Marine Directives

[SilentMountain]

Do not let people fool ya, gameplay balance (whatever the dev team wants that to mean at current time) has and will always take priority over roleplay and IC stuff making logical sense.

Mods tell benos to suicide because benos CAN comeback if given enough time and grind, which is a pretty awful thing when most players are dead and bored on dchat, nobody wants to sit trough another 40 minutes of stray marines getting killed or hugged. Only so the hive can muster those ancient tier 3s to slash everything in their path. Simply not worth boring people with that over a small number of player (remaining benos) having fun.

Mods do not usually tell marines to suicide because Marines are either fucked or they win and there's no way for them to comeback. The remaining PFCs going gorilla warfare or full spectrum fort is not gonna result in a 30min grindfest, it's gonna result in a lot of friendly fire and some young runner killing a marine because of acid blood. Xenos are faster, stronger and made to compensate for low numbers, the marines are little lemmings that will inevitably get curbstomped in a matter of minutes if they do not have advantage in numbers.

[CABAL]

I came back into the game me as Queen and 7 other aliens, it is possible

Is there any indication in my post it's impossible? It's boring for sure, but it's not impossible.

[Spetr]

Oh I thought you said you weren't able, My Bad

[Chocolate_bickie]

What if Queen is alive, alongside one beno against 12 marines? Isn't that delaylien thing to not suicide charge and spare everyone that 40 minutes of uneventfull round?

A Queen can kill marines if they divide and conquer, so no that's not delaying.

[CABAL]

A Queen can kill marines if they divide and conquer, so no that's not delaying.

Let me say that straight:

Yes, Queen can kill marines, but imagine this scenario: Queen killed all marines planetside by Single Screeching and 1 hit Neuroing each one of them, there is only one other beno besides her, it's a drone and no one is infected. Now it's Queen against Command, REQ, Medbay, Engineering and MP's. They can't come down, so the Queen have to go up, she won't be able to kill them all, they will cade themselfs, she will have to wait to spawn more benos in ovi, infect monkeys and wait for burst, or simply hijack and then hide on the ship for 20 minutes as she won't do jack shit.

Now count the time: Time needed for Queen to find all about 10 marines scattered around the map, time needed to Hijack the shuttle, time needed for transit and 20 minutes of Hiding on the Almayer after crush. This can reach up to 40 minutes. Now imagine this: Admemes order Queen to basically suicide rush, no healing between battles, no escaping to wait for neuro and screech cooldown. Nice battle, shorter rounds and boost in marine winrates that exchanges in more "balanced" winrate of being closer to 50 - 50 and that means beno buffs. Better for everyone for that moment and better for benos in the long run.

What we (players) gain from Queen delaying? Boring 40 minutes.

You say marines delay by sitting behind cades, but they do have a chance to win, right? So by Your logic, this isn't delaying, they can still win if benos "divide and conquer".

[Chocolate_bickie]

Let me say that straight:

Yes, Queen can kill marines, but imagine this scenario: Queen killed all marines planetside by Single Screeching and 1 hit Neuroing each one of them, there is only one other beno besides her, it's a drone and no one is infected. Now it's Queen against Command, REQ, Medbay, Engineering and MP's. They can't come down, so the Queen have to go up, she won't be able to kill them all, they will cade themselfs, she will have to wait to spawn more benos in ovi, infect monkeys and wait for burst, or simply hijack and then hide on the ship for 20 minutes as she won't do jack shit.

Now count the time: Time needed for Queen to find all about 10 marines scattered around the map, time needed to Hijack the shuttle, time needed for transit and 20 minutes of Hiding on the Almayer after crush. This can reach up to 40 minutes. Now imagine this: Admemes order Queen to basically suicide rush, no healing between battles, no escaping to wait for neuro and screech cooldown. Nice battle, shorter rounds and boost in marine winrates that exchanges in more "balanced" winrate of being closer to 50 - 50 and that means beno buffs. Better for everyone for that moment and better for benos in the long run.

What we (players) gain from Queen delaying? Boring 40 minutes.

You say marines delay by sitting behind cades, but they do have a chance to win, right? So by Your logic, this isn't delaying, they can still win if benos "divide and conquer".

