Hi Everyone!

I just wanted a compile a post with the costs of the recruited characters' weapon blueprints. I often find myself wondering how much gold and antagonist rank I'll need to build weapons before I can recruit a character. If anyone can fill in the gaps for all the recruitable characters, I'd appreciate it. I'll update this post accordingly.

Lycus (Free Prologue Unlock)
Shit Happens (Rare): 06 Rank + 12 500 G
Spinning Coin: 02 Rank + 5 000 G

Hans (25 000 G):
Ansgar "Warm" MM1 (Rare): ?
USU-21: ? Rank + 3 000 G

Shae (Free Alien Myths Unlock):
Light Pulse 11C-A (Rare): 10 Rank + 20 000 G
Focus KAA7: 05 Rank + 10 000 G

Kuzmann (60 000 G):
Lichtbogen ZXX (Rare): 08 Rank + 15 000 G
Light Horizons: 04 Rank + 7 500 G

Mikah (120 000 G):
Granny (Rare): 06 Rank + 12 500 G
K&K N90: ?

Ginebra (?):
Su-Schleuder C33 (Rare): 12 Rank + 37 500 G
Javelin Ursa M-02: 05 Rank + 10 000 G

I guess peak hours would be after 19:00 in that case, so you're missing the peak hours. You could always download the Windows Store version to see if the community is more active there just in case. Alternatively, you could try find some players to form a squad with in your region. Or do what I did and rope in some RL friends, the game is free to sample, after all.

The PS4 version is crossplatform with Steam users. Likewise, the Xbox One userbase shares players with Windows Store players. I think the PS4<->Steam install base is higher, if I were to guess. Which region are you though? I find the EU queues are pretty good, but it also depends on whether you've purchased Alien Myths or not... probably.

I'd like to suggest the addition of some reward boosting models to encourage people to log in frequently.

Quick Match:
Players will queue for a random map once a day, including paid campaign maps, for increased rewards. This will include F2Pers, however they will not unlock Alien Myths specific content where necessary (such as Shae in In Shock, or certain blueprints). This will widen the map pool and shorten matchmaking times for people queuing for specific maps. An example of this would be Duty Roulette in Final Fantasy XIV. After the match is concluded, a reward is given to the player for completing the daily, separate from any in-match rewards, but it is not repeatable. This would greatly improve player retention, and it would also allow F2Pers to demo the other maps - which would encourage them to buy the campaign.

First Win of the Day:
Grant players a bonus reward for their first win of the day. This bonus could be a flat reward assigned post-match. E.g. 5000 G

Single Player Mode:
There's an option to play offline currently, but there's no reason to do so. Playing offline should offer a small gold amount at least based on difficulty. There are times when people don't want to play against an antagonist, or with other people, or they have network outages. Allow these players to play the single player mode for the reward they would have received playing the map for the first time. It's a decent way to reliably farm gold if you really don't feel like playing online, or can't. Either way, incentivising this mode adds options to players, and also stops this mode from being entirely irrelevant. The Gold rewards offered in single player aren't high enough to draw people away from multiplayer permanently either, but it still functions as a means of slow, stable progression.

Antagonists Exclusively On Prologue:
This is more of a remedy to an existing problem. I'd suggest removing the confirmation pop-up describing the map when queuing as antagonist. There's a real problem with Antagonists spam cancelling anything that isn't the prologue mission, so concealing which map they're entering would help things slightly. That said, most maps are heavily skewed toward raiders, so you'd be getting a lot more antagonist disconnects. I'd recommend reducing the respawn timer on antagonists to compensate on these maps. I'm just tired of rarely getting antagonists on anything that isn't Prologue.
Update: This change has been implemented, here's hoping it solves the issue.

Antagonist Mode Quick Match:
An added solution to this would be, again, to offer a quick match mode for antagonists, where once a day they will blindly enter a map and receive 2 added stigmas once the game is concluded. One of the biggest complaints about antagonist mode is the lack of reward on a loss. Having a small daily reward of stigmas regardless of how the game went, would encourage more people to play the mode, and be less likely to quit midway, or drop if they get a map they don't think they can win. This won't really affect the hardcore antagonist players, but it will get more casual people to get into the mode, and possibly get them to come back for the daily bonus.

Map difficulty isn't the same when there is an antagonist in the game. It's dependent on the skill of the antagonist.

You won't be encountering the situation described in the OP if there is an antagonist in the game. When you start hitting 50% and higher map difficulty, the game actually loses its lustre, your rewards drop, and games take upwards of 40 minutes, often resulting in losses. It's not noticeable in a map like Prologue either, because you are often matched with at least one new player, so it's rare to get above 35% difficulty on that map.

On top of this she's so quick in her sabertooth form and not only can she traverse the map with great haste she can also use it to avoid a lot of damage and escape from tough situations.

During one of the invasions I had the enemy team almost finished. There were about 40 seconds left until they could respawn and the only person alive on their team was Ginebra who just outran me in sabertooth form for the entire duration. I could not catch her and the npcs were barely helping. If I shot she would just move from cover to cover, if I tried to melee I could not catch her. The time reset and they would end up winning which was really annoying because I actually played pretty well that game. They were on the 3rd round of respawning I believe (they had like 114 seconds on their timer). I just couldn't get that last kill.

Don't worry, you're not alone in this. I've had the same experience playing multiple characters, she has no existing counter.

I've had a lot of frustration playing with and against Ginebra. As a raider I have noticed Ginebras taking advantage of the high walls in A Breath of Hope (the maze-like level where you charge conduits) and just sitting there in cougar form, not participating, but also being unreachable for the antagonist. I also had a 40 minute game where I was playing as antagonist and the Ginebra's entire team disconnected after I triggered survive mode twice, but after it was just her left, she soloed the game all the way to the end by running from one end of the map to the other, killing engineers and triggering objectives where necessary. She's impossible to hit when she runs around like that, and she takes reduced damage, with no duration or cooldown on her movement ability. The 0.25-0.5 sec delay on shifting is negligible when she's on the other side of the map.

And to make matters worse, her crossbow is ridiculously potent, downing high HP characters in 1 hit.

This is just a poorly thought out character in general:
-Passive damage reduction
-Fastest character in the game with no limitations on her movement skill
-One of 2 characters that can climb up high walls
-Possibly the highest DPS weapon next to Shae's
-Only existing character with weapon knockback
-Stress is deactivated in cougar form, so she's undetectable in this form.

Unfortunately, fixing one aspect of her character, such as implementing a cooldown to her cougar form, wouldn't balance her - but they need to remove the wall climb, and max out her stress when she's in cougar form so that you can see where she is - you know, like Alicia, the only other mobile character that can climb up walls.

I disagree with the minuscule timed reward window, but a daily login bonus would have a similar effect.