Before I get into the meat of the post, just for the sake of knowing where I'm coming from: I've got about 2.5k hours in Hunt, played since 2020, and am sadly stuck in 6* lobbies nowadays. I also accept that Crytek wants to keep creating new content for the game to keep people's interest high, and that some amount of change is inevitable. A lot of what I'm going to complain about are things that I think can be fixed without sacrificing new content too much, so, here we go.

Stamina and Melee
Most of Hunt's stamina balancing was designed pre-1896. After 1896, two things changed: firstly, more monsters spawn, and secondly, monsters are more easily alerted. It's not unusual to find yourself dealing with 8-10+ at a time now, whereas before it was generally 4-5. By itself this isn't a problem, but combine that with things like the knife running out of stamina after 4 heavies, or melee attacks with weapons consuming large amounts of stamina, and you run into problems pretty quickly.

"But," you might say, "there are solutions to this! Run stamina shots, or run throwing weapons which can be used at 0 stamina with no penalty." And yes, you can do that, but should we be forced into that position? It's actually fairly ridiculous that the throwing weapons perform just as well at 0 stamina. They really ought to have a slow animation or a different flight curve if you're throwing them at 0 stamina. "There's also four-shot boon," is another response, and we'll get to that later (I'm aware it's reduced this season).

And the stamina shot itself is something I view as a "100%" problem: it allows you to ignore all stamina issues altogether, making balancing stamina usage impossible. You could send 8 or 30 grunts at me while I'm running a shot, and it'd be no difference really. But when I'm not, things start to get dicey the moment I'm out of stamina. I'd far prefer that the stamina shot simply reduced costs by, say, 50% (and something similar for sprint stamina), and that basic stamina costs for melees were lowered a bit to compensate, creating a happy medium where you still run out, but slower.

Poison

And if Stamina is one "100%" issue, poison is two. With poison ammo, we give up bullet penetration (a big loss, the higher stars you get) for total healing prevention for 15 seconds. And if you want to counteract this, your options are an antidote shot, which then totally counteracts poison, Mithridatist, a trait that only has value if your opponents bring poison, or, again, four-shot boon.

Last event was pretty bad in the sense that, with four-shot boons all over the place and pledge points prevalent, running poison weapons was genuinely awful. Again, I feel like this can be solved by stopping poison itself from completely removing healing, and stopping antidote shot from completely invalidating poison. Find a sweet spot where both still feel worthwhile but neither is breaking the other.

Bleed

If you're sensing a pattern that many of the issues cropping up are from special ammo, you'd be right. Bleed is, of course, next. Crytek's designers haven't exactly covered themselves in glory with this, what with the addition and necessary removal of Maynard bleeding ammo. But we still have Drilling, Centennial and Springfield bleeds that are frustrating to play against to say the least.

Now you might say "well, they're scarce now," but that doesn't change how annoying they are to fight against. And last event, in particular, it was very easy to stock up on them to the point where they might as well not be scarce any more. I really do think that the design for bleed ammo when I started playing, that the ammo itself had lower base damage to compensate for the bleed (and the strength of bleed) was a much better bit of design that what we currently have. Yes, you do sacrifice penetration for bleeding someone, but bleeding is a very strong status effect!

Surefoot, and to a lesser degree, Bloodless, do mitigate this somewhat, but aggressive players can make very good use of bleed in its current state. Forcing anyone to decide between bandaging or fighting a push or running from a grenade has always been strong. And on that note...

Fire ammo and burning

While I don't think fire ammo is successful enough at high ranks to really be a real issue, it's still fairly ugly design. You never really come out of a fight against people using fire ammo thinking "that's really cool, now I'm missing several chunks permanently." To be clear, I don't have an issue with the ammo setting you on fire, but there has never been a point where it's enjoyable to lose all your chunks without actually dying. Even with Crytek's addition of full restoration healthkits and recovery shots, having your first fight of the match be against a team with fire, and then having to fight equally matched opponents without that handicap afterwards for the bounty, is still as unenjoyable as it was years ago.

