[Level9Drow]

I actually really like the RPG elements of the Hades update (levels, stats, weapon customization, etc.) and it would not make sense for them to remove all of that work at this point. You are pretty much asking for a return to those days, since that's how weapons used to be. Everyone using a weapon could expect it to perform exactly the same. But so many characters were much weaker during that time... now I can tune and crank up my Hive's swarm damage and she instantly became viable! Many starting weapons can even outclass advanced ones now, like Hans' Rimbaud is a better fighting gun than K8 now.
The forge system lets us put weapons on a more even playing field now, where before someone with a base Konstantin gun was simply going to get wrecked by a Tsiklon, no questions asked.

I would actually love to see this system expanded, and allow us to change and put whatever upgrade types we want on whatever weapon. So we could have a Caliber, Lethal, Effective, Dynamic Rock & Roll, or we could have a Tsiklon with +gold, +blueprints, +faction, +crit chance. I think the current set stats are fairly balanced, but it would be cool to be able to make wacky combinations, or have a full team of pure farming gear.

But Raider damage is on a diminishing returns scale, and AI is on an exponential scale. Hades has 400 health at difficulty ~60's, but 800 health are ~80-90? They scale way higher, way faster, than players can. Our stats are gonna cap, but we will stop 1-shotting enemies (just an example, characters like Harec and Ginebra), and they will take 2, 3 shots with our 1-shot builds, which means enemies take 3 times *as much time* to die, while also spawning at a faster rate, causing even powerful and coordinated teams to get overrun. Low Blow is a good example, as I have been completely dominated by the AI in the first section before, and it fuckin' sucks. After passing that hurdle though, we almost always succeed, without an antag to distract us.

But back to the point, yes, all rewards need to be drastically improved for all PvP participants. The rewards are WOEFULLY inefficient to play antagonist mode very much, since even destroying a good team on In Shock and winning with Raider Progress at 1% I only got 4000 gold.... and I'm sure the Raiders also got like 1-3k each as well. 2-4x the rewards does sound like a good place to put rewards on both sides, when the 4v1 mechanic activates. But if antag leaves the boost either shouldn't happen, or they need to remove the auto-win mechanic.

Dude, I totally love the RPG element. I don't want anyone to think I don't like it. The forge feature is SUPER fun. I just feel the developers may have more problems balancing the game with more variables. I am essentially asking to sacrifice something I like for stability.

I mean, sure, if they are going to nerf the AI and raise the rewards that would be great. But, realistically, I don't think they are going to do this. Historical when I complained about the AI they basically replied with, "This is a scaling system to keep the game challenging, deal with it." Which basically causes everyone who reaches a certain threshold to throw games until they get back down to a FUN, key word here, FUN level again where they can enjoy themselves. So my question to the devs in response to this would be, Why do we have to throw games in order to have fun again? Why can't we just choose the difficulty level in the first place and raise the bar when we eventually feel confident enough or bored enough? Merely kicking our asses doesn't make for great engaging content or make people want to stay. It just makes them feel utterly helpless and upset.

[LordDraco3]

I agree that the system needs a serious look now that throwing games has become more productive than playing the game. I never even wanted to or hardly considered it before, but for the last 2-3 weeks we have just done it as soon as we hit a certain MMR.

I don't WANT to play the game at an impossibly high difficulty because I don't feel adequately rewarded for the time invested and skill needed to prevail.  I'd rather beat a mission in 9 minutes and get 10k rewards than pull my hair out and die 40 times to beat a mission at 20 minutes for 9k rewards.

There is no other way to put it; we absolutely DO get punished for doing well and winning a lot. I have to laugh at every post on this forum where people complain about losing and "dropping their MMR". Like, buddy, pal, losing your MMR isn't bad. Be thankful that it went down, high MMR is a curse. It also adds TONS of time to find antag matches.

