PLayed a little this week after a long break.


(EnderWiggin.DA.) #1

Am I having fun? I’ve played 6 hours in the past week. I’d say I’m more frustrated than having fun. I’ll have 1 good game and then 3 frustrating games because the maps seem so defensively biased. Not really pleased with the damage mechanics for the different classes. At this point I think I’ll wait for the next balancing.

Things that have improved since I last played:
I feel like the animation are smoother than they were last I played. At the current game speed I think they could be improved.
The weird wall jumping mechanic seems better balanced with jump height. It was a very short double jump last time I played. However, compared to Titanfall I would call it amateur feeling. Yeah, backhanded compliment. :frowning:
I like the shuffle after each round. Just wish friends in the same party could stay together. Although then you run into the same problems that Titanfall had.
Menus and settings menu are very polished.
Training “demo” was simple and to the point. Helpful. I thought it was well done.
Sound seems much better balanced among some of the weapons, hand guns especially.

Neutral comments
The speed of the game is definitely much faster than is popular now. I am definitely struggling to adjust and I complain about infantry movement being slow for most games.

Complaints
When choosing your merc and the pictures of all the mercs are displayed, the pictures seem kind of small. Lots of open space. I assume the blank space is a place holder but I would still like friendlier UI there.
Spawn timer needs to be bigger. I wish it wasn’t near the game clock or stood out more. Actually, if the game clock was more visible I wouldn’t mind either.
I want to save server filter settings when browsing for filters.
Not a fan of how the weapons are balanced now. Playing Sawbones isn’t fun as I think his main weapon is too weak. Never found the shotguns consistent.
Ok, I had this big long thought out paragraph but it boils down to this. What I like in games is that I feel like I always have a chance to get the other player if I just play better than them. This is true for ET, CoD, BF, TF, etc. With DB, I just don’t get that feeling. Support roles are designed to stay back. Tanks get more health, etc. I guess I just don’t find that fun and that is a core part of DB so that is what frustrates me a lot. I guess this is your MOBA influence but I never found it fun.
Meat grinder maps. Overall, the maps seem very defensive with the current settings/characters. I’m not digging it. Not sure if this is due to Aura just throwing down healing stations on corners, mines all over the place, or what, but I’m not having fun here. The first stage of Terminal makes me want to kill puppies. I’m not sure why the pump controls are on the defender’s side. Splash Damage, you guys don’t want to be known as puppy killers, do you? Look at these little guys SD. Look at them.

Trading card confusion.
First time I looked into them it wasn’t clear what I could do with them. I didn’t even know how to use them when selecting my character or how they helped.
Takes way too long to open multiple cases. Buy a few cases and track your mouse movements to open the case, skip. The mouse cursor goes all over the screen. It’s like you want me to get carpal tunnel.
The animation when opening a case is way too pixelated. Either shrink the animation or improve the resolution.
Trading up cards: It needs to be easier to see when I can trade up and for what level without having to click on stuff. I’m not sure if it matters if I mix character cards.

Old gripes, still bug me:
Cannot rebind F1, F2, F3 for character quick select keys
US servers are East and West, not Central. When I play with my east coast friends we meet in the middle. Texas and Chicago servers would be great. It’s a big damn continent. I’m sure Australians are telling me to **** off right now.
Didn’t really like the shotguns before on either the shooting or receiving end and I still don’t like them. Having 2 chars with shotties makes me sad. It seems random to me if a shotty blast is going to down someone with full health or if it’s going to take 3 shots. I just don’t get it.


(Zarlor) #2

I’m sorry I have to disagree on the speed of the mercs. I think all of them feel right to me. Playing proxy is extremely satisfying and liberating especially running with the melee weapon out. By the same token, Sawbones feels normal and Fragger feels a little slow as they should. I am also so glad the running speeds are different with what is in the hand. I love the switching to knife to dart around a corner then reloading then switching to primary again. I feel like there is some level of mastery there which keeps the game fun from moment to moment. I usually walljump when coming from spawn for the lulz, and my secret wish is that it would boost my speed ever so slightly so that it was a tiny bit tactical like strafejumping was. I used to love to get to the forward spawn first in etqw. It was like a minigame every time. Enderwiggin, maybe you could play with your FOV settings? I’ve found that it greatly affects the sense of speed in the game.


(EnderWiggin.DA.) #3

You misunderstood because I wasn’t clear. I didn’t say the game speed should be changed. My point is players coming from other popular AAA games the game speed takes getting used to and what I meant to imply is that some players may not have the patience for that unless the game is fun. I think that will apply to many other players as well coming from other games, not just myself. If the game is fun and rewarding then I think people will stick around and learn. Unfortunately, I don’t think the game is that fun right now but has been in the past.

Good advice on the FOV thing. I’ve been playing with that and I upped my mouse sens too. That helped a lot.


