Mercurysteam's Hangout
BARRACKS => Gameplay Feedback => Topic started by: LordDraco3 on January 10, 2019, 11:34:43 AM
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Ever since the guild update, antagging has been so horrible that I feel my time would be better served drilling a hole into my head. I do a lot of antag, and it's really noticeable when I go from winning most of my matches to losing 90% of them after this patch.
AI has shit-for-brains, and does no damage. Elites are free aleph that pose no danger and don't even present help if I am engaged in CQC right next to them. Several missions in the patch received -15% spawn rates and -15% survive timers when antag is present.....why? When I read these notes my first thought was "so 15% less than 0 is still 0" and that's pretty much how it feels.
I have had almost no "good games" since the update. When I streamed 5 hours of antag games I think I won 2 of them, maybe 3. If I play raider, I can get an endless consecutive win rate until I die of boredom because the missions treat raiders like children now.
HBaT, Low Blow, and In Shock have become impossible for antags to win, I no longer queue them up.
Raiders have gotten so cocky that I have received multiple hatemail messages since the patch. Before the guild patch, I have never gotten hatemail. It was always "GG" and friendly discussion.
This is basically how my rewards have been thanks to all the losses. All of my faction points are dried up now. Playing antag is not viable or a valid gaming experience at this time. I have over a year's worth of experience under my belt and this is the least fun I have had with the game yet, because the balance has been so massively tipped completely in the raider's favor.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/401234699269177344/532868698260766720/49794546_10213146921973042_762126678066462720_n.png)
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Even though I hate antag matches I do hope they fix this soon I definitely feel like the game goes into like 10% mmr when there's an antag. They need a more consistent spawn rate and decent Ai for these matches. It makes no sense sometimes the computer becomes godly and swarms the entire time but most of the time they're useless.
Also the rewards are still trash for both sides win or lose. Nobody plays antag unless it's for affinity or fun. I think gold and faction points need to be much higher than for normal matches to give incentive for both sides to want to play them. A good start would be 3-5k gold and 2-3k faction points.
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10% sounds about right lol. Whenever I need some cards on the Antag side I Q for antag, finally get a match, get a generally very experienced team across from me, lv300+ and by the time the match starts I realize very quickly I am on my own, completely on my own. Like if I dont spawn the Raiders have nothing at all to shoot at.
@Draco, could your bad matches be an mmr thing? I generally sit around 70mmr, many of the players I regularly play with are high 60's as well, so our maps balance to 68 or 69mmr 99% of the time. When we last played you as a team, and lost, with your mmr mid 50's or so, you had an enormous amount of back up, and they were swarming. With you being among the best antags in the game, you must have felt you had more than enough map support at that point. Has the game to your knowledge been altered from that time, or is it that you are still very often a much higher mmr than the teams you come across and its a matter of Mercurysteam tweaking the toughness and AI of the backup you expect to recieve, but haven't been benefiting from recently?
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@jab I do remember fighting you but don't recall the specifics or how long ago it was, or if it was before or after guild update. If I won, it must have been before, because I have won so few games since that update. As for MMR, I was up in the 70's, the MMR you see in that screenshot is the result of my constant losses via antag.
If I had an MMR advantage last time we fought, then it would be only 1 time of a literal handful of matches that the MMR system has ever favored me. I consistently fight teams on 10% or lower than me, but have only fought higher MMR raiders enough times I can count them on 1 hand. They are so rare no matter what I do, if I am at 70% I will fight 60. I once lowered from 70 down to 35%, and I fought a team in the 20's that had a level 300 and 400. We have all fought juggernaut AI when a weak antag invades, but since it's so rare for me, I swear I must be flagged in the matchmaking system to always be on the disadvantaged side.
But currently, even when I fight teams that are exactly my MMR, like Tekato said, it's like the mission is 10% difficulty.