[Black_Adder_]

The explanation why you get "1 shot killed by AI" on some missions with or without antagonist is quite simple - at least one person on your team is not ready for the increased difficulty (his/her MMR is lot lower than other 3 player's and he most likely has lvl 0 weapon and useless character cards). You simply get swarmed because at least 1 guy can't kill anything and dies constantly (the AI spawn faster than team can kill them). I see this a lot because I stay at 70 and above MMR and sometimes when I have streak of lossses due to this I start to troll and also take a character with lvl 0 gun on mission - being a dick helps to calm down later (Also I can't join anything as antagonist so I need to lower MMR just for that if I wan't to upgrade).
But yeah - there are players that I see and I'm like "F yeah" at the start of mission and then there are people that I see and I'm already "We're dead" at the start of mission. 
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[Nemo]

I've played some matches in solo queue, and my MMR's dropped a bit, down to about 85%. I'm often getting paired up with low level, newer Raiders, whilst also having high level, though not necessarily, high skill Antagonists invading. In those situations, the AI enemies were quite weak, having low health and ranged damage, and their melee strikes were only doing about 20-25 damage. Their spawn rates were also quite low. I had to play babysitter to the lower level players, though. In any case, the onus was on the Antagonist to win, but I could just clear the AI enemies fairly quickly since they were low threat.

In cases where a high skill, high level Antagonist (players I know to have been Champion of the Apocalypse level in previous updates) invades against a mostly low level Raider team, the AI enemies were still quite weak. However, trying to deal with Photon Shield Mikah, Schleuder Ginebra, or Lichtbogen Kuzmann Antagonists whilst trying to get through a level with newer players is pretty hard. Especially on levels where you have to gather Aleph/destroy objectives and the like.

I've had another game on Weapon from the Past, where I was teamed up with a 3 man squad of players who I've played with many a time before, and who I know are good players that know what they're doing. An Antagonist of similar level, though not really the same skill, invaded. The average level of all players in this game was around 115-120 or so. I was the lowest level player at 100. Antagonist was about 120, I believe.

Regardless, the AI was still greatly overpowered. Regular 5th Council enemies were doing about 120-125 damage with a melee Strike (I have about 45% melee damage reduction), had boosted health and enhanced ranged damage. I was getting hit for 40-50 damage by 5th Council shotgunners at around medium range, as Kuzmann. I guess that's around 120+ damage for non-5th Council characters. The riflemen would also kill people very quickly, and there were lots of them. Enemy spawn rates seemed a bit higher than normal.

We were basically getting spawn camped by the AI after a few minutes of the match starting, with an Antagonist running around throwing an additional spanner in the works. Eventually lost because we couldn't stop the Squid.

Not really sure what to do right now. Playing in a 3-4 man squad is pretty much an automatic loss if an Antagonist invades. Either because the system overcompensates for a low skill Antagonist by making the AI incredibly overpowered, or because the system still overtunes the AI when a high skill Antagonist invades, making it fairly easy for them to capitalize. On the other hand, playing solo queue is also mostly pot luck, and one has to deal with queue times.

I imagine Antagonist players have long complained about being unable to win against a competent, 4 man squad of Raiders. But, at the moment, it seems that you could go mostly AFK and still win as an Antagonist against a squad. Perhaps MercurySteam just want Antagonist win rates to go up more, I don't know.

I suppose players could exploit this by tanking their MMR to low levels, and then trying out Antagonist mode. If you get paired up with newer players, you could just beat them by yourself due to higher levels/upgraded weapons/knowledge, and if you get paired up with more skilled Raiders, the AI will basically win the game for you.

I find it funny that there's a stickied thread on the Steam forums telling players to organise themselves on Discord, find a group, and thus, avoid queue times. They should probably add the caveat that if an Antagonist invades your group, you're going to get stomped.

Maybe I should just take a break for a while. Not very happy about this state of affairs.

P.S. There was a bit of a strange bug on that Weapon from the Past match. There was a moment where all the Raiders' health, and my own, dropped to 0, but we were still able to move around and fight normally. Could even take a bit of damage before going into the wounded state. Moreover, the Squid's health dropped from full to just a tiny sliver. Even though it was only one hit or so from being destroyed, no one could actually get to it, due to there being a dozen or so 5th Council enemies sitting on the Raider spawn point, as well as the Antagonist.