xenos r losng all teh time nerf maren/buff beno pls

[Reuben Owen]

but really, what the hell is going on lately?
explain/guess why this is happening

[Heckenshutze]

It's a cycle, veteran players playing more marine than xeno leaving the least robust and baldies on the role

[Reuben Owen]

It's a cycle, veteran players playing more marine than xeno leaving the least robust and baldies on the role

but what allows the robust marine to defeat the bald xeno?

[Rohesie]

I believe the increase in the number of engineers and medics have strengthened the marines.

Usually people notice when they get combat changes, flashy explosions and bigger direct damage, but they tend to forget the importance of support roles. It's now common to have six to eight corporals per squad, when before we had four at most, and that makes a huge difference. Specially on later stages.

[Casany]

Xenos aren’t as fun as marines to many veteran players because they don’t have any depth or choice. They’re just super powerful but with no tactics. So new players who only know how to click and move end up playing them and you get a lotta xeno loses because the devs think just buffing instead of adding tactics will make one side better than the other

[BobatNight]

Too many hunter nerfs lately to wanna play much Xeno.

[AverageSpitter]

Yeah, Marines have been super aggressive lately.

Honestly? I don't think they are being that robust, it's just that they are using OB's more often, and these catch us xenos with our pants down the 70% of the time.

Maybe i have to go back to playing xeno so we can guy some rounds again :^)

[simonset55]

Bad xeno players lately is one of the reasons why, but i believe there might also just be an influx of robust marines lately. Yesterday we saw a round where delta was filled with at least 9 regular names most people recognize, and they kicked xeno ass to the point where there was just around 8 xenos left around the 1:30 mark. Where it just turns into an extra hour of delayyliens due to the queen being able to charge away from the muhreens.

[Reuben Owen]

....
xenos have always had a decent chunk of bad players
that isn't new or news to anyone, I hope
but this winning percentage is

how are the marines winning? what are they using? are you telling me robust marine 420 is beating T3s with a clean m41a with basic ammo?

@imvader I can understand this tbh.

[AverageSpitter]

Bad xeno players lately is one of the reasons why, but i believe there might also just be an influx of robust marines lately. Yesterday we saw a round where delta was filled with at least 9 regular names most people recognize, and they kicked xeno ass to the point where there was just around 8 xenos left around the 1:30 mark. Where it just turns into an extra hour of delayyliens due to the queen being able to charge away from the muhreens.

Young runners amirite?

Also queens lately have been sucking, they fucking deovi without even being elite empress

[Hastati]

Really, really bad queens are the main culprit the last couple weeks I've found. Like don't know even know how to ovi bad.

[Reuben Owen]

Young runners amirite?

Also queens lately have been sucking, they fucking deovi without even being elite empress

I see this a lot too, but I'm just guessing that most of them do it because the marines get so close so fast and none of the (at that point) Young T3s could really stop them and T2s/1s obviously can't stop them either

i.e. Queens wouldn't be detaching if Xenos could hold, and they aren't able to atm

[Sulaboy]

Really, really bad queens are the main culprit the last couple weeks I've found. Like don't know even know how to ovi bad.

Might just be growing pains since the ovi update. I'm not sure why marines are winning, I've seen some rounds won with really bald command. It might be the changes to Xeno starting pop, but I think the real problem would be new queens. Xenos start with one all powerful commander, the queen ought to be talking a lot more. Xenos listen to the queen and ask her for thing to do, at least sometimes. While robust Xenos can help, Xenos need to work together like marines do. Something ingrained into every marines head is not to wander out of sight of their fellow marines, to stick together. Marines talk, and they work around problems. Basically try to talk to your other Xeno friends, remember their number and yours speak to each other.

[Simo94]

This is the problem of focusing all xeno strength on one caste only, Queen, if she sucks the whole hive is doomed, please nerf Queen and buff every other xeno, thank you.

[SovietKitty]

I noticed a lot of the xeno mains have been busy lately this week. At least a lot of the names I remember off head of being, 'very dangerous hunter.'

