So I believe the suggestion is pretty simple and straightforward. Marine jobs are all timelocked, you don’t get to be a Squad Leader on your first ever game in Colonial Marines, or in your first ever game as a Marine.
However, the equivalent of Xenomorphs (T3 castes) are not timelocked, which causes the situation where a new player, on his first ever run as a Xenomorph, can evolve to a T3 caste, while perhaps not even being aware of how to move or how to use abilities as a xenomorph.
This is not fair for anyone involved. It’s not fair for the hive, it’s not fair for the new player who will be expected to put the T3 slot to work…
Add a timelock to evolve to T3 xenomorph, that requires you to have a certain amount of hours as a Xeno.
xenos are much less complex than marine roles, t1 t2 or t3 you’re doing the same thing, slash marine until horizontal. use ability sometimes. theres no need for a timelock, just take the time to teach them
Honestly I think a simple 1 hour timelock would be sufficient but based on my previous attempt to request a ban from hivelord I am under the impression it may not be possible to block access in this way to T3s.
Isnt there already a timelock on T3s where you need at least 10 hours on xeno to evolve to them?
Either way, a bald T3 is exactly the same as a bald spec. They have no clue what they are doing, they run into the enemy and they die. There’s much less xenos than marines, but there’ll be always more T3s than specs, yes, but that doesnt mean the entire hive should suffer when a player who doesnt know how controls and hotkeys work plays praetorian, dies and his blood is later made to create corrupted hive that destroys the prime hive.
I myself didnt touch T3s until I got comfortable playing majority of the little guys first, and that took me 300+ hours. I think its reasonable to make the timelock on T3s around 10-40 hours.
thats actually very untrue, and pretty understating of how complex playing xeno can be, sure the mechanics are “less complex then marine roles”, in the case that you just hit stuff.
However there is far more to playing xeno, expecially t3, then just slashing and randomly using abilities here and there. All of different t3s have different playstyles, but you will instantly die if you dont know the basics of pheros, ability usage, placement and movement, and coordinating with your team.
Saying xeno gameplay is much less complex then marine is a very wrong is where im getting too
Honestly, the kind of stuff that I read here, and in every suggestion that is in favor of xenomorphs… only supports a theory that I have, which I wanted to believe is derranged. There is an important percentage of people from the Staff Team and many of the people who respond to these suggestions that are only marine players, and not only they have a total disregard for xenomorph mains and xenomorph players, but they actively work toward hurting xenos.
Reading this from a Moderator, respectfully, is very sad. There is a lot to playing xenos, understanding abilities and the likes. “Just take the time to teach them”, sure, but not as a goddamn T3, given we usually only have around 4-5 slots most games. This is like suggesting learning to drive in a Formula 1 / NASCAR car. What is this take?
I would say 5 to 10 hours for T3 would be good, nothing crazy, just some time to get some xeno practice.
I don’t think so, this suggestion stems from me playing Queen and seeing a player take a T3 slot while not knowing how to speak in hivemind. When I ahelped it I was told it was completely okay, which goes against all logic imho.
To be fair I don’t think this would work too well.
It’s a good idea and I like it. But the main issue is each t3 caste is so diffrent most of the time. Like runner and lurker both work realitvly similer. But rav thats totalty diffrent.
I could have 1000 hours as hive lord but that won’t help me too much if i evo into a pratorion. The only exception being boiler because that does funtion like the thing it evo’s from. So even if this is a good idea I don’t think it will solve the issue of people having no idea what to do as a t3.
Have you literally ever looked in the discord? OOC chat? dead chat? both sides complain the other are xenodevs/marinedevs. Arguably more people screaming xenodevs because theres statistically more marine players than xeno players. Say all you want about double burst, tunneling changes, BRUTE, fob rework, its quite obvious that the staff and devs are (agents of chaos smh), fairly evenly sided even if I’d heavily disagree with some of their more spicier changes. Anyho getting back on topic.
Really, xenos are not complex. I’d reckon its a system of easy to learn, hard to master. Lets run through some examples.
Corpsmen / healer drone
A corpsmen is expected to heal even remotely well and not leave marines half healed to know: What each of their 15 essential items in their pack are. What items to bring and how much, how to properly triage, how to do IBs, what chems to order (I’d argue for stuff like IA that it should be standard kit but thats another discussion), how to read the med readout which can be daunting for new players, how to defib (a lot of new players struggle with the concept of click dragging).
Whereas a healer drone needs to know. How to turn on pheros, A quick explaination of how their heal button works (explained through the infobox your given in chat when you first change), what weeding is, and what resting is. One can be played effectively by reading the wiki for a minute, the other needs a guide and a lot of getting used to.
Defender / Marine
A marine needs to know (outside of universal controls) how to switch hands (doesnt matter for xenos as much), how to gear up and what gear to use, how to reload, what gun to bring and what ammo does it use, basic healing (arguable), using flares, how to turn on their light, why am i so slow from getting out of cyro and then how to eat, an explanation of how friendly fire works in this game, how to buckle, and take shrap out.
A defender needs to know how to use abilities, what resting is, basics of their abilities, and finally crest modes
Hivelord / Commtech
A commtech needs to know about cades and how to make them, what gear to bring to store their metal and tools, their tools and what they do, how to repair comms and power, how not to make grief cades (arguable), how to set up their sentry and disassemble it, deconstruction
A hivelord needs to know their building options and purposes, their pheros, and special structures.
I’d argue that all xenos (apart from queen which has a timelock and isnt in this discussion) can boil down to the gameplay loop of a drone or a defender, or a runner, with more abilities. A Burrower is a drone that builds tunnels, makes traps, and spreads weeds which from a learning standpoint you can effectively understand once you’ve interacted with these abilities passively before marines drop as long as you’ve played drone before. A ravenger boils down to the gameplay loop of a runner and defender, where you have an ability that boosts your movement effectively like a runner, an ability that makes you stronger like a defender, and an offensive ability.
Whereas if we threw in a marine thats only ever played PFC or cargotech into a role like FTL there is no effective evolutionary step up in gameplay loop of a JTAC spotter to a rifleman in regards to their direct job functions outside of shooting xenos. Same with commtech, same with IO.
EDIT: yeah the styling is fucked and spelling mistakes, too tired to fix
The only way to learn is to do. I say let the new players try rav. It’s not like them dying inherently locks out anyone else from ever being rav in the round a la specs. Plus for a new player, they look at a T3 (probably rav or prae) and go “wow that’s so cool, I want to do that!” why stunt their interest in the further aspects of the game? I think people here are way too focused on performance to the point they’re willing to let a culture of performance anxiety develop that prevents people from doing what they want because they just might not be good enough. This is a hobby. You’re not obligated to be good at a hobby. You are obligated to have a lot of fun.
I think an easy way to resolve this would be to encourage players who qualify as a “young alien” (the under 10 hours Xeno playtime.) get a pop up reminding them of the availability for Mhelps and Imaginary Friends. I agree there should be more teaching and guidance, and we have a perfectly suitable way of providing said guidance. I would hope, anyway!