What we can learn from the first Dirty Cup

(prophett) #21

[QUOTE=Anti;527474]
I agree with adeto a lot of that was maybe down to a lack of practice and strat brainstorming time on servers[/QUOTE]

I think everyone would very much appreciate access to some private servers in order to practice more and develop these strategies. Lots of great ideas but it’s hard to test them on pubs, or properly explain them while in warmup waiting to scrim.

It was interesting to see ET strats evolve over time - ie. the ET Supply stairwell flamethrower D, to an upper room D, to a more aggressive depot D, etc…

Looking forward to see what people come up with in DB. Show me private servers and i’ll show you the Skyhammer team-wipe strat on final Chapel (just need some practice) :slight_smile:

(Szakalot) #22

I think since the deploy time nerf, Aura’s station could be buffed to be closer to Bushwhacker’s turret, and act as a real fortification device.

(spookify) #23

[QUOTE=prophett;527497]I think everyone would very much appreciate access to some private servers in order to practice more and develop these strategies. Lots of great ideas but it’s hard to test them on pubs, or properly explain them while in warmup waiting to scrim.

It was interesting to see ET strats evolve over time - ie. the ET Supply stairwell flamethrower D, to an upper room D, to a more aggressive depot D, etc…

Looking forward to see what people come up with in DB. Show me private servers and i’ll show you the Skyhammer team-wipe strat on final Chapel (just need some practice) :)[/QUOTE]

I think ET in general has the ability for more tactics. Supply did change and we ran zazeem with an Rnade who could plant mines.

I know this game isnt done BUT:

The ability to hear and see mines = Really!
The ability to see which directions a Airstrike is going = Really!
The ability to see Arty’s airstrike dot = Really!
Flopping Dead Bodies…
Crazy Fast Engy Disarms…
Small Maps and Spam…
No progression or exciting objectives on maps.
No timing
Best killing team wins
Some Luck involved

The Overground map and Dome are amazing maps and have huge potential to possible give us the feel over ET in DB…

The Offensive strat in DB on Whitechapel (Stage 1) is simple one engy and kill the enemy! The enemy spawn all bouncing around based on the EV location is so dumb. sorry it is. Echo is messing with people heads and instead of making a fluid map around spawn placement you made a linear maps and moved the spawns around… Have we learned nothing from ET or RTCW or QW? Been saying this stuff from day one.

(spookify) #24

I like the timing.

With that said Anti did say that he was surprised that not many people played her in the Cup. I will stick to my guns and say her gun doesnt have enough range to hold down or give enough crossfire. The greendot gun might however.

I think her mobility should be buffed a little especially with her main gun as a shotgun.

#1) Keep Timing - Maybe A little less with these Nerfs
#2) Lower Station HP to 50
#3) Reduce Cool down

This makes her “a little” more mobile and not following people with out the ability to heal.

Thought Process: When coming against a Aura and possible a fragger make the other team think. Should I shoot the heal station or go for the kill of either the aura or fragger.

  • Right now you go for the kill and 50% of the time it works.
  • Sometime you go for the station but if you are in a gun fight you will lose. That heal station takes way to many bullets.

Another thing you could do is forever everything I said and code in a headshot hit box on the station! Why do I need 10 bullets to kill a 90HP heal station when I can use 3 to kill a merc?

(Szakalot) #25

I like the mobility degree Aura is i now. Perhaps buffing the radius even more would allow Aura’s to try bunker the station a little bit more, to protect them from AoE by smart placement?

I’m playing Nader 24/7 and Aura’s dont stand a chance, OHK nades; two nades to destroy any station, its just too easy to keep em down.

(Chux) #26

[QUOTE=Anti;527474]Hopefully once we finish a full sweep of the data we can post a blog running over some of the findings.[/QUOTE] I’d consider the data incomplete since some teams didnt even have Faggers unlocked let alone Bushy or Nader.

(Ceres) #27

[QUOTE=prophett;527497]I think everyone would very much appreciate access to some private servers in order to practice more and develop these strategies. Lots of great ideas but it’s hard to test them on pubs, or properly explain them while in warmup waiting to scrim.

