Honestly the boons are so shit that it wouldn’t even matter if you gave them to xenos I think marines just straight up need to be nerfed cause if even a fraction of the marines are passingly competent xenos get rolled. (barring when owl is online as owl is equal to like 15+ xenos by themselves) Marines just have so many tools at their disposal and xenos have fuck all other than slash spit boil and scree.
Giving a free king is a bad idea IMO at least in its current form- maybe remove the leap and replace it with another ability that aoe removes stims from people?
very few XM51s at the front and they do dogshit awful damage on walls, I agree the fact that xeno buildings are a binary “so strong it’s incredibly annoying when spammed” thick resin or “comically weak and incapable of stopping a push at all” drone resin, but usually it’s UBS rushes carrying the momentum not XM51, which I really only see used for clearing out buildings near FOB/comms for building.
the max effective range in 7254 literally does nothing, the falloff was already super low so increasing the effective range means nothing, in the PR itself it literally explains it’s just for the LARP that they thought it was confusing the number said zero. my personal opinion is that XM88’s bustedness comes from the reduced fire delay when landing a hit, and adding a fire delay between shots similar to that of the m37 would “fix” the gun. (probably not quite as long as the m37, but still.)
Steelpoint’s buff is obviously consequential but I believe steel is pretty thoughtful about the various changes to niche weapons to try to make them viable.
getting thick resin walls fortnite built around you faster than you can break them sucked but I agree that the nerf just led to more instant deovi combat queens which I think is overall worse for the gameplay loop. Ideally some other way to solve the issue would be found.
nailgun was a cool map loot item that now every ct just spawns with which is lame. I agree it’s powercreep, and I think it should’ve been an expensive points item rather than a literal freebie.
AMR is busted as fuck right now. During the testmerge it had some interesting niches, for example for a while it didnt get NVGs or a spotter (which was an oversight I think) but it led to it being a very different sniper playstyle which was cool, big damage but less situational awareness and versatility. This got patched out and it became identical to normal sniper, and then it got buffed to have basically all the normal sniper ammo stuff in one. it’s just straight up better for 95% of players, normal sniper is still good mind you.
I concur that CAS gets an insane amount of info from a single flare right now, and can offset them a huge amount + 12 more tiles with a FM, in extreme cases this can end up with you catching a missile without ever even hearing the FM start, and without the distinct WHOOSH+having to be on the signal source for a direct.
Unfortunately the other side of that coin is that playing CAS or JTAC are both insanely frustrating because the player quality is so low for both roles that playing one almost guarantees the other sucks. I don’t think the CAS buffs fix this problem so much as they provide a crutch for pilots to work with shit JTAC calls.
tech tree is a mixed bag but I think foxtrot existing contributes a huge amount to rounds stalling out into slogs once the marine force is well past the ability to make any moves, and to my knowledge drathek agrees so maybe it’s time to take it out back. definitely shouldnt be rebuyable.
omnis are generally kinda mid sentries imo because of the range makes them really easy to circumvent in most cases, I appreciate them being available to the average lower skill CT just because they’re a bit easier to use.
king(and nuke) exist as tiebreakers, if you can get it generally speaking you were going to win the round anyway yeah, they’re supposed to exist to shut down stuff like turbo nomad hives & fob/cave hiders, which they do… okay at. I agree the comms units should be revisited now that they are strategic objectives. with LV for example I’ve kinda wanted to experiment with moving one of the comms units to the beach.
this is a pretty scathing thing to say and I think you should bring up examples to back it up if you’re gonna levy that kind of accusation.
agree LZ sentries kinda suck, I won’t lie it makes FOB comtech a lot more fun because you have time to seal the entrances before getting murdered by lurkers but it has also led to a situation where basically every single marine including most bravos immediately fucks off from the FOB to the front becuse they know it is full of instant death guns and doesnt need to be defended until :45, at which point marines are either winning and xenos arent pressuring the FOB anyway or they’ve wiped and gone to siege at which point they’re all there to defend it anyway.
