Well, I’m not sure how this idea/suggestion will be taken, but please approach it with an open mind.
It makes absolutely no sense that larva go to the marine that got capped. It’s simply not fair that as a marine you have a “second life” as a xeno (on top of the infinite defibs but that’s a whole other topic). Once you get capped, you almost immediately get to burst and play again? But if you die as a xeno, then you go to the back of 20 larva queue.
When marines get capped, they should be placed at the end of the larva queue, and the larva should go to whoever was 1st at the larva queue. This would make the queue cycle faster, and would be much more fair in terms of waiting times.
I think it’s a matter of fairness toward xeno mains. Thank you.
In all seriousness, I do disagree with this. As someone who regularly round starts as both sides, I think marines getting the opportunity to play xeno after bursting is a great thing. It’s one of the ways people get into xeno in the first place, particularly new players, and honestly I think it makes for a nice consolation prize for getting dragged to Xarnia.
With double burst, the queue moves fairly fast, and even without it, there are a large amount of marines who don’t have “spawn as xeno after undeniable death” toggled on. Even if it doesn’t, you can play as a hugger to jump the queue. I know you’re still not quite happy with this because you originally made the complaint as a hugger who hadn’t gotten the larva, but that’s personally why I always snag a few marines and not just one!
Finally, I find the queue is a great way to take a breather. Take a walk, do a set of jumping jacks, play another game, do some dishes, stare out the window, stare at the code thatyou’vebeenprocrastinatingonforoveraweek, go pet your cat/dog if you have one, etc.
TL;DR: I’d rather we keep respawning more accessible to everyone than just the mains of one side.
Otherwise. Despite whatever annoyance might be elicited I actually like the concept of an infected player becoming their own larva, and if the player desires it, I think it is fine.
From a conceptual point? Yeah, it’s cool and all that the marine gets to play the larba for which he was the host.
Now, from a point of gameplay and fairness, like @ihatethisengine said, cutting into the queue should just not be a thing. It makes the queue feel neverending. The argument of “well now there are 2 larva” doesn’t exist, if there are 2 larva, both should go to ghost.
And to be clear, I am not saying marines should not be given larva. They should, once their turn in the queue arrives! But when you get capped? You should go to the very end of the queue like everyone else does when they die.
How does it make sense that a xeno who dies doesn’t have a second immediate chance, but a marine who dies does? The system is inequivocally unfair for xeno players.
Xope so bad we’re digging at marines getting their own larva… this feels like it has to be bait. On the real, though, it really isn’t like it delays your queue by that long, and as others have said- we’d never get new xeno players if Marine Timmy got capped and told he had to wait 45 minutes for a larva then told he has to wait 2 minutes to evo to T1 then immediately dies in the first 5 minutes of his new life.
What part of that screams player retention? To me, it’s more like it’s shuddering in agony and letting out sobs.
^^^^^^^I heartily agree. For the small pain of delaying the xeno queue a little bit, you increase player experimentation and experience levels tremendously, as well as promote a more skill-balanced team composition for XvH (one of the few ways it’s possible).
Queue is so fast with double burst I find myself spawning 2-3 times a round (and sometimes as often as 5 times), I’m personally in favor of more faces rather than the same ones over and over again. If you’re strictly a xeno player this is a negative for sure, but I think the benefits of allowing marine players a quicker route into the xeno queue if they’re hit with potentially the most rage-inducing occurrence that can happen on the server outweighs that negative for what is a relatively small portion of players.
This is not how we get new xeno players. Sad but true. Most of the time, these are experienced players who go xeno after they get capped. Honestly, even the most experienced players usually watch the round rather than play for the other side. Since you are usually invested in your team winning, switching sides kills that investment. So in the end getting your own larva mostly works for cutting the line, nothing more really. And there is no compelling reason to reward a player for losing while indirectly punishing someone who plays for a team that managed to get the cap.
the serious answer is that onesiding is already a significant problem and this would make it worse, so this is never gonna fly. Ideally we want to encourage players to play both sides with our design.
I’m glad someone understands the point, I think you put it into better words I could ever have:
“there is no compelling reason to reward a player for losing while indirectly punishing someone who plays for a team that managed to get the cap.”
Also, for those saying it just “delays the queue a bit”… no? It literally DOUBLES the length of the queue (or it would theoretically if every marine decided to use their larva).
Gun to my head I will NEVER join the dreaded xeno hive I will NEVER betray my comrades I LOVE AMERICA I LOVE DEMOCRACY I LOVE THE USCM *warcry RAAAAAAAGGGHHH!!!
But yes I’d prefer to control a larva if I have the unfortunate scenario of being capped
Personally I only started playing xeno because I could take my own larva without feeling like I’d be griefing the xeno side by being bald. Felt different taking your own larva rather then one of the pooled and once I started realising how fun and chill doing drone gardener crimes could be I started I rolling for xeno at round start since I built up a bit of confidence.
Marines taking their larva barely sounds like an issue now with how fast the queue goes down if xenos are bothering to cap in the first place since we have double burst back. Maybe if double burst was removed again since the queue time would be slow as hell again but now its just rapid.
This is where RP comes from. Im marine main but when capped I 100% of the time go xeno.
You can be sure that when I switch sides I’ll "my queen"s a lot. I’ll check what the hive needs and I will try my best as xeno as well. I got medals and jellies.
I don’t care if I’m marine or xeno, I just want to be the best I can be at whatever side I’m playing.