That’s a lot simpler to add (I assume) than an entire new role, considering the fact that HG already gets headsets capable of exactly that, and you can swap between LZ and SL already.
2 Likes
devs have refused giving a “CO tracker” because “it would encourage too much murderballing” - i imagine theyd use the identical rationale for denying waypointing or SL-SL tracking
1 Like
Devs hate good ideas. Marines should be able to track other teams and command elements. It’s kind of stupid that you can track your SL, but not someone higher in the chain of command.
The emphasis is, or was, that marines should be sticking as a squad, not just murderballing with the CO
TRUE
I had a Bravo SL ask me who would build FOB, not an ASL, said he had no engies. Seemed genuinely shocked when I said “You can build, you do know that right?”.
wouldn’t that be a Lieutenant?
This is a cool idea and I like it.
Commanding Officer should still be in charge and have responsibility over the operation however their job should be to delegate these duties to these officers. XO should be delegated to command over USS Almayer while the platoon Commander gets delegated to oversee the ongoing ground operation. Infact, I think in the Command job selection there should be more roles under Platoon Commander just like the staff officers in CIC.
If the Platoon leader dies etc, CO can delegate it or take over ground command as they usually do anyhow.
Meanwhile:
Development keeps balance and gameplay design in such a state that the only winning move is to murderball
The entire time I’ve played this game, it has been the case that marines need to murderball with all squads. Few developments have ever improved this situation and the ones that did - the tank and APC - have been removed and still themselves didn’t actually resolve the problem anyway, only mitigated it a little.
I think we should either come up with a new excuse for not implementing it or just accept that murderballs are necessary for marine gameplay to work and testmerge CO trackers.
tbh I don’t think it would actually change anything, because 90% of the playerbase doesn’t even know you can switch the tracker. Hell I think maybe a full quarter of players don’t even know what the tracker exists for…
1 Like
I dont believe murderballing will ever stop being a feature, since the whole reason why people do it is because if you split push, the queen (a competent one) will focus 75% of the hive on one flank at a time, completely obliterating and capping them until marines retreat.
The pushes not being attacked by the queen will barely make headway against the minute amount of xenos covering the choke, and so whilst the main push could’ve had enough manpower to break a queen’s push, the split pushes individually do not.
It’s extremely difficult to win as marines without massing most of the marines in most cases.
The fact that the queen has an AOE stun ability that is unstoppable without a significant force to counter-push is the root cause of this behaviour, and since the screech ability has pretty much always been a thing, and is a focal point of how xenos play, win and coordinate it just doesn’t seem likely murderballing will ever be ‘fixed’.
At least, that’s my 2 cents.
2 Likes
I know, but they love pretending this isn’t a TDM
The problem has a whole bunch of contributing factors:
-
Chokepoints have low saturation points for number of combat participants and xenos are individually stronger than marines which enables them to hold said chokepoints at lower numbers and with more sustainability due to lack of long-term xeno injuries and downtime and significantly reduced incoming damage due to force disparity; often in a choke only 1 or 2 marines can even hurt 1-2 xenos.
-
Marine coordination is extremely difficult, especially in the heat of battle. Much worse than xenos who have fewer people communicating at once adding noise and whom are able to instantly overwatch each other to observe the situations and conditions in flanks for themselves rather than relying on a chain of inefficient information relay with questionable tactical assessments by those doing the relaying (or whom don’t even relay ANY info at all).
-
Xenos not only move faster than marines, they can modify the terrain to speed themselves up, heal themselves on the move, and slow marines further. This enables them to maneuver and hit+run more effectively than marines can, resulting in any isolated marine forces getting easily overwhelmed and defeated in detail, often without anyone even noticing it happened.
-
Map design is built to encourage murderballs and chokepoints by creating a handful of indestructible spots with no effective options for area denial or movement suppression on the marine forces’ flanks particularly in the case of just 1 squad. The best option for area/movement denial are reinforced walls, but the realistic and usable are cadelines, which 1 squad by itself has in very limited supply, and which in any case won’t delay xenos for very long.
-
Marine cadelines can’t hold against any sort of xeno pressure more significant than a couple T1’s; especially exasperated by the fragility of sentries (you absolutely cannot just have a sentry protect a flank by itself). Furthermore there is no option to just block a route off and say “No” to xenos. Everything can be acided or slashed through within a couple minutes and it has only gotten worse as we continuously make doors and obstacles weaker and easier for xenos to break through.
-
Xeno AoE stuns allow smaller groups of marines to be eliminated almost without even fighting back. Like at all. A single squad gets wiped by queen screech nearly effortlessly - maybe it takes a second screech to break them in the worst case. It’s only reserve forces outside the range of a screech that provides resistance to a squad wipe, but a lone squad doesn’t have that reserve force, so they just get wiped.
Now what the tank and APC did to help mitigate the lone squad issues:
The tank enabled additional fire support for a squad that gave them both a high HP wall of metal immune to screeches and stuns, and also substantial killing power that could block/defend a route of attack by itself. Having a squad + tank in one spot worked similarly to having 2 squads in that same spot.
The APC enabled a mobile FOB for treating wounded in safety from lurkers/runners, and provided mobile resupply, enabling squads to move to new areas of the map and still have a quick effective way to heal and rearm and even retreat from that area without the time consuming nature of someone building a cadeline or ordering a crate of ammo. It was also able to bodyblock, distract xenos, and like the tank, is immune to stuns and acts as a reserve force.
In my opinion the greatest reason for marines having to murderball all the time, on top of the above contributing reasons, is simply that marines lack sustainability due to the medical system and force saturation limits - You can have 7-12 marines (1 squad) hold a location and it’ll work for a few minutes against a sizeable xeno force, but as soon as the casualties pile up you cannot get people back up fast enough to actually sustain that defense.
Additionally specialist jobs like medic and engineer create an overhead tax on combat ability because they are typically not actively fighting while the number of casualties from a xeno assault are roughly equivalent whether you’ve got 20 marines or 10 due to force saturation (only so many people can fight at once due to space limits), so smaller groups of marines always pay a higher price both in ‘non-combatants’ as a fraction of their force, and in getting themselves patched up and fighting again compared to a larger group: 10 marines with 2 medics and 3 wounded is 50% of the squad out of action. 20 marine murderball with 3 medics and 3 wounded is only 30% of the squad out of action.
I think I should also add, so this doesn’t get construed the wrong way - I’m not advocating that any or all of these things needs to go. These are the reasons I see that marines have to murderball and whether some or any of it should be changed is a different discussion altogether.
2 Likes
CO tracker already exists it’s just that ONLY HG’s get it.
1 Like