The State of the Game: Discussion

[Monoo]

In light of recent conversations with a few different people that frequent the server and I consider to have good heads on their shoulders, I'm gonna make this happen right here and right now. I've been wanting to for awhile.

This is not a salt thread, a rant, or a crusade against the staff. I have lots of respect for each of the staff and have taken the staff's side in every one of those threads in the past, or opened another thread to promote civil discussion on the issue. That's what I'm doing here so that any salt can be caught before hand.

I'm going to say what I and many others have been thinking about the state of the game and its direction in the future. I hope this gets a good conversation going so that we as a group can recognize and heal the problems that are starting to surface. Keep it polite in the replies.

Apop and co. have always made RP a high priority in the way they balance the game and say that it's meant to be played. Complain about xenomorphs being OP and you'll be directed here and here. Now, I have nothing wrong with this goal, at all. CM has been an incredible place to roleplay and a unique blend of action, adrenaline, and tender moments that has filled the creative space that was empty in me since I left the freeforums roleplaying scene. But ironically, the staff has somehow made it harder to RP with every update and every balance change.

I'm going to make two points here, one is about the affects of the new balance on RP, and the other about its effects on the overall fun of playing.

In the past, the balance between marines and aliens was more even, though aliens were still strong. The direction a fight would take was uncertain, and so was the fate of the marines. You had more time to interact with your squad and more potential for unique moments. I still remember claiming an abandoned FOB with two people and turning it around into a full fledged army and pushing back the xenos. Situations like that are nearly impossible now because the intended balance decrees that losing is more fun and creates more RP opportunities. The ugly truth is that it does neither of those, but rather causes marines to die before they get a chance to RP and because the entire game now seems to be on rails with one outcome. There are no more stories, because everything is the same. There are no more fun moments because fun was cut off in favor of cinematics. It's like a starship troopers movie without the satire, where none of the characters have chemistry and you're left without the satisfying feeling of actually seeing conflict or struggle. Sure, we have much more advanced mechanics now and fully fledged lore to support roleplay, but the opportunities are gone and everyone is going through the motions. When the Almayer is imploding, aliens are everywhere and admins are playing sad music, I no longer feel moved or connected to the characters as they die. Nobody sacrifices or has reaction to someone else's death, they're just kind of waiting their turn to be fed to the meat grinder so they can maybe do it again and kill an extra young drone next round.

Point two, fun. In its current state, the game is just not as enjoyable as it used to be. Marines die before they can attack back, they are denied last stands and offensive pushes. Their guns shoot confetti and they are consistently punished for thinking creatively. Aliens are boring because they can make mistakes without penalty and can engage larger groups with little fear. The standard game now goes

Marines deploy>scout ahead, die>make a stand at a midpoint, die>go to the FOB, die>retreat to the ship, die

All of which feels forced, robotic, and soulless, not to mention taking half the time it should. There was a round tonight where marines were engaged for thirty minutes before fully retreating at 13:00. Thirty minutes. It occurred to me afterward that I couldn't remember the last time I enjoyed the game.

I understand the devs are working around the clock to fix and balance. I love them for it. But as it stands, the gameplay feels boring and half baked. Playing a round of CM is a usually 2 hour or more commitment, and most people are fairly busy. If it isn't enjoyable, there's little point in playing anyway.

So those are my criticisms. I'm eager to see what everyone else thinks, if I'm just screaming nonsense or not.

Once the thread runs its course I'll be taking a break from CM. It's not my cup of tea at the moment. That being said I love this community and the people in it so I hope that when I come back things are fixed and everyone's happy.

Discuss.

[Nyeshivuu]

Ds1 went down a total of 3 times. 3. 1 going down, 1 for wounded and 1 for retreat. That is a problem. The rounds are way to short and rines get steamrolled EVERY ROUND. I remember as an SO watching the battle and a marine threw a grenade at a hunter, the hunter was on the ground and the marine unloaded at least 7 bullets into it and it got up and ran away, such bullshit. Young Runner (565) slashes a marine's left pinkie, then bullet dances away and the marine is out for at least 20 minutes.
There needs to be something like if a xeno is wounded they move slower so they can't just get up and bullet dance away. I don't know.

[Karmac]

swear to heck if this gets locked

[Nyeshivuu]

Honestly i think the reason why you don't enjoy it right now is because you have been playing for too long, i took a break from this game for 2 weeks and i kinda enjoyed that round, there were good moments for me personally and remember, C R A C K the W H I P?

