"Flaw" mutator isn't even a flaw to be honest. As defender you pick plasma if you don't want to be preatorian, as runner also this, as spitter you are taking tackle and as drone you are taking dmg. It's just straight boost.
It would be better to have mutators that counter each other: Health boost - Armor nerf, Armor boost - Health Nerf, Dmg boost - speed nerf, Speed boost - Dmg nerf, etc.
Exactly this.Originally Posted by CABAL
Its just a straight buff right now.
Speed is also a HUGE meme, you can't even hit xenos. I don't even mind double health, but double speed makes actually catching up and finishing xenos based around their abilities and not their speed TERRIBLE (see: Defender).
Last edited by Swagile; 12-29-2018 at 01:49 AM.
Man yall must play a different game than me. Im not even good at marine, but in the last few days ive played ive got kills with the m39 and the m41a. Marines feel like the strongest they have been in a long time with the exception of when they have broken the games and sides just get rolled in 20 minutes.
I get what you're saying, but I feel like there are just so damn many xenos that it's possible to play recklessly. Hell, I've found myself playing like a complete dumbo just because there is no real penalty for doing so. Your chances of survival from dumb shit are at an all-time high and so what if you die? One of the 50 remaining xenos will get them and that's the end of it.
On the other hand, it's more relaxing, but it also doesn't make for all that good game balance.
Maybe tone down all xenos and give them a bit more larvae/respawns to compensate, because it would be quite interesting to see more Aliens style fights.
Yeah, sure, when there is like 40 xenos alive you can kill few T1's without problem becouse they are usually "too brainless" even on Xeno standards. But those kills doesn't matter much. Killing T1's that are not ancient gives nothing. Others will take its place. After 13:00 it's usually nearly as much xenos as marines planetside.
I do have to admit, the current setup of the "flaw" system seems to encourage "Dump Stat" tactics (if that is the correct term), where players just take the trait they are least likely to utilize (such as tackles for spitters or reduced plasma for most melee-focused castes). I feel the original idea was to create more varied roles for xenos to create more diversity in playstyles. Like, A runner's queen goes for a speed boon for the hive, so the runner then applies a speed FLAW (thus meaning they have default speed now, which is already pretty fast for runners) to give them both more health and armor, allowing them to be a tad more aggressive. Or the Queen herself takes a personal flaw to damage and puts her extra points into supportive traits like pheromones, making her a more support-based queen than a fighter.
But ah, what do I know, I have yet to really play enough xeno to truly experiment with all the possible builds that could come from such a system.
However, that isnt' to say that you can't try to rework it.
In Tropico (the game), when you make a leader, you have to pick at least one positive trait and one negative trait. The best negative trait you could get with minimal issues was the Coward Trait, but even then, it was still a downside you had no choice but to deal with (and even then, some negative traits had some benefits as well if you were willing to risk them). Maybe with xenos, although it might not work, making it so that with every upgrade, they have to also develop a genetic flaw would affect their growth and direct them to a certain playstyle based on their choices.
For instance, say you want to get speed, but every time you upgrade your speed, you have to sacrifice something for it. Say you want to be the fastest Runner ever, so you go for speed every time you upgrade, but each time, you need to pick a negative trait, so you choose to negatively impact your pouncing ability and dragging ability two times each over your growth. Upon reaching the final stage of growth, you are so fast you break the sound barrier, but now you can't pounce or drag for shit as a result, meaning you need to play around your speed alone to fight with marines. Of course, this is assuming they bring back the ability to upgrade the same area multiple times.
Such a system would result in even more diverse xenos, such as crushers who sacrifice their speed and damage to become a literal shield with an insanely thick hide, or drones to sacrifice all combat ability to become the ultimate support caste. Heck, you might even see a runner go against their very name and sacrifice their insane running speed to be more on pair with a lurker (provided he adjusts his mutations to mix well with hive mutations).
Of course, it would require a decent amount of testing to ensure that the system isn't TOO punishing, since being forced to take a flaw every upgrade doesn't sound too much fun in practice and might put on a bit of pressure for newer xeno players who don't understand themselves enough to know what to aim for.
Last edited by Renomaki; 12-29-2018 at 04:03 PM.
Is there really an issue with encouraging xenos to play recklessly? If they reach combat capable ages faster, it could give us a better vibe for the whole endless swarm of xenos shtick.
I think they are just adding in peices of the mutators as we go and things will be more clear later. They still have the xeno update coming which is gonna make xenos play alot different then the mutators might make sense. Its kinda like with marine guns update we just gotta wait and see what happens cause no one was sure how that was gonna work out either.
I warned them about the plasma dump stat a long time ago and they didnt listen.
My absolute biggest problem with speed mutators is how runners now have ultra-drag speed by just ramming into you. I've both had an idiot runner almost kill me as a warrior by zooming me into the alamo while it was landing, and runners doing this dumb shit where they try to bodyblock run you into xeno lines - with you getting memed 30 tiles in the time it takes to step out of the way. Why even have a drag speed penalty if you let runners do this shit without even having to grab you?
And on top of that, runners are so fast they're nearly impossible to hit once they get within marine formations. If you even try, all you're going to do is friendly fire someone. It ends up being a game of 'who can land the lucky buckshot without blowing another marine's head off', and all the while you're trying to move both so you don't get FF'd by someone, and also so the runner can't push you two screens off into xeno territory in three seconds.
Of all the broken things introduced by mutators, this has got to be one of the most broken.
Thing is, 2x speed breaks the careful balance of all castes.
Every caste was balanced around speed, not health, not armor, etc.
No matter how much armor you had, marines had AP.
No matter how much health you had, marines have numbers.
SPEED is what made marines fear xenos, because a xeno is almost always faster than a marine in full armor (except for a few select cases) so xenos could hit and run properly then run away before you could damage them enough to matter while marines keep sustaining fractures, lost limbs, etc.
Runners were the fastest, but balanced by the fact that your very squishy (even at Ancient) so you have to be careful.
Lurkers were the mid point, but instead of being super fast, they got more health and damage, as well as a better stun to compensate.
Spitters and sentinels sacrificed some more health and speed but in return got more plasma regeneration and stun / acid spits that allow you to deal with marines at range and to keep them down when capturing / captured.
Boiler was made super slow so that if your out of position, you are dead, but in return you get the ability to bombard choke points and marine FOB's so that other xenos can properly siege.
Crushers were given base slow speed so that you can take them down if they are out of position, but got a ram ability and the ability to go ancient runner speed at full momentum while doing MASSIVE damage to anything they ram into in one direction, as well as applying damage to marine / colony structures they hit so that you can break sieges / FOB's. On top of this they were given the best armor in the game and decent health.
You get the idea at this point. Most of the mutators, if done 2x (health, armor) are broken but still manageable, but when every xeno has 2x speed the careful balance that made each caste have a definitive weakness when picked is now gone.
Keep in mind that speed allows you to dodge, close in for engagements, and escape from engagements in order to get to a safe spot to heal MUCH MUCH faster than xenos were originally supposed to have.
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