Escalation Feedback - Suggested changes

[ChunkieXL]

First off, Escalation is dope. The team definitely cooked with this one and it’s one of the most ingenious ideas spun off a standard game mode I’ve seen as of late. For a game that can be pretty intolerable if you get randoms that don’t want to put effort, it’s surprisingly easy to carry on by yourself which can’t be said for other games with 4 player game modes, like GTA Online. Last night, even with two people dropping out, my teammate and I made it to the late twenties with hardly any issues.

I truly only have two complaints that make it pretty difficult to want to go back and shoot for a higher escalation score:

1. In Fun Park – Open the Gates: We rolled Stay Together, which is annoying on its own but tolerable, and Bad Trip II plus Voice Disturbance among others. Two players had dropped out at this point, around round 27 or 28. Unfortunately, one of us made the mistake of getting our sanity depleted which as you all know is easy af on Bad Trip II. This plus Stay Together, plus two Deadly Prime Assets (Night Hunter and Gooseberry camping the dark area in and around the diner (and my butthole, apparently)), plus 90% of the doors being barred, meant and means going forward that this is going to be a major problem if you don’t have one or two more players to kind of tether yourself to so you aren’t taking shock damage from Stay Together. And when you roll something that limits your communication like Voice Disturbance, it makes it impossible to pass the information of where you are sprinting at top speed to while your teammate is fighting for his life trying not to get spotted. That lost us the match which was really frustrating. I’m fine losing to my own merit and sure anyone could argue, “Just play perfectly” (which no one does) but losing because any slip up means instant defeat is annoying.
2. In Courthouse – Escape the Courthouse: Toxic Shock plus a stark lack of hiding spots by default even without Limited Hiding Spots just makes it a complete nightmare with more than two people. Honestly this is just bad map design. In my opinion, you can either do the far too frequent fart clouds that tank player health or you can have a small amount of hiding spots. If I ever roll Limited Hiding Spots on this map, if it’s even possible, I’m just going to dip out. It turns into two players usually ignoring the objective while the rest of us try to carry the whole game in between running for hiding spots, which when you have an objective that reacts and runs away from noise, is insanely irritating. This is the simplest fix of them all lol just toss like five more barrels in there or something, idk. Both times I’ve rolled Toxic Shock on this map with more than two players, it turns into a 48 minute poopfest because people panic like crazy.

Seriously, 99% of these maps are shockingly balanced and easy to complete quickly, even the full-length trials every ten rounds if you have a decent team. Really hoping they do a bit of a tweak on the ol’ Escalation because it adds a TON of longevity to the game without being too repetitive.

[Ela]

First, night hunter is not a prime asset. Prime assets are only Coyle, Mother, and Bambino. Secondly, Bad trip is not an excuse to getting in psychosis. In Ultra, you got deadly trips, you will definitely get psychosis when stepping on landmines.

Open the gate has extremely tight space with high enemies density compared to other maps. Our strategy to tackle this map under stay together is to have at least one person equips with self-revive as a backup in case the whole team is eliminated. And others using last chance. Those using last chance can tank damages for teammates. The ones using self-revive has to be able to solo most escalations.

In your case, you got only one teammate, so with our strategy your setup gotta be two self-revives or one self-revive and one last chance.

Also, psychosis is extremely useful in open the gate. However, two of you have to be really fast and plan the route wisely. If possible, gather as many anti-dote as possible so that you can stop psychosis when disarming the battery and trigger mines later on.

For Escape the courthouse, I am afraid I have to disagree that trial lacks of hiding spots. Even in Ultra, which including limited hiding spot 2, we can find plenty of hiding spots. Please remember you can also hide in the small spaces under the bookshelves in the library along with closets, under the table, and barrels.

I would like to suggest one way to remember the hiding spot. Which is to equip hide and heal. It is extremely useful in Ultra, since it stops bleedings, gain one bar of heal, and regenerates another not fully damaged bar. You will constantly remember the hiding spot as you travel.

Lastly, please don't blame teammates, you cannot avoid it in this game when you are not playing with your friends. Most of those players just don't know how to play the game or are either too afraid of x-pops. They are even struggling being alive. But please treat them as a backup when you make mistakes and get killed. Those who are smarter would bring syringes with them for people to revive them in case that they get killed. We are all those players before. If you really wanna avoid those players, you can check their playtime under steam page before starting the game, anyone with at least 300 to 400 hours will be decent enough to be a teammate. 500 hours or above can carry the game already.

However, for those who are literally hiding near the shuttle for the whole trial, just quit, or lead an xpop near their hiding spot and use glass bottle or stun to hit that hiding spot. They will get dragged outta hiding spot afterwards.

[ChunkieXL]

Originally posted by Ela:

First, night hunter is not a prime asset. Prime assets are only Coyle, Mother, and Bambino. Secondly, Bad trip is not an excuse to getting in psychosis. In Ultra, you got deadly trips, you will definitely get psychosis when stepping on landmines.

