The Problem with the Current Endgame

[Oatzandhoes]

As it stands right now, the endgame once the aliens have boarded the Almayer has nothing major at stake. As a marine you are presented with two options, evac almost immediately(a somewhat easy task if you have a good group and a couple of barricades) or stay and fight. However since the almayer is crashing into the surface of the planet regardless, you have no reason to actually stay and fight, since the xenos will die regardless. Your sacrifice is completely in vain. The previous endgame methods (shuttle evac on the sulaco, and then the self destruct room) at least gave you a reason to set up a defense and wait out the timer. Surviving until the ship crashes is pointless. It also kills all suspense from an observers or aliens perspective. We used to be left wondering if the hive would survive. Would someone find the ship and board it? Destroy it? Ignore it? Now it doesn't matter since all the xenos will burn up in the atmosphere in a couple of minutes. I think we should rethink the current endgame, and either bring back the SD room, escape shuttle, or something different entirely.

[CABAL]

As it stands right now, the endgame once the aliens have boarded the Almayer has nothing major at stake. As a marine you are presented with two options, evac almost immediately(a somewhat easy task if you have a good group and a couple of barricades) or stay and fight. However since the almayer is crashing into the surface of the planet regardless, you have no reason to actually stay and fight, since the xenos will die regardless. Your sacrifice is completely in vain. The previous endgame methods (shuttle evac on the sulaco, and then the self destruct room) at least gave you a reason to set up a defense and wait out the timer. Surviving until the ship crashes is pointless. It also kills all suspense from an observers or aliens perspective. We used to be left wondering if the hive would survive. Would someone find the ship and board it? Destroy it? Ignore it? Now it doesn't matter since all the xenos will burn up in the atmosphere in a couple of minutes. I think we should rethink the current endgame, and either bring back the SD room, escape shuttle, or something different entirely.

It was made this way as "quality of gameplay improvement". Gameplay>Lore/RP.

Besides, there is a point in fighting. If you menage to kill benos before timers runs out, then ARES will abort the "crash sequence". And there isn't enough pods for all, so not everyone can escape, forcing marines to fight anyway.

[NethIafins]

Problem: we don't want 100-150 people wait for few players that had built amazing autism forts and defend themselves till the last breath dragging the round
Problem: we don't want the solution to require constant afmin presence
New problem from the solution: game ends abruptly for those who is still alive

So... We need to solve new problem without reverting solution to first two

We are still wrapping our heads around it

[Ms.Degrasse]

Problem: we don't want 100-150 people wait for few players that had built amazing autism forts and defend themselves till the last breath dragging the round
Problem: we don't want the solution to require constant afmin presence
New problem from the solution: game ends abruptly for those who is still alive

So... We need to solve new problem without reverting solution to first two

We are still wrapping our heads around it

If I were to solve it, my suggestion would be to add a routine that after the current "timeout", it weights "active players" versus "not active" (ghosted or by lobby). Also weights the % of active teams (USCM & allies vs Xenomorphs and other hostiles).

And do the following:

Round Delayers case.
"Only 4 or less players are hostiles" - Ares scan for their presence and start rattling their locations.
"Only 4 or less players are USCM or allies" - Either the "xenomorph remote superqueen" (I forgot the actual name) or the enemy faction dropship onboard computer scan Almayer for enemies and gives their locations.

On any case, a new timer is set up, and if the round is delayed further, a random catastrophic even happens.

If an emergency beacon was issued:
- If most players are USCM or xenomorphs (but not UPP or CLF), Almayer get gunned down by a UPP or CLF ship. (Random explosions hitting most players for flavor, then game over.)
- If liaison is death, but faxed W-Y at least 2 times, Mercenary ship (hired by W-Y) docks on Almayer and pumps poisonous gas in for erasing witnesses. (Random puffs of gas, poison and burn damage to humans aboard and game over.)
- Friendly USCM ship attempts to dock for offering support. That dislodges the dropship tucked in Almayer and causes explosive decompression. (Random "pushes" on players, brute damage, oxygen damage and game over.)
- If it was a predator round, all predators died and there's Yautja Equipment in almayer, it's gunned down by a predator battle cruiser. (Fancy explosions, random fire and game over.)
- If DEFCON level is high, and most aboard are xenomorphs, USCM ship gun down Almayer. (Same as CLF or UPP attack.)

If an emergency beacon was never issued:
- If most players are hostiles, Ares either overloads Almayer systems, causing random explosions and damage. Explodes Almayer entirely. Or drops it into the surface.
- If most players are USCM, same do happen but after W-Y remotely hijacks the computer.
- Other catastrophic possibilities are less likely to happen, but can be tossed in for added fun.

Not round Delayers case.
"Where there are more than 4 players in either side BUT most players in server are by lobby or ghosted."

Both player party's locations are rattled at the same time.

Timer get a reset. (Really small time for them to try to finish job).

If round doesn't end and beacon was sent and/or W-Y got faxes and/or DEFCON level is high, ghosts are offered ERT role.

ERT on this case is always a third party, hostile to both USCM and Xenomorphs.

