Is this not an issue which MSE believes is important?

Anyway, for everyone else. I have gotten my MMR to 0.

It has totally broken the game. By lowering my MMR to below 1 I have essentially become unranked.

This makes it so whenever I antagonize ANYONE, unless they are ALSO unranked, then the AI gets a MASSIVE boost to damage and health.

So much so that they become IMPOSSIBLE to deal with, especially Wardogs. Wardogs come in such great numbers already that having their statistics scale like they were a Hades makes them literally invincible.

I had a group of level 100+ Raiders who I got matched with at MMR 0. Their collective Raider skill was 32%. They didn't make it past the first phase of Short-Fused and this is with me helping them or at least not interfering. I saw a Wardog simply punch their Harec and he was downed. He was killed a moment later by the same Wardog firing a shotgun blast.

This is only possible because of what I can do with the system. I can control my MMR and that gives me complete control over any and every match I play in.

When I am a Raider my MMR lowers the difficulty so fucking low. Hades rifle grunts have, no shit, 80 HP. They will unload a clip into me for something around 60 damage total. Their strikes will do 4 damage. This is at 10% difficulty. I can probably get it lower depending on the other Raider's MMRs.

So..I have demonstrated that MMR is an incredibly heavy influence on difficulty in the game and that it is evidently one of the only deciding factors.

I am just one person but having MMR 0 means I will always have the advantage and I can give that advantage to fellow Raiders while using it as an antagonist makes me an unkillable supergod. Which goes back to my point about bandying about Jvela's post, it is giving people the wrong idea because it is not entirely truthful.

If you want to succeed at this game then you should lower your MMR as it has everything to do with difficulty. Your level, your forge level, your amount of matches played - none of it matters. If it does it is in such a minuscule way as to be totally negligible.

And, if anyone was wondering, my rewards have not changed at all. The only thing that has changed is now, as an antagonist, the Raiders I fight will receive a 0% skill bonus from me. They get nothing from fighting me and with a near-perfect performance they can barely get a 6 with me as an antagonist. Not to mention the immortal butchers that the AI becomes.

I had a friend, whose MMR was above 40%, who told me about a long ass 40+ minute match on a mission which was rated as 42% difficulty. He received a 5.6 for his troubles and got something like 1k gold and 600 faction. At my MMR I can do that same mission FOUR times as fast as him getting a 9.1 each time, rather effortlessly, and come away with 12k+ in gold and 4k+ in faction. In the same amount of time.

In the SAME amount of time. Needless to say, he decided to start lowering his MMR by becoming a friendly antagonist. I told him I thought it was an incredibly wise decision.

Lower your MMR. You will thank me later.

Yeh, if an antagonist disconnects then they get the same message as if they were a Raider.

This has been discussed into the goddamn ground. I can easily point out where your arguments are flawed in a myriad ways using information that has been synthesized by the many MANY MANY MANY people who have said these EXACT same things.

Check it out.

Number 1; there are not always going to be antagonists within your MMR/difficulty rating so this is kind of a ridiculous demand. This MIGHT be how Aurora Specters will work, strong AI opponent above the normal guys. But..come on. Not every match is going to have an antagonist and that is..just fine. Not everyone wants to antagonize all the time.

Number 2; No, antagonist does not need a buff. If you are antagonizing below level 150, which is when passive stats max out, then you have failed to grasp the meaning of the antagonist system. What they need is not for the AI to be totally gimped when they enter a match.

Number 3; Also, nope. Such a thing would be very very easy to exploit and matches where people are being decimated by an antagonist you can at least easily identify WHY you're losing. If there were these other weird secret objectives for the antagonist then new players would be even MORE baffled as to why they lost.

Number 4; is so silly it made me realize I just wasted a lot of time responding to this. What the fuck does it matter if there is a specific antagonist or not? Seriously, what the hell? This is a really..strange and not well thought out idea.

Why should we reward people for NOT understanding the meta?

Also, respawn timer increase for antagonist? I don't think you've ever been in a situation where the Raiders can just spawn camp you. If it increased every time then in just a few minutes your respawn timer would be so long you may as well not play the game.

There are definitely some tweaks that antagonist need but these are not it.  Not even close.

I don't think so, SoonPhent.

It was like..an Andy Kaufman sort of deal. It is alright if you don't get it. That is what makes it hilarious.

It has been my experience that at the so called "sweet spot" of MMR, 30-40%, the AI is woefully inadequate to aid the antagonist against a basically coordinated team.

I saw a Ginebra tank 3 Hades rifle grunts and kill them all with strikes. I left those grunts alone for 5 seconds and they were eviscerated. I know this because by the time I spawned in to start the second phase of Low Blow the Raiders had already destroyed the first 2 turrets. Ginebra took down a turret BY HERSELF without a gun or her cat powers being utilized.

There was literally nothing stopping them from coming straight for me.

Similarly, I had a team of 150+ Raiders with me as we fought a level 200+ antagonist. There was literally nothing stopping me from rushing him as soon as he spawned. I had at least one other Raider with me at all times because there was fuck-all to go kill except the antagonist. And this was on Breath of Hope!

Props to that antagonist for not disconnecting. We didn't give him an inch.  He was no threat at all. I don't even know if he was good at the game or not because we had him at such a disadvantage the whole match he pretty much died immediately following any confrontation.

Shit is fucked.

Sucks to be an antagonist.

Guild name: Sa Tapputu Gimirtu

Philosophy: Those that are the hardest to help need it the most.

Banner: An intricate mesh of sheep and shepherds leading them to safety from a fire the sheep started.

We will not be recruiting anyone so that we may maintain 100% participation in all guild events.

Sorry, I misunderstood.

It would be quite hard to prove this and I'll have to take your word for the other people talking about this because I am too lazy to go look it up.

I don't doubt your experience with the system and I believe you would pick up on such nuances as more aggressive AI and larger health pools. I have played in pre-mades a bit, far from often though, and out of them a bit as well. I haven't really noticed a large variance in difficulty.

Usually, pre-made squads do much better since you naturally will be in better communication. Given similar skill levels to randoms.

Do you think they should wholly remove it or adjust it; adding rewards or tweaking its effect on the game?