There are more SL slots now - Before you had to fight players for four slots. Now, I basically get SL every round even in high pop, it turned SL into a less contested role - same goes for FTL as there are more of them now.
1 Like
To be fair, they did specify assault SL slots, i.e. SLs that will be engaged in near constant frontline combat.
The total number of SL slots is completely irrelevant to DangerRevolution’s argument.
2 Likes
I look at it, at what it is with SL - There was always the chance that you were going to be put into a squad where you were not going to front line, bravo - or a Comms squad.
1 Like
faulty argument, assumes the same proportion of players are contesting the limited slots for assault SL, when that is greatly offset by the number of people rolling for support now. genuinely nothing burger point as if competing for a slot is something new
1 Like
Always in life the gummy bears don’t get divided evenly, but that doesn’t matter, the main thing is that I get more gummy bears.
More chances to roll delta SG for me god bless
2 Likes
There are about 34 roles that you can aim for at round start. Do you see people who miss a spec roll saying that the specialists system is bad and needs to be redone? Do you see people who miss their XO roll saying we need more XO slots? If you happen to not be able to SL for the squad that you want in a round, play a different role or play a different game. The fact that it’s limited slots and sought after is just the way the game works.
3 Likes
I say this FWIW.
1 Like
2 Likes
Duke posts something
2 Likes
I don’t think this is true I often see open SL slots and had SL on low preference and still got it on peak hours 160+ players.
2 Likes
hello
i would like to start off by saying I am a dedicated ASS man. an ASS enjoyer, if you will. i love ASS. i guess the new squad system is pretty good, too.
i think, because of oscar and kilo’s existence, it has encouraged xenos to start massively pushing backline hives and backline squads. from what i’ve seen, the fact that kilo and/or oscar will almost always be assigned to some sort of backline duty and/or comms, while the assault squads with the specs and sgs and actual numbers will be pushing the front, as thwomper intended, encourages this greatly. i think this is also good, as it splits squad diversity and lets people join in to do what they want to actually do.
the problem comes from the fact that, because of the number split, kilo gets eaten alive almost every single round by said backline hive. i don’t even think it’s something that mechanically needs to change. it’s just smart play from the aliens at this point. if you know for a fact that a squad of 5-6 (or MAYBE double that if oscar is involved) is going to be alone by itself with no spec or sg or anything outside of normal marine gear, why wouldn’t you go and feast on them?
i think ASS as it is is a very cool system. i do think it has a few problems that need to be addressed before anything else. i don’t think there’s anything mechanically wrong with it, but i think it has showcased some gameplay elements that were probably not anticipated when it was first realized. that’s fine, it’s the first go around of it, and even though i like it, here’s my quick list of concerns (source: i watch the cmss13 stream all day during work and when i am actually playing, a lot of the time i play kilo SL or SO who focuses on the support squads. my in game is ‘mikael tencent’.)
-kilo dies immediately every round. backline hive finds where they are, usually comms or some other objective off the front, and tear them apart immediately. even if one of the other squads is sent to help (be that kilo moving to help charlie or oscar/charlie moving to help kilo), organizing a push from that position often leads to marines permaing because the backline won’t fight at cades. when my orders are “backline offensive” or “go to comms/comms2/sensors and hold it”, and i can’t decline the order because even though I KNOW it’s a suicide order it won’t be seen that way by admins/CIC, i just have to nod, accept my fate, and wait for the queen to tunnel to that location and reap the free kills/caps on the squad that’s there.
-oscar has no identity that isn’t just kilo2. when i sl as oscar, i tend to get two objectives; Babysit the IOs or do literally whatever Kilo is doing. alternatively, on occasion, i’ve also been told ‘reinforce charile’ which might as well just be comms or sensors duty as well. i don’t think this is a huge deal but when oscar is mitigated to ‘the intel squad’, at this point, it feels like they really should just be an intel squad working alongside the IOs. oscar feels like it splits the kilo marines even more harshly and given both squads will on average have less than 10 marines, it makes me wonder why kilo isn’t just one bigger squad and it’s isntead split into oscar. 90% of my Sl rounds on Oscar are following the IOs around doing literally nothing.. or moving to try and recover Kilo when they die horribly to the backline.
