Xeno Mutator discussion

[Garrison]

What if we removed the queens screech and made it so she could get it back as a mutation? Would help establish a difference between a Commander Queen and a Combat Queen. (But leave all other mutators the way they are)

This is pretty big proposal since the screech is a powerful siege breaker/show stopper. But if the Queen decides she doesn't want to fight unless absolutely necessary. Might be an idea to make it so she can capitalize on hive wide mutations such as maturity and extra leaders/t2-3 slots.

Or if the Queen doesn't have much faith in her children she can roll screech, infusion and combat stats and lead the charge against the hosts once the higher tier Xenos are established.

[Steelpoint]

The main issue with this concept, and one that is being demonstrated, is that certain 'mutators' have essentially become mandatory to pick. Speed is one of the more common picks.

I have to wonder the justification for this system when you could've made the xenomorphs start with their mutators and there would be little difference.

If we're trying to aim for a 'tf2' style of sidegrades, then offering people MORE SPEED or MORE DAMAGE without some kind of downside is going to lead to the obvious conclusion that everyone is going to take more speed or damage or whatever is meta for that caste every time.

[kastion]

So many of you don't seem to understand that this is supposed to buff the xenos, not sidegrade them. Xenos weren't fine 2 weeks ago like all of you seem to think. Are the buffs too much? maybe, we cant tell because xenos have 2x as many players as they are supposed to and are overwhelming the retarded marine strategy of rush and die that was working for the last 3 months because no one wanted to play xeno.

[StephenNelson]

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.

The Devs have been helpful this entire time. No need to attack them.

[kastion]

The Devs have been helpful this entire time. No need to attack them.

No need, but I want to. What have they done that should give me any confidence at all in them over the last 6 months? Nothing.

[StephenNelson]

No need, but I want to. What have they done that should give me any confidence at all in them over the last 6 months? Nothing.

They rolled out a new map, countless bug fixes, changes to vendors, changes to Almayer Layout, “nightmare” updates, objectives, etc. You’re acting like the winrate before mutators was 90/10 in favor of marines. I agree that people are overreacting to this but c’mon man, it HAS ruined the balance. I haven’t played a round since their roll-out that hasn’t been decided by 13:00.

[xXen0zS1ay3rXx]

They rolled out a new map, countless bug fixes, changes to vendors, changes to Almayer Layout, “nightmare” updates, objectives, etc. You’re acting like the winrate before mutators was 90/10 in favor of marines. I agree that people are overreacting to this but c’mon man, it HAS ruined the balance. I haven’t played a round since their roll-out that hasn’t been decided by 13:00.

To be fair he did post before

we cant tell because xenos have 2x as many players as they are supposed to and are overwhelming the retarded marine strategy of rush and die that was working for the last 3 months because no one wanted to play xeno

I feel they should let the changes ride, and wait for their shiney new-ness fade and populations re-stabilize before canning the whole thing due to a few salty comments.

EDIT:Well they ALREADY nerfed them to near uselessness, was anyone timing it? How long have they been out for- 48 hours?

[kastion]

They rolled out a new map, countless bug fixes, changes to vendors, changes to Almayer Layout, “nightmare” updates, objectives, etc. You’re acting like the winrate before mutators was 90/10 in favor of marines. I agree that people are overreacting to this but c’mon man, it HAS ruined the balance. I haven’t played a round since their roll-out that hasn’t been decided by 13:00.

The layout ill give you they did a good job on that, nightmare broke the game with stupid metarushes, objectives do nothing no one even does them, the others are very minor tweaks. Ya the recent win rate isn't 90/10 for marines but a few months ago it was. They broke the game completely with the explosives change and took FOREVER to fix it. Its the only reason they removed the tank which was fucking stupid for months too. Now we have the mini tank called the RPG. When they changed the deploy to 1215 the win rate shot up to 100% marines because they weren't doing shit about the meta rushes FOR WEEKS. So I don't wanna hear this bullshit. Xenos started winning every match when they got double evolution and they nerfed it in 1 day. 1 fucking day. but they take FOREVER for any changes that has marines wooping xeno ass.

