BeezelThere was no agreement little morsel..Registered Userregular
strafe the monster. Don't stack your traps in a way they all can be broken from a single swing from the monster.
PSN: Waybackkidd
"...only mights and maybes."
+3
FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
edited November 2014
Yeah, the traps take a few seconds to arm and can be destroyed by one melee attack in their direction. You have to plan out their placement a bit, spreading them out so they'll hook onto the monster from multiple angles, and anticipating their arm time so the monster will blunder into them at the right moment.
The other thing to keep in mind about all harpoon weapons is that they are really intended to just be temporary snares. They can stop a Goliath in mid-leap, or drag a Kraken to the ground, but these delays only last a second or so. They really need to be paired with an assault or support's more damaging attacks to be most effective.
I saw one match where only Maggie was left and the Stage Three Goliath was chasing her around the Fusion Plant complex. Maggie kept firing her harpoon traps in front of her, or at her feet, or a little off to the side, leaving them in her wake. She had a head start, so the monster was following her at a distance at first, giving the traps time to arm. Several times it looked like the monster was going to catch her, only to be snagged by a harpoon trap and delayed by a second or two, which gave more time for new traps to arm. Combined with some artful jet-pack dodging, Maggie was able to string him along until the dropship arrived.
His turrets are fucking brutal. Get a monster in the right dome and he has nowhere to go without eating constant fire from them. His rockets do good damage, and his head can scout pretty well (assuming the game decides it's going to let you ascend and descend).
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
One, Bucket is more helpful in tracking the monster, as his disembodied head can scout and tag the monster with a tracking dart. Two, his sentry guns do massive damage and are very effective at area control. Combined with his rocket launcher he has a higher potential damage output than Hank, whose orbital barrage can't be used indoors, takes several seconds to land, and can miss. Sentry guns don't miss at all.
In short, Hank is more of a defensive Support, while Bucket is more of an offensive Support.
Ideally your medic will keep to your sentry guns and you will have put them in a good spot to where if the monster pursues the medic to the exclusion of all others, they'll die shortly after the medic does.
Without the shield though the monster can just murder the medic every fight though?
Depends. Lazarus is very good at evasion with his personal cloak, and both supports can use their cloak to cover the medic if needed. Val can also always tranq the monster in order to buy herself some escape time. There's a lot to be said for avoiding attacks in the first place and for forcing the monster to deal with more pressing threats before he targets the medic.
Man I wish we lived on a planet where a team was ever coordinated enough that I could sit in one spot to heal as the medic.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
With the amount of damage the sentries do, the monster really does not want to fight anywhere near them, or to destroy them as fast as possible. That can pull his eye of the medic, or give the medic a secure place to fall back to.
I've only fought Kraken once. As Bucket, aka the worst person to fight Kraken. Was not pleasant.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
I'm not so sure Bucket is the worst to fight Kraken. His UAV can help reduce the effectiveness of Kraken's ability to evade, and Kraken's lowered health/armor make the option of fighting near sentries even less palatable. Sure, he can't help you tank the damage like Hank, but at the same time a lot of Kraken's abilities can be dodged more easily than Goliath's.
I'm not so sure Bucket is the worst to fight Kraken. His UAV can help reduce the effectiveness of Kraken's ability to evade, and Kraken's lowered health/armor make the option of fighting near sentries even less palatable. Sure, he can't help you tank the damage like Hank, but at the same time a lot of Kraken's abilities can be dodged more easily than Goliath's.
Good luck ever getting the Kraken near your sentries though. He has absolutely no reason to ever be anywhere near them, negating a large chunk of Bucket's damage, and the reason for giving up the shield ability.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
I'm not so sure Bucket is the worst to fight Kraken. His UAV can help reduce the effectiveness of Kraken's ability to evade, and Kraken's lowered health/armor make the option of fighting near sentries even less palatable. Sure, he can't help you tank the damage like Hank, but at the same time a lot of Kraken's abilities can be dodged more easily than Goliath's.
Good luck ever getting the Kraken near your sentries though. He has absolutely no reason to ever be anywhere near them, negating a large chunk of Bucket's damage, and the reason for giving up the shield ability.
