Marine rebalancing v1 Discussion Thread

[kastion]

thanks for respectable and detailed review

I shouldnt have to give you a detailed review on why buffing AP because crusher and queen has high armor is bad for EVERY OTHER XENO IN THE GAME. Its seriously common sense. I pointed out weeks ago that yall were going to add shit to counter mutators without even thinking about what happens when you DONT take that mutator. Shouldnt have given crushers armor mutator if you were worried about armor being too high. Now when they dont take armor mutator they get fucked up way worse by ap than before so now its must have. All the xenos that dont have high armor as worse off then they were. Seriously this shit is just basic.

[Steelpoint]

Balancing is a work in progress for any game, we cannot expect perfect results.

[CABAL]

I shouldnt have to give you a detailed review on why buffing AP because crusher and queen has high armor is bad for EVERY OTHER XENO IN THE GAME. Its seriously common sense. I pointed out weeks ago that yall were going to add shit to counter mutators without even thinking about what happens when you DONT take that mutator. Shouldnt have given crushers armor mutator if you were worried about armor being too high. Now when they dont take armor mutator they get fucked up way worse by ap than before so now its must have. All the xenos that dont have high armor as worse off then they were. Seriously this shit is just basic.

Look at A-grip. What was changed in shotgun? Longer wielding delay becouse A-grip exist. It's not perfect, but there is something worse than unbalanced gameplay: Hypocrisy. If shotgun can be nerfed becouse attachement: *exist* then AP can be buffed becouse Queen/Crusher armor: *exist*.

Besides:
Xenomains won, you won. It is stated that staff is aiming at 65% -/+% winrates. They can't get that if xenos will lose. Nothing to add from xeno side. They will look at anything that kills xenos.
Xeno man bad.

[KingKire]

anywho, back on track. Im trying out the duel SMGs. curious to see if the damage and accuracy buffs might make them OP or useable (before, they were horrifically inaccurate, as well as weak damage).

I do feel like they are more accurate, so i can actually hit things now. but, the round was a steam roll, so i didnt get much glances beyond the first.

Possible thought:

instead of buffing and nerfing move rates with stock how about accuracy increase with stocks when standing still, and accuracy decrease when moving. That way you can balance stocks intuitively, as well as give stocks the niche for picking them up. (there niche is: pick a stock if you plan on taking pot shots from position to position, rather than moving on the go. You can remove the accuracy debuff if the player is moving at walking speed, to symbolize the player bracing for walking fire,as well as give players an incentive to play from a more reserved position and playstyle.)
(i havent used stocks yet, so word of caution)

[Colonel_Gaddawful]

Just had a super intense round, a multi-hour slog where Xenos just edged out a victory through attrition. Both teams were excellent, marines had good command and logistics, medbay and medics were doing well, defences were excellent. Xeno skirmishers were playing smart and not getting caught, Xeno pushes were well orchestrated, hosts were taken whenever practical no bullshit slashing. Two really good teams, really high pop, perfect test conditions. I'm very happy with the changes I had a lot better time, win/loss isn't decided at the first engagement, instead both teams play tug of war all round now. I'm sure it will need some fine tuning but it is much much closer to target right now.

Of course, this is just one round, but I was struck by how good both sides were playing this round and considered xenos and marines even matched. Despite the marine loss I'm really happy with the balance right now because we really got a chance to make them earn it this time. I hope the salt and hyperbole are kept to a minimum right now because finer balancing is needed, not wild overhauls, don't make mountains out of molehills.

[NethIafins]

Just had a super intense round, a multi-hour slog where Xenos just edged out a victory through attrition. Both teams were excellent, marines had good command and logistics, medbay and medics were doing well, defences were excellent. Xeno skirmishers were playing smart and not getting caught, Xeno pushes were well orchestrated, hosts were taken whenever practical no bullshit slashing. Two really good teams, really high pop, perfect test conditions. I'm very happy with the changes I had a lot better time, win/loss isn't decided at the first engagement, instead both teams play tug of war all round now. I'm sure it will need some fine tuning but it is much much closer to target right now.

Of course, this is just one round, but I was struck by how good both sides were playing this round and considered xenos and marines even matched. Despite the marine loss I'm really happy with the balance right now because we really got a chance to make them earn it this time. I hope the salt and hyperbole are kept to a minimum right now because finer balancing is needed, not wild overhauls, don't make mountains out of molehills.

that was without changes

and round was fun but sloggy

[Saytkl77]

Just had a super intense round, a multi-hour slog where Xenos just edged out a victory through attrition. Both teams were excellent, marines had good command and logistics, medbay and medics were doing well, defences were excellent. Xeno skirmishers were playing smart and not getting caught, Xeno pushes were well orchestrated, hosts were taken whenever practical no bullshit slashing. Two really good teams, really high pop, perfect test conditions. I'm very happy with the changes I had a lot better time, win/loss isn't decided at the first engagement, instead both teams play tug of war all round now. I'm sure it will need some fine tuning but it is much much closer to target right now.