Open the gate has extremely tight space with high enemies density compared to other maps. Our strategy to tackle this map under stay together is to have at least one person equips with self-revive as a backup in case the whole team is eliminated. And others using last chance. Those using last chance can tank damages for teammates. The ones using self-revive has to be able to solo most escalations.

In your case, you got only one teammate, so with our strategy your setup gotta be two self-revives or one self-revive and one last chance.

Also, psychosis is extremely useful in open the gate. However, two of you have to be really fast and plan the route wisely. If possible, gather as many anti-dote as possible so that you can stop psychosis when disarming the battery and trigger mines later on.

For Escape the courthouse, I am afraid I have to disagree that trial lacks of hiding spots. Even in Ultra, which including limited hiding spot 2, we can find plenty of hiding spots. Please remember you can also hide in the small spaces under the bookshelves in the library along with closets, under the table, and barrels.

I would like to suggest one way to remember the hiding spot. Which is to equip hide and heal. It is extremely useful in Ultra, since it stops bleedings, gain one bar of heal, and regenerates another not fully damaged bar. You will constantly remember the hiding spot as you travel.

Lastly, please don't blame teammates, you cannot avoid it in this game when you are not playing with your friends. Most of those players just don't know how to play the game or are either too afraid of x-pops. They are even struggling being alive. But please treat them as a backup when you make mistakes and get killed. Those who are smarter would bring syringes with them for people to revive them in case that they get killed. We are all those players before. If you really wanna avoid those players, you can check their playtime under steam page before starting the game, anyone with at least 300 to 400 hours will be decent enough to be a teammate. 500 hours or above can carry the game already.

However, for those who are literally hiding near the shuttle for the whole trial, just quit, or lead an xpop near their hiding spot and use glass bottle or stun to hit that hiding spot. They will get dragged outta hiding spot afterwards.

That's a lot of words that mean largely nothing lol. And maybe leave out the Um AcTuAlLy PaRt of your copium huffing next time you are trying to persuade someone. Almost as bad as the morons who say "WeLl I'Ve NeVeR hAd ThAt PrObLeM.

Again, when we have variators like Bleeding and Bad Trip II in an enclosed space with enemies (NOT BOTH PRIME ASSETS OOPSIE DOOPSIES) that dominate the light and dark areas, as in Gooseberry camping the area outside the diner and the night vision guy also stalking the inside and outside of the diner and one teammate is running from psychosis in order not to take damage but because Stay Together is on and the other player can't sprint because again, there are enemies that dominate the light and dark areas, that leads to death which doesn't feel very fair or avoidable unless, as i said, you played perfectly and didn't get hit or put into psychosis from.

Yes, I will blame people who are aggressively belligerent when we have the AUDACITY to suggest they actually play objectives instead of screwing around. No, you cannot "treat them as backups" when they are CONSTANTLY going down and causing the only two players actually attempting to finish objectives to be pulled away for revives and help ups due to complete lack of awareness. Alternate take: Don't play the hard game mode if you can barely handle standard trials. Simple.

Unfortunately, Hide and Heal is trumped by several much more useful amps. And, more unfortunate still, despite your claim that there aren't a lack of spots, this is the only map that, regardless of the people I play with, I constantly have the issue when Toxic Shock is a variator. To the point of not wanting to play the gamemode for fear of rolling it on Courthouse. Idc about the total hiding spots in one of the largest maps, when what matters is how many there are around the areas you are forced to stay in for your objectives. Cool story bro, I'm not gonna run back to the barrel next to the shuttle just because it counts as a valid spot, which I'm going to have to stop and point out I'm being hyperbolic and I know there are closer ones before then. Because I HAVE to point it out for people like you online who think they know everything.

Also, I'm just going to say suggesting that I quit when I could be in late round, just as I typically am when this happens, or waste time luring enemies places to disadvantage other players, that's a pretty braindead take.

Thankfully Red Barrel is typically much smarter than players like yourself, otherwise copers would win and Screamers would still stop you dead in your tracks instead of slowing you and applying a visual effect. I would know, I absolutely got ♥♥♥♥ on by incompetent boobs for complaining about the aforementioned issue and had it rectified via patch mid argument.

[Ela]

When I say backup, I meant that player going solo for the whole team. I understand that not all people are compatible to each other. For instance, my play style is definitely not compatible to most people, no one is going to jump towards the x-pops instead of hiding. Maybe consider giving up your teammates next time if they are constantly down.

Hide and heal's usefulness may vary among people with different styles, my main is smash, I don't like spending that little bit of time hiding. At least from my side, most of the people equip hide and heal with last chance. Since you will be allowed to have lots of margin of errors and take damages for your teammates. Also, noticing hiding spots along the way just in case.

There is one thing you are right, I am not a smart player. I heavily rely on abusing psychosis to finish trials. There are still many spots that I don't know how to deal with and just tackle it with psychosis. When in toxic shock, I ignore the first two waves of gas except for long trials. Since most of the tasks can be done within the first two waves.

Also, night hunter is like a hybrid of grunt and blind giant, he cannot sprint, has very short attack range and rely more on sound instead of eye sight. Most of his attack is easy to dodge with.