Testimony from a lvl 12 player playing frequently with low levels.

(Pumpkiller) #1

/!\Wall of text with maths and rants,TL:DR at the end. /!\

I hesitated to create this post because i know pepole will disagree with me, but whatever.

I installed the game in June, because one of my friends played it, back in September-October, i stopped playing it, because i had a lot of work to do.

I came back because my friends installed the game ,i taught them how to long jump,how to be careful when they see proxys running around in the map,how to move properly when using shotguns and ARs. etc…

But after a couple matches,until they got lvl 6-7,they realized the same thing as i did back in time.

The game is insanely unrewarding and imbalanced,and for my part,deep inside,i like challenges,hence why i keep on playing this game,but the thing is,most of my friends aren’t like me,that’s why they pointed out that:

1:The game is awfully grindy and unrewarding.

As i said before, the game ,albeit being extremely fun and enjoyable, feels slow and unessecarily painful in terms of gathering money, exp and loadout cards.Now, i know that stopwatch matches can give up to 400-600 credits alone i’f you top score on the winning team. Now, do the math i’f you want to get any merc worth 50k credits.

400 x 125=50000. 500 x 100=50000. 600 x 85=51000.

100 games of playing like a total war machine in general.now,that would be a bit unfair considering i didn’t counted missions in this situation.But i’m taking the fact that you’d still want to save money to trade up one card for your new merc,which means it’s credits won from missions that will be spent on it.

Knowing that stopwatches are objectives games but multiplied by 2,this gets even worse i’f you’re unaware of it.I’f you top score on the winning team in objectives,knowing that you get around 150-300 credits depending on how well you made,here’s the results:

150 x 335=50250. 200 x 250=50000. 300 x 167=50100.

Now for the exp part, on Stopwatches, top scorers get on average 15k. On Objectives, they get around 8k, now , you judge i’f it’s enough for pepole past lvl 10.

I know SD has to make a living off of this game,but they shouldn’t push their players to pay real money for expensive mercs,both with credits and real life money. They should let players be paid at least 500 credits on objectives and at least 1000 credits on stopwatches (top score).

By the way,see the loot you get every level? This leads to

2:Unessecary leveling and RNG.

As you might have judged from the question i asked you earlier about leveling being terribly slow very early in the game on a game that gets players to go up to level 100 (i think), you also see that you win stuff up to level 21.
And one thing i found kind of lazy and useless is that,after lvl 8,you only get equipement cases,the thing you drop 40% of the time in matches is worth weeks of grinding?

Pepole don’t need these,they need something that can motivate them to keep on continuing the hard and frustrating grinding the game encourages them to do. Instead of hearing them say:“yey i leveled up oh great a new lead card i’m never gonna use oh f*ck i don’t even have the merc for it”,i mean,give them elite cases,or another type of cases,since more than a hundred matches is worth 10 Euros in your eyes,that’s a win-win.

About those equipement cases, i tried to search any other word than “joke” to stay neutral and not to sound too bitter about it.
Just look at those ridiculious stats.

I like the card loadout idea, it’s fresh and original,but to make these cases worth the 1k they need, make it so you win 3 cards instead of 1.

3:Starter mercs vs. the world.

Now,don’t get me wrong,i main Aura in defense,i sometimes use Skyhammer because he’s the most deadly against EVs,but that’s all they got for themselves.

I mean,why even bother using Aura in attack when her station is only useful on choke points in the map on some special occasions when you get Sawbonez that can do the job better and more effectively, both on defense (Aura still does the job better in this regard in many cases) and in attack or use Skyhammer when you got Arty that has multiple airstrikes in addition to ammo packs and burst riffles/semi autos. Not that Arty is better,but it is way more flexible than Skyhammer, and in this game,this counts a lot.

Starter mercs are good,but they feel stiff and very situational. (Sky’s airstrike,Aura’s Healing station)

Again,pepole feel pushed to pay real money for those mercs that are much more flexible,despite being a bit less better suited on some special occasions.Rotations don’t really help the situation either in some degree. I remember waiting impatiently for Kira and Sawbonez to be in free rotation.2-3 weeks later,they finally went on rotation. But i already bought them with real cash.

Also,im my opinion,to show to pepole how engineers work in this game,they should create (or give) one as a starter merc with Sky and Aura.

Before you go and say that i’m needlessly hating the game,first, i love this game, and second let me say that these observations were from the persective of fresh players who clocked around 50 hours on the game and not hardened vets with 200+ hours.

This game has an amazing potential for a free 2 play, it can even equal or surpass Team Fortress 2 in this regard and gain a bigger population with what i said. SD is doing it wrong with this sneaky freemium model.

