A Real Discussion: Xeno Meta Gaming

[Grubstank]

The dead have no rights, Xenos are allowed to drag corpses all they want. It's your problem for dying in the first place. Defib's are not a right. Further more, since i've had to explain this like 100 times now and i'm sick of it. Xeno meta does exist, it's just most players want to assign everything Xenos do as some sort of meta.

Avoidng CAS/OBs - We're not going to force players to stand in an instant kill zone.
Targeting Specs - It makes perfect sense to target the dude with the bigger gun that's more capable of killing you all.
Slashing comms - They literally cut the power in the movie, it's your job to defend it.
Dragging bodies - The dead don't have any rights.
Slashing turrets and m56d - Seriously? It's a weapon. Xenos know what weapons are.

I could go on, but there are things that ARE Xeno meta, that I constantly yell at Xenos about. Such as

Specifically melting all of hydro for no reason.
Camping at LZ1
Melting surgery tables on the almayer

etc etc. I'm a bit tired but yeah. We have this discussion all the time. Defend your stuff.

"The dead have no rights" just stands out as a major copout to me. The rest of your post deals with logic justifying a potebtially meta activity; the fact that you have to move the goalposts to address the thread topic is quite telling.

"The dead have no rights" actually stands in the way of numerous other recent rulings -- for instance, countless marines were boinked in a recent mutiny for attempting to husk corpses or otherwise deny defibs.

Even if we do accept your premise "the dead have no rights" -- then it's still totally beside the point. The xenos are doing shit that their characters don't have any reason to do, in order to gain an in character advantage. That is THE DEFINITION of metagaming.

Please actually engage and address the issue rather than moving the goalposts.

[Dolth]

Ok, since you want a ruling about why they can drag bodies, I will give you your ruling:

We won't inforce because it's impossible and a dam hassle.

There are multiple variables when a body is being dragged, multiple reasonings that can be accounted for that and also the fact that you have to spend over than half an hour to try determinate if it was a meta or not.

Its the same case why we don't force marines to die to facehuggers when they fall into a trap. If no one knows what they are/saw someone die for it, it would be meta to go up and remove it. Now, we won't force the player to perma die so the others know hugger=Larva. So we allow the players to either RP it out and die, or go up and get a surgery.

We won't spend over half an hour to determinate a case of meta for dragging bodies. We will only tackle if it was perma killing bodies like husking.

It doesn't matter if you want to act like you know more and quote the rules on me, the ruling won't change. Dragging bodies is fair game and point.

I quoted the rules on TheMaskedMeme. Not you.

And I do know for a fact more than you apparently since leaving to Almayer early to get surgery without IC knowledge WAS PUNISHED ONE AND HALF YEAR AGO.

Also. Hidding a corpse is pretty much the same than husking.

Now you seem to fail to understand the whole point of the 5ish previous posts. People are complaining about staff spitting a No no with no rules to back their voice up. It doesn't mean we want anything to change, but it does mean it would be nice if there could be actual rules to relate with.

Right now. You are unable to tell me why aliens are allowed to do one thing which IS FORBBIDEN by definition of one of your own rules. And you are not explaining why it isn't against any rules. Which brings confusion. Which brings that.

But again I don't wanna change anything. Just pointing out that.

EDIT: What the dude above me just said. You are allowing something that fits the definition of metagaming which is your rule. Yet allows it. That confuses people. Pisses them off. Then make them appear here.

[Blade2000Br]

I quoted the rules on TheMaskedMeme. Not you.

And I do know for a fact more than you apparently since leaving to Almayer early to get surgery without IC knowledge WAS PUNISHED ONE AND HALF YEAR AGO.

Also. Hidding a corpse is pretty much the same than husking.

Now you seem to fail to understand the whole point of the 5ish previous posts. People are complaining about staff spitting a No no with no rules to back their voice up. It doesn't mean we want anything to change, but it does mean it would be nice if there could be actual rules to relate with.

Right now. You are unable to tell me why aliens are allowed to do one thing which IS FORBBIDEN by definition of one of your own rules. And you are not explaining why it isn't against any rules. Which brings confusion. Which brings that.

But again I don't wanna change anything. Just pointing out that.

EDIT: What the dude above me just said. You are allowing something that fits the definition of metagaming which is your rule. Yet allows it. That confuses people. Pisses them off. Then make them appear here.

I said that so you won't come saying "but here how you are wrong".

so Jan 2017? I honestly never have seen this being enforced at all. Nor any mod/admin bwoink for this.

We don't need rules to say that xenos can drag bodies on X situation but not Y situation. This is to difficult and hassleing to enforce.

The Aliens never have been forbidden to drag bodies. It's not considered metagaming by the staff, so we won't enforce it.

Like I said again, dragging bodies is meta is not something that simple to handle. There's several nuisances on it that makes impossible to determinate something like that. We won't go into the hassle of this especific topic because you got denied defib for X reasons. Tough luck, it happens.

