So I’m anti parry and here’s why. It’s a 4v1 game, the 1 should be stronger than the 4. 4v1 should be advantage fireteam, 3v1 should be an even match with a slight advantage still to the fireteam, 2v1 should be advantage Pred (not a guaranteed loss for the fireteam but definitely not in their favor), and a 1v1 should be run for the hills (or the nearest reinforcement station) the Pred is comin.
I don’t think a Predator should be able to be countered as effectively as he currently can in melee. This isn’t a symmetric shooter. You don’t need a perfect counter for everything. That’s calling for symmetry in an asymmetric game. Doesn’t work. The game has to be balanced differently. And it just doesn’t feel right for the Pred to be countered in melee the way he is.
I hear you, parry and counter isn’t the easiest thing tho pull off. But it is a skill, and a skill can be refined. I’ve already seen high level players run solo (another issue with the mechanic as it discourages teamplay) and when the Predator isolates them, they just 1v1 their way to victory. There are guys that can hit 3-4 parries in a row. Totally shutting down the Pred’s melee game. The problem is the potential the ability offers the skilled player. 1v1 shouldn’t be survivable as a stand up melee fight. At that point, ti should be run like hell to the chopper or the reinforce station.
But I agree that the Predator shouldn’t just be able to melee spam like a moron and get an easy win.
That’s why I personally would like to see the parry mechanic nerfed by removing the stun, and allowing some of the blocked damage to pass through the guard, and nerfing the knife damage. This would allow the player a chance to mitigate some of the melee damage they received because they were dumb and broke away from their team, while still allowing the Pred to punish them for doing so. It gives the skilled player a chance to stay alive long enough for the fireteam to come to the rescue, but isn’t a get out of jail free card. To compensate, the parry input window could be widened to make it a little easier to consistently parry. This makes more logical sense to me as well, since once a giant monster is in your face stabbing you to death you’d definitely try to mitigate the damage as much as possible in the hopes that someone might help, but you’re not going to win. Not against a 8 foot tall armored alien that can punch through a brick wall and has knifes that can slice through steel.
But the fireteam also needs some tweaks to keep the Predator at bay, and stop him from just rushing in and melee spamming. I’ve also seen games where the Berserker can wipe the whole team just buy stupidly running at them and swiping (as long as the team doesn’t parry effectively). So it seems that the Parry is to good right now, but also the only thing stopping a melee rush. Clearly if the parry is altered, something else has to change as well.
Perhaps the fireteam needs to do more damage to the Pred to force him to engage more carefully. Or perhaps adding a bit more “snap” to the iron sights to help players land their shots. (Just a little snap, not a free headshot. Should still mostly have to aim)
Obviously the Zerker needs more flexibility with this as it’s the cornerstone of his playstyle, and nerfing the hunter and scout further might make them unplayable, so maybe the Predator needs to do more melee damage as well to compensate and decrease TTK. Make it more about hit and run.
Now if the parry just extends TTK by mitigating some of the damage that might have solved the problem already by forcing the Pred to focus on one target longer and we may not even need damage tweaks. It might also make zerkers happy as they can stay in the fight longer (at least enough to get that kill as long as they engaged an appropriate target).
This also means when it’s down to a 2v1, the fireteam has to be on high alert, making sure they Predator doesn’t get the drop on them. They should have just enough damage potential to stop the Pred just bum rushing, but not enough to still be evenly matched.
My opinion.
