Whislist for next patch

[KissenKitten]

I pretty much agree with AcidGlow. Getting SKed is primarily your own fault considering you weren't fighting someone else. That's the only time it's frustrating at all. It's much more honorable to just fight a person that's already engaged in battled. Albeit risky. I've had many players take the honorable route only for me to kill their buddy AND them too.

A SK kinda prevents that unfortunate accident. It can be over used but not to the point of it needing adjustments in my book. I don't really get SKed too often because I tend to watch my back. To a certain degree it is possible to fight the auto-targeting and pop the guy sneaking around you in the mouth. lol

[RagingDragon]

I agree with not all instant kills being cheap, the combistick does take a lot of skill.

If you find a group of solid players, who don't play hell-bent on racking up the most kills as fast as possible, you really can have a good time.  I usually limit myself to only the realistic SKs where I'm behind someone as an alien for a few seconds, not that I just chase down and tag the button repeatedly.  That normally ends up to about 1 or 2 a game, since most players are good at watching their backs these days.

I've actually SK'd Predators as they ran off, or jumped off a building, and my Alien will zoom up 10 feet behind them and do the kill.  I just want the game to be more functional with it, so the players don't have to work around these problems themselves. 

[AcidGlow]

Has anyone tested the ranges on SK for pred and alien to see if they are still too far and if they are equal after patch 5 for PC?
Some melee range should be lowered. I can agree with that point, sometimes my weak/heavy attacks reach from unrealistic ranges.. although I can't tell if it's just lag or if it really has that far of a reach.
I'd like to see a guide video showing the patch 5 changes in effect during gameplay. I'm interested in seeing how good the alien focus attack knockdown is right now. That was one move that really needed a buff.

[Eldritch]

Focus attack knockdown? Never ever seen it buddy :/

Okey, what we need for the next patch:

- Scoring needs to be fixed in Infestation. There is a bug. If you enter the game during progress, and it has progressed far, and you start as alien, you gain an enormous amount of "Time Score". I got 856 from doing this, and achieveing no kills at all. What XP did I earn? 8

- XP needs to be fixed for Infestation and Predator Hunt. At most, I have gotten 20, with 8 kills as predator (no SK's).

- Predator Hunt needs to be fixed. Playing as the predator is so damn boring, since you cannot stand a chance really. It is still the most boring game mode to date. The marines' trackers needs to ping for ALL players, not just the predator, to make it more fair.

- Melee is still off. I have seen 5m heavy attacks performed while moving at fulls speeds and around corners. How f'cked up isn't that? Blocking does not seem to work for the marine. If I block an attack, I get damaged (I know about the halved damage, which I think is a bit weird), and when I strike back, it is not considered a counter-attack, and hance I don't strike the enemy down.. Pretty unfair considering how much damage both aliens and predators can take (4 blast from shotgun primary fire for alien, for example).

- SK's. Annoying, does not fit, yadda yadda. Should be removed so we can have a game in peace.

- "Staggering" from melee strikes... Game Programmer's First Rule: NEVER EVER disrupt the player dynamics with stun and the like. No sane gamer likes these things. I don't care if they bring balance and realism, it is a game that is supposed to be entertaining.

- Predator being knocked down. All the while this was supposed to bring fairness to the game, it is now more annoying than ever... Right-click -> SVN... -> Update to revision -> [HEAD revision -1] 

- Survivor on dedicated servers. The only untainted game mode so far, but no way to play it. Suggestions for improvements on Survivor:

1. A way for dead marines to rejoin. It is extremely annoying dying early from some mistake, and having to wait forever to rejoin as my buddies are lucky enough to survive loooong.

2. Limit rounds. An endless stream has no goal. Game Programmer's Second Rule: Without a purpose or goal, no player will ever find satisfaction, and will eventually stop playing. Therefore, Survivor needs a purpose/goal. 10 or so rounds. If possible, we should meet a queen in the final round.

3. Predators. All the while their AI is said to "stay in the background". Is that really a bad thing? It would boost this game by at least 75% having them.

4. More levels that open up, like C-Block. I have yet to see the two survivor maps in the Bughunt package.

I am, however, happy to see the direction that many things have taken in patch #5. It is slowly getting there.

[Brother]

- "Staggering" from melee strikes... Game Programmer's First Rule: NEVER EVER disrupt the player dynamics with stun and the like. No sane gamer likes these things. I don't care if they bring balance and realism, it is a game that is supposed to be entertaining.

One of the major issues, maybe the biggest. This one causes the game to lose a huge amount of players.

[RagingDragon]

I don't know about that.  I do hate getting knocked down, and think they used the 'dynamic melee combat' thing way too heavily with AvP, but it's becoming the trend these days.  In some games it works, serves to make you feel more 'immersed' in the game, I think.

For example, in Modern Warfare 2, if you get hit by an explosion or bomb, your dude falls over.  This is realistic and makes me actually enjoy the game more.  Makes it feel less 'gamey,' just with AvP they didn't balance it enough.  It's like they were too excited to show off all of the exciting ways that your characters could get knocked on their ass.

[AcidGlow]

- Pretty unfair considering how much damage both aliens and predators can take (4 blast from shotgun primary fire for alien, for example).

Use secondary fire.. it kills them in 1 shot point blank.. if they happen to survive.. they will be stunned for another secondary fire.. nobody uses primary fire on shotgun now.. no point.

- SK's. Annoying, does not fit, yadda yadda. Should be removed so we can have a game in peace.

Yes it does fit. If you remove them.. the game becomes more bare-boned. You like a few.. just forget to turn around often to watch your back..

- "Staggering" from melee strikes... Game Programmer's First Rule: NEVER EVER disrupt the player dynamics with stun and the like. No sane gamer likes these things. I don't care if they bring balance and realism, it is a game that is supposed to be entertaining.

