What sort of a grind is needed to gain a competetive level of unlocks?

(pinkClaymore) #1

I’ve played games which require you to grind for hundreds of hours before having a proper amount of unlocks to be able to fully explore the competitive environment. I know the game has levels but how is the unlocking system? When do you have all classes with the weapons of your choosing?

If the game is aiming to be a competitive shooter in even vaguely similiar manner that CS:GO is at the moment the grind should be short. This is because I can’t invest vast amounts of time into a game that I don’t even know I’m going to enjoy as a competitive environment.

(adeto) #2

Most of the people I know were able to reach level 7 (the level needed for MM) in about 20~ hours. However unlocking all the mercs will take you A LOT longer than that, if you are into competitive DB I do really recommend just buying the merc starter pack on steam so you have atleast the basic classes/roles covered. Acquiring the best loadout cards can take 5 minutes and 20 hours depending on how lucky you are. Got imo the best ones pretty fast. Feel free to reply with questions :slight_smile:

(pinkClaymore) #3

What’s the maximum amount of grind you can bypass with how much money?

20 hours just to get into matchmaking and then a lot more to unlock stuff sounds already like a huge investment. I want to play the game because I like the teamplay priority compared to CS. In the sense in this game a single player is not as likely to win for the entire team.

(Ardez1) #4

The grind isn’t that bad, and the game is quite a lot of fun imho. As a headsup, the grind to access ranked doesn’t really matter much atm. Mostly because actively searching for a game takes quite awhile with the current population. If you get in now and just play to enjoy the game(and practice learning the maps and guns) you will unlock ranked before you learn even half of what you need to know(unreleased mercs and new maps, etc.) I have over 80 hours of playtime since they went live, but I am still learning things every day in this game.

As far as unlocks on loadouts to be competitive, again that is personal preference. You might get the cards you need asap from a case, or it might take you awhile to be where you want. One thing you will need to know, there are 6 bronze loadouts, 7 silver and 8 gold for each merc. This means you can get most of the loadouts at bronze tier. What I do when I am looking for a good loadout is just make a bunch of bronze for that merc and pick the one that looks best. You can always try for the more rare loadouts at silver and gold later. It really comes down to teamwork and skill that wins games though.

(Zenity) #5

[quote=“pinkClaymore;14455”]What’s the maximum amount of grind you can bypass with how much money?

20 hours just to get into matchmaking and then a lot more to unlock stuff sounds already like a huge investment. I want to play the game because I like the teamplay priority compared to CS. In the sense in this game a single player is not as likely to win for the entire team.[/quote]

You can unlock all current mercs with 20 bucks if you get the starter pack and spend your gold bonus and starter bonuses on Bushwhacker. 30 if you buy Bushwhacker instead to spend the gold on crates/tradeups. You currently cannot buy extra gold or crates.

If we assume that new mercs will be released with a starting price of 10 bucks and you always buy them as they come out, you’ll probably pay a couple of hundred tops once the game is more mature. That’s a lot less than what would be required for LoL for example, and of course realistically you will unlock most of your stuff for free instead.

Things to note:

You really don’t need all the mercs to be competitive. There are no merc limits like there are in LoL, and even the two free starter mercs are currently top meta. Even having one meta merc should be enough at all times to play competitive, as long as your team can fill in the other roles.

Loadouts are random/grinded only for now, but don’t have a huge impact on gameplay. I could give you all the details, but the bottom line is that unless you are playing at a top level, it doesn’t really matter. And there is a very good chance that there will be an alternative mode for top level competition which will put everybody on an equal playing field.

Realistically, you will spend far more time just learning the game than grinding before you can properly play competitively.

Also like others have said, due to the game being in closed beta, there isn’t really an active competitive scene yet. It’s mostly a handful of really strong teams, which use matchmaking to play against each other (there are no private servers yet), so it wouldn’t be easy for new teams to break into this.

I wouldn’t expect this to change until the game goes open beta, but if you plan is to play competitively I’d still recommend to get the game now and start practicing on pubs. :slight_smile:

(Runeforce) #6

The most time effecient way to grind a merc would be via. the daily quest system. There are three quests per day for 600 credits each. They take sixty to ninety minutes total to complete. You get aproximately 180 credits for fifteen minutes spend actively on a server. There are some other credit bonuses, like a 40-50% win bonus, and penalties and downtime, but let us ignore all that. So if you spend ninety minutes per day, it will approximately take you twentysix hours over a period of seventeen days, to unlock one merc worth 50k credits or €10.

Of course this is all subject to change.

(pinkClaymore) #7

Ok guys thanks for the replies. If you have something to add keep em coming.

To the devs I want to say that it’s very contradictory to make a competitive game with an unlock system for a casual game. You can say that you need time to learn the game but from a competitive player stand point that is bullshit. If you don’t give me the tools for what the competitive environment will be then I can’t start learning those tools. So for someone who wants to play competitive but isn’t interested in indulging in the time consuming grind you are creating a barrier to play your game. An extra step I have to be willing to make to be able to play this competitive game. To me this is looks like driving your core audience away.

So either be a competitive game with competitive integrity or be a casual game for the player who wants to grind. Current competitive king is CS:GO. There’s no need to “dethrown” CS, not like it could be done. But you have to consider that any player will make a choice between the options available and currently CS is the best.

Current best teamwork leaning FPS arena shooter would probably be TF2, which also has a competitive scene. Well “best” in the sense of player numbers. I don’t know about you guys but to me TF2 crosses the line between an FPS and something else. I have no interest to even try that game. To me Dirty bomb still is in the FPS realm.

