DB has a lot of swag, mostly in terms of merc+gun skins; which I think is heavily underpromoted at the moment. This is not a thread about how loadout cards could be separated into guns+cards, etc. etc.;
this is just about how to promote the swag that is already out there.
Unlike CSGO, Dirtybomb is very fast-paced: there is simply not enough time to look at your opponent/their weapon before trying to kill them. You also can’t pick up the weapons/bring them to the next round. Kills themselves aren’t as ego-based and personal like in CS either: most kills happen in teamfights that continuously shift around the map. Therefore, DB will never achieve the same level of swag as CS when it comes to checking out your opponents/admiring their stuff.
It is clear though that swag can make a big difference in this game: an upstart youtuber with 12k subs got almost 100k views for acobalt case opening video: People want the swag, and are willing to pay $$$ for it, we just need more opportunities to show it off around the place.
This leaves us with one option: teammates! Indeed, in DB you are more likely to notice a skin on your teammate while running together to the objective, being revived/helped up, giving ammo, setting up defenses with aura, etc. etc, than you ever are able to notice a skin on the opponent.
One way to promote skin swag among your teammates that I also think would give better team cohesion is to introduce elements of team building/composition at the beginning of the map.
Instead of watching a 20sec objective explanatory video, which everyone is absolutely fed up with why not demonstrate each teammate, with their selected mercs/cards, not unlike xcom team building:
You can do it either all at once like in an image above (with the mercs switching between what is currently selected), or in sequence: starting with the first player to load the map/press f6 and going one by one, for a couple seconds each. This would allow the team to build around what is currently selected: first person selects an engineer, the next person is now more likely to pick something else. Obviously people can switch around mid-map, but the majority of players uses a single merc for the entire map.
It promotes the idea of working as a team, already at the team building level, before the map started. It gives you a reason to use those high-tier cards ‘see my awesome cobalt fragger guys, im gonna carry you!’.
Once we have stats in-game, you can also display interesting statistics (and badges) associated with the particular merc a player chose: ‘this vassili scored 100k headshots’ ‘this sawbonez healed a total of 56k health’ ‘this aura has 50 doctor badges!’ ‘this skyhammer gave 300k ammo’ etc.
