Commanding an operation is less enjoyable than it used to be

[Carlo]

100% hit the nail on the head, the #1 reason to never follow a flank or split as marines is because any sufficiently coordinated hive can rotate with queen screech and wipe you. I will add another part of this equation is the ease at which xenos can rotate due to the lack of any real logistics on their part. I get that this is part of the faction identity, but it has to be acknowledge that if it was the case that bugs could not so easily move their entire force at little to 0 cost, and do so quickly, marines would be more incentivized to split up. But I think trying to actually change that would A) Undermine the core identity of the xeno faction and B) actually encourage balling up even more since Xenos would just all sit together, and marines, wanting to fight something, would go to that single ‘xeno ball’ location.

[Danil154322 (Danilciferki)]

@ingwe.ihatedc

You know marines ungaball for that exact reason? Since they can’t kill t3s with small number, i.e. a squad, they need “MORE" marines, i.e. the ungaball. Now you say we buff xeno against the most efficient way to counter 2+ t3s (ungaball) to discourage it?

If someone wants to discourage marine ungaball - buffing xenos against ungaball sounds logical

You can’t just nerf benos and expect the ungaball to disperse somehow, because

@RainbowStalin

It is still going to be the most effective way to win, but now the xenoes are weaker.

If we make small groups of marines more combat-capable, while also discouraging the ungaball - we’d get more tactical gameplay with small squads of protags

That’s how I see it, anyway

[Wintermote]

Currently the main balancing factor against an ungaball are friendly fire and spacing

Ungaball works best when you have flattened the terrain so 10 people can shoot and hit the same target without FF, (and this is also necessary because 2 or 3 people won’t kill T3’s).

Marine pushes stall out at chokepoints because the firepower of 2-3 marines is not enough to effectively kill and push through the choke - the combat width of the ungaball exceeds the combat width of the terrain, and point for point xenos are stronger, so any situation where both sides saturate the combat width equivalently will always favor xenos.

 
So I think the best way to nerf the ungaball in this regard is to make walls significantly harder to destroy. That should combine fairly well with better staying power for dispersed marine squads. Effectively it would mean 90% of an ungaball does nothing as is currently the case at indestructible terrain chokepoints, so marines either disperse or get surrounded and die.