"Pro" Mode

[Amerika]

I simply can’t get on board with the idea of limiting players to 1 merc per game (or even 1 per side). My reasoning below.

1. The meta-game could potentially be greatly harmed. Being able to come up with strategies based on your teams merc picks is what will drive the theorycrafting which helps competitive games and keeps people interested. Having strategies that you execute on different parts of the map or how you can respond to strategies is extremely fun to me. The meta bar would be lowered so much that it could harm the game. Or at least harm it for people like myself.

2. Competitive matches would change drastically from pub play. This could alienate a lot of people who play on pubs and have fun who then want to get into more serious competition. And it might alienate competitive people to never play on pubs. Unless some pubs also used these rules and then the playerbase would be segregated. Things like this happen when you start introducing “hardcore” servers too where you die in a couple hits (please don’t ever ever ever do this).

3. Wolf/ET and other games didn’t have this kind of limitation and it worked quite well. Yes, in competition and even on some pubs certain classes were limited because they could clear a whole team in some areas too easily with a lucky/good shot. I think a similar limitation in competitive modes is called for but not the reduction down to one merc only. For example, with Fragger’s current ability to clear rooms with nades limiting him to only one player per side would be fine. This issue will work itself out as more mercs are released.

4. The game is definitely designed to be more accessible than past games. Letting all classes do the objective is a good thing because it lets people step up beyond their intended role from time to time. Sometimes playing as Sawbonez and going total hero mode instead of sitting back with paddles ready is a great thing to have on your side. And being able to plant at an objective as a Fragger creates a lot of tension. Should I stay and defend the plant knowing the spawn on their side and my side is coming? Should I plant and tap out? Should I tap out and just respawn with my team before I risk planting? Questions like this makes that part of the meta interesting.

I played in an ranked match the other night where I was playing Fragger and instead of tapping out with my team I chose to try and repair the EV (starting section of Bridge) to the almost repaired point. I could have tapped out and respawned with my team and did a full team push but instead I died quickly to their respawn wave causing a not favorable 4v5. But I got our EV close to repaired (but didn’t repair fully so they could destroy it easy). It worked out and I don’t know if I made the right choice or not but choices like that makes the game interesting with the way it currently plays.

This is a good discussion but I do not like a lot of the proposed limitations. They go too far into turning DB into other games as opposed to coming up with solutions for what the game actually is.

[Zenity]

[QUOTE=Amerika_KC;525657]
This is a good discussion but I do not like a lot of the proposed limitations. They go too far into turning DB into other games as opposed to coming up with solutions for what the game actually is.[/QUOTE]

I don’t think that is a fair statement at all, especially considering that the criticisms of the ideas seem to focus on that it would make the game different from other shooters, while I argue specifically for the unique challenges presented by the merc setup in Dirty Bomb. If you are thinking of MOBAs, these limitations aren’t going to turn the game into a MOBA, and MOBAs have nothing to do with why I think these options would be beneficial to the game.

Addressing your specific points:

1. I just don’t think it’s this straight forward. Yes you lose the ability to come up with unique strats for each segment of a map. But we all know that the meta will consist to 90% of copying what is considered the ideal strategy for each section. With the limitation you would be forced to make additional decisions like which section of a map to focus on, or whether to go for a completely balanced approach. It could even lead to a wider variety of viable strategies. It’s a give and take, and while I think that only trying it out will give us clear answers, I don’t think that either method is so far ahead that we should not even consider the other.

2. Competitive matches always differ drastically from pub play. This has been the case in every single game I’ve ever played, including ET. It doesn’t change anything about individual play though, which is what really matters.

3. In Wolf/ET, none of the reasons which inspired this thread where applicable. It’s a different situation.

4. I don’t know what your point is with this to be honest. None of that would change.

[Amerika]

I don’t think that is a fair statement at all, especially considering that the criticisms of the ideas seem to focus on that it would make the game different from other shooters, while I argue specifically for the unique challenges presented by the merc setup in Dirty Bomb. If you are thinking of MOBAs, these limitations aren’t going to turn the game into a MOBA, and MOBAs have nothing to do with why I think these options would be beneficial to the game.

Taking this out of context from the previous statements does make it seem unfair. But when given context it’s fine as I gave my line of logic and this is my opinion. So it’s definitely fair as I clearly defined my ideas. Yes, you can disagree with them but it’s hardly unfair.

Addressing your specific points:

1. I just don’t think it’s this straight forward. Yes you lose the ability to come up with unique strats for each segment of a map. But we all know that the meta will consist to 90% of copying what is considered the ideal strategy for each section. With the limitation you would be forced to make additional decisions like which section of a map to focus on, or whether to go for a completely balanced approach. It could even lead to a wider variety of viable strategies. It’s a give and take, and while I think that only trying it out will give us clear answers, I don’t think that either method is so far ahead that we should not even consider the other.

