So I have been playing this game since the release and played the trial beta before religiously and since I started playing I have come here to share my thoughts on some changes that could be made and see what others thoughts and wanted to share some of my thoughts about these issues and some of the issues others have raised.
I suppose I ought to start with the bandwagon theme here and discuss the latest patch first and foremost. I like it. Honestly one of the big changes that has made a huge difference that I hadn’t been too focused on myself previously was the medkit and ammo stock of each map and player’s kit. Reducing and nerfing that overall has made a huge difference as a Predator, you actually feel like you can take a more stealthy approach and gradually widdle them down rather than having to charge up multiple shots as quickly as you can and immediately down half the squad to accomplish anything. I have had matches now where the full FT escaped but I still felt fairly good about it because I knew they had run low on supplies and were relatively hurt even towards the end. I didn’t feel so much immediate pressure that I had to essentially kill them outright much less kill them twice and I could be more careful in my approach. I do still see on the FT side a lot of Predators just kinda bum rushing in but the fact they can at least get away now, even if some aren’t necessarily the brightest in doing so, that we still have a viable fight on our hands assuming we don’t immediately track and kill him because he left fifteen feet away and tried to heal. It also creates a lot more tension and forces us to be smarter rather than spotting the Predator and just chasing him to the ends of the Earth which I personally found to be incredibly boring honestly. I absolutely hated when two of my FT or more just straight up chased him with no consequences and were even rewarded for doing so. It took away so much of the tension and anxiety that I experienced in the trial which made me immediately fall head over heels for this game that I just didn’t want to play FT anymore even with a party of friends. And then on the Predator side you had such massively finite supplies by contrast that even one bad engagement, one sniper mudded with Ice Cold hiding in a bush that you could hardly be expected to see immediately, one ditz moment where you accidentally ran into a wall or other similar just little mistakes that happen to us all, and you were at a massive disadvantage meanwhile the FT could fully heal and restock ammunition from here to the End of Days and then turn around, after you have killed three of them, and do it all again before you even realize what is going on. Honestly it had made me severely regret making this purchase much less pre-ordering it with Digital Deluxe. I felt massively cheated out of the experience that I had had during the trial and I was about five minutes from going to see about getting a refund. But in one patch they have already addressed a number of the biggest issues and it’s not perfect and there is plenty that still needs work but now I can actually play either side and have an enjoyable experience.
There is much and more that could said on this but overall that is more of a general idea of what I think of the patch without getting into the nitty gritty on such an already winded little ramble there. On to the next.
The next thing I see which I think folks are gonna take some exception to is… que times. For me? During the trial I saw a lot of talk about this but… I honestly never once experienced anything resembling the issues that so many people were complaining about. Maybe it’s just that I play a number of games that tend to have longer que times, some like Smite or HoTS, DBD and others I won’t bother listing, so it was longer than what others not adjusted to it would have expected or maybe I just didn’t care much about it or maybe I am just in a really weirdly good area here in my little corner of Nowheresville but… yeah. I didn’t really get the problem here. Fireteam was qued very fast, still is. Predator was a bit slow at first I thought but that isn’t exactly abnormal to wait about five minutes for a match as what is, essentially, the ‘big boi’ of the match. And I don’t know the specifics of how many players are queing for Predator versus Fireteam but I would venture to guess there is likely a 50/50 split and if there is even a 30/70 split, favoring FT, you’re gonna face longer que times. That’s just how it is. Now I will say with this latest patch it has spiked but I think it is being exaggerated because people aren’t considering the fact that the Predator largely just got buffed and Fireteam just got nerfed a not so insignificant degree so you are gonna have that tipping of the balance there and it’s gonna effect wait times. But I am getting Predator matches currently within 5-8 minutes and yeah that is a bit of a pain but for me it’s not that big of a deal. I do acknowledge it does need some attention of course, especially given the sudden shift after this patch likely had some unexpected side effects on the algorithms but to act like it’s a game breaking issue at those wait times I just don’t see it. And with all the still very present issues I think this isn’t as high of a priority, not to suggest it is to be undermined but simply I would like to see attention diverted elsewhere as well. Maybe I’m just a weird fella that doesn’t mind the wait or maybe I just have a great area. I don’t know, could just be me I suppose.
On to the next now. One of the BIGGEST things I have seen throughout this whole forum, albeit what appears to be more vocal minority than any substantial majority, is the ‘get good’ argument against giving the Predator any sort of advantage. I have a lot of problems with this and not just because it is largely presented in a typically condescending and patronizing manner but it fundamentally misses the point. What it seems to me is that a lot of these ‘get good’ sorts are acting as if this is the equivalent of a match mode where you have a simple, straight 1v4 scenario with all human players with largely similar weapon capacities and in any given situation that lone player would be equal to any one of the four they are against and that is the metric by which they are taking their measure of the balance or lack thereof. This idea that it is four people versus one so of course that one is going to be at a disadvantage by default but that was their choice to play that so they should just suck it up. The problem with this, if it isn’t already glaringly apparent, is that this is video game featuring an advanced life form versus a group of soldiers who have never even encountered one before. All the canon lore aside… it wouldn’t really be an exciting game if it it was treated the way these people would have it. The Predator can’t exactly call in back up or respawn in this, not like the Fireteam can despite having a numbers advantage, and so they need to be strong enough to be able to take out the Fireteam alone. This means, yes, they need to be stronger than the other Fireteam member. Otherwise it would be a largely one sided experience. The Predator already has a bit of a steep learning curve as the play style required isn’t exactly mainstream in the gaming world and to suggest that there is an even higher skill cap required on top of that is excessively harsh. I have seen some individuals say that Illfonic is simply pandering to the casuals but what is wrong with that? This game… is a game. It is a VIDEO. GAME. It is meant to be played to have fun. I myself enjoy competition and ‘getting good’ from time to time but that should be an added bonus not a dogmatic mandate by the select few. I also find it incredibly ironic that these same individuals that stand atop their pedestals of superiority when this standard is flipped upon them where the Predator is given the advantage enough that in a one on one engagement they can readily take down the Fireteam member that their calls for ‘getting good’ instead of changing balance evaporate into the ether the second they are forced to, as they say, ‘practice what they preach’. It is quite a statement on these sorts of individuals that whenever they are faced with a challenge they are the first ones to flee in droves yet they expect to be utterly pandered to at every turn whilst condemning others. I myself just see it as a complete double standard.