It was interesting to see ET strats evolve over time - ie. the ET Supply stairwell flamethrower D, to an upper room D, to a more aggressive depot D, etc…

[/QUOTE]

Don’t forget Dignitas/Idle.ee coming up with the outside strategy on Oasis. Where on the last stage of defense, they played outside the spawn area (covering both exits + 1 person watching tunnel) instead of covering the guns and watching their spawn. That simple strategical change forced leagues to ban Oasis due to certain teams (cough idle) being too good at it. Then oasis_b3 came out, nobody wanted to play it, bla bla, point is, we desperately need private servers for the competitive environment, for testing, and for strategical innovation.

(fubar) #28

[QUOTE=Anti;527474]Enough about about the Sniper Rifle, more about this topic! :slight_smile:

I was very surprised some Mercs weren’t used more for situational pushes. I expected to see Nader used in some cases because of the volume of AoE she can put down (clearing the balconies at the start of Whitechapel for example) compared to the risk of missing Fragger 'nades, or in combo with Vassili’s HBS. I also expected to see Aura used at a few defensive strong-points on defense, as well as Skyhammer at a few specific objectives because of the potential for 3-4 man clearances (end of Whitechapel).

I agree with adeto a lot of that was maybe down to a lack of practice and strat brainstorming time on servers, but I also felt some teams just seemed to have bought into the idea that nothing else was viable, which I don’t agree with. I was very surprised when certain teams got bogged down and were struggling that they didn’t really try to change up their composition at all, I half expected to see more of that just as an act of desperation.

A potential example of some of the Merc misconceptions is Bushwhacker versus Proxy. For the most part Bushwhacker out performed Proxy and yet only 5-6 players tried him, many more played as Proxy.

We’re still grabbing stats data from the cup to compare with the pub data we have. Terminal does stand out in the early results we have as having issues at objective one, most of the other maps, statistically at least played out quite well though.

Hopefully once we finish a full sweep of the data we can post a blog running over some of the findings.[/QUOTE]

We use skyhammer quite often, did on chapel especially in attack. Both first and last stage. (Striking the bridge and right back corner onto the tunnel entrance’s side) as well as striking the respawn on last stage/clearing out the transmitter. It doesn’t necessarily have to kill people to be effective, which is why I guess there wasn’t much of a “focus of attention” on it, for the viewers/stream. But it definitely got its job done, by pushing the defense back or even just having them mispositioned due to the strike’s directions.

Also, I believe I did get a 2man airstrike kill on chapel vs .ini on their respawn, streamers just don’t really… notice these things.

We also used an occasional nader, most specifically on terminal to defend the wall plant with amongst other things. There are a lot of situational mercs, for maps, but they’re just not effective enough to make it into the… “main squad”, be it cooldowns too short, killing efficiency not high enough or comparable to more viable mercs, or even just their ability being… mediocre at best and easily outshined. Which, really, you’re aware of. It’s been complained and talked about for a year, ideas have been posted, suggestions have been made, echo must most definitely be showing it. Though, I’d really wish you wouldn’t concern yourself with merc balance right about now. Gameplay issues such as sync’d spawns should be of much more priority and many more i’ve posted before already. http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/43535-Closed-Beta-impression-from-a-competitive-view

Also please… Please fix explodydendron. I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I’ll be posting a video shortly. It bugs 7 out of 10 times, on a good day, resulting the grenade into not exploding or dealing damage entirely. Stream showed several cases of it as well.

(Szakalot) #29

Explodydendron works fine on Nader ; )

(chickenNwaffles) #30

I think she only gets bigger blasts.

(Rémy Cabresin) #31

She doesnt even get Explodydendron xD

(Szakalot) #32

same thing, different name

(Smooth) #33

“You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Zenity again.”

Good stuff :slight_smile:

(yakcyll) #34

I’ve played with a bunch of Auras lately and have to admit that the nerf is not as bad as one thinks. The primary issue with the station is that you can just destroy it so quickly. Imo it should have increased health and increased armor against explosives or AoE damage, so that you can actually fortify a position with it. If we are to boost the healing aura again, then the ramp-up effect in healing efficiency when the station is set up is something I’d like to see tested.

