Marine respawn as support roles.

Development Ideaguys
1

Good work, soldier! You spawned-in, spent 25 minutes gearing up and getting ready to drop, before getting lost and captured by the forty-minute mark. Unless you want to play Xenomorph (I hope they’re focusing on captures!), then the next time you get to play is dependent on a Joe or Predator whitelist, or the round ending soon.

Don’t worry though, what if you had a chance to respawn? To get another shot at taking-down the Xenomorph menace? Of making a real difference in the battle? Would you take it? Good, but you’re not getting a gun.

Allow ghosts to respawn as Civilian, Medical, Engineering, Requisition, Security, Transport, and Command roles.

The fact of the matter is that these departments aren’t often filled as much as we may wish they were. Why would you play one of them when you could go for the far more exciting groundside role? The fact of the matter is that groundside marines die often, and are often stuck without much recourse for playing again. I think that the lack of an endless wave of marines is good for the game, and I wouldn’t want to change that for a moment. However, I believe that all that time spent bitching in d-chat is time wasted that could otherwise be spent putting mats in crates for the FOB.

At present, you can respawn as

  • Predators, whose intention is to provide roleplay opportunities and spice to rounds.
  • Working Joes, who help clean the ship up and say funny lines.
  • Facehuggers, who can only assist the hive in growing their numbers, and cannot kill any potential captures or impact the marine’s defense.

With that in mind, I see no reason why more support roles can’t be opened up. All of the above with the slight exception of some officers deploying to “lead from the front” are strongly discouraged and scrutinized from joining in combat, so it won’t have a direct HvX impact on the round. Instead, it will provide the opportunity to maintain critical support as the round moves on and player investment thins. To a degree, it may even provide some sympathy!

  • Respawn as the Cargo technician who could have packed the materials that saved your FOB.
  • Respawn as the Doctor who can treat the survivors of that OB that gibbed you.
  • Respawn as the PO who could have extracted you when you were hugged faster than autopilot could have.
  • Respawn as an Ordinance Technician and make the bomb that turns the tide of the battle!

In the best case scenario, marines are able to beat-out cryo-decay of players disinterestingly leaving the round and support shriveling while there is less of a reliance on those sacrificial players to take the boring, less glorious jobs to keep the war-machine running. In the worst case: Ghost simply get to fuck-off and roleplay as shipside roles instead of complaining.

5 Likes
2

Respawn as CT, grab whatever good kit is still available, deploy to the ground, kill some xenos until you die, repeat.

1 Like
3

aren’t CTs expressly forbidden from leaving secure areas?

Aside from that, I think this could be a fantastic addition to the game, and as long as it’s done well, won’t affect balance all too much. it’d also be nice for people who like to observe, but decide later on they want to play, and get a chance to play human roles.

1 Like
4

I dislike this idea. If you die you should play xeno.

3 Likes
5

I think perma death is an important feature in this game. First off it holds the player to a certain type of behavior ingame. If you could keep playing after dying then you wouldn’t have any reason not to play suicidally.

I also like that the population thins as the round goes on due to losses.

2 Likes
6

I agree! However, some people simply don’t enjoy Xeno, sometimes they aren’t focusing on captures, and sometimes everyone who wants to already is and beat you to the respawn. In that case, huggers are still available, or marine support. As there’s always been people who wanted to play but not the room for them to play, why not open that up a bit?

I think perma death is an important feature in this game. First off it holds the player to a certain type of behavior ingame. If you could keep playing after dying then you wouldn’t have any reason not to play suicidally.

Perma death is a good feature. However, I see this less as taking the consequence out of death, and more like a buff to marine infrastructure.

For Xenomorphs, the ‘drone tax’ is an important aspect of the Xeno Meta. While there’s always a need for weeds across the map, important objects melted, and defensive structures, most games only have 1-2 drones at their peak, and maybe a hivelord. The strategy to combat this is for larva to play as a drone to build-up infrastructure, and then devolve back to larva, and their preferred caste when they become available. This is a great way to insure that more players contribute to the support aspect of their round, and take a part in building the terrain they want to take advantage of later.

Marines don’t have an equivalent of this, which means that oftentimes those departments can be skeleton crews lacking in bodies. As such, I’m suggesting a sort of reverse of the Drone Tax: Go out, and have your exciting fight. Once you’ve done your part and died, you can respawn as the support your team will still need! You won’t be coming back as a soldier, so I don’t see where the idea that this is a shift from ‘perma death’ comes from.

I also like that the population thins as the round goes on due to losses.

This works great for combat when a decline in the enemy numbers is a result of good play on the opposing side. It’s less great when the people needed to transport, heal, and supply you get bored and your sustainability dies-up.