[NoahKirchner]

I agree with and support your criticisms. This has been what's led me to stop playing myself, the game's lost it's tactics, a lot of the ability to use your brain in a lot of the jobs, like with the supermatter or FOBs, but it has more importantly lost its soul. It has removed a lot of features from base SS13, perhaps in an attempt to distance itself, but SS13's core gameplay is player creativity. Be it through roleplay, neat clown gimmicks or working with your space-nam buddies to ambush the aliens in an unforeseen way, and a lot of that seems to have gone down the drain recently.

Maybe some more things for engineers to do as far as engine-setup, maybe keeping the current changes to engineering, but toning down the costs and build time and adding in more realistic mechanics that end in the same result (Which is old pre-almayer FOBs, which could be defended) For example, have sandbags replace metal tables, some sort of larger barricade replace building walls or girders, but keep the cost low to allow the marines, and more importantly ss13 players to do what they do best, and innovate.

[TheDonkified]

I agree 100% with this. The only way to really "RP" now is to play a crew role, and even then, it's kinda stale. Kinda the same stuff over and over with crew roles, in contrast to marines, who had some more unique things going with them imo.

Marines just really isn't fun any more.

[Garrison]

The only time I can RP as a combat role is during briefing and the scouting phase of deployment. Anything after, I am either dead, or the Aliens are decimating everything, everywhere, and you frantically have to fight and/or run to just stay alive, let alone talk about anything else other then how screwed everyone is.

Xeno's still have to put effort in their game to do well though... that is until you get to T2/3 or evolved to Elite or higher. I don't play Xeno often, but when I do, I often struggle until I get to that point. Perhaps what really needs to be done, is to make Young and Mature Xenos (especially T1's) stronger, but weaken Elite and Ancient. That way the main bulk of the Xeno army is stronger, and the elites and higher tiers can be brought more in line.


To be fair, I haven't been playing much lately, so I'll see if my stance needs to change once I play a few more rounds in the coming days.

[Martzin]

I have to agree with the criticisms pointed out in the post, the thing I hate most is the lack of RPing there is now. Nobody can care to have a conversation with you or try to convey emotion. The terribly OP xenos wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that interaction with others barely exists in-game.

[Sephoris]

There's no punishment to Xeno's for rushing early round, and they don't even have to infect marines at all any more. They start off with all the larvae they need, they're so strong they don't need replacing. Rounds have turned into a speed matches, where it appears xeno's primary focus is to wipe out marines as soon as possible, as opposed to "spreading the hive". Soon as the fog drops, or xeno's are t3, then they just rush and smash all in their way like a tsunami, usually just as a FOB has been constructed. I used to really enjoy the skirmishes as both Xeno and Marine, where you had to focus more on tactics as opposed to hitting as hard as you can with everything you have. There needs to be some switch in balance back in the marines favour, if only minor so that the roflstomp doesn't happen every time.

The marines at the start should feel like they can easily push against the aliens, but as the game progresses, it should feel more and more like they are just "holding them off" or "slowly falling back". The most interesting rounds and stories, come from when a group of marines is valiantly holding the FOB waiting for rescue, or when the marines are holding the bridge for a last-stand (or the escape pods). These are the moments that are the most fun, and what we are trying to create. Even people who are dead cheer and jeer when the marines are doing a last-stand hold somewhere and winning or losing.

We need more of that, somehow tweak something to stop the roflstomp. Maybe make it take longer for xeno's to heal up, or slow their evolution so that they can't physically go full metal retard on marines so soon. Ravagers for instance don't even need any support, and can easily solo an entire squad. The damage of slash could be time based, so the longer marines wait to attack, the more dangerous it's going to get for them. Something desperately needs to be re-worked to get more time for RP.

[TehSpoderman]

i have to agree with this. the amount of RP i had with marines are when we are scouting or in FoB. Other than that, RPing during battle is pretty fucking hard and people just dont bother. You start RPing with your marines and you just get fucking slaughtered. SOMETHING needs to change.

[WinterClould]

I didn't know I had so much to cry about till I read this and started typing my own thoughts. I've got enough to make a whole "Watch WinterClould cry about everything for over 7 paragraphs" post. In a few short words, the state of the game for me is incredibly poor.

