Post some ideas here that you think are cool, and then maybe a merc based around that ability.
AoE revive. This would be amazing if done right, able to stop pushes so insanely well.
Teleporter. This would be a teleport that can telefrag, making for a merc with a high skill ceiling.
Disguising. Just like from Wolf: ET, someone could disguise temporarily in order to sneak through enemy lines.
Jetpack. For a limited duration, fly around the map to come at the enemy from interesting and unconventional angles. I hope you have a plan for landing, though…
Kevlar Vest. Drop a powerup that, when picked up, gives the player an armored vest. It absorbs a percentage of bullet and melee damage, until it breaks that is.
Repulsor Blast. This large and in-charge gun can blast enemies back, making this potentially invaluable for attacking or defending objectives and keeping those pesky Phantoms at bay. Battery restrictions and recharge times mean you’ll have to time it perfectly.
Mimic. Take on the Abilities of the last enemy Merc you killed. EDIT: Or, interact with a corpse to take on Abilities. This opens you up to corpses from both teams, such as “filling in” for a fallen teammate while he respawns.
Ability that allows you heal based on the amount of damage you do for a short time. This allows for a tanky merc that doesn’t necessarily have abnormal amounts of health normally.
Warp ability (like the one in dishonored) that takes health per use (not my idea, saw it in another thread on this board and really liked it). Probably would be used with a merc with 100 health or lower.
If this is a grenade, Ender Pearl style, then it brings a whole new meaning to “Tele Frag”
Probably also means you’ll get to bounce the Telefrag off walls around corners, over obstacles, and it only will teleport you once it hits a surface you can stand on.
I like this idea, and I think this is what the person who’s idea I’m mentioning ( @exclusiveGlory ) was originally suggesting. What I was saying in my post was something more like what’s in Dishonored whey you would aim at the place you wanted to teleport to and it would be instant. I was thinking it’s main utility would be getting in and out of battle’s quickly. Since the ability detracts from you health, timing when to GTFO would be the main skill involved because if you wait too long, you could kill yourself with your own ability.
However I really like the maneuvering capabilities of it being in grenade form. I also think that when used in battle it would both give more warning to your arrival (people would see the grenade coming) and require an increased amount of skill to correctly time your getaway based on how fast you’re losing health. It would give the potential merc both a higher skill floor and skill ceiling.
Maybe the merc could have both iterations of the teleport as either ability with the instant one taking more health to make it less viable? After thinking about it more I do agree that it would make the merc more interesting to have it be a grenade.
Can you gib yourself with your own Ability? I could see strategic value of teleporting back to a place where Medics can more easily revive you in exchange for being Incapped the instant you arrive.
Would it be a fixed amount of Health every time, or calculated based on distance traveled?
I think it makes sense not to make it possible to gib yourself. It would take a good amount of planning and teamplay to know where the nearest medic so you can be revived immediately as well as a good amount of skill to be able to teleport to place where the enemy can’t just finish you as soon as you go down (behind cover, over a ledge, etc) while in the middle of a firefight. Allowing for this kind of strategic play just stands to reward good players as far as I can tell.
How about making it a fixed amount of health but limiting the distance traveled, so if someone wanted to go, for instance, from where the EV starts in chapel to where it ends, they would have to teleport 4 or 5 times making them lose 4 or 5 times the health. This would reward players for good pathfinding, maximizing distance traveled out of each teleport, as well as health management. It would also require a certain amount of stealth considering there would probably some cooldown for the ability during which the player may not want to be seen for various reasons (no way to escape if engaged, low health from using ability, trying to get further behind the enemy).
Both these ideas are really just spitballing though
Holy shit, really misread that the first time. Thought it meant like a deployable teleporter or something. Sorry for suggesting the same idea for a second time.
[quote=“GrandMasterFalcor;68566”]I think it makes sense not to make it possible to gib yourself. It would take a good amount of planning and teamplay to know where the nearest medic so you can be revived immediately as well as a good amount of skill to be able to teleport to place where the enemy can’t just finish you as soon as you go down (behind cover, over a ledge, etc) while in the middle of a firefight. Allowing for this kind of strategic play just stands to reward good players as far as I can tell.
[/quote]
Oh jeez, the double negatives is real.
Uhhh… so you don’t want it to be possible to gib yourself? You kinda just provided some amazing reasons to let this be in the game.
[quote=“extravagentBypass;69219”]
Oh jeez, the double negatives is real.
