Make marine deployment available at 30 minute mark.

I’m introducing this idea because there’s been a lot of changes that have already occurred in the new year and it’s only been 2 and a half weeks. (Yes I’m sort of mentioning the Synth council purge). But the reason is due to power-gaming is overwhelming the roleplay side of the Synthetic WL until the recent purge. This had me thinking “well what else is pretty game-y right now?”

My thoughts came to thinking about the CO WL since command has to come up with a redundant plan within 15 minutes (the game starts at 00:05, NOT 00:00!!!) “If the issue is the deployment time, why not push it back?”

This is the point I’m making in this topic. I believe if we could potentially push back the TDM agenda to 00:30 (essentially 25 minutes into the round) then we can boost player/player interactions. Everything is a rush to just shoot and stab each other. Why not slow it down and make it meaningful that Alpha Private Bob perma’d because people talked to him a bit or have SOs interact with their designated squad instead of ,abcd charge?

“What about xenos and survivors?” It’s always been dependent on how many people spawn in the role and who spawns. For the Xenomorph side at least, I don’t see why we can’t push back their evolution timers to match it with the 00:30 mark.

People say whitelists are the last bastions of roleplay but that’s because the game is focused on our TDM. I don’t know what other sign is needed for the game that change is happening.

I understand people will make comments making counter point arguments but instead of making those comments, why not add onto or make your own version of my idea, toy around and think of it. After all this is just an idea I had, I can’t code for shit lol.

11 Likes

I think the Mess Hall PR would help a lot in facilitating RP shipside. During its tests it did amazingly.

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Survs looking at this

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Xenos having to wait half an hour minimum for the main fight to start if not delayed even more due to shenanigans

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No.

On the occasions where it’s a squad lead briefing, this would keep the remaining marine playerbase stuck waiting longer.
Not to mention the survivors, T3s are let out by 00:20. Survivors are more often than not killed, or about to be killed by that point. I don’t think giving a role that is already on a strict time limit an even stricter one is a good idea.

I am all for leaning more into the RP side of things, but as seen some people aren’t very confident in their roleplay. Some people don’t want to roleplay and would rather just wait a bit. Some people can barely even speak English. This is a server for everyone so long as they abide by the rules and keep to a certain standard. I personally don’t see a longer wait time as healthy or inviting to other players.
I liked the mess hall PR, and it opened a far more friendly means of RPing than extending the wait time would.

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My brother in christ it’s a TDM game. We already have enough people alt tabbed on the dropship, forcing people to wait longer won’t do anything.

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This and the mess hall PR would be ideal.

Figure out a way to make survivors not all die instantly.

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whats with the mess hall Pr anyway? Why wasnt that merged yet.

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this is a cool idea because as xeno you just alt tab anyways and play something else until marines land

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Trying to give people more time to engage in roleplay is a commendable goal, but as other’s point out, we have to give some consideration to the Xenomorph players (and to a minor degree, survivor players).

Asking Xenomorph players to wait an additional ten minutes, at minimum, before they can engage in combat is a difficult ask I believe. Maybe if some new system was added that allowed all xenomorphs to assist in constructing resin walls or spreading weeds? Also, it may be a argument to suggest a delayed deployment will benefit xenomorphs as it gives them more time to fortify the planet, and eliminate valuable supplies and survivors.

Furthermore, this would require a revision of how survivors operate, outside of the most elite players, lowpop or misplays by the xenos, most survivor holds are in the process of being overrun by the 20 minute mark (15 minutes technically). An additional ten minute wait will almost guarantee that survivors will never survive to see the marines.

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Xeno have already have added waiting time to evolve into runner/defender etc caste because of survs.
Most of the xenos don’t even evolve into drone because they do NOT want to be forced to play it. But sure, make the boring alt-tab cm into even a worse state for the xeno players.

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Nah you already have more then enough time to do all of that, and waiting is not fun for the people who play just to get right into the action, let alone the Xenos waiting groundside with nothing to do. Late drops suck for everyone and having it be 00:30 doesn’t change the fact marines can just drop whenever they want regardless.

As someone who either alt+tabs on the dropship or latejoins at 00:20 (to avoid equipment rush, req line, roleplay and other garbage), I don’t mind this change

The time spent AFK only affects how many rounds of IntoTheBreach / XCom / Quasimorph / Whatever I’m able to play before Alamo launches. It’s the same as alt+tabbing after your corpse went perma

The only thing that’s worth our attention here (imo) is the xeno side of the question, but at this point it’s been mentioned multiple times by different people

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I like this idea due to the increase in RP potential but also see the downside for xenos. I would say it would not hurt to testmerge. If it works out fantastic, if not, at least it was tried and we can point back to it should the idea be tabled for discussion again.

All in all would not hurt to test.

@RainbowStalin. Thank you for providing input for the Xeno perspective. I had not thought of that.

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One of the things I most like about CM and SS13 in general is Organic roleplay. I don’t think that keeping people waiting around for longer will help improve or increase this, and will instead serve only to waste people’s time.

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With this change, you could probably get more surv slots, later evo timers (T3 at 00:25 as an example), and maybe more quantity of ammo and mats. Because as long as survs are both able to survive, while being fun to fight, it shouldn’t matter too much for the Xeno side. People who afk until marine drop can cope and seethe, because they should have no sway in this.

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Honestly you could keep T3 timers at 00:20 but introduce bunkers that unlock at that point which survivors can rush and inside would be better gear like normal pulse rifles, a turret or m56d emplacement, and some materials / meds so that survs have a chance but xenos get to have fun.

But most xenos want to fight actual marines, and more survivor slots also means you have to compensate xenos somewhat, like giving them a single larvae per survivor spawn to compensate losses or else the main game by marines ends in seconds if xenos fumble against survivors.

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Most rounds this already happens, command or marines wait till 00:30 or 00:35 to drop, and being a xeno groundside it is actually the most boring shit ever. It’s just frustrating, feels like a huge waste of time, especially if you were a ghost waiting to play since the last round.

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Let me just end this. Ignoreing all the balence issue and all that. Let see who this effects the most. That being the marines and the command staff. Now I don’t know about you but I don’t play rifleman to RP I play rifleman to shoot things. Thats why I made the choice to play rifleman instead of CL this round. Same applys to command staff. If they want to write tactics or a massive plan they don’t have to do that in game. They can write it up outside of the game and jsut present it to the marines. Not even mantioning due to game play most CO use the same plan each time. This is likely due to the marines already knowing what to do anyway cause they played the game before. If you don’t want to give a fancy speech then you can delay drop already no need to force it every round.

So forceing a bunch of people who made the choice to play a combat roll to RP is not what they want to do. If they wanted to RP they would played MT or CL. Their is almost always a shipside roll you can join as so ut’s not like people are being forced to play rifleman.

The question you should be asking is not how do we get marines to RP. The question is why do so few people play shipside rolls. I have seen people suggest stuff like this before trying to get people to RP more. But at the end of the day CM is not a RP game or a combat game. It’s both but it’s sperated by roll. RP happens ship side mostly and combat happens on the ground. As player we choose one side or the other at any givein time so let stop trying to force one to do the other. If you want to increase RP then focus on shipside rolls as those people want to play ship side.

Even as someone that frequently plays shipside RPish roles, I’m still not a fan of this. If people want to deploy later, they will, and I support them in their potential decision to do that. There’s no need to force it. Rather than do this, I’d support more game mode options to vote on. IE, instead of just Distress Signal vs. Whiskey Outpost you could add Extended or Distress Signal (30 min deployment) as other votable options etc. Then people who don’t like it don’t have to join the round.

3 Likes