Disallow queen tunneling

Development Ideaguys
1

Dunno why this is a thing. Most of the time serves no purpose other than extreme delaying or cheese and I don’t think saving the 30 seconds by tunneling instead of walking whenever she goes off ovi to siege is worth all the issues this brings.
If queen wants to abandon the hive she should do so before she’s surrounded, not teleport across the map when marines are banging on the last resin door.
If she fails to break through a surround, she should just die and the hive can start anew, disorganised and weak as much as the scattered, searching marines. At least until a new queen rises.

MorrowForm time

  • Gameplay:
    Does it feel good to use?
    Yeah, since it skips walking.
    Does it feel good to play against?
    No, not at all. Cheesing hijack or teleporting despite being totally surrounded and invalidating the reward for pulling off a hive push in the first place. Mostly used to delay a round for up to another hour as marines have to walk all over the map twice over to find the spot queen teleported to, which isnt fun at all. Sometimes lasts even longer because the marines are so bored they split off and it’s cat herding esports before they finally regroup and win anyway.
    The rare queen flanks via tunnel ain’t exactly fun for marines either as it allows her to skip the stomp warnings for the most part.
    Does it affect other systems?
    Kind of? It goes around queen stomps and impacts hijack because queens can teleport into the LZ.

  • Roleplay:
    Does it increase immersion?
    Hell no. Decreases it quite a bit.
    Does it increase communication/interaction between players?
    Only between the queen and burrower when she occassionally asks whether there’s a tunnel or to make one, though this happens regardless of whether she tunnels so hard to tell - negligible impact I guess.

  • Simulation:
    Does it fit in the CM universe aesthetically?
    N/A
    Does it fit in the lore of CM?
    Dunno whats the CM lore considering we have starcraft protoss audio for xenos, but it doesn’t fit the aliens lore.
    Does it make sense “realistically”
    Absolutely not. Queen’s way too big to fit into a tunnel.

Not a big fan of the form.

3 Likes
2

Stealth hijack is the only option sometimes, especially to counterplay things like nuke if xenos don’t have the numbers to siege a hundred marines. It’s also still very dangerous, and can just as often lead to queen dying.
Queen tunneling is also the only thing that gives xenos a chance to clutch or make a comeback, unless you’re on a small well known map like LV where marines just all metarush the same 6 locations.
Either way, removing it just takes away one more option from xenos and railroads the game further towards the same script every round.

Like people have said about lots of other non-immersive, unrealistic things that are annoying to play against, like marine bodyblocking, “it’s a core game mechanic”. Or “skill issue” or something

2 Likes
3

If something this gamey is “the only option”, then perhaps xenos just don’t deserve the win, for once? Not every round has to be a win, especially not if the only way to turn it around is by cheesing it and teleporting into the LZ, killing the PO and touching the console for one second in order to “defeat” the Marines.

5 Likes
4

When marines have enough manpower to nuke, they usually overrun the DS and kill the queen easily before they ever take off. Most of the time I’ve seen xenos try it, they die in the LZ. Teleporting into a heavily caded FOB with 60 marines and no escape is very risky and usually a death sentence.
Even if they do manage to hijack, they’re still far outnumbered shipside and it ends up being a marine win anyways. Marines still win if that matters to you, the difference is it circumvents sieging, and xenos get to have some fun in the process too.
Last time I did this successfully as queen, marines had full force shipside, and it was an epic, climactic and fun battle as opposed to another comm tower and fob siege followed by lifeboat siege. Marines still won, but it was fun for everybody involved.

Also love how much everyone is using “cheese” as a valid argument now to push their ideas since the lurker nerf, it’s funny.

4 Likes
5

I don’t think we should remove tunneling for queen.

Its already a serious pain to get around on foot as queen and if a hive falls last moment the queen if she had already set up an escape tunnel. should be allowed to flee even if it means the hive loses its final stand.