Uhhh… so you don’t want it to be possible to gib yourself? You kinda just provided some amazing reasons to let this be in the game.[/quote]
Lol, no double negative there man. Yeah you’re right, I don’t think it should be possible to gib yourself; if you die from your ability it should only be an incap. Sorry if it was unclear.
Please, no jet pack!
Ability’s
I have an idea, everybody likes the idea of cowboy mercs. So why not a merc whose ability is fanning with revolvers? If you don’t know what that is, it’s when you hold the trigger down, then pull the hammer back and release to fire a shot. Hold the ability to charge how many shots you want then release to rapid fire the pistol shots with a fair bit of accuracy.
It’d be balanced because even though it’s more accurate than regular rapid firing, you have a few seconds before you’re actually able to fire. That and it’d only be effective with revolvers, also it’d be a way to add in a new heavy pistol, a five or four shot revolver that’s more powerful perhaps?
@shiningCanteloupe could you give a little more detail about how such a merc would operate? It’s an interesting idea but how the weapon pool, health/speed ratio would work, and such a mercs role definitely the usefulness and potential of the ability.
If I could offer one suggestion I’d say that it might be better to make the ability more like Nader’s grenade launcher rather than just a special use of their secondary. Like Nader’s gun the bullets would regenerate over time. I think this would work better because you could give the merc a revolver with a noticeably higher DPS without giving them an over powered secondary. Plus the cooldown on the ammo would offer more selective use. The ability would be an effective trump card in close quarters if used strategically and executed effectively.
Why not? Hover in the air for a height advantage, get places faster, evade enemy fire in three dimensions, approach enemies in nigh-impossible ways…endless usability! Vertigo is an example of a Merc built around a jetpack ability.
Ability’s
Ability’s what?
- Human shield
1.) Hell no. All the implementations I’ve seen of human shield ideas would play havoc with the spawn wave system in DB, and taking control away from another player is itself an unforgivable sin.
2.) Faster sprint exists. They’re called Aura, Sparks, and Proxy. And Gunslinger.
3.) This, I would welcome as a change to Dirty Bomb’s general movement mechanics. Run along walls laterally by hitting them at a narrow angle of incidence, or run up them by approaching them head-on. Though probably not very far.
4.) As a weapon in a (probably secondary) slot, not an Ability.
5.) Plenty of good suggestions for that Ability, and a great idea.
6.) As a melee weapon option. Duke Nukem style merc, likely.
7.) So, a Fire Support that can buff damage with the ammo they hand out? How would one manage the limited supply of special ammo amongst their regular ammo?
8.) A great idea in theory, having to implement the specifics of it is still up for debate though. And not just the mechanical point of view; there’s handling hologram AI and collision from a technical standpoint.
9.) What would the taser do that we couldn’t already make the Defibs do when used offensively?
10.) Enhanced seance? What? Talking to the dead, what? What relevance would that have?
@GrandMasterFalcor I disagree with giving them an extra revolver, because then you’d be able to use the ability and switch to another revolver; which means missing with the ability wouldn’t be as punishing.
As a way to balance it I’d give it a brief cooldown to prevent spamming, would 10 seconds be fair?
And as for weapons we’d need to build a persona, seeing as fanning is usually done by trick shooters why not call him Trichshot? He’s been a competition trick shooter in competitions and for Hollywood before dirty bomb, mainly in westerns. So therefore he’d use old-style weapons? The Anhuld lever action, which is the long range shotgun, perhaps Redeye’s rifle? The one that looks a bit like an M1 Garand. This’d make him a mid range class with a powerful CC ability, so we’d have to rule out giving him Objective Specialist and make him either Support or Assault. Either way I don’t think he should be able to drop ammo packs because then he’d have unlimited revolver shots, so I’d go with making him assault and no extra abilities.
8.) A great idea in theory, having to implement the specifics of it is still up for debate though. And not just the mechanical point of view; there’s handling hologram AI and collision from a technical standpoint.
I have an idea for this. You place down a hologram emitter similar to how Proxy places her mines (think ‘In memory of a real tree’ style), which creates holograms of teammates moving around every so often, so as to grab the attention of enemy mercs. They wouldn’t have collision and probably be semi transparent up close so that you can tell they’re fake. It’d be useful for holding rooms, such as the generator on Bridge, or the barrier room on Underground, as in a close range firefight the enemy might mistake the holos for players and shoot at them.
As for behaviour, I guess they’d run around, pretend to shoot at enemies in their line of sight and fake using abilities (such as planting mines or aiming lasers).