In my personal opinion,they should also add:-The ability to make private matches with a minimum of 2 players.
-Pepole that are below lvl 5 should be forced into max lvl 5 games,unless they want to join their steam friends. (i’f it wasn’t already done by the time i was gone)

TL:DR:Reduce RNG,make the game a bit more rewarding,and quit the freemium bs.

(n-x) #2

I will just answer to your first point: If you play each day your missons and do your dailys, you will get at least 3,5k per day. If you do 2 mission circles you get at least 5k a day. But probably you will get more. Add in a weekend with 3-4 mission circles a day and you will never ever need more than 7-10 days for a new merc + you have extra money from the base fee you get. You can say a lot about SD but it is really easy to get credits. So you kind of got it the wrong way around. You get your mercs through the mission money and your load out through the base fee. Kind of.

(Amerika) #3

Talks about how the rather fair credit system is unfair. Then suggests that private servers should allow only two people. Sooooooooooooo, exactly what do you want to do with just those two people? Because credits are based almost entirely off time (you get a slight increase if you win the map) so “farming” doesn’t work. And levels mean nothing in this game other than you get a free case and it starts taking a lot of XP to gain a level pretty quickly.

(xRotting) #4

Whats up with “Pepole” btw? :lol:

(kittz0r) #5

play ranked and be useful for double credit outcome…

(Backuplight) #6

Credits are easier to get than you make out, levels are pointless (and that’s fine), and if you’re buying cases with credits you’re doing it wrong.

The only people pushed into paying real money are those who are impatient - and isn’t that the point of the f2p model? Everything in DB is reasonably easy to get without spending any money at all - the people that say otherwise tend to be those who haven’t actually gone through the process of getting it all yet and are just adopting the “I want it all right now” mentality.

Calling it freemium is actually hilarious to me. It’s a small step short of people saying it’s pay to win because cobalt cards make you shiny.

(bubblesKeyboard) #7

Team balance is also shit if I might add

(CCP115) #8

I’m level 22 with all mercs except Phantom and Rhino. I could buy either right now. I haven’t spent a single cent on a merc purchase.

I dunno man, it seems grindy at first, but it just picks up and doesn’t stop. Better than Blacklight Retribution.

(Naonna) #9

The only aspect of dirty bomb’s balance system which annoys me is when teams are 4-6 in player number. Moving the player with the least play time and/or lowest score-to-time ratio from one team to another would go a long ways. (At least in pubs: in comp, players can usually be trusted to stay full rounds.)

(SereneFlight) #10

TESTIMONY FROM A LVL 12 PLAYER FREQUENTLY FORGETTING MISSIONS AND DAILY BONUSES

(Apofenas) #11

Refering to 3d point.

Fire suppport and Medic are 2 classes that are best for beginners who don’t have other mercs. Low lvl teams shouldn’t run out of ammo and be able to heal themselves(in theory). I think SD should add free engineer, but there usually is one in free rotation (exept this week due to event).

I my opinion Skyhammer is best choice for starter merc. He has average stats, good weapons, ammo packs and anti-EV ability that is also usefull in-doors as grenade. Arty on the other hand has burst rifles only and no in-door usage, although he is better at taking out EV, but i doubt he is a good starter merc. Kira is not good for beginners at all, so if it’s not listed mercs, than new players wouldn’t have anything to stop EV.

I dislike Aura as starting merc, but Sawbones is not a lot better for beginners. Aura can place heal station and everyone will get healing. Last week i saw enough Sawbones who only healed themselves and didn’t know about self-healing penalty. In my opinion Phoenix is better for that role, but his ability also requires some knowledge and experience with charging pulse.

If now had to pick starting mercs, i’d pick Skybro for sure.

(Yoma) #12

You get credits so easy over time by just playing when you feel like it. Naturally you wont have all mercs at level 10, but at level 20 you will pretty much have all mercs even with spending some cash for bronze trade ups. (If you play like me average 5-10 hours a week, if you play more you will maybe need some more levels due to daily bonus and missions)

I dont know what todo with the credits anyway beside trading up what is pretty well, i could live without it, because bronze suffices.

Regarding starter mercs, they werent choosen bad, but people tend to suck with anything they get their hands on at level 1-~5-7. To me everything with an M4 and some HP is an good starter merc because M4 is easy for newbies unlike burst rifles which are not easy to use. Smgs like Crotzni maybe are aswell not too bad but at the same time you get enough credits during first levels to buy an merc.

Well, this game doesnt have many goals to work towards and little speed after the missions and first daily stuff is done. However, i play to play because i enjoy it, not because i have some kinda goal working towards.

PS:I wont say anything about balance because its common sense that DB doesnt stand for Dirty Bomb but for Dead Balance.

(Teflon Love) #13

[quote=“Rexitech;28211”]And one thing i found kind of lazy and useless is that,after lvl 8,you only get equipement cases,the thing you drop 40% of the time in matches is worth weeks of grinding?

