I gave Dirty Bomb a rest a decided to come back and play last weekend with fresh eyes and ears. This is my feedback. Feel free to ask me to expand on points if desired. It’s easier for me to focus on things I don’t like than stuff I do like. /shrug. To help you understand which points I see as important to me, I am ranking my feedback with priority of low, medium, and high. + = good, - = bad.
Overall positive feedback: I noticed a marked improvement in the artwork of the maps, character models, and menus. Little details have been added to the maps which make things look more polished. I think more environment sounds have been added since I last played. Kudos!
In its current state I’d give this game a 3.5/5 which is something I would play for a couple of months.
HUD and view
After rereading some of my feedback I see the first statement contradicts some of my feedback. I am using a 24” monitor and I wonder if HUD elements are scaling correctly.
+HUD appeared much less cluttered than I remember with objective markers blocking view.
-(LOW) Personally, I find the minimap to be a little small.
-(LOW) Had trouble reading the names of friendlies on the HUD. For example, I wanted someone named “Zen” to give me ammo using but I couldn’t read his name on the screen to talk to him on VOIP. This is a double edged sword for me because I HATE HUD clutter so I don’t know if a fix is possible that would satisfy me.
-MEDIUM “Connection Lost” message appears right on my crosshair which resulted in my death many times once I stopped 999ing. Move it up or down.
-MEDIUM Upon death message that says “Respawn in xx:xx, press space to respawn” has a very small font. Overall, I’d say your fonts are small and I’m staring at a video cap as I type this so it’s not just in the heat of the moment.
-HIGH Why is something as important as PLAYER HEALTH so small and in the bottom right corner as small text? Text is tiny and furthest away from crosshair.
-HIGH I don’t think the HUD and sound convey that a player is taking side and rear damage well. I used Shadowplay to record a death where I am engaged with played 40 yards/meters in front of me. I was killed by a guy maybe 20 meters to my left. The main circular damage indicator lights up immediately but it’s tiny compared to other games and my first thought is that the player is far away and with damage falloff I can kill the guy in front and run away. Additionally the sound is very muted for a player that close which is a problem Titanfall has as well. I understand this is to avoid HUD clutter and I’m all for that, but then the sound needs to do a better job conveying damage and direction. UPDATE: I have been paying extra attention to this I am having trouble realizing when I am taking damage from players out of view. I think adding more sound cues is the key.
SCOREBOARD/LIMBO MENU/Squad choosing screen
-HIGH-Mid Match Scoreboard: you have these pretty pictures of the mercs but it’s not obvious what classes they are. I NEED to know quickly which classes are being played by my team and I’m not seeing that in the limbo menu or the scoreboard.
-MEDIUM I cannot appear to see the scoreboard prematch in the warmup? Is that a bug? Nor can I see the scoreboard when dead awaiting respawn? Actually, it appears that I can’t see it awaiting respawn when it goes to spectator.
-LOW When choosing mercs for my squad on the squad selection screen, why isn’t there an easy to see class symbol in the corner of the picture of all of the mercs? Are they sorted by class? I don’t think they are but I’m not looking at the screen right this second.
KEYBINDs or KEYBINDING
-HIGH Respawn message on screen sometimes says press mouse 3, sometimes space. OMFG, I have my keys rebound and my hand is nowhere near spacebar. Please, please always make respawn the same as the jump key. This makes me RAGE.
-HIGH Special ability bottom right corner of HUD-Says “press RMB” to activate special ability but it is bound to a different key for me. The message is wrong or does not reflect rebound keys.
-HIGH Please, please let me rebind quick classes (F1,F2,F3). Most people may use WASD but I do not and those keys are all the way across my keyboard.
-Does the limbo menu key do anything? Has this been replaced by ESC? I’m confused.
-LOW When playing the game and you want to change your keybinds the text can be difficult to read in the keybinding menu. Why? Because often your camera is in spectate mode and who knows what that player is looking at. Sometimes it’s super bright stuff and you can’t read the low alpha grey text on the keybind screen. Please note that there is no difficulty reading the options when not playing on a server.
SOUND/SOUND “CODE”
Ok, I realize sound is often polished last for games but this is needs major work imo. Hey, I wrote whole bunch of **** but it basically boils down to this: Your rifle and heavy MG weapon sounds all sit in the same frequency range. Your explosions also seem to be in the same frequency range. They are basically all the same and not very distinguishable from each other. Thunder’s Heavy MG sound is actually higher than Sawbonz’s SMG. The pistol that Thunder uses fires with much more apparent force than your rifles based on the sound. You see how the perception is kind of backwards?
