A Real Discussion: Xeno Meta Gaming

[Royal Griffon]

So, something other than MP'ness for a bit at least from me to point out an ACTUAL in game IC problem that marines have to face from the xenos that many, including myself, call meta that the xenos do.
Yes I'm dragging THAT thing brushed under the rug into the light. Something all dead marines fear.
Corpse dragging.
"Oh but we're just hiding the light, dunga unga, that's not meta."
I also play xeno, this is utter bullshit and the biggest lie we can ever tell AND HAVE WORK, I can assure you that 9/10 times Xenos won't EVER turn off their nightvision to EVEN CHECK for lights.
This is a major problem, for the only reason they do this is to deny defibs, not to mess up lights or prevent lights, half the time xenos don't even CARE about lights. They just use it as an excuse to deny defibs 9/10 times, gameplay wise, especially with warriors being so stupidly broken with Lunge still being on their abilities, is brokenly OP and just ruins the game for everyone it happens to. Then comes the situation of lorewise, xenos should have NO idea about defibs, or even how they work, xenos are killing machines, the perfect killing machines, they don't care about corpses, they should and would leave corpses wherever they lay, just cause they aren't showing life anymore and that the xenos are too busy being the ultimate predators and hunting the humans down.
The only excuse from this I could see is if the body is infected with a facehugger and they die AFTER the hugger falls off and impregnates them, they wouldn't understand that the human is dead, and instinctively would just put them into the hive, that I can understand and is the ONLY excuse to corpse dragging that should be made, but this stupid light bullshittery that xenos say and use and GET AWAY with, is utter shit, and yeah this is a bit of salt, but it's also a bit of feeling like you're on an unfair advantage side saying your side can drag off dead marines just to deny them their defibs for no other reason than they were dead and you dragged them. Like I've said, I've played xeno, they have no reason to corpse drag other than a meta that they know a dead marine can be defib'ed and they want to prevent it, and use the light excuse cause they have no other way of protecting themselves and fear getting caught for meta'gaming.

[Butlerblock]

If you die, and your body is managed to be dragged off without being recovered before being hidden, 99% of the time you would’ve been dead for 5+ minutes even if your body wasn’t touched after death.

Additionally, if you die and you complain about your body being hidden, don’t die in the first place.

Disclaimer, “You” is being used as a general term

[CABAL]

Don't be ridiculous. There wasn't, there is no, and there will be no meta knowledge for Xenos besides those two things:
1. Landing zones before first drop.
2. Slashing life support on Almayer.

Xenos don't have eyes (I think) yet they perfectly recognise CO if he/she is on the field (and of course they somehow know his/her importance). Excuse?: "Mother, I think I see their Queen! I will try to kill it". - Perfect example of what I think should be considered Power/Metagaming.
Predator? "I think headhunter wants to duel with you, Ancient Ravager 007", "Leave the Headhunter alone, he will just fuck around and if he targets you, escape".
Artillery? Red dot?! Run!
Slashing beds to deny every bit of metal for marines? -Ahelp- "Isn't that metaknowledge and powergaming" -Response- "Colony is all aliens teritory, they can do whatever with anything". Even if it is against Xeno behaviour.
Medical stretcher? "I don't have IC excuse..." Just destroy.

[Jeser]

Yesterday, when aliens breached Tcomms on Big Red, I was hte only marine at FOB and I saw as crusher breached one cade. What he does? He immideately goes to nearest M56D (we had 3 in FoB) and starts slashing it. Despite the fact that aliens never even attacked FOB and none of those MGs shot single bullet. Meta-assholes like this make people hate aliens for a reason.

[Heckenshutze]

Tricky issue, that hasn't made yet specific in the rules but spoke between the mods & admins.

My advice as ex-mod: ahelp everytime, you never know when you hit the nail and the criteria of the mods favours you.