Coming up with a made-up and arbitrary statistical number doesn’t help your argument. Especially when it wouldn’t be the case at the top level of competitive play. Will other teams copy top teams success in dealing with certain areas of maps with merc choices, positions etc? Yup. But that doesn’t change at all if you are limited to 1 merc or still have the 3. So I am not sure what point you are trying to make. And with 3 mercs there is definitely a chance that situations will be a lot more varied as some teams will have stronger players in one role than another causing natural changes that will be less likely with 1 merc.

And stating that it could lead to a “wider variety of viable strategies” makes me question things further. Could you please explain this line of logic to me?

2. Competitive matches always differ drastically from pub play. This has been the case in every single game I’ve ever played, including ET. It doesn’t change anything about individual play though, which is what really matters.

Yes, match play and pub play are different beasts but mostly all of the same mechanics are there. We’re not talking limiting a team to only 1 panzer/air strike here in competitive play and turning on FF. We’re talking about taking the basic game that gives you a pool of 3 mercs and dropping it down to only 1 for competitive play. That’s a rather huge change to the base game and potentially unhealthy for the game overall. It’s a debatable topic because what will keep me playing isn’t the same thing that will keep others playing.

3. In Wolf/ET, none of the reasons which inspired this thread where applicable. It’s a different situation.

Exactly how did you come to this conclusion? Were you there at the start of ET and the producing of competitive settings for the game? I was and there was a lot of similar debate even if the reasons don’t line up perfectly between that game and DB it’s a valuable conversation to have. I was also there for SoF2’s pro settings and CoD 1 (I wrote or had part in most of that games competitive settings). My point is that this isn’t my first rodeo and I’ve seen what tears smaller communities apart. I’m not always right but I am open for logical debate. Which includes discussing how other games were handled.

4. I don’t know what your point is with this to be honest. None of that would change.

I wasn’t responding only to you. Another person in the thread brought up that everyone can do the objectives removing the need for a dedicated engineer. I probably should have quoted them but given that context my point is pretty obvious. Removing the ability to allow everyone, even at a reduced capacity, to do objectives takes quite a bit away from the meta game. In my example when playing as Fragger I would have tapped out if I couldn’t do the objective as it would be the only rational solid competitive choice. But with how the game is now I was given the option to do an objective somewhat badly but possibly give my team an advantage is a very cool decision to have. It might work out, it might not. It’s something I enjoy about the game and I wouldn’t want to see it removed. Or have medics have extremely limited ammo. Things like that.

I guess the super short TLDR version of my opinion is that I like the way DB works currently and I think it only needs a bit of fine-tuning as opposed to a heavy hand in regards to restrictions. Restricting the amount of mercs per side or loadout cards sounds great. Changing the game entirely from having the ability to switch between 3 mercs down to 1 and potentially removing their ability to do objectives or restrictions on ammo etc. I’m not cool with.

[Szakalot]

And stating that it could lead to a “wider variety of viable strategies” makes me question things further. Could you please explain this line of logic to me?

It pushes people to experiment. You can’t copy the same gameplan for every map, you have to adjust to what you think you can do, and what is the opponent planning. Itforces people to use mercs that are less ‘optimal’ than what meta would suggest. Such as the present situation with 2-3 fraggers per team. If you can’t have 3 fraggers than you might consider that one rhino or redeye or thunder in a fragger’s place. This could create more diversity - more viable strategies

Just because unlimited merc permutations are more possibilties than 1 merc type/team doesn’t mean that the gameplans will be more creative. It could: like a 5 proxy rush on Chapel 1st obj, but it could just keep people in their comfort zone.

I would definitely say that both modes are worth exploring, to check which is more interesting to play, watch etc.

I can definitely see appeal to knowing which opponent is using which mercs: ‘watch out for that fragger, this guy is crazy with nades’ ‘I think this proxy-user knows crazy trickjumps : watch your back’ etc.

[Amerika]

[QUOTE=Szakalot;525666]It pushes people to experiment. You can’t copy the same gameplan for every map, you have to adjust to what you think you can do, and what is the opponent planning. Itforces people to use mercs that are less ‘optimal’ than what meta would suggest. Such as the present situation with 2-3 fraggers per team. If you can’t have 3 fraggers than you might consider that one rhino or redeye or thunder in a fragger’s place. This could create more diversity - more viable strategies

Just because unlimited merc permutations are more possibilties than 1 merc type/team doesn’t mean that the gameplans will be more creative. It could: like a 5 proxy rush on Chapel 1st obj, but it could just keep people in their comfort zone.

I would definitely say that both modes are worth exploring, to check which is more interesting to play, watch etc.

