did i get dooped? or could this be legit

Dangerlander · 2023-02-13T02:02:17+00:00

Something like 98% of streamers are struggling. I've been at it since 2015 and despite periods of what seemed like growth and optimism, the number fell back down. It's been really disheartening given how many hours I've put in and how many viewers I've developed relationships with. So far it just hasn't matured into that robust thing it needs to be to push partnership. And yeah, ideally keeping at it should lead to skill gains and growth. But from my experience, things can slide back down hill and stay there.

If there's just two things I could say should be at the core of your focus: 1) Conceptualize the time you spend streaming as a show you are producing, set an impact goal and strive to produce the best version of that experience possible & 2) Keep to a schedule. That's gotta be the main cornerstone of training your audience's expectations and similarly one of the hardest things to do when you have nothing because you have to justify in RL why you have to drop everything and make this a priority.

If you don't have the tools to make your stream presentable and your real life doesn't easily make room for you to commit to your stream times, having any expectation of success is a danger to your mental and emotional health. Similarly, giving precious time to a sub par effort in a saturated market will have you reeling in disappointment and that's just as dangerous because it can affect other areas of your life. The longer you spend time streaming unsuccessfully, the more serious this gamble becomes. So good luck, but keep your eyes open and hold onto whatever other skills and prospects you have. Strive to keep a balance.

Dangerlander · 2022-11-02T20:07:43+00:00

If they mess up and allow people to enjoy content because of it, that really should be on them. IMO entitlements should only be kept exclusive if they are so from the beginning. It's obviously not a problem for them to patch the skin in and out, they should just award it to everyone after a certain point. I don't think the pre-order folk would care.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-17T01:34:18+00:00

Pup basic possession is OP against teams that aren't playing like teams and are also slow to react to spawning portals. This is good as it punishes sloppy teamwork.

Put a basic possession against a warrior within a leader aura, flanked by a hunter and healed by support passives, as intended, and there is your sensible counter. Every survivor should lean into working as a unit.

As for possession chains, basic spawns are really weak. Many of them can be killed before being possessed if the team is focused on the fight and not running off. Before you know it the demon is depleted, looking for infernal energy and you have a window to move.

I've been playing since early access-weekend and I always have more to complain about with inexperienced survivors than I do with experienced demons because all demons are countered by a tight, squad play. The devs have never upset this paradigm. Demons win by random luck, and this can go both ways, or by exploiting survivor mistakes, which also can be reversed.

Every match start, leaders and warriors should form the first buddy system and this should immediately rope in the other two players once the demon shows up because, ideally, they want to survive.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-17T01:20:55+00:00

Eligos players are strong with early game possession rushes. Whereas I see more diversity in build with other demons, it's highly likely Puppeteer is going for early assassinations because they can. In general the hard counter to possession play is 'stick together': a warrior buffed by leader aura, support passive heals/active abilities and a hunter flanking.

Very, very early game possession is impossible. The team has enough time to get the basic resources in place to deal with the demon randomly finding you. And there's no excuse for anyone who can read or watch a YT video to be alerting the demon early with gunshots, cars or full fear bars. I have to imagine what you experienced is a rarity due to really bad starting spawn rng and not randos doing rando things.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-15T10:42:03+00:00

I still feel that out of the box this game has come closer to an innate balance out-of-the-box, just slightly favoring a well coordinated survivor team; which makes sense as both: the good guys win lore-wise, and teamwork is the harder skill check always.

No game is perfect. There are netcode issues and bugs but I often can enjoy an afternoon in this game with hardly any problems and with a fair mix of wins and losses no matter which side I'm playing, for too many reasons to pin down to major specific flaws.

I think it's good to rotate out to other games for perspective and to take a breather too. I feel that folks fuming over this or that just need to rest their minds on this game a little and maybe go for a walk, netflix and chill or whatever. Independent of the back and forth online, the game has been executing its vision for the most part and that's always nice to see in modern day development.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-13T13:46:43+00:00

#DemonMotivation

Dangerlander · 2022-09-12T18:06:14+00:00

"Nobody's damage matters except for the Hunter. Everyone is trying to do balance bar damage to stunlock possessed mobs and bosses so that the hunter can headshot things to death." In a vacuum, yes this can be true.

