State of Play: On Mercs, Balance and Dome

(Glottis-3D) #61

i realy do not know what will make DB a fun game for years, apart from going back to class objects+good maps (and some obvious things like performance, netcode etc)

(Exedore) #62

Which we’ll love to hear about on Dome. As I outlined previously, we have a ton of work that we want to do on the existing maps, based on how things go with Dome. They do have way too many bottlenecks in places.

(Exedore) #63

This could be interpreted as me saying that the modes are too similar:

(Glottis-3D) #64

how about making weather/daytime different for OBJ and SW?

i’d like to play whitechapel early in the morning, and trainyard at night.

(Exedore) #65

[QUOTE=Glottis-3D;513524]how about making weather/daytime different for OBJ and SW?

i’d like to play whitechapel early in the morning, and trainyard at night.[/QUOTE]
Not a bad idea to be honest, but it’d make the download sizes for the game quite a bit bigger. We could look into how much, though!

(tokamak) #66

I think the main difference between objective and stopwatch is the desired standard deviation for the average completion time. For objective you want a high standard deviation and for stopwatch you want the standard deviation as small as possible.

In practice this means that a stopwatch round will feel much more streamlined than an objective round. For objective it’s okay if a team steam-rolls or stalls on a single objective. But for Stopwatch you want both teams to have a somewhat even pace through the map.

(ailmanki) #67

[QUOTE=tokamak;513535]I think the main difference between objective and stopwatch is the desired standard deviation for the average completion time. For objective you want a high standard deviation and for stopwatch you want the standard deviation as small as possible.

In practice this means that a stopwatch round will feel much more streamlined than an objective round. For objective it’s okay if a team steam-rolls or stalls on a single objective. But for Stopwatch you want both teams to have a somewhat even pace through the map.[/QUOTE]

And I thought objective is more for fun and stopwatch more serious. Kinda I get the reversed conclusion of what you got.

(spookify) #68

Exactly… So how would moving spawns and spawn times make them more different?

I do like the idea of night and day…

SOOO the reason for not having different maps for different Modes is over all size of the game?

I like in one of the interviews they say that one SD person plays an ungodly amount of LOL and how LOL changed the gaming landscape… I have had that feeling in the back of my head that SD would try to capture that magic into this FPS F2P game. I think you guys have the kill to do it but we havent seen the major implementation of these parts yet. Cant wait to see the match making and rank system come into its own, that will be huge… Hopefully buffing the abilities will generate more team work… Also better Objectives… These are so blaa and boring its dumb… Like I posted on another thread, story line!

Side Note: Buffing abilities will make naders nade stronger right? I played him last night and got one nade kill… I was amazing at nades in ET and RTCW and even in DB I can get the nade to land at people feet sometimes and it does like 75% damage… I am like wtf… Weak sauce…

Question: Is SD still creating mercs? Obviously that blue shirt guy with the shield that we havent seen yet and the ones you have taken away but are you creating more? I have stopped giving idea’s about mercs because it felt like you were happy with the number… It would be awesome if it was like LOL and you had 50+ mercs!

(Exedore) #69

Yep sorry, that person can’t be trusted.

(tokamak) #70

Well the word ‘fun’ is problematic in this context. Both modes should be ‘fun’, nobody is forcing anyone (outside SD :p) to play this game.

What matter is where people derive this ‘fun’ from. Stopwatch ultimately is about being the most efficient attacker. And in order to keep this focus on time the game should have as little hiccups or irregularities as possible. A full hold or a quick objective steal are often down to (mis)fortune and make both rounds less comparable to each other than two rounds where both attackers did a fairly good job.

So in that way SW needs an attacker bias, that will greatly reduce the diversity in map completion but that’s what you want as it will make the game boil down to seconds. That’s what makes SW exciting and fun.

For objective mode there’s nothing worse than having teams progress at a steady pace through the map. Defenders need a 50% of holding the last objective. A 50% holding rate would be horrible for SW as it would mean that 25% of all rounds end in stalemate.

For objective however it means a lot of diversity. It’s fun if that game stalls on the first objective and it’s equally fun if the map is completed within a few minutes. It makes the game unpredictable and gives the feeling that now two matches are the same. That, to me made pubs in ETQW and W:ET so addictive. There was always weird stuff going on.

(spookify) #71

Dude, first thing you look like a guy I could grab a beer with!!

Second, do you know how hard it is to tell if you are kidding or not on the internetz HAHA!! (You and your crptic posts :tongue:)

It took me a good 10 minutes to confirm you are Neil ‘Exedore’ Alphonso and you were talking about a programmer that plays LOL to whom I do not know who you were referencing too.