Well, it's not Bucket's duty to bring Kraken to the ground, and it's not like Hank could accomplish that either. You'd have to rely on good trappers and maybe Val's tranqs to accomplish that. Although, one nice feature of sentries is that they have decent range you can place them on high ground to improve their chance of hitting a flying enemy.
Has anyone ever had a Kraken bother destroying the relay? I haven't seen one even really come near it yet.
FuriousJodo on Twitch/PSN/XBL/Whatever else
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Maggie is auto-infuriation for the Kraken if she's aggressively lobbing traps, and Hank is even worse if he's a decent shot because he snag you anywhere in the dome with the harpoon and pull you down.
And yeah, Bucket's turrets are very, very powerful once he starts getting them out there. The Kraken's biggest enemy is something that can hit him constantly, which turrets definitely do. And Bucket's rocket launcher is pretty dang strong, along with being much more reliable than the orbital strike. So if the Monster is camping on an incap teammate and you only have Bucket? Turrets and rockets everywhere. You will deal a shitload of damage if the Monster doesn't move.
As for the Kraken, I think it's a Monster where picking the right place to fight it is very important. You want to force it into a place where it can't do things like hang way back and lob lightning stuff at you, while being out of effective range of lots of stuff. The Hunters need stuff they can climb to reduce the height advantage and use to avoid get hit with lots of stuff; a spot that's mostly open with one or two unclimbable towers is just about the worst place to fight the Kraken, because he's fast enough to leverage that tower for cover and the Hunters are going to be exposed the entire time.
Though I think the dome might need to be adjusted to be more elliptical and less spherical, in order to bring the roof down on it some. You really don't realize how high the ceilings is on it until you're trying to shoot a Kraken sitting at the top of it some 200-300 feet away.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
It's interesting how different ideal dome placement is for the two monsters. With Goliath you want to catch him in the open, on flat terrain. With Kraken it's far better to catch him indoors, or at least in areas where you can climb up to meet him. I wonder what the third and fourth monsters' playstyles will necessitate.
Playing some more I think how I feel is as follows: This game has some neat ideas, and a cool concept.
But personally the gameplay is just not there yet, and may never be. The gunplay is not paeticularly good or satisfying. Movement feels pretty bad. Often the game feels more tedious than fun with how much time is spent finding the monster and how much health there is and how overloaded some roles are (medic healing, tranqing and applying weak spots, keeping everything is more like busywork than anything else).
Oh, and the unlocking system is awful and a huge turnoff for me.
I dream of the day that FPS games once again just have everything available the first time you turn the game on. Even though I know that day will never come.
Yeah, I don't necessarily mind unlocking systems for weapons, skins, or items but I absolutely hate that the other characters are locked behind them. I have no interest in playing Markov or Val, but could be interested in the other hunters locked behind them.
Oh, and the unlocking system is awful and a huge turnoff for me.
I dream of the day that FPS games once again just have everything available the first time you turn the game on. Even though I know that day will never come.
I don't mind having to unlock stuff, but major options should be either unlocked from the start, or nominally unlockable, such that they can be gotten within two games. As it is, I've yet to unlock any of the tier 2 characters, and some of the requirements are really high and severely restrict your play.
Emperor_Z on
+1
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Are the unlockable characters supposed to be objectively better than the initial characters? Because... they are better
I definitely have to argue against that. Maggie and Griffin are really comparable; they're abilities are situationally more useful, but both are extremely useful. I would honestly probably rather fight Griffin than Maggie, because at least Griffin isn't throwing out endless traps that constantly immobilize you. Hank and Bucket are both great, but for different things; Hank is immensely better at keeping the team on their feet, but Bucket makes it less necessary to do that. Hyde and Markov are both big damage-dealers, but mines can be absolutely brutal for damage whereas the gas grenade is less useful for damage and but great for area control.
The exception is that Lazarus is a straight upgrade, but that's because his ability set is just plain bullshit.
Heaven forbid you like one of the starter or the first person you unlock. Then you're stuck not doing what you might want to because you need to unlock others that you may like just as much, if not more.
And if you don't like one of the starters? Too goddamn bad, Val, do what you're told.
