My thoughts about DB

Been playing DB a couple of weeks now, here's what i think:

It has the potential to be a really great game, some of the matches i played were really mad and fun, crazy stuff happening, wins against all the odds and so on.

But i am really annoyed by some things:

1. Dungeons: i reckon some (most?) of them are poorly designed. I play mostly rainbow (without trees), when i see a td area three squares deep that can be blocked by two big guys i know that the game its almost an auto loss.

2. Deathroller should be either nerfed or taken away. I can live with it in an open dungeon, but in a smallish one it can just sit there and close the game.

3. Overall the game strongly favors bash teams, maybe 4 gutter runners could bring some variety, but as it is now choosing a rainbow team its like choosing to play a goblin team in BB. Can have some success of course, but its really dependent on luck.

4. Four big guys in a team (two trees, a death roller, a yeti) - a bit too much?

5. Player base its minimal.

6. No leagues? Why? MM is going to be real boring pretty soon.

7. If a player chooses to ignore the ball and to just defend has a great advantage.

8. in a small dungeon (crossing for example) who moves first has a great advantage as well.

Mind - i like the game, but i think it can be turned in a much much better product. As i see now most BB players are not interested in the product for the causes that i've listed.

BB its already a game strongly based on luck. DB even more. Fair enough.
But the developers should not add more unavoidable luck factors (mostly dungeon design - you play in a dungeon and you can lose just because you "rolled" to play in it) to it. It takes away a lot of fun in my opinion.

We all know this is a dice game, but nobody likes to play a game when there are rules like "you roll a dice at the start of the game - with a 1 you lose..."

I agree with all you've written, pretty much. Good dungeon design is absolutely essential. Games in dungeons with unavoidable choke points, where one only has a single narrow route to score, are predictable (all the action will end up happening, well, around the choke point) and involve precious little in the way of tactics.

Of the official maps, "Catacombs", "Catacombs II" and "Crossing" are the worst offenders right now, after "Prison" got changed by the devs. "Crossing" does have its charm because there are so many precarious positions and it is Wardancer-friendly, but it is indeed way too small. Being the first to move is huge in there. The two "Catacombs" should be modified along the lines of "Prison" or scrapped altogether.

We need more maps in MM. Many more. Cyanide should make, like, a dozen of the most popular dungeons official with the next update. Not one or two, as has been mentioned by Jolly, but an awful lot.

As for the Deathroller, it needs some serious nerfing.

I think Outreach is much worse than the other dungeons you have named. If you're Rainbow facing either of the other colleges, you pretty much have to gamble and jump into a teleporter hoping you'll come out on your opponent's side. Even then, they can often pull enough players off of the central crossing to bottle you up in the teleporter room. That map needs massive changes. I've only played on it once and that was more than enough.

I thought of mentioning "Outreach", but I didn't remember its name It's an iffy one, but not the worst IMO because it's large, which means that the risky teleport guerrilla tactics can pay off for Elves, and it's also possible to manoeuvre the bashers into precarious positions.

Anyway, we need more maps. More maps! Many, many more.

I don't have much of a problem with the deathroller, even when playing rainbow (see the deathroller thread for my arguments on this ) - but I agree that it would be good to see some of the most popular community dungeons added to the list of official dungeons, and a couple of the worst official dungeons phased out. A lot of the enjoyment of the game comes from exploring new and interesting dungeons - being stuck with the same dungeons (especially if you don't like the game-style they encourage) is a recipe for boredom.