UBS is as ubiquitous as it is because it gives you like half the utilty of bringing a shotgun(something which I would say is effectively mandatory) without having to spend your back slot to carry two guns, which is invaluable as like a medic or whatever. Xenos complain about the instant swapping but ehhhh… I think it’s kinda a skill issue since if you drop the gun, no agrip means most xenos will have you disabled by the time you can rewield it unless theyre like. bad. the one thing I’ve heard maybe super fucked about UBS is double chunging by going UBS → normal shotgun, but I havent seen anyone pull that off yet.
I haven’t noticed a drastically increased supply of restricted weapons and such playing req over the last year or so, though one thing I have noticed is that over time HEDP grenades specifically have gone from something that I pretty commonly ran out of playing req and had to ration to being able to give 2 packets pretty freely to anyone who asks and still have some left over. Other grenades are still very scarce in the req vendor.
fighing t2s as a surv is usually guaranteed 1 click death which isn’t very interesting for either side and forces survs to do cade hiding molotov spam slop strats, fighting t3s as a surv with the guns you’re expected to use is like pulling teeth especially considering the limited ammo.
however I also agree that the evo timers as they exist are incredibly fucking arbitrary and contribute heavily to the meta to cut all RP and briefings and such and meta deploy at :20 on the spot. I’ve floated some fixes for this but they’re all fairly involved honestly.
plasteel standing cades are comically, stupidly strong and are insane powercreep, wild they got in and it’s wild watching t3s and the queen sit there slapping a cade for like 2 minutes straight to break it.
saying the breaching shotgun is fine while it can literally two shot normal walls, three shot strong walls, one shot any door from any range is kind of crazy
My point with the comms is that theres currently too much IFF fire and bunch of other doo-hickeys that usually mean the xenos /have/ to push out, while the marine side is the one thats supposed to be pushing. In my opinion one communication tower should always be in a xenomorph controlled territory, like maybe one of the caves for exaple. There is 0 reason for marine side to push into the caves on lv 624 because they can always just cade the entrances, wait untill the 2 hour mark and just nuke it. Xenos HAVE TO PUSH. which is not how this game usually works, xenomorphs are the defending side and always have been.
The problem is that the “cade caves and just hold strat” is simply very heavily reinforced by the fact that alot of other stuff hhas been powercrept
req getting funds
stims because IO’s on lv624 are kind of just free to do whatever they want due to all the intel being on colony side
cades being stronger
with the removal of 2 larva per bursts, and foxtrot marines they /OUT ATTRITION/ the xeno side, which should NOT be how it works.
if xenos push out of caves, they instantly get bombarded by cas or the endless amount of mortar ammo req gets from ASRS. Not counting OT nade spam
Perhaps the better way forward is to tacitly encourage both sides to push out and punish a side that refuses or can’t push out, instead of trying to balance by giving one side or the other more and more powerful gear/boosts as the round continues, which may or may not actually resolve the issue.
no thanks, we dont need to be nuke defense like TGMC. this example goes out for every map, all of them have comms in LZ then comms in middle point. shouldnt be the way it works
Give marines stims with every positive effect + pre-decrypted nuke at the 2 hour mark.
Its fair and balanced since xenos can get king that one-hit cades, gibs people it lands on, gives shield buffs to nearby xenos, has a huge health pool, etc. They also have two-hit tackle to cap you which creates new xenos, it’s a 20% foxtrot every time it happens!!
If none of these features are going to get balanced, then might as well give marines a chance because right now xenos are gaming on marines, capping them in the backline, capturing comms that give attack buffs, defense buffs, new larva, etc.
No I am not rage baiting, this is a genuine suggestion, because of the meta currently being so skewed to pushing as FAST and as HARD as possible as marine or you die late game anyway.
double larva hasn’t been a thing for a long time (fact) and is stupid (opinion)
the main reason xenos are getting attrition-ed so hard numbers-wise is because endgame took away the constant trickle of larva they had from parking a pylon on a comms tower across the map from the FOB.
Generally I think marines not having to push caves to do nuke is a good thing. if you had one of the relays in reactors on CC then it would no longer serve it’s purpose to end a stalemate and force a round end so the majority of players who arent able to play anymore due to having died can actually play the game.
