The State of the Game

[Kineem]

it was a 4 hour round where the queen flat out refused to board the Almayer even after she and half of her hive had already hit Ancient because the xenos were "too weak". when she did finally board, she ordered everybody to the upper deck after crashing on the lower deck so they could ladder camp. when the round finally ended OOC chat was erupting with messages more or less saying "fuck you stupid Queen delaying ASS" and people expressing happiness that the round was finally over

the round should have ended far, far sooner, but elder and ancient xenos are very difficult to kill when they refuse to come out and fight with a queen that plays far too passively than she should. by all means, it had no reason to last as long as it did

it didn't seem like a particularly fun round to me, and most players seemed to agree with that as well

[MasterShakeEZ]

Game was most balanced when the tank was in after warrior/defender nerf, before the explosion changes. Why couldn't they just have listened and fixed off screen gibs instead of breaking the entire game?

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

They could've just buffed LTB and not brought in the arti, then at least it would've been fun to fight against because you're not getting gibbed off-screen. If we had just kept on with that, with no arti and with Ballistic armor nerfed a bit, we would've been fine now.

But then to combat the code leak, xeno got DUNKED with a massive stat nerf and tackle nerf to most of the line up. And then DOREC, mutations and weapon rebalance came to ruin the balance.

[KingKire]

Game running at an interesting pattern, not where i thought it would end up, but i am happy the game is being worked on.

Thoughts:
- Low pop, med pop, high pop are the games break points. What works for one population usually causes problems on the other end of the spectrum.

Low pop needs improvements in terms of condensing down, and focusing down.
- Roles Un/locked depending on total population size of the server.
If there are 20 people on the server, have it so the only squads unlocked are alpha/bravo squad, if theres 40 people, unlock charlie, 60 unlocks delta.

(Instead of balancing low pop on having 4 Specs, 4 smartgunners, etc. that are all in squads of 2-3, we can balance the game around one or two full squads, all on the same comms, all working togetherish.)

- Some more basic help for low pop should also be available. Sargants should have more command authority to get an Operation going if there the only ones around, Possibly AutoDoc also being easier to use, etc.


PACING:
The games pacing is off.
I felt like mutators were added on to combat the problem of meta rushing, and instead it only increased the problem. If Meta Rushing was shaped like a slide, with the bottem being *meta rush*, and the top being *Increased RP*, mutators took the already steep 45* slide, and boosted it to a 85* angle, just short of a cliff.

What probably needed to happen was a reverse feedback loop. If the marines are strong in the begining, the game gets harder. If the marines are weak in the begining, the game gets easier.

OBJECTIVES:
-The game can get quite samey, which is why when rounds tended to get too short, this problem starts to creep up. It takes a set amount of time to get CM-13 going, and when a round is short, you can feel like all the prep work for the game went right out the window (If it takes several hours to build a house of cards, it can get pretty frustrating to see the house get knocked down 15 minutes in), so more objectives can add more spice in how the round goes.
- Hopefully the objectives will be more focused on the Optional, than Required. There should be a pathway chosen, with the idea being you can take the harder objective, and get a more satisfying/harder game, or you can take the easy objectives, and come out with a more lack-luster ending.
( If i am a marine, and i am barely surviving, i would like to choose the easier objective, and maybe get the chance to claim a minor victory. If i am steam rolling, i would like to choose the hard objective, and make the game extra hard to get the best ending, or maybe have the extra hard game forced onto me via the xeno if the xeno players are suffering.)

- Whoever is losing hard, should control how the game flows. If the marines are losing hard, they should have an easier way to end the game or come back in it. vice-versa for xeno
(Marines are losing badly: Option to nuke the planet opens up, Xeno losing badly: More reinforcements show up, or the option to try and escape the area opens up.)




ENDINGS/CONCLUSIONS:
the ending of the game can be a little funky, so this ties in with objectives, in that, the more direct mechanical ways of controlling the game flow, the most likely the better it will be in the long run.

Failing to complete objectives by "x" time makes the game easier, but it also means that the overall ending is gonna be worse for the side that fails them. Completing too many objectives too fast, and the game gets ramped up in difficulty, but the reward for success also increases. You start to see cooler, rarer stuff. You fight cooler, harder xeno.


TLDR: end of the day, im happy we have people to play a story, people who help make the story, and people who help run the story all here.
I hope this game gets scarier,
I hope its fun to play whether you have 15 people or 150 people in the server,
I hope that the game is focused on cultivating tension, and using when it breaks to its fullest of potential.

[FGRSentinel]

My main concern is that the game is going to start creeping towards a point where a single hit from anything kills instantly and the devs are going to focus way too hard on that 65% xeno winrate. People have put years into making CM a fun game with a decent community, but it feels like we're on the tipping point of it being reduced to a souless collection of numbers.

[Ttly]

The gun damage buffs also meant that FF can and will delimb you.

[IMMASPACENINJA]

nibbas out there really be talkin about balance when we don't even have player limits per team

also
tank is big bad, not fun, no need to bring it back

[Denied_Existence]

I completely agree that the changes have continued to cause a major power-creep. Marines and xenos both die way too rapidly from basic weapons. Mutators certainly don't help things, especially with some of them being obvious picks (like larger gas radius). A lot of stats in general need a across-the-board downgrade to put things back in line with the round lengths we want to see.

[Chemical]

We just had a 3-4 hour round on LV-624 with ~10-15 xenos holding off 50-70 marines.

It was pretty fun. Wish that sort of back and forth could happen more often.

The only reason it lasted that long was because the xenos camped the caves and hardly ever pushed. The marines ended up retreating because of a "stalemate". Still a fun-ass round. I had to medically evac like 7 times, it was insane.

[FGRSentinel]

Yeah, I remember that round because I got picked to be a PMC to help the CL. CIC seemed absolutely livid about how the xenos were unwilling to commit to a final assault and, personally, I feel like if the Queen was waiting that long for no reason other than the benos being "too weak" when they were all at ancient and then camping the ladders on the upper deck it should be viewed as meta/powergaming and a punishment should have been given out or the hive forced to attack.

If the round was just constant engagements where neither side could gain enough of an advantage to secure victory (and therefore the round was four hours long because intense combat proved the two sides were too evenly matched) I'd be fine with it. The issue is, Xenos now either get wiped or have enough strength to fully control the flow of combat and the round with no middle ground until they reach the Almayer... And as the queen from that round shows, some Xenos are aware of this and are perfectly willing to let the round drag on until the Queen and all T3s are Ancient simply to guarantee an Almayer win.

If this is how we're going to get that 65% Xeno winrate, the game's going to be zero fun to play. There needs to be an incentive for benos to attack if they clearly have the capacity to force the Marines off the planet, either by helping the Marines (perhaps a support ship arrives with "respawns" for dead Marine players, better weapons, or some other method), weakening the hive (Queen Mother revoking mutators, de-evolving random T3s, stripping a maturation level from the hive for every 10-20 minutes they delay, etc), or just outright gibbing the Queen for ruining the round.