New Castes Discussion Thread

[Steelpoint]

I guess I'm parroting a common statement but I find that fighting Xenomorphs is no longer as enjoyable as it used to hold for me.

Defenders reach the top of my dislike list when I'm constantly seeing myself and others getting grabbed out of a crowd, stunned for five seconds, and thrown all over the map while helpless.

I'm hopeful we'll see good balance changes in the not too distant future, but as it stands I just don't feel like I'm enjoying the game as much as Marine.

[RaidenFTW]

Because of the warrior caste, i don't even want to play as a marine now. Warrior grab & throw is just literally freezing you around 5 to 10(Or something else) seconds, leaving you to do only thing , just watch yourself getting pushed to far away from the map. You can't do anything, you can't resist, you can't move, you can't talk. It's just so stupid and overpowered. And they can do it rapidly!

[TheDonkified]

I guess I'm parroting a common statement but I find that fighting Xenomorphs is no longer as enjoyable as it used to hold for me.

Defenders reach the top of my dislike list when I'm constantly seeing myself and others getting grabbed out of a crowd, stunned for five seconds, and thrown all over the map while helpless.

I'm hopeful we'll see good balance changes in the not too distant future, but as it stands I just don't feel like I'm enjoying the game as much as Marine.

Think you mean warriors instead of defenders for that second bit, but I agree with your first statement. Playing marine right now is being cheesed on by xenos unless they are pants-on-head retarded, and even then, if xenos somehow manage to lose a round, there is still the bullshit from warriors and praes that make the rounds still cancerous. Defenders right now are still ridiculous in my opinion. They aren't as tanky as they used to be, but they can still tank enough to be super aggressive without any repercussions as long as they know when to pull out of a situation.

[Nyeshivuu]

The warrior grab is still 100% bs and it is the reason i live to forget. Everytime i go to the RO line, get my attachments, get my gear, go to briefing and go planetside just to be meme grabbed by a warrior i feel like an asshole for doing all of that. You can't even do a thing because you cannot resist out of it's grip or grab a weapon to fight back, it would be one thing for you to be stunned on the ground, but no it uses you as a meatshield, getting you get FF'ed to hell. This will be fixed in time, hopefully. But until then it is broken as fuck.

[Meatshield]

Overall, I dont mind the castes, but the grab abilities are just annoying.

The gas (with an absolutely massive area of effect) and acid (stun) are also very strong, but not half as annoying as those grab abilities.

[xXen0zS1ay3rXx]

People are still whining even after the initial nerfs? The changes were great, you had to fight for wins. Now you have to fight, sometimes, assuming you have nothing but bads on your team.

Any further nerfs will put us back to square 1 with baby's 1st pushover xenos. I like winning, but not the super easy wins I got 95% of the time pre-warrior/defender.

[Geikkamir]

People are still whining even after the initial nerfs? The changes were great, you had to fight for wins. Now you have to fight, sometimes, assuming you have nothing but bads on your team.

Any further nerfs will put us back to square 1 with baby's 1st pushover xenos. I like winning, but not the super easy wins I got 95% of the time pre-warrior/defender.

""""""""""""""nerfs""""""""""""""""""

[Heckenshutze]

People are still whining even after the initial nerfs? The changes were great, you had to fight for wins. Now you have to fight, sometimes, assuming you have nothing but bads on your team.

Any further nerfs will put us back to square 1 with baby's 1st pushover xenos. I like winning, but not the super easy wins I got 95% of the time pre-warrior/defender.

I get the meme.

[solidfury7]

Anything which is an instant stun which lasts longer than a brief moment is unfun.

We removed hugger combat for a reason, we removed the old grenade system for a reason, now we're going back to a game based around instant, long lasting stuns winning the round.

The rework is interesting but quite frankly pushing a little to hard down a path we already deemed obsolete.

[Pogo92]

Anything which is an instant stun which lasts longer than a brief moment is unfun.

