Feedback - new assaults

[morerokk]

There is no issue. You should try out the new assault tweaks by enabling Beta in the InF options. They're absolutely brutal (and great fun!) on Deathwish.

These will always remain optional, and the old assault tweaks will always remain functional too. Just wanted to gather feedback on these changes if anyone is interested in seeing them early.

NOTE: I strongly recommend enabling the assault variety/rainbow assaults option in the InF menu for the full experience. The new assaults were tailored with a very wide variety of spawngroups in mind, including enemies normally only seen on lower difficulties. These guys might pack quite a punch.

[ghost]

I tried it myself, and it was difficult, yet fun on Death Wish. I haven't tried it on Death Sentence yet. But I do want to give a bit of feedback: Is it possible to make the cops use a tactical or tactful approach? From my experience, cops, including special units, tend to rush the heisters and simply deal melee damage to kill them in an instant.

An example of this is in Panic Room on the 5th floor.

(This could also be related to the Think Faster option as I noticed they tend to rush them more)

[morerokk]

Sadly I don't know if I can change the AI in such a way. The AI is quite complex and a lot of it is hidden away inside the C++ code and the level itself.

For what it's worth, they definitely do adopt a more tactical approach in other heists. Bank and Counterfeit are great examples. Some cops (not all!) will prefer defending the upper level with the water rather than rushing you down in the basement.

I just need to take another look at the "reenforce" groups as well as the chatter. I'm getting the feeling that these groups weren't just removed, but also disabled even if I add them back.

[ghost]

Ah, I see. That's fair. The rushing tactic is annoying in cramped heists like Panic Room and No Mercy, as you have no option other than rush through the units or use crowd control weapons to clear yourself. I still hope for a workaround about this one :/.

[morerokk]

I'm tweaking the cop values a little bit as I go. If the rushing is too much in these heists, I can always tone down the amount of cops and possibly their reaction times. I'd prefer to change their tactics so I'll see if I can do that. I might actually be able to do so, now that I look at the groupai tweakdata again.

I'll also implement a fix for Bulldozer sprinting. They're not supposed to always sprint, only if they're far away.

[morerokk]

I've gathered a little more feedback after testing various heists, including Panic Room and Undercover.

These two heists were honestly great, but the tweaks definitely still need some more work. The main things that come to mind is the severity of the first assault. There's too many specials, particularly bulldozers for a first wave. I set the chance for these very low but it's still way higher than it should be. I'll just have to turn them off entirely, which I don't mind at all.

Next issue is that there are just a few too many cloakers and not enough medics mixed in with the frontline squads. There's also less shields than I'd like, maybe a little too few.

You gotta remember that in the old days of PAYDAY: The Heist (and older PD2 deathwish), the cop rushing behavior was perfectly normal. You were expected to hunker down and take cover somewhere until the assault started fading away a little more, after which you could do things like put the C4 down on the Panic Room roof. I'm not sure if I want to lower the cop count on Panic Room just yet, and their tactics seem fine too (removing their "charge" tactic makes them too likely to never even enter the building).

What I'll probably end up doing is reducing the cop counts a bit on Mayhem (Mayhem and DW assaults are literally identical right now). Coupled with the enemies' lower damage outputs, this should turn Mayhem into a true "easier Deathwish", like it was meant to be from the start. I'll also look into changing enemy tactics a little bit and maybe making specials charge in less.

Your feedback on melee attacks is on the money, this is actually because Overkill shortened the cops' melee animations by too much. I don't know why they did this, but I can probably revert it(?) and give them back the cool knife animations, allowing you to actually dodge it. Couple that with a fix for dozers sprinting and it should be one hell of a lot better already.

Death Sentence is not tested at all and is probably completely broken, as the ZEALs are actually reskinned Blue SWATs. Things might look a little messed-up. I'll make sure to create unique spawngroups and unit definitions for them, so they'll end up supplementing the other law enforcement rather than randomly replacing SWATs.

Thanks for your feedback, it's appreciated!

[MrVavlo]

Well, after playing a bit with new assault tweaks, I can say that - overall - it's good. I've finally got a feeling that I'm fighting THE police.

Still, there's some issues I've encountered after enabling those tweaks (doesn't mean it's from them, but still - I never saw them with tweaks turned off), so I got some questions: 1) Does medics on lower difficulties were intended? Not that it actually matters, but seeing them on Normal is kinda strange.

2) What happened with "Diamond Heist"? Assault waves end way too fast for no reason: it's independent from how many enemies were killed, they'll just poof away after less-than-minute-length wave...

[ghost]

I agree with MrVavlo there: This is how Death Wish and Death Sentence should be.

