INB4 Phantom only has 2 melee weapons in gen 2. I get it, thx!
What I mean, is with the upcoming new guns. Should every merc only be limited to 9 possible loadout card variations, with only 3 melee, secondaries and primaries? Why not crank it, to say 12 in gen 3?
I think that’s pretty risky because then the main draw to a merc becomes their abilities, health, and speed if you broaden their weapon pools that wide. I still think certain aspects of loadouts should be customizable, though. Weighted values for certain types of primaries, secondaries, augments, etc. Could be an extra addition to crafting if they ever get around to overhauling the current system. I know a lot of people are opposed to this and some games have stupidly broken customization, but I think it could work. I also want us to have more control over what skins we’re able to get or at the very least have them do something with weapon kits so we can increase our odds of getting what we want. I mentioned it a few weeks back, but I like this idea 'cause we’d then be seeing everyone use their preferred playstyles and skins. It’s like a reflection of their personality instead of just so-and-so running with that card because they were lucky enough to get it.
I kinda like it this way actually. It simplifies the game. It means that when you see a proxy with a hoch and a beckhill, you know that you can’t longjump over her mines because she may have lockon. The same applies to every other merc. Adding more weapons would at the very least make it harder to memorize, and at most just make things completely random, when some fragger comes at you with a PDP.
TL;DR: I like the rigidity of the loadout system. It allows me to strategize knowing exactly what the enemy has, and it forces me to strategize in choosing my loadouts as well.
I would not make the weapon choices broader for merc right now as long as there is so few options for variety. I guess you should not have access to all of a weapon category with a said merc (except rhino and sparks).
I also quite agree with @STARRYSOCK about identifying your foes, but I rarely go this far.
One possible idea though would be to introduce a loadout crafting system which, as a flip side, would create weaker cards in terms of augments power and association : You can select any of the weapon the merc has accessible, but each of the three augments slots are separated in three categories : Combat, Ability, Support. This way you would not have access to combo augments available on standard cards such as focus + quick eye, quick draw + drilled or even Get up + potent packs, which can be interesting choices with some mercs.
And on top of that, if it generates too much gain over standard cards, even decrease augment values (for example, get up would get set to +20 hp on revive instead of 30 hp).
Honestly, I loved Black Ops 2’s class system. You had tokens that would be used to unlock any items and then you were only able to equip 10 items per loadout (perks, weapons, etc.). This made it so you couldn’t stack a loadout to be insanely OP. Although you could make the loadout cater to various playstyles, you were still limited with the selection. You couldn’t just equip 10 grenades or some shit like that. It made for some awesome, unique gameplay, like knife only with a riot shield.
I’d love for some sort of system like this to be implemented into DB, but limit certain items to specific characters, like bolt-action sniper rifles to light-medium weight characters, and so on.
Maybe make some better maps with no invisible walls or bullshit debris blocking your path either… Added this in because the maps in DB suck and I’ll never stop complaining. RIP Dome.