[KahosRayne]

After several games I am becoming incredibly frustrated, the lag is so consistantly bad there is no point in playing as an antagonist, hits dont register, shots dont even come out of the gun. I really love the game but it's unplayable in this state.

[KahosRayne]

Update: not only is it unplayable, there is absolutely nothing I can do. Constantly being 4v1ed there is no chance of making any progress whatsoever. But I'm forced to play as an antagonist anyway because some fucknut thought it would be a good idea to make it a requirement for guns. I really loved this game but I will not be playing it or giving any more of my money to it.

[Level9Drow]

Cry me a river, it's bad enough that new players get driven away in Hanging by a Thread by Lycus and Hans trolls. They should keep antags out of new Hanging by a Thread for level zero players, or ones that do not have the full game. I was just in a game right now with a Lycus Troll, and that's what antags are, trolls and people who delight in ruining others fun, I held my own against him about 50/50 but the other players don't know what to do and just kept dying to him. We ended up surrendering and I guarantee that those new players had a horrible time, I know I did, and may have decided not to get the game.

It's different with a full party of people who know how to handle a cheap ass Lycus or Hanz, and I feel no sympathies for antags, but it's different for new players. It's just horrible.

They need to make weapons accessible by other means than playing antag, I got my rares and hated every minute of playing antag. I hated when I lost, I hated it when I won because I know I was upsetting new players and was driving people away. I know how it feels to have your time wasted by an antag and felt for them even as I was forced to have to lower myself to trolling other people for a weapon. They need to give antag other rewards and allow only people who WANT to be trolls be there. Locking weapons behing antag system is horrible for both players who are being invaded by an antag and players who don't want to bully others but have to.

[Quanrian]

Hey now! You calling me a bully? This is definitely a rough game to start out with if you don't have a group. You're in luck though, there is an actual community for this game and they will actually do their best to help you out! Should people refuse every bit of help offered their way... well... good luck! Without too much effort one can find their way to a Discord where mostly live discussions are often going on.

[LordDraco3]

You seem to have some strong negative options towards anyone who plays Antag, Drow. I assure you I and probably most others do not play it to "troll" Lv 0's, I play it because it is:
A. part of the game
B. Required for a few different things
C. fun

Antags have no way to control who they fight either. If I find a match full of noobs I'm relieved that I have little risk of losing. I need stigmas, and I only get those by winning. The losing Raiders will *still* *get* *rewards*

I've never sent or gotten any nasty messages from people I beat, only GG's and one guy asking what my Hans loadout is since I blasted through his shield.

[Level9Drow]

You seem to have some strong negative options towards anyone who plays Antag, Drow. I assure you I and probably most others do not play it to "troll" Lv 0's, I play it because it is:
A. part of the game
B. Required for a few different things
C. fun

Antags have no way to control who they fight either. If I find a match full of noobs I'm relieved that I have little risk of losing. I need stigmas, and I only get those by winning. The losing Raiders will *still* *get* *rewards*

I've never sent or gotten any nasty messages from people I beat, only GG's and one guy asking what my Hans loadout is since I blasted through his shield.

Be careful not to fall into the "It's the rules therefore it's good" fallacy. There are major issues going on in the game now due to the antag system regardless of the antag's intentions. I myself had to play as antag in order to get weapons, which felt horrible to have to do.

The first issue is players being driven away who are trying the trial for free because Hanging by a Thread is routinely havested the most by antags. It is true that antags don't choose where they go, but because of the high level of players in Hanging by a Thread they are most often sent here. The problem with this is that there are level 0 players, brand new. This is a crummy first impression when you are against an antag with advanced and powerful weapons who knows his own and your characters abilities and as a new player you have an entry level weapon and little idea what your character does, let alone the melee combat system, which I see is the major issue for new players who just get killed over and over and over and over and over by antags and then NEVER EVER come back to play the game again. Believe me, I've traid asking a few to come back, they hated the antag experience and wouldn't do it.

The simple solution would be to keep antags out of low level Hanging by a Thread games. Or out of free accounts for Hanging by a Thread, otherwise the potential players will keep having this horrible experience.