[Szunti]

Struggling is fun, but for me struggling means to be slashed and pounced a couple times, a couple marines dragged, one beheaded next to you, the defenses slowly collapse. Half of the squad bulldozed by a crusher in 10 seconds is not struggling.

[doodeeda]

Dying and losing can be fun..but I fear that we are at a point where it's not. There's no surprise or anticipation in it for me anymore outside of events..and those emotions are a staple of SS13. It seems that if the alien team is somewhat competent, they'll destroy the marines and everything that was done in preparation in a small amount of time. They can even get away with rushing to win. An alien team was in an uproar when the queen (maybe new or something?) wanted to go up to the Almayer pretty early (around 90 marines to 30 aliens). It worked. Round was pretty much over by 13:20.

Also, I thought it was part of the vision for marines to be able to be creative and make their own meta. I just don't see how making the spec options be in a shared pool does that. It limits choice, makes the beginning a competitive dash to the vendor, and doesn't allow for any creativeness with what the four specs choose. I'm just not happy when I see a Spec player so dissatisfied with their round because they have no choice in how they can play.

[Symbiosis]

I used to play Medic personally, pretty regularly. I'd spend 15+ minutes putting a kit together to patch up Marines. I'm not sure when exactly, but the past few weeks I'd put in all that time to maybe have the opportunity to defib one or two Marines, heal up a few, but all at a pace that didn't provide any chance for RP.

I've said before I don't care if Xenos "win" 100% of the rounds. I -enjoy- last stands and clinging to a FOB. The stories I think about with CM arent from the last few weeks. They're from when we had last stands. Holding the Sulaco mess hall waiting for evac, a Marine going down ever so often and everyone trying to frantically fire at the Alien to prevent it from dragging our fellow Marine away...

Needless to say, I've been playing Xeno/Crew lately. I wasn't an experienced Xeno player, but without much difficulty you can slaughter 20+ Marines a round just as a Hunter. Once you get Mature, targeting hands means in a pounce I can remove a guys hand if he's out of position, and keep him perma pounced until he's dead. From a difficulty standpoint it's lacking. There's not much coordination. Just roll over the Marines, they'll die regardless. (Hell, we had a round where Praetorians and Boilers took up ALL T3's, it slowed things down but the Marines still couldn't do anything) Last night we rushed the Almayer vs 90 Marines. The Marines didn't go back down to the planet with 90 people still alive. There's a reason for that. They wanted to live and RP a bit.

The times I see the chance to RP or for Marines to win are low pop. And generally tied to a "new" Xeno queen who either dies early or doesn't lay many eggs.

Hope to see some positive changes from this discussion!

[YungCuz]

All of this very true, i could bring up cheesy tactics but thats probably another discussion.
It is pretty saddening to not really be able to have creativity or opportunities to RP when its pretty much rail based at this point.
Sometimes i ask myself "where did all the fun go" when i get my feet/hands slashed off for the 50th time and then slashed to death on the head.

[Crab_Spider]

Bring back hugger combat

[doodeeda]

There's no long-term damage for aliens which I feel contributes to our predictable rounds. As a carrier, all I have to do is retreat when I get shot and wait for 10 seconds to regen on weeds. Then I go back to the frontline and effectively end 2 or 3 people. Repeat. Probably the same cycle for crusher and others. When I see marine majors, I think, "Wow, what huge mistakes did the xeno team make?" instead of, "Wow, the marines really pulled their weight this round."

[dylanstrategie]

Balance is always a complex subject, we don't just throw in random changes overnight because we feel like it. There are things we want to implement, and we try to slowly adapt our gameplay to them

Recently, we have decided that Support Castes were underappreciated by Xeno players and decided to buff them up, as we believe in a gameplay model where Xenos are encouraged to form small groups instead of all scattering across the map. After some initial ajustements, we do like where we wound up, although this has made Xenos more powerful as a base

At the same time, we decided that there was an issue with Marines being too quick to respond to flank and ambushes, we have adjusted to this by adding a small delay on the first shot just after putting your weapon up, aka the "wield delay". This has obviously made Marines less responsive to ambushes, which made the Marines less powerful as a base

At the same time, we've been made aware that Crushers were too powerful overall and after a bit of study slashed some of their statistics. I will not give values, we'll never do, but I assure you it wasn't a 1 % reduction or something silly and useless just to pretend there was a Xeno nerf

We're aware that rounds tend to fall on the Xeno side a lot lately, however we're not just gonna roll back our changes completely because the balance "doesn't feel right". We feel we have landed pretty nicely on the numbers for the specific changes we have applied, and now we are looking for ways to give the Marine side a bit more bounce

One thing I do want players to understand however is that we're not just gonna increase weapon damage or reduce Xeno health or reduce Xeno armor as kind of a knee-jerk reaction. Our balance is extremely complex, and one single change can have massive knock-on effects. So when one side or a specific part of a side is underperforming, we have to carefully observe and figure out if something is clearly wrong. If there's nothing that is clearly wrong, then we need to find what we can prop up to make this side perform better. Any underpowered items that could use a buff, any new mechanics we can introduce to counter current gameplay, do we need to nerf the other side instead ?

