Author Topic: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode  (Read 7605 times)

Alex2199

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Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
on: March 08, 2020, 05:54:41 AM
I wanna begin with saying, I am not the best antagonist. In fact, I consider myself one of the worse. I am primarily a support player. My favorite raider is Sooma due to her extreme supportive capabilities. Those support skills do not really transfer well to antagonist mode. However, that is not my issue.

My MMR is somewhere in the late 30s early 40s and while fighting raiders the mission difficulty often drops way below the average raider MMR. If the raider's MMR is 48% why is the mission difficulty 12%? For the most part the raiders and I are in the same ball park so I am not understanding the math MSE uses to figure out match difficulty. Personally I believe it should always be 3% higher than the average raider MMR. If there is an antagonist maybe increase mission difficulty by 5%. This way the game is actually a challenge and fun for the raiders while also providing some assistances to the antagonist. It is a 1 vs 4 after all. Which some may argue "But the antagonist has minions and elite grunts!" Which leads me to my next topic.

Enemies are not spawning for the raiders. When you play antagonist you will see a maximum of maybe five grunts. Maybe. I don't care what the mission difficulty is, there should always be a large sum of enemy grunts on the field at all times. The raider team shouldn't be able to sit in one spot of the map for 5 minutes and do absolutely nothing.

Which brings me to objectives. The shields you placed on some bosses was a good decision, one of the best. However, some bosses are still getting melted like Marmalade or Valeria. Even the bosses with shields are still getting melted. I'd suggest making the shields last longer. Also certain mission objectives are moving far too quickly even without aleph placed in them. Like on Upside Down, for example.

I feel like some of the complaints are falling upon deaf ears. I'm not saying anyone is doing their job poorly, I'm sure everyone at MSE is trying their hardest to please everyone. However, I feel some complaints are being skipped over. I am not the only player who feels antagonist are getting the short end of the stick either. Please MSE. Make antagonist great again.

MSE_Laura

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #1 on: March 10, 2020, 11:51:02 AM
Hey there, Alex2199
AI antag orders depend on the number of AIs available. If the raiders kill all of them, the antag won't be able to send more orders before more spawn. There are factors as mission difficulty that affects the equation.
Do you remember what was the mission difficulty of those missions so we can have a look at it?

Alex2199

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #2 on: March 10, 2020, 07:04:11 PM
Well I don't remember the exact numbers of my matches, however, a lot of other players also encounter this. Whenever my MMR is in the 50s the mission difficulty drops to 30s to 20s. I will take screenshots and post them as soon as possible to help MSE figure out how to fix it. Thank you for showing concern

lightoflife3

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #3 on: March 10, 2020, 11:24:57 PM
Well I don't remember the exact numbers of my matches, however, a lot of other players also encounter this. Whenever my MMR is in the 50s the mission difficulty drops to 30s to 20s. I will take screenshots and post them as soon as possible to help MSE figure out how to fix it. Thank you for showing concern

'Match Difficulty' can be weird: I thought that without antagonists it becomes the MMR average of the raiders?

TheHex

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #4 on: March 12, 2020, 10:07:42 PM
NO antag = raider MMR is the dificulty.
WITH antag = If raider mmr is higher than antag, even if  by 1, the game will overcompensate with a way higher mission dificulty
Already made a post about it with prints, go check them xD
« Last Edit: March 12, 2020, 10:09:48 PM by TheHex »

lightoflife3

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #5 on: March 12, 2020, 11:08:01 PM
NO antag = raider MMR is the dificulty.
WITH antag = If raider mmr is higher than antag, even if  by 1, the game will overcompensate with a way higher mission dificulty
Already made a post about it with prints, go check them xD

Do you have a link? Was it a recent post?

TheHex

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lightoflife3

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #7 on: March 14, 2020, 05:13:25 AM
Here, all links on the post
https://www.spacelordsthegame.com/community/index.php?topic=28221.0

Thank you for the link TheHex, I read part of the topic: from what I read, the discussion was that 'match difficulty tries to overcompensate for low skilled antagonists by spawning overpowered NPCs that can overshadow the antagonists involvement in the match.'

I don't believe this the actual case of match difficulty, but if you wanted antagonist match difficulty to be more balanced in your favor, then my solution would to be to first, make NPCs slightly less proactive and more docile so that they are more dependent on antagonist commands; secondly, if the former is achieved then NPC commands should be more specialized, like an ambush command, or give the antagonist unit strategic abilities

Personally I am ambivalent, I have heard both arguments that support and oppose the current state of antagonist match difficulty. Some argue that at least 15 NPCs should spawn at a time, though I think this number should change based on map size and shape.