I can definitely see appeal to knowing which opponent is using which mercs: ‘watch out for that fragger, this guy is crazy with nades’ ‘I think this proxy-user knows crazy trickjumps : watch your back’ etc.[/QUOTE]

I just don’t see how the claim that more strategies are possible because that is statistically and realistically 100% impossible. Teams will copy and repeat strats. That will happen under any rule-set. Which means they will copy the exact single merc setups of successful teams similar to how it’s been described that multiple merc setups will be copied. So I don’t know how this is an argument for or against the idea as it doesn’t make any sense. And limiting the scope of what people can use will definitely lower innovation and may force teams to run standard setups (which is exactly what you’re arguing against). I understand the point of what you guys want but I just don’t agree with it or the reasoning due to my already cited reasons.

I’m cool with exploring but I am definitely trying to challenge some of the ideas that is being presented without valid reasoning and being articulated well. Right now quite a few things said are half-baked and I’m trying to force the conversation to remove the reliance on speculation and rely more on facts…without changing the game too much from what it currently is.

[tangoliber]

I’d like to see it both ways as well…and I definitely think that the limited selection/draft system can add an interesting strategic element…the original way has it’s own advantages.
Great game design often relies on smart limitations. You have to improvise your strategy a bit during the draft phase. The draft system likely results in more different kinds of mercs being employed than what you would normally see.

In my example, the teams ended up with Nader, Bushwhacker, Sawbonez, Thunder and Vasilli vs Proxy, Rhino, Phoenix, Kira, Aimee.

That’s kind of a vanilla arrangement…as I was imagining both teams trying to get a raider (Nader/Kira), an engineer/deployable merc (Bushwhacker, Proxy), a slayer (Thunder/Rhino), a medic support for the Slayer (Sawbonez, Phoenix), and a sniper (Vasilli, Aimee).

Although, they are both trying to put together sound teams, they sort of forced into less than ideal arrangements. The spectator gets a more interesting matchup. Which medic/slayer combo wins? The Sawbonez/Thunder, or the Phoenix/Rhino? Kira can only really clear defenses in outdoor areas, so you might expect Bushwhacker to turret up indoors. Proxy will be putting mines down in places she least expects Nader to nade. The Bushwhacker team has to be better prepared to defend against rush plants due to Proxy’s speed, while the Proxy team, can focus more on a longterm defense.

Teams will have their scripted attacks, but they will need to adjust them slightly depending on which engineer they got or something.

Of course, they might pick an unbalanced team, such as one with multiple slayers, or 2 snipers, or something. And it might give them an advantage on certain objectives, and a disadvantage on others.

These less than perfect teams, where weaknesses aren’t carefully minimized and perfect synergy isn’t always achieved, can make things interesting. The opponent is aware of your strengths and weaknesses, which may force you to sometimes do the unexpected. (Against a team with even strengths and minimized weaknesses, you must defend everything. Against a team with distinct strengths and distinct weaknesses, you will typically focus on defending against their strengths.)

Anyway, I think it’s fun to mix it up sometimes and try variant rulesets. So, I hope to watch both kinds of tournaments. I’ll say that with Brink…for me personally, it was a lot more fun watching the Day 1 showmatch when all abilities and bodytypes were used…as opposed to the official tournaments, where it was mostly just skinny bodytypes with Carbs. I remember a scene where a chubby player was up in a lookout room with a heavy shotgun for several minutes, just blasting people as they ran past the windows. You never got a visual that entertaining in any of the later tournaments. I like to see a variety of characters used. But almost any game, whether it is FPS or MOBA, is going to end up with a select group of characters that are considered “competitive” and used almost exclusively in tournaments. I’ve never seen it happen otherwise. So, that’s why draft modes exist to enforce variety, and increase improvisation.

Another example, I recently play a turn-based strategy sports game called Frozen Cortex. You can play matches with base stats, custom stats, or random stats. In random stat matches, you have no idea what your team composition will be like. I find that I put a lot more thought into Random Stat matches because I am in unfamiliar territory. When playing with base stats, or my custom teams, I sort of have a procedure to the way I play. With Random Stat matches, I spend a lot of time analyzing and looking for ways to exploit the other team’s composition. Custom Stat or Base Stat matches are like pitting two well-oiled machines against each other to see which one is most efficient. Random Stat matches are completely unpredictable, and use a more abstract form of thought.

[Szakalot]

Its true that in both scenarios the possibility of a stale meta exist, I just think its less likely with 1 merc-limits. Esp. if something like banning one merc for the enemy team will be introduced.

Say you want two medics: you’ll have to pick which ones you want from sawbonez, phoenix, aura, (maybe sparks). I don’t really see how this is a matter of a map-strategy alone, as much as personal preference: ‘i feel really good about this loadout’ ‘I know how to play aura well’. Another team might only go for one medics, cause they want one more AoE merc: are they going to drop sawbonez or aura. Such questions can be multiplied.