Basically, in my opinion, one comms should be near to the FOB, not on top of it but close enough that it is realistic to mount a counter assault to retake it when it’s lost (good examples are engi dome on LV, marshals on solaris, etc.)
basically, comms unit 1 should be just far enough from the FOB it is realistic for xenos to control it without being in range of gunfire from the FOB, the idea being that if xenos have strong enough map control to hold it and marines choose to sit behind the FOB cades, they can force a round end with the xuke.
comms unit 2 should be in some central-forward battleground on the map, think containers shed on LV, or filt locks on solaris. It should be an area that xenos can realistically contest with a strong defensive position nearby, but not on top of the relay. the idea being that if marines can project map control to hold both comms and the FOB at 2 hours without xenos being able to break it, they can force a round end with the nuke.
I think the idea that marines should have to force through the caves is gonna frankly destroy the WRs, for what should be fairly obvious reasons, if you have a 4 tile wide cave like on LV, you can fit somewhere in the ballpark of 4 guys there on the front using normal weapons, maybe one or two extra SGs, and 4 t3s( obviously in real gameplay it works out a bit differently with resin doors and such). in essence, unless you have an IFF doomstack ready to push the caves, it’s never going to happen because xenos can cram a lot more killing power into the smaller space than marines can, while they are deprived of their fire support and their ability to manipulate the battlefield to their advantage. When I’m playing CIC with other people who’s gamesense I respect we are usually all in agreement that even trying to push the caves while certain castes( boilers, hedge, etc) are active is literally just suicide.
Generally speaking I think if marines are expected to hellpush into the hive and kill the xenomorphs then the maps & the gameplay design should reflect that as being a necessity. This would mean reducing marines’ abilities to flatten multiple screens worth of resin defenses in an instant, but it would also mean giving xenomorphs less unbreakable unpushable terrain.
In essence, if cadehugging sucks and needs to go, so does cavehugging, by placing one half of the objective in a position somewhat favoring one side, we can force the teams to either give up their cave/cadehug and assault or forfeit the match(keeping in mind these mechanics only come into play around the 2 hour mark when most players are dead and people want to be able to actually play the round again.)
This is derived from my feeling that the most fun fighting on both teams is on the actual battlefields making up the centers of the maps, not the caves or the FOB, playing as a xeno it’s super clunky and lame to sit in a cave choke and obliterate marines as they push until they dont bother and just afk at the entrance for the nuke, similarly it’s not fun as a marine to get good momentum going in ablock or whatever and have xenos immediately just give up the colony and bait the inevitable hive push wipe from marines
We had what was basically around 3 years of gameplay where “marines had to push to hive before being overan due to double burst” and it never “plummetted win rates” and it was arguably the most fun the game was speaking from experience, so i think we just have to agree to disagree here.
Not to mention that xenomorphs were literally %100 more deadlier, and marines were less handheld in many many ways, be it either the game being buggy or just straight up QOL stuff not existing. We have so much more stronger marine tools and weapons currently that the only thing it would effect would just have the round move in a direction rather then sit in place for 2 hours untill either side gets tie breaker.
Not even going to mention getting nuke is significantly easier then getting king, as destroying the hatchery means you need to wait antoher 15 minutes, while stopping nuke means you start over at whatever number it was at.
Double burst added the danger of you being out attritioned, you talking about how the larva surge from pylons quite literally dropping win rates for xenos just further increases the fact that xenos always relied on numbers and that eventually would win due to attrition. Doubel burst was removed because of the planned larva surge from pylons, then that was removed for the boons (almost all useless)
it gave marines a reason to push so they wouldnt just cade outside of caves and it would make them actually do stuff, which would result in rounds ending faster as you said so “new people can play”
I hate xeno and marine endgames, both suck and ruin the early parts of the round due to the whole “lets hold for king”/“lets hold cades for nuke” strategy that the game seems to be based around now.
I’d rather have long rounds over the slop regularly seen nowadays.
First of, you do know research rework is in the works rigth?
And second:
If your really genuinly suggesting this, your not solving the problem but merly moving it.
Because yes, that MIGTH solve some of the issues, but it will DEFINITLY creat new ones.
Extending rounds. Artifically equalizing the “power” of both sides, means mainly one thing.Winning becomes harder. And not because it will require more effort, but because your resetting the power dinamic erasing any earned advantages. How fair said advantages currently are isnt the point. It WILL increase round duration.