We removed hugger combat for a reason, we removed the old grenade system for a reason, now we're going back to a game based around instant, long lasting stuns winning the round.

The rework is interesting but quite frankly pushing a little to hard down a path we already deemed obsolete.

The Prae Acid Shotgun is especially bad in this respect. It should NOT be a 5-10 second stun duration. That is a Empress Screech duration WITH moderate damage that can feasibly hit 2-3 marines. I'd be fine with a knockdown effect like the runner's pounce and moderate burn damage--That's enough to force a healthy marine to fall back and heal or a wounded marine to pain crit, and gives the Prae a little bit of time to press the attack or fall back.

More likely, though, it's just unnecessary. Prae's already have a big toolkit, and if you wanted to improve them you could just buff one of their existing abilities or stats.

Warrior's grab is borked up bad though. Codes issues combined with their throw and pounce is the least fun thing in this game. Just really unfun. Enough has been said about Defenders. Frankly, it's just discouraging and I really would have preferred the whole update be rolled back and fixed rather than left to stink up gameplay for weeks.

[Steelpoint]

Certain stuns might be less of an issue if you could still 'crawl' while in the stunned phase.

The neck grab maneuver has seen significant dislike towards it for one reason. It removes control utterly from the player and grants it to another player, a hostile one at that.

Losing control of your character is a painful and unfun experience as it stands, but having it being done so easily to a player, so suddenly and oft with minimal warning, is very aggravating to say the least.

Further to mention the amount of time and effort it takes to set up a character for a round. Marine players oft spend ten to upwards of twenty minutes (more so for support roles) preparing their kits for the round, while Aliens have to invest an equally lengthy amount of time, if not more so, to evolve and upgrade their caste. But to lose all that time investment, not to a 'legitimate' death but to a low effort, subtle and near impossible to counter attack, well it's forgivable when people get angry or disgruntled about that.

[Meatshield]

I'd disagree with the grab about "losing control". Grabs are important. Capturing people alive is a huge part of Alien ER since Aliens. Its the fact grabs are meant to be sneaky. A squaddie not keeping up with his squad, wandering a dark building alone deserves to be grabbed.

The issue for me is when grabs happen in the middle of an epic 45 minute firefight where Marines are well organised. I know xeno are meant to be strong, but if they are wandering up to 10 marines and a tank and grabbing folk one by one it seems a bit of a shitty way to end a battle. Being able to shoot your comrade free is the best solution.

[SlavishCircle]

The problem with that example is that it's presuming most fights last to the 45 minute mark. There was an evening of play on my part where three round, back-to-back, where the marines lost FOB within an hour of initial contact -- one on Prison was a FOB lost before 50 minutes had past in total.

Additionally, it should be stressed that the stuns persist even after the grab is lost, regardless of the reason. A warrior lost his grip on me in the middle of combat, not through any resisting of my own part -- and I stood around like an idiot in the middle of combat for 10 seconds waiting for the grab's stun duration to end. That duration didn't end, and I was grabbed an tackled by something else, and eventually died in the process.

This goes on top of other criticisms -- likely already cited -- of the little to no cooldown on grabs and throws, leading to some more inventive Warriors working as a bucket brigade, hurling marines from the front line into a hive...

[Gnorse]

Also, I'm not sure if it was mentioned or not but warriors are still able to use the regular 'throw' function with no plasma cost or cooldown, which gives them no reason to use their 'fling' ability.
So I suggest either making them unable to use throw and only fling OR give throw a plasma-cost and a cooldown.

[ghost120]

YEEEHAW

[Casany]

YEEEHAW

Sadly they aren’t gonna stop doing it, they’re just gonna be more subtle when doing it.

[misto]

I'd disagree with the grab about "losing control". Grabs are important. Capturing people alive is a huge part of Alien ER since Aliens. Its the fact grabs are meant to be sneaky. A squaddie not keeping up with his squad, wandering a dark building alone deserves to be grabbed

with the advent of free larva for latejoiners the game is explicitly moving away from relying on capture-based alien reproduction, probably because it's a boring drag for the human and a nuisance for the xeno guards

[Renomaki]

When you really, REALLY think about it... As annoying as the warrior grab is, the whole thing related to "inescapable stuns" has been around longer than we may realize.