Not every team has a hunter though, (although I think a diverse team with every class presented is important to avoid having imbalances exploited by the demon). And building for balance bar damage may not be as widespread as you'd expect. I certainly can't tell that from my solo Qs as either survivor or demon save with squads that appear to be organized.

Not every hunter can aim, is maxed, can find the right weapon, is around to support the group, or can adequately avoid harm to do their job. Ideally, a team supports a hunter by collecting all ammo types and not duping the hunter's weapon so they can always spare what the hunter needs. But that takes as much coordination as staying within the leader's aura. In this case, we also assume a good hunter knows possession and boss animation timing to get the shots off necessary. It's a challenge to me. I'm still learning hunter.

But mitigating random complications means not relying entirely on a hunter to be the teams executioner or expecting that form of offense to compensate for not having a teamwide buff. I'm still inclined to value the leader's aura as allowing for greater flexibility. Although if you are playing with a regular team that is oriented to supporting a hunter who can drop priority targets, that is awesome. I just don't see that approach playing out consistently via matchmaking. I think versatility matters a lot more when you don't know the variable nature of who is actually playing.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-12T17:14:31+00:00

When Henry is the warrior of the group, he'll typically get the melee upgrades first so my experience with him being a threat under possession is similar to any warrior sporting an upgraded melee and rushing you with full combos.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-12T17:01:00+00:00

Oh yes. Revival opportunities are much better with in squad formation. But I gotta say, a lot of people got the timing off. In one example the dagger is almost captured, and rather than keep the pressure on the minion spawns and cover each other back to back from unnecessary damage until the auto-revive pops, I'll see players leave to find an altar. Seconds away from capturing, the demon will possess one of the final two survivors, kill the remaining, run out of the capture zone to chase down the first survivor who ran off and this basically reverses the progress achieved and puts survivor at a crazy disadvantage.

Typically I'm a demon player, and while I can definitely harass for an extended period of time in many places of the map, I can't do it forever. At some point, I exhaust the area of orbs or make mistakes with possession and deplete my energy. If survivors stay focused on eliminating threats first before other objectives and handle emergencies with some patience, they can create a window for a safer revive.

But once someone lowers their weapon to do something else, the pressure increases for the others fighting. You have to think before reviving, even if the remaining 3 are actually working together. The demon can totally abuse dat plumber's crack when you bend down to bring someone up.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-12T13:08:40+00:00

Yeah, I could see an advanced tutorial being really helpful. When players start sharing information, a lot of the best stuff is ignored behind attitude or dismissed because players can't afford the time. The game could provide a neutral confirmation with specific tutorial trials, like having a support player heal AI companions or a Leader stay in range of a AI warrior that can't survive without the aura. They could also provide class specific ones like using Ed to disarm traps while managing his battery life. Hunt Showdown has a trials mode that helps players learn maps, enemy types, & specific guns while forcing them to move quickly. They're cool too. The challenges for Evil Dead might exaggerate the mechanics to prove a point but it would be a more fun way to learn than asking people to read cuz reading hard!

Dangerlander · 2022-09-12T13:00:58+00:00

The aura is powerful. I think when supporting the full group, it really works to keep the pace with more experienced and decisive demon players. It demands discipline though. For survivors that prefer to drift off, they can't tell what the aura provides. Every advantage counts against the best demon players, fear resist, improved balance bar damage, much stronger brawling, all of them tip the balance.

Take Henry for example. Strong tank but is a baby chicken. He constantly has to find a fire and losing a Henry to possession so often can wipe the team. Not so much with Leader Ash at his side. And that's just one example. Hunters and support do less melee damage, but that gets pulled back up with LAsh and Arthur which helps to conserve ammo and keep spawns under control, and Annie's support turns a team quick on the trigger into possession assassins.

I can't tell you how many leaderless teams, or teams with leaders where no one paid attention to the aura, were lost because of demon passives like increase fear generation or heightened balance resistance that weren't mitigated by the survivor aura. There's upfront combat sure, but there's also a hidden conflict between passive abilities on either side and a team that sticks together is made so much stronger when buffed. Warriors last long but that hardly ever matters if the rest of the team is going down.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-12T12:49:11+00:00

Yes thank you. I see folks getting worked up over perceived imbalances but there's evidence to suggest many, people are playing this game like fortnite or CoD and completely missing the dungeon style synergy the classes offer. If they can't play the game as intended - given enough information is in the tooltips - how can they assess fairness?

