Can we talk about the state of engineering? Because it has been in ruins for too long, but I feel this spitter acid change is just too much.
It was bad enough with maps without sand being unfobbable at all (prison, ice if xenos decide to be shitters and remove all snow). Just think of the last time you saw a prison FOB hold more than 15 minutes of heavy assault, because I don't remember a single one since the metal cade nerf, and that was easily half a year ago.
Metal cades die too fast, and are there basically as a cheap second line to hold enough to repair, and block diagonal boiler shots that go through cades. Nothing more. You can't expect to build a FOB, that requires at LEAST 2 compartimentalized cade lines, hopefully one of them double in all 3 fronts. Especially with Tcoms being that big (And needed since the DS console is there), made of purely plasteel.
Still, things were holding on on the other maps. Sandcades were a big part of post-girderspam FOBs, since spitters couldn't melt them from a distance (even sents could still melt them in melee if noone was guarding them. Annoying, but more than fair), but now, even THAT is gone.
There is only one water tank in the almayer, and engineering may not even give it to you/Ignore you completely. Planetside water tanks and extinguishers will get melted by any non-braindead xeno, and extinguishers run dry too fast either way.
So basically, a young T2 will destroy a whole front from 6 tiles away basically unopposed, unless you have at least 3 marines on guard duty, one to shoot at the thing, one to extinguish, and one to repair. Guard duty, which is the thing that only a few select ones do, noone really wants to do it, and they never do long enough either way. And God help you if you face two of those fuckers.
And this is my main complaint, notice how this requires literally 0 coordination for xenos to perform (save maybe having some weeds for infinite plasma), while it ties 3 marines, that require heavy coordination, in a FOB that took a lot of involvement and people to build, and that's only until the water tank (if you are lucky to have it there, and good luck to the other fronts), or the extinguishers run dry. Then Req has to hemorrage points if they even care, and the resource drain is just too much to justify for a T2. That's right, the main marine resource drain right now are spitters and their acid bullshit. A xeno that has less than 10 minutes of lifetime, (and outperforms railgun boilers at sieging, which shouldn't really happen), without ANY coordination can completely ruin the coordinated work of a whole FOB squad and req. That's easily 12 marines. It's simply frustrating. Hell, last game a dedicated synth with a water tank couldn't stop me from melting through all the cades in the densest part of the FOB. No need to flank, or probe for weakneses. Just brute force the main defenses, because the FOBs can't handle a single spitter focusing on cades.
And we still wonder why there are no veteran engie mains anymore, and everyone has moved out of Bravo...
My impression from an engineering point of view, in my year and a half or so of playtime, is that every mechanic that forces xenos to cooperate (girders, double liners, shocks), even on a basic level gets nerfed to the ground. And yet here we are, as FOB squad, not being able to overcome something we have no control over, even with all the coordination in the world, and nothing is even in the dev discussions.
The issue here is lack of xeno teamwork, because we all know that when xenos cooperate, and their queen is half decent at guiding their troops, it's a rout and marines evac at 12:40.
If marines never coordinated, should we buff them/nerf xenos because of their poor performance? Or should we just encourage teamplay? In my opinion, one leads to frustration, and the other leads to better games for everyone.
I can agree that 4 hour sieges being the norm was too much, and it's tough for everyone, but sieges are a battle of attrition, and as such, easily controlled by limiting the resource generation of a side, forcing them out of said resources, and out of the siege. Limit req, if you need to, but don't take out the only tools that marines have to defend themselves, because when desperate becomes impossible, it leads to people abandoning the role, and not caring anymore.
Much love.