Of course, this is just one round, but I was struck by how good both sides were playing this round and considered xenos and marines even matched. Despite the marine loss I'm really happy with the balance right now because we really got a chance to make them earn it this time. I hope the salt and hyperbole are kept to a minimum right now because finer balancing is needed, not wild overhauls, don't make mountains out of molehills.

That was the sunday evening peak population round. With 200 players, it favors marines, because there are marines pouring into the hive through every opening and every flank. I played xeno and I really liked it.

Most of the games the past week consist of 15 minutes of fighting before its clear xenos have an overwhelming advantage. I played several games as hivelord and built defenses and every single game, the defenses went almost entirely unused because marines were routed almost as soon as they first started approaching the hive (if they weren't wiped before then).

Having these rounds that are close (Which itself causes back and forth) makes it alot more fun even playing as xeno, compared to xeno stomps 24/7, with 15 minutes of fighting and 1-2 hours of setup and cleanup.

[TrollerNoob]

Isn't that the point? Xeno made a mistake, it has to pay. Besides, Warrior can't miss his lunge.
There are plenty ways to prevent simple chain PB's from faster firerate stock: Long wield delay even with a-grip. Better to shit on idea, than try to balance it out, right?

It is possible and imaginable to PB xeno, yet it have to be nearly brainless xeno. In many rounds as a defender, drone or sentinel I died exclusively to PB buckshot. Nothing else was able to stop me. Every single of those deaths was caused by my brainless charge at marines/single marine treating them like they all have M39 and Pulse Rifles only. PB is the only thing to stop brainless charges, otherwise they are effective, atleast to the point of xeno survivability.

You have many arguments for PB in previous posts.

If a Warrior doesn't click a target, their lunge goes on c/d, aka they 'miss', which is what I stated. I've already stated my points, and once again -- a xeno literally needs to be in melee range to slash. Getting clicked once and being sent into the shadow realm isn't necessarily a neat aspect to have. If you think I'm trashing your suggestion, then you're being way too defensive and simple minded.

On another note, the current iteration of the update as of right now has some pretty unique changes. I think regular M39 rounds can be toned down slightly -- they're literally inflicting twice as much damage per bullet than pre-weapon rework regular pulse rounds. And I think if instead, PB buckshot on T3s had a high chance to flicker stun them, but not guaranteed, so castes like Crushers, or even the Queen, won't just completely be shut out from a single click, because their base speed already isn't fast, coupled with the fact they don't have a movement ability that can be used instantly.

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

I really don't think Queen and Crusher should be stunned from PB Buckshot/Slug. It's already bad that they get stunned from SADAR+tank LTB+nade in tight quarters, which make their "stun immunity" and "explosive immunity" worthless; it's worse now that they can get stagger stun to Buckshot/Slug PB which make them easy prey since they can't even try to get out with their shitty movement speed.

[Harrivchaw]

Flechette is still... Not good, doesn't hit anything beyond three tiles, scatters too much just like bucks, don't know about the damage.
Bucks is now better at range beyond one tile, the spray is much more manageable and you can still hit something at four tiles.

Might be biased, but that's what I felt after trying it out on benos and on the shooting range, haven't tried out slug.

[Troika]

Look at A-grip. What was changed in shotgun? Longer wielding delay becouse A-grip exist. It's not perfect, but there is something worse than unbalanced gameplay: Hypocrisy. If shotgun can be nerfed becouse attachement: *exist* then AP can be buffed becouse Queen/Crusher armor: *exist*.

No, this is a false equivalence. There will never be more than 2-3 crushers in a match (and rarely will they ever proceed past mature, due to the high risk nature of the caste), but every Marine can grab a shotgun.

[Boersgard]

I found a lot of people using M39's and dual M39's, and they were pretty good at damage output - frankly better than the M41 because you can run around with them so quickly that it lets you tango with aliens.

Never got to playtest the smartgun buff as an SG, and on the xeno side I never really had a solid encounter with them where I could definitively say if the SG was doing too much damage.

In general I found that a lot more xenos were dying early game, 12:15 - 12:25, than before. Young xenos are much much more vulnerable to marines and you really need to learn to skirmish/attrit rather than play offensively if you aren't mature/elder - this goes even for the T3's. Young T3's kept dropping like flies because players overcommit to attacks and died for it from new marine firepower.