The second issue is players, like me, who have no desire to take part of Harvesting new players, or even playing antag, have literally no choice but to participate in it in order to get better weapons. The solution would be not to lock weapons behind the antag system and give other rewards for playing antag, even when you lose as antag. Many solutions have been suggested before, I don't need to go into detail. Typically for PvP driven people most games give cosmetic rewards to show their prestige, but weapons are a mandatory necessity for ALL players. If you can't earn them in the group PvE mode then you are not going to be able to defend yourself from antags with superior weapons. Basically weapons shouldn't be locvked behind antag because playing antag is not everyones cup of tea and why force someone to have an npleasant time doing something they hate?

[LordDraco3]

Not trying to say "it's there so it's good", I agree there are problems with it and the fact that parts of the game require it. But you started off your comment attacking the OP here for having trouble playing as antagonist thanks to technical/network problems, because you seem to hate people who play antag. There were a lot of statements about the players who DO play antagonist, calling them trolls and bullies just for playing the game as intended and trying to collect stigmas which are needed for various things.

You are putting yourself down just for playing the game as intended for the very simple purpose of making some new gear for yourself, which will only take about 2 wins within 1 week to get high enough to make anything in the game. The only thing that needs to be hardcore played for is the Uras Beherit lore, which I do agree is a travesty to be locked behind getting RANK 18 FOR SOME LORE. I just did it, and beat a lot of noobs to get there, but now I can rest easy assuming they won't lock anything else behind MAX RANK of a leaderboard...

The issue with locking antagonist out of Hangin By a Thread: there would then be less chance of finding a game and longer wait times. I routinely have 15-20 minutes between antagonist matches as it is. Also, if that mission is locked from antags, those exact players you want to defend, the f2p noobs who want to experience the game, will then not be able to experience playing as an antagonist.
Before the Mission Of The Week, this was the ONLY way to even play Lycus, since he can't be used in the prologue (and was one of my complaints when I first started the game).

Players really should be forced to play solo mode before being allowed to enter co-op, I believe that is a large source of player inadequacy and learning difficulty here. Players do really dumb things that they should have figured out solo before teaming up. With a team there's more enemies to deal with and other players doing objectives, so you won't learn them. How often does someone get left behind after rescuing Lycus? Even though there's a big red timer and an exclamation point and Cortez yelling at you to move, and players spamming emotes to "come here"? Like 90% of the time, at least!

Kinda off topic, but we can't baby everyone in a game that is designed to be pvevp. To be perfectly blunt, If they have a bad time for losing and still getting rewards, then this just isn't the game for them. I'd consider myself a decently good player and I still lose my fair share of games. Losing will happen, and players have to deal with it. Getting crushed by an antag doesn't seem like any more of a bad time than losing to some overpowered AI bots kicking you to death. I actually feel more cheated when I lose to AI, because it feels like artificially inflated difficulty when they just read all your moves and swarm the map with endless hordes of perfect aim bullet sponges toting insta-kill guns and boots that kick with the force of a nuclear bomb. But maybe that's just me, I don't know, some people may enjoy getting stomped to death repeatedly and getting lower rewards when losing without an antag.

Additionally, a lot of missions are now easier with an antagonist due to less spawns and dumbed down AI. As long as your antag isn't that good, they can make the mission easier to deal with.

[4nalManiac]

Agreeing with LordDraco3 and I want to add a few opinions of my own.
The game needs a sort of tutorial or training mode in general but especially regarding antagonist mode. (Incoming wall of text)
 
FIRST:

It would be great to have a cut-scene in which Harec has a projector and the other raiders are having popcorn and stuff in the raiders lair and examples of what is being described are VISUALLY represented. For example being constantly grabbed by the antagonist and Alicia getting frustrated at it and then Hans saying "Go in pairs and flank him kid we have superiority in numbers". Harec: "Whenever the antagonist is down we advance team, remember he has a limited set of spawn points watch them and dont wander too far off". Also it would be really useful to have a message like the one when you have to SURVIVE saying ANTAGONIST OUT. I think there is a sound cue when he respawns but its so low that many times I don't hear it as well as the raiders themselves saying "I see him!" or something, whenever I find an antagonist I just spam the "Help!" command but I think is not enough at least there should be a "Antagonist spotted" command. 