Again, if the staff team deemed this to not be meta for a especific reason, then it's not meta. We won't change the ruling that have been here for years now because you got dragged off as Spec during a queen schreech, got rushed by lurkers on the nexus road and other things that accounted for your body being dragged in the first place.

[Davidchan]

Just hardcode so xenos can't drag (or slash) dead bodies. Problem solved. And yes, I say slashing because xenos of late have been intentionally going overkill on corpses so they can't even be defibbed.

[Dolth]

Oi. Quit the personal targetting in your posts, so far I did not take a dump on you personally. Be professional and avoid doing so aswell.

Yes. Leaving to home vessel without knowledge was punished at some point. Killing on first contact would get you a note. Rambo'ing through river on LZ was meta (before the fog) and even on Nostromo; instantly equipping atmos helmets to protect further against huggers was meta and would earn you a note.

My point is, if your character does a move that he cannot justify with IC reasoning THEN it is metagaming and this is bigger than your definition of the word. Meta isn't bound to your server it's a RP rule that is used everywhere. You obviously can step down by saying moving corpse is allowed because your word is final as a staff team, which would be frowned upon yet accepted. But again, if a xeno moves a corpse to hide it in maints then it is clearly metagaming as thee are NO reasons BUT to deny a dedib, which xeno doesn't know about.

[Casany]

Killing on first contact would get you a note.

Yeet. I actually have a note for that from way back when. Admins didn't like you shooting xenos unless the xenos attacked

Anyway xenos can do no evil in the eyes of staff. It's all about that winrate. If you didn't allow them to do this they could start losing! No one wants that!
And stop the bullshit "It's too hard to enforce" because literally your one job on the server is to enforce the rules. And usually there are LESS xeno players than marine players. The only reason it would feasibly make sense to not enforce is if the entire xeno team does it---Oh wait, they do. And why? Because the staff team were lax and decided not to enforce it when it was just a small issue, so now everyone thinks it's OK.

[Blade2000Br]

Oi. Quit the personal targetting in your posts, so far I did not take a dump on you personally. Be professional and avoid doing so aswell.

Yes. Leaving to home vessel without knowledge was punished at some point. Killing on first contact would get you a note. Rambo'ing through river on LZ was meta (before the fog) and even on Nostromo; instantly equipping atmos helmets to protect further against huggers was meta and would earn you a note.

My point is, if your character does a move that he cannot justify with IC reasoning THEN it is metagaming and this is bigger than your definition of the word. Meta isn't bound to your server it's a RP rule that is used everywhere. You obviously can step down by saying moving corpse is allowed because your word is final as a staff team, which would be frowned upon yet accepted. But again, if a xeno moves a corpse to hide it in maints then it is clearly metagaming as thee are NO reasons BUT to deny a dedib, which xeno doesn't know about.

It was not personal attack, it was a direct answer to you.

That time it was before mechanical locks had been added/ features were removed.

Again, it's not my ruling personally, it's literal heads rulling on the subject. They said we don't have to enforce it, so we won't enforce it. And again, that's not meta if the managers say it's not. You don't know if it's for defib, for light, for queen to Gib. That's not that simple.

Just hardcode so xenos can't drag (or slash) dead bodies. Problem solved. And yes, I say slashing because xenos of late have been intentionally going overkill on corpses so they can't even be defibbed.

Slashing dead bodies have been coded already. Xenos can't do it. Dragging won't be changed, however.

[Dolth]

Obviously it's not something easy to spot, never said it was.

But when you're dragged ten tiles in maints and left to rot, that's definitively metagaming.
Anyways, this is pretty sterile as a convo, will continue in PM if ever needed.. No grudges held, hopefully.

[Casany]

Again, it's not my ruling personally, it's literal heads rulling on the subject. They said we don't have to enforce it, so we won't enforce it. And again, that's not meta if the managers say it's not. You don't know if it's for defib, for light, for queen to Gib. That's not that simple.

Can one of the heads then come and give us a sensible reason instead of pretzeling the rules around and sending in mods to just say "Heads say it's OK, therefor it's OK". This is reminding me a lot of the older staff team, when they would allow shit to slide or enforce "ghost rules" and in general never told the community why things were the way they were.

[Blade2000Br]

And I gave the reasoning of why we don't enforce it. You are free to disagree as you see fit, but that's how we are handling this now.

I don't hold grudges, I am secretely a robot that works for the lizard people that Marck Zuckerberg controls. We will robotizice everyone.

Being serious now, nah, I won't hold any grudges agaisn't ya. You are vocal about it, sure, probably because you are frustrated it happens. Hell I do too, but we can't simply give a ruling and be done with it. It exists alot we have to account for.

But yeah, I don't hold grudges agaisn't people, I don't have a reason too. We are all human and diffirent opinions.

And Casany, I gave the reason. If you don't want have it, then it's fine.

[Heckenshutze]

Can one of the heads then come and give us a sensible reason instead of pretzeling the rules around and sending in mods to just say "Heads say it's OK, therefor it's OK". This is reminding me a lot of the older staff team, when they would allow shit to slide or enforce "ghost rules" and in general never told the community why things were the way they were.

