MERC LIMITS

[AlbinMatt]

@Ohsnapkline said:
get rid merc stacking, get rid of the 3 merc slots and make all the (overpriced) mercs free and sell a bunch of stuff that people want to actually buy and isn’t overpriced.

it will take some work but i’m sure SD can pull it off with the right effort.

You’re suggesting some really drastic changes, of which directly tampers with DB’s core mechanics. This ain’t 1517 bud, a reformation isn’t going to be easy and clear cut as you’d like.

Stacking as a detriment can be solved by telling your four other teammates. Let the casual 8v8 folks have their fun. Adding one of those bright yellow system messages about merc stacks should be enough to alert the players (I would hope)

[znuund]

even though I would rather like to see the 3 slot limit gone or increased, a 2 merc limit should give a lot of freedom with the current settings. But still, if there were already 2 sawbonez and I can’t pick mine I would be sad. I don’t think and don’t know if picking the third sawbonez would be something good, but just don’t like being limited in the free world of internet

[kittz0r]

@AlbinMatt said:

@Ohsnapkline said:
get rid merc stacking, get rid of the 3 merc slots and make all the (overpriced) mercs free and sell a bunch of stuff that people want to actually buy and isn’t overpriced.

it will take some work but i’m sure SD can pull it off with the right effort.

You’re suggesting some really drastic changes, of which directly tampers with DB’s core mechanics. This ain’t 1517 bud, a reformation isn’t going to be easy and clear cut as you’d like.

Stacking as a detriment can be solved by telling your four other teammates. Let the casual 8v8 folks have their fun. Adding one of those bright yellow system messages about merc stacks should be enough to alert the players (I would hope)

I had an Aura trying to Repair the EV in RANKED even after telling Her not to do so because i was Fletcher, she blocked the EV and didnt atleast Cover me. I started to Teamkill Her when she tried to repair with me, maybe he/she learned the lesson…

[AlbinMatt]

@kittz0r said:

@AlbinMatt said:

@Ohsnapkline said:
get rid merc stacking, get rid of the 3 merc slots and make all the (overpriced) mercs free and sell a bunch of stuff that people want to actually buy and isn’t overpriced.

it will take some work but i’m sure SD can pull it off with the right effort.

You’re suggesting some really drastic changes, of which directly tampers with DB’s core mechanics. This ain’t 1517 bud, a reformation isn’t going to be easy and clear cut as you’d like.

Stacking as a detriment can be solved by telling your four other teammates. Let the casual 8v8 folks have their fun. Adding one of those bright yellow system messages about merc stacks should be enough to alert the players (I would hope)

I had an Aura trying to Repair the EV in RANKED even after telling Her not to do so because i was Fletcher, she blocked the EV and didnt atleast Cover me. I started to Teamkill Her when she tried to repair with me, maybe he/she learned the lesson…

Maybe the Aura is illiterate, maybe you need a better mic, maybe they were just mentally challenged, but please NEVER TEAM KILL UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES IF AVOIDABLE!

[DrRageQuit]

@kittz0r said:

I had an Aura trying to Repair the EV in RANKED even after telling Her not to do so because i was Fletcher, she blocked the EV and didnt atleast Cover me. I started to Teamkill Her when she tried to repair with me, maybe he/she learned the lesson…

Blocked the EV? explain…

Single merc selection would be great in theory, but theres too many people who pick up a merc with no clue how to use them effectively. Think of the number of times theres a sparks who believes they’re a sniper above a medic? Or the Bushwhacker who has no idea where to put a turret to be even slightly effective. Now not only do you have a worthless teammate, but a worthless teammate using up a merc that could be vital to the teams success if put in the correct hands.

Its a nice idea, but not going to work unless everybody knows what they’re doing.

[Verticules]

How can a developer properly balance gameplay with merc stacking? The 5/6/7/8 man teams create enough skewered data as is.

