List of priorities

(Lumi) #1

So after waiting for some change in the right direction in the last fine tuning update I really got disappointed and came to the conclusion that DB’s resources are spread all over the board with no clear idea of what the community wants. I consider myself part of it and although I may not share the same view as everyone I’d like to present my list of priorities as to what I expect to change in DB in the months to come per order of the most urgent to what can wait. Here we go:

-Bug fixes, bug fixes and more bug fixes:
*The NGS crash kick
*Missions not refilling
*The gib-revive
*The ghost player in servers
*Throwables not being thrown
*BR mouse scroll DPS exploit
*and others, there is an extensive bug reporting forum section on that to take as a guide

-Mercs set to standards:
*Starting by fixing all augments that currently still not work
*Fixing Phoenix’s pulse being consumed and not used when using defib during pulse charge
*Nader’s martyrdom grenade not damaging sometimes even though it explodes right under a mercs feet
*Various killing methods from above (orbital laser, airstrikes, etc) reaching deep inside buildings
*I assume I’m missing many more issues but my point is there, fix current mercs so that they do what they promise they can

-Add more options to improve game experience, especially in the server area:
*Add more servers in areas where they are missing during peak times
*Add min level 10 servers for 6vs6
*Add ping restricted serves for those looking for a better experience
*Add merc restricted servers in which each person can only take one merc and there can be no repeated merc in one team

-Fix deeply rooted problems:
*During votes make non voters count as blank and count the majority of votes as a passed vote in that direction
*Implement pub games parties, keep the current objective shuffle and stop allowing team switching after teams have been generated
*Implement a player number imbalance auto detect and correct mechanic (get inspired by Natural Selection 2)
*Implement individual merc tutorials and make sure people play through the respective tutorials (maybe by providing 1000 credits for each completed tutorial) before being allowed to take the respective merc out in the field. (Would teach new players and remove a lot of the frustration)
*Rework the free rotation to avoid merc spam (introducing merc restricted servers might just remove the frustration for those who don’t want to try out new mercs)
*Start listening to the community, i.e. don’t nerf or buff what wasn’t asked for and ignore the changes everyone is asking for

-Miscellaneous:
*Make the new trade-in viable
*balance weapons and skills

-Finally:
*add content (yeah only after all of the above has been addressed)

Maybe not everyone will agree with my order of things but many people including myself are getting frustrated and bored of the game because these recurrent fixes are not being implemented and new content keeps adding more and more issues wile only removing a few issues. I have little hopes that this will even be looked at by devs and the current dismissal of secondary objectives missions instead of fixing it, just makes me feel like they’re way in over their heads already and many of these issues will stay with the game forever and is ultimately what is going to kill it.

PS: I didn’t address any competitive issues as I haven’t yet tried it since the new fine tuning patch.

(gg2ez) #2

What is “the gib-revive”? Sounds 2spooky4me.

(K1X455) #3

While it’ll be a good idea to learn what SD is working on for transparency with the community, with their limited resources (particularly time), I think it we should give SD & Nexon sufficient room. Simply put, let them breathe cause they’re human beings too. For all we know, they too have lives beyond the world of Dirty Bomb.

(Eox) #4

Sparks “accidentally” creating a zombie apocalypse I suppose.

(Lumi) #5

Basically any medic tries to revive you with the defib but instead of reviving you it insta-kills you.

I’m not trying to push them into working harder or anything. I just think that their priorities regarding the game are in the wrong place. During that breathing room that they have, for the X amount of hours they work, they’re not doing what would actually help the game. At least in my opinion.

(gg2ez) #6

@Lumi I’ve never had that happen to me before. Is it common?

(riptide) #7

They are an extremely slow development team. This would be fine if they were Blizzard and they often get it right the first time without much community feedback.

However, the reality is that they completely miss what the community wants and how they want it. They repeatedly work on things that aren’t asked for and largely ignore what is asked for.

When they first nerfed the Dreiss back in April I quit, not because it was my favorite gun. Hardly anybody used it or Arty and both were underpowered relative to other options. But I quit because it was the last straw. Why would any dev nerf the Dreiss and in effect Arty when it was the least used gun and merc? Especially when the Devs themselves agreed Arty needed love.

