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Messages - Nemo

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Bug report & Technical Support / Will I lose my Extended Clip card when the Heavy Metal update comes out?

on: September 29, 2019, 09:00:44 PM

I probably should have made this post a while ago, but anyway.

I still have the normal version of Alicia's 'Extended Clip' card. This was changed to being a rare only card when Wardog Fury came out, but I've still kept the normal version since Alien Myths.

From what I understand from this new update, players will keep the cards they already have, which will be put in their new Talent grid, but I'm not sure what will happen to my 'Extended Clip' card since it doesn't really exist anymore. I don't want to have to spend more points and time having to go down the grid to go get it again. Not sure what to do, but I guess I'll just see what happens tomorrow.

Bug report & Technical Support / Re: Mission 4 of Wardog Campaign (Never-ending mission against Marmalade)

on: May 06, 2019, 12:40:59 PM

This happened to me as well a few months ago. All you can really do in such a situation is have the Host disconnect and then redo the section.

Bug report & Technical Support / Re: Weapon from the past

on: May 06, 2019, 12:36:52 PM

Had this bug happen to me a few days ago. I don't think it's ever been fixed. The most you can do is hope that the Host disconnects, although you'll have to redo the whole section.

Gameplay Feedback / Re: The MMR System is really killing my enjoyment of this game

on: May 06, 2019, 12:26:47 PM

I've taken a bit of break from this game for a few months, but it still seems that many of the same issues that were talked about a year ago are still occurring, despite the many 'tweaks' that have no doubt happened.

Lower MMR Antagonists still have an advantage over higher MMR Raiders in PvP. I've fought against a few Antagonists this past week whilst playing with friends, and even though those Antagonists were within the 50-60% MMR range, they were still benefiting from vastly overtuned AI enemies.

To put this into perspective, I was playing at around 65-70% difficulty PvE matches with friends, yet the AI enemies during Antagonist invasions were far stronger.

In a PvE match at around 65% difficulty, enemy melee damage was around 20 per Strike, but against Antagonists it was much higher, at around 60-90 damage per Strike depending on whatever factors the MMR system takes into account. Likewise, their overall health and ranged damage was far higher than in a PvE setting. Shotgun enemies would routinely one shot down anyone that wasn't a 5th Council character, and riflemen were doing around 40-50 damage a bullet at close range, and about 20-30 at long range. On In Medias Res, I needed to put over 150 Hornet rounds into a shield to break it, but a single Hades rifleman could take down a shield I was hiding behind in about 2 seconds, from long range. Kuzmann's voltage arcs on In Shock were doing about 60 damage a tick, and his beam damage would down people very fast too.

It's a huge uphill struggle to win in such a situation, and even when we did, our score was around 6 and the matches would take 25-30 minutes or more. It's a huge waste of time, and unrewarding. After a while, if we noticed that the AI enemies were boosted to such an extent during an Antagonist invasion, we would just surrender and queue again. Antagonists don't really need to do anything particularly special to win in such a situation. They can just lurk around and wait for the AI to wound people and then run in for an easy execution. By and large, the AI enemies were getting more kills and were more of a threat than the Antagonist.

PohtHehd wrote a post in this thread https://www.spacelordsthegame.com/community/index.php?topic=3542.msg15127#msg15127, talking about how he lowered his MMR to 0% and essentially broke the game in regards to PvP and PvE difficulty. Despite a whole year passing, the general tenet of whoever has the lower MMR being the likely winner in PvP, is still in effect. Considering the 'Master of Puppets' update will allow Antagonists to control the AI enemies to some extent, I'm looking forward to being even more horribly murdered by everything on the map.

Looking at some of the previous developer replies of the MMR situation over the past year, all I can really take away from it is that the difficulty of matches, both in PvE and PvP, are constantly tweaked and iterated on a weekly or even daily basis. However, all this does is make my experiences with the game very inconsistent.