2 Likes
7

There are some sort comings on a idea like this but I think this could spice up the gameplay just a “bit” but I dunno how the devs will see it but hey its a idea

8

I don’t think support roles should be a second choice for marines. Players should be invested in these roles and the interactions they bring and we should focus on improving those interactions to draw players to those roles instead of this proposed change that simply lets players play more.

You should not be able to play as another human after you die (besides ERTs as they bring an unknown element/faction into the round). You should be invested in your own character instead of dying knowing you can respawn to keep playing.

If this change were to be added respawning would need to be limited to unstaffed departments only. It’s hard to properly put into words but when a respawned late join who starts making a mess of the support department you’ve been playing round start would be upsetting.

There is also the issue of late join larva. New humans make new larva, but allowing support respawns means that the player who may have played xeno is now unavailable to take that larva. This could result in excess burrowed larva when that player should be helping the Xenos instead.

I have also always felt that hijack was meant to be a sort of reward for the shipside roles. They get to have some action on the ship and some roles get access to cooler toys. Fighting on the ships is also different. The hijack can also be a climax for RP if you’ve been having any through the round with your other shipside roles.

9

Again, these are somewhat valid points, though I feel they are undermined very easily with the considerations of:

I don’t think support roles should be a second choice for marines.

Every round fills the Spec and Smartgunner slots because objectively they are fun and exciting. I used to main CMO and CMP, and there’s a chance that some of the people I taught passed information down and has affected people who play to this day. While I do still very much enjoy those roles . . . blowing shit up is fun. Working as intended, this would open freedom for players to have their adrenaline kick before potentially going support, with there still being the understanding that if they don’t pick support from the roundstart then they may lose it to support mains, people who joined after roundstart, or people who joined on respawn.

You should not be able to play as another human after you die . You should be invested in your own character instead of dying knowing you can respawn to keep playing.

Hardcore is an option, but otherwise all of the ‘this would encourage recklessness, commit to the character!’ claims fall flat in the face of defibrillators and the fact that many people play one character as their combo Rifleman/Spec/XO/CO/CE and Survivor. Rule 2 already covers these issues.

It’s hard to properly put into words but when a respawned late join who starts making a mess of the support department you’ve been playing round start would be upsetting.

I know what you mean, but people can already latejoin whenever. This would not be a new issue. If anything, it’s a learning opportunity and will likely result in that person not choosing the role next opportunity.

There is also the issue of late join larva. New humans make new larva, but allowing support respawns means that the player who may have played xeno is now unavailable to take that larva. This could result in excess burrowed larva when that player should be helping the Xenos instead.

Xenos are there for combat. Marines are there for combat. Support is not there for combat. Lately, we’ve had too many people playing Xenos lately for others to join, and this distinction isn’t currently leading to many unclaimed larva even before the change. Again: these are fundamentally different playstyles than the bulk of the game, and likely the one that the dead person was just playing.

I have also always felt that hijack was meant to be a sort of reward for the shipside roles. They get to have some action on the ship and some roles get access to cooler toys. Fighting on the ships is also different. The hijack can also be a climax for RP if you’ve been having any through the round with your other shipside roles.

Getting to play like a marine with severely reduced gear options and likely combat skills for the last 20 minutes of a round is a poor reward, but it still would not be revoked from people who dedicated to those roles at roundstart.

In summary: Shipside roles play almost nothing like Xenomorphs, and only somewhat like marines. I only see this impacting people who weren’t going to play Xeno anyways, and who want to support other players which only serves to improve the quality of their play experience. No new rules need to be added as the existing ones already cover any issue this could cause. There are already population limits to these roles so they don’t become ridiculous.

1 Like
10

I think this is a really cool idea and well thought out. Sadly, we’d have to do some serious changes to allowances for shipside personnel to make this happen and we really want people to jump over to xeno when they perma.

All in all, it’s kind of a non-starter. I do appreciate your thought and effort into this though. You write and argue well.

3 Likes
11

This is really cool idea,
I encountered this problem often when I didn’t want to go to play xeno… What can I say, it’s sad that Morrow doesn’t want that, but personally I would add, because…

Now there will be an attempt to make him believe that it is necessary -
statistically, 20% of people just immediately at death go out and wait for either the next round or go play something else…
Over 40% just stay to watch for a while… and then repeat the same thing as the other 20%, everyone else… just go for xeno and die for t1 casts, because t3 is hard to get after 40 minutes, in 90% of cases maximum t2, and it’s already good… because there is a lurker and spiter, while t1 is a horror… especially if you’re playing with a high ping… because defender is an extra lag, you’re dead, runner is an extra lag, you’re dead from a random bullet, drone is dead inside, sentinel is oh I see you’re lucky! And no, perma stan!

This is my personal opinion and conclusions from the information I have, in no way am I imposing it on you, if only a little bit

Also, I didn’t add right away, but personally what I notice is that it hits the online stats hard.

1 Like