The thing is Combat Queens are punished, they just don't realize it. Most Command staff won't order an evac until the FOB's breached and won't order a retreat from the front unless things are already going bad, but the moment the Queen shows up outside the FOB and makes her first screech most CIC staff will instantly order an evac, even if there's 60+ Marines to 10 benos. Combat Queens encourage mass evacs that make things harder for the hive on Almayer if the Marines decide to play aggressively once the Alamo lands.
A Queen that doesn't leave ovi until she needs to is less likely to have their hive trigger a mass evac and one that doesn't deploy or get seen until she's stepping onto the Alamo can potentially trap the Marines on the surface.
Retired CO Councilor (Winter 2019-Spring 2020, Winter 2020-Spring 2021)
Goddard Pearsall, the Pilot that (almost) always has Souto
Unofficial source of help for new/inexperienced POs. Message me here or on Discord if you'd like advise on anything.
Those sorts of evacs happen not simply because the queen showed up, but because a FOB literally cannot hold up against a screeching queen and her T3's. There's almost no point to any LZ1 defenses at all except as a token roadblock. The moment you're on the defensive as a marine player is the moment you do a lot of dying and ZERO killing.
Lately I've been seeing marines getting rolled up across the entire map in the span of 15 minutes, then there's a 5 minute FOB hold (or less!) where a few screeches+super boiler gas makes the FOB impossible to hold onto in any shape/form whatsoever, and the end result is 50 marines piling into the alamo on evac, followed by xeno mains whining that marines with indefensible FOBs getting overrun by AOE stun screeches + boiler gas didn't stay on the ground to get completely slaughtered like lemmings and now have daunting numbers on almayer holds that often result in marine minors.
It's a combination of xenos pushing WAY too hard, and Marines simply not having defenses that can stand up to Queens and Boilers.
Exactly this.
The moment I see the Queen, and don't see a SADAR behind me, I know the game is going to be a Almayer Defense.
The only way to beat a Queen outside of a SADAR hit is if the Queen is extremely bald and rushes in with screeches and doesn't pull back in time but thats rare.
I was always saying that Screech + Gas combo can't be countered when you are defending.
"What about rushing Boiler and Queen?" - Xeno main would ask. T3's, T2's and T1's on the way, multiple, entire hive just waiting to slaughter you if you will push even one title outside cades.
While gas that takes nearly entire screen lasts enough for any beno to vomit acid on cade and escape. All xenos need is to wait outside screen for boiler command that somebody is trying to replace cade. They don't even really need it, becouse the same boiler, or second boiler can send another gas ball to deny repairs, or just Queen with screech.
Acid melts cades, second screech + gas attack and another layer of cades is destroyed. Slighty patient xenos will always breach FoB. How many times marines actually broke Xeno's assault on FoB and rushed further? Probably nearly never. 99.99% of FoB assaults end up in evac. There is no point in defending it. Anything that dies during those assaults are young runners.
I am, too, an ovi-focused queen, I just love the type of control I have over the hive, Renomaki. Some support mutators are excellent, such as faster egg laying or resilient larvae, though it can make rounds drag on for a long while. (I feel like only one of the two should be picked from my experience...) Faster egg laying makes you able to relocate the hive rather quickly and even support two carriers, resilient larvae can turn the tides around if you manage to capture and hold the line for about five minutes.
I also miss the general capture-and-guard type of xenoplay instead of the "which side rushes first" tactics we have nowadays...
I would be glad to only have mutators when the queen is ovi'd, similar to leader pheromones. Or have hive mutators only affect leaders and their vicinity like pheromones, though it'd be iffy with health and plasma I believe.
I know this "nerf" would cause an outrage but I remember when pheromones were global when the queen was ovi'd. It was taken away and leaders are now actually important. The same could be somehow done to mutators as well because 95% of my xeno rounds have the same nobrainer speed-health-damage hive mutators which are just a direct buff to every xeno ever.
To sum up: make ovipositored queens more potent as Renomaki wrote or change mutators up a bit instead of directly nerfing combat queen I think. A skilled strategist should harness the power of a sufficiently developed support queen while a skilled combat queen could still play their own game.
Yeah, in all honesty the average FOB practically requires antitank cannons to have any hope of surviving against the Queen and a group of T3s, but xeno mains would instantly complain about it being too difficult to take the FOB if that was added in.
Retired CO Councilor (Winter 2019-Spring 2020, Winter 2020-Spring 2021)
Goddard Pearsall, the Pilot that (almost) always has Souto
Unofficial source of help for new/inexperienced POs. Message me here or on Discord if you'd like advise on anything.
Yall seriously don't understand balance at all. If you make mutators suck then marines will destroy everyone with their op ass weapon overhaul. Armor and health mutators are the only thing that keeps the weapon overhaul from completely unbalancing the game at this point. They aint going backwards now.
Even with speed, while it's mega busted (said so on the old forum as well, along side Drag Speed + Wider Gas), it's currently massively needed, or else xeno gets shredded by current M41 normal ammo velocity.
Like I'm all for removing speed, and nerfing health+armor a bit, but you guys should really try xeno without those 3 mutations and see how fast you DROP to marine's new firepower. Yeah, those 3 mutations aren't balanced, but xeno need them to live, because right now there's a lot of damage in the game, from both sides.
Crushing the FoB is all about flanking. There's some really small flanks marines cannot hold to any map. Marines can only hold FoB's if they can have 4-5 marines standing next to one another and shoot. Don't even dare forget about what happens when a queen screeches, and a competent boiler syncs their gas up with the screech. Those marines are 100% dead. It's easy to get 5+ kills with one gas that way. A spitter can achieve the same effect mind you, with the cover of the gas too. Xenos don't need queen to win, queen shouldn't be so dastardly powerful compared to the baddest tier threes you have.