Just to start, this isn’t a topic to say the current Havoc difficulty is too much. It definitely has bugs that are unfair, but this isn’t about that.
This is a topic regarding how your deranking system creates a chasm between players in a game that should really not be splitting its player-base up so egregiously.
Prior to this update, I could at least try to help lower ranked people with their Havoc levels, and try to be supportive to those who are just trying to learn. Now, there is practically no reason I should ever try to help lower rank Havocs, the cost is too much when my hard-earned Havoc ranks are at stake.
It also feels incredibly bad when you get someone who just can’t quite punch at the rank you are running. I feel compelled to kick them for the next run because the cost is just too high to take someone who is not quite at the level. 3 tries will get burned quickly when carrying, and I want to keep being able to do high Havoc levels. Havoc is goddamned brutal at the higher levels, and failure is just going to happen.
In short, it’s a toxic system that engenders extreme scrutiny when picking squad-mates. Honestly, I don’t really know why you even bothered putting a deranking system in a PvE game. What’s the point? To stroke the egos of the percent of a percent of people that want to show off? I just want to play the game at its most challenging difficulty and to not have to be an ass to people that just also want to kill heretics. I had a lot of fun even playing with less skilled players just because failure used to merely mean we’d try again. Most people just want to play the damn game, so please stop splitting up your player base for pointless mechanics.
I’m fine with grinding my way to 40, but the spirit of camaraderie that this game used to engender is practically dead in Havoc unless you have a 4-person coordinated team raring to go - turns out, that’s hard to do on a consistent basis for the majority of your player-base.
I’m not asking for Havoc to be easier at the higher levels; it is going to be harder for pick-up groups to succeed and that’s fine, but just give us the chance to try without brutally punishing us for giving our fellow rejects a chance to prove themselves.
i could at least understand the demotion systems thought process if the servers didnt non stop crash resulting in mission aborted and rank demotion. only gluttons for punishment would want to play this gamemode right now, and i dont mean gameplay wise
Yeah I WANT to play havoc. I want ultra sweats mode as well as stress relief of auric and mortis.
But it seems FS do everything in their power to make it difficult to play havoc. I won’t play until they address the demotion system that literally every single person wants rid of.
The lead designer is just going to have to accept they made a booboo. Pride is surely the only thing keeping it in the game at this point.
I’ll do you one better. Last Thursday I finished a Havoc game, we saw the victory screen and rewards and we as the full group still got a demotion strike against us.
Typical FS things, which are normally just annoying, now become grievous.
Yeah, well put and comprehensive. Many have been saying such but ‘glad to see another’ saying the same thing. As a former individual that did 15 havoc 40’s week over week to ‘keep up my place’ along with just having fun in the game mode, I literally haven’t touched anything above 20 since the update as it’s not fun to try something you’re intended to fail at and get punished more than the end game ‘you lose’ screen.
I can’t even think it has anything to do with ego anymore either, why? because I did a 7 last week, and an 11 this week. The number next to my name still says 40, even though my mission level got reset to 30 and I haven’t even played above 20 since the change. You can literally keep your rank just for existing and carrying a tiny squad, and that’s actually hilarious XD.
This is truly a system made for no one, the rank next to your name is meaningless, you can’t ‘boost’ yourself to the high ranks to have fun, you can’t stay at the high ranks and experiment to see if there’s anything interesting that works because you’ll cause YOUR ENTIRE TEAM to demote and everyone to hate you, and thus you can’t play unless you play to meta so that people don’t just auto leave at the start screen. It’s abysmal in every way, a change that killed the game mode, and I can’t see any designer in their right head space putting this in unless someone in corporate was breathing down their neck because some dumb a$$ ‘analyst’ said ‘rAnK moDeS InCReasE PlaYer ReteNtion’ completely ignoring that they do so in PVP GAMES WHERE THE CHALLENGE ACTUALLY VARIES AND IMPROVES BASED ON THE OTHER PLAYERS YOU ARE FACING GETTING BETTER. Not in PVE games where RNG plays a factor sure, but not to such a degree you can’t just ‘walk back in’ later and still do well. And even if you can’t, just allow people to try until they get back to being good enough to succeed? Like, every other game in existence ever?
Just, saddening, another dead piece of content to add to the pile.
This literally happened to me yesterday. I beat a havoc mission that I came out of at like 8:30 PM, and within that tike the weekly reset happened. I got demoted to 29 and my havoc rank above my head still says 3 even though I had just beat a havoc 30 mission and everything was reset from the week before. So not only did the mission I beat not count at all whatsoever my havoc rank is also stuck above my head and posting as 3 even though its 29. So I cant join anyone and only low level players try to join me cuz they think my 29 mission is actually 3. The havoc 30 mission I beat didnt count for the old week or the new week but yet my havoc rank is still stuck at 3 which is something I did just to finish a penance last week. Absolutely insane havoc is as hard as it is and weve got like 17 bugs rolled into one with havoc missions that dont count at all whatsoever depending on when you do them.
Removing Deranks completely seems like the easiest and most popular choice.
But if that’s no good, I’d be willing to compromise. Remove Deranks from losing missions and just derank everyone back to 20 every 3 months or however long these “Havoc Seasons” are supposed to be.
Or hel, change the deployments from a dwindling resource to a dwindling reward. If you complete a mission the number of deployments you have remaining is how many levels you go up. If you have zero deployments, you stay at the same level and don’t actually derank unless you choose to. Beating a mission with zero deployments just replenishes your deployments.
Maybe have completing lower levels gives back a deployment. I mean, I’d still be pissed I’d have to play a lower match every second failure but it’d still be an improvement. Especially in combination with the previous suggestion. And it’d provide more incentive to “Help Out” other Havoc’ers. Which judging from the penances is something FS’s concerned about.
