Bring back the intel officer

[Paradoxal]

Right, so what exactly is the reason for marines to go planetside besides the gameplay loop?

They have an advantage when on the ship, that being a smaller map with more chokepoints they can use with the xenos having very little to retreat to and there's nothing on the planet.

On TGMC this is dealt with by exported Xenos giving Req a metric ton of points along with there being the mining drills that give Req points as long as they're controlled. Since on TGMC there's no such thing as a specialist, if the marines can control these points for long enough, this leads to Req being able to start pumping out specialist equivalent equipped marines to destroy the xenos.

In other words: there's a purpose to the planetside battle. There are points one side wants and the other side wants to deny. The longer the Marines have control of territory, the better equipped they'll be to finish off the Xenos and vice-versa.

On CM, often a dominating push can actually lead to the Marines getting exhausted and destroyed... for what? What is the gameplay purpose of a push? Often the best option is to immediately full on retreat the moment there's too many people to conceivably perform surgery. If anything, pushing can lead to marines getting stopped at an OB-less area. Then what? Either they retreat or they risk getting whittled down and potentially captured near a hive and giving aliens more bodies. Often now I'm starting to see CO ordering "bait retreats". Why wouldn't they? There's no reason to really hold any territory.

This used to be somewhat better with the Intel Officer and the DEFCON system. The marines had the primary objective of killing xenos. They had the side objective of trying to assist intel in lowering DEFCON which in turn made them want to hold more territory to make the officer's life easier.

What's the side objective now? Pushing for the hell of it?

This sort of goes for Xenos, as well. The old aging system rewarded Xenos for lasting, it punished getting cocky. It had a risk vs reward element. Now every goddamn Xeno is a tank and the aging system is based on... time played? Why? What does this add?

EDIT: Little addendum, just in case this comes up. It's game-y and not lore appropriate is something that bothers me to sometimes see as half of CM isn't lore appropriate to the Aliens franchise and boxer Warrior is some of the goofiest stuff I've ever seen.

[c4xmaniac]

IO is on the trello for things to add.

[ObsidianCrow]

>This sort of goes for Xenos, as well. The old aging system rewarded Xenos for lasting, it punished getting cocky. It had a risk vs reward element. Now every goddamn Xeno is a tank and the aging system is based on... time played? Why? What does this add?

I like IOs but god damn please no maturity. Having the xenos and marines having consistent health vs. just guessing is just way better. Also I will bully and slaughter a young hive as a surv.

[CABAL]

This sort of goes for Xenos, as well. The old aging system rewarded Xenos for lasting, it punished getting cocky. It had a risk vs reward element. Now every goddamn Xeno is a tank and the aging system is based on... time played? Why? What does this add?

No need to read anymore. If current benos are considered a "tank" then OP has 0 idea what Ancient benos were back then, which means everything is irrelevant. But I have CM autismo, so:

IOs are pretty much useless.

If main marine force gets their ass beaten, then it means they retreat to caded positions at the very least, which for example in LV means Hydro, Central Nexus and LZ1. This makes any IO outside of cades a free real estate not only for ambush castes, but for any beno, so they don't gather intel and don't gather much points.

If main marine force beats beno asses, then it means benos already are retreating/losing and marines need no help, or even time to receive one, because unga steamroll has to continue on, or else benos regroup. This makes every piece of intel easily and quickly available to even lone IOs, but at this point, it is meaningless.

In short: If marines are losing, IOs can't do pretty much at all. If marines are winning, IO's are overkill/useless.

Right, so what exactly is the reason for marines to go planetside besides the gameplay loop?

They have an advantage when on the ship, that being a smaller map with more chokepoints they can use with the xenos having very little to retreat to and there's nothing on the planet.

A little known secret, so keep quiet and don't tell anyone: Benos are actually benefitting equally if not more from chokepoints. If we would get a totally flat map with no walls (and disallow benos making their walls too), they would lose hard basically everytime. Guess why benos are making 1 tile resin mazes.

