Ideas to promote alien play

[apophis775]

1. Queen has the ability to "speed" bursting by using Plasma to push an embryo into stage 4.
2. Decreased evolution time (common xeno complaint is that they wait a long time to get to a higher tier, then get insta-killed)
3. Spawn as human preference (for players who only want to play Xeno)
4. join as Alien (places the player into an SSD alien if one is available)


Round times have been slowly increasing, and people are playing more and more as just marines, then waiting as a ghost instead of playing Xeno.

Earlier today, I saw a round with 14 Xenos, 24 Marines (8 of which were infected and a whole SCORE of infected monkeyhosts) and 30+ ghosts. Each time a xeno would die, it would be reborn quickly. The issue is that the marines would just ghost when nested, or have prefs off to not get force-burst.

Also, for marines, Perhaps a one-time-use "reinforcement shuttle" which would be a shuttle that arrives 2 hours into the round and gives ghosts an opportunity to respawn as marines. (this would be seperate from the distress team, and would be filled with generic marines wearing uniforms and no gear).

[Infernus]

2. Decreased evolution time (common xeno complaint is that they wait a long time to get to a higher tier, then get insta-killed)
I'm fine with this as long as there is a limit to tier 3 xenos.

[TR-BlackDragon]

Eh. Limiting tear 3's wouldn't really promote alien play though either

[Lostmixup]

I wouldn't so much say buff the alien, but to give them more options in terms of how they want to play. A large problem at the moment is that xeno's always end up in the same place doing the same thing every time, making it very samey when playing xeno. *On the Nostromo the queen had at least some options as to what to do, some more effective than others mind you, but still they had options making them fun. Traveling back and forth between the northern caves and the southern complex probably isn't that fun either considering the distance between the caves and the complex; if it isn't fun for marines I imagine it can't be too fun for xeno's either.

Also one suggestion I really liked was letting the aliens have universal OOC names for when they die so they can be recognized for what they've done rather than treated as a faceless Alien. Perhaps favoritism isn't exactly the most hive mindish thing for the xenos to do, but it will certainly make people play them more often.

[apophis775]

The problem is that, when an alien evolves, it's name is newly generated.

Then again... I might have a solution for that...

Maybe as a larva, they have a verb to pick a name one-time, then that name sticks with them?

HMMMMM

[Lostmixup]

The problem is that, when an alien evolves, it's name is newly generated.

Then again... I might have a solution for that...

Maybe as a larva, they have a verb to pick a name one-time, then that name sticks with them?

HMMMMM

That could work. You could have them set it out of game in the player set up screen as well. It could just be linked to the human character they choose.

[Ordukai]

Alternatively, you could have them pick a number, maybe, bound to their CKEY? I don't really want to have to start policing xeno names as well, honestly. I mean, otherwise you have players "Stealing" names, if they pick it whenever they're a larva.

EX: Alien Hunter "Joe Shmoe" pisses off another alien, so when he dies he joins as "Joey Shmoe" (Or even "Joe Shmoe" if the code allows it).


And if the code DOES disallow it, how soon before we get an ahelp saying "Hey. Ayy Lmao is MY name I had it first, yesterday!"


Worse, imagine the hype train for a particular name among the xenos. "Joe Shmoe" and "Joey Shmoe" and "Joe Shmoey". Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if a queen at some point orders that all larvas have a name similar to "_____". Would be exceedingly confusing.

[Feweh]

I've suggested this before, but the main reason a lot of people don't play Xeno is because it's a faceless position.

People want to be recognized for what they do in-game, it's why pick stick with the same character every round instead of randomly generating a name.

The same need's to apply for Xeno's.
Xeno players come across well known Marine players and it changes their strategy... I might see Joseph Skinner and decided as a Xeno it's best to not attack him in a traditional manner.
The same need's to apply for Marine's when they see certain well known Xeno players... Is it Meta that you change strategy based upon someone's in-game name? Well yes of course... but it's little things like this that promote players to play a certain class or character.

People have 0 attachment to Xeno's because it's a faceless position that has no rewards socially.

One smaller issue I've noticed is how useless Hivelord's have become.... people are constantly ghosting out of them and NO ONE wants to play a SSD Hivelord. Honestly, all they can do is a dug tunnels and build walls. They need their acid back and at least have a greater supporting role.... perhaps they could be the one's to boost plasma gain for the alien's.

[Caryl]

Or... How about give the Queen a Command allowing her to name that particular alien herself. So that the entire hive and her can call that alien by THAT name.

[FatalEYES]

An interesting idea from Caryl, and something that I've seen before. Admins have renamed aliens before on request. If I remember right, it was because the Queen felt that they deserved some distinction from the other aliens due to the fact that they were doing so well as drones building the hive. I remember one was named "Steve". It actually went over rather well, from what I saw. The main issue I'd have with this is the fact that the humans would be fighting aliens that are literally labeled as names instead of "generic alien". Take this for example. "Joseph Skinner skinner has shot Steve with the bullet in the head!". It feels a bit odd and immersion breaking. Maybe if we make it so only the aliens see the names? Just a thought.

[Feweh]

Youd do it like this..

Runner Steve
Drone Steve
Ravager Steve

You could make rules that it has to be something nicknamey like...

Runner Scar
Runner Acid
Runner Blade

Something like that.

[Meww]

I've before had a little fun as queen by letting some choose 'names' which i memorized and called them (jamba was the brave hunter who went on a sulaco rampage- hopefully there'd be rules for names. maybe a theme?) and i think they enjoyed it. I'm all for aliens getting recognition, some of them are scary good and i want to compliment them but the numbers change with each evolution so its hard to give some accolades.

[apophis775]

All this stuff was done...