- Yes, that is what is called a draw back wich is required to give them an advantage.
- Yes, but membrane stacking would block also pathways VERY hard. Forcing people to building around the boiler reserved area.
- Boilers being able to fire through membrane doesnt remove their ability to fire through doors. All this will do is give another way for boilers to operate. Making it less easy to predict their course of action, caused by their increased ammount of ways to attack.
- Bald drones are already building 2x2 all over the palce at random every match. Get over it. This isnt a concern.
- We run on our own canon that is based on offical alien lore, but is always adjusted to fit gameplay first. I would recomend you avoid using that argument because it only makes everything else less creditble that your trying to say.
- Cool, a tactic for a playstyle that will be uneffected by this change. This literally doesnt matter. Especially because i already said it before, you need training to be effective agianst it. To counter it, you need to specificly train against this single tactic.
4x scoped pulse rifle takes ages to shoot and it is already a super niche thing. I bet you won’t find anyone (without NVG) picking that attachement at all, because all it can do is to try to mess with boilers (not even a counter).
DMR stunning boiler behind 2 defenders is super rare, there is only one sniper per game, maybe some intel bald spec purchase will pick it, so at best you have two (never happens, every intel bought spec who played the game for more than 10 hours will take SADAR).
So Sniper should have as much tools and counters against boilers as he can, because realistically only he actually engages them with a scoped gun. The rest is up to Mortar/OB/CAS.
I argue that boiler doesn’t need yet another counter to normal marine with scoped gun. I assume that is why boilers shoot actual projectile with colision instead of using just line of sight which was cancerous and unfair even to sniper himself.
How fast 4x scoped pulse rifle can shoot bullets in a straight line? Can it break two rows of membrane before boiler can brap his fart gas trough it?
Then to that time add another to bring boiler himself to about 1/4 of its max HP, only then he will decide to retreat and not shoot.
With defender two players have to actually stay next to echother, with membranes defenders are no longer needed for that role and drones just start pooping 4-5 rows of membranes a minute after a frontline is established.
I would argue that 4x and even 2x scopes deserve some love to be actually of any use instead of making it completly worthless. NVG when scoped only when?
Then remove the ability of opening the doors by boilers who are dig-in to shoot gas, thus requiring cooridnation with another xeno to open those doors.
Even without it, one door is easier to break than rows of membranes which was common when boiler only used line of sight. Nobody makes rows of doors and boiler can’t even open more than one in front of him when dig-in.
Xenos will build rows of membranes which overall will have more HP. According to wiki membrane has 300 HP while normal door has 600. It takes just two rows of membrane to be a better door that you don’t have to open, so you can actually stand many tiles away from membranes, only requiring them somewhere inbetween.
Door boiler suprises only once at best. You can see clearly that walls have light on them from the other side and if there is a light from the other side of a xeno wall in a distance 99% of the time it is a boiler.
Boilers have too many ways to neuter scopes, the only thing they give them any value if you don’t have NVGs.
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Cool. Read my second point again wich you even quoted. Im not repeating myself if cant bother to read.
Its not about the suprise, its about little info given and little opertunity to react. If you use membrane you trade the ability to shoot better by giving information to the enemy. Losing the main advanteg xenos have, heat vision. You also expose yourself for much longer. Coupelt with the fact hat boiler glows, you got a situation where even a PVT is able to notice the boiler long befor it fired.
Yes, you can buils rows of walls. But the wall that has no reason to be shot at, is always stronger then a wall that gives a reason to be shot at, no matter the ammount. One survives the other every time. And a wall with a T3 behind it has a damn good reason to shoot at it
All in all, this would mainly cause xeno structers to be more flawd. It is legit a marine buff in descuise. And i cant wait to see xeno players bitch about it.
Two rows of membrane aren’t that much of a deal.
You only give this information to people who use binocs, or scopes. No, random PVT does not use binocs and he might have a scope on his gun, because he thought it is cool and gave some accuracy boost, but he won’t actually use it.
Lets not pretend boiler have to be on your screen to brap. He does that OFFSCREEN.
I say it again: Barerly anybody uses binocs and scopes. Binocs are used by CAS users and scope is used by sniper, maybe scout.
No, he cannot, because boiler shoots from OFFSCREEN.
You have to be in the same screen as said wall to see a boiler and shoot at it in 99.9% of cases.
One out of a hundred PFCs will take a scope on Pulse Rifle/M4RA to plink at boilers to make them run for cover. And this is the only situation where scope has any use for regular PFC. With membranes there is no point.
With a defender you can try to move to get an angle that fortified defender doesn’t cover, no such luck with membranes.
Are we even playing the same game with the same boilers?
Marine buff in disguise that completly prevents snipers and 4x scope marines from damaging a boiler who is at 0 risk shooting his gas melting cades.
