What if...you would have to use all your three mercs?

[_retired]

I am all for freedom and all that jazz but…this idea (that probably has been discussed at least in some form before) came to my mind during holiday.

So what if you would have to use all of your three mercs during the match?

I mean it would increase the tactical decisions making aspect and also cause players would play other characters than their “favourite merc” (Phantom anyone?) all the time?
Also it would help with possible Rhino or similar merc boom problem (often caused by free rotation) since once you finish that merc he couldn’t appear until the player plays the two other characters before that?

It could be based into either timer or number of spawns.
Example
If you first play with Sawbones for too long according to timer (number of times you die doesn’t matter), you might not have time to play with him until the end of his “cooldown”.
OR
If you choose to play Sawbonez first and die, you have to play your other picks Proxy and Fragger before you can return to Sawbonez.
It would also open up all new tactical scenarios especially for competitive play.

Is this utterly stupid idea or am I into something here?

(Personally I play with all kinds of mercs available and it offers me a challenge to pick different mercs. Sometimes I end up playing with Nader for long time mainly because there aren’t many similar characters on the line up to clear out rooms and help with area/crown control. Same applies to playing medic/engi/fire support like Arty etc.)

[Yes]

No, forcing players to use something is almost never good.

[_retired]

[quote=“Clown;70820”]No, forcing players to use something is almost never good.[/quote]That was my first thought too. I just don’t think it is as simple as idealistical and theoretical “forcing is almost never good”.

How this differs that you are forced to use specific weapons for all mercs or choosing three mercs for your team instead all of them? Doesn’t it limit your choices already?

Reason for this idea is also that death/finish of that merc is then more important since you know you cannot just respawn with that merc immediately or you must use that merc in that time of the match.
It would of course quite tactical dimensions to the use of spawn timer.

Even though forced it offers versatility of play because of this and players can of course choose three types of characters that are similar to each other to the match if they want.

Do you have anything else against it but that it “forces something”?

How many times people have noticed the same Vasili taking shot after shot picking your team apart from that same place where you just killed him?
And if you kill him just before spawn, he appears there seconds later instagibbing again.

[Ardez1]

Probably a bad idea, in particular because of the missions that force you to include mercs you may not like in your squad. For example, I had 3 missions in a row that said to bring Rhino. At that point I was sick of playing him, so I just brought him along and used Sawbonez or Nader during the match.

I generally get some use out of all of my mercs during a match depending on the situation(unless I ONLY brought them for a mission(but then sometimes I do play them as well, in particular Arty :))) Using all of your mercs should be up the player, and switching is generally situational. It should never be forced. For example a lot of times in pubs there may only be 1 or 2 medics on a team. If they don’t like Aura should they be forced to play Aura if their time is up on Sawbonez or Sparks(If they even bring her)? And if they don’t bring another medic does that team get forced out of having potentially competent medics? Same goes for ammo or a particularly good Fragger, etc.

I can understand trying something new and growing as a player, but it should be the players choice when they want to try something different. A feature like this would be sure to drive plenty of people away because it takes away enjoyment.

On the 2nd potential suggestion ~
And it wouldn’t open up tactical scenario as much as it would force players to kill out to get to the next merc their team needs. “Our medic just died, kill out so you can be medic on next wave. Oh crap, now we need another fire support too. I’ll kill out for that. Damn! We will need to you to kill out and switch to assault to cover the next gap.”

And the cycle continues

And it wouldn be what I said above or it would be forcing the medic player to bring 3 medics and the assault to bring 3 assaults, etc. And just because you bring somebody doesn’t mean you like them. Skyhammer for example is a common merc to bring simply because you can quickly shutdown an EV and switch out to your main again.

Another example, Vassili isn’t great for every objective. Sometimes another merc would be more useful. But you bring vassili because he CAN be useful in the right scenario.

If your team holds that objective for a long time should you be forced to switch? If you get into a sniper duel and get picked should you not be allowed to continue the duel until you die more to cycle back to him?

I’d say no, based on all of the reasons I gave above.

[Yes]

[quote=“crabbyDimension;70822”][quote=“Clown;70820”]No, forcing players to use something is almost never good.[/quote]That was my first thought too. I just don’t think it is as simple as idealistical and theoretical “forcing is almost never good”.

How this differs that you are forced to use specific weapons for all mercs or choosing three mercs for your team instead all of them? Doesn’t it limit your choices already?
[/quote]
Because weapons are limited for balance, this isn’t for balance.

Do you have anything else against it but that it “forces something”?

Yes. Think about a situation of where the team needs a medic, but the people with medics in their squad can’t use it because of this rule. Same with fire support or engineers or any other role.

All this would do is prevent people from playing their favourite merc or using a merc that would benefit the team.

[Ctrix]

But… I already do that

[Fiktio]

Phantom!

Anyways, the idea is interesting and would indeed bring some tactics on the table what comes about competitive gameplay. I see positive things and negative things in this idea, so I’m not completely against your idea.
However I like the idea of being able to choose your mercs and where and when you use them.

