There is something seriously wrong with Gutter Runners

Fatshark Lounge
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So recently I’ve been trying my hand at some Legend True Solo runs. I’ve never done it before and thought it could be a nice way to get better at the game and have fun, play how I’ve never played before. I tried Legend difficulty because I wasn’t very comfortable with myself yet and wanted to make sure that I can complete it first.
(here’s my most successful run yet, you can watch it if you want, but it’s not very high quality, I’m not very good at making videos since it’s my first time)

I played for 8 hours straight. And didn’t win a single time. Not a single once uno did I even get to the end event of Festering Ground. Now maybe it’s just me being bad. Maybe. Maybe I’m just not good enough. But I swear, assassins are completely busted and they are very unfair to play against, because 90% of my runs failed because of assassins. I can count on one hand how many times I got taken out by a packmaster or leech, but assassins are a completely different story. They’re not even comparable in the sheer terror that they inspire within you. Packmasters you can reliably dodge or shoot, they’re not fast, they don’t dodge, an easy and straightforward target. Leeches are even easier to kill, since it’s extremely easy to dodge them and they announce their presence very clearly and don’t try and suck you off the moment they spawn.
Meanwhile assassins move at the speeds of Hermes and strike like Zeus’ lightning. The moment they spawn they’re already close to you, and the moment they see you, they will literally pounce you within 0.5 seconds, barely giving any time to react. If you’re in a corridor, you better hope that you don’t miss that one shot that you can pull off before it ends the run. I mean, come on, just look at this:

I was fighting a Chaos patrol that I managed to aggro during a horde. Was doing fairly well since I’m Mercenary with a beefy melee weapon, 65% damage reduction and probably the best tHP generation in the game. Down to like 4 Chaos Warriors and a piddly little chaos horde. Then the assassin sounds his presence. I fully acknowledge the danger he poses, and so I try to position myself to take him out. Then I hear the assassin just as he lands his pounce. And then he did something completely and utterly unexpected and he just INSTANTLY POUNCED AGAIN? IT’S LIKE HE JUST DID A HOP. HELLO, FATSHARK? THE F WAS THAT? How was I supposed to react to that? I didn’t even know they could DO THAT. I mean, what, am I supposed to have aimbot installed? (in before I just get called bad and to get gud lmao)
And then quite possibly the most egregious example that I have experienced (skip to the 4:00 minute mark)

This is the end of the full run that I posted up above. This was my best, cleanest run yet. At the beginning of the run I was extremely tilted from all the previous attempts and had little confidence in the run. As time went on however, and as I waded through the masses, courage swelled within me. I reached a point that I hadn’t reached before. I was starting to get excited, but rather nervous. I was calming myself and tried to focus. I took the path to the right for some pickups, since I was in need of ammunition and healing. I found that there, and felt good. Fighting some ambients, and then I heard the assassin sound. One second later IT POUNCED ME WHAT THE HELL FATSHARK? WHAT WAS I MEANT TO DO THERE, HELLO? It spawned ON THE EDGE, OF THE LEDGE, TO THE RIGHT, WIHIN POUNCING DISTANCE. On the edge, of the ledge, to the right, within pouncing distance. SPAWNED THERE. And pounced me. IMMEDIATELY (well, like one second after it spawned). What, are you telling me the moment I hear an assassin I am meant to literally spin my head in a 360 3 dimensional motion to scan for any IMMEDIATE signs of an assassin? Surely they’re not meant to spawn like RIGHT NEXT TO YOU? And even if I DID start to literally immediately scan the area, I’m like 80% I wouldn’t have avoided that. The best way to win there was to not go to the right in the first place, to not go near any ledges in the first place.
That one second ended my best run, 8 hours of progress. I lost my mind. I wasn’t even mad, I wasn’t even surprised honestly. Literally as soon as I heard that sound I said to myself “Yup, I’m dead”. Now I didn’t REALLY mean it, I mean, I was like 70% sure I was going to be fine, but when it did happen, I just starred at the screen for a good 10 seconds or so. And I just laughed. I’m not even surprised.
And the worst thing about this whole thing is that I had dozens of clips where assassins ended my run in completely insane and unfair ways. BUT I DELETED THE FOOTAGE. BECAUSE IT WAS TAKING UP LIKE 50 GIGABYTES, AND I DIDN’T THINK I WOULD BE MAKING THIS POST. I’m such a fool.

