Free Merc Unlock instead of $$$ reward for lvl 2 and 4


(Szakalot) #1

I think it would be better for the game if you got to unlock one merc for free when hitting lvl 5, rather than these one-time $$$-bonuses when hitting lvls 2 and 4. Could be limited to the basic 5 mercs.

  • ‘you reached comp lvl’ - now pick one merc from the rooster and play
  • avoids the P2W drama
  • prevents the cries from people who spend their bonus 24k$ on cases
  • gives a direct incentive to try to play just a little longer

I think many players are put off by DB before giving the game a chance. They join their first match clueless, get rekt by pros, have no idea how to play (ADS and camping anyone?), many games are stacked, they get locked in their spawn… there is a lot of issues with DB that would scare away newcomers.

Maybe if they got to play just a little longer they would notice the hidden gem that this game is?


(Bangtastic) #2

Completely agree.
It takes a lot of time unlocking mercs, and I bet most people spent their credits on cases and trade ups.
They are lvl 5 and have no idea about the basic roster of mercs.

Such thing as “competitive level” transcends the whole level thingy. Love it x)

Ok on the other hand, for testing purposes a low level barrier is preferably better ofc.


(Beermachine) #3

Good idea to help prevent the complaints, though I really don’t think It’ll make a massive difference to player retention. Getting destroyed by pros is the biggest turnoff, as new players don’t have a chance to learn the basics with others of similar skill and experience. The bonus XP is definitely not helping, while a great incentive from SD, SO many inexperienced players are speed levelling out of the safety zones to the shark infested waters!

IMO one of each base class would definitely help, as playing as an engineer really helps to understand how the basics of these types of games work and promotes good defending and attacking play.


(AssortedStuff) #4

Not everyone wants the mercs. I was reading an ingame chat and one guy was telling another he spends his credits on cases.
To me it’s a waste of credits but ‘to each his own’

As for the XP I agree with Beermachine about “speed levelling out of the safety zone”, perhaps they could be told they’d get the extra XP once they’d reach level XYZ, (the end of the safety zone). …but then again most people aren’t able to delay gratification so perhaps that wouldn’t work


(BioSnark) #5

Not everyone may want the mercs but it’s simply better for everyone (for public server balance) if everyone has access to an Assault and an Engineer.

SD is being greedy with the merc unlocks by not having these classes and that’s part of what ruins public games. People often can not break a nest or they can not repair or disarm. I agree that with the OP and think the mercs that are unlocked should be an Assault, at 2, and Engineer, at 4.


(Bloodbite) #6

This I believe you are 100% wrong about.

The game is still very enjoyable when losing to good players, and the good players tend to work as a team, or at least towards the team’s objective.

The problem is we now have an increased player base with even more aimbotters… that is the turnoff. I’ve spotted a couple that are being clever about how they use it too, so that they can’t be spotted as twitch headshotting… the killshot ghosting can often tell a great deal, especially when a shotgun headshot is pulled off from a quick weapon switch within kissing distance. BOOM, headshot to avoid the inevitable failure to land a hit before that and be forced to respawn.

I also am uncertain about a Sawbonez landing every single shot, all chest hits, against 4 players within seconds, while doing some crazy dodge jumping in the stairwell area mid way through Chapel. I was spectating each take down after the first kill, and all the visual hitshots were suspiciously dead centre, ALL of them.

It makes it worse when some of these aimbotters are so blatant that they push things into a spawn camp situation, and nobody pays attention to the kick vote.

The anti-cheat needs to catch up in a big way! That will solve a great deal of the problems we’re seeing, including many of the debates about overpowered this or that.


(Protekt1) #7

[QUOTE=BioSnark;531175]Not everyone may want the mercs but it’s simply better for everyone (for public server balance) if everyone has access to an Assault and an Engineer.

