So this thread is focused on the title. With ASS returning soon, and people wanting SLs and smaller squads to be viable, there is an elephant in the room that needs to be handled.
Like any other advantage, stacking numbers creates a force multiplier. Where every individual xeno is worth several marines, and really competent killers are short on hand, the only reliable way to deal with a competent hive is overwhelming numbers. Any advantage you give to smaller squads will almost neccesarily benefit the ungaball too
I have at least one idea on how we could curb this but it’s a little spicy: Buff marines who are near their SL and squad mates, and nerf them while they are close to other squad SLs or a large amount of another squad.
So now you get nerfs to your stats if you stick near other SLs or a large amount of marines from another squad. I understand how rail road-y this is, but I think it would be at least something towards a rough idea of something we could do.
I would like to add that thread should be also about how to buff smaller squads without buffing ungaball and how to buff smaller squads while actually nerfing ungaball.
Broad ideas:
Remove direct frontline combat power from Queen, give buffs/abilities in exchange for it it to T3s (mostly not ravs). Some sort of “mini” screeches available to T3s. Making marine screens black and white, making them deaf, restricting their vision or giving a speed debuff, something like that. Stronger effects the more marines are around. I think if T3s had access to something like smoke grenade (with range and duration based on how many marines are nearby) would be enough to stop ungaballs.
Some sort of “enrage” ability for T3s that works kind of like rav empower, but instead of onscreen, it is long 90 degree offscreen cone spanning many tiles in a single direction (probably just one of 8 possible directions) and a weaker version that is just about 2 screens wide around a xeno. This grants buffs and they are obviously bigger the more marines there are in the direction this ability is used, but won’t grant any if there aren’t much marines in the choosen area. Incentivies marines to try flanks and helps them, because both they and main force will face weaker T3s thanks to that.
One could easly imagine “enraged” boiler shooting gas cloud that fills entire screen and lasts quite some time vs current boiler.
Hive itself reacting to bigger marine forces without needing much xeno player input. A lot of marines in one place that is still considered part of the hive cause enough “noise” for hive to surge NPC xenos and lessers.
Another Z-level layer that is just tight tunnels underneath every colony, restricts T3s from entering, big drawbacks for using long arms inside. Vietam tunnel rats experience.
Xeno mortar (that also scales with ammount of marines nearby). Very inaccurate, very obvious for anyone (impact tiles shown), but the more marines are around, the faster it hits. Kind of real world tactics to spread soldiers instead of a tight formation to avoid mass casualities from explosives.
Real question is also which method should we use: Carrot, or stick? Reward marines for being in a small squad, or punish them for being in a big squad?
Currently almost all xeno abilities work the same against one, or twenty marines, so obviously you stack so many marines that you overwhelm them.
Spitballing marine ideas, not to weaken the ungaball but to strengthen marines outside the ungaball without buffing the ungaball. (basically, encourage marines being split off into actual individual squads)
Buffed sentries: More dangerous/harder to kill sentries that improve the killing power of a squad as long as they stay fixed in place. Let them be recoverable, or more easily replaced so that it remains a permanent fixture of the squad’s toolkit.
Purpose of this is to make pushing a small squad harder for xenos, by giving marines more safety for recovery and making attacks on the position much more dangerous for xenos without dedicated support (e.g. boiler)
Reinforced Deployable Barricades: On-demand walls that can be put up like current deployable cades, but much stronger and you can’t shoot through them. Used to block off hallways, doorways, or wall breaches.
The purpose of this is to provide a marine position with ways to limit flanking and buy time for retreating or healing (e.g. ravager just pulled back, now you put up the heavy cades so you can get someone up/put him on a rollerbed and run)
Universal Defibs: Anyone can use a defib to revive someone (nothing else touched) - would let lone marines recover a dead medic, strip the defib and get other people back up. Alternative - medics specifically can be revived by anyone using a defib.
Purpose of this is to improve sustain of small squads that only have a single medic, because it’s just RIP if your squad loses him, even if you otherwise hold.
These will be used at FOB and occasionally in the deathball, people won’t split off just because they have sentries.
This is another FOB buff.
If your medic died, you’re probably already fucked, so it would only be useful in niche situations. This one is also still (mildly) helpful in a deathball.
get rid of queen screech. xenos do not need it to deal with ungaballs and it is what causes ungaball in first place is it make small squads invalid as it gets deleted in on screech
I’ve wondered for a while now about changing emergency injectors into weak revive stims. Pre-medding or self ODing is dumb, keeping your battle buddy alive is peak.
