Suggestion: Hotfix Phantom before the double weekend

(Conqelson) #1

It’s no longer a matter of if, several dev posts on reddit have confirmed “something” is in the works but I’d suggest getting it out sooner than latter. You are going to draw a big crowd this weekend, make it a good one.

(MissMurder) #2

Have you read this? https://www.reddit.com/r/Dirtybomb/comments/3cjh9m/in_regards_to_phantom/

(watsyurdeal) #3

That’s actually the best time to leave him as is, so they can figure out what’s causing players trouble and what isn’t.

Trial by fire…does nobody get this?

(stealthyBass) #4

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;43748”]That’s actually the best time to leave him as is, so they can figure out what’s causing players trouble and what isn’t.

Trial by fire…does nobody get this?[/quote]

They don’t. They just want him gone or buried.

Off topic but I thought you were just a regular Sparks avatar for a sec. GG on that.

(PlayingUndead) #5

Hey, you know I think it’s rad that the devs are interacting with the community like that on reddit, but we should have somebody posting that kinda interaction to announcements or something. Feels odd for the official forums to be lacking the most official posts of all, ones straight outta SD’s mouth. Unless they have been posted here and I totally miss it.

(Nail) #6

it kinda depends on what you deem as “official”

(Harlot) #7

The thing is, the post was far from an official announcement. The subreddit was upset just like the forums, but there was far less “GG SD Im quittin db nao” posts on the subreddit and far more feedback given. The community there moderates itself and downvotes trash posts like that. And generally speaking, casual players tend to go straight to the forums, the more hardcore players are found on both or just the subreddit.

It’s incredible the amount of developer interaction the subreddit has drawn since Phantom’s release. I’ve had a chance to ask Exedore questions directly and pick his brain. I’ve never seen anything like it before and I give SD massive props for it. I recommend players follow both communities if they’re passionate about DB like I am.

(scarfino) #8

so we are now 3 days after phantom’s release. I have been able to get some games in against teams with multiple, decent phantoms.

Once you learn how a good phantom plays, they aren’t as big of a problem to counter as a lot of you are making them out to be. Am I alone?

(Harlot) #9

[quote=“scarfino;43768”]so we are now 3 days after phantom’s release. I have been able to get some games in against teams with multiple, decent phantoms.

Once you learn how a good phantom plays, they aren’t as big of a problem to counter as a lot of you are making them out to be. Am I alone?[/quote]

Multiple Phantoms suffer from Nader-syndrome. Each extra Phantom on the enemy team increases how annoying they are exponentially. The 360 degree sword spin macro should be hotfixed as people assume it’s a hack and ragequit.

My biggest issue is certain situations where he’s too tanky. He can take a direct Proxy mine, lose his shield and switch to SMG and still kill Proxy 1 on 1. Rhino is the only other one who can do this, and it requires really poor Proxy shooting/dodging. Or, if I’m injured on Fragger, he can run straight at me (so much for being an assassin) and unless I’m near 100% with my headshots, it’s impossible to kill him before he 1 hits me. This leaves almost no counter play, which is bad, especially considering how easy the play is compared to something like being a skilled sniper.

(Amerika) #10

[quote=“scarfino;43768”]so we are now 3 days after phantom’s release. I have been able to get some games in against teams with multiple, decent phantoms.

Once you learn how a good phantom plays, they aren’t as big of a problem to counter as a lot of you are making them out to be. Am I alone?[/quote]

After playing a few days with him I think he could use a bit of an adjustment but not a huge change to the core of what the merc is.

My main issue is with his absorb shield that comes with the cloak. The cloak is hard to see unless you’re directly looking at him and hard to hear if anybody is firing in the area. That makes it amazing to get behind people or flank with and then gun people down or go for a melee kill if it’s one guy (bad Phantom players melee only). The shield, on the other hand, allows me to get out of the situation easy or simply abuse the situation as detailed below.

