Why doesn't anyone like to talk about stuns?

[Jetniss]

I've made two suggestions that have been met with responses from the community that kind of ignored a good portion of my suggestions, and then finally a response from a staff member that almost entirely ignores my suggestion to say that stuns are balance and necessary and closes the topic without discussion.

When I made these suggestions, I had no intention of putting Xenomorphs at any kind of significant disadvantage, just to make a rather unfun and highly-attentive process for both Xenos and Marines less unfun, and more interactive. Now, I get that there is a special niche that is already filled, and that some things would require replacements, and I've thought of ideas to replace the overbearing stun power already in game-- but I'm not going to suggest that stuff while stuns are still the same because that's putting marines at significant disadvantages for a period when you combine potential buffs for Xenos (who already have a lot going for them as a lot of their power is independent, and the power of marines depends on cohesive play which for byond is quite difficult to attain).

But all that aside, I'm not going to write out a long post of my ideas, rather, I want to ask the community about stuns to help build strong ideas that can help dampen the power or the excessive use of stun combat in favor of replacing it with something else that's more engaging and more fun with time.

If we aren't willing to let go of stuns and make them significantly more counterable, we're never going to figure out new ways to play the game. We're going to be stuck with 20 different ways to stun marines and drop them to the floor before they can fill you with bullets, and then marines will never be able to stand up and play the game unless they're 6+ tiles away from aliens at all times.


To start the discussion off, a big response community members give me when I talk about how stuns are both really long and have no CD-- is that aliens need to drag you back to the hive, and it would be impossible otherwise. I've argued that you should have satellite nests and not try to count on dragging someone across an entire map after going so far out, but here's an idea to make that more manageable.

A kind of coccoon or mobile version of a resin nest that acts like a body bag that drones can make and a runner could for example-- drag to a location near marines, then capture a marine, drag them to it, and put them inside. The marine would have to resist and go through stages to break the resin coccoon, and once broken it can't be re-used (encouraging a runner to have a drone nearby and increase their cohesion needs). The bag could be a simple orange/yellow/green/purple sack that is transparent enough to see the marine in. Maybe make it resistant to xeno burns so that a xeno can safely eat a host and transport them without killing them-- whilst simultaneously protecting the xeno from struggle until the person breaks out of it. But something like this shouldn't exist alongside the ridiculous stun time and frequency we already have.

[MrJJJ]

In short.

Stuns are cancer, barely anyone likes them, but they are a necessary evil.

Atleast we have no more hugger combat.

[Jetniss]

Did you even read my post, or just the title?

[Karmac]

I read through this and all you said was that drones should make nests outside of the hive and that aliens need their own versions of rollerbeds to drag marines off to hell, one of these things already happens and the other is an unbalanced quality of life suggestion, another thing to consider is that the community does not steer the direction the server is developed in, if the devs didn't like how stun combat currently was, it would change, a bunch of people saying "lets talk about stuns" won't change a thing.

[Jetniss]

The point of discussion is to generate ideas that devs like that they might see things differently.

And I said a lot more than that Karmac, maybe not to you because you sound jaded, but I definitely said more than that.

[Karmac]

Alright I went back up and read some more and saw a paragraph dedicated to the sentence "let's stop relying on stuns and give marines a more counterable option". The problem here is stuns are the only thing besides movement speed that xenos have to counter marines, xenos can be shot from off screen, blown up by mines, shot by sentry guns, blocked by barricades and ruthlessly gunned down by squads of baldies. Stuns are their gimmick whereas concentrated damage is the Marines strongpoint, you can't drag xenos away from stun combat because it's incredibly important to their survival and is intended to be like this.

[Jackie Estegado]

What you don't understand is that while stun is very powerfull it is worth NOTHING if the marines are in a group and actualy protecting eachother, which they almost never do. You should play as a hunter for some time, and then you would see when you meet a group of marines that actualy work together that apart from a few slashes you can't do much against them.

