Xeno Attack & Balance. XENO MAIN OPINIONS PLEASE

General Discussion
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I’m curious to talk about balance of xeno attacks, so high hour xeno players, please post your hours, thoughts & opinions.

I have X main questions:

  1. Should “small looking” T2 be able to Frac?
  2. Should Xenos be allowed to target limbs?

Number 1:

As a Protag Marine player, I often find myself getting stunned by lurkers, drones, and other xenos that visually appear to be the same size as the “Drone.”
Xenos like Lurkers, and so on do seem more “ambush” type xenos, and maybe not big and strong like Warriors, they aren’t as weak as a runner nor lesser drone.

If a sentinel or something gets the drop on me, yeah, fuck me up, cause bleeding, and kill me if marines don’t push you off of me. That’s fair.

But… should these xenos be able to fracture bones?
I do want to consider that xenos (should) have 20~30 players facing 80~120 players.
Xenos win by attrition and slowly wearing marines down through fractures, marines running out of ammo, and supplies.

As a marine player, in my head I justify “oh yeah, a crusher, hell yeah, he’ll definitely give me a frac or two.”
But a lurker, I find it difficult to justify in my monkey brain.
In real life, yeah humans are pretty fragile and can break easily, especially when facing a 6~8 foot tall insect.

So I am curious about your thoughts on this subject of limiting what xenos can frac to only the most formidable xenos.

Number 2:

By targeting the chest as a xeno, you are, to my knowledge objectively wrong because this area does the least damage.
Therefore, all the “good” xenos target hands and feet. Except when facing someone they want to decapitate in which case they aim for the head.

As smart as this is from a gameplay perspective, I can’t picture a scenario where this beast is trying to get my toes.
ai-generative-a-big-monster-fighting-with-a-worrier-photo

I’m sure you can extrapolate this to a human-sized xeno like the drone doing the same in the heat of combat.

We already have intents, so a possible proposal of difference is help mode is still “basic melee attack” where you want to hurt the player, and mess him up.
Disarm still can disarm.
Grab grabs and drags.
Then for harm intent that could be your “I want to crit, and potentially decapitate.” This will let you choose whether or not you want to decapitate marines or cause other “extreme” damage.

For marines, unless they’re engaging in HVH, targeting limbs just opens up opportunities to fuck over your friends by aiming at places where his armor isn’t as it to my knowledge doesn’t affect xenos where you aim.

So to make the armor values matter more “directly” and to prevent “you are making an objectively incorrect decision by targeting chest”, should limb targeting be removed for xenos?

Xeno players, please let me know what you think.

I am hoping that good/high hour xeno players chime in.
Obviously no one wants to nerf their skills, so I am asking what you think in general, and some thoughts I have as a marine.
This would be a big sweeping balance change, but I’m curious on what you think about it.

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Xenomorphs being required to strike the hands/feet of a target is the worlds biggest noob-trap since there is no guide that informs players of this mechanic, you are just expected to learn it. The fact there is a H U G E difference in time to kill between slashing a Marines chest versus their foot is a huge deal, and so much balance work goes into this issue despite the fact that it is never clearly communicated to the player at any point.

This is a classic case of veteran players failing to understand the perspective of a new player. This would be akin to a video game having a mechanic where you double your damage output so long as you click 1 button before you start a fight, but the game never ever tells you about it.

The funny thing is, in my HvH testing, where you aim at a human target does not make a huge difference in where your bullets land due to RNG spread, if I aimed for the head most of my bullets just spread out evenly across the body.

That’s what armour-linking was aiming to achieve (the idea that a marine’s gloves/boots had their armour values tied to what body armour a marine was wearing), but as it has been expressed before, the issue of marine attrition is extremely contentious and thus it’s very hard to make changes in regard to this

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This discussion is the nature of the design around the asymmetry between xenos and marines. Marines have high quality of life, high support, high overall power, and the ability to be revived with the downside of losing micro-attrition(Organ damage, broken bones, painslowing).

Lowering the frequency of broken bones will also require the reduction of marine power in other spots. It’s generally just a balance that is chosen by devs.

Any xeno being able to frac is fine, but it will usually take longer/be more risky for lower tier
xeno to break bones anyways

Choosing limb damage is an interesting mechanic that balances time to kill between lasting damage, both with their own upsides and downsides.

Edit: I wouldn’t call it a complete noob trap. Killing with just foot targetting isn’t always the best thing to do, because the damage is so easily fixable. It just depends on caste.

