My suggestions for making Dirty Bomb a good tournament game

(slaG) #1

I have been around since about 2001, I have participated at lans such as qcon. Ive played rtcw, et, css, etqw, all competitively. I am sure most of the people here have similar backgrounds. These are only my views on the current state of the game and issues that need to be address.

Lets start on maps,

For starters I understand what this echo stuff is supposed to do, but I think its logic is flawed. For example, you guys state that moving spawns further back and increasing time has spread out the kills more. Of course it has, it takes people longer to get to the objectives and forces defense to push out further if they want kills. Also you are basing this off of pubs, if you want to build a pub game, cool. But organized rushing would not highlight the same regions as what you are balancing for.

Maps are too open for 5v5. Water loo is probably the best map up until the final objective. There are too many vantage points to cover, you need choke points which this final objective has none. Enemies can shoot you from the side walkway, the upper window (across from pda), the lower stairs (below upper window), the tunnel stairs, the main entrance. How can you cover that effectively with 5 guys? Look at the objectives, there is no comfortable way to build a defense around this. In other games like et/rtcw you could have one guy at a choke point hold the team long enough to at least get someone to shift. In DB it takes so long to kill someone that he would get mowed over if he got rushed more times than not. Guarding the PDA they can come from middle escalator, back stairs, right escalator, or side walkway again with 5 guys. Not to mention that the entire front of the PDA is exposed to all 4-5 of the other vantage points in the main room. You need to be able to setup on defense and have crossfires, the way this plays now you need to shift constantly and it just feels chaotic.

White chapel,
Phase 1 I think is fine, but this is mostly do to the ev having to go mid. You always know that the team is coming this way. This is what non EV maps are missing from the designs. You have no idea where the enemy is coming from. Fine for pub, not for comp. Phase 2 inside the church, wth are you supposed to do here? You have cutouts you can hide in but have no support with team. They can again attach from top right, top middle, front entrance or get around and flank you. You seem to be compensating for this buy giving more objectives to carry? Other games like et were fine with a single objective, this maybe is hinting a problem no?

I could go on analyzing maps but the main message I am trying to convey is you need to give people choke points to defend. You should break defenses with proper nades and coordinated rushes that forces people from shifting, not because they are spread so thin that they cant shift at all.

Also it takes too long to kill people, I have never played a game where you can sneak up behind 3 people and not be able to kill them all. This is just silly.

(Nail) #2

and the last game you released was called what ?

(Patriotqube) #3

Cant see the relevans in this?

the guy has some points, and afaik, this is what we are supposed todo, tell how we feel it can be better

(slaG) #4

Patriot, he meant it starting to feel like brink. Which I dont disagree with.

(Nail) #5

I dislike comments that demand changes “because I say so” and “comp requires this”

(Patriotqube) #6

ahh ok my bad, i understood it different

I dont think the game is like Brink tho, I like it in many ways, i havent made an opion on the maps yet tho, as they imo isnt as important as getting movements and weaponhandling correct. and there i still think some work could be added :slight_smile:

edit

turned out i wasnt wrong, so because you dislike it, then he aint allowed to write it?

or as i could see you wrote in a thread on open forum, he just hasnt been involved with SD for a long time so you dont take his points as valid points?

(slaG) #7

I do not demand anything, I am merely giving feedback based on my experience.

(Nail) #8

I really like the game, feels like W:ET to me, just gotta figure out the maps, I like the weapon feel so far, sound… meh

(slaG) #9

Not sure what version of et you played. But ok…

(Nail) #10

I played ETPro w/ 2.60b
never played XP Save

(.Chris.) #11

Remember it’s an alpha, I’m sure things will improve over time. How could they balance the maps on anything but pub play? That’s all they had to go on, also makes lot more sense as the majority will be playing it that way on release. There will be more maps also, not all are going to be SW friendly though, this has been the case in most games ever released.

The game is reminiscent of ET in my opinion and I’m sure glad it’s not a copy of ET.

(zeroooo) #12

i think slag is right in some points…

the map design for competition is (very) bad…

tbh, we played a few wars now, not just mixes with the community, if you do some tacs and find some positions its not that chaotic but its still hard…

whitechapel @ 2nd obj with the discs is absolutely fail, maybe u should just keep it out… it takes 1 minute of time to get them, but this one minute could be the minute to get the map to a fullhold…

we played maps where we rushed threw and it even took much time…

maps are too long, too many objectives…

just see london bridge,

build ev, drive ev, destroy 2!!! barricades, deliver 2 cells, destroy one more barricade and go on driving the EV all the time… and this in 20 minutes, we rushed the map and it took about 10 minutes i think, not sure at all but it takes ages…

same for whitechapel, build ev, drive ev, deliver cells, go on with driving, build 2 or 3 generators that this elevator isnt falling asleep while getting the ev down, get ev to final stage, deliver 2 discs on hardcore openfield…

just waterloo is quite nice, i like the first obj, second one is also okay, the 3rd one is a bit hard but ok… a map with 3 obj!!! thats much better then a map with 57455 obj…

maybe spawnwaves could fix some of the problems we have at the moment…

we will see. i think the game has much good things, which could help the game to get a great competition game…

(.Chris.) #13

Indeed, he raised some very good points about map design but starting the thread with “Why I think this games going to fail…” is quite loaded and makes the feedback seem more like whine when it actually isn’t.

