MercSERVer Update - Feedback

[auwi]

The more news I see about this update, the more anxious I get about the direction that DB is going. Some the new changes coming totally frustrate me as a player, and here is some of my comments and thoughts on those issues.

CREDIT BOOSTERS, CONTRACTS, CREDIT RATE:

My biggest issue with new contracts is how many credits are rewarded. As of right now, you can earn 1,000 credits in missions via 7,500 gamemode XP/ 10,000 combat XP/ 4,500 support XP/ or 15,000 overall XP.

Seeing as it now requires 36,000 combat XP to gain 1,000 credits, 12,000 support XP to gain 900 credits, and 17,000 overall XP to gain 800 credits, it seems this system has became unfair to people who rely on gaining credits via missions. It looks like the time spent to gain the same amount of credits is too much.

While I understand the base credit rate has increased from 12/min to 19/min, this barely helps. Let’s put this in terms of a full SW match, where a match time is 30mins. I now gain 210~ more credits from a SW game, which is hardly much.

Another issue is the reroll system. You now gain 2 reroll tokens every 24 hours. Before, you’d gain missions every 3 hours. While I now have to spend much longer to mission contracts, it isnt fun to only be able to complete contracts twice a day. I would typically play 3-4 missions cycles a day, typically earning 8k-10k credits. From this new system, it looks as if my new credit rate will be more around 5k-6k a day, which seems really frustrating as a regular player.

SKINS, ART DIRECTION, AND COMMUNITY CONTENT SUPPORT

Take a listen to Exedore’s response regarding adding swimsuits: https:// youtu.be/mV3mAo3dG38?t=280
Exedore: “While we are playful, we still want our characters to be believably miltary, no matter the context”

Here we are regarding this situation about art style and believability. These skins, while appealing to some, directly hurts the art direction DB is taking from a Military-based shooter towards a fashion show. With enough time, eventually we’ll see the art style become swimsuits if the art direction keeps heading this way (SEE: Team Fortres 2). Therefore, I believe SD should not focus on creating colorful and dreamy-like skins with an emphasis on standing out. While customization is fantastic, the artists NEED to realize the context of what they create. Going this direction right now will break DB’s sense of believability and ruin its art direction for the future.

Regarding this as well, I deeply believe in a Steam Workshop for Dirty Bomb. Content makers should be able to flourish in DB’s creative environment with creating weapon skins and trinkets, similar to how CS:GO handles their content makers. DB’s artists can focus on other things such as obsidians, creating new weapons, loadout skins etc. Having a Steam Workshop also brings a new community to DB which loves to focus on creation, and will definitely have a positive impact on DB’s playerbase overall (SEE: Team Fortress 2, CS:GO, Dota 2)

Overall for this update, I feel there’s both positive and negative stuff. I’m not happy with the changes to credit earn rate or boosters as much, and there’s a lot of stuff that can be improved. I’m looking forward to hearing any other feedback people have about this update as well.

[auwi]

Since the forum is being stupid and not allowing me to post more than 1 image, heres the skins i have problems with:

[Ptiloui]

While I now have to spend much longer to mission contracts, it isnt fun to only be able to complete contracts twice a day.

In fact, this is thrice (the three first daily contracts, then 2 more sets by rerolling). But I get what you’re saying and totally agree. This 36k combat xp will be a real pain and scary for new players as well as casual ones. Even I, I think I’ll need 3 or 4 SW matches, meaning 2 hours play for only 1k xp. After a pretty long daily session, I don’t think I’ll still have enough time/will to reroll to get new missions.

But you know what ? I tried to estimate what I will earn per day with my actual playtime and comparer it with what I earn daily with the actual system. Aaaand in fact, I’ll get more at worst, but less at best xD. Let’s see :

With my actual playtime, when I get back home, I have enough time to complete my first daily missions before the reroll by playing one or two SW matches. These award me 1500-3000 credits. Few minutes later, the reroll occur and I can grab another 1500-3000 credits. Then I can go do other real life things, like having diner, speaking to people and family, eventually watch a movie. Then I go back to Dirty Bomb and can grab another 1500-3000 credits before going to bed.

So, in one day, I can grab 4500-12k credits without having this grind feeling. But with missions like 36k combat xp, I’ll need twice more matches to complete them for the same amount of credits. If I consider the time needed, I could reroll once per day. So my daily play session will award me 5800-7000 credits (assuming the 800 credit mission will replace the 500 actual ones, and 900 credits the 750 ones) (I did took account of the 2x 500 bonus full completion).

This coming from an average-to-good player. Wouldn’t be surprise if the low level players will struggle to fulfill the new 1k credits missions daily.

As for skins, I’m still curious how the different melee weapons will be split between the different cases. I actually find quite sad that some weapons are only available with certain skins and not all (like the Shar-C being only available in the CoreSEC case for a 7.9% chance (and this is the odd for the in-store case, the dropped version has worse odds)), mixing fireguns and melee will feel even more RNG.

