Lets make hijack more interesting. One of the defining aspects of hijack is how CIC responds, lets make each scenario uniquely interesting. If just normal evac is called to escape to the pods lets give the xenos a speed and damage buff, “You sense the hosts’ terrible fear and and emboldened.”. Yeah but then it’d make hellholds impossible, dont hold while also calling evac then. And if we really want to continue using lifeboats, make that a seperate evac call.
Hijack is lame and can easily be made more interesting, just spitballing a way to do that here.
This is almost as dumb as giving them infinite replenishing numbers.
Like I have a love-hate relationship with Hijack. But if you really want to mix it up? Give the marines the ability just to deorbit the planet and or give the Xenos the power to decide just not to deal with Hijack.
Its the end game. The real games already happened this should just be some cinematic fun to finish up the story. You’re idea to “mix it up” is just removing it.
It shouldn’t take long, it shouldnt be balanced, it SHOULD be fun. Who cares if the xenos get buffed while you’re fleeing the ship, you’re fleeing! Giving marines a better reason to get out of there, that also fits with the narrative end to the round, should make things more fun.
The idea is exclusively for the evac called scenario of hijack. If CIC decides to SD/Lifeboats then we could instead play into that by making it play out more like WO… defending wave after wave for the epic hellhold.
Hijack is kinda lame rn and unfun for a multitude of reasons. I don’t see how playing into what makes it fun would be dumb, maybe you can enlighten me.
Back before infinite larva was a thing. We used to have a myriad of hold options and last-stand battles (Also, some holds out of hell itself. But it was a hit-or-miss instance.) when we gave the Benos infinite noodles you ensured that evac would be picked most of the time as for justifiable reasons. (Hell, I was one of the few COs when it first came out to fight the infinite respawning Xenomorphs to a draw just out of spite.)
Your idea is dumb not because it doesn’t actually have a chance to make the experience more fun. It’ll make people not want to engage with it, which again here if that’s what you’re actually going for, I guess it’s a good idea?
There’s tuning something for balance, and then there’s doing something that’s fun. You should never try to lean into only one side. Because I feel like you’re not asking the question. “Why exactly would the other side want to engage with this?” this idea is an example thought process we have CM what I call lolresearch, where you bash your heads against the wall with the same idea that, historically speaking, didn’t pan out the last three to four times it was tried. Everything about what you’re saying sounds like it falls into that category.
If you want to make Hijack less shit. Give the ability to opt out of it. Hijacks would likely still happen often enough, but the obvious one-way fight or slog people loathe would disappear.
Hijack shouldn’t be desirable for marines, since its the lose scenario. Best case is making it interesting and enjoyable for everyone.
I never mentioned larva trickle, please don’t strawman me.
Opt out is a cop out.
If you want to argue the merits of removing hijack make another thread, I only want to discuss how to make the existing scenarios more fun/interesting.
It’s not a straw man at all. It was the last idea with the logic you presented, and we humans can be mindful of previous decisions along those lines and learn from them. I’m going to venture a guess and just suspect you may not have a vested interest in doing this.
For Hijack, it is the end game. In contrast, IC fears and whatnot are different. It should be fun and something to be engaged with. This goes both ways, and the only thing you have brought to the table with your frankly bad idea is less of a reason to engage with it.
For opting out? Sure, you know, people not wanting to engage in something they dislike when it’s clearly going to be a slog and want to play in it is not bad. It’s a video game, dude.
But you know what. Let’s say we live in a universe where this idea isn’t dumb? We’ll go to pretend land, Kugamo. I will type some of this in caps because I think reading it that way is funnier.
OKAY, SO, HIJACK HAPPENS.
SHIP HITS. EVAC IS CALLED. ALARMS SOUNDING WOOWOOWOOO.
THE BRAVE, NOT ONLY INFINITE BUT BUFFED XENOMORPHS DEPART, LOOKING TO SLAUGHTER THE REMAINING MARINES. AS THEY CHARGE FORTH.
They find one hold in lifeboats with fewer people. Because the last time we had this idea, people generally went to cyro instead of engaging a mechanic that’s being actively made worse. What part of them smashing the only hold with maybe some people and then having to hunt down the last one for 5-10 minutes sounds like it’d be a different change or better? The freshly buffed Xenos not being able to use their buffs to get nada to fight?
I don’t think you’re a bad guy, and I DO feel bad for coming at you kind of hard. But like your idea doesn’t bring anything to the table that would make people overall want to engage in the hijack. There’s a vast difference between it being a desirable outcome and fun to play.
I think it suits the atmosphere well, xenos sensing that the marines are escaping giving them some sort of frenzy isn’t far fetched. I think it would enhance the same holdout at lifeboats and balance it more instead of seeing the FOB breach 2.0. One of the thing I’ve seen from playing both side is how only a few stack of people seems to enjoy the “new” lifeboats. It’s a waiting game for both side while camping a single directional cade line.
There’s always an option for the people that wants to keep roleplaying to jump into pods instead, there’s already tons of people that despise hijack who simply uses cryopods/escape pods instead of doing the holdout
It makes hijack ends quicker for a new game to start. I am not advocating for shorter games, but the hijack endgame is only constituted of holdouts with not much else.
It actually brings a consequence to evacuating, which I think is cool. Now you have to gauge if you have enough forces to fight on or if you want to risk an evacuation. Not using evac will also unable different holdout positions which is something I’d like to see again.