As an example, I was playing matches at around 80-85% difficulty with friends in February. Whilst it was a little tricky, it was manageable. However, the next week, despite playing at the same difficulty with largely the same players, the AI enemies had about 50% more health and were dealing twice the damage.

At the moment, you need to play at around 60% difficulty or higher to be able to get a score of 9 or higher, but since the difficulty is constantly in flux, you can never really have a good feeling as to what to expect. It could be that a certain difficulty one week is fairly easy, and then the next week, much harder.

Since the next update seems to be going to introduce a new Career mode, which judges you based on your scores on every map as a Raider and an Antagonist each month, it seems important that the MMR system should be relatively solid, but it doesn't seem to be the case to me. I can simply search 'MMR' on this forum, and see large numbers of topics, going over a year, complaining about the inconsistency and imbalance of the whole system.

Since my MMR is usually quite high, at around 80-90%, if I play solo queue with randoms, I usually get paired up with newer, inexperienced players that I have to carry. Sometimes, a Tier 1 Antagonist will also show up, which usually makes things even more complicated.

This is a recent example, although somewhat egregious, of what solo queue is like for me, taken from a few days ago:

This was a Mentor match that was set at 52% difficulty, despite all the other players being, quite clearly, new to the game. I pretty much had to do everything on my own, since the other players were largely ineffectual. The match took about 20 minutes, with the other players dying about 20 times or so. In the end, in spite of carrying them all, I still only ended up getting a score of 7.3, for a level that usually takes half as long. Very rarely do I ever seem to be paired up with other good players when I'm queuing by myself.

It seems like it will be difficult to get really high scores as a Raider in Career mode if you're playing on your own without friends, since you need to raise your MMR so as to increase the difficulty level so that you can actually be able to score over a 9.

As an aside, newer players may not be able to take full advantage of the Career mode, since they need to level up to unlock all the campaigns and levels.

On the other hand, since it seems I need to play as an Antagonist to get the most out of this Career mode, having a high MMR is very detrimental. I tried queuing as an Antagonist recently at around 90 MMR, and I gave up after about 45 minutes of waiting. Even if I did find a match, I imagine that all the AI enemies will be shooting confetti at the Raiders, whilst falling over if someone even breathes on them. I suppose if I played perfectly with an Ignis Harec I might be able to pull out a win, though it's somewhat doubtful. Even so, if I wanted to play every map as an Antagonist at least once, I'm still looking at spending 14-15 hours just queuing up for a match, unless I spend more time lowering my MMR. Granted, I don't want to play as an Antagonist much, since Raiders gain no benefit when they're invaded, and I can't really support the mode as it is.

It's been a little over a year since the implementation of the MMR system, yet it still seems a rather pointless, inconsistent and aggravating part of the game. Higher MMR doesn't increase your rewards by any measure that I would deem as significant, despite both the game and developers saying that it does. The game simply punishes you for winning too much, by raising the difficulty and trying to force you into unwinnable situations, as well as trying to slow down your ability to acquire rewards. I imagine this is done simply to get people annoyed enough to buy Gold. All I can say is that high difficulty PvE matches now, are a little easier than they were back during the Hades Betrayal and the early parts of the Spacelords update. Players can still artificially lower their MMR by just making a squad and surrendering a whole bunch, so the system is not really a good way of determining player skill at all, and makes the hard to balance PvP of this game even more imbalanced.

I don't think this new Identity update will address any of the concerns I've had for this game, in regards to both the MMR system and the immense grind players need to do, as well as player retention and new player experience. The Career mode may help alleviate the grind, but a cosmetic shop doesn't seem like a high priority to me. Doubtless, new monetization options are probably more important for the developers than they are for the players. I still kind of wish for drop-in, drop-out multiplayer and a Solo mode that actually gives you more than just a one-off reward.

Hopefully, other updates might improve things, but I'm not sure how long that's going to take.

Bug report & Technical Support / Re: AI enemies' Aleph signatures disappearing

on: January 21, 2019, 05:45:25 PM

I've now seen this happen with Wardog and 5th Council enemies too, from time to time. Just the regular enemies, however, not the Elites.