[Jetniss]

If we aren't willing to let go of stuns and make them significantly more counterable, we're never going to figure out new ways to play the game. We're going to be stuck with 20 different ways to stun marines and drop them to the floor before they can fill you with bullets, and then marines will never be able to stand up and play the game unless they're 6+ tiles away from aliens at all times.

you can't drag xenos away from stun combat because it's incredibly important to their survival and is intended to be like this.

How about spitters coming with a chance to gunk up marine weapons instead of consistent stuns-- that way a marine's weapon is locked up for several seconds (like activating safety, but not a single click fix) forcing a marine to either perform a weapon swap, run, or even whip a knife out of their boot to fight back for a little.

The whole point of my post is not to go "It can't be done" and to instead talk about "how can it be done." If you're unwilling to try and figure things out, and to explore new possibilities, that's fine, but I ask that you please don't discourage others to try. The most you accomplish is stunting the growth of the game and community.

What you don't understand is that while stun is very powerfull it is worth NOTHING if the marines are in a group and actualy protecting eachother, which they almost never do. You should play as a hunter for some time, and then you would see when you meet a group of marines that actualy work together that apart from a few slashes you can't do much against them.

But there is a counter built into marines protecting each other-- friendly fire. As a hunter, you built in speed and damage puts you at a great advantage to hit, run,and cause the marines to strike each other. Granted you can't 1v10 in any setting, you still have a lot going for you-- and Xenos have the benefit of every single one of their units being a smart-gunner. There is no friendly fire for Xenos aside from maybe deliberate melee attacks on one another.

[Jackie Estegado]

Alright, your last sentence tells me you haven't been playing for too long.
Also a competent marine squad won't FF eachother, whats more if a hunter pounces a marine an another one can run up from 6-7 tiles away and pointblank it, instantly critting it.

[Jetniss]

Alright, your last sentence tells me you haven't been playing for too long.
Also a competent marine squad won't FF eachother, whats more if a hunter pounces a marine an another one can run up from 6-7 tiles away and pointblank it, instantly critting it.

I've played a long while. Took a long break and came back. And have been playing a while again.
There are so many other castes than hunters, and to focus on hunters and your example, are we talking just young hunters? Because I've point-blanked hunters that aren't young or ancient upward 3 times and they were still kicking. With a non-pistol weapon.

But to be more on-topic:

If the concern for some kind of reduced stun mechanic/less stun focused gameplay is handicapped matches between a single hunter and a group of marines (upward 3), I'd start by saying that sounds like a bad balance goal, and perhaps offer the hunter some kind of ability that boosts its defense against bullets for a small window of time so that it can charge into a group and lay down some devastation in an engaging way-- and link it to its crusher evolution.

[SagaSword]

Alright, your last sentence tells me you haven't been playing for too long.
Also a competent marine squad won't FF eachother, whats more if a hunter pounces a marine an another one can run up from 6-7 tiles away and pointblank it, instantly critting it.

IF the marine has buckshot shotgun. M41 can deal considerable damage but still not crit it.

[slc97]

Because as BMC said when he locked your stun suggestion, it's a core combat mechanic that we are limited to due to the nature of the game. Coding some of the suggestions you're making would be insanely difficult, and dev has already thought about most of your suggestions. That being said, there have been tweaks to stuns in the past and I'm sure there will be a future, but stuns are too core an element to remove.

[Jetniss]

Because as BMC said when he locked your stun suggestion, it's a core combat mechanic that we are limited to due to the nature of the game. Coding some of the suggestions you're making would be insanely difficult, and dev has already thought about most of your suggestions. That being said, there have been tweaks to stuns in the past and I'm sure there will be a future, but stuns are too core an element to remove.

