sorry but the whole update is a mess imo...
i barely see how devs can come with so much bad idea at the same time...

- aleph drop
ok, i don't like it.
seems that mostly everyone doesn't like it neither.
but well, ok. we'll certainly get used to it, and maybe it has advantages we are not seeing right now...

- aleph elite.
same.
moreover it was cool to have our reward while killing elites.
they are stupidly dangerous. so you had to go for them even if they cheat like shits, but it was not useless.
now you just want to avoid them and put the more space beetwin their cheating AI and you.
but if you do this they will invade the map...
so you keep killing them and get nothing except boredom when they kill you with their magic fighting tricks...
but well, i guess we'll have to lose the habit of killing them in CC and just shot them with guns.

- shakura.
didn't tried the new one.
modification seemed useless to me.
shakura was not OP except in 1 or 2 missions for antags who 99% did not used her and in the end we just had to adapt.
so useless nerf imo.

- schneider.
i tried it.
and you certainly made him one of the worst and weakest character with this nerf. if it was your intention, welldone, goal achieved. you made a barely not used character pretty useless.
so the PV nerf was already a bad choice for ginebra (i do not argue about the other nerf for her, i think they are ok, but not the health...) but you did it again with schneider...
his weapons are really situationnal, (the turret did not pop automatically in the back of the ennemy at good range to take them down you know... you had to place it on an anchorage point and then aim for your target. all of this take time).
moreover a lot of his weapons have "short" range and curve trajectory.
so even if some are doing strong damages they still are situationnal and not easy to handle.
with this update, using the turret just make him totaly weak and mostly put him in danger.
use it when you are already hurt and the turret can put you at 1hp... well i guess we should be happy that using the turret does not instant kill us if we have less than 70hp...
so another useless nerf imo, who makes one of the less used character the worst of the pool.

- i forgot the reactive shield...
this is bullshit.
did you think boss didn't have enough health already that this kind of trick was necessary...?

but that's not all...
with prizes galore, lot of boring things seemed to have been corrected and improved. but all of them seems to have been reverse to their previous state.
maybe it was just a wrong feeling, but for example :

- i'm pretty sure, the top player at the end of mission, was not just the biggest grunts killer of the team anymore, but really one of the most usefull team members.
and it seems it has been reverse to the useless grunt killer again...

- mmr bugs (or mmr cheaters maybe) are worse than before...

- fighting bugs are back in force...
you can strike a foe, litteraly "glued" to him but the game says "missed"... and of course when the foe strike back as close as before to you, he does not miss.
there is also players or monsters who grabs you while you are punching their face, etc, etc.
to be short, all the bugs i have complained about before, who totally break the game but was far less present (especially after prize galore for me), who appeared again at the exact same time than the update (for me again).

so right now, my feeling is that this update is a complete failure. 

EDIT : oh and stop let us hear the grab's sound alert directed against others players who are at the other side of the map please...
just focus on making the sound alert present when an elite grab US (wich, depending on the mmr i guess, is not always present) and let us time to react (wich, one more time, is not always the case...)

recommended raiders :
- sooma, because engineers to kill quickly
- mikha with her shield gun (don't know the name sorry), because fossile to protect.
- an aoe character to decrease their number quickly like rak or loath. because lot of people.
- a counter antag. because antag. you can encounter any character, but be ready against harec, shae or konstantin.

WARNING :
just avoid this mission if you don't know how to defend yourself against antagonists, or you'll just end up here whining... promise.

on this mission, counterantaging should have to be a full time job.
so other characters, first will have to know what to do in order the counter does not have to do anything else, and then be ready to defend themselves, if the counter antag dies, is to slow, or is simply no match.

first thing first, sooma goes and protect the console with redeemer to avoid activation of turrets by engineers.

the 2 others characters find aleph and search for the old man.
i don't know if his place is determined at the start or if we have a growing % of finding him each time we are cheking a slave. but i'll barely never found him quickly.
so, you can start checking the farest slaves and little by little check the nearest from the exit point. so, tetraplegic will have less distance to make to reach the exit and he will be easier to defend.

