I know I'm going to get a lot of backlash for this, but Splash shouldn't be balancing for pubs

[Trendy_Ideology]

[quote=“Amerika;58556”]The best thing SD could have done in regards to balancing was force everyone to play 5v5 matches similar to LoL. No open 12-16 man servers. Just have us queue up. Have one queue for non-ranked games and then another for ranked games. That way they could keep a tight control on things without worrying that a melee Phantom can kill 3 of the really inexperienced players in an 8v8 before dying himself.

But then we’d lose giant pubs which a lot of people find pretty fun. But that would have helped them to be able to more easily balance since every match would be 5v5.[/quote]

I really don’t see any reason why stuff can’t be balanced differently between different queues for different sizes. I’d personally love to be able to queue for whatever I was in the mood for. 8v8, 7v7, 6v6, 5v5, 4v4, etc. The game has SO much potential, but if a medic/assault combo is too OP in 2v2 then just go ahead and tweak the balance for 2v2, etc.

[Trendy_Ideology]

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;66451”]The Devs should not balance the game around lesser skilled or new players, because they WILL get better, and if they leave, trying to appeal to them is only going to hurt the game, not get more people to come play.

And they will leave because once they get better they’ll realise the balance is shit.[/quote]

The problem is the alternative is that people get stomped from point A to B. A being when they’re not skilled at all, B being when they’re reaching their personal skill cap.

If stuff is horribly imbalanced among a totally unskilled group, telling them “Well, then get better because it’s balanced if you’re playing at that class’s skill cap” doesn’t really help them, or help them want to keep playing or get better, it just makes the game not fun. I’d love to hear a solution that isn’t tantamount to “get good or don’t expect fair/balanced gameplay”.

[watsyurdeal]

[quote=“Ghosthree3;66463”][quote=“Watsyurdeal;66451”]The Devs should not balance the game around lesser skilled or new players, because they WILL get better, and if they leave, trying to appeal to them is only going to hurt the game, not get more people to come play.

And they will leave because once they get better they’ll realise the balance is shit.[/quote]

The problem is the alternative is that people get stomped from point A to B. A being when they’re not skilled at all, B being when they’re reaching their personal skill cap.

If stuff is horribly imbalanced among a totally unskilled group, telling them “Well, then get better because it’s balanced if you’re playing at that class’s skill cap” doesn’t really help them, or help them want to keep playing or get better, it just makes the game not fun. I’d love to hear a solution that isn’t tantamount to “get good or don’t expect fair/balanced gameplay”. [/quote]

The thing is that’s exactly what it comes down to, everything will seem unbalanced to someone who isn’t very good at aiming, teamwork, or understand the roles of the classes in the game.

should we balance the game so that those people are happy? Because that means faster ttk, less reliance on team mates to do well, and no class roles, every class can do everything as good as everyone else.

The reality is there’s no depth when you balance the game in that manner. If you give a good enough base line to work with certain mercs, like Red Eye, Nader, Skyhammer, Sawbonez, Proxy all of those are great mercs because they’re simple to understand, yet have a high potential for depth.

You do not want the inverse, like what you get with Rhino for example, who’s arguably pretty shit because he’s easy to understand and play, but there’s no depth, and since there’s no depth he’s easy to counter with team work and focus fire. And he needs a lot of support to be useful.

[triteTongs]

You can still balance the game for comp and pubs. Overwatch is going to do that, guaranteed.

Dota and league did this by only having a lobby system. Unranked games and ranked games depending on how serious you are.

Dota and league fixed the ‘leavers’ by actually punishing them for leaving a game. I still think people leaving Dirty Bomb games is a big problem, but you can’t fix it with a server browser. Only with a matchmake/lobby system.

Dirty bomb could start by normalizing the game sizes and balancing for that. I made a post just now that echos this. http://forums.dirtybomb.nexon.net/discussion/16405/thoughts-on-game-size-and-game-meta#latest

I’m also not a fan of shared weapons because it’ll make specific mercs clearly better than others. Like, the idea of the katana being a shared weapon makes no sense to me. Or the M14, machine gun, etc. Each class should have a specific weapon or two so they stand out from each other IMO.

