Greetings forum folk!
In our last closed alpha progress update we talked to you about some upcoming changes to the game in the areas of UI and Spectator Mode, as well as discussing some of the changes in the next game update.
Today I’m going to tell you about some even bigger changes to the game that we’d like you all to be testing. Some of these are quite radical, and the Closed Alpha is the perfect place to fully test them.
Our focus for these changes is on characters.
Character Focus
At the heart of Dirty Bomb are its characters, one of the things that we feel will make the game stand out from the many other free-to-play shooter games available. Each of these unique Mercenaries will provide the player with access to a characterful individual with a unique play-style and their own combination of abilities and weapons.
Or at least… that’s the plan. As the alpha has progressed so far we’ve felt that we’ve not really been delivering on the character front, and we’ve not always infused them with the gameplay personality and individuality they deserve.
We feel there are a few reasons for this:
[ul]
[li]Specific map objectives force players to ignore their preferred play-style in favour of the class that can do the objective, or the objective goes un-done and the game is spoilt[/li][li]We’ve not made character abilities as unique and powerful as they should be to make the character stand out. A good example is the underwhelming Airstrike ability on Skyhammer[/li][li]Class archetypes have prevented us doing more interesting and unique ‘hybrid’ characters, we’ve not always ‘followed the fun’ to use a common design phrase[/li][li]Fixed weapon load-outs for each character provide a barrier to players who prefer specific weapon types, but that want to use that character’s abilities[/li][/ul]
So what are we going to do to address these issues and make characters truly be the focal point of Dirty Bomb?
Well, starting with the game update later this week, we’re going to test a number of changes to the game that we feel will allows us to reach our goal of being a character-driven multiplayer FPS.
Characters Not Classes
To start with we’re going to drop the concept of classes and start treating each character as an individual.
In practical terms, this means the things that differentiate ‘classes’ remain and each character will still have a ‘role’ that they should be filling for the team, be that the frontline fighter, the supporting medic or the defensive engineer - it’s just that they are no longer limited by slot constraints or a few narrow and specific roles.
This change will allow us more freedom and variety in character design, player choice and accessibility. Ultimately, we’d like players to be able to choose their preferred play style(s), and pick their character load out based on that preference, rather than having to base it on a relatively arbitrary limitation.
Classless Objectives
By removing classes we are removing one arbitrary constraint on which character and play-style players can choose at any one time, but a bigger barrier remains in the shape of class-specific objectives.
In order to fully test our idea of a play style-driven game, we are changing all objectives to be class-agnostic. This basically means that we had to make it possible for all characters to plant, arm and diffuse C4, and allow all characters to interact with repair/construct objectives as well.
Our initial tests with this change have gone well so with the next update to the closed alpha we’ll be pushing that change out to you folks to test.
We do want to make sure that characters are still different, even with regard to the circumstances in the map at any given time - we just want to avoid imposing a particular play-style on any player just because the game says ‘now you must do it like this’.
To support that idea we’re introducing the concept of ‘proficiency’, specifically with the execution of what were previously class-specific interactions. The implementation is that anyone can place C4, only one can be down at a time, and anyone can arm/diffuse it. Some characters are better than others at arming/diffusing/repairing/constructing (using pliers). It all still needs some love (communicating/presenting this to players), but it works for now, and can be tested.
Frag Grenades and Unique Abilities
We expect this next decision to be quite controversial, but it’s one that we think is worth testing. As part of the next update we will also be removing Frag Grenades from each character’s load-out.
Up until now frags have toed the line between being useless and being better than many of the character defining abilities in the game, and they have actually detracted from a character’s intended role in many cases.
By removing the frags from the build we hope to be able to do two things:
[ol]
[li]We can give the frags back to a few specific characters and make them suitably powerful as a result.[/li][li]We can improve the quality and power of many of our other AoE abilities to the level they should be at, without having to worry that the game will become spammy.[/li][/ol]
Interestingly, it’s so far helping us to identify which characters have underwhelming or lacklustre abilities - the air strike is a good example of something that should be just as effective as but different in purpose to a frag grenade. If we take frags away from characters that should be appealing because of their unique skills, it forces us to fix the issues with those skills.
Alternate Weapons
In the long term we’re also planning to reduce the impact of another constraint on characters by providing each character with a number of options for alternate primary and/or secondary weapons. This is to prevent players feeling ‘cut off’ from certain characters because their weapon doesn’t suit the player’s play-style.
In this case there will still be some constraints; each character is going to have an effective combat distance that suits their role, so you won’t be swapping Machine Pistols for Sniper Rifles, for example. In the case of a character like Proxy, you will likely have the option to swap her Shotgun for something comparable like an SMG.
Get Testing!
We understand we’re throwing a lot of changes at you all at once with this update and some of you are bound to be sceptical about them. You folks had asked us if you could test some more ‘radical’ changes, so here they are.
While some of you might not approve of everything in this update in principle, we do urge you to help us test these ideas, so that we can see what effect they have on the way you play the game.
Check out the update when it hits later this week, and let us know your feedback on each of these changes. We look forward to your thoughts!