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Evolve Stage 2 |OT| Redesigned, free 2 play, Very Frequent Updates [Support Ended]

TitusTroy

Member
why did they nerf Kraken's flying ability?...him getting up high in the air was one of his advantages...seems like they want to ground him or lower his max height which makes no sense- he's the Kraken!...what they need to nerf is the distance that Hunters can hit the Monster...seems like sometimes they can hit me from across the map which is ridiculous...

https://www.reddit.com/r/EvolveGame/comments/4zdl2v/live_now_update_207_and_the_deepest_dark_beta/

EDIT: I'm glad they somewhat nerfed the Hunter 'tinkerbell' exploit where Hunters could jump up high in the air and remain there for way too long
 

Dreavus

Member
New map is a great concept for co-op modes.... buuuuut the execution is so linear that I don' t see myself ever playing it again.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's too bad they set it up so linear though. Maybe they could open up the map and have egg nests spawn in random clusters or something like that. The VO is cool but all it's doing is making me miss the regular chatter, lol.

Overall it reminds me of those SCII co-op missions, except there's only one at the moment. If they could eventually get one for each monster type it'd add some nice variety to co-op.
 

LordRaptor

Member
Ehhhh... another gimmick map which has me wondering if whoevers in creative control of F2P Evolve is entirely sure about what they are doing or who their current and / or potential future userbase are.

The new V/O is terribad.
It reminded me of that BL2 dlc where you're playing Tiny Tinas D&D campaign. But unironically.

I think I prefer self-referentially goofy (electro griffin) over poor mans dawn of war.

why did they nerf Kraken's flying ability?...him getting up high in the air was one of his advantages...seems like they want to ground him or lower his max height which makes no sense- he's the Kraken!

Just picking Kraken hard counters at least 3 Assaults whose damage power is entirely in melee or near melee attacks.
Halving the usable pool of characters for an entire class because enemy might pick Kraken is a pretty bad trade off.

e:
And come on, look at the patch notes for hunters; nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf.
Kraken being attackable now is hardly worth complaining about...
 

TitusTroy

Member
that voiceover is annoying...I thought the patch notes stated that the VO would only show up if you're levels 1-7...I still heard the VO even though I'm maxed out as far as level cap
 

LordRaptor

Member
I dunno whats up with matchmaking this patch, it seems like I get brand new players in every game I'm having as hunters now.
Brand new as in 'don't use any abilities at all' and have no markings on their character flag brand new.

Either matchmakings broken, my hidden MMR has placed me as "never played the game before" skill level, or there's a steady influx of new players

that voiceover is annoying...I thought the patch notes stated that the VO would only show up if you're levels 1-7...I still heard the VO even though I'm maxed out as far as level cap

Its character level not account level - I had a bug where I was forcibly put as a goliath and couldnt back out or select anyone else, so I had to play a match as him and had tutorial V/O (which also apparently locks you out of setting your own skillpoint spends)
 

TitusTroy

Member
I don't understand why this game is not more popular...seems like a very fun, well balanced, asymmetrical shooter...it's not like there's a lot of these kind of games currently on the market...the game should be way more popular
 
I don't understand why this game is not more popular...seems like a very fun, well balanced, asymmetrical shooter...it's not like there's a lot of these kind of games currently on the market...the game should be way more popular

Yeah, especially with Stage 2 and how it made Hunt more fast paced and in general more easy going. I really find it a good game to just start up and do a couple rounds. It's a shame it doesn't resonate with people.
 

LordRaptor

Member
I don't understand why this game is not more popular...seems like a very fun, well balanced, asymmetrical shooter...it's not like there's a lot of these kind of games currently on the market...the game should be way more popular

Well, they're balancing for high level play which means nerfing hunters / buffing monsters and trying to hit a 50:50 win ratio.

At low levels, where you don't have a 4 man premade team you regularly train with, open mics and a good feel for what each of your team mates are capable of and high level strategies to pursue, that usually means getting roffelstomped if anyone in your team isn't playing optimally / has the correct perks / grabs the right buffs etc.
So basically every Monster win means 4 players lost.

I assume the work they're putting into co-op mode is to try and offset the fact their high level goal is for 80% of the playerbase to lose most of the time.
The few times I've tried co-op I've seen plenty of folks with like, 150+ winstreaks who basically suck at what they're supposed to be doing (medics and supports never use their 4's), so I guess it's sort of working.

