MSE,

We've been asking for a long time now to give us the option of playing against an antagonist. This is our biggest gripe with MSE, even more than gold, faction, xp and blueprint nerfing.
Many of us see the antagonist in an incredibly overpowered situation. Either:

1. The antag increases their MMR to play in overpowered environment enemy missions against T1 R1 teams and mopping the floor clean with them.
or
2. The antag keeps MMR low so as to drop down to a normal power environment, to obliterate T2 R5/6 teams, courtesy of Build 10 weapons compared to the 0-2 builds of the raiders.

This mechanic is clearly in place so as to drastically push the antagonist element in Spacelords. Many people do not like this. It's ruining the enjoyment of many.

All we are asking for is the choice of playing a mission with, or without an antagonist. That's it. A switch, in game, antag or no antag. A simple choice. You can then look at game statistics and you'll find, overwhelmingly, people are opting to play without an antag. You can then push your game down the raider route. You won't then need to removethe antag mechanic, just have a dedicated raider- no antag and a raider-antag system.

Seriously MSE, there's nothing worse than losing a game to a mechanic, no one asked for and no one wanted. Thank you.

What I'm stating is, in a match against an Antagonist, when you're playing with a low level team, who are being farmed by the Antagonist, how about dividing all the lives of the team up and giving each player a death cap that after 'x' amount of kills any more kills on them won't register?
This way, it stops Antagonists picking on the weaker members of the team and that in order to bring about an end of the mission, everyone has to be killed the same number of times.
Now I can't quite remember how many deaths you need before Cortez goes off to get Aleph, but hazarding a guess, say 12 for the first run, 14 for the second run and of course the 6 in sudden death, that means, a total of 32 kills by the Antagonist to win. They would have to kill each player 8 times in order to gain victory. Of course this number will go down, is the environment kills them also.

This is a complicated mechanic, but a fair one. Then again, MSE, just give us a PvP option please???

Having dropped from 46% MMR, to 20% MMR, I'm not only finishing missions super fast, but with low T2 Antags, despatching them incredibly quickly and high mission scores. I'm helping beginners finish missions who now don't have to worry about Antags.
But the first for me is, I'm making more gold, faction points and XP, as well as guaranteed '4' daily wins & pot essentially, playing as a beginner sub level 20 ( with weapon boosts that destroy enemies), than I would be at T1 R2 (lvl 190). It's more rewarding (gold, faction, XP) to play a 11% MMR than a 72% MMR matches.

The game mechanics, in this game are hopelessly broken. I'd really be surprised if this wasn't the devs first time, venturing into the world of video games. Why? Well if it was they'd know that, the main mechanic in every game ever created is, with each level attained the greater the rewards.

MSE, why on earth, would Raiders want to play a 40%+ MMR match, where enemies are bringing you to wounded in one burst of fire; where Antags can watch the environment destroy a team, as they pick off wonded players with ease, all for a score of around 7/8, due to a long game time and multiple deaths, resulting in far less rewards than on an 11% MMR match?

Now there's even more reason to quit matches as it results in lower MMR, meaning easier environment and higher rewards. Lol. The only people who don't benefit are Antags, playing high MMR with tougher enviroment to aid them. This whole MMR mechanic is all about pushing the Antag, that the majority DON'T WANT!!!!

Sonofoz,

It is clearer than day, that you deliberately provoke, insult, castigate and pillory members on this forum. It is also, more than obvious that in you doing so, you end up as being the main reason threads are locked. This ends debate, destroying their freedom to air their views of Spacelords and its game mechanics. It is a disgustingly selfish thing to do.

You are completely incapable of letting things lie, showing blatant intolerance to anyone with a contrary opinion to your own. You ALWAYS have to get the last word in, which ultimately is in he form of an insult.
I criticise the game whereas you, people. You really are a vindictive, spiteful, hateful, authoritarian, little troll!

I have ignored you since Karen gave me a warning, ironically for nothing compared to your behaviour towards, everyone. You still have had none which leads me to wonder if you're somehow 'involved' with MSE because you've been 'brown-nosing' MSE since I arrived.

I ignore every comment you make. You don't understand this. You continue replying to every comment and thread I make. I'm writing this to you for the sole reason, that your constant belittling and insulting of many commenters here is leading to threads being locked. You are destroying healthy debate between players on Spacelords. I'm asking you to simply ignore my threads and stop arguing with Cyber Hunter, Whitebleidd, Level9Drow, DrKuzie, Tekato and others here. We're not interested in anything you have to state.

MSE_Karen, as the moderator of this forum I urge you to keep sonofoz in check. He is DELIBERATELY sabotaging this forum, arguing (not debating) with everyone with a different opinion to him. I ignore him but this reply is here to save people's right to engage in debate about Spacelords, he's attempting to deliberately shut down.

Sonofoz, this is a request, a statement and not a conversation starter. Any subsequent reply, from you will, of course be duly ignored.

I remember in an earlier post I had a long conversation about giving awards to Antagonists, stating that they had a disadvantage against the raiders. This was, of course before I started playing in the high 50%+ (even 40%) MMR matches. The Raiders are at a colossal disadvantage playing against Antagonists in this range.

Why?
The environment are more than capable of dispatching you. In fact, every enemy is an Antagonist.
When you're playing in a game where the weakest grunts can put you into wounded in one weapon burst and kill you in another, there's no need for an Antagonist.

I understand now, just why there are players on this forum, who love playing as Antagonist - it's because it's a walk in the park, against high ranking T1 players, because you know that the environment will most certainly beat them and all you have to do is mop up the remains. It's a very easy chance of attaining a perfect 10 score. There is NO skill needed, as an Antagonist, when you're playing 40%+ MMR matches.
When you're playing under 40% then yes, you do need skill because the environment isn't really doing that much damage to the raiders, leaving them time to stalk the Antagonist when they appear.