[Davidchan]

Xenos rushing SD and camping TCOMMs would be another meta issue I've noticed. Xenos have utterly no excuse to know what these facilities or rooms do, let alone any reason to try destroy everything in them then fill them with weeds and resin. I've considered requesting sentries be placed in the Almayer SD wing to stop this stupid crap.

The same xenos who cry and freak out when marines start torching eggs, weeds and resin objects are the first ones to immediately run away from grenades, OB strikes and somehow know not to stand infront of the tank that's never fired a shell before. Spitter finds a cargo drop or discarded metal near a FOB? Better melt it all despite having no IC way of knowing the marines would be any more interested in metal sheets than the walls.

The only 2 valid IC reasons a xeno has to destroy anything is a) they are expanding the nest and its in the way or b) it's between them and new hosts.

[Lorem123]

Like two days ago the xenos metagamed on Big Red and had an entire hive set up south of the Big Red LZ1, as well as the entire LZ weeded up with about 10 xenos hiding in the LZ. They only got off with a warning despite killing 20+ marines.

[Renomaki]

Xenos rushing SD and camping TCOMMs would be another meta issue I've noticed. Xenos have utterly no excuse to know what these facilities or rooms do, let alone any reason to try destroy everything in them then fill them with weeds and resin. I've considered requesting sentries be placed in the Almayer SD wing to stop this stupid crap.

The same xenos who cry and freak out when marines start torching eggs, weeds and resin objects are the first ones to immediately run away from grenades, OB strikes and somehow know not to stand infront of the tank that's never fired a shell before. Spitter finds a cargo drop or discarded metal near a FOB? Better melt it all despite having no IC way of knowing the marines would be any more interested in metal sheets than the walls.

The only 2 valid IC reasons a xeno has to destroy anything is a) they are expanding the nest and its in the way or b) it's between them and new hosts.

Honestly, putting sentry guns near the SD would just result in marines camping it more and giving them more of a crutch during the Almayer Defense. It is bad enough that there is a meta where they stockpile MGs and hunker down inside of the SD room, making it nearly impossible for xenos to bypass (to the point they remodeled it just to weaken that meta).

As for xenos doing their best to flee from explosives and airstrikes, well... No one wants to be forced to die.

Lemme put it this way... Say you are a marine, and you suddenly find yourself fighting a strange alien race with energy weapons and all that jazz. At some point, a strange blue ball rolls up to your feet in the middle of combat. What do you do?

Realistically, you'd run the fuck away from that thing, even if you had no idea what it did. All you knew was that it no doubt was some kind of grenade-like weapon. Even if you were wrong, it is better safe than sorry. Same goes for xeno players, who honestly have to deal with a lot of shit. With all their power, they still get the short end of the stick due to their melee based nature, and considering how one well placed grenade could totally screw you over, being told that running from said grenade is metagaming is a bit.. Harsh.

The best way to combat this is simply to make it trickier for xenos. Cook your grenades, place OB beacons in places that xenos can't easily see (or just adjust the offset to PREDICT where xenos will go, rather than where they are now), laze behind xenos rather than directly on top of them, etc etc etc.

In all my time playing, no one should be forced to die. Not to a predator bracer bomb, not to a grenade, and not to an egg.

[Royal Griffon]

Don't be ridiculous. There wasn't, there is no, and there will be no meta knowledge for Xenos besides those two things:
1. Landing zones before first drop.
2. Slashing life support on Almayer.

Xenos don't have eyes (I think) yet they perfectly recognise CO if he/she is on the field (and of course they somehow know his/her importance). Excuse?: "Mother, I think I see their Queen! I will try to kill it". - Perfect example of what I think should be considered Power/Metagaming.
Predator? "I think headhunter wants to duel with you, Ancient Ravager 007", "Leave the Headhunter alone, he will just fuck around and if he targets you, escape".
Artillery? Red dot?! Run!
Slashing beds to deny every bit of metal for marines? -Ahelp- "Isn't that metaknowledge and powergaming" -Response- "Colony is all aliens teritory, they can do whatever with anything". Even if it is against Xeno behaviour.
Medical stretcher? "I don't have IC excuse..." Just destroy.

