[Inform] Possible Impact of Failed Merc Promise

(Xenithos) #1

I made this to both set some people straight, as well as to discuss the impact that failing like this again could have on DB. As well as not thought through announcements.


View the video at 5 minutes and 49 seconds

Splash Damage announced the day of or immediately after their release of Javelin that they’d commit to their current and incoming playerbase: “shipping a new merc including a new primary and a new secondary every 6.5-7 weeks until the year is over.” This information was made fully public at Gamescom 2017 on the 23rd of August and published by the DB YouTube account on that date as well. To be frank, that update was awesome, needed some work, but it was a huge addition to DB.

! They also promised a map no one had seen before at this time, which they DID deliver in December with our new map “Castle.” Awesome map too.

Here’s the problem though. From the 23rd of August to the end of the year was another ~18.7 weeks. This equates to another 2 or 3 mercs released before January 1st, 2018.
They only released Guardian after Javelin. That’s one merc. That commitment/promise was not met/kept, Period. Hunter had to have been released last year for that promise to have been kept. And I myself don’t mind that they failed because we were getting swamped with game changers and needed balance updates. Especially with the release of Guardian. It’s everyone else looking at this game coming in that could remember that and wonder, and what it means that SD failed. I don’t want them to stop announcing things, or setting goals that we can keep them to. And so far they’re still being open with us because of their 5 week time-frame (everything in part 1 has been delivered on), and the fact that they said we’ll have another 4 mercs coming this year (which includes Hunter :smiley: )

Now, I just want to know, did this failed promise affect any of you? Or did you feel it was necessary? Do you think it could impact other players that remember? What are your thoughts on future promises, and on promises in general?

(Nail) #2

reading your post stole more time out of my life than worrying about something that trivial in a beta test

I pretty much think 98 % of the players feel the same, only people who want to be victims care about that nonsense

this is only my opinion though

(Xenithos) #3

@Nail said:
reading your post stole more time out of my life than worrying about something that trivial in a beta test
Thanks for reading. They failed a commitment, and it wasn’t a trivial one either. This may be a beta test Nail, but we’re right on the cusp of release. I’m glad they did more to fix balance during the beta test rather than having all of this weird sniper feeling come out upon release. It doesn’t change that they should also have had Hunter in the game longer to balance him out before release as well. The last thing we need is people joining this game going MAN HUNTER OP.

(Nail) #4

it was trivial to me, what makes you more important ?

see what I mean, different strokes
and people will call every new merc OP until they figure him/her out, it’s always been that way

(Xenithos) #5

Mmkay.

(Nail) #6

I thought them saying that was stupid in the first place, it goes against their norm, just because of things like this. You seem to be the one mainly concerned though, maybe they’ll give everyone another present when Hunter sleds in :slight_smile:

(Melinder) #7

I can’t say I was surprised. Myself, and I am sure the majority of the community who is at least somewhat “in the loop” with SD and how they have treated the game thus far, have the lowest of expectations with almost everything that comes to this game.

So I would say no, this hasn’t affected anybody, because it is not as if anybody really expected them to deliver.

(GatoCommodore) #8

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(K1X455) #9

Actually, when they released Javelin and nerfed her ammo support capability excessively, it got me started thinking of the trend on how they test their new mercs.

When I learned about Guardian, I jumped on it and realised her support ability leaves to something to be desired. She fills a niche role among medics but she needs buffing (revive bubble size, revive strength, revive frequency, skyshield getting in trouble with geometry, etc). Then they nerfed her… I ponder to think what goes on at SD that led to that kind of action (or in my language, what kind of schitt have they been smokin’ to come up with that idea).

Now, this got me thinking about their upcoming merc, Hunter. How is he being tested and how will the cycle of release and nerf continue? What sort of mindset should I have to invest on a merc whose role I am just not good at. I should have learned the first time since Phantom’s tragic nerf, nerf, nerf cycle and how SD/Nexon did a knee jerk reaction when the player backlash came thick and fast regarding his ability. They somehow redeemed themselves by taking the EMP ability of Thunder and giving it to Phantom instead, and with Aimee’s release, she’s a slightly the more favourable RECON I wish to play over Vassili. How about Phoenix, Stoker, Aimee and Thunder? How have they gone through the cycle of release, nerf and nerf… except that the SD now wised up regarding Phoenix’s self revive takes too long to recharge and was not in pace with the game; they still haven’t learned the issue regarding how weak his healing pulse is and how situational it is for him to heal en masse.

Now this trend is observable and it’s the one thing that puts a bitter taste to those who put in real money into the game that is F2P, let alone, the time to progress, promote and . It’s like getting a recipe done absolutely wrong, or right the first time around, and it only gets worse down the line because of corrections, alterations and amendments. It just keeps tasting bad and not as intended. How is the dish going to get served and how will it be appreciated by those who partake in it? The fine tuning updates just isn’t fine anymore, and it’s more like throwing a spanner in the works. WHY?

(Your worst knifemare.) #10

Somewhere in the last few “Ask the Devs” videos, they said how Hunter was the most difficult merc to make so far with balancing and projectile mechanics.
He’s most likely taking longer than the devs expected so they would rather keep working on him instead of releasing an entirely broken merc.

@K1X455 When did they nerf Guardian? All I remember was her changes being a cooldown buff for her glove and giving her drone more up time with less hp.

