Xenos should receive a minor stat buff during hijack as well as a name change to “Frenzied [Castename]”.
Specifically:
+10 slash damage,
+1(2?) tiers of attack speed,
+0.2(0.4?) movement speed
-25% cooldown
It’d be cool if blood splash (all the leftovers on the floor, decals or whatever) was also raised so it looks like a proper massacre
The purpose is to make hijack a bloodier, faster affair and further dissuade marines from early evacuations. Hijack and evac doesn’t always feel like a loss these days - you’re incentivized to board Alamo early and make another stand shipside because you get to safely re-cade and get an easier “win” condition there - the lifeboat hold. It doesn’t quite feel like a loss if you get a reward. Honestly, if the lifeboats launch with you onboard it totally feels like you won.
Losses should feel like losses, marines should be punished for losing - it’s their time to panic, pray behind their cades and maybe group up with the CO for a final, bloody all-in push to the dropship. Wins should feel like wins and xenos really need some kind of reward for beating the marines and surviving up till hijack. Currently all they get is “fob siege 2: thermobaric pipeburst” which isn’t something to look forward to.
Gameplay: Does it feel good to use?
It should, since it’s a pure buff. Runners probably too fast to actually play though lol Maybe should ditch the movement speed buffs if so. Does it feel good to play against?
Yes, as defensive stats are untouched marines should still be able to push and kill the xenos. Defensive play and mistakes are just punished harsher, because well - they lost and are about to get slaughtered. I think it’s fair and fun. Does it affect other systems?
FOB sieges and hijack gameplay. I think it’s a good change that speeds up the final slog and gives more incentive to hold the LZ and try to win planetside as long as possible.
Roleplay: Does it increase immersion?
Yeah, adds to the whole hopeless atmosphere for marines and hypes xenos up for the slaughter. Does it increase communication/interaction between players?
Slashing technically is an interaction so yes.
Simulation: Does it fit in the CM universe aesthetically?
It’s just an extra word appended to the name so it should be fine. Does it fit in the lore of CM?
Yeah, there’s messages about xenos sensing the fear in escaping talls or smth. The queen and the hive get to take their revenge. Does it make sense “realistically”
Yeah, the xenos are in a hurry to catch the escaping hosts and the queen sense their fear, emboldening her swarm.
I counter this with a ‘it only engages if evac is called’, to add greater stakes but to not punish confident marines who feel they could repel the hive.
One thing to point out regarding evacuation and bonuses being tied to it, is that it can be difficult for a CIC to not call for evac. Under the current rules its possible for a single Marine, even a MP, to declare a mutiny against the acting CO to force them to call a evac.
Even if you fully intend to hold and fight, you will often see CIC still call evac.
But you only encourage cadehugging (and maybe early evacs, although this one is questionable) even more. Xenos won’t capitalise on their buffs if you keep them at bay shooting from cades. You don’t discourage cadehugging at all, quite opposite. You discourage pushing out from cades, which still regulary happens nowadays.
Also not every evac is an early evac and I see how your changes punish fair evacs more than early evacs. And if hijack should be just a victory lap for xenos with their victory guaranteed, it’s way better to have hijack sequence removed at all, why waste everyone’s time if it will be the same every time.
And what’s exactly the problem with a bravo PVT who feels that he won because his character survived? Is this something bad? He should feel miserable instead or what? I don’t quite get what exactly do you want here.
This will further push hijack gameplay to cade hugging lifeboats or pods. It will also lower the chances of the oh-so desired marine comeback and lessen the variety of hijack outcomes.
The amount of bitching about the hijacker larva surge is already a ton, this would take every problem with that and make it worse. No marine would leave cades because they will get ganked by incredibly strong xenos. The point of hijack isn’t to give xenos a playground to murder marines who have 0 chance of fighting back, because that is in no way fun for the marines and ultimately wastes everyone’s time if you know the outcome and how one sided the fight will be.
Marines cadehug shipside regardless, I doubt it’d change much. It’s not meant to discourage cadehugging shipside. They’d capitalize because they can break these cades faster.
Even if its a “fair evac” marines still lost so its fine to get punished for it in some way.
The sequence as a whole should feel more like a loss, but im not arguing for removing lifeboats - its fine if the player gets his win at the end of the day but the game doesnt do a good job of telegraphing hijack = loss.
Its always cadehugging regardless. I see no issue with that, its a loss, if you had enough marines for a comeback then do it groundside.
I never saw the problem with larva surge. It’s just people refusing to accept hijack as a loss instead of a second chance for a comeback.
Its not like the xenos become immune so dunno where the “0 chance” came from. The outcome is already a predictable one sided fight if the marines dont evac early or against weak xenos.
Then why bother in the first place? Why not just make it where the second the drop ship is taken, the round ends?
Then again, why waste the time if we’re going to decide the outcome for the players. If you really want to hammer this in, then just end the round when the xenomorphs hijack, save everyone the time.
Because the outcome is not decided and marines CAN still win shipside, even if it’s skewed against them. Lifeboats are also an additional outcome they can reach.
This already was “hammered in” anyway until someone added the AA system to prevent the dropship crashing on holdouts, then it slowly degraded up to now (despite attempts with larva surge) where any trace of this being a loss for the marine side is almost nonexistant.
People might just never call evac, like how tryhards stopped calling in ERTs to not risk hostile boarders.
I agree hijack fails to telegraph that it’s a loss.
I don’t agree that xenos should be given handhelded victory shipside. If there are no stakes and the only difference is whether marines hold the lifeboats or fall early, then it’s a victory lap = meaningless. And discourages anything but holding lifeboats, making hijack even more repetitive than it is.
Then you are an unique case. Larva surge killed a lot of cool holding spots and left only two options: boomrush the hive or evac. So again, made hijack sequence more repetitive than before. Larva surge and hijack are in a bit better place right now, but still.