Lorewise
Xenos don't have eyes, but it is predicted that they use sonar like bats basically

[Royal Griffon]

If you die, and your body is managed to be dragged off without being recovered before being hidden, 99% of the time you would’ve been dead for 5+ minutes even if your body wasn’t touched after death.

Additionally, if you die and you complain about your body being hidden, don’t die in the first place.

Disclaimer, “You” is being used as a general term

That estimate is pushing it to put it lightly, when corpse dragging regularly happens, it's right when you die and they'll drag you back as far as the hive to deny you defibs which in no case should be okay, and that excuse isn't valid for 99% of the time, cause 99% of the time, the person just died and they know it, cause they caused it or they watched it, and proceed to drag your corpse off, "to deny lights," which as I said before 9/10 times xenos don't ever touch their night vision button to even CHECK for lights, for all they know they're dragging a corpse with a light down a hallway filled with lights and dump the body under a boiler (yes I've seen this happen, 5 plus marine corpses, ALL freshly killed, being stashed under a boiler cause there was no way they'd be able to push that far to get the bodies) It's just sad that they'll use the, "a light!" Excuse to get away with it.
Another thing I've also seen as an example, is the tag team of warriors and runners, warriors will drag marines back with its inescapable grab, runner and warrior will kill the marine and then the runner runs off with the body and the cycle continues for up to about 6 or 7 marines. Of runner dragging the kills of the warrior off so in case the marines push too hard only a few of the warrior's kills can be saved if the frontlines change.

[TheMaskedMan2]

The dead have no rights, Xenos are allowed to drag corpses all they want. It's your problem for dying in the first place. Defib's are not a right. Further more, since i've had to explain this like 100 times now and i'm sick of it. Xeno meta does exist, it's just most players want to assign everything Xenos do as some sort of meta.

Avoidng CAS/OBs - We're not going to force players to stand in an instant kill zone.
Targeting Specs - It makes perfect sense to target the dude with the bigger gun that's more capable of killing you all.
Slashing comms - They literally cut the power in the movie, it's your job to defend it.
Dragging bodies - The dead don't have any rights.
Slashing turrets and m56d - Seriously? It's a weapon. Xenos know what weapons are.

I could go on, but there are things that ARE Xeno meta, that I constantly yell at Xenos about. Such as

Specifically melting all of hydro for no reason.
Camping at LZ1
Melting surgery tables on the almayer

etc etc. I'm a bit tired but yeah. We have this discussion all the time. Defend your stuff.

[Saytkl77]

Like two days ago the xenos metagamed on Big Red and had an entire hive set up south of the Big Red LZ1, as well as the entire LZ weeded up with about 10 xenos hiding in the LZ. They only got off with a warning despite killing 20+ marines.

I think that one wasnt meta gaming so much as a new queen, she setup a hive in Virology south of LZ1 where she spawned, and xenos just fortified around that area. 9/10 times that would have been a wipe, if marines hadn't gone to LZ2 with everyone, A hive in virology south of LZ1 is a terrible idea, because marines are instantly there and T3's have to try and defend it while young, its super vulnerable to OB's, a million miles away from the monkeys in lambda and it doesn't really offer any strategic advantage over say the hives in the south east caves of the map.

Weeding up the LZ is fine so long as you are weeding the whole planet and not using any meta information to know its an important place in particular, the initial force of 7 or so lurkers weren't hiding in the LZ either, a runner saw some marines at the LZ and called the 7 lurkers to come, who were only 15 seconds away because the virology hive is just a screen or so south of lz1. Theres a reason the admins didn't take any additional actions, trust them they were there and saw everything!

