Different alien evolution style?

[KingKire]

So, i was cruising the dead chat i heard someone reply that the "best meta for aliens is to AFK and wait to evolve".

I havent done a full overview of how aliens play, since usually ill ghost over marines instead of aliens during the start of rounds but that does beg the question, is the statement mentioned true?

I do know that there needs to be a balance between attacking humans and waiting for higher evolution's, but is it possible that just "waiting" to evolve out might be both a too passive and too rewarding gameplay function?

A possible suggestion that ive been thinking of would possibly be to better link alien evolution with combat. I.E, Aliens who fight more Evolve faster vs. those that focus on waiting out the storm. Im not quite sure how one could quantify that (possibly giving a boost to the evolution speed for attacking hosts or being nearby uninfected hosts? This section definitely needs help suggestions).

This would serve to be a possibly more balancing feature, rewarding aliens who are good and effective at combat/survival with those more useful evolution's, while alien players who lack robustness would evolve slower. Essentially a good risk/reward factor that also encourages more aggressive gameplay from the aliens part if they wish.

Now, theres some small questions that pop up on the side, such as what about drones/queens? and im not sure how one could answer those. it would likely tie into how we would gauge a more aggressive/active xeno player from a passive one.

Im looking for:
-possible gameplay discussion of what this change might result if it did go through.
- How one could tell the difference between active/passive xeno players.
- would this even be a good suggestion to make?
- opinions from higher end staff on the state of xeno gameplay.
-opinions from players on the state of xeno gameplay.

[Casgair]

I guess there's some truth to that about upgrading, but for evolutions those slots can fill up pretty fast.

My own thoughts about combat to evolution is it would heavily favor the runner caste while making it difficult to impossible for others, aside from the difficulties in coding such a system. One could go by -actions- (like how many spits spit, slashes slashed, walls resined), but whatever system you come up with, someone is going to figure out how to game it. With the cycle ticks, passively waiting it out in some ways is beneficial to the Marines -- one less alien to deal with.

Sure, you get more robust with time (and going from Young Runner to Mature or Hunter isn't necessarily a bad idea), but if a significant portion of the hive is just sitting on their laurels it's going to affect the ground game on the xeno side. It's also a more straightforward progression that can't be gamed to go any faster than it does already, which IMO is a fairly balanced way to go about it.

[KingKire]

Alright i could definitly understand basic evolutions and how that would be a problem, but what about in regards to maturity? i think that one tends to be a more difficult piece to the puzzle, but i could be wrong. I might be blowing this problem out of proportion as is.

The benefits i could see from this would be that aliens are no longer gated to being barred from elite/ancient alien status if they didnt start right from the beginning, instead having that title be more of a showmanship of skill then of "staying alive". Those ranks would be rewarded to players who played the best, instead of players who played the longest. But, i could see some problems with that.


Players already play xeno well tend to live long enough to see their status go up to older ranks, but it might be better to have a more narrowed and faster evolving focus.

A big thing i tend to see when i ghost is that marines would have a small number of young aliens scouting around the colony, then once the clock strikes around 1:00, the alien force would leave the hive in masse with a full number of t-3's, full number of t-2's with mature/possibly elites, and a decent number of mature/elite/young t-1's.

When i look at that from a gameplay view, it seems a little unbalanced and not in a fun way. When i think of aliens, i think of this swarm of small t-1's/ t-2s during the opening scene that just rip into the squads. its fast, its furious, its chaotic, but reasonable. The marines have a chance. they lost a several of their squad, but they can regroup and take this situation under control. Then you start to see that the marines are outnumbered, this aint gonna be an easy fight by any shot. The aliens just keep pouring out like a bucket filled with holes. Thats when i feel like you should then see those teir-3's, those ancients, the big "oh shit" moments that really make a story hit its crescendo.

Right now, i feel like were putting alot of the alien punch right into the first hour of gameplay, blowing all the load of the story right in the first act. Hopefully with a more "action" based evolution curve, you can have a more genuine build up of tension for the marines instead of everything, all at once.

[Toroic]

It is a complex issue but I would strongly disagree that the best strategy is to simply AFK. For starters, I am generally collecting monkeys at the beginning of the round until halfway until tier 3. At that point I do take on a more cautious and conservative strategy simply because of how weak Young tier 3 are, moving into a more aggressive stance once reaching mature.

I would even go as far to say that the type of person to just waits is probably not robust enough to do anything but die once combat really starts. If you are not skilled enough to contribute at least somewhat my expectation is that you will fully waste the slot.

[KingKire]

well, its not that alien players "AFK" per se, but they tend to play a very cautious and defensive style while they wait for their evolutions to kick in, after which, there is a massive aggressive push, sort of a massive combat escalation that comes out of nowhere for marines.

As for people who are unskilled who take teir 3 slots, maybe having a more proactive form of evolution will put more focus on those with above average skills in above average places.

For example, lets say currently, aliens evolve 1 point every second, until 500 seconds later they evolve.

Under a new system, maybe aliens who "afk" evolve at 20% slower rate, while aliens who play very aggresive/well evolve at 50% faster rate. This would passively put the best slots into the best hands for an aliens team, not only rounding out how good/bad an alien team can be, but giving a good reward for maintaing the theme of aliens. You also wouldnt have to always be crazy, you could go ham for a little while, then take a breather without losing out on much.

