For the purpose of Balance, I would like to introduce this post.
This post is meant to provide un-biased FACTS to the community. (No, I don't give a shit how broken warrior grab is right now, deal with it)
This post is not meant for the purpose of me providing an opinion.
The purpose of this post is merely to inform people of the current gameplay, what it consists of, and comments about what can be done about it.
For this article you need to know some terms:
Insta-Kill: A term used to say that you use one shot/item/ability/slash that INSTANTLY kills from 100% HP of human/xeno.
Kill Confirm: A term different from Insta-Kill, but has generally the same proprietary concept of an insta-kill. E.G: Point-Black Buckshot to a Young Runner CAN be an insta-kill, but is DEFINITELY a Kill Confirm.
Crowd Control: A term used to describe either side's ability to control condensed or concentrated groups of hostiles.
First, let's start off with the basic Weapon Triangle/Square:
Melee Xeno castes <------------------ Shotgunners/Buckshotters
| A
| |
| |
V |
Ranged Marines --------------------> Ranged Xenos
Pretty basic, though I didn't include spec weapons because those are, well, 'special'.
Now let's see what each side has in terms of kill confirms:
Hive:
If you are alone and Ancient Sentinel/Spitter (323) decides they want to stun-lock-slash you away into oblivion, you're fucked if they land a stun.
If the Queen screeches and then Mature-Ancient Boiler (323) Lands a wide-gas attack or gas attack in general directly on you, you're fucked.
If you are in crit and left alone, you're dead unlike xenos who can just take off-weed regen or crit on weeds with no-one else left in the hive and come back to full HP.
If you are alone or not supported and a Warrior Lunge-Grabs you.
If you are hugged and they decide to kill you.
If Crusher RNG hits you in chest/groin/head you will be in perma crit. Pretty much death without help of other marines.
If there are any other kill-confirms let me know.
Marines:
If xenos don't GTFO of the way of CAS, It's virtually a kill confirm.
Point-Blank buckshot to ANY maturity runner, and up to and including Elder T2. This will either insta-kill or insta-crit. The only thing this does NOT apply to is any maturity T3's and Queen.
A well-placed HEFA grenade underneath a young-mature T1 is almost a kill confirm or even an insta-kill.
A xeno touching a shocked door or grille is a kill confirm, but only if someone is watching it. The xenos are stunned for a VERY long time.
A mine going off in a xenos face/stunning it that someone is watching is basically a kill confirm.
If there are any other kill-confirms let me know.
Alright, now let's consider each side in terms of support and combat:
Xenos:
Very fast, agile, armored, deadly, and can regenerate from almost dead to full in about a minute.
However, because of the sheer deadly ability, # of kill confirms, and crazy stats, they have a MUCH lower population count. They CAN however replenish/enlargen this with effort.
Marines:
Very slow, can be armored, have lots of tools, take almost 20-30 minutes to get healed after a bad encounter with a xeno.
However, because of all of this, the marines MUCH greater strength in numbers, and start off with LOADS of them. However, they CANNOT replenish this count QUICKLY as the xenos can.
Alright, now let's get to the main core of the gameplay. This is how the battle-lines are typically drawn:
Lurkers & Runners
|
|
V
Marine Safety ------------------------------- Front-line ----------- Crowd-Control (both sides) ------------------ Hive
As you can see, the objective of the Hive is to whittle down the marines little by little like acid until their structure collapses in on itself.
Game Types:
There's a couple ways the game can go:
1. A marine rush 'n' crush. Marines use sheer numbers and FORCE to over-power the xenos
2. A xeno ROFL-stomp. Xenos just step all over marines using T3's and crowd-control.
3. A long and grueling xeno victory. Usually what happens.
4. A god-forsaken ENDLESS stale-mate. VERY RARE, usually because both sides are either incredibly competent, or incredibly INcompetent.
Overall Analysis:
While the xenos are incredibly deadly organisms of destruction with many kill confirms and abilities, they are much less in number than the marines.
Marines, in order to win, 'usually' have to do a rush 'n' crush. There are other ways, but not many. The xenos then don't have the war of attrition on their side OR the fact of time = combat power.
The fact (or opinion for some) also remains that xenos have a higher skill ceiling to attend to when in combat than marines. Although Marines have quite a high skill ceiling as well, it's not as high as the xenos.
I will also edit this as time goes on. I do not expect this to be the 100% accurate norm throughout all of time itself.
Last Edited:
4/15/19
4/17/19
4/20/19
Originally Posted by Swagile
