Why do people hate preds so much and how do you suggest we fix it.

My issue with preds are as marine I usually have 0 reason to fight them unless I’m trying to save a fellow marine. Engaging with them is incredibly hard due to their speed and unless your loadout is made for hunting them it is very challenging. Too often I see preds attacking random, clearly new marines who see a ping on their MD and don’t know or think that it could be a pred and up as their victim. Preds are at their best when they are duelling experienced players who understand them, not poor PVT HPRinov of bravo squad who doesn’t understand them. Currently a large majority of them serve as either advanced backliners killing clueless marines or a huge distraction for the hive. Having more good RP focused moments with preds would greatly increase how well they are liked.

Perhaps the rules for marine-yautja interactions should be more relaxed? Maybe allow yautjas to do more RP with the marines, other than just fight or kidnapping them to their lodge for more fights.

What’s stopping them from doing so? Marines each round are supposed to pretend they don’t exist, every interaction with them doesn’t have to instantly be hostility but also doesn’t have to be passive either. Why don’t they try to freak marines out? Why don’t they make challenges for Marines or honorable prey to go through? Everything comes down to a fight because thats how they want to do it, if they wanted they could make a trap room and take a marine there to have them run a gauntlet but they don’t. It’s not a matter of making the relations relaxed but rather they don’t want to do things that are more interesting, it does genuinely feel like all that matters is getting more kills than the others.

The real irony is for a whitelist that requires multiple pages of not just writing but creative writing to be judged damn near no Predators put that to use and think up some creative methods of doing things, I wont say all Predators but damn near all of them default to the standard duels or just kills mindset and its disappointing. If Predators wanted to be more creative with how they went about things then I would be all for it but they aren’t and I doubt they will change unless forced to do so.

i don’t understand what regular marine players want from wl’ed predator players.

that’s funny

they just did

so true king

yes but a marine can get revived, while if a xeno gets killed - it’s permanent death fo r a player

agree but that happens super rare, or it’s just means you did something stupid and you deserved it

i get that losing is not fun but you’ll have to bear with it. if you die trying that means you are getting better, it’s not that bad my friend.

the issue with shipside gear recovery was discussed a quadrillion amount of times but i will repeat what a shitton of other pred players already said in the past - the main problem is that people hide it in places like research/safes/other places where it is hard to reach and then mobilize the entirety of the marine force to defend the gear; which, of course, results in a lot of deaths.
while it can be chaotic it is still part of the game and is part of the WL

while i don’t agree with predators not interacting with marines, i agree that most of us won’t weaken themselves for a 1v1.

that’s literally cap btw, leader pheros still work lol
as well as drone heals

xenos have no reason to fight a predator. marines don’t have a reason to fight a predator. you have no reason to log onto CM and play another round. you don’t have a reason to {insert here whatever}. your mindset is weird. you don’t need a “reason” to do anything, and even if you do - it doesn’t have to 100% benefit you.
fighting a predator is a challenge(at least for most of the marine players). if you don’t like a challenge and only want to cheese t1’s with slugs/unga on the front - you can go on and ignore predators. nothing of value is lost here anyway.

no plus noone wants to do major pred events

true

:hesrightyouknow:

no

a lot of stuff fjr preds would be movie-like but the issue is that preds are not the main things devs worry about rn + a lot of stuff wouldn’t be possible code-wise

er… first things first - predators are hunters that kill people for fun. if you’re interacting with a predator - expect to fight with them. while i understand that you want to rp and talk to a predator but the thing is that most of the time we hunt and kill people. that’s just how things are.
on the other side, though, you get a cool, unique memory about having an actual conversation with a predator, which is pretty cool.

i remember you. you were spewing some borderline lrp lines and 100% deserved the skinning

sounds like a “you” problem

if you’re 1v1ing a predator it’s almost guaranteed they won’t run away

if you’re ignoring a predator that is actively attacking you - you’ll probably get skinned

there’s noone stopping you from avoiding fighting predators. but if you get chosen as a prey - well, too bad, i guess?

erm that’s how things are already?

we do

because it’s very hard to find a non-unga marine that’ll play along the lines and most of the time it’s just not worth it.

because that’s how predators work, my friend

giving out gear for “challenges” sounds like a HC break to me

most of the stuff written in the stories is(mostly) utilized in pred to pred interaction.

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I’m thinking, what if instead of giving out pred gear, preds can instead give out ancient human artifacts to marines who manage to beat their challange (like in Predator 2 with the flintlock pistol)

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sounds cool but we don’t have those

I know, someone gotta code that in, haha1.

Maybe if you get an artifact from a pred, they can write a message that’ll appear at round end like CO medals and Queen jelly

Guarantee half the people in this thread are the type to see a pred and go “oh hello space colonist how’s Jamaica” and then get surprised when the pred decides to kill them

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I do not care if you think it’s rare, the fact that they are allowed to do it is what I’m complaining about. I think it is unfun to have an extremely powerful side-antag role in the game that can just show up without warning and kill you. Also what stupid thing have I done to deserve dying to preds when I’m simply moving through the map, not even saying a word in front of the pred or interacting with them in any way before they show up and ambush me? You are implying that preds will only kill you if you are being LRP or something (I assume LRP is what you mean by “something stupid”) but that is not true, show me where that is in the rules. Preds can and do just kill you for literally no reason, trying to blame it on the victim being LRP is bullshit when you have no idea what went down and you know that being LRP has nothing to do with whether or not preds are allowed to kill you.