Examples of abusing the shield:

  1. Use the shield after you’ve emptied your mag to run, absorb damage from others (as opposed to just evading) and reload. This can allow you to have full advantage when people chase as you’re ready to go again and might still have full HP…and you’ll most likely start firing first (beneficial with the new aimpunch change). Or you can just keep running if you did take too much damage/out of ammo.
  2. Use the shield to make somebody waste a lot of ammo. I have done this numerous times where somebody sees me, starts firing at me and I’ll dodge/hide/shield while they are firing. I know they have less than half their mag left so I come out firing with a full mag and 0 HP lost and they will almost always run out of ammo putting me in a very advantageous position.
  3. This is what a lot of people get annoyed by the most I think. You see a Phantom coming, you unload in to them and due to the range of the katana and their ability to tank damage via cloak + high HP pool they can win even if you started with a huge advantage. I can’t figure out why Phantom needs this advantage at all as it rewards bad play. And is especially annoying if you are playing a low HP merc that can be easily 1 shot.

Proposed changes:

  1. Remove/reduce the shield significantly or have it ONLY work with explosions. I’ve listed above where the shield is much more powerful than in melee only situations that people not not even realize.
  2. Lower base HP. He’s pretty tanky and I honestly don’t think he should be that tanky. 100-110HP would be my suggestion.
  3. Do not allow for more than a single rotation when the Katana is active to avoid the issue outlined in the infamouse “Beyblade” video. Valve had to do something like this with CSGO IIRC.

This would reduce his ability to be tanky in situations that are highly annoying (running at you full speed and winning due to shield despite you seeing him). It would reduce his ability to abuse the shield mechanic in both escape and attacking situations. But it won’t reduce his ability to be a flanking powerhouse which is what he should be in a game like this from my perspective. And people who want to melee only will still be able to do that…they will just have to be more careful and less likely to just rush people.

I think these changes would keep Phantom fun and relevant without severely nerfing the main draw to the class or his ability to do well overall. You just have to be a bit smarter if you want to do well and if you want to melee only, well, you probably won’t do that great but Phantoms who melee only don’t do that great right now anyway.

(Harlot) #11

[quote=“Amerika;43779”]Proposed changes:

  1. Remove/reduce the shield significantly or have it ONLY work with explosions. I’ve listed above where the shield is much more powerful than in melee only situations that people not not even realize.
  2. Lower base HP. He’s pretty tanky and I honestly don’t think he should be that tanky. 100-110HP would be my suggestion.
  3. Do not allow for more than a single rotation when the Katana is active to avoid the issue outlined in the infamouse “Beyblade” video. Valve had to do something like this with CSGO IIRC.

This would reduce his ability to be tanky in situations that are highly annoying (running at you full speed and winning due to shield despite you seeing him). It would reduce his ability to abuse the shield mechanic in both escape and attacking situations. But it won’t reduce his ability to be a flanking powerhouse which is what he should be in a game like this from my perspective. And people who want to melee only will still be able to do that…they will just have to be more careful and less likely to just rush people.

I think these changes would keep Phantom fun and relevant without severely nerfing the main draw to the class or his ability to do well overall. You just have to be a bit smarter if you want to do well and if you want to melee only, well, you probably won’t do that great but Phantoms who melee only don’t do that great right now anyway.[/quote]

What if the shield broke and was placed on a longer CD from a single headshot from any weapon? This punishes him for using it to tank recklessly and rewards skillful counter play. I think that and a base HP to 110 would be sufficient but still keep him in a place where he would see play consistently.

(stealthyBass) #12

[quote=“scarfino;43768”]so we are now 3 days after phantom’s release. I have been able to get some games in against teams with multiple, decent phantoms.

Once you learn how a good phantom plays, they aren’t as big of a problem to counter as a lot of you are making them out to be. Am I alone?[/quote]

God no you aren’t. But maybe I’m just used to playing with people in TF2 who were obscenely good at spy so I learned to pay attention to my surroundings.

(Amerika) #13

[quote=“Harlot;43783”][quote=“Amerika;43779”]Proposed changes:

  1. Remove/reduce the shield significantly or have it ONLY work with explosions. I’ve listed above where the shield is much more powerful than in melee only situations that people not not even realize.
  2. Lower base HP. He’s pretty tanky and I honestly don’t think he should be that tanky. 100-110HP would be my suggestion.
  3. Do not allow for more than a single rotation when the Katana is active to avoid the issue outlined in the infamouse “Beyblade” video. Valve had to do something like this with CSGO IIRC.

This would reduce his ability to be tanky in situations that are highly annoying (running at you full speed and winning due to shield despite you seeing him). It would reduce his ability to abuse the shield mechanic in both escape and attacking situations. But it won’t reduce his ability to be a flanking powerhouse which is what he should be in a game like this from my perspective. And people who want to melee only will still be able to do that…they will just have to be more careful and less likely to just rush people.

