Being in DB ever since it first went into beta and seeing how the game “evolved” with obvious stuff being neglected and swept under the carpet all this time I almost feel like you guy took a wrong turn somewhere. Despite the fact others made similar posts and pointed out the some of the problems still present, I’ll join in and repeat some of those and state my opinion on certain issues. And it’s not just me, people I’ve talked to about the gameplay complained more or less about the same things.
I had a privilege to have Dev playing on the server a few week ago. After stating that the balance was horrible in chat and ended up being called “just another random whiner” by a few of the asskissers who just seem to worship the game a dev is around. The Dev was a bit puzzled and unsure what the problem was (obviously the game is perfect) but interested in what I had to say. After briefly pointing out a few major things, he didn’t say a word and was gone within minutes. And that’s the sort of reaction I see all the time, ever since I’ve been in DB. People point out obvious stuff that should be addressed and you guys just take cover hoping it would go away. Or at least that the people will go away taking the problems with them.
Being in competition FPS games for the last 7-8 years, and far longer in multiplayer FPS in general. I’ve seen my fair share of games, gameplay and different mechanics so I think I know what I’m talking about when I bitch about why certain stuff just wont work or see it as broken. I’ll stick just to game mechanics this time, although I do dislike some of the audio and visuals as well (don’t like the voice acting, guns sound alike, menus dysfunctional, ****ty timers for joining, etc) but I consider those less important compared to this stuff.
So here we go:
#1 Health Station
This thing is a nightmare, simply put heal rate is way to fast and it heals everyone in range. I find myself shooting at Auras close to stations and nothing. I like think of myself as a decent shot but I empty an entire magazine (SMG) and barely manage to get her down to 30%. Not even halfway through my reload and she is at 100%. Usually i then get sniped with 2 shotgun blasts and that’s that… And that was selfheal! Poor old Sawbonez is useless in comparison. This thing has uber healrate and selfheal, and if its round a corner of behind cover, you more or less don’t stand a chance. I would turn the rates around, give health packs more rate, and make the station give slow constant heals. it just makes more sense to have the packs stronger since they are limited due to cooldown and only apply 1 per patient. Atm, the station is just better in almost every way, multiple targets, superior heal and self heal rate and many mercs have no real way to deal with it. Deploy time is also too quick if you ask me. The Dispenser from TF2 should be more of a general idea how this thing should work.
#2 Class/Weapons Balance
Most of all Fragger, way too strong, best guns, nades kill way to easy and fly out at the speed of light. I don’t mind the damage that much, the blast radius is kind of goofy though, I get killed across the room way to often. Combine everything said with #1 and you have a megagay setup. I did read through the upcoming Bushwacker update notes, and wtf. An already powerful Br-16 gets a buff but better nerf Crotzni which was the only reason Sawbonez stood a chance against someone. Shotguns are still, in a word, bull****. Seeing people spamming jump and shooting makes me wanna puke.
I dislike more or less oneshot kills of any kind. I believe everyone should have a chance to fight back at least. Sniper headshot would be an exception, takes a bit of work to hit those so a reward is in order. Bit instagibs are not okay in my book. Certain stuff should be able to instagib, but it seems everything does, nades from half a room away and mines as well.
Speaking of mines, their existence is okay, but I really dislike the way they work right now. The place and shoot it is just gay. Proxy suicide bombers killing half of the room, that’s just wrong. It’s not even fun, regardless what side you play on. Proxy in general is a suicide runner, her defuse is too quick so lemmings tactics are viable which is not a good thing. Full sprint, place some mines in the crowd, run to the obj, defuse a bit, repeat. I look back on some previous games and miss the fact you needed to manually arm the mine and also had a chance to defuse it. It was more of a tactical decision toplant a mine that took time, although a very small amount of time but still required your attention for a bit. Most of the stuff here is just fire and forget.
Melee strikes are too much as well, 50hp per hit is kind of high. Backstabs should be rewarded, but regular swipes, come on, this isn’t CoD.
#3 General Features
In general regarding balance the only things I hear are ECHO this ECHO that. Leave it aside sometimes and thing about some of the stuff, gathering data is good and all, but blindly looking at the numbers doesn’t do any good if you ask me, not at this stage at least.
Friendly fire and collision are a big deal and should be experimented with as soon as possible. A lot of mentioned stuff is possible due to the fact FF is not enabled. Airstrike, nade and mine spam had no drawbacks. You can do a defuse under your team strike and be pretty much safe from anything, better still, proxy can complete it probably before the smoke clears. The need to control your abilities so you don’t do your team more harm than good should be a thing. FF is one more reason i think the ECHO balance is not accurate.
A lack of objective types. Everything is the same, plant-carry, escort-carry. Give the others something to do, hacking was quite fun why did that got cut out ? Having a dedicated hacker (covert ops) brings some versatility to the team, making teams with 4-5 engs less efficient.
There, that’s just some of the issues from the top of my mind. There is more, ragnak, pixel and some of the guys pointed that out already. Some core gameplay mechanics in question here, since the game is aimed at the comp scene (at least I hope it still is) the mentioned suggestions should be considered.
