Xeno Mutator discussion

[Butlerblock]

i feel like there’s always salt in every single update/balance change for either side. like cmon guys calm down for a couple balance cycles before you go up in arms against the poor devs

[spookydonut]

The current iteration does not make xenos more fun to play, it does not change their gameplay.

Nothing fun has changed, you just slash harder, or run faster. Fundamentally, the update is uninspired, unfun, and lame. Balance wise, it is whack, but xenos are not more fun to play.

It's just going to cause an arms race of ever more powerful sides with past highlights being one shot rpg kills, one shot tank kills, crusher tackle + stomp, etc.

[Pseudomaniac]

There's a big problem with the faster pulling upgrade right now balance wise.

The original buff for pulling speed for runners and sents was fine, their squishy health pool meant that you could return fire at them if they tried to abduct a marine, hopefully 'persuading' the xeno to drop them, potentially critting them if they were too ballsy.

With the pulling upgrade, good luck with that. The upgrade for T1 seems to completely remove the penalty allowing for young runners to get massive amounts of distance when pulling someone. Meaning if they get a lucky tackle, they can pull a marine frighteningly quickly into a posse of 5 xenoes, and good luck escaping that even with a mag harness shotgun.

Faster pulling is also a big problem for T2's as well, while it isn't as big a buff as it is for the T1's, with their bigger health pool they can get away with abductions much more easily, and with a spitter you can much more safely neuro-kidnap someone since most marines are reluctant to charge at you once you're safely behind 3-4 xenoes (not to mention those 3-4 xenoes may be helping with tackles/neuro/slashing) . The same also applies with a hunter managing to get a tackle on someone.

It also makes rescuing downed xenoes far less risky, with the same points applying as before, you're much more rapidly out of the danger zone.

Speed is also another issue, while you can only get two levels (one personal, one queen) it makes a big difference for sentinels and spitters (and even drones if they're aiming to directly facehug), since when before being chased could be a big problem as a non wielding marine was just as fast as you, now you've got that edge to outrun them and hopefully get to weeds where they'll probably give up.

I've also seen armour be an issue for defenders, an ancient defender with queen warding pheromones seems to be able take a massive amount of punishment (as in withstanding large amounts of AP fire, mixed in with normal bullets) with armour and health upgrades, and I'm not sure I want to consider what that means for crushers.

IMO mutators should be sidegrades, not upgrades, or instead the armour/health/speed increases from upgrading should be purely be determined by mutators, so a xeno can choose whether they want to be faster at an expense of health ect..

[chocolate_bickie]

So much marines salt. It's almost like being stopped on by unbalanced mechanics is unfun. But hey 'get gud' am I right?

[AkaBinxstar]

So much marines salt. It's almost like being stopped on by unbalanced mechanics is unfun. But hey 'get gud' am I right?

.......what?

[carlarc]

making mutators sidegrades is a much better alternative to just brainlessly making them straight upgrades without giving the marines anything in exchange

maybe speed and pulling makes you weaker, health makes you slower, slash decreases tackle chances, etcetera

[chocolate_bickie]

.......what?

Xeno mutators are basically a massive buff to xenos, which they needed for some time. Xenos have been improving to compensate for being weaker than marines but this in turn has locked them into playstyles and, for drones atleast, actions they HAVE to carry out otherwise xenos WILL lose.

This isn't fun and leads to people stop playing xenos because it's repetitive and gives so little freedom.

Mutators give xenos a lot more flexibility now. Marines are complaining because they now have to learn to work together rather than what they have been doing for some time which is just sending waves of soldiers in the xenos direction.

I don't quite understand what confused you. Was it how much I enjoy salty marine tears?

Tl;dr: ........What?

[TheMaskedMan2]

I'd argue runners definitely shouldn't be able to have the drag speed upgrade. Especially since they already have their drag speed better than other Xenos, increasing that further is just some big old fashioned japery.

Besides the drag speed I wouldn't say any of the Mutators alone are blatantly overpowered but it is an across the board buff and to be frank a little boring, hopefully you add more actually interesting mutators to differentiate further. I've long said that I would prefer you leave the straight stat changes to the maturity system, and leave mutations to sort of sidegrades and attachments.

[Sleepy Retard]

I'll say as I said before, the Xeno Mutator update is lame, uninspired, and how it functions, it ruins the balance completely.