I think these changes would keep Phantom fun and relevant without severely nerfing the main draw to the class or his ability to do well overall. You just have to be a bit smarter if you want to do well and if you want to melee only, well, you probably won’t do that great but Phantoms who melee only don’t do that great right now anyway.[/quote]

What if the shield broke and was placed on a longer CD from a single headshot from any weapon? This punishes him for using it to tank recklessly and rewards skillful counter play. I think that and a base HP to 110 would be sufficient but still keep him in a place where he would see play consistently.[/quote]

I thought about adding in a point of making his shield go on a higher CD but I don’t think it would be needed with my proposed changes. Or at least not needed at first. I would rather nerf in baby steps than overreact and make the merc useless and not fun. Turning on his invis is pretty fun along with being able to use it fairly often. So I would rather see the nerfs I proposed put in first and then look at the CD on the invis as a further balance dial down the road if needed.

I also toiled with the idea of giving him a new augment that allows him to absorb 20% of his current HP level while his shield is up. Which wouldn’t allow him to turn it on and rush somebody when he’s low HP since it would be based on current HP @ activation time but it would still be useful in many situations. Or do as I cited and change it to work as is but for explosives only. I’d prefer the augment though I think but it would be a lot more dev work to implement.

(scarfino) #14

I like the 20% of current HP for the shield idea

(XavienX) #15

He really just needs a slight tweak on his cloak. I purchased Phantom yesterday and played as him, I noticed that I actually died a lot, especially to shotgun classes. People are starting to know how to counter him by waiting for him to lunge attack and you can dodge it by jumping up and down and after than blast 2 shots of shotgun rounds into his face.
Kinda the same story as when Rhino and Nader came out.

(Amerika) #16

[quote=“XavienH5;43800”]He really just needs a slight tweak on his cloak. I purchased Phantom yesterday and played as him, I noticed that I actually died a lot, especially to shotgun classes. People are starting to know how to counter him by waiting for him to lunge attack and you can dodge it by jumping up and down and after than blast 2 shots of shotgun rounds into his face.
Kinda the same story as when Rhino and Nader came out.[/quote]

If you melee only you will do bad and die a lot. You will annoy people but you won’t carry a team. If you use your Kek/Crotnzi, however, and flank a lot you can carry a team due to your damage output + evasion/absorption. That’s where I think he has the most problem even if most don’t realize it yet.

He’s definitely not a melee only class.

(GoobyOfPls) #17

Most likely going to be nerfing the shield by adding a higher time from 6 seconds to like 8 seconds or something. Hell, he’s just like all of the other characters, if you can play a character well they will be considered ‘op’. An example would be a players accuracy when it comes down to using Nader’s grenade launcher. Its amazing if people are accurate enough with it.

I believe Dirty Bombs goal is diversity, which is why they introduced this character. Its really not hard to kill Phantom, either.

(PlayingUndead) #18

Yeah I guess that makes sense. It’s just a weird concept for me that interaction from the official developer doesn’t happen on the official forum, and instead on reddit, but I guess a lot of official stuff happens on reddit.

(XavienX) #19

[quote=“Amerika;43804”][quote=“XavienH5;43800”]He really just needs a slight tweak on his cloak. I purchased Phantom yesterday and played as him, I noticed that I actually died a lot, especially to shotgun classes. People are starting to know how to counter him by waiting for him to lunge attack and you can dodge it by jumping up and down and after than blast 2 shots of shotgun rounds into his face.
Kinda the same story as when Rhino and Nader came out.[/quote]

If you melee only you will do bad and die a lot. You will annoy people but you won’t carry a team. If you use your Kek/Crotnzi, however, and flank a lot you can carry a team due to your damage output + evasion/absorption. That’s where I think he has the most problem even if most don’t realize it yet.

He’s definitely not a melee only class.[/quote]

But he is a melee focused class though, and he is useful for when you are on defender’s side.

(scrub_lord) #20

inb4 Stoker release. “OMG MOLOTOVS OP. LAST TOO LONG AND BLOCKS OFF ENTIRE SECTIONSS OF THE MAP!!!”

inb4 Phoenix release. “OMFG SELF REZ OP. DONT EVEN NEED MEDICS WHEN UR PHOENIX!!!”

etc etc