So, I've played this game since launch and there's been a lot of changes. A lot have been pretty good, and some I thought actually took away from the game. It's come pretty far and all the quality of life changes that have been made since launch have been phenomenal. I've been iffy about a few things, like the ammo drop that used to be a thing. Infinite ammo I had been on the fence about, but it hasn't seemed to take away from the combat as much as I had thought it would. The fact we can now drop aleph to either give to another player or use as a bomb has been an interesting gamechanger, and even these new qualities we can put on guns has been interesting.
The change to grapple is something I'm definitely against. I feel I may be in the minority here but I wanted to give my feedback. I feel so many of our options have been cut off due to the way grapple works now. Sure, I can throw an enemy off the map, but there are so many times where I would have secured a kill with a grapple that this new yeet button just wouldn't do. All the aleph an enemy is carrying is just gone too in the scenario you successfully throw someone off the map. It's not difficult to do, throwing an opponent off the map, there's plenty of places for it. But I remember the days where you could be rewarded for maintaining your stress to sneak up on an elite for a clean execution and take all his lunch money.
You can't get the drop on enemies anymore for this clean kill and I remember so many little tricks I had learned with grapple that made it so satisfying to just gank with from cheeky spots, or taking advantage of the enemy AI to grab snipers before they could teleport. Grapple just isn't something I think to do anymore outside of fighting an antag.
Granted missions have become easier. Elites can't just charge themselves and go on a killing spree, now they just yeet you and the challenge is nonexistent. At least in my experience. The change to the way they charge was a good one, I think. Now they have an actual charge-up and you have an opportunity to stop them before they actually activate. But having them still be able to grapple-kill wouldn't change much there, in my opinion.
It seems to have largely affected pvp as well. Before you could be rewarded for reading your opponent, playing mindgames and earning a kill. I always felt cqc was a really good equalizer in pvp. Now it's too easy to just spam dodge, even if an antag grabs you if there's no ledge the fight can last forever, or until me and my team gang up on the poor guy. Pvp has been largely gun focused, with a lot of guns able to just instantly down people. But like I stated earlier, cqc was a good equalizer. An antag who played well could be rewarded for reading his opponent and could secure a kill before the enemy team came up, or even get amazing stealth kills. It's kind of neutered Doldren players, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I would always just listen for the teleport and promptly punish any Doldren that ported behind me. Honestly, I think too many players relied on his back-grapples so maybe they'e being punished.
On my end though, I've been able to dominate games as an antag by using Rak and putting a flame-spitter nearby. Then all I have to do is spam dodge and any raider trying to fight me just dies. It's kinda disgusting. There have still been plenty of kills I could have gotten with the old grapple. Sure, it's fun to just yeet someone off the map, but I just don't feel like there's as much skill involved anymore in this game on either end.
All the other changes I've been able to nod at and be fine with, but without the old grapple I kind of feel like I'm playing a different game. Pve or pvp, I feel like a snake with its fangs removed. I'll make do because ultimately I can't do anything about it, but I really hope this gets put back to the way it used to be. It's a much lazier game without it.