Before I left CM for a bit I remember boiler needing only LoS to gas, now it is reverted how it was even before that with requiring a clear shooting lane. I assume there is reason and that reason is balance.
You say it like the door meta we have is countered by X4 scopes and snipers.
And if you wanna do 2-3 deep membrane walls you gotta think of the angling on the boiler, since it basicly only allows them to shoot straight forward, unless you wanna make a branching membrane wall, but thats essentially griefing the xenoes at that point.
And it dosn’t really matter that you can’t see them from off screen, as all you’d need is some binocs or something with similar effect and you can see the boiler across the map through how ever many membrane walls you want. You can’t do that with doors though. (You can also now tell if theres a boiler firering lane by there being 2 membrane walls next to eachother, and if they are common enough, would bring down the defensiveness of the entire front due to weaker walls).
So all in all, it is still just a worse door in ALMOST every way (bar a DMR crackshotting the boiler because they don’t know their timings), and this would only be good for noob boilers who don’t have the timing down (And even then its not hard. I got that shit after playing it for a match, and now its almost perfect).
And if you wanna nerf the door meta by making the boiler be unable to open doors while firering, it would only impact low pop rounds, as they would just ask for a healer drone GF to open it for them instead.
I never said it would, I only said if they used the membranes, at least then we’d be able to see them.
What is the critical difference between a fortified defender and a drone building few rows of membranes? It’s roughly the same cooperation between players. As opposite, the defender can move, but membranes cannot, so you’d need the drone to build more, it’s not “build and forget”. A fortified defender takes pretty long time to kill, but membranes you can shoot down very quickly, unless they are thickened by a hivelord (so you need to cooperate with a T2 now instead of T1).
You can deal exactly 0 damage to a boiler who opens doors right before shooting. Only scoped thing that can theoretically affect boiler during that moment is AMR because of short stun that theoretically cancels the windup but AMR should be removed one shots membranes anyway.
Membranes are good enough. No need to buff.
He has to open it at some point giving a window of opportunity to shoot at it. And xenos rarerly make more than one door, if they make more, you can just shoot every second door and let other collapse without support, thus giving those doors the same effective HP of a membrane.
And no, of course X4 scopes don’t counter boiler. X4 scopes suck ass regardless (so there is no reason to make them suck ass more), at best they make boiler shooting gas a bit less often, because he has to rest few seconds to heal on weeds instead of constantly bombing the front.
Sniper can shoot without aiming, so he can bully boiler a bit even when doors are used. One, or two M4RA bullets do jack shit, one unaimed incendiary sniper bullet will make a boiler back off a bit.
2 deep walls has the same HP as door (according to wiki), doesn’t need opening and won’t collapse on its own without support. Just because doors collapse, xenos don’t make long stretches out of them which wouldn’t be the case with membranes.
And no, it doesn’t “basically allow them to shoot forward” a 3x2 membrane wall without any doors, or normal walls lets you shoot 180 degrees while protecting you from any small arms fire. No branches required. Standing behind a door and opening it before shooting limits you to 90 degrees at best if this is subpar build with only one door. If it is three doors next to eachother, you still don’t get that full 180 membranes give you and with doors that requires a little bit of timing atleast to pull off while membranes are braindead click and wait where you could literally alt+tab to watch tiktok till you either hear a boiler gas fart sound, or xeno hit by a bullet sound.
Boilers are rarerly used on defence, because they suck at it unless it is a boiler gang that can keep area gassed 24/7.
Barerly anyone uses regular binocs because IT IS DARK EVERYWHERE. As soon as boiler shoots first gas blob everyone knows that he is there and that he will stay there for a bit because of comms. All “additional” information membranes would give to marines is when somebody glued binocs to their eyes and stare at the darkness where xenos come out to maybe notice a boiler right as he digs in for a shot, so he can then alert marines on comms that boiler appeared. But nobody will stay with their eyes glued to binocs, or scope outside of CAS/Mortar/OB rines and specs.
If membranes were to be reworked where they pass bullets trough easly, but were more ressistant to melee then it would be fine and actually would have more use than just boilers (reverse normal/reflective walls).
They won’t be common. It it will always be regular walls till boiler comes to the front and asks, or is noticed by builders so they make him dedicated positions.
Or they can just build like they usually do, but make membranes in front of their regular defences so that they don’t interfere with defensiveness because they are added on top, not instead.
No, they are not. Especially not to a singular door between two walls that reduced the angle of a shoot. And three rows have more HP that a door and doesn’t require any timing, or standing on a tile next to them.
It is fine to give this to two players. Since having a defender GF is better than having a membrane wall that you can shoot trough. It is a team game, isn’t it? Sniper is better with his spotter, not because marines are dropping zero cost zero space beacons everywhere occasionaly so it helps him aim faster.