-even if oscar and kilo both somehow have decent numbers, SLs who are listening to orders, marines who don’t just rush the frontline (this happens a lot, even with bravo…), a lot of the time they’ll just get overrun. it’s no big argument that SGs and Specialists keep the front maintained and held, and though it’s not REQUIRED to win the round, losing a demo or a pyro or a decent grenadier can literally turn the tide of battle. it’s to the point where queen’s hold gib for specialists or, in a pinch, smartgunners. kilo and oscar and charlie have none anymore; and i think that’s fine. i’ve been saying that i actually think kilo should have the scout as their specialist role for a while, but barring that, i think they need SOMETHING else to offer. i’m not saying they need to have specialist level gear or equipment, but given the vast majority of the time command just says ‘stop backliners’ and leave it at that, having some kind of tool to actually fight the 15 lurker mains who salivate when they see kilo getting split off from the main force would be nice to have. i’m not an ideasguy guy though, so you know.
this is just my two cents from what i’ve played and watched for a while, now. agree with it or disagree with it. i like ASS a lot, i just think a few things need adjusted before it’s actually perfected and pushed into full rotation. kilo is kino, oscar is.. there. ASS is cool. please stop the backliners from killing 30 people at roundstart. thank you.
3 Likes
Is ASS perfect and developers accidentally left Kilo + Oscar + Charlie without SG or Spec?
You’re beating around the bush to say that it’s Kilo + Oscar + Charlie need some sort of force multiplier otherwise they will be eventually permanently relegated to backline duties and become Bravo+ (which is bad IMO).
4 Likes
not wrong
in practice, kilo and oscar should be turned into a single squad and given..
i mean, a spec? an sg? they’re just backliners who die to any real force until the front is forced to rotate for them in 90% of circumstances
i really like the idea of delta/alpha being the big boy squads with the big guns but holy fuck do the support squads just feel dead in the water because of it
1 Like
I totally agree. Most rounds, Bravo, Charlie, Kilo, and Oscar at at most 1 1/2 platoons of manpower total. Because they have no specs or SGs, this compounds the issues they have defending FOB/objectives. Its also more strain on CIC to manage the extra squads.
1 Like
ah finally a forum fight i have absolutely no dog in
2 Likes
Get some pop corn and join us in observing the madness.
1 Like
I find CIC really drops the ball in managing 6 squads, and usually just hands out initial orders and then never contacts the support squads again, or contacts them so late they’ve already wiped or have lost the opportunities they had because of the late check-ins. It would also be nice to have more useful roles in the squads instead of riflemen. A new spec specifically for the supports that trades a bit of offensive power for hit and run or staying power would be nice, but staying power is essentially what SG does anyway so shrug.
Maybe splitting specs into different categories and having the support squads only able to role the more defensive ones, where the assault squads get the more offensive, not sure.
1 Like
After playing a bunch of ASS, here’s my two cents on what ASS actually does, because I think people are starting to seriously drop the ball here. My opinion on Charlie is irrelevant, since it’s a literal dead end topic like skipping hijack. Im a Charlie SG TDM whore, so obviously I got the short stick and the game is now mildly worse for me than it was before. However, my experience is one of hundreds, and interacting with ASS, I can see two main benefits of ASS:
IMHO, ASS does two main things for the game:
A) ASS gives a choice to players. Instead of the mandatory 4 squads with 4 mutes for every active yapper (and a frankly disorganised squad since there’s a never-follower who does their own thing for every order-following truther), you can now choose to instead, enter an opt-in squad with like-minded players who will be much more consistent in following orders, sticking together and acting more cohesive as a real squad. If the SL wants an objective done, everyone follows along (although the ban mandate probably helps with that by de facto extending SPC/SG/FTL/SL RP standards to every C/K/O PFC, medic & engineer).
