Balance: what is it?

[Lazycollinator]

Thats why ive always been of the mindset that one ft member should be able to second wind pred single handedly.

However preds stealth and damage needs to be better to balance that.

[Thescoutpredmain]

[Weevo540]

I’m sorry man I just don’t agree. When the FT works properly together, with the way the game is designed, a good Predator simply has no real answer to that. FT holds all the cards. I’m not saying the balance is terrible by any means. For the most part I think it’s good. But those proposed changes I think are pushing it the wrong way.

[GrimmReaper]

The thing is though, in these kind of games, a bad killer should average at least one kill a match. Not get one every match, but most matches they should. That’s how powerful they’re supposed to be. That even a bad player can get something done as them.

If they’re bad then they should lose by the fireteam escaping. Killing the predator should be a rare occurrence. It should be hard. But it happens nearly every God damn match. Fireteams should be escaping by the skin of their teeth, working hard as a team. But they don’t need to. 2 players that aren’t dumb and using the right loadout, and the predator is normally done for.

The problem is though, even if they can get at least one kill, it gets completely nullified because of the reinforcements. Without reinforcements even bad predators can get at least one kill, and fireteams will be focusing more on getting the fuck outta there, instead of hunting down the predator. Reinforcements make hunting down predators a whole lot easier. I’m telling you, without them it’ll be so much better. Good fireteams can still win, and bad predators won’t be discouraged playing and think the predator is weak because they will actually get a kill most matches.

[Lazycollinator]

Its weird because unlike other assyms though you can actually fight back. So while we can look to others for guidance, this is its own animal and needs to be looked at differently.

The thing that upsets me most is that this being a predator game opens up opportunities that people dont realize. You can make pred 1v1able in terms of health, because his real strength lies in his tech. The cloak and thermal give him should give him a significant enough advantage to still pressure without being too op. (That is, if they are reworked to be less worthless). That will also shift focus to smarter and stealthier preds. As it should be. Plus with second wind already in game, you dont have to make it easy to kill pred 1v1. Just second winding pred can buy you time and help you push objectives faster. However second wind needs to allow pred more options to run away. Hes still quite easy to hunt down from second wind. This would change the dynamic of the game in the right direction imo.

Edit

Sorry, I also agree that reinforcements should be removed. But I also think syrettes should turn into self revives, medkits be applicable faster, and pred should be able to stealth kill players if they are standing still and have their back turned to him.

[Thescoutpredmain]

I’ll just leave this here …

@KameofWar

OK as far as i’m concerned only one person ever has complained about target iso and everyone says he is wrong
spotting is probably an issue but all that needs is a internal CD shared by all FT that lasts 5 seconds longer than the spot lasts

where i and many others are more concerned with a numbers issue or a “meta” issue
currently predator doesn’t have enough tools/mechanics to warrent the fireteam having superior numbers
if a fireteam becomes aware of the superior equipments/loadouts and is either on comms or just good at fps collectively (which they are starting to in the current patch of 1.09 i see more and more FT taking the right guns and classes just not the right perks)

predator cannot beat them under any circumstance he may kill some of them but they will kill him or xtract which is a loss

there are a handful of guns in the game that kill pred within 6 seconds of sustained fire and 2 that kill in 3.3 seconds there are 4 dudes the best snipers destroy the mask in 2-3 shots there are 4 dudes
in the time it takes for pred to aim at the fireteam if they see him he takes 40% of his hp or loses his mask
it is currently possible as the predator to die in 1 second FT also randomly gets critical hits (yes i’m serious this is a thing the discord has confirmed) where the SAWZ for example can do 30% of a hunters hp in one bullet and take off your mask in one bullet if he is lucky what the actual fuck

the fireteam classes currently have no reason to select any of them that aren’t support or assault or dutch due to not restricting equipment
because of this they have enough hp and firepower to render melee completely unviable they don’t even have to parry if they don’t want to

the fireteam could have 48+ heals in a game… they can reinforce 2 fucking times in a game(this is probably a bug) i’m not even talking about syringes here

