Queen after queen once hive dies is getting old.

[adrenalinetooth]

Nothing is more anticlimactic than an intense push to wipe out the hive followed by five drones that run off to the corners of the map and drag out the round for another half an hour for a wild goose chase by becoming 5 new queens that die immediately in succession anyways.

Can we please not allow drones, who are simply too easy to produce, become the new queen? It's truly a boner killer having the round dragged out by having the ability for new queens to be created too easily. Why not make it so praetorians become the next queen? A large hive can still have a queen or two if the original dies which makes much more sense than having five reserve drones that just drag out the game once the hive dies.

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

Remember back when they'd still have burrowed larva after a queen died, so you'd wipe like 90% of the hive only to get a random drone becoming queen in some odd corner of the map and poop out 20 more xeno to grow the hive again.

I really wish that we'd have a limit for queens, like 3 and that's it. Also the queen timer should be reduced, because 20 minutes is too damn much.

[Herac]

Most of these suggestions would result in short, boring, unsatisfying rounds. There are plenty of instances where xenos still manage to pull back after losing the round start queen but if you make it so only preatorians (which are the least used T3 and considered the worst caste by many, right now) can become queen you'll miss out of those opportunities.

It would create a meta where the xenos had to sacrifice 2 T3 slots that could go to crusher/boiler/rav for preas and then said preas would have to hang back and avoid fighting because the hive is relying on them to not die.

Right now it's fine, queen dying kills loads of larva, and being in ovie only brings back 1 larva every 2 minutes giving the marines plenty of time to find and wipe out the new hive.

[Blade2000Br]

This is like saying we should all make marines retreat even at full force because one lucky lurker got in the ship and killed solely the CO.

Just because the queen died, doesn't mean the hive all lost. Aliens can come back from failure just as much ad Bill Carson can make marines do a comeback after loosing ground battle.

[Karmac]

not gonna lie though xenos making it off with a single drone after being absolutely wiped and then starting a new hive to delay the round another 45 minutes is literally cancer

no one can argue it isnt

[adrenalinetooth]

This is like saying we should all make marines retreat even at full force because one lucky lurker got in the ship and killed solely the CO.

Just because the queen died, doesn't mean the hive all lost. Aliens can come back from failure just as much ad Bill Carson can make marines do a comeback after loosing ground battle.

I'm not talking about the times where xenos can clearly come back because they have decent amount of balanced caste left, I'm talking about the times where it's just a runner or two with drones that keep becoming queen and then dying over and over again, dragging the round on for 30 minutes longer than it should be.
I am perfectly fine with there being multiple queens if the xenos can still fight with what they have, I am not okay with the whole 'lets have 6 drones so we can drag the game on as long as possible once all the other xenos are dead' bullshit.

[Szunti]

What about https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/4371 ?

[kamenkuro]

This would work. In the movies it's a queen larva in Ripley.
Actually, if anything, removing the ability to let drones evolve into queens on the almayer that'd be awesome

[ThePiachu]

Nah see, we should make the entire squad spaz out when the squad leader gets killed. Or make Almayer lose air when CIC APC gets slashed so you won't have people bunkering up around the ship for 30 minutes. /s

If you want to heavily punish xenos for losing a queen, then the queen would have to be buffed to compensate. The Queen has been tamed down over the last few months.

Generally, we need to have systems to make the forces converge towards late game, say with bioscans that get more frequent and featuring enemy locations - https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/4293 .

[kamenkuro]

Nah see, we should make the entire squad spaz out when the squad leader gets killed. Or make Almayer lose air when CIC APC gets slashed so you won't have people bunkering up around the ship for 30 minutes. /s

If you want to heavily punish xenos for losing a queen, then the queen would have to be buffed to compensate. The Queen has been tamed down over the last few months.

Generally, we need to have systems to make the forces converge towards late game, say with bioscans that get more frequent and featuring enemy locations - https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/4293 .

Queen doesn't have to be buffed at all. Xenos can win an entire round with one queen. As of right now it's just a way to drag on the round. Especially once they board the Almayer

[solidfury7]

I quite like that Queens are squisher and more numerous.

Lore wise multiple Queens can be active at once or at the least in reserve.

I'd rather have a more teamwork based xeno team with Abathur style queen guiding the hive, than the memescreech battle queen which was so very dull.

