Which faction is the underdog now?

[Dauntasa]

I think the tank is fine, for the most part, and that none of its offensive capabilities really need to be changed. The main issue with it at present, I think, is the way its health/defences work. I understand that it is a tank, and that it should be durable, but the sheer amount of time it takes the xenos to take it apart is excessive. Last night, I was queen, and coordinated a charge against an artillery tank that had overextended. The result was that we had the tank trapped on the north side of the river, without infantry support, with the entire hive slashing it for upwards of 2 minutes. 2 minutes of the entire xeno hive continuously bashing it. It did not lose a single module, and was eventually relieved by a marine counterattack. That's excessive.

Of course, that's also necessary because of the way that tank modules work. Each time you hit a tank module, it is impossible to repair, and comes closer and closer to breaking permanently. When broken, modules are extremely difficult to replace, requiring specialized shipside crew and req points. Thus, they must also be incredibly durable. I think this needs reworking: allowing squad engineers to patch up partially damaged modules, but also making modules have a lot less health overall so that actually swarming the tank and taking it out is a genuine possibility, rather than just wearing it down over an entire round until it suddenly disintegrates.

Reworking the module system so that armour and support modules are combined would also be good. The current system is that every tank variety is equally durable because everyone just takes the ballistic armour. If instead of having armour, you simply had an "Artillery" pattern or a "Main Battle Tank" pattern or a "Scout Tank" pattern (representing the Arty, the IWSA, and the OD), which had their own associated durability ratings, you could better balance things. That way, the arty tank could be inherently a fragile glass cannon, the OD could be a little more buff but still weaker to account for its increased speed and escape ability, and the IWSA could be a slow but beefy tank without the force projection of the other 2 types, but with a lot more health. I think that would be a better way to balance it overall.

[misto]

let xenos not have to lie down to heal at full rate and see if it helps the poor things make a comeback :3

[RobBrown4PM]

The tank is where it all changed. The tank, in its current state, is OP. It can drive through a multitude of barriers, it can run over over all but 2 castes and knock them all unconscious for long periods of time. It has an extremely powerful array of weapons that are easily resupplied, and it can take a boat load of damage.

The Xenos currently have no hard counter to the Longstreet. I agree the crusher and Queen should be the only ones able to stop the tank, however I think both should be able to do far more damage. The crusher should be able to do far more damage with its charge, and the Queen, and also the Ravager, should do far more damage with their slashing attacks.

[FrankieB]

I don't miss the days of the 24/7 Xeno wins. As a marine main it just got boring, and if i may ask the xeno mains out there. Was a xeno victory really that satisfying back in the day?

[adrenalinetooth]

I believe that the tank is definitely helping with wins, particularly when the marines fall back to the ship and force the xenos to fight the marines and tank in the tight corridors of the Almayer.

We have all these great buffs for marines that allow us to take out xenos swiftly, and I think to go along with this, marines need to have less health.
Marines should be like 'glass cannons' considering the damage they do. I mean, in real life, all it takes is two or three bullets to the chest and you're dead on the spot.
Marines are simply too tanky, they need to be able to be taken out in just a couple slashes, not 15-20. This would compensate for their ability to do high damage, it would make them the 'glass cannon'.
If marines died quicker, there would be much greater incentive to stick close to your teammates, and also make it easier for xenos to win again. Repeating what I said, since marines have high damage outputs such as the tank or buckshot shotguns, they should be more squishier.

[Dauntasa]

Marines are simply too tanky, they need to be able to be taken out in just a couple slashes, not 15-20.

for castes that are actually good at slashing, eg runner evolutions and warriors, this is already true. A mature lurker can take a PFC apart in less than 10 seconds without allowing them to get up once pretty reliably.

[Aracino]

for castes that are actually good at slashing, eg runner evolutions and warriors, this is already true. A mature lurker can take a PFC apart in less than 10 seconds without allowing them to get up once pretty reliably.

Not entirely true. Marine armor is insanely good, a marine can take upwards of 2 pounces worth of slashes before they kicked the bucket, giving ample time for another marine to show up at the sound of the slashing to try and buckshot you for a one shit kill.

[Simo94]

Tank is nice to have, but when it becomes the main source of power for marine side, thats an awful thing, balancing a side based on individuals is never good. for reference check when charging Queen was the perfect organism and the main driving force of xenos, that was bad.

[solidfury7]

I will briefly say, Marine gameplay has become so much more fun without the tank.

[Blade2000Br]

for castes that are actually good at slashing, eg runner evolutions and warriors, this is already true. A mature lurker can take a PFC apart in less than 10 seconds without allowing them to get up once pretty reliably.

Thats not true, actually.

Yesterday I played xeno after months. I was a elder warrior and saw with my own eyes a marine get stomped by mature crusher, then slashed by said crusher, ravager and me for what seemed over 10 seconds before dying.

Later on the same round I grabbed one lunged one marine and took me literally 10-12 slashes to finally kill him. On his HAND.

Marines are actually way tankier than I thought.

[Dauntasa]

On his HAND.

Yeah, because you're breaking a guy's fingers and expecting him to have a heart attack. Aiming for limbs as anything other than a rav is a meme. I aim for the head, and they die in 5 swipes every time.

[Sulaboy]

Later on the same round I grabbed one lunged one marine and took me literally 10-12 slashes to finally kill him. On his HAND.

Attack torso or some other core body part. If you're attacking a marine's hand then it would be the damage flow that is killing them. Attacking the torso lets you pile brute damage on faster, same with groin.