If you remove weak melee flinch and strong melee stun.. they will be utterly useless.. remember how many ppl used melee in AvP1.. your favorite game?.. nobody.. it was just cannon and speargun and you damn well know it..  AvP2 melee was alright but the fact that marines could outrun a predator just by backpedalling.. the preds had a really hard time chasing marines who just ran backwards while firing... even charged shots sometimes would not kill in 1 hit.. they would shrug the hit like it was nothing and kill you in 1 nade or 1 railgun slug..  The flinching, stun is active on all species and it's fine. You seem to want to strip this game of its core elements and just make it AvP1 all over again.. we have that game already..   

[Vladplaya]

I am also really tired of constantly been knocked down, especially as a marine. Don't get me wrong, I actually love how realistic AvP turned out to be for a such sci fi oriented game. But at the same time I agree with Eldritch, there should be enough flow in the game to keep you enjoying it, and not spend too much time waiting while you getting S/T killed, laying on a ground from been knocked down, or respawning.

Even when I play for an Alien it baffles me to why it takes around 4 seconds to get up when knocked down. It just ridicules long amount of time in this game and 99% of the time you know you will not survive anyway.

I doubt they will look into changing those mechanics, as they are in the core of the gameplay and it would require a lot of effort to temper with something like that. But nevertheless I wish they would have looked into the stuns and knock downs more and would come up with ways that wouldn't interrupt the flow of the action as much.

[Lenbo]

- Predator Hunt needs to be fixed. Playing as the predator is so damn boring, since you cannot stand a chance really. It is still the most boring game mode to date. The marines' trackers needs to ping for ALL players, not just the predator, to make it more fair.

Why not just remove motion trackers entirely from Predator Hunt? That would make it far more fun to play as the Predator, and conversely make it significantly more challenging/rewarding to kill the Pred.

- SK's. Annoying, does not fit, yadda yadda. Should be removed so we can have a game in peace.

There's a fair amount of people complaining about SKs. I agree that they need to be changed. Removing them is unnecessary though, as it adds flavor to the game.

- Lenbo

[AcidGlow]

I wish they would have looked into the stuns and knock downs more and would come up with ways that wouldn't interrupt the flow of the action as much.

You got any ideas?

I think they did think about it but it's hard to set a balance between the game having it and the game not having it. The only balance I see is the counters to avoid being stunned and knocked down.

[Hawkins]

That was an... interesting post AcidGlow .  The stealth-kill mechanic was not even close to being a selling point for the game, if you ask me.  It's fun and looks cool in single player, where it's supposed to be, but just throwing it in multiplayer ends up with the broken madness we have now.

It is totally stupid to turn around and have to watch the stealth kill animation in your face, then die.  I agree with Lenbo that a second activation time would help greatly.  If you had to be behind someone for at least 1 second, it would nerf all of the stealth-kill problems pretty well.  It would also give incentive to be actually sneaky instead of sprinting around the map like an idiot trying to catch people with their backs turned.

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wow you just read my mind dude cause the sk and tk should be in only the sp not the mp mp has no place for it imo.

[Vladplaya]

I wish they would have looked into the stuns and knock downs more and would come up with ways that wouldn't interrupt the flow of the action as much.

You got any ideas?

I think they did think about it but it's hard to set a balance between the game having it and the game not having it. The only balance I see is the counters to avoid being stunned and knocked down.

I know it's hard, and we definitely need the stun and knock downs. The easiest solution that I see right now, would probably reduce the time it takes to get back on the feet, for all species, alone with reducing the stun from weapon attacks. Just a minor decrease would probably do the wonders. Make it so it takes just a moment, it still will serve the purpose of slowing you down and making you vulnerable for a moment, but it shouldn't take so long where you pretty much have no chance once you are knocked down.

Furthermore, if I Really would want to change things up, I would allow marines to shoot in a limited angle when they are knocked down, so other species would have to drop their Pounce+TK "routine", making them go around you in the angles where you can't shoot. That also would give at least few extra seconds for your buddies to save your ass, instead of getting insta killed by TK like it happens right now.

I actually have big issue with survivability of marines, even though I often play as marine, I usually look at them as complete dead meat, especially on populated servers. So I personally would love to see more ways on keeping your comrads alive longer. One of the main reasons why I suggested Interruptible S/T kills. I mean no matter how tight security in a group of marines can be, a single alien can run in and get a bs SK before anyone might have time to react, after that the chances that the fallen teammate gonna make it back to the group is minimal, while say for fallen alien it takes only seconds to get from any respawn point back to the marines.

[ManaCraft]

You got any ideas?

I think they did think about it but it's hard to set a balance between the game having it and the game not having it. The only balance I see is the counters to avoid being stunned and knocked down.

At the risk of repeating myself...

Introduce conditions that must be met in order for the predator (and now alien as well) to achieve a knockdown on the focus attack - such as requiring the attack to come from behind or from a sufficiently elevated position. Reins in KDs and also adds a tactical element to the game. Other checks are possible as well, such as having more health than the target or requiring you to sprint into your focus attack. Some conditions are of course more easily met than others. Get imaginative, and add as many (or few) conditions as is necessary for KDs to be rare enough that they "feel" balanced. Right now, the only condition applied is that of range, which in and of itself is not enough.

Knockdowns essentially present the same problem to the game as stealth kills, in that they're both one-hit wonders. If you get knocked down, you're (usually) dead. Which is why, from a balance point of view, they deserve the same treatment as stealth kills - ie they should be the exception rather than the norm. Something reserved for when the target is truly caught off guard. How exactly to go about accomplishing this is debatable, but there are options. It's true that focus attacks can be blocked. That, however, is neither a reliable nor sufficient counter. It would be if KDs weren't so readily achievable though.