Something else I saw a lot of too which seemed to be echo’d by the same aforementioned individuals among others was that there is no cheating in this game. Personally in my experience from having been server admin on private servers with games that have built in mechanics to allow you to monitor players a lot of the people that say you can’t cheat in a game are the ones cheating. A number of people I think are just naive as well as jaded from the admittedly copious claims of cheating that comes with the standard frustration of a poorly balanced game or just struggling in general. This game came out with some fairly significant issues with its servers and so on. To suggest that it couldn’t possibly be exposed to cheating is just pure fantasy. Cheating happens in games with the best anti-hacking programming that money can buy and consoles are no exception.
I suppose from there I should deviate from the community to what changes I think the game needs and some bugs that need addressing. As a primarily Predator one of the biggest things I have grown quite frustrated with is downed FT members. More than a few times have I fired my net gun to stop a revive or shot my bow or what have you at the would be savior and had it hit the downed FT member instead because the game treats them as if they were still standing up. This is not only an issue as a Predator tactically but also FT because that means instead of hitting a prone FT member from afar which is a much smaller target to hit the Predator just has to hit any inch of the space above to hit you even if you are behind a crate where you assume safety because while standing you would be exposed. That needs to be fixed because that simply isn’t fair for either party but only one can exploit it.
Predator needs to make less noise, this has beaten to death and for good reason so I won’t go into detail.
Something I see very little of and maybe it is just me but I don’t believe I have ever seen an AI sniper actually fire their weapons. They just kinda stand there even point blank and look at you angrily and shine their laser in your eye ball. But I don’t recall ever having seen them fire once. In the trial I did and it was rather jarring and very annoying but since then… not once. Maybe that’s just my experience though.
Smart Disc… needs to be reworked altogether. I personally would prefer a lock on system with this so even if it retains the same base speed or accelerated speed you aren’t wasting ten seconds of your life piloting a disc that likely isn’t going to hit jack shit. Either that or it needs to be made significantly faster. I feel this might add more a skill element to this that makes it more viable the more skilled you are with it and perhaps to offset that from being excessively overpowered scale the damage back some as well or perhaps. It could also have a longer run span and balance this as almost a sort of charge like the PC currently where when it is slow it does some damage but not enough to ruin your entire existence but when charged it does more damage but doesn’t return and is stuck where it lands to prevent a quick cancel after striking so it bounces back for a one-two wombo combo that’ll knock you on your ass quicker than a bucket of moonshine. I think there is a lot that can be done to tweak or alter or even just outright rework but I do feel it should be at least good at chasing down FT members but especially good at dealing with a dug in Fireteam turtling in a building too large and too obstructed for you to reliably fire your PC into even for splash damage. At the very least something to keep them on their toes. I would suggest more intelligent path finding of this for more likely recovery but given the state of the AI currently I’m not exactly holding my breath on that one or even the homing system either.
War club needs more damage, elder sword maybe less but quicker with a smaller parry window or even counter strike capability when parried perhaps.
The Hand Held Plasma Caster… I don’t know. I don’t know why it even exists honestly. It’s just a dollar store PC to me. Maybe someone who gives more of a shit might have some decent ideas for it but I frankly be bothered.
Spotting needs a cooldown. I mean it doesn’t especially bother me but it can be fairly annoying being cloaked and spam spotted into total irrelevance.
Missions needs to be more challenging and complex and force the FT to work together, not only for difficulty but so you don’t as the FT have some jackass Yoloing themselves into the fucking grave after the Predator and getting wholly fucked over because of it.
I personally think the Self Destruct needs work as well. Slightly shorter timer and perhaps instead of simply scrolling to match icons you have a slot machine style reel that you have to hit to match them. Adding an extra layer and I personally think if it was me trying to disarm and saw that I would be shitting bricks but if I got I would feel like a fucking legend. And it also gives the FT pause for thought before they just all bum rush the bomb for defuse. Perhaps even throw them a bone as well here and say that any downed members maybe get an Adrenaline Boost when inside the blast radius that brings them up for a Second Wind-esque sort of angle. Perhaps not but I think that could be fun. Or even the ability to carry them. I think I would rather enjoy that myself.
Other than that I am sure there is plenty more I could say on a number of subjects of posts I have seen and opinions on the game but overall I will end it off by saying I have seen larger companies do far less and take months and years to do even half measures for huge titles… that cost more money out of the gate. This is just my little thought bubble here.