The less I know the better.
The less I know the better.
Usually playing as Darwin 'D.J.' Jefferson, PFC (Private: Flare Carrier), or Smartgunner almost always out of ammo. Occasionally an RO who yearns for death, dealing with rampant jackassery of his coworkers.
Against my better judgement I decided to start making Youtube videos involving Colonial Marines. Channel
Yautja Council member as of March 17th - Now
Agreed. Evacing with a ton of marines is a highly viable and sensible option (unless it's Carson), especially when FOB's situation is uncertain.
To sideline a bit, make sentries weaker but make them easier to get in large numbers for FOB defense?
One thing people really don't realize is the information asymmetry: Xenos have a LOT more information, even when the Queen isn't talking. They can relay any marine pushes very easily, and even get a warning when one of theirs dies. You cannot truly surprise xenos after the first kill of a flank.
Meanwhile marines have their best tool, command announcements, manned by people who have inherently delayed and incomplete intel access. Organizing entire marine force is hard, especially flanks where more complicated strategies than ungaball are required. Queen can call full retreat and supervise all xenos with ease, command has to check all of the marines one by one, even if they listen for the evac call.
Tyson 'Bunny' Sphere
This is perhaps the shittiest version of an argument I've heard and I've heard quite a few shitty ones.
The best REAL argument if the proponents of fully removing no-meta rules and the like are truthful is that they just want a better way to min-max in a game that really isn't about min-maxing everything.
We are here to have fun. Not be competitive to such a degree where we gotta know if thats. a .5 for 1.0 addition to the dmg and whatnot.
So, even back during my days of being a pure min-maxer in CM, I never went into trying to figure that shit out.
All I need to know from the dev and game design is: Is this thing powerful? Maybe? It helps me kill stuff? Sort of? Good enough.
By and by? The rules are there because if they weren't people would abuse it. I can 100% tell you, see what happens if you meta rush 4 squads to Lambda or Research.
*PING* goes the CO/XO's chat.
I agree with you, but the devs prefer to keep things opaque. I can tell you from experience that there are only a couple marine weapons actually worth using and the M4A3 is not one of them. Ultimately the cause for this is the tankiness of xenos - you have no chance of killing one with a simple projectile weapon unless the xeno player sucks very very VERY badly. This means outright the M39, M41, HPR, M56D, etc. are almost useless as primary contributors to kills.
What gets kills on xenos ends up being high-alpha strike damage (CAS, OB, Shotguns, minigun, rocket), damage over time (flames), stuns, and relentless pressure to prevent healing. Because these work around the massive healthpool that xeno players have to cushion their mistakes.
I'm not arguing that this is entirely bad (I would personally try to do it differently), it just an alternative way to run the combat mechanics and means that marine kills require a lot of teamwork, coordination, morale/tempo, and 'combos'. For 99% of the playerbase if you are by yourself, you don't have a kerosene cat's chance in hell with gasoline drawers on. For new players, it's frustrating to play marines because you can only learn how useless 90% of your options are by continuosly losing with every new thing you try. From the xeno perspective, if you can swap intent and tackleslash, middle click your abilities, and aren't a total moron that suicide charges without healing, you will get scores of marine kills.
If we could see the actual math being used, I think it might kick up a bit of a fuss as people figure out that a number of guns don't even have the magazine size needed to kill some of the T1's/T2's (nevermind T3's) on their own, even assuming you hit every shot, without even yet taking into account the 15-20% hit rate that your typical player will actually have in practice, the damage output of xenos killing you before you can even get that damage out, nor the heal rate of xenos and how 30 seconds is enough to charge back into a fight as if nothing had happened - or even heal 5-10% of the damage dealt DURING the fight.
Presently the game feels pretty well balanced, but I can unequivocally say that there is much less effort required to be a good xeno player than a good marine player, and there's no real indication to new marine players just how slanted the game mechanics are against them on an individual level; something that being able to actually see the numbers would otherwise help change.
Last edited by Boersgard; 07-18-2019 at 06:40 PM.
A bad marine is just a free kill to xenos at best and a hindrance to marines at worst.
A decent marine can support other marines, but can't really win rounds, especially on their own.
A good marine can do real damage to xenos if they're not careful.
An excellent marine can do several times more, but can't usually single-handedly decide the round.
A bad xeno is easy but rarely free kill, and can still waste medicine and ammo.
A decent xeno can get a few kills each round or facilitate them via defenses etc.
A good xeno can and will kill several marines each round or create defenses or other support that allows other xenos to get easy kills.
An excellent xeno can and will be responsible for a large part of a xeno major.
Tyson 'Bunny' Sphere