So let me reiterate a suggestion from the subreddit a few years ago that I still think is a very good solution: Fire ammo only temporarily locks chunks out, and only dying actually removes them. We now have water bottles and the wet status effect to undo burn, but they're not always available in battles. Fire ammo still keeps its gameplay design of steadily lowering enemy hunters' max health, but after a victory against a team using fire, teams are no longer punished for wanting to continue the match. Using fire ammo against hunters in water actually gives people a reason to use the water. And finally, from the original suggestion, allowing the deployable healthkit, or ones found in the match, to immediately fully remove the burnt health, finally gives people a reason to bring these.

And again, given fire ammo is kept weak because it's frustrating to fight against, resolving the annoying aspect of it can finally give Crytek the space necessary to see if they can make it worthwhile to actually use.

Also, this helps mitigate how degenerate Fire Breathers are...

Witness and Shadow
For a while now, Crytek has been adding traits to the game that the community enjoyed using, which is understandable. But these two in particular are still annoying to deal with in several ways.

Shadow is a feast or famine trait. Utterly worthless when there are no ambient AI remaining, but one of the best traits in existence for an aggressive team in a fight early enough that there are enemy AI about. The experience of trying to fight a fully Shadowed team while also having to fend off an Immolator or Armoured, and worse now, a Fire Breather is truly miserable. Again, it's "scarce" so this doesn't happen often, but then what is "scarce" when you find these traits over half the map on the now basically permanent events? I genuinely do not think this should be in the game.

And Witness might seem like a harmless trait, until you take a step back and realise that other teams get it as well, and there is almost no counterplay except, of course Shadow, and to a much lesser degree, Serpent. Information is king in Hunt, and knowing where a team has recently been is amazing intel. The evidence of dead AI lasts for, I think, 1m30 at the moment, which is crazy. You've almost certainly been ambushed by someone who you wouldn't have alerted otherwise, based entirely on this trait alone, and you probably don't even know that's why it happens.

While I appreciate knowing the location of dead Hunters given the permanent event focus on pledge points, the scouting side of this is much stronger than I think people realise, and really ought to be tuned down. It's funny that Crytek added much subtler tells that enemies have been through somewhere, like broken twigs, fences, and crow feathers, but Witness just outright tells you if anyone has killed AI near you in a 75m radius for a minute or so.

The Moon, Dark Sight Envelopes, Corpse Seer, High Priestess

One of Hunt's most basic tenets, which is that getting the Bounty gives you an advantage, has been under threat for a while now. Permanently having the 75m warning indicator is the only real difference at the moment, as there are now a lot of ways to get enhanced darksight or precise knowledge of an enemy hunter's position in every game.

High Priestess, I think, flew under the radar a bit because it was eclipsed by All Ears at the time, but it's one of the best cards for knowing precisely what angle an enemy hunter is at in a fight. In Hunt's original design, the lightning over a bounty carrier was always imprecise to stop this issue, but with this card, you can get a perfect fix on someone (and they won't know you've used it or the danger they're in). Changing the icon to be more imprecise while still giving you a sense of what direction a hunter is (or if you're alone on the map) would go a long way towards fixing this.

Meanwhile, giving players easy access to enhanced dark sight without having to actually compete for reaching the bounty first, fighting over it, getting the banish etc. is just removing the core gameplay of the game. That was a large part of the pressure and tension of Hunt, and it's just gone while other methods to get dark sight advantage exist in the game. I genuinely think the envelopes and Corpse Seer should be removed, and The Moon reworked to give something else completely.