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When it comes to “small” xenoes fracking you, I don’t have a problem with it currently. Most of the small xenoes are still big alien killing machines, that regularly kill humans in a hit or two, depending on if they want to capture you. So them in game fraccing you isn’t a problem in my opinion.

And for targeting, it’s a little dumb. Since you cannot target anything other then certain spots if you wanna be contributing to the team. Personally I have started going for arms and legs as T2s and up, but it’s a very personal touch.

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The general “secret knowledge” expectation for xenos is as follows

  • Aim for the feet for most Marines, a leg-less marine is too slow to be an effective combatant, even just a leg-fracture is a huge deal in slowing a marine down.
  • Aim for the hands for Specialists, depriving them of their gun is a deal-breaker and is worth it over just fracturing the foot, as a specialist’s strength is their weapon, not their speed.
  • Aim for the head either for a marine not wearing a helmet, or if the hive is doing an all-head meme. The fact helmets offer free decap protection, and that head fractures are the least useful injury to inflict (brain/eye damage can be fixed by corpsman) makes aiming for the head only useful if a marine is being suboptimal and not using a helmet.
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Alright so I’m not the only one thinking limb targeting matters to help out xenos/make the game not goofy.

The funny thing is, in my HvH testing, where you aim at a human target does not make a huge difference in where your bullets land due to RNG spread, if I aimed for the head most of my bullets just spread out evenly across the body.

Really? Not modifications or anything? I could have swore aiming for the head in HVH scenarios make a big difference in time to kill vs aiming at the chest.
I also recall a lot of marines especially in my random name days saying to aim for the chest so FF wouldn’t slaughter marines.

@Butlerblock

Lowering the frequency of broken bones will also require the reduction of marine power in other spots.

Perhaps I am in the minority, but as a rifleman, etc, I find myself going through quite a few bandages, and suffering blood loss, and the inability to stop further damage, as I get more wounds that inflict bleeding.
I forgot to note that effect.
Additionally, the sentinels, and lurkers do the backline kills, and just kills in general, so their ability to just take people “out of action” is a major benefit to their current circumstances.

I mostly inquire because as a marine, it’s a major mood killer to get fracked at first contact with a “little” xeno. With fractures being such a major long term problem as splints can be melted by spitters, and you suffer a slowdown so long as you have a frac even when splinted, it’s a long term major burden. Plus a huge time sink to treat yourself.

that or I just happen to run into all the really good lurkers, and I should cope/seethe.
I figure if I have a giant mood killer, it probably is a giant mood killer for others. Getting fucked up sucks, but fucked up and fracked, yknow.

Curious if you have different thoughts or the same thoughts with this information.

Choosing limb damage is an interesting mechanic that balances time to kill between lasting damage, both with their own upsides and downsides.

Can you elaborate? I have mostly lesser drone hours, and a few drone/hivelord hours. I’m not mega familiar with xeno fighting/meta. So here, you are the expert.

@RainbowStalin

When it comes to “small” xenoes fracking you,
…
xenoes are killing machines, that regularly kill humans in a hit or two

I do agree. a 6~+ foot tall insect would kill me no problem.
Because they are so effective at killing, I was curious if perhaps, the removal of the ability to frac with “smaller” ones would be fair because of how efficient they are at killing.
Does this change your perspective at all from a game balance perspective? Or do you think xenos really need that capability?

And for targeting, it’s a little dumb. Since you cannot target anything other then certain spots if you wanna be contributing to the team. Personally I have started going for arms and legs as T2s and up, but it’s a very personal touch.

yeah, I target chest exclusively because I am very intelligent. and always forget about limb targeting.

@Steelpoint

The general “secret knowledge” expectation for xenos is as follows

Yeah, that’s… I mean, yeah, but ugh no…
For the lot of you, would making harm intent the “major killer” and “help intent” the hurt to capture be more “yes please!”

If so, the only difference I guess would be chance to decapitate, so xenos can still have chances to de-limb. I guess the chances of targeting limbs would be increased with speed of attacks ie like vamp lurkers probably are a flurry of attacks, and ravs kinda too. but still armor matters for protection?

Note, I have seen a lot of rounds with xenos just rolling marines and hijacking with 40~50 xenos.
I think it’s funny, but also, wow… I ask if xenos need a nerf, or marines need a buff, so trying to explore what would be fair.
Perhaps a lot of xenos just got really good at capturing or it was always like this and I just never noticed.