Here are my 2 cents though:

1. Performance issues. I noticed that every time an assault starts, the fps drop by a bit; Noticeable in Hoxton Breakout Day 1 in the parking lot and Day 2 and Rats job. No Mercy was fine, however.
2. What happened to Medic Bulldozers and Minigun Bulldozers? I noticed that they are gone from both difficulties. Though intended or not, I do feel like LMG Bulldozers are far more punishing than Minigun Bulldozers.
3. (Probably) Too many cloakers in some heists. I got 11 downs from cloakers alone in No Mercy.
4. The assault anticipation, fade, and music don't sync with the actual assault in The Alesso Heist.

[morerokk]

Medic and minigun bulldozers have been restricted to crimesprees, like before. If I ever bring them back it'll be on Death Sentence, but it's quite unlikely. These guys are memes.

Medics spawning on lower difficulties is done for consistency's sake (and because frankly, I only balanced for Very Hard and above). Spawngroups and enemy squads themselves are now pretty much the same across every difficulty, but different difficulties will simply spawn different squads. The only exception is that from Mayhem onwards, gensec units will replace most green units.

The issue with cloakers is known. This is because some cloakers may occasionally join regular squads or even spawn on their own, but then the map also has extra unique cloaker spawns. Bank is particularly ridiculous about this. I intend to fix this with more heist-specific overrides, restricting these cloakers from spawning in with regular squads or on their own. It's boring but it beats the alternative.

I haven't tested diamond heist yet, so I wouldn't be able to say. If you do play on normal though, chances are the assault pool is just exhausted too fast (they have no assault pools on Normal, so assaults will basically never Sustain).

I'm still not sure what's up with the assaults, I haven't touched any of that. It seems like the "drama" mechanic is just too easy to trigger these days. I'll try and tone it down.

[MrVavlo]

If you do play on normal though, chances are the assault pool is just exhausted too fast (they have no assault pools on Normal, so assaults will basically never Sustain).

I believe it was Overkill, but I'm gonna check it rn anyway...

EDIT: Checked, it's more likely something with wave difficulty progression - the only short assault were the first wave this time (1:06)... unlike the previous situation when the third wave were the shortest.

[ghost]

Light Zeal units and Zeal Bulldozers don't spawn on Death Sentence--was this intentional?

[morerokk]

@ShelbyXIV Death Sentence is a work-in-progress, I'm still working on re-adding them. I want to turn them into separate squads so they don't outright replace blue SWATs.

[ghost]

I know this feature wasn't meant for other game modes, but I've noticed that the assaults simply don't work in Holdout mode: There were only cloakers and a few units in the game mode.

(I was hesitant to report this because I knew it would likely be difficult to make a modded assault compatible with other game modes, but here we are)

[morerokk]

That's still pretty odd. I'll admit that I have no idea how Holdout works in the game's code, but I assumed I fixed the issues with holdout and safehouse raids with one of the latest updates. I'll put it on the list. Thanks!

I still want holdout to work even if not "officially supported" (I personally hate the mode), so if worst comes to worst I can just make the assault tweaks disable themselves automatically in Holdout.

[ghost]

No problem. I don't like the mode as well, but for achievement purposes, I have to finish it--one way or another. Speaking of modes, I presume this mod will affect Crime Spree as well? I hope there are no issues with it because again, I have to play it for achievement purposes.

[morerokk]

This mod will also affect crime spree, but I haven't had a lot of issues so far. One of my goals is to definitely test it up to crimespree 250 or so before I push it out.

[ghost]

In Panic Room, the cops constantly "deploy" smokes in the exit area, even though we have retreated to the adjacent room. They also deploy the smoke rather hastily: They deploy smoke every 5 seconds or before the previous one(s) fully dissipate.

This is on Death Sentence difficulty.

[ghost]

Also, there seems to be a reaction bug for the cops. There were cases where cops would just stop aiming and shooting towards the player until you "interrupt" them. The recent one I encountered was when I accidentally fell down from the roof while in Swan Song state, and the cops didn't even aim at me until I started shooting.

[ghost]

Another issue: In Framing Frame Day 1, the cops retreated 1 minute after the first assault occurred. This one was on Overkill difficulty.

[morerokk]

Panic Room constantly smoking the same area is sadly a "feature" in the base game, there are cops that spawn with "special objectives" set, literally their only goal is to keep smoking that same area over and over again. It's a bad case of trying to counter emergent gameplay, and it happened in PAYDAY: The Heist too.

The first assault is supposed to be over rather quickly, but maybe not that quickly. I'll take a look at that.

I've seen the reaction thing happen, I'm not sure why it happens but I'll look into it.