SD is being greedy with the merc unlocks by not having these classes and that’s part of what ruins public games. People often can not break a nest or they can not repair or disarm. I agree that with the OP and think the mercs that are unlocked should be an Assault, at 2, and Engineer, at 4.[/QUOTE]

Forcing them to get an engineer does not mean they are going to play it. Credits to choose what you want is >>>> better than giving a specific merc.


(Szakalot) #8

[QUOTE=Bloodbite;531176]This I believe you are 100% wrong about.

The game is still very enjoyable when losing to good players, and the good players tend to work as a team, or at least towards the team’s objective.[/quote]

I believe you are 100% wrong about them being wrong! : )

Getting outgunned has very little do with teamplay, and everything to do with aiming skills. Typically, one team gets smashed when they lack the skills to win fights, i.e. enemy players consistently win 1on1s and 2on2s etc. If you find yourself in the weaker team you are likely to experience :

  • spawncamping. I don’t have anything against the strategy itself, but I can see how its frustrating to newbies who barely get to play before they are out for another 20seconds
  • being flanked & shot at from all sides
  • half your team ragequitting before the map is over, making the situation worse
  • enemy team patting each other on the back with GGs all around

While, esp. in open beta, I do love the challenge fighting against a stacked team provides, It can be daunting to feel like you are playing alone (cause everyone is dying too fast) against multiple opponents.


(Beermachine) #9

[QUOTE=Bloodbite;531176]This I believe you are 100% wrong about.

The game is still very enjoyable when losing to good players, and the good players tend to work as a team, or at least towards the team’s objective.

The problem is we now have an increased player base with even more aimbotters… that is the turnoff. I’ve spotted a couple that are being clever about how they use it too, so that they can’t be spotted as twitch headshotting… the killshot ghosting can often tell a great deal, especially when a shotgun headshot is pulled off from a quick weapon switch within kissing distance. BOOM, headshot to avoid the inevitable failure to land a hit before that and be forced to respawn.
[/QUOTE]

Disagree strongly. Losing to a good player when your a good player is fine, and leads to some healthy rivalry, learning new tricks, developing alternative strategies, etc.

Let’s be frank, for a new player / someone with poor aim and movement skills, there isn’t much difference being getting rekt by a skilled player or an aimbotter, just 0.2 seconds extra on the spawn timer ; ). They need all the practice they can get on the basics, head shotting and movement, which repeatedly dying nearly instantly isn’t getting them. It’s also made 1000% worse when the teams are heavily skill stacked.

Agree on stronger anti cheat measures being needed to protect the better players and not drive them away. Seen some decidedly dodgy things, but doesn’t seem to be too widespread, though I’d imagine competitive will be far more affected than standard servers.

Edit: See Szakalot’s post above for a more comprehensive answer, which I 100% agree with.


(BioSnark) #10

I didn’t say a specific merc. I said a specific class. Also I think you are completely wrong. Having people running around in a class based shooter without access to classes is idiotic.


(Bloodbite) #11

I retract my 100% and turn it into 50% (in account of yours and Szakalot’s response too)… being a nubb with bad aim isn’t so bad when you are on a team that gives you an opportunity to fulfill a supporting role. That is the environment I meant by it still being enjoyable to play against better players.

Stacking is definitely an issue! I have to admit, being a slightly better than average player myself, I forget how painful that must be for those learning both the team mechanics AND struggle to get kills at the best of times.

Those of us at a higher level (both profile and skill) should be more proactive at swapping sides… but it doesn’t help when we can’t and reshuffle votes go ignored. Something has to be done to make votes more noticeable… even with a Quake/Unreal Tournament style verbal message like “VOTE” instead of “GODLIKE.”

The issue of cheating didn’t seem too bad to me either a few weeks ago. I didn’t understand why some of the others on here were so up in arms about it. This past week I have encountered a very frustratingly high number of aimbotters, and concur with their sentiment… for those that encounter it as the primary experience several days in a row… it leaves a bad taste behind no matter how obviously good the game/match “could have been”.