Anyways I uploaded this tiny clip of one of my games last night just to display my point. Look at how many kills I got and still lose. Look at how many ads are on the field that can't shoot anything even when the raider is down for the count. Like you said, if an antag invades, the raiders have absolutely nothing to fear except the antag itself. 57 kills across 25 minutes. I have more of the match recorded but this moment just made me laugh at the absurdity
https://youtu.be/awDZfZzzdU0
Another match I had last night, the Raiders killed Marmalade within 1 overload. By the time the black screen cleared from the cutscene, they were already standing at the pig with 7 out of 8 aleph needed to win. 11% lower MMR. Then they watched the cutscene.
Fought them again on White noise and they watched the watched the ending cutscene again. Just to reiterate that raiders have become a lot more bold in their attitude since the game has been favoring them.
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I dont know how that Hive in the video was still standing. She was getting lit up by the adds like The Hulk at the end of the first Avengers was from all those little hoverships. Definitely shooting bb's, what a joke. If I remember correctly our match with you was after the update on Weapon from the Past and afterwards we saw that we had the higher mmr advantage and you actually got solid help, we didnt even get into the 2nd phase of that one. If a player as skilled as you is losing 90% of the time as Antag then something within the game is broken and needs to be fixed. The teams I run with always get Antags lower than us, never higher and so all I have seen from the Raider view has looked balanced but that video clip..Something is definitely off for sure.
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Hi guys,
Indeed, when a high level antag like Draco invades a match, the game balances the AI, but it also generates a higher number of allies. As you guys know, we are always making adjustements and we can assure you there will be deep changes related with the AI and the Antagonist in the next update.
We want the game to be a challenge, but our goal is to reward players because of their performance, not just because they win or lose a match.
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The problem is that the amount of ad spawns when an antag is in match is extremely low regardless of the factors. Whether the raiders team is high or low lv, whether the antag is high or low lv, whether the players mmr is high or low; every wave consists of about 3 ads an an elite. Of course that doesn't include stages where massive assaults are baked into the objective like breath of hope.
I know you're working on finding a balance but I want to put a fine point on this so it's factored in. Ad spawns are too low. When there's a lv 300+ on the field it doesn't matter how good the ai is, 3 ads is not going to slow them down. I'm just asking for a smoother gradient of difficulty.
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Not my video, but Marmalade dead in 8 seconds with antag present. Bosses in general become hilariously weak when an antag is present. Kuzmann and Aneska also become unable to kill anyone at all, because they damage gets so low.
https://youtu.be/58CGXUOE-Ck
It takes 20 seconds to respawn if you're lucky, from death to full control of character, but the mission objective is over in half that time :(
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Not my video, but Marmalade dead in 8 seconds with antag present. Bosses in general become hilariously weak when an antag is present. Kuzmann and Aneska also become unable to kill anyone at all, because they damage gets so low.
https://youtu.be/58CGXUOE-Ck
It takes 20 seconds to respawn if you're lucky, from death to full control of character, but the mission objective is over in half that time :(
(https://i.giphy.com/tdN4TpyM3dzYA.gif)
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Draco puts it well, the bosses don't do much if any killing. After over 40 matches as a peaceful antag it's pretty clear that the expectation is that the antag is 90% of the kill potential on the match with the remaining 10% being accidents and boneheaded play.
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I used to quick play antag. Now, under no circumstances do i queue:
HBaT, this mission is a joke. Every change that just happened to it was to raider advantage, to a MASSIVE degree. Antag spawn points are also awful.
In Shock, Beholder is weak, Kuzmann is weak and does NO damage. Even locals can CQC fistfight me in the middle of the arena with kuzmann shooting them and they take hardly any damage. Barrier also makes this fight a JOKE. Why is Kuzmann's AI the dumbest in the entire game?? Should he not advance until he can blitzfaust, instead of stopping his movement like an idiot? Also, with antag present, blitzfaust barely does any damage. It doesn't even wound most characters.
Low Blow, another joke of a mission, free raider win. It has been awful ever since the final platform antag spawn points were moved 50 miles away from the gate that dies in 10 seconds. Stalk is literally the only way to get back up to the raiders in time once they reach the end, if you're lucky.