When I'm playing marine I'd love if xenos setup there because they are going to get absolutely decimated as young T3s try and fight a swarm of 80+ fresh marines equipped with explosives, incendinary ammo, zero injuries and other supplies, while also being only a screen away from evacing any injured marines and no risk of being ambushed in a long run back to the fob. Its basically the opposite of gaining an advantage for xenos.

[Aceluke123]

Masked is tired. They mean melting *only* important objects on the almayer without trying to make a nest.

So you are fine to make a nest in engineering and melt literally everything there. Though it makes no sense for a xeno to make a nest in medical, so specific melting makes not much sense to be all honest. Making it typically meta. Like if you were to only melt the surgery tools, ignore the clean sprayer, and not whatever else may be in there.

[Royal Griffon]

Masked is tired. They mean melting *only* important objects on the almayer without trying to make a nest.

So you are fine to make a nest in engineering and melt literally everything there. Though it makes no sense for a xeno to make a nest in medical, so specific melting makes not much sense to be all honest. Making it typically meta. Like if you were to only melt the surgery tools, ignore the clean sprayer, and not whatever else may be in there.

That I agree with

do you have a working version of windows?

[Sleepy Retard]

Dragging bodies is to prevent revives and is perfectly acceptable, because xenos are the big brains and know that marines can be revived.

However, if you want a bullshit excuse that no one actually cares about but uses anyways

HNNNNNNG HE HAD LIGHT ME AM DRAG HNNNNNNNG

Xenos can't actually smell 'BIG GUNS HURRRRRR' but it's okay because you don't actually smell anything with your pheromones, so it isn't meta (or whatever they use to detect shitheads and kill them, it isn't eyes.)

Xenos cut out the power in the movie, therefore 'ONLY SLASH T-COMMS HNNNNNNG' is acceptable.

Slashing turrets and the m56d is okay because they shoot hurty bang and that hurt me so me slash

Melting surgery tables on the almayer

etc etc. I'm a bit tired but yeah. We have this discussion all the time. Defend your stuff.

Nice jab at chubs, subtle.

[Aceluke123]

Dragging bodies is to prevent revives and is perfectly acceptable, because xenos are the big brains and know that marines can be revived.

However, if you want a bullshit excuse that no one actually cares about but uses anyways

HNNNNNNG HE HAD LIGHT ME AM DRAG HNNNNNNNG

Xenos can't actually smell 'BIG GUNS HURRRRRR' but it's okay because you don't actually smell anything with your pheromones, so it isn't meta (or whatever they use to detect shitheads and kill them, it isn't eyes.)

Xenos cut out the power in the movie, therefore 'ONLY SLASH T-COMMS HNNNNNNG' is acceptable.

Slashing turrets and the m56d is okay because they shoot hurty bang and that hurt me so me slash



Nice jab at chubs, subtle.

Dunno if it was a slab at chubs, as more or less bringing up the most recent discussion of xeno metagaming that was brought up.

Other than that, I would say. Yeah, I agree that a lot of xeno shit makes little sense in terms of actual lore, but we arent going to make xenos completely shit and purposefully lose their fight against marines.

Basically, yeah... it's just how the game works. I do like your way to describe xenos though. 10/10

[Sleepy Retard]

Dunno if it was a slab at chubs, as more or less bringing up the most recent discussion of xeno metagaming that was brought up.

Other than that, I would say. Yeah, I agree that a lot of xeno shit makes little sense in terms of actual lore, but we arent going to make xenos completely shit and purposefully lose their fight against marines.

Basically, yeah... it's just how the game works. I do like your way to describe xenos though. 10/10

The 'melting surgery tables' has like, literally only happened once and was a direct jab at Chubs, who did it and made a staff report.

Besides that, I don't care for xeno meta because they're the no RP side of the game so it doesn't matter what the fuck they're doing, they're playing a video game and we're trying to roleplay brain dead marines.

[TheMaskedMan2]

It was just the most recent example I could think of, I forgot it was specifically chubs, more the fact that it caused a rather recent discussion we've had a lot in staff chat about what constitutes Xeno meta.