Individually, knocking the 'Drag speed' aside the upgrades are poor. The main issue is stacking them to high hell and back, which is the only way to play them, really.
Now, contrary to the appearance this was not meant for min maxing. It's to show the problem. You see a pattern? Speed is necessary for several castes. After that, you will notice a lot of damage traits for the combat castes. For sentinel castes, you'll notice some things. Drag speed for the first two, so they can neuro spam and drag the person back, and then slash him. There are two outliers. Boiler, and the Prae. The Boiler doesn't really benefit overall from anything besides speed and the extra gas, and the prae takes upgraded pheros to make it so can be better all round, even more so. We've met the FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM WITH STATISTICAL UPGRADES.

Does any of this look fun? Does this make the game more fun for you? No, it doesn't. This makes it worse. It's a terrible power creep, overall, because the marines will either need something to match it, or the xenos will need this nerfed. Mutators will either make the base xeno much stronger, or the base xeno will become much weaker, and the mutators will make the xenos their old strength.

Where did I get this data from? Personal observation, from me playing, and asking xeno mains what they took, for what castes. Unfortunately, with these upgrades, marines have to play extremely well to counter this. If I can break a bone in one slash, or kill someone in three slashes, there needs to be some suicidal plays to counter this. How does this make gameplay turn out? Meta rushes, which is the exact opposite of what devs want. These upgrades need to be SIDEGRADES, they don't make you better, or worse, they change how you play, they need to make it so you can mutate your abilities, or figure something else out. As it stands, this just makes xenos stronger, and does not address the HUGE problem xenos have.

XENOS ARE NOT FUN TO PLAY.

Statistical buffs do not make this better.

[Butlerblock]

-snip-

Why min-max when you can two xeno stomp the marines?:

► Show Spoiler

The Speed of Light Tank Instastun Carrier:
Requirements:
Hivelord: Only upgrade pheromones
Carrier: Upgrade speed once, then only upgrade HP
Bonus; Queen: Have queen only hive upgrade pheromones and give carrier leader with warding pheromones. Queen allows for Carrier itself to emit recovery for protection against Sadar and Grenades.

Have Hivelord emit frenzy and have Carrier emit warding(Assuming no Queen assistance). Have Hivelord follow Carrier while Carrier runs up to marines and slaps huggers on them with little to no counterplay. If Queen is giving assistance, extreme warding pheromones allow Hivelord to run behind Carrier and wall off marines while Carrier does it’s thing.

Have Hivelord and Carrier target head, after Carrier slaps on the huggers, have Hivelord and Carrier slash head a couple times for broken head(Make sure not to kill, only slash enough for broken head). This forces medics to truly work hard if they want that marine to live. Leads to backing up of medical treatment as you have entire squads of marines coming in with larva infections, broken heads, blindness, brain damage, and IB

[Bancrose]

I'll say as I said before, the Xeno Mutator update is lame, uninspired, and how it functions, it ruins the balance completely.

Individually, knocking the 'Drag speed' aside the upgrades are poor. The main issue is stacking them to high hell and back, which is the only way to play them, really.
Now, contrary to the appearance this was not meant for min maxing. It's to show the problem. You see a pattern? Speed is necessary for several castes. After that, you will notice a lot of damage traits for the combat castes. For sentinel castes, you'll notice some things. Drag speed for the first two, so they can neuro spam and drag the person back, and then slash him. There are two outliers. Boiler, and the Prae. The Boiler doesn't really benefit overall from anything besides speed and the extra gas, and the prae takes upgraded pheros to make it so can be better all round, even more so. We've met the FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM WITH STATISTICAL UPGRADES.

Does any of this look fun? Does this make the game more fun for you? No, it doesn't. This makes it worse. It's a terrible power creep, overall, because the marines will either need something to match it, or the xenos will need this nerfed. Mutators will either make the base xeno much stronger, or the base xeno will become much weaker, and the mutators will make the xenos their old strength.

Where did I get this data from? Personal observation, from me playing, and asking xeno mains what they took, for what castes. Unfortunately, with these upgrades, marines have to play extremely well to counter this. If I can break a bone in one slash, or kill someone in three slashes, there needs to be some suicidal plays to counter this. How does this make gameplay turn out? Meta rushes, which is the exact opposite of what devs want. These upgrades need to be SIDEGRADES, they don't make you better, or worse, they change how you play, they need to make it so you can mutate your abilities, or figure something else out. As it stands, this just makes xenos stronger, and does not address the HUGE problem xenos have.

XENOS ARE NOT FUN TO PLAY.

Statistical buffs do not make this better.

I second this.

[NethIafins]

We will do something with all this soon.

Unfortunately it's either revert or wait for approval and testing for a fix, so might not be as soon as those big letters want

[Sleepy Retard]

We will do something with all this soon.

Unfortunately it's either revert or wait for approval and testing for a fix, so might not be as soon as those big letters want

Unfortunately, as I said, mutators do nothing to alleviate the xeno issue, they just make them stronger. I don't expect a fix for weeks, if not months.

