That’s the problem though. The fireteam can clear some missions in just a few minutes. And ironically, some Predator players can kill the entire fire team before they even get to the 13 minute mark.
This isn’t really a stealth game, sadly. And you can’t risk stalking your prey for very long, because they can choose to ignore the mission and turn the hunt on you or they can bumrush the objectives (sometimes while one of them distracts you) and you risk losing some, or all, of your prey.
If illfonic wants to retain a decent player base, they are going to have to do a few things first, standard balancing issues aside for right now. The average player seems to only be playing this game for about a week and then they’re gone. So, while it’s great and all that illfonic is getting that $15 or $20 profit… they aren’t retaining many of these players. There’s a whole list of reasons, but I believe the manner in which typical matches occur is the culprit.
Here’s what I would change:
For starters, lengthen the matches to at least 20 minutes. I’d argue even 25… maybe. It depends on what they do with my next point.
Three mission strings is not enough. Period. It should be four or five. And tweak some of the overly short ones, as well as some of the more obtusely lengthy ones—to create a more natural flow to each mission.
Next, give the Predator an objective in the beginning. There should be absolutely NO reason for any Predator to be leaping into a fireteam as they leave the infiltration point. None whatsoever.
There needs to be a stargazer base or an invisible spacecraft where the Predator must go to retrieve all of their non-standardized gear, before they can begin the “true hunt.” I’d probably recommend this to either be somewhat short in length or add at least two extra mission strings (for a total of five) to the fireteam, to make up for whatever time the Predator has to spend obtaining his gear.
And lastly, give everyone an extra heal. Both Predators and fireteam. You would almost have to do so, with the extended match length. Or raise everyone’s base health and healing item recovery—assuming the latter isn’t already adjusted to heal a percentage, instead of a base number.
For shits and giggles, I’d kind of like to see a perk that replaces the long claim animation with a skull crushing animation, if you end up playing like a Bad Blood, because the team you fought irritated you. Obviously, it would give less xp than even a normal quick claim, since you’re giving up the trophy. I mean, if they’re plasma spamming, they’re probably a bad blood anyway. Might as well give a perk that suits the playstyle.
Speaking of the stalker specialization. I really think it needs a built-in “light bender” attribute. Just seems like it fits. Or the Elder himself needs the attribute.