second part.
have mikha to escort the fossile, protecting him with shield when necessary.
you have to focus and destroy the turrets as quickly as possible. grumpy doesn't like turrets.
it is pretty important to take controle of the last 2 turrets (the one defending the exit) as soon as you can too, not only they will help in defense, but they can kill the old man really quickly too, while preventing players to put aleph on him. it's not a fun situation to face. if a turrets run out of ammo, you can just let a grunt grab it, it seems they will refill it.

and that's it, in this part, except for turrets that can be traitorous and antag, you'll just have to keep monsters from reaching the old man.
try to share aleph, so anyone can put some on the old man to restore his shield when needed.

recommended raiders :
- sooma, with redeemer, always to take care of engineers
- any raider able to handle big pack of ennemy at the same time. (konstantin can easilly throw them behind the border of the map with his sphere on the second part. it's fun) ^^

first part of the mission, no stress, just kill things...
like on any missions make engineers your first priority, then try to kill grunts on turrets as soon as you can. but except if everyone ignore them, there is really few chance they lycus before the part ends.
and with sooma you're chance for that reach 0

map is short and there is only 3 spawn points for antags. so if one shows up you could victimise him pretty easily on this map.

second part of mission. serious things are starting here.
if my memory is good, still only 2 spawn points for antags. and the map is not big. if you are not blind you could see them spawning pretty easilly again.

there can have pretty large packs of ennemy here, so be ready to fight. moreover, a character will become target's order really often. be aware to help each other.
(when players do not stays packed or do not cares for others, i usually run to the entrance of the map as soon as i see i am the target, in order to have a long distance to kill them before they reach me. but do as you want) ^^

use the turrets to destroy the objective as soon as you can. eventually split in two groups (one for each turret) or stay well packed (the option i love the most) if monsters are too agressives. and then alternate on turrets to shoot on vessels continuously. each time a raider fall low on health another replace him immediatly while the others continue to defend the place against storming monsters.

the third part :
just run along the right border of the map straight to the lift, ignoring monsters, and you'll be in the lift before the extraction countdown of the precedent part reach 0.

final part.
probably the hardest part, elites can be really agressive here and engineers hack the reactor really quickly.
so use sooma to protect them and you'll certainly have no problem.
anyway if there is no sooma, be reactive and fill again the reactor as soon as one of them is hacked and survive the elites.

recommended raiders :
- sooma with redeemer to defend against engineers.
- doldren, because he can sneak behind turrets.
- konstantin, he can easilly get rid of foes on bridges with his sphere.
- any character able to destroy turret's protections and large packs of ennemy quickly. rak for instance.

the first part of the mission is the hardest.
i think there is no mission where it is as CRUCIAL to end engineers quickly.
that's where sooma comes to play.
make her protect the valve from engineers and your mission is half won.

as tekato said, if you don't have sooma, or she is not smart enough or well equiped to protect the valves, then try to collect the more aleph before putting it. obviously engineers won't be able to steal aleph from the reactor since it will be empty and i will charge very fast once you all put your aleph it in. so you'll reach each tier quicker and more easilly.
yet be carefull often people with lot aleph becomes target for monsters and if you die, well, aleph will probably dies with you.

all the other parts are pieces of cake.
on part 2 and 3 doldren can sneak under turrets to activate the levers in a flash.
don't destroy turrets at the end of part 3, they will save your lives for the final rush.

final part, doldren can go directly to extraction point, so that if anyone dies, it will spawn there too.
et voilà. you have won.

finally, don't wait to much for extraction since, hordes of foe will spawn and surround the area once the extraction is available. and if your team mates are already gone, you'll maybe have trouble leaving the stage.
no big deal if you are not in sudden death mode, but if you are, it can brings to a failed mission (specially if you are left alone to face a konstantin antag who will keep the extraction point as his precious. believe me ;p  ) 

hi MSE

i think you really have to cap that thing, and really works on it.
like REALLY. a LOT.

there is so much non sense who happens with AI...
i have already complained about some of it, but i have seen so much more since...


what i understand is the higher the difficulty, the higher the monsters stats (on top of new gameplay features during missions).

but it increase ALL their stats...
fire rate, damage, running speed, chances to counter your action, health, reaction time, surrounding awarness etc etc etc...
but it seems there is no limit to this, and so it can reach absurd levels and situations where they can run faster than you while shooting at you in packs in wich each monster have as health as an elite and can OS you.

