Remove Hijack. Or Make It Optional

Development Ideaguys
1

My primary suggestion is to remove Hijack from the core gameplay loop.

My alternative suggestion is to make it that the Alien Queen can chose to either commence a Hijack, or to immediately end the game. Both choices would be considered a Xeno Major by the game.

EDIT
I mainly support just adding the ability for the Queen to choose between hijacking the DS or capturing it and ending the round. The rest of this post is more historical.

I believe the removal of hijack gameplay would be a net positive improvement to the core gameplay loop of CM-SS13.

As it stands, hijack has virtually no variety in gameplay. Marines will hold the lifeboats. Xenos will attack what is essentially an extended FOB defence. The Marines will either evacuate successfully or all die. The marines may call Distress which will either just be reinforcements for the Marines, or hostile and will either all die, hijack CIC and cancel evac, or meander around till they evacuate after the marines evac/die. Rarely the Marines may defeat the Xenos, but this is merely an extension of the FOB defence, and may often not feel earned.

Furthermore, and a major crux of my argument, I believe the mere presence of hijack gameplay encourages both sides (more so Marines) to conserve their strength during groundside and focus on preparing for the inevitable shipside fight. Why risk losing a lot of marines or material holding a doomed FOB when you can just evacuate and have a better chance of “winning” shipside.

This somewhat also extends to xenos, as they can’t take major risks to “win” groundside because they need every xeno to survive to fight on the Almayer.

No one in the game cares that the xenos technically achieve a “major” or “minor” victory no matter the shipside outcome.

Simply, I think removing hijack would enable both sides to focus 100% of their efforts into fighting the groundside fight. A true slug-fest where you can feel free to sacrifice yourself to achieve victory.

It may also make marine evacuations more, impactful, since the survivors could be given time to actually unwind and roleplay the depressing situation shipside instead of instantly rushing to prepare for the next fight.

As a alternative, let the xeno queen pick to either attack the Almayer or remain groundside. This would let the player have some agency on choosing to keep the round going or just end it.

13 Likes
2

no, lets all suffer

4 Likes
3

So true bestie, I’ll never know how CM players can go WOWIE 3 HOUR FOB SIEGE TIME FOR ANOTHER FOB SIEGE THEN LETS PLAY WO!!!

10 Likes
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Hijack is soulless fob 2.0 gameplay without real purpose, planet should be the main battlefield and evacuation should imply marines lost and its over. Its not fair toward people who play shipside and doesnt want to participate in combat, hijack kills any ongoing rp that was going and makes it weird, lot of people straight up cryo after evacuation, xenos also just won a hard fight and are now forced by game mechanics to participate in another hard fight because they have no choice if they want to finish the round so its not fair toward them either.

5 Likes
5

You will still have to build a fob next round, so I don’t see the problem with hijack.

6

It has been said before but I think really the best solution is to just give Marines the ability to just say “We give up you win for now” and let them end the round on their own volition, if people want to fight to the last man standing or go through hijack then its a choice on their part. I do think though that the hive should want to pursue the Marines if they can so I am not sure about giving the Queen a chance to opt out but the Marines should absolutely have the chance to do so.

I also think the round should give Marines a few minutes to unwind and maybe visit the memorials before its just over and to let the Xenos celebrate their win as well, add some more flavor to a round that way.

3 Likes
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If you don’t like it, then be like the others and cryo. No one is forcing you to play hijack.

And for people who don’t like combat and are forced to… tough. The same goes for the vice versa. Getting experience in the other area is good as people may decide to try out rifleman again because they scored a few xeno kills as a doctor.

I do agree with the sentiment that round end should be extended. Perhaps an automatic vote could go on at the end and ask whether or not people wanted to extend round end by five minutes.

1 Like
8

gonna be honest. ive never understood the aversion to hijack. hijack is one of the best parts to me. it makes the round more dynamic. some of the most fun ive ever had in game is during hijack.

Besides, removing hijack also incentivise staying when the situation becomes untenable. why evacuate when the round will just end in a minute etc. You could argue that it’s LRP etc and a rule break, but it’s unenforceable. As it stand evac is a challenge and active call that CIC has to make. it introduces an element that the marines can meaningfully fuck up or execute in such a way they arent totally beaten.