When I was staff this was something that was discussed like, many times, and it's something it will be always on discussion, thing is, everyone has their own criteria over the topic, I'd dare to say 'the lower castes' (plain mods) in their vast majority would agree to actually rule this or at least drag a line. The concept changes when it comes to the Heads, only the Heads know how the Heads think and see the rules and what should / shouldn't be added / deleted / edited.

Last time I was on the discussion, the answer was really simple: Xenos drag bodies because the armor suit lights, and xenos know and understand light is bad for them.

O.K.

That's great, so far that's understandable right? the issue comes when, after that statement, players wanted a fix in how the armor lights worked, they got tired of suggesting the lights to turn off when the mob dies or get destroyed with enough hits to the torso. But all of them got denied.

[Dolth]

Believe me, the main issue is that you guys have issues that fits a rule and answers by something else. If you don't explain a player why he's not rightfully thinking he'll be confused as fuck and that's an open door to MANY hatres.

[Grubstank]

Ok, since you want a ruling about why they can drag bodies, I will give you your ruling:

We won't inforce because it's impossible and a dam hassle.

There are multiple variables when a body is being dragged, multiple reasonings that can be accounted for that and also the fact that you have to spend over than half an hour to try determinate if it was a meta or not.

Its the same case why we don't force marines to die to facehuggers when they fall into a trap. If no one knows what they are/saw someone die for it, it would be meta to go up and remove it. Now, we won't force the player to perma die so the others know hugger=Larva. So we allow the players to either RP it out and die, or go up and get a surgery.

We won't spend over half an hour to determinate a case of meta for dragging bodies. We will only tackle if it was perma killing bodies like husking.

It doesn't matter if you want to act like you know more and quote the rules on me, the ruling won't change. Dragging bodies is fair game and point.

If I deployed to a combat zone in response to a distress beacon, found it shredded, and had some reptile wildlife (unmentioned in briefing) shove something down my throat (causing me to subsequently go unconcious for a significant period of time) then you could bet your ass that I would seek medical attention. What reasonable and prudent person wouldn't? The medics on the ground don't have the ability to directly detect possible organ damage. A trip to the medbay would be the first on anybody's list, and this doesn't resemble metagaming.

I really don't see how it could take half an hour to investigate.
i) did you see a xeno dragging a body? If yes, proceed to step ii.
ii) did they drag it from a place where it was the only illumination into somewhere off the front line? If yes, let them carry on. If no, slap them with some punishment.

Responding to an ahelp you don't personally witness may be a bit harder, but once this rule sees some level of enforcement people will stop doing it. People do it because right now it isn't against the rules. Make it against the rules, and the casual violators will stop.

[Jeser]

It's not like they didn't do anything. There was update not long ago that gave a feature that prevents aliens from slashing dead marines, becouse it was common for Revagers to behead corpses and it was faster than dragging bodies. So "+" for devs.

For some reason xenos are treated like little babies. You can't tell them "don't do it", you have to mechanicaly make them unable to, or they will ignore anything. Few weeks ago nearly every round I played there was OOC message for benos to not drag bodies on the LZ. Staff have so little faith for xeno players that they think like: "If we will give them some inconvenience like restricting meta knowledge, then nobody would play it. We need to allow them to powergame as much as possible, becouse otherwise playing xenos is not fun, right"?

I mean they could've implement any of this suggestion years ago and we wouldn't have this dialog at all. That's my point.

[Tharinoma]

Hello.

We know there is some form of metagaming going on every round.
We know that sometimes it really sucks, like when you die early or the round you were enjoying gets brutally ended or modified.

The game has mechanics, and as such they can and will be abused by players. This is unavoidable. Coding a game in which nothing can be abused is impossible.
We are a medium RP and not a high RP server. We don't force players to put alot of effort in their roleplaying, story telling. Which means we accept unrealistic events to happen in a round.
SS13 is an RP focused game with no restraints to player actions (besides the very few mechanic limitations coded in), meaning the rules are enforced by human beings. This means there are some offenses that must be allowed because they cannot be punished consistently. Even 20 staff members can't keep track of the story of 100+ players during three hours.
There will always be a guy with a good-ish RP reason to do something that happens to favor his team. Preventing some of these would require way too much work from out devs, our mods or would simply restrain the players' gameplay too much.

Which means Metagaming is not something we can completely stop. That is common to any roleplaying game, a game in which, by definition, the player has access to information his character does not.

That being said, our staff has put alot of effort into restraining the metagaming capabilities of our players, through various means such as new features, balance, rules, or procedures. And I think the server is doing a pretty damn good job with it.
Of course, some players disagree with them. We're not going to have 100+ players agree on how to code, balance or rule the server. Some would like more freedom (identifying pill bottles), some would like more restraint (melting tools). In the end, someoen has to make a decision and the staff team makes them, taking under consideration the feedback it gets from the playerbase.

