To preface this: this is the Feedback section of the forums, so my intention with this post is to provide feedback to the devs, not to lose brain cells in a directionless argument. I’m sure the replies to this will prove my point.
Moving on, one of the biggest frustrations I’ve had with the game design-wise so far is how the game resolves a match, primarily from the Predator’s side. So, for Predator, there are four different outcomes: fireteam extracts, you go boom-boom, fireteam defuses and secures your body, or you wipe them out. Extraction and self-destruct endings feel mostly fine, and the issues I have lay primarily with fireteam deaths and predator deaths.
So, when I down the final fireteam member, it seems like I essentially have 5-20 seconds to collect trophies before I get hit with a blackscreen. Now I get that the fireteam probably doesn’t wanna just sit there and watch me take my time yanking skulls out, but this window feels incredibly small and inconsistent. I’m level 79 as of writing this (to give a sense of my matches played), and I have lost well over a dozen trophies to the match ending.
I play Scout a lot, so I’m generally light on health. If I make a last ditch effort to kill the fireteam at extraction, and succeed, it’s very likely I’m gonna be near death by the time I take them down. The issue is that the area is swarming with AI, and I simply don’t have the health to ignore them while I take trophies nor do I have the time to clear the area, and take my trophies safely. Not to mention, in order to get full points from the Long Claim, or even the kill on the scoreboard, I have to get to all of the downed people before they bleed out, which is a small timer in and of itself.
Realistically speaking, it feels like the Predator should be able to pop a couple of guerillas and then go about it’s business with the dead fireteam, but the game forces the black screen on me before I can do that, and I’m robbed of the points that I worked hard to earn. Feels really bad, especially after the long, close matches that have such a fun and intense climax at the chopper.
Not to mention the match ends for the everyone if the last person gets in the chopper, so if I down three, and one zips up, the match ends waaay before I’m able to get the three trophies bleeding out, five feet from me.
Sort of an inverse of this issue applies on the opposite ending, where the fireteam kills the predator and defuses the bomb. When this win condition activates, I’m forced the sit there and watch 2 console players teabag my corpse while the other 2 farm brainless AI for like, a minute? I’m not sure how long you have to defend the corpse, but the Predator player is forced to sit there and watch the WHOLE thing, or forfeit the XP they earned. Now I get why Fireteam members should stick around after they die since they can respawn, but the Pred is out of the match for good when it dies. Literally zero participation afterwards. Let me leave after I die. I’m impacting the match in no way at all after that point, there’s no reason I should have to sit there (especially cause queues are so long, I honestly just wanna start the next queue).
Note: an alternative solution would be to make the secure-the-body portion actually difficult. It might be interesting to watch them try to secure my body if there was a chance that they could acutally lose in the process. Also it’d be fun to do as fireteam, instead of, “Oh, I guess I’ll XP farm for a bit.”
The third and final major point I wanted to share was that match length honestly feels really short for the kind of gameplay this game supports. I find it equally fun the zoom between tree branches, boulders, hills, low ground bushes, hiding in plain sight with cloak, all the while taking potshots with the Plasma Caster or Bow, as I do quietly stalking my prey, laying traps, and playing mindgames. It’s also fun as Fireteam imo, to run or fight the crazy alien hopping all over place, pelting us with exploding plasma, or to play super sneaky and watch him hop over us in the branches as he runs off to investigate a different location.
However, the 15:00 match timer that makes both teams lose when it runs out, makes it feel like I don’t have time to do anything other than speedrun objectives, or as Predator, it makes it feel like I don’t have anytime to play a slower, psychologcial approach, even though the games gives me those tools with the mimicry wheel and audio decoys. I’ve had a lot fun in matches where the fireteam holes up in the two-story warehouse on Derailed, as I set up motion sensors on the exterior, and lay bear traps over some of the exits, playing with various sounds or the lack thereof to bait the little mice out. With the timer being so short and punishing everyone though, it feels like both teams need to play fast and hasty to get the XP they want. Believe it or not, as a Predator, I do NOT want to run into the building with 2 shotguns, a minigun, and a grenade launcher, nor do I want to sit around and wait for the screen to forcibly go to black, with a “PREY ESCAPED” message, cause the fireteam wanted to play slow.
I think that at the core, issue is that the tools you’ve given us allow for a lot of different playstyles, and that’s AWESOME, I think you’ve done a really good job with the immersion and the core gameplay - it’s tons of fun. The short, and unreasonably punishing match timer, the forcible match-end conditions,
and quick objectives REALLY put a damper on slower, patient, psychological playstyles that are equally fun to engage in.
A couple of aside notes, fairly unrelated to the topic that I wanted to mention since I’m here making a post:
Predator/Fireteam balance feels great overall - Predator is difficult and feels underpowered at first, but when played well is an absolute menace and when paired with a skilled fireteam, creates some truly outstanding matches.
The Combistick feels powerful, not sure if it’s overtuned,since the slower strikes make it more parryable than before, but the other melee options feel pathetic, and I would rather take anything else with Wristblades than the use a slot on the sword or club.
It’s extremely difficult to get a bead on how much damage I’m doing as Predator. I understand and like the idea of leaving relatively vague, but it would nice to see some sort of indicator (maybe with XP like Fireteam has?) for various amounts of damage. A lighter hit might give 25XP, a medium hit 50, and a heavy hit 75. Rather than precise, “you did X damage”, just having something give me a sense of how much that shot/hit did would be good, especially in assessing what weapons are actually good. I don’t really know without getting a friend how much damage anything does.
Snipers do feel a bit strong, but maybe I just need to git gud.
I think the respawn mechanic is good overall, but is too easy to pull off for how much it affects the dynamic of the match. There’s really no risk to it, it just takes a couple dozen seconds to get over there.
Also, when I press a button, I’d like immediate feedback from the game telling me that it sees I’m pressing that button. For example, when I’m transitioning between branches in Predkour, and I hold down my weapon wheel button, nothing happens. I have to keep pressing the button, waiting for when the game allows me to switch weapons. Let me pull up the weapon wheel and issue the weapon swtich command while I wait for my character’s animation to finish, and then have my character follow through with that as soon as they can, rather than making me guess when I’m allowed to press my button. It’d go a long way in making the controls feel more responsive imo.
Despite how rough this game feels at time with all of the bugs ramming me into branches when leap, making me jitter through and fall on the ground while game thinks I’m in a branch, making me leap backwards instead of forwards - goddamn is this game SO FUCKING COOL. A lot of asymmetrical competitive games end up feeling shitty to me, but you guys and gals have managed to create something that is fun to play from both sides, and feels so immersive and engaging. The lootboxes are actually fun since the droprates don’t feel skewed for people buying 50 at a time with $$$. The Predator models are fucking AMAZING, and, we got to play as our own jungle mom! There’s a lot of constructive criticism and lot of whining babbies whining anywhere they can type. This game has it’s issues, but please please please don’t forget that at it’s core, this game is so much fun, and has done such a good job bringing the Predator fantasy to life. I’ve never felt more like Predator in any other game. Truly fantastic work, keep it up!