Pepole don’t need these,they need something that can motivate them to keep on continuing the hard and frustrating grinding the game encourages them to do.[/quote]

If you consider playing this game “grinding” maybe it playing a different game would be better? Personally I don’t play for rewards rather than fun.

I think the game could do without levels (and level rewards). Instead, it could take inspiration from Team Fortress 2, where certain achievements are eligible to class specific milestones. Reaching the 3rd milestone is quite a challenge and teaches you interesting ways to play the class, for example the sniper milestones. Rewarding something like this with an Elite case could be very appropriate.

(Melinder) #14

Daily bonuses alone is 2000 Credits, plus if you do 2 sets of missions a day (Not at the games current state as 1-2 missions are replaced with Cycle missions), with a minimum of 500 credit, ranging to 1000 (so we’ll say 750 average) you can do 6 missions granting 750 each, which equates to 4500.

So thats 6500 Credits each day if you do your daily’s and complete 2 sets of missions. add another 2000-3000 for playing to get these completed. an easy 9000 a day for around 3-4 hours of play time.

(Szakalot) #15

@Cam totally agree.

i think some people just dont know how to get support/game/combat xp effectively so it takes them forever to complete a few missions. @Rexitech 's misconception that position on the scoreboard affects credit rewards kind of supports that

(Pumpkiller) #16

All of the points you guys made are true and fair,however:

[quote=“Rexitech;28211”]
Before you go and say that i’m needlessly hating the game,first, i love this game, and second let me say that these observations were from the persective of fresh players who clocked around 50 hours on the game and not hardened vets with 200+ hours. [/quote]

I am not talking about myself,because i already know how to get credits faster and do quite well in game.I am talking about first impressions,sure, i might have exgaerated the credits “problem” a bit in general,but for newbies that just got past level 8,it just feels too slow,(even with missions and bonuses,and i said before that you’d still want so keep some money around so you can go and have a bit more money for your next merc ) knowing that newbs rarely ever top score and do effective teamwork,in addition that they are left in public servers with absoluetely no clue of what they are doing, they get completely maddened with no chance of trying to love the game or appreciate any bit of it. Until they finally see that max lvl 5 servers exist.

I mean,what’s the fun in respawning every 10 seconds ? I’f they stay,they WILL get good, but that’s the problem,most of them don’t want to stay. They do adopt the mentality of “i want everything right now”,because on the 7 first levels,they get a lot of money and new features,obviously,they will think each level has a nice reward like money or special cases. Until it brutally ends with lead cards equipement cases.

“Congrats,you just punched a brick wall for weeks,have the thing that you won at least 10 times while you were destroying your fists”,quoting one of my friends here.

I’f private matches do give money,it shouldn’t,because if it does,it’s kind of counter intuitive and productive,i struggled to teach my friends how to play in general because i had to go in public servers to teach them the game,we were 3,and i’m not going to pester the rest of my friends that are in another game,or make the rest of them install the game for pepole they never met just so they can stay in it like furniture.
I’m asking for private matches to be more accessible and fun/training oriented while making it less exploitable. It should give 3 times less exp than in pubs and 0 money.

I like the game,that’s why i’m not defending it (i wish i could),but not really attacking it either,i just state what i’m listening from new players and what they think about the game.

EDIT:I didn’t knew time affected money instead of the score,that’s another thing that’s never said in game. Or said in an obscure line of dialogue i must have skipped by accident in the tutorial.

(Szakalot) #17

very good point @Rexitech and i definitely agree that the initial lvl2 and 4 rewards of 12k each are making a false impression that such rewards will continue in the future. this is definitely something worth looking at as far as new player experience @Toomic @RazielWarmonic

(Backuplight) #18

Definitely agree that the game doesn’t do a great job at introducing you to certain things. Very little there to explain loadouts to a new person, like first time tooltips or whatever. I have to wonder if adding those as very explicitly stating how loadouts work, that your credit level up boost only happens twice, that there are max level 5 servers etc. wouldn’t have helped avoid certain unfairly negative reviews.

(Kakutov) #19

Lot of newbs quit DB cuz they are tired of getting stomped by “pubstars” and unbalanced casual games.

(Teflon Love) #20

True, finding a game as new player is totally broken. Also it seems to be an unwritten rule for shooter games to offer an offline mode but only make it accessible after hunting down cryptic console commands in forums. And actually opening the console can be challenging with non English keyboards.

This might be easy to improve:

  1. Add a main menu option “Explore map in offline mode” below the tutorial. Once selected, offer a menu to choose the map. Yes, it’s somewhat broken because on some maps you can only explore the first objective. But it would be a start.
  2. Add an option “Show only level appropriate servers” to the server browser and enable it by default. While you’re <= level 5, you only see max level 5 servers. Beginning with level 6, you only see “normal” servers. If you disable the option, you see all servers (as it is now).