and we know there gonna nerf slam next patch cause (they did) so pred won’t have a viable option to get them out of buildings that won’t kill him

predator also has fewer viable perks due to being force to select dmg+ or dmg- perks on every single build in most builds you have to pick a perk that help you move faster or help your NRG bar as your last choice
most of his gear is worthless when one of the medkits are mandatory i’m aware that currently bear trap is probably to strong
pred only has 3 viable weapons while i think the fireteam has 11 anyway the bow net and stick
stick has been nerfed in every single patch cause the devs don’t know why people are using it
the other 2 melee weapons don’t have enough dmg/accurate tracking/2ndary use to warrent using them plus the combi stick is the 2nd most powerful ranged weapon in the game now cause they nerfed caster

the pistol is probably pretty viable but why would you take it over the bow hell people are already crying for it to be nerfed

the smart disc could be viable but because it’s flight controls can be difficult and the disc itself is very buggy and fireteam can destroy it out of the air or just run faster than the disc it’s bad

one could argue in a reasonable fashion some of the predator classes are unviable due to speed/hp differences due to how powerful the fireteam is that’s a problem

i could go on but i’ll stop here yes i’m fucking biased cause i know a broken balance when i see one just by looking at numbers and the more i play FT the more i wonder how the fuck do FT ever lose

[GrimmReaper]

I completely agree. I’m actually for the high damage the fireteam can do, provided they don’t get to come back with all their gear and start over when the pred is low on resources lol. The fireteam should definitely be powerful. After all predators don’t hunt weak prey. But the reinforcements are just overkill, and completely turn the tides of the match. Any mechanic that rewards the loosing side, is normally broken and unfun.

To make up for it, I’d be down for seeing syrettes turn into self revives. But maybe they can only get one a match, unless they restock with those crates.

But yeah, preds should be squishy just like in the movies, and as you said their strength should lie on their tech.

As for hunting down a pred in second wind…if your whole team is doing it, you’ve won the game. So yeah it kinda does need more options, I agree.

[Lazycollinator]

Tbh just allowing pred to cloak and jump in trees while second wind would do it. Perhaps also removing the creation of new blood puddles while he heals, that way you cant instantly see where he is, but have to sound whore the medkit.

[Thescoutpredmain]

Equally important

@How to be Good as Fire Team General Discussion

I’ll just leave this here if this post looks familiar that’s because it is if i’m posting it as a reply to you it’s cause i think your ill informed it’s literally all you need to know to be good at fireteam and literally stomp any pred you run into

ok SO first Scar, LMG, AK, the first AR, and Hammerhead, vector the last SMG and the 2XL you should never use shotguns as they do less dps than the 2 smg’s i’ve mentioned use extended mag on all of them each of these weapons can down the zerker predator in one clip or at least in 11seconds if you are a fireteam these are the only weapons you should be using unless your a sniper god all of the snipers are good it’s entirely preference between the 3 of them however the barret 50 (last sniper) and the bolt action are both fine at taking off the preds mask in around 2-4 shots the minigun is overrated but is really good in close range as another option it and the magnum are memey with the assault but not terrible it’s just other primary weapons/secondary weapons do their job better

with these weapons you now have the capability to downs zerker in one clip or in 11 seconds or less assuming your pretty accurate and depending on your range closer ranges get as low as 3-6 seconds farther away get to about 7-11

keep in mind some of these guns such as the LMG/AK/Scar can kill the predator before he can down you in melee this is true for every melee weapon when your support/Dutch with the right perk setup which lets you completely prevent melee play from the predator if your aim is true in CQC unless they decide to throw their weapon in the case of the disc/stick

2nd you have to know how to parry with the autos above it takes 2 parries to kill any predator in the game
If you equip the knife by holding the melee button and pressing L2 or whatever your aim button is you get a heavy stab this stab has more parry frames and at times lets you parry the pred melee attacks with no thought in your brain so use it if your struggling