I play in a team of very good players, all T1 R1. However, I can't play my dailies with them because, guaranteed, there's a high chance of a loss, on 55% MMR average, against the environment and a definite one with an Antagonist. More so, even if we do win, the time taken to complete the mission, added to that high raider deaths, will most likely give us a score in the mid 7 range, resulting in a large loss to awards.

The only time, as a team it's viable to play against an Antagonist is to purposefully lose lots of matches and drop down to 20% MMR. Even with this low MMR, if the team plays well, you're looking at a high 8, low 9 overall score and a good reward payout. Add in an Antagonist, who's not getting much help from the environment and they'll be quickly dispatched, resulting in an even higher overall score and award.

The only time I would actively reward the Antagonist more is on low MMR matches (sub 40%) due to not having much help from the environment. Anything over, no.

TL:DR - You need to give people the option of playing against an Antagonist or not. It's really the only way to go. Also only give Antagonists a better reward on sub 40% MMR, due to a far harder chance of survival, than in 40%+ matches. I attained a final monthly score of around 330 points. I never ONCE played a high level match, as an Antagonist, against high T1 R1 players. All the points that I acquired, as an Antagonist, were on matches between 30 and 40%. I had to work hard to get those points, managing three 10.4 scores. On a low MMR, this is not easy to get, but incredibly easy on a high one as the environment are effectively all Antagonists themselves.

It's no wonder why there are people on this forum (we know who you are) that are vehemently defending Antagonists and why everyone should be forced to fight PvP. It's simply because these players HAVE no skill and like nothing better than bashing on low level players/doing nothing while the incredibly strong environment enemies bring down the Raiders to wounded status (or kill them) for them to then run in and finish off.

If you hover your cursor, over the MMR rating in the centre right of the screen, it will tell you that the higher your MMR rating the better the rewards.
This, simply is not true, whatsoever. In fact it's a blatant lie, that should have been changed when you brought in the Prizes Galore (ROTFLMFAO) update.

Firstly, your rewards are what the rewards say they're going to be as stated in your dailies. Of course, in order to achieve this, you'll need a perfect 10 score.

Secondly, the rewards DO NOT go up as your MMR rating increases, unlike pre Prizes Galore update. T1 R1 players, playing on 50% MMR difficulty are going to get the same fixed award, as stated in the dailies, as a T2 unranked player playing on 10% MMR difficulty.

Thirdly, as the MMR goes up so to does the difficulty. In fact, unplayable difficulty. I played an earlier match on a 58% MMR rating. The stage was Mind over Matter and in a word was just a nightmare. As if the actual stage wasn't impossible enough, with Fifth Council soldiers taking you to wounded in one burst and elites swarming all over the place, we were joined by a T1 R1 Harec. This mission was made for him. He didn't have to work. The environment was killing us as it was. One burst from grunts and you're wounded and then he'd just pick us off, like apples from a tree, incredibly easily. We of course lost, badly. And it was a team of 3 T1 R1 players and myself a T1 R2.

The game isn't going to say "well, this was on an incredibly hard difficulty, with a top rank antagonist, so we've decided that the 1,750 gold and 1,000 talent points is too low for your efforts, so we're putting the prize for the match up to 3,500 gold and 2,000 talent points. And of course, if you have bounty and affiliation weapons, a percentage added on." Ypu'll get what you get.

The only thing that players, on a higher level are getting is going to be a higher score, to take you to the perfect 10, if you win.
Now here's the reality. The game difficulty will take your score up to 58. Great start you'll say. Not really. When you add up the fact that the mission took 33 minutes and the raiders lost about 30 lives, then bang goes your bonus there. You WON'T be killing the antagonist alot and regardless how many grunts you kill, after a certain amount the reward stops really increasing.
Don't get me wrong, my team were all good players, but every grunt in the game had a red triangle above it, constantly targeting you wherever you went. If you weren't trying to escape enemy grunts and beholder gazes, you were being killed by the Antagonist who was able to stalk all over the place, because as soon as you tried to target him, a grunt would shoot you.

So the bottom line, I hate to have to say is: there's no reward for getting better at this game and increasing in skill.
You've more chance of getting a higher score on most missions, pre 40% MMR and no antagonist, than post 40% and an antagonist.

This game is essentially rewarding people who play on LOW difficulty, on a LOW rank and only playing the pot and four dailies.
Geez.....in every game I've played, players are rewarded MORE gold, XP, equipment the BETTER they get. It's not just a FIXED prize for everyone. I truly thought that I'd be getting more gold, xp and faction as I got better. I haven't. Added to that, At level 158 (I think) you stop getting stat bonuses.  Therefore, there's absolutely no need, whatsoever, to go past that level as you've reached your cap. That's just before Tier one Rank 3.

And with an antagonist AND 3 TIER 2 Rank 6 team mates. The mission was Double Agent with none of them knowing WHAT THE **** THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO DO AGAINST Schneider and he dropped the crystal.

So pretty much the last 10 games played I've lost 7, thanks to being in teams with complete beginners AND ANTAGONISTS. Sure some bright spark will say "why didn't you shoot the flower"? I couldn't. Loaht's Dragée can't hit it. And I chose Loaht, because I wanted to take him out asap before the team died. And yes, WHY DIDN'T THEY SHOOT THE FLOWER? Firstly because there's no commentary to do so and secondly because there's no leader command to do so.

Gradually, more and more missions are becoming unplayable for two reasons - beginners not carrying out mission objectives and/or the team being killed by an antag before they can.