[NethIafins]

Unfortunately, as I said, mutators do nothing to alleviate the xeno issue, they just make them stronger. I don't expect a fix for weeks, if not months.

fix for xenos? dunno. Depends on your style of play and level of skill

fix for mutators? oh it will be pretty soon

[CABAL]

fix for xenos? dunno. Depends on your style of play and level of skill

fix for mutators? oh it will be pretty soon

I guess it's about "fun" when playing as xenos. Mutators don't give any gimmicks, they are all stat changes/boosts.

I guess you can be godly lurker that is able to fight and kill four marines at the time while only being mature, but this is only one cycle that repeates itself. Hide in darkness, wait/patrol for small groups of marines, attack, slash, retreat, heal, repeat.
For drone it's: Shit weeds, walls, nests and sticky untill you are elder/mature, then go to the battlefield and try to combat hugg, or shit more weeds, walls, nests and sticky, but now under fire.
For rav it's: Wait for good moment/rush, pounce, retreat, pounce, retreat, heal, pounce, retreat, repeat.

What stat boosts are giving to the experience? "Oh... Neat! Now I have to put less effort to kill marines than I had to before! I'm faster, I have more armor, I have more dmg, I have better tackles, I have more HP!

I found my niche for playing xenos. I only go defender to serve as bodyguard for any xenos that is vulnerable (boilers and cocky queens). It's kinda cool and I think it's the HRP equivalent for xenos despite you are not writing nearly anything.

Nothing else gives that "vibe" of teamwork on the side of xenos. No fun, atleast for me. I guess some can enjoy mindless clicking.

[Gnorse]

I agree. While the idea of customizing your xeno is fun, I'd argue that they need new, better mechanics instead of plain stat boosts.

There's also the larva infusion thing that I absolutely hate but it's probably salt so whatever.

[Butlerblock]

tbh if you just ignore winning it allows for some pretty gimmicky rounds, but everyone's just gonna abuse them to hell

A few I've thought of:
Pacist runner: Don't slash, grab, or tackle a single marine the entire round. Take speed, drag speed, and HP. Serve as a savior for any downed or injured sisters. Ensure that no xenos die.

Annoying hivelord: Take speed and HP. Run around and place weed piles and piles of walls inbetween marine sections. Speed allows for getting away without being ran down by marines and sneakily placing walls. Hope that queen upgrades speed or pheromones(for your own frenzy)

Support Queen: Only upgrade pheromones, encourage people to go Prae other strong pheromone emitters. Laugh as your entire xenoforce have extremely powerful warding and frenzy pheromones.

Also the above post of "totally not meta carrier-hivelord duo"

[Boersgard]

It's only been about 1-2 days since the update has been implemented, obviously there's going to be a lot of benos because there's a lot of players wanting to test out the update.

That is NOT a balance concern, it'll happen with any update in any game, which will sort itself out in a couple of days

People are playing xenos because they're OP, not because they want to "test out the update"

[Ketrai]

Hivelord : Upgrade nothing but plasma. Yes it increases regen. Become the ultimate resin dispenser.

[xXen0zS1ay3rXx]

fix for xenos? dunno. Depends on your style of play and level of skill

fix for mutators? oh it will be pretty soon

Nerfed into useless like so many beano buffs before it? Ah well it was fun while it lasted.

Sorry I mean 'fixed' into 'balance'dness

[AkaBinxstar]

Nerfed into useless like so many beano buffs before it? Ah well it was fun while it lasted.

Sorry I mean 'fixed' into 'balance'dness

Fun for whomst've

[TrollerNoob]

People are playing xenos because they're OP, not because they want to "test out the update"

Almost like when warrior made it's debut or the tank did. You seemed to miss the entire point, and literally enforced what I said - they're playing because of the update.

[Solarmare]

Speed overall can have too much of an effect on the game as a mutation, toning down xenos normal gain of stats from maturing to make the choice of preferred stat could also help.

[kastion]

i knew they wouldnt give it any real testing. They wont acknowledge that there are just too many xenos right now and that marines have had absolutely no time to adapt whatsoever, they just gonna bring out the nerf bat. This dev team never dissapoints.

[kastion]

Speed overall can have too much of an effect on the game as a mutation, toning down xenos normal gain of stats from maturing to make the choice of preferred stat could also help.

no that wont help at all and will lead to xenos being even more useless than they were before. base stats shouldnt be touched to compensate for mutations because then when you dont take the mutation you ar ejust shittier than before. I know its going to happen because this dev team is trash but it shouldnt.