[Trendy_Ideology]

Balancing for low level play means putting low skill ceilings and lower skill floors on characters. This means that difference in skill level between players is nearly meaningless.

Why exactly can’t you just raise the skill floor and leave the ceiling in-tact? Give people room to grow but make the gulf surmountable for the average casual player where they’re not getting utterly destroyed if they’re at the lower end of the spectrum.

The alternative being MUCH better matchmaking and team-balancing both inside and outside of ranked/competitive play, so that people play almost exclusively with people of similar skill levels.

Nobody likes crappy games like that, except mindless drones who play junk like Hearthstone or WoW. But this isn’t a card game or a watered-down MMO. This is a first person shooter, made similar to classic skill-based games like RTCW or Quake. (Heck, this game’s voice (V) system even has nearly the same numbering as RTCW did.)

I always have to smirk a little bit at the endless knocking of other games, especially the strawman of comparing everything to Blizzard’s games, and simultaneously knocking them. I’d bet my dick I could let you pick any mythic geared class in WoW and you wouldn’t last 5 seconds in mythic content until you put in the time and effort to learn the class, the strats, and the mechanics. Most classes in WoW have a fairly high skill floor but an even higher skill cap. Meaning you perform adequately without a whole ton of skill, but you have lots of room to grow and nuance to learn.

Skill is supposed to matter. Classes should become stronger as the player using them becomes stronger. You have to react, aim, strategize, think quickly, move fluidly, etc., to excel at a shooter. Changing mechanics and classes to minimize the impact of skill is a bad thing, inarguably.

Skill can still matter in a world where acquiring skill doesn’t automatically preclude everyone else from a) having fun b) having a chance. You think it’s a bad thing because you’ve honed those skill and don’t want to see them devalued. Most people who play an FPS aren’t playing it as their primary hobby and don’t aspire to these levels of perfection.

No one wants to play a game that doesn’t reward them and get more fun and complex as they learn the game and get better at it. It makes no sense to me that people spam dislikes and make rude replies to posts like mine that make it obvious you don’t actually want the game to be based around low level play. Balancing around high level play is what makes sense, and is proven to be what makes a first-person shooter stand the test of time.

Not sure why you’re treating all this as mutually exclusive. I think having fair, balanced, fun games where I feel like I had a chance even if I’m grossly outmatched is much more “rewarding” than getting stomped on by people like you just so they can feel properly “rewarded” for utterly demolishing me with all their “skill” instead of simply beating me.

Also games that have low skill floors and high skill caps typically have less utterly shit matchmaking and team balancing.

edit: I apparently didn’t finish writing this before posting.

[watsyurdeal]

Alright, I’ll bullet point things

• As it is currently, the game is fairly easy to pick up and understand, if anything, the way guns fire could use a bit of work.
• A lot of mercs could use some tweaks, but for the most part, thy all have a purpose and a role that they fill. Skyhammer is the first merc you get and he’s honestly one of the best ones imo, because he’s just so versatile and robust.
• The game needs match making fixed, this imo is the biggest problem when it comes to trying to balance the game, because that 5v5 environment is where they should be focusing on when they’re looking at nerfs, buffs, etc.
• Once they add the new anti cheat, and if it works well, I highly suggest resetting the ranking of everyone in matchmaking, and follow a ranking system similar to Counter Strike Global Offensive. Have Lead, Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Cobalt rankings, and three tiers of each so players know where they stand. “I’m a Lead 3”, or “I’m a Cobalt 2”.
• Once we have both those things added, pay attention then to the mercs, weapons, etc, and see how they are used and how they affect the overall game in matchmaking.

I know a lot of people don’t wanna admit it, but 5v5 Matchmaking is honestly what this game should be balanced around. Because anything more than 6v6 even is just an absolute mess, the maps become cramped and class spam becomes a major issue.

[Jurmabones]

[quote=“Trendy Ideology;66539”]

Also games that have low skill floors and high skill caps typically have less utterly shit matchmaking and team balancing. [/quote]
So we both agree on this point. Shouldn’t you balance for the high skill cap? Making mercs easy to pick up but hard to master–what’s wrong with that?