I was exposed to a LOT of mechanics and weapons/castes through Lopits spamming the thunder dome. I’m hoping that someone takes up the mantle because I would’ve never attempted to learn so many obscure/out of my comfort zone characters if it wasnt for the environment being no stakes. Plus it was while I was ALREADY dead so I had nothing better to do and wasnt being babied
2 Likes
The problem with timelocks is that they dont ever actually do anything, they just kick the can down the road, if you want people to improve at T3 forcing them not to play it seems like a weird way to accomplish that.
1 Like
This literally seems like a non issue, even if you get a new player as t3 and he dies it is not really an end of the world since you can win games with t1s.
Additionaly, i think it is better for new players to have ability to evolve to tankier xenos since they might actually survive longer which gives them more time alive as xeno to practice. And lets be honest, there is very little chance new player will be able to snipe t3 evo at the roundstart.
2 Likes
No, let him cook… I see it to i often see alot of comments on things to change/improve xenos that often seem to disagree for the sake of disagreeing and or because they simply don’t want to see xenos improved
Also this idea is a good one I’ve seen alot of rounds lost because alot of the T3s are very inexperienced and end up getting SADARed or just bum rush the cade line as a prea and get killed my a M2C, HPR and a rock thrown by noir
2 Likes
At the end of the day, the first time someone touches a t3, they’re going to die. Fast. They could have zero non-t3 hours, they could have a thousand. The first time they hit that evolve button and become one of the big bad marine killers, they’re a free kill. Shit, even established xeno-mains are basically worthless when trying a new caste/strain for the first time. That’s how learning works. You suck for a while, then you get kinda good at it. Adding a timelock only delays this.
Shit, take a look at young queens. That’s a timelocked role, and your young queen is still going to be absolutely dogwater, because they’re learning. It is what it is, eventually they’ll be better.
4 Likes
Whilst I can understand the frustration that people face when seeing a newer player playing the higher tier castes. I don’t think adding a timelock to T3 is plausible or even useful for a variety of reasons:
A) Lower pop time- all the “good” players have taken their T3 slots and subsequently died, leaving only players outside of this timelock in xenos, xenos now just don’t get T3 because?
B) Above situation, but the newer players are at T2, taking up all T2 slots because they can’t evolve. The T3 players die but no one can evolve, do “good” players get to evolve straight to T3 from T1? Or are the newer players forced mechanically to devolve to allow you to evolve past them?
C) There isn’t as much a linear progress in xeno roles as there is in marines, nor do they have quite as many considerations/mechanics as some of the timelocked marine roles do.
Many situations exist where this just wouldn’t work/would cause issues in niche situations/cause administrative issues and primarily, coding a solution that could work around these just isn’t worth development time over things that could improve the game more in a subjective way.
4 Likes
I’m surprised that what hasn’t been suggested here is adding more xeno tutorials.
Thats a solution that is:
Directly helps new players be good
Gives them a safe place to practice
Has virtually 0 downsides par time to dev
Yeah, wyci, I know, but it doesn’t even have to be much. It can just be a simple explainer of each ability and demonstration on dummies.
4 Likes
You could go even simpler than this and instead of a tutorial, have a space that lets you evolve into any xeno. In the space you could have NPCs that just let you use your abilities on them to get an understanding of how things work.
4 Likes
classic want I think you have to be not “young” but then again some people only play T3 so idk how it would work
I think a testing range of any variety was ruled out sadly 
2 Likes
It’s funny how various people been asking for years, myself included, to add a firing range/deathmatch arena for dead players to try out new and different things without needing an admin for it. I seen a few stations have these, and they are a massive help in learning the tools of different jobs, weapons for antags.
However staff keeps saying no, for whatever fucking reason.
wyci
1 Like
It was already made: Dedicated Testing Enviroment - #13 by detectivegoogle
I’m recalling from memory from the discord but: Staff were concerned about performance if everyone got their own individual testing range - and a joint testing range for all ghosts was denied because players could grief eachother (even if soft grief) and it’d mean more admin work, if I remember right.
1 Like