Should there be greater penalties for dying?

Battleborn Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#13

I’m a simple gamer.
I’m probably the type you don’t like, based on your experience with Phoebe.

When I play a game, I want to play a game.
I will play the game on my terms, or I won’t play it.
Game play that punishes my bottom line will become work and is then not worth my time/money.
This isn’t to say there isn’t a thrill with challenge or overcoming challenge, it has to do with enjoyment.

If something prevents me form playing a game that I want to enjoy, I hate it.
This applies to combos in fighting games, juggling me into oblivion instead of letting me interact if systems that break or dissuade combos don’t exist.
This applies to timers in games where I really want to explore the world, but they force me to do a specific plot related thing instead.

This is a totally selfish perspective, but that’s what I want out of something I am spending my money on to be fun.

With Battleborn being a hybrid shooter/MOBA, I think there is a responsibility to cater to your audience.
Capture obviously caters to the more Shooty McShootface crowd, where Meltdown is more a Moba McMoberton mode.

As an admittedly selfish gamer, I still recognize certain things can get out of hand, like zerging.
If Gearbox were to adjust the respawn timers to be more strict, I would endorse this be a decision based on Mode and not on PvP as a whole.
Taking me out of Capture for extended amounts of time is not fun for a Shooty McShooterface person like me.
Also, when you’re squishy, you can die more.
When you’re tanky, you can tank more.
I sure as heck don’t want to be punished for having less health in the equation either.

I don’t know if there is an equation based on health pool to respawn time or not, but I certainly don’t want a Montana to respawn as fast as an Orendi if Gearbox starts micro-managing spawn timers (italicized because it is a tangent opinion).

#14

To add onto everyone’s comments, you mentioned Phoebe, Rath, and El Dragon. These are all melee characters. Melee characters are more likely to get killed because they’re in the action. They’re supposed to and really they have to be up in your face. If they’re pushing you out then they’re helping their teammates get minions in by distracting you. That’s strategy.

The respawn times can get long, quick. No you don’t want to rush in and die. You want to get in, kill, and get out. For melee characters it becomes harder to do that if you used your pounce, teleport, rush, etc. to get into the fray because it’ll probably be on cooldown when you start pulling back. When you play melee characters you have to risk being up in the heat of things. You become a target and if you’ve no escape then you’ll meet your demise. Sometimes it’s a sacrifice you need to make depending on the situation.

#15

Simple or not, I like your points. But ShootyMcShooterface? Please, I need to know, whats Incursion?

#16

Incursion is a smaller scale version of what made Star Wars Battlefront good back in the day.

Joking aside, it has most or the MOBA staples in it.
Buildables, minions you have to wrest under your control, a final objective tower that you lose if it falls.
They were also savvy enough to put it in a linear path of objectives that shooters could be familiar with, like the old Battlefront.
I like to think of it as the best of both worlds.

#17

Well I think any of us just what we want and will leave if we’re not getting it. This is a video game we’re talking about, if you’re not having fun, don’t stick around. My only point is . . . you want people to play the game by the rules y’know? This is a tangent but this is why Oscar Mike singlehandedly destroying Sentries in Incursion is an issue. The “rules” of the game are to push your minions through to take out the Sentry. You do that via a combination of killing the opposing team, killing their minions, and buying/destroying buildables. Oscar Mike can just upend all that and go drop on an ult on your sentry. It’s not fun.

This whole situation with the assassins isn’t quite as broken so that’s why I’m asking questions rather than making statements. On the one hand, assassins are supposed to get in there, mess things up, and yeah they’ll often die because they’re squishy (and they should be squishy). On the other hand, there’s just a difference between, Phoebe has more deaths than Marquis (who’s always on the back line sniping), and Phoebe died as often as she killed someone. Again, my concern is it will just create an environment that isn’t very fun to play in.

All that is true but having played melee characters, I always try to make sure I have some kind of escape option or route. Yes, it is also true that sometimes I’ll sacrifice myself for the good of the team. Again, the issue here is that some of these players aren’t just occasionally sacrificing themselves, they’re dying nearly every time they land a kill, it’s nearly a 1 to 1 ratio. I’m just not sure that should be a successful strategy (I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work in many other MOBAs). Yeah, it makes sense that a melee character will have more deaths than a Marquis or an Oscar Mike, but to die over 10 times, to die once for every kill you land?

#18

But what about their assists? I’ve had many games as melee characters where I go 10-15 kills, 5-10 deaths, but I also have 10-20 assists. I usually get a ton of assists which sucks because I never get enough for the 30 assist title or i get too much for the 25 kills title lol. My luck.

I feel like if they have a decent amount of assists then it would act to balance out their K-D.

#19

I regularly play Reyna and I don’t often get a lot of kills, certainly less than deaths. I do get a lot of assists as well as heals (due to overshield ability) as well as other support score stuff (building and destroying buildables etc).

#20

no, there should not be a penalty for dying. the timer is already extended the more you die anyways… do you really think that would solve anything if it were extended more, because imo that would be ridiculous.

#21

Actually I believe the respawn timer is based on your character level - the higher your level, the longer it is before you respawn.

#22

The only change I would possibly (possibly) like to see is more XP for assisted kills.

Right now killing a player is worth a static number of XP, depending on their level. If someone gets the kill solo, they receive full XP. If there are assists, the killer gets reduced XP and the assisters get the rest. The killer still gets the most, but the overall XP doesn’t change.

This actually incentivizes bad play. Diving too deep for a kill will earn a full XP load for the diver, but the opposing team will have their XP spread across everyone who helped.

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#23

You would think its bad play but, in fact, everyone assisting a kill means more points spread between opposing players; Thats means they will win the stalemate (Assuming there is one) via points. Theres always a work-around

#24

Except not.

It’s the same number of points, spread further.

Example: the diver gets 10 XP for his kill, and all 5 members of the other team get 2 each (assuming they all helped)

Same total XP, just spread further.

#25

We are already penalized…No FFYL :open_mouth:

#26

No, not XP; I said points as in your player score

#27

Oh. My bad. You are correct then.

#28

As a player who’s trying to learn the feel and tactics of a multiplayer, the wait timer is EXTREMELY frustrating. I generally die about 15-16 times per round weekend after weekend. So instead of getting back out there and learning how to be better, I’m spending my weekend staring at a sixty-five dollar timer counting down for a minute after every death, with adds up to about 1/3 of my available match time. Maybe there’s a way that I could take less credits, but not wait 45-60 seconds per death?

#29

What characters are you playing where you are dying 15-16 times…?

#30

I usually play Orendi, Melka, or Galilea. Lately I’ve been trying Shane and Aurox. I’m slowly getting better, last weekend I was able to get a couple kills. It’s just impossible to make good progress and learn, sitting in the spectator screen. I’m level 100 with a maxed 15 on Orendi and Melka, from putting in hundreds and hundreds of hours on the private stories, but they don’t prepare you for fighting real players.

#31

Its just a matter of over pursuing. Orendi should never be that front and center to die 15 times. Take out minion waves and drop pillars on unsuspecting opponents, retreat when you get targeted. Gali is a little trickier as she belongs in the fray, just don’t push so hard I guess. Mellka though, you should never die anywhere near that many times with. She has arguably the best escape in the game. Get in, do your damage, and when you hit low health, jump, aim for the sky and claw lunge out of there. Doesn’t sound like a skill issue, sounds like a decision making issue. Pick your battles

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#32

I was thinking that deaths should be figured into your score, like 2 points for a kill, 1 point for an assist, and maybe -1 point for a death.

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