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A lone PVT wandering off because he’s clueless does not count as interfering with the test, but yes, staging a protest by doing something silly at best or downright malicious at worst about a project during a test merge is a good way to eat a ban.
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I have disobeyed orders as charlie several times and not been spoken to about it
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I think that any proposition to increase the number of marines in Kilo/Oscar beyond the current pop-ratio is a strict no-no.
This is fine, I think. They’re a support squad, meant to support. I don’t think anyone is mad strictly that the squads are small; Moreso, I think the problem lies in the fact that six RFN can not fight six backliners very easily unless they’re obscenely good at the game and don’t get jumped before they even reach their intended destination, which happens literally every round. One Kilo SL round comes to mind in particular where the backline hive wiped Charlie, and then when Kilo responded, wiped Kilo. Ten RFN without cades versus a whole cadre of backliners will not end super well in most scenarios.
Specialists/SGs MUST stay in the frontline squads of A/D.
I agree with this. I still think Kilo and Oscar are way too weak for almost every duty they get assigned too unless they want to be the perpetual comms/IO babysitters, and that’s not fun for almost anyone involved. If I wanted to do that, I’d roll Bravo. Later in this part you also talk about transitioning to frontlnie squads; Nobody wants this, either. They just don’t want to die wordlessly in the backline like they do every single round. As if, they’re a weak squad who get assigned duties that, even if it’s not ‘flank hive’ like you suggest, inevitably and invariably get them killed. The entire xeno playerbase has realized this. Go watch a few rounds. In quite a lot of them the Queen will even go so far as to tunnel to where the Kilorines were located just to get a large portion of the marine playerbase out of the game early. It’s happened to me as SL, I’ve seen it happen as SO, XO, etc. They don’t have the power to backline sufficiently, in my opinion.
People are treating K/O like squads, when really they should treat them as fireteams.
They are squads. Support squads. Treating them like less of a squad and saying ‘well, just don’t be mad if they wipe, it’s like a fireteam wiping’ is being really unfair and disengenuous to players who want to play this role. Yes, in the grand scheme of things, MAYBE it’s unimportant; But if 10 marines are permaing just because “well, they’re not THAT important”, nobody is going to do as they’re told in the role and wil just end up frontlining, which clearly, you don’t want to happen.
and 1-3 very small groups of cohesive ungas who will do the specialised defensive tasks you hand out, provided you don’t throw them anywhere near the hive.
Backline hives are a very common occurence now because of ASS. There is no ‘don’t throw them near the hive’. The lurkertide will feast. There is nothing you can do about that.
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I said risk of a ban, not that you would be banned. The wording is vague enough such that you COULD be banned for it, if someone’s overzealous then your risk goes up along with other factors like note history, etc
I think I probably worded this badly, the point I tried to get across wasn’t that they deserved it or to not care about them wiping, it was to illustrate the point that everyone would expect them to wipe if they get given orders beyond the ability of a legacy fireteam. 8 marines is 8 marines, you’d obviously still save them. People already go to lengths just for one marine, minimising attrition to your team is integral to victory. I apologise for the dismissive tone I used for that point.
I think this issue will probably become less prevalent as people recognise how limited the ASSs are, and stop giving COK terrible, suicidal orders (hopefully), though.
I can’t really speak much on this, it’s hard to tell if backliners have truly grown more popular. I’m sure there’s a page on the maintainer data tracker that lets you see whether lurkers have grown more prevalent since the TMs, but right now all we have in anecdotal info. I will say though, that more backliners might not necessarily be bad, it gives COK something to do, and frankly more backliners means a weaker frontline.
Overall, it means xenos are matching how marine strength has moved further back. I don’t like pulling the skill-issue card, but… backliners are not an insurmountable threat, take an M37 or M240 and chase with MK2/M4RA, you’ll get some frags. A quick shake completely nullifies a pounce. This is not to say they aren’t an issue, but well… imo, if there’s more backliners, then it means COK has their work cut out for them- It’s their job to hunt the backliners, anyway. 8 marines with backliner loadouts is enough to hunt lurkers and runners, if they wipe then imo it’s a skill issue, not an ASS issue.
We’ve had plenty of cancer prime lurkertides before, so I’m hesitant to label instances of these as evidence that ASS has manifested an issue here.
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why are you threatening to ban us??
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Not sure I would go around saying this. These are limited slot roles now, and you should consider that if you’re going to take the role you’re taking it from someone else that might otherwise be there to take things seriously.
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I don’t strictly think its an ASS issue, I think it’s just a natural progression towards ‘oh, there’s a lot of marines int he backline, now; the backliner mains now have somewhere to congregate on’.
