Imagine if you stripped all the guns and defenses from survivor, but gave them unique toys to try and stealth around xeno players, with the goal of surviving rather than killing the xenomorphs. Here’s my idea to do so.
To start off with, Guns should be much more heavily restricted, with very limited ammo or much less damage, and they get no building materials but to compensate, survivors get a unique mechanical ability to scare xenos off temporarily with incindiaries. This has reduced returns as quickly xenos learn to get over the fear of fire to assault the target.
Secondly, add large vents to certain urban areas of the map that only survivors can cross, think the vents newt or ellen ripley hide in. They can close after a certain period of time to prevent them from being used after the marines properly arrive. While inside a vent the survivor’s thermal signature is blocked, and they can use the vents to teleport to others nearby. Xenos can attack a vent to capture a survivor hiding inside, so you can’t rely on them if you’ve already been caught.
Craftable items: Allow survivors to craft a collection of rudimentary items to misdirect xenos. These devices should be easy to acquire resources for, but limited on how many you can carry at once
Noise maker: throw it to generate a noise, like gunfire, or a scream, or some such. Useful to buy you enough time to find a hiding place if you were about to be spotted, or make a xeno think you’ve gone a different way when trying to escape.
Flare: Xenos that witness flares are temporarily distracted by it, restricting their vision everywhere except for where the flare is, like a tropical storm but more powerful, and wears off over a short period of time
Smoke grenade: a large cloud of smoke to obscure survivors, will block all outbound chat messages which require sight like climbing tables or entering vents
Steam charge: an improvised explosive placed on an airlock or machine, when a xenomorph gets within one tile or opens the airlock, the steam charge detonates, forcing the xeno back for a moment, to buy time to think of something else.
Lastly, let survivors hide inside lockers, under tables, etc in places that would obscure them from sight. While hidden they do not appear to ghosts to prevent metagaming.
If a xeno stays near a hidden survivor long enough, they will start to breath heavier, and must hold their breath, dealing incremental stamina damage, until the xenomorph leaves, or be potentially discovered
I wrote this while very sleep deprived, I understand this would be a huge endeavor but it would probably weed out the worst surv players toxicity wise and turn it from a frag fest to a stealth experience.