instant-gib feedback


(Protekt1) #1

I haven’t written much feedback from a personal perspective in a while but I just want to comment on something that I think is important for the game in the long run. It starts off with feeling that dirty bomb is hamstringing its own uniqueness by its own game mechanics. And I am of course talking about instant gibs from explosive overkill and sniper headshot overkill.

In short, I support the idea that gibbing a character should take at least some additional step to complete to make it a separate action from killing the character. To do this, make it so if overkill damage (damage carried over from downing a player to the downed player’s health pool) only does 99.99% damage to the downed player state maximum. Meaning a downed player will never be gibbed instantaneously and will always required at least one point of damage to gib.

The reasoning is simple. Dirty Bomb differentiates itself from other FPS by having longer gun fights, which allows for more interactivity between teams which promotes giving opportunities for support classes to make a bigger impact. Longer battles between teams allows for more of this stuff that you can do to take small advantages and make it snowball into advancement or victory. And instant gibbing severely cuts against this big differentiating aspect of dirty bomb in a very meaningful way.

Already explosive spam and snipers are very powerful tools in the game, but I think they currently do much more harm to what dirty bomb does best, than the good they bring to the game - in their current state. I think this nerf on these tools will be an almost one-sided net gain to the game. And at the very least, changing it will accomplish much more benefit than harm.

I hope this was concise enough, while still being explanatory of my position on this issue. But to shortly sum it up, by not having instant gibs, dirty bomb’s most unique feature of team battles with unique characters and team based support tools becomes slightly more pronounced (and hopefully more than I predict).


(fubar) #2

Please don’t confuse cooldown restricted instagibs (ie explosives, 17 seconds & 1minute timers inbetween possible proccing - which are easily avoided and do not affect every merc) with permanently accessible instagibs (vasilli)


(Szakalot) #3

good post;

i wouldnt mind instagib from those BIG artillery-type abilities, like arty/skyhammer/kira.


(Protekt1) #4

[QUOTE=Szakalot;539555]good post;

i wouldnt mind instagib from those BIG artillery-type abilities, like arty/skyhammer/kira.[/QUOTE]

I suppose those are debate-able. With skyhammer, if you’re getting multiple explosives to hit the target then I suppose it just makes clean sense to gib the target. The same goes for arty and kira I guess. I could go either way on these 3.

I’m not confusing them. I think the frag grenade is equally problematic as the sniper, if not more since it can hit multiple targets at once.

I don’t think thrown explosives even need anything as powerful as instagib to be useful in this game and it would only take 1 bullet to finish off someone who would have been instagibbed either way. As for the longer cooldowns, I guess that is more of a grey area for me than clear cut.


(Glottis-3D) #5

if you are 1hp, and get a headshot from sniper or a grenade under your feet - you should be instagibbed.

what i’m saying is that imho we need a HP threshold for instagib


(Mustang) #6

[QUOTE=Glottis-3D;539597]if you are 1hp, and get a headshot from sniper or a grenade under your feet - you should be instagibbed.

what i’m saying is that imho we need a HP threshold for instagib[/QUOTE]
There would still be overkill, i.e. extra damage left over after taking away the amount it takes to kill you is applied to your incapped body.


(Glottis-3D) #7

yes, i meant exactly this.
50HP - 100 DMG = kill
20HP - 100 DMG = gibbed
20HP - 70 DMG = kill


(Demolama) #8

Dirty Bomb is similar to how RTCW/ W:ET handled player’s living health and gibbing health pools.

In RTCW you had your health and gib pools the same (e.g. 140 max health and -140 gib health). Except for Medics who could reach max health everyone else had between 100 and 120 living health, but regardless of their living health pool everyone had the same gib health of -140.

The Mauser sniper rifle did 80 to body and 160 to head. This meant that all classes could be killed with one headshot, but it also meant that unless a person was super low on their living health they could not be insta-gibbed with one shot.

In Dirty Bomb the player’s living health and gib health used to be exactly the same. So Fragger with 150 living health used to also have -150 gib health pool. But now any merc with >100 living health has a gib pool of -100; 90 living health mercs have -90 gibbed health.

However, Dirty Bomb take a different philosophy with their boltaction sniper rifles than RTCW did with the Mauser. So the 79/158 dmg Felix not only insta-kills every merc with one shot (except Thunder and Rhino) it also instantly bypasses the gib health pool completely, making a kill shot a gib shot.

A Fragger with 150 living health + -100 gibbed health points when shot by a Felix should still have -92 gibbed health left. Thus, he would still be killed but not gibbed

The same could be said with Sparks with 80 living health ±90 gibbed health points should still be left with -12 gibbed health.

It’s just bad game design to allow any weapon to bypass the gib health pool. Nades, Mines, etc. don’t bypass it. If you are on the edge of a nade blast you may die but you are not guaranteed to be gibbed by it.

MOA and Felix have a MUCH faster recovery time to shoot a follow-up shot than the Mauser in RTCW, and yet in RTCW a good sniper could easily gib a down player with a follow-up shot. There is no reason why MOA/Felix need to one shot insta-gib at all, except on already wounded players


(Nail) #9

from the last dev stream

“Vassili’s ability to insta-gib is currently being looked into, due to user complaints. No specific details on this though.”