Please don't think we didn't know about the issues that were raised in this thread. My guess is a staff member thought about them before you did. And they are all discussed, some regularly, in staff channels.

There are solutions to these minor metagaming problems described above, the first one obviously being "man up and deal with it". No one ever claimed the game was perfect. Aother one is the lore we can adapt to fit the limitations of the gameplay. We play in an imaginary universe, we can decide that xenos know how to recognise human faces, or we can decide they can't. Once you see a gameplay limitation as something part of the imaginary world you're evolving in, it becomes much easier to accept and deal with.


About xenomorphs dragging bodies, the subject was raised countless times. It is allowed for multiple reasons, the major ones being :
-Xenos dragging your buddys away while they're screaming for help is part of the lore and not something we want to remove. In the movies, xenos drag away people all the time, away from their friends. Some of them are found later infected, some of them dead.
-Being deffibed is not a right. The defibbing mechanic was not implemented with the idea that marines should get a chance to being defibbed. It's only a bonus.
-Removing lights from marines is a valid reason to remove corpses, and coding required to fix that with mechanics is currently too expensive.
-We cannot consistently enforce a rule forbidding it.

About focusing on critical systems :
-Most are unacidable or protected by various game mechanics
-It''s an issue we look into when it's on the almayer, and sometimes rule as metagaming depending on the situation
-it doesn't happen alot
-tcomms planetside are supposed to be in permanent danger and protected by the marines.

Running from OBs, CAS or predators:
-It was decided players wouldn't be asked to let themselves be instakilled for these.
-You can pretend xenos can see the OB shell or dropship soon en ough to run, and xenos know how strong preds are because hivemind

Breaking the colony at round start:
-It's supposed to be broken, there was a big fight there during which the xenos wiped out the colonists
-Marines are given all the supplies they need on the Almayer, they don't need anything from the ground
-Major meta is not allowed and punished, such as LZ1 hives or melting all of the nexus walls.

Metatargeting :
-Impossible to enforce if the offender is a tiny bit subtle about it
-Players can always change their name or reputation if they want
-Blurring marines was tested and it was decided to implement it, some of the reasons being:
-It killed alot of fun for the xeno side, you were reduced to a slashing machine with no RP interaction with your prey
-It caused major balance issues

Slashing weapons you didn't see fire yet :
-This happens extremely rarely. At least one xeno usually get shot by guns, sentries or MGs before they get close enough to damage them
-Xenos have a hivemind, if one saw it shoot at some point somewhere in the world, in theory all the xenos can know about it.
-Hard to enforce

Metarushing:
-Lots of mechanics implemented to prevent it
-Hard to enforce, it usually involces a high amount of players (whole squad or hive)
-Having the hive rush marines at round start actually gives the marines an advantage if they are slightly competent about it.

It should be noted that xenos do not metagame more than marines do. It depends on the player. And that meta a marine has a much bigger impact than meta as xeno.

Should you have any concerns or questions about an issue you consider metagaming, feel free to message our staff about it through the proper channels (you can always pm me on discord or the forums, for example). Should their answer not be satisfactory, feel free to make a discussion thread or a gitlab about it.
However, please do so calmly, respectfully, after doing a minimal amout of research on why things are the way they are, not because you're salty you died in a 2d spessman game, and keeping in mind things must be done for the benefit of the server as a whole and that you opinion might not be shared by the rest of the community.
In case I wasn't clear, I mean not like in this thread's first post.

As a side note, I would like to share that I think those of you that are being dicks in this threat, stirring up drama of tickling each other look like morons.

Hope this clears the concerns some of you might have.
Have a CM day!

[Dolth]

Honestly, more than half of the subjects you are talking about and issuing the "We can't enforce it", were enforced at some points, mechanically. But I will remember the point where you say this is a medium RP server and some unrealistic shit cannot be avoided. Expect me to quote you later.

Though, thanks for your point of view.

[Jeser]

Blurring marines was tested and it was decided to implement it, some of the reasons being:
-It killed alot of fun for the xeno side, you were reduced to a slashing machine with no RP interaction with your prey
-It caused major balance issues

First doesn't make sense at all. Like, really, it just doesn't make sense.
Second ppoint. I can imagine what issues are, but alongside blur was suggested removal visibility of marine name for aliens, which would effectively cut down meta targeting without ANY balance issues and that wasn't implemented.

[CABAL]

I just have to...

Hello.

We know there is some form of metagaming going on every round.
We know that sometimes it really sucks, like when you die early or the round you were enjoying gets brutally ended or modified.

The game has mechanics, and as such they can and will be abused by players. This is unavoidable. Coding a game in which nothing can be abused is impossible.
We are a medium RP and not a high RP server. We don't force players to put alot of effort in their roleplaying, story telling. Which means we accept unrealistic events to happen in a round.
SS13 is an RP focused game with no restraints to player actions (besides the very few mechanic limitations coded in), meaning the rules are enforced by human beings. This means there are some offenses that must be allowed because they cannot be punished consistently. Even 20 staff members can't keep track of the story of 100+ players during three hours.
There will always be a guy with a good-ish RP reason to do something that happens to favor his team. Preventing some of these would require way too much work from out devs, our mods or would simply restrain the players' gameplay too much.