Edit: If it were up to me, I would make ranked 6v6 and pub lobbies 6v6 & 8v8 only. Removing merc stacking from 6v6 lobbies and using only 6v6 game data to balance the game. Some maps are well known to be too big for 5v5 games.

[neverplayseriou]

@DrRageQuit said:

@kittz0r said:

I had an Aura trying to Repair the EV in RANKED even after telling Her not to do so because i was Fletcher, she blocked the EV and didnt atleast Cover me. I started to Teamkill Her when she tried to repair with me, maybe he/she learned the lesson…

Blocked the EV? explain…

Single merc selection would be great in theory, but theres too many people who pick up a merc with no clue how to use them effectively. Think of the number of times theres a sparks who believes they’re a sniper above a medic? Or the Bushwhacker who has no idea where to put a turret to be even slightly effective. Now not only do you have a worthless teammate, but a worthless teammate using up a merc that could be vital to the teams success if put in the correct hands.

Its a nice idea, but not going to work unless everybody knows what they’re doing.

It’s fucking ranked, you don’t belong in ranked if you have no clue what you’re supposed to fucking do…

[TitaniumRapture]

@neverplayseriou said:

@DrRageQuit said:

@kittz0r said:

I had an Aura trying to Repair the EV in RANKED even after telling Her not to do so because i was Fletcher, she blocked the EV and didnt atleast Cover me. I started to Teamkill Her when she tried to repair with me, maybe he/she learned the lesson…

Blocked the EV? explain…

Single merc selection would be great in theory, but theres too many people who pick up a merc with no clue how to use them effectively. Think of the number of times theres a sparks who believes they’re a sniper above a medic? Or the Bushwhacker who has no idea where to put a turret to be even slightly effective. Now not only do you have a worthless teammate, but a worthless teammate using up a merc that could be vital to the teams success if put in the correct hands.

Its a nice idea, but not going to work unless everybody knows what they’re doing.

It’s @$!# ranked, you don’t belong in ranked if you have no clue what you’re supposed to @$!# do…

Thanks for this post. I had weak moment and started thinking about starting playing Ranked and it is gone. Thanks again.

[kittz0r]

@DrRageQuit said:

@kittz0r said:

I had an Aura trying to Repair the EV in RANKED even after telling Her not to do so because i was Fletcher, she blocked the EV and didnt atleast Cover me. I started to Teamkill Her when she tried to repair with me, maybe he/she learned the lesson…

Blocked the EV? explain…

Single merc selection would be great in theory, but theres too many people who pick up a merc with no clue how to use them effectively. Think of the number of times theres a sparks who believes they’re a sniper above a medic? Or the Bushwhacker who has no idea where to put a turret to be even slightly effective. Now not only do you have a worthless teammate, but a worthless teammate using up a merc that could be vital to the teams success if put in the correct hands.

Its a nice idea, but not going to work unless everybody knows what they’re doing.

By standing always infron of the Engineer and blocking the Spots where the most Cover is…

[DrRageQuit]

@kittz0r said:

@DrRageQuit said:

@kittz0r said:

I had an Aura trying to Repair the EV in RANKED even after telling Her not to do so because i was Fletcher, she blocked the EV and didnt atleast Cover me. I started to Teamkill Her when she tried to repair with me, maybe he/she learned the lesson…

Blocked the EV? explain…

Single merc selection would be great in theory, but theres too many people who pick up a merc with no clue how to use them effectively. Think of the number of times theres a sparks who believes they’re a sniper above a medic? Or the Bushwhacker who has no idea where to put a turret to be even slightly effective. Now not only do you have a worthless teammate, but a worthless teammate using up a merc that could be vital to the teams success if put in the correct hands.

Its a nice idea, but not going to work unless everybody knows what they’re doing.

By standing always infron of the Engineer and blocking the Spots where the most Cover is…

I had assumed you were referring to the anti repair stacking feature. In any case majority of keyboards have A and D keys, the most common keybinds for sidestepping. Just get in there and muscle the medic out of the way, use them as a meat shield. Its not rocket science.