(K1X455) #11

@Lord_Coctus when they decreased the health of Skyshield…

making Steady augment detrimental

(n-x) #12

@K1X455 said:
How about Phoenix, Stoker, Aimee and Thunder? How have they gone through the cycle of release, nerf and nerf… except that the SD now wised up regarding Phoenix’s self revive takes too long to recharge and was not in pace with the game; they still haven’t learned the issue regarding how weak his healing pulse is and how situational it is for him to heal en masse.

I cant say much about Aimee, but Phoenix got buffed every time there was a change. First they changed that, if you switch to weapon while charging the healing pulse, your healing pulse will get released (before it just got canceled and you still received the cool down), then they increased the max heal of the pulse from 80 to 100. Then the short cool down for self revive. I would say Phoenix was slightly UP or maybe a bit lack luster in the beginning. I think he still could use some buffs (like 110hp and -20% cool down as standard) before he would become OP. Right now he is probably in the lower third of the balanced “zone”. I think, the mass heal is not that situational especially in Pub.

Stoker, well, there was never much to be balanced since he is just a variation of Arty/Skyhammer. Yeah the molotov was a bit OP in the beginning and now it sometimes feels a bit too weak (good spot would be probably somewhere around its current value and the OP value from the beginning) But he hardly went through a nerf nerf nerf cycle.

And about Thunder. After all this time he is in game I still stand by my initial impression. He is just a complete design failure. And no amount of buffing or nerfing will change that.

(K1X455) #13

@n-x About the max heal per pulse, it would be interesting to know how many occasions has a player who played Phoenix opted to max-heal knowing that the hold time + cooldown is far in between. Any Phoenix main knows that this is a serious risk to take when multiple critical players in the team are being pocketed.

My mate D9D prefers Phoenix over Sawbones and he reckons that the hold time for the pulse is too long to get the intended effect of a max heal and the cooldown of his pulse is so long, his effectiveness as healer significantly diminishes if he’s not healing more than 1 team mate.

(n-x) #14

I dont want to derail this thread, but full heals have their time and place. If you have 2-3 allies dead on the ground and you have to get them quickly up to full health, 3 tab revives and a full heal are really great. Of course they are only useable when not under pressure. If you really have to take care of several players you should keep them constantly topped with small to medium health bursts, thats for sure and some lower cool down/some higher healing output would still be appreciated. But well, let’s stop here.

Edit: and you have to keep in mind that they raised the max heal from 80 to 100 but kept the same cool down, meaning your cool down for medium heals got lower /you get more health/cool down time.

(GatoCommodore) #15

@n-x said:
I dont want to derail this thread, but full heals have their time and place. If you have 2-3 allies dead on the ground and you have to get them quickly up to full health, 3 tab revives and a full heal are really great. Of course they are only useable when not under pressure. If you really have to take care of several players you should keep them constantly topped with small to medium health bursts, thats for sure and some lower cool down/some higher healing output would still be appreciated. But well, let’s stop here.

Edit: and you have to keep in mind that they raised the max heal from 80 to 100 but kept the same cool down, meaning your cool down for medium heals got lower /you get more health/cool down time.

+the hochfir card with extra supplies and potent packs

i also hear phoenix full heal cooldown is lower?

(Mc1412013) #16

I knew from the start they wouldnt make 2 mercs in that short time, and i dont think they will make 4 merc goal this year. Being that they are making the mercs more complex as they design them.

Hey sd make a weeb laser defense merc and let me counter katanas with katanas still want dueling phantoms/kiras

(Muddy Muddy Mud Nade) #17

I think people will understand that gameplay balancing is more important than getting a new merc out. Besides didn’t WE want them to focus on core gameplay and bug fixing before releasing Hunter? As far as I’m concerned, they’re doing what we asked of them (or at least trying to, lol).

(Eox) #18

Failing a promise of that sort isn’t a fatality. Actually, I can safely tell you that those kind of unkept promises are fairly common in the videogame industry. They’re usually due to overshot plans or updates being compromised by unforseen circumstances. In Warframe for exemple, DE used to have made an habit for not being able to keep there promises when it comes about release dates, just due to sheer Murphy’s law.

This is pretty much what is happening here with SDs. Nasty bugs very likely prevented us from having our 4 mercs before the end of the year along with balance issues. Because SD pretty much would like to put forward quality over quantity, they had to stop to correct what’s wrong (though some people might argue that SD doesn’t bother about quality whatsoever, which is another story that I don’t agree with). Also, let’s not forget that Hunter is supposed to come along with a Phantom rework. It’s kind of a lot of work.

Those issues will harm SD for sure, especially if made frequently, but they won’t have such a bad effect. If anything, I guess most players predicted it. In my case, I am fine if they couldn’t keep that up. I’d rather have fewer things as clean as possible than a bunch of utterly broken content.

(Xenithos) #19

@MuddyGrenade said:
I think people will understand that gameplay balancing is more important than getting a new merc out. Besides didn’t WE want them to focus on core gameplay and bug fixing before releasing Hunter? As far as I’m concerned, they’re doing what we asked of them (or at least trying to, lol).

Many of us did want that, a few others had the mindset of get the stupid new OP Mercs in so we can be done with this and include them in the balancing at the time. I’m with ya on this one. Trying to is also well said, rofl.

(blufflord) #20

Hunter being released 2 months later isn’t having even half the effect that Jav’s release did back then. If only the devs too a month or two for her to iron out her issues before being added.