Why Don't We Have a Rock Paper Scissors Combat?

[Mobius_None]

Throughout the years of playing I have noticed that our development seems to not have enough rock, paper, scissors (rps) methods to combat. For instance rps would mean that for every action in combat there would be a reaction the opposing force could do to counteract that, here's the important part, then the attacker could do something to counteract the defenders action.

Let me give a few examples of this done right in the game before critiquing: the Boiler is an excellent example of rps done right, the boiler can shoot acid clouds at Marines, Marines can then equip gasmasks to charge through it, to counter that xenos can be inside the cloud to grab Marines or the Boiler can spray acid.

Now for a bad example: the Warrior grab allows a Marine to be completely stunned without any individual ways of escaping, no "gasmasks" here.

Rock, paper, scissors makes the game more engaging for both sides. The more triangles we have in the game the more enjoyable it could be for everyone. What do you think about this and what ideas for adjustments that could be made do you all have?

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

Rock: Warrior Grab
Paper: A single marine
Scissors: Several marines

Yes, a single marine beats several marines, because that single marine just so happened to hit one of the others in the back of the head with a live grenade.

[spookydonut]

We do have this, its just very hard to keep the metas shifting, they tend to get stuck on specific strategies.

[Sulaboy]

Rock: Warrior Grab
Paper: A single marine
Scissors: Several marines

Yes, a single marine beats several marines, because that single marine just so happened to hit one of the others in the back of the head with a live grenade.

Hang on this doesn't work. So one marine can beat a warrior, but several marines cannot? I guess several marines countering a single marine kinda works.

[Mobius_None]

Yeah the balance seems to be off after all of the changes. Both sides are exposed to instastunning (or killing) events that have no reasonable counter. I would consider myself a Marine main but I play xeno enough to not be completely biased, but the Marines suffer from this far more than the xenos in my opinion. To solve this I'd recommend making more use of Resist and the four Intents to counter certain xeno abilities.

[Slywater]

I agree that resist doesn't have a fulfilled function, but applying a 'just' combat system would probably cause more problems that it would solve, from the side of powergaming and lore.

[Szunti]

The general idea is that most players are weak and there is a minority who has the roles that are both has the best offense and/or defense. I don't know why this is better than if every role and class had unique weaknesses and strong points.

[Mobius_None]

It would make it more interesting on both sides to have their place in combat, strong in one area weak in others.

[kroack]

All you have to do to save a marine from a warrior is control click on them for chrissake.

[Mobius_None]

Not likely to happen without both dying.

[Jeser]

Ctrlclicking a marine in most cases means you cannot shoot, which makes you easy target too.

[Build_R_]

The problem really takes form when a warrior is fighting in a 1 tile hallway or in maint, nothing can stop the warrior short of killing the grabbed marine in that case.