Should Dirty Bomb get rid of "Levels"?

(TheGreatHoundini) #1

I was playing last night and some guy in the post-game (we lost) was sourgraping about why Dirty Bomb was pitting us against “Level 30’s” and other high level guys.

One of these Level 30 guys said: “But having a higher level doesn’t mean we’re better players!”

Then the first guy says: “Yeah! But your equipment gets stronger!”

At this point I’m like: “!?!”

I realized that having those numbered levels is quite meaningless in the actual gameplay - your characters loadouts are card-dictated. You don’t need to be a certain level to even get higher rarity cards. And everyone who actually plays knows that the Bronze cards form the baseline and those can be available to anyone even those playing the game for the first time.

However, having a numerical Level Number next to someone’s name does have this psychological impact where you can easily think of the significance of that high number - hence the misconceptions.

The worst part was that first guy just left the lobby as soon as people on the Red Team were trying to explain the levelling part of DB. So this guy is going to spread misinformation and DB will suffer for it.

I was thinking in the aftermath that maybe it’s better that instead of the bar on top of your Home Screen showing XP/Level… it should just show something like what you get at the end of the bar filling up like Credits/Super Case? And instead of saying the Assault course is unlocked at Level X it should say like “Assault Course unlocked upon earning X BADGE” and it’s just a special badge that comes out when you would have been Level X.

I dunno… I just feel they need to get rid of that “number beside the name” since it does more damage than good.

(Mrarauzz) #2

It’s common knowledge that for every level I grow 2% in my accuracy. I think they said they will hide in the future and I can’t wait lol

(Dawnlazy) #3

An option to hide level would work. Maybe we could choose to display something else, like a title that could be based off of several things like how many badges we have and so on.

(FireWorks) #4

From my experience, people stay about the same skill once they get around level25. Generally speaking.

(TheGreatHoundini) #5

To be honest I think I get WORSE the longer I play! :smiley:

(SaulWolfden) #6

Legitimately happens to me if I play a lot for like a week or 2. I have to stop playing when that happens because I’m losing my skills lol.

(KUST__LunarTM) #7

I think it should be like this: Keep the levels, but only show them to yourself as a personal progression tracker. The levels are not shown in a match, much like how it is in ranked play. In ranked, you can’t instantly judge a person by their level. You have to play the game at your best and then make your own judgements through your shared gameplay experience.

(Cuck) #8

oooor…just add the option to hide or unhide your own levels

(TheGreatHoundini) #9

Yeah this would work! It’s really strange how many in-game myths Dirty Bomb has!
From “Cobalts are buffed Loadouts” to “Higher Level = more buff”

(SamillWong) #10

[quote=“TheGreatHoundini;30354”]I was playing last night and some guy in the post-game (we lost) was sourgraping about why Dirty Bomb was pitting us against “Level 30’s” and other high level guys.

One of these Level 30 guys said: “But having a higher level doesn’t mean we’re better players!”

Then the first guy says: “Yeah! But your equipment gets stronger!”

At this point I’m like: “!?!”

I realized that having those numbered levels is quite meaningless in the actual gameplay - your characters loadouts are card-dictated. You don’t need to be a certain level to even get higher rarity cards. And everyone who actually plays knows that the Bronze cards form the baseline and those can be available to anyone even those playing the game for the first time.

However, having a numerical Level Number next to someone’s name does have this psychological impact where you can easily think of the significance of that high number - hence the misconceptions.

The worst part was that first guy just left the lobby as soon as people on the Red Team were trying to explain the levelling part of DB. So this guy is going to spread misinformation and DB will suffer for it.

I was thinking in the aftermath that maybe it’s better that instead of the bar on top of your Home Screen showing XP/Level… it should just show something like what you get at the end of the bar filling up like Credits/Super Case? And instead of saying the Assault course is unlocked at Level X it should say like “Assault Course unlocked upon earning X BADGE” and it’s just a special badge that comes out when you would have been Level X.