Merc limits force merc diversity. That much we can agree on, right? And more diversity could mean people will go for what they are comfortable with: their individual preferences. One example of this is fletcher: ive seen maybe 4 people in the game so far who could use his stickies well. If a particular person played countless hours with a particular class, they might be more effective with that class then with another middle-road sawbonez. And if particular classes are too effective at their job, compared to those niche mercs; people will just run 2-3 of them.

With the variety of mercs as they are, it just seems less likely that people will chase whatever is OP. Cause its unlikely that 5 specific mercs are OP, as overall merc balance is done really well.

Naturally, this isn’t a solution to the merc being OP, like fragger is now; but there are rumors he is getting a nerf; plenty of threads about that.

[Zenity]

Taking this out of context from the previous statements does make it seem unfair. But when given context it’s fine as I gave my line of logic and this is my opinion. So it’s definitely fair as I clearly defined my ideas. Yes, you can disagree with them but it’s hardly unfair.

I did not take it out of context, I only quoted it this way to make it clear what I am responding to… And my opinion is that I still think it’s unfair. I explained the reasonings for my suggestions, and none of it had anything to do with making the game more like other games. That didn’t even enter my thought process. This is not an important point, just something I wanted to clarify.

Coming up with a made-up and arbitrary statistical number doesn’t help your argument.

Oh get off your high horse. You know I meant it figuratively speaking and it was a made up number. I still believe it’s true in essence. Maybe not for CS, but I don’t remember all that much variation in ET top level play. Most teams had their set strategies which they occasionally modified, but major surprises were pretty rare, especially when it comes to class selection.

Especially when it wouldn’t be the case at the top level of competitive play. Will other teams copy top teams success in dealing with certain areas of maps with merc choices, positions etc? Yup. But that doesn’t change at all if you are limited to 1 merc or still have the 3. So I am not sure what point you are trying to make. And with 3 mercs there is definitely a chance that situations will be a lot more varied as some teams will have stronger players in one role than another causing natural changes that will be less likely with 1 merc.

And stating that it could lead to a “wider variety of viable strategies” makes me question things further. Could you please explain this line of logic to me?

Certainly, the logic is simple: When you can optimise your class selection for each segment, the answers are often obvious, because you only need to consider the elements of this particular stage of the map. When you have to find the best class selection for a whole round though, a lot more unknown factors enter the equation which don’t necessarily have perfect answers. E.g. you could take a gamble by focusing on the first stage defense, or play it safe by focusing on the last stage defense. How do you weigh all the different considerations against each other? It is my opinion that this would lead to greater depth and variety (experimentation) in merc selection. It would also increase the impact of each decision and just finding out what mercs each team picked at the start of the game would become more significant (for both the players and spectators).

Yes, match play and pub play are different beasts but mostly all of the same mechanics are there. We’re not talking limiting a team to only 1 panzer/air strike here in competitive play and turning on FF. We’re talking about taking the basic game that gives you a pool of 3 mercs and dropping it down to only 1 for competitive play. That’s a rather huge change to the base game and potentially unhealthy for the game overall. It’s a debatable topic because what will keep me playing isn’t the same thing that will keep others playing.

I didn’t understand this at first, but I think I see your point now. I can see how people could become attached to a party of three mercs, and having this option taken away from them for competitive play could be a bummer. I don’t see this so much as an issue of consistency, but it’s a fair point. That would definitely be a potential negative for this change.

Exactly how did you come to this conclusion? Were you there at the start of ET and the producing of competitive settings for the game? I was and there was a lot of similar debate even if the reasons don’t line up perfectly between that game and DB it’s a valuable conversation to have. I was also there for SoF2’s pro settings and CoD 1 (I wrote or had part in most of that games competitive settings). My point is that this isn’t my first rodeo and I’ve seen what tears smaller communities apart. I’m not always right but I am open for logical debate. Which includes discussing how other games were handled.

I was there when it was in its infancy, not that this makes any difference. ET is obviously a much different situation based already on the fact that there is only a handful of classes, vs. an unknown/unlimited number of mercs. Only one (two if you count rifle engineers) classes were even worth discussing for a class limit, and implementing it was very straight forward (no potential complications from each player selecting three classes in advance). Limiting other classes wouldn’t have made sense, not just because there weren’t more than five (which wouldn’t even have been enough for the usual 6on6), but also because medic, engineer and fops were unquestionably balanced. Engineers were a necessity, medics the most powerful, and fops useful enough to be used frequently.