This must be the first time I quoted a post from an old page in a very long time actually.

(Szakalot) #35

definitely don’t think the station needs AoE armor, but I wouldn’t mind its HP to be brought up to Turret’s (90->140).

Atm. Nader can easily one-shot the station, and its really easy to counter. Not to mention the double-fragger setup so many teams are sporting.

(izraill) #36

[QUOTE=yakcyll;527677]I’ve played with a bunch of Auras lately and have to admit that the nerf is not as bad as one thinks. The primary issue with the station is that you can just destroy it so quickly. Imo it should have increased health and increased armor against explosives or AoE damage, so that you can actually fortify a position with it. If we are to boost the healing aura again, then the ramp-up effect in healing efficiency when the station is set up is something I’d like to see tested.

This must be the first time I quoted a post from an old page in a very long time actually.[/QUOTE]

You’ve only been seeing those auras recently because of the 1 merc limit in the upcoming cup, no one in their right mind would choose aura over a second sawbonez if it was an option. I’ve actually been PLAYING aura this past week in 5v5s, and just last night I put down a med station right before reviving 4 times and my med station still hadn’t finished building.

The whole fortification balancing route is a stupid one actually, especially in a game that is supposed to be fast paced. I’m not even sure how this nerf even made sense in the first place, considering people bitched about the healing done by the station, not how quickly it deployed. Ramp up healing, pulse healing, 2-3 shottable stations, even giving aura reduced healing from her stations would have been way better options.

(Zenity) #37

[QUOTE=izraill;527750]
The whole fortification balancing route is a stupid one actually, especially in a game that is supposed to be fast paced. I’m not even sure how this nerf even made sense in the first place, considering people bitched about the healing done by the station, not how quickly it deployed. Ramp up healing, pulse healing, 2-3 shottable stations, even giving aura reduced healing from her stations would have been way better options.[/QUOTE]

Because that would make the healing station much more similar to medpacks. The devs clearly wanted to maintain its unique identity as a “magic healing circle” and I completely support that.

Before the tournament people seemed to think that Fragger on a healing station would become invincible. Now that people realise that this isn’t the case, perhaps the nerfs can be scaled back a little.

The healing station never really bothered me on publics either, even when it was considered OP. The only somewhat grating thing was when she hot dropped the HS in the middle of a firefight and immediately healed back to full. The build up is a good solution to that, but even a much shorter build up time (like a second or so) should still be effective.

(izraill) #38

[QUOTE=Zenity;527753]Because that would make the healing station much more similar to medpacks. The devs clearly wanted to maintain its unique identity as a “magic healing circle” and I completely support that.
[/QUOTE]

So a 3 second deploy time was to help maintain the stations identity? I sure am glad the devs make changes just make changes. I wonder why this game has been in development so long.

How exactly does a nerf to deploy time effect how tanky a fragger is on a med station?

[QUOTE=Zenity;527753]
The only somewhat grating thing was when she hot dropped the HS in the middle of a firefight and immediately healed back to full. The build up is a good solution to that[/QUOTE]

Almost any of the suggested changes would have been a good solution for that.

(fubar) #39

Aura not being used in competitive play has absolutely nothing to do with the healing station being “good” or “bad”. It has its uses. Its just not as good, simple as. It’s a stationary tool, a comp game is never stationary, you’re constantly moving, constantly adapting, switching positions, running from A to B, being able to take my medpack with me or even throwing it across the hall will ALWAYS beat a stationary. The super long cooldown and big red notification sign of “please nade here” in combination with a mediocre smg and being reliant of having to stay within a perimeter of your station is… just not viable.
So many situations it’d be great to have, absolutely, I’d love just sitting on top of a station, but that 1 out of 10 scenarios, in-game, just simply doesn’t make it worth it. It’s the design being an issue here, not the mechanic, the game is simply too fast for her.