The tank was hated by both sides, the larva change is stupid for both sides, its harder to capture and theres more rng and stupid underserved comebacks now and delaying, the layout change was a double edge cause now the last 20 minutes suck but atleast we don't have SD bullshit, im sure theres other things im forgetting. I cant think of one completely positive change in the last 6 months besides very minor things like bug fixes.

[CABAL]

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.

Warrior was OP when he came out. He could steal marines from behind cades, grabbed marine was standing, so warrior was covered from any damage etc.

People are testing shit for round, or two, not whole days.

[kastion]

EDIT:Well they ALREADY nerfed them to near uselessness, was anyone timing it? How long have they been out for- 48 hours?

What did they nerf? Im at work so I cant see it.

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

What did they nerf? Im at work so I cant see it.

[lurkermain]

Those look like reasonable changes to me, RIP hardy weeds tho

[kastion]

My work computer blocks images ;_;

[Cry of Wolves]

My work computer blocks images ;_;

You can now buy each mutator only once.
Extra T2, T3 slots mutator has been removed.
Armor, health, plasma and damage mutators are slightly stronger.
The extra leader slot bonus mutator grants an extra leader slot (a total of +3).
Drag speed mutator is weaker.
Hardy Weeds have been replaced with Faster Weeds. They don't have the HP bonus, but still grow faster and further.

[kastion]

You can now buy each mutator only once.
Extra T2, T3 slots mutator has been removed.
Armor, health, plasma and damage mutators are slightly stronger.
The extra leader slot bonus mutator grants an extra leader slot (a total of +3).
Drag speed mutator is weaker.
Hardy Weeds have been replaced with Faster Weeds. They don't have the HP bonus, but still grow faster and further.

thank you.

So if you can only take each thing once then we need more variety cause isn't there only like 5 or 6 things for each caste? That would mean you pick 4 out of 5 or 6 and no ones picking plasma upgrade (besides maybe hivelord or something) Like I said I have no confidence in this dev team. The entire point of mutators is to give variety to each caste to make 1 spitter different from the next. They completely removed that in 1 day after introducing it. Like what are they even thinking?

also faster weeds is completely useless just remove it. only a lazy retard would pick it and I don't want those lazy retards to beable to pick it. Or give it a bonus to how fast xenos heal on the faster weeds to make it not complete shit.

[NethIafins]

thank you.

So if you can only take each thing once then we need more variety cause isn't there only like 5 or 6 things for each caste? That would mean you pick 4 out of 5 or 6 and no ones picking plasma upgrade (besides maybe hivelord or something)

also faster weeds is completely useless just remove it. only a lazy retard would pick it and I don't want those lazy retards to beable to pick it. Or give it a bonus to how fast xenos heal on the faster weeds to make it not complete shit.

Order is important, but I do see the point

More will come

[kastion]

To be fair I think the extra t2/t3 removal and the drag speed nerf are good changes. I am waiting for speed to get nerfed into the ground surprised that wasn't the first thing. Acid boost is only good for spitter now, cause going from sentinel to spitter acid makes no difference. Pheromones are probably still the best upgrade even if you can only take them once.

[kastion]

Idea for praetorian, a sticky resin upgrade that makes the sticky resin hit the marine and it slows them down like a predator trap and they have to resist for like 3 seconds to get it off. Only like a 15-20% slow not as nuts as the predator trap.

drones can mutate a egg carrying sac likea carrier that holds 1 egg and 1 facehugger. face hugger may be op cause drone could carry facehugger indefinently instead of it dying in their hands. but it does take 1 out of 4 of your mutations.

You could do some cross class mutations, like giving a spitter the ability to get some weak pheromones, or like giving a runner the ability to lay weeds

[CABAL]

Idea for praetorian, a sticky resin upgrade that makes the sticky resin hit the marine and it slows them down like a predator trap and they have to resist for like 3 seconds to get it off. Only like a 15-20% slow not as nuts as the predator trap.