(Zenity) #4

It’s just more fun to slay newbies while learning a new game. :slight_smile: That’s how I got into ET back in the days. I am certain that if I had discovered ET right now and tried to hold my own on ETPro servers, it wouldn’t have the same magic and I’d probably be disgusted by all the little flaws I can find in the game, which I have ignored in the past because I was too busy having fun.

Playing Dirty Bomb for just about a week, I can say that the struggle is real. I’m no slouch when it comes to FPS, but playing DB against the veterans can be frustrating at times. The movement speed is a good example of this: Great fun while slaying weaker players, but against stronger players it can really make me feel out of my depth.

Keep in mind that this is a temporary situation. No reasonably popular AAA game, let alone a F2P game, has such a high density of strong players on public servers. At the very least you wouldn’t be exposed to them so early on. I’m loving the game already, but I can’t wait for it to be opened up to the general public. :slight_smile:


(shibbyuk) #5

I agree it’s very difficult to get kills with sawbonez. You can completely empty your clip into someone without killing them. Personally, I don’t mind this too much, though, as long as I feel I’m contributing to the team in other ways. Also, you can run away and feed yourself with healthpacks. I guess the concern is that new players from other games will get frustrated with their k/d ratios.

I also agree with the card trading. It’s like a game of trial and error to figure out what you can get - also, you might trade 9 cards and be unlucky, receiving a card with all the same abilities as an existing card.


(Zarlor) #6

I have one question about Sawbonez. Are you using the default weapon? I could not seem to get kills with the one that has a slower rate of fire and that fancy green sight. With the standard weapon I feel confident going up against most players. Are you getting headshots?

I do feel like with some weapons my ttk is too long for some reason, so I just avoid those weapons. By the same token, I have seen others use those same weapons and seemingly get the kills with no problem. I guess you have to find which weapons work for you? This bodes well for the current state of the balance of things. I feel like usually most people are having fun and exciting games. I often do voice chat and other people start to chime in as well and seem excited about things and work on accomplishing the objectives.


(EnderWiggin.DA.) #7

I am using either default Sawbones weapon or the Obsidian Card Sawbonez. I’m not sure if that’s how you change weapons. If cards aren’t how you change weapons then it’s not clear to me how to change weapons which is feedback in itself. And if it is, I never noticed the change in the weapon skin.
Sadly, my headshot-fu is weak. So used to games with recoil that I am having to relearn where to aim. However, I was getting measurably better on Sunday night after I used shadowplay to record some action and watch how I was doing from frustrating days where my teams were just stomped.

I do feel like with some weapons my ttk is too long for some reason, so I just avoid those weapons. By the same token, I have seen others use those same weapons and seemingly get the kills with no problem. I guess you have to find which weapons work for you?

I have seen the same thing and it makes me sad about my skills. Instead of mad skills, it’s sad skills. I’d guess as an Attacker my K : D with semi balanced teams is likely 0.7:1 and as Defender it’s 1:1. This is with the current set of mercs. So it goes.


(tangoliber) #8

Criticism is good. But I don’t know how you can not have “fun” playing this game. Almost every match feels exciting to me.

I also like the speed of the Mercs. (I have less fun controlling a slow merc, but they are nice to have as teammates, opponents.)


(Zenity) #9

Yes, that’s how you change weapon. Which Obsidian? The Founders one uses the default weapon, but the Beta Fighter uses the Blishlok which is the one Zarlor is talking about (I also think it’s rubbish, but some people like it, and I think it relies less on headshots). There are three Lead loadout cards for each merc, one for each primary weapon, so it’s very easy to get the weapons you want even if you don’t have high end loadouts. Sawbonez has the default SMG (SMG-9), an alternate which is pretty similar (Crotzni), and finally the Blishlok which does more damage but has a much lower ROF.

I find that usually the default weapons are the most effective (aside from Shotguns perhaps) and the alternate weapons provide alternatives for players with different preferences.


(aaronark94) #10

I don’t think it’s that maps are defensively biased, but that people don’t know how to attack properly. If you have people that know to jump in as you lay down air strikes and proxy’s go right for the plant it becomes very easy. Most of the time you have people sitting in the back too afraid to charge in even though you have a couple medics standing by to revive them as they soak up damage. As the people get better at the game it will probably balance out.


(Zenity) #11

And yet their stats said that attackers tend to win in objective mode, so they made attacking harder. :slight_smile:

For Stopwatch I really like the system they have with the individual stage times, so you can have a winner even if you have a double full hold.


(EnderWiggin.DA.) #12

Yeah, Founders. Thanks for that write up. it was very informative. Messed around withe the cards and it makes sense now. I didn’t notice the weapons changed. I thought it was just the abilities.

I don’t think it’s that maps are defensively biased, but that people don’t know how to attack properly.

I’m just going by the games I played with the teams I got.