Sidebar, the best use of unga is saving a crit marine from joining the 4 corpses in the medical pile.
Queen screech is it’s own mess of a rework, as it is the only way other than boiler to hard stop full tilt ungaball AFAIK. I’ve saw elsewhere a temp fix suggestion of making screech strength scale with number of marines hit, which I think would be great.
joking aside buffing/debuffing xenos or marines based on numbers/proximity can make gameplay really awkward. Let’s say 2 marine squads encircle on a group of xenos. What happens now? Either xenos are getting buffed for a tactical mishap of getting surrounded or marines are debuffed for executing a good maneuver just because squads got too close to each other.
But the entire basis of CM gameplay will always results in “more people = better” no matter what, unless something like that gets introduced. Atleast I fail to imagine anything else that will help small groups, while it won’t help ungaball (or that it will hurt ungaball, but won’t hurt smaller squads).
I thought about it in here:
Xeno chooses a direction that it believes has the biggest ammount of marines (most likely a chokepoint). Ungaball splits in two, with one group flanking, so now that T3 gets much lesser buff, while it has to fight the same ammount of marines, now from two directions. If said T3 doesn’t choose a direction, it can choose to buff itself with weaker version based on the ammount of marines around itself and not in a specific direction. So xenos don’t get buffed for a tactical mishap of getting surrounded.
This rough idea sure has other flaws, but it is only supposed to be a broad “throw shit and see what sticks”.
Marines being debuffed for sticking close just feels off and impossible to justify IC. Xenos getting weaker, or stronger depending on the level of opposition isn’t that hard to imagine, just introduce “Hivemind ARES DEFCON-like something” kind of like marines have, they grab intel to prove to ARES that xenos are a big threat, so it gives them more req funds and stuff. They already get stronger by just sniffing their own pheromones.
I really do belive there is almost nothing else to do to weaken ungaball while buffing smaller squads.
Xenos are simply able to react to any marine flank too easly and too fast, they themself don’t need any support for their flanks other than a drone branch xeno to drop a weed node. Any territory that isn’t caded, well lit and under marine watch is a xeno territory. Marines flanking just cut themselfs from any support other than what they can carry, which isn’t much. Xenos, or just Queen screech being at the same power no matter if it is one marine, or 20 also doesn’t help.
Another broad idea: CAS interference caused by marines, CAS buffed. CAS pilots get perfect NVG real time view around marines up to certain point. The more marines in one place, the worse the vision (for some reason) and stuff. This results in CAS being incentivised to help smaller squads with covering fire etc. This runs with problems in caves, place that needs marine flanks the most, so it is super flawed, but the general idea of shipside/support crew being able to better help smaller squads seems fine.
Another: Weeds and resin walls/structures react to the ammount marines around. If it is a small squad, weeds slow them very little, nodes die to one knife hit and walls crumble much easier etc. But when there is a lot of marines, weed slow much more, nodes take like two, or three machete hits, walls are extra sturdy.
I will repeat previous idea, because I think it is unique enough: Colonial Marines Tunnel Rats. Another Z-level/map that is thight and T3’s/Queen can’t enter. Being inside heavily impacts marines holding two handed long arms, or something like that, leaving only pistols as a viable option. This area would have objectives which when accomplished, help the main force somehow by nerfing xenos, or something.
The core issue with “unga ball” isn’t player mindset, but that current mechanics make mass play optimal in every phase. Instant crits, short capture windows, strong xeno frontlines, and marine-side friction (garbled comms, punitive objectives) turn dispersion into a death sentence. Marines blob because mistakes are unrecoverable.
A healthier approach is to separate skirmish, capture, and commitment. Make crits harder to inflict through higher conditions (sustained damage, isolation, pressure), but extend the crit timer once achieved. This shifts xeno lethality from instant delete to earned pressure while preserving capture gameplay.
This naturally discourages static xeno frontlines and favors ambush-driven pressure without turning marines into ambushers. Unga should remain situationally optimal—strong for holding ground, body recovery, and decisive pushes—but inefficient for scouting and forward pressure. That way marines learn to split, probe, then recombine, and rounds resolve through positioning and pressure rather than escalation hammers.
TL;DR Increase the TTK for marines, discourage xeno making frontlines, buff xenos tankiness and change the hard CCs to soft CCs to favor skirmishing. Increase the “trials and errors" threshold not “unga bad need to kill unga faster".
It will be very hard to remove the ungaball. It is ingrained at this point. I will be interested to see how A.S.S. handles it. Also will be interested to see the new squad culture emerging. Squad culture has seemed to have decreased since my return.