I speak from a prospective of one who mostly play raider, and do some antag mission only for adventure rewards. I think taht the pvp aspect of the game is quite odd, it's mostly matchup knowledge and gain that knowledge it's painfull. For example I didn't know that if you dodge against a Kuzman you die, or that Alicia can kill you with a dodge. And I don't know the counterplay to the previous strategy. The point is pvp can be a completely different beast, and you can go pretty far without knowing any of this stuff, my mmr is 40%. Yet if I try to be an antagonist I get paired up with groups at 50% mmr who definetly know mostly the pvp.
I just got in a match when they culd just shut down all my engagement, because I didn't know any of the matchups. I could try to do that mission, or spend around the same amount of time in a soft ban. I understood how they shut down me at the third failed engagement, and there was no point continuing other than make me incredibly salty. Yet this soft ban make my expirience at learning the pvp even longer, than it is.
I don't understand why the antagonist get a ban for forfeit. If I leave as a raider there are 3 person who have to pull my weight withuout the lives I wasted. In other hero shooters I get a ban for forfeit, because the rest of the team will lose most of their engagement. But who hurt an antagonist that forfeit? The ads? The elites? If I get matched against some of the best players of the game do I have to be their punching bags or get a ban? Those details escape me.
I think there are some quality of life improvement that could help the antag expirience. Have two separate mmr for raider and antagonst, so at least if you played raider to high mmr you can try to swith to antagonist. it would also help to find people who lower their mmr in order to bully noobs, as the two mmr would differ greatly (at least they would have to lower two mmr instead of one). Also remove the forfeit penalities, it would make antag more accessible.
EDIT: Just did a game. We were in 3 people, one of us was a kuzman rank 6 who wuldn't be able to do the mission normally. We got paired with a purple rank 1 one rak. I struggle to almost get even with him, the rest of the team got demolished. Thatas what the current adventure path results.
