Merc Limits

(Homu1124) #1

Title says the issue.

I specifically want merc limits for tank mercs, though I’m sure there are reasons for other mercs as well.

When you matchmake into 6v6 and you face a team of 4 thunders with 1 medic and obj person, it it impossible. Their health is simply too high and their high dps lmg makes them too much to handle. Without any friendly fire, they can just throw all of their flash bangs around our positions and then take us out one by one.

Since each person is vital on 6v6, having just a bunch of tanks like thunders or even rhinos as attackers is not balanced as they can simply take more hits and spray you with a high dps lmg and minigun without much skill. You have no way to focus on them and the objective without getting pummeled.

This is the same with javelin, where one can simply fight an enemy, take him out, and then whip out a bazooka that takes way too little time to charge up to take another sucker with them, making them a guaranteed 2for. All you need is 3-4 javelins and you can wipe away an enemy team on 6v6.

The point is, you need to at least have some server options where merc limits are in place, like a cap of 2 per merc. If you don’t, spamming of the same merc will simply give the enemy team a super amplified ability, which is not balanced since the defenders have no choice but to hold positions to be broken down. This is especially true on cramped maps like bridge and underground.

That’s my piece, now please give me yours. I’d love to see some feedback and thoughts about the issues with merc limits and what could be done to fix these problems. I’d love to hear your experiences as well as it might shine a spotlight on this issue for the DB team.

Thanks!

(arharr3) #2

This has been discussed many times already. What happens to newbs who only have the starter mercs and free rotation? Do they get kicked when all mercs they have equipped are already taken?
What if the medics in my team are incompetent but I cant switch to do it better thanks to the limit?
Every merc is OP when stacked and played correctly, its just more obvious with assaults and fire supports.

Also a “tank” class doesnt exist , mercs are categorized as assault (nader , fragger , thunder , rhino) , medic (aura , sparks , phoenix, sawbonez) , fire support (kira , skyhammer, arty, stoker , javelin) , engieneer (proxy , bushwacker , fletcher, turtle) and recons (aimee , vassili , phantom, redeye).

#3

Above poster raised some good points so I won’t bother retyping that with my own perspective. I wouldn’t mind seeing some sort of highlighted tip in the matchmaking queue or the new player switching chat that alerts you when your team is lacking a medic or engineer, but even that is unnecessary. We don’t need the game to give us training wheels and hold our hands by restricting what some players choose. That’s limiting even more of the already limited content and freedom we have with this game in terms of variety. Also, Rhino is pretty much universally acknowledged as a bottom tier merc with Thunder being considered no better than average. They’re annoying at times, sure, but not hard to counter. I genuinely wish an enemy ranked team would have a lineup of mostly Thunders, Rhinos, or any single merc for that matter because it’d be laughably easy to counter. Everyone gets to choose 3 mercs; that leaves plenty of options to develop any strategy and counter any potential lineup you’d encounter. Communication is key here.

(B_Montiel) #4

Sadly, at some point, if people can’t behave themselves, the game will have to make them obey in some ways.

The major balance issues people mention with javelin for example are partially due to the amount of javelin there are in the enemy team. Used by a single player, even tough she’s still a bit stronger than average in my view, she’s a far less hassle than when we have to face 3.

Same goes for public games quality where I often see people complaining about current game balance, in a team where there are no medic at all or engineer if requested by the current obj. Restricting their choices on assault, recon and support will inevitably make them chose something else.

There are some merc comp that has few or no counter at all. Duo fragger or thunder+fragger with a single medic on them is a literal pain in the ass in most situations. Same goes with duo Arty in any EV escort situation.

Just check how most 5 man ranked nolifes always have 2 guys with the same merc pool : fragger, arty and something random they won’t use.

Same goes with DBN rules : the one merc rule is there for something. It does even apply to medics and engineer. And that’s not a desire for variety.

