Ok, so the Pred is still too weak.

#1

UPDATE: So I played several more matches with the Pred, trying to make the caster a larger part of my game. In all three matches I dominated the team. Playing very carefully. But, it wasn’t the same team. I wish I could fight the same team multiple times to really get a feel for whats going on. I think a lot of the points I make in this post are still valid. But I have seen some Preds absolutely crush even the smallest mistake. SO, at this point I’m going to trust Illfonic, and wait out the patches. If you’re listening, I hope your testing goes like this, “Ok, guys. This match isn’t about having fun. I want you to ignore the objectives and just try to do everything you can to shut down the Pred.” Do that over and over and over and then tell us what the fucks up cause IDK. Lol, good luck.

I know, I know, I know. I made a huge long post abut how he’s not. But I’ve come around. After playing against several really, really competent fireteams, I’ve changed my mind. Also, sorry for the length, I wanted to give context.

So. Playing the Hunter. I usually play VERY conservatively. I dropped into a match on De-Railed. I used my isolation to figure out the fireteam was coming to the trainyard so I perched on top one of the buildings, crouched down, fully cloaked, not moving, and only barely peaking over the top edge of the building. It’s also important to note that I found and settled into my perch before the fireteam arrived. The fireteam came through the entrance on the opposite side. A good, 300 feet away. I could barely make out their tiny ant sized shapes from where I was. And I could barely see them anyway since they were mudded. THAT’S HOW SHARP MY EYES ARE. Lol. Anyway, despite this, a few seconds of observing them, looking for my moment and…POW. Right in the face with a sniper. POW, POW, POW. Three more before I can even react. Drained a little over a fifth of my health.

Leapt away to regroup and flank.

I circled around to find a vantage point and immediately saw a fireteam member away from the group. I nailed him with a caster round, then leapt in behind him to finish him off, one strike, he turns and…PARRY. Ok, well, tried one more attack and…PARRY. Shit. Ok. Switch to net gun and NOPE. Too late. Fireteam shows up and is lighting me up.

Within about 1.5 seconds I was down to 20% of my hit points with only 2 of them shooting me.

Ok, well, guess I’ll run away.

So I leap over a few train cars and start looking for a safe place to heal, when I realize, they’re chasing me. I’m being hunted…ok. Well, I’ll jump over here, now over here. And heal. Sounds like they’re back on the mission.

Isolate. Track down. Found em.

Ok, these guys are good. Gotta play carefully. Hit my shots. Pick my moments. Let’s do it.

I leap behind a rock face because I know staying in the trees is a surefire way to get spotted. I watch and wait. The alarm goes off, AI swarms in. I see my opening. One of the team has broken off. I soften him with the caster, switch to the net gun, but before I can leap in I start getting shot.
Two of the fireteam have broken off and flanked me. I have no idea how they even knew where I was. I switch to the stick and zig-zag while circling to get a view of the fight, I move in, strike a few times and down one of them, but it’s no good. I’ve taken too much damage and have to break off. I leap away. They pursue. I leap again, They’re still on me. Once more. Sounds like I’m good. I duck behind some logs and start to heal and…what’s this? Oh look, a lone fireteam member has found me. I get lit up. Have to cancel my heal and run some more.

At this point I was just done. No heals left, 2 downs with no claims. The fireteam was nearly done with their mission, and after waiting 20 minutes to play the Predator I had spent the entirety of the match running away. I could still hear them pursuing me. I’d cleared more than half the map at this point and still couldn’t shake them. I gave in and activated my nuke. They ran. Game Over.

I’ve had matches where I just devastate the team. That’s no fun. But now? Against a skilled fireteam, it’s nearly impossible. I’m not sure what needs to happen. I love the game. But it’s starting to be less and mess entertaining. I want the fireteam to be able to fight back and I hate matches that end within minutes or even seconds because the Pred just steam rolls, but the fireteam pushing away the Pred should feel like a relief, not a “let’s go fuck that thing up!” moment.

So…

  1. Pred cloak needs improved. That’s pretty clear.

  2. Pred needs to be able to heal much faster. Or escape more easily. Idk, whatever needs to happen to stop the game becoming Fireteam: Hunting Grounds. Pushing away the Pred should feel like a sigh of relief and a moment to collect themselves, not a chance to hunt the Predator. They should never feel so comfortable that they’re running after the monster.