[Humbugsen]

[QUOTE=Amerika_KC;525669]I just don’t see how the claim that more strategies are possible because that is statistically and realistically 100% impossible. Teams will copy and repeat strats. That will happen under any rule-set. Which means they will copy the exact single merc setups of successful teams similar to how it’s been described that multiple merc setups will be copied. So I don’t know how this is an argument for or against the idea as it doesn’t make any sense. And limiting the scope of what people can use will definitely lower innovation and force teams to run standard setups. I understand the point of what you guys want but I just don’t agree with it or the reasoning due to my already cited reasons.

I’m cool with exploring but I am definitely trying to challenge some of the logic that is being presented without valid reason that is articulated well. Right now quite a few things said are half-baked and I’m trying to force the conversation to remove the reliance on speculation as opposed to facts.[/QUOTE]

the valid reason is in my opinion that the enemy is unpredictable, and you can’t adapt to a matches flow, because it can change all the time. The rock paper scissors aspect just becomes random.
What makes competitive modes interesting is to figure out why a certain team won and this will become much harder/impossible.
also there is no risk in running 3 fraggers for example, you can just switch if it’s not working.
if a team decides to always bomb the ev on chapel with 4 skyhammers, they should be at a disadvantage at least in other stages of the map.
A limitation encourages you to take a good allrounder team and a balanced composition, based on personal preference, rather than some map-stage based meta.
i still think 2 mercs, same archetype is the way to go, feels like a good compromise

[Amerika]

Its true that in both scenarios the possibility of a stale meta exist, I just think its less likely with 1 merc-limits. Esp. if something like banning one merc for the enemy team will be introduced.

Why is it less likely? Explain this please. And I honestly hate the idea of merc banning. This isn’t a MOBA and there isn’t enough mercs in the game to even consider something like this for a very long time.

Say you want two medics: you’ll have to pick which ones you want from sawbonez, phoenix, aura, (maybe sparks). I don’t really see how this is a matter of a map-strategy alone, as much as personal preference: ‘i feel really good about this loadout’ ‘I know how to play aura well’. Another team might only go for one medics, cause they want one more AoE merc: are they going to drop sawbonez or aura. Such questions can be multiplied.

True enough. But that’s not much of a counter-argument to the choices you get with 3 mercs as the same questions still apply. Nothing changes here at all.

Merc limits force merc diversity. That much we can agree on, right?

No. And how did you come to that conclusion? Limiting mercs from 3 to 1 does not force more diversity. I’d argue that it would cause teams to rely more on known quantities as opposed to being creative with how they deal with sections of a map. I can’t quite wrap my head around the thought process behind a single merc choice being more diverse than having 3 mercs in regards to figuring out how to either defend or conquer parts of a map. That doesn’t make sense statistically or strategically.

And more diversity could mean people will go for what they are comfortable with: their individual preferences. One example of this is fletcher: ive seen maybe 4 people in the game so far who could use his stickies well. If a particular person played countless hours with a particular class, they might be more effective with that class then with another middle-road sawbonez. And if particular classes are too effective at their job, compared to those niche mercs; people will just run 2-3 of them.

This is where I am a fan of class limits. If a class has been deemed too powerful or if class stacking is too powerful then you limit them through the rule-set. If it’s agreed on that a team can only run 1 of a class then they can only run 1. You don’t need to put a heavy hand on the base game when you can simply set limits on tournament play. Unless your goal is to simply change Dirty Bomb into something else.

With the variety of mercs as they are, it just seems less likely that people will chase whatever is OP. Cause its unlikely that 5 specific mercs are OP, as overall merc balance is done really well.

Again, people will use what is either OP or thought to be OP (two different things) regardless of format. Rules can be put into play that easily deals with stacking issues.

[Amerika]

[QUOTE=Humbugsen;525674]the valid reason is in my opinion that the enemy is unpredictable, and you can’t adapt to a matches flow, because it can change all the time. The rock paper scissors aspect just becomes random.
What makes competitive modes interesting is to figure out why a certain team won and this will become much harder/impossible.
also there is no risk in running 3 fraggers for example, you can just switch if it’s not working.
if a team decides to always bomb the ev on chapel with 4 skyhammers, they should be at a disadvantage at least in other stages of the map.
A limitation encourages you to take a good allrounder team and a balanced composition, based on personal preference, rather than some map-stage based meta.[/QUOTE]

Stacking issues are easily resolved through a rule changes that limits stacking per map. That’s much easier and better than nuking the current game and putting it down to only 1 merc per map only. And it’s pretty easy to figure out how a side won each individual area regardless of format.

[Zenity]

So far I think there are about three and a half interesting rulesets being discussed, and if I would have to define and sum them up, I would do it like this:

Unlimited: This is the default ruleset, without any changes.