Which means Metagaming is not something we can completely stop. That is common to any roleplaying game, a game in which, by definition, the player has access to information his character does not.

That being said, our staff has put alot of effort into restraining the metagaming capabilities of our players, through various means such as new features, balance, rules, or procedures. And I think the server is doing a pretty damn good job with it.
Of course, some players disagree with them. We're not going to have 100+ players agree on how to code, balance or rule the server. Some would like more freedom (identifying pill bottles), some would like more restraint (melting tools). In the end, someoen has to make a decision and the staff team makes them, taking under consideration the feedback it gets from the playerbase.

Please don't think we didn't know about the issues that were raised in this thread. My guess is a staff member thought about them before you did. And they are all discussed, some regularly, in staff channels.

There are solutions to these minor metagaming problems described above, the first one obviously being "man up and deal with it". No one ever claimed the game was perfect. Aother one is the lore we can adapt to fit the limitations of the gameplay. We play in an imaginary universe, we can decide that xenos know how to recognise human faces, or we can decide they can't. Once you see a gameplay limitation as something part of the imaginary world you're evolving in, it becomes much easier to accept and deal with.

"Some form of metagaming"? Xeno metagame by definition of metagaming.
Dying early might suck, but not being revived is one thing, dick xeno using OOC knowledge to drag every recently dead body to make sure they don't get this bonus sucks really hard.

Why writing "players" like everyone are to blame. Marines have set of things that are considered metaknowledge like welding vents before they witness xenos using them etc. Marines are punished for welding vents round start, they are bwoinked sec after shooting a farwa, or other "furhost" and this mob is getting healed/ressurected ASAP becouse benos might not get that one precious defender. Xenos don't have any "set things". Metaknowledge does not exist for xenos for some reason. Metaknowledge is not only about RP, it's also gameplay concern. You can have knowledge about every "feature", every "mechanic" in the game, yet you can still do great RP (as seen on "classic" servers where janitor can do surgery well and he also can know every single detail about cult/antag etc). Xenos Metagaming don't break anyones RP, they just break the rules.
"This means there are some offenses that must be allowed because they cannot be punished consistently. Even 20 staff members can't keep track of the story of 100+ players during three hours." - This is an excuse to let xenos meta as much as they want, but marines need to be punished every single time?
"There will always be a guy with a good-ish RP reason to do something that happens to favor his team. Preventing some of these would require way too much work from out devs, our mods or would simply restrain the players' gameplay too much." - Xenos don't RP, so no RP reasons for them and still... Talk about every player (mainly marines). Anybody have a problem with marines knowing too much that should be punished? Early rush from marines is metaknowledge as much as xenos going straight to SD after dropship crash.

"Which means Metagaming is not something we can completely stop." NOD guidance files response: "128: Do not confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence is achievable, perfection is elusive". As much as I want game to be fair and everybody to follow server rules I know that staff are only humans (or half-human, half-lizard and half-cybernetic) and they can't see everything, but not seeing every single "metaknowledge" attempt is one thing and ignoring xenos doing everything meta is another one. You can't make it perfect, but you can atleast try to make it excellent.

Adding examples of obvious metaknowledge to server rules requires... Guess how much coding. None.

"There are solutions to these minor metagaming problems described above, the first one obviously being "man up and deal with it"." - Best line. Marines metarushing hive on prison station? You know what, benos? Man up and deal with it.

"We play in an imaginary universe, we can decide that xenos know how to recognise human faces, or we can decide they can't. Once you see a gameplay limitation as something part of the imaginary world you're evolving in, it becomes much easier to accept and deal with." - Sure, state it in server rules. Under "No powergaming" rule state: "For xenomorphs term "metaknowledge" and "powergaming" does not exist. They know everything". In that case I will only say: "They know too much, but it's in the rules and they are only following orders, no blame on xenos"

About xenomorphs dragging bodies, the subject was raised countless times. It is allowed for multiple reasons, the major ones being :
-Xenos dragging your buddys away while they're screaming for help is part of the lore and not something we want to remove. In the movies, xenos drag away people all the time, away from their friends. Some of them are found later infected, some of them dead.
-Being deffibed is not a right. The defibbing mechanic was not implemented with the idea that marines should get a chance to being defibbed. It's only a bonus.
-Removing lights from marines is a valid reason to remove corpses, and coding required to fix that with mechanics is currently too expensive.
-We cannot consistently enforce a rule forbidding it.

About focusing on critical systems :
-Most are unacidable or protected by various game mechanics
-It''s an issue we look into when it's on the almayer, and sometimes rule as metagaming depending on the situation
-it doesn't happen alot
-tcomms planetside are supposed to be in permanent danger and protected by the marines.