We're currently going through an observation process, we do always have content changes on different levels of preparation, but we try to keep the current balance in mind. As I've said time and time again, we know Marines are on the scrappy side, but it's not just going to be buffing one random thing. Maybe you shot 4 AP rounds at a Ravager and he charged-decapped you, but that doesn't mean we're going to cut the Ravager's HP in half. Every time we get complaints like this we try to contextualise. Did you overextend ? Did the Ravager get punished for that kill ? Do we want a Ravager to be this powerful in this situation ? What could have been done to counter it ?

Just because we're not making massive balance changes around the clock doesn't mean everything is fine, we're working on it but we're not quite sure what is wrong. The recent changes will be staying, and we'll be doing what we've always done. If a change that we wanted to do nerfs or buffs a specific side and throws the balance, counteract with another change

[Garrison]

Most of the problems started with the Hugger combat removal. Which ironically was supposed to fix the previous problems that existed in the game.

► Show Spoiler

Fixed huggers dying to xeno spit.
Fixed eggs dying to xeno spit.
Fixed crushers being unable to properly push when not charging.
Other fixes.
Only the drones, queen, hivelords, and carrier can pick up huggers. Carriers can only carry them on their back.
Huggers will die off after around 30 seconds if they are out of their egg, or not carried on a carrier's back. They will return to their egg if left alone on it.
Huggers can be placed back in the egg by clicking on it with a living hugger.
Huggers cannot be stripped off from those who are hugged. Infection is much faster, and your helmet won't save you.
Huggers will now leap on to potential targets on their own. Watch out.
Eggs now cost a lot more plasma, and can only be cleared by a queen, drones, and hivelords.
Thrown huggers on the floor will go inactive.
Xeno embryos will continue to grow if the person is dead but can still be revived.
Crushers can now stomp with middle click. Stomp cooldown lowered. Less stuns from hitting things and other adjustments to make them better battering rams.
Crushers no longer have a long-range stun. They instead can trample anything underneath them.
Carriers may leave presents when dying, unless gibbed.
Xenos can now destroy chairs/beds.
Xenos can now see where living sisters are located via hive menu.
Xeno slashing is now enabled on start.
Xenos cannot slash nested, infected hosts unless the xenomorph is the queen.
Exploding xenomorphs spew acid blood everywhere.
Xenomorph armor has been changed. Deflection is no longer a thing, unless shooting a crusher's crest.
Xenomorphs now move slower when seriously injured.
Most hunter and runner stuns after hitting objects are removed.
Some new caste adjustments, and xenomorph speed is generally increased.
Bullets and several other projectiles travel a lot faster.
The B18 helmet, and a few special helmets, will still provide great protection from facehuggers.

Marines also end up getting extra backpack space (for small items) in addition to motion trackers and the Smart gunner class...

Why is that even with all these extra additions.. Marines are still getting annihilated? I looked through the changelog and aliens only got rather minor tweaks outside of the Hugger combat patch. (With exception to the Warding Pheromone, new Prae spit and explosion rework)

[Garrison]

Just because we're not making massive balance changes around the clock doesn't mean everything is fine, we're working on it but we're not quite sure what is wrong. The recent changes will be staying, and we'll be doing what we've always done. If a change that we wanted to do nerfs or buffs a specific side and throws the balance, counteract with another change

In our frustrations and being out of the big picture, we seem to often forget about this, thank you for taking the time to clarify the situation Dylan. That means a lot.

[Renomaki]

I hate it when a round lasts a mere hour...

Sure, no one likes 3 hour games (moreso when you die), but at least the length of a match can provide more RP moments.

