May 17 Test Server Feedback
+ While I agree with the FUNC changes for the most part, I feel like winning was much more dependent on good RNG on the test server. About 5 or 6 times I got a very poor spawn. Either I spawned behind the mountain or there simply was nobody near me. Not having enough loot and/or not being able to find people to kill greatly hampers one's ability to generate precious FUNC more than ever before. It makes for a less fun experience to be gimped so hard through no fault of one's own. I'd suggest some tweaking to the FUNC changes.
+ The airdrops costs don't feel very balanced. Dwarf costs as much as Sniper (300 FUNC) which is the most costly airdrop in the game now, for example.
+ I think reverting weapon speed back to launch values is a terrible idea. 80% of the opponents I encountered in the test server simply spammed LMB. With all weapons attacking at the same speed, the weapon damage values are horribly imbalanced. After all, why use a katana(7-21) when you can deal way more DPS with a sledgehammer(11-33)? Increasing weapon speed makes combat less strategic and less about outplaying one's opponent. More often than not, it turns into a big guessing game of spamming actions, which lowers the skill ceiling and makes for a much duller game.
+ Changing charged attack damage to scale linearly with charge percentage seems like a no brainer. This is honestly one of my favorite parts of this patch. Slow weapons feel more powerful. I think if they simply put this fix on live with the live weapon speeds, the combat would be sped up like a lot of people want and the combat would really feel great.
+ During the first test when they implemented the stagger when shoving a non-blocking opponent, I was all for it, but I've since changed my mind. It feels awkward and clunky. Pushing should definitely be punished, but not like this. I think the best solution would be to first equalize the animation times of shove and block as well as making block a more reactive play rather than something that can be held down indefinitely. Then, attacking someone during the length of the shove should stun them. As it is currently on live, shove has a very small window at the very beginning of the animation (something like 1/10th the animation) in which getting hit results in a stun. Simply make it so that vulnerability lasts for the entirety of the shove to reward players' quick reaction and punish players' improper use of shove.
+ I'm okay with the stun gun being found in green crates, though it should definitely have its FUNC cost increased to at least 20 (same as pepper spray). I'd also like to see a reduction in the stun time down to 1.75 or 1.5 seconds (from 2 seconds). Getting two free fully charged backstabs from the stun gun is immensely powerful, especially if we're going to start seeing it a lot more in the early game through green crates.
+ The bridge airdrop pads are a really great addition. Now we'll see the trap bridges see more use rather than everyone avoiding them out of fear.
+ Golden Arm change is awesome and does a lot to help balance the perk.
+ Blowgun change is awesome too and it really helps to balance out the weapon to reasonable levels to help prevent rampant abuse.
+ I love the rest of the changes too. I didn't get a chance to test the chainsaw, but I love that they've buffed it so it's not worse than crafted weapons.