3rd you should be using either the assault or support or dutch classes in all cases Recon and scout is strictly worse than everyone else you will never need the spotting duration, mud duration, and + revive speed could be useful but most of the time if someone is downed unless they crawl behind something it’s not worth trying to revive them besides the interaction perk increases revive speed so just take that or the double time perk on an assault or dutch and bang you get to be scout with 150+ hp or a recon with 150 hp

4th you should only be using perks that increase your dmg to the predator or increase melee dmg and hp up dmg reduction from currently OLWF scales on max hp so if your hp is 150+ it usually is better than +HP you could for 3 costs take +interaction speed or +move speed sixth sense or then for any 2 costs you should always be picking reduced recoil reduction or reload speed for your 1 costs you should be picking ADS movement speed or sludge blood albeit hip fire accuracy generally isn’t good but you could take it if you think your going to fight a lot of melee pred’s

figure out which combination of perks here work for your class set up and use them well

5th Gear you should always be taking syringes on every single class or medkits

if you are support you should take both if your in a premade 1 person should have ammo bags and whoever is dutch/assault should be running audio decoys + thermal distractions every other item isn’t usually worth using unless all these items are being used by someone it’ s best to have 2 medkits per fireteam and someone should take frag grenades in order to stop predators from healing in hard to reach locations and flashbangs are good for clearing obj’s quick as they instantly destroy anything that glows red or red barrels

6th communicate with you team if you have a mic if the predator leaves always have someone go check the local pig spawns generally there is a very close pig spawn near camps always check it if pred leaves if you catch him eating a pig that equals death for him you should have one person check nearbye whenever the pred has taken sufficient damage to warrent him healing or 2nd wind to close out games this is also what frags are for cause then some locations that are usually safe for him to heal suddenly become unsafe

7th reinforcements 3 people means all in go their 2 people should split up you can be mudded for the entire game if you keep an eye on it rendering isolation worthless for pred if your all running silencers which the only downside is a slight dmg down this would cause some weapons to no longer one clip the predator so it’s your choice on how valuble that is unless the predator gets lucky on which camp he is looking at he will never find you until extraction

an 8th thing i just thought of if your fighting a predator who killed 2 people and he left whether healing or not you should immediately mud up and get out of the obj your in and wait for reinforce mission and head to it cause if he comes back he will probably wipe the 2 of you once reinforce starts he is alerted and you should immediately leave the local area not too far so you can sprint back to help your friends when they spawn but far enough that pred doesn’t kill you before they spawn

9th buildings under any circumstance you should never have more than 1 person in a building ever cause slam dmg is very high so make sure your not too huddled also in some cases if someone is downed it’s better to not revive them due to the ranged aoe/dmg of the predator killing those who interact this is also true with obj’s make sure you scare the predator off before doing such things or make sure his focus isn’t on you when your doing it people are bait remember that

10 the best predators use leap to confuse people so you need to be effective at tracking jumping or it’s movement in general predator move speed is the MOST POWERFUL tool they have as it lets them avoid dmg once you get this down predators will start to get wild and of course keep an eye on blood and use your ears to find them don’t want em standing still while invisible so they can ambush you or your team or heal for that matter and they generally use ranged weapons such as the bow stick caster stick throws or net guns so in those cases having one person with a sniper rifle or 2 is a good idea

11remember one extract =win in some cases don’t worry about killing a predator just focus on staying alive and xtracting realistically you can fin every obj in 7min or less which isn’t enough time for a predator to kill all of you unless you fuck up alot

generally speaking the best comp for a team is probably 2 supports one assault one dutch you could mix and match this as long as you have one support on your team and all of you are using this here post you have a predator hunting death squad at your fingertips

this is all you need to know to be successful as a fireteam even against other pred varients not just zerker combi do to raw dmg output you have access too

keep in mind you FT’s have more effective hp than the predator because in theory you could have 48 heals and can dps him down faster than he can you so generally speaking if your losing you probably lost at loadout select unless that predator was just a apex monster which in my experiance has only happend to my squad 2 times out of what like 75+ games

directional audio headphones let you literally pinpoint the direction that which the predator is almost exactly so with that just look in the direction spray a little till you get hit-markers mark him and light him up
with all these tips all you need now is to just work on your aim

All weapon dmg stats
All weapon dmg stats 2 electric boogalooo now with attachments

and this is what we should use when refering to hp

[GrimmReaper]

Yeah I could see that being much better.