If you think it is so much of a nerf to xenos actually and buff to marines, why you fight for it teeth and nails?
Defender has to actively protect Boiler while drone building stuff is doing that passively. Defender can be light up on fire with incind rounds, membranes cannot.
Boiler using doors is busted is an excuse to buff something else because hey, that other thing is potentialy in some situations worse, so why not?
DMR sniper rounds are busted, so why not buff something in sniper leaving DMR alone, because hey, DMR is soo good the other things can be buffed too.
OT SADAR rockets are sooooo good, so lets buff normal SADAR rockets. The same logic applies. Membranes are a relic from times before permanesting and longer larvae gestation, then they were repurposed (or rather boiler was repurposed to them), but it was reverted. And I am glad for that devmeme decision, because it was cancer when Boiler used LoS to gas.
If boiler could shoot through membranes it would be worse than just opening a door for half a second to shoot a glob which is what we have right now (assuming sweaty boiler).
Making 3x2 membrane boiler bunkers would suck for xenos since in an average choke that’s half or more of the building space.
We could of course test merge the change (I don’t know why this isn’t done more often) and see how it goes.
Again, not countered by it.
You may be thinking you are doing the hive a service by making whats basicly a (atleast) 2x3 wall of membranes, with either weak door supports, or supported by regular walls, but now you have either a giant piece of tissue, or tissue that has no wall in sight. Again, membrane walls are absolute garbage that takes about 2-3 hits from a bayonet to destroy. And if used with the current way frontline walls are used, will be an obstruction (atleast your example). Meanwhile, doors are plentyfull, and have a use other then being a firering port. It is also a way to use your acid spew on marines comming close, a surprise T2 or T3 comming out, or just being able to allow general movement.
And for angles? You angle yourself before you shoot through a door, making trying to angle before you shoot (somehow) worthless information.
Tell me you don’t play boiler without telling me you play boiler. Or just xeno in general. They are one of the best defencive castes you got, and are sometimes the ONLY thing stopping an unga rush.
Binocs are way more handy then you think, and it combined with a flare gun gives you a shitload more vision to deal with. Just because its not super common, dosn’t mean it would be an actual counter. Hell, people would probably use them MORE if boilers could be seen before shooting, like through membrane walls.
Also, to harp on AGAINST membrane walls. It allows CAS and mortar to hit in the midst of xeno defences.
So boilers would have to either ask every round for a singular shooting hole, that can be seen from across the map since the boiler glows through it. Or people would start adding membrane walls all across the defensive line for boilers, and make the line weaker then it was before.
When they can just shoot normaly through a door that is already plentyfull across the line. Again, membrane walls are strictly for countering sniper shots, or for use on bald boilers who don’t know door timings.
Again, you don’t have to rely on the HP of a door too much, as they are plentyfull, easily rebuildable, and you don’t have to build three times the amount of both space (or more, if you want a 3x2) for a single door (or a double wide, but again, they will be strewn across the defensive line for use on all castes).
Because your idea is, to be frank, a garbage take. It’s not how sniper and spotter works at all. Since sniper, by itself, didn’t get changed by the spotter. He has the same damage, rate of fire, aim time, and abilities. But with a spotter it was a general BUFF. A more precise comparison would be to have the SADAR be two manned (somehow. Maybe like a 40k guardsman rocketlaucnher heavy weapons team), and make it so SADAR without the extra guy would be just weaker then before the added teamwork.
Like, I’m all for making teamwork more fun, common and whatnot. But addiing it on as a nececcity and as a NERF, will just make said “teamwork” unfun.
You’re right. Sniper is pretty OP, so lets add DMR. Flamers are also pretty fucking OP, so lets add patting damage, and buff research flames to be a game ender, as they can essentially be made to have no counter (They also get a shitload more research credits). Oh, and marines are also winning most of the time on highpop most of the time. SO LETS ADD THE TANK FOR FREE.
Like, your examples are already happening, and it seems to be a standard for the game now.
Brother you are too carried away. I am just saying it wouldn’t change anything too much balance-wise. This change won’t suddenly make boiler OP and uncounterable. It’s just another option, something interesting to play with for builders, boilers and the rest of the hive.
If you played before the revert to globber, you should know that even then barely anyone used membranes. Because even as a boiler you need to reposition constantly.
Honestly as cool as it sounds, boilers are already a pain in the ass to deal with. One of the only counters rn is shooting them while they’re charging - if your bullets just sink into membrane, it’s just an unneeded buff to boiler imo.
Besides, you can already use cover very well. just use boiler diag glob angles, pretty simple stuff. Can be fun as hell as boiler and very easy to pull off. Or opening resin doors before firing.
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