Without sidegrade that would reduce total amout of this to like 4-6 by single preatorian and with cooldown of 15 seconds between each it would be pretty unfair and unfun to fight. I can imagine situation where preatorian would just spam it everywhere, or would escape from damage and shit this behind.

Better give his sticky spit option to mutate into the ability to "entagle" marine like makeshift bolas can in other servers, but at the cost of being unable to shit sticky.

[kastion]

Without sidegrade that would reduce total amout of this to like 4-6 by single preatorian and with cooldown of 15 seconds between each it would be pretty unfair and unfun to fight. I can imagine situation where preatorian would just spam it everywhere, or would escape from damage and shit this behind.

Better give his sticky spit option to mutate into the ability to "entagle" marine like makeshift bolas can in other servers, but at the cost of being unable to shit sticky.

Maybe I explained it poorly but that's what I meant give his sticky spit the ability to shoot marines and slow them. Not marines walk on the spit on the ground and get stuck.

[FGRSentinel]

When they changed the deploy to 1215 the win rate shot up to 100% marines because they weren't doing shit about the meta rushes FOR WEEKS. So I don't wanna hear this bullshit. Xenos started winning every match when they got double evolution and they nerfed it in 1 day. 1 fucking day. but they take FOREVER for any changes that has marines wooping xeno ass.

Part of why this was nerfed so fast, I think, was because it essentially made fighting planet/stationside a foregone conclusion: Marines would always be forced to evac by 13:00 and be wiped from the Almayer by about 13:15 if they were lucky. The only way for Marines to win on Almayer would have been to essentially make it a reverse-Ice situation where they wait to see where the Alamo landed and then completely abandon whatever deck it landed on to fortify all the ladders and wait out the timer.

Meanwhile on the ground it seemed like most strategies people were trying out were simply to fortify the FOB as much as humanly possible and letting the xenos slam against them, something that potentially people could arguing is metagaming since the strategy only works if Marines never set foot outside the FOB, even if they don't see any xenos until the 12:40 siege... Or resort to the officially metagaming tactic of rushing the hive with everything they have to take out as many xenos as they could as fast as possible. In both cases, this still relies on Marines being able to kill a xeno before a Runner dragged their downed sister away at light speed, which made any real counterplay the Marines had completely futile.

[RuAlastor]

Idea for praetorian, a sticky resin upgrade that makes the sticky resin hit the marine and it slows them down like a predator trap and they have to resist for like 3 seconds to get it off. Only like a 15-20% slow not as nuts as the predator trap.

drones can mutate a egg carrying sac likea carrier that holds 1 egg and 1 facehugger. face hugger may be op cause drone could carry facehugger indefinently instead of it dying in their hands. but it does take 1 out of 4 of your mutations.

You could do some cross class mutations, like giving a spitter the ability to get some weak pheromones, or like giving a runner the ability to lay weeds

Prae is strong AF rn, no need to up him even more.
Taking caste abilities to make an ULTIMATE beno is bad

[Build_R_]

The current mutators are really handy, one for opening doors quicker/jumping onto windowsills/moving into tunnels might be nice, maybe dexterity?

[kastion]

Prae is strong AF rn, no need to up him even more.
Taking caste abilities to make an ULTIMATE beno is bad

How is getting a shitty version of a caste ability gonna make an ultimate xeno?

Prae is strong as fuck but replacing 1 mutator with another isnt gonna magically make him stronger just gonna make him different.

[RuAlastor]

I dont know, but rn, sg feels even worse than before, because warriors with armor mutator can just stand infront of you BC SG and don't give a fuck.
Prae is just something horrible with its sticky, health, neuro. Most of the hive in the beginning insta picks defender just to become prae.
In general, everything else feels decent and fun but requires balance (make marines better, so they can deploy by 12:30 and have chances to win)