Personally, i dont play CM for the combat gameplay, frankly it kinda sucks. The devs have wrangled a totally shit system into a fun system through black magic witchcraft, but as a combat system its unresponsive, lacks feedback and isn’t very engaging on its own. The fun of CM is the RP, however light, and the broader context of so many people contributing to doing a bunch of different things all at once to win. Take away these different events, stages and scenarios and you end up with a shitty combat system with repetitive, dull rounds with little room for large turnarounds for either side. Even if hijack is boring, its impact on the round feeds into the whole system in such a way you cant just remove it without doing away with some of what makes the rest of the round fun.

5 Likes
9

Let marines leave orbit like 5 minutes after evac. Determine the evacuation time from the last DS start or give the “start charging engines” button during which you cannot control the dropships so you can’t start it in advance of the evacuation. Xenos should get some kind of button as well, like disable LZs button, so if marines don’t redeploy within 5 minutes, round ends. If both marines and xenos pick their round-end buttons, round ends instantly.

4 Likes
10

Or, and here me out. We do the objectively best thing and bring back SD.

12 Likes
11

To make SD less of a hold we should remove the control rods, but have two scanners in CIC and two in lifeboats area. After sufficient threat has been determined (after crash) two lieutenants or above can scan their IDs in the CIC to start stage one of Self Destruct. They then need to run the gauntlet to Self Destruct while the bugs are on the ship to do a second scan that touches off self destruct.

2 Likes
12

We’d be better off making almayer fight an alternative gamemode. You’d have more power to control how it unfolds if it was a dedicated mode instead of an instant evac into siege event where it currently stands.

@settlerking putting aside that I find hijack gameplay to break the rules of the universe and roleplay standards, I personally find the roleplay to be extracted from the event to be, repetitive. Its usually the same case of ‘lets go to lifeboat/pods’. Groundside at least is more engaging.

Either way, I find its a issue of mechanics and I find the mechanical inplementation of Almayer defence, in any iteration, to be boring. Self Destruct is just a different flavour of lifeboat, except everyone dies.

1 Like
13

Hijack is unintresting and we should give marines and xenos options, essentialy give the XO an ultimatun after evacuation: redeploy or move into high orbit, if the xeno queen hijacks then tough luck i guess

1 Like
14

Bump.

I will literally pay $20 USD for someone to code a system of skipping hijack. Either go TGMC and let the Queen decide, or make it that both the Queen and CIC have to agree to proceed with Hijack, and if either side says no, the round ends.

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Reminder that CIC mains should be encouraged to throw the ENTIRE staff of the Almayer on the planet to attempt to end the problem if needs be deploy the mess tech, I just hate hijack because they don’t fight as hard on the planet knowing it exists.

1 Like
16

I like Hijack in some ways, but yeah the gameplay gets stale often, especially just holding the Lifeboats. I wouldn’t want it removed completely though.

The recent-ish changes with the fuel pumps and such was a good change, as it forces the marines to not just camp the Lifeboats so much, but it’s not enough.
We need more changes like this, as well as options like a proper SD system, or crashing the ship into the planet, something like that to change up how Hijack plays. Also more explosions, ship damage and hazards to force marines to escape or kill off marines to force a quicker Hijack would be better then a simple timer.

More changes with ship-side objectives so the marines aren’t just camping one spot, so the Hijack is more of an extension of the groundside instead of just a delayed inevitable evacuation.

I do see why people would want Hijack removed in total though, and you make good points, but it’s always been a big part of the CM gameplay loop, and not sure having the round just instantly end when the Queen or Command decided it would be a good idea really.

3 Likes
17

Fair points, and I do concede some people enjoy it, and I won’t deny some aspects of hijack can be fun for me.

Nonetheless I do feel there should be some agency for players, at least Xenos but also Marines, regarding if they want to engage with hijack.

Xenos should not feel forced to engage with hijack when they discover 90% of the marines evacuated and the xenos are low on numbers, or the xenos just won a 1.5 to 3 hour siege and now they are going to be forced into yet another mandatory FOB siege.

Marines should not feel forced to slog through another cade hug scenario, or being set up as an over glorified victory lap for the xenos who get to kill the last stragglers after most of the marines just died planetside.

I am 100% serious that I will literally pay someone $20 USD to add this change, cause I do genuinely think this would be a positive one for the game.

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As I’ve said earlier, if you don’t like it, cryo or ghost.

1 Like
19

should only be for 2+ hour rounds where both sides agree if implemented. AO evac from tgmc is a good starting point

20

Remove No-Evac Mutinees. The Almayer is christened American Soil, just like a permanent military base. “Commanders” agreeing with a Xeno on anything is a travesty worth disbarment, especially because it would require using staff/mods, etc., as an in-between.

1 Like