[carlarc]

>3 marine wins in a row without tank

keep as is pls

[kamenkuro]

I believe that the tank is definitely helping with wins, particularly when the marines fall back to the ship and force the xenos to fight the marines and tank in the tight corridors of the Almayer.

We have all these great buffs for marines that allow us to take out xenos swiftly, and I think to go along with this, marines need to have less health.
Marines should be like 'glass cannons' considering the damage they do. I mean, in real life, all it takes is two or three bullets to the chest and you're dead on the spot.
Marines are simply too tanky, they need to be able to be taken out in just a couple slashes, not 15-20. This would compensate for their ability to do high damage, it would make them the 'glass cannon'.
If marines died quicker, there would be much greater incentive to stick close to your teammates, and also make it easier for xenos to win again. Repeating what I said, since marines have high damage outputs such as the tank or buckshot shotguns, they should be more squishier.

I think the main point of the marine tankiness is to counteract a few things. Friendly fire and dying too soon to burst. Marines can hold on to life after getting torn apart pretty reliably. We still get taken out of commission pretty easily though. I can't count how many times I've seen/been on the receiving end of a ravager tackle and lost a hand or leg. I then limped off to lick my wounds. Marines do die quick with concentrated efforts. Just like xenos. We just need more coordination to heal.

[Jonesome]

The game is as balanced as it’s ever been.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

I believe that the tank is definitely helping with wins, particularly when the marines fall back to the ship and force the xenos to fight the marines and tank in the tight corridors of the Almayer.

We have all these great buffs for marines that allow us to take out xenos swiftly, and I think to go along with this, marines need to have less health.
Marines should be like 'glass cannons' considering the damage they do. I mean, in real life, all it takes is two or three bullets to the chest and you're dead on the spot.
Marines are simply too tanky, they need to be able to be taken out in just a couple slashes, not 15-20. This would compensate for their ability to do high damage, it would make them the 'glass cannon'.
If marines died quicker, there would be much greater incentive to stick close to your teammates, and also make it easier for xenos to win again. Repeating what I said, since marines have high damage outputs such as the tank or buckshot shotguns, they should be more squishier.

No doubt it was helping with wins, but marines are still winning back on the alamayer(and groundside) using the same storm tactics as when the tank was just in the game, possibly even more effectively too.This was being done before the tank was even in the game.
The tank was making marines lazy in some ways.Marines are getting back into the routine of cading as you advance, something that was neglected with the tank ingame.

I dont agree with your points on marines having less health, "glass cannons" or being squishier, because as far as i see it they already have them characteristics already enough that its noticeable and if anything, its the xenoes that also have similar characteristics and probably shouldnt, considering they are meant to be the superior melee/naturally armored force.

Xenoes could use with slightly more health or something that gives that effect(possibly increased projectile ricochet chance), and maybe not all xenoes necessarily, some are already pretty hard to kill, even harder when evolved/upgraded.The problem i see though, is that with more HP, xenoes dont have to have much skill, like they currently need to be effective, like the marines.Right now its the fairest balance ive seen in a long time, mostly in the sense of how much skill of individuals and team as a whole need to beat the other side.

Also, how quickly do you want marines to die? When im observing a round, they get killed fast enough as it is, especially on high population, the bodies are laying everywhere!

[xXen0zS1ay3rXx]

Anyone with eyes can see the sorry state the xenos are in.
We have crazy duel-shotgun weilding maniac marines that can tank 15+ slashes and a few bursts of friendly fire up against mostly harmless purple soon-to-be skids on the ground.
They really need a rework to be scary again, it isn't fun fighting something that can't fight back properly.

[dasWurmtMich]

Marines aren't "tanky" It's just that most xenos are terribad thanks to the latest xeno "rebalance"

There is something inherently wrong with the balance when an ancient drone is better at combat than a ancient runner for example.

Lurkers can take out marines in 3-4 hits so marines are far from "tanky". It's just that other castes are hot garbage. Defenders and warriors are just completly useless.

Honestly, revert most of the alien rebalance changes and then try to balance it again from there.

I like winning against xenos as pretty much everyone else and there are many instances where xenos just need to git gud and do some teamwork and use their brain but the current caste balance is just bad.

Just nerfing everything shouldn't be the way to go IMO

[Snypehunter007]

~snip~

This is less to do with answering the question of who the underdog's are and more about me pointing out bits of the larger picture. So excuse me for going a bit off topic, Reno.

Let's go all the way back. Back then, CM lacked a lot of refinement in what we would consider "modern" CM mechanics. Over time, CM has implemented or refined mechanics for QoL or to cut down on round times. That might not have been the stated, or even intended, reason, but that has been the result as CM developed.

For example, Xenos always used to hide in the caves as their preferred location back in the day for several reasons. For one, it forced marines far away from their landing zones and supplies. Second, it forced marines to come down narrow, even one tile wide at some points, hallways which limited the marine's ability to bring all their firepower to bear, especially with explosives. A third reason that developed a bit more slowly than the other two is the need to avoid being accused of metarushing, which at this point in time had become so rampant that staff were on for almost every round trying to deal with accusations of metarushing and discouraging sides from attacking each other.

These were almost always xeno wins due to marine's inability to flank particularly well, being surrounded, and too wounded to fight. As a result marines almost never committed or squad leaders tried delaying/tried to get out of being the squad to try to push on the caves. This isn't an exaggeration when I say being part of the squad to push on the caves was considered to be a death sentence/round ender.

Eventually however, due to this harsh seperation and a few mechanic updates, a new xeno meta formed where they could guarantee that marines wouldn't be able to attack in force before a certain time. As a result