+, same problem

My answer won't be of much help to you, I think it's the usual case of "playerbase is too small so matchmaking sucks". But I can tell you a few useful things:

1. Weapon resistance passives will be removed in Epic Forge update, whuch will change how we build guns. I don't know if it all will help new playera or veterans.
2. Highest rank is Purple Tier 1, Purple 5 is below, although at P5 you already have Forge 9, out of 10. So yeah, they were very strong, but Tier 1 was the strongest.
4. Their MMR was probably low for them, and it's mostly a fault of that system. Usually low level Antag turns missions into hell.
4. Doldren might be not the best pick against experienced players, because people are trained to react to his ability, and it is probably hard to you to pull headshots on them. Try to adapt more and use different raiders. My personal recommendation to low level players — Konstantin. He has high damage to kill anyone, his sphere can help you grab people or push them off the map. But there are a lot of choices for a lot of places.

She winked and whispered because she didn't want to disrupt the simulation. Like, watch me, Konstantin, I've got this, but we can't talk about simulation because simulation guys would react weirdly to that.

All the other cunscenes show that she genuinely belives that she is in a simulation.

I find Lycus to be a good Antagonist, I use him frequently with that wonderful card that hides your stress while you are running.

His weapons puts people to wounded in one shot. Some think that why play him, when you have CQC, but CQC is actually his greatest strength. See, you can't counter a shot with a punch, and you have much less time to dodge. And Lycus can counter both punch and grab with a shot. Punch an enemy, they dodge, and then whatever they do you just shoot them. Punch to kill and move to the next prey.

This makes Lycus a rare character who can win CQC with multiple enemies at once.

First of all, I like the idea of Equilibrium - you and your clan work together to get everyone as much XP as you can, feeling like you are great necessary evil when you play Antag so other don't have to if they don't want. Although I always felt forced to play Atag if I want to level faster, and Equilibrium is almost always leans to the left side, it's OK because I love playing both 4v1 and 1v5.

But my experience got weird after adding clans, and very weird after Prizes Galore. I created my clan, filled it with random people, and left for some time. When I came back, Equilibrium was far left, and there were these 19 Raider mains whom I couldn't kick. Well, they were not active players, but that's another reason why I want to kick them. I can't fix it, nor tell people how to play the game. I left my own clan, joining and leaving clans until I find one with good XP bonus, to offer my services as traveling Antag. If they screw the Equilibrium, I go somewhere else.

Lifehack: you can make a clan just for yourself, and manage the Equilibrium alone. At least you could when clans were added, probably still works.

Then, Prizes Galore kicked in. Now first few missions give tons of XP and Gold, missions after that - less. I generally like the system, but it made my decision making as Equilibrium keeper harder. I'm an experienced Atag, but playing as Raider is almost guaranteed victory, while Antag is risky. If you want to level as Antag, you need to earn certain amount of XP, so you have a choice - play first game as Antag, to earn more XP, but possibly lose more Gold, or play him later, but you will have to play more matches, and it's hard to find a game as Antag, especially if you want to play on every map for the End Of Month reward. But maybe I can win what I've lost with a Pot. Or maybe I try to take the Pot as Antag? Also, Blueprints! They make decisions even harder!

I like this process of decision making, but with all the systems in the game it got too complicated. Equilibrium needs some kind of change. Maybe count games played, and not XP. Or remove it entirely, because End Of Month rewards already give us reason to play Antag.