Also do you realise that “well, too bad I guess?” is not a satisfying response to someone finding something unfun? You could say this to literally any mechanics/balance complaint, it’s just meaningless.

then don’t play the game

wdym i never said that lmao

yep

do you know what else is meaningless? your infinite complaints about predators “griefing” marines despite the fact that you can just stick to the frontline and never get attacked by a predator ever

Preds don’t only attack marines, I’ve been attacked as a lurker while roaming the colony looking for marines to fight (literally what lurkers are supposed to do, they are backliners)

“Then don’t play the game” is another meaningless response you could give to literally any complaint ever. A dev could just nerf all marine guns so they do 1 damage and when everyone rightfully complains just say “then don’t play the game”. It’s not a real argument. Also why would I stop playing a game I enjoy when there’s one aspect of the game I don’t like? I’m allowed to complain about one thing I don’t like about the game without quitting the game entirely.

Also this was literally a thread asking why people hate preds so I gave my reason for hating preds, not sure why you’re acting like I’m doing something wrong or that I have to quit the game because I gave my opinion here, you should just accept that some people dislike things that you like. You’re not going to argue me out of my preferences or convince me to not play the game with these kinds of posts.

EDIT: To further clarify why I’m even arguing this, I have seemingly not said a single factual statement that you disagree with (you agree that preds can and do just kill you for no reason). The only other parts of my post is just my opinion on not enjoying that aspect of the game. If you disagree and do enjoy it then good for you but I don’t see why you need to try and argue me out of my opinion, and I probably will not respond to you again at this point.

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Not all predators allow their kills to be revived. The best of them personally return bodies, some remove a head, others skin the body.

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I’d be happy in making Predators far more weaker but giving them more freedom to attack either side. If the role was made more skill based and less reliant on extremely powerful gear I’d think it’d make for an interesting change.

Is it too hard simply to ask for tighter, more stringent checks on the behavior of Predator players? many of the accounts from members on what they have suffered at the hands of Predators is unjust and should warrant inspection.

I am against making it simply skill based, their gear should remain as is, but frankly their health is too damn high, as is the potency of their healing items which while should be able to heal them back to full, should take more time than it does now.

Predators should be agile hunters in which the process of killing their intended target is either swift and brutal, or slow and stealthy, not just a fucking bullet sponge that tanks everyone merely being a battle of who runs out of health first.

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How about you shoot the predator and quit complaining about them in the same sense that you got lurker pounced and now you want lurkers to never pounce you again. Predators do not have to account for your enjoyment, as interactions with them will usually lead to them attacking you. They can set up scenarios, RP, etc but most of the time people won’t reciprocate and will silently walk away without ever taking their gun out then run off to say “fucking pred shitters” in dchat or elsewhere when the pred kills and beheads them. There are already rules in place to keep preds in check, it’s called the honor code. If you read it you’ll see that predators don’t attack everybody and everyone for no reason, it’s because you fit the criteria of being huntable. Preds have already been rebalanced with a merged PR that allows for even a basic marine to do damage to predators, along with my own pr being merged that brought back pred bone breaks. So there’s no real excuse about them being entirely unkillable, it’s just difficult.

Nearly all the complaints in this PR is just incessant whining about them being killed in a game where all the factions are killing each other. Xenos, marines, but why are predators treated separately? Just because they’re a side faction doesn’t mean they cannot affect your round. By design they are antagonists, so you as a marine or xeno should treat them as such either through RP or just shooting them. But instead of doing this people would rather drop their guns, not shoot, etc and act in such a LRP manner when faced against a predator in a pity show to make the predator look bad. Preds wouldn’t be complained about much if people actively decided to be hostile to them, instead of the passive “I know you exist but I don’t care I just want to press M1 in xeno direction” interactions that just leads to more apathy and hate for the pred wl by people that don’t even interact with preds.

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So the solution to dealing with preds, which are almost always going to kill a marine due to their huge gear advantage, is to just get good and kill them? People don’t want to be forced to deal with something that they have to be set up to kill, and if they die get permanently removed from the round. Preds are incredibly strong and difficult to kill unless you are set up to deal with them, and even if you do kill them, you gain nothing. Preds, when played by people who don’t try and make the round about them, have duels against worthy opponents, and don’t go apeshit on obviously new players, are great and fun to interact with. Better standards and enforcement of RP standards would greatly improve preds and give them actual fun stories other than becoming the main character and killing everything that moves.

Isn’t “criteria for being huntable” more or less just not being a medic/drone and not being in the fob? Like if you are a rifleman you are huntable just by existing are you not? That’s what I’ve always thought and a pred player seems to have confirmed that earlier.

