[WO] Balance Discussion

[Swagile]

Im putting this here for all WO related balance talks.

I wasn't sure where to put this, as this is SORTA a suggestion thread, but its more talking about the balance of the gamemode aka its problems and how they can be fixed. Im also working on the premise that this gamemode is still centered around xenos winning 65% of the time (bear with me here before you start talking about how you main muhreens and hate my guts).

So the premise of WO is a bunch of marines turtling away against waves of xenos. Sounds great, right?

The problem with WO, however, is its not so great. I won't even get into the problems of player incompetence and constant FF, as that is not related solely to WO, but is something that happens in the normal Ice Colony or LV map; it just happens more in WO due to the nature of the map.

The true problem is the madman who made waves so overpowered at 10 + waves. I have no idea how many waves there are, but lets just say there are 16 (this was said by I believe an admin, so *shrug). At wave 10, tier 2 mature and elites are spawned up the wazzo, and don't get me started on the T2 young count. This is also when T3's start to kick in.

These are the big baddies; the "holy shit we had to put all the good abilities somewhere" aliens. Marine tactics generally force heavy casualties if you are facing T3(s) and their reinforcements (T2's) but thats fine because in a normal gamemode, killing a T3 means you just denied the hive at a minimum of 30-45 minutes of evolution work as that person has to go from a Bloody Larvae back to a T3 all over again.

In this gamemode, upgraded T2's and T3's are just spawned out of nowhere in MINUTES at a time with no incubation time, so even if your an idiot as a T2 or T3, you can simply respawn at will and you'll get at least ONE marine.

Now we get to the Marine problem and the fact that this gamemode is also a sneaky way to test what happens when Marines have no cloning. Guess what, it sucks. Every man that goes down is permanently out of the game as there is NO cloning facilities at all. You might initially not think this is bad, right? Well, every person who realizes they have 0 hope of being cloned will just pick up a xenomorph body and join the fight, which also heavily skews the round against the marines.

This goes onto another point; the moment WO begins, new joiners are forced into a xenomorph role. This further skews the gamemode against the Marines as they get 0 reinforcements, and all new joiners who aren't lucky enough to come back just as WO starts are forced into xenomorph (and this is a large number, as not everyone players 24/7).

TL;DR

Marines:

- No cloning
- No reinforcements
- Very little break(s) in between waves

Xenomorphs:

- Constant reinforcements (late joiners, no cloning so people get bored and join xenos anyway)
- Huge amounts of higher tier xenomorphs way too early (wave 11 is the usual wave in which marines lose due to overwhelming amounts of mature T3's and elite T2's)

Solutions:

- Give Marines their cloning
- Have "reinforcement waves" during the break(s), so at least late joiners can join up as normal marines
- Have more breaks in general (there was only like 2 I believe, and they didn't last long enough to put up any meaningful obstacles, especially considering the T3's that came later on).
- Spawn less higher tier xenos until its near the VERY END, but have absurd amounts of lower tier xenomorphs as a replacement to this
- Less upgraded tiers (with the way the waves are going, im pretty sure wave 13 is when almost all the T3's are elite and they now get ancients; this is dumb)




I am sure I missed something here that others could mention, but the way WO is currently balanced, there is a 99% chance of marines losing (yes I took that statistic as a meme right out of OOC end round salt).

Feel free to move this to the proper section if I posted it wrongly.

[Feweh]

Basically everything you mentioned wrong with WO is purposely intended, I dont think you really understand the point of WO at all.

[Boltersam]

The point of WO is so that the Marines are swarmed and outnumbered. T3 amounts are being tweaked, though.

[Simo94]

seems like you main problem is xenos winning a lot? well then welcome to CM I guess??

[Swagile]

seems like you main problem is xenos winning a lot? well then welcome to CM I guess??

I don't mind xenos winning, and if you didn't read the part where I said that, then ???

My main gripe with WO is that there is no point in actually playing if you know that the moment Wave 10 rolls by, your going to get steamrolled back to outpost then defeated either wave 11, 12, or if you are somehow a godly playerbase filled with pros, 13.

Making a gamemode solely to shit on marines makes absolutely no sense besides lore reasons, and making a gamemode based on lore and not gameplay is dumb.

And in normal CM, if you stick with your squad, and listen to orders from at least a semi-competent command with somewhat decent medical / req, then you have a good chance of actually winning against the xenos. Not so in WO.

Basically everything you mentioned wrong with WO is purposely intended, I dont think you really understand the point of WO at all.

Enlighten me on the point of WO then? I don't see the point in it if the win condition is so obscure and out of reach that you might as well rambo into the jungle and play dead under some jungle tiles; you have just as much luck winning that way than actually playing the gamemode as intended.

The point of WO is so that the Marines are swarmed and outnumbered. T3 amounts are being tweaked, though.

Yeah, I know their supposed to be overrun, but not so ovverun that there is literally no chance. The waves do not even take into account the current xenos alive, so you could have 30 xenos still alive and another wave will come and now there are 60 xenos, so there is no rest or time to do anything meaningful in the later waves; especially, as said, that T3's are abundant, and T2 numbers are even more so.

[Feweh]

I don't mind xenos winning, and if you didn't read the part where I said that, then ???

My main gripe with WO is that there is no point in actually playing if you know that the moment Wave 10 rolls by, your going to get steamrolled back to outpost then defeated either wave 11, 12, or if you are somehow a godly playerbase filled with pros, 13.

Making a gamemode solely to shit on marines makes absolutely no sense besides lore reasons, and making a gamemode based on lore and not gameplay is dumb.

And in normal CM, if you stick with your squad, and listen to orders from at least a semi-competent command with somewhat decent medical / req, then you have a good chance of actually winning against the xenos. Not so in WO.



Enlighten me on the point of WO then? I don't see the point in it if the win condition is so obscure and out of reach that you might as well rambo into the jungle and play dead under some jungle tiles; you have just as much luck winning that way than actually playing the gamemode as intended.



Yeah, I know their supposed to be overrun, but not so ovverun that there is literally no chance. The waves do not even take into account the current xenos alive, so you could have 30 xenos still alive and another wave will come and now there are 60 xenos, so there is no rest or time to do anything meaningful in the later waves; especially, as said, that T3's are abundant, and T2 numbers are even more so.

Youre not intended to win WO

[Telegnats]

Yea, who would want to win a game anyway?

[CrimsonAerospace]

The one big thing I realized on WO, is the no cloning aspect, and forcing marines to be Aliens.

I actually quite enjoy this aspect, and this is why I want Staff to remove cloning from CM, is because every round, there are so many unused Larva on the aliens side, it seems silly to really go for hosts after a while, since you have like 10-15 larva sitting there with no use which usually end up getting left behind or killed later anyway.

I think the T3's need to be tweaked a bit but they're already doing that, besides that, and the awful FF, I think WO is pretty fun, and to be fair, it's not meant to be balanced.

[Swagile]

Youre not intended to win WO

I am... not sure if you are memeing, or if you are serious.

Setting up a gamemode in which you are 99% meant to fail...

I don't know how to describe my levels of "what".

[Feweh]

I am... not sure if you are memeing, or if you are serious.

Setting up a gamemode in which you are 99% meant to fail...

I don't know how to describe my levels of "what".

No need to describe, i dont care.