On TGMC this is dealt with by exported Xenos giving Req a metric ton of points along with there being the mining drills that give Req points as long as they're controlled. Since on TGMC there's no such thing as a specialist, if the marines can control these points for long enough, this leads to Req being able to start pumping out specialist equivalent equipped marines to destroy the xenos.

In other words: there's a purpose to the planetside battle. There are points one side wants and the other side wants to deny. The longer the Marines have control of territory, the better equipped they'll be to finish off the Xenos and vice-versa.

This is Control-Points style of gameplay, not Intelligence-Gathering that IOs do and you propose to bring back. Apples are tasty, so bring back dog meat.

What is the purpose for planetside battle in CM? Fun map providing fun gameplay, different from Almayer 24/7.

On CM, often a dominating push can actually lead to the Marines getting exhausted and destroyed... for what? What is the gameplay purpose of a push? Often the best option is to immediately full on retreat the moment there's too many people to conceivably perform surgery. If anything, pushing can lead to marines getting stopped at an OB-less area. Then what? Either they retreat or they risk getting whittled down and potentially captured near a hive and giving aliens more bodies. Often now I'm starting to see CO ordering "bait retreats". Why wouldn't they? There's no reason to really hold any territory.

The gameplay purpose of a push is to... Win a game, get few kills. SS13 in general, which CM is a part of, works this way, its simple. Click till horizontal, rush to be too fast for enemy to be able to properly react.
Quick push and steamroll is the most effective SS13/CM tactic and there is no better one, literally. For every time that push leads marines getting stopped at an OB-less area and such, there is one, or more times where marines wipe out 90% of benos in 15 minutes after first contact.
Pushing fast wouldn't be so god-damn effective if only you couldn't go past your vision range (7 tiles) in one second.
With, or without IOs, there is still no reason to hold any territory.

What's the side objective now? Pushing for the hell of it?

There never was any and never will be. The only objective for great majority of people is to win the game.

This used to be somewhat better with the Intel Officer and the DEFCON system. The marines had the primary objective of killing xenos. They had the side objective of trying to assist intel in lowering DEFCON which in turn made them want to hold more territory to make the officer's life easier.

It never worked the way you imagine it, or see it trough rose-tinted glasses.
Marines always had to kill xenos, if they failed, IOs didn't lower DEFCON enough to matter. You can count on fingers of your hand rounds where marines got the nuke thanks to IOs when they actually needed it, or otherwise would lose. Such rounds were a good enough reason for champagne corks popping up as otherwise it was either when xenos already had like 2 runners, 1 drone and a lurker, or admeme intervention when FoB siege got a bit too long.

If there is an area and there is nobody on it, then its xeno territory. If IO comes up with few marines, its still xeno territory.

EDIT: Little addendum, just in case this comes up. It's game-y and not lore appropriate is something that bothers me to sometimes see as half of CM isn't lore appropriate to the Aliens franchise and boxer Warrior is some of the goofiest stuff I've ever seen.

Only recently lore started to matter at all. Just few months ago, Weyland-Yutani and some fucking pizza company were the only two companies in the whole universe. Also HEFA order is canon. This should explain how much lore matters, just as much as this post I am writing. Maybe to someone it is, but not really.

[Unknownity]

there's nothing preventing you from playing like an IO already
IO was literally a PFC+ with research skill
anyone could have done their work.

be the change, collect xeno corpses and the few papers/vials left on map

[Paradoxal]

No need to read anymore. If current benos are considered a "tank" then OP has 0 idea what Ancient benos were back then, which means everything is irrelevant. But I have CM autismo, so:

I've played on-and-off since the time when every squad had an overwatch officer and face huggers were chucked by every Xeno. The difference with old aging is you had to survive quite a lengthy period of time to become ancient. Currently, yes, everything is a tank. I've seen a drone survive a 5-6 marines shooting it with rifles and it escaped. Saying: 'ancients used to be tankier!' excludes the fact that getting to ancient took around 45 minutes of staying alive, which was tough as most young xenos could be pretty easily taken about. In other words, it took roughly 10 minutes to become an adult, that's 10 minutes of a Xeno that, if not playing as safe as safe can be, would die. And then every other step to becoming ancient.

