Upcoming Phantom Changes

(Smooth) #1

Hey all,

With the recent release we reworked Phantom to improve his viability and utility to the team. Part of the issue with Phantom was that he was often spotted before getting behind enemy lines and be useful, we aimed to address this by toning down his visibility while his Refractive Suit was active, but we went a bit too far.

Next week we’ll be releasing an update to make Phantom’s Refractive Suit distortion effect noticeably more visible when active. He’s not going to be quite as visible as prior to the Hunter update but it will be a lot closer than it is currently.

We’re also going to be increasing the sound the Refractive Suit emits when active so it’s noticeably louder. The combination of these changes will make it easier to detect a Phantom when he gets close to you, giving players a better chance to react before he attacks.

As always, we’ll be keeping a close eye on balance after these changes. It’s likely that there will be future tweaks to the Phantom rework if things don’t settle down.

(watsyurdeal) #2

Why not just change the time it takes to deactivate cloak instead of changing his visibility?

(arharr3) #3

So technically the only change to pre-buff Phantom is that his EMP will no longer be always active while still being locked to the cloak.
Really, just add the uncloaking delay which you scrapped for unknown reasons or risk returning him to the old trash state of being spotted across the map in an instant.

(l2c) #4

Will you be less visible when crouching/walking then?

(K1X455) #5

OMG… so after crying casuals got butt hert, he’s going to get nerfed to uselessness again.

(cakeblock941) #6

Or instead of making him more like pre-rework phantom, add a decloak delay and have 100% invisibility so it becomes more of a “rework”.
This would make Phantom a real flanking merc, as he would not be able to be seen by people with even the best eyes, and not be a “stand in doorway and wait to stab Auras” merc.

(Guziol) #7

RIP phantom. Just make it so he is way more visible when taking damage while invis and give people some time to adjust and then take another look at him.

(Guziol) #8

@K1X455 said:
OMG… so after crying casuals got butt hert, he’s going to get nerfed to uselessness again.

That has never happend before cough thunder cough

(pumpkinmeerkat) #9

@watsyurdeal said:
Why not just change the time it takes to deactivate cloak instead of changing his visibility?

This. Or specifically require manual decloak to provide a delay before attacking. The direction seems to be allow him to get behind enemy lines unannounced for flanks. With these nerfs it seems like he’ll function the same as before, just with slightly more EMP control. The only annoying thing currently is that melee kills from cloak specifically seems easier and one hit kill mechanics aren’t fun in general. Something the community has been vocal about forever…

@Faraleth even mentioned a delay in dev update video before release.

(Eox) #10

@watsyurdeal said:
Why not just change the time it takes to deactivate cloak instead of changing his visibility?

Exactly.

Nerfing how “visible” the invisibility is will either make it too visible or not change too much. At the very least I don’t see how a middle ground can be achieved with that. Better introduce a change that doesn’t mess with the usefulness of his invisibility but just give to all players better time to react.

The sound increase of the refractive armor however is a very good change overall.

(ValyrianKaos) #11

@K1X455 said:
OMG… so after crying casuals got butt hert, he’s going to get nerfed to uselessness again.

Casuals lmao. The casuals are the ones who are playing phantom in the 1st place. To get easy kills. This is nowhere near good enough of a Nerf either. Not gonna make people come back to the game as he just isn’t fun to play against. They need to drill that into there head. They are cheap kills which are just frustrating to die to. You have not been outplayed fairly.

Why are they insisting he is good. He is what ruins the game so make him hard to use. Stop going back to this waste of space merc no1 likes to fight against and changes the whole dynamic of the game.

(SiwaonaDaphnewen) #12

Well.

What do we have?

  1. Phantom will be less visible than before patch, but more visible than atm. That’s kinda better i guess.

  2. Change that will not be reverted is immunity to spot abilities. That’s something I disagree.

It is a subject on which merc should counter which and everybody would have their own opinion. I think Vassili should be able to spot Phantom for his team, Red eye should be able to see Phantom, but not spot him and Aimee should be unable to spot him. That would be interesting recon balance distribution.

  1. EMP will remain as it is. Still bound to usage of refractive armor. Phantom will remain useless for a team play. Even more useless because specificly as EMP the passive ability was actually better.

Refractive armor is a lone-wolf concept ability. You can improve it in many ways but that won’t suddenly create a utility for him. With current Phantom concept the EMP is area where he should be buffed and there are a lot of awesome ideas to do so but SD just keeps ignoring it. Yet there were other concepts to replace EMP with something yet again usefull, but no!

(Vkusenb) #13

If they will add the delay before you can attack, phantom will be broken. Imho.

(zykeroth) #14

I really don’t understand these kinds of changes.
Common consensus: needs a delay so katana rushing is unviable and so the player actually needs to think his attack.
Result: special ability further diluted.

We’ll see how this plays out; but is the ease of implementation really more important than what’s implemented?

Edit: in hindsight, it’s probably the best fast fix they can do. Fixes OP-ness but not the fundamental problem.

(Jigstraw) #15

As both someone that played phantom before the update, and hates playing AND playing against phantom post-update, the BEST change you could make is adding a delay or uncloaking animation that prevents him from immediately attacking directly from invisibility. You know, like every other invisible character in every pvp FPS game ever? It’s the most common balance tweak for invisibility abilities because it’s the most effective at keeping them from being overpowered, while still allowing them to be useful as a tool to safely take a position that gives you some kind of advantage before engaging the enemy, whether that be taking high ground unnoticed, or getting behind enemy lines and shooting them in the back while your team attacks them from the front.