As an exemple, Chivalry (quite different experience yes, but not that far in terms of game types or impact of class selection), had class restricts on archers and knights, even on some official servers, just to keep the ANY public game fun, fair, and diverse. Just don’t expect players to have this kind of insight, not anymore.

(SnakekillerX) #5

A merc limit should be a server option. Many people have asked for it.
In order to avoid issues when it comes to available mercs, and player accessibility…

Make it so you can only pick 1 merc in these servers, no 3 merc lineup, just 1.
Then make it so you can only have 1 of each type of merc per team.

Matches would be 5 vs 5. Everyone starts with Aura and Skyhammer, and you have 3 Mercs on rotation (that’s 5 mercs), so everyone would be able to play right from level 1.

You can then have some servers with level restrictions to try and keep people more in their own skill bracket.

If you end up with a teammate who picks Aura and you are a better Aura, tough…
The game will allow everyone to vote on their first pick, if there is no one else wanting to play your merc, you get to play them, otherwise it is randomly decided by the game. You then get to pick a different merc as your second choice continue voting (if there is any other confliction) until everyone has been assigned a merc.

(hawkeyeguy99) #6

@arharr3 said:
This has been discussed many times already. What happens to newbs who only have the starter mercs and free rotation? Do they get kicked when all mercs they have equipped are already taken?
What if the medics in my team are incompetent but I cant switch to do it better thanks to the limit?
Every merc is OP when stacked and played correctly, its just more obvious with assaults and fire supports.

THIS. I don’t understand how people can’t get this through their thick skulls. Merc limits are a bad idea period. The only way I could see merc limits becoming viable is if DB basically became Overwatch and let you pick from any merc at any time and got rid of the whole “3 person squad” mechanic (which would be a terrible idea). But until such a day mercs limits of ANY KIND should never be added to the game. The day they do is the day I stop playing.

(Homu1124) #7

@arharr3 said:

Also a “tank” class doesnt exist , mercs are categorized as assault (nader , fragger , thunder , rhino) , medic (aura , sparks , phoenix, sawbonez) , fire support (kira , skyhammer, arty, stoker , javelin) , engieneer (proxy , bushwacker , fletcher, turtle) and recons (aimee , vassili , phantom, redeye).

Lol, I’ll take that as a discussion point and not patronization.

Sure, they have not “classified” them as tanks, but you have to realize that they are given the highest health pools (Thunder and Rhino).

I also see people saying that they are easily countered. I’d like an example where in the heat of uncertainty, you can repulse 4 thunders on your location while fully flashbanged and with a proxy hiding to repair the ev in that congested space.

Obviously a merc can be countered with the right conditions, but you are not always in the right conditions, and that comes down to probability and intuition, and there is a much higher probability of being steamrolled by a bunch of tanks.

As to the merc limit issue by arharr3, I like the insight of the problems limits have for new players with less mercs to bring in. This may be a problem for stopwatch where you pick servers and may congest it with more auras and skyhammers. Casual matchmaking, however, can try taking these things into account (obviously it takes an algorithm change, but change is needed). Also limits don’t have to apply to all mercs (in competitive, some classes need to be balanced by limiting their numbers). I also still stand by having at the very least servers that impose limits, thereby giving people a choice to go to non-spam servers (y’know, like having 4 arties to defeat the ev on chapel), or to go to servers that can have spam.

(SnakekillerX) #8

@hawkeyeguy99 said:

@arharr3 said:
This has been discussed many times already. What happens to newbs who only have the starter mercs and free rotation? Do they get kicked when all mercs they have equipped are already taken?
What if the medics in my team are incompetent but I cant switch to do it better thanks to the limit?
Every merc is OP when stacked and played correctly, its just more obvious with assaults and fire supports.

THIS. I don’t understand how people can’t get this through their thick skulls. Merc limits are a bad idea period. The only way I could see merc limits becoming viable is if DB basically became Overwatch and let you pick from any merc at any time and got rid of the whole “3 person squad” mechanic (which would be a terrible idea). But until such a day mercs limits of ANY KIND should never be added to the game. The day they do is the day I stop playing.