See, in a 2 hour round, with plenty of back and forth between marines and xenos, the game is a lot more enjoyable. It feels like a proper battle, which marines struggling to hold the planet while the xenos attempt to claim it as their own. I had some epic battles back in the hugger-combat days, some of them very cinematic and memorable... But nowadays it is a lot harder to have those proper battles.

I recall a recent battle yesterday where about 5 or so minutes after deployment, the xenos were already swarming en-mass upon HQ. We barely had time to set up a decent defense before a wave of T3 aliens charged from a flank, crushing what little hope we had for holding and forcing an early retreat as our forces were crushed under their feet. When they lifted off, they had 40 aliens in total.

Marines are often required to do a number of things planetside before taking the fight to the xenos, but the xenos more often than not can just charge the marines the moment they are made aware of them. Marines are at their strongest at round start, but it won't stop xenos from trying...

I kinda wish that maybe xenos had more than one objective... Maybe if they had other tasks to complete, then maybe we wouldn't have these dull, spirit crushing steamrolls and go back to the days of back and forth combat that I enjoyed that make games so intense. Maybe make it so a queen has to be a certain level before using the shuttle? Give them areas of interest for them to capture? I dunno, anything to delay xeno steamrolls and give them something to do other than just charge at marines screaming the moment they arrive.

[Monoo]

Honestly i think the reason why you don't enjoy it right now is because you have been playing for too long, i took a break from this game for 2 weeks and i kinda enjoyed that round, there were good moments for me personally and remember, C R A C K the W H I P?

C R A C K the W H I P is definitely funny, but we never had time to make it too fun and memey since things fell apart very quickly after that and xenos arrived on the Almayer in short order.

My only regret is that I have but one whip to crack for my country.

[Ping]

I wrote up a long paragraph and lost it due to a lack of internet connection, so I'll try to summarise what I was trying to say.

On one hand, engineering is in the absolute shitter and the existence of FOBs have been quite literally inconsequential to rounds for the past month and a half (or two). The see-saw of balance between Marine and Xeno seems to have lost it's fulcrum, rolled down a hill, and landed in the nearby stream. Any marine wins that we could achieve from managing to push the Xenos in early are non-existent after the June 5th update. Ice Colony is fundamentally broken. For whatever reason, I keep getting survivor despite it being turned off. It seems like the game has pulled out each and every stop imaginable to make me feel like a fucking idiot for wasting my time with it.

On the other hand, the devs has pushed out ridiculous things over the past few months, including a completely reworked planetside ship that is compatible with all three maps. We also have three maps in 'rotation', including a brand new permanent map which quickly became one of my favourite to play on. Medical has been super fun to play and a lot of innovations to the role exist due to easy medbay access. There's a new smartgunner class which ends up buffing marine squad versatility. The hugger combat removal update came in, which I will continue to say is a good update and recently seems bad due to the updates that happened on June 5th, and the fact that the engineering update hasn't come in. Have I mentioned that an engineer update is on the way that might make the combat engineer class viable to play again? There's also a dropship customisation update coming. And a Research and Development update.

Is the game really worth putting the time into at the moment? I and many other players would say no, the game isn't worth playing. Is it going to stay like this? Absolutely not. I hold the firm belief that we are currently sitting at the lowest possible point, and that the game quality can only improve with future updates. I don't believe everyone here should just drop everything and stop complaining, but I'd think that it's good to put faith into the devs, and that things will change for the better overtime. The game might not be worth it, but I enjoy it nonetheless and am confident that good things are on the horizon.

td;lr: Things can't get worse than this. Devs work hard and will continue to work hard. It might not be enjoyable to play now, but it's likely that it'll be enjoyable to play in the future. As a side note, I type a lot.

[Heckenshutze]

This thread had to be made. I won't say the balance is broken but the game. Marines do not care about RP anymore because the whole cycle is, get ready, deploy and get your people killed after ten minutes drop or the fog clears so now we have silent, no emotions and no personality ultimate badasses. It's like playing with Bots.

Nevertheless, devs already knew this before hand, their whole purpose is to see how the tweaks change the game and I'm pretty sure they'll come up with something. Just remember, devs and staff have lives outside CM.

[Szunti]

Balance is always a complex subject, we don't just throw in random changes overnight because we feel like it. There are things we want to implement, and we try to slowly adapt our gameplay to them

Marines were already a bit weak and they got a massive speed nerf, which looked like a side effect of smoother animation. You don't mention it in your list of balance changes either. I can't beleive in carefully planned balance changes if game-changing unintentional speed nerfs happen.