After lots of playing both antag and raider last couple days, my full thoughts.
IN SHORT: I like it.Players are saying things feel easy now, that AI is weak, and that it therefore negatively affects Antagonists. I have played so many teams at 10-22% MMR lower than me that I am used to AI being dumb as rocks and weak as toilet paper. I have played a lot of antag matches the last 2 days and I didn't feel like it was that bad. AI has always been weak when I play anyways but I didn't feel they were any, uhh, weaker, when antag is present.
I actually won like 3 or 4 matches as Iune antag yesterday, lol. There are a lot more balance issues to consider, like how much more powerful certain weapons or cards are as a raider (Valeria's Whip, Kuzmann's Lichtbogen, or any weapon with a high rate of ammo consumption), or how certain cards just simply do not work for antagonists (Hive's stroma card, several of Iune's, Loaht/Alicia's cards that require multiple kills at once, and more).
And when playing as a Raider, the absurd difficulty spikes feel gone, which is great! I actually spent hours playing only locals (I need faction points), which is a faction I never play, and won all my matches as raider. Even as Harec, running a 15/15 bounty/affiliation Vindicta! I'm a terrible aim.
I know it seems weird to say that playing as both antag and raider things feel balanced, but it truly does compared to how difficulty USED to be, where you would get Terminator AI at 40% MMR that would 1-shot everything and have 500 HP. I went up to high 70's last night playing only locals and the AI felt well balanced. Still dangerous if you let them, but not absurd. Certain things were especially more difficult though, as MMR rises: Engineers, Beholder lock on time, and objective timers. 5th council barely stands a chance at extracting on HBaT, even if they just run and don't stop moving. So that should be reviewed.
As antag, I am encountering more players of higher level at higher MMR's, which is how the system SHOULD work.
Before: Everyone played at 30% MMR, because even at 35 you'd have random difficulty spikes that made missions feel impossible and not worth rising in difficulty. So I would antag with my 40% MMR and fight a team that's 30% and they have a level 400, 200, a 3 and a 2, mentor match. They would have teddy bear AI that are basically walking ammo crates and I'd have no help, but half the team could 1-shot me while the other half didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
So overall, I feel things are better balanced now. I consider myself a top tier player, and it was kinda silly that the best of the best could only reach a certain MMR before it became impossible to progress. If you're good, we should be able to hit 100% with a dedicated, solid, smart team, and be rewarded for it.
Now some people in discord have passed 100%, reaching 101+ and apparently it's bugged and the game considers them to just be 1%. their difficulty score went from 98% to 50% and it granted them 12/10 lives, with no enemies. This should be addressed as it seems like an unintended bug.
Also the rewards do not seem that much better at 90%+ than they do at 30 or 40% because rewards are based on final mission score alone. Let's say, a score of 9.1 at low MMR should not give the same exact rewards as a 9.1 at high MMR. Rewards should take more into consideration than simple final mission score. Perhaps add additional rewards onto the total based on each player's individual MMR, that way they get rewarded based on their skill level, in addition to the team average. So if a team that has a 20% and an 80% in it, the player high higher MMR walks away with more rewards. This will incentivize Raiders and Antagonists alike to want to keep a higher MMR if they have the ability to play at such a level.
Some players hear this issue with rewards and think "oh, there's still no incentive to go up in MMR, so I'll keep losing to keep it low." NO, this is the wrong thought process! Previously, the reason players intentionally stayed low, was because the game got wayyyy too hard at certain MMR difficulty levels. This update definitely changed that, so now there is no incentive to deal with the annoying hassle of intentionally losing, whether you do it in a team, or do it as friendly antag. We all agree that lowing MMR was a terrible thing that we had to do because the game was too hard. Now we can filter players accross different MMR percentages based on their skill and level better, so we don't have a level 500 and a level 2 down at 30% which makes the game harder to balance. Players at such a difference of level being in the same team, either the noob will find the game impossible, or the veteran will find it too easy, or they just get frustrated with the noob. So with this update, I see no reason to keep wasting our time keeping our MMR low on purpose. Even at 80% things don't feel that bad, and the discord team that has hit 100% found high 90's to be something like the old 60's, which wasn't easy, but wasn't impossible.