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Fractures are sort of necessary because otherwise killing a marine accomplishes almost nothing unless you are able to guard the body for 5 minutes. I mean I guess they get slight heart damage from the defib but that is pretty insignificant. Think about it from a risk reward point of view, am I really going to risk dying and getting sent back to the larva queue just to kill a marine that will then get revived with minimal lasting damage? Fracs are what makes attacking people worth it, outside of big pushes where you wipe marines and prevent bodies being revived. Also it is just very fun and satisfying to hear that bone cracking sound as you hit someone.

Targeting is weird but I like it as a mechanic and would much prefer it reworked than removed. Ideally each area would be situational and you could target different things depending on the situation. Currently the only time that’s the case is if a marine has no helmet you can target head for more damage and the chance for a decap. But outside of that most people just target foot 90% of the time, with some people occasionally going for groin or hands. It’s not an ideal system but I still like it and I think with some tweaking it could be more fun. I have always thought that chest/head should take more damage and limbs targeting should be for hindering the marines but that is just not how it’s balanced currently.

Currently a low damage attack would not help capturing at all. Generally if you want to capture you just go right to tackles, slashing doesn’t help at all it just increases the chance they die. The exception is you might want to foot frac them first to slow them down, but you might as well just use full powered slashes to accomplish that. This isn’t pokemon where you are trying to get the marine to low health. “Hurt to capture” mode would be an even bigger noob trap than chest targeting is. A mechanic like this would need an entire capping rework to make sense.

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Yes. Imo, this is a vital part of Xeno vs Marine combat. Fracs are the main long-term damage applied to the marine forces, and significantly aid xenos in snowballing and winning.

I think it would be absolutely absurd to remove either of these things. I don’t know any good alternatives though, so that could be why my perspective is this way.

Another “secret knowledge” is that feet, leg, chest, groin, and head fracs still slow marines down when splinted. This is especially impactful against people with medium armor or above… on light armor it’s still very noticeable, though.

If a marine doesn’t know about it, they will even stay on the front for a long time with this debilitating slowdown, and be an easy pick for xenos over and over again. They will lose a lot of their ability to chase and kill xenos, lose a lot of their ability to control a fight, and lose a lot of ability to disengage or engage a fight.

This is another big consideration when choosing hand or feet… Arm and hand fracs apply no slowdown, even when splinted, unlike every other frac. And so a good marine who relies on speed, and dmg avoidance can easily ignore a hand frac unless the splint comes undone… they can’t ignore a foot or leg frac though.

I think it’s interesting to think about this. I think taking a specialist out of action and crippling them longterm is more important though, personally… Hand fracs and arm fracs are very ignorable once you get splinted. It’s a short-term (handfrac) vs long-term (footfrac) benefit.

Aiming for the head is fine. It’s honestly worse to aim for chest or groin for 90% of benos imo, just because of how long it takes to frac. It applies a pretty big slowdown both unsplinted and splinted, so it is still very crippling to a marine. It’s also VERY commonly de-splinted from every dmg source.

It’s just the armor that makes it rough.

It can be useful to aim chest though, just to paincrit people without killing them.

I think a big part of the skill ceiling of this game (as marine) is avoiding fracs. As someone whos got plenty of experience on both sides, if you get fracced you usually misplayed and got beaten by the Xeno. Or you got FF’d.

And yes, going lone into the backline where you know lurkers are, is the same as getting beaten by the Xeno. Marines have to counter the backline if theres issues… otherwise the front gets stocked up with bonebreaks, people get attacked in backline, and people who are revived in backline are less effective because of their bonebreaks. All of this is a major part of gameplay, and makes backline impactful even if they can’t perma their enemy.

An unsafe backline is a significant failure point of the whole marine team.

I think it’s a very fair reward/punishment that even if you get revived, you will be debilitated and not just able to get back up and fight again. This encourages you to avoid death, learn how to counter problem xenos, or at least think before going into a risky area or situation.

Overall it adds more depth to the experience imo. Avoiding fracs (and thus, staying healthy longer) is an entire skillset of its own.