Even with marine buffs, an elder warrior only dies if he makes significant mistakes - my own have been: Standing still on a ladder next to a grenade hoping I'll climb down before it goes off, rather than running. Running up to punch a dual-wielding shotgun user behind a cade only to lose 75% hp and stunned then killed by extra marine shooting. Pushing flanks by myself away from the rest of the hive and off weeds, only to get surrounded and put down to 10% hp, then running away into a completely avoidable single tile of fire that set me on fire.

I still do not like how xenos power-ramp over the course of the game. I've said this in other places, but I feel like the best way to counter earlier marine drops being so effective is to normalize xeno power so that it's fairly consistent over the entire match from start to finish, and not "too weak to fight" to "hahaha I don't even have to care about puny spitters". Xenos are most fun to fight/fight-as when they're around mature-elder with young and ancient in particular feeling too weak and too strong respectively.

[Dauntasa]

changes overall: mostly good
smg+rifle: good, actually semi-useful at range now
Shotgun changes: good but crushers+queen need to immune to the knockdown because it really fucks them over a little too hard.
Scope changes: good but the RPG scope timer wasn't really necessary
stock changes: good, maybe people will actually use them. Paratrooper stock is also very cool.
Bipod: the fire rate change wasn't that noticeable and I think it's unnecessary for it to penalize you when it's folded, the penalty is that you can't take one of the grip attachments which are good all the time
walk intent: it doesn't matter what you do with walk intent, nobody will use it

[Boersgard]

Some more feedback:

Once again used M41A + Vgrip + ext barrel + miniscope + skelestock + Extended mags

This time I was holding tcomms on Ice Colony, put the rifle on burst fire and started firing at anything I could see while we were doing our last stand. Burst fires were very accurate, and the miniscope gave me the range I needed to actually hurt xenos before they closed on me. Only kill I got was on a runner who stood still for some reason (maybe disconnected) - second burst at about 6-8 tiles range put it in crit, third burst killed it. A second runner ate two bursts directly (6 rounds) and ran away. Damage output was good enough to force sentinels, drones, ravagers, runners, and lurkers back. Didn't keep warriors back as much. Also worked really well on the queen because she's slow enough I could put a lot of bursts into her while she ambled forward. Crushers basically ignored the damage like it was nothing. In general burst fires were accurate out to as far as I could see - which I'm not sure how far it is, but out to the last 3 tiles of range a 3 round burst would usually hit with at least 2/3 bullets. Queen up against a FOB with people using this style M41 would need/want either blockers (like defenders or crushers) to absorb hits on closing, gas to push marines off the cade line or something dropping walls to let the queen cut the distance before she starts getting hit.

Speaking of gas - I was hit by a boiler at one point while scoped in, and was so slow I couldn't get out of the gas in time and died (I was quickly revived in the FOB however). Gas is definitely a hard counter against marines using this. You have to put the gun away and run immediately and if you fumble it, you die.

Anyways, a few CAS strikes later and the aliens gave up attacking tcomms and just went for the Alamo. The only kill we had was the aforementioned runner (unless CAS got something we couldn't see). After the aliens left, those of us on tcomms took normandy back to the almayer. When we landed we came across the crashed alamo, I ran inside and came up to a resting ancient drone, which I promptly started burst firing at 1-2 tile range using an AP mag I'd picked up off the ground and not scoping in:

You fire the M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded)! 22/40
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the rifle bullet in the chest!
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the chest!
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the head!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
You fire the M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded)! 19/40
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the chest!
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the right leg!
Jeb 'Outlaw' Williamson is scalded with hissing green blood!
PFC Jeb 'Outlaw' Williamson screams!
The Ancient Drone (160) has been slashed with the M2132 machete by Jeb 'Outlaw' Williamson..
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the left leg!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
The Ancient Drone (160) has been sliced with the M2132 machete by Jeb 'Outlaw' Williamson..
Jeb 'Outlaw' Williamson is scalded with hissing green blood!
PFC Jeb 'Outlaw' Williamson screams!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
You fire the M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded)! 16/40
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the chest!
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the chest!
Jeb 'Outlaw' Williamson is scalded with hissing green blood!
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the chest!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
Unknown (as Evgeny 'Aist' Storkin) pulls Daniel Enigma free from the alien nest!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!
You fire the M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded)! 13/40
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the chest!
The Ancient Drone (160) lets out a waning guttural screech, green blood bubbling from its maw.
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the chest!
Unknown (as Evgeny 'Aist' Storkin) pulls Unknown (as Alma Mitchell) free from the alien nest!
Ancient Drone (160) is hit by the armor-piercing rifle bullet in the chest!
The M41A pulse rifle MK2 (Wielded) is not ready to fire again!

So that's 4 AP Burst fires and two machete slashes to kill an ancient drone. Felt a little bit much from the marine perspective - Imagine having to do this while the drone has a facehugger in its hand, and it's running around instead of standing still...

