Thoughts on the new update.

[infernalHaven]

I’d like to start off by saying a few things

1. If you can’t take criticism about this game, stop reading.
2. I will make it clear when I give opinions or anecdotal evidence.

So, the Unlock and Load update. Was it good?

No.

Why?

This update made a lot of changes. As I will explore most of the major changes, you can start to see how the amount of negative and counter-intuitive changes outweigh the good developments.

So, to start. Phantom’s so-called ‘buff’. He now has an EMP field ( Something I believe to be a really neat and good idea for his character ) when he cloaks. this is an excellent addition apart from one thing. It’s completely outclassed by the fact he now has a 7 second cooldown immediately after activating his armour. I personally feel that this is a very bad decision and a bit step in the wrong direction. Many good Phantom players I’ve met and talked with on this game all rely on quick, adaptive, on-the-fly cloaking. The 7 second cooldown makes this almost unachievable unless you have exceptional situation planning skills…

I know tons of you will all say ‘it’s to stop perma-EMP’ which is true, but I personally think Phantom would be better if he didn’t disable equipment for 5 seconds after leaving cloak, or at most for 2-3 seconds.s

Sparks’ buff. Why did they decide to do this? In my own opinion, this is an absolutely idiotic decision by Splash Damage - They nerfed her medic-orientated augments, only to let her spam selfheal with the medpacks even more effectively. This nullify’s Sparks’ role as a medic even further.

Bushwhackers’ buff. Bushwhacker is a slow merc. The slow objective merc. He’s meant for slow, tactical play with his turret in clever positions to catch the enemy. The new update reduced his turret’s deploy time, making it a very aggressive and offensive deployable. This completely changes the role of Bushwhacker.

Fragger’s nerf. Why? I have barely anything to say about this apart from it’s changed nothing and a completely pointless change.

Proxy’s buff. The worst thing about this WHOLE update in my eyes. This has killed my hopes that Splash Damage were maybe even HOPING for balance in this game. They made Proxy’s mines deploy about 0.2 seconds faster. Doesn’t sound like much, but it is. Now, I’m starting to see more Proxies running around frisbee-bombing groups of 3,4,5 players killing them instantly. Absolutely not fair and unbalanced, and yes. This is objective. Not a single person with more than two braincells thinks that Proxy needed ANY sort of buff.

Fletcher’s nerf is another one of these things I find to be pointless. As someone who mains Fletcher, this has made no difference. The sticky bomb’s radial damage has been reduced by (5-10?) down to 85, meaning that’s the maximum you can deal with a single sticky without a direct stick. The direct stick damage remains at 100. Skilled Fletchers - The ones who cause all these balance problems - are very consistent at landing direct sticks, meaning this update only filters out unskilled Fletchers who will move over to unbalanced mercs such as Proxy.

Now, the few good things.

Arsenal Crates - Good idea, allows players to access microtransaction content without paying.

Second edition loadout cards are in the middle. While it’s good to see some new cards, a lot of good loadout styles have been removed, and the whole concept to me stinks of cashgrab.

Bug fixes - can’t go wrong with those, a fair few bugs got stomped out this update.

Thunder’s buff. Great idea, he’s now viable.

So, what do you guys think? 3 good changes in comparison with everything else Splash Damage have butchered with this update?

I’m now going to give a quick opinionated rant about Splash Damage/Nexon in general:

They’re incompetent. Completely useless. They never interact with their community unless it’s releasing fan art or saying thanks for a donation on stream. They never listen to their community, they will see a snippet of a discussion and take it totally out of proportion and think everyone wants it. I’ve tweeted them numerous times only to get a copy-paste reply asking if I need help with a bug. They’re inefficient at updates, making changes that negatively impact the game. Dirty Bomb is intended to be a ‘Premium f2p team shooter’ or so they advertise. Their most recent updates in fact make ABILITIES more playable, negating the ‘shooter’ aspect of the game. They hide behind other things as a shield, let me give a few examples: ‘x is something we’re working on but we’re currently focussing on y so you may expect to see x sometime in the future’, ‘the game’s still in beta, there are many bugs because it’s still in development’ Yeah, right. 1 is a delaying tactic, the other is complete lies. You lose rights to call it a beta as soon as you introduce microtransactions with an active forum, announcements and poorly-scheduled updates and maintenance.