If we want to make hijack interesting, there should be adequate stakes. Victory lap isn’t fun for anyone, including xenos (a lot xenos outright ghost when they take FOB). So yeah, therefore marines should be able to win hijack and xenos must take hijack seriously. I agree hijack overall should be counted as a loss of the round and it should be emphasized somehow, maybe through announcement or something (“from now on, all ships must avoid this sector”, which means W-Y cuts their losses and xenos keep the planet forever). But handholding is never a solution because it’s just dull.
??? This is how hijack already works. Holding anything but lifeboats has been 100% discouraged by the mere existence of lifeboats as a win condition and nothing except for removing them or adding another win condition will change anything about this.
This is a blatant lie as nothing has changed aside from people coping in dchat and hijack no longer taking till timeout. Larva surge or not you’re free to hold wherever you want, of course the outcome will be that you lose though because that’s how sieges work - the besieged force eventually loses. There never was any other option than “win by attacking” or “evac”.
Best you can do here is add a separate win condition mechanic like nuke.
The stakes are already there. People ghost because it isn’t fun. The only thing that awaits xenos is fob siege 2.0, which is even less fun than the previous one. There’s no point to playing out a boring sequence if you’ve already won. This is compounded by marines early evacuating or calling foxtrot shipside to have an even stronger hold than they did on the planet.
Giving xenos something to feel good about and actually rewarding - instead of punishing - them for winning and surviving thus far encourages them to stay and play it out. If it’s not fun the only encouragement you can have is the tryhard desire to win regardless of how boring the game becomes.
They already can “win”. The only way to make players take it more seriously is via removing the hijack itself as a victory but that obviously is a horrible idea.
No one cares about announcements or text lol It should be blatantly obvious through game mechanics that evacuating the planet will put your side into a shittier spot, thus discouraging trying to win that way.
Bruh infinite amount of enemy spawns doesn’t discourage you from doing anything but rushing or evacing? Ok I don’t know what are you smoking. Before we had tank bay holds, briefing holds, req holds and whatever. It was way less repetitive. After larva surge addition it became pointless and these holds ceased to exist. How is this is a blatant lie? These are facts. You cannot blame lifeboats for this because pods existed.
Not quite because xenos are handhelded, but not handhelded too much so you can put up a fair fight and even achieve something. This makes hijack somewhat engaging for both sides. You want to make hijack even more xeno sided.
This is a better idea than yours tho. Don’t waste anyone’s time on a victory lap, just start new round. Xenos won, it’s over.
And you want to remove them by making the sequence too easy for xenos. If you cannot lose there are no stakes.
What’s so good about it? Cool I am overbuffed now and can kill marines without any effort. I don’t even need to participate actually, because my lesser drones bros can handle it without me. It’s as good as killing lesser drones as a marine (it’s not). I certainly wouldn’t have any fun as a xeno. Quite opposite, I like trying different castes during hijack to get some experience, but if I am overbuffed, experience wouldn’t be the same.
Since when?
But marines don’t know xenos can hijack therefore it would discourage only metagamers. This is why we need more emphasis on roleplaying components such as text.
Why would it? You lost the round, do you go into every hijack expecting le epic comeback victory through holding briefing? Why would you expect to win a round by cadehugging anyway? Surge or not, holding is losing, infinite respawns drive that home better and without forcing everyone to wait 30 minutes.
We had these holdouts during surge aswell. Now surge was mostly removed and people still only hold lifeboats. Remove lifeboats and you’ll have tankbay holds or whatever else. Similarly people always held SD everytime it was open.
No one ever cared about pods so idk why bring them up, its just a way for people to exit early, not a win condition and not something fun to hold.
Its not meant to be a fair fight because marines already lost. You can achieve something even with odds stacked against you. I dunno if I’d call current hijacks engaging.
Im not sure how offensive buffs suddenly make xenos unable to lose.
Lesser drone ranting aside I dont see why the game should conform to you wanting to try something out in an already non-standard environment. Also this is basically complaining you cant try out a caste because someone is emitting frenzy constantly near you. lol
If you think minor slash speed and damage buff makes xenos overbuffed and killing marines effortless I suggest playing the game. Having slightly more damage does not magically make you immune to dying.
Since always. “Show, don’t tell” isn’t a new phrase even if you’re unfamiliar with it.
-1 slash to crit (9 to 8), -4 seconds ttk (19 to 15), -4 slashes before death (16 to 12). before and after
Damn. Gamechanger. Can’t believe marines stand the slightest chance now. It’s over…hijack is pointless…
Good fix. Honestly, this needs to be a thing, since the hijack holds are without merit. That alongside lifeboats are essentially guaranteed nowadays to be successfull, since about 40+ marines and the ship crew make a superfob near it, xenoes very rarely get to kill them before they escape on them. Either making the lifeboats harder (Making escaping somewhat of a challange, since you lost) or buffing xenoes when they hijack would deffinetly help the staleness of the hijack.
This alongside its just a waste of time killing the 10 cadeline megafob at lifeboats rarely is enjoyable for xenoes to do, since only 5-6 marines stay behind to be obnoxious for another 10 minutes after everyone else evacs is just salt in the wound.
30+ benos with insta respawn not hard enough, benos quasi cannot win against some marines with a good bit having died groundside? You are right, marines totally OP especially during hijack, lets nerf them! (Seriously, if marines manage to hold against the xenos, they probaly deserved it. About that “bloody all-in push to the dropship” - you can do that every time. The problem is that some baldo marines force you to call evac and do a lifeboat hold, you then cannot deactivate evac anymore and half the marines of the faction which was winning a minute before flee using the lifeboats, leaving the other half to get stomped)