  3. I really think the fireteam needs permanent penalties to being downed. Movement penalties, Max Health and Stamina reductions, and a “last leg” status where they’re dead if they go down again and suffer from increased weapon recoil and ADS sway. The Pred needs to have a lasting impact so it’s not always “all or nothing.” He should be able to soften the team before moving in. That way they’re still strong and more skilled players still have a better chance, but the Pred still has ways to make an impact and open things up a bit. To compensate, maybe quick claim should only be available on the 2nd down. Makes sense too, because the more damaged soldier wouldn’t be able to put up as much a struggle. The fireteam just needs more to keep them on their toes. Getting downed/damaged just doesn’t really matter. There are still so many sources of healing. Adding a limp and slowing them down each down (think Resident Evil, where each level of damage, in this case number of downs, increases the limp/struggle)

  4. Plasma caster needs some kind of tracking/lock-on effect. If it needs to be tweaked to compensate I’m fine with that.

  5. Knife/Parry is STILL too strong. This has been one of the dumbest mechanics in the game since the beginning and is still totally stupid. I still see players pulling the knife, parrying and knifing down the Pred at close range. Don’t tell me it’s the “only counter” for Pred rush. It’s become abundantly clear to me that a coordinated fireteam using firearms properly hitting their target and working together is more than a match for a rushing Pred.

  6. Pred melee needs to do more damage. Ok, so I could be wrong about this one. But it seems like TTK with melee is a little too long. Obviously I don’t want the fireteam to get destroyed but something here still feels weird. Again, I could be wrong here.

I want balance…but at this point I want a little more asymmetry from my asymmetric game.

EDIT: Another thing on the idea of quick claim. Maybe the Pred can still get a quick claim on the first down, but the player can mash “F” like with the net, to extend the length of the claim. Won’t be as long as a long claim, but maybe just long enough to encourage him to wait. This wouldn’t be available on the 2nd down or after.

EDIT: It is possible that part of the problem may just be not enough time with the Pred. I do still feel I’m learning things when I play, but overall I definitely think there’s room for improvement. I still really like number 3…

6 Likes
The predator is absolutely overpowered in the current state of the game.
Last Leg Status for downed fireteam
#2

Number 3 sounds pretty good. But honestly I feel ft is too strong as well. Like I played a ft games yesterday and holy fuck did we shred through those poor preds. It was beyond easy.

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#3

i’m only gonna address #4 because i don’t think people really know what they want with the pc lol
and, yes, i already know it’s function that it has in the movies and comics, but for a pvp game, i’m pretty certain they left it out for the sake of balance.

i’m already fully aware that an unbelievable amount of pred mains want the dmg increased, but some of you don’t seem to understand that a lock-on feature with increased dmg is not balanced. like, at all lol if they did decided to give it a lock-on feature, and, for some reason increased the dmg at the same time, you would have to be fine with them nerfing it in some other way. like drastically slowing down the speed of the bolt; and i’m talking only slightly faster than the disk here lol either that, or you’d have to take an even further hit to the dmg that it deals.

i’m only bringing this up because i know 100%, that if they did this, you would then complain that it’s too slow, or too weak, and is, once again, “useless” lol

what it sounds like is that you basically want the ability to one-shot someone with no skill.

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#4

Number 3 for sure. The downs and revives are ridiculous

2 Likes
#5

i feel hes in a good place now. just my opinion.

You win some you lose some.

#6

First, I’m not a “Pred player”, meaning that I don’t use one or the other exclusively. I mostly play the fireteam. Secondly, I hit a great many shots with the caster. But it is a projectile weapon and the fireteam moves very quickly. It’s also just recently been nerfed, making it even harder to do anything with it. And the further from the target, the harder it is to hit. A small bit a tracking for a fully charged bolt would not IMO make it OP. I could be wrong, but I don’t see it. Again, I’m talking about a small bit. If the fireteam is moving at full speed, I.E. not just strafing, the projectile would not have enough correction to hit if it wasn’t placed properly. The right amount of track could be balanced to still require aiming and leading, while still making it more practical at range.

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#7

I don’t mind losing. Especially when I can point to something in my game and say, yeah, I did this and shouldn’t have or I missed this opportunity, or got too greedy here. But it does seem that there is a certain point where the Pred just can’t win no matter how good he is. Maybe I’m just not seeing the openings, but it still seems a little wonky to me.

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#8

i’m not against them increasing the dmg again, but it doesn’t need tracking of any kind. it’s overkill.

#9

The plasma cannon needs more splash damage/less rate of fire to be useful at its current damage. So it would basically be a starter for fights, but then you would switch to the bow or net after wards because its not easily spammable.