[Lazycollinator]

As for improvements to cloak/thermal.

Cloak.

Remove directional clicking noises, make crouch walking and jumping from branch to branch fully invis. Leaping, sprinting, and normal movement should still be visible. Also cloak/Decloak sounds should still be directional.

Thermal.

Footprints always visible, mudded or not, however they dont lead directly to FT (they appear a good while after ft leave them, that way they arent too op) and are permanent. Target isolation should be either removed or reworked to properly compliment this change.

This would allow a new strategy that no game has. Walking over your own footprints to confuse predator.

[GrimmReaper]

They sound like some decent changes. The footprint one sounds kinda cool. Makes you feel like an actual hunter tracking your prey rather than just pressing a button knowing where they are.

[Lazycollinator]

Also firing any ranged weapons while cloaked should also make you semi visible. No more sitting in the middle of the ft plasma blasting them. That shit is grade A stupid.

[GrimmReaper]

It’s kinda dumb but to be fair, the trails the ranged attacks leave behind do reveal the location of the predator. Or at least guide you to where they roughly are.

[Lazycollinator]

Exactly. But tbh its just another example of the potential this game has that will be wasted because two things.

A. I suspect the majority of the playerbase too stupid to play with a footprint system like that.

B. All of my suggestions rely on a full and total rework and tbh I have as much faith in illfonic to make smart decisions as I do in the playerbase to hold off on buying city hunter till the game is actually worth playing.

Thats why ive grown so bitter. As shitty as it sounds I feel like ive been booted out of my own hobby by mindless casuals who support shady ass companies, and when a game has potential, that support leads to a serious lack of innovation or creativity. Its not about making good games anymore. Its about making money.

People say I should just fuck off from this community but its not just here. Its everywhere. The whole industry, from multiplayer to singleplayer games is like this now. Theres no refuge for the fallout that is caused by this.

Makes me wanna drop gaming entirely. But tbh when its all you have ever cared about its hard. Because you have nothing else.

[Lazycollinator]

As do the clicking sounds pred makes when cloaked, but the majority of the playerbase still doesnt know how to abuse that. So you gotta give them something (especially if buffing pred stealth)

Edit

The point is to punish pred for doing things while cloaked, rather than using the cloak itself. And to force pred to act intelligently with said cloak.

[Finessology]

@Lazycollinator

As for improvements to cloak/thermal.

Cloak.

Remove directional clicking noises, make crouch walking and jumping from branch to branch fully invis. Leaping, sprinting, and normal movement should still be visible. Also cloak/Decloak sounds should still be directional.

Thermal.

Footprints always visible, mudded or not, however they dont lead directly to FT (they appear a good while after ft leave them, that way they arent too op) and are permanent. Target isolation should be either removed or reworked to properly compliment this change.

This would allow a new strategy that no game has. Walking over your own footprints to confuse predator

Great ideas but making footprints visible for this long would explode ps4s

[Lazycollinator]

Honestly woulfnt surprise me lol. I suppose it doesnt need to be permanent, but long lasting enough to make a difference. Perhaps a 5 min timer? I dunno.

[Finessology]

Disregarding OP unironically complaining about observant countering his pig n shit loadout which is exactly what it’s for - pred’s normal vision is too preferable to use compared to thermal to even give thermal much use. It’s not worth draining energy and playing with extremely muffled hearing when you can just tag people and toggle it off IMO

[Lazycollinator]

Not to mention your eyes also become big glowing targets. Thats why im saying, thermal needs to be more active, less automatic.

That being said. I think thermal needs to be redesigned graphically too. Its pretty dam ugly and difficult to see with. So its extremely unappealing.