Keep in mind that if you're playing solo, the force multipliers for assaults are way lower, and cops only have a "base" forcepool of 10. If you're playing solo on Overkill, that means the cops only have 20 cops to send at you in the first assault. This is mostly intentional, though I might make this difference a little less drastic.

[ghost]

That's rather interesting.

Yeah, it was too quick; It ended 1 minute after the alarm got triggered. Speaking of which, does this mean subsequent assaults will be longer and harder? (I do notice it gets longer but not exactly harder)

Solo as in No AI or with AI?

[morerokk]

Assaults in my experience have definitely been getting both longer and harder, as I set the harder spawngroups to spawn more often in later assaults. You will never see a double bulldozer squad in the first assault below DW (and even on DW it's very rare).

Solo as in No AI or with AI?

Both really, but with AI for some reason it seems to count you as 3 players total rather than 4.

[ghost]

I see.

Anyway, Cloakers are unpredictable now, especially on DS. Some of them (also) don't emit the feedback to alert their presence.

(I made a full "showcase" of the new assault and can link it if you're interested)

[morerokk]

If you want to link something go right ahead, I'm curious.

As for Holdout, I figured out where this is handled and I'll be attempting to fix it soon.

[ghost]

Well, it's just gameplay rather than a link to a specific issue. You could, however, take some notes from it.

Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5vXw2nHfsQ

In my opinion, the rushing tactic is rather weak: Bots tend to obliterate any unit that comes into the room, except for Bulldozers. A suggestion for this would be allowing cops to shoot while moving--if this isn't a feature already, which could be the issue of it. I think a similar feature was implemented in FSS.

Shields are also near useless since AI can be equipped with Piercing ability unlike PD: TH or the early builds of PD2.

I hope this is enough and coherent feedback for now. I couldn't think of anything else that doesn't require "intricate" coding.

[ghost]

Also, maybe add a feature where smoke bombs prevent AI from shooting through them? Smoke bombs don't seem to do anything for them.

[ghost]

I've tested these new assaults on DS, mostly, and it worked fine aside from those issues I've mentioned. But ironically, Death Wish is actually harder than Death Sentence--at least from my experience. The cops seem to react faster and move in groups compared to the Death Sentence difficulty.

I know DS is still WIP, so I might be wrong on this one.

[morerokk]

DS should be practically identical to DW in terms of assaults. Where they might differ is enemy character values, such as weapon damage and weapon damage falloff. I haven't checked those yet.

I haven't added the ZEALS to DS yet either.

[ghost]

Bronco cops do spawn along with SWAT teams now(?)

So far, I've seen three of them spawning in three different maps. I even saw one of them rappelling with the SWATs. The recent one was in the Diamond Heist (Classics). They seem to be rare, though.

[ghost]

Didn't seem to spawn on later assaults

[morerokk]

Lol wtf? That really is not supposed to happen. As funny as it is, I'll try and look into that.

They might spawn as "defense" squads though, it could be that some maps aren't quite set up for this (especially a map like Diamond Heist, which was made after hoxton housewarming).

[ghost]

I'll try to give another look and provide a screenshot.

Also, please fix the cloakers issue as soon as possible. In maps like Cook-Off, they spawn along with other units, and instead of finding a position and hide, they would just charge me without the feedback warning. And this is extremely annoying :/. I got downed 4 times in 15 seconds or so by three different cloakers.

Oh, and apparently, they can jump and kick me through a window from the outside in Cook-Off. As ridiculous as it sounds, I'm not sure if this is a bug or a vanilla "feature."

[ghost]

In the Brooklyn Bank job, the first assault ended before it even started. I noticed this by the heister's assault break line, the music, and the cops' retreat. The assault itself ended at 1:52.

[ghost]

Also, I've tested this on Crime Spree on rank 527, and it was almost impossible to beat: The enemies were too tanky, even though this mod reduces their health, Phalanx shields were somehow impenetrable, too many bulldozers at once, and Skulldozers did appear even without the modifier; I know it's related with the enemy variety, but this modifier needs a change nevertheless.

[ghost]

Speaking of bulldozers, how many bulldozers can spawn at once with this feature? I've noticed 6,7 of them can spawn at once with different variants. I don't know how many dozers can spawn at once in vanilla, but this is too much for Crime Spree, considering their damage and health values.

[morerokk]

I think I didn't touch the special enemy counts, but it's possible that crimespree is ignoring the limits. I'll give it another look.

Brooklyn Bank is known and under investigation. I don't have much to say about it, it's a newer heist and the problem most likely resides in the heist itself.