I had a few ideas on the subject that I posted under section 3)
https://www.spacelordsthegame.com/community/index.php?topic=31748.0

Look them up : )
« Last Edit: March 14, 2020, 05:28:24 AM by lightoflife3 »

TheHex

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #8 on: March 14, 2020, 05:44:39 AM
I Agree with you. But, if the game is suposed to be PvEvP, make it fair for both sides.
Ok, antag plays against 4 raiders
Antag has a entire army of grunts/elites/looters/captains/brawlers/snipers to back them up.
If the match overcompensates a antag just because of his lower mmr, makes it unfair to raiders. Even for a full squad of raiders, that makes the match a whole bullshit.
Grunts will not stop shooting untill they kill you. Their weapon will never jamm. Elites will shoot as soon as they get wounded and will take like 80% of your health (if you are lucky enough). The ammount of aleph requirements skyrockets 50-80% above the normal.
Low Blow for example: 5+ engineers spawning and they can drain the pressure in less than 5 secs even with 5+ alephs on the generator.
Things like that made many of my friends quit. The AI is broken when it's above 60% dificulty, playing as a raider feels like a punishment at that point.
Idk... I just want MSE to listen to us and stop making changes on their own. the best thing for me and I believe lots of players think the same was, the mind game involved on CQC.
That's what hooked me the first time I played. My very first match was against a lvl 300+ alicia on low blow. I had no Idea what to do but when I got my very first kill on cqc against a antag, that felt so good.
When you used to fight elites for aleph to complete objectives was the challenge that made the game so fun.
But now... If you're losing a cqc, roll and drop aleph bombs.
If someone grapple you, you're more likely to survive, even if thrown against a wall.
Idk... The game used to be fun... now is just a: play 5 matches and wait for another day to play again kinda of.

lightoflife3

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #9 on: March 14, 2020, 06:55:24 PM
I Agree with you. But, if the game is suposed to be PvEvP, make it fair for both sides.
Ok, antag plays against 4 raiders
Antag has a entire army of grunts/elites/looters/captains/brawlers/snipers to back them up.
If the match overcompensates a antag just because of his lower mmr, makes it unfair to raiders. Even for a full squad of raiders, that makes the match a whole bullshit.
Grunts will not stop shooting untill they kill you. Their weapon will never jamm. Elites will shoot as soon as they get wounded and will take like 80% of your health (if you are lucky enough). The ammount of aleph requirements skyrockets 50-80% above the normal.
Low Blow for example: 5+ engineers spawning and they can drain the pressure in less than 5 secs even with 5+ alephs on the generator.
Things like that made many of my friends quit. The AI is broken when it's above 60% dificulty, playing as a raider feels like a punishment at that point.
Idk... I just want MSE to listen to us and stop making changes on their own. the best thing for me and I believe lots of players think the same was, the mind game involved on CQC.
That's what hooked me the first time I played. My very first match was against a lvl 300+ alicia on low blow. I had no Idea what to do but when I got my very first kill on cqc against a antag, that felt so good.
When you used to fight elites for aleph to complete objectives was the challenge that made the game so fun.
But now... If you're losing a cqc, roll and drop aleph bombs.
If someone grapple you, you're more likely to survive, even if thrown against a wall.
Idk... The game used to be fun... now is just a: play 5 matches and wait for another day to play again kinda of.

I already told you about some ideas to make match difficulty easier in exchange for giving enemy NPCs semi-random traits

I have never gone passed 50%, but below that, I think grunts usually jam their weapons once out of every three reloads

Are you saying you that 'the game has become less fun, because CQC is less skill-based with the addition of aleph bombs and non-lethal grapples; the task of searching and extracting aleph from elites has become extinguished now that aleph spawns separately from elites; and that the daily rewards system is less enjoyable now?'

I felt like their were positives and negatives to the change to grapples depending on how you look at it: Assault Elites with invulnerability are much more easy to deal with for raiders, which makes it harder for antagonists; Doldren's in general were nerfed significantly, because well-timed grapples after using astral form were a major part of their strategy and this has made them less effective against characters like Mikah, who has extra health and can teleport if she has a chance to react. I would argue that grapples can still instakill if you throw enemies off the map.

I feel aleph bombs can undermine raider builds and characters devoted to crowd suppression and the role in general.

However, even with automatically lethal grapples and the absence of instant aleph bombs, there were already weapons, characters and talents that could give players the upper hand in CQC e.g. H.I.V.E.'s plague, Ayana Kwena's Legacy, both of whom could fire their weapons in just a single move, Loaht's ability. Also, though this is small, on the last stage of 'No Reservations,' snipers are the only source of aleph.