Weapon from the Past, 0-3 wardogs on the map at any given time. They also always spawn from the same exact places, extremely predictable and easy to spawn camp.
Enemy Within, acolytes are awful support units and it's just a 4v1 tiny arena.
Destroyer of worlds, aneska is a wimp now. I once had a match where they picked all short range raiders. They messed me up easily, but barely hurt aneska, fight took 30 minutes. She used her ULTIMATE POWER 6 times or something like that, and didn't even wound a single raider in any of the attacks. Instead of covering the area with golden death balls, she sprinkles them around here and there, it's pathetic! Oh and antag spawn points are THE WORST.
My wins all feel like either A) I am being extremely cheesy, by stalling timers like Loaht's House or Schneider hacking on In Medias Res, or killing the protector, or B) the raiders royally fucked up their character picks, and can't deal with the mission or myself, or they are low levels.
My losses only feel like I have no support and just get dogpiled 4v1 the entire match with no chance of countering the raider team because my AI support does no damage, trips and jams constantly, just plain doesn't spawn, or in the case of bosses, they are armed with nerf guns and they die in mere seconds. I never feel "outplayed" anymore because I can't call 4 people punching, shooting, and grabbing you all at the same moment to be "playing better" than me, because the rest of the mission is so weak and not threatening that they can just ignore it completely from the moment i spawn, until i'm dead.
Only a few characters even feel viable anymore. Harec, Alicia, and Hans (sometimes), because they all have the power of movement. I used to play Hive and Konstantin and Kuzmann a lot as antag, but they don't cut it anymore due to mobility of being dogpiled, or in the case of kuzmann, the lichtbogen nerf ONLY removed his ability to be antag, it didn't hurt him at all on the raider side.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/315765053364109312/536718195831341056/50697445_10213211725113080_997394940612837376_n.png)
This is what my rewards look like almost all the time now. I have been asking myself every day I play, "why do I even bother?" because this sure looks like antagonists have been removed as a viable way to play the game and make any sort of progress.
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I almost forgot about good ol' tolchok, which is STILL a horrifically unbalanced weapon. There were so many times I should have landed a strike in this match, but all Kon needs to do is point, click, win.
Antags that use it can get ganged up on from multiple angles. Antags do not have that luxury if a raider uses it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpUT6DD0zxU
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Current antag does just a community service for Raiders to gang up to kill for small amount of reward after extremely long wait.
200+ ping, you lose because shots land on you already when you see them aiming at you.
The same MMR, you lose because AIs are weaken and do not accumulate any number while they chase you.
The lower MMR, you lose because AIs become nothing.
So, now, when I play raiders, I see bunch of friendly antags, who just wait for games to give enough exp to become antag status.
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Yup that's what I do. I make it clear at the beginning that I mean no harm. If they are still trying to fight after I made it obvious, I'll just sit in spawn mode. I'll help if I can, but antagging is best for me when I'm left alone. I just find a spot away from the raiders to train my button execution free of ad interference. It's nice and the whole thing is usually enjoyable. But only because I've abandoned all expectations of reasonable competition. I've taken up antagging for friends who need rewards so I'm trying to get some lemonade out of this.
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nothing speaks more loudly of the state of antagonists than the fact that friendly antag is still a thing that is done
thought they went to great lengths to fix that but apparently nothing has changed
you should turn on the game and be able to pick either raider or antagonist with a reasonable expectation that you'll have fun as either one
not turn it on just to play as a raider, eschewing 50% of the gameplay, because the other game mode is so terribly unbalanced that people will only use it to gain affinity for cards
why not just get rid of this cumbersome system? there really is no point behind locking cards behind antagonist affinity
i get that there is some high concept here of balancing your playstyle between antag and raider and some..very poor endgame where you find the best cards from each affinity, but in practice we get a lot of people playing as raider and then people throwing matches as friendly antag and the super small minority of players that antag seriously to win but get shit on by a group of raiders 30-40 levels below them because there is literally nothing to shoot except the antagonist
just seems like a big waste of time to me, especially considering how piss poor the rewards are for trying antag, you really would be better off not trying, like placelord, than putting effort into a system designed not to give one wet fuck, like lorddraco
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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.