-HIGH The distance the sounds fall off and apparent direction when taking enemy fire laterally is also weird. TitanFall has this same problem where the weapon sounds in front are more focused and louder even if someone to your 90 degree is closer and shooting you. Sometimes I swear the DB grenades don’t even make sounds if thrown far away.
-HIGH Distance sounds are little underwhelming. With some games you know an epic battle is happening just down the street and the echoes and reverb convey that accurately. I have an example but I need to dig up the files.
-HIGH Indoor pistol sound is weird (ala Thunder). It might be quieter than the outdoor sound which is weird and the reverb completely sounds like it was done with pro tools in a studio. It’s so sterile. I do like the sound of this pistol overall. It sounds like a hand cannon.
-HIGH Hitsounds. Is this still a place holder? This sound isn’t that different from some of the weapon sounds.
-LOW The mice skittering on the floor on Trainyard are cool the first 5 times but the sound gets annoying quick. Tone it down. Also, the sound/mice moving is a little fake.
MAPS-GENERAL
+With the exception of Canary Warf, I haven’t felt like the maps have been a meat grinder.
+Seems like you have gone with competitive sized maps which have essentially 2 objectives. I’m all for that, but you’re going to need a lot of maps to keep me interested past a month (12-16 maps).
+My favorite to least fav= Trainyard > Victoria > WhiteChapel > Canary Warf. Haven’t played the new bridge although last time I looked it was essentially the Goldrush Comp map which is much better than vanilla Goldrush.
-MEDIUM Ammo boxes on Trainyard. 1) I feel like these are a cop out for poor team play. If you’re going to have ammo boxes then I would at least like to see them fill ammo slower than FOPS to encourage FOPS play for ammo. 2) If I am correct, on Trainyard only the offense can pick up the ammo from the boxes near the train switch (because I sure couldn’t pick up any as defense). If that is intended, please make them not flash if I can’t pick them up. Or make them flash red for NO and Green for YES or some other non color blind scheme.
-LOW When maps load the loading images are pixilated and stretched.
Specific map feedback will be posted in appropriate section.
MOVEMENT
Overall: Movement is a lot slower than it was 8-10 months ago. The speed change is neither good nor bad, just different. The slower speed definitely makes it easier to aim and track for poor shooters like myself. Honestly with games like Loadout and Titanfall having been released since I last played, I hoped you had found a way to make the DB movement more dynamic yet still smooth and intuitive. DB’s current player speed is ok I guess, it’s just noting special without the ability to jump like in Loadout.
+Wall jumping- I like the wall jumping/double jump that you have added, I just hope this is an alpha version. The idea is cool but the execution is unrefined.
PLAYER MODELS
- Like the green pluses on the players upon revive
+I think you’ve done some extra art work on the model skins since I last played. Skins look nice imo.
-HIGH The ragdolls of the incapacitated players need some work. Right now they bounce around a lot and can be difficult to shoot the heads for gibbing. Sometimes teammates are tough to revive because of this.
-BUG One of the FOP player models, not Arty but the air strike FOP, has some weird artifacts on Trainyard. His model stretches 2x his height. He seems to do it when he hits corners. I have a video, but no screenshots.
Specific Merc feedback will be posted in the appropriate section.
WEAPONS/WEAPON MECHANICS
Just by feel I’d say the DB TTK is somewhere between TitanFall (low TTK) and Loadout (high TTK). DB’s weapons have been alright in the games I’ve played. I haven’t gone super analytical on the number of headshots for different weapons or such things.
+This is probably the first build where I felt like the shotguns worked for me. Not too powerful, not too weak. Haven’t played them a lot though.
+Recoil on rifles is easily manageable although it’s so low I’m not sure why you bothered to add it.
-Difference in pistol recoils from rifle recoils is ridiculous. I really don’t like the drastic changes in recoil. Fragger’s revolver is ridiculous.
VOIP
-MEDIUM Transmit seems to get stuck and I’ve noticed it’s not just me. As shown by transmit icon in the HUD.
-MEDIUM Cannot appear to transmit at end of game stats? Maybe the symbol just doesn’t appear?
-HIGH Is there a way to mute someone?
SERVERS
-HIGH Lots of disconnect errors last weekend (999). Not cool. I wasn’t the only one.
-MEDIUM Would rather have Dallas servers than LA and East servers. Yeah, yeah, client side hit detection and all but when I play with my friends all over North America Dallas is the best overall.
-HIGH Friends list would be nice and the ability to join on friends. I feel like it’s 1999 when my friends join servers with me. “Join West 22 now!”
Noticed the player count dropped but I’m not sure that is good or bad. I guess the biggest problem I see is the same problem with Titanfall versus, say Battlefield . One good player can really destroy a team with only 6 players per side whereas as a player you don’t necessarily perceive that with more players on the server.