But I've never asked for them to be removed. My suggestions were -- Longer cooldowns to their stunning ability or stunning mechanic; and systems that dampened stuns or gave immunity if the former proved too difficult. These things don't require new systems, they require tweaks to the current code that isn't extensive or insanely difficult for someone well-versed in DM's language. I'm not ignorant to development struggles or developer investment, so I've made it a point to keep my suggestions simple or inline with what is already here.

I know SS13 code, I know how one small change is magnified due to the way everything is connected.

And this isn't a topic about removing them, or those closed topics. Please read my topic in its entirety and really understand it; I'm not looking for some short-thought response, I'm not crying for an answer. This is an attempt to cultivate ideas to improve gameplay and make it more engaging, so that we have alternatives that allow us rely on stuns much less and instead promote more healthy gameplay.

[slc97]

I promise you, those ideas have already been talked about is the thing.

[Zilenan91]

Compared to how the game used to be, It is in such a better state in terms of combat that the improvement has been astronomical. A common thing during hugger combat and even before that for marines was that every single death to them felt unfair because the nature of xeno stuns meant that you'd be on the floor unable to act and stuns would take agency away from the player, making it not fun. However, since xenos primarily kill people now, marines have the potential to act and fight back for the remainder of their short life, and while they probably die so much quicker than they did before, it never feels unfair because you felt like you were able to do something compared to the nothing you were able to do before.

Stuns are fine, essentially.

[darkwahn]

Alright, your last sentence tells me you haven't been playing for too long.
Also a competent marine squad won't FF eachother, whats more if a hunter pounces a marine an another one can run up from 6-7 tiles away and pointblank it, instantly critting it.

There's likely not a single group of marines you can run into in this game (greater than 4 people) that won't FF each other if you run into the middle of them. Someone, without a doubt always will.

Also being point blanked usually doesn't insta crit you if you're elite+ (Even with buckshot). Though pouncing onto instead of beside when there's a group of marines 3+ is dumb anyways.

[Kernir]

I think that largely while stuns are kind of rough, they aren't just something that happens without some form of weakness being exposed. You're either out of position, on your own (Sometimes this isn't your own fault, some marines can tunnel vision hard) or pushing way too much.

That said the Queen's screech can be quite nasty but that carries a lot of inherent risk, one sadar and a few follow up nades will leave the Queen reminiscent of playdoh. My experiences may be quite limited to a lot of the longer standing members, but I've never really felt as though stuns are entirely overwhelming.

[Dolth]

The day marines will pull stunned marine if they are one or two tile danger close THEN SHAKE UP, you will complain less about stuns because so far :

SS13 combat mechanic is about stuns mostly.
CM as marine is team based.
You can 'cure' a stun by shaking up instantly (or two shakes in case of prae spit or screech)

[Jackie Estegado]

IF the marine has buckshot shotgun. M41 can deal considerable damage but still not crit it.

Even as an ancient hunter when I accidently pounced a wrong guy I got critted by 2 m41s by the time I could move.

[Crab_Spider]

Even as an ancient hunter when I accidently pounced a wrong guy I got critted by 2 m41s by the time I could move.

This is true. Upgrades make you more tolerable to gunfire, they don't make you a damn crusher. Sustained gunfire is what puts xenos of any caste and upgrade in a bad spot

[Kazuko_myu]

If we talk about stuns, could we potentionally higher the stun when a hunter/runner is hit by buckshot from extreme close range (1-2 tiles)? It's kind of annoying when you face off against a xeno by yourself in a dire situation, you get that one lucky blast and they jump up within a matter of a second to pounce and fuck you up because you can't even reload and shoot that fast.

[darkwahn]

Even as an ancient hunter when I accidently pounced a wrong guy I got critted by 2 m41s by the time I could move.

How? Were you low health beforehand?

2 People with rifles has never been enough to take me below 50% hp on a bad pounce.

[Jackie Estegado]

A single ap burst will take half your health.

[Dolth]

One QF is enough to crit a bad hunter pounce if gun was lowered before.

[darkwahn]

Hnh, I must have rnjesus on my side all the time then.