Imagine 100 marines kill xenos down to 20. Then they retreat to FoB. Xenos have no captures. Xenos don't attack, but admins don't like this stalemate so they send a messgae via Queen Mother to assualt the FoB. Marines evac, Xenos are forced to go up.

No delay and yet...does that seem fair?

Or how about this, 30 xenos assault the Almayer but 10 marines have access to some metal and wall up an un-activated SD. They have no way to win. Their only hope is to delay long enough for the game timer to run out. This will take 20 minutes. Xenos will win before then...shouldn't admins just abomb them? After all they are unlikely to win so why not just end the round now?

For some reason forcing xenos to die is acceptable but forcing marines to isn't.

It dosen't matter that marines can delay because they are never stopped from doing it.

[Spetr]

Imagine 100 marines kill xenos down to 20. Then they retreat to FoB. Xenos have no captures. Xenos don't attack, but admins don't like this stalemate so they send a messgae via Queen Mother to assualt the FoB. Marines evac, Xenos are forced to go up.

No delay and yet...does that seem fair?

Or how about this, 30 xenos assault the Almayer but 10 marines have access to some metal and wall up an un-activated SD. They have no way to win. Their only hope is to delay long enough for the game timer to run out. This will take 20 minutes. Xenos will win before then...shouldn't admins just abomb them? After all they are unlikely to win so why not just end the round now?

For some reason forcing xenos to die is acceptable but forcing marines to isn't.

It dosen't matter that marines can delay because they are never stopped from doing it.

He has a point, It's not fair for just the xenos to be pushed into suicide-rushes

[CABAL]

Imagine 100 marines kill xenos down to 20. Then they retreat to FoB. Xenos have no captures. Xenos don't attack, but admins don't like this stalemate so they send a messgae via Queen Mother to assualt the FoB. Marines evac, Xenos are forced to go up.

No delay and yet...does that seem fair?

Or how about this, 30 xenos assault the Almayer but 10 marines have access to some metal and wall up an un-activated SD. They have no way to win. Their only hope is to delay long enough for the game timer to run out. This will take 20 minutes. Xenos will win before then...shouldn't admins just abomb them? After all they are unlikely to win so why not just end the round now?

For some reason forcing xenos to die is acceptable but forcing marines to isn't.

It dosen't matter that marines can delay because they are never stopped from doing it.

Like 60 - 40 Winrate bias is fair. Like really, Benos talking about something being "unfair" for them. 60% - 40% winrate is fair? Omniscent hivemind is fair? Maybe events that never fuck up benos are fair?

In this situation it's partially fault of each side Marines-Benos-Admemes. "Why" you might ask:

It's beno fault because they still harrass FoB despite having number that you can count on fingers of your hands and feets. They have all the information, they are ominscent, they know marines will evac because "hivemind", so they can stop harrassing just when evac to FoB is ordered. Queen can force her will, so if some dumbo runner still pounces and slashes marines, she can demand retreat, or make him face Queen Mother.
I can fucking guarantee that marines won't evac if they won't see gas hitting their cades, or ravs dicking around.

It's admemes fault because in this hipotetical situation they have something incredeble, even more knowledge than omniscent benos themselfs, so it's their fault if they hard on order 20 benos to attack FoB while still allowing marines to retreat. However there is a thin line between marines sitting safely behind cades to "Metaevac" and benos breaking cades to slaughtering everyone in two minutes. Very fucking thin line.

It's somehow marines fault because they "Metaevaced".

Now lets see who has better excuse:

Admemes know everything.
Benos know basically everything that is happening with marines and themselfs.
Marines have no fucking idea how many benos there is besides Scans that run every 30 minutes. In 10 minutes larvaes can burst and reach mature/elder status, so this information is basically worthless. It's even more worthless if we compare their knowledge about themselfs, as they don't know jack shit unless Command goes extra mile in mundane task to count every single combat capable marine every 5 minutes and also relay their position, as well as position of the enemy. Hell, Marines can't even communicate with different Squads, as they require the same information being "said" atleast twice: "SL to SL to PFC's" and at the worst case scenario (when heavy combat is involved) "PFC to SL to Command to SL to PFC". All of that just to share one information. While benos just have hive status and "beno helmet cam" that grants each one of them all of that, even if most of them doesn't use it, good Queen does and she is the one to order fake retreats.