Enemies being tanky on crimespree ~500 sounds about right. The main issue you might be running into is that CS is not designed for Tans, which currently absorb absurd amounts of damage in the body. Pop their helmets off and it should be business as usual (if you hit them in the head).

The next update will feature a bunch of fixes for the assault tweaks, including the cloaker spam and hopefully a fix for Holdout. Thanks for your feedback!

[ghost]

Also, don't forget that spreading "panic" literally freezes the cops. They won't react to the player or bots whatsoever until I start shooting at them again.

[ghost]

Strike that, they can get frozen for 10 seconds and will return to normal.

[ghost]

https://youtu.be/PLNxQXS1YoY Here's the preview of the bug. Also, notice that when I entered bleed out, cops didn't shoot me until I started to shoot at them.

[morerokk]

Cops ignoring you in bleedout until you shoot is normal and intentional, I believe it's like that in vanilla as well.

Not sure why panic makes them braindead temporarily though. One more thing to look into.

[ghost]

Here's a Bronco cop spawning on Hoxton Breakout Day 2

[morerokk]

I "fixed" holdout in the latest update, it now has cops spawning again. They're the default groups though.

[ghost]

Is it possible to make the HRTs spawn only if there are hostages and only rescue them during breaks or control, or if the hostages are not in the line of sight of the heisters? And also make them the only ones who rescue hostages and not others?

This might be too much for a suggestion, but it would be a great QoL if it's possible. I mean, take a look at this: https://youtu.be/HkojZRz5Z4c

That cop literally just ignored me and committed a bigger war crime.

[morerokk]

HRT's are already only set to spawn during assault breaks, and they only spawn if there are untied civvies or tied hostages on the map. The thing is that the game has "reenforce" groups that feature some HRT's, including the black guy in the button-up shirt.

You can test this out on Brooklyn Bank, if the assault ends and you have no hostages, it's just dead quiet for half a minute because not even the HRT's are spawning.

I probably am not able to restrict hostage-rescuing behavior to just HRT's, but even if I could, it seems fairly appropriate for a first responder to still try and rescue hostages.

[ghost]

I'm not sure if I've been too comfortable with solo and unaware of 4 players' assault cap, or if the clients were bad, and we had bad builds, but Hoxton Breakout on Day 1 was almost impossible to beat with four players on Death Sentence. I feel like there were too many cops and bulldozers at the same time; 2 Skulldozers + 3 shotgunners in the same area. I know this was meant to be difficult, and I'm probably just a bad host/player, but I still want to hear your opinion about this one and the overall assault on Hoxton Breakout Day 1.

Other heists were fine, though, and this is the only map where having 4 players (at least from what I experienced) has a significant impact on the difficulty (somehow).

Also, I have no mods that alter the bots' behavior.

[ghost]

Bronco cops still spawning btw

[morerokk]

I just looked into it, and the bronco cops are not a bug.

Before hoxton housewarming, the "Defend" spawngroups would contain random cops on Normal and Hard (such as bronco cops). All I did was restore the old spawngroups.

Disabling the Assault Variety option will prevent bronco cops from spawning on Very Hard and above.

As for Hoxton Breakout day 1, was this in the garage or was this during the gauntlet? I upped both the maximum cops on the map and the maximum spawns per assault to 1.75x on Hoxout day 1, because the gauntlet was ridiculously easy (as the gauntlet is perpetually "the first assault"). Sadly, this probably also affects the second assault, which turns the garage into CBT mode.

I'm working on reworking this so that the heist-specific multipliers can also be tailored towards the first, second and third assaults, instead of all of them at once.

[ghost]

It was during the gauntlet. Cops literally spawned around the tire shop and blocked every exit path.

I'm still not sure if the bots are just op, or I simply had bad luck playing in pubs with the new assault.

[ghost]

How many Bulldozers can this assault spawn on DS? The issues of arduous assault and the performance drops might be caused by the Fixes (with almost every option enabled) and its More Dozers mods. I'm quite reluctant to delete the Fixes mod since it does bring QoL stuff, and I never adjusted the limits for More Dozers either. Regardless, I hope those mods don't cause any incompatibility, but it'd still be great if you can look into it.

[MrVavlo]

Were there any changes to "Birth of the Sky"? It's the only heist where It feels empty in the middle of wave with new assaults turned on: [On photo: number of spawned cops at the moment]

[ghost]

I think for some reason, the assault spawn rate/the number of cops allowed on the map is higher than vanilla with 4 players. I noticed this in both Hoxton Breakout and The Big Bank in online mode but never noticed this in offline mode. Even one of the clients noticed how there were more cops than vanilla on the map.

I'm not sure if this was intended or if there's a bug for online, or I just never realized that the spawn rate in offline mode is reduced.