Then it hit me. I realized after 1.5 years that the dev team is somewhat amatuer at design.
They were making gun balancing changes that were reminiscent of Brink. Which was removing skill and consistency in favor of luck and rng. If you weren’t around for that trainwreck, the gunplay was a big part of the failure known as Brink.

I came back 5 months later to check out the new mercs. Since I heard a couple of the patches were good. But I see they still rarely fix anything in a way that makes sense. They still randomly change things, as if they were poking a beehive, just to see what it does.

It basically boils down to this. Splash Damage is not working on what the community considers the most pressing issues. This is a big deal considering their poor track record. There is very good reason for people to be concerned.

edit) This “huge update” is going to make or break this game for a lot of people. Not just because of the changes, but because it will show you where their focus has been.

(Lumi) #8

Yeah, every one in three games at least, if not multiple times during one game.

At first I thought it was pure luck and I was being gibbed by the enemy at the same time someone was trying to revive me, but it’s too consistent to be a coincidence each time.

[quote=“riptide;91897”][

Which were removing skill and consistency in favor of luck and rng. [/quote]

That’s so true. And when we complained that the accuracy of weapons was shit due to the high randomness of spread and recoil, they just reduced both to an extend in where they can barely be noticed, instead of leaving them in but removing randomness.

Luckily now my aim is better, but how many times did I experience during my learning process a half on the marc shotgun shot that then would do almost no damage at close range, because the RNG had decided that most of the pellets would be on the half that missed.

Just sucks that SD just as many other developers out there want to artificially reduce the skill gap between newcomers and skilled players. Here it’s RNG, in Call of duty it’s people literally spawning in your back and in Titanfall it’s the smart pistol that features a game designed aimbot.

Please no! Don’t try to gum out differences. There will always be better players than newbies. Be through map knowledge, situational awareness, aiming skill, etc. Trying to make newbies less noob is not going to work by the above mentioned means. But things like, making the tutorial a forced thing and creating more levels of restricted level based servers (max level 5, min level 5 & max level 10, min 10 & max 20, min 20) while removing all but a couple of all mixed levels, are the only things that’ll reduce newcomer frustration.

(K1X455) #9

@riptide
Honestly, I left another game prior to me being serious with DB because Dirty Bomb made me look stupid for 1 whole year. I wasted my patience (and money) on a game that I seriously believed will get out of beta status in a few months time, but 2 years gone and it is still beta, still fleecing money, and the gameplay has gone to mediocre, bad, worse then just outright ridiculous. As in, why I put up with that kind of product for 1 more year and for something that is barely improved in gameplay and mainly due to the poor server performance issues that developers just refuse to operate because of licensing issues, is beyond me.

How is this related to this thread, well, I got sufficient patience to give SD & Nexon their room to move and progress the game. I’m treating this fairly as much as I have treated the other game and while there have been bad turns, they keep a tab on things that the playing community discuss here (see the Dev Team RoundUp thread by Faraleth). Please understand that as more features and content get added, there will be more misgivings in code or in performance. Like I said, they might not have all the resources to pull magical things out in one go, but they are addressing eveything they can get their head into so please be patient. SD & Nexon isn’t as big a s Blizzard, yet their concept of objective team based FPS is remarkable. Consider that since the start of the open beta, I’ve noticed a significant sluggishness of the game but that’s because of the netcode was not being optimizedas more and more code multi-threaded things get added. Code optimization is serious work and it’s no joke, specifically if you have to be bound by UE3’s misgivings (ie, BR-16’s full auto discharge due to UE3’s netcode latency issue). They acknowledged it r and right now, their doing something about it.

All I’m saying is that their human and one can only do so much. I like/love the game and I believe they do as well (I don’t like some players, but that’s another story). They’re doing their part for the game and it’ll be wise if as a community, we give them appropriate support and patience cause the road to perfection is journey that must be appreciated. Be there for the hard yard, so the glorious moment of victory can be very well cherished. We all want good things, but work is progressing and stemming them for the slow progress won’t get DB any better.

(Lumi) #10

This is exactly the purpose of the thread! Pointing out that we can feel that we’re moving dangerously towards, if not already passed, a line in which those code misgivings are too many to keep up with. Me and many in the community would rather see a build “stabilization” in the next big update rather than new content.