//youtu.be/nBCMRewqj_Y

Putting a face with name and text feels more personal and not just yelling into a white text box…

I really do like how you and other SD member have been more active on the forums lately… Hopefully this next update will tide us over and hit some key issues… We are getting sea battery right back right? :wink: (Faster weapon switch times? Give the game a better feel?) New Crates?

Bring it on and please focus on making Objectives more interesting and complex yet simple at the same time… (Standing in a yellow box not cutting it)

(Sun_Sheng) #72

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to spookify again.

(rookie1) #73

Quote Originally Posted by spookify View Post

I like in one of the interviews they say…

Alphonso IS Exedore :smiley:

(Szakalot) #74

Whats wrong with weapon switching speed? seems fine to me

(spookify) #75

Something is off about the animation or the speed… Go spec the really good players in a firefight or the number of posts that have been made about guns not shooting… The game isnt keeping up to their reactions… Gun, needle, gun, pack, pistol, gun… Its impossible right now…

You can think faster then the game can react…

How many times have you pressed a key thinking your pistol or ability was coming out but then your gun fires and cancels that ability… Happens to me all the time… Im like wtf I didnt shoot my gun… Why the heck isnt my pistol coming up of my paddles and so on… Its clunky…

I am talking muscle memory moves here…

(Glottis-3D) #76

[QUOTE=spookify;513581]Something is off about the animation or the speed… Go spec the really good players in a firefight or the number of posts that have been made about guns not shooting… The game isnt keeping up to their reactions… Gun, needle, gun, pack, pistol, gun… Its impossible right now…

You can think faster then the game can react…

How many times have you pressed a key thinking your pistol or ability was coming out but then your gun fires and cancels that ability… Happens to me all the time… Im like wtf I didnt shoot my gun… Why the heck isnt my pistol coming up of my paddles and so on… Its clunky…

I am talking muscle memory moves here…[/QUOTE]
this goes also with Fletcher’s sticky bombs.
i cant play him in this build since in only 19 level.
but previous patches his detonator was very slow.
press sticky bomb
through it
press detonator and activate it
…and it doesnt work.

if i want to blow the bomb 1 meter away from me i cant - i have to wait for several more miliseconds, so that detonator will do the thing.
i dont know is this still in the game and is unfixed.

(Szakalot) #77

[QUOTE=spookify;513581]Something is off about the animation or the speed… Go spec the really good players in a firefight or the number of posts that have been made about guns not shooting… The game isnt keeping up to their reactions… Gun, needle, gun, pack, pistol, gun… Its impossible right now…

You can think faster then the game can react…

How many times have you pressed a key thinking your pistol or ability was coming out but then your gun fires and cancels that ability… Happens to me all the time… Im like wtf I didnt shoot my gun… Why the heck isnt my pistol coming up of my paddles and so on… Its clunky…

I am talking muscle memory moves here…[/QUOTE]

I had that problem at the beginning, and now most of weapon switches work fine for me. Its important to know which abilities are feasible with ‘q’ or ‘e’ , and which you’d better use normal ‘4’ n ‘5’ with.

Some things are indeed buggier, like the fletcher, I’d recommend ‘q/e’ for instant use abilities (medpacks, deploying ammo station,revive) and ‘4’ n ‘5’ for still press-to-use, like nades, etc.

(spookify) #78

[QUOTE=Szakalot;513589]I had that problem at the beginning, and now most of weapon switches work fine for me. Its important to know which abilities are feasible with ‘q’ or ‘e’ , and which you’d better use normal ‘4’ n ‘5’ with.

Some things are indeed buggier, like the fletcher, I’d recommend ‘q/e’ for instant use abilities (medpacks, deploying ammo station,revive) and ‘4’ n ‘5’ for still press-to-use, like nades, etc.[/QUOTE]

I have multi keys used for abilities and guns…

4 and 5 I use…

3 I use as my main

Mouse wheel up is my main gun also

Mouse 3 is ability 1

mouse 4 is ability 2

mouse down is ability 2

(Szakalot) #79

I think within the game itself the abilities operated through ‘q’ or ‘e’ (which would be the mouse for you), behave differently in the game than abilities operated by ‘4’ and ‘5’. You don’t get to just pull out your nade with ‘q’ (probably mouse 3 for u?), you have to cook it immediately.

(titan) #80

[QUOTE=Glottis-3D;513524]how about making weather/daytime different for OBJ and SW?

i’d like to play whitechapel early in the morning, and trainyard at night.[/QUOTE]

that’s an awesome idea :smiley: