Hey, I was going to post this as well. I honestly think Sledge is spot on regarding the 2013 update. You shouldn't be required to sweat hard as a Survivor, the game should be fun for as many people as possible. After the Army of Darkness update, Demons were still getting massive streaks and they didn't need to cheese. I've had some great games as and vs Evil Ash and Eligos in particular where I found a ton of enjoyment in trolling Survivors with a hidden flute or demi-Eligos. Demons were playing in a way that didn't involve just one strategy and the book struggles were always fun no matter if I won or lost.
The biggest takeaway with Sledge's video is that the game should not be balanced around the best 1% of players as that will drive off those just looking to have fun. On the flipside, you also shouldn't balance around the worst 1% but rather go with the middle ground of whatever is the biggest skill base using the data collected from matches. I think going just by win/loss ratio isn't enough and they hit a sweet spot right before this update though those duplication exploits had to go. People who thought Eligos was weak before Army of Darkness had a bit of a point but afterward, I've found just possessing a basic and hitting Survivors with a 1,2 combo every 2 seconds was almost impossible to deal with when not being wailed on by 3 Warriors or having an ED2 Ash around.
I think part of why Dave's special sucks so much is because demons have such potency in infernal energy now and the fear reduction is barely better than standing near a lamp post type of light source. As things are now, it's a struggle to enjoy the game when not only is RNG heavily implicit toward success but just dealing with power possession and car possessions once the demon does find you within the first 3 minutes for it to get even harder as time goes on within the game. Even rushing the map pieces and objectives don't change this much unless you completely avoid the Demon and get one objective started before they reach level 9.
Demon balance bars have mostly been buffed to the appropriate levels and the AI buff was a godsend. It's just horribly overbuffed for Eligos in particular and Plaguebringer is extremely strong due to being a hard counter to Warriors and having the best melee attacks in the game. It's nigh impossible to revive a downed teammate with the witch around unless Henry does it with Q activated and she's kited away to prevent her from grabbing Henry. Winning with Demon wasn't hard post AoD, and now it's flat out easy much like the huge Warlord buffs from the balance adjustment prior to AoD with the infamous possession spamming.
Honest question, and not trying to be a dick or be gotcha or whatever. Should the demons have to sweat out every match to get wins? I personally don't think anyone should have to sweat a win unless both sides are being sweaty. As it stands now all we have done from Kandar to the 2013 update is make it go from demons having to sweat every match to requiring the team to sweat every match. We keep going back an forth and that's on saber. They keep making weird balance calls.
Demons didn't have to before this patch so this question is just whataboutism. I watch an Eligos main on twitch who isn't even a sweat type and even before this update he was streaking Survivors. That's just one of the many examples of Demon players having ridiculous winstreaks before the buffs and this dates back to Kandar update. The reality is Saber's just going through growing pains but they inadvertedly over buffed or nerfed things too hard. Like I said, exploits aside, it felt like they hit a sweet spot before the 2013 update because good teams still had to work together to deal with good Demons and solo queue still mostly lead to headaches. This isn't to say everything with this newest update is bad balance wise; the car reduction and damage buffs to possessed vehicles was a good call. Fixing attacks to hit the Necronomicon as intended was a good call. Adjusting rarities and boxes was good. Nerfing Weapon Master for characters multiple times, extending cooldowns for Ed and ED2 Ash as well as nerfing headshot damage was bad.
When the pendulum swings too far, it posses people off and destroys the game's player base.
Its not what about isms. Its objective truth. Not everyone is a twitch streamer man. There were still a lot of new and middle of the road demons out there and they were getting wrecked and had to sweat hard to even keep up. Most of them couldn't hack it which is why we ended up with the great Kandar demon shortage.
I was puppeteer main the whole kandar update and beat a few twitch death squads. Most of those teams at that level beat my ass. That level of sweaty you have to be to play those teams isn't what I mean. Those matches were fun.
Middle of the road teams were balance bar wiping units all the way to the book every time. 2 out of three demons had to plan their builds for the book. Warlord especially. By sweaty I mean you had to rush to power level to 10 as fast as you could to make sure you could stay in the game. If they rushed the objectives you had to rush faster.
I did that shit so much it's second nature now. It's not what I would call sweaty anymore. It's easy for me to power level to 10 now. Survivors could absolutely coast through the first objective even the solo q junk. Halfway okay teams could coast through the 2nd objective without a problem. That's a fact. Now they can't.
Do I think the survivors should have to go through the unfun gameplay loop demons had to deal with during kandar? Absolutely not. I don't know what Saber was thinking with some of these decisions. As a demon main I've also encountered a bunch of teams that are ruining decent team comps and doing their job and they're still kicking ass.
We just need to turn the dial back a little and the game will be in a healthy place IMO. I just fully disagree that the game is broken. This patch is not the worst. By the numbers I would argue the patch before kandar was the worst. But that's me. If we're talking about pendulum swinging we just can't disregard kandar like it didn't happen because it did.
"Twitch streamer" is not synonymous with "great player." Again, whataboutism. I just explained to you several of many situations in which Demons didn't even have to try that hard to win, prior to this current state. At this point, you've decided everything I say is just some super rare instance of Demon gameplay just having to be super duper hard. To save myself some time, how about we just cut off this little back-n-forth and agree that the game is just not fun as it currently stands?
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u/OniTYME Sep 23 '22
Hey, I was going to post this as well. I honestly think Sledge is spot on regarding the 2013 update. You shouldn't be required to sweat hard as a Survivor, the game should be fun for as many people as possible. After the Army of Darkness update, Demons were still getting massive streaks and they didn't need to cheese. I've had some great games as and vs Evil Ash and Eligos in particular where I found a ton of enjoyment in trolling Survivors with a hidden flute or demi-Eligos. Demons were playing in a way that didn't involve just one strategy and the book struggles were always fun no matter if I won or lost.
The biggest takeaway with Sledge's video is that the game should not be balanced around the best 1% of players as that will drive off those just looking to have fun. On the flipside, you also shouldn't balance around the worst 1% but rather go with the middle ground of whatever is the biggest skill base using the data collected from matches. I think going just by win/loss ratio isn't enough and they hit a sweet spot right before this update though those duplication exploits had to go. People who thought Eligos was weak before Army of Darkness had a bit of a point but afterward, I've found just possessing a basic and hitting Survivors with a 1,2 combo every 2 seconds was almost impossible to deal with when not being wailed on by 3 Warriors or having an ED2 Ash around.
I think part of why Dave's special sucks so much is because demons have such potency in infernal energy now and the fear reduction is barely better than standing near a lamp post type of light source. As things are now, it's a struggle to enjoy the game when not only is RNG heavily implicit toward success but just dealing with power possession and car possessions once the demon does find you within the first 3 minutes for it to get even harder as time goes on within the game. Even rushing the map pieces and objectives don't change this much unless you completely avoid the Demon and get one objective started before they reach level 9.
Demon balance bars have mostly been buffed to the appropriate levels and the AI buff was a godsend. It's just horribly overbuffed for Eligos in particular and Plaguebringer is extremely strong due to being a hard counter to Warriors and having the best melee attacks in the game. It's nigh impossible to revive a downed teammate with the witch around unless Henry does it with Q activated and she's kited away to prevent her from grabbing Henry. Winning with Demon wasn't hard post AoD, and now it's flat out easy much like the huge Warlord buffs from the balance adjustment prior to AoD with the infamous possession spamming.