For a TL:DR on suggested changes skip to last header what would you change about this?.
Background info:
So, something that affects almost all of us is our job preferences. Every round start you are trying to get that job you want. Now some of you will think there is nothing wrong with it. I think that almost no one knows what putting 2 things on medium really does. And how the game handles your preferences.
I’ll explain later why this is bad. But this technically means that by setting your preferences a certain way you can have increased chances of getting your medium choices. I had a bit of a dive really and without the code being open source I do not thing you could have found out. But ill at least explain how it works today. And would love suggestions on what to change.
How does it work right now?
So, first putting something on high means its always rolled first. So I will skip any explanation on how the game handles this as it is pretty much it’s own case. What we will talk about is putting 2 things on medium and how the game handles that.
The gist of it is that the game always rolls roles in a certain order. And that order remains the same. The way the game does this is quite complex and ill skip the explanation since it will make this a very long post. Instead, I will just list the order of roles the game rolls.
- Queen.
- Xenomorph.
- Survivor.
- Synth Survivor.
- CO Survivor.
- Predator.
- Commanding Officer.
- Executive Officer.
- Staff Officer.
- Chief MP.
- Military Warden.
- Military Police.
- Intelligence Officer.
- Pilot Officer.
- Dropship Crew Chief.
- Synthetic.
- Senior Enlisted Advisor.
- Corporate Liaison.
- Combat Correspondent.
- Chief Engineer.
- Requisitions Officer.
- Chief Medical Officer.
- Working Joe.
- Mess Technician.
- Ordnance Technician.
- Maintenance Technician.
- Cargo Technician.
- Researcher.
- Doctor.
- Nurse.
- Squad Leader.
- Fireteam Leader.
- Weapons Specialist.
- Smartgunner.
- Hospital Corpsman.
- Combat Technician.
- Rifleman.
What can we learn from this?
Realize that you will not roll for roles you have set to medium if you got assigned role higher in the list. Even if there are 4 slots and 3 already assigned like SO. Next you won’t roll your roles set to low if you won any of your medium rolls.
If you have a role on low lower than your lowest medium role in the list you can also safely put it on medium and have a better chance of getting it. And the game does not care about the number of people in a role before assigning someone to it as long as the slot is not full. It also means putting xeno on the medium setting means you will always roll for xeno over all marine roles. This also counts for a survivor. Also if you put rifleman on medium you won’t ever roll your low role preferences.
What do you want to change about this?
Well, first I would like to more obvious how the system works. It should not be doing weird stuff you do not expect. And I think if I asked anyone on cm to make a list of how the game should roll the roles the above list is not what I would get. That is the main thing I want to achieve.
Aside from that the actual changes I would suggest to how we roll roles are these.
- A way to indicate if you rather be on the Xeno, predator,survivor or Marine team for your medium preferences.
- Make it so it assigns 1 of certain roles instead of filling them completely.
- Having an only if there are not enough of this role preference. (this could replace low)
- Implementing specific logic to smooth out role selection. (If you have a CO 3 should not pick an XO.) (If you have CT you dont need an RO and vice versa.)
- Either cleaning up the list or randomizing it.
- Giving pfc’s a chance to cryo and join as a needed role on roundstart. (“Go directly to cryo; do not pass lobbyscreen, do not collect $200” You would just spawn as another character with the other job.)