I dunno… I just feel they need to get rid of that “number beside the name” since it does more damage than good.[/quote]

To me, levels don’t necessary mean the player is more skilled, it just mean that they are more experienced. You can grind 24/7 from Closed Beta playing as a bottom-frag with Vassili and still be level 150, but that doesn’t necessary mean you are going to stomp everyone in pub, it doesn’t work that way.

However, in my opinion. Getting rid of the levels would just drastically increase more ‘hackusations’, or just groundless accusations which is going to be a pain in an ass for veterans. Given if you have a skilled veteran player like ragnak to be playing on your team, the opposing players (especially new ones) would probably think that he’s cheating/hacking, as they wouldn’t have a clear idea of how much experience that particular player has.

(bontsa) #11

I am not sure what the exact wording was, but in a developer stream while ago with @Exedore I recall him saying they are indeed working on doing something about the levels. Possibly giving option to hide them?

(neverplayseriou) #12

I would be happy with a toggle so you can pick to show your own lvl or not.

I still believe that levels are the best skill indicator though, yes not everyone will have amazing aim (and some might just be fully retarded) when they’re lvl 20+ but they’ll still have a better clue as to what to do in db compared to a guy with 2k hours in cs go that skipped the tutorial cause he can aim thinking that that should be enough in a shooter.

(InfernoKun) #13

This was said over on the SD forums like a month ago

src

(SaulWolfden) #14

[quote=“neverplayserious;184050”]I would be happy with a toggle so you can pick to show your own lvl or not.

I still believe that levels are the best skill indicator though, yes not everyone will have amazing aim (and some might just be fully retarded) when they’re lvl 20+ but they’ll still have a better clue as to what to do in db compared to a guy with 2k hours in cs go that skipped the tutorial cause he can aim thinking that that should be enough in a shooter.[/quote]

The only time level matters is when it’s mostly sub level 10s vs mostly level 20+ people. It’s no surprise which team will win. I still really wish level 5 and below weren’t allowed to play on anything except max level 5 servers.

(TheStrangerous) #15

If DB was an MMORPG then of course it’d made sense.

(Cuck) #16

imagine that level 10 hide their levels and always bragging that they are level 48
such event is very hillarious

(bontsa) #17

Overall account levels shouldn’t had existed in the first place as this isn’t a MMORPG, but with all the Arsenal crate stuff etc. it seems too late to get rid of them entirely, so hiding will be good option. Unless there would be system where you still get Arsenal crate every 400k exp, which wouldn’t be bad actually.

All in all something else to present player experience should’ve been put in place, as people are indeed correct in that aspect too that having nothing visible can lead to increase in hackusations. Mostly because people are too stupid/lazy/oblivious to actually check people’s Steam profile before making assumptions but still.

Merc levels, visible in-game time, anything could’ve sufficed better than overall levels in my honest opinion. Sure it’s cool and all that to see your “progression” via overall levels but it gets dull and even simply irritating after lvl20 or so.

(SereneFlight) #18

Yes please hide them. They only cause people getting discouraged… or encouraged if they’re in a team with higher level players.

(BananaSlug) #19

Yes.

(BazBling) #20

Sitting on a fence is a man who sees no sense in fighting
Sitting on a fence is a man who sees no sense at all
Sitting on a fence is a man who strokes his twenty beards
Sitting on a fence is a man who drinks real ale

But the real problem with this man
Is he says he can’t when he can
He’d rather not get his hands dirty
He’ll still be there when he’s thirty

I told myself to keep my mouth shut
But I still end up saying if and but
I lied to myself right from the start
And I’ve just worked out that I’m falling apart
Sitting on a fence

Sitting on a fence is a man who looks up to his guardian
Sitting on a fence is a man who swings from poll to poll
Sitting on a fence is a man who sees both sides of both sides
Sitting on a fence is a man who looks down on opinion

But the real problem with this man
Is he says he can’t when he can
He’d rather not get his hands dirty
He’ll still be there when he is thirty

I told myself to keep my mouth shut
But I still end up saying if and but
I lied to myself right from the start
And I’ve just worked out that I’m falling apart
Sitting on a fence