[Sailor Dave]

I think it would be interesting to see the consequences of a potentially more aggressive hive that depended on fighting to grow. Xenos may put themselves into more dangerous situations for the sake of faster evolution. It's difficult to say what qualifies as fighting for some castes, like boilers. Just hitting people with your acid/loogies? I'm not sure.

[Casgair]

I agree that a system that encourages alien engagement that allows mid-round joiners to move up the ranks a bit faster sounds nice, but it does seem like something that would be difficult to put metrics to, and more difficult to code.

[Swagile]

Yeah, during the no hugger combat test, we had 6 crushers who evolution by evolution just camped nest and then rushed LZ1 the moment they went Young T3, blocking up the slots for the Runners / Hunters who were actually collecting monkeys.

Was pretty shit to watch.

[KingKire]

So to put another related tangent down, i believe CM has a huge pacing problem.
-This is causing players to metagame.
-You can see this right from the start:
>marines eat quickly because
>marines need to grab gear because
>RO will close down because
>Marines need to be briefed because
>Marines need to launch because
>FOB needs to be built because
> Aliens will evolve to X at Y time. No exceptions except death.

If at anytime any of these steps are slightly fumbled, the marines will have an excessively harder time.
Marines have locked it down that, if marines are to stand a decent chance of fighting aliens, they NEED to be at the planet by 12:20-12:30.
The only way to stop this essentially auto-lose condition for marines is if they come at that time.

Now, im not saying that marines "will" lose to the aliens, or that it will be a curb stomp in the aliens favor. Things like skills of the playerbase and luck of the cards also have influence in victory.
BUT, the chances of marines being in a brutal losing scenario greatly increase with the difference of a few minutes of time. This seems unreasonable from a gameplay point of view.

Yes, we want the marines to lose 70% of the time. but that chance should not have such a high critical chance on the early moments of game time.

Why is this:
Aliens evolve at a linear rate. It does not change*
-You will be seeing t2's at 12:08
-you will be seeing t3's/mature t2's at 12:20
-you will be seeing mature t3's at 12:45

The ONLY thing that can slow down that clock is if the aliens die.
Marines cannot usually actively hunt down aliens till around 12:45 if they are lucky. If they do so beforehand, they are rightfully called out on metagaming. which is true.


Changing evolution to favor fighting i think would take alot of pressure off this early metagame. Aliens would evolve while in conflict at a faster rate, which means that, yes, marines will still likely have their ass handed to them once the clock hits a certain time.
BUT, this clock now starts!* when the marines hit the planet
(*Aliens still do evolve slowly even without conflict, so marines still cant just completely waste their early game time doing nothing)

Essentially, evolution turned from a linear countdown clock to a slightly exponential countdown clock.


[TLDR BRO!] alien time-based evolution's are partially causing people to metagame "WE NEED TO DEPART NOW!" rasp launches or else its gonna be a bad-day-LA for marinetown.



**Super side-note; why does the queen always pop up so soon to fight battles(I.e the 1st or 2nd main battles of the game). Shes ridiculously powerful, which she should be, but its like the equivalent of opening the armory for the marines before aliens even have a chance to threaten the sulaco. I understand that its important to allow players to have the option for a frontline queen, but when *every*(no exaggeration, every) alien strategy is reliant on having that queen and her screech present, it seems a little too much yah know? I dont know if one should call it powergaming, but there needs to be a better reward for queens who play around the nest and more risk for queens who go to fight (imo of course!)

[Crab_Spider]

The Queen shows up so soon is because the xenos are so dependent on huggers the outcome will be based on multiple factors and her screech has such a long range, it prevents allows the xenos to a few slugs in before returning to the defensive.

This is a strategy that can be countered by raising the strength of guarding pheromones or ... yknow using guarding pheromones.

[TellTale]

why not have it so that when aliens are wounded they get a bonus to evolution rate

its like theyre overcoming their wounds. thats rp or whatever right

[Crab_Spider]

why not have it so that when aliens are wounded they get a bonus to evolution rate

its like theyre overcoming their wounds. thats rp or whatever right

Unfortunately theres a bug where if you knock items off a table by flipping a table you will get hurt and put to 2/8 health, but you're perfectly healthy. This means you can grind your health to evolve

[Blazerules]

Xenomorph FF when

[Crab_Spider]

Xenomorph FF when

Xenomorphs are immune to their own acidic blood and because they have a hive mind, slashing wouldn't work unless the Queen wills it.

[spicemoron]

I agree with most of KingKire's post, this is a medrp server, so roleplay should be encouraged, but you can't foster roleplay when marines are essentially on a timer.


Only idea I have is slowing down evolution (maybe with exceptions for larva and t1 xenos) until the marines come down so at least they aren't punished by a command staff who is incompetent/doesn't know you're supposed to 4pool rush, or some other hold up.

[caleeb101]

One thing is, if Drones were unaffected by this, it would make hivelords and carriers much more common. And one more thing that could be done to make Praetorians more used is make them a t3 evolution of drones (assuming this gets added) but I dunno.