It is clear cut! That’s why we started working on fixes pretty quickly. Unfortunately it wasn’t the easiest of things to fix (as we had to make some new stuff for the new content) and we didn’t feel it was big enough of an issue to disable him from the game during this time.
Hey SD, since you know Phantom is broken:
Rokon2
(Rokon2)
#22
Please, please remove him from the game until he can get sorted out. I was recording test footage for streaming, and I literally sat in front of the monitor for a full 3 minutes trying to find his silhouette. It is extremely infuriating getting someone who always has the jump on you no matter where they are.
Phantom is standing next to Javelin, by the way.
woodchip
(woodchip)
#23
@stayfreshshoe said:
It is clear cut! That’s why we started working on fixes pretty quickly. Unfortunately it wasn’t the easiest of things to fix (as we had to make some new stuff for the new content) and we didn’t feel it was big enough of an issue to disable him from the game during this time.
It was. It fundamentally made the game feel cheap and unprofessional. Dying repeatedly and helplessly to a mechanic that everyone, even the game’s front page, acknowledges as busted breaks the 4th wall pretty hard. Harder than simply disabling 1 merc out of 25 IMO.
Not saying you were wrong to acknowledge the problem ASAP. But unfortunately doing so incurs an additional psychological cost when the busted thing is still running around 1 shotting you from invisibility.
TheStrangerous
(TheStrangerous)
#24
@Rokon2 said:
Please, please remove him from the game until he can get sorted out. I was recording test footage for streaming, and I literally sat in front of the monitor for a full 3 minutes trying to find his silhouette. It is extremely infuriating getting someone who always has the jump on you no matter where they are.Phantom is standing next to Javelin, by the way.
LEAKED WEAPON TRINKET?!
I WANT MY TIMIK TO HAVE A BEARD!
Rokon2
(Rokon2)
#25
@TheStrangerous said:
@Rokon2 said:
Please, please remove him from the game until he can get sorted out. I was recording test footage for streaming, and I literally sat in front of the monitor for a full 3 minutes trying to find his silhouette. It is extremely infuriating getting someone who always has the jump on you no matter where they are.Phantom is standing next to Javelin, by the way.
LEAKED WEAPON TRINKET?!
I WANT MY TIMIK TO HAVE A BEARD!
I damn near choked on my coffee. You got me!
TheStrangerous
(TheStrangerous)
#26
@Rokon2 said:
@TheStrangerous said:
@Rokon2 said:
Please, please remove him from the game until he can get sorted out. I was recording test footage for streaming, and I literally sat in front of the monitor for a full 3 minutes trying to find his silhouette. It is extremely infuriating getting someone who always has the jump on you no matter where they are.Phantom is standing next to Javelin, by the way.
LEAKED WEAPON TRINKET?!
I WANT MY TIMIK TO HAVE A BEARD!
I damn near choked on my coffee. You got me!
Guns are creatures too, just like Snitch, Turret, Mines, Sky Shield, they all have feeling and a sense of FASHION!
Oh wait… I got an eye illusion…
It was Jav walking up stairs from bird’s perspective… 
At first I thought Jav was a machine pistol with a ponytail…
MuddyGrenade
(Muddy Muddy Mud Nade)
#27
@Rokon2 said:
Please, please remove him from the game until he can get sorted out. I was recording test footage for streaming, and I literally sat in front of the monitor for a full 3 minutes trying to find his silhouette. It is extremely infuriating getting someone who always has the jump on you no matter where they are.Phantom is standing next to Javelin, by the way.
That Phantom corpse while having a Phantom right in front of you reminds me of the Dead Ringer lol.
Rokon2
(Rokon2)
#28
@MuddyGrenade said:
@Rokon2 said:
Please, please remove him from the game until he can get sorted out. I was recording test footage for streaming, and I literally sat in front of the monitor for a full 3 minutes trying to find his silhouette. It is extremely infuriating getting someone who always has the jump on you no matter where they are.Phantom is standing next to Javelin, by the way.
That Phantom corpse while having a Phantom right in front of you reminds me of the Dead Ringer lol.
By the time your adversary races towards your ‘body’ to frisk you for cash and pull gold fillings out of your mouth, you’ll already be behind him, poised for the killing blow.
llSquishyll
(llSquishyll)
#29
If you think about it this phantom buff is pretty good for redeye he can be a bit more important
NocTurtleBOI
(NocTurtleBOI)
#30
@xTripa said:
phantom (which was already a great merc before the update).
Umm… I don’t think so, and by that I mean I know he wasnt, every other merc with explosives was better at clearing out a nest than him, he only got slightly more viable because if the addition of Guardian
Tanker_Ray
(Tanker_Ray)
#31
@llSquishyll said:
If you think about it this phantom buff is pretty good for redeye he can be a bit more important
Are you kidding me.
This is same as let’s buff Hunter so more people would pick Guardian.
What the actual ****.
pumpkinmeerkat
(pumpkinmeerkat)
#32
@stayfreshshoe said:
It is clear cut! That’s why we started working on fixes pretty quickly. Unfortunately it wasn’t the easiest of things to fix (as we had to make some new stuff for the new content) and we didn’t feel it was big enough of an issue to disable him from the game during this time.