[Rohesie]

So, after reading several suggestions and some thinking I believe there are several causes for the streak of marine victories.

A major cause is the queen ovi. Before queens would lay eggs while engaging in screeching combat, allowing drones and carriers to infect while runners, spitters and others could snatch the marines away. Now queens stay aging while laying eggs and when they get up the egg production stops, making the hive switch from the previous screechless infecting (much less effective) to a killing screeching stance. That's what I've seen on my rounds as xeno, mostly.

There are other less important causes that add up into being relevant, such as the boosts to marine support: increased number of engineers and medics, medivac, autodoc. It's much easier to survive frontline combat now that you can avoid the hunters and runners prowling behind the lines, and medbay waits are considerably smaller whenever doctors are smart enough to keep the autodoc always functioning in manual mode.

Long story short: xenos are killing more and infecting less, while marines are treating more infected.

[Shuffl3]

I think the big shift that the Ovi brought to xenos strategy was that it forced xenos to hold a location. Xenoarchitecture at this point lacks the depth needed to produce ideal terrain that will compliment the different combat tactics used by the various specialized evolutions. At best you can advantage an area for one or two, but at the cost of limiting the others. Of course, that assumes that it is being constructed out of intent and not tradition or boredom. Outside of one or two sub-species, xenos are inherently bad at holding ground. On top of that, USCM combat support is mostly geared towards dismantling fixed positions. Due to their generalized communication network, first-strike oriented abilities, high mobility, and functionally low tankiness: Xenos excel in force projection and mobile, dynamic combat. The fixed hive that ovi-style queens mandate do not play to these strengths.

The localized buff of the pheromone mechanic also plays against these strengths to an extent. Forced proximity limits the mobility that many types of xenomorphs need to survive tactically. It also plays into the USCM combat support AOE effects. The competitive balancing used to specialize the different xenomorphs normally leaves pheromone loci as some of the slowest in a swarm which makes it very easy for the more aggressive castes to outpace them. This reduces the hives ability to respond to threats, make tactical retreats, and capitalize on routs. Since pheromones only effect a fixed radius, they dont adapt well to changing terrain. A high density swarm limited to the speed of its slowest member cannot project force, or respond well to changing dynamics.

Finally, xenos no longer have access to the majority of macros that used to be available to them. So, aside from using some external program to assist, there is a hard cap on player efficiency. Granted, the majority of combat xenomorph sub-species lack the complexity to really gain much from macros now. But the more complex and higher tier xenomorphs will never be able to play to the limits of the engine. They'll be limited to the speed of navigating the GUI interface.

On the USCM side, the restriction of general coms has increased squad cohesion. If you agree that capturing is only plausible when xenos have the numerical advantage in a situation, then increased squad cohesion could explain why capturing has become more uncommon recently. Alongside the implementation of the CASEVAC mechanics that has greatly reduced the length of supply lines directed towards medbay, situations where xenomorphs have enough advantage to effectively capture intact or stabilized hosts are fairly rare now.

In conclusion, no single, recent, visible change is probably responsible for the recent streak of marine wins. Its either the system settling in response to changes from weeks ago, or shadow tweaks that the devs are using to stage an upcoming change.

[Renomaki]

If you ask me, I think that recent metas might also be contributing to a large streak of marine wins.

It has become a reoccurring event where marines (mostly delta from what I been hearing) would go out of their way to get themselves an AP Ammo Box pre-deployment, which they could carry around on their belt and often share with fellow squadmates to provide them a considerable amount of AP ammo that normally was not as plentiful (one box of AP ammo is enough to fully refill 20 AP magazines, which is a lot of armor piercing lead). Combine that with quickfire mods, and suddenly marines are able to completely CRUSH any resistance that comes their way.

This meta no doubt has contributed to the struggles xenos now face, where back then AP was an uncommon threat, now it is become almost the norm for them and the war of attrition has been flipped around, it now being the xenos that tire themselves out trying to whittle down the marine offence when back then it was the marines expanding a great deal of resources to besiege a xeno hive.