Running from OBs, CAS or predators:
-It was decided players wouldn't be asked to let themselves be instakilled for these.
-You can pretend xenos can see the OB shell or dropship soon en ough to run, and xenos know how strong preds are because hivemind

Breaking the colony at round start:
-It's supposed to be broken, there was a big fight there during which the xenos wiped out the colonists
-Marines are given all the supplies they need on the Almayer, they don't need anything from the ground
-Major meta is not allowed and punished, such as LZ1 hives or melting all of the nexus walls.

Metatargeting :
-Impossible to enforce if the offender is a tiny bit subtle about it
-Players can always change their name or reputation if they want
-Blurring marines was tested and it was decided to implement it, some of the reasons being:
-It killed alot of fun for the xeno side, you were reduced to a slashing machine with no RP interaction with your prey
-It caused major balance issues

Slashing weapons you didn't see fire yet :
-This happens extremely rarely. At least one xeno usually get shot by guns, sentries or MGs before they get close enough to damage them
-Xenos have a hivemind, if one saw it shoot at some point somewhere in the world, in theory all the xenos can know about it.
-Hard to enforce

Metarushing:
-Lots of mechanics implemented to prevent it
-Hard to enforce, it usually involces a high amount of players (whole squad or hive)
-Having the hive rush marines at round start actually gives the marines an advantage if they are slightly competent about it.

It should be noted that xenos do not metagame more than marines do. It depends on the player. And that meta a marine has a much bigger impact than meta as xeno.

Should you have any concerns or questions about an issue you consider metagaming, feel free to message our staff about it through the proper channels (you can always pm me on discord or the forums, for example). Should their answer not be satisfactory, feel free to make a discussion thread or a gitlab about it.
However, please do so calmly, respectfully, after doing a minimal amout of research on why things are the way they are, not because you're salty you died in a 2d spessman game, and keeping in mind things must be done for the benefit of the server as a whole and that you opinion might not be shared by the rest of the community.
In case I wasn't clear, I mean not like in this thread's first post.

As a side note, I would like to share that I think those of you that are being dicks in this threat, stirring up drama of tickling each other look like morons.

Hope this clears the concerns some of you might have.
Have a CM day!

"About xenomorphs dragging bodies", yet after that "Xenos dragging yourbuddys".
Xenos dragging living marines - Perfectly fine. Nobody will scream "metaknowlede" for beno that is dragging Living marine.
"Being deffibed is not a right." - Sure, but I will salt about metaknowledge even if my marine is unrevivable and xeno is dragging it miles away.
"Removing lights from marines is a valid reason to remove corpses" - Sure, but dragging bodies miles away just for a purpose of denying defib is meta and powergaming. It's fine for them to relocate corpse in some corner not far away. But hiding bodies under other bodies (xeno and marinelike) is meta and powergaming.
"We cannot consistently enforce a rule forbidding it." - That's where ahelping comes in help. Sure, there might be a mass of new ahelps for that reason, but give warning that false ahelps for that reason will be punished and problem solved.

"About focusing on critical systems :
-Most are unacidable or protected by various game mechanics" - Sure.
"-It''s an issue we look into when it's on the almayer, and sometimes rule as metagaming depending on the situation" - I'm not sure "Sometimes..." If it is something critical for marines like weapon vendors, or life support systems. If it's not, it's fine. Marine killing farwa planetside? Get this motherfucker 24h ban! Atleast a note and bwoink and ofcourse revive that farwa ASAP!
"-it doesn't happen alot" Sure.
"-tcomms planetside are supposed to be in permanent danger and protected by the marines." Sure.

"Running from OBs, CAS or predators:..." - Everything sure and with IC explanation I agree. BUT xenos are not running from predators. Everyone know that predators will just fuck around xenos without their cloak and xenos will respond "hi" to them.

"Breaking the colony at round start:
-It's supposed to be broken, there was a big fight there during which the xenos wiped out the colonists" - Hey, private McUnga, can you see this broken medbay? Nope... What's broken? All usefull vendors, everything else perfectly fine. Etc.
"-Marines are given all the supplies they need on the Almayer, they don't need anything from the ground" - A bonus might be appreciated. It's not like there is lying 1k of plasteel and 100 barell chargers.
"-Major meta is not allowed and punished, such as LZ1 hives or melting all of the nexus walls." - LZ1 hives actually prevent not so bright queens to do the worst mistake they can, so this is helping them even. Also, notice "all" walls. Melt walls that might help marines, becouse as smart beno with hivemind you know marines are coming.

