Players should be queued not only by their time of death, but also by the time they turned on the preference if it happened later. This doesn’t seem very fair if a player was observing the round, minding their IRL business or whatever, but then decided to roll xeno and took 1st place while other players were actively waiting. This also solves a (minor) issue when some players “camp” the queue to roll abom or greeno queen in the last moment.
Players should lose their spot in the queue if they go offline for longer than 5 mins. Reasoning is pretty much the same.
Both changes should make the queue a bit more consistent and solve some cases of “being moved back in the queue”.
Also we probably should remove all “cutting in the queue” mechanics, such as second dibs as hugger. What’s the point of queue if everyone can just cut into it? You are already kinda rewarded for playing hugger since you are passing your time in queue, second dibs are not necessary and only make the queue even more confusing and frustrating for everyone involved.
I like hugger second dibs. It makes it so people who activly contribute to the hive, and those who are activly playing, get a reward. It also insentivises people to go hugger to get more caps for the hive.
Yes, it rewards the hugger, but at the same time punishes everyone who’s waiting in the queue. You should not have to play hugger in order to move down the queue and have a chance to play. Imagine being first in the queue and get your larva taken by huggers? What’s the point of queue then?
You are already kinda rewarded because you are playing, getting better rank, passing time etc. Dibs are not necessary, people would play hugger even without this.
Also this mechanic kinda encourages huggers to play dirty i.e. just camp hive tunnels/trying to hug marines that’s still being dragged etc.
Then think of it this way: A player hugger that hugs someone that ends up bursting, and that player hugger happens to be a non-afk ghost at the time of the burst, then that host wasn’t even for the queue. If they aren’t a ghost or are afk or for whatever other reason not a valid xeno candidate, then their hug is given to oldest valid xeno candidate. Same goes for the human that was hugged, they get first dibs on the larva if they are a valid candidate. Thats why huggers are explained to have second dibs on the larva, because the host has first dibs.
Regarding “cutting”, I’ve said this I don’t know how many times at this point. The system is to be forgiving allowing you to do whatever, take a break, play other roles like hugger/lesser drone without penalty. People are really way too focused on the queue number and I really ought to just remove that information. The reason why it exists at all was to give you an idea of how long it might be before you need to actually be actively observing.
I still would rather the system to prioritize giving players who haven’t played at all priority in the queue because I think death should be punishing; but the current middle ground is acceptable to just have whoever has been waiting the longest be at the front.
Well, let’s look at this from a different angle. Hugger hugs a human, and thus brings another larva to the hive. So, already, this hugger moves down the queue even if we ignore the second dibs. There is already an encouragement to play hugger, there is no real need for second dibs. Frankly, I am not sure first dibs are needed either. I assume it exists to make being capped less frustrating or something?
Isn’t the main point of the queue to make getting larva more consistent compared to RNG? I kinda thought this was the deal. In reality the speed of the queue is very unpredictable. Technically you can have first place in the queue for hours and never get larva, because all caps claimed by huggers/hosts and more players who return to the game and died earlier decide to roll xeno. In some cases, you might have better chances to get larva by RNG than by patiently waiting in the queue.
It can’t be both ways. People wanted more incentive to play hugger and have something worthwhile to do when dead. Also the hugger is only going to be granted one larva. There’s nothing stopping them from hugging as many hosts as possible if they want to just maximize how many captures the hive manages to get.
First dibs for the host has been that way for a very long time, and I personally think it is fine. I would much rather have someone willing to play both sides than to be exclusively a marine main because they wanted to be patient and stick around when they got hugged.
I am more than happy to reopen the onlyPR I’ve made that is closed (and its closed by me), but I know it will not go over well. Quit fussing over your number not representing every possible candidate that could be ahead of you.
If it did represent every disconnected or afk or ghost that has xeno preference currently off you could be next despite being hundreds behind.
And no I am not interested in kicking any of those people out of queue. Random disconnect because your internet flaky? How am I going to disambiguate that from a rage quit that should be kicked out of queue? Your food finally arrive or you want to take a break because you’ve been waiting an hour? Back of the line.
Its just non-negotiable for me. The system works. Its more fair than it was before. Either don’t die, or make the best of it.
To be clear, I never said I want to get back to RNG. I am just pointing out that the current system has some of the problems that RNG had. We can improve the system and make the queue an actual queue. Make the number accurate, remove cutting and that’s it. I honestly don’t see a problem here.
And I don’t know what hiding the number would achieve. I don’t think it is going to make players less upset. It really sounds like you want to do this out of spite and I even kinda understand that you might be upset due to this change keeping hunting you.
This is why I suggested 5 minutes grace period. Unless there is some kind of emergency, you are not going to lose your spot. Most of the situations you mentioned don’t require you to close the game.
It is not a spite PR. I legitimately think players such as yourself and others in this thread are reading in to much what the number means and are far too focused on the number going up when you expect it to only ever go down. I’ve explained numerous times how it works and why it is how it is. It is your sorting in that moment when a burst occurred or after a few minutes how many people were ahead of you that were currently valid xeno candidates. So because it can’t be a totally accurate number and is causing a mixture of confusion and or frustration, why display it at all? I would hope people could understand it at least gives you some idea how long it might be, but instead 5 months later I’m still here explaining it.
Again, I understand WHY numbers go up. My proposition is to remove most of these WHYs, to prevent numbers from going backward. It’s possible to make it at least more accurate, if not 100% accurate.
Just for the sake of the argument:
Remove sorting altogether, make it a separate array, dict or something else. Whenever someone dies with the xeno preference enabled or someone dead enables the preference, the game adds that player to the list. Every time there is a burst, we check the list for players who’s been dc’d for more than 5 minutes and remove them from the list. And just like that, we have a queue that only goes one way.
Still once again, your goal is only to make that number - the one that doesn’t even need to be displayed to the player at all - only go down.
Additionally, if you only want to kick disconnected 5 mins people from queue or people that change xeno candidacy, then you’ll still have AFK people or people playing hugger/lesser that are fluctuating your queue number as they come and go. So your suggestion only would make it happen less frequently; not eliminate the possibility.
What this does is partially return to needing to stay glued to the game if they want any chance of playing again. Before with RNG you have to always not be considered AFK else you might miss out on a RNG roll. Now you need to ensure you don’t end up disconnected. Additionally, should something require your immediate attention and you need to step away, your only option now is to disconnect - but ensure you don’t disconnect for longer than 5 minutes (or take the larva afk - but should you end up near the hivecore - if you go inactive it’ll just give it to someone else).
The current system allows you to freely step away, leave queue, disconnect, or play a ghost role without impacting your queue. You at most are missing out on larva if you would be the front but for whatever reason aren’t currently an eligible candidate; but as soon as you are an eligible candidate again, its your turn.
I do not want to encourage people to feel like they need to be glued to the game to play it. CM is already a huge time commitment with rounds extending hours.