First off, I like most aspects of LV and asymmetric strength makes it feel like absolut cinema most of the times for both sides. However, there’s one specific thing that IMO doesn’t really fit the thematic design and makes it feel like a drag for xenos and older marine players.
1.) Siege on beach: PEAK
2.) Into the Caves: Great … most of the times/unless they OB FOB
3.) Kill the Hive: GLORIOUS, until the Xenos manage to beat back the Marines
4.) FOB Siege: Now, I personally like me a good ol’ FOB siege on both sides and both LZs on LV. Even though the Xenos, unless they’ve fully wiped marines in caves, won’t be able to break through and just cull their numbers, it still is fun as fuck.
5.) Coms wank off: After all that it basically just becomes a stand off at coms. Due to the positioning as well as their dwindeling numbers on each retake or rotation Xenos won’t be able to hold both coms for long. Thus they retreat into caves, but the battered marines won’t really push into caves, creating a scenario where both sides do nothing until the marines get the nuke. At that point the Xenos are forced out and die on cades/rotation. We call this the #classic
The problem isn’t the standoff itself but the amount of time it takes. Steps 1-4 takes around 1h. Stept 5 alone takes 1-1.5h sucking out all of the enjoyment (for me at least). Now, I guess it can be interesting for marines due to fog of war and the occasional MD ping but it’s probably just a bored runner/lurker who will inevitably die on cades/get run down.
Furthermore, I wouldn’t say that the relay positioning is bad, on the contrary, I think it’s actually great, forcing the Xenos to extend behind the FOB thus creating more space for the marines. In the same manner the secondary relays SHOULD be difficult borderline impossible to hold for xenos, as they are easy to take to begin with. The engineering relay, however, … yeah that one kinda blows. It can be tricky to take for xenos because you risk getting cut off/encircled (which is great) but at the same time it’s borderline impossible to hold, as there are way too many open angles of attack, especially from robotics.
Now, I could be wrong (that’s why I posted it here and not in #ideas) but this is how I feel like 90% of the LVs play out and it also could be just a low pop problem. Nonetheless, I think that there are possibilities to incentivize interaction from both parties cutting or even changing the step 5 significantly.
My Idea:
Make it more difficult to reach, less open paths to the engineering relay, more dense jungle. Not only will this incentivize holding that pylon for Xenos, as it’s actually hold-/defendable, it will also incentivize marines to not just forfeit that strong position, and the knife cuts both ways.
(You could also make the Orange paths yellow and the Atmos-Engineering orange)
Yellow: regular open path
Light green: Dense Jungle
Orange: fairly narrow but unweedable path so that marines can still reach engineering from FOB, but can’t spread out for firepower.
I don’t know how balanced this would be, I just wanna reduce drag and incentivize interaction for rounds to be more absolute cinema.