So, if dead chat and some old forums post has told me anything is a lot players do not like preds. Now we all have our reasons. Before I go on, I will state my bias. I have had so many bad encounters with CM preds that I can no longer enjoy predators when they show up in other forms of media. So, the motivation for this post is that I and likely many others would rather not have to deal with them. My solution is that in the character menu you can select your pred preference. You have the option to allow or disallow. If you choose disallow then a red outline will appear ingame. This is only visible to preds and tell them that they cannot actively hunt this player. To actively hunt in this case means a pred cannot start the fight. So, no stalking them before jumping out of the shadows to skin them like normal. Now if the player attacks the pred, then the player loses this protection. But only if the player knows what their shooting at is a pred and they are not fighting out of reaction. This exception is here cause player often shoot preds thinking their lurkers.
(Also before you provide feedback please tell me what you voted for on the poll.)
Graphics wise I suggest just recycle the pyros fire immunity outline but color it red. Now I will respond to some counter arguments you people will likely give.
But what if everyone chooses to disallow- If the majority of a server disallows being hunted then preds can always duel each other. If I recall correctly, on the pred ship there are some forsaken xeno eggs so they can always farm some to fight. Plus, they have a fighting ring that preds often use to fight each other. Finally, if the majority of people choose disallow being hunted repeatedly then that is indicative of a larger issue with pred game play. In that case it would be required to make pred more fun or less toxic for the people being hunted. Again, preds have other options if such a thing happens.
But what about power gamers- Preds are a third party who are not supposed to influence the flow of the round. So by choosing not to be hunted is not really power gaming. Also, who cares about the reasons behind their choice is less important than the consent itself. So, the reason behind it don’t matter, within reason of course.
What next doing his for lurkers- The reasons for why I do not think lurkers need something like this is cause their easier to deal with. Stay in a group, use an MD, have game sense. With preds that does not work very well. Example would be when I was an IO and on my MD, I saw an invisible thing obviously stalking us. Be aware I was accompanied by two other IO’s. So anyway, I shot it like 30 times at point blank range before it stabbed me to death. In a normal lurker situation, I would have likely survived. This point also shows why dying to preds is not a skill issue.
What about gear recovery- Well you are not allowed to hunt on the ship anyway. You are allowed to fight people to get the gear. So even if they disallow hunting you can still fight them if it help get the gear back.
(Also I’m trying a poll for the first time so it might not work properly.)
I would disallow a lot and I don’t play pred.
I would disallow a little and I don’t play pred.
But in all seriousness, I find this to be a not-so-good idea, mostly because predators are antagonists, so it wouldn’t make much logic to take away one of the things that make them an antagonist to both sides (Which is hunting xenomorphs and humans)
Another thing I’d wish to point out is that fighting on the ship isn’t that simple, the only thing they can do is spar, with an exception to honor duels (Which are still a rarity unless two predators actually have major beef)
If these changes do get applied, which all in all probably won’t happen, predators would down-grade from being antagonists to being small burdens that players can choose to ignore with one click in character preferences.
And even if you do get killed, there is this thing called a spirit of the WL, meaning most predators will throw you back to your allies if you fought well (xenomorphs to weeds, marines to FOB/barricades) instead of simply round-ending you. Of course, unless you knowingly pissed off the predator, like marines/xenomorphs being LRP to the predator, or meta-gaming the honor code which will certainly get you skinned
I’m not calling this a cope thread, but I’m simply stating the facts on why this wouldn’t go well.
I don’t get why people complain about this so much, when have you ever actually been marked and hunted by a pred without provoking them? Maybe once ever?
The thing is, I don’t think predators actually tend to hunt random marines without provocation? I am not certain what the honor code says, but most of the time it’s the marines themselves starting the fight instead of the pred.
Thank you for provieding a real response. Don’t worry I knew what I was getting into by posting this. I don’t think this would down grades since their not supposed to effect the flow of the round. So it’s now like they can get downgraded to a minor antag cause they already are. Also the result of my poll will show if the majoraty disallow issue will ever happen. So it’s liekly most people will allow to be hunted so its liekly little will be changed over all.
Also even if the pred does dump you’r body by fob you will still liekly have mutiple fracs and possibly organ damage. As I stated before unlike lurkers their is less a person can do agianst a pred so a lose is much more liekly.
This is most likely observer bias. If you’re looking to see if people agree with you you’re much more likely to find people who agree with you.
just walk away and there’s nothing they can do except be like “Y0U C0W4R3!!! !!! !! ! !! ! ! ! !!! ! !! ! !!!”.
opting out entirely is a bad and very unnecessary solution and honestly only really slightly makes sense for xenos (it doesn’t actually mak sense, since preds shouldn’t go out of their way to actually grief xenos and ruin backline. So long as u play along and act like they’re an enemy (run) you’ll usually be fine
The only stupid thing to do is sit still and die or ignore them lol, and that’ll make them very not merciful towards u)
but s rifleman u have nothing to complain about… since y u lone? you can also shoot the scary alien to death. you can be hrp and play along with it too and that’ll make the pred player really happy and make u slightly less sad about getting owned
I personally would disallow since I would never initiate with a pred ever. The only reason I ever fight preds as is, is when the queen either directly orders it, or they somehow think me running away from them once I see them as fighting words.