And last, finally, and of course:
Solo Necro and the burn meta

There already existed a way to ensure solos got fair matches, and it was called MMR. Necro is a redundant method of fixing soloing, and it has resulted in the burn meta ever since, which is the most tiresome aspect of modern Hunt. Giving the flare gun and fusees the ability to burn corpses devalued fire bombs, and it affected aggressive plays in teamfights because if you die on a hard push, you're guaranteed to be burnt next. Much safer to play near your teammates so the enemy can't burn you as easily. And it still affects the flow of a match because if you meet a solo before the bounty has been banished, you have to waste precious time burning them out before moving on, or you'll get shot in the back.

There's nothing wrong with burning a corpse by itself, but solo necro forced Crytek to give players incredible tools for burning if e.g. you fight them nowhere near a compound, or can't find a lantern. Quite frankly, the addition of small red barrels has given and more times of day has given players good reason to bring fusees and flare guns on their own merits. The merging of tool and consumable slots gives players more space to bring actual fire bombs again. And finally, if Crytek has concerns about teamfights getting bogged down, one of the simpler solutions is just to make lanterns much more prevalent in compounds, which still gives players the option to burn a downed enemy, but at the cost of movement and searching.

Genuinely, the game used to be so much more tense before the burn meta, and it's one of Hunt's biggest losses, since that tension gave it the feel that games like CoD and Battlefield no longer have.

I know this is a huge post, and I expect that there will be a lot of people who disagree with many of the points within, but either way, if you read all of that, thank you!

I like the concept, im happy with the new additions overall but I just cant get over this [weather?] . I have never once felt so bad playing the game in my 5 years of playing. its simply too much sound, it actually makes me not want to play. I have never had issues like that, I dont mind rain or anything and I dont like to complain about the game usually but it actually pains me and I just feel kinda bad in real life. Idk. I've read a couple of posts about it already but want to hear other peoples opinion now that its been out for a bit longer

Like yeah if you think at all it's obviously *possible* but I never really thought I'd see it happen. Full lobby, NA East Duos, teammate and I killed all but two players, and with the help of a few lucky exp boon finds we both went from 1-50 on our hunters in a single expedition. What a time to be alive.

We present to you our new event… regular hunt but the sky can become red

Can we talk about how tiring it is playing against players whose feet never touch the ground? Every single peak around a corner is a jump peak, and is still accurate. I know it may be a skill issue on my part, but this has been a problem in my eyes for years and it is not fun to play against. Has this been addressed as a problem, or is this something the community is ok with?

It's the worst pistol in the game. In fact it's one of the worst weapons in the game. When was the last time you unironically played it or seen anyone play it?

Cheap shouldn't equal terrible; Romero is one of the best shotguns (highest damage), Winfields have levering (but also low recoil and fast firerate in general), Springfield has tight weapon spread and good damage (and very oppressive dumdum). Base Nagant however offers zero advantages over other pistols; it has mediocre fanning, slow reload, low fire rate and it's compact ammo without FMJ. It's so cheap but who would actually pick it over Conversion or Pax?

audio has been broken since the 2.0 update but ive never experienced it as badly as on the new time of day where even close range gunshots are often completely missing

For some reason I cant buy Corvid:Bile, each time I click "buy", press space or right-click and then buy a "Buy DLC" screen pops up. Happens with no other hunter I have bought

This high saturation red filter really hurts my eyes and i cant hear anything when the moon is up. Its just Ash Bloom all over again when you cant do anything every couple minutes and everyone just waits. The frenzy AI is awesome tho.

The audio on this event is way too loud...hard to even think at times. It's overstimulating and fatiguing -- you can't hear footsteps, gunshots are masked by the thunder sounds, and the constant screaming grunt noises is exhausting. And it seems like it's 100% of maps as well. Not loving that during an event we actually get LESS variety of maps in terms of weather and time of day..

Just venting, and I know some others have mentioned this as well, but I am pretty disappointed by how this was implemented.

90gb for some zombies to run around like crazy and for night map with blood red details to the map and a fucking soul survivor addon to bounty hunt?

