Metarushing discussion

[WitheredGryphon]

Hey there.

I play a lot of leadership rolls. Marines rush like absolute madmen. There is no meaningful leadership when the majority of your squad has run-off to follow Delta.

I have played Xeno some to see their perspective. A Hivelord dedicating all their time to defenses don't have much time to work, even if it's their main focus. By deployment, I could barely have weeded the caves and made a couple airlock-sort things (wall, doors, sticky resin). This was from dumping every ounce of plasma I had into it and high on recovery. Don't worry, though, our five spitters were bwoinked for melting Hydro - the commonly accepted FOB position - while marines are literally coining the term "Modrushes" for rounds with no admins present and going full-pelt into Lambda after ETA bore no fruit.

What happens when the Marines make it into the hive by 12:35? Wasted potential. I lose my spec roll, someone I respect as a player lost their SG role, the doctors had no use for that cryomix and the CL had nothing to fax. CIC had no influence on the round and now all the Xenomorphs are in hiding dragging the round out another half an hour.

Twenty minutes of prep time. It's necessary though rarely enjoyed.
Seven minutes of action or so. People are padding their KD.
Five minutes of a pathetic retreat directly to the hive.
Thirty minutes of chasing down the last three drones, a marine bursting, the larva running off, the second queen evolving and trying to make a new hive, getting killed, the larva evolving into a queen, and then dying to three marines.

Shit's not satisfying for the majority of either side.

This is a problem with the symmetrical layout that every single map has though. On every map there is, at most, two locations Queens make their hive. This makes it so marines can beeline for those locations.

LV: In the caves. Typically northeast, sometimes northwest. It’s the same exact path every time. Timelock is the only thing that prevents rushes here.
Big Red: As you said, Lambda or ETA, marines always stack up outside of ETA doors except for very rare occasions.
Ice: Underground southeast caves by the ship, or in the fourway split in west underground caves. Only reason this one takes so long is because access to the underground is awful and they haven’t put stairs on the map yet.
Sorokyne: Southeast jungle. I’ve yet to see a hive anywhere else and it’s a straight shot to get there for marines.
Prison: The worst offender of them all. Civilian residences with no exception, and it’s a straight shot as well.

Edit:

I think an interesting map layout could be a map with ships in the center of the map. This provides ambiguity as to what direction xenos will be in.

[juliansl]

This is a problem with the symmetrical layout that every single map has though. On every map there is, at most, two locations Queens make their hive. This makes it so marines can beeline for those locations.

LV: In the caves. Typically northeast, sometimes northwest. It’s the same exact path every time. Timelock is the only thing that prevents rushes here.
Big Red: As you said, Lambda or ETA, marines always stack up outside of ETA doors except for very rare occasions.
Ice: Underground southeast caves by the ship, or in the fourway split in west underground caves. Only reason this one takes so long is because access to the underground is awful and they haven’t put stairs on the map yet.
Sorokyne: Southeast jungle. I’ve yet to see a hive anywhere else and it’s a straight shot to get there for marines.
Prison: The worst offender of them all. Civilian residences with no exception, and it’s a straight shot as well.

Edit:

I think an interesting map layout could be a map with ships in the center of the map. This provides ambiguity as to what direction xenos will be in.

I think a proper desert could be great for that, small village in the center with the landing zones and a big open area to all sides.

[SilentMountain]

I think a proper desert could be great for that, small village in the center with the landing zones and a big open area to all sides.

Big open space heavily favors marines so that would be a very bad idea if you want to up the xeno winrate

[juliansl]

Big open space heavily favors marines so that would be a very bad idea if you want to up the xeno winrate

Yeah that's the problem really, there's a limit to how many different variations of cave we can have.

[SilentMountain]

Yeah that's the problem really, there's a limit to how many different variations of cave we can have.

Yeh Tbh Caves is the only trick mappers seem to know when it comes to giving xenos a stronghold. But to be fair, when they tried the different approach of elevators in ICE, we saw that it sucked major balls tho that might have more to do with the fact the underground had FUCKING CAVES TOO.

[havokman]

Big open space heavily favors marines so that would be a very bad idea if you want to up the xeno winrate

I wouldn't say that. Big open spaces are fairly difficult to hold for either side, and whichever side happens to have the momentum will generally push the other side out of the open area. See LV north of the river for the best example of this - either marines are pushing Xenos back into caves, or Xenos are pushing marines back into hydro. Rarely do you get a push by either side stalling in this region.