I'll remind you that it used to be rare to even see an ancient besides the Queen, Crusher, Drones, or particularly good Ravs. And to add an obvious thing: that 45 minutes it excluding the time it took to even evolve into that caste. This further gave reason for you to potentially stick to your current caste. It wouldn't be very smart to lose your Ancient Hunter to get a Young Rav.

The real only resource Xenos currently have is hive size. How many Xenos do we have kickin'? The old aging system gave it a second, very crucial resource. Time survived. Do we play it safe and let the Marines take more territory and get DEFCON down? Do we risk losing younger, squishier Xenos?

If main marine force gets their ass beaten, then it means they retreat to caded positions at the very least, which for example in LV means Hydro, Central Nexus and LZ1. This makes any IO outside of cades a free real estate not only for ambush castes, but for any beno, so they don't gather intel and don't gather much points.

Right, so we're just instantly hopping to somewhere around the 45 minute mark in a normal game and ignoring the stand off. Just jumping immediately to post 45 when marines are either on the full offensive or are totally losing and precluding everything the IO got done before then. Rad. Yeah, I can see your point. If we just ignore everything up until 45 minutes, the IO is useless!

A little known secret, so keep quiet and don't tell anyone: Benos are actually benefitting equally if not more from chokepoints. If we would get a totally flat map with no walls (and disallow benos making their walls too), they would lose hard basically everytime. Guess why benos are making 1 tile resin mazes.

Ah yes, as we know, expansive cave systems that allow xenos to rapidly traverse the map and makes it far harder for marines to cover every side, and starts with plenty of weeds, and gives Xenos time to ready up defenses is totally the same as shipside, where you have chokepoints that facilitate gun usage, plenty of windows which give marines more firing lines, a clear sign of where the hive is, plus doors which Xenos need to take the time to pry open, and having to rapidly weed and construct defenses.

Often, when there's a sizeable marine force, Xenos don't win shipside. When they do, it's often when they outnumber marines due to the painful groundside battle. I'll repeat: currently, there's no reason to even really go groundside besides it being the gameplay loop.

This is Control-Points style of gameplay

My guy, what control points? There are no """control points""". That's my whole point. TGMC HAS control points in the form of mining drills, CM has no control points. You push for the sake of it. It's just TDM where people pretend there are control points because the TDM design is dull, poorly done, so we have to act like there's more there than there actually is.

There never was any and never will be. The only objective for great majority of people is to win the game.

Oh my god. My guy, you've lost me. Do you know what a side objective is? Are you potentially schizophrenic? Because you acknowledge the IO, you acknowledge the existence of the DEFCON system, and then proceed to say there's never been a side objective. I'm sorry, so what was lowering DEFCON? That's not a side objective? Excuse me?

It never worked the way you imagine it, or see it trough rose-tinted glasses.
Marines always had to kill xenos, if they failed, IOs didn't lower DEFCON enough to matter. You can count on fingers of your hand rounds where marines got the nuke thanks to IOs when they actually needed it, or otherwise would lose. Such rounds were a good enough reason for champagne corks popping up as otherwise it was either when xenos already had like 2 runners, 1 drone and a lurker, or admeme intervention when FoB siege got a bit too long.

Oh! Oh! So what you're telling me is it was a *side objective* that supplemented and gave marines an actual reason to push? Wow. That's bizarre, you were just saying it wasn't that! If the objective is *just kill* there's no *mechanical reason* to push. If you're intending to try and *win*, then there's *zero reason* not to go for extreme slow ball or hunker down tactics. The only reason is it's boring. But then that makes pushing frustrating because there's no supplementary system to assist those.

TGMC has mining drills! Get mining drills, hold, Req gets points, gets everyone and their mother a SADAR.