[spookydonut]

theres definitely some things i'm now going to look into for this, stay tuned.

[Build_R_]

What about https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/4371 ?

I like this idea but it'd maybe need a notice in Dchat to let people know that a queen larva is available since most people that don't want queen at roundstart won't set queen to yes.

[adrenalinetooth]

theres definitely some things i'm now going to look into for this, stay tuned.

Awesome, can't wait for it. Hate it when stuff like this happens, especially when there is 2 xenos left, but a larvae bursts in the corner of a map and evolves to a new queen effortlessly, dragging it on another 15 minutes. I swear I can hear the collective groans of dchat in my head to this very moment..

[waswar]

This is like saying we should all make marines retreat even at full force because one lucky lurker got in the ship and killed solely the CO.

Just because the queen died, doesn't mean the hive all lost. Aliens can come back from failure just as much ad Bill Carson can make marines do a comeback after loosing ground battle.

This analogy would be better if Marines had ways of coming back after perishing, unlike the constantly replenishing xeno numbers.

[Blade2000Br]

This analogy would be better if Marines had ways of coming back after perishing, unlike the constantly replenishing xeno numbers.

If we want to be technically, marine numbers always have a steady stream of manpower. from rounstart to DS crash, there will always be marine pouring in. Of course it doesn't mean marines get more man power than xenos, 1 xeno is almost equivalent to 3 marines, but that doesn't mean marines get completely depleted of manpower. And if you get a marine defibbed, even if it's send shipside, it's still another person to fight the benos.

Besides, Xenos are not that constantly replenishing thing. sure, they have the burrowed larva and all, but those were harvested early game, if you remove that, xenos will need to rely on capturing marines, which to be frankly, is not that easy.

So yeah, things can change, but I don't think we should gut the chances for xenos to win after they loose roundstart queen.

[spookydonut]

I have some code that still needs some bugfixing but it shortens the "timer before round end because theres no queen" if theres multiple queens dying in like a 40 minute period.

[Aceluke123]

Sounds interesting. After 4 queens die it’s basically round over? Like the timer goes down by 5 minutes each death or something like that?
20m for first death
15 second
10 third
5 fourth
So basically after 4 queens the round will end before a new queen can be made?

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

Maybe make it 3 queens only. If you lose 3 queens already, don't think the 4th one is gonna help.

I can see the 1st queen being bald, the 2nd queen valiantly dying from a marine push, and the 3rd queen winning the game somehow. But when you get to the 4th, it's basically delayyyliens at that point.

[misto]

if they re-buffed the queen enough it could be acceptable to limit it to one or two queens before auto loss

[KingKire]

If I had to put my money on a fix, : queen would have the ability to give a xeno royal jelly, costing 75 plasma for 1 jelly, x2 for every royal jelly spawned. ( or just have only one xeno be able to be designated secondary queen) Any xeno who eats the royal jelly has the ability to turn into a queen after the original queen dies.

Lore friendly, cause any xeno can turn into a queen given emergencies, and it prevents a random drone hiding across the map to be a queen unless they were pollinated by the living queen.

Game friendly, because a queen can make sure any xeno has the chance to become a new queen, so lo g as they see her first.

[Herac]

I've seen a few rounds where the xenos have won on their 5th queen, but I don't think I've ever seen a round where the xenos have won after losing 3 queens in 15 mins so yeah although it's simpiler to just set a limit on number of queen deaths I prefer focusing on number of deaths in a specific time frame.

[CABAL]

Xenos can win even on 10'th Queen. Since their number is usually small at that point and marines have to scatter themselves in order to find runner, two sentinels and Queen so they can be easly picked off one by one. It's easier to kill 5 runners in Hangar than one runner on whole Big Red.

I can't really imagine a code/mechanic that would deal with it by server itself and Staff intervention is not good either (Who sometimes refuse to end round when xenos lost a Queen, no drones/infected hosts around and last few just delay by running away). End of the round vote? But only for living.

[kooarbiter]

This would work. In the movies it's a queen larva in Ripley.
Actually, if anything, removing the ability to let drones evolve into queens on the almayer that'd be awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0X_XenEsJk&t=33s

just skip to 5:23 to see almayer memes