Hello, as the title says, I have issues with the rewards. So much so I made an account here just to voice my thoughts.
I am extremely unhappy with these new changes. I've been gaming since the atari so i'm no stranger to the many myriads of ways developers have decided to do rewards but this one is degrading my sanity. My issues with this system are as follows;
Blueprints, General - I like the individual awards. I don't even mind you do not have a BP at each reward cycle. I am very happy the devs are generous and give a stacking +10% reward chance when you fail. The issue I have is the toxic result of having to use the character you want to get the BP. To start with that means fresh chars you unlock are using an unranked gun. That alone isn't anything i'd be concerned with, though it does aggrivate when you go into higher level missions. I have been killed a number of times by miniscule damage differences that would have been fine had I an upgraded BP. The REAL issue I have a problem with is the idea of you having to have a character brought along you don't want. So what if I want a BP for say, Konstantine, as an example, and someone else jumps in? Oh. Well. Konstantine is selected, guess it's time to ctrl + F4. Eat the penalty and do something else and come back without even noticing that i've been penalized because real life is still a thing. I got chores, books, etc to do. I can't count the number of times i've seen people DC. As I am now post 100 and have fewer chances at BPs per cycle, I have to admit I am tempted at times to do the same. Cycles might be faster but I can't sit here once every 8 hours for an hour or two. Especially with Rare BPs. Which brings me to...
Blueprints, Rare - This is even more of a pain in my butt. I require 3 wins, consecutively, including the mission with the BP that I am running. It's hard to get multiple games won in a row since the releaunch because i'm seeing obscene numbers of clueless newbies and high level idiots (or trolls). I've lost short fused no less than 4 times by 1 aleph because someone who has one aleph is busy screwing around on the other side of the map despite chiming "Come Here" next to the extractor. I've seen so many losses at the end of No Reservation because I shoot down the snipers to 80% of their HP and a stupid team mate decides it's a great idea to melee them, and thus we never get more fuel to the reactor. Things like this happen ad naseum and I have not won a rare BP since about two days after space lords launching despite playing daily. That's not even mentioning people who disconnect 5 minutes into the mission, plummeting chances of success in most cases. I had harecs disconnect in the first part of mouse and snake when two of the other players were alicia/lycus. That was like walking on glass.
New Players/Mentor - I can't say much about this that isn't obvious. There should be a filter for this. I used to have a MMR of 45% and climbing. I'm now down to 30%. I can say without hesitation most of that is due to other players not having an idea of what the heck they should be doing.
Text/Chat - Not much to say here either. If we had it, there would be less of the above because it could be communicated. I.e. Do not melee the melee, sniper, artillery elites when they have a number over their head until their HP is shot down first. We have all the aleph we need. Come to objective, turn in. Etc. Any idea of this filtering out toxic people is absurd. If it's an issue then mute anyone talking trash for 5/15/whatever minutes and auto send a report if the words are detected. Ban the toxic people. This does nothing to filter out toxic gamePLAY. Such as repeat suicides, people not doing the objectives, etc.
Suggestions - Because I believe whining alone does nothing, I have a few, if obvious recommendations.
1) Blueprints, General - If someone joins a mission, either make the chance at BP used up regardless of if they finish the mission or not. Yeah, it sucks for the people who disconnect but I would be surprised if more people disconnect due to RL issues as opposed to toxic ones. I would also recommend an increase in BP chance if you have other players disconnect, especially in regards to the second suggestion;
2) Blueprints, Rare - I think having a shot at a rare BP even if you lose but have the wins would have been nice. At least there's a shot at it, with the stacking bonus as well as the recommendation of the disconnects counting for something. I would much, much rather eat a 20% or 30% chance at a BP then have no chance 5, 6 times in a row due to circumstances far beyond my control.
3) Mentoring & Chat Functionality - Add chat, allow players to filter out players lower than level 5 or so. I might recommend a training mode explaining _do not melee elites if they have aleph charges_ and then forcing players to do a trial where they must do exactly that to pass and then, only then, can they play online where they can benefit the team and not crush the souls of other players watching helplessly as they vent the team's limited life supply.