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The craziest thing to me after watching the marmalade melting video in 8 seconds is that I have NEVER seen anything like that when my team gets an antagonist. Even the same antagonist from the video (Mr.Senpai) When he or ANY OTHER Antag gets us, they get help, PLENTY of help. When we win (not always, but usually) It is because we are better as a team and familiar with the tactics needed to win the match. On average we are around 65-75 mmr at any given time.
I believe Draco when he says Antagging is dead but somethings gotta give because in my experience as a lifetime raider as opposed to lifetime antagonist, these levels do give the antagonists alot of help. Its gotta be with the mmr rating. Too many low mmr players running around getting top tier antagonists and the map just fails antag completely.
Any antag that wants to have a good fight, XjabberwockieX is my psn, I want to invite you to friend me, allow me to set up a match with you and my guild and I can prove to you, the maps give help, lots of it. I really enjoy improving against the best the antag world has to offer, and ya'll deserve some backup too. See u guys out there.
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The continued popularity of peaceful antags are definitely a symptom of this, in my opinion. If the mode does not feel rewarding or even possible, many players won't put in the effort.
And yeah Jab, it's likely your MMR. At 70+ I just always get the same 10 players in a constant loop, when I don't have a 30 minute queue, and I get kinda tired of that. Players at that level are too few. I go down to 50-60% and there's nothing for raiders to even do if an antag comes into the game, besides dogpile the antag, because there's no mission pressing against them to impede their progress. Personal MMR affecting who I can queue against is quite an annoying hurdle.
Options are:
Stay low and fight low level teams, or high levels that drop MMR artificially
Stay high and get long queues and always fight the same teams every match
I stand by that before the guild update, antagging felt fine at any MMR. There were still problem maps, but those maps are worse now. The sweeping changes that nerfed antagonists are very noticeable.
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I could read through everyone's posts but honestly will just end up agreeing most with Draco at this point. The worst part about where we're at now is the hope it will change drastically... in maybe 6 months or more because it's slated as the 'last' change on the roadmap. I keep saying and will keep saying... more modes, more variety in how we play. Even if this means just letting us set up private matches with no reward but also no wait times. With games like Breach coming out and showing 'exactly' what an evil entity fighting the powers of good could look like...
Antagonist just gets staler and more trite and it's something I still go back to despite its many flaws because being a Raider is still boring. This is aside from the fact after your half to hour wait you're likely to pull high ping matches because p2p is extremely unkind to this mode in particular. I wont even discuss MMR because generally speaking I think it's stupid, pointless crap that needs to be replaced by basic difficulties (that ANYONE can understand) yesterday and its existence adds nothing but confusion in my humble opinion. In the end, unless you hate Antagonist mode it is probably what you will end up playing because nothing else feels right after a thousand-ish hours of play and you will suffer!
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I could read through everyone's posts but honestly will just end up agreeing most with Draco at this point.
very insightful and respectful to everyone involved
after going through a couple more antagonist matches today while counting my ai support i don't think i even got to 50 before one match was over also there is something very..insulting in the way elites are still totally braindead gibbons when I know for a fact that was a chief complaint 4-5 months ago
Antagonist still has its moments of fun and in those moments I am able to perceive a continuum of similar moments just out of reach because of the shortcomings which have recently been added to this mode and problems which have yet to be addressed after almost a year
I keep saying and will keep saying... more modes, more variety in how we play.
no, dude, that is absolutely the last thing they need. you have to build a solid foundation before you start adding on all the nooks and crannies and there are still some massively broken fundamental problems with the AI and the way difficulty is decided
Antagonist just gets staler and more trite and it's something I still go back to despite its many flaws because being a Raider is still boring...