[Pumpkiller]

(Possibly terrible) Idea:

Make merc stacking less viable by adding more seconds on the spawn wave timer when there’s at least 2 mercs stacked in one team.

The way i would make it, it would add 3-5 seconds to one team’s spawn timer when they stack mercs, for example two, and so, it would add 6-10 seconds to their spawn wave.

It would discourage stacking, BUT it would be still viable as a last resort.

[Ohsnapkline]

@HammerOfDawn21 said:

@kittz0r said:

@hawkeyeguy99 said:
There’s no fair way to implement this though. This isn’t Overwatch where you can just pick any hero you want at the beginning of the match as long as someone else isn’t using them. You can’t impose a Merc limit AND keep the 3 Merc team system. Because then someone may end up with only 2 mercs to choose from cause someone else already picked Sawbonez and rip you, that’s the medic you picked. Then your team is crippled because you have a useless merc slot that just sits there unused for whole match. So no, there should never be Merc limits of any form in Dirty Bomb unless they completely scrap the 3 Merc team system.

better scrap the 3 Slots for Mercs and improve the Game by adding some sort of limitations. While they work on that they can remove Repairing from all Mercs except Engineers and Picking Up Players too.

That’s like trying to fix a light bulb with a hammer, creates more problems than it fixes.

no it wouldn’t it would simply be scraping a system that did not work, in favor for one more practical. making it so every one can pick any merc would lower the barrier to entry a bit and making one merc pick per team would be amazing

but I think SD is stubborn and unwilling to let go of ideas/systems

[Aazhyd]

@Pumpkiller said:
Make merc stacking less viable by adding more seconds on the spawn wave timer when
there’s at least 2 mercs stacked in one team.

That sounds indeed like a terrible idea.

[bontsa]

@LifeupOmega said:
There is a fair way to implement it, cooldown penalties. You can still perk multiple of the same merc, but you either share cooldowns or get a stacking penalty to the refresh rate of the cooldowns. It’d be a start at least.

I really dont get why this has 2 disagrees without a single word on why they find this not a good idea.

What is the core issue with merc stacking? More often than not, its their powerful abilities that are balanced with cooldown and in mind of having just one of said merc in the field at all times, so they cannot pull off these fight-changers every so often. What does this suggestion give us? By stacking merc X they can utilize these abilities less often, making it still a-ok to stack said merc if they really want to but rather redundant choice when they might as well try to come up with more versatile roster. Ie. instead of double-Artying, run an Arty and a Skyhammer.

It’s really solid suggestion in my opinion. Only thing that needs to be thought of will it be same reduction across the board or would different abilities be scaled differently depending on their game-changing impact. See airstrikes compared to medpacks for example.

[Noblemight]

Any dev response to this matter? I think giving players a full roster to use for ranked is not a big deal as long as they meet the requirements to play ranked. The requirements are too low right now. But that is a topic for a different time. The hardest part for players to get used to is not being free to use whatever whenever. They will deal with it or just stick to casual servers. Casual and ranked deserves a more stark deviation between the two modes. Is this game competitive or child’s play is what it boils down to. Also a lack of limits throws all balance discussions out the window. I unlocked every merc in the game in preparation for ranked, so I expect a lot from a ranked player.

[ThunderZsolt]

My thoughts on this topic:

1. Only 1/team limit would make sense, because in 5v5 you generally don’t want more than 2 of the same merc in your team unless it is Arty on Chapel or Thunder on any map. And even one Redeye is a pain to fight, allowing 2 is just as bad as allowing 5.

2. Merc limits would only work with pre-made teams if you keep the 3 squad system - where you can set up roles in the team before joining the server.
   Simply because there is not enough time before the game starts to discuss the team composition, and select the mercs, assuming that the other players are reading and understanding the chat, and even willing to communicate.