SECOND:

I think that the philosophy of the game is misunderstood by many people. The game is really old school if you think about it. I mean seriously "LIVES"?! It has STAGES. Deliberately small segments with an emphasized theme At the end of these you have a harder encounter and even bosses. Then you have your reward.  So far so good right?

The problem is that many gamers have become soft in the past decade even a little bit more than that. This game has no checkpoints so many players feel robbed. For example the "you failed" in the last segment of the mission is really demoralizing. They expect a checkpoint right before the beginning of said phase. Guess what? Things are hard! This game has a really tight audience which doesn't go that well in the times of the "Casual Gamer TM". People want a consumable thing, post about it and move on. Others want a walking simulator or some other pseudo video game. Many want a story and thats ok (and Raiders has it, far better than many "story driven adventures"). But this game deserves f ing commitment. And it rewards you for it!

During the betas I kinda lost interest in the game. I tried to play Shae like a "sniper" in a "Breath of Hope" mission when I saw how slow her rifle locked in and how fast I went down as well as the massive waves of enemies I said fuck it.
Harec was push over as well. (I tried to play him as a modern shooter sniper, popping headshots with quick aims, it didn´t work) So I went with Konstantine which was ok but too slow for my taste, then Alicia which looks cool but does not do that much damage.  And I left the betas disheartened. Don't get me wrong I purchased the founders pack it was a great deal but I was like "meh, I'll play it from time to time".

Then it dawned on me the genius of this game! Every character is as deep as a fighthing game one. They walk at different speeds, some run, some don´t, their perks, the faction system, the cards. Everything started to fall in its place and now I clock in 2 to 3 hour long sessions 4 times a week or so. It even got me off the hook from Heroes of the Storm! Which I had uninstalled several times because it was getting out of hand only to re-install it and binge play it.

THIRD:

If you are still here lets get to why the ANTAGONIST is GREAT and how people need to ADAPT to it and not the other way around. I know it sounds crazy to ask from CUSTOMERS to make some effort nowadays but is not as bad as you think. Just imagine going to a gym and asking for a refund if you don´t get ripped in 2 weeks or lose weight despite eating junk everyday. 

Lets begin with the Antagonist mode description "Don´t you think doing good is overrated?" That is it man! This demon is seducing you to do "bad" things. How else would you insert into the story, lore and logic that another group of Raiders is against the first group.  For example lets divide in factions so you can only have a team of any given faction memebers at a time which to me is sounds really boring (not to mention that there are not enough raiders yet). Another could have them just as special reinforcements  but still I don't see why Harec would join them as well with the other characters.

THE FUCKING DIALOGUE FROM URAS BEHERIT IS HILARIOUS!!! That alone makes it for me. The voice actor is amazing! When he tells you at the beginning "Make me proud!" in a funny way, lines like "I've already know that trick" or "I hate that old man" reveal a lot about lore and the relation between him and the protectors as well with the broken planet. "Ah such a beautiful planet...infested with rats!" Perhaps he is the good guy after all?! What the hell are the protectors even protecting? when they, themselves were protected? When you finish the mission he screams at you or cheers. "BOOM bask in my magnificence" It so funny! and the animations man just look at them...how the hell do I insert an image?

[Quanrian]

That's a lot to react to but what might be putting the game at odds with its audience is perhaps how it is presented. You look at the game and you think modern shooters and/or brawler. You play the game and as you so eloquently put it you think retro game. This is not a bad thing but it is giving people some very mixed reactions. I have actually had people tell me that were brand new that it reminded them of playing Street Fighter and I can get that. Personally, I think you can only get so good without playing against people because that is and always will be the best AI. However, I was talking to a new group earlier and I brought up using a bot as an Antagonist instead much like they do for invasions on Dark Souls when you're playing offline mode.

In Dark Souls, the reason why they have bots 'play' the Invader is so when you jumped online you weren't disoriented by invasions from actual players. Now back to RotBP, we have some solid if not amazing AI so clearly tools are present to build a basic and average bot Antagonist. Secondly, even if that fails there are key parts of a mission where a very focused (counter-objective) Antagonist bot could be inserted (invade) at key points to ensure players aren't railing the content presented to them. After all, struggle is part of growth and without it we can become lazy and complacent. So anyways, that's my idea on how we might 'train' players into the idea of it so Antagonist is not quite so soul shaking.