...in the end, unless you hate Antagonist mode it is probably what you will end up playing because nothing else feels right after a thousand-ish hours of play and you will suffer!
just because one person has played the game for 1000 hours doesn't mean it is boring to everyone, get over yourself, get over this small achievement, because the game is being designed for people who will never reach 100 hours. those people will get bored much more quickly and many will probably not even make it to level 100. asking for changes to the game that the majority haven't even fully explored yet because your bored shows a level of self-preoccupation borderlining on narcissistic.
also, lorddraco's point, if I may be so bold, was not that playing this game for too long makes him bored. in fact, it is the opposite, it makes him incensed at the changes made to a game mode he has played quite a bit. it seems you do not agree with lorddraco and in all probability didn't even read HIS post.
these changes to the antagonist mode are definitely much more targeted at the lower level demographic over any other, because it makes it harder for the antagonist and easier for the raiders.
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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.
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So basically since they don’t want to make it optional, they are at least balancing it so it’s less annoying on the player base, well it’s a compromise, so it’s something, good on you MS I can see where you’re coming from, that said there’s still way to many missions that are easily cheesed by antags, Short Fused, Media Res, Mind over Matter, to name a few. Short Fused is especially frustrating with antag, now that we have to make so many trips a single bomb lost to antag shenanigans is way to annoying, they have all the advantage in said mission if they go with a sniper, sooo maybe don’t allow them to pick up bombs? Idk…
And as for the bottom line of this thread, it is incorrect, don’t believe it for a second MS, I get plenty of antags every day, the mode is in no way dead, and a patch to over tune it for antags would be very bad for the already shaky player numbers.
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Hold up. I see a lot about recent changes effecting antagging since the last update. I didn't get a look at the most recent patchnotes, but is this an inference based on experience or was there actual documented nerfing? I am curious now.
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Hold up. I see a lot about recent changes effecting antagging since the last update. I didn't get a look at the most recent patchnotes, but is this an inference based on experience or was there actual documented nerfing? I am curious now.
got ya boo
https://spacelordsthegame.com/news/spacelords-update-12-patch-notes
ctrl + f
search "against an Antagonist"
or "decreased" as they are essentially the same
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Oh shit it's Quan!
I think you may be misinterpreting him "uh, ok" I've known Quan for a while and caught some of his stream commentary here and there, and your challenges towards his post seem like misunderstandings to me. I do believe we have the same opinions on antag as a whole, just articulating it in different ways. I do play mostly antag because I find it more fun than raider.
After playing raider for ages, it does just get boring. Though even back when I was still new to the game, I still set aside time to play several matches per week even when it gave no rewards at all. It's always been my favored way to play, no matter how much time i spend as raider.
there’s still way to many missions that are easily cheesed by antags, Short Fused, Media Res, Mind over Matter, to name a few. Short Fused is especially frustrating with antag, now that we have to make so many trips a single bomb lost to antag shenanigans is way to annoying, they have all the advantage in said mission if they go with a sniper, sooo maybe don’t allow them to pick up bombs? Idk…
Funny you mention that, I think I did say it's not even fun to win many times because it often requires cheesing to deal with the imbalance. But last night, I played 3 games: short fuse, MOMx2
On short fuse, I watched Lycus walk the bomb up to a tank with seconds left, it blew up in his arms. Hit him and Rak, they were both wounded, the bombs didn't even kill them. My MMR and the Raider MMR was in low 60's, and the bomb can't even kill the raiders in their face. There is NO supporting AI help on this map, but yes, I still find it fairly reliable to cheese by purposely killing and targeting the bombs more than the raiders. Sorry but that is the only option at this current time. After making it to part 2, barely, they easily won due to how stupid the AI is, they are free aleph, as stated by the quote:
(http://elites are still totally braindead gibbons)
I then played MOM x2, lost both. 51 kills over 25 mins, 43% MMR vs my 60%, 400 ping (they were all high lvl players at this low of MMR).