It also helps balance out the higher number of marines, meaning a lot less marines can be effective at the same time, without sacrificing the individual power of a healthy marine as a balance.

it’s also more satisfying gameplay-wise, to hear that CRUNCH and get that instant feedback that you are winning the fight…

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minor tangent
aiming for the head im pretty sure isnt all too different from aiming for limbs

The only real difference is the fact that head armour can fluctuate dramatically depending on what the enemy is wearing, either nothing at all or a riot helmet which has insane brute resistance

anyway I will say this now though, getting a chest fracture as a marine is absolutely devastating, considering the fact there are 3 organs there that can kill you if left untreated, with how many xenos dont switch from chest, or marines, that splint will get destroyed in seconds and you will pile up organ damage to the point of you dying at all times, this is the trade off for more initial armour to get through, the marine is gimped and forced to get surgery, compare this to an arm, leg, foot or hand, i couldnt really care about any one of those, hands and feet already cant get IB so moving without them being splinted isnt much an issue

as for xeno perspective, attacking hands or feet is actually pretty inefficient compared to going for the head on paper, the moment do deal 30 damage to a hand, you are now dealing with as much armour the chest has, only without organ damage, if you are targeting feet against someone with pyro or GL armour then you are shit out of luck because both the armours cover feet

In practice though, it shows short term success in the nature of pain critting someone sooner, so less time for them to shoot back, then the RNG chance of delimb is the real kicker if anything

Attacking head and chest over limbs has its own merits, id say its even pretty balanced, i prefer it this way because trust me if xenos could only hit chest you would hate the game SO much more

Oh yeah answering the “can they frac” question, a drone is 2 feet taller than you, id say just watch alien and how a drone mauls an entire crew pretty much uncontested, the only crime i see is 22 slash damage

I guess its worth mentioning the fact that lurkers can only really take 2v1s or less, even then if the 2nd guy plays it right then the lurker might get hurt too much to be able to circle back around to finish the job

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Since damage carries over to other limbs, targeting the feet and legs typically results in the feet, legs AND groin being obliterated, which means the marine gets Uber slowdown AND IB AND organ damage. Very potent, plus you can’t forget the delimb chance.

This is most noticeable on castes with high slash damage like ravagers and lurkers.

Due to how shit splints are (literally made of tissue paper), once a marine gets fracced, you can keep fucking them over by targeting those same areas of the body. Fractures are absolutely integral to attriting marines, and its removal would be utterly game changing.

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stronger splints would be more epic so they dont pop off so easily but same slowdown and frac chances seem okay to me; most people mentioned before that it’s the long-form type of attrition where eventually you will have to be taken off the field (either you get tired of it and get fixed or you get slow and die). for fracs, you already don’t have to really go up to the ship, even, just go hang out in FOB usually. but i get you, i get your vibe, it’s always really dumb when im running around as SG and i’ve gotten more leg fracs on that than like head fracs and i dont wear a helmet, and it’s always like the LAST little slash from ancient lurker POG or whatever that PVT Jimmy is too busy staring at me to take a shot and just get the damn thing off me for 3 seconds. i rarely get attacked in the backlines alone proper, mostly when im with someone that it happens. and so depending on teammates to prevent longer-term types of damage obvs sucks because lol depending on the average marine, but as birb said, marines being unable to secure their backline really becomes a failing of the whole team in that respect, and unfortunately having a cohesive team together is integral to keeping marines fresh.

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For splints, you can just ask research. They can print enough nano-splints for the entire corp and then more.

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You know as much as me that aint gonna happen. I often spend over an hour trying to convince research to buy even a single autodoc upgrade. Instead they insta buy chem points every time.
Ignoring the genuinly good things they could buy instead.

You know what, fuck it. PR time. If people cant make interesting decision on their own, they dont get the privelage of being able to chose.

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Yes, but they shouldn’t be able to fracture, or delimb completly healthy marine in medium/B12 armor in two slashes. Lurker shouldn’t be able to delimb a healthy marine in one pounce combo, frac is fine, but not delimb.
T3s shouldn’t frac in one slash on healthy marine, that is for sure.

Currently they have to, because whole game is balanced that they do aim hand/feet. Staff said multiple times that the time to kill on a marine while aiming feet/hand is “balanced” and they don’t want any change.

There could be a system introduced that could easly fix this without fucking TTK. Something like “stance aggresive” that is designed to kill as fast as possible, but deal little to no lasting damage.
And “stance decisive” that is designed to maim and injure long term, but doesn’t deal as much HP damage to a marine.
“Aggresive” would be used in xeno murderballs, “decisive” in lone skirmishes in the backlines.
Xeno has to decide if they want to kill as fast as they can, or if they want to injure as much as they can.
Currently aiming feet/hand (due to damage spread) kills and injures as much as possible, with the subpar option to maybe try to fracture chest, killing slowly and still being unlikely to injure much.
Cut hand, or feet is much worse than fractured chest, that is why aiming chest is objectively subpar. Why count on RNG when attacking chest, when you can count on RNG while attacking feet/hand?

