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Thread: The Flow of the Round

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    Senior Member Madventurer's Avatar
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    The Flow of the Round

    In the recent weeks, xeno maturation time has been drastically lower than before, which has resulted in a fundamental change in the way rounds play out. Now, xenos have the ability to contest the colony side of the map reliably, and often decide the outcome of the round before marines have even built a basic FOB.

    Due to T3s being available in mature forms much earlier, xenos have the freedom to engage marines as soon as they land, without risking as much, both because they are stronger in general, and because any losses can be replaced much faster.

    Personally, I find this detrimental to gameplay, because in my opinion, marines should start with the ability or at least strong possibility of holding a large portion of the map. For example, DEFCON requires map control, which xenos currently have the strength to deny quite effectively.

    Examples for why this is bad:
    LV, whenever the bridge has no fog, the battles are at Hydro or further away for a long while more often than not. No more xenos holding the bridge, they don't need to, and it's simply a good killing ground for marines if they manage to push past Hydro.
    Big Red, squad wiped in engineering as soon as they land are more common than I feel comfortable with. I've been both wiped and wiping on several occasions, and it was disturbing easy.
    Prison, xenos usually engage at the worst chokepoints of the map (library, maxsec-infirmary), which is not pushable at all without good CAS or solid OB.
    Ice, tcomms is often under attack very early. Other than that, xenos like to hold back underground, so Ice is least affected from what I've seen.

    My proposed solution:
    Return the upgrade timers to previous values, but make them decrease as the round goes on / Queen upgrades. This would slow down the early round a bit, but allow xenos to become the lategame powerhouse.
    Tyson 'Bunny' Sphere


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    Legit the entire reason we changed the maturation time was to combat meta rushing. If marines are having trouble dealing with the early big dick skirmishes, just give them a bit more love. M41 and M39 kinda got left in the dirt still after the damage nerf. L42 is a bit underwhelming, though at least it's still situationally powerful. Also, if we're talking about "The flow of the round", I can also mention how marine's autismo fort is incredibly boring to siege, and only fun for like the boilers and the crushers. This goes double with early evac, Almayer design, and the return of SD.

    We don't have to go around and nerf everyone. Xeno isn't even that "OP broken please god please nerf". They're just not completely rolling over and dying to early pushes now. If marine's weaponry feels a bit too weak, then buff them. The latest damage nerf was supposed to be a test anyway.

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    Whitelisted Predator MattAtlas's Avatar
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    Xenos should not steamroll late game and they should not bend over for the marines earlygame. Right now they don't do either because their strength caps out at Elder.

    The M41 and M39 will get some love pretty soon - just wait for next week.
    Resident ex-punished Junior Developer and Coder, and ex three-time member of the Yautja Council, two-time member of the Synth Council.

    See with your eyes, my army of flies, when no one's alive...

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    Senior Member Steelpoint's Avatar
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    While I'm not developer, I feel that Marines are constantly losing power as the round advances, if a round drags on long enough, then on the balance of everything it will turn into a Xeno victory. Marines suffer from ammo issues, attrition, poor movement and situational awareness, in addition to (generally) vulnerable communications and a great restriction on communications (you can't easily communicate with other squads unless you are a SL, and then you are reliant on competent SL's or CIC staff to relay information, this gives multiple points of failure when Xenos in comparison have universal communications at all times).

    The most consistent Marine victories I have seen in the past week have come from when the Marines are able to push aggressively against the Xenos very early, at least within the first ten minutes of landing. If a round is allowed to last long enough the attrition will bear fruit and halt the marine offensive.

    At the very least the DEFCON system appears geared to try and give the Marines some sustaining power if the round lasts longer, and I appreciate it for that.

    The great challenge for the Devs, I believe, is making the Xenos strong enough to hold their own in the early game, without making them too powerful in the end game.
    This is war, survival is your responsibility
    Captain Alan Bentway
    Synthetic: Nicholas
    Hunter Kwei Ikthya-de

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    Its iffy to measure the flow of the round nowadays. While I can agree on the comms difference, the coordination skills more heavily affect the marine side than it does xenos. Making use of the colonies power and locale is quite vital to Marine strength. Added, Marine movement is a big indicator on how the round will flow.

    Personally I feel like xenos, in large, get into character mindset far quicker than the marines. A distress signal + an unlively colony should always set the mood. Thus, I wish caution/aggression sense was greater for USCM players.

    Otherwise, Marines do lack a treasure of quick deploy-and-sustain/mobile combat methods. The Deployable Barricades looks to be the start to this need being answered, as marines needs to be able to set perimeters and Zones of Contact. Maybe with research we can get Deployable Generators and other logistical equips.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SunaLova View Post
    Maybe with research we can get Deployable Generators and other logistical equips.
    We have movable generators with limited fuel. There is at least one PACMAN generator in engineering storage room and 50 phoron for it. Marines just rarely use them.

    And marines can use pre-filled sandbags to set up perimetrs.

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    Senior Member Madventurer's Avatar
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    One idea I've been juggling in my mind is to allow drones and their evolves more time to work, setting up defenses in the caves and such, and only let the combat-capable castes into the spotlight later.

    I've yet to figure out how that would work in practice.
    Tyson 'Bunny' Sphere


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    Quote Originally Posted by Madventurer View Post
    One idea I've been juggling in my mind is to allow drones and their evolves more time to work, setting up defenses in the caves and such, and only let the combat-capable castes into the spotlight later.

    I've yet to figure out how that would work in practice.
    Currently they have enough time to hard-resin entire Hydro and road from Nexus with only one Hivelord. Do they need more time?

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    Senior Member Madventurer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CABAL View Post
    Currently they have enough time to hard-resin entire Hydro and road from Nexus with only one Hivelord. Do they need more time?
    What I was thinking is a more defense-focused starting hive that must rely on the defenses until the proper combat castes are capable of taking the front.
    Tyson 'Bunny' Sphere


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    as a Survivor main I want to chip with my view of the changes which an't much, the current lower xeno maturation rates and evo rates makes survivors survival chances a lot lower than they where in the past, with weapons and ammo being in generally only two spots on each map( Big red: Sec/Admin LV:Nexus/Secure Storage Prison:Sec/Research Iceorms/underground armory/disposal's), and decent locations being few(I don't count lock hiding, locking hiding be dammed) means that survivors have little time to prepare(roughly 5 mins) and have to survive the assault for almost 20+ mins.

    So I'v been hoping to see some nice survivor changes that give us more options of places to go for weapons/hold out locations, especially on LV where the literally only place where you have a solid chance of survival is secure storage.

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