I won’t talk about appearance because to each his own taste, even though I’m curious how this rainbow kukri will look like on minimal setting xD. Also, I’m sure they won’t forget to add the Ryburn MP and Arevarov 9 to those cases.

[STARRYSOCK]

DB never really was a hardcore military themed shooter though, ever since alpha ended at least. Even from the scrub trailer, it’s clear DB was always a little cartoony and memey.
Having a rainbow kukri really won’t ruin the game. I mean, is it really much of a stretch from the skins we already have?

I agree with most of your other points though

[DarkangelUK]

It’s not a ‘rainbow’, the design is called ‘holo’ for the type of holographic style colour refraction

[bgyoshi]

As a person that plays once or twice a week at best I can’t disagree more about contracts

I mean I understand; if you’re used to grinding 6+ hours a day for missions then this is a clear step back for you. But I would put you in the minority of users that who will earn significantly fewer credits due to the lower amount of contracts that can be completed per day.

I like the idea behind the contracts but we’ll see about the execution. They want people to come and play, and keep playing for awhile. They’ve increased the benefits of prolonged play (up to 30% more credits for consecutive matches) and are continuing that trend with longer contracts.

Taking into account the new 19c/min rate, you’ll get 63% more credits from playing. I often get 200 or so credits per match once I’m at the 30% boost cap, so that makes 326 per match (or so) instead. I play Objective, so matches are usually done in 7 - 15 minutes. So… 19*7 + 30% is 172 base credits for a 7 minute match, with time between matches somewhere around 3 minutes total, making 6 matches an hour or 1,037ish credits per hour.

You can probably do all 5 contracts in 3 hours of play, so you’re going to get anywhere between 5500 and 8000 credits each day if you’re fast. If you’re slow, then just keep adding 1000 more at minimum for each hour extra you need.

Back to the original point, players like me who only play twice a week or so, and only for 2 or 3 hours, will see earnings jump from my usual 3000 - 4000 a day to almost 8000 (or more if rerolls stack over time!) per day.

Clear upgrade for the majority of users tbh

[hawkeyeguy99]

The amount of credits gained per day isn’t the issue for me, it’s the continuous required to get the same amount of credits per day. I work a full time job, I don’t have time to be spending 3 hours playing DB everyday. Right now however, I can log on play a full stopwatch match (maybe 2 depending on how I do) and get ~2.5k credits then move on with my life, get some other things done and come back later once my missions refill for another ~2.5k credits.
With the new contracts system it turns this quick reward into yet another grind. (cause DB needs more grind… sigh) I can no longer receive that reward for a quick half hour but now have to dedicate about 3 hours of my life to reach that threshold. That’s a huge step backwards and NOT what will keep new players playing. Making the grind longer is not the answer.

[HadronZodiac]

Contracts - Yeah I admit the exp needed for the contract seems a bit much, maybe they should reduce it just a bit by about 2k (for specific exp) and 4k (for game exp). So it still takes time to do contracts but not too much.

Reroll - Idk it seems a bit fine for now, if its too little, maybe 3 tokens every 24 hours would be fine. So when you take a break from DB you can com back and just GRIND contracts.

Art - The loadout skins are fine, and so are the melees. As long as they dont go farther than this, im chillin ;/

[Ptiloui]

Yeah, this is not some pictures modifications that are made here, you can forge steel parts with some heat control to produce this effect (http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-colour-steel-with-HEAT).

It looks rainbow, but it is purely natural

[Xenithos]

I could care less about the skin colors, in fact I embrace getting wacky with the weapon skins as everyone has their own flare (though I do agree that we shouldn’t be seeing Bushwhacker in a swim suit… ever. That’s just = a “No. Ew. Don’t speak your thoughts” from Kira) and I’m personally exicited to see some REAL good looking skins there. They are way better than the skins we in beta had access to during the melee mayhem imo.

As for contracts, this seems absurd. Am I correct in seeing that they are removing the every 3 hour mission window? Am I correct in seeing that they STILL might have a background that clashes with the timer? Am I correct in seeing that these new missions are in a range of 1.6 literally almost 4x harder for the same amount of credits (combat xp, looking at you)? What on earth? ROFL.

Unless this means in their whole speeding up the rate at people level: They’re not changing it from 400,000 experience down, but how much experience you get from basic actions. Basically an overall inflation of score…
Which I find unlikely.

What was great about the old system is I could long in at 4:30pm, play to 5:30 pm and come out with an average ~4+k credits just from missions, then play for another hour at 10:30 to 11:30 pm and go to bed. Overall I’d make around 10k credits a day easily, at an acceptable time frame of only 2 hours of playing. I never got why other players had such a hard time. This new system seems absurd! I really hope it’s not as crazy as it looks and these were just jokes or it works differently than explained…

[STARRYSOCK]

It’s not a ‘rainbow’, the design is called ‘holo’ for the type of holographic style colour refraction

I know what it is, but well… it’s still a rainbow style. I don’t mean that in a negative way either, I love rainbows and I actually like the kukri design lol