Rounds are too short now

[JJG]

That's exactly why we need longer rounds. Maybe you will be more careful if you have to wait 2 hours to play again. Maybe you will act a little more realistic instead of charging in and dying for no reason. Either way if you don't want to play xeno and you aint playing a game on the side while waiting for the next round you are doing it wrong.

3 or 4 hour rounds are cancer. 2 hours to 2 and a half are good imo. No one wants to sit around in deadchat for 3 hours, thats just supremely shitty game design when it happens.

[Big Cheeks]

around 2 hours is pretty much what we should be aiming for no one wants to go back to 4+ hour rounds because that shit was just cancerous and boring

[MasterShakeEZ]

3 or 4 hour rounds are cancer. 2 hours to 2 and a half are good imo. No one wants to sit around in deadchat for 3 hours, thats just supremely shitty game design when it happens.

so don't die or play xeno, duh

[TheDexFiles]

The 5 hour rounds were great on the weekends.

[Saytkl77]

Its not just length, its the fact that the short rounds mean every round play out the same way.

Theres 30 mins of prep.
Xenos/Marines fight for 15 minutes.
It becomes clear who the winner is and the next 30 minutes are spent chasing down the last xenos/slowly working through fobs and invading the almayer.

A 2-3 hour round with back and forth is what I prefer, the 1 hour stomps actually only really have 15 minutes of fighting where the game is on the line the rest is just setup/cleanup.

The devs were talking about the defcon system being a way to have comebacks for the marines, but because its bugged or too hard to complete marines never get above 25% completion, so the most they can ever buy is a squad of a couple marines, nowhere near enough to trigger any comeback.

[TheDonkified]

Rounds are pretty generic now and that has a lot to do with the current average round lengths, as a lot of people have mentioned. Marines need the ability to comeback so mid-game doesn't last 30 minutes consistently. If there was a buffer, instead of the game being constrained time-wise due to xeno snowball (mutator stacking + leader pheromones + maturation + hive number), there would be a lot more room to experiment tactics-wise and also RP.

However, I also want to echo what KingKire said. The fact that games are pretty linear, with each role having a specific predefined job and skills instead of having some leeway to do cool stuff, has also served to dull gameplay. Not to say that CM as it is is completely boring and shitty, but having a system to let PFCs at least invest points into skills, even at a basic level, would help make the game more fun.

[FGRSentinel]

However, I also want to echo what KingKire said. The fact that games are pretty linear, with each role having a specific predefined job and skills instead of having some leeway to do cool stuff, has also served to dull gameplay. Not to say that CM as it is is completely boring and shitty, but having a system to let PFCs at least invest points into skills, even at a basic level, would help make the game more fun.

PFCs aren't the only role with abysmal skills. POs and TC are essentially PFCs with SL leadership, a 1 with Power Loaders, and a 1 in either Piloting or Tank Operating. This means POs are essentially useless for anything other than flying the dropships and extremely light triage on CASEVAC.

Honestly Mutators are essentially the Xeno equivalent of what a number of people have been asking for Marines to have; variable stats/skills. The fact that the devs are against it post-mutator makes the entire situation even more frustrating, personally.

[Vispainius]

Marine power creep is usually the issue versus Xeno power creep imo.

Add something that forces marines to play defensively, and not be crippled at the same time, and rounds will be longer.

As for special skills being given to Pfcs and etcetra "just cause its cool"? Cool idea theory, but reality is people will abuse it. It sucked but removing the ability for Pfcs to do a Engineers or Medics job easily and have skill sets was one of the greatest additions ever. It incentivizes people to actually do the jobs they join up as instead of fucking off and ramboing.

Xenos are usually the more defensive team until they go on the offensive, then they stomp... until the unstoppable force (xenos) encounters the immovable object (manned, strong marine FOB).

Finally, from my personal observations,

Marines Need To Benefit From Teamwork, Cooperation and Sticking Together. Punished By Game Design When Ramboing.

To contrast, xenos need to have a bit of both, with a greater emphasis on being able to work alone and pick people off, but synergize their T3s and T2s in massed combat.

[dauntasa]

Marine power creep is usually the issue versus Xeno power creep imo.
[/U]

It's not really an issue of marine power creep so much as an issue of what has received the buffs vs what has received nerfs.

So if we look at Xenos, xenos have received nerfs to tackling but have received buffs to their damage output, speed, and survival from mutators, as well as larger boiler gas. This means that they're better at assaulting fortifications, because their speed lets them get in and out faster before they can be gunned down, and worse at capturing and guarding, because their ability to tackle and keep marines downed is weaker. This encourages them to be more aggressive and allows them to break fortifications easily, and discourages a slower, capture focused strategy.

Now let's look at marines. Marines have received substantial buffs to their small arms, but have received cataclysmic nerfs to their fixed defences. Cades and the Tank are the most notable. I know the Tank wasn't exactly "fixed" but it was generally slowmoving. Cades are now functionally limited to one or two lines at the very most, with anything beyond that being not only a waste of material but also actively detrimental. The Tank does not exist. The M56D is unable to shoot over cades properly, even one line of cades will block shots outside of a very narrow arc, which makes them kind of useless. Sentries are still bugged out and don't work half the time. So, for defences, the marines can only build one line and cannot concentrate enough fire over it to reliably shoot down xenos who approach. One cade line cannot hold against gas and screeching. With the nerf to fixed defences and the buff to small arms, the marines have been heavily encouraged to push rapidly. Nothing else has any hope of success, defences are too weak to hold and a rush can sometimes catch the xenos unprepared and crush them.

This combination of factors has resulted in the ground game we see today. The entire battle hinges on who can seize the momentum at the beginning. The marines, if they lose the momentum, have absolutely no way of stopping the xenos. The xenos CAN regain the momentum if they have an ocean of sticky resin ready and are smart about it. This means that we have about the winrate that the devs want, but it also means that the game itself is short and not particularly fun.

[starmute]

Two words

Lowpop Ice