(K1X455) #11

It’s the paradoxical ebb and flow of game development. Unless you got a deep pocket like EA, Blizzard, Ubisoft or GearBox, you will be under overwhelming priorities. It’s hard to please every single player.

(Lumi) #12

[quote=“K1X455;91969”]

It’s the paradoxical ebb and flow of game development. Unless you got a deep pocket like EA, Blizzard, Ubisoft or GearBox, you will be under overwhelming priorities. It’s hard to please every single player. [/quote]

agreed, but much more than any of the other One time pay games, DB needs to keep its player base, while attracting new ones, as profit originate from continuous input rather than people buying it.

In the situation where DB would be sold for a set fee without the entire micro-transactions, then sure it would be more important to add content, rather than fixing it, because you buy access to the game and if it doesn’t work properly, you wait for it to get fixed.

But in the current free 2 play model, anyone can get their hands on the game and immediately gets hit by the full force of issues, and no amount of “Beta” being written all over it will incite people to purchase some of the advertised articles in the shop with real money.

Overall, bugs and issues keep people at bay in any kind of game, frustrated at best if they stick with it. For one time fee games it doesn’t matter, as the game has been bought when the issues are encountered. For free to play games, the more players have a reason to be driven away and or be frustrated by the game, the lower the chance of them actually giving money to the developers.

I myself would have spent some money already during the closed beta if I hadn’t foreseen the noobification of the game (due to past experienced, for instance Star Conflict). Sure enough, the game is slowly but surely going into that direction, with buffing of Rhino and Nader (biggest noob baits, with their easy kill mechanics). Furthermore, we have now the amassing of numerous bugs and issues that just made me, and I’m sure others, hold on to their money.

In the end, I started this thread because I care about DB, not to bash at the devs. I don’t want to see the game die, but I’m increasingly thinking it will. Especially with games like Overwatch around the corner. If those games come out in a bug free state with the same enjoyment procurement as DB does, when you don’t encounter bugs nor issue. Then it’s easy to foresee people switching over. And I wouldn’t like to see that happen.

(Vinos) #13

Since the the path of 2 weeks ago the game randomly freezes during matches after which I have to use the task manager to close the game. Having experienced that during at least 3 great stopwatch and objective matches I decided to quit indefinitely.

(Amerika) #14

I’ve never had a revive gib out a person and I play an awful lot of Sawbonez and Phoenix. However, I have seen people gibbed while I was reviving them during that tiny window that people can still be gibbed out despite them standing up from the revive. That’s an intentional mechanic.

I am pretty certain martyrdom suffers from the same issue that grenades do. The explosion gets caught in the map geometry which can then shield the opponent from taking some/all damage. It happens with Fragger and Nader from time to time and I’d wager it happens to martyrdom too. We would need to go and find exact spots on maps and report them so they can be fixed.

I agree with pretty much everything else but I do believe some new content needs to be produced. Not everyone has hundreds of hours in and get annoyed because some rare bug happened, that we all know about and are annoyed by, happened to them. They just want new things to keep the game fresh.

I’m with you with putting an emphasis on bug fixes but I also see it from the other side and know exactly how valuable content is to people who aren’t like us.

(Lumi) #15

[quote=“Amerika;92014”]I’ve never had a revive gib out a person and I play an awful lot of Sawbonez and Phoenix. However, I have seen people gibbed while I was reviving them during that tiny window that people can still be gibbed out despite them standing up from the revive. That’s an intentional mechanic.

I am pretty certain martyrdom suffers from the same issue that grenades do. The explosion gets caught in the map geometry which can then shield the opponent from taking some/all damage. It happens with Fragger and Nader from time to time and I’d wager it happens to martyrdom too. We would need to go and find exact spots on maps and report them so they can be fixed.

I agree with pretty much everything else but I do believe some new content needs to be produced. Not everyone has hundreds of hours in and get annoyed because some rare bug happened, that we all know about and are annoyed by, happened to them. They just want new things to keep the game fresh.

I’m with you with putting an emphasis on bug fixes but I also see it from the other side and know exactly how valuable content is to people who aren’t like us.[/quote]

I know about that after revive mechanic. No I’m talking about the revive actually gibbing. I’m unsure if it ever happened to me without enemies around just to make sure I wasn’t shot at the same time as the pads released the charge on me. But I’ll keep an eye out for it. Also, it just happened so often at the exact moment the defib pads hit me or I hit others that it just seems too much of a coincidence.

