Marines can spawn as xenos after permadeath, so why don’t make it other way around? Let round-start xenos (who haven’t played as marine this round) respawn as marine instead of waiting in queue. It would be a win-win situation: marines get more marines, xenos get more burrowed from these marines. People who don’t want to sit in queue will have another option, people who want to sit in queue will get a bit more burrowed larva.
All metagaming concerns are meaningless since you can get the same amount of meta-information by dying and being revived.
Hate to be the negative guy, but you realize how easy it is for a griefer to game the system?
Dead xeno can join as marines to increase larva surge and then run straight to hive for easy caps.
yea you can grief in a million ways. This isn’t going to be that big of a change. IF you want to do shit like that you can do the same thing minus the percent of a larve from marine pop by just going marine round start, getting capped and then going xeno. How is this different from how the game plays anyway other than letting people play marine after death?
Griefing is already against the rules and it’s the same risk as dead marine join as larva and suicide, or roundstart marine intentionally getting capped, or dead xeno join as cryomarine and getting capped. Yeah, it’s a valid concern, but it’s insignificant because happens quite rare (do you really that salty to spend 15 minutes on gearing and deploying just to give your fellow xenos a free cap?). Most players use respawns fairly, so there is no reason to punish them to prevent a few salty griefers from softgriefing.
From my understanding of the game, it is designed around the desire that dead players will attempt to respawn in as a xenomorph, and not the other way around.
I dont like it, but only because i think it will make people play xeno more wrecklessly…
“oh well i wanna marine anyways”
I think that xeno also struggles more to get players than marines. We already have issues filling the hive sometimes. If every runner dying to survivor hit respawn instead…
Cryorines usually only appear once in the round and have limited slots (or never cause “Woah, lets powergame cadehug FOB and comms with 100 marines for two hours and then nuke cause no fun allowed”) opposed to dying and insta respawning as marine, with no limit on how many dead benos respawn as marine.
But it will encourage players to join roundstart xeno. Right now it’s more optimal to roll marine, because basically you have at least two chances to play (especially if you get capped) plus many chances from defib. Meanwhile as xeno if you die, chances are you will stuck in larva queue forever.
Saying that people won’t value their life is just an assumption. I personally playing both sides and when I die/get capped as marine I usually roll xeno. It didn’t make me less cautious. I am still trying to survive.
Saying that it will break balance is just wrong, because essentially there is no difference between this and new players joining the game. New players join — xenos get burrowed larva to spawn from. Same with xeno players roll as marines. More chances to survive larva queue. Everyone is happy.
You gotta elaborate what harm does it make to the game design. If you perma die as marine you will still have no other option but to roll xeno or wait for cryorines. And after some time in the game we usually have more xeno candidates than actual larva. So I don’t see how would it hurt the game design, other than that more people will be able to play the game.
This is a good idea; unironically, some rounds marines already get more respawns than xenos with Foxtrot spam and revives. Might as well just let people spawn in as their own characters.
Sure, the game was initially designed with the intention of marines getting one life and then being able to respawn as xenos infinitely over and over, but that was when xenos got 2 larva per cap, and there was no larva queue, and medics weren’t necromancers. It just doesn’t play out that way in practice.
Sure I guess lesser drones kind of emulate that playstyle, but you still have a good chunk of the playerbase sitting as ghosts, or out of the game for prolonged periods.
If you really want to see an effective execution of that kind of game cycle, look at TGMC. I’ve been able to respawn as xeno over and over in literally under 2 minutes between deaths on TG. But that’s a whole different game, system, cycle, and level of balance. It just doesn’t equate to anything we have, and until we do the present system of only going from a marine to xeno is kinda archaic.
I don’t really see the point to not letting xenos rejoin as marines.
the reason this isn’t the case is that marines can already be revived. xenos cannot be revived and thus this would essentially double the marine pop in a lot of ways, it draws away new xeno spawns as marines often live longer than xenos. At round end this isnt an issue as stated, xenos often run out of slots but during mid game this will create a snowball to either marines or xenos in terms of pop. like, after a bunch of xenos die they spawn in as marines, kicking the hive while its down. this will negatively impact round flow.
there is def a difference. new players randomly trickle in, these spawns would be directly related to round progression, increasing the marine pop as the xeno pop goes down. it would snowball into a much larger marine force.
Its a nice idea that hopefully is implementable some day but as it is currently this would create way too many issues.
Xenos have limited spawns. Xenos going marines would count as latejoin and would give xenos burrowed. So players in larva queue will have a better chance to get to play. You realize not everyone will go marine just because it’s available, just like not everyone goes xeno when perma as marine.
not claiming everyone would join as marine, just that some portion of killed xeno players will join in as marines as they die off. this will create a larger marine force as the xenos die off, because its easier to join as marine than xeno again in this system a large portion, if not an outright majority will just immediately join as marine.
My issue with this in examples.
first contact happens, marine offensive begins, marines get a good start and kill off a number of t1s and and maybe some t2 (lets say 6ish xenos). then half a foxtrot squad could essentially wake up for free and join the marines already on the advantage.
Marines coordinate a good OB which kills several xenos, then push to eliminate even more. Now again you have more marines potentially joining.
Granted, These spawns would only happen once per xeno player maximum. however it only takes one good push or OB to turn a fight from slow loss to crushing victory for the marines. Then also giving marines more men as they do said push is overkill in my opinion.
I have a another issue with this aswell. The (lore) reason we have xeno respawn is because xenos are meant to be an expendable hivemind that quickly replenish lost numbers. The point of the marines is that their members are not expendable, not in the same way at least. Marine losses matter in a way that xeno ones don’t on a lore and mechanical level. Replenishing marines based on xeno losses dosent make sense on either of those levels to me.
We have marine spawns, they’re optional to command players. allowing you to spawn as a preestablished character though would be a def improvement i could see being made. joining as your marine character should you not have played it previously would be genuinely great.
Xenos will get burrowed larva from this, so people who are waiting in the larva queue get to play. Also, waste majority of the marine players don’t roll xeno as soon as they die. They just observe or waiting for foxtrot. Why would there be any difference? Probably most xeno players will be too invested in xeno victory to join marine. It’s a common issue.
There is literally no difference with latejoining players going marines.