/rant

[FireWorks]

Good rant, 10/10.

Not exatly what I would call my opinions but still good rage skill.

[blonk]

1. If you can’t take criticism about this game, stop reading.

Dirty bomb forum’s 2016 tagline!

If you have a difference of opinion, stop reading
Proxy is your bae? Stop reading
If you can’t read, stop reading

Just stop reading.

[infernalHaven]

[quote=“FireWorks;180904”]Good rant, 10/10.

Not exatly what I would call my opinions but still good rage skill.

[/quote]

Not my problem that SD is incompetent, just lets me stomp noobs in pub matches even more.

[infernalHaven]

[quote=“blonk;180906”][quote=“infernalHaven;29336”]

1. If you can’t take criticism about this game, stop reading.
   [/quote]

Dirty bomb forum’s 2016 tagline!

If you have a difference of opinion, stop reading
Proxy is your bae? Stop reading
If you can’t read, stop reading

Just stop reading.[/quote]

Basically, because a ton of this game’s players are too blind to see its flaws and will defend it to the death without a clue what they’re talking about.

[kopyright]

Bushwhackers’ buff. Bushwhacker is a slow merc. The slow objective merc. He’s meant for slow, tactical play with his turret in clever positions to catch the enemy. The new update reduced his turret’s deploy time, making it a very aggressive and offensive deployable. This completely changes the role of Bushwhacker.

It makes him a more viable choice on the attacking half of Stopwatch maps, though.

[Merci1ess]

[quote=“infernalHaven;180911”][quote=“blonk;180906”][quote=“infernalHaven;29336”]

1. If you can’t take criticism about this game, stop reading.
   [/quote]

Dirty bomb forum’s 2016 tagline!

If you have a difference of opinion, stop reading
Proxy is your bae? Stop reading
If you can’t read, stop reading

Just stop reading.[/quote]

Basically, because a ton of this game’s players are too blind to see its flaws and will defend it to the death without a clue what they’re talking about.[/quote]

At some point you gotta ask yourself if those people are paid to do that or if the bleep is just too good.

[infernalHaven]

[quote=“infernalHaven;29336”]Bushwhackers’ buff. Bushwhacker is a slow merc. The slow objective merc. He’s meant for slow, tactical play with his turret in clever positions to catch the enemy. The new update reduced his turret’s deploy time, making it a very aggressive and offensive deployable. This completely changes the role of Bushwhacker.

It makes him a more viable choice on the attacking half of Stopwatch maps, though.

[/quote]

1 out of 6 possible sides/gamemodes isn’t exactly a universal improvement, but I see what you mean, yeah.

[Yes]

Fletcher was buffed, his sticks do 15 more damage now. It’s stupid, they buffed Fletcher while nerfing Fragger when he didn’t need it.

[MrDeMS]

Fletcher’s stickies don’t do 15 more damage than before.

Their base damage used to be 100, it is now 85. They used to inflict 100 damage when stickied to a merc, they do the same damage now.

I’m not too sure about the balance changes, it looks like some people focused on competitions like them, but they might cause more chaos on public servers.

Case in point: Fragger wasn’t unbalanced at all in public play -you will struggle to find ammo and health packs most of the time, so you end up retreating to an ammo stash, or take cover to auto-regenerate your health-, but it was one of the mandatory mercs on competitive play. With that nerf, they gave competitive play a few alternatives, as he isn’t as viable now, while 10hp won’t be a night and day difference in public servers. Also, if you get a loadout with Tough, you’ll recover health much faster, so it’s balanced back.

However, they introduced a few bugs that should never have passed internal testing, like matches ending in draw on ranked/stopwatch, when one team did more objectives, and there are still old bugs and inconsistencies around, like Stoker’s molotov graphical representation being different than where you can get damaged, when the fire is spreading.

Bottom line is: I’m glad they’re still working on the game, it shows they have not abandoned the effort, but it would be great if they set a well thought future direction for it, and went for it, instead of doing things for the sake of it. Want to make it a casual game? Go full in. Want to make it the next big eSport? Go full in.