For example if my team is defending, (especially in Chapel) I’m often using Vasilli for sniping.
Most of the time I’m using Phantom for aggressive gameplay. (And for those people that would like to note now that Phantom’s abilities aren’t at the best shape right now, I would like to say back that I would play with Phantom anyways, even without abilities. )

But what comes about preferences, being able to play as medic of the team is interesting, so I can clearly see myself using Phoenix often in the future.
However difference between public and competitive gameplay is sometimes important to realize and for example while I love playing as Phantom in public games, I would like to test Phoenix in competitive match. And this is the part when in my eyes it’s not good idea to “force” people to play with another merc instead of preferring one merc all the time.
In competitive matches some teams are thinking carefully what kind of team set up would be the best and allowing players to play with exact merc they want is a positive thing.
Of course these players could pick up 3 mercs from the same class, but it’s different story would they enjoy to play with them all.
Though if that situation would happen that all medics are dead and they aren’t allowed to use the medic merc again, the situation in whole team can turn quickly around.

[Faraleth]

People almost always “force” me to play someone useful (like Sparks or Fletcher) when I just want to prance around as Nader or Phantom for a bit of fun, because no one will do the objective or play medic. Sooooo… -shrugs- I’m fine how it is.

I like the fact that you’ve come up with an idea, I just don’t think it will work practically I can see where you’re coming from though…

[Gi.Am]

Technicaly I don’t think its a bad idea, I mean I can see how this could make a game more interesting. But things like this have to be there from day 1. tagging it into a game latter on, will never fly with the majority of players.

Especially in DB one of the things that would happen with this change is that it pretty much prevents any and all lemming atempts, as I said I could see this in a game that is designed from the ground to support such mechanic.
But it would kill a large part of the DB gameflow because suddenly noone would atempt risky play in fear of loosing their current merc. Side problem you would get less diverse squads, instead of picking 3 mercs from 3 different classes. To do as many different jobs as possible depending on the situation, people would resort to stacking 3 mercs of the same class. Just to ensure they can atleast always do the class job.

As far as making the game more interesting for yourself, personaly I place whatever mission merc I get in the first spot, and play that one as much as possible no matter how bad I suck with that merc.
Keeps things fresh. Adds more joy when it picks one of my favourite mercs. And last but not least I learn valuable things about every merc I own that will help me defeating said merc.

[Daergar1]

No.

Each of my mercs have a purpose on the map, even if one might not be the ideal choice due to hourly missions.

Being forced to use merc A for situation/position B would be very silly.

[Draza]

I hate it when people dislike the post when they just disagree…

[_retired]

So…You won’t be joining me for the effort of open letter to SD about it? :heartbreak:

:lol:

Seriously, very good commentary from everyone.

[quote=“Ctrix;70828”]But… I already do that[/quote]Yeah, me too. U see, I might be partial to this since I do that all the time and maybe I just expect same kind of versatility from the rest of the players in both teams.

I was plaing Chapel with Vassili for defence and in the final third I ended up always to the left balcony from the defender spawn. The opposition team probably hated me since I was killed/retrieved/finished and again I was back there instagibbing them.
Sometimes right after I was killed with some good nades.
I thought: “well, this kind of sucks even though we’re winning and I’m killing…”

Sometimes it irritates me to see that same dudes are playing the same mercs all the time during the match because it kind of makes it all going around and around same circles. Especially since the game is based into spawn timer and many don’t care if they die since they are there doing the same thing again anyways.
OR
they have replanned and already “proven method” for each merc for each map. I personally hate it. Why?
Because it’s not spontaneous offering each time different kind of scenarios to face and counter.

Actually…my idea spawned (pun intented) from the opposite.
I thought each player could choose one merc from each class to their team for the match (total of five) and could use example three of them. I tried to figure out how to…well, force people play different classes and mercs inside the team.

I might return later to answer rest of you but there aren’t that many things to say since I don’t really disagree about many of the points.
Even though I like to play devil’s advocate now and then I realize not all people are all too comfy about the forcing part, let alone that it would have quite an impact to many things in squad selection and spawning of specific classes.

It’s possible others don’t see the problems I see with “playing my favourite merc all the time” or “merc a for problem a is the solution instead of trying to solve it with merc b”.
I seek solutions to a problem that do not exist for other people and offer an idea that has a root to create more problems for other people.

Thanks for all of your comments.

[Eox]

It could work as an optional rule I guess. I’m not fond of your idea though.

[Gi.Am]

Yeah I’m with Eox here, sounds to me that having a random mode, similar to the MOBA “all random all mid” modes, would accomplish the same thing (mixing things up from time to time) without breaking the whole game.

Could be something like, you get 1 Merc at random either for the whole game, or every respawn, likewise the loadout is random aswell. Would be total mayhem, but as a special server mode I would take it (still more interesting as straight up TDM).

Might even generate some loadout/skin/Merc longing and therefore income for Nexon/SD (if random includes all loadouts, mercs not only the one you own).

[Amerika]

[quote=“Gi.Am;70865”]Yeah I’m with Eox here, sounds to me that having a random mode, similar to the MOBA “all random all mid” modes, would accomplish the same thing (mixing things up from time to time) without breaking the whole game.

Could be something like, you get 1 Merc at random either for the whole game, or every respawn, likewise the loadout is random aswell. Would be total mayhem, but as a special server mode I would take it (still more interesting as straight up TDM).

Might even generate some loadout/skin/Merc longing and therefore income for Nexon/SD (if random includes all loadouts, mercs not only the one you own).[/quote]

You know that mode in CS pubs where when you get a kill with a gun you switch guns? That mode with guns + mercs would be kind of funny. Not saying we should have it, especially not right now, but it would be kind of fun. It’s popular in CS for a reason afterall.

But yeah, forcing people to do anything without giving them a choice is just bad business.

[_Sniff]

I would stop playing 1/3 through every game and go to another server.