I'd really like there to be some better transitioning from brain dead easy win co-op to getting hardcore fucked by someone playing monster for the first or second time in regular Hunt though - would be a lot better for game health if co-op taught people useful things like not doming in a cave / using their class skills / team situational awareness etc, not just pick Deeps spam Deeps
 

TitusTroy

Member
At low levels, where you don't have a 4 man premade team you regularly train with, open mics and a good feel for what each of your team mates are capable of and high level strategies to pursue, that usually means getting roffelstomped if anyone in your team isn't playing optimally / has the correct perks / grabs the right buffs etc.
So basically every Monster win means 4 players lost

Monsters don't always stomp the Hunters...I've been in close matches, beaten them in Stage 1, Stage 2, lost to Hunters etc...it's not like Monsters are unbeatable in public matches...there's no way of knowing the best Hunter perks in the Lobby because you don't know which Monster is being selected...as a Monster player I usually play with the same perks and only switch around things depending on some maps
 

LordRaptor

Member
The matchmaking bug forcing you to play monster or hard force terminate the application is infuriating. You either Alt+F4 out, or force everyone to wait the full time out period for selection and play auto selected monster with no choice of perks.

Also doesn't seem like their hotfix fixed shit, animals still run around like barry allen on meth.

e:
Monsters don't always stomp the Hunters...I've been in close matches, beaten them in Stage 1, Stage 2, lost to Hunters etc...it's not like Monsters are unbeatable in public matches

Margin for error is waaaaaaaaaaaaay lower in the monsters favour in pugs.
Most games I'm stomped, or I stomp an obviously new monster player.
Very rare that it doesn't feel lop-sided.

The few times it does, I wish there was some way to keep the existing hunter party + roles together for a new monster player, but game doesn't support that :(
 

Dreavus

Member
The matchmaking bug forcing you to play monster or hard force terminate the application is infuriating. You either Alt+F4 out, or force everyone to wait the full time out period for selection and play auto selected monster with no choice of perks.

Also doesn't seem like their hotfix fixed shit, animals still run around like barry allen on meth.

e:


Margin for error is waaaaaaaaaaaaay lower in the monsters favour in pugs.
Most games I'm stomped, or I stomp an obviously new monster player.
Very rare that it doesn't feel lop-sided.

The few times it does, I wish there was some way to keep the existing hunter party + roles together for a new monster player, but game doesn't support that :(

Yeah, I think all they did was add a way to see people's profiles? I've never used it. It doesn't quite have the immediacy of just queuing up again and keeping the same team though.

RE: Margin of error: It's the design of the game being 4v1. Everyone needs to be on point or you die. At least you get a couple extra chances now if you die right at the start (with the new dropship stuff) but it's often clear by the first, MAYBE second, engagement how the game's going to ultimately go. It's especially frustrating when the assault is the weak link because all it means is it's going to be a drawn out game that you'll eventually lose, no matter how good your survivability is. :(

I'm starting to think the perk design might be problematic. It's a huge difference if you can take 10% + 15% cool down reduction of your [4] when it's a strong burst heal like Laz's over just having nothing or taking something inconsequential. But they need to factor that into balancing as well, so when you don't take advantage of that stuff you're going to be on the back foot (I have no idea if that's meta or not, it's just an example), and then when you do/can take advantage of it, it might push you over the edge into pulverizing the monster with a good team. I like the customization aspect of it, but it's definitely a huge balancing nightmare as seen by the constant nerfs.

Anyways I am kinda glad they are looking into Co-op stuff. I guess they can see how popular it is and gauge if it's something people want more of. I think if they can make them a bit less linear and draw up a stable of 5-6+ maps it could be a pretty fun low-stress mode.
 

TitusTroy

Member
I still think a really good Hunter team can beat a really good Monster and the Hunters do need to be nerfed more then the Monster...there's so many variables with all the Hunters and you don't get to see which Hunter they chose until after the game starts to load...there's a big difference having Sunny over Kala or vice versa etc...so it's balanced very well for the most part...
 

Klyka

Banned
I still think a really good Hunter team can beat a really good Monster and the Hunters do need to be nerfed more then the Monster...there's so many variables with all the Hunters and you don't get to see which Hunter they chose until after the game starts to load...there's a big difference having Sunny over Kala or vice versa etc...so it's balanced very well for the most part...

If hunters and monster are the same skill level, the monster will have to work way way harder to win because the hunters are that much stronger
 

LordRaptor

Member
RE: Margin of error: It's the design of the game being 4v1. Everyone needs to be on point or you die.

Yeah, absolutely - it's the point of the game.
But for game health reasons, generally losing most games you play is not fun, and thats the general experience for new players going hunter.
You really want people sticking around long enough to git gud (or making 'co-op' mode a much much much better experience than it currently is to ease people into the 'real' game from there).