I was talking about having separate servers for it. I don’t see how adding extra servers with different rules would have any affect on people who prefer to play it the regular way.

(hawkeyeguy99) #9

@SnakekillerX said:

@hawkeyeguy99 said:

@arharr3 said:
This has been discussed many times already. What happens to newbs who only have the starter mercs and free rotation? Do they get kicked when all mercs they have equipped are already taken?
What if the medics in my team are incompetent but I cant switch to do it better thanks to the limit?
Every merc is OP when stacked and played correctly, its just more obvious with assaults and fire supports.

THIS. I don’t understand how people can’t get this through their thick skulls. Merc limits are a bad idea period. The only way I could see merc limits becoming viable is if DB basically became Overwatch and let you pick from any merc at any time and got rid of the whole “3 person squad” mechanic (which would be a terrible idea). But until such a day mercs limits of ANY KIND should never be added to the game. The day they do is the day I stop playing.

I was talking about having separate servers for it. I don’t see how adding extra servers with different rules would have any affect on people who prefer to play it the regular way.

I can agree that having separate servers wouldn’t affect normal players but that’s also just a lot of work and upkeep for SD for an issue that really isn’t a problem for 90% of games. Just how many times have you been up against 4 thunders? I would venture to say not much. All I’m saying is that usually people keep asking for merc limits across the board which is a terrible idea and while adding extra servers would be fine, we don’t need more of a reason to separate our already small playerbase.

(SnakekillerX) #10

@hawkeyeguy99 said:

@SnakekillerX said:

@hawkeyeguy99 said:

@arharr3 said:
This has been discussed many times already. What happens to newbs who only have the starter mercs and free rotation? Do they get kicked when all mercs they have equipped are already taken?
What if the medics in my team are incompetent but I cant switch to do it better thanks to the limit?
Every merc is OP when stacked and played correctly, its just more obvious with assaults and fire supports.

THIS. I don’t understand how people can’t get this through their thick skulls. Merc limits are a bad idea period. The only way I could see merc limits becoming viable is if DB basically became Overwatch and let you pick from any merc at any time and got rid of the whole “3 person squad” mechanic (which would be a terrible idea). But until such a day mercs limits of ANY KIND should never be added to the game. The day they do is the day I stop playing.

I was talking about having separate servers for it. I don’t see how adding extra servers with different rules would have any affect on people who prefer to play it the regular way.

I can agree that having separate servers wouldn’t affect normal players but that’s also just a lot of work and upkeep for SD for an issue that really isn’t a problem for 90% of games. Just how many times have you been up against 4 thunders? I would venture to say not much. All I’m saying is that usually people keep asking for merc limits across the board which is a terrible idea and while adding extra servers would be fine, we don’t need more of a reason to separate our already small playerbase.

I look at this more of a feature than a fix to a problem. Its a different way to play.

(Homu1124) #11

I guess all of this will have to wait for custom community servers in order to be effective. They have done competitive friendly fire practice servers, so I guess merc limits there can be possible.

(znuund) #12

As already stated, making a merc limit with the 3 merc squad is very difficult to justify. But increasing the squad to 5 and every player having individual merc rotations would make the merc limit viable.

It can be very powerful to stack mercs. Just today I played against 3 javelins. Was pretty hard to play, especially as I had only light mercs in my squad. I had sparks, proxy and aimee in my squad and I wanted to play engi. When seeing those 3 javelins in the enemy team, I would love to switch to bush to just have a little bit more hp. I couldn’t. 3 merc limit. Sad panda all the way.

(Demolama) #13

unfortunately without some type of limit, whether merc or heavy weapon global, the time to kill in this game has been getting lower and lower. It is hard to justify using a semiautomatic weapon (m4, crotz, etc.) when explosions and high damage single shot weapons dominate the game.

(CO_Grit) #14

I’m all for rentable servers having those sort of options, but I don’t think the main game needs it. Teamwork kills the Thunder.