Then I fought Jab with close 60 MMR and did worse. Both games were basically barren of shit to deal with, no ads, especially on the first match, which barely even had miners due to MMR difference. The boss is extremely weak and even if I am killing raiders, they just kill the boss as easily as walking through a door.
And as for the bottom line of this thread, it is incorrect, don’t believe it for a second MS, I get plenty of antags every day, the mode is in no way dead, and a patch to over tune it for antags would be very bad for the already shaky player numbers.
Do they all actually fight? Because when I raid, actual fighting antags are a rarity.
got ya boo
https://spacelordsthegame.com/news/spacelords-update-12-patch-notes
ctrl + f
search "against an Antagonist"
or "decreased" as they are essentially the same
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS
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anyways devs teased a bit in discord today and it leaves me very hopeful. Nothing revealed just yet, but at least antags are not forgotten and will hopefully be pulled out of our current purgatory "soon"
There is been some somewhat drastic tweaking being done regarding Antagomatches
Besides the Aurora Thingies thing
I'm not sure I can [explain], since it's not due for the imminent patch release, but after
But before the Aurora, for sure
Huey not extracting has been adreessed
When I said "drastic tweaking" I was refering to some stuff affecting the match's outcome
I know there's being a lot of changes made into matchmaking, but it's such a complex and confusing matter to me
I'm sure we'll have to re-retweak after some of those retweaks
I mean, one of the most notable stuff is a really simple thing
But I'm not sure I should speak about it just yet
But it's a really visible thing you may guess or have thought about, that would make like easier for Antags
It's not some invisible value thing
And it sounds like something better than just "buff spawn rate, buff enemies, etc" since it's not just a value adjustment. Not gonna come this upcoming patch, but soon :o
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you know whats crazy? they said the exact same stuff about guilds
mse: "oh this thing is so wild, it really is quite the thing but i can't tell you because it would ruin the surprise"
me: "oh my, it must be quite the thing I can't wait"
mse: "yes, well i would tell you but it is a very great and secret thing"
me: "well, i'll just wait for the guild update"
*guild update*
me: "can't wait for that great and secret thing!"
mse: "this is it, well not all of it, we didnt finish it in time but check out all the layers for emblems and the chatbox, pretty swank huh?"
me: "yeah..what about the flags?"
mse: "you didn't see them on the intro screen?"
me: "oh so thats that then"
mse: "listen, man, we can't be arsed to give you all the things you expect to get from our teasers and hyping, so just be fine with that for now because guess what! we are working on another great and secret thing"
me: "i don't know if i should trust you anymore"
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I created an account here, before reading the above, to speak about exactly that. I'm glad that it's not just me. I don't love Antaging but it's something I have to do in order to get more experience. Ok. So far so ok. It's part of the game and I get that.
But Jesus. It's a buffet out there. The raiders are eating me alive. I'm in the late 200's so not totally horrendous at the game. Example: my MMR 40, Raiders skill was 41 on MOM with a lvl 18 in tow. Another example. HBaT. There were two ads and they were walking away from the raiders. What? Really?
Not one of them died via the enemies or boss. Not one. I died continuously and repeatedly.
They did the level in 8 minutes. 8. Would anyone who has played this game before think that's normal?
It's just not even remotely fun. Like at all. This is the worst part. I don't play this game to get annoyed or angry, I play it for fun and that's what isn't there any more as an antag. It's a chore. Chores are not fun.
There is not any incentive to play antag other than friendly or just waiting it out which is a shame and that's what I'll have to do...
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I created an account here, before reading the above, to speak about exactly that. I'm glad that it's not just me. I don't love Antaging but it's something I have to do in order to get more experience. Ok. So far so ok. It's part of the game and I get that.
But Jesus. It's a buffet out there. The raiders are eating me alive. I'm in the late 200's so not totally horrendous at the game. Example: my MMR 40, Raiders skill was 41 on MOM with a lvl 18 in tow. Another example. HBaT. There were two ads and they were walking away from the raiders. What? Really?