After this we proceeded to one of the escape pods, and a crusher and carrier attacked us. The carrier immediately facehugged someone, the crusher tanked my burst fires like it was nothing, I accidentally FF'd someone next to me, got one burst in the carrier before also getting facehugged then stomped on and killed.

Overall I think the M41's damage now is okay. The attachments I'm using actually do exactly what I want them to do, the highly accurate burstfires are amazing, but once something's on top of you, you're too slow to dodge/fight and would be much better off with a shotgun or M39. I actually feel like this is how the M41 should just normally be. It feels right. The range advantage from the scope and accuracy buffs from everything gives you the distance advantage the M41 really needs, and it's fairly offset by the movement debuff that puts you at a severe disadvantage when something's close - which prompts wanting to switch weapons to a secondary.

However, as before, single-shot is worthless with this attachment setup. It's only worth firing burst fire and only because the burst fires are very accurate. I think this is a good loadout for FOB defense or when you're leading a push, but not very good when you're in tight spaces with limited visibility/LoS and aliens can get within 7 tiles of you at the start of the engagement.

[Nerlair]

I'm surprised nobody talked about HPR with quick-fire and bipod on flipped table. It fires so fast that my entire chatbox was filled with the logs and as murray said it's a freaking A10.

[kastion]

I'm surprised nobody talked about HPR with quick-fire and bipod on flipped table. It fires so fast that my entire chatbox was filled with the logs and as murray said it's a freaking A10.

I saw murray do it yesterday and was just spraying bullets everywhere hitting nothing. I don't know if they changed it again since then or if he was just having bad luck.

[Ranged66]

I really dislike the grenade timer change.


From a lore perspective: No fucking way would any military ever use grenades with randomly varying timers.

From a balance perspective: Cooking grenades was a med-skill, high risk, high reward option. This is just punishing skill and dumbing shit down unnecessarily. If you mistime it by a second, you and your squad is fucked. If a lurker pounces on you, you're fucked. You need practice to get everything right with manual grenading, this just makes it more likely for you to fuck up.

[Steelpoint]

Cooking grenades is unrealistic to be fair.

The RNG timer was a compromise to discourage cooking, cause I fear the alternative would be further nerfing grenades.

I'd honestly prefer if you simply could not cook grenades, when you activate the grenade the timer won't start until you toss it or drop it, which also gives you a chance to disarm the grenade if you have second thoughts.

[Blade2000Br]

I really dislike the grenade timer change.


From a lore perspective: No fucking way would any military ever use grenades with randomly varying timers.

From a balance perspective: Cooking grenades was a med-skill, high risk, high reward option. This is just punishing skill and dumbing shit down unnecessarily. If you mistime it by a second, you and your squad is fucked. If a lurker pounces on you, you're fucked. You need practice to get everything right with manual grenading, this just makes it more likely for you to fuck up.

This happened because people were abusing then with the "nade box trap" that could gib a elder empress like it was nothing.

[spookydonut]

random nade timers are like almost a year old, what are you all smoking?

[FGRSentinel]

Regarding the chance for shots to miss friendlies on WALK intent: in one of the recent test rounds I moved in front of another Marine while on that intent and ate all three bullets from their burst, basically screwing up my chest and head. I'm not sure how "big" the chances of being missed are, so maybe I was just insanely unlucky or the miss chance is based more on range than anything else and I was too close, but it really sucked being put nearly in paincrit by an SMG.

[Build_R_]

Are SMG AP bullets really strong now? I was an ancient sentinel with two health mutators and an armour mutator and was put into crit by 5 of 'em.

[Nerlair]

Are SMG AP bullets really strong now? I was an ancient sentinel with two health mutators and an armour mutator and was put into crit by 5 of 'em.

Yeah, I heard that even normal SMG bullets on burst can deal a lot of damage to a young warrior

[KingKire]

► Show Spoiler

Regarding the chance for shots to miss friendlies on WALK intent: in one of the recent test rounds I moved in front of another Marine while on that intent and ate all three bullets from their burst, basically screwing up my chest and head. I'm not sure how "big" the chances of being missed are, so maybe I was just insanely unlucky or the miss chance is based more on range than anything else and I was too close, but it really sucked being put nearly in paincrit by an SMG.

Mate, I think that marine was aiming at...you :0

[dasWurmtMich]

I'm surprised nobody talked about HPR with quick-fire and bipod on flipped table. It fires so fast that my entire chatbox was filled with the logs and as murray said it's a freaking A10.

I tried it yesterday too. While is very fun, its not viable with the quickfire. You need a scope to actually hold down long corridors. Otherwise every xeno will just run up to you and neuro/screech/grab/kill you (speed mutators btw) before you can actually kill the xeno.