(Demolama) #10

Someone mentioned on reddit that there might actually be two gib health pools–one for one shot merc unique ability insta-gibbing and one for downed players. The insta gib pool is where as long you do more damage with one attack that is more then the mercs max health you insta gib. Is there any confirmation on this? And if that is the case then it explains why insta-gibbing in general has been so controversial. There is no logical reason why someone with 100 hp who takes 101 damage should be insta-gibbed regardless of weapon used. Why completely bypass the other gib health pool?

I really hope this is not the case.


(Mustang) #11

[QUOTE=Demolama;539635]Someone mentioned on reddit that there might actually be two gib health pools–one for one shot merc unique ability insta-gibbing and one for downed players. The insta gib pool is where as long you do more damage with one attack that is more then the mercs max health you insta gib. Is there any confirmation on this? And if that is the case then it explains why insta-gibbing in general has been so controversial. There is no logical reason why someone with 100 hp who takes 101 damage should be insta-gibbed regardless of weapon used. Why completely bypass the other gib health pool?

I really hope this is not the case.[/QUOTE]
Whilst I find that a weird way to explain it, that is essentially correct, insta-gib weapons do completely ignore the downed/incapped “health pool”.

Or another way to put it if you just wanted to think about it in overkill terms is that they have a higher headshot multipler.*

  • I know it’s not implemented in this way, but it would achieve the same effect.

(Demolama) #12

Well looks like after I spent all this time trying to grasp this stuff about “higher headshot multipliers” it looks like SD might be removing these insta-gib bypasses I was just complaining about and just going with extra damage going straight into the gib health.

http://forums.dirtybomb.nexon.net/discussion/18773/instagibs-sniper-rifles-explosives#latest

Overall, it will be better for all players. As it stands now a Sparks can get insta-gibbed by a swift breeze, but with these changes her 80 HP + 90 gib health gives her at least a chance of getting revived.


(Protekt1) #13

[QUOTE=Demolama;539638]Well looks like after I spent all this time trying to grasp this stuff about “higher headshot multipliers” it looks like SD might be removing these insta-gib bypasses I was just complaining about and just going with extra damage going straight into the gib health.

http://forums.dirtybomb.nexon.net/discussion/18773/instagibs-sniper-rifles-explosives#latest

Overall, it will be better for all players. As it stands now a Sparks can get insta-gibbed by a swift breeze, but with these changes her 80 HP + 90 gib health gives her at least a chance of getting revived.[/QUOTE]

If they change it, I’ll assume I showed them the light. If they don’t change it, I will assume they simply missed my post.


(FireWorks) #14

I just remembered how frustrating the snipers played for me in the alpha until their buff and how annoying the spamming PDPs can be. It might be a good rational move to go for less instagibs (looking at fragger), but I dont feel too good about it from personal perspective.

Sure, the snipers turn comp matches and open breaches, but isnt this their job? Righ risk, high reward? At least thats what I learned in TF2 comp.

For pubs, I kinda felt it pretty smart to reward for skilled headshots and give a distinction over bodyshotting, which already annoys me pretty hard from PDP as spam or single shotting scratched light bodies.

If the Vassili OHK is a comp player issue, why not make it a server setting? I dont think pubs will benefit from the removal as much as the inevitable fragger/explosive nerf.


(Szakalot) #15

pubs will definitely benefit from removal of instagib; cause snipers piss people off in pubs, and rarely are they actually good enough to be an asset to the team.


(FireWorks) #16

So, the bad ones become worse and even less useful. I doubt they will change their minds if they insist on playing the l33t snip0r. I dare to say the quit the game before they quit their sniper attitude.

Better ones will be degraded to the noob class and the dead players will still be dead without the medics in their team. But if they get medics, the whole sniper range advantage goes lost and youre better off with short to mid range gunners -> less complexity and less depth. Dumbed down mechanics… Didnt we attack brink for this scheme?


(Szakalot) #17

[QUOTE=FireWorks;539660]So, the bad ones become worse and even less useful. I doubt they will change their minds if they insist on playing the l33t snip0r. I dare to say the quit the game before they quit their sniper attitude.

Better ones will be degraded to the noob class and the dead players will still be dead without the medics in their team. But if they get medics, the whole sniper range advantage goes lost and youre better off with short to mid range gunners -> less complexity and less depth. Dumbed down mechanics… Didnt we attack brink for this scheme?[/QUOTE]

The thing is, at ‘bad sniper level’ instagib isn’t as much of an impact. Most of those snipers score bodyshots, so its not a huge deal. It will alleviate some of the frustration on the receiving end. Also, instagib is less impactful on the gameplay itself since medics are usually very poor, so a kill often equals gib. You can also argue the opposite, that a poor sniper will now at least be able to help his team by gibbing opponents.

I don’t see this change making any difference on the outcomes of pub play, to be honest.


(Glottis-3D) #18

Bad ones will be just the same. they do not hit heads, kozu know, they are bad snipers =)
Good ones will still instagib thresholded players, but they wont build gib-trains like they do now


(prophett) #19

Leave ability explosives Insta-gibbing alone :confused:


(BomBaKlaK) #20

define explosives : Nade ? Mines ? Sticky ? Airstikes ? orbital strike ? Artillery ? C4 ?