In short: If marines are losing, IOs can't do pretty much at all. If marines are winning, IO's are overkill/useless.

Left this one for last! There's been plenty of rounds where marines were going good but lost steam. They lose steam because they have a more complicated health system. They have a need for resources. They have nothing that'll truly re-energize them in a lengthy battle. I've lost track of the times people have gone: "The Marines have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

I mean, how is this a surprise? Xenos are working on unlimited supplies and it takes a handful of marines and the right equipment just to take out a single lurker. And unlike Xenos, which get to just hit you and run away, where even if they did a tenth of the damage you did to them, you'll have been drained of a resource - as little as it might've been - while they're just gonna run away and heal.

A Xeno dying is a loss, but due to the change in the aging system, it's not even as much of a loss as it used to be. If you die as, let's say, a lurker, you now just have to deal with the evolution system, which at most will keep you out for maybe five minutes and then you're back at full force.

The fact is, no, the IO wasn't overkill as we're seeing with how many rounds Marines are doing great and the Xenos are doing terribly, but Xenos just need that *one* win to drain substantial resources or manage to stoop the advance to a halt and skirmish. There's a reason why the meta rush has become the best way for Marines to win. It's because, unlike what you claim, it's not a "control points" game. It's a pure TDM game. There's no advantage to holding territory. There's not even territory. With how effective ambush classes are, even if there's a decent amount of marines, you might still get drained of resources.

While the DEFCON system had major issues, it at least was *something* to give that needed stamina Marines needed. And it also meant that Xenos couldn't just huddle in caves, outside of OB, as given enough time they'd get the nuclear option. These, by the way, are *side objectives*. Oh, and since that was one of the craziest things I've heard said: we still have side objectives. That's what researcher is, it just isn't nearly as good.

[BeardedWall]

Xeno aging mechanic was a good stat given in the shittest way possible.

All it did/does is encourage more people to afk as xenos. Which is already lame enough trying to get t3 spots.

The new system is kinda cool since you can see who might be worth a shit.


Honestly if you want to bring make maturity it should be done in a way that works WITH the xeno playstyle. Like instead of time... you get maturity for damage done to marines. The most dangerous xenos aren't the ones that afked for 30minutes..but already killed 10 marines. For builders... well they get maturity for building

[CABAL]

I've played on-and-off since the time when every squad had an overwatch officer and face huggers were chucked by every Xeno. The difference with old aging is you had to survive quite a lengthy period of time to become ancient. Currently, yes, everything is a tank. I've seen a drone survive a 5-6 marines shooting it with rifles and it escaped. Saying: 'ancients used to be tankier!' excludes the fact that getting to ancient took around 45 minutes of staying alive, which was tough as most young xenos could be pretty easily taken about. In other words, it took roughly 10 minutes to become an adult, that's 10 minutes of a Xeno that, if not playing as safe as safe can be, would die. And then every other step to becoming ancient.

I'll remind you that it used to be rare to even see an ancient besides the Queen, Crusher, Drones, or particularly good Ravs. And to add an obvious thing: that 45 minutes it excluding the time it took to even evolve into that caste. This further gave reason for you to potentially stick to your current caste. It wouldn't be very smart to lose your Ancient Hunter to get a Young Rav.

The real only resource Xenos currently have is hive size. How many Xenos do we have kickin'? The old aging system gave it a second, very crucial resource. Time survived. Do we play it safe and let the Marines take more territory and get DEFCON down? Do we risk losing younger, squishier Xenos?

Survive, delaylien or AFK for 45 minutes.
Drone has 500 HP and 0 armor. Normal Pulse Rifle bullet does 44 damage. Quick Maths shows 12 bullets to bring Drone to negative health. Of course that number can be increased by drone having shield, getting prae/queen whatever healed, pheromones and such. Very fucking tanky.
Crusher has 700 HP and 30 armor, which means that Pulse Rifle bullet deals 21 damage (in a scenario without pheromones, shields, etc), so it takes 34 bullets. What a tank of a beno.