"Metatargeting :
-Impossible to enforce if the offender is a tiny bit subtle about it" - Blurry face and name. If well known PFC with standard rifle is targetted then this is a problem. Smartgunner, or spec? Fine.
"-Players can always change their name or reputation if they want" - But they don't want. If by some miracle I will become the most robust men alive and Cabal Shephard will be know from being robust PFC then I will keep it for more RP occasions.
"-Blurring marines was tested and it was decided to implement it, some of the reasons being:
-It killed alot of fun for the xeno side, you were reduced to a slashing machine with no RP interaction with your prey
-It caused major balance issues" - You mean targetting decent marines is something that you can call "RP" and fun on xeno side?
>implying that xenos are not a slashing machine with no RP interactions with their pray at currently.
Ancient Revager 666 hisses: "I can't see at the first glance robustos that I know they are robust from previos rounds? We gonna lose. 'Nuff said"

"Slashing weapons you didn't see fire yet:" Sure, guns look nearly the same.

"Metarushing:" Sure
"-Hard to enforce, it usually involces a high amount of players (whole squad or hive)" - "OOC: Admeme: Stop your metarush xenos/marines, or I shall strike thee with my banhammer." - I'm sure it will work.
"It should be noted that xenos do not metagame more than marines do." Of course, only if one acknowledge there is no metaknowledge for xenos currently. They can do whatever they want. Otherwise my response will probably be a laughing face that should describe emotion like "Good joke... Really good, dude, shit my pants becouse of it".




"

[Tharinoma]

more than half of the subjects you are talking about and issuing the "We can't enforce it", were enforced at some points,

The only subject I claimed could not be enforced is metatargeting. I'm sure some metatargeting incidents were addressed at some point in CM history, but again, you can't enforce it if the offender is being subtle about it. You're not in his head.

First doesn't make sense at all. Like, really, it just doesn't make sense.
Second ppoint. I can imagine what issues are, but alongside blur was suggested removal visibility of marine name for aliens, which would effectively cut down meta targeting without ANY balance issues and that wasn't implemented.

Playing xeno and fighting a group of shades is not as fun as fighting a group of humans, each of them having their personality, quirks, skill and story. I'm sure some people don't mind playing xeno against a single type of mob with a somehow randomized type of behavior, which is the way I felt when I played against blurred humans. But when I play xeno, I want to be able to recognise the marine I delimbed earlier in the round, the medic that saved him, the SL that sacrificed himself to kill the queen, the moronic doctor that nearly died in a boiler gas and the MP that made an arrest in the FOB. Rmoving that removes alot of the fun for me.
I'm also personally against the removal of name view for xenos, for the same reason I'm against forcing marines to use a random name every round. While I'm playing xeno, I want to know when it's Bill Carson I'm delimbing. Cutting marine#133's hands off isn't as fun. And remembering numbers is much harder than remembering names.
That's just my personnal opinion, but I believe it is shared by some of our players. The exact official reasons why the removal of the marine names view for xenos wasn't implemented, I do not know.

dick xeno using OOC knowledge to drag every recently dead body to make sure they don't get this bonus sucks really hard

I think I understand th feeling, but please do keep in mind it is not universal. I don't give a damn about that when I play.

Xenos don't have any "set things". Metaknowledge does not exist for xenos for some reason. Metaknowledge is not only about RP, it's also gameplay concern. You can have knowledge about every "feature", every "mechanic" in the game, yet you can still do great RP (as seen on "classic" servers where janitor can do surgery well and he also can know every single detail about cult/antag etc). Xenos Metagaming don't break anyones RP, they just break the rules.

Metaknowledge does exist for xenos.
It's just much, much, much less relevant than marine metaknowledge.
The reason is very simple : xenos know nearly everything they need to know about the humans, yet the humans start knowing nothing about the xenos. Xenos have already fought human beings, they know about their general tactics and capabilities, while the marines know nothing about the xenos.
The discovery of the new species, with all the jump scares, fear, or curiosity is a strong part of the alien universe.

Most of the xenomorph metagaming issues were fixed by coding. They can't melt surgery tables for no reason, or important vendors, or important consoles, or wall off the entire sd room. These things are either against the rules and enforced, or so important that we ensured game mechanics prevented it. Xenos cannot drag items.
We can't apply these limitations to the marine side. Sometimes for practical coding reasons (how do you let the game know when marines know about aliens in vents..) but mostly because restricting gameplay is not something we want to do for these things that can be enforced well by the staff team. Some updates going in that direction have been considerably debated about, and rightfully (reading pill bottle labels), because they ruin part of the fun of SS13, which is a game that leaves youc ompletely free to evolve in a set universe in which you create the roleplay and the fun with others.

Xenos don't RP

We're medium RP and you are not obliged to provide quality roleplay to play on the server, but some xenos do roleplay, and roleplay is always encouraged. Staff has always been less severe on the low rp shenanigans on the xeno side because they are not the main characters of the story, but they did put their foot down when things started getting out of hand.

You can't make it perfect, but you can atleast try to make it excellent.

What do you think we do during all that time we spend on the server banning morons that decided to shoot you in the face for no reason? Why do you think we keep the devs in the dungeon chained to their keyboards? Why do mentors painfully walk newbies too lazy to read and understand a quickstart guide through the basics every round? Why do you think I'm spending some of my precious time responding to you right now?
Coder, mod and mentor applications are open, you know. And the gitlab is accessible by everyone.

