Patch notes

(Buttback) #1

Overall I think they really have listened to the community, and turned our input into decent changes. Really digging the slight buffs to Arty, Skyhammer and some of the rifles, might bring them a little closer to Fragger’s level. Especially the daily missions being a lot milder now is a very welcome change. Other than that we can finally invite friends while playing - sweet!

As for merc/weapon balance, I think it’s headed in the right direction, but a little too careful IMO. This might be a stupid thing to say since we didn’t even see how the game feels with the new patch, but the nerfs to Proxy and Aura appear to be extremely mild.

Proxy:
Movespeed reduced by ~5%
Mine explosion radius reduced by ~10%

I think her movespeed nerf is the most important balance change of this patch, so I feel like only five percent is really on the low side. Yes, this does make her slower than Aura now - but that’s about it. Things brings me to Aura.

Aura:
Healing station HP reduced to 90 (from 100)

Just one change to her means she’s now the fastest merc in the game. The insane mobility can still be combined with shotguns and SMG’s, resulting in the extremely strong synergy so many of us have been complaining about. The health station nerf is a nice way of them showing that they’re keeping they eye on Aura, but I think it should have been any aspect of the station except for its HP that should have been nerfed.

It still heals anyone to full HP within 2 to 3 seconds. It still keeps on healing you when you’re fired upon or when it takes damage. It can still be moved around and re-positioned with almost no penalty. A lot of people came up with their own ideas of how to change the healing station - a lot of them better than this change, IMO.

Why not reduce the health regeneration speed by a bit for each person being healed by it? Why not reduce regeneration when moving around within the field? Why doesn’t damage cause some kind of penalty to the healing? Things like those have been suggested.

Fragger:
No changes except for some minor weapon things that might affect him

I have no problem with Fragger. He’s a big bad wolf, and I think he should stay that way. A lot of people seem to think he’s by far the strongest ‘heavy’ right now though, and therefore I’m not sure why he isn’t mentioned in the patch notes at all.

Please don’t take this topic the wrong way - they’re obviously listening to us and I personally am very satisfied with most of the upcoming changes. I just felt like some of the changes (or lack thereof) are a little odd.

Do you agree? Do you disagree? Discuss!

(Zenity) #2

It’s exactly the subtlety of their changes which I appreciate. If you change too much, you are guaranteed to create a bunch of other problems which you didn’t foresee. With tiny changes you can ever so slowly nudge towards perfect balance (which doesn’t exist, other than as an abstract ideal). Especially now in closed beta, there is no need to rush any major changes.

I also like the change to Aura, because I think that’s really the gist of it: If you can take out the healing station, she’s more than manageable. Make it easier to do so, and you will inevitably affect her power level without changing the style of play in a significant way.

(smartIsland) #3

You didn’t mention that nerfs to mgs and machine pistols will also affect proxy and aura.

Also agree fragger is fine right now. Low hp mercs just don’t like going head 2 head. K101 may be a bit too good

(ev1ldarks) #4

So Aura would be the fastest merc ? For a defensive healer, it seems very odd for me… She’s actually more aggressive than defensive.

I would have kept the speed of Proxy, she’s perfect as a scout imho, and its job is to quickly reach objectives. I fear that attackers will suffer from that speed nerf. Instead, reducing its overall damage for example (shotty & mines).

I would rather have reduced Aura’s speed (and healthstation regen speed yeah !), to make her less aggressive, she’s a defensive medic after all ^^

And I also feel that Fragger’s nade is a bit powerful (cooldown is ok).

(phila_delphia) #5

In game Proxy still seems to dominate - she is swift with a powerfull weapon an has two of them mine + her repair ability. I am curious how Bushwhacker will compete against her - as he was really slow earlier on.

In general I hope SD has an eye on the balance between heavy and light Mers. In Brink everyone only played lights in the end… I hope this will not happen in DB.

Best regards

phila

(Eox) #6

Remove 5% of 470, you’ll end with more or less 445. How is this not enough ? Comparatively, knowing that Fragger has 385 speed and is currently the slowest merc, it’s a huge speed decrease. I just hope that it won’t be calculated like that and the nerf won’t be that hard.

As the game become older, the playerbase will slowly increase the highest skill level. At the end expect that in competitive matches fast characters will be quickly downed anyway, because players will have such a good aim that speed will less matter. Hindering Proxy’s speed and adding a Merc with a turret in game (read “a counter against everything fast because a turret is basically a deployable aimbot”) will just destroy her for good. That speed nerf was totally unneeded. I am sure that Bushwacker will be enough to set Proxy in a much more balanced state (the only thing she really needed was a hard counter, right ?).

[quote=“ev1ldarks;12610”]So Aura would be the fastest merc ? For a defensive healer, it seems very odd for me… She’s actually more aggressive than defensive.

I would have kept the speed of Proxy, she’s perfect as a scout imho, and its job is to quickly reach objectives. I fear that attackers will suffer from that speed nerf. Instead, reducing its overall damage for example (shotty & mines).

