[Deathprize]

Ok, this is really starting to upset me now. There is an an antagonist almost every game. Most have a low MMR score which means the AI absolutely rinses you. To the point were the second the invunerability runs out a normal bad guy kills you in a second or two.

This especially sucks as it's really obvious that this is the case. It's easier to win against higher MMR antagonists because the opposite is the case, barely any men spawn and they die really quick.

Has anyone else noticed this?

[LordDraco3]

Yes, last night we thought it would be a good idea to try and climb to 100% MMR. No antags showed up until about 65% and when they did, wardogs had over 300 health (took 4 punches to kill), psychic prediction to all of your CQC attacks, and would 1-2 shot everyone to death. I even got killed outright from full health by a Marmalade hand, despite having rare Stoicism equipped. The antag wasn't a threat at all, the map did all the work for them. This antag was around 40 MMR according to the results screen.

[Level9Drow]

YES!!! Many of us have noticed this and it cuts both ways.

If the disparity between the antagonists and the raiders is that the antagonists is much higher level then the raiders the AI will be made of styrofoam and tickle the raiders, having low health, low accuracy and low damage. Also often getting their guns jammed, calling on their headset and tripping as they run.

The opposite, as you've noticed, is when the antagonists is low level and the raiders are much higher. Then the AI becomes super sayan with 800 health and one shot the raiders. In this case the antagonists doesn't even have to spawn and can sit and watch the raiders be destroyed by the AI while being carried to victory without even spawning.

EDIT: To add to your other observation, YES, I have noticed an intolerably large amount of antagonists "invading" games. It's now more beneficial for raiders to have games verses AI only, as antagonists will only lower the rewards they will get REGARDLESS if they win or lose. The practical incentives for PvP only favor the antagonists, raiders get nothing out of it they wouldn't get in higher quality verses AI.

[Kyavara]

Yes you are right .There is no game without anta. i had seen a cheater called Maryuu level 225 playing with a Loath with new players level 1. I think such player kill the game.  I play antagonist and he was impossible to kill him with his transformation. my MMR is at 36% i don't know how it possible to meet such player at my level.

[LordDraco3]

1. Devs request that you do not call out player names as "cheaters" so you should remove it or a dev will edit your post for you. Send them an email if you suspect cheating.

2. Off topic, but how was he "cheating" exactly? FYI- there is a bug with the health degeneration mechanic that is used for Hive and Loaht, sometimes it stops going down. This can result in Loaht staying beast mode forever with tons of health and healing when he makes kills. I don't know exactly what causes it, but I don't suggest claiming hacks or cheating without first understanding. I see it affect me as Hive every time I play her. I haven't played Loaht lately but I've had a friend get stuck as beast, I'm sure it is related.

3. Level doesn't meant anything as far as matchmaking goes. MMR is what the system uses to match players together, not level. Keep in mind optimal MMR for this game is between 40-60% as anything lower or higher is too easy or too hard, so yes, people of different levels will be matched up when crammed within this 20% range.

[Deathprize]

Ok glad it's not just me then. When you get 6 matches in a row like that which you know are a lost cause it kinda kills the will to continue.

A lot of the players seem to be below 55%MMR so when you go above it every invasion is either a nearly 1 hour, barely scrape a win match or death by shotgun. Nearly 80% of the matches I have played this week has been against antagonists like this. It's just not fun.

I also feels some people know this and may deliberately lowering their score for an easy wins. Can't prove that though it's probably in my head.

[Level9Drow]

Yea, I can see them purposefully lowering their MMR to grief new players. There is plenty of incentive to do so since lowering MMR also makes the AI more bearable and result in more matches.

[LordDraco3]

I usually drop my MMR once it's around 60-70, and take it down to 50 or 40 if possible. The game is just not fun when the difficulty scales to impossible levels, has nothing to do with trying to grief other players.

It also takes too long to get matches at high MMR as antag, so that's another reason I intentionally drop. But now, it sounds like a requirement since high MMR antag vs. low Raiders will nerf the map to be so weak that they just steamroll it. Like the gunships on HBaT dying in 3 seconds total.

If we only were able to change MMR through natural ways then I would be sitting probably in the 70's forever because I would just stop playing at that point. Don't look at people who intentionally lower MMR as dirty players, when the game just isn't fun at a certain level of difficulty and up.

[Level9Drow]

I usually drop my MMR once it's around 60-70, and take it down to 50 or 40 if possible. The game is just not fun when the difficulty scales to impossible levels, has nothing to do with trying to grief other players.

It also takes too long to get matches at high MMR as antag, so that's another reason I intentionally drop. But now, it sounds like a requirement since high MMR antag vs. low Raiders will nerf the map to be so weak that they just steamroll it. Like the gunships on HBaT dying in 3 seconds total.