And, yes, it’s entirely anecdotal. The round I mentioned in my post, at one point as my entire squad was moving to recover Charlie, there were four lurkers, a spitter, and a drone dogpiling anyone who pushed up. Even with my entire squad, even with me killing the spitter by myself, it’s hard to maneuvre ten or twelve marines against a dedicated and well built up backline defensive.
I think my main complaint with situations as to what K&O find themselves in right now is that, sure, maybe it is a skill issue; But as someone who DOES kill backliners, when I find myself surrounded by five or more of them on something as basic as ‘comms duty’, I don’t know. You move to the backline, you find where the backliners are, and then one mistake kills you. This is the same as the front.
..Except now, you’re in the backline, and maneuvering anyone else there is a trial in absolutely agony to be recovered before you perma.
Again, I don’t think it’s an ASS issue. I think I mention in my first post it’s just the natural order of how these things go. But as someone who’s put a lot of time into SL and SO for support, I think it’s unfair to just go ‘lol skill issue’ and ignore that it’s literally happening every round. Sure, I kill a spitter. Sure, I PB the runner. Sure, I frag a lurker. Not every marine can or will. Fuck, sometimes I don’t even spawn in with a medic or comtech. Kilo’s just a barebones squad meant to ‘support’ the front that can’t support anything because they’re too busy dying, half of the time.
Skill issue? Yeah, sure. CIC problem? Probably. Xenos wising up to the new kids on the block and how to get free caps/kills for their montage? You bet’cha. Honestly, if anything, saying the frontlnie is weaker might not even be true- There’s always been a handful of backliners. Now they can organize together and push and hold the same spot. Such is the way minihives have been designed; And I’m not mad about that, either. It’s just smart play.
But John Gunnery Sergeant and his team of five RFN, unless you’re the most well oiled machine in the game, will EVENTUALLY make a mistake and lose to the six man backline squad. Skill issue, orders issue, whatever. It’s not like I can go ‘no lol’ when assigned backline, because of the above stuff and because of how SL is treated in terms of RP, too.
I like Kilo a LOT. I like ASS a LOT. I do not like having my entire squad wipe because of a misplay and then half of us permaing in ten minutes because at best we’re just a handful of dumbasses getting beaten up by the backline castes.
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im debating which skill issue gif to post
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I did play my role, as rifleman, sometimes I have on the frontline fluidly decided that at a particular moment of time I might be needed somewhere other than exactly where my SL is. This is a perfectly natural thing that happens in rounds; you get into fights, you chase runners, you retreat from ambushes, you go help cover someone pushing cades forward etc.
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I mean, the moment you run away from SL to get into any fight you want you just help to annihilate kilo/oscar/charlie’s squad cohesion. Each marine that wanders off from the SL is a marine that the SL or a subordinate needs time to fish back and get them in order to follow the squad again. It’s the antithesis to what these squads are meant to represent. In a 8 man squad (and often lower), you missing is already a 12.5% reduction in the squad’s manpower.
This is particularly important for CKO’s medics who I tend to see wander off because they feel like they need to heal everyone and everything in sight. No, you gotta stick with the SL and keep the squad cohesive.
The beauty of these support squads is that they shine when people truly coordinate and stay cohesive, it allows them to be pound for pound more effective than the assault squads.
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It’s my view that anyone who CHOOSES to play in COK should give up their ‘play ‘optimally’ by going wherever I’m needed’ mindset and focus solely on following their SL’s orders to the letter, and stick with their squad. COK feels and plays differently, you have to restrain the unga within and play like it’s PvE.
If you AREN’T going to stick with your squad and keep the team cohesive, you should be rolling Alpha or Delta instead.
I agree with @SubjectD9341 here, medics are the worst offenders here. The urge to heal everyone baits them to the frontline like a PVT to an OT maxcap. Of course, if the frontline is on the brink with masscas and CIC/SL tells you to go help, you help. But COK medics continually run off to the frontline without anyone telling them to, or the frontline even being in need of assistance, which ends up fucking their support squad’s cohesion into the gutter since now they have much less healing and zero revive capability. It’s kind of ass when half your squad dies because your medic decided they want to frontline instead, and RRN randomly vanishing causes the same issue, albeit in a less dramatic fashion.
I think if people aren’t going to follow orders and stick together seriously, they shouldn’t roll for the support squads, they’re slot-limited positions.
