Can we talk about Overkill's balance strategy?

[NevadaNellis]

Overkill's approach to balancing this game is the most 1d thing I've seen from game developers in a while. Once people figure out how to beat a difficulty Overkill's "new" difficulty is to just make everything a bullet sponge and deal more damage. Once that gets beaten also, we find ourselves at One Down. We are now at the point where just about everything can 1 shot you, and takes 30 shots to kill even a basic attacker. Overkill could always, I don't know put some thought into their difficulty? Maybe have basic unit formations, logical special spawns instead of just spamming shields and tasers. Losing swan song and inspire, etc. Sure it would require some time and effort, but I think thats what this game could use. NOT an h3h3 character pack...

[Kjall]

Originally posted by NevadaNellis:

Overkill could always, I don't know put some thought into their difficulty? Maybe have basic unit formations, logical special spawns instead of just spamming shields and tasers.

Funny that, we actually had those up until when OD was introduced, then everything was dropped and the current mess that we have now is what we got instead, the spawns are so ridiculous to the point where it's too much for the game to handle and the AI of all the cops in total just ends up being even dumber and there's tons of issues with cops stacking into eachother.

[Stellar Fox]

Overkill has a policy that does not allow smart changes or rebalances except special cases

[SDAGO]

Pretty much when overkill creates a higher difficutly they just amp up the numbers (health, damage output, spawnrate) and maybe add some unique cop textures and voila.

[Jet]

Overkill Software’s balance decisions between October 2015 and now lead to very odd design choices. There has been multiple threads where multiple users tried to discuss ways to fix one of the issues with how the game is currently balanced. Unfortunately, one of the developers at Overkill Software(who is in charge of making and applying balance decisions to the game) tends to be a little bit close minded and probably ignore any feedback that he disagrees with(or ignore a piece of feedback that suggests that to revert a change that is already applied).

Overkill Software’s current approach to making balance decisions is to tinker with the stats of weapons(which that can go horribly wrong because the recent changes were either reverted or made no significant difference).

Keep in mind that I don’t how it’s like running a video game company but, this game’s support is ending in less than a year. So, it might be too late for Overkill Software to actually start making balance decisions that are actually good(or have a strong enough backbone to apply some balance changes to certain weapon attachments, skills, and enemy A.I. changes).

[NevadaNellis]

Originally posted by D.J. Jetth1576:

Overkill Software’s balance decisions between October 2015 and now lead to very odd design choices. There has been multiple threads where multiple users tried to discuss ways to fix one of the issues with how the game is currently balanced. Unfortunately, one of the developers at Overkill Software(who is in charge of making and applying balance decisions to the game) tends to be a little bit close minded and probably ignore any feedback that he disagrees with(or ignore a piece of feedback that suggests that to revert a change that is already applied).

Overkill Software’s current approach to making balance decisions is to tinker with the stats of weapons(which that can go horribly wrong because the recent changes were either reverted or made no significant difference).

Keep in mind that I don’t how it’s like running a video game company but, this game’s support is ending in less than a year. So, it might be too late for Overkill Software to actually start making balance decisions that are actually good(or have a strong enough backbone to apply some balance changes to certain weapon attachments, skills, and enemy A.I. changes).

As unfortunete as this is. I'm almost certain that you are right.

[「La+ Darknesss ⸸」]

Blame everything to Jules, he's the one that in charge of balancing the game now.

Start with first balance, some weapons that people don't use? Make them all have some kind of similar stats.

Game is too easy? Rebalance by reduce the spawn variant, less tactics, increase health and damage, and make another difficulty with super bullet sponge enemies that have laser rifle and no falloff.

LMGs are suffering and cannot play on high difficulty? Buff the damage, make it power creep.

Seriously, if Jules's still in charge, game balance is never going to happen.

(btw, Jules said "When we gonna do weapon changes, we'll make the beta" and "We'll lower the health of the enemies instead of buffing damage of the guns", where are the actions for those words? All I see is every balance placed in the game without asking the community opinions and buff the guns' damage)

[RusLocalNetwork]

>takes 30 shots to kill even a basic attacker
Only of you didn't think about making a good build.
You can't do something instead of increasing enemy stats because it just don't work that way since payday is point-and-shoot even on dw. That's how difficulties works in lots of games: simply increasing stats

[「La+ Darknesss ⸸」]

Originally posted by PHE$ Bloody Gad NOT 31:

>takes 30 shots to kill even a basic attacker
Only of you didn't think about making a good build.
You can't do something instead of increasing enemy stats because it just don't work that way since payday is point-and-shoot even on dw. That's how difficulties works in lots of games: simply increasing stats

Instead of changing AI to be less bullcrap. That's kinda cheap skate.
And if you think AI changing is hard, why the hell modder can do?

Not counting a ton of bugs that can be fixed by just simple delete or add 1 or 2 words to a single string.

It's going down hill since 2015, guns and melee has more variation. Bugs is more polishing. Right now, all is about meta, meta and meta. Only the good things they did with the balance since the 2 past years is Desync fix.

[Max]

So, you miss David now?

[Nighthawk]

The game is a bit more than point and shoot. It does have several mechanics such as dodge chance and reload time that are are all affected by builds that you create that can then cater to your playstyle.


However, many of the balance changes and power creep element that have been introduced over the years have made many factors that you used to have to think about pointless. Hell, even simple fps mechanics such as health management are becoming pointless.

When it comes to balance changes, overkill needs to realize that they have slowly been allowing players to have to think less about more things. And when all they have to do to win now is only point and shoot with maybe a melee or two to speed up a reload, it is no wonder people are calling the game easier.

An example of this is the HE rounds that were introduced a few years back. Before them, shields were a threat because you had to flank or die. You had to stop pointing and start moving, but if you moved you had to think about the other police nearby and make the call whether or not they could down you. Now, all you need to do is right click. Overkill took a step in the right direction by making dozers the soft counter explosives by not being able to stagger. More changes like that need to happen, changes that allow the police to grow and adapt to us in more ways than just sniping us from across the map while we cannot even hope to reply. Counter play needs to come back to bring the game back to “the dark souls of heisting games”

[Salem]

Originally posted by PHE$ Bloody Gad NOT 31:

>takes 30 shots to kill even a basic attacker
Only of you didn't think about making a good build.
You can't do something instead of increasing enemy stats because it just don't work that way since payday is point-and-shoot even on dw. That's how difficulties works in lots of games: simply increasing stats

"All weapons are OD viable if you use Berserker, silencer skills and crits" - every moron ever
Then they proceed to diss dodge, Swan Song, converts, crossbows, etc. users and defend One Down while their cherished ♥♥♥♥♥♥ skills go against even Jules' vision.

[Copy & Cat]

It's easy to make stuff work on OD and etc because it's easy to break the system, also making stuff work doesn't automaticaly mean it's balanced,i certainly don't think that Car-4 DMR is on the same level as patchett

[「La+ Darknesss ⸸」]

Originally posted by Max:

So, you miss David now?

Tbh, nope. But It would be better "if" someone that is better in understanding what people need stay in the game balancing position instead of Jules.

[JadeWing]

So, no-one else is gonna bring up the fact that OD was legitimately never intended to be a balanced challenge?

[Max]

Originally posted by CopperHead:

So, no-one else is gonna bring up the fact that OD was legitimately never intended to be a balanced challenge?

It was never intend to be a balanced challenge.