Marines metarushing hive on prison station? You know what, benos? Man up and deal with it.

Marines metarushing and winning the round in 45 minutes is not a minor problem, it's a major problem.
A player being unable to be defibbed because his body was dragged away is not a major problem.
Xenos metarushing sd is not a major problem.

If a xenomorph can drag a dead guy away, he can very well drag him alive then kill him. Xenos have more than enough stuns to do that. If your dead corpse is so abandoned that a lone xeno could take him and bring him all the way back to the hive, the chances a medic would randomly stumble upon you and defib you are pretty slim.
Killing farwe planetside is a major problem. Just imagine every single marines and survivor planetside being completely free to murder the smallhosts there. Not mentionning that sane human beings do not fire on harmless fauna.

OOC: Admeme: Stop your metarush xenos/marines, or I shall strike thee with my banhammer." - I'm sure it will work.

We tried. It doesn't.


I haven't responded to everything. Some of it is just salt. Some of it doesn't make much sense. I tried to clear up most of the misunderstandings I could find.
I'll check this thread later and try to respond to questions if there are any.

[Symbiosis]

Tharinoma -

I’d encourage you to not coddle the Xenos with ambiguous and pretzeled rulings to ban/warn/restrict players. Last round 15ish Xenos walloped an organized force of 140 Marines.

Not because of the Queen. Because of Boilers working well in unison. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a thousand times more. The Xenos are carried by a handful of Xeno players every round.

I personally find no fun in stomping early game as a Xeno. It’s just... boring. It’s most enjoyable when the Marines have you on the ropes and you get to fight hard for a victory. It’s precisely why I went Queen for so long to Unga stomp. To show how boring it was for both sides. Few enjoyed that.

If CM goes down the path where Xenos are babied to such degrees there is no challenge you’ll quickly find the server dropping in population as the fun is no longer there.

[Lorem123]

Xenos are already coddled pretty hard - a large number of players I have spoken have noticed the obvious bias the staff have towards xenomorph players. It became even more clear with the recent fiasco with Aestel.

[Casany]

So in the recent closed post they (Admins) stated that it was disallowed to go to civilian residencies even if you’re bein attacked at the Crashed ship. Because it makes the rounds too short.

But give no mind to the rounds where Xenos crush in 30 minutes and push marines off planet by 12:50.

It is such a fucking double standard, and it upsets me. When marines stomp it MUST be meta. You do know, admins, that if let’s say on Prison the marines wait that they’ll just be pushed off Prison by the 13:00 mark at most right? But that’s fine because it’s a “Long round”.

It makes me upset. I’ve played this game long enough to know that this isn’t the first time or only time such a double standard has existed. In fact it’s always fucking been there. There’s a reason why people call staff xeno biased, it’s because they are. I don’t care if they say they aren’t, because when these kind of double standards exist it’s obvious that they’re balanced.

I once read one of Rahls posts on a staff report from Symb, he said stop feeding the us vs them mentality. But it’s not the players fueling it, it’s the admins who give vague responses, twist rules in the favor of the side they like, and threaten players who don’t agree. And when someone has a response that they can’t argue against with rule pretzeling they just say “That’s just how it is, it was decided in slack”. Why can’t the players decide this shit?

I would love it if huge things like xeno metagaming and what accounts for it would be decided by the players who actually play the game instead of some team of disconnected heads who barely even play. It’s the same issue with the devs, they have so much work and real lives that they can’t really sit down and just play. Though I do feel like with development it’s changed and they are actually getting the playerbase for the first time. I don’t see this with the current staff team.

[Lumdor]

The sum of this whole thread is that every side metas to a degree.

Whether it be marines doing cheese tactics to get one hour wins, or xenos doing the same thing.

We're all human. We all like winning.

Sometimes you throw out RP reasons to get that, is that a problem? Not really as most of the playerbase play's for one reason, to win.

[Royal Griffon]

at least a senior admeme came and told me a definitive answer, it's better than literally every single other response I have gotten.

[Royal Griffon]

I quoted the rules on TheMaskedMeme. Not you.

And I do know for a fact more than you apparently since leaving to Almayer early to get surgery without IC knowledge WAS PUNISHED ONE AND HALF YEAR AGO.

Also. Hidding a corpse is pretty much the same than husking.

Now you seem to fail to understand the whole point of the 5ish previous posts. People are complaining about staff spitting a No no with no rules to back their voice up. It doesn't mean we want anything to change, but it does mean it would be nice if there could be actual rules to relate with.

Right now. You are unable to tell me why aliens are allowed to do one thing which IS FORBBIDEN by definition of one of your own rules. And you are not explaining why it isn't against any rules. Which brings confusion. Which brings that.

But again I don't wanna change anything. Just pointing out that.

EDIT: What the dude above me just said. You are allowing something that fits the definition of metagaming which is your rule. Yet allows it. That confuses people. Pisses them off. Then make them appear here.

I do like your reasonings here, it makes sense and do kind of have plenty of evidence and reasonings.