Since I read that the Devs are collecting this kind of feedback, I wanted to share my opinion on the newly improved cloaking abilities of the Predator.
I’m mainly playing Fireteam on PC since the free trial in March for at least 3-4 Hours daily with a fixed Team of similarly experienced (and addicted) players and hunting down Predators fast has been our main business.
We usually gear our Loadouts towards high damage outputs, while being very agile and fast, so we can directly catch and kill most Preds after putting them into second wind, or chase them around to put them under pressure until they make mistakes.
As with every patch, I think we still need a few weeks for adapting to the new level of difficulty until we are able to easily hunt down the amateur Predators again.
In my opinion, it was absolutely necessary to improve the cloaking!
Why?
- It has been way too easy for us to hunt down Predators since we were able to see them from a far distance, which resulted in many games, where we chased the Pred when he wasn’t even put into second wind yet. Just to put them under pressure.
- Scout, Berserker, and Samurai Predators are finally able to survive us on a regular basis since they are able to disappear quickly.
-The new cloaking improves the overall experience, as it makes the games more intense and Predator attacks less predictable and more surprising.
-The Smart Disc is finally useful, since you don’t stand around being a big half-cloaked target.
-Snipers were too OP, since we could see Predators approach from far distances, so they never had a chance to get close enough to us to attack.
But the new cloaking is far too powerful and should be optimized.
Why?
- As a Predator, I am now able to easily harvest most Top Tier PC Players’ skulls, as they are not able to see me anymore. Like at all. I can run around in front of most people without being seen or attacked. And I’m an awful Predator player! The Pro Predators are basically unbeatable right now.
- Using a Sniper Rifle with the 10x Scope is absolutely useless right now. The 45-50m range is far too close. In my opinion, it has even become dangerous to play with such a rifle.
- New FT Metas will most likely focus on closer distances and Knife Combat, I feel like the current state of the Game is rewarding Knife Combo Spamming and Glitched Knife attacks far more than ever before, as they currently are my most powerful attacks (and thus defense) right now. Most Predator encounters where I am able to fight back happen on such close distances.
- New Players (or People who are not as addicted as we are) only have a small chance to survive games right now. Especially when the matchmaking puts them together with far higher level Predator players.
My recommendations for further improvements:
- Increase the visibility range up to 80-100 meters, or at least for 6x and 10x scopes.
- Increasing the overall visibility just slightly, so Predators who are running around can be seen easier in the current 50M range. But leave him completely invisible over 100m.
- Make the Predator louder! I can imagine this would add to the current frightening experience of Predator ambushes since you know he’s there, but you can’t find them, which creates tension.
- Adjust the Matchmaking towards more similar level ranges.
Overall, I think Illfonic is making a good step in the right direction with this Patch and I seriously like the direction to where this Game is developing!