For instance, who here HASN'T been a victim of sentinel/spitter stun spit spam? How about the ol' pounce spam that hunters would exploit to keep a single marine eating dirt till they died? Hell, a lot of xenos have some pretty nasty disarm abilities that can leave you stunned for more than 5 seconds. And lets not forget that hugger combat hasn't completely died either.

There is a lot of shit that can fuck you over as a marine, moreso in a one on one situation where xenos excel. The warrior grab is just the latest in annoying stuns.

What annoys me more though is how... Buggy the Warrior grab is. I hate how even AFTER you stand up, you are still considered stunned, which is confusing as fuck and I doubt that was intended to happen. I can accept not being able to escape their grasp (it would be my own fault for getting into such a position in the first place), but I won't tolerate having the game fuck with me by making it LOOK like i might be able to get up and run, only to discover that despite being on my two feet again, I am still stunned for another 4 seconds.

THAT is probably the biggest issue I have with Warriors: How hard it is to determine when the stun wore off.

[misto]

warrior grab is like some vulcan neck pinch paralysis shit. at least spitters and sents arent super tanky and super fast, and regular tacklespam and pounces and crap there is a tiny window of opportunity.

youre all going out on a limb with this "oh its myyy fault for getting cauuught" stuff warriors can dive into groups of people and extract who they want because theyre still just a bit op for a tier2

[Gookamungus]

Increase the plasma cost / and or cooldown for the abilities, especially the warrior grab and throw, and you'd be able to curb on the abuse of it. It can still be strong, but making it from a "standard" ability to a "special" one would keep the killing power without gimping the castes. The xenos have a very particular run-in run-out attack cycle anyway.

[Casany]

For instance, who here HASN'T been a victim of sentinel/spitter stun spit spam? How about the ol' pounce spam that hunters would exploit to keep a single marine eating dirt till they died? Hell, a lot of xenos have some pretty nasty disarm abilities that can leave you stunned for more than 5 seconds. And lets not forget that hugger combat hasn't completely died either.

There is a lot of shit that can fuck you over as a marine, moreso in a one on one situation where xenos excel. The warrior grab is just the latest in annoying stuns.

All the examples you mentioned aren’t 100% guaranteed to work. As in, if I die to hunter pounce spam or spitter neuro spam I do get a bit upset but usually it’s my fault and my fault alone. If I’m alone I’m not salty about it at all because being alone is the 100% best way to die. But at least when I’m with my squad a hunter can’t pounce spam you and a spitter can’t spit spam you. Those can’t happen in group situations as the group can always shoot it off or scare it away. With the warrior being in a group doesn’t help. I was grabbed whilst in a group of 4 and the warrior just placed me in front of all the bullets, threw me far behind it, and did that until I was all the way in the hive. That is bullshit. The other stubs are usually player error, this the player cannot do ANYTHING to avoid it unless they just don’t fight aliens.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

And remember guys, they didnt just give this one caste the ability to bullshit stun you like that, but also decap you straight after if they want to...

YEEEHAW

I highly doubt thats going to stop it.

Frankly, it's just discouraging and I really would have preferred the whole update be rolled back and fixed rather than left to stink up gameplay for weeks.

[ghost120]

Well, you can always ahelp about this, really. It's then warrior's problem to talk with staff, as simple as that.

[caleeb101]

One thing I just noticed is that the warrior also makes you drop your damn weapon when it grabs you. So if you get captured, you're cucked.

[Meatshield]

One thing I just noticed is that the warrior also makes you drop your damn weapon when it grabs you. So if you get captured, you're cucked.

A lot of xeno attacks do that. It's why I always take mag harness and not rds these days.