I'm not a good player, in fact, I strongly suspect the reason I keep getting matchmade with people who are clearly entirely new to the game is because I'm right in that average bellcurve where MMR starts you at before assigning your 'real' skill level, which makes my gameplay experience particularly frustrating, because I know how to play and since the last patch I am frequently being partied with 2 others who don't.

Again, I think this is why they're focussing on the co-op stuff a fair bit as well as the onboarding for newbies with additional tutorials and V/O stuff - because I strongly suspect the data they have is a lot of churn from new players signing up and just getting straight up raped by average-but-know-how-to-play monsters then uninstalling.

I'm starting to think the perk design might be problematic.

Yeah, I posted some thoughts about their perks system when I started playing; they're in that halfway house where perks are meaningful enough that they are really expensive to get because you really should be getting them, and that balancing is done always assuming the best perk is applied, but not so meaningful that you can go deep on particular playstyles or optimising for specific characters (or hell, even specific roles) so you will tend to get 'flavour of the month' picks that a sizable portion of the playerbase ll pick because they're not bad rather than being good, until they get nerfed because everyone is using them, then a new FOTM appears and the cycle repeats.

Personally I think it could do with a lot more streamlining - if you had something like one of each perk type and three slots of different effectiveness to put them in (bronze silver gold as now, but with the tiers being 50% / 75% / 100% perk usage or whatever), then each perk could be a bit meatier, because you know they can't stack with lower tier versions.

Could maybe add some interesting class or character specific perks too - instead of having generic "damage increase" could go "bullet damage increase" / "energy damage increase" or whatever.

I still think a really good Hunter team can beat a really good Monster and the Hunters do need to be nerfed more then the Monster...there's so many variables with all the Hunters and you don't get to see which Hunter they chose until after the game starts to load...there's a big difference having Sunny over Kala or vice versa etc...so it's balanced very well for the most part...

yeah, but like any game its a bellcurve of population capabilities - the balance changes theyre making for 'high level' play is for the maybe 20%...? of 'pro' players.
Someone brand new to the game is effectively a bottom quartile skill player,so the margin for error being so lopsided is problematic.

Kala is shit, and the worst kind of shit - she looks good because of dem awesome deeps she can lay down.
But she's a support.
If you're picking her for her mad DPS skillz, you're sort of fundamentally playing the game wrong. And due to the nature of the game, you're probably costing 3 other people a game at the same time.

e:
If hunters and monster are the same skill level, the monster will have to work way way harder to win because the hunters are that much stronger

I mean, it's not just 'skill' that's at play, 4 equally skilled soloqueue hunters vs a monster will probably have a tougher time than 4 less skilled hunters in a premade whove played together before, are on open mics on teamspeak, who co-ordinated character and perk picks, etc.
The balaning difficulty isn't so much raw player skill, its extrinsic stuff like hat as well.
 

Dreavus

Member
Yeah I see what you mean, the monster only has to rely on himself AND gets a few engagements to try a couple of approaches. The dropship changes helped that a tiny bit for the other guys; the hunters essentially get one "freebie" engage due to the fast initial dropship, but after that it's likely too long to hold out before a monster kills your team if a fight goes badly. It helps lessen mistakes for more experienced players but it's not going to do much for a newbie team.

No idea what to do about it other than... I guess co-op? And tutorials. Like we've been talking about I guess, haha. I think they've been grappling with this for a while now and it's just a hard thing to get right. Evolve is a very cool and uniquely designed game, but it almost has this "intrinsic" disparity of monsters destroying unorganized teams, but then struggling immensely against organized ones.



A perk system like that would be pretty sweet. It's not like having 3 "steps" in each perk is relevant aside from "do I want to spend keys on this", and preventing stacking sounds good too from a balance perspective. I tend to spread out perks anyways, but the fact that they CAN be stacked means they need to be extra careful with it, which kinda sucks.
 

TitusTroy

Member
they need to fix the glitch where the E.M.E.T medic can stay outside the dome and when you kill the first Hunter inside the dome he can set up the drop-ship beacon outside and the Monster can't do anything
 

LordRaptor

Member
Bar is filling up a lot slower than expected. Wonder if we'll manage to unlock Paladin Parnell?

Founders all get him free anyway, and everyone else probably has way more than enough cash to just buy him after last weeks 10xeverything event.

Right now, the games outright broken and seemingly not getting fixed until the next patch.
I'm more than a little disappointed tbh.

they need to fix the glitch where the E.M.E.T medic can stay outside the dome and when you kill the first Hunter inside the dome he can set up the drop-ship beacon outside and the Monster can't do anything

Doesn't the dome drop automatically on 2 hunters deaths?
 

