[MetalBearRising]

So I'm currently lvl 43, I usually go Alicia against raiders and I'd say I win more antag matches than I lose. But twice now, I've come up against lvl 170+ raiders (a lycus and an alicia) and the damage output is ridiculous. If I even get grazed by one shot, I go straight into a downstate and become melee fodder. I accept that if I get in over my head as antag (1vs2/3/4) , I will probably die. That's what makes antag exhilarating. But if there is even one raider that I am guaranteed to lose against 1v1 every time (because I need to land three hits and he only needs to land one) what the hell am I supposed to do?

The damage bonus for level ups has to drop off at some point, otherwise high level players (who are already highly experienced) will be invincible.

[Shoggoth_Poot]

I'd recommend grabbing blueprints (easier said than done, I know) and increasing the PvP damage of your weapon of choice. Alicia isn't the best at taking direct damage, so stay mobile and in the air. Use the AI enemies to your advantage, wherever possible, and maybe try to pester lower level Raiders and steer clear of the level 170 players (again, wherever possible). That's really all you can do. Avoid the impulse to just throw yourself at the Raiders all slap-dash like. Whittle their Aleph down slowly and see if they panic when the refill timer starts counting down, and take advantage of that accordingly. On objective based maps, like the one where Loaht's fortress is under fire, or the old Protector is being escorted, all you really got to do is make yourself a big enough nuisance to cause them to fail. You don't have to worry about laying any hard smack down. You can literally just antagonize them, rolling along side the AI and keeping them from doing what they need to do.
You could also drop significant amounts of cash to purchase gold for XP boosts to double your XP after every match and level yourself up to 170 as well.
I mean...it's an option.

[MetalBearRising]

Yeah, in the lycus match I was still able to win it because it was the old protector map.

I've currently got the upgraded RockNRoll for Alicia and unfortunately so did the enemy Alicia who was 130+ levels above me, so that's still a guaranteed loss.

I could drop money for xp boosts, but that's pretty much the definition of pay2win. I already slapped down the money for all the campaigns, so I feel like if there is going to be pvp (and god do I love the pvp), it should still be a reasonably even playing field when it comes to 1v1 match ups

[Whitebleidd]

Yea I’ve been on both ends of this, it’s one of the reasons I don’t take the “pvp” in this game seriously, it would be like taking the pvp in BDO seriously…

I think a solution to this problem would be having stats from leveling and reconfiguring weapons only work against npc’s, for example the Hero killer weapon stat would only improves damage against elites and bosses not players, like u said get a level playing field going on.

[Level9Drow]

It's funny you should say this because right now there is a bug that causes the AI to become monstrously powerful when there is a large enough disparity between low level antagonist and high level raiders. It's so bad that you can AFK and the enemy AI will win the fight for you most of the time.

[LordDraco3]

We always come back to "no stat differences should apply against players in pvp but yes they should work on pve." And I keep saying: You can't do that, because then the antagonist would always be at a disadvantage. The raiders would have buffed stats to help them kill enemies super fast but antag would have no stats to help dispose of the Raiders. This would only be even slightly OK if the enemies kept their original health/AI/spawn rate even with an antagonist.


like I was level 90 against a team no higher than level 15 once, and they kicked the hell out of me. I did pull a win out, but stats mean way less than complainers think. I got 1-shot so many times by Harec, Doldren, and Iune.... I thought they would be really easy and weak noobs so I ran Hive on Short Fused, and they made me work for my win. My stats didn't save me, I had to adapt my playstyle to deal with 1-shotters and Doldren grabbing my ass.

Stats are just the new scapegoat, like when we used to have antag ranks and people said "it's unfair to have a lv18 antag even have the chance to play against a player who is in their first mission." It's always something  But in ANY pvp game there will be discrepancies. I have played games with noobs that did well against high rank antags. They still died to dumb things like aleph bombs... every time.... but they fought very well.
Who cares if someone can 1-punch you if you shoot them in the head and they die? This game is very dynamic, it doesn't just come down to "whoever has the highest stats win" because it's not a turn-based RPG or RTS where stats are all that matters.

[Level9Drow]

What's your opinion on the AFK antag situation? Where a lower level antagonist can reliably now spawn and the enemy AI compensates for his low level so much that they win the fight for him?

[Quanrian]

I don't blame the levels because ultimately if they have a better forged gun you can absolutely tell the difference if you're wielding the same weapon. Unfortunately, they correlated levels to forge level so we're back to that again.  You 'need' a minimum forge level to foster even moderate success or you will get steamrolled. Does this mean you need all bars maxed out? No, it does not but I guarantee that higher level person does and is using an extremely brutal card build to boot.

 Due to this new system, you go from requiring some luck and some skill to requiring either godly skill or godly luck. This 'idea' that adding leveling didn't completely change the landscape of the PVP is a farce as it only takes a match or two to notice significant difference in DPS outputs between players. In the end, I am both baffled and largely don't care about how a match goes because between questionable CQC results and not knowing how another player achieved 'their' respective results it kind of looks like... well... people are just cheating even though they're not. Ergo, this game's lack of transparency on so very many things muddles much of what might be factual from pure speculation.