It makes the game more interesting as xenos can recover after a critical defeat and continue the fight making the battle more tense as now the xenos lack somewhere to call ‘home’ it also encourages non meta moves such as doing a sneak attack on the lz or other methods of combat. But that’s just my take on it

2 Likes
6

On one hand, the entire hive piling into a poorly guarded FOB via tunnel is funny, but 9 times out of 10 the queen tunneling serves to delay an already lost cause by making marines run in circles hunting the queen. Maybe give a message like “you hear a loud scraping sound beneath you or to your /(direction queen is tunneling to)” to help marines pinpoint where queen is going without tuning stealth hijack. Adding a larger windup may work too, making the queen commit to the movement instead of jumping around from tunnel to tunnel fairly fast.

3 Likes
7

Ah yes, “lets remove another well established xeno feature for absolutely no reason whatsoever, other than just to make them xenomains cope”.

Xenos are already extremely weak in terms of sustaining power, ever since the larva nerfs. Removing the tunneling from the queen would be another nail in the xeno coffin and another move towards that coveted 100% marine speedrun meta.

If the queen has to tunnel and escape out, xenos would probably lose with like 90% certainty and I don’t see anything wrong in delaying the marine speedrun for maybe 10 or 20 minutes while the xenos get chased down, which would also mean some time for shipside roles to RP and maybe some hilarious kills on\by marines spreading out.

FOB tunneling is also not a big deal, because most of the time it results in Queens losing the winning round. And if it’s that 3 xenos FOB tunnel hijack, then like who cares? They’re gonna get killed anyway.

3 Likes
8

Queen tunneling to delay the round is pretty lame and Im happy to see that someone agrees

Its not very awesome when the queen tunnels and the marines have to chase down a marathon running queen around the map

Rounds over bro

2 Likes
9

It’s never over till it’s over

I’ve seen entire rounds clutched, xenos pulling victory from the jaws of defeat, less than 7 xenos remaining defeating a force of over 80 marines. In part it was thanks to this mechanic; it’s not frequent, but it happens.
People can say “delaylien” all they want, but when xenos are down to 4 and they end up hijacking and winning, that’s not delay. That’s clutching, and if marines need to remove queen tunneling to prevent this then it actually is a skill issue.

Sure, sometimes it causes delay, but sometimes there are robust players who refuse to give up and possess the means to actually clutch. Combined with a bit of luck and/or marine fumbling, the round you think “is over” just because you cracked a hive can literally turn 180 degrees. That’s just people playing the game, the game doesn’t end at your convenience, it ends when it ends. As long as there is a living queen, it’s not over.
Trying to further cripple that queen’s ability to survive post hivecrack, which is already difficult enough, isn’t fair.

If you really wanna speedrun meta this hard, lets just instantly restart the server the second the hivecore is broken.

3 Likes
10

The ability for a Queen to tunnel does create options for her to reposition rapidly during a fight (start pushing north of an area then quickly tunnel south to try to catch people off guard).

However, I do agree with the sentiment that a lot of the time it feels Queen tunnelling is mainly used to extend a round and allow a Queen (usually a high level Empress) to escape a soon to be overrun hive. Best case scenario this only delays the round for another 5 minutes to several hours before she dies, worst case she then pulls off a comeback that lasts several hours because the Marines simply can not pin her down, struggle to keep up with destroying new xeno tunnels (especially if the burrower just makes more, outstripping the marines explosive supply) and eventually get attritioned to hell.

Let the Queen heroically hold off the Marines to allow her brood to escape. instead of right now where Marines make a final push, wipe the hive, and are rewarded with no xeno kills and a lot of dead bodies.

11

im not readin allat lil bro

typing out a shit ton might make it look like youre credible but the majority of that was nonsense and cope

please condense your thoughts and ideas down to a few sentences please :slight_smile:

12

Tunnelhopping alone cannot sustain a queen on the run for several hours. If a round goes on that long after marines crack a hive, marines never had it. Again, cracking a hive=/=end of round.

Why is this worst case? If xenos can clutch, they deserve the win no?

Literal definition of “skill issue”. Like I know people say that a lot as a throwaway sweet nothing, but that’s literally what it means lol

I know it doesn’t seem like it lately due to the current gamestate and all the nerfs, but xenos are meant to be the side that wins from attrition.

