So either the marines get overrun within the first 15 minutes (90% of the time) or the xenos just die en mass (rarely). It’s either one or the other and most times the marines get wacked because they don’t have the manpower. Also hydro hive 
4 Likes
Easy, don’t play on lowpop 
2 Likes
but then it becomes more lowpop 
6 Likes
No.
2 Likes
The game is simply not balanced for lowpop, once you go under 100 players things get strained, but once you are going to 80 to 70 people it falls apart, God forbid under 60.
Most of the time it just comes down to how many people are playing Xenos. If enough people are playing them then the Xenos can usually be expected to roll the Marines within 5 to 15 minutes of 1st drop, if there are insufficient numbers then expect the Marines to win (tho it usually takes them longer).
I did run a minor event a week ago where I spawned a bunch of 360 degree Gauss Sentry Guns around the FOB that lasted for 10 minutes after 1st drop, this actually helped saved the Marines from being wiped out, as we were coming off the back of 3 rounds of 10-minute xeno wins. So, there is room to help improve the situation, it just comes down to WYCI.
6 Likes
how do you define lowpop
1 Like
CM lowpop to me is typically when you go below 80 players, give or take. You can take the range being between 100 to 60 players.
2 Likes
Lowpop = Sweaty xeno’s come out from their den.
High pop = Sweaty marines come out from their hibernation.
4 Likes
high pop= Soviet mass assault tactics
4 Likes
I feel like we should just bring back the no T3s on LZ before second drop rule…
5 Likes
Low pop is very underlooked right now, and my past 10 ish rounds of playing low pop are just early de oving queens looking to get their last squeeze of dopamine in before they hit the hay. I do think there could be changes to low pop so it could actually feel like the movies aliens, hell imagine if there was a different ship entirely. It could truly feel like a rag tag team of grunts. But I digress.
While there has been a few marine wins on this pop, the vast majority of rounds are ending WAY TOO FAST. Queen screech on low pop is super strong and I want to see some adjustments possibly.
3 Likes
I use to play low pop all the time half a year ago and eventually learned it’s a complete waste of time to even bother. People talk less, either due to not having English as their first language or whatever so there is less roleplay. You start missing multiple vital roles instead of just a few, instead of 5-6 engineers waking up you get 1 new guy with zero squad leaders. Bravo has 5 people in total but the XO just auto pilots and puts them on FOB then people wonder “WHY NO FOB MADE??” The second 3 marines go down it becomes a bottleneck because only 1 of the 2 squad medics that woke up actually has a silver medal in playtime. Requisitions being manned can be an issue even during medium-high pop let alone low pop.
The only thing low pop is good for is practising on a role you’ve never played before because you’ll actually be able to get it due to how few people are rolling against you. So you can quite easily get SG/Weapon Spec/GP/XO/Queen/Xeno-T3 without much of an issue, make all the mistakes you want and get use to it before you roll it during high pop where lots of eyes are on you.
Low pop isn’t fixable, the closest thing I can come up with is having an entirely different game mode that auto activates when the server hits a certain number like 60-80 or whatever.
2 Likes
CIC needs to make everyone do FOB because on lowpop it is a genuine issue that there won’t be enough Marines to fight the Xenos. You can’t issue squad specific orders since each squad, which each have 2 to 5 people, will all die alone.
MegaFOB is the only viable strat since if you make everyone go to the FOB, you increase the chance of someone actually doing fortification work, or at the very least you keep all the marines united to fight the xenos.
4 Likes
The worst solution that no one would love in regards to low squad population due to high distribution:
Cutting it down to 3 squads on low pop (rip delta), just A B and C. I’m 90% sure that the fourth SG is locked out for most low pop rounds unless I’m just blind
3 Likes
The Secret MP plan to stealth remove Delta.
First delta is gone from low pop, then mid pop, then high pop, and we will have finally purged the ship of the blue menace.
3 Likes
One respawn for marine players after perma during lowpop. Fixed.
1 Like
Sigh… i really hate that intel is STILL gone.
We need more ways for each side to win… other than just annihilation which is too fast on low pop.
In the old days you could fob up. Get intel… and nuke eventually.
1 Like
Idk man, I just know that I enjoy spectating low pop rounds because while I am a marine main, I do enjoy seeing rines get clapped as a punishment for their bs way of playing. Who would’ve thought that dying for believing that they are the doomguy instead of following a plan and working together would eventually cause the W to be delivered in a silver platter to benos?
Altough I will admit that the screech is broken on low pop, the loop will be:
1 - Rines will actually follow a plan.
2 - Xenos will fold inmediately and they will run into caves.
3 - A whole squad (like 6 guys) will rush in, while the rest hold back because they know what’s about to come.
4 - The queen comes out like “It’s screeing time”.
5 - The queen screes all over delta and caps half of the squad and murders a quarter of them.
6 - The rest of the round is governed by fear RP while rines are worn down over time through shitty pushes into the queen that continuously caps through screeching at everyone that is ever so slightly aggressive.
This is what I was thinking. The marine supply chain becomes a nightmare when there’s no REQ or pilots. Which makes removing larva harder than it’s meant to be. Maybe a mode where there’s no almayer and the marines begin on the same z-level with some things switched around for balance.
1 Like
I like lowpop because there’s much less server lag compared to highpop