What I can agree with you (to some extent) is that the daily rewards system needs to change. I'm not saying I like the old-old design where you could earn blueprints daily by completing certain missions, which is what I think you were referring to. I feel ambivalent to the five daily rewards per day you can earn from any mission, what really frustrates me is the anticipatory design it lacks from it's previous form: When I started playing Spacelords, it was in solo queue and the learning curve was intimidating, but what the daily rewards could vary from regular blueprints to rare blueprints; what made it anticipatory and what made me login to Spacelords was to see if today's daily rewards offered a rare blueprint, because they were pretty much a random occurrence that would happen every week or so. If they brought that back, a good chunk of Spacelords replayability would come back, I know it.

I also wrote about reward system ideas: sections 4b, 4c and 4d

https://www.spacelordsthegame.com/community/index.php?topic=31748.0
« Last Edit: March 14, 2020, 08:13:00 PM by lightoflife3 »

TheHex

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #10 on: March 14, 2020, 10:46:58 PM
I understand what you mean about the grapple change but.
Dont you think that cqc cards are busted?
Back in the old days, Locals had a card that they could 1 hit wound ANYONE if have'nt shot for x secs. Even with the lethal grapple, you could counter doldren easily.
About the elites: yeah, it was hard to fight a brawler while they had invulnerability and they could grapple you, but, shooting them was always a option. I miss that so much because they were a real treat. Now they will come close, start boosting for like 5 secs standing still and THEN start moving towards you,
They are just free aleph now
About the aleph bombs: They are lame. You should'nt be able to aleph bomb while WOUNDED or gettin hit by a strike. (You should'nt even be able to drop aleph. Remember when you used to become a timed bomb if you died while having at least 1 aleph? that was such a nice touch to the game. Not even the Lyre sphere can one hit you anymore, they just push you back and that's it. Aleph should'nt be a controlled explosion. It was never like that, not even on the lore.) Remember why we need to rescue Lycus on hanging by a thread? They could'nt kill him because he absorved a large amount of aleph, Killing him would make him explode and take the whole station with him. That should be a mechanic and never be changed.
That's why I dont think the game is fun as it used to be. Everything could kill you. Used tot be challenging. The only challenge now is playing against a low mmr antag with the AI dificulty 60+.

lightoflife3

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #11 on: March 15, 2020, 01:14:07 AM
My point about Doldren and timing is that when an enemy player is preoccupied, like actively shooting or in CQC-- Doldren could position his astral form near the enemy and grapple them from behind.

CQC talents are not exclusively local and I woundn't say their all busted either. I will say that Doldren can equip two talents that increase his strike damage. I think the sum increases his strike damage to 170% or something.

Assault Elites with automatically lethal grapples were OP under the wrong circumstances: when 5 or more Fifth Council (resistant to shot damage), Assault Elites are on a small map with narrow passage ways like on 'White Noise' with invulnerability and surrounding a raider.

Also in order to cancel an assault elites invulnerability charge-up you have to either wound them or push them. If you can't push them then you have to sap their health and wound them, which can be difficult considering how they continuously recover health during this process; it's almost impossible when their fifth council.

I'm not sure you can aleph bomb after you get struck in CQC, or at least I don't think it always happens, it might be a bug, not exactly sure. Also I would argue that the old way of how aleph worked was dysfunctional: whoever held aleph and died would kill any allies in close proximity, unless otherwise specified

 E.g. your in solo queue as a raider and your in a team with a low skilled player, they're next to you carrying a 5 stack of aleph and accidentally get themselves killed, taking you along with them. In situations like that, having the old aleph properties punishes a raider for their teammates and vice vera. Another example would be the final stage of 'The Beast's Lair': if you insert your aleph into the pig, then someone has to guard it from looters, but if everyone held onto their aleph until their sum was enough, then they would put their teammates at risk.

Another point I would like to make is that it gives raider trolls another way to troll their teammates by standing next to them while carrying aleph and killing themselves by using the right weapons. Like any of Loahts weapons. This can't be avoided in certain situations like on some extractions points e.g. extraction points on 'Hanging by a Thread' and 'A Low Blow' are small enclosed spaces where a Loaht could easily kill his teammates with aleph explosions.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2020, 01:44:25 AM by lightoflife3 »

akhilakki

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Re: Constructive Criticism for Antagonist mode
Reply #12 on: April 16, 2020, 07:06:27 PM
Great!