And why would benos need that "second" resource?

Lets also not forget that old maturity system encouraged marines rushing. Now marines do it out of boredom of a gameplay loop, back then they did it, as it was the best strategy, to attack benos when you are the strongest and they are the weakest. Current system does nothing to further encourage rush, which is better than actually doing something for it.

Right, so we're just instantly hopping to somewhere around the 45 minute mark in a normal game and ignoring the stand off. Just jumping immediately to post 45 when marines are either on the full offensive or are totally losing and precluding everything the IO got done before then. Rad. Yeah, I can see your point. If we just ignore everything up until 45 minutes, the IO is useless!

No need to ignore anything.
Lets just take a standard LV round as an example. When main marine offensive happens? As soon as fog drops. When does it stops? At the nearest chokepoint, after beach beno defences got OBed. As soon as fog drops, no marine worth a damn has time to get stuff from req. Thats why techweb rewards were designed to be fast and easy to use, alongside being available everywhere. Injecting yourself with stims/chips, or clicking with something on your uniform, healing kit, or sentry was pretty much the only thing robust marines had time for.

Basically every CM match is decided after the conclusion of main marine force hitting main xeno force. Chokepoints only delay it for a while. IOs were and are useless.

Ah yes, as we know, expansive cave systems that allow xenos to rapidly traverse the map and makes it far harder for marines to cover every side, and starts with plenty of weeds, and gives Xenos time to ready up defenses is totally the same as shipside, where you have chokepoints that facilitate gun usage, plenty of windows which give marines more firing lines, a clear sign of where the hive is, plus doors which Xenos need to take the time to pry open, and having to rapidly weed and construct defenses.

Often, when there's a sizeable marine force, Xenos don't win shipside. When they do, it's often when they outnumber marines due to the painful groundside battle. I'll repeat: currently, there's no reason to even really go groundside besides it being the gameplay loop.

Haha! Chokepoints that facilitate gun usage and plenty of windows! What a bullshit. The only good hold position is evac shuttle and it was designed with that in mind. Every other hold point sucks for actuall hold and is only usefull to rush DS as soon as possible.
Shipside might not be as good for benos as caves (that were specially designed to be), but it still isn't a bad teritory for benos to fight in.

Attention: There is no reason to play SS13 and CM13 besides addiciton to shitty 2D game. Xenos also have no reason to go shipside, what we are going to do about it?
OMG, you discovered that when there is a lot of marines, then xenos don't win shipside, but when there isn't, they do. Strange, huh? It was just a theory among the scientific community for decades, but now it is proved by very simple equation: A lot of marines = Benos lose.

My guy, what control points? There are no """control points""". That's my whole point. TGMC HAS control points in the form of mining drills, CM has no control points. You push for the sake of it. It's just TDM where people pretend there are control points because the TDM design is dull, poorly done, so we have to act like there's more there than there actually is.

Not my problem your reading comprehension is lacking, I meant that TGMC has control points and you compare CM IOs to TGMC mining drills which are different, thus getting IOs won't be the same as getting mining drills.

Oh my god. My guy, you've lost me. Do you know what a side objective is? Are you potentially schizophrenic? Because you acknowledge the IO, you acknowledge the existence of the DEFCON system, and then proceed to say there's never been a side objective. I'm sorry, so what was lowering DEFCON? That's not a side objective? Excuse me?

Ad Personam, in the first response, neat. Lowering DEFCON was main objective of IO's, not marine (pfc) side objective. Healing wounded and dead marines is medics main, or side objective? In theory you could call DEFCON sort of a side objective, but the ultimate goal is always to kill the benos, with, or without the nuke. Rescuing civilians and just flying away would be a good example of secondary objective, not gathering intel to kill benos better.
Your side objective: Bring your gun, this will help you achieve your main goal of killing benos.

