It’s been TM’d for a long while, but doesn’t seem to appear to be getting any relevant changes despite obvious issues. No thread yet so here we go.
Will it just get merged with useless armor bonuses? If it remains so low it should just be removed to not be a noobtrap. On top of the +2.5/+5 bonus being irrelevant for dmg reduction, armor can be circumvented entirely with AP ammo, so shouldn’t the bonus be to max health instead??
The slash damage isn’t so bad off to be entirely useless, but doesn’t really feel worthwhile either, given the short duration and that it’s meant to be used against cades.
Shouldn’t these be getting tested with higher, actually impactful values? What about including slash or movement speed? Cooldown reduction? Are there any reasons these aren’t buff choices?
EDIT: The thread is for the xeno side of the endgame buffs, make a separate thread for endgame mechanics as a whole
I honestly think it’s responsible for all the stalemates that have occurred in the last months and is one of the biggest xeno nerfs in the history of the server next to the prime evo change.
I gave my piece on the PR itself and was told my idea of giving more surges to xenos will not happen, so really the only times marines or xenos ever deploy their end game solution is when they are already winning and just need a way to force the other side to commit a mistake but even then they can win without it. I have seen maybe 1 out of 10 rounds where the end game solution for either side was a do or die that turned the entire round around, and it was mostly the King that did that; nuke is too hard to hold unless you have already won since you have to hold 2 Comms AND the LZ to prevent a stealthjack.
If you can reliably do that at the 2 hour mark you could basically win already, and are only not committing resources cause hell pushes into Caves are ass.
The old system of xenos just getting free larva indefinitely from holding comms was truly miserable from a marine perspective and I personally prefer this system.
From a xeno point of view though I can definitely see how this has contributed to the feeling of fob slop, marines don’t have near as much incentive to push out of defensive positions until king spawn, and you no longer get the steady supply of respawns to keep the queue ticking, meaning risky plays are likely to land you out of the game.
not really sure how to resolve one of these things without fucking over the other honestly.
Also; re Swagile’s point, nuke only really happens when marines have already securely won and just can’t break the caves hold, King is more common to see pull through mostly because xenos don’t have to contribute resources to defense like marines do (i.e, resin is completely renewable and not scarce in the slightest, the only resource going into it really is time.), and they can also move their manpower around faster and without as much risk as marines relocating to support the more besieged area. As a round drags on marines have access to less and less metal as it gets more expensive and the existing stocks dry up, as well as spec and SG, medic and frac attrition, etc, making it harder for them to control ground (unless they get stims at which point GG I guess. lol.)
The PR is only about the xeno endgame buffs - stats/evo boost and king.
Complaints about comm positioning (godawful and the source of most issues since it’s too easy for marines to hold) and endgame systems in general should go to their own thread.
free larva
The issue was with comebacks, if you give xenos a ton of larva and marines get some kills they’re still outnumbered, whereas if they kill the king they get to actually push.
I mean free larvae could be combatted by xeno corpses giving significant intel point increases if fultoned up to the Alamo, which would allow marines to call in more req boosts, CAS, OB, and reinforcements.
So misplays by xenos would get punished still by rewarding marines with more stuff in general, so they can regain ground.
Thats why I want larvae surge to be a re-buyable thing in the current end game system and lower its price + up royal jelly gain, but in return up intel amounts so its not all hopeless; if xenos just keep mindlessly swarming with no plan and dying, they feed the marine war machine.
if marines lose their endgame condition (the nuke) the round is basically over for them anyway. (Xenos take at least one comms and begin to use royal resin for stuff)
If xenos lose their king that’s probably game over because everyone will kill themselves to keep the king alive, and the round has already reached the 2hr mark at that point so may as well give marines like a greeno king serum or something
This isn’t an “endgame” thread, it’s “xeno endgame”. The specific PR doesn’t affect any endgame mechanics besides the xeno side’s buffs - comms and underlying systems were added elsewhere. There’s no point to discussing them in a thread for a PR which has no influence on these things.
Endgame issues are one thing and the xeno buffs being inadequate is another entirely.
These systems are meant to end the game. If you buy more larva which in turn leads to more reinforcements for marines via bodies you end up with more people in play than before and the round not any closer to ending. That’s why devs want to get rid of it.
Well, that and the possibility for comebacks, killing the king usually means you’ve made a dent on the hive alongside it and can now end the game - wouldn’t be the case if xenos gained numbers.
current stims should all require king’s blood - improve not remove (lol) - would actually ensure the game ends.
Comms positioning is directly related to this, as on some maps it is very easy to get a hold of one tower as xeno and really hard to break it as marine. For example on Kutjevo one of the tower can spawn literally on the opposite side of the map from the FOB. Going there every time to clear the pylon is extremely risky and so is leaving a garrison there. So often the pylon just gets ignored.
Thus you can’t really give xenos something significant just for controlling one of the towers, as it is not always a difficult task (unlike controlling both towers for the king) that should be rewarded. Otherwise if we make buffs stronger and keep them relatively simple to get this would lead to powercreep, just remember fortified weeds from techwebs era, that was cancer.
It’s not something the PR controls so discussing it is pointless. Might aswell start talking about mortar balance in relation to comms control or literally anything else. It’s like yelling at a cow because the burgers aren’t tasty. Yeah sure, it is related, but can the cow do anything about it? No, and neither can this PR.
I do agree that perhaps the entire system is wrong and should be thrown out, but I don’t think devs/staff want to step away from it, so its likely pointless even if it got its own thread and focus should be on mitigating what can be mitigated, i.e this pr.
Could mess with the point costs to balance that, but if you compare with what the marines get, xeno buffs are hilariously bad. Timed bonuses vs permanent ones to begin with and armor being plain useless.
I don’t think it’d necessarily result in techweb tier aids (likely shouldn’t touch tankyness?), but if it’s going to be a choice between useless noobtrap and overtuned stats then perhaps the problematic bonuses should be reworked into something else.
Main point is that despite it being tmerged nothing in that aspect is really being tested, it’s just undertuned values left to rot.
Well everyone wants endgame because you can’t come back into these rounds, not because the rounds are slop.
Yeah some rounds SHOULD end with no help to either side, but those are rare; most rounds never end because NEITHER side wants to take a huge risk to end the round, such as a siege against OT mortars, or committing your entire force across the map like Shivas to the hive on the ass end of nowhere with 15 different flanks on the way xenos can abuse AND no CT’s or no metal you can use to slow cade your way.
If you give both sides more logistics and ways to get back into the game, we can still have longer games that BOTH sides enjoy because they can come back at anytime. Thats why I said that xeno endgame is a good idea but bad implementation since it focuses too much on ending the round and less on WHY people want the round ended.
technically there’s nothing stopping you from arming the nuke at one of the coms hubs, you just have to sacrifice the defenders to unga prime once it detonates