[blufflord]

they dont do 15 more dmg. its still 100 for direct. it was worded wierdly, ik, but radial dmg is now 85 intsead of 100, so u cant kill stuff like phoenix without direct hit

[Cuck]

Bushwhackers’ buff. Bushwhacker is a slow merc. The slow objective merc. He’s meant for slow, tactical play with his turret in clever positions to catch the enemy. The new update reduced his turret’s deploy time, making it a very aggressive and offensive deployable. This completely changes the role of Bushwhacker.

Fragger’s nerf. Why? I have barely anything to say about this apart from it’s changed nothing and a completely pointless change.

Proxy’s buff. The worst thing about this WHOLE update in my eyes. This has killed my hopes that Splash Damage were maybe even HOPING for balance in this game. They made Proxy’s mines deploy about 0.2 seconds faster. Doesn’t sound like much, but it is. Now, I’m starting to see more Proxies running around frisbee-bombing groups of 3,4,5 players killing them instantly. Absolutely not fair and unbalanced, and yes. This is objective. Not a single person with more than two braincells thinks that Proxy needed ANY sort of buff.

Fletcher’s nerf is another one of these things I find to be pointless. As someone who mains Fletcher, this has made no difference. The sticky bomb’s radial damage has been reduced by (5-10?) down to 85, meaning that’s the maximum you can deal with a single sticky without a direct stick. The direct stick damage remains at 100. Skilled Fletchers - The ones who cause all these balance problems - are very consistent at landing direct sticks, meaning this update only filters out unskilled Fletchers who will move over to unbalanced mercs such as Proxy.

I’d like to start off by saying a few things

1. If you can’t take criticism about this game, stop reading.
   
   “Sparks’ buff. Why did they decide to do this? In my own opinion, this is an absolutely idiotic decision by Splash Damage - They nerfed her medic-orientated augments, only to let her spam selfheal with the medpacks even more effectively. This nullify’s Sparks’ role as a medic even further.”

They nerfed her medic-orientated augments, only to let her spam selfheal with the medpacks even more effectively.
sparks only depend on 2 things for her survival.
her speed
and her MEDPACK
YES! HER MEDPACK!
if sawbonez and aura gets a cool self healing, why dont sparks?
medic orientated augment?
good spark always charge her revivr and mantain situational awareness.

the reason for the charge augment is because maybe because they dont want 2 thunder revived in a very close range to their enemies and wrecked the game because thunder now a jumping gorilla on a rage train

Completely changes the role of bushwhacker…
haha.
hahahaha!
sheet son! tell me how faster deploy rate is not acceptable because your playstyle is not fluid?

Fragger’s nerf is practically needed because most of the time he dont need to be in a room to clear one. people use his health for survivability and rarely tanks.

Proxy’s buff. The worst thing about this WHOLE update in my eyes. This has killed my hopes that Splash Damage were maybe even HOPING for balance in this game. They made Proxy’s mines deploy about 0.2 seconds faster. Doesn’t sound like much, but it is. Now, I’m starting to see more Proxies running around frisbee-bombing groups of 3,4,5 players killing them instantly.

SOO…
you prefer fragger cooked grenade?
because in this situation where proxies throw their mines at enemies is definetly the same as fragger cooked grenade.
proxy is already squishy and cant take a single headshot burst.
if you cant kill a proxy charging at you its because you cant aim or you just cant shoot girls.

“Fletcher’s nerf is another one of these things I find to be pointless. As someone who mains Fletcher, this has made no difference.”

OF COURSE YA DIMWIT
this nerf is for noob fletcher that spams stickies at the ground and killing 80hp merc instantly with 2 stickies on the ground. Its not skilled fletcher mains! its for NOOB FLETCHER.
before the nerf i can easily clear a room with a fletcher throwing stickies at general direction.