Taking urgency. Yes it would remove the need to rush early, but it is one thing. A major powerboost for extending the round and doing nothing. It would reward players for doing nothing, wich you never want.
Also:
Mortar and CAS are not as bad as people cry. CAS for example got its warning time increased and recived more signals. If bold red text, blinking ligths and a warning sound is too little to catch your attention, i dont know what else kinda warning you want. There arent much left to add. Current CAS is easy to dodge if your stay aware of it.
OT did get an a rebalance about 3 months ago. But if you think thats too long ago, ok. Making a OT balance PR is very simpel, if you understand how OT works, you by that know wich numbers need to be changed. Stuff isnt too strangly named in the code. Also the last OT rebalance Pr touched on most relevant values on casings, so you can look at it to find out where you need to change numbers. So if you think it should get another rebalance, go do it. I honestly dont think you can do a PR needing less coding experince then that. Migth be a good starting point to get into deving.
That PR is the reason all godstims have NGN10 ACR10 on them by the way, it’s still live on the server, the rework never made it past TM.
That PR means it costs only 26 points to add NGN10ACR10, it used to be ~20 points more expensive.
the godstim spammers don’t make gas because it cuts into their godstim budget
I don’t agree with all of Red’s research points because these are meant to be an alternative to making stims, but guess what there’s still no limit on how much resources you spend making a slopstim or a limited amount of properties you can pick. Stim spammers can just suck up the entire research budget to still make a terribly effective drug.
Concerning xeno/marine end game, while I believe a lot of changes need to be made (including changing the underwhelming boons). We could start by making the nuke need 2 comm towers while xenos only needing one comm tower for the king. Effectively making the “middle ground” comm tower the one both marines and xenos fight for.
I personally fucking hated it, rounds feeling like they were pointless and already lost in the first 15 minutes after drop sucks, looking at the tacmap and realizing the round is GG because of new player cap feed sucks. Just encourages going back to the old maturity meta of xenos afking in the caves not bothering to contest the colony at all because they don’t have to.
Sorry to tell you that this is still something that happens. You cant take fresh 0 hour people into the equation of game balance because that would simply make things too easier for people with an immense hours of hours invested in. [No this doesnt mean im saying kill all newer people with rocks and never adhere to them]
The point is, every round there will be a runner who goes after inexperienced people to capture them, its a part of the learning process that you shouldnt be alone unless you really trust yourself.
The amount of “15 minute rounds” i had compared to nowadays back in the day was significantly lower. Because yeah, you’re getting 2 larva per burst but all the competent people are already alive so the young runner xx 593 just keeps taking newer larva and dying with it on repeat.
This is still an issue, most especially with larva que as you are kind of punished for surviving.
When we had 2 larva per burst atleast the hive numbers were maintained even if the new player / players were dying because a capture remedied that plus added one more larva for any newer player or whoever wants to rejoin.
Xenos should never struggle attrition if they’re capturing, currently this isnt the case.
Also just because cas has “more warnings red dots and etc” doesnt mean its “more balanced” it still takes one person to drop a flare to give you omnipotency for the tiles you are given.
Example ; A few days ago on a kutevo round i had a cas come in from the other side of the hospital while i was near the south entrance with the medical scanner, the warning tells me “its coming from east” so i go “west” but a bomb drop son my head instakilling me anyway. after i died i literally saw it had destroyed everything in a 3 screen radius.
This is a role that takes 0 effort other then “dont fire at the direction of your allies” can basically NOT be countered in a mechanical way other then “go into caves” [some maps do not evne have uncassable areas like trijent dam] or if you go into said “caves” the problem of marines never having to push fucks you over on the long run anyway.
"A research rework is in the works " has been said for so long i just wouldnt be fucking suprised if they at this point just announced it at the next game awards.
I try not to touch marine balance because interacting with one sider marine players or just any one sider in general is a horrible cancer inducing experience.
Just lock the thread if administration doesn’t want people talking about it instead of acid gooping it so all the valid points get swept under all the garbage.
Just make a new one and label it as lategame balance or something similar, and make it explicitly a discussion topic. Then just report the bad actors going “lmao you bad” or whatever.