Well, I guess I should go and report the grenade spot then.

Regarding content being added, I’m also for getting new content. I need it to keep things fresh as well. And I believe that especially us who have played hundred of hours, need it. Yet it cannot happen at the cost of game integrity. This is why I only started this thread now and not at the first sign of bugs, etc. furthermore, the scrapping of the secondary objective missions instead of fixing them is what made me even more worried about the team not being able to handle further bugs.

What if they hit a bug that cannot be fixed unless content is removed, just like these missions were? We’ll have to deal with those issues day in day out. And I don’t think that many of us, including me, will want to keep playing DB if it so happens. And newcomers also get a bad impression if they run into those issues.

If you’re making someone’s portrait and the nose is already looking crooked, you’re not going to make it better by painting the eyes and ears and cheeks. You need to fix it or the whole is going to look bad. Just saying.

(riptide) #16

It’s the paradoxical ebb and flow of game development. Unless you got a deep pocket like EA, Blizzard, Ubisoft or GearBox, you will be under overwhelming priorities. It’s hard to please every single player. [/quote]

I don’t like seeing this brought up as an excuse when there are similar sized companies like Gazillion that do considerably more. They have been releasing 1-2 new heroes in Marvel heroes every month for the better part of 2 years. Thier heroes require quite a bit more work than a merc in Dirty Bomb. Considering they have more V/O work and 20-25 abilities; all with different animations, sounds and the obvious balancing. They also have weekly patches for bug fixes and tuning. Not to mention they are working on new raids and events all the time. (Don’t forget we haven’t seen a new merc in over a year, all of these mercs were already done.)

Then there are much smaller teams like Grinding Gear Games(19 total employees) with Path of Exile. They also have weekly patches with bug fixes, mechanic changes and tuning. Plus they added new skills once a month and are always working on new content.

I’m not asking for weekly patches, but both of those teams communicate with the community and more importantly they seem to value the communities concerns and ideas. They don’t just say “I’ll write that down” for every idea they get; good or bad. They will ask for feedback on a big issue BEFORE it is implemented. They also have “What are the top 5 things you’d like to see changed and how” it’s all on their forums.

Basically, those teams use their community as an asset. I certainly can’t say the same for SD. We are more like a QA team where the devs feed us what they want and then they make changes how they see fit. It’s completely inefficient, especially when you have limited resources.

(Lumi) #17

[quote=“riptide;92155”]

Basically those teams use their community as an asset. I certainly can’t say the same for SD. We are more like a QA team where the devs feed us what they want and then they make changes how they see fit. It’s completely inefficient, especially when you have limited resources. [/quote]

Wow, I don’t think I have ever agreed so much with someone on any forum ever.

(Nail) #18

@riptide
not sure how you can compare development between DB and a top down third person fighting game

(K1X455) #19

@riptide
I reckon DB isn’t the only game SD is working on so rotating the team’s efforts on multiple streams could be the key issue. Besides, how many of the games you mentioned are using UE3? Are you going to exclude that as well? How many titles is Grinding Gear Games developing? There you have 19 people fcusing on one project. And is MMO = FPS? I’m not sure why you contrasted skills and characters of Marvel Heroes versus Dirty Bomb.

SD is listening to their player base. But that doesn’t mean they’ll give up the direction at which how the game should be played. You’re free to give your comments and suggestions and they’re free to take note of it or just shrug it off. If this F2P is generating sufficient support to warrant dedicated specialist teams, they would probably do so. I don’t want to sound like I’m defending SD’s rep but I just want to get across the playing community that some due credit for their effort in improving their work is due.

While you got the right to choose the fruit you want to eat, don’t blame the tree for not giving you the fruit you don’t want.

(Sorotia) #20

Basically any medic tries to revive you with the defib but instead of reviving you it insta-kills you.

I’m not trying to push them into working harder or anything. I just think that their priorities regarding the game are in the wrong place. During that breathing room that they have, for the X amount of hours they work, they’re not doing what would actually help the game. At least in my opinion.[/quote]

I’ve never seen that before…though I have seen them being killed in the split second before the short immunity takes effect.