Limited: The same as Unlimited, but with a handful of predefined limits. Like only one Fragger per team (for simplicity this should probably mean only one can even have a Fragger in their lineup). There could be additional or alternative rules based on class, e.g. only one or two assault class mercs.

Highlander: There can be only one… of each merc in each team. Also players are forced to pick a single merc and stick with it for the duration of the Stopwatch half-round.

Draft: Like the draft in MOBAs, each merc can only be used once and teams take turns picking and/or banning mercs. This can’t be clearly defined yet because it requires a slightly larger merc pool to even work. Probably a much larger merc pool to be really interesting.

All of these rulesets can easily be tried in scrims or tournaments without changes to the game. So I hope that we will see a lot of experimentation with these options, and receive good feedback from competitive players about where they stand and which options they enjoy the most. If any ruleset catches on and gains a lot of popularity, then it can still be officially implemented.

Of course SD could always choose to make it even easier for us to experiment by adding official support to some if not all of the rulesets (or something new of their own design).

[Humbugsen]

[QUOTE=Zenity;525677]So far I think there are about three and a half interesting rulesets being discussed, and if I would have to define and sum them up, I would do it like this:

Unlimited: This is the default ruleset, without any changes.

Limited: The same as Unlimited, but with a handful of predefined limits. Like only one Fragger per team (for simplicity this should probably mean only one can even have a Fragger in their lineup). There could be additional or alternative rules based on class, e.g. only one or two assault class mercs.

Highlander: There can be only one… of each merc in each team. Also players are forced to pick a single merc and stick with it for the duration of the Stopwatch half-round.

Draft: Like the draft in MOBAs, each merc can only be used once and teams take turns picking and/or banning mercs. This can’t be clearly defined yet because it requires a slightly larger merc pool to even work. Probably a much larger merc pool to be really interesting.

All of these rulesets can easily be tried in scrims or tournaments without changes to the game. So I hope that we will see a lot of experimentation with these options, and receive good feedback from competitive players about where they stand and which options they enjoy the most. If any ruleset catches on and gains a lot of popularity, then it can still be officially implemented.

Of course SD could always choose to make it even easier for us to experiment by adding official support to some if not all of the rulesets (or something new of their own design).[/QUOTE]

this. give us the option to vote for a ruleset and you will immediately see what people enjoy most.

[Amerika]

Oh get off your high horse. You know I meant it figuratively speaking and it was a made up number. I still believe it’s true in essence. Maybe not for CS, but I don’t remember all that much variation in ET top level play. Most teams had their set strategies which they occasionally modified, but major surprises were pretty rare, especially when it comes to class selection.

Using fabricated statistics, unless obviously joking, is never cool in my book. Especially when multiple people are trying to have a discussion. What you and I realize is a figurative number might not be so obvious to others reading. Also, it’s just a sign that the commenter has little confidence in what they are saying in many cases.

In top level ET play you were pretty limited because the game and the rules were designed to be limited. Reduced ammo for medics, engineers could only do engineering objectives, panzers only had a pistol etc. There was very little you could do for innovation other than create good entry or defensive strats. See a similarity here? The game was pretty limited as to what you could do per map so the ability to create new strats was limited.

Certainly, the logic is simple: When you can optimise your class selection for each segment, the answers are often obvious, because you only need to consider the elements of this particular stage of the map. When you have to find the best class selection for a whole round though, a lot more unknown factors enter the equation which don’t necessarily have perfect answers. E.g. you could take a gamble by focusing on the first stage defense, or play it safe by focusing on the last stage defense. How do you weigh all the different considerations against each other? It is my opinion that this would lead to greater depth and variety (experimentation) in merc selection. It would also increase the impact of each decision and just finding out what mercs each team picked at the start of the game would become more significant (for both the players and spectators).

This is true and it would be interesting. But the same can be said about the 3 merc pool. How teams use them, how they adapt, how good a player is at playing as Skyhammer vs. Vasilli vs. Proxy. Tons of conversations and debates could be had about either format. And honestly there is value to both. But then that brings me to the point I made about public servers that will have 3 mercs vs. competitive and how jarring that would be for the casual viewing audience and the players and what it could do to a community.

I didn’t understand this at first, but I think I see your point now. I can see how people could become attached to a party of three mercs, and having this option taken away from them for competitive play could be a bummer. I don’t see this so much as an issue of consistency, but it’s a fair point. That would definitely be a potential negative for this change.

This could also be a shock to people viewing as I said above and could lead to animosity and segregation and ultimately death for a game in communities like this as I’ve witnessed in the past. Look at what happened to UrT, which I believe you said you played, over time with heavy handed changes to the base game.