3. If you allow for the same mercs in multiple players squad, it might be that some players can only use one merc for the whole game, or even have all 3 of his mercs “picked away” - for example if you have a Fragger+Sawpapa+Fletcher squad, those are popular choices.

4. Even if you talk while in the lobby, or remove the 3 squad limit, some mercs are just too unique to replace.
   For example if you want Phoenix, who can burst heal during a fight to save/aid teammates, or just want to play with the Hochfir, you can’t switch to Sawpapa, who can only heal while in cover and doesn’t have the Hochfir.
   Another example is Fletcher - nobody can replace him (he is the only offensive engineer, shooting proxy mines is only effective against noobs) although you might argue that you don’t need 2 engineers in 5v5.
   And while Fragger and Thunder have a similar playstyle, they still have different weapons, etc. which affect your gameplay unless you play both of them equally.

Make mercs have bigger weapon pool, and we can talk about this.

EDIT: adding penalties like longer cooldowns and respawn timers is a bad idea, since noobs will totally ignore it, further hindering their own team (besides being a wasted slot) and it also opens the possibility of griefing.

[BloodySin]

I’d be all for some limitations - and in public games. Maybe making it dynamic, based on how many people are in the match, like up to 5-6 you can only have one, 7-8 you can have two. I don’t have any bright ideas on how to solve it, just share the annoyance in being in a team with 3-4 'tardilis or against a team with 5 Skyhammers/Fraggers/Fletchers.

[ThunderZsolt]

@BloodySin said:
the annoyance in being in a team with 3-4 'tardilis

You can not fix that ever.
Someone else said on the forums earlier, noobs will always find a merc to suck with.

If you limit the vassilis, they will simply switch to melee phantom or skyhammer (not giving ammo, they will be just as useless)

[BloodySin]

@ThunderZsolt said:

@BloodySin said:
the annoyance in being in a team with 3-4 'tardilis

You can not fix that ever.
Someone else said on the forums earlier, noobs will always find a merc to suck with.

If you limit the vassilis, they will simply switch to melee phantom or skyhammer (not giving ammo, they will be just as useless)
You’re probably right to some extent, but I’d still find it numerically nicer to have the suckage limited, you know? Wishful thinking even would say if some get blocked from 'tardiling and have to pick something else, they might end on something they are much more competent with. I’m not even just talking about being bad or new (I’m in no way great at this game), but about leaving necessary roles empty, be it for using a character much less useful for the objectives or for not playing their role at all, just going for that K/D ratio.

[pumpkinmeerkat]

@Noblemight said:
Any dev response to this matter? I think giving players a full roster to use for ranked is not a big deal as long as they meet the requirements to play ranked. The requirements are too low right now. But that is a topic for a different time. The hardest part for players to get used to is not being free to use whatever whenever. They will deal with it or just stick to casual servers. Casual and ranked deserves a more stark deviation between the two modes. Is this game competitive or child’s play is what it boils down to. Also a lack of limits throws all balance discussions out the window. I unlocked every merc in the game in preparation for ranked, so I expect a lot from a ranked player.

During one of the devs streams ages ago I believe Massey or Exedore said they were still toying with the idea of one merc choice per match internally. That was a very long time ago and obviously a lot has changed since then so who knows at this point. At the time it was nice to hear they were still experimenting, hope that’s still the case.

The concern with unlocking all mercs for ranked play is that new players would play ranked just to try out mercs and/or end up playing mercs in ranked that they were unfamiliar with. I still prefer the idea of doing away with free rotation and making the default loadouts for each merc available to everyone. Access to crafting and higher rarity cards would still be behind the same credit/IRL currency wall. This system would likely raise P2W concerns so not perfect either by any means.

Ranked should have merc limits IMO and I hope SD can figure out a way to make it work since it just isn’t possible to balance the game for stacks. They should at least add functionality for bans and limits for comp and PUG play if they aren’t planning to add anything to the base game. Also, true community servers that allowed for custom settings would be a great way for players to play the game how they want to and form communities of like minded players.