There was one run in particular, where I got into a tent to hide from an assassin. He didn’t show himself so I decided to run out. Literally the millisecond that I stepped out, he pounced me. It was impossible to react.
Then in another run an assassin pounced on me from a height advantage, I dodged it. But literally the millisecond it hit the ground, it smoke bombed. It appeared WITHIN POUNCING DISTANCE AGAIN AND INSTANTLY POUNCED AGAIN. WHAT, HELLO? It pounced, instantaneously smoke bombed, appeared right next to me again, within pouncing distance, and POUNCED AGAIN WITHIN HALF A SECOND. HOW IS THAT ALLOWED? That is extremely unfair and game breaking. (this is the deleted footage so I have no proof, so I bet there’s going to be someone going “oh you’re just bs’ing lmao”)

Here’s a successful Cata True Solo. Clearly this simply shows that I’m bad, right? If people can handle doing Cata True Solos, and I can’t do a Legend True Solo, then that means there’s nothing wrong and that I should just shut my mouth. But if you watch the video, you can see that he deliberately keeps 3 globadiers alive. Why? It’s so that they take up a special slot. In Cataclysm only 5(?) specials are allowed to spawn at any given time, and 3 of the same type. So you can have 3 assassins, a leech and a packmaster at the same time. With this method, you’ll only have to fight against 2 of the same specials at worst, and won’t worry about any 3 extra specials. He killed only 42 specials during that entire run. During my Legend True Solo, I killed over 60, and that’s on a lower difficulty. That and I would often have to fight something stupid like 2 assassins and a packmaster at the same time, while people with this method only have to fight 2 specials at any given time ever. (Note that I don’t mean to belittle Dooms’ achievement here, he’s a very good and talented player, this here is just to showcase that without doing this trick, it is otherwise damn near IMPOSSIBLE to do true solos) If I were to disable assassins in my True Solo runs, I can guarantee you that I would have a win rate of like 90%, since assassins are THE #1 danger in runs, arguably worse than monsters. Packmasters and leeches aren’t even comparable to the danger that they pose, and it’s because they’re extremely broken and at times feel like they break the game to kill you.

And all of this here isn’t just about letting people do True Solos. Assassins are an enemy that affect everyone, at all skill levels and game modes. If assassins got tweaked/fix/toned down, it would make the game more enjoyable to play for everyone. I’ve been extremely frustrated by assassins everywhere from Legend QP to C3O to True Solo runs, and it’s because they’re simply unfair. Gameplay is the shining jewel of this game and I think it’d be a shame if Fatshark let it fall into disrepair. (by the way Fatshark everything noted in this thread: http://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/gutter-runner-issues/37688 still happens, so please look into that too, assassins can still cancel their smoke bombs mid animation etc.)

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I don’t see how that bs on that 4 min vid, yeah he didn’t had spawn noise but Kruber shouted runner in the shadow and you didnt watch him at all, when character yell that means they are already targeted by spawned special, it was your fault.

I won’t comment rest because I’m not awake enough to read it :stuck_out_tongue:

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Did not read all so just responding to the Assassin Bs clip.

#1.
This one is the perfect assassin strike. You are clearly busy with alot, but whineing that it’s unfair?
No, you can hear him and you can even see him before he attacks. There were time to either dodge or do a push on him.

#2
This one looks more unfair but I dont think it is.
Assassins spawns outside the map where the player cant go and you chose the right side on that part of the map to go where the are cliff looking down on you where the assassin can attack almost instantly.
So you can hear him again but this time you dont react at all to try to see him probably thinking you got time, but as I said wrong part of the map for that.

So according to me no BS in the two clips but the second one do suck hard being taken down so close to the end.
But sure there are BS with the assassins but I only see this when I join a bad host.

Keep on grinding your solo run!

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I don’t think you understand. I heard the assassin spawn perfectly fine, it’s just that he spawned literally right next to me within pouncing distance and jumped on me within one second.

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No, it’s really not true. The main point of contention here is that the assassin pounced twice in a row extremely quick. Realistically I had no chance to evade there from that attack, it’s just easy to say cause you’re watching it with no connection to it yourself. In fact the more I look at it, the more laughable it is to say that I could have pushed that. The only way I could have pushed that assassin is if I anticipated him pouncing again immediately and then getting the absolute perfect timing considering how extremely quickly they pounce. Absolutely laughable, that requires some insane godly reaction times.

So there’s absolutely nothing wrong then according to you that assassins can spawn right next to you, within pouncing distance, and instantaneously jump you? You know how ridiculous that sounds right? You’re saying that I should specifically avoid certain parts of the map because the spawn points are broken and because assassins can spawn there and jump me with instant speed?

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They feel noticeably more erratic and unreasonable than that used to IMO. Can’t pin down exactly when they changed for the worse. Hard to believe they’re currently functioning as intended.

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So I agree Assassins have some weird behaviors right now, but they’re way better than they were where in 1.6 and early 2.0 they could just hyper pounce from ledges and it was HORRIFYING. The bigger problem with assassins right now is they kind of pounce, hover in the air, and skip the fall animation sometimes, which lends to confusion and they faceplant on you.

I want to point this out though, since you are coming from the viewpoint of true soloing.

An assassin is an enemy meant to be combatted by a team of four, not one.

