Hello There, I just want to preface this by saying that this game is fantastic, Ive been playing it pretty much all day every day since an hour after release. The current version is 1.05.
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First let me address some glaring bugs that have caught my eye through playing. (I mainly play predator, so keep in mind that I haven’t seen any bugs in the fireteam the few times I’ve played that.
-when charging the predator shoulder cannon, the targeting triangle does not shrink as it should. It shrinks properly in private matches, but not in pubs. Not major, but still notable.
-Predator when using space to jump from branch to branch, will sometimes not jump far enough to reach the branch, and when he falls to the ground, the UI for branch climbing remains. This can potentially cause predator to get stuck crouching. Only fix i’ve found is to leap when this happens, as that takes it out of predkour mode.
-The leaves of smaller trees that predator cannot climb, have collision, where as generally the leaves of the branches that predator walks on, do not. This causes many instances of shoulder cannon plasma being blocked, and because it only seems to happen with some trees, it creates an inconsistent experience and causes predator players to constantly have to second guess their shots, or give away their position.
-(not sure if this has to do with my system, or the server, or what have you.) Smart disc tends to rubber band a lot when in flight, this makes an already difficult tool to control on m+kb nigh impossible.
-Predator target isolation bubble will not appear during entire matches. I have had many matches today where I have had to manually hunt down the fireteam, then killed 3 of them, just to have the 4th run off and be untraceable, and because the reinforcement mechanic seems to be procedurally generated in terms of its location, it is quite impossible to find them in time. Many matches have been lost to enemy teams fully being respawned. I will talk more about this mechanic later.
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Alright, Now on to the suggestions. It is quite clear to me that practically everything in the game, on both human and predator side, need to be tweaked. beyond that, I think that the matches themselves need to be tweaked on how they play as well. Now I don’t think that predator needs to be buffed as many do. I like that he isn’t unstoppable and requires skill to play.
-First, lets talk about how the matches play, Right now, if I go into a private match as a solo fireteam member, I can clear all of the objectives by myself in roughly 7 of the 15 min per match. Add in 3 more players, and i’m certain it will take at least 2-3 min off of that time. meaning that in reality, the predator only has about 5/15 min to make a move and prevent the fireteam from escaping. That is absolutely ridiculous to expect of the predator, especially considering that he is arguably the weaker team. I understand that the 15 min timer on the missions was likely well thought out choice to prevent matches from dragging out, which I think is okay. 15 minutes is quite a lot of time. 5 however is not.
-So how would I recommend we fix this problem? Well I think that one of two things can be done. either objectives should be artificially lengthened, through extending their timers, or through adding more than 3 objectives. Or, The difficulty should be greatly increased on the AI, forcing human players to have to do more than just walk through a base in 5 seconds clearing it.
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So we have fixed the problem of time one way or another? thats good. Now we need to talk about The information the predator has. While it would be nice to have the predator know the fireteams objectives (which isnt unreasonable as you could make the argument that he learned by stalking and listening in on radio chatter or what have you), I dont expect him to know exactly where the fireteam is going at all times. What I would like however, is for every piece of human equipment that predator has in his field of view, to be marked on his map. That would make planning what things to bait easier. And yes, that includes the radio for reinforcements. This would encourage the predator to explore at the beginning, and plan out his method of attack to some degree. It would also give more purpose to the speed differences between the predator classes.
-Next lets talk about The fireteam. There is a lot I have to say on this topic, as Ive played both the fireteam and the predator and Definitely as the predator, I can tell you how I am being cheesed in basically every game against a remotely “good” fireteam.
-I personally have no issue with the Minigun. It takes time to spool up, and reload, and also slows down the user drastically. The only thing I would change about it is perhaps the slot its in.
-But I do have an axe to grind with a few other weapons. The first of which is easily the sniper rifles. They do a lot of damage, but that isnt the problem. I can respect that a well placed shot with a sniper rifle should be greatly rewarding. My problem is that you can use iron/reflex/holo sights on them. They should ONLY be able to use 6x and higher scopes. that way in close range players cant blow the predators mask off and potentially kill them so easily. Snipers are being abused on every fireteam. I, myself have used the bolt action sniper, and single handedly killed the predator in a public match. I kid you not, not a single one of my teamates shot him once. He was dead in the span of 15 seconds.
-Second, is the grenade launcher. Now I havent had to fight this too often, and when I have, they usually kill themselves with it before they kill me. but I can already sense the 4 man grenade launcher teams coming when everyone levels up enough, and there will be nothing the predator can do.
-Personally, though. I think that every single other weapon on fireteams, besides shotguns, is worthless. Pistols, plainly suck. and when you can use a shotgun, smg, or minigun, in the same slot as them, They are simply never gonna be used, at least not by players that aren’t roleplaying.