If we only were able to change MMR through natural ways then I would be sitting probably in the 70's forever because I would just stop playing at that point. Don't look at people who intentionally lower MMR as dirty players, when the game just isn't fun at a certain level of difficulty and up.

You're right, I pointed out the other reasons to. I have to lower MMR to, but I don't wait until 60%, instead I just AFK as antag for a few games to keep it an even keel permanently so I am consistently at around 45% to 50%. I wasn't saying everyone who lowers MMR is greifing. I was just saying I could see some people doing this.

[Deathprize]

The purposely lowering MMR I haven't tried, mine tends to be around the 60% mark.

Is it not a bit silly to get to a point were afk and jumping off a cliff for 4 or 5 games is needed to make the game fun. This didn't seem to be an issue before you could see the MMR as far as I am aware.

I don't know if anyone else played it but Kid Icarus on the 3ds had a difficultly system where you could use a difficulty slider at the start of a level. You essentially bet on the difficulty and the rewards scaled accordingly.

I know it maybe more difficult to implement with 4 players, but that may be a good idea. Especially if the difficultly didn't change with an invasion but added something like a 2x or 3x multiplier on rewards.

That way even if you get creamed straight away it's still worth it.

[LordDraco3]

Yeeeeeah.... low levels complaining about fighting someone 200 levels over them do not get my sympathy, when those complaints are likely the reasons for unbalanced matches like this (and my other topic about being a high MMR antag vs. low MMR raiders).

Basically, whoever has less MMR is gonna win the antag match these days. It's impossible to win a game where enemies strike for 173 damage and have 800 health.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaNIGsqn_7k

[Deathprize]

Yeah it's super fun like that. What is even better is you can sometimes go against the same antagonist 5 times in a row, with the difficulty overtuned.
Six 800 health Hades troops bum rushing you as an alien character, you literally last a second.

Did it do the thing where 4 elites can spawn from the same point too?

[Nemo]

This has happened to me recently, on In Shock, on the 09 patch. 5th Council enemies were dealing 173 damage in one Strike, and took about 6-7 80 damage Strikes to kill. The Beholder, Beholder Tentacles, and Kuzmann also had far higher health than normal. We had 35 seconds to pull the levers to save Shae, during the electrocution segments. Almost managed to win it, but we still lost even though the Antagonist was friendly.

My MMR was 70 at the time, with most of my friends probably being around the 60-70 range as well. The Antagonist had 52 MMR, and was level 102. He was out-leveled by all the other Raiders, the lowest of whom was 130.

I was hoping that this would have been fixed with the 09 patch, since it seemed that the MMR of the Raiders and the Antagonist had to be within around 5-10% of each other, which would have prevented the AI from being overly weak or overly strong.

I've done a little testing with friends during this patch, and when I invaded them at 75 MMR, the AI were fairly weak. The enemies were doing about 25 melee damage with a Strike. In terms of health, Hades soldiers went down in two Strikes, 5th Council and Wardog soldiers went down in one. Wardog and 5th Council Snipers went down in one Strike, Hades Snipers in two. Wardog Captains went down in two Strikes, Hades Captains in three. Wardog Brutes went down in two Strikes, Hades Brutes in about four or five. Raiders generally had longer timers to hit switches and the like, and bosses and objectives had less health. I think they had about 75-80 seconds to hit the levers to save Shae on In Shock, when I invaded them.

The average MMR of the Raiders was about 65.

I did try to have a low MMR friend invade us, but we couldn't find each other on matchmaking. He had about 40 MMR, and I had about 80. The other Raiders were in the 60-70 range or so.

I think perhaps the system might try to adjust the difficulty based on levels as well as MMR, so that a lower level Antagonist might have stronger AI helping them, whilst a higher level Antagonist will have weaker AI. I'm not quite sure how to test that, however.

Anyway, it still seems the best way to deal with this is to lower your MMR after a certain point, either by playing a friendly Antagonist or by forming a squad and throwing matches. High difficulty PvE matches don't seem to offer that much of a difference in rewards to offset the increased challenge anyway.

[Deathprize]

Even after the changes this is still an issue, and the extremes still exist. The map can get flooded by incredibly high damage enemies, although granted they do now die a bit easier.

I know the current solution is to either afk antagonist or cliff jump, but it's a bit silly that this is a practice all the long term players carry out and highlights this is quite a big issue.

Selectable difficulties maybe the answer, similar to the strikes in Destiny. Or gate it based on level as well as MMR.

The main reason I don't like the current system is because every LV1 new player that gets grouped with me against an antagonist, with the MMR difference in play leaves 3 minutes in.

[zMalevolencEz]

It's just as bad for high mmr antagonist... Slim to no bot spawns and they shoot like blind stormtroopers. I guess I'm supposed to be a walking God.