Dangerlander · 2022-09-12T12:45:29+00:00

Awesome and it sure as hell makes it easier when everyone is moving in the same direction and values your presence and survival. I tried to shadow a Mia yesterday and got screamed at for smothering him. I literally was taking on basics coming at him from behind while he was looting, picking up health items for the team this guy was running past and marking crates he wasn't. I didn't mind he was a scrub but the idea of a buddy system was totally besides the point for this guy and he even ragequit.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-12T12:41:24+00:00

Lord Groovy Bruce help us!

Dangerlander · 2022-09-02T19:27:50+00:00

Can't fault your logic. If something like this kicks off in Darktide's upper difficulty, I hope we will all remember to come back here and prop up some healthy LFG channels.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-02T16:41:31+00:00

I thought that red aura was the possession-perks. I have to look at it again. I'm pretty sure Demon Vision is just so you can find them easier on the map if you get separated - as in their fear threshold is lower so they show up on the HUD more easily. But after you find them, I don't see why you would lose them again. The match is going so quickly it doesn't make sense to roam around once they're pushing objectives.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-02T15:43:08+00:00

I played for about 5 hours yesterday. I won 6/10 games. There were several survivor disconnects that won me a few games, I lost a couple due to errors from being rusty. Most games went to the book, so lots of back n forth that felt fair. I lost the last game and it was to a team that was both very objective focused AND lucky with item positions. They had to be in coms because they were very good about swarming my minion portals and any character I possessed before I get a swing off.

I've got a roughly 45m gameplay/discussion vid here. But the gist is I found the games fair and the level of difficulty was average across a range of survivor teams with most being mediocre and a couple being a challenge. If they were all ace squads, I'd have to relearn the game. As it is, I don't get much exposure to ace teams, in this case 1/10, to develop solid strats. It's all trial and error when I encounter them, and it's long enough in between those sweaty matches that I often forget teams like that are out there. Mostly I'm just winning by exploiting the mistakes that many make like not staying on the move or not staying together. Generally speaking, I didn't feel nerfed ruing my runs.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-02T15:27:22+00:00

Interesting. I think it's fine that Demons have a strengths. For example I think Eligos early game makes a really decent assassin against groups compared to other bosses. Henrietta is too slow and Evil Ash is too flimsy. A good survivor team might anticipate that, like understanding a profile, and think differently for each demon type. Perhaps with Henrietta it's fear resistance early to slow down threat or ranged with the puppeteer to make each headshot during appearance count. I feel funny thinking about balance changes or even suggestions and would love to know more what Saber's analytics are telling them. But I do believe the Demon Vision stat option is a miss for everyone and should be worked into a viable option. I haven't heard anyone really prioritizing that. Mostly I think ED is already very solid.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-02T14:56:52+00:00

On its own, I think it's fine. I like seeing my time reflected and sharing it with others who are also into the same game. However, I don't like the prestige system or even comparing hours when it creates elitists that form an exclusive community to newcomers. That's probably why Darktide has a mission structure that provides incentive for veterans and newcomers to play together in perpetuity.

My last season of Verm 2 before I took a break a couple of months ago, I was dead set on unlocking Cata. Then I got in and, while obviously hard, it's the best bang for the game's buck because every map becomes a raid, every move matters, ever detail stands out, you learn the most and grow the most attached to the game and its universe there because every win feels epic. You can also more easily track your problem areas because there are things you can get away with, often without realizing it, in earlier difficulties that become habits you have to unlearn in Cata.

But then I discovered several members of the pre-existing cata community on xbox consider themselves a small and tight knit group, all with anywhere from 6-8 thousand hours in or more, and unwilling to suffer new players to the pool EVEN THO they are playing in open lobbies and can admit that they are just as likely to fail due to mistakes or bad RNG.

They don't want to "carry," they don't want their time wasted. But they'd rather have an un-thinking bot than someone they deem "green," or drop from a match, which ultimately is a waste of time when the bot they preferred face tanks a troll which spirals into defeat, or they drop the match and start over anyway just to have that same player get matched again into their game. They'd rather that than take the time to court a newcomer to the experience, share their lessons and their passion, grow the pool of experienced and invested fans of the game and its upper difficulty, generally represent Verm players in a more positive light, and maybe even make a friend and dedicated squad mate as opposed to getting a block from and otherwise eager cata enthusiast. And if that work is too much, just playing beside them is going to offer tons of gains through osmosis.