And the thing is you bring up people dying to lurkers but there are arguments to be made about why lurkers are good for the game (encourages teamwork, rewards fortifying/protecting backlines, makes you fear the entire map not just the front, etc). Nobody has yet made an argument as to why predators are good for the game. Like there have been a bunch of posts firing back at people complaining about predators but as far as I’ve seen not a single one has attempted to explain why the existence of predators makes the game better.

EDIT: I believe there’s things about not hunting people with low health and such as well but the point is “honour code stops them from killing whoever they want” doesn’t really change the fact that most of the time you are huntable by default I believe.

In my original post i said how this might demonstrate the lack of ability for people on either side to properly communication about this topic. It seems some people have gotten salty. Other people have given answers that basically say nothing and are merely a statement of opinion without explaining why.

An interesting observation none the less. One i was not originally expecting to see much of.

Predators aren’t well balanced. They’re basically a powergamer role.

There’s a number of problems with predators IMO:

  1. They’re not very fun to fight
  2. They have a distinct advantage in fights
  3. If you fight them there is a very good chance of being removed permanently from the round
  4. They don’t fit their lore and concept very well

 
 

I think one of the first issues to address, is that the entire idea of predators is not well represented by their game mechanics; their core concepts are being honorable hunters who kill for the challenge and risk and clout.

Except, is that the kind of behaviour we actually see?
Because it’s not what I see - your typical predator has every single possible advantage handed to them on a silver platter mechanically. In fact, rather than a predator vs marine fight being challenging and risky for the predator - it’s the exact opposite. It’s the marine player chasing clout and proving they’re skilled and everyone damn well knows it.

The entire implementation of predators lost the plot on the very concept of what they are, because the overpowered weapons, equipment, tools, etc. were more fun and cool to implement than the RP (which should be organic not forced) and soul.

 

What I’m getting at here is predators are too strong, have dumb OOC restrictions as a result, and should be nerfed to be fun to play as and to play against.

 

From my point of view, predators and marines shouldn’t have all these rules about who to fight, how to fight, when to fight; if you see a predator you shoot and kill him - and vice versa.

Skip the OOC enforcement of RP and honor rules. If you really wanna add honor rules make it like a karma point each ghost can vote and give a pred positively or negatively - attached only to that character - and has no bearing on anything besides how much ‘clout’ you’ve earned as a predator player. (and under no circumstances expand this karma to anything else)

But it also means predators cannot be walking tanks running 10,000mph blasting through 15 marines or killing half the crew on the almayer with god guns. Once you remove all the OOC “RP” bullshit you make it absolutely obvious how overpowered and unfun predators actually are.

In my view predator players should get REKT if they try and fight more than a couple marines at once. Their cloak and brain should be how they stay alive - not being a bulletsponge with magic pocket rockets, instaheals, and lightning boots.

Pick out isolated marines and fight them for the CHALLENGE of it.

 
 

Here’s what I predict will happen if you remove OOC honor restrictions and make predators more vulnerable and less capable:

  • Marines stop ignoring predators - both because marines can be shot and killed anyway, and because fighting a predator isn’t a straight up whisked to brazil death sentence
  • RP becomes more organic and situational; it’s about the hunt. It’s about a predator uncloaking and roaring in the bushes and playing some creepy voiceline trying to entice you out to a one on one or forcing you to fight for your life because you went off alone somewhere like an idiot and that roar is your only warning you had better be ready to die
  • People won’t stop hating preds and will complain that they didn’t want to fight but it’ll actually be more fun to fight with them than how it is now
  • Playing as a predator will be a challenge, you should expect to die - that’s the point of it

Mechanically I think we should:

  • Increase the damage predator melee weapons do so they stay comparatively effective against a shotgun up close or an M41 user who can actually kill you if they’re not monumentally stupid
  • Keep predators relatively resistant to fire
  • Dramatically reduce the bulletsponginess of predators so that a single M41 mag is an actual realistic threat to them
  • Dramatically reduce predator speed - faster than a marine is fine, so fast you can easily just run away from a fight you’re losing; no
  • Gatekeep a lot of the predator toys behind escalation mechanics the same way marines can’t immediately go Red Alert and pull out MK221 shotguns. Ideally the weapon a predator chooses ought to depend on the marine he’s fighting and how skilled the predator thinks he is (the better a predator player, the weaker the weapons he chooses and the stronger the prey he picks)
  • Remove most (not all) OOC RP restrictions and rework what’s there to fit with the idea of predators looking for challenging fights but also not being beholden to ridiculous rules lawyering; the OOC rules should focus on griefing issues like “no, you can’t plasma caster the entire marine frontline and kill 40 people”
  • CLEARLY inform players if these changes are made that they’re fair game whether they want to participate with the predator or not, the same as you don’t get to call foul on a lurker pounce. It will take time for people to adjust to the reality that they have to pay attention to preds the same as they do aliens.

Anyway I don’t expect this to be a perfect list but more like a bunch of general criticisms, suggestions, and potential direction we can move things in. At the end of the day I just want predators to be fun to play as and to play against and right now I don’t think they are either of those things.

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So you just said no to my comment on why preds should be slower. Could explain your reasoning. Just saying tell us almost nothing.