#10

less rate of fire makes no sense combined with damage. you can literally side step and jump the plasma caster due to seeing the laser pointed towards you

#11

im happy with caster, honestly if it did more damage or had a huge AOE id feel like cheap nub for using it.

#12

Welcome to how all predators feel that play against good/competant fireteams that use proper meta strats it’s nice here we have snacks.
Alright on a serious note
point 1 yes this is true atm cloak is useless it doesn’t trick people at all and you can clearly see the predator even when he is standing still now some can’t but i certainly can

point 2 atm because of the way boars are and 2nd wind changes right now i’d say preds don’t need this atm pred has unlimited healing game permiting as long as boars spawn now if boars get nerfed then yes he does

point 3 if downing actually had an effect that would be cool but wait it actually does did you know after 3 downs you can stealth kill a fireteam member if their hp is below 30%? Most don’t cause this will never happen since the pred has no benefit to let a game go longer cause of the game timer and low resources (baring current state of pigs but lets be real there getting nerfed).Nnow actually though it would be cool if it did something and pred had an incentive again i’ve made this point before quick claim currently has a very important use and i’m against changing it unless reinforcement or some other resource that the fireteam has is reduced or removed ie reinforce medkits syringes as it stands we need quick claim to force fireteam to use a resource so we don’t have to kill 24 persons worth of fireteams when we only have 5 heals.

point 4 i wouldn’t take a lock on effect unless it was a perk and that perk reduced the dmg of the caster just to make it fair though some aim assist would be nice on literally every predator weapon
point
5. i agree parry needs an internal CD my proposal is about 4seconds per parry per fireteam member so if one guy gets the parry that’s it it’s the next guys turn to land the parry
6.currently the melee weapons are in a good place imo aside from the club which needs a buff here is a look at all the pred weapons dmg’s so you can get an idea on what i mean

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#13

If you personally ask me when it comes to the Plasma Caster. I’d be completely fine with it one shotting again, as long as they made it to where you cant just shoot someone till they are dead when they are downed. They would need to make it to where the only way you can die when downed is being claimed or bleeding out. I personally believe that’s the only reason they nerfed it like they did because predators would just shoot spam someone until they died without claiming, and that’s just lame.

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#14

But yeah, other wise the Plasma Caster is in a good place for being a starting weapon. But in the movies it is a pretty deadly weapon which is why one shots made sense to me until that bleed out spam came into play.

#15

Lol. Nice novel dude.

#16

I agree that the pred is weak…
a full lobby of Councilors, Classmates, Hunters, Survivors, or Fireteam surviving should bd a rare occasion in an Asymmetric Game…

If most of the games end with the whole lobby of humans still alive, odds are you Killer/Monster is too weak…

Case in point, if you’re playing Friday the 13th, Dead by Daylight, or Last Year, and 100% of the humans escape, You are a very shitty killer player, because in those games, the killers are significantly stronger than the Predator, snd if you cant get s single kill on one of those three games(in last year, its mostly because you can respawn if you get killed as the killer and finish out the match) , you should probably just give up gaming… lol

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#17

This isnt a survival horror its a squad of highly trained military elite. and in every movie the humans kill the predator…

So in this game, the game should be fair balance good players should always beat a bad/new player etc.

Game is good where it is.

GIT GUD etc etc blardy blar

1 Like
#18

What Predator movie did you see where none of the human characters died in?

#19

Loads of humans die in this. gotta remember the AI are humans.

The fireteam are like arnie. and he survived alone so just pretend its 4 arnies.

#20

4 Arnies?.. No. no way…
Look, Blane, Mac, Billy, Dillion, the other two, were really cool characters, but the idea of what the movie would have been like if all of them survived?.. Thats not a very good movie…

I’m not saying every match needs to end with a full team wipe or even one lone survivor.
But i feel like a good way to know it the pred is where he needs to be would be the “novice test”…
Thats when you fill s lobby with 5 100% noobs to this game. And see what happens…

If FT keeps escaping or killing the pred without taking any casualties, your Pred is too weak…

A Novice Jason vs 7 Novice counselors is gonna kill st least 2 or three of them, same goes for any of the other Asymmetric games i named…
Predator Hunting grounds. I didn’t even get killed by a predator till i was around level 40 something, just because of the horrendously steep learning Curve Pred players need to overcome, and how much the FT has going for them…

Also, the AI does count. Those aren’t characters. Those are just fodder… like all the badguys Dutch and his team killed in the first hslf of the Movie…

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