Not one of them died via the enemies or boss. Not one. I died continuously and repeatedly.
They did the level in 8 minutes. 8. Would anyone who has played this game before think that's normal?
It's just not even remotely fun. Like at all. This is the worst part. I don't play this game to get annoyed or angry, I play it for fun and that's what isn't there any more as an antag. It's a chore. Chores are not fun.
There is not any incentive to play antag other than friendly or just waiting it out which is a shame and that's what I'll have to do...
It really didn't used to be this bad :( That's why I made this thread, I've played for over a year, and even when i was a brand new baby to the game, I felt more viable as an antag than I do now. Just 2 months ago, I got so many 10.0 matches that I stopped recording all of them. I still lost, but the nerfs to antag have been so overblown that it's worse than I've ever seen it.
One recent game I had vs. a streamer and all players from discord, was on Upside Down. It was the single worst match I have ever played. I always fight tooth and nail even when i'm outmatched, but this one, I literally gave up and stopped spawning.
I picked Sassy Alicia, probably my most viable choice right now due to speed and damage. They were Rak, Mikah, Schneider....and Shae, with Light Pulse. Every moment I spawned, Shae would 1-shot me no matter where I was if I even thought about jumping. If I didn't jump, then all 4 raiders would just dogpile me. Shae stood in the dead center of my 2 closest spawn points. Upside down's antag spawns cover a half-circle of the round arena, and Raiders spawn in the middle of the other side of that circle. I had no chance of reaching her from any of my spawn locations, and even though they had more MMR than me, absolutely nothing on the map, AI-wise, was hurting or downing Shae.
Without her, I would have stood a chance and I have confidence in my ability to win. But being 1-shot from anywhere on the map, or being forced to not jump and fight 3 raiders at once, was completely impossible. All thanks to the spawn points, and a 1-shot auto-lock character standing where I couldn't reach her without eating that 1-shot attack while they bewitched me...
Antag spawn POINTS just need to be removed entirely. Too many maps have easy to camp locations, or easy for raiders to just hole up. Spawning should work like Doldren's spirit form.
Change my mind (you won't).
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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.
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Well antags can go back to relying 100% on the ai, seems it was buffed 2 fold, now there is no difference between spawn rate when there’s an antag, and there is no difference to mob hp/damage, now it’s basically the difficulty of a regular pve match, with the added antag.
Isn’t this a great way of releasing a new raider, having ppl possibly come back to the game, needing the new bp’s but then wasting their time with antags, so they go back to dismissing the game…
Not to mention more weapon nerfs. Off the top of my head, shy (seriously??? Again!!!), wisdom, shit happens, R&R, any more that are in need of being thrown into the unusable pile after the rounds of nerfs from the last months? Funnily enough I believe tolchock is still standing…
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Shy nerfed for the 5th out of 6 updates in a row.
But yup, Tolchok, still king of cheese. It's apparently un-nerfable. As soon as MSE tries to push the nerf button, they just get pushed away!
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/315765053364109312/540334718969708555/ami_a_jok.png)
Anyways I will be trying the new update when i get home
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Aneska is awful as antag
I still see maps completely devoid of all life forms with 4 raiders huddled together.
I am getting matches up to 20% MMR below me. Guardian on breath of hope died before I could even spawn in, despite not being dead
Yeah I think your idea of "being carried by the AI" is a bit wrong
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@LordDraco3 Idk what to tell you, maybe we are just at very opposite extremes of the spectrum and the game is fucking us both, I lost gold bp’s for aneska to antags that had loads of help and have also noticed them getting a lot of help on other matches, and unlike before there doesn’t seem to be a difference in hp/damage of the mobs.
Antags are a pain, but since I had all bp’s I often forget how much more of a pain they can be when they literally set you back 8+h from progressing, it is beyond retarded and unreasonable, and takes the issues of forced pvp to a whole new lvl, it quite literally ruins the game.