I would rather have reduced Aura’s speed (and healthstation regen speed yeah !), to make her less aggressive, she’s a defensive medic after all ^^

And I also feel that Fragger’s nade is a bit powerful (cooldown is ok).
[/quote]

So. Much. This. I am against a Shotgun nerf though, because at a higher level of play, I positive that SMG Proxy will be much more used than a Shotgun Proxy. Reason ? Shotguns won’t be effective at greater range, and will require you to get close to targets to be efficient. While you have the speed to do it, ambushing is not the easiest thing to do (if someone spots you, you failed and you’ll be lucky if you don’t end dead), with a SMG you can run and gun from much afar. If you have a good aim, you’ll be deadly.

I wouldn’t touch Aura’s speed either. She can be also used offensively and that’s good IMO : versatility is always a good thing. Instead, make the health station regenerating much slower if you took damage within the 3 last seconds. A bit like in TF2. It would be enough to not make Aura an ugly tank against everything DPS based inside her health station. If it’s needed, only apply those changes for Aura.

(enchantingComet) #7

do we have a link to said patch notes for those at work?

(Eox) #8

Try that link : http://forums.dirtybomb.nexon.net/discussion/comment/12556

However Missmurder said that those notes were deployed too early. Expect that more changes will be made.

(Buttback) #9

@Eox, I disagree with most of what you’re saying here. You almost make it seem (at least to me) as if Aura and Proxy are fine, just because the overall player skill will probably go up, making them capable of dealing with the two mentioned above.

Aura is portrayed as a defensive medic. Her current stats let her be extremely agressive. Why doesn’t Sawbonez, who’s supposed to be a combat medic, have her movespeed? Why does she have to be the fastest merc in-game right now, while also sporting the beast healing stats and two of (arguably) the best weapon types?

Proxy has (or had, if the 5% nerf is done as you showed) one of the most toxic kits in the game. She is (again, or was) extremely fast, giving her the highest killing potential. She also has extremely short times on defusing/repairing/planting, making her a very solid choice for people who just want to kill things and get the highest EXP as possible. (read: which seems to what 50% of the playerbase right now does) Also, she’s not a scout - she’s an engineer. Vassili is a scout, even though he’s pretty slow.

Zenity makes a pretty good point, it’s probably better to slowly see how it affects the game instead of dishing out hard nerfs left and right.

(Eox) #10

[quote=“deliberateMaster;12686”]@Eox, I disagree with most of what you’re saying here. You almost make it seem (at least to me) as if Aura and Proxy are fine, just because the overall player skill will probably go up, making them capable of dealing with the two mentioned above.

Aura is portrayed as a defensive medic. Her current stats let her be extremely agressive. Why doesn’t Sawbonez, who’s supposed to be a combat medic, have her movespeed? Why does she have to be the fastest merc in-game right now, while also sporting the beast healing stats and two of (arguably) the best weapon types?

Proxy has (or had, if the 5% nerf is done as you showed) one of the most toxic kits in the game. She is (again, or was) extremely fast, giving her the highest killing potential. She also has extremely short times on defusing/repairing/planting, making her a very solid choice for people who just want to kill things and get the highest EXP as possible. (read: which seems to what 50% of the playerbase right now does) Also, she’s not a scout - she’s an engineer. Vassili is a scout, even though he’s pretty slow.

Zenity makes a pretty good point, it’s probably better to slowly see how it affects the game instead of dishing out hard nerfs left and right. [/quote]

What you call the “most toxic kit” would be just laughable at a decent level of play : mines are countered by awareness, shotguns won’t do anything past middle-low range where automatic weapons will keep their DPS and likely down you in a second. Her speed is huge, but her health low, and with her basic loadout she has to be close in order to be efficient, which opens her to a lot of gunfire, and with 90 hp you don’t want to be open to gunfire. At the end, her speed and her ability to play objectives nicely would be the main reasons to play her, not her fragging abilities. SMG loadout Proxy is an exception though and may need tweaking on that point, or not. Competitive plays may tell otherwise.

Using Proxy, if you don’t move enough you’re dead, if you’re dead you can’t do anything with objectives, and you can’t rely on your mines if players have half a brain : most skilled players will even turn them againt you (because yes, they can blow you up with your own mine if they’re quick enough or if you don’t pay attention). At the end, the most efficient strategy you have to frag is flanking and abushing, and this won’t be easy in competitive due to constant communication and general player awareness.

You can add with that the introduction of Bushwhacker and his turret friend, that will likely eat Proxies like I eat Kit-Kat bars : ferociously, in less than one second and without even leaving a single miscroscopic piece of chocolate. A strong hard counter to anything fast with low hp that may (and I positive it will) totally change the balance.

I don’t think Aura is fine, I just said that I wouldn’t touch her speed. I’d tweak how the healing station works instead to limit the broken “Aura laying down a station and mow you” strategy.

(devilishKaleidoscope) #11

Even now Aura’s healing station is OP, with the new merc rhino, the aura/rhino combo is currently the best in the game by far, I have a pug team and one of our main defensive tactics is rhino aura rhino aura bushwacker and it works extremely well because the rhinos are basically invincible, and the frag grenades of the fragger are countered by the 2 healing stations in seperate spots instead of one.

(cornJester) #12

Holy necro, Batman. Is your name Sparks? @Ardez

(LifeupOmega) #13

I was reading this and didn’t see the date and was like “Wait, I swear Proxy is slower”.

Necromancy is an evil magic.

(Eox) #14

Why did you necroed that thread ? My life was so much better before that !

(Amerika) #15

Please don’t necro threads that are most likely full of extremely out of date information @devilishKaleidoscope :slight_smile: Closing.