@DangerRevolution I forgot your ass isn’t on discord
How tf you even get banned you barely talk on it
Management ordered it, but there’s no official announcement cuz reasons 
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I saw this last night but it was current round while I was reading a “BACKLINING IS IMPOSSIBLE” comment. I watched this medic-less Kilo crack team sneak all the way to lake, totally assassinate a carrier they ran into, and leave before the hive could react, and THEN THEY DID IT AGAIN. It worked because they left as soon as the SL said to leave and stayed mobile. It’s not the first time I saw something like this, just something I happen to have a screenshot of. They stayed alive the whole round, 5 dudes fought and put down like 6 xenos without losing a single man over the course of this round, and I wouldn’t say that any of these players were veteran fraggers that I’d recognize, in fact 2 of them were very new. I do not at all for a second buy into the narrative that these squads are weak by nature.
That being said, it doesn’t mean I’m not working on anything to better fit these kinds of roles.
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Asking for a friend
was the queen prime or ancient? 
if xenos are losing 4-6 xenos in eastern CAVES while marines are in barrens then it might be the queens/hives fault for not paying attention especially with queen eye
theoretically. flanking like this is very impossible to do with a cracked queen in ovi because she will already call it out once she sees them. It doesnt even need a queen callout when it says “bald drone died in EASTERN CAVES” in all caps
what i dont like about this is that theres nitpicking of a “rare thing happening” to say that “IT WORKS” when in reality if prime queen WAR or any cracked queen goes on, play as queen they’ll surely get captured
And you guys still havent released any data on queen win rates (unless i missed it) depending if they’re prime queen/ancient or just player queen win rates in general. Having a GOOD queen wins games because of how broken queen screech is. Not even just queen screech. If they are just paying attention then that ASS squad would’ve not been killing xenos in eastern caves.
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Not saying I necessarily disagree, but I feel like your ‘if the best queen players in the game were playing, this wouldn’t happen’ argument is… well, nitpicking? A good RFN can probably frag several xenos a round, but your average RFN is probably getting a K/D (FF excluded) of below 1, for instance.
This seems like it’s more related to issues about the queen, rather than issues about ASS specifically. Winrates are still 50-50, which tells me ASS has pretty much done nothing balance-wise.
Frankly speaking, having good players is what determines who wins. Having a good queen means you have a good player in a very powerful role. Skill levels across both teams have always been the single most important factor in who wins and who loses, I don’t think ASS is the issue here. A good queen would’ve wiped Kilo in caves? Sure, but a good queen would’ve wiped the marines anyway even without ASS.
Is your issue truly with ASS, or is it with the over-centralisation of power in queen, which forces xenos to depend on one player to carry them?
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I’ve said it again and again. One competent player with a delete button and queen eye can make quick work of what ASS is.
Why do you think ASS is “““working””” right now? Because the people who are playing it are held to a higher standard. No fucking way you wont play it seriously when staff is threatening to ban who sabotages the ASS testmerge. I fucking shit you not. Once they stop threatening bans that disrupt ASS. these ASS players and CIC will just “forget” what ASS is and start putting ASS in the frontline after doing their “orders” (comms duty lol)
In general its not even ASS thats the problem. Its the game CULTURE in general. People are so fucking jaded playing this game that they just go EOD + MK1 run into frontlines + push chokepoint, Frag xenos. Fuck flanking. Just push the stupid chokepoint.
Unironically we can get a better ASS with just redoing the player culture + staff enforcing RP standards without even needing ASS at all.
Just say that charlie is held to a higher RP standard + they’re an autonomous squad (like what ASS is trying to achieve) and that people will get banned for not following orders.
At the very least they will have staying power because they have an SG and a Spec instead of being broken into 3 squads.
Alternatively just make this server an HRP server with HRP standards planetside cause thats what ASS is trying to achieve “roleplay and cohesive players right?”
Ran off in the front for no fucking reason? = note
Didnt line up outside the dropship to rally up troops = note
All of this shit is happening because marines try to minmax every single fucking thing. They dont care about shit anymore. Just rush to front, frag xenos, go to sleep
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has anyone actually been noted for running off during ass TM while playing COK?
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I did NOT expect to see myself mentioned in a series of Discord messages on the forums.
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Yea they cbanned a big group of people off the get go, no doubt there’s people who are noted but not banned
I don’t think people have changed since I started playing ngl
At least there’s no more white dudes playing black dudes IC so they can say the n word
I feel like this is kind of just bad faith, if you read my previous post you would’ve seen that the point was you get to CHOOSE what experience you want, it doesn’t force you to be HRP, if anything following orders is MRP. HRP is… Meranthe levels of horror.
I hate this fucking gif thwomper I actually hate it so much
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