-shotguns are strong, but at least with the first 2 shotguns, they are offset by their need to be pumped. I haven’t tested the 3rd shotgun yet, but I have yet to feel cheesed by it.
-the smgs feel quite weak against the AI and don’t work too well against any soldiers with ballistic masks. but that’s okay, I think they need a minor buff to damage, still.
-Assault rifles, could also use a buff, as against the predator, they seem to be outclassed by everything else. yet they are highly effective against AI, so I would suggest, that if you buff the AR’s, you also buff the AI as well to compensate. Then bring everything else up to speed. I have not tested the LMG so I cannot speak about that currently.
-Spotting. Spotting is okay, and extremely usefull when playing in fireteams with less than ideal voice comms. However, I think all predators can agree that the ability to continuously see the predator through walls should be removed. It truly breaks playing as a predator. My suggestion, is to make the spot go away for each player as the predator breaks line of sight. meaning that If I spot predator, and he hides behind a tree, it stops spotting him. But if My teamate can still see him, then it will still be spotted for him.
-Reinforcements. You know we had to talk about it. There needs to be some form of nerf to reinforcements. Currently the predator has very few supplies, and against fireteams as they are now, those are lost far easier than they should be, meanwhile no only does each fireteam member carry with them 3 pieces of gear, but they also have an entire map full of supplies that they can pick up, and then beyond that, they have full supplies when respawning. this is simply not fair. its too easy to beat the predator with attrition, when it should be the other way around quite honestly. Now as for how to nerf the reinforcements, that one is hard. I think that the timer on it needs to be more than 15 seconds. if predator is even halfway across the map he rarely has enough time from the time there is a warning, to the time that the reinforcements are dropped, to even get there. I would increase the time to 30 seconds. make a patrol of ai attack the reinforcements as they are being dropped, but not too much as it should be the predator that is the real threat to the reinforcement objective. And he should have to earn that denial.
-Finally on the topic of fireteams, There needs to be some way to split up hardcore fireteams. I would suggest having a timed objective for them, that splits off into two seperate areas. That way they cant just do one at a time, and split up. I would have an objective like this happen early in the match, that way they have a chance to do it before they have to call reinforcements, in case things go south. Also, I would make it so that this objective, if failed, does not end the game, but causes all of the bases in the area to be alerted and have double the ai. That way the match wont end if they fail, but they also have incentive to complete the split objective, and not just fail it to avoid the predators wrath. also, the objectives shouldnt be spaced out across the map, but rather should be on two opposite ends of a base, and force them to hold out in seperate buildings for a short time.
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Alright, Now on to the predator, and I do have a lot to say about him currently. I think that the most frustrating thing about the predator, is the fact that enough of the weapons feel useless, that every predator ends up using a combostick / net gun or predbow combo. Beyond the weapons, there is a small problem with the classes I have, as well as some suggestions to help predator movement be more consistent for players.
-First lets talk about the weapons. The shoulder cannon, is a beautiful weapon, and I love it to death. But I would recommend a small balance to it, and that is to increase its one hit kill potential from a direct hit to a small radius when fully charged. between the fact that the shoulder cannon is on the left side of the head, and the laser is to the right, making it difficult to fire into certain doorways at camping fireteams, to the fact that the splash damage hit markers more than anything in those scenarios, it makes it very difficult to do anything against camping fireteams except waiting them out.
-Net gun is perfect as is, Its a high skill weapon as it can easily hit surroundings and needs to be led
-elder sword is great, I dont think it needs any balancing
-War club needs a serious damage buff. As it is the slower and arguably most easily parried weapon, it should hit harder.
-Smart disc needs a damage buff both ranged and slightly melee wise. The ranged mode is highly unstable and as such unusable for me, and for a weapon that has actually really poor range when used from a tree, and at the same time, leaves the predator vulnerable while in use, it needs to hit harder, Successfully hitting someone and then having it double back to hit them again should be enough to down any fire team member. Melee with it uses way more stamina than is reasonable and needs to take up less stamina
-hand held plasma caster needs to do enough damage to be better than the predators wrist blades, but not enough to outclass the other melee weapons, it currently feels like a bb gun. I think that it should take roughly 4 shots at close range, landing all 3 projectiles on target, to kill. that seems fair for its fire rate, and the ammo capacity of 6 gives predator room for slight error.
-Yautja bow is decent, but I would like to see fully charged headshots be instant downs, as it is a high skill weapon already, and seemingly doesnt do nearly enough damage to justify using it over the plasma caster. I would also make it charge faster, it should be fully drawn quicker.