Oh! Oh! So what you're telling me is it was a *side objective* that supplemented and gave marines an actual reason to push? Wow. That's bizarre, you were just saying it wasn't that! If the objective is *just kill* there's no *mechanical reason* to push. If you're intending to try and *win*, then there's *zero reason* not to go for extreme slow ball or hunker down tactics. The only reason is it's boring. But then that makes pushing frustrating because there's no supplementary system to assist those.

TGMC has mining drills! Get mining drills, hold, Req gets points, gets everyone and their mother a SADAR.

Intel didn't give marines a reason to push. Anything giving marines a reason to push fast is bad, but DEFCON wasn't one of those things. Also, what the fuck "If the objective is *just kill* there's no *mechanical reason* to push." means? Objective is to kill benos, to kill benos you gotta push, because they will respawn, reheal and reattack always. Push is just the most efficient, easiest, fastest and "fun" way to accomplish it.

And it being boring is enough of a reason not to ever do it, unless pushing failed. We saw that plenty of times in old ICE, where both sides pushed underground and aboveground and failed, so they retreated.
With, or without shitty sypplementary system there is still no difference. If you push, you don't get intel, if you don't push, you also don't get intel. You get intel for doing some prop hunting, boring corpse dragging and such.

Mining drills aren't IOs. The whole fucking thread is called "bring back the intel officer" not "add control points", or "add TGMC mining drills". Mining drills are different, we aren't discussing mining drills.

Left this one for last! There's been plenty of rounds where marines were going good but lost steam. They lose steam because they have a more complicated health system. They have a need for resources. They have nothing that'll truly re-energize them in a lengthy battle. I've lost track of the times people have gone: "The Marines have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

I mean, how is this a surprise? Xenos are working on unlimited supplies and it takes a handful of marines and the right equipment just to take out a single lurker. And unlike Xenos, which get to just hit you and run away, where even if they did a tenth of the damage you did to them, you'll have been drained of a resource - as little as it might've been - while they're just gonna run away and heal.

A Xeno dying is a loss, but due to the change in the aging system, it's not even as much of a loss as it used to be. If you die as, let's say, a lurker, you now just have to deal with the evolution system, which at most will keep you out for maybe five minutes and then you're back at full force.

The fact is, no, the IO wasn't overkill as we're seeing with how many rounds Marines are doing great and the Xenos are doing terribly, but Xenos just need that *one* win to drain substantial resources or manage to stoop the advance to a halt and skirmish. There's a reason why the meta rush has become the best way for Marines to win. It's because, unlike what you claim, it's not a "control points" game. It's a pure TDM game. There's no advantage to holding territory. There's not even territory. With how effective ambush classes are, even if there's a decent amount of marines, you might still get drained of resources.

While the DEFCON system had major issues, it at least was *something* to give that needed stamina Marines needed. And it also meant that Xenos couldn't just huddle in caves, outside of OB, as given enough time they'd get the nuclear option. These, by the way, are *side objectives*. Oh, and since that was one of the craziest things I've heard said: we still have side objectives. That's what researcher is, it just isn't nearly as good.

If marines menaged to lose steam, IOs didn't had enough time to gather intel, xeno and marine corpses as marines loosing steam means they retreat, or die.
If marines lose steam, benos gain it and chase marines, or let them reorganise. Only in that scenario IOs could prove usefull. Where xenos are both robust enough to withstand marine push, but bald enough to not follow, or/and marines are robust enough to push xenos a lot, but also bald enough to get beaten at the very end.

Xenos dying being less punishing is a good thing, marine players got a chance to kill more benos (main gameplay loop) and benos are less punished.

I don't claim CM is control points, TGMC mining drills are, IOs are and were pointless.

If you want "atleast something" don't go fucking asking for IOs and old maturity back. Techwebs also were giving marines that "stamina" and their last option wasn't nuclear, but pretty much a deal-breaker anyway with its last option.

[Freshguac]

i want IOs back because it will make cabal go absolute bananas

[Santiago Delgado]

I didn't read any other part of this post, I just want IO's back too. IO escort was the best time I had in CM.