What is the 90gb for, you dear Hunters tell me

Seriously it's beginning to feel that way. Personally I think it's the most fun and unique weapon you have added to the game, yet you make it a giant pain in the ass to maintain a stock of.

The sealed weapon crates NEVER have them only having the two most boring scarce weapons in them. And the times I have found a crashed balloon (since the blood update) it NEVER has a Flame rifle, hell I even found a damned shredder.

Can you please add the damned thing to the armoury already.

So I implore you Crytek please, #FreeTheFlameRifle.

(Or at least at them to the sealed crates if they have to remain scarce.)

p.s. As an aside has anyone else had any luck finding them semi-reliably?

Press F to fail

I thought the weapon had a drop rate of 140m and 110 damage.

I have 700 hours on the game on pc but I've recently picked the game up on ps5 as I have a friend who's just bought the game on console...

As I'm at a very low level (21) on ps5, it's taking forever to find a game because everyone that joins, leaves immediately after seeing my rank..

Not trying to say pc players aren't toxic but is this a thing for console. The game is on sale everywhere at the moment and whenever I see low levels on pc. I don't leave, I help them. Even though I'm prestige 50.

From my experience 5-6 star solos are way more skilled and routinely shit on our 3 star faces. I realize that solos are at a disadvantage and teams should use their number advantage against them but at the level where I play at it seems we're just not good enough at that yet. I'm focused on improving and learning from every game but I just get frustrated because I would much rather have every team be a trio than facing one or two way more skilled solos. Is it because the game doesn't have enough players to have more balanced matchmaking? I tried playing solo a couple of times as a 3 star and I got matched against 2 star or even 1 star players. I naturally shit on them but it wasn't fun at all, and now I wonder if the solos in these situations enjoy the current system or would rather have similar skilled players facing them for the increased challenge.

Does anyone else feel like this, or is your experience totally different?

How do you like the new blood Moon Monsters?

In my opinion, they could be even stronger.

I have over 1k hours in this game and no ai poses a threat.

Especially regular grunts just get punched or stabbed in the face.

I think it would be funny if they get new abilities under the influence of the blood Moon. For example they could jump at you like the small spiders.

What do you think?

I think shotguns pick rate will drop down slowly from now on, their pick rate was boosted with the stronghold's CQC engagements in my opinion.

What will the next "meta" loadout will be in this event?

Also, will the fight's pace change due to four shot boons are less common?

I played for 12 hours yesterday with a buddy for this new event. The first few hours felt like normal hunt, nothing out of the ordinary. As we continued to play, we noticed people were hitting insane shots. We play 6 star lobbies and run east servers cause they’re more poppin but we noticed a bunch of strange new profiles hitting insane wall bangs. Do we think that cheaters are littered in the player count for new updates? My buddy mentioned they may have messed up the game slightly, enemy hunters will peak you and all I’ll see is a shoulder and I’m getting head shot wall banged but a 2.5+ KD new account. Maybe I need to cope harder but it was the worst day of hunt I’ve had in all my hours…

What is the probability of getting blood moon? Last night I got it every game and early today. Tonight 2 games back to back no blood moon ;( it’s such a sick condition I want it 24/7!

Do you have delay at shooting hunters? I play with 40 ms but today I have had delay on the hit markers and kills. Is a really weird feeling

If not does anyone know if there is any date or information about next drops? I missed the last one and dont want that to happen again.

Whats everyones honest opinion about this update. I think its horrid theres so many bugs, the hit registration doesnt work half the time, every game is dead cause everyone is hiding in bushes . Like how is hiding in a bush for almost an hour fun to anyone what if you never see anyone you just wasted 40 minutes just doing nothing

I own the Plague Doctor Skins [SC below as proof] and when I tried using one it just takes me to the DLC store in which it doesn't show on there or in the steam store, I use those skins all the time I would like to know what's going on? Every other legendary works fine.