How do you think those "Metaevac" proceed? Marines think: "Hmmm... Unga... Better to go ship that is basically the same as entering caves, receive heavy downsides and timer on top of that, decreasing chance for Marine Major... Dunga good idea!"
No, 90% of it is a panic that cades won't hold enough, that Dropship will be so fucking crowded to the point we could call "Can of Sardines", panic that benos will slaughter all of them in a minute etc.
I will say this once again: Marines gain nothing from going back to the ship, they only lose their abilities like CAS/OB/Mortar/REQ/Medbay.

In the situation you presented, benos dying would just short the round up. Otherwise (in case of marines breaking siege somehow and rushing out of the cades) benos would scatter, escape (every beno besides young boiler is faster than marine in medium armor) and hide, delaying, picking marines one by one. This would give benos a bigger chance to win, but at the cost of 10000000000 hours of boring gameplay. (In case of marines still sitting in FoB) this would delay even further as benos would just try to cheez cades with gas, acid and charges of crusher. Up to the point of marines running out of supplies and evacuating anyway, because marines don't get supplies out of lying on some black shit, so in some scenarios crying acid tears that melt ground and cause breaches planetside is simply stupid.

In short: Marines can only delay in cades, benos are designed to break cades. Benos can delay by escaping and hiding away, then screeching and shit. Marines are not designed to chase benos, they are not designed to find benos, they are not designed to catch benos.

For some reason benos being designed to win more is acceptable, but marines defending themselfs for longer period of time are considered delaying? Isn't that like prime beno argument for winrate bias? That marines are supposed to enjoy living and fighting in a FoB cage that have to fail? Now they have to fail on purpose faster? No fun for marines policy runs wild.

And again if somebody can't read well: Marines can only delay by cading themselfs, benos are designed to siege and destroy cades, if benos are unable to do it despite their adventages, they deserve instant gib.

[Madventurer]

Just the fact that the current meta is FOB defense to drain xenos speaks volumes of certain problems in the game.

Marines used to get fast wins by rushing, that doesn't really happen nowadays. Usually, marines push, get pushed back with casualties, and the FOB siege begins, which either drains xenos completely, or they break through.

At that point, marines either push again, and the round turns into an actually enjoyable back-and-forth, if xenos didn't all throw themselves into cades. Otherwise, xenos go up to Almayer where they have a good chance to get stomped by the evacuated marines.

In my opinion, the back-and-forth is the most desirable outcome, because personally I find a struggle of hour or two to be quite fun to watch and play. And, it's a reasonable strategy, since it's decently reliable with good engineers. Can you really blame marines for doing what works instead of suiciding to xenos?
But, this reveals a problem: The back-and-forth requires that xenos are cut down heavily in numbers first. Even then, it's quite fine balance, where marines either easily wipe them or might even get pushed back to FOB again.

What I suggest to fix the above problem: Xeno population limiter, based on the amount of marines and perhaps other factors.
Suppose you have 80 marines total. Maybe 60 of those will be deployed at best. So a reasonable amount of xenos at current balance to give both sides even chance would be about 20 xenos, but definitely not more than 25. So 20 xenos should be the limit for active xenos, bringing us to 1:4 ratio overall.
Now, suppose the round has gone for a while and marines have total of 100, out of which perhaps 75 are deployed. Both sides have taken losses, so xenos have less spawns left and some marines are dead. Let's say 120 marines when you count dead.
A 1:4 ratio would give us maximum of 30 xenos, when we count the dead too. But, as the round has gone on, xenos could perhaps get a small boost to their numbers both to ensure they're not excessively weakening, and to let dead players join as xeno if they so wish. So, perhaps in addition to the 30 xenos, we could have one additional active xeno slot for every 20 minutes that has passed. So, if two hours had passed, xenos would have 36 slots against 75 marines planetside, which is a more reasonable number for the amount of ordnance marines have at that point.


This system would counteract both early xeno stomps, and yeeting of 40 larvae into FOB in rapid succession. Suggestions welcome on how it would work against marine rushes.

[Cakey]

Xeno population is already based on the marine population, set at 1:4 ratio on roundstart and 1:6 during the game for every marines 6 spawned.