-Combistick is obviously extremely strong, and I think it should remain that way, but hopefully buffing the other weapons will entice predator players to use other weapons, as it stands right now its a must have when fighting good fireteams.
-(not a weapon, but ill include it here) Bear traps, I think bear traps are strong, but are too easy to spot. I believe from what little ive used them that they are too loud in the ambient noise they make, and should be toned down, especially when you consider that the scout will have to choose them over health kits and there is no good reason to currently.
-Now I would like to move on to predator sounds. predator vision mode should not be audible to the fireteam, the cloak is fine, and the footsteps, I personally dont think are too loud, I think the problem is they are audible from too far away. the noise of the predator climbing the tree from lower branches to higher branches is also too loud. Everything else, including the clicking the predator makes is fine.
-Predator healing. Here is a problem I have, I have been shot at while healing cloaked before on a random tree. Im not sure how someone discerned where I was, but it felt as though the predators healing while cloaked does not maintain the “stand still and you are completely invisible” rule, when it arguably should. especially considering each fireteam member has access to syringes that instantly heal, where as the predator takes time, to heal.
-Predator last stand healing. This is an entirely different topic, but I think it is far too easy to find the predator while he is healing from a last stand state, especially since there are few places where he can jump to that are out of the fireteams reach while in this state, and he is far too loud healing in this state. I would either suggest making him quieter until his scream near the end, or calm down the blood trails a bit by default. It shouldnt be impossible to hunt him down, but it shouldnt be so easy that its better to just drop to your knees and detonate.
-predator last stand detonation needs more range, between the small radius, and the far too easy disarm, it very rarely is effective. I think that both the radius, needs to be increased by a couple tens of meters, and the defuse needs one more symbol added to the puzzle (5 instead of 4) that way there is more likeliness of both failed defuse or failed run.
-Predator classes. Im gonna quick bullet point this because these are all minor.
-87 predator energy and possibly speed is not equivilent to default hunter. This makes no sense and is quite frustrating for pre order owners.
- Hunter is fine
-Scout should have 2 bars of health, not 1.3 as it seems to be now (Speaking off of the 4 bar increments on each class. Hunter has 3, berz has 4, Scout has 1.2. the rest of scouts bonuses negate a reason to play one, as at the end of the day, while I see what you were trying to do, the scout still has to fight 4 fireteam members that can shred the berzerker unreasonably quick, let alone the scout.
-Scout also has no choice but to take health kits, I recommend upping the scouts gear amount to 8 from 5, that way the scout can also bring decoys or motion sensors, he needs the utility
-Berzerker is pretty well balanced, As he can carry the most utility, but cant capitalize on some important perks.
-Finally, I would also recommend perhaps adding 3 more perk slots. 6 perks, I know that seems obscene, but as I said, the predator is always at a disadvantage, this would allow each class to make use of some of the lesser perks, and wouldnt present too much of a balance issue as realisitcally the predator is at a disadvantage, and most of the perks for him are not overly usefull, but when used together could be. Plus there is obviously the perk point limit, which might need to be increased slightly for each class to make this idea work better, but should be done so sparingly as there are still perks that could make the predator too strong.
-Now on to predkour. First things first, when on the ground, I want to have to hold space to climb a tree, not tap it. Too many times have I tried doing normal jumps when evading the fireteam, only to be thrust onto a tree and become vulnerable. Secondly, I would like crouching on a tree to be reversible. Right now you double tap c to drop down. I would prefer that you tap C, you toggle crouch on the tree, tap it again, you stand back up, if you want to get down, all you have to do is hold C. That would make it easier to maneuver on branches.
-I would also like the ability to switch which shoulder the camera is on for the predator. that would help line up awkward plasma cannon shots
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Finally, I would like to address some cosmetic choices. If I unlock a cosmetic with one of the field lockers, I should have access to it. If I unlock a gold skin for a mask I dont own, I should be able to access that skin, rather than having to unlock the default version first.
-Clear all cosmetic notifications button
-In the menu, I would like the option for brighter lighting on the character models while customizing my character. as it stands right now its too dark, and because of the awkward lighting it can be hard to tell what it will look like in game, especially since some the lighting is red, and reflects off of the cosmetics causing it to look different than it would.
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I believe that about wraps up everything I can think of. Obviously Not all of these changes are compatible, but these are some ideas for helping balance and improve the game. If any of the devs does take the time to read this monster of a post, thank you, very much. I greatly appreciate it, and I hope that you can use some of these suggestions.
I hope everyone stays safe, and has fun with predator. See you in the game maybe
-LazyC
(reposted as the original was in general discussions where it would likely never be seen lol)