Machine behaviour post April 2020 update

I’m on Guerilla since the day the difficulty levels was introduced. :wink:

I was planning to go a bit South of Garphammar to find and engage harv in more open area to see how things are but Garphammar is also good hotspot. :+1:

Oh, i was in Östervik before and after i dispatched 1st FNIX harv, i managed to dispatch 2nd FNIX harv with my Klaucke only, without it ever shooting back at me.

Two screens of firing at 2nd harv and harv blowing up

My firing angle/spot:

Harv blowing up:

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Do we know if the changes in machine behaviour are supposed to make adventure mode this difficult? Is it as intended, or maybe needs balancing? I love the new tactics from the machines, but feel dying so often after just a few hits is a bit much on the easiest setting. I’m a fairly casual gamer, so I don’t often play on the harder difficulties.

Just made another trip and this time into Garphammar.

Found 8x FNIX runners there whom i dispatched effortlessly. Looted around a bit and heard harv coming.

This time, just for testing, i broke my usual tactics of using cover and instead tried to take it on by circle strafing around it and 3x FNIX hunters + 1 Apo hunter it spawned in.

Well, it didn’t go so well since being out in the open is suicide. Dropped down 10 times, used all my adv first aid kits (25) and half of standard first aid kits (10) since there’s one interesting thing about harvs now.

If you ice the hunters 1st, harv will spawn in new ones. It happened twice with me and in the end, i had to battle with 3x waves of 3x FNIX hunters, alongside harv.

Once harv blew up, no more hunters were spawned in and to deal with the rest, i jumped back into my old tactics - using cover.

Just when i was about done with the rest, new batch of machines arrived: 6x FNIX hunters, 4x FNIX seekers and latter ones also lured in 1x FNIX tank.

Dispatched the new machines as well. Though, FNIX tank is also hellbent and it fires it’s rocket salvos and autocannon almost non-stop. Though, me being inside the house and in my element, it wasn’t that much different compared to the pre-April '20 update.

Some screens as well

Out of the 8x initial FNIX runners, 2x of them spawned inside the house when i was on 2nd floor.

Engaging harv at safe spot.

During testing. Out in the open with run & gun tactics.

Once harv blew, jumped inside the house to deal with the rest of the hunters.

Aftermath.

And a nice reward for my efforts as well.

Bottom line is: if you’re outside without any cover - avoid FNIX tanks and harvs as much as possible. Only deal with them if you have some form of cover, preferably roof over your head to protect against rocket salvos.

Then again, GZ has always been a game where using cover with hit and run tactics is the main aspect of the game. If anything, game is now far more realistic, where you do not have any chance when you’re out in the open.

Note: i did all my testing on Guerilla difficulty.
How it is on Skirmish and Adventurer - that i don’t know. Though, lower difficulties lower the damage machines deal to you and machines HP is also lower, requiring less shots to blow them up.

Another test which i’m going to do is the long range one with my sniper char (used my combat char with this test) since i’d like to see how things are at greater ranges (300m - 400m).

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I absolutely agree Aesyle, the game is way more realistic now. I think in my case, I just need to learn to play more tactically and adapt my playstyle, as I guess the players on higher difficulty already did. I still think the damage dealt could do with a little tweak on lower difficulty though.

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PS: i have delt with harder enemies f nix tanks hunter even apoco hunters all in one place and i had less trouble then here

So far I have to say that i dont enjoy the game right now.
I play on skirmish and the health melts down in no time when there are a few machines.

Time will tell, whether it will change and I enjoy it again or I dont want to play GZ in this stage.

PS: where does the harvester’s bodyguard hunters come from? A flying machin that is able to carry 2 hunters flying in the orbit?

It looks like large Tick pods. Maybe they get launched from somewhere out of sight?

I like the idea of the large tick pots a lot. But I don’t like the idea that they come from “somewhere”.
I would rather see a harvester or a tank that caries that large tick pod instesd the small tick container.

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Yeah, was just there, 4 harvesters were on site when I arrived, three more were on the road from the north west and entered the battle as well. In the one house you can hide in, the 24+ hunters surrounding me, and the runners, rail guns, rocket spams ticks and you name it coming at me it was crazy.

The AOE gas is now much much greater AOE so beware. Rocket spams seem to only last so long though, they appear to run out of rockets. Rockets fire much faster now, near impossible to doge no matter the range, they also are lower trajectory allowing them to easily get through windows.

Tank MG range vastly increased. Hunter launcher/rail-gun range is too much IMO but I will adapt. Getting rail sniped no fun.

Hunters clipped into the house continuously, rail gun shots more often that not went through everything. Buildings, rocks etc…

Apocalypse runners no slouch either. Feels like bio damage has been increased, Playing on the normal mode. I do not have enough ammo, med packs or adrenaline saved up to play this game much longer.