Not a single person has ever enjoyed taking 60-103 damage instantly from an invisible enemy with zero time to react. You guys seem to have a lot more focus on making mercs that are fun to play, and not nearly enough on making them fun to play against. Even disregarding phantom for a moment, javelin is still one of the most hated mercs in the game because of the use of her rocket as a panic button to get out of any gunfight that isn’t going well for her, or picking ONE person on the enemy team and keeping them stuck waiting to respawn for 90% of the match by using the rocket on them after every spawn wave. Not overpowered, but very cheap, and very annoying. That last bit also applies to Thunder. Getting a little off topic here, but my point is you guys need to put a little more effort into making mercs less frustrating to play against, because the game is really getting to be unenjoyable with so many crutch mechanics that take little to no skill to use, but can often result in kills, regardless of the difference in two player’s skill levels.

(sdric) #16

I just wished you scrapped the Katana-kill-machine-fantasy and made him a true flanker instead.

There’s 2 options to allow him to properly reposition (without teleporting):
1.) His stealth has to last longer so he can cover more ground, or…
2.) …he has to move faster during stealth.
If he does it needs a startup delay time makes it so that he can’t simply dash away mid fight.

Why a speedboost is the healthier solution:
A shorter duration forces the player to act and seize a window of opportunity. It’s more tactical than an alternative which allows camping an waiting for a good situation (instead of creating a good scenario for yourself).
Also: Your teammates won’t like it if you remain stealthed doing nothing for too long.
Thus I consider a shorter duration + speedboost with startup delay a very good solution.

The suggestion:

  • Grant full invisibility
  • Set activation time to 0.425s
  • 9 seconds duration
  • Movementspeed increased by 66% during cloak
  • Unstealth delay (=unable to attack or shoot)1.25s. Fading from from full invisbility to visibility during the first 1s.

That way he can get into the backline and surprise enemies from behind, even by running through an open field or enemy team. He could reposition incredibly fast - BUT not instagib enemies out of stealth.
Currently his stealth essentially is full-invisibility depending on your graphic settings which is broken in itself and near impossible to balance.

(Eox) #17

@sdric said:

I just wished you scrapped the Katana-kill-machine-fantasy and made him a true flanker instead.

There’s 2 options to allow him to properly reposition (without teleporting):
1.) His stealth has to last longer so he can cover more ground, or…
2.) …he has to move faster during stealth.
If he does it needs a startup delay time makes it so that he can’t simply dash away mid fight.

Why a speedboost is the healthier solution:
A shorter duration forces the player to act and seize a window of opportunity. It’s more tactical than an alternative which allows camping an waiting for a good situation (instead of creating a good scenario for yourself).
Also: Your teammates won’t like it if you remain stealthed doing nothing for too long.
Thus I consider a shorter duration + speedboost with startup delay a very good solution.

The suggestion:

  • Grant full invisibility
  • Set activation time to 0.425s
  • 9 seconds duration
  • Movementspeed increased by 66% during cloak
  • Unstealth delay (=unable to attack or shoot)1.25s. Fading from from full invisbility to visibility during the first 1s.

That way he can get into the backline and surprise enemies from behind, even by running through an open field or enemy team. He could reposition incredibly fast - BUT not instagib enemies out of stealth.
Currently his stealth essentially is full-invisibility depending on your graphic settings which is broken in itself and near impossible to balance.

It was tried before, and it was overpowered. Full invis is unlikely to ever come back. Also, such a ridiculous movement speed increase isn’t needed at all.

(Mr.Cuddlesworth) #18

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(watsyurdeal) #19

@Smooth @shoe @Exedore

I could edit my previous post, but I rather have a separate post that goes in depth into things here and really expands what you are doing right.

The cloak in it’s current stage, is one of them. I am of the opinion that cloak should be 100% invis, but this 95% invis, or whatever it is, is actually really good. It’s distinct and meshes well with the game, and it makes sense with the faster pace of it than most games, like TF2 for example that it’s often compared to.

I also approve of the audio change, as if a Phantom is within a striking distance with his Katana he should definitely be audible somehow, a faint but noticeable noise is a perfect compromise.

However, changing the visibility at this stage is a step back in the WRONG direction, because now he can actually flank and get past most players unless you have the most acute vision, which in itself you could argue is skill at this point. And going back on that will just put him in the same state as he was before the update, which is essentially just throwing away your work to improve him.

What you should do instead is have a delay, and ensure that Phantom cannot attack until he is fully visible by the enemy, so they have enough time to face Phantom and retaliate. And if it currently is in the game, it should be made longer to allow players a more reasonable time to react.

How it could work ideally, is the player turns off cloak, the animation takes about 0.5 seconds to fully complete, then after it completes Phantom can begin his attack. This is the optimal solution to your problem as it adds counter play that EVERY one can do, regardless of merc, plus, this time to decloak is fitting of the pacing of the game. People make the comparison to TF2 often but Dirty Bomb is an entirely different ball game. 1 second to decloak and attack is far too long, half a second is right smack in the middle between the average ttk for headshots, and bodyshots on most weapons as evidenced in this sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lfrz5hOUaihkviy1VIPo4-aCy7hKnMm8y7W4g269t6E/edit

And on top of that, it’s double the average reaction time of some of your player base, as evidenced by this thread here, that I did quite a while ago: http://forums.dirtybomb.com/discussion/24086/so-three-questions-id-like-to-ask-you-all/p1

Your direction is good, you’re on the right path to basically having Phantom at a state of perfection. But changing the visibility is just creating more work for you in the future, I strongly urge you redirect your attention to adding a delay between non attack and attack states for Phantom. Work smarter not harder my bros, and keep up the good work.

(Faceglitch) #20

@K1X455 said:
OMG… so after crying casuals got butt hert, he’s going to get nerfed to uselessness again.

Have you played a game with 3 phantoms in the enemy team? Its a pain trust me. U just hear the stab and ur dead.