[Level9Drow]

I agree, they should allow you to see the other players, antag and raiders, weapon forges as well as levels. You should also be able to see other players MMR in and outside of the game.

[Whitebleidd]

@LordDraco3 yes the game should balance enemy health/ai/spawn-rate for the raiders depending on their lvl/mmr/weapons that’s why I would see no issue with normalized stats for pvp, if the antag is going to have better stats cause it’s a 4v1 it should be an antag buff given by the game only in that scenario, basically if the antag is going to get a buff it should be a buff not tied to lvl/weapon-forge.

I would have to disagree on stats meaning way less, the scenario the op describes can happen and having a mirror match where 1 player requires 1 shot while the other 3 is pretty significant.

"it's unfair to have a lv18 antag even have the chance to play against a player who is in their first mission."

I don’t know how lvls where handled previously but i think this would hold up even today, it’s downright bad for the game having someone that’s just starting to get a grasp on the games mechanics get stomped, chances of them no coming back to the game are high, same way it takes a few lvls to unlock AEquilibrium it should take a few lvls to be eligible for the antag system. Also if this type of thread has been common and keeps on being created by new players then maybe there’s something to it.

I agree, they should allow you to see the other players, antag and raiders, weapon forges as well as levels. You should also be able to see other players MMR in and outside of the game.

Another thing I would like to see on the character select screen before the mission starts is the difficulty of the mission.

[XjabberwockieX]

Quanrian, 'Ergo'. I see what you did there, good one. 

[Black_Adder_]

In my experience player level means a lot less than player intellect. I have lost to 3 times lower antagonists due to fact that my teammates are high level absolutely clueless people and I've won games where I have 3 new players and antagonist with higher level than any of us.
Also from my own antagonist experiences after Hades betrayal update I either have decisive victory or an absolute humiliation. It takes 1 or 2 clueless teammates and the team is done with or without an antagonist present.

[LordDraco3]

In my experience player level means a lot less than player intellect. I have lost to 3 times lower antagonists due to fact that my teammates are high level absolutely clueless people and I've won games where I have 3 new players and antagonist with higher level than any of us.
Also from my own antagonist experiences after Hades betrayal update I either have decisive victory or an absolute humiliation. It takes 1 or 2 clueless teammates and the team is done with or without an antagonist present.

Yes, agreed. This is 100% exactly what my point is. Player skill absolutely counts for more than just raw stats because this is not a turn based RPG.

I don’t know how lvls where handled previously but i think this would hold up even today

Previously it was only indicating your placement on the leaderboard. So a level 18 antagonist just meant they were within the top 1-3 ranks on the leaderboard, depending on how many people played antag mode that week. It pretty much meant that they beat a lot of raiders and the game showed it through rank, and that rank would flash on the screen when the antag was revealed.

it’s downright bad for the game having someone that’s just starting to get a grasp on the games mechanics get stomped, chances of them no coming back to the game are high

Why does everyone treat new players like they are actual babies playing this game? I can't think of a single other pvp type game that locks the ability to engage in said online pvp just because a person is new. Street fighter? Tekken? Soul Caliber? Evolve? Dark Souls? You can get invaded the moment you step into the world at soul level 1 in the first moments of the game.

Online mode is not where a beginner should be going to "get a grasp on the mechanics" anyways.... play solo first to get a feel. If you don't even know what the punch button does, why are you jumping in with a team that will have to carry you? Another thing I've said a million times: people don't learn mechanics when thrown into the chaos of a co-op mission. They do not learn how to do the objectives for themselves, the team does it for them and they just simply exist. When baby Harec is just shooting random wardogs from the stairs on Hangin' by a Thread, he isn't learning how to use the turrets required to progress the mission. Even worse, he might be trying to shoot the gunships with his gun and thinking it works because someone is on the turret (or shooting the beholder on In Shock, which I see from plenty of beginners). When an experienced player is grabbing elites at the end and overloading the generators, baby Harec isn't learning how to do basic game mechanics. In solo mode, you are forced to learn these things because you are the only one that can progress the mission objectives.

Bit of a side rant, but the idea of new players needing to be babied is a tired argument that I do not agree with. This is a hard game, we all know this by now. No matter which side you're on, you have to work hard to win.

What's your opinion on the AFK antag situation? Where a lower level antagonist can reliably now spawn and the enemy AI compensates for his low level so much that they win the fight for him?

Don't like it at all, I've definitely been killed "by the map" before with crappy antags, and it bothers me so much more than losing to a skilled player.

[Level9Drow]

Wow, I agree with all you've said there. I would like to add that I think a barrier should be added for new players that would require them to finish a certain level of offline modes on Medium (or even easy) before being able to go online. This way they know generally the basic mechanics of the game before being thrust, all green and rosy cheeked, to the rabid dogs. This game has had its fair share of people who have left the game before even getting far because of this, just at the Steam Reviews.

[LordDraco3]

Yes, I have asked for a solo more requirement for so long now. Easy mode would be fine, they would have easy enemies and light spawns, but would still have to figure out and complete the objectives. They can't just win by sleepwalking through the level.