New End Round Ideas?

[adrenalinetooth]

The Almayer round end scenario is a bit dry and overdone. Share your ideas for a new round end scenario.


I will share mine:

I understand devs want the round end to be as flashy, dramatic, and hollywood-action-ish as possible. No one gets to survive and everyone dies a horrible death on the alamo. This is fun and engaging for all players but gets old real fast when you know it's coming.

I had an idea that will add back to the 'OH SHIT' factor of hijacked dropships, and encourage marines to stay and defend the planet more instead of wimping out and pulling off the planet at the slightest loss.

Here is the idea:
When marines pull off the planet, the game ends, but not until the Alamo successfully lands on the Almayer. In the time the Alamo is flying back to the Almayer, the queen can use the dropship console to turn it around, kill the marines on board, and hijack the dropship. This would trigger after the 1-hour mark only, and would only count as a 'retreat' if the amount of aliens outnumber the amount of marines on the planet.

This would make marines much more willing to not give up on the mission and fix some delaying issues. It would make hijacks much less common as well. Think of it: Marines are pulling out on the Alamo, heads hanging down low and ready to retreat, not expecting anything, but little did they know the queen went straight to the LZ and took over the area, hijacking the console.

When marines evacuate, everyone is thinking in the back of their head: "Here we go again, another last stand on the Almayer". This idea would really spice things up and make hijacks much more shocking again, cut down on delays, and make marines much less willing to give up.

[VoltageHero]

As someone who pretty much only plays PO, and transport at that (no "button-pusher" memes allowed), I would be really annoyed if I did my best to get all the Marines onboard the Alamo, and did everything possible to evac from a lost landing zone with as many Marines as possible, only to have the queen to be able to call it back while we're making our way back to wipe everyone out.

That just seems incredibly unfair to the Marines in general, since more often than not, the reason they're retreating is because they've stayed as long as possible. Trying to ensure they stay longer and "not evac", means they're basically just going to curb-stomped.

The Queen's going to be at the landing zone during an evac, so the Queen will every round force the shuttle to return to the landing zone, wipe everyone out, and then board the Almayer. Of course, this can be fixed by balancing the time it takes the Queen to hack the console, but then you have the issue of the Marines being able to head back safely well before the Queen can hack it, which in turn causes a 100% Marine winrate.

Effectively, you're bumping the xeno-win rate up substantially with this method, making it so that the only way the Marines can win is by wiping out the aliens on the planet/station. SD is basically rendered useless, since all the Marines who could defend it just got wiped out on the dropship that was turned around midflight. That, or you're giving Marines a 100% winrate by giving the dropship console a delay on hacking to avoid it constantly being recalled midflight.

It doesn't really fix delays either, since you're still going to have Marines who run off and hide, this time though you'll just have a lower amount of them, but instead you'll just have a lot more salty people. As well, I'm not sure how your solution fixes hijacks...when the concept is built around the Queen being able to hijack the Alamo in midflight. Finally, if a Queen is able to get to the landing zone on it's own, and nobody at the landing zone, including the POs and the Marines, notice then they'd probably be screwed over already.

[adrenalinetooth]

As someone who pretty much only plays PO, and transport at that (no "button-pusher" memes allowed), I would be really annoyed if I did my best to get all the Marines onboard the Alamo, and did everything possible to evac from a lost landing zone with as many Marines as possible, only to have the queen to be able to call it back while we're making our way back to wipe everyone out.

That just seems incredibly unfair to the Marines in general, since more often than not, the reason they're retreating is because they've stayed as long as possible. Trying to ensure they stay longer and "not evac", means they're basically just going to curb-stomped.

With pilot flight optimizations, a flight takes 90 seconds. With the proper modules it can be even shorter. It would just mean that when shit hits the fan, marines would evac
At the second or third line of barricades instead of holding out till the last line is broken.

Once marines are pushed back to the LZ, bones are being broken, IB is being inflicted, and rarely aliens are being killed to make up for the casualties. It's just a slow defeat from that point.

Live to fight another day. That is an aspect of war, but not in Colonial Marines because we need to have the dramatic Hollywood ending of everyone getting decimated on the Almayer. Allowing marines to retreat on a defeat ending would make Almayer defenses all the more interesting because it would no longer be a constant and expected thing.

The Queen's going to be at the landing zone during an evac, so the Queen will every round force the shuttle to return to the landing zone, wipe everyone out, and then board the Almayer. Of course, this can be fixed by balancing the time it takes the Queen to hack the console, but then you have the issue of the Marines being able to head back safely well before the Queen can hack it, which in turn causes a 100% Marine winrate.