Suggestions / An option for simpler reticles

on: January 21, 2019, 03:39:34 PM

I'm not quite sure if this can be done, since a lot of weapons have gimmicks that are visually represented by their reticle, but I would still like the option to be able to switch to a simpler one, like a dot, circle or crosshair.

Certain weapon reticles, like Doldren's KLT-13 or Bloody Mary, tend to obscure your target somewhat.

Bug report & Technical Support / Mentor Match difficulty seems higher than normal

on: January 21, 2019, 03:23:36 PM

I've played quite a few Mentor matches, on different maps, and my general experience is that enemies in these Mentor matches are a lot tougher than the difficulty on the results screen would indicate.

For example, I played a 77% difficulty non-Mentor match on Weapon from the Past. Regular Wardog enemies needed two 80 damage Strikes to take down, and their melee damage was about 25. The Wardog Captains' incendiary pistols would hit me for about 25 damage, as Konstantin.

I then played a 45% difficulty Mentor match on Hanging by a Thread, and enemy health and damage was pretty much the same as I experienced at around 75% difficulty. Bear in mind, that these are matches with low level players that don't have the same passives or weapon upgrades, so they're going to have a very hard time, and a poor first experience.

I remember watching some of the low level players try to take down a Hades Brute in the last section, and it seemed like it would take them 10+ Strikes to take one down. Regular enemies would also be a big threat to newer players, due to their high health and damage.

These matches usually just end up with the newer players dying a whole lot to regular enemies and Elites alike, and oftentimes just disconnecting and never coming back.

On the other hand, I've played non-Mentor matches at the 40-50% range that were significantly easier than the Mentor ones, as enemies didn't hit as hard and had less health.

This problem should be fixed soon. For veteran players it's just giving them an extra headache having to carry newer players through maps, and first time players are going to be wondering why this game is so hard.

I'd suggest just capping the difficulty of Mentor matches to a low level, around 20-25% difficulty, regardless of the average MMR of the Raider team. My MMR is around 85% right now, and so my presence is usually going to skew the difficulty quite a bit.

Bug report & Technical Support / Re: The Tsiklon and Tolchok don't work properly unless you're the Host

on: January 21, 2019, 03:01:17 PM

The Tolchok is still bugged if you're not the Host. I'm not sure about the Tsiklon, but since the bullet damage of that gun has been lowered with the new changes, I don't really want to try it out in online play and have to play a whole match shooting enemies for 8 damage a hit.

It's been about a year now since the Tsiklon release. Happy Birthday, I suppose.

Gameplay Feedback / Re: Antagonist Mode - Criticisms and Suggestions

on: January 16, 2019, 01:11:59 AM

Quote from: MSE_Karen on January 14, 2019, 06:49:44 PM

Hi Nemo,

Thank you very much for taking the time to express your concerns. I think you defend some very good ideas that would help improve the game.

I can tell you we are working to make the rewards more fair and that means considering the individual performance of each player. I can't give much detail right now, but we think these changes are going to please the community.

As always, we are testing/ considering different options while we work in other things (Spacelords' Roadmap, characters like Sööma, etc.), so please, be patient (and excited!)

Alright, I'll be looking forward to seeing these changes.

Thanks for reading and replying.

Quote from: PohtHehd on December 20, 2018, 07:38:11 PM

Dead By Daylight is a very tempting comparison to use but it is an entirely different genre of game. If the survivors had guns in DBD then it would be a very different experience. But, it is a much better system using a similar play-style, so I see your point.

You made some very good points Nemo and I'm a little surprised I missed such a thoughtful post two months ago. Even more surprised that MSE has yet to comment on any of the things you said.

You should probably take it to the discord server because I am pretty sure MSE doesn't consider the official forums worth their time. Just be wary of the discord, people flip out if you make a good point that isn't theirs.