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I lost 2 or 3 games before winning one as Aneska last night, you can see for yourself that several times there are NO grunts on the map.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioWE5fln0vQ&t=1s
I only wound up winning thanks to luck and just correctly guessing CQC. I had a little bit of order support to help push Schneider into a roll, but look at how often I died due to being dogpiled by 2-4 raiders, vs. how many times I was able to kill anyone because AI was supporting me.
Ionizer is awful damage, and the low rate of fire and the mechanics that REQUIRE landing multiple shots makes it a non-viable antag gun.
I won 2 more antag games last night, but only by picking Hans. All other games I played with Aneska, I lost.
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Easiest method to fix all this is as follows:
1) Reverse the training mode. Training mode will now have two stars. Each star can be removed by beating it in training mode on any difficulty The first star will unlock PVE mode and the second star will unlock PVP mode. By doing this, new Raiders will have SOME idea of what they're supposed to be doing on a map.
2) Create two modes of online play. The first will be PVE mode. In this mode, there are no antagonists BUT there are no extra rewards (This means no blueprints, exp boosts, or extra gold/faction) and the normal rewards are halved. The second will be PVP mode. Rewards are at full with all extra rewards enabled but antagonists are also enabled. This allows people to have the option of antag-free matchs while still creating a high incentive for people to play against antags.
3) Dump the "multiple match" win requirement for rare blueprints. I don't intentionally go for blueprints myself but I can see that as really annoying. Instead, for both XP boosts and rares, place a score requirement of 8 or 9 to get the blueprint.
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Also, a tip for both raiders and antags.
Raiders: I just got 9.0 as Antag Alicia on the Marmalade mission. At various points, I was practically shouting at the screen "COVER EACH OTHER!!!" If you see one of your teammates limping, race over to them and cover. If an antag is on the loose, buddy system. Unless you're playing against an anti-cluster antag like Kuzmann, you should stick close. 1 antag vs 2-4 raiders = antag punching bag.
Antags: Up until recently, I haven't played that much antag but I've come to the conclusion that suicide is a strategy. If they're trying to load a Lyre Sphere/generator/etc with aleph, then don't let yourself get a full 5-count. As soon as you do, cliff jump. It removes the aleph from play and forces them to gather it again. (Alternatively, Huey doesn't seem to understand that killing an aleph-filled antag both wastes the aleph and endangers the raiders.) Suicide Loaht is also an excellent strategy for maps where the raiders have to cluster.
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I like where you're going. But, no bp's in pve? The biggest problem with antags is that juggernauts come in and ruin win streaks for rares.
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I like where you're going. But, no bp's in pve? The biggest problem with antags is that juggernauts come in and ruin win streaks for rares.
If all you're playing is PVE, you really don't need BPs to win. Further, as Karen and other MSEs have said, they really want people to do the 4 vs 1. As such, BPs would be one of the ways to get people to play PVP.
The Juggernaut thing is one of the reasons why I propose dumping the win streak in favor of score. Even without that, I can imagine how irritating it is to only queue for one scenario and just sit and wait for a new match instead of queuing for all of them.
I myself queue for the gold for the first minute and then for all of them afterwards and I only wait a couple minutes. (Basically. My queue behavior is a little more complicated but those are the basics.) I imagine, if I were queuing for a single scenario, I'd have the half-hour wait times that others complain about.
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I like where you're going. But, no bp's in pve? The biggest problem with antags is that juggernauts come in and ruin win streaks for rares.
If all you're playing is PVE, you really don't need BPs to win. Further, as Karen and other MSEs have said, they really want people to do the 4 vs 1. As such, BPs would be one of the ways to get people to play PVP.
Try running any mission at 70%+ mmr with forge lv 0 weapons and let me know how that goes. Imo pve does require blueprints or enemies will eat up all your shots.
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Antagging is the only way I have fun. It's to easy otherwise it's much more rewarding winning an antagonist game.