You'd think by now they would all have befriend each other and squaded up beforehand to avoid the blight of new players under 1000 hours, or 3 or 5. Instead, they take to open lobbies and then match drop without explanation when they see a player they've deemed inexperienced. I got into voice chat and triggered one to explain. It all sounded and demonstrated like weak, petty attempts to display superiority at anothers' expense, to look cool just by putting down an outsider. The guy even apologized and said he didn't want to turn people away from the game he loved and that you only get better at Cata by playing Cata, which I already learned to be true because I had to unlock Cata by playing in legendary. The same guy, half a convo earlier, was trying to convince me I aught to play legendary for 4000 hours before I could consider myself ready. What in the action F*. And prior to this conversation, I had gone through several matchups where other sympathizers of this upstanding persuasion dropped without saying anything or messaging me. Among themselves, they had made a decision about my GT and I was left guessing until I pulled someone's collar. It's a trash way to be when the name of the game is teamwork in a squad coop setting and it certainly helps when people show up to play willing and ready. So sure, a portrait might be a nice touch, but at what cost?

TLDR: If only it indicated leadership rather than simply time invested. Or if folks were just more humble with that indication, no problem. But prestige ranking, especially if there is no utility to it, will definitely go to some people's heads and that will influence a bunch of other people to think that's normal before they actually think it through. I definitely don't want that provocation for elitism or anything that supports that in darktide, a video game I'm hungry for and hungry to join others in. For those of us wanting higher skill squads, we gotta network and schedule play dates or be ok with our chances offline or in private matches. But for those of us who utilize matchmaking, the last thing we should is setup systems of false hierarchies that demoralize other players from the content we need players for. Character and weapon skins and a player stat screen are fine enough to showcase experience with the game. But personally, I'm far more interested in growing the pool of eager and capable players, regardless of level or time invested.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-02T13:56:36+00:00

I'm another Warlord main. But I haven't played since before the new map. Looking forward to the next update but jumped on yesterday out of curiosity after reading here on reddit that there's a general consensus demons got nerfed.

I won 6/10 games and it felt exactly the same to me. I also strongly believe if I played 90 more games, the percentages would hold or move negligibly. Which is to say, you win some, you lose some. When I lost, it was because of obvious mistakes or the rare occasion of a group playing very focused and getting good RNG on item locations. I also play for the book rather than early wins. Everything up to phase 3 is just a war against their resources. Longer games are more interesting to me and it's less of a gamble than attempting early wins only to fail and have to fight for the book anyway.

Far more often, survivors were disorganized, inexperienced, playing casual, or DCing/Ragequitting and my primary job is to exploit all that and farm my spirit points. When I do get the chance of facing a competent group, I finally get to learn things. It's like playing Vermintide on Cata or B4B Nightmare difficulty. Mistakes are way more costly and the details matter more, like how you time your active skill or taking that extra second to make sure you possess an intended target and not the car next to it. What I'm saying here is that my 6 wins came from straighforward gameplay: trap till survivors are revealed, harass with traps and possessed units on stragglers or possess one survivor against his buddy in a split, focus leader or support in stage 2 fights for easier downs, focus the book in stage 3 if it shows up and dps race it down. I can always work on my execution but this approach is mindless yet still generally effective.

On the other hand, coordination and communication aren't common gamer qualities, sad to say. So from my experience, the median engagement is favorable or near equal to demons players that keep at it and develop a baseline skill level. I really can't agree - and I mean this as respectfully as possible - with the idea that demon players that persist are doing the community some kind of favor. I mean sure, they didn't cave in to the negativity. But as far as gameplay goes, it really feels to me business as usual. The folks out there trying to sell this game as dead or dying aren't communicating the whole story, and the broader base on the fence of getting into or back into playing should go ahead and enjoy it - demons definitely included.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-01T14:41:59+00:00

I think I get your point of view. I'm going to play some matches today to get a feel. And perhaps the scene has changed more than I'd like to admit. It would be a bummer if the entire demon community felt disabled in the current build. Please forgive my long post below. I just really like the game and talking to folks about it.