I think WC and LB are beyond ‘saving’ for SW, they are just too long as already stated, when I play these maps even in public I feel drained of energy, pretty much like the MCP maps of ET:QW, never liked them, long hard grind to the end, assuming you get that far…

SD have said they wish for this game to be played competitively so we need feedback like this, perhaps should have posted in the other section and would have avoided half of the posts in this thread.

It’s going to be hard to get feedback properly for competition at the moment, they’re aren’t many teams, I think maybe 2 or 3 real teams?

(zeroooo) #14

ye chris,

something around this…

maybe we should start a thread in comp forum… but its acutally hard to finish LB and WC…

(slaG) #15

Chris, I was just thinking if I were the developer on this game what title would I open :stuck_out_tongue: Yes I agree, its hard to design for comp atm. My concern is going too far into balancing for pub that its hard to come back.

(Kendle) #16

I think it’s much too soon to be saying “this game’s going to fail …” because we don’t have all the information yet. It’s still Alpha, there are only 3 maps (unless you’re a VIP) to base an opinion on, and those maps are almost certainly the ones SD feels are best suited to public play anyway.

ET’s demo map was Fueldump, terrible for comp play but it showed off everything the game could do and as such was perfect as a demo map, same with ET:QW which had Valley as it’s demo map, and which was also terrible for comp (from what I remember, didn’t like the game from the start, didn’t stick around long enough to really get to know it).

What leads me to believe the game won’t fail as a comp game is the fact they have a specific comp feedback forum (in which this thread should’ve been posted), and every comp match played is recorded and they watch those recordings. They’ve certainly expressed their desire to balance the game for comp play, which is a big step up from previous games right there.

What we should be doing is telling them why a particular map, or stage of a map, doesn’t work for comp, like pointing out the problems with final stage defence on Waterloo. i.e. constructive feedback rather than criticism based on the assumption that what we have right now is what we’re going to get with the finished game.

In fact why not have a (sticky) thread for each map, in the comp forum, so we can keep ideas and thoughts about each map’s suitability for comp play in one place?

(INF3RN0) #17

#1 issue for me is less escort missions or at least full map escorts. WC is just way too linear to be enjoyable. Some of the newer additions are better, but it’s still pretty much a straight line walk from A->B with little rooms on the sides, and the stuff that happens in the church is a mess. LB is pretty good in my opinion with the right coordination and strategy. WL is definitely one of the better ones, however I do agree that the bomb objective is pretty hectic. I don’t think anyone ever is able to setup a fixed defense on it, but instead everyone runs frantically around fragging the offensive engy lol.

Camden is a really nice map with a very simple layout, yet flexible chokes/flanks/routes. One of the reasons why I like it so much is because I feel like the entire map can be utilized in a number of ways, and that you really need to have a well spread crossfire to cover the objectives- but not too extreme. Not to mention the map has a lot of breathing space and you can actually jump out most windows and interact with the environment! I really feel like more maps with similarities in camden’s design choices will make DB look much better for comp and in general.

As far as the weapons go, I think they are pretty decent in terms of balance. I wouldn’t mind an even more slight reduction on the weapon spread, but I feel like soldier, fops, and sniper can get very consistent kill streaks under the right conditions. Medic of course is more of a 1v1/2 class, but I like feeling motivated to play other classes for once. It does seem that most kill-streaks occur when enemies are close range or lined up in a confined space, which might mean fall-off damage is a tad much. We had some pugs/scrimmages earlier tonight and I saw plenty of multi-kills on all sides, but again I do think that the weapons could be even slightly more rewarding.

(.N.E.R.D.) #18

I think either one has a point but I am with Chris here. While SlaG might have some points there it might also be true that if all the maps are out and playable that none of the 3 that are played now is in the Comp Pool.

(.Chris.) #19

Was just thinking the same :slight_smile:

I think Waterloo would be good with some small fixes, other two need drastic changes that won’t happen practically need to butcher the map I reckon.

(nailzor) #20

Game doesn’t feel at all like ET, this old man Nail is going senile! Wonder what game he released last was or played highly for competition?

There are great points here regarding competitive play. The maps have some areas of opportunity, too many phases, mini-objectives, some are just too large. When it takes over 2 hours to play 3 rounds of SW (regarding our practice games with SiD the other day) - it takes way too long just to even scrim someone. Lets say both teams are amazing and rush the objectives as fast as possible, still not like your going to beat a 20 minute map in 6 minutes in the current state of things - the speed of the EV is like watching senior citizens drive in Florida, or watching the movie Driving Miss Daisy right Nail?

The reason I bring this up is because FPS games in competition are often played best of 3, best of 5 etc. So lets imagine a game was best of 5 which ended up 3-2. 5 rounds of stopwatch, estimate 15 minutes per side would be 2.5 hours of non-stop playing. Put some time between rounds for readying up etc, we start closing in on 3 hours for just 1 match (keep in mind this is accounting for 15 minute times, not full holds).

Kinda rough for matches to potentially take that long on multiple aspects of things, the teams that practice, the tournaments that occur, and the casting teams.