I was there when it was in its infancy, not that this makes any difference. ET is obviously a much different situation based already on the fact that there is only a handful of classes, vs. an unknown/unlimited number of mercs. Only one (two if you count rifle engineers) classes were even worth discussing for a class limit, and implementing it was very straight forward (no potential complications from each player selecting three classes in advance). Limiting other classes wouldn’t have made sense, not just because there weren’t more than five (which wouldn’t even have been enough for the usual 6on6), but also because medic, engineer and fops were unquestionably balanced. Engineers were a necessity, medics the most powerful, and fops useful enough to be used frequently.

Again, you do not need a direct correlation to bring up what was done in past games. You can see how ET worked and what it brought to the table from what it started out as to what it ended up being and apply that same mentality to DB. You had to set class limits in ET for certain reasons the same as you’d probably want to set merc usage limits in DB. But instead of setting a merc limit per team you want to limit each team to 1 merc per person per map.

[Amerika]

Highlander: There can be only one… of each merc in each team. Also players are forced to pick a single merc and stick with it for the duration of the Stopwatch half-round.

Thank you for this. I’m sick as hell and that made me laugh so much that I’m now coughing but it was worth it. I’ve been saying this a lot lately due to the game Titan Souls. If any of you have played it and beaten a boss you know exactly what I’m talking about

[fubar]

Limited: (for simplicity this should probably mean only one can even have a Fragger in their lineup)

Why are you so obsessed with your squad selection limitation. Even if there was to be only 1 Fragger per team, this doesn’t automatically have to imply people can’t select him as part of their squad. Class swapping is still a viable thing, you see it in ET even still every day. Even in CS if you want. Not being able to spawn as one while the limitation has been reached is an entirely different thing all together.

Oh get off your high horse. You know I meant it figuratively speaking and it was a made up number. I still believe it’s true in essence. Maybe not for CS, but I don’t remember all that much variation in ET top level play. Most teams had their set strategies which they occasionally modified, but major surprises were pretty rare, especially when it comes to class selection.

That’s because you never played ET on a decent level. There’s been MANY changes in its early days, new strats, new classes, new positioning, discovery of spots for airstrikes/nades/artilleries/mines/mgs. The fact is, ET is nearly 12 years old, you’re not going to find any creativity these days any longer, much like you wont find any in CS1.6. At some point or another, without the game being continuously updated or changed, a certain “way” of playing is tried and proven to be the most effective.
It’s a bad point to make for you anyway. Taking LoL as example… What “meta” changing tactics are there, really? Last I checked they went through 3 or 4 phases (AP top/AD mid to duo lane bot, to roamer) and have been stuck at their “current” meta for the past what, 3? 4? seasons of duo bot, jungle, bruiser top and ap mid. The only constant that keeps changing, much as they will be in DB, are new characters being implemented and on-going balance changes. With the added benefit of us getting to play DIFFERENT maps that’ll allow for so much more freedom in play.

DB won’t have this, the meta will be ever on-going and changing due to balancing patches, weapon changes, merc introductions and whatever nonsense they can come up with.

[INF3RN0]

See League of Legends. Nuff said.

[Szakalot]

Why is it less likely? Explain this please. And I honestly hate the idea of merc banning. This isn’t a MOBA and there isn’t enough mercs in the game to even consider something like this for a very long time.

Whats wrong with merc banning? I’m talking about 15 merc availble situation. Sounds like forcing opponent to play without one would mix it up considerably. Even though it would be fragger everytime

True enough. But that’s not much of a counter-argument to the choices you get with 3 mercs as the same questions still apply. Nothing changes here at all.

No. And how did you come to that conclusion? Limiting mercs from 3 to 1 does not force more diversity. I’d argue that it would cause teams to rely more on known quantities as opposed to being creative with how they deal with sections of a map. I can’t quite wrap my head around the thought process behind a single merc choice being more diverse than having 3 mercs in regards to figuring out how to either defend or conquer parts of a map. That doesn’t make sense statistically or strategically.

I’m beginning to thing we misunderstand each other.

I’m talking exclusively about a setup wherein there can be only one merc type in each team. Each team picks as they like though. So one team could be: skyhammer, fragger, sawbonez, aura, proxy; another team could be skyhammer, fragger, aura, proxy, vassili. etc.

The way it forces diversity is by ensuring that each team of 5 players consists of 5 different mercs. Rather than 3 fraggers, one medic and one proxy. Or 3 fraggers, one skyhammer, one proxy. See what I mean?

Moreover: the merc special abilities scale very badly with multiples of the same merc. One proxy with her mines is easy to deal with. 3 proxy’s is constant mine spam at every corner. Same with auras, fraggers, skyhammers on EV, etc. etc. etc. Forcing people to have different mercs will flesh out the game more past the 3 fraggers vs 3 fraggers TDM with medic support.

