The FOB Meta
So, basically, in the last few weeks I've been observing a worrying trend in rounds.
The Marines will attack, the marines will fail, the marines will retreat into the FOB, and they will remain in the FOB for a couple of hours in an immobile, defensive position, with a plentiful amount of emplacements, IFF weaponry and practically unlimited barricades.
This is a trend that's been consistent as of the release of the MOBA update, god bless it, and I'm very discontent with it.
How?
The reason why the FOB meta exists is pretty simple to understand. At the moment marines are very strong defensively, and they do not need to exit the FOB to win the round as it falls upon the Xenos to push and hijack the dropship, which must be done from the pad the FOB often defends.
Why is marine defense so strong? There are a few key reasons for it.
- Near Unlimited Supplies - 1) Requisitions begins with a big budget to buy materials. 2) Requisitions can gain more budget from DEFCON. 3) ASRS supplies Requisitions with random supplies, very often construction materials, for practically the whole round. 4) Engineers all begin with a full set of materials now. 5) Metal can be scavenged from maps.
- Powerful Emplacements - By this I mean the Tesla. The Tesla Coil is deceptively powerful. It has a large radius, practically no cooldown, can be placed quickly and works on multiple targets in quick succession. For those unaware, the coil dazes and slows xenos, which prevents them from using their abilities and limits their disengage window.
- Mediocre Xeno Sieging Potential - The new boilers might seem better at sieging, and that in fact was their intention, however due to backlash (I presume) they were nerfed and are now worse than the original boilers at attack. Moreover Crushers are no longer used for FOB sieging. Xenos are often able to siege better by killing the marines *inside* the cades rather than the cades themselves, as xenos have far better ranged antipersonnel options than they used to, but cades are still resilient against practically all their attacks.
Regardless, FOB gameplay isn't fun even for marines - so why do they stay in the FOB?
Because they can win from it. Xenos are humans too, as weird as that sounds, and they get bored. They become reckless and bored. And who could blame them? Only a few select castes are useful in sieges, what do the rest do? I know what I do, I alt-tab and watch youtube or I ghost. Moreover there's been a worrying amount of cases of Admins giving the nuke to marines. I think I know why - admins do it so the rounds end faster, and I don't blame them. But apparently the marine side's collective conscience realizes that admins will reward them for staying in the FOB while doing nothing all round, this is further encouraged by xenos often being forced by QM in the past to rush FOBs. And apparently for some players, winning beats fun.
Why is this bad for the game? It's just another form of gameplay.
I don't know about you but I'd rather my rounds last 60 minutes than 240. Rounds get worse and worse as they drag on, as more of the playerbase is added to dchat - this limits both sides' potential to end the round faster, and generally the only people left for both sides are those too cowardly to push out in the first place, further forcing the stalemate. Another key thing to understand is that BYOND is fucking shit and the longer the round lasts, the laggier and laggier it gets. Lag affects both sides - particularly xenos, but marines who fight in CQC are also severely affected.
The problem with this form of gameplay is that it's incredibly fucking boring and uninteractive. You get a firing line of marines with B8 L42s as if it were the era of line battles but they all had an impervious shield in front of them. They stand still, ignoring all that goes on elsewhere while they focus on plinking a single xeno, forcing it to retreat, but never die. Meanwhile, a few key players on the xeno team that had to have chosen the correct caste and be proficient with it must try to breach the FOB.
Marines can't push out, as the majority of the team have lost cognitive function and have devolved to bots firing a carbine over a cadeline, and any attempt by them to push out would be swiftly ended by the action-starved xenos, as they wouldn't be backed up by their fellow cadehuggers.
The stalemate sets in. Neither side can really do anything, but xeno numbers diminish as more and more of them get bored and frustrated.
Eventually, xenos retreat. Marines stay in the FOB, get DEFCON reinforcements and push out slowly. And GOD FORBID that this push fails, because if it does you're in for another hour and a nuke.
How could it be solved?
No nerf to marine defense is needed. Simply force marines to come out of the FOB one way or another. Adding objectives around the map which are essential for victory that the Marines can't hold from the FOB would be an easy way to deal with the issue.
Conclusion
I hate FOB meta and I want to see how many more people do. Maybe someone has a flawless argument as to why it is good for the game, but hot damn I doubt it. I'm not a stubborn, headstrong person, if someone actually has any good reason for the FOB meta being allowed to exist I'll hear it out.
This thread isn't going to accomplish change, but I at least want to see how the community feels about it.
You can save the "xenos mad" comments as most of my playtime is on Marine and I've been doing nothing but playing SL the last week or so. And every time, I've strived to push or die trying.
Anyways, we're in general dicussion, so, discuss.