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It is very much a people problem, and not a PR problem. If the “bounty” PR comes through, you could probably remove the ability to buy points with the organ machine, so that research finally uses its op items.

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Can also remove the points now already. Research was ok before without em, and they be ok without them now.

Besides, if people cant do the fun stuff on their own, you need to handhold them to the fun.

And to be on topic of OP:

Yeah, xeno damage is kinda fucked up.
Brute dmg is easy outhealed by even bica and only really works as burst.
Both side basicly can rest to heal when they are out of combat.

That also comes down to how death is handelt with marines. While if a xeno dies, its dead forever, if a marine dies that only means they are gone for about max 5 minutes.
Fracs do the same, but give the chance to kill them where they cant be revived or even cap.
Because the main thing fracs do is impact movement.
And fracs are rather random anyways, so they wont really be effected by removal of limb targeting.

And on the topic of limb targeting.
I would say keep it, but just make it like shooting. Where you do mainly hit the part your targeting, but with a good chance your hitting another part.
Add to that diffrent chances depending on what part your targeting, and you migth got something that works.

Or look at TGMC. Im willing to bet they solved that problem already. Or their TTK is so high nobody cares. Both could be equally the case.

Edit: I checked. Seems like TGMC only has aim effect what parts you frac. Not much dmg.
Makes sense honestly.

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I feel like this stance system could just be accomplished by rebalancing targeting. Certain limbs would be “decisive” as you call it where you do less damage to the marine’s health bar but easier/more impactful fracs, and others can be “aggressive” dealing more damage to the health bar but less fracs. The problem is currently feet accomplish both of these, it’s the most damage outside of helmetless head targeting while also being easy to frac and having a pretty impactful frac. Only downside is no IB or organ damage.

It already is like this, you have a 70% chance of hitting your targeted location if I recall correctly. Otherwise it hits a random limb based on a weighted system with chest being the most likely.

18

How do xenos make fractures?

Is this an active ability, or a random chance when you do a regular attack on “help” intent?

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Fracs aren’t random at all.
Every caste on average will frac the foot anywhere between 4-6 slashes, rounys in 5-6 slashes
It’s very predictable once you get used to fraccing people, and almost always happens right before enemy death if you are slashing them for long enough. The pain the frac gives is often enough to send enemy to near-paincrit.

The only rng is how often you hit the limb or how often your slash gets dumped into the chest. Or how often you get FF’d, but even then, you can take measures to avoid most ff w/ enough practice.

Without limb targetting you would have to hit the chest probabbllly… 10-15 times to frac it.
That just sounds awful and not good for the game at all. Marines are squishy meatbags and should have weak bones.

Fraccing is irregardless, a core part of the game, and getting fracced means you fucked up! (Or your allies fucked up, and ff’d)

Fracs leave a marine less able to be effective in future lives. Death is balanced right now… Getting fracced is something you need to avoid as marine, more then death though, I’d say.

If you die and DON’T get fracced because of good play, and then get revived, that’s when you can get up and be a healthy nuisance for however long you want without repurcussions.

And so as a game mechanic, with practice you will avoid a MAJORITY of fracs. It doesn’t need a nerf to make the game easier.

This never really matters ingame. Marines are very easy to kill since xenos focus on closing the gap and killing with 5-7 slashes or so. Overtime, minor slash poking will also lead to bloodloss. It encourages xenos to go after marines in decisive engagements (their abilities also encourage this), instead of lazy overdefensive play.

Zero reason to increase the TTK for marines. Zero reason to make bonefracs inconsistent with RNG either…
You already got like… a 30% chance to dump attacks into the chest (most heavily armored part).

This is not TGMC. Marines are squishy here…

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You REALLY missunderstood something there. Its not about increasing TTK, not about making fracs inconsitent (especially when i only said how i remember fracs work. And thats it, no other mentions about fracs really.)

I talked about it being shit that you have to target hands and feet as xeno, or you gimp your dmg.
I am very confused how you read “consistent damage” as a nerf. Its a buff for xenos rather. Well, more QoL.
Where did i even mention anything about a nerf? How did you get that idea?

And btw.

Yes, being fully removed from the round is by far better then being a bit slower until you ask the local fix bones guy to fix your bones. What are you smocking man? How did you manage to get a balance opinon that so fundematly fucked up.