Q. Can I guard a dead human to make sure they go into permanent death?
A. No, this is akin to walling off dead bodies, which is still forbidden. If a human is dead, they're dead. You can only guard a body if a queen says or makes their intent to gib the body known.
This rule clarification is incredibly vague, and casually disregards years of a core aspect of backline/xeno gameplay which was guarding dead bodies to prevent recovery. There have been multiple changes to hard crit, devouring, etc to make it fairer for marines that die so they don’t get devour hard crit moved all the way to hive, or have their dead bodies moved across the map to become unrecoverable. Because of this, the only way to prevent dead bodies from being recovered is to be active and/or stay in the area in which they have died. With this rule in place, xenos could easily be ahelp’d by a dead marine that their body is being “guarded” and it would be possible for the xeno to be held liable and noted/warned/banned for doing so when it is quite literally what they have to do. Xenos are intelligent, they understand what body recoveries are/their purpose (if you see a dead body get dragged off, and they are back fighting its not hard to understand what happened).
This rule clarification sits too much in a grey area, and should rather be moved into Rule 6. No metagaming/communication as an addendum that says something similar to “do not actively say death timers for dead bodies” (5 minutes for a marine body, 2.5/5 for a xeno) which is what most issues regarding xenos being around dead bodies occur. It’s also less of a grey area type of rule, and wouldn’t affect xenos that are simply playing the game how they have been playing for years.
I do not understand how knowledge of marines recovering bodies is not IC knowledge. Xenos see corpses being dragged away. Xenos see marines being revived.
This ruling also raises other questions. Are we not allowed to target medics who are reviving people any more? Are we not allowed to use a corpse as bait and wait to ambush a marine who goes to pick it up?
Corpse recovery is a huge part of the game and it’s really weird if we’re expected to just pretend like it isn’t a thing.
Also I can’t see how this could be enforced without it getting really weird. What if someone just wants to hold a certain area, but that area happens to have corpses in it? Someone could ahelp and now that player can get in trouble, just because the area they wanted to hold had corpses in it. Same thing could happen if a back liner kills someone in a particular ambush spot, and then decides to keep camping that ambush spot simply because it’s a good spot. You can’t tell the difference between someone guarding bodies and someone just playing the game normally.
The latest rule clarification seemingly outlaws guarding dead bodies, pointing out that it’s the same as walling off dead bodies.
For all of CM’s lifespan the guarding of corpses has ALWAYS been allowed, even dating as far back as when you were able to drag dead bodies. In fact, the change that made xenos unable to drag corpses was done to force xenos to actually prevent marines from retrieving their dead, as opposed to simply hiding them in a bush.
I do not believe guarding bodies is akin to walling bodies off in any way. Walling off bodies hides corpses away from players, requiring no player interaction whatsoever. The xeno does not need to remain there. This is akin to dragging dead bodies into bushes, or hiding them in a corner of a map.
Guarding bodies requires player interaction. Marines push to retrieve their bodies, xenos defend to prevent that from happening. Much like attacking medics attempting to revive marines, or attacking marines trying to drag back their dead. This is a crucial part of round flow and attrition. Both players, the xeno and the marine, commit themselves to a singular objective.
There is nothing stopping marines from retrieving a guarded corpse. Whether it be on the frontlines or the backlines. While a walled off body, the marine can’t retrieve the corpse because they do not know it’s there in the first place.
I whole heartedly believe this change should be overturned.
Absolutely agree that this is a bizzare rule clarification. Very vague and goes agaisnt the entire history of how the games been played.
Xenos ICLY know damn well that humans recover human bodies, the USCM especially. Being aware that these corpses could be spotted and an attempt to recover them made is key to a few strains gameplay.
Are lurkers not supposed to cloak and use bodies as bait now to attract more kills in isolated positions?(hydro road)
Can warriors not camp a corner that has a dead body in it and use their fling move to prank marines trying to save that body??
If xenos kill a squad of marines, push past those bodies a little, but get held up at a cade line, are they technically camping on those bodies now???
I agree with that, there should be atleast a somewhat clearer clarification about that, as using corpses to bait marines is an often-used tactic, but I think it should still be forbidden to guard bodies waiting for them to perma, as xenos shouldn’t know that once a body is five minutes old, they are unrevivable.
I personally believe that xenos should only be prevented from taking intentional measures to hide the sprite of a dead body.
If a xeno wants to stand by a dead marine for five minutes for the possibility that another marine is enroute to recover the body they should be able to. Either the xeno is actively fighting in an area a corpse is or they are doing nothing standing next to a body. Them watching the body removes a xeno that could be patrolling the back lines or fighting at the front.
It’s also not like a xeno watching a body means it is not able to be recovered, it just adds risk to the recovering marines.
The rule clarification is fucking stupid, to put it bluntly.
We may as well start banning queens for gibbing bodies. They’re dead lmao, why gib 'em???
Fucksake, xenos literally watch marines practice necromancy and raise the dead, this is one of the most braindead rulings I’ve seen, and I’ve played on CM for a loooooooong fucking time. Can we get some explanation about why xenos shouldn’t be reacting to watching marine necromancy?
Marines are guilty of the same thing stop crying little babies you know fine rightly when Dallas Weeter gets murdered in a choke, deltards all scream DALLAS DOWN and push to recover. You meta a single marine they meta a single marine, shitty bad faith playerbase arms race mentality.
That’s not metagaming, marines know eachother and would almost certainly know who the best marines are, xenos on the other hand have never seen a single one of these marines in their lives.
I’m pretty sure this clarification also isn’t a thing anymore, and it’s basically impossible to enforce too (any combat where you want to gain ground WILL involve guarding bodies, because the bodies will litter the ground you gain and don’t want to lose).
I believe the rule clarifications are no longer used as rules. Could be wrong though, so if any @maintainer would like to clarify it I would appreciate it.
But yeah rule clarifications have been dead for a while. Its fine if you guard a body to prevent recovery like guarding anything marines want to prevent them from getting it.
But if you’re going to start a timer so you can time their perma and then leave, AKA actual metagaming, you’ll probably be slapped with metagaming.
But yeah its fine to defend your kill, its been fine to do this for months.
I stopped playing before the clarification was made and started playing again after they were already gone, I did half remember somebody saying something about clarifications not existing anymore, but didn’t see an official announcement anywhere.
Wasn’t guarding the bodies as xeno once deemed metagaming and then declared to be fine since xenos can see marines performing necromancy on those bodies?