Also spotted these rising/lowering towers in south coast region in a few places so far, no idea what they are or what they do but they are destructible. Look almost like machine turrets or fuel depots or something.

Looks like the Experimental Kvm 59 has gotten it’s damage buffed. I tried it out and there’s a definitive difference in FNIX Hunter health between Adventure and Guerilla. In the former, they go down in around 40 shots. The latter, probably twice that amount.

Edit: I just got sniped across the entire airfield by a Hunter. Which is unfair, because I was trying to snipe him from across… Hrm, nevermind.

Edit 2: Tanks now seem to do a sort of callsign thing before they fire that one needs to look out for. They sort of position themselves in a ‘ready to fire’ pose, that’s your cue to get out of the way. There’s no way to tell wether they’ll shoot machineguns or fire missiles, though.

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I agree with you Mr_A.
The current game have to be horrible for new players.
I dont even want to ask my friends to play because I’m pretty sure they will stop playing after the first 20 death and probably will never come back.

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Indeed, new players will have a very hard time dealing with Tanks and Harvesters, i hope they change the Missile salvo parameters.
In my opinion, i think they are going to “fix” this issue soon (May).
If they keep this way, the player base will drop a lot.

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After about 3h I think I got a hang of it :wink: No more running around in the open, destroying 8+ FNIX/Military Hunters one by one :face_with_head_bandage:

I really like the new behaviour. Now they act like true military machines, and not some target practise.

What I would change:
Speed of missiles - somewhere between what was and what is now.
Hunters spawning out of thin air is a bit crazy. But Hunter escort for Harvesters is a good touch.

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The missile and mortar salvos Speed are indeed too fast.
The gas attack is op.
The hunters spawning if in limited number and not infinite (as i think it is) are a great idea.
The Tank machine guns, are as they were before November update, they make them worthy opponents.

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Accuracy IMHO also needs to be toned down a bit.
The machines may also have unlimited ammo, but that just screams for a salvo cooldown and machinegun burst limit on their weapons.

Machines spawning out of thin air is indeed completely crazy.
Harvesters (and Tanks) should have a nice solid escort by default. In that case there is no need for ludicrous teleportation shenanigans.
Things like that always ruins a game for me, to be honest. (But in this game, it looks cool though, I admit! :slight_smile: )

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Another testing on Guerilla difficulty, this time with my sniper char and results are interesting.

While harvs and tanks are now hellbent on destroying you, they are still limited by their weapon range, which is less than 250m.

My findings with screens

Sniping proto harv. During the battle, harv’s rocket pod firing animation was constantly going but since i was outside of it’s weapon’s range, no missiles were spawned in.

Harv just blew up.

2nd target at same distance, this time, military tank.

Engaging tank. The waypoint i put down is just behind the tank, at 257m. So, my guess is that tank was about 250m away from me, without ever firing back at me.

The distance without scoping.

And here goes the tank as well.

What makes my findings interesting is that at the range where i engaged the harv, it didn’t spawn in any hunters. My guess is that you need to be at certain distance or closer for hunters to be spawned in.

So far, safe distance is 250m to 400m from the harv/tank. Minimum distance could be even smaller but i need to test it some further.

After another set of testing on Guerilla difficulty, the max range of harv’s rockets is 200m from it.

My findings with screens

Hunters doesn’t magically spawn in, they are actually air dropped, in a big tick pod.

Not all harvs spawn FNIX Concussion Rifle hunters. FNIX harvs do, 3x FNIX hunters per airdrop but this proto harv called in 1x proto hunter airdrop.

Harv firing it’s salvo without any missiles spawned in. The waypoint is at 202m from me and harv is just behind it. Earlier, the harv was at about 183m from me and it’s missiles were spawned in, hitting me pretty good.

The 200m distance without scoping.

And harv blows up.

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To anyone posting "I just jumped into the game and killed X number of the new tanks, harvesters, hunters, blah blah and it ‘wasn’t too bad’ " with your elevated level, experimental weapons, and stockpiles of medpacks, adrenaline, ammo, etc…who cares? Go start a new character and use only the weapons / resources available to you at level 1 and see how “badass” you are. Because that’s what new players are going to experience, even with scaling, and they’ll simply say “F this” and play something else - then the game that has so much potential will likely turn into mostly a ghost town except for the handful of said “badasses”.

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As long as you further than 200m from those hellbent harvs/tanks, you are safe. (Based on my findings above.) I’ve sniped tanks with 2* .243 s-rifle a lot in the beginning and while it takes quite a bit of time, it will get the job done.
Also, any damage you deal to machines is saved and if you come across them at later time/date, they still are damaged to the point of your 1st encounter.

At the very least, if they’re going to keep it like this, the devs REALLY need to allow the ability to craft / find protective equipment - gas masks that actually work, armor, true camouflage, etc. Not the current 1% bullet resistance, 1% gas resistance, etc.

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