However, while both sides can push through open areas, they are difficult to defend as marines without a lot of squad engineer autism, and utterly unfeasible as a nesting area for xenos. As such, open areas are mostly just the mapping equivalent of speed bumps and are thus totally uninteresting to actually play in.

[SilentMountain]

I wouldn't say that. Big open spaces are fairly difficult to hold for either side, and whichever side happens to have the momentum will generally push the other side out of the open area. See LV north of the river for the best example of this - either marines are pushing Xenos back into caves, or Xenos are pushing marines back into hydro. Rarely do you get a push by either side stalling in this region.

However, while both sides can push through open areas, they are difficult to defend as marines without a lot of squad engineer autism, and utterly unfeasible as a nesting area for xenos. As such, open areas are mostly just the mapping equivalent of speed bumps and are thus totally uninteresting to actually play in.

I strongly disagree, Marines have the absolute advantage, they can call CAS and OB, open ground provides excellent terrain to push with the tank and vastness is a non issue when marines can easily deploy small fortifications such as insta cades and build arround them

[havokman]

I strongly disagree, Marines have the absolute advantage, they can call CAS and OB, open ground provides excellent terrain to push with the tank and vastness is a non issue when marines can easily deploy small fortifications such as insta cades and build arround them

Effective use of CAS and OBs as a Xenos killing tool rely on JTAC marines being able to predict where xenos will be after they hear the incoming strike and bolt for a (perceived) safe location, and lase at or near that location without xenos noticing. Open spaces make it easy to laze, but virtually impossible to hide the dot, and xenos have such a wide open space to evade the strike that you have to be very lucky or very creative to nail a non-bald xenos. In reality, reasonably constrained CASable spaces with long sight lines and pockets to hide lasers in are ideal - there is a reason why Prison is the CAS map.

How many rounds do you see any meaningful fortifications put up between LV hydro and the caves? 1 in 10? 1 in 20? There is a reason for that. Fortifying an open area is difficult and extremely time/mat consuming for marines, and the sheer length of cadelines you need to secure hydro->caves means that you only get a single layer in the cadeline at most places, making it relatively easy for xenos to siege compared to a proper well fortified FOB. You can't just drop a couple of portable cades down and call it a day (that is a tactic which only works at choke points).

Being easy to push the tank through isn't worth that much when the wide open spaces also make it laughably easy for xenos to avoid getting killed by the tank. Again, easy for the side with momentum to push through, very difficult the other side to hold, and few deaths happening before one side is pushed out of the open.

[SilentMountain]

Effective use of CAS and OBs as a Xenos killing tool rely on JTAC marines being able to predict where xenos will be after they hear the incoming strike and bolt for a (perceived) safe location, and lase at or near that location without xenos noticing. Open spaces make it easy to laze, but virtually impossible to hide the dot, and xenos have such a wide open space to evade the strike that you have to be very lucky or very creative to nail a non-bald xenos. In reality, reasonably constrained CASable spaces with long sight lines and pockets to hide lasers in are ideal - there is a reason why Prison is the CAS map.

How many rounds do you see any meaningful fortifications put up between LV hydro and the caves? 1 in 10? 1 in 20? There is a reason for that. Fortifying an open area is difficult and extremely time/mat consuming for marines, and the sheer length of cadelines you need to secure hydro->caves means that you only get a single layer in the cadeline at most places, making it relatively easy for xenos to siege compared to a proper well fortified FOB. You can't just drop a couple of portable cades down and call it a day (that is a tactic which only works at choke points).

Being easy to push the tank through isn't worth that much when the wide open spaces also make it laughably easy for xenos to avoid getting killed by the tank. Again, easy for the side with momentum to push through, very difficult the other side to hold, and few deaths happening before one side is pushed out of the open.

You raise good points. Gotta concede altough I still think CAS and OB would heavily tip in favor of Marines if xenos dont have a system of un-CAS-able caverns to retreat to. I still think an open ground map would be very good addition, actual open ground tho , not like Tijent.

[juliansl]

You raise good points. Gotta concede altough I still think CAS and OB would heavily tip in favor of Marines if xenos dont have a system of un-CAS-able caverns to retreat to. I still think an open ground map would be very good addition, actual open ground tho , not like Tijent.

Yeah for a proper open map I'm imagining a small outpost wuth two domes and an LZ. With the rest of it mostly flat with the occasional desert shrub. The ground should vary between rocky soil and sand dunes. Sand dunes should behave similarly to snow. There should be a few landmarks around, but not too many. Maybe a small oasis, a road passing through the map, and maybe some broken down vehicles with corpses lying around.