I don't even think airstrikes or mortars are used all that much anymore, people just gather loads of AP and let it do all the work now. No doubt, this is going to lead to some unpleasant nerfs in the future, and I'd hate to see the salt that comes of such a thing.

As for queens, I honestly wish that they weren't so quick to shed their Ovi. I believe it should be a last resort or endgame event to shed their ovi and abandon their tactical power for pure brute force, but these days it seems that xenos are relying more on screeches than ever. I played 3 queen rounds as of late, and only ever won one of them without shedding my ovi. I really wish that there would be more incentive to be an ovi queen rather than a screaming charger all the time, moreso since shedding the ovi can hurt the hive in the long run if you stay out of it too long.

[TheMaskedMan2]

Honestly it's at the point where AP and Quickfires give a rifle more damage and faster firerate than a smartgun. Give all of Delta that, one magazine per Marine, an AP ammo box on their belt, and you have neverending AP spam at rapidfire that can melt an Elite crusher in seconds.

[Kesserline]

Just relaying you there : Global discussion on wirates shits"]viewtopic.php?f=64&p=185714#p185714

We just made 2 USCM major without AP or at least with only 5% of ammo used during the round as AP. (Commander and RO refused to give AP, and AP was only issued during final pushes/deathflanks in such small quantity than only 2 to 3 marines of the entire platoon were issued with AP)

AP is not the source of the problem, it's a great QoL for marines. But, the source of Xenos defeats lie in Xenos leadership, that or the playerbase itself.

[Aestel]

AP is not the source of the problem, it's a great QoL for marines. But, the source of Xenos defeats lie in Xenos leadership, that or the playerbase itself.

Too many lone-wolf uncoordinated t3s, and hunters that would rather kill lone targets trying to be the next Symbiosis than capture to make the hive larger.

Also just an unrobustness of T3/T2 players in general. The queen really needs a way to whitelist evolutions among the hive, that way you can make sure the bald afker in the corner doesn't take one of your precious starting T2/T3 slots.

[misto]

a confluence of factors

marines are learning and becoming better players, more aggressive, less FF, better use of their tools and weapons, less fear. and because there are a lot more marine players, that's a lot more people learning and gaining experience. they don't melt away when the queen screeches, they realize that it means her screech is on a cooldown now and that they need to push back hard.

bad habits on the xenos part also contribute, such as extreme habitual slaughter of capturable hosts. this particular bad habit was worsened by the bad inclusion of free larva appearing. even so, good opportunities for capture come up less often as marines improve their discipline and teamwork.

finally, some mechanical changes from over the past few months, such as hivemind turning off when queen dies(the team panics and gets themselves killed at that point), needing to lie down to heal unlike in the old days, and less roundstart xeno player population also add up.

[AverageSpitter]

I noticed a lot of the xeno mains have been busy lately this week. At least a lot of the names I remember off head of being, 'very dangerous hunter.'

Does 'very dangerous spitter' come to mind? :^)

[AverageSpitter]

a confluence of factors

marines are learning and becoming better players, more aggressive, less FF, better use of their tools and weapons, less fear. and because there are a lot more marine players, that's a lot more people learning and gaining experience. they don't melt away when the queen screeches, they realize that it means her screech is on a cooldown now and that they need to push back hard.

bad habits on the xenos part also contribute, such as extreme habitual slaughter of capturable hosts. this particular bad habit was worsened by the bad inclusion of free larva appearing. even so, good opportunities for capture come up less often as marines improve their discipline and teamwork.

finally, some mechanical changes from over the past few months, such as hivemind turning off when queen dies(the team panics and gets themselves killed at that point), needing to lie down to heal unlike in the old days, and less roundstart xeno player population also add up.

Can confirm, I'm fucking tired of xenos slashing the shit out of easy captures that aren't even smartgunner or specs

[Jonesome]

Are you sure it's not the reduction of round-start larva for xenos?