[b][i]"I’m now going to give a quick opinionated rant about Splash Damage/Nexon in general:

They’re incompetent. Completely useless. They never interact with their community unless it’s releasing fan art or saying thanks for a donation on stream."[/i][/b]

its like you only watch yesterday stream…
you know what? saying incompetent, without understanding or knowing how to tweak the game and testing it rigorously before releasing it is very "DICK"material
Dont be a DICK

[blufflord]

“They’re incompetent. Completely useless. They never interact with their community unless it’s releasing fan art or saying thanks for a donation on stream.”

community stream every wednesday
involving youtubers to reveal the info on gen 2 cards
very active on the forums

[infernalHaven]

[quote=“BufflordAFK;180937”]“They’re incompetent. Completely useless. They never interact with their community unless it’s releasing fan art or saying thanks for a donation on stream.”

community stream every wednesday
involving youtubers to reveal the info on gen 2 cards
very active on the forums[/quote]

ah yes the 5 people with thousands of fans get noticed once every 6 months

quality

[infernalHaven]

[quote=“buffMonorail;180932”][quote=“infernalHaven;29336”]

Bushwhackers’ buff. Bushwhacker is a slow merc. The slow objective merc. He’s meant for slow, tactical play with his turret in clever positions to catch the enemy. The new update reduced his turret’s deploy time, making it a very aggressive and offensive deployable. This completely changes the role of Bushwhacker.

Fragger’s nerf. Why? I have barely anything to say about this apart from it’s changed nothing and a completely pointless change.

Proxy’s buff. The worst thing about this WHOLE update in my eyes. This has killed my hopes that Splash Damage were maybe even HOPING for balance in this game. They made Proxy’s mines deploy about 0.2 seconds faster. Doesn’t sound like much, but it is. Now, I’m starting to see more Proxies running around frisbee-bombing groups of 3,4,5 players killing them instantly. Absolutely not fair and unbalanced, and yes. This is objective. Not a single person with more than two braincells thinks that Proxy needed ANY sort of buff.

Fletcher’s nerf is another one of these things I find to be pointless. As someone who mains Fletcher, this has made no difference. The sticky bomb’s radial damage has been reduced by (5-10?) down to 85, meaning that’s the maximum you can deal with a single sticky without a direct stick. The direct stick damage remains at 100. Skilled Fletchers - The ones who cause all these balance problems - are very consistent at landing direct sticks, meaning this update only filters out unskilled Fletchers who will move over to unbalanced mercs such as Proxy.

[/quote]

I’d like to start off by saying a few things

1. If you can’t take criticism about this game, stop reading.
   
   “Sparks’ buff. Why did they decide to do this? In my own opinion, this is an absolutely idiotic decision by Splash Damage - They nerfed her medic-orientated augments, only to let her spam selfheal with the medpacks even more effectively. This nullify’s Sparks’ role as a medic even further.”

They nerfed her medic-orientated augments, only to let her spam selfheal with the medpacks even more effectively.
sparks only depend on 2 things for her survival.
her speed
and her MEDPACK
YES! HER MEDPACK!
if sawbonez and aura gets a cool self healing, why dont sparks?
medic orientated augment?
good spark always charge her revivr and mantain situational awareness.

the reason for the charge augment is because maybe because they dont want 2 thunder revived in a very close range to their enemies and wrecked the game because thunder now a jumping gorilla on a rage train

Completely changes the role of bushwhacker…
haha.
hahahaha!
sheet son! tell me how faster deploy rate is not acceptable because your playstyle is not fluid?

Fragger’s nerf is practically needed because most of the time he dont need to be in a room to clear one. people use his health for survivability and rarely tanks.

Proxy’s buff. The worst thing about this WHOLE update in my eyes. This has killed my hopes that Splash Damage were maybe even HOPING for balance in this game. They made Proxy’s mines deploy about 0.2 seconds faster. Doesn’t sound like much, but it is. Now, I’m starting to see more Proxies running around frisbee-bombing groups of 3,4,5 players killing them instantly.

SOO…
you prefer fragger cooked grenade?
because in this situation where proxies throw their mines at enemies is definetly the same as fragger cooked grenade.
proxy is already squishy and cant take a single headshot burst.
if you cant kill a proxy charging at you its because you cant aim or you just cant shoot girls.

“Fletcher’s nerf is another one of these things I find to be pointless. As someone who mains Fletcher, this has made no difference.”

OF COURSE YA DIMWIT
this nerf is for noob fletcher that spams stickies at the ground and killing 80hp merc instantly with 2 stickies on the ground. Its not skilled fletcher mains! its for NOOB FLETCHER.
before the nerf i can easily clear a room with a fletcher throwing stickies at general direction.