I know Dead by Daylight isn't the best comparison to use, but it's really just the scoring system that I wanted to draw attention to. I think such a system would do quite well, if implemented into Antagonist mode.

Granted, DbD and its scoring system isn't without faults. A Killer is more likely to secure a kill by camping a hooked Survivor, but he's also denying himself and the other Survivor players more opportunities for scoring events. On the other hand, Survivors that rush generators generally cause the Killer to not score all that well since he's not going to get into too many chases, which leads to less downs and less hooks. This, in turn, leads to less hook saves and other Altruistic scoring events for Survivors, and less Boldness points due to fewer chases. Despite this, this is usually what happens when both sides try to do their utmost to 'win'.

As is often the case, what a developer intends players to do, and what players actually do, tends to differ.

Anyway, I don't particularly want to use Discord, but if someone else wants to link the thread, that would be nice. As long as the developers read the post, I don't really mind.

Bug report & Technical Support / Long interaction times for Host when someone disconnects

on: December 20, 2018, 04:09:48 PM

This bug's been around for a while, so I'll make a report.

What happens is that, when a player either disconnects or stays disconnected from the beginning of the match, the Host takes a much longer than normal time when interacting with objectives. Things like pulling a lever, or overloading something with Aleph, or even extracting, can take 15-20 seconds of continuous channeling to complete.

The other players aren't affected by this, just the Host.

It's quite annoying when this happens on Hanging by a Thread or A Low Blow, since it's pretty hard to extract.

Bug report & Technical Support / AI enemies' Aleph signatures disappearing

on: December 20, 2018, 04:00:20 PM

I've noticed sometimes that regular enemy Aleph signatures just disappear when they go into cover or behind a wall. I know they're there, since I can hear them, see their shadow, or see them on the radar, but I don't see their red glow through cover.

When they pop out of cover to take a shot and then return to it, their Aleph signature does come back though.

So far, I've only seen this happen with Hades troopers, so I'm not sure if this is a bug that affects those enemies or if it also occurs with the 5th Council and Wardog enemies.

Gameplay Feedback / Re: Antagonist Mode - Criticisms and Suggestions

on: December 20, 2018, 03:52:40 PM

I'll just bump this up again, so hopefully a developer can see it.

I'd like to see if the Aurora Spectres update adds a better scoring system to Antagonist mode, but that's probably a long way off.

Gameplay Feedback / Re: Game difficulty seems higher than normal when playing in a full Squad

on: December 20, 2018, 03:39:29 PM

Is this still an issue with the recent patches? I've played a few games with friends at around the 60-70% difficulty range and the AI enemies weren't too unreasonable. However, I haven't really played at anything above 70% difficulty with a squad yet.

Oddly enough, I've played a few Mentor matches with randoms in solo queue, at around 40% difficulty, and the enemies there were tougher than they were when I was playing in a squad at higher difficulties.

Higher MMR doesn't really offer better rewards either, but that's another issue.

Gameplay Feedback / Re: Let’s talk about buffs to underwhelming weapons

on: October 08, 2018, 03:12:41 PM

The Shtorm's range was nerfed a long time ago, and it's kind of lackluster in comparison to his other guns. If it's range and rate of fire was buffed slightly, I think it would be pretty serviceable.

Doldren's KLT could use a buff at the moment. It seems rather outclassed by the Bloody Mary. Perhaps a slight damage increase and a quicker charge time would help.

Bug report & Technical Support / Possible bugs with Lycus' shield

on: October 08, 2018, 03:08:32 PM

I'm not quite sure if these are bugs or intentional, as they've been in the game for quite a while, but may as well comment.

Firstly, Lycus' shield doesn't charge when he's jumping or sprint jumping. It charges when he's walking, jogging, sprinting or sliding, but not when he's jumping, even if the jump is moving him forwards.

Secondly, his shield doesn't charge when he's carrying the encoder, or when he's carrying Schneider, on the In Medias Res mission. It does charge when he's carrying other objects though, like the bombs on Short Fused, or Kuzmann's head on Upside Down.

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