Yeah, I want to be a Trapper, but I'm not a huge fan of Maggie and I can't get Griffin until I follow Daisy for 6.6 kilometres. Ugh.
I'm fine with their reasoning - keeping things simple with the straightforward T1 guys early, pointing you towards using all their abilities. But the unlocks need to come way sooner.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The unlocks definitely need to be tuned. Having to follow Daisy for something like 3-4 miles is absurd, because you're going to have some long, boring games following the Daisy for the distance even though you can often find the Monster yourself a lot faster; a tenth that distance would be reasonable.
And then you have stuff like with Lazarus, where you have to rez 10 people after they die. You can do that one in something like 2 games.
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firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
Daisy seems pretty useless.
Finally lost a kraken match against a team that had the flamethrower guy. That thing is mean! Basically forces you to stop running and fight.
I don't know if this is the game for me. I had some fun yesterday but I getting all my friends to play at the same time is tough. I had the same problem with Left 4 Dead. Seems really cool though!
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firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
I'm kind of surprised it's not going to be some kind of F2P thing. I could easily see charging $5-$10 for hunter classes and more for monsters or whatever. No way I'd buy this full price, but I could see spending more than $60 on it over time if they kept adding enough interesting new classes/monsters/whatever.
Anyway I had about 10 games in the same lobby with a damn good hunter group. I took them about 7 out of 10 with the kraken, but they eventually got me on lock by using the flamethrower guy and the harpoon guy. Their support was really good too, always finding the highpoints and shielding whichever player I was going after. When I went after the support, the medic would heal folks up.
Hell of a lot more fun to play against compared to yesterdays stomping. Kind of want to push to level 20 just because (at 19 now) but eh, don't want to burn out so quickly.
I would not say that daisy is useless, but following Daisy blindly is definitely useless (too bad you have to in order to unlock another hunter). With the minimap up, seeing what direction Daisy is heading is helps you figure out the monsters last known location/foot prints and from there you can make an educated guess about which direction the monster may have gone. Not the greatest thing in the world but it is something.
Also her ability to revive people is occasionally a game changer.
Have only been following this game a little bit, how are the general alpha impressions? Balanced quite right between monsters and hunters and not just a camp-fest for the monster or too straightforward tactics for the hunters?
Posts
"...only mights and maybes."
The other thing to keep in mind about all harpoon weapons is that they are really intended to just be temporary snares. They can stop a Goliath in mid-leap, or drag a Kraken to the ground, but these delays only last a second or so. They really need to be paired with an assault or support's more damaging attacks to be most effective.
I saw one match where only Maggie was left and the Stage Three Goliath was chasing her around the Fusion Plant complex. Maggie kept firing her harpoon traps in front of her, or at her feet, or a little off to the side, leaving them in her wake. She had a head start, so the monster was following her at a distance at first, giving the traps time to arm. Several times it looked like the monster was going to catch her, only to be snagged by a harpoon trap and delayed by a second or two, which gave more time for new traps to arm. Combined with some artful jet-pack dodging, Maggie was able to string him along until the dropship arrived.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
His turrets are fucking brutal. Get a monster in the right dome and he has nowhere to go without eating constant fire from them. His rockets do good damage, and his head can scout pretty well (assuming the game decides it's going to let you ascend and descend).
For a few reasons.
One, Bucket is more helpful in tracking the monster, as his disembodied head can scout and tag the monster with a tracking dart. Two, his sentry guns do massive damage and are very effective at area control. Combined with his rocket launcher he has a higher potential damage output than Hank, whose orbital barrage can't be used indoors, takes several seconds to land, and can miss. Sentry guns don't miss at all.
In short, Hank is more of a defensive Support, while Bucket is more of an offensive Support.
Depends. Lazarus is very good at evasion with his personal cloak, and both supports can use their cloak to cover the medic if needed. Val can also always tranq the monster in order to buy herself some escape time. There's a lot to be said for avoiding attacks in the first place and for forcing the monster to deal with more pressing threats before he targets the medic.
Good luck ever getting the Kraken near your sentries though. He has absolutely no reason to ever be anywhere near them, negating a large chunk of Bucket's damage, and the reason for giving up the shield ability.