[Lumdor]

I'll always agree some Xenos do meta and meta-target.

One round on Big-Red the Queen only gibbed two bodies, mine the CDR, and Heinz. After which when the Queen gibbed him, she said, "stupid German."

[Lorem123]

Xenos definitely do more metagaming than the marines, or at least do it without any justification.
On Big Red the most 'meta' thing I do is fortify south of tcomms really hard because the operation map shows a tunnel there.

[Symbiosis]

Don't go Drone on the Almayer if you're a Larva.

You're not making a nest because you can't shit eggs, melting shit to cause Chaos could be viewed as metagaming.

Go Runner and aim for the head.

You can't possibly go wrong there.

[caleeb101]

The few things that always irked me:

-Xenos ignoring every APC except the one SPECIFICALLY set for T-comms.

-Melting ONLY weapons with good attachments on them e.g melting a weapon with a barrel charger on it and leaving every other single weapon alone. For spec weapons I guess I understand cause "big hurty" though.

-Lurkers/Runners/Warriors rushing to the dropship on LV-624 in order to board the Almayer because they know they can get easy kills/ruin management for marines. Hell, pretty sure they did this on the sulaco too. It was and still is dumb as hell. Also, they ignore everyone on the ship and gun straight for the PO usually.

My point for the first two, if you're gonna melt a weapon/slash an APC and justify it with "xenos know how power works/weapons are dangerous", then go through with it for everything and not ONLY the "important" shit that you know marines consider "critical" because even though it's not against the rules it makes it pretty obvious it's meta.

Point for the third one is I hate you so much. Stop boarding my ship and decapping me when I play PO warriors. Please.

[CABAL]

Dragging bodies is to prevent revives and is perfectly acceptable, because xenos are the big brains and know that marines can be revived.
However, if you want a bullshit excuse that no one actually cares about but uses anyways

HNNNNNNG HE HAD LIGHT ME AM DRAG HNNNNNNNG

Xenos can't actually smell 'BIG GUNS HURRRRRR' but it's okay because you don't actually smell anything with your pheromones, so it isn't meta (or whatever they use to detect shitheads and kill them, it isn't eyes.)

Xenos cut out the power in the movie, therefore 'ONLY SLASH T-COMMS HNNNNNNG' is acceptable.

Slashing turrets and the m56d is okay because they shoot hurty bang and that hurt me so me slash

Marines are big brains and should know that xenos are planetside from the start. When and how xenos learned that? Now they can read in mind? Queen Mother knows all the marines equipment? Even that she is light years away and can only occasionally send few telepathic messages? Xenos can watch Rick and Morty and have +200 IQ, but if they don't know something, they don't know it, they can't "figure it out".

Guns are not a problem, xenos saw Pulse Rifle and it's enough to add "bigger" to "gun" and learn that "bigger gun" is dangerous.

Xenos cut just power, eating cables, or something, but targeting just only comms like they are engineers themselfs is not "xeno like" (Rule 19)

Like with "bigger guns"

Let's use Xeno-meta logic:
"Marines can't actually smell "UNGA DUNGA I NEED SECOND POWER PACK IN MY BACKPACK, NOT ON FOB" but it's okay to take it becouse you don't actually smell anything with your attachement sense, so it isn't meta (or whatever they use to detect barrel charger to attach it, it isn't eyes.)"

"Marines welded airlock in the movies, therefore "OOORAH WELD ALL VENTS" is acceptable"

"Rushing queen in the hive is okay becouse she breeds hurty facehugger things and that stuns me so me rush."

Metaknowledge is forbidden mainly becouse of gameplay balance and lore. RP reasons are secondary.

[Jeser]

Well, from my experience, a lot of players understand "playing as alien" as being as much dick to everyone as possible without getting to obvious in breaking rules.

[caleeb101]

Also can you people stop saying "jus don't die! e z" cause that's not really a proper argument. It's not always your fault when you die.