(Protekt1) #12

They have access, wtf are you talking about. Specific merc or specific class, it doesn’t make a difference so don’t be so pedantic.


#13

It makes a huge difference when there is no engineer merc in a free rotation like right now. It almost makes it pay to win. You have no engineers you lose.


(Destroy666) #14

Yep. I said it many times around these forums and I’ll repeat it whenever possible - an objective game without any objective-concentrated class unlocked automatically at the beginning (below lvl 5 at least) is plainly stupid and makes many matches awful to play, especially together with the disappointing team shuffling code, which will put a lvl 20+ to the attacking team even when both teams have an equal number of players and attackers are way stronger.

And the “Forcing them to get an engineer does not mean they are going to play it.” argument is just bad. At the very beginning they are already forced to play 2 mercs, unless they buy another 2 with cash. So why not a 3rd one, to make the choice more useful than having 5 Skyhammers in one the team on most maps?


(Protekt1) #15

[QUOTE=Destroy666;531218]
And the “Forcing them to get an engineer does not mean they are going to play it.” argument is just bad. At the very beginning they are already forced to play 2 mercs, unless they buy another 2 with cash. SO why not a 3rd one, more useful to the team on most maps than Skyhammer?[/QUOTE]

It is the reality of the situation, whether you like it or not. And I’m not saying it is a bad idea to give an engineer for free. I am saying forcing someone to get an engineer rather than credits is a bad one. People would prefer to get credits to buy what they want, rather than being shoehorned into something they may not even end up playing. Try not using strawman logic in your response.

@zar
An argument that somehow the game is p2w or “almost” (which doesn’t make sense, a game is either p2w or not) is just grasping straws trying to make some emotional argument rather than a rational one.


(jazevec) #16

It would be fairer, but not necessarily better for the publisher.

My theory is that the initial credit bonuses are meant to push players into shopping spree. People who don’t look closely are going to come to conclusion credits are fast to earn, and blow it on cases and trade ups. Then they will think: “Uh oh, I need to pay more for X because I ran out of credits.”

Speaking of merc costs, why do some mercs cost 30,000 ? 4 out of 5 are available in the first merc bundle (starter pack). The 5th in the bundle, Fragger, costs 50,000.


#17

[QUOTE=Protekt1;531219]
@zar
An argument that somehow the game is p2w or “almost” (which doesn’t make sense, a game is either p2w or not) is just grasping straws trying to make some emotional argument rather than a rational one.[/QUOTE]

How the hell is this a strawman argument? You are literally paying for five times faster repair/defuse/plant time and none of the currently free mercs can counter it. What you spend your free however many credits on makes no difference.


(Szakalot) #18

[QUOTE=jazevec;531221]It would be fairer, but not necessarily better for the publisher.

My theory is that the initial credit bonuses are meant to push players into shopping spree. People who don’t look closely are going to come to conclusion credits are fast to earn, and blow it on cases and trade ups. Then they will think: “Uh oh, I need to pay more for X because I ran out of credits.”
[/quote]

and what do you think a semi-F2P player is going to do once he realises he just wasted week+ worth of grind on cases, to get (mostly) lead cards for mercs he cant even use? Imo this makes the game look like it wants to rip you off, which is already the impression of a lot of people (Angry Joe didnt help). At which point these players will call P2W and ‘mercs for 50k are OP compared to base’, leave and NEVER return


(Protekt1) #19

I didn’t say your argument was strawman… please try reading more carefully.

As for "literally paying for five times faster repair/defuse/plant time… first off, mercs are sidegrades to each other. Second, there is nothing stopping someone from unlocking the engineer with credits. This stops it from being p2w. And to suggest somehow that engineer specifically needs to be free to avoid p2w, taken logically would suggest that every merc needs to be free to avoid p2w. This is simply far from being true.


(Szakalot) #20

as far as i know engies are 3 times as fast, not 5…