And of course to stop them all you’d need to do was destroy the deployable.
*Edit for a typo
[quote=“shiningCanteloupe;69734”] I disagree with giving them an extra revolver, because then you’d be able to use the ability and switch to another revolver; which means missing with the ability wouldn’t be as punishing.
As a way to balance it I’d give it a brief cooldown to prevent spamming, would 10 seconds be fair?[/quote]
My main problem with having the ability use the secondary is that it limits the damage capability of the ability. I actually looked up the damage values per shot of each weapon to give a more meaningful response. Here’s the thread I found if you want to check it out: http://forums.dirtybomb.nexon.net/discussion/1866/weapon-damage-test
Correct me if I’m wrong, but what I imagined that the rate of fire for hammer tapping would be something maybe a little faster than the Blishlock (/nBqAXM5gY20?t=36s). Most of the pistols do around 20 damage per bullet, with the exception of the S&W doing 27. The Blishlock does 18 damage per bullet. This would mean that if the ability used their given secondary, then the merc would essentially just get a blishlock for 6 shots. If they had the S&W as their secondary, it would be comparable to having an automatic Dreiss. The reason I’m saying they should have the weapon as their ability is because then you could give them a gun that does something like 40 damage per shot without the merc actually having something so crazy powerful in their loadout.
I’ll give a more well rounded comparison of what I’m suggesting and what you’re suggesting.
Your suggestion would cause the ability to not be very powerful (at most killing one merc) but always being readily available due to a shorter cooldown and readily available ammo. This would lead to a merc meant for mid range but can protect himself if caught in close quarters. My suggestion would cause the ability to be decently powerful (at most killing one Rhino, two Sawbonez, or three Auras) but need to be saved up to be effective (bullets regen and would not be readily available). This would lead to a merc who could be comfortable hanging back at mid range, but could use his ability to make large dents in close quarters.
I don’t think missing with the ability should punish bad aim in the way you’re describing. I’ll use Nader as an example. Say you empty you grenade launcher on an enemy and miss most of the shots and only do a little damage. Being able to still finish off the enemy with your SMG does not make it a positive exchange for you. It’s it’s own punishment to have wasted the grenades. Not to mention that if you miss that much, you’d probably lose the fight anyway.
I agree that they should be an assault merc considering the ability is entirely towards damage output. I like the idea of the merc having mid range weaponry as it gives the merc more play style options and has them rely on their ability for close range. Considering this merc would likely be assault, I think it’s totally necessary that their ability have a large killing potential.
EDIT: deleted the youtube.com portion of the Blishlock url to prevent the video from obnoxiously embedding
If it were to be an additional weapon with much higher damage I think it’d have to be a weapon that can’t be shot semi-auto, and need to be charged for at least two shots. So I’m thinking a modified revolver, it’s had it’s trigger removed meaning it’s fired only by fanning the hammer. I’m thinking a five-shot 35 damage weapon, if all hit that’d be 175 damge, enough to kill every merc except Rhino (not counting headshots); the minimum of two shots would be 70 damage, not enough to kill any merc that’s not damaged, but three shots would be 105, killing the weakest and bringing the rest to very low health. Like this most situations wouldn’t mean a quick kill, forcing either a weapon switch or help from the team.
As far as basing it from a real weapon we could use a Smith & Wesson Model 500 as a base. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/500withsmith629.jpg/350px-500withsmith629.jpg
Or seeing as Dirty Bomb is a bit futuristic how about something similar S&W Model 637 LaserMax? http://www.smith-wesson.com/wcsstore/SmWesson2/upload/images/firearms/detail_md/10240_01_md.jpg
It looks a lot more interesting in design, and if they wanted to make the laser pointer have a function it’d be a nice warning that Trickshot is charging up his ability. But seeing as it uses a smaller caliber round you’d have to say it’s using hollow points or something in order to explain the damage.
So a ~110 health merc with the Anhuhld, Granduer and Dreiss, Simeon and Smjüth & Whetsman (M9 too perhaps?), with a Triggerless Smjüth & Whetsman 637 as an ability. Sounds pretty rounded to me. Also, give him overly fancy reload animations just to show off his trick-shooting experience.
How overpowered would an Objective Specialist be if he were able to continue working on the objective even when Downed?
@Samniss_Arandeen
depening.
example. maybe he could stop a C4 fuse as long as he wasnt gibbed giving more time for his teammates.
