So far the last four rounds of XvH I have played (most recently today; I play as a healer drone: XX) was ended by Stimmed Marines running around and just annihilating the xeno force.
It would seem to me, the Stimmed Marine is basically the embodiment of the reason that “main characters” are worked against with the experience. They are very diffiicult for xenos to counter, and are slash sponges. If you aren’t killed by the stimm themselves - you are killed by body block for xenos trying to get the stimm.
I can’t imagine this is fun for anyone - including the person playing the stimm…
Most recent example today during the distress signal. The Stimmed Marines overrun the recovery node going on and killed four xenos, then lower engineering got hit and all the T1s went. Queen screech was deployed by everyone was recovered from the stun well before that got organized, in fact I think Queen got mostly annihilated as well. In the last two XvH’s I attended, such as todays, there was a lot of enjoyment being had and RP happening - only for super-soldiers to walk in and kill everyone. To what end? I don’t even think it was interesting for the stimmed temselves.
I also feel it is a real shame because in the last two rounds I think they were otherwise run quite well. Good story, interesting lore, careful thought, and well managed only for super soldiers to run around.
It seems bizarre to me that discussion and debate happens around things like specs with scopes, or C4, when there are literal super-soldiers going to be running around. Additionally under normal play, there are very strict rules around stims and when they are allowed to be in combat.
I personally feel that a significant portion of XvH rounds end up ruined by the existence of stimmed marines - on any side. I think they have their place within special circumstances (ERTs, etc…) or highly coregraphed events - but I strongly think that:
Stinmmed marines should be banned at a policy level from events unless approved as part of a scripted/coreographed event or ERT.