As such, your average TDM-enjoyer experiences essentially no change to their gameplay (besides the crippling loss of soul from Charlie), whereas players who seek a more RP-friendly, close-knit small squad aspect get a substantially better & more enjoyable experience. I vastly preferred being in Kilo & Oscar over Alpha & Delta, but unfortunately I’m a frontline slut so I’m banned from enjoying lé sophisticàted RP experience most of the time.
B) ASS de facto replaces fireteams with fireteams that actually work. Despite numerous revisions to FTLs, it’s pretty clear that fireteams are STILL a dead concept that is essentially never used for its intended role. If they were, there wouldn’t be much need for ASS. Instead, FTLs are filled with PFCs who want cooler equipment and who never actually do their intended job. Initially, it was hoped that fireteams would let you split off a segment of a squad to fix comms, guard comms, backline, FOB, guard a flank, or some other task. This of course, never happened.
Instead, ASS shows that if you let people opt-in for a support role beforehand with like-minded people, slap an actual SL on it instead of a PFC+ fragger, you can actually get people to DO jobs like fix comms, etc. without CIC screaming into the void.
|————————————|
From what I observed, I took several takeaways.
-
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 extends to merging support squads (at that point you just have another assault squad, so we may as well go back to the legacy system).
At a certain pop, CIC will start using K/O for frontline duties (if you HAVE enough people in a squad to properly assault, then you should use them for it instead of wasting them on the backline.) Guess what frontline duty invites? Congratulations, half your squad is now mute fraggers who barely follow orders. You’ve destroyed one of the integral features ASS brought to the table, see A). You can remedy this by simply elevating K/O to a higher RP standard than everyone else (so the ban mandate during the TM will extend forever), and then cringe noting/banning PFCs every round, but that’s obviously a shit solution.
K/O must stay weak enough to be unsuitable for frontline work. -
Specialists/SGs MUST stay in the frontline squads of A/D. These little fuckers run off to the frontline every time because you’re basically griefing if you don’t. Add specs and SGs, and you’re presented with the dilemma of either:
2a) K/O are support squads with SGs and specs, except the SG and spec are AWOL 90% of the time and don’t contribute anything to the squad experience.
2b) K/O are transitioned to frontline squads with SGs and specs, except you now have the same problems as in 1). -
People are treating K/O like squads, when really they should treat them as fireteams.
People would never send Alpha Fireteam 1 to flank the hive.
Why the fuck are people sending Kilo/Oscar to do it, then? Is it because they have the shiny status of being a ‘real squad’? I think K/O fulfill what the intended role of the legacy fireteam was supposed to be. In the overwhelming majority of cases where K/O wipes, people wouldn’t have had this issue if it was a fireteam wiping. I mean, it’s a small group of marines, no shit they died when they went into the danger zone?
It’s not an ASS issue, it’s the reality that these small groups aren’t supposed to be doing offensive assault operations by themselves in the first place.
Upsizing these squads so they ARE capable of assault defeats the purpose of ASS, linking back to 1) and 2).
It’s my perspective that people need to realise how limited thesefireteamssquads are, and get used to them. You have Alpha/Delta, who are significantly stronger now that they’ve vored Charlie’s playerbase. If you want to flank, use the assault squads. Each assault squad is big enough to defend and lock down a push. You have 2 very large and powerful squads for actual offensive combat, 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.
Anyways, wall of text over. That’s my two cents on why I’m personally opposed to any suggestions on beefing up K/O.
3 Likes
is this true? where is this mentioned?
1 Like
It’s not explicit, but it’s extremely vague. Staff have been told to ban anyone interfering in the test merge by disobeying orders (with pre-warning usually), which pretty much means if you’re in Charlie, Kilo or Oscar as any role, if you disobey orders you risk eating a ban for malicious sabotage.
Search it up on discord, you can probably find a lot given they started off with a pretty big 5-10 player ban wave.
1 Like