-Deimos

Member
they need to fix the glitch where the E.M.E.T medic can stay outside the dome and when you kill the first Hunter inside the dome he can set up the drop-ship beacon outside and the Monster can't do anything

That doesn't sound like a glitch to me, plus you're getting free strikes and quick downs since he isn't healing anyone.
 

TitusTroy

Member
Doesn't the dome drop automatically on 2 hunters deaths?

That doesn't sound like a glitch to me, plus you're getting free strikes and quick downs since he isn't healing anyone.

it's a glitch because EMET's best skill is that he can set up a dropship beacon after 1 Hunter goes down which lowers the timer on the dropship significantly...the Monster can destroy the beacon if he finds it...so if he's outside the dome then it's impossible to destroy so the Hunters can return to the battle and potentially change the outcome of the match
 

-Deimos

Member
it's a glitch because EMET's best skill is that he can set up a dropship beacon after 1 Hunter goes down which lowers the timer on the dropship significantly...the Monster can destroy the beacon if he finds it...so if he's outside the dome then it's impossible to destroy so the Hunters can return to the battle and potentially change the outcome of the match
That's not a glitch, that's the intended design. The upside for you is that the team won't have a medic so you can easily wipe them out without taking significant damage.
 

TitusTroy

Member
been noticing a lot of hackers the past 2 days (crazy fast running speed, infinite flying ability, teleporting, getting domed as soon as the Match started etc)
 

LordRaptor

Member
been noticing a lot of hackers the past 2 days (crazy fast running speed, infinite flying ability, teleporting, getting domed as soon as the Match started etc)

The super speed thing isn't a 'hack', it's one of the bugs they introduced last update that they didn't rollback or patch in the hotfix.

Patch can't some soon enough imo. Game is outright busted at the moment.
The fact they let it ride all weekend with an event showcasing it is pretty disappointing.
 

TitusTroy

Member
The super speed thing isn't a 'hack', it's one of the bugs they introduced last update that they didn't rollback or patch in the hotfix.

Patch can't some soon enough imo. Game is outright busted at the moment.
The fact they let it ride all weekend with an event showcasing it is pretty disappointing.

I thought the speed bug was only for wildlife...it's for Hunters as well?...how come I never get that boost as the Monster?
 

LordRaptor

Member
I thought the speed bug was only for wildlife...it's for Hunters as well?...how come I never get that boost as the Monster?

All the AI is superspeed boosted, if a hunter quits and you take over their AI replacement you get super boosted, to the point that people deliberately quit / rejoin to get the boost.

a.k.a

9iGEMmZ.gif


Patch tomorrow though.
 

LordRaptor

Member
Updates up, looks like medic Parnell just straight up made Slim obsolete outside of being able to revive someone miles away without having to bother walking over there

e:
Also if this was old skool copyright infringement skirting League Of Legends, he'd have launched with a Space Marine skin along with a Dreadnaught skin for Lennox
 

Klyka

Banned
Updates up, looks like medic Parnell just straight up made Slim obsolete outside of being able to revive someone miles away without having to bother walking over there

e:
Also if this was old skool copyright infringement skirting League Of Legends, he'd have launched with a Space Marine skin along with a Dreadnaught skin for Lennox

His healburst is self heal only and his shotgun recharges his heal burst
so not like slim at all.
 

LordRaptor

Member
is that new Paladin Parnell good?...based on his skills he doesn't seem all that great as a Medic compared to Val or Caira

I have a feeling you're going to hate him.
He can facetank goliath charges while dealing damage, and can almost revive a dead hunter with one clip of rockets - I'd guess a capacity perk puts him into long distance revival territory.

I'll have to play with him some more, but his heal rockets seem better than cairas heal nades in terms of burst (which only gets better when he super-medics or whatever), and he is tanky as fuck to go with it.
 

TitusTroy

Member
I have a feeling you're going to hate him.
He can facetank goliath charges while dealing damage, and can almost revive a dead hunter with one clip of rockets - I'd guess a capacity perk puts him into long distance revival territory.