Makes no sense icly or lorewise; the whole point of the hive is to serve and die for the queen if necessary.
They are an extension of the queen’s will, their job is to protect the queen. And players in game will often do that to a tee to save the queen.
image

tldr: skill issue, cope

Admin: why the fuck did you shoot up the req line? Did you not look at the server rules??

1 Like
13

Cheese should never be an option. Besides, it’s not - the other one is simply losing as intended or breaking the cades.

Blatantly untrue, just walk out of the hive and roam earlier, happens plenty of times. Clutching via cheese LZ teleport is also hardly earned. Similarly a “comeback” born from bored as fuck players splitting off is hardly an earned one.

How do they overrun the DS if the queen just teleported from the deep cave hive siege straight into 5 bravoids? Last I checked marines cant tunnel. I dunno why bring nuke into this if this cheese usually happens when the nuke isn’t present nor are marines cadehugging - do you play the game?

Its xeno minor if they make it shipside. Counts as a win and is looked at as part of the statistics to decide who to nerf.

True, cheese has never existed nor been removed in CM before the lurker nerf. Really?

Neither of which requires the queen to teleport across the map. The battle’s more tense if the queen’s making a run for it breaking through marines, not magically appearing on the other side of the map.

A good idea but knowing where she tunnels to doesn’t fix the problem as you can already guess as it is. + she can just re-tunnel once you all beeline for the direction. The windup is largely irrelevant.

It tends to last longer than that, not always a speedrun aswell. Removing tunneling from queen also doesn’t prevent other xenos from getting chased down for dchat’s enjoyment.

didn’t read, stop tryharding and sapping the fun out of the game. Its ok to lose, you’re not deranking into bronze.

It’s not difficult. There’s nothing that stops the queen from walking out of the hive so long as she doesn’t wait till the last 30 seconds.

No one’s saying the round should end, you should be punished as a xeno by losing the queen in these cases. You’re still free to comeback with another one.
If marines never had it then why tunnel? - how is that even good for the game and not just frustrating?

yeah, you summed yourself up.

14

Sometimes xenos have no choice but to abandon the hive. Remember marines have a lot of tools to push, such as explosives, flamethrowers, air support (not all maps have hiveplaces covered by caves), OB, SG packs etc. If marines pull off a dedicated rush, xenos legit has no tools to hold their hive. Just walking away is not always an option (keep in mind marines can just cade flanks, it doesn’t require anything exceptional because all squads have comtechs) and not all hive spots have a nice backdoor to leave through (e.g. east caves on lv).

Not to mention, xenos already punished enough for losing hivecore: no OB protection, no resin structures, no burrowed from latejoins, most of the times no eggs and no place to nest caps. And what’s the issue again? Xenos retreat to live another day and the round continues? You don’t like to play the game or what? Why is that a problem?

It’s frustrating only if marines lose all cohesion whatsoever and proceed to push the new hive spot one by one, but that’s a skill issue if anything. Moreso it perfectly fits current gameplay loop when xenos capitalise on marines losing coordination.

3 Likes
15

If xenos allowed themselves to be locked in that way, that’s skill issue on their part and a good play by marines. Nothing stops the queen by pushing the flank before she is absolutely forced to abandon the hive to ensure she has a way to run.

Doesnt matter. OB what if queen is just roaming around screeching small groups. What resin structures do you need for this? Morphers can also be preplaced in various locations. Are you really trying to say there are burrowed larvae at that point in the game? :clown_face: A single t1 is hardly relevant.

They lose cohesion because the players themselves are bored, not because anything in the game has caused a cohesion loss. You shouldn’t be relying on boredom to power a “gameplay loop”. And no, marines suicidally walking in small groups all over the map in search of a hive has nothing to do with the gameplay loop of CM, you might be thinking of a different word.

16

Again, you can do NOTHING to prevent this. It requires one single OB on LV to get to any hive (except the lake, but it’s a meme) doors. Just spam nades and flames to clear the hive and you’re done. It’s that simple. You can’t do nothing to prevent this as xeno, but to wait until marines run out of nades. And you want to hold the hive for as long as possible, because of all the caps, eggs and hivecore, you cannot just abandon it until there is really no hope. And xenos cannot reliably push marines unless marines’ numbers are grinded down enough, it’s a defensive guerrilla warfare focused faction. I really don’t understand, do you seriously want to bring back 00:45 hiverushes or what?

