The recent overall is a huge positive but the plasma gunners that were added in need tweaking. Every enemy in the game usually has some visual (ie bright flashes) or audio queues to notify when they engage or even just be somewhere but the plasma gunners don’t follow this rule they blend in amongst normal scab units to well to pick them out. They also do damage as capable as a sniper, especially since most builds will just get two spotted by them, but unlike snipers that are fragile, spawn in small quantities, AND have very noticeable queues to when they are going to shoot you plasma gunners don’t, and if they do its very unnoticeable amongst the chaos of the game, AND they spawn in far larger quantities and fire faster and more often than a sniper. Personally all I think they need is a bright flash indicator similar to sniper or something to show that they are going to shoot providing a chance to react to them, maybe make their plasma gun brighter so they stand out more and definitely make the idle sounds of them louder, (especially since they are referred as specialists and not elites) and either A) spawn them in smaller quantities. or B) make them more fragile. Personally I’d go A to keep them distinct from snipers where they are more durable but don’t hit just as hard. That’s the only complaints about this update as a whole other then that it’s was perfect love all you devs.
I just returned to the game after months long break. I got shot today out of nowhere, with no visual or audio cues, lost over 50% of my HP and obviously got the debuff. Amazing “design”
Gunner resist on curios apparently doesn’t work for reducing damage from the Plasma Gunners (it’s been reported as a bug).
They should become more bearable when this is fixed.
The telegraphing is really bad for how dangerous this enemy is, visual telegraph doesn’t flash like the sniper and is barely distinguishable and the audio cue is simply not reliable or entirely absent at random.
The problem is also that they look and move like regular shotgunners. They need to be made more distinctive visually.
Thinking about this more. The shoot windup needs to be louder and longer and they should either shoot less frequent or spawn in lower numbers.
Also, they must be covered by the Curios’ +20% gunner damage resist perk - like all other gunners in the game. Currently it seems like they aren’t
Scab Plasma Gunners ARE a little bit overtuned, for sure. I agree with @harlekein’s suggestions on how to bring them into line. Lowering either their Spawns or Rate of Fire while making them more audibly and visually distinct. That should do the trick.
This has been my general observation years ago with multiple enemy types. Visual and audio “noise” in DT is terrible.
The game is extremely busy visually and in audio space with masses of enemies. Fatshark should have taken extra care at the DESIGN stage to make sure elites and special enemies are easy to spot and hear. They know this at very least since VT2.
Not just that, it’s extremely darky, murky, foggy at the same time. I can’t see crap in this game, sometimes I just shoot somewhere roughly in direction of some muzzle flashes in fog/darkness.
Just make them noisy and light up like a flare when they are charging up to fire. We can decide if they are too dangerous after we can react to them reliably.
Yes, sadly this is a result of the chosen art direction.
Yeah I agree they need to straight up be louder before firing at a targeted player and give them a bigger muzzle flash like how the plasma captain does it.
Kinda weird how fatshark didn’t quite meet the mark for this new enemy.
Finally got a game in against these fellas, and boy was it different! They’re definitely a major threat in numbers, and they definitely need some tweaking.
They do strike me, like the captains added to Auric in this patch, as an anti-speed-running enemy, meant to force teams to move a little slower or get caught out in the open. I like that about them.
I definitely think they need more visibility, maybe a big back ornament or something.