Again, just for clarity’s sake: I am proposing we should only add the buff for when evac is called (escape pods), and separate that from calling Lifeboats or other hijack options. Not for just when hijack occurs. To add consequence to choosing evac over a hell hold at lifeboats/SD or any other course of action.
You’re not being called inhuman. I’m pointing out that, as humans, we should be looking back at history. The world I painted would be the more realistic outcome of this idea. Frankly, while I’m sure you can think of it being occasionally fun, overall wouldn’t be a significant change for the better.
We started seeing more people opting out when we brought the larva surge. Even being gone for a year, I’ve noticed that it’s gotten significantly worse, and who could blame those players?
Like overall, Hijack was supposed to be revamped with lifeboats, but it didn’t go through half the things meant to happen in those times. But this idea is just a game mechanic that will encourage opting out of doubling down on FOB siege round two and making it worse.
I think Molto brought up some decent points, and I agree with his first bulletin, but at the same time, I think regardless of intentions, if you’re going to design something, you want it to be engaged with. Giving less reason to want to participate in something that is hit or miss if it’s fun is not a good idea or, frankly, sound design.
People forget hijack is an after thought. Rounds meant to end without too much delay, that’s why marines can even get a xeno minor without killing everything on hijack. People want the round to end, not fight 3 wide hallways as marine or xeno for another hour
I agree with all of what you said to be honest I think the human should get a buff during evac because let’s look at it this way if a marine has a family to get home to he is going to fight harder and longer to get home to that family. That is why I believe the humans should get a buff durning evac not the xenos. Plus if hijack happened it probably means the humans have basically bo man power left in most cases. So buffing the xenos shouldn’t matter.
…Say that making the alliens OP and don’t giving a single chance of survival to the marines would make it “enjoyable to everyone” is quite…blank, I would say.
You see, I suppose ERTs are not more an option in your idea, or holds, or anything, no self-destruction, nothing, just a complete rampage that its completely unfair and is purposefully thought to kill 70 other active players in the fastest way possible, while other 20/30 get all the “”““fun””“”" by killing anyone with complete ease and as easy as it can get, all RP opportunities or anything else would be completely thrown into the nearest trash can.
It will probably be “fun” to the xenomorph players for the first matches, but after some time the marines would just start cryoing before the hijack and the alliens just ghosting to see the remaining of the slaughter.
The hijack can’t be made more interesting if you plan on making it more simpler than it is, really, that its just lack of criativity.
Also, people ask for evacuation 90% of the time BECAUSE the xenomorphs are already hard to win over, as you will ALWAYS loose 2/4 or 3/4 (when not everyone) of the marine force on the ground and most of the time you simply don’t have enough strength to hold anywhere, apart from lifeboats (which is a place without any types of flanks and it is in fact the last locomotive to home, while still carrying the old glamour of holding). Asking for a “buff” will just make holding impossible.
Hijack is not an afterthought and it shouldn’t be an ‘afterparty’ for xenos to curbstomp marines either.
It’s a chance for shipside roles to finally do some fighting, and for planetside survivors to make their last stand. It’s interesting, and like Aces said; it was far better in just about every single way when we didn’t have hijack larva.
Sometimes I feel like xeno players just want everything handed to them on a silver platter when I read threads like this. Xenos should have the 70%+ win rate, xenos should always win on the ship; for Gods’ sake some of us want the game to be interesting.
This is a morale and command issue, but also completely ignores the fact that infinite hijack larva is not something you realistically win against.
Typical Xeno:Marine force ratios on hijack that I see are 1:3, sometimes higher xeno count than that even, like 1:1 or 1:2. Force ratios that xenos will still win on hijack can easily go to 1:5; essentially if marines are not able to rush the dropship in the first few minutes with overwhelming advantage, they WILL lose. (Then, there’s the issue with the hive core being plantable inside the cockpit where most marines cannot get access to it, the walls are indestructible, and even if you could open the door, the 1-tile access severely restricts the damage potential)
And what has the result been?
We never see briefing/hangar/medical holds to push out and attack the dropship anymore. Every single time it is lifeboat/pods - and why? Because there is no realistic chance for marines to actually win the shipside fight. It’s far far too slanted and lifeboat holds until evac are the only way to have ANY kind of fun post-hijack.
If you want to see things get more interesting, add actual defenses to the almayer so it works more like whiskey outpost of last stand marines vs waves of xenos.
Or do what people keep saying should be done: Get rid of hijack larva or severely reduce the benefit it provides.
We took a huge step back from shipside gameplay when hijack larva were introduced and we are taking a very long time to implement anything to balance it out and make the shipside half of the game interesting again.
About that, we had some round where someone actually called the dropship full of xenos up to the Almayer before it could get hijacked. Xenos won anyways, as xenodevs intended, but I think that was way more fun with first holding medbay/hangar and then slowly getting pushed back and stomped or vored + nested, especially as xenos had no infinite larvae, lights and comms were still on and no bursting pipes. Maybe make it possible for hijacked dropships to actually land in the hangar instead of violently crashing into the meta spot the queen picked and destroying in fact everything in it’s way plus in fact all electronic equipment aboard?
Something like a choice to enable the auto pilot, First Lieutenant an onwards, requiring two ID swipes ( but this one actually works) in the case that CO/XO are unavailable.