[b][i]"I’m now going to give a quick opinionated rant about Splash Damage/Nexon in general:

They’re incompetent. Completely useless. They never interact with their community unless it’s releasing fan art or saying thanks for a donation on stream."[/i][/b]

its like you only watch yesterday stream…
you know what? saying incompetent, without understanding or knowing how to tweak the game and testing it rigorously before releasing it is very "DICK"material
Dont be a DICK[/quote]

You’re so dumb, it’s unbelievable. Defending this piece of shit game…

medic’s role shouldn’t be to survive. Especially sparks. She should sit at the back of a group and revive people. If you’re in with the crowd, why not play another medic?

2. it’s the meta of the game that’s changing, just trying to speed everything up bc they realise their game is dying

3. fragger didn’t need a nerf, he was fine.

4. can’t even defend proxy, there is no defending proxy. instead goes to unrelated argument about fragger

5. The people who cry about fletcher are the ones who play against good players. this makes 0 difference to them.

6. ah yes the good old rigorous testing that means they still need to fix 30 bugs every major update.

or the fact that they implement changes without any community thoughts or input

or the fact that they show blatant favouritism towards the US playerbase due to their maintenance timing

Want me to keep going, or have you realised SD are garbage yet?

[Dysfnal1]

The proxy buff was to improve her in the competitive field, pubs aren’t the only part of this game you know

She got lock on because elite players can escape the explosion, noobs are going to die anyway

[neverplayseriou]

The proxy buff was to improve her in the competitive field, pubs aren’t the only part of this game you know

Making mines deploy or throw faster (not to sure about faster) and further (from what I’ve seen) isn’t gonna make her more used in the competititve scene, it’s just gonna make more suicidal proxies throwing their mines and then shooting them.

[ZeSpecter]

[quote=“BufflordAFK;180937”]“They’re incompetent. Completely useless. They never interact with their community unless it’s releasing fan art or saying thanks for a donation on stream.”

community stream every wednesday
involving youtubers to reveal the info on gen 2 cards
very active on the forums[/quote]

Yet they prove over and over again that they have no clue whatsoever about what the community really wants. Literally no clue. Sounds like incompetence to me.

[Dysfnal1]

@infernalHaven 4)a Fragger can do the so called suicide better than a proxy with a properly cooked grenade. @buffMonorail has a very valid point, you’re simply oblivious to that fact. Fragger has far more survivability compared to proxy, doesn’t need to get close to his enemies, doesn’t have a backpedal counter, he doesn’t even need LINE OF SIGHT.

[blonk]

[quote=“infernalHaven;180911”][quote=“blonk;180906”][quote=“infernalHaven;29336”]

1. If you can’t take criticism about this game, stop reading.
   [/quote]

Dirty bomb forum’s 2016 tagline!

If you have a difference of opinion, stop reading
Proxy is your bae? Stop reading
If you can’t read, stop reading

Just stop reading.[/quote]

Basically, because a ton of this game’s players are too blind to see its flaws and will defend it to the death without a clue what they’re talking about.[/quote]

The people who defend the game to death don’t hang around here too much, at least from what I can see. I’d shout about how awesome this game is from the rooftops, but I’m not going to be jumping on any grenades for SD’s behaviour. This new update, even if you don’t agree with some of the balance changes, is a step in the right direction. There’s enough meat on this to keep me going for months getting loadouts and playing with the adjusted Phantom/Thunder, not like the ReV update where it was just hopelessly plugging away for cycles, stupid RNG cases and trinkeets (Aimee is fun but I’ve barely played her in all honesty). If they dropped a map bombshell on us within the next month I’d be pleased as punch. I think your disparaging comments about SD are also pretty unfair and make your post seem rather spiteful, even if the rest of it is solid discussion.

On one particular point though, on Phantom’s EMP field: Last night I followed a friendly Phantom into the curry house on Chapel. Looking around the corner, trying to see if any cheekym7s are hanging about on the stairwell, but after a few moments there was a collosal bang and I went flying. Why? Because Phantom had disabled a mine behind the little wooden blockade at the entrance, and it reactivated while I was stood there.

I have no idea if that’s a pro or a con.