I've been looking forward to trying the new patch out all week. Yeah the team fixed none of the outstanding issues, focused too much attention on pointless and even detrimental changes. My god I have zero confidence in this game moving forward.

How many patches have there been and these fundamental flaws remain untouched?

Raiders grab animations can be interrupted at any point after connecting yet antags and elites are immune from the very frame they begin.

Enemies dodging out of grapples and grappling through punches.

Enemies engaging in cqc inside of konstantin's sphere.

The cqc attacks homing into random ads that are out of range and whiffing instead of targeting the antag/elite that I am facing that I am pointing my left stick at.

Characters punching at cover and whiffing instead of engaging a vualt attack animation.

Getting a measly 300 gold from dissertations culminating in matches that are extremely long extremely frustrating that nets less than 1000 gold.

Being forced to watch cutscenes you've seen a million times because someone is actively trying to waste your time.

Being forced to watch cutscenes by players after a match has ended. This is dispite the fact that no players' involvement is required to preserve the flow of gameplay. This is especially terrible for losing antags

Being sniped to death from over 50 yards away by weapons that are traditionally accepted to have low accuracy at distance like shotguns and gattling guns.

Being head shot by a Harek that is in mid transit to or from a stalk point.

Being surrounded by miners while out of ammo with no means of replenishing said ammo.

Being stuck in respawn for over 20 seconds as an antag while the boss is insta killed.

Etc etc. Is this game even play tested?

You can't complain about getting matched up against a player 300 lv's higher than you if you don't know what lv player you're matched up against.

https://goo.gl/images/ygKVYH

I think I've gotten a bit off topic here. The grind is not ideal. I'd say it's manageable but that's just me. The direction of the conversation seems to have moved towards resource prioritization in response to the team's seeming singular focus on the roadmap.

The point being made is that if the team is not interested in devoting resources to player retention, than the big changes from the roadmap will be for naught. I don't think that end user experience tweaks like upping rewards or making alterations to the UI should be considered large scale projects requiring the diversion of entire departments.

I'm with litch on this one(except the "fluff" term). They've gotta make space for preventative maintenance if they expect to make it to this destination in one piece.

I'll use thier roadmap metaphor. Say you're on on a road trip and you have to hit a few different cities. You're heading from say, Chicago to Cincinnati to Detroit, ect. If you get a flat between Chicago and Cincinnati you dont say, 'we can't stop to change the tire, we have places to be'. By the time you get to Chicago you might have a bent rim or worse. You're going to have to put in considerably more effort to get to your destination than if you had just stopped and changed the tire in the first place. Or, you might just get stranded somewhere in between.

I could be wrong maybe they have made room for maintenance and it's just not the kind of work I notice or want. But it's most certainly not a healthy expectation to want to finish something new before addressnging existing problems. Especially when it's going to cost you most of the players who are going to flood in when the new chars drop and they are met with an prohibitively imbalaced system.

I gotta admit I feel really bad adding to the raging fire. I just want to try and be positive and thank the devs for addressing almost every thread on the front page since they got back from vacation.

And say that this vitriol is coming from a place of love. We have very high expectations because this shit is bangin. But the reality is that those expectations clash with what is possible. We all feel that one simple tweak is going to fix everything. That the tweak is so simple and direct that them not implementing it is a sign of incompetence or stubborness. I'm guilty more than most.

But sometimes I worry that the proliferation of negative feedback might paint a dire picture for curious outsiders. That it could be as much of a threat to the population as faulty mechanics. I apologise, but then again I'm not likely to stop making suggestions because I'm not likely to stop playing.

Right on, what's your idea? Or at least how does it relate to spacelords?

Woah. Let's not throw the baby out. The mode is still savlageable, we just need the difficulty algorithm to take better account of circumstances.

Now as for new modes, I am of two minds. One mind wants the basics polished before moving on to new features(ie ppl dodging grabs and grabbing through punches needs addressed before anything else). The other mind wants a vs mode and a legit training mode, mainly because my friendly antag experience opened my eyes to new forms of play.

When I friendly with a good squad, I can sit off to the side and train. Because of this room to breath, I've learned to do things with characters that has bumped up my skill significantly. Also since I'm on mic with my raiders I can challenge for 1 v 1 matches without getting dogpiled when it starts getting fun.

As a preemptive response; the current practice mode is not a practical training environment. First off you have to win 5 times. If you've already played the stage enough to earn it, you don't need to practice it. The people who need the practice are people who don't yet have a feel for it, or thier character. Secondly, because you are solo vs all the ai; you are likely get railroaded into a particular character/load out/playstyle. It'd be more accurate to call it challenge mode.

It's pretty hard to make a convincing case for this while so many low-med lv raiders are getting put out by high lv antags. It's a real shaky situation and I don't envy the devs tasked with fixing it. I just hope they take the easy route and make it optional on a per match basis. Yeah that'll make it so antags only run into well prepped squads but it will open them up to increasing the ad spawn rate without fear of smashing newbies.