its funny we have had 2 balance passes on guns over the last 2 weekends (according to the emails im getting) but harec still does 800 damage a shot and lycus still does as little as 7 out of hand to hand range.

My second Beta weekend and second feedback.

I did only play 5 games this time (1 solo 4 matchmaking) frankly the que times (up to 15 mins again)  and im sorry to say being thoroughly bored by the gameplay.

i covered most of the issues and complaints i have in my last feedback dont see any point rehashing all that .

I am 44 i have been playing computer games since the day one. and looking down my steam library looking at played times 4 player  Co op shooters seem to be a very popular genre for me , the left for deads,Vermintide all 300-400 hours , warframe over 1600 (i suspect ive left that open over night a few tims though)

So why does this game just leave me cold? i chase the cause of teh problem, i dont find it fun , why? not rewarding, why?

And i think its a lack of player agency, in left for dead or vermintide, it doesnt matter how many enemies are coming or how few hits you can take there is always a way to play through it , they ask the player to up thier game and you are rewarded by success or punished by failing.
In this game i just do not get that reward/punishment feeling , im thinking back to the few deaths i received this weekend , hmm there was that time a dropship dropped its cargo on my head and i couldnt see them coming because i was using an anti air cannon and had a locked fov.  there was that time i tried to climb a ledge  near an enemy (try it you'll see what i mean)
Other than that it was when a punch was dodged and there were 2 enemies or more in sight,
Yes its still my fault for going for the punch in that situation , but my success or failure is not down to me, if they dodge or not is a dice roll. 

In games i loved and played for days on end , the situation was always workable you were never dead until you actually went down, but in this situations are either trivial no skill required (press the grapple or punch button being literally the only effort required) or certain death.

its the same problem i warned about in the for honour beta, any players success or failure relies not on the skillful use of their character but relying on the opponent making a mistake.

The Antagonist Mechanic
I do not believe it to be balanceable , there is just no way for matchmaking to accurately assess the strength of a group.
the band you have to hit to make the Antagonist do his job , ie that of making the game interesting and close is very narrow and the two outer ends where one side gets utterly destroyed is very wide.
just one example , you have 4 average skilled players that have been playing random pick up games all night , now these four friends team up, get on voice comms and the same players effectiveness gets massively changed, next time they dont have voice comms or are missing one etc etc, you see you cant measure and match against the variables even if you had an infinite theoretical pool and you wont have that you will have a very limited pool and no guarantee of its spread.


Another issue is some of us, like me want to play PVE co op, Antognist forces the game into PvP , does your game appeal to that market?

i ask because this weekend no Antagonists appeared , and all matches were very easy wins with few deaths.

I would like to see an "Ai director" with varied and controlled spawns of enemies
the addition of different types of enemy , think of the specials in left for dead, they do multiple jobs , they provide a spike in challenge and promote team co ordination

best of luck with the game and thanks for the beta invite, i will happily try each beta release , but at this point unless some massive sweeping changes to the very core gameplay loop are coming this game is simply not for me. and as subjective as opinions are i feel like i have seen enough to say other games have made these mistakes and failed before and right now your making all the design choices i thought of as mistakes that both evolve and for honour made.

Thanks for the invite to the Beta, here are my impressions and thoughts after one weekend play, i only got around a dozen multiplayer game in due to the 15+ minute que times , im on PC in europe (ENG).

First up balance , obviously not done but ill say it Harec doing 800 damage a bullet is just plain wrong.  And the old PC vs console issues come up,  as a PC player it feels like im playing down to console levels , there are small amounts of enemies , they move slowly and have huge hit boxes, makes it trivial to just chain headshot kills all day long with no great effort.
Now you have tried to cut the PC advantages down to size through player design , i mean 1 aim bot two zero accuracy weapons and a spray tube leave only one hitscan sniper , but one is all you need to imbalance things, Harec cn as it stands kill the boss of the  area after the beholder in around 6 bullets and from complete safety.

Abilities are not made equal. ALicia wall jump is i would say is plain old bad. shes got a crap gun that does almost no damage outside of point blank, why on earth would i bullet jump slowly around out of cover? unless i want to have my brains blown clean out of my head by the sniping antagonist, then you have the shield and stalk that are just plain overpowered.

The Core gameplay loop.

Ai director Vs Antogonist. i watched the dev diary, if thats just PR advertising then fair enough, but if your guys are actually that sure that this feature will add replay and variation i am here to tell you point blank that it just aint going to happen.

For my vote Left for dead has to win the best award for a 4 player co op vs computer game where things were actually different and kept you engaged , never knew exactly when the music would ramp up and the horde come. the game could adjust by throwing more things at you, more specials, more hordes, lower the resources remove medkits and weapons.
You have passed all that up and placed the hole weight of keeping it fun and fresh on the antogonist.
1.  adding the antogonist makes it pvp, which can be at odds to your market when you are making a 4 player co op. it puts me off for eg.

2. cant balance it , (see my other post) but in short the teams strength is not a sum of its individual players ability , co ordinated pre mades have huge advantage over 4 no comms randoms,
3. cant match make it. no metrics can judge the strengths of the two sides. you will simply have a lot of games where one side just rolls the other , The odds of the rolls fortunately lining up and the two sides manage to balance against each other and you have a good "could go either way" game are tiny.

Roles.
Are the snipers meant to be the dps while the assault class ones just kill the trash mobs? because thats how it is right now, take the beholder Harec is doing 150-200 damage  shot from anywhere on the level , alicia can rarely get close enough to hit it and does 0-30 damage, bad idea to divide the work up like that to me. i would much rather they play differently but be capable of doing hte job no matter who you choose.

Everyone has to melee, ok to get aleph and bullets you have to melee, when playing assault not a problem when playing a ranged sniper feels like a pain in the ass, i have to keep a mob alive some how get my team to not kill it (lol good luck with that) while i walk my slow ass up to it?

Bang, bang, punch, punch,  why do anything else. shoot themto stagger them doing pitiful damage and wasting mu low ammo count till i get in mellee range then spam the canned animation (soo cool at first sooo tedius now) grpple gets you punched, so you just always punch if they dodge or not is out of my hands 1/4? ish they do and i end up downed and crawling for cover , if they dont roll i walk all over them from one to the next invulnerable and safe waiting for a roll that i have no control over to shaft me.

the lack of depth puts me off but others will like it, the lack of control on the players front though that is a problem, your attack landing and working is not up to you its up to the ai to not react.

Cover is pointless and annoying unless you need to hide behind cove thats a bit too low to just stand behind your simply better off not using it. why trap yourself and pin yourself to a position so the antagonist can easily murder you? i dunno maybe it makes it easier to control on console but i found myself wishing i could simply turn the system off, at least if it required a button i would have a choice.

Have to look down sights to shoot my shotgun again can only assume this is to force parity between platforms, its really chuffing annoying to me especially when playing  alicia or the shield guy or that type in general.
on a related note oh my god how long do i have to sit there spinning up/locking on with kons and shae, cant stand it not ever playing them again.

cant look around when sprinting have to keep this narrow fov straight ahead, so i can be easily murdered by the antagonist!  i see this as just another balance problem, those teams that know not to move to sit backs in a corner and camp are just at such an advantage to a new team that runs around not knowing the right place to sit.  it all just really slows down and interrupts the flow.


My bottom line.

Now i know i have only seen 2 (i assume small) levels but right now im just bored, the gameplay loop is already stale there's no depth to it and it remained fun as long as those punch animations felt rewarding to trigger.

post
cash shop? so its free to play?