Same as the title reads. So over time as ive gotten better at marine maining ive went from hating preds, to being generally excited when theyre found in a round. They are generally the toughest match up you can look for in cm. Takes as many pbs as a queen to kill(more if healing), move faster then god, and have a kit that includes weapons that just happen to block buckshot. Preds have the odds heavily in their favor and draw out skilled players. In doing so they end up removing some of these skilled players from seeing combat with xenos. Clearly this can help a struggling hive.
As of current(more experienced people feel free to correct me) preds roll at some given chance like 10 or 15% chance of spawn per round. What im proposing is that upon a given set amount of marine or xeno majors create a 100% chance of spawn. Add in a flavor text letting the preds know that "this is a highly regarded human fighting force" or "this is a widely feared hive", and give the assignment to focus more on the side thats steamrolling for 3 rounds in a row. Im not talking about giving a mandate to commit to total war with one side or the other, but rather that just having preds hang around the marine force will inevitably draw out the robust fighters to meet them in combat.
Its legacy code that already exists and I believe would require minimal work to implement. I also think its a step above regular balancing techniques, in that its virtually impossible to balance a game this complex across all skill levels. This is simply a form of a catch all for the more skilled players using existing stuff.
The xeno part im a little more hesitant about. A marine fighting a pred is tough, you generally have to be a fair skill level higher to win. Right now a xeno fighting a pred solo is almost impossible. A few days ago I had a round and a particually skilled pred was in game. I was playing a sent and just messing around trying to dodge his punches without striking back. It pretty quickly became clear the player was far far more skilled then me and could generally hit me at will. This is fine, im a new xeno and plently of players out class me. In my head I was like "ok ive seen pred xeno duels a few months ago. He needs 3 hits to kill me and I need 45 or so." At this point I dont think I could have even traded strike for strike so I backed off. Later I asked a mod about how many strikes it would have taken to kill the player and the number they came back with was 200. I would have to have hit this significantly better player about 200 times and get hit less then 3 to win the fight.
Now for the balance idea to work on both sides, it has to be at least semi possible to fight a pred as a xeno and win. I think this has to do with the recent slash damage reduction. Im not sure if its possible to add extra damage to a slash when v. predator, or how much work would go into maintaining current status but fixing this one issue.
TLDR, preds can be utilized as a very successful game balance mechanic using existing coding in a way that will primarily effect skilled players in a player optional fashion.