Morpher is a resin structure, resin structures require hivecore. You always need clusters to make chokes harder to push. Burrowed are always relevant, unless your goal is 00:45 rounds, then I agree they are not. You never know how many marines are going to join in the span of five minutes, but I think it’s usually more than three. But even single T1 is relevant.

offtopic

btw T1s are extremely relevant, defender is a strong caste with a very good kit, drones are essential for building defenses (and you desperately need new defenses, plus healer/gardener drone can greatly support T3s), runners are great for screech capping (and acider can solve the game), sentinels exist.

So it’s a skill issue if xenos get rushed because of all the tools marines have, but it’s not if marines don’t want to use their brains and mindlessly attack new hive location one by one? I won’t take it as an argument, it’s absurd. If you got bored and made a bad decision (e.g. decided to walk alone on hydro road and got pounced by lurker gang), it’s always your fault. Play smart, don’t become overconfident. The game is all about this. CM always has been a punishing experience and I’d rather keep it this way.

3 Likes
17

none of this is relevant and dependant on queen tunneling though? Its also blatantly untrue, you say this like hive gets overran every single round as something natural. lol

T1s are good but a single one wont matter much in a situation where queen is roaming. You’ll get 1 during five minutes if you’re lucky.
Resin structures dont matter if queen is roaming aside from morpher for huggers, iirc they dont get destroyed when core breaks? You get to buy a shit ton of time for new core by teleporting via tunnels anyway.

What?

Sure, but it’s the game’s fault if it’s boring. lol Last I checked CM is a TDM not a hide and seek.

So we’re in agreement then that queen should not be able to teleport across the map if she fucks up?
I don’t know if you forgot the scope of this idea but I don’t see how the lack of queen - if she fucks up and dies - is going to stop the surviving xenos from punishing marines for overconfidence?

18

That’s not a good play that’s called map design. There are quite a few hive locations on different maps that are literally just designed without much of an easy exit.

I thought we were trying to incentivize queen staying on ovi.

If I get bored as a warrior because marines are cadehugging for an hour and I can’t pounce a single thing, and I eventually decide to just run at their cades and die out of boredom, that’s a me problem. I mean until the gameplay loops are improved, but that is a far bigger issue and not one that queen tunneling will solve.

You just want to shift the punishment for marine fuck-ups onto xenos, and force them to think and plan ahead for one more possibility to accommodate the short attention span of marines. Marines don’t need more handholding.

Literally just untrue.

Also I don’t understand how you complain about “queen roaming” and picking off lone groups of bored marines, while in the same breath complaining about tunneling and saying queen should just walk out of the hive beforehand. You’re saying you want to remove queen tunneling to force queen to roam out of the hive. “Roaming” is just queen off ovi in combat, which is a core game mechanic. Sure, one devs are trying to discourage presently, but a core mechanic nonetheless.
Besides, when queen can tunnel out of hive, it gives her a chance to ovi again somewhere safe. Take that away and she will be forced to remain mobile and “roam” so idk how much you’ve thought this through or what you actually want to achieve; you’re contradicting yourself.

eRm ActUalyhy rOlepLaY

Seriously though, it sounds like you just want a queen kill handed to you on a silver platter, followed by an instant server restart. Go play TG or somethin

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19

I was gonna answer but there’s so much headcanon that you really oughta re-read or ask chat GPT to explain it to you.

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I think a better solution is to just make more options to get rid of tunnels. It’s not uncommon for there to just be no explosives available to clear tunnels. One thing I’ve suggested (but never formally or on the forums) is being able to bury a tunnel with a shovel, and make it take 60 seconds of digging. Plenty of time to be interrupted and contested if xenos care to do so, but ultimately, a way to deal with a new term I am coining as CBT (crazy burrower tunneling) where they can make infinite tunnels on a moderate cooldown.

4 Likes