Well, it's not Bucket's duty to bring Kraken to the ground, and it's not like Hank could accomplish that either. You'd have to rely on good trappers and maybe Val's tranqs to accomplish that. Although, one nice feature of sentries is that they have decent range you can place them on high ground to improve their chance of hitting a flying enemy.
And yeah, Bucket's turrets are very, very powerful once he starts getting them out there. The Kraken's biggest enemy is something that can hit him constantly, which turrets definitely do. And Bucket's rocket launcher is pretty dang strong, along with being much more reliable than the orbital strike. So if the Monster is camping on an incap teammate and you only have Bucket? Turrets and rockets everywhere. You will deal a shitload of damage if the Monster doesn't move.
As for the Kraken, I think it's a Monster where picking the right place to fight it is very important. You want to force it into a place where it can't do things like hang way back and lob lightning stuff at you, while being out of effective range of lots of stuff. The Hunters need stuff they can climb to reduce the height advantage and use to avoid get hit with lots of stuff; a spot that's mostly open with one or two unclimbable towers is just about the worst place to fight the Kraken, because he's fast enough to leverage that tower for cover and the Hunters are going to be exposed the entire time.
Though I think the dome might need to be adjusted to be more elliptical and less spherical, in order to bring the roof down on it some. You really don't realize how high the ceilings is on it until you're trying to shoot a Kraken sitting at the top of it some 200-300 feet away.
Yeah, I guess I'm buying this game.
I've done it once. Just to see what happens. After I let the hunter team respawn twice. Kraken is bananas.
Does text chat not work?
Hate to burst your bubble but the devs nixed a snake monster early on because animating the thing would have taken a lot of design time.
Maybe a DLC monster once the game is out the door though.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
Now, a spider monster? Yeah, now we'd be talking.
Yeah, cool shit generally does take a lot of time.
Stop being squares, devs.
But personally the gameplay is just not there yet, and may never be. The gunplay is not paeticularly good or satisfying. Movement feels pretty bad. Often the game feels more tedious than fun with how much time is spent finding the monster and how much health there is and how overloaded some roles are (medic healing, tranqing and applying weak spots, keeping everything is more like busywork than anything else).
I dream of the day that FPS games once again just have everything available the first time you turn the game on. Even though I know that day will never come.
I don't mind having to unlock stuff, but major options should be either unlocked from the start, or nominally unlockable, such that they can be gotten within two games. As it is, I've yet to unlock any of the tier 2 characters, and some of the requirements are really high and severely restrict your play.
I definitely have to argue against that. Maggie and Griffin are really comparable; they're abilities are situationally more useful, but both are extremely useful. I would honestly probably rather fight Griffin than Maggie, because at least Griffin isn't throwing out endless traps that constantly immobilize you. Hank and Bucket are both great, but for different things; Hank is immensely better at keeping the team on their feet, but Bucket makes it less necessary to do that. Hyde and Markov are both big damage-dealers, but mines can be absolutely brutal for damage whereas the gas grenade is less useful for damage and but great for area control.
The exception is that Lazarus is a straight upgrade, but that's because his ability set is just plain bullshit.
And if you don't like one of the starters? Too goddamn bad, Val, do what you're told.
I'm fine with their reasoning - keeping things simple with the straightforward T1 guys early, pointing you towards using all their abilities. But the unlocks need to come way sooner.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
And then you have stuff like with Lazarus, where you have to rez 10 people after they die. You can do that one in something like 2 games.
Finally lost a kraken match against a team that had the flamethrower guy. That thing is mean! Basically forces you to stop running and fight.
Anyway I had about 10 games in the same lobby with a damn good hunter group. I took them about 7 out of 10 with the kraken, but they eventually got me on lock by using the flamethrower guy and the harpoon guy. Their support was really good too, always finding the highpoints and shielding whichever player I was going after. When I went after the support, the medic would heal folks up.
Hell of a lot more fun to play against compared to yesterdays stomping. Kind of want to push to level 20 just because (at 19 now) but eh, don't want to burn out so quickly.
Also her ability to revive people is occasionally a game changer.