(and by the way, the fact that grunt health do not decrease with punch is boring. why does only the last part of a combo does kills them, even if they had been punch 5 timed by countered combo before while a full combo could kill them in 2 or 3 punchs ? i say two or three, it's an example, since it depends on the difficulty.)

moreover, in this game, mostly all restrictions are for pvp, but they don't applies to AI...
for example, invicible time after a kill ? well it does not always works in pvp... so... no.
an elite will grab you easily during your invicibility time if he is around.

we could speak about wounded state.
in high difficulty the moment you are wounded you are dead.
any elite will cross the map at lightning speed to grab you, wherever you are, and if there is no elite, one will just pop behind you from one of the many ground entrance to grab you.

at high difficulty, most elite don't care being shot or punch at... they just go on, running toward you and grab you even during a punch combo or if you lanched a grab before them.
in fact most elites don't even launch their grab anymore. they just instant grab kill you, exactly like green things does.
you are near an elite, you're grabbed and dead. no red flash, no sound alert, no counter time. nothing , he just instant kill you. 

all this has to stopped.


really.
i'm vocally playing with other people sometimes. i can assure you no-one take pleasure or have fun during these missions.
no-one, i played with anyway.

there is a thin barrier beetwin high difficulty and absurdity, but these difficulty peaks crossed it with a hummer...

AND as they appears regardless of mmr or situation, you can be involved in insane difficulty mission against a first rank antag and while your own mmr is low. (and you know i'm not against pvp. so 'im not telling "i wan't no antags" here.)
but antag + monsters that could wiped you anyway even without antag... what's the point ?? oO

i don't know if this last thing is a bug or not, but in all cases, you still have to cap your difficulty, since raiders strength IS capped.

and i have no idea right now about how you could do this efficiently, but, you should work on your difficulty scaling too.
maybe with lvl forge of players.
monsters could be scaled with an average of all the forge weapons lvl of each players.

here it is.
and thank you if you take these remarks into consideration and do something about this problems.

sometimes, as for the mission i just ended.
difficulty is just reidiculous on top of the presence of the antag.
to be clear, he maybe killed max 5 of you and yet we lost around 30 lives before they surrendered.

the game just announce that we had to kill around 60 of the grunts who was individually able to OS the 60pv of a local.
we were killing  something just to killed by something else.
you succeed to survive a pack of grunts ? an elite just grab you the exact moment he dies while you are wounded, you're punching an elite ? grunt shot at you so much you don't even have time to finish.
and so on...

and on top on that, the antag. with a normal lvl. so i could have understood if it would have been a begginner, to compensate. but, no.

yet the mission was far stronger than the same mission without antag.
bug ?

a suggestion for the forum and not the game, for a change.

all is in the title.
sometimes somes are making proposals or else, and you have nothing particular to tell about or against, so you don't.
but you can still agree or disagree.

a simple thumbs up/domns for threads can fix that.
(not even for each comments, just for main topics)
and it will make it easier for you to identify the idea the community (well at least the one here) like or dislike.

hi,

if i remember well, i already mentionned it.
but the new aleph system is bad.

you reduced the time the aleph stays on the field and it seems you also decrease the damage done by exploding aleph.

and imo both are bad choices.

the aleph desappear stupidly quickly, what the point in making aleph drop possible with guns, if you already  don't even have time to take it in close combat if you are not looking your surrounding to jump on it before it vanish...?

moreover (and for that it was the same before) the aleph desappear "in data" before it desappear "graphically"
-> so really often you pass through it but do not take it because game had considered the vanishing was already done but the animation was just not over yet.
and it happens much more now with reduce staying time.
and it's really annoying.

there is so much bugs and other problems who get on the nerves of players in this game, maybe you should alleviate the non necessary frustration.

so increasing the aleph vanishing time would be a real good idea, but at least,  don't make it unavailable before it really totally desappeared visually... =)