Successful marine evacuation would be a defeat. Marines lose the battle and are forced to pull out, the aliens are left to fester on the planet and infect the next unsuspecting people to arrive.

It doesn't really fix delays either, since you're still going to have Marines who run off and hide, this time though you'll just have a lower amount of them, but instead you'll just have a lot more salty people.

Marines hiding in lockers and stupid places can be made not to count for the end round factor. It's extremely hard to hide as it is on planet, I have almost never seen a marine hide outside of lockers or such once marines evacuate.

As well, I'm not sure how your solution fixes hijacks...when the concept is built around the Queen being able to hijack the Alamo in midflight.

You're putting words in my mouth. I don't think hijacking is broken, I think it's lost it's shock factor. When marines retreat, everyone rolls their eyes and goes "whew, another Almayer defense." My idea would make hijacks an uncommon thing and would make it more dramatic and interesting when a hijack happens. Evac = almayer hijack 100% of the time as it is.

Finally, if a Queen is able to get to the landing zone on it's own, and nobody at the landing zone, including the POs and the Marines, notice then they'd probably be screwed over already.

Flight times can be made very short, and a few lines of barricades with a sentry plopped on it is more than sufficient enough to buy a few minutes of time.
There will always be a few idiots who refuse to evacuate, or those who want to play hero and defend it as marines evac.
[/quote]

[VoltageHero]

I'm too lazy to edit all the quotes together. That said, the issue in regards to "flights being fixed", I believe the point was still the same, but the wording was changed between ourselves. You had stated that you believed that it would make hijacks less common, to which I shortened this to as "hijacks being fixed".

As well, either I'm blind or just dumb. I still haven't seen anything that counters the issue of the Queen just automatically recalling the dropship and decimating them every round. Simpy, are you saying the Queen is going to have a percentage chance to recall the dropship? Is the dropship override going to be a second or two faster than the base dropship? You haven't provided a way for this to be correctly balanced with a way for the aliens and Marines to both be able to not be screwed over. Of course, the only times the Queen really overrides the dropship, is when the Alamo is already docked so it is hard (from my perspective) to accurately judge how this would correctly work. To restate, if the Queen is able to recall the dropship every single time, it renders evacs useless, and means that Marines still get defeated but this time without the chance to really construct defenses in a proper manner shipside.

For example, when you pull the first quote, you basically bring up the fact that (as most people know), that the Alamo can have their flight shortened. Now, I don't play Queen when I play as an xeno so I'm not too familar with how long it takes for the Queen to override the controls, so maybe you were trying to imply that with the fuel enhancer and flight opt. the Alamo can make it back to the ship in time by beating out her override time. If this is the case,

The second quote you pull, you basically state that "it'll be a defeat", without giving a rebuttal to the fact that with this method in mind, the Queen will be able to recall the dropship constantly. This is directly bumping up the xenos winrate by a decent amount. As well, a reminder that in this method you've basically rendered SD useless due to the loss of manpower needed to defend it.

With the fourth quote, to clarify. You state that this idea makes hijacks less common. That said, like I said originally, the entire design of this is that the Queen is able to hijack the dropship.

With the five quote pulled, it has no relation to the quote you're replying to. My original quote was in reference to you saying (basically), retreating Marines would find that their FoB was overwhelmed and the Queen had taken control of it. The thing is, like I was pointing out, that Marines being unable to report on the Queen lurking around landing zone one would be really difficult, and probably would be more practical in a movie-setting.

[adrenalinetooth]

I

As well, either I'm blind or just dumb. I still haven't seen anything that counters the issue of the Queen just automatically recalling the dropship and decimating them every round.

Let me simplify it for you.

As it stands, marines evacuate, and the queen has all the time in the world to hijack the shuttle. She can take as long as she wants after the marines are gone to go up to the shuttle console and call it back from the Almayer. The hijack chance is 100%.

Now, in the proposed idea:

The queen has a small window to hijack the shuttle which is the time in which the Alamo is flying from the planet to the Almayer. If the queen is too slow to slow to reach the console before the Alamo docks on the Almayer, she loses the chance to hijack. If a few defenses are left behind such as turrets or a heroic marine, the chance for the queen to succeed is lessened. If there is a skilled pilot who uses modules and flight optimization, the queen's chance to suceed is also lessened. The hijack chance would probably sit around 10%.

