I have thought of a way to “blance” the queen, with how a queen defending a choke is only really countered by an OB in some cases. And that is to give her something of a stamina bar when she isn’t Ovied.
She still retains all her abilities (She might just get an overall stat buff and Cooldown buff), but she will get weaker over time when she loses her stamina. This would mean that queens cant just be forever in combat after getting T3s, and will have to ovi up (Now with lesser drones its even better) to regain stamina back to full.
This also feels realisticly appropriate, as the queen isn’t a frontliner, or supposed to be there unless the hive is threatend. So her having to move her massive body would tire her out eventually.
I just really feel that the queen shouldn’t just be running about nilly willy, when she never leaves her nests in every other media, unless humans/predators are closing in on her. I just want something to root her back into that, but also make her good and giving a straight push when needed (albeit one that dosn’t last forever).
What if a prolonged siege on hive happens and she can’t ovi? Weakening the queen is a death sentence.
What if hive falls or a funny move is being done. It’ll make it so its impossible to conduct without following the meta.
Queen is meant to the ‘Boss’ of the hive which is a menace to fight.
Also considering that ovi gameplay more or less is dogshit and I wouldn’t want to suffer through hours of it. We should keep queen able to remain on the frontline for as long as she needs to before oving again. (Also considering the majority of the time stalemates are only broken once the queen gets off and spends a prolonged amount of time fighting the marines)
I can only speak from the perspective of mostly a Marine main, though I have been putting in some more Xeno hours.
From a Marine perspective anything involving being stunned feels bad, especially neuro spam. Though I would consider this a necessary evil, ergo I’m not pushing to remove it, even if the neuro spit feels against the spirit of the lore.
From a Xenos perspective I would say overall the queen’s abilities are somewhat balanced??? You do lose the neat tacmap when she goes mobile, and if your hive is down on T3 or T2 slots you can’t replenish them till she returns to ovi.
The queen’s ability to remain off of Ovi comes down to the fact it is trading the hive’s ability to evolve (or save evo) for more combat power. If the marine attrition the xenos by killing off the hive’s T3 and T2 castes, then the Queen will eventually be forced to return to Ovi to allow these positions to eventually be refilled. A hive full of 30 T1s is not going to do as well.