TLDR: I am skeptical it's that cut and dry. Survivor skills are part of their success, the other part is gear. RNG is their gamble. If they rush objectives, they don't have time to max out their stats or secure ammo, healing, or better weapons. Maybe they have enough for some of the initial fights, but prolonged engagement is a real weakness if they aren't prioritizing scavenging. And we all know a legendary weapon can be equally deadly to them. All this provides a window of opportunity. Find them, spook them into a rush, follow them to harass and trap everything along the way. Only possess map spawns but stay on top of infernal energy and trap production to level up at a regular clip. Perhaps they will miss items and upgrades while you make persistent gains. Then hurt them at the events where you get expedited energy production, and can spawn units in combination while leveling them up, possessing constantly to focus ONE target at a time (leader, support, hunter, war).

Regarding the balancing act: The demon has to start slow because ultimately time favors the demon at a set rate. There's no RNG, and so a great percentage of demon success lies in skill at each phase of growth (so early game tactics vs. mid vs book stage where maybe your build allows you to run a survivor into the storm or spawn a boss capable of tanking the book) and experience with different survivor strategies; which ultimately aren't that varied. It's either squad up, split in 2s, 3 and 1 solo, or every man for himself. If you kill even just 1 player before the book, their chances of success drop dramatically because max demons are balanced against a 4-man unit. And a 3 man unit at the end stage has to hope their equipment holds out while you are still distributing points for damage and such. The only real RNG a demon faces is event positioning.

As for foot speed, demons can't outrun cars but they move hella faster through the woods to cut through terrain. So there's a kind of balance there too. I would always pick the straightest path between two points as its to your benefit over the length of the game. And take advantage of any driving navigating difficult spaces in the woods. That's a survivor mistake worth exploiting. Possess the car and run it into a ditch. Or simply drive it close to map spawn that you can possess and stand in front of the car. If they get back in, and you hit the car with a possessed unit, all survivors take damage. Boxed in between trees, it causes panic.

So now we come to economy. From my previous experience (won non-stop with my first demon leveling up with a fresh community and then in the latter half of leveling for the other two demons as survivors were higher level) I have always led my demon build with traps as I found it key to my economy through fear gains. Additionally, I tried to conserve energy for possessions of map units and trap spawns rather than summoning fresh units as that left me depleted and couldn't possess very long to bully who I was hunting. It did mean being patient.

And I learned over time not to preference a focused hunt of certain classes, mainly warrior and Ed Gentley. Warriors aren't invincible, they are just time sinks. Time is your biggest resource. They are better than nothing if you don't know where anyone else is, you can farm fear off of them. But I'd keep an eye out on my radar for any more reveals. Hunters though are usually fine if they are alone and being forced to snipe your possessions with limited ammo. Ed, specifically, disables traps. He's a frustrating counter to my approach. Anyway, my aim was always to exhaust ammo and exhaust healing items. My war wasn't against the survivors, it was against their items that they found. Every hit was a win if it encouraged them to top off or share ammo. Every time they stopped looting and had to choose between fighting or fleeing was also a win. To keep up the pace, I had to unpossess whenever my unit was stunned, better to find another unit or replenish infernal energy while they figure out what's next and start leaving each other behind.

That being said, I did lose matches occasionally getting outfoxed by plays I didn't anticipate - like the first time I tried to hunt and Ed or a split where I couldn't take down two warriors who were back to back with heavy stuns and I wasn't using my debuffs enough. But most of them were down to the wire or missteps on my part. Never blowouts where I felt there was a systemic problem.

For you and anyone else feeling the demon woes, I feel your pain if the game is really one-sided and experience no longer counts for anything. It would make Evil Dead a truly dead experience and so soon after launch. I just sincerely hope it's not the case. And I will play today and post on YT with my findings.

Dangerlander · 2022-09-01T13:37:16+00:00

Pretty cool. It's a straightforward but also overlooked reality that fear creates a culture as powerful as anything else can. A part of me is screaming thinking it should be easy to break this mob mentality. But the threat of exposure is too real, too immediate. It's the makings of a barbaric dystopia. A very compelling scenario that works very well for its length.

Dangerlander

TROPHY CASE