You guys talk a lot about your intuition and experience as developers.
The most exciting thing about the phantom changes announced was the delay for attack out of cloak. Phantom never was a melee character and shouldn’t be. Somehow he enters the game in this state without even mentioning the lack of delay. SO MANY TIMES you guys have made changes like this contrary to player opinion without little to no explanation and then follow up changes/tweaks either never come or are added to updates weeks, months, or even years ( :’( ) later. Burst rifles are probably the most glaring example. A more recent example, and the reason I have trouble enjoying the game anymore is aimpunch. You guys fixed a bug, that’s great! You also need to follow up and fix the changes that came with the fix. It took a single firefight to realize aimpunch was much worse than before. As with Phantom, you just start to wonder how these changes are making it through internal play testing.
I think a lot of players that have stuck around are really wondering what is going on with the game and the direction SD wants to take DB. It feels less and less like a shooter with each update and I fear the casual player base you are trying to attract will drop the game within a few weeks of 1.0 no matter what you do. Meanwhile the core and competitive player base continues to feel abandoned. I still very much want the game to succeed and at it’s core still find it enjoyable to play.
We love you guys, you’ve made a great game, please don’t ruin it by making like everything else.
Szakalot
(Szakalot)
#34
regardless of how balanced phantom is (in 5v5, its probably still way too weak a pick), its just not so much fun to have multiple phantoms on both teams going pure katana sprinting at enemy team to get a stab or two at the light mercs.
Phantom could be pretty close to ‘fun’ though if sprinting/running speeds were easier to spot (much closer to pre-hunter patch levels), and the slower moving speeds were super/completely invisible. ATM. Phantom can just charge at the enemy team, and as is the case on pubs, the background chaos will provide them enough cover to just show up ontop of aura station and smack people to bits. Its hardly powerful but not so much fun to play against either. Definitely a newbie-basher merc though, thats gonna keep putting more and more newcomers off the game.
woodchip
(woodchip)
#35
@Szakalot said:
regardless of how balanced phantom is (in 5v5, its probably still way too weak a pick), its just not so much fun to have multiple phantoms on both teams going pure katana sprinting at enemy team to get a stab or two at the light mercs.Phantom could be pretty close to ‘fun’ though if sprinting/running speeds were easier to spot (much closer to pre-hunter patch levels), and the slower moving speeds were super/completely invisible. ATM. Phantom can just charge at the enemy team, and as is the case on pubs, the background chaos will provide them enough cover to just show up ontop of aura station and smack people to bits. Its hardly powerful but not so much fun to play against either. Definitely a newbie-basher merc though, thats gonna keep putting more and more newcomers off the game.
This is so right. A Phantom that is good enough at stealth to be a strong pick in competitive would have to be insane. A 110 HP SMG merc with a fiddly answer to Aura stations is not very close to good enough to take the assault spot over a Fragger or something.
If he can be spotted even 25% of the time by good players that’s enough to make him super weak as a competitive pick.
But if he’s spotted less than 25% of the time by good players, he’s free killing casuals with Katana almost every time he presses Q.
Darkwolf3802
(Darkwolf3802)
#36
@HauniHaunted said:
Is it just me or did the update change nothing at all?
No it changed very little. Hes slightly more visable now but thats moot when he can still attack before decloaking and by the time the decloak sound goes off ur dead.
Brycko
(Brycko)
#37
@stayfreshshoe said:
but reports on him reduced quite quickly so it seemed players on the whole were getting used to him.
??? Still plenty of reports on the forums and the Reddit
@stayfreshshoe I hate to break it to you, but if there really has been a decrease in reports, then it’s not because people are getting used to him, but because (at least in my experience), people are playing him less out of a) respect for other players on the server (at least in Europe), b) because of the bad stigma Phantom players get and c) people have stopped playing him because he’s low skill, high reward, and people aren’t find that low risk, high reward gameplay fun.
STARRYSOCK
(Press E)
#38
@Brycko said:
people are playing him less out of a) respect for other players on the server (at least in Europe), b) because of the bad stigma Phantom players get and c) people have stopped playing him because he’s low skill, high reward, and people aren’t find that low risk, high reward gameplay fun.
Not to mention a lot of people had taken a break from the game until he was fixed because they find him annoying to fight against, and they don’t like to constantly spam the same complaint with little to no indication that it might have any affect on the game
Darkwolf3802
(Darkwolf3802)
#39
@STARRYSOCK said:
@Brycko said:
people are playing him less out of a) respect for other players on the server (at least in Europe), b) because of the bad stigma Phantom players get and c) people have stopped playing him because he’s low skill, high reward, and people aren’t find that low risk, high reward gameplay fun.Not to mention a lot of people had taken a break from the game until he was fixed because they find him annoying to fight against, and they don’t like to constantly spam the same complaint with little to no indication that it might have any affect on the game
They could always play ranked, where phantom doesnt exist
martha_smith
(martha_smith)
#40
phantom ain’t broken ,
but if you can see him while cloaked , then his ability is of no use…