But still I will probably get this game in the near future because there is a vacuum in teamwork weighted FPS games. There is a shit ton of competitive arena FPSs but usually they lean towards individual skill. The game seems interesting in it’s mechanics but if I had the alternative with something that didn’t require a grind I would choose that.

[quote=“Zenity;14653”][quote=“pinkClaymore;14455”]
Realistically, you will spend far more time just learning the game than grinding before you can properly play competitively.

Also like others have said, due to the game being in closed beta, there isn’t really an active competitive scene yet. It’s mostly a handful of really strong teams, which use matchmaking to play against each other (there are no private servers yet), so it wouldn’t be easy for new teams to break into this.

I wouldn’t expect this to change until the game goes open beta, but if you plan is to play competitively I’d still recommend to get the game now and start practicing on pubs. :)[/quote]

You can’t start to learn the competitive environment until you have the tools for it. If you are playing on half unlocks then that is the game you are learning, not the one with full unlocks.

If you have any matches of good teams you’d want to show I’d love to see. So far I’ve seen strong FPS players forming weak teams. You can have all the skill in this type of game but teamwork and position is in a strong role when compared to a game like CS, though CS does have a lot of teamwork elements which you need, but overall it gives more credence to individual skill.

Do the unlocks stay from beta? I’d assume there’s gonna be a wipe for launch.

(Runeforce) #8

The unlocks stay. There will be no more wipes. The community manager over at SD forums said I could quote him on that. Even though it’s still officially called ‘closed beta’ we are in a very, very late stage of it. The game has been in developement for four years and the community got invited and have been playing it since 2012. I was quite surprised that, with the ‘startpack’ launch on Steam, it did not officially go into ‘open beta’. because that is effectively what it is, since you can buy your way in. One of the major focuses at this point in time, seem to be the ui and unlock system, as well as the loadout cards (as well as a lot of ‘under-the-hood’ stuff, and maps.) Gameplay mechanics and class and weapon balancing will of course recieve fine tunings, but it has been tested and iterated over the years, so dramatic changes are unlikely to occour.

(Zenity) #9

No, they are creating an alternative to paying for the game, which is good to create a larger playerbase. Unlocking everything in the game right now will only cost you a very fair amount (20 bucks as it stands). You may pay more of course as new content is released, but that is also fair considering that the game is in continuous development (which traditionally has only been possible with monthly subscriptions or F2P models. Valve is an exception due to the behemoth cash cow that is Steam).

The cost of entry may rise in the future, but we can cross that bridge when we get there. Most likely there will always be bundles and deals to keep the game affordable for newcomers who don’t want to grind.

(pinkClaymore) #10

No, they are creating an alternative to paying for the game, which is good to create a larger playerbase.
[/quote]

Well for me the effect is is a grind. 20 bucks doesn’t unlock everything I’ve unlocked around 60+ boxes and spent around 15k in game cash to upgrade cards and so far I have zero gold cards.

Also I’m level 6 now and I am just playing the game to get to matchmaking so I can start playing with my team.

Yeah it’s not P2W but you also can’t deny newer players have a pure disadvantage over not having the cards. The bronze cards are decent and fairly easy to get so it’s not that great of a problem. But getting even the 1 gold card you want is a considerable investment of time. I’d guess it would be about 100 bucks to get the card line up needed. So I guess that’s a fair price.

(Ardez1) #11

I’m at level 10 with roughly 85 hours gametime since it went live. That includes loading and afk time at menus. I have 4 gold cards, 1 I pulled from a case. 1 Skyhammer(crafted), 2 Sawbonez(1 from case, 1 crafted), and 1 Bushwhacker(crafted). I have opened tons of cases(mostly from drops, as they aren’t worth buying). I have those gold cards at the cost of all my silver and bronze options. They aren’t bad, but I am certain I had better silver cards before I upgraded to gold. Gold really isn’t worth it unless you get 1 of the 3-4 good cards each merc has. 6 of the available gold and silver cards have a bronze version. Silver has 1 additional card and gold has 1 more(total of 8). Tough to get them though. I literally have 1 additional silver and bronze card on top of my golds.

It is fairly quick to hit level 7 if you dedicate some time each night to play. I would suggest Objective mode for earning EXP, as stopwatch can wildly vary on EXP earn(although stopwatch is a better mode, you really need to communicate to pull it off well). Objective will end a 1 sided game very quickly, where in stopwatch a 1 sided game could take 20+ minutes easily.

(Runeforce) #12

With the recent changes to the quest system, you would now be able to unlock a 50k merc, via constantly questing, by spending 90 minutes pr. session and as often as possible (every 3 hours), be using approximately 26 hours, over a period of 54 hours.

So the grind itself has not changed much, but the minimum amount of time you can do it in to maximize your efficiency, ‘lost time’, has, from 17 days down to to 54 hours(!) If you use more time then the 54 hour period, like only doing one 90 minute session pr. day instead of 8, your total grind, the 26 hours, will drop to about 20 hours over 16 days. So for casuals, the grind has been slightly lessened. For hardcore players in a hurry, the amount of grind is the same as grinding dailies before the recent patch, but you can do it such a shorter period of real time, time you most likely would have spend on the game anyway, so it’s a HUGE CHANGE in earnings and a DRAMATIC REDUCTION in ‘lost time’ to players that use a lot of time on the game.