Currently, Hedgehog ravs are in a bit of a weird spot. They are terrible against at least semi-competent Marine teams, and don’t see much use. However, there is one thing they are EXCELLENT at. And that is being a tool for softgrief. Let me explain.
The current ruling is that, even if you know that shooing a shielded hedgehog rav makes shrapnel, and you shoot it purposely when it is near marines, it is chalked up to an IC issue. Why do I think this is a problem? Well, I personally have seen some SG players that purposely shoot a shielded hedge rav despite knowing the consequences of doing so. I have told them about it in game that “Hey, don’t shoot them when their shield is up. You do no damage and you are just giving every marine around them injuries” to which they ignore and just keep doing it. Further, can you do anything to stop the players that do this? Not at all. Ahelp? Its an IC issue. Shoot them? That’s IE despite them technically using lethal force. Want them arrested? Good luck with that. MPs aren’t going to go to the frontline for that.
Now I know some of you will say “but muh RP!!11!!!” What about it? If you want to RP, go ahead and shoot them once. Your character would most definitely notice that their bullets just explode into shrapnel and do nothing to the rav, and only hurt marines.
All in all, there should be at least some way of stopping players that do this intentionally. Make it count as lethal force or something so that you can shoot them if they decide to unload 50 rounds into a shielded rav as it rushes into a crowd of medics.
This is the only xeno that relies on marines to softgrief their own teammates, and for that reason I feel there needs to either be some changes to the caste, the removal of it, or a way to punish marines that willingly shoot it in order to harm other marines.
Am I salty? Yea, a bit. I’ve died countless times to people shooting hedge ravs that are shielded despite me having told them thirty seconds earlier “HEY! DON’T SHOOT THE BIG RED GUY WHEN IT HAS ITS BLUE SHIELD UP!”
I’ve told Smartgunners before over LOOC as hedge to stop shooting my character with HP ammo, because in order to do even 1 damage per bullet they would have to be standing within three tiles. So it was literally no damage, shooting 24/7, which ended up restoring shards thst I lost through using any ability.
Some players just haven’t learned it yet, but hopefully will.
It’s important to remember that a good chunk of marines are just plain dumb, or they are extremely smart. it all depends on which side you’re playing, when you’re playing marine they are terrible when you’re playing xeno they are incredible
No way for us to enforce this as grief or anything OOC. I am not about to bwoink people because they did not know that’s how the rav shield works or they simply didn’t let off the mouse button fast enough.
IF you think they are actively griefing the other marines by shooting the rav even though you have already informed them of how their blue shield works then A-help it.
Having a single ability of a strain of a single caste be the only thing in the game you’re not supposed to shoot isn’t good gameplay design. It just means new players are gonna keep shooting and destroy their teammates.
By the time a new player learns “hey if funny magic cartoon shield is up, I don’t shoot” plenty of brand new PVT’s have come to replace them.
We already have enough issues with people just not shooting xenos and staring, I think hedgehog only makes it worse. I’ve seen a PVT get shot by teammates for shooting a hedgehog before because they put a full clip into it. How were they supposed to know?
The same could be said for everytime a PVT threw a M15 grenade at a fortified defender, obviously telegraphed to be in a different, defensive state, only to have it bounce off, instantly kill the marine and doing 20 damage to the defender. You have to learn.
Not at all. Its the fact that it is a tool that enables marines grief the front without any sort of consequence. For example, there was a round where someone in OOC said that they hoped for a quick round because they didn’t like the map. What did they do that round? They had an HPR and purposely sprayed at shielded ravs in order to kill marines. What was done about it? Absolutely nothing.
Honestly, I personally don’t think we should punish people for what could just be plain incompetance. Next thing you know you get noted for not killing xenoes as effectivly as you should.
There’s things you generally don’t do in game design, you see devs (in other games and actual studios) talk about this sort of thing if you tune into conversations on balance, gameplay, etc. Hedgehog rav flips everything a player learns about the game on its head and punishes them for doing things they normally do and are expected to do. Even if you literally turned someone’s cursor into a red crosshair with “stop shooting” written under it, people would still do it and think there’s just a bug or something. That’s how brazenly unintuitive the ability is.
The ability’s designed to exploit noobs, balds, and griefers. I’d personally just replace it with an invulnerability window since that’s basically what it’s doing. It’s boring but it doesn’t reverse what players learn about the game and more directly punishes the noobs and balds rather than their friends.
I think its fine.
I do think tho its annoying that Hedgehogs get 1 click invulnerability. If your good at hedge you can just abuse that to get out of most situations. And bad hedges are almost impossible to kill, even if they misplay, since 1 click invulnerability is ez to use.
So many times hedge has run off with 10% hp after overextending to hell.
hedgehog ravs aren’t weak and post buff they’re actually rather overpowered and probably need a power reduction, since you can’t actually do anything and it can just walk up and slash you with no slowdown and no risk since you also can’t stun it
it’s awful to play against since the only counter to it is to not play the game when it’s around
incompetence isn’t punishable though, which while unfortunate in some situations means when you fuck up you don’t get instantly perma banned
What. Having unique abilities is a bad gameplay design? Very insightful.
There is a lot of things in the game you can only learn the hard way.
This is literally the point of hedge. You run into enemy and wait for them to shoot you. Why would you be punished for doing what you’re supposed to do? More than that, hedge is way weaker than other castes, his slash damage is just 35 and spikes barely do damage as well (unless you PB or getting shot by 3 SGs with your shield up, both major skill issues from marines side). Yeah, hedge can get away from many situations thanks to the shield (a lot of T3s have some kind of get away abilities), but he’s slow. If you chase, you can finish him off. Also being slow means you are a good target for SADAR, just like crusher.
I understand marine mains want to solo every T3 in the game, but guys, get some perspective.
Did you even read anything I said. Literally what other xenomorph not only becomes near invincible on a non-sprite changing ability, but also harms your teammates when you shoot it.
Think about it from a gameplay design perspective… or even just a theme perspective. How does a magic cartoon blue shield tell new players “you’re going to absolutely kill your teammates if you shoot me”
I mean Crusher has a shield that basically makes it immune in a way, and besides an audio cue when you hit it, you have no way of knowing. Doesn’t hurt teammates though.