If the queen can force the marines off, it's a minor Alien victory. If the queen can bamboozle the marines and make the Alamo turn around before they evacuate, she can board it, wipe out the Almayer, humiliate the marines, and achieve an Alien major victory.

[CABAL]

How it will be explained IC'ly? How Marines can know that Queen is able to recall the shuttle?
" - Hey Steve, those big eyeless Xenos don't use, or posses any technology?"
" - Yep."
" - And that even bigger Screecher?"
" - I'm sure it have an IT degree, better not let her near that console during full planet evac."

Besides, round end if the marines successfuly evacuated? On high pop it might be around 100 marines. With that implemented nobody would evacuate.
Imagine, you are wounded and medic said "Medevac". To dropship, to medbay, to surgery. Doctor healed you fully, but situation on the ground is bad, command orders full evac, marines go, few "heroes" and turrets are left. Queen didn't hijacked the shuttle: "This is how ends the story of brave USMC soldiers". THE END.

[adrenalinetooth]

How it will be explained IC'ly? How Marines can know that Queen is able to recall the shuttle?
" - Hey Steve, those big eyeless Xenos don't use, or posses any technology?"
" - Yep."
" - And that even bigger Screecher?"
" - I'm sure it have an IT degree, better not let her near that console during full planet evac."

You must be new. Everyone already knows OOCly that if marines retreat, the queen will have to hijack the shuttle. If the queen doesn't, the game doesn't finish. She HAS to hijack it to kill marines once they evacuate or they will get bwoinked for delaying round end. Everyone ICly doesn't know this. Evacs always follow up with memorials, debriefings, etc. And then aliens hijack.

Besides, round end if the marines successfuly evacuated? On high pop it might be around 100 marines. With that implemented nobody would evacuate.

What the hell are you talking about? Either marines kill all the aliens or they evacuate. That is how it is now, my idea used or not.

Imagine, you are wounded and medic said "Medevac". To dropship, to medbay, to surgery. Doctor healed you fully, but situation on the ground is bad, command orders full evac, marines go, few "heroes" and turrets are left. Queen didn't hijacked the shuttle: "This is how ends the story of brave USMC soldiers". THE END.

Yep, that's the idea. Every ending doesn't have to be a suspenseful hollywood ending where everyone dies brutally. Once marines evacuate, they either all get killed, blow up the ship and themselves, or pull through and kill the aliens (which RARELY happens). Perhaps it's still interesting to you, but to many of us thinking "oh we retreated, here we go again" it's getting repetitive.

[CABAL]

Sure, but again... Marines don't know that IC'ly. Private McUnga don't know that Dropship will fly all by itself to the LZ and don't know that Dropship will return full of aliens. Player that plays Private McUnga knows it, but not Private himself. For Private to lear it, he have to experience, or hear that Dropship left the Hangar: IC means "In Character", OOC means "Out Of Character". Who would stay outside the dropship and who would left sentries there? For the marines without IC knowledge, it's just wasting lives and equipment.
Everyone knows that OOC'ly, but not IC'ly. Staying behind would be Metagaming = Knowledge that your character didn't have.
Everyone knows OOC'ly that aliens use vents. Why marines are not welding all vents from the start? They don't know that IC'ly, so there is no point in doing that before seeing that groundside and reporting that on comms.
For it be IC'ly, marines have to see Aliens using vents. This way Private McUnga learn this, but Player playing Private McUnga know it from thousands of rounds played before.
For staying behind with reason IC'ly, command would have to receive information from somewhere that Queen is able to do it and the source have to be very good, like from HC, or W-Y.

Now is either marines kill all the aliens, or aliens kill all marines, or SD (Marines kill all aliens planetside, or shipside after evacuation. Aliens kill all marines shipside after evacuation, or without). Your idea is to end few rounds with many marines and aliens alive, if the dropship reaches the hangar (Marines kill all aliens planetside, or evacuate not killing aliens, or killing all aliens after unsuccessful evacuation. Aliens kill all marines after unsuccessful evacuation shipside, or just stay planetside not killing all marines).

It is the game, it is "combat server", rounds ends with one side destroyed, no draws. Besides, evacuating planet is Xeno minor? I would say it should be Marines minor, SD Xeno minor, no SD Xeno major and killing Xenos Marine Major.
How ending round after evacuation is less boring than desperate fight in SD, CiC, or assault on dropship? This is part for admins to take care. They can, for example, replace all xenos with UPP, or CLF, or Zombies and also revive ghosts as them and attack with another dropship from space, but landing in hangar, or with ERT shuttles? Here, two-three times a day and after evacuation period is not repetitive.