I'll have to play with him some more, but his heal rockets seem better than cairas heal nades in terms of burst (which only gets better when he super-medics or whatever), and he is tanky as fuck to go with it.

sounds like a combo Assault/Medic...he can revive dead hunters like Lazarus or only DNR hunters?...he seems a bit OP and needs to be nerfed...it's like having 2 Assaults on 1 team
 

LordRaptor

Member
Just downed, not dead - but his rocket launcher has a really high fire rate.
I dunno if he has enough damage output to qualify as an assault combo, but I think his shotgun is better than Abe / Renegabe in terms of DPS, so its sure not bad

I mean, initial impressions are he is waaaaaaaaaaaay stronger than Quantum Caira in team utility
 

TitusTroy

Member
just played a few matches against Paladin Parnell (as Gorgon)...he's definitely annoying with his team healing and self shielding abilities...I won 2 against him and lost 2...his healing bursts are too powerful and need to be nerfed...but he does seem kind of slow...not sure if it was just the player or if he really is that slow
 

-Deimos

Member
just played a few matches against Paladin Parnell (as Gorgon)...he's definitely annoying with his team healing and self shielding abilities...I won 2 against him and lost 2...his healing bursts are too powerful and need to be nerfed...but he does seem kind of slow...not sure if it was just the player or if he really is that slow

He did seem a little OP in my first couple matches as him, but his team-healing is actually pretty shit. The best tactic against him is probably to avoid him and focus on someone else, because his self-healing makes up for his lack of team-healing.
 

TitusTroy

Member
He did seem a little OP in my first couple matches as him, but his team-healing is actually pretty shit. The best tactic against him is probably to avoid him and focus on someone else, because his self-healing makes up for his lack of team-healing.

so his healing rockets aren't good?...I thought they gave a large heal
 

-Deimos

Member
so his healing rockets aren't good?...I thought they gave a large heal

They're not garbage, but they can be difficult to land and the radius isn't the best. You need to pop SS to keep a focused teammate up, but that leaves you vulnerable if the monster focuses you next. He's still pretty good though, I was being a little harsh in my last post.
 

LordRaptor

Member
Whoa, they're actually trying to tackle "solo" players? That's pretty interesting. How long has that been a thing? Does the whole team get those bonuses or just the Solo guy?

I think its been there at least since the launch of stage 2 - AFAIK it applies to anyone soloqueueing as hunter.

They're not garbage, but they can be difficult to land and the radius isn't the best.

It might be because I've always been a better soldier than demoman, but they seem to do the same heal per hit as regular Cairas heal nades do, but they're faster and easier to aim being rockets.
Also, while Caira can't do shit on a reload cycle, Space Marine Parnell can empty a shotgun clip into the monster
 

natjjohn

Member
Trying to do a 4 person group hunt beta but it doesn't seem to work with 4 friends. Is this normal?

Edit: Nevermind, started working again!
 

LordRaptor

Member
I'm starting to wonder if Space Marine Medic Paladin Parnell is a noob trap like torvald, where people pick him because they think he's awesome, but then don't bring much in the way of teamplay.
Or just who I'm getting match made with :|

how do I unlock the different color options for the badges?...only 6 of them are unlocked for me

I think each time you unlock the same badge you get a new colour unlocked for it...?
I'm not entirely sure all the colours for all the badges are actually available to players.
 

TitusTroy

Member
Paladin Parnell is not all that great from the games I've played against him...there are better medics...I always just ignore Paladin Parnell and focus on the Support or Trapper...before I used to always attack him first but saw that he's annoying to take down because of his large self heal and shield...now I just take him down if the opportunity arises but don't focus on him
 

LordRaptor

Member
Like I say, as a mostly support-type player, medics priorities should be
  1. Keep team mates healthy
  2. Stay alive in order to keep team mates healthy
  3. revive downed team mates
  4. do damage if theres nothing better to do, or healings on a reload

Most medic parnells I seem to get have their priorities as:
  1. shoot monster
  2. use super soldier to shoot monster some more
  3. because hes ignoring me and humping a team mate so im fine, keep shotting him at range with my wide spread shotgun thats missing half its shots
  4. oh, my team mates are dead, trapper / assault / support (delete where dead) can revive them when dome ends
  5. better keep shooting! Muh deeps!
 

TitusTroy

Member
I think most Paladin Parnell's go on the offense because of the increased cooldown on the self heal by using the shotgun
 

natjjohn

Member
I prefer the old ranked over the new hunt beta.

Seems with the hunt beta the queuing up of hunters seems to make no sense leading to just lopsided games. Seems set up to where you almost have to queue with a group to get a good game.
 

-Deimos

Member
I prefer the old ranked over the new hunt beta.

Seems with the hunt beta the queuing up of hunters seems to make no sense leading to just lopsided games. Seems set up to where you almost have to queue with a group to get a good game.

Matchmaking is definitely complete garbage right now. Good time to pad your monster wins though.
 
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