"DEFCON level is really high AND command staff is still alive (quick check on CO, XO and bridge staff).
- USCM dispatch a large team of specialists and security personnel with explicit order to detain threat AND arrest current command personnel. (The less punitive situation, because marines did their jobs. But all of this personnel is to have explosive ammo, armor piercing rounds, HEFA grenades and this sort of thing that causes massive FF on purpose.)

"W-Y got faxes, but DEFCON leven isn't that high"
- W-Y deathsquad is dispatched for killing everyone aboard sparing only the liaison.

"W-Y got no faxes, DEFCON is medium, but beacon was issued."
- UPP deathsquad comes instead. For taking over Almayer

"No beacon issued, low DEFCON and no W-Y faxes"
- Entire hunting party of predators reach the Almayer, for both the fun of a hunt and containing the spread of xenomorphs caused by "those irresponsible humans".
- Alternatively, an uknown party hacks Ares and makes it open the hangar to an incoming shuttle that's filled with zombies.
- Or.... Almayer get intercepted by a temporal anomaly. (Add random efects on some crew members.)
Ares tell the crew it's detecting multiple presences. Many SCPs are spawned inside almayer and a heavily armed crew from the SCP foundation is dispatched.

All in all, idea here is more about bringing fun into a stale round AND putting awaiting players to good use.

If for some reason, after the third party arrival situations degrades to "4 or less members of USCM or xenomorphs (or newly introduced hostiles)", the aforementioned routine for delayers will apply.

[Heraclitus]

Problem: we don't want 100-150 people wait for few players that had built amazing autism forts and defend themselves till the last breath dragging the round
Problem: we don't want the solution to require constant afmin presence
New problem from the solution: game ends abruptly for those who is still alive

So... We need to solve new problem without reverting solution to first two

We are still wrapping our heads around it

It is a real problem and there's no clear solution, the only thing I can say for sure is you can't make everyone happy.

If I had to think of anything to help with the abruptness it would be an automatic ARES/QM count down "the Almayer/metal hive will impact the colony in 5 minutes". That isn't a solution but it's a cheap and easy band aid.

[Ttly]

Oh for fucks sake, the "crash into the planet" part is just fluff shit.

Just mentally change it to "Ship life supports are failing, humans GTFO unless you can fix it (just say the MTs aren't qualified to fix atmos)." and you get people to stop bitching about round ending abruptly with "zero aftermath consequences".

In the end it's just fluff garbage that doesn't affect gameplay because every round is their own thing and no one cares about "post round IC consequences".

[KingPhilipIII]

Oh for fucks sake, the "crash into the planet" part is just fluff shit.

Just mentally change it to "Ship life supports are failing, humans GTFO unless you can fix it (just say the MTs aren't qualified to fix atmos)." and you get people to stop bitching about round ending abruptly with "zero aftermath consequences".

In the end it's just fluff garbage that doesn't affect gameplay because every round is their own thing and no one cares about "post round IC consequences".

Suspension of disbelief mate. Some people choose to immerse themselves in the story and to them it does matter.

[Fritigern]

Problem: we don't want 100-150 people wait for few players that had built amazing autism forts and defend themselves till the last breath dragging the round
Problem: we don't want the solution to require constant afmin presence
New problem from the solution: game ends abruptly for those who is still alive

So... We need to solve new problem without reverting solution to first two

We are still wrapping our heads around it

Why has this become a problem? It wasn't for months and months. I mean, there were real moments of drama and heroism during self destruct defences for both sides, deadchat was usually on the edge of their seats. It was actually fun to sit there and watch how the fight would play out. Now if you're a ghost and it's fight night on the Almayer you just alt-tab and wait for the end game notification because there is nothing of any real interest happening anywhere.

This really just comes across like a problem only in the minds of a few. Why not put it to a vote on the forum at least, gauge at least a rough consensus of the playerbases desires?

[That Happy Cat]

Yeah I thought SD defence was fun and made for epic last stands even as a spectator. The current SD is anticlimatic and neither marines nor xenos are enthusiastic about it. Evac is a joke because outside of low pop only a small percentage of marines can evac so what exactly constitudes an "evac victory"? The remaining marines will have to fight the xenos regardless, and the more marines evac the less likely they will win the inevitable battle, which begs the question... why evac?

The only way evac can work as a victory is if most if not all marines can be evacced in the best case scenario. If not then the best case scenario actually makes the ending less interesting since there's less marines left to put up a fight.

[Oatzandhoes]

Problem: we don't want 100-150 people wait for few players that had built amazing autism forts and defend themselves till the last breath dragging the round
Problem: we don't want the solution to require constant afmin presence
New problem from the solution: game ends abruptly for those who is still alive

So... We need to solve new problem without reverting solution to first two

We are still wrapping our heads around it

It seems to me the easiest solution is a return to the old escape shuttle system. Scrap the pods. Nobody uses them. Instead have an escape shuttle that requires some prepwork to launch (think fueling or something along those lines. It doesn't matter the process could just be automatic). That way everyone has a reason to defend something and there is a set time limit on almayer endgame. Once the shuttle launches the game is over.