This is where I am a fan of class limits. If a class has been deemed too powerful or if class stacking is too powerful then you limit them through the rule-set. If it’s agreed on that a team can only run 1 of a class then they can only run 1. You don’t need to put a heavy hand on the base game when you can simply set limits on tournament play. Unless your goal is to simply change Dirty Bomb into something else.

when you talk class do you mean ‘heavy, engineer, medic’ class? That is another possibility (each player can choose to be one of 3 medics/slayers/engineers) etc. But personally I’d prefer to keep it simpler.

Again, people will use what is either OP or thought to be OP (two different things) regardless of format. Rules can be put into play that easily deals with stacking issues.

Rules such as ‘only one fragger’ but you can run 5 thunders seem very heavy handed to me. And if you are in favor of rules, than why not ‘each player is one merc’?

[adeto]

Totally down for a “DBPro-mode” sort of system! My suggestions:

(clarification)You said that merc limitation is an idea I push, but that’s not what I said, I know that f.e Syku pushes for a “1 merc rule” where you can only have 1 fragger, 1 Skyhammer etc, which I totally disagree with. The “class limitation at a time” is exactly what I suggested from the start on that topic. For competitive 5v5 I suggest(ed):

• 1 Heavy class max (Fragger, any future high HP/Damage output characters like Rhyno/Thunder)
• 2 Assault class max (Skyhammer, Arty, any future like Stoker)
• 3 Engineer class max (Proxy, Bushwacker, any future like Fletcher(is he engi? always forget))
• 1 Sniper/Stealth class max (Vassili, any future snipers/stealth like Phantom)
• Unlimited Medic class (Sawbonez, Aura, any future like Phoenix/Sparks)

Example: Your teammate has Fragger, your dead and you see your own merc cards Fragger’s Card will have a red glow or a marking showing that it is unavailable to you as your team’s heavy merc limit is hit. Same applies if you have two teammates who are Skyhammer, your Skyhammer card will be marked as unavailable.

It simply creates simple, semi-forced(it doesn’t force which mercs people use to fill the limits) team composition that balances out characters in a way more natural way. Some mercs now are only really strong in MM(and pub too imo) because you can have 3/4 of them and just use their spam, which isn’t Merc balance but team composition being broken.

As for the “1 merc per player” idea, I don’t really agree with that as I feel that it would take a way a lot of the freedom in (counter)strategic play(and since its a core system in the game I would leave it untouched). It takes away the chance to adept to your enemy during a map/round/objective, which is a GIANT part of FPS gaming and especially of objective based gameplay. The system I managed above + a 3 merc per player rule would suffice for controlling team compostion. Also a 1 merc per player force would likely result in a much less wide selection of mercs being used in competitive play as some are clearly more situational than others. For example Vassili is a merc I consider very useful on some stages of a map but for some stages having a Vassili(or any sniper) on your team almost makes the game feel like 4v5. By forcing a 1 merc per player rule you take this option away. You’d either have to snipe the whole map and thus be useless on some parts, or just never play Vassili again because other mercs are more versatile across the whole map. Same applies to Arty as some stages his ability is nice, but most stages(compared to Skyhammer) he becomes redundant.

On the topic of Loadout Balance, I don’t really have problems with the current system for competitive. However for the most fair/equal balance, disabling loadout cards completely would be best. However imo: Most, if not all, competitive players are active and wise enough to spend credits wisely and as soon as they get the best card for a merc they won’t hunt for gold and waste credits. With that in mind, everyone has a pretty equal loadout card selection and it’s not that impactfull anymore. So like I said, if they leave that as it is for a pro mode, I really wouldn’t mind. Ofcourse there is the other option, that when there is a official integrated ladder/ranking system to unlock all the cards for all players for matches within that system. Given everyone equal chances with all cards. But if you want to have all the cards yourself(for example for non-official play or public) you would still have to hunt them down and spend cases/credits.

Edit: Banning imo is useless. Same as above, takes away from a team’s strategic freedom and will likely just result in the same mercs being banned over and over and thus never being seen again. Which I doubt is what SD wants.

[phineasfreak]

@Biosnark:
Thank you. No one seems to mention this or bother about.
All this RTCW / ET / QW comparing is useless as Friendly Fire and Player collision is not implemented.
Also all “tactical” Discussions, Mercs to be nerfed or not, all meaningless.
Situations, when an Arty/Skyhammer pushes an Airstrike amidst the own team and nobody get hurt except the enemy is not quite ET-Feeling, is it?

I believe it would push the Teamplaying-Momentum on a way higher Level, playing Objective would become much more focused (instead of “defending space” as i often see it) , less pace but also less chaotic useless kill-for-the-killing-bunny-hopping.

I really hope, People remember that, when mentioning ET.
Everything else is Kiddie-playin and leads to K/D-ratio-hunting - for most of the not so super-pro-players exactly the opposite of an objective oriented gameplay.