back to 100 too. (Which seems unrelated.)

Those two are pretty much connected (as a balance breaking part), since BR and Stark is the only option to damage Vassili in proper Chapel defense line.

DB’s SMG, Automatic rifles are so much balanced overall nowadays. (Loved when SMG’s range was finally fixed to 18m average. Perfect patch.)

All they need is(Well there are some a lot more like Remburg/880 firing way too fast, or Proxy’s manual mine detonation, but let’s discuss this later on.) to fix the god damn burst rifles and help underpowered machine guns, make them strong enough to be used as Fragger/Thunder’s OWN personal strongk weapon.

May be I’m so fool enough to believe in SD, but I am still expecting godlike balance patch SD used to apply, such as toning down M62 Fragger by its proper HP nerf with Unshakable. It was fantastic as hell, and still expecting they would do something about buried machine guns.

(Melinder) #35

Has nobody thought to question the fact that the previous version of the Concussion Grenade full-flashed for longer than 2.5 seconds?

Does this mean it’s been lowered by 0.5 seconds from what it previously did? (for example 4.0 to 3.5), or has it gone from it’s previous value straight down to 2.0 (for example 4.0 - 2.0).

(harry86y) #36

There seems to be some problems with FOV settings, when i open settings it’s just set to 65.
Seems to work in the ingame menu…