This is why assassins are the number one run ender in TS attempts and why they are so devastating. In general, you will need to run a map in TS hundreds of times in order to get comfy with spawn points, and sometimes you’re just busy with other stuff and they nab you. This is just part of true soloing. It is a large learning curve and a very different game. Even the most advanced TS’er will die to assassins and agree with your statement here:

They’re not even comparable in the sheer terror that they inspire within you.

This is what assassins are supposed to do. I say this as someone with a hearing disability and can’t hear them. If I’m clutching on live without the captions mod, my hair stands on end and I expect to die to one 99% of the time. Which makes them seem incredibly unfair in true solos, but the truth is, the game is not balanced for one person, it’s balanced for four. If assassins were fair in TS, they’d be pushovers in quads. Part of why assassin spam is so devastating in Cata and above (or any difficulty where they bamboozle players).

Keeping globidiers alive has been a mainstay in DW TS, Onslaught TS, and now Cata TS for a while now because it does indeed limit disablers because disablers are instant run enders; again, one person playing a four man game. I cannot tell you how many times I just die to assassins in TS; it happens. It’s part of TS’ing. Killing assassins in legend TS is definitely possible and doable, Cata TS is more of a different beast since it has a higher threat/intensity cap (whereas legend has one that’s fairly easily obtainable), so it makes more sense to manage your specials in cata TS (and nothing stops you from doing this in legend as well).

Gutters have weird behaviors, but using them in the context of TS success/fail rate doesn’t really highlight the issue as it should (which is in teams), since the game is for four players.

Edit: Not saying that assassins don’t have problems, which they do:

  • Aforementioned missing fall animation
  • Pouncing immediately after staggering
  • Sometimes fast pouncing (but not as often anymore)

But I’m not sure I’m seeing that in the clips (but do acknowledge and appreciate the thread you made prior about the gutter runner issues; those I do agree with).

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It’s not impossible to do Cata true solo without special cheesing, here’s a counterexample with twice as many special kills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgDOWokYLQc

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I agree with other people who have commented here, assassin’s do have problems but i dont see any issues in your clips you provided in this thread.

Example 1: jumps next to a player and then jumps again, ive seen it alot, had it happen to me, the reaction window is small but surely doable, and from your clip i think you might of be capabable of avoiding it. by pushing or dodging, even if you dont have godly reaction times you could push + dodge when you see it as a habit. didnt hyperspeed or anything

example 2: This is a weird one because we cant see the cliff and how it jumped from the cliff. If it spawned on the cliff, looked at you, and then jumped thats completely normal and i think doable in that time window. if it hyperspeed jumped then its an issue, but its hard to tell.

Special cheesing doesnt really help your problem with assassins, yes you might get less a run, but your clips show assassins who spawned alone when there wasnt any other specials on you. 1 bugged assassin can be enough as im sure you experienced in the 8 hours. Gas rat cheesing can be annoying aswell. they can also end a run if you are bad positioned, not as fast as an assassin or a hook but still.

do i see self promoting >:( , also great run. Not really usefull here considering you have career that can use invis. Also was the stormer casting through walls at 18:00 minute mark?

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My god I think I might be playing a different game than you. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Yes, Assassins are some of the most bugged specials still.

When they work normally, they’re a blast to fight. Shotting them out of the air, dodging them, or even pushing/hitting them while dodging feels great, and is perfectly reasonable at normal jump speed.

What is NOT fun however:

  • Assassins doing weird jumps at strange speeds that are basically a teleport
  • Assassins walking in mid-air above you before jumping
  • Assassins stacking so you can shoot one but the other one literally comes out of its body
  • Assassins jumping you through other enemies without a sound because the sound system gets overloaded during intense horde fights
  • Assassins doing the smoke bomb but reappearing right next to you and pouncing right away
  • Assassins targeting the same player to the point where someone gets pounced literally the instant another assassin is pushed off them
  • Assassins launching other players off a cliff (you can keep this for versus, but the push strength is ridiculous for the PvE mode)
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I noticed you instantly pulled out your ranged to try and shoot the gutter runner. I always wait until they jump at me first and block push them to the ground in front of me. I’m way more successful just killing them with melee than ranged.

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Well, these examples looked like “they work as intended”. I have not done a TS, nor am good with assassins, but this is what I know of how they are supposed to work:

  • they spawn out of sight
  • they try to look for an height advantageous spot to jump from
  • if they are looking for a spot, they don’t come out when you are watching in the general direction
  • if they are spotted and don’t have an advantage, they (maybe depending on distance to players) go poof or just pounce at you
    Edit:
  • also, when they collide with something in midair, or by players moving, that causes them to miss the intended target they will catch onto any player who happens to be in the trajectory (or near it, it’s stupid they can get to you even though it clearly missed)

Your second example I guess was another assassin spawn-in because the first was visible prior to the sound. And at least in the 15 seconds leading upto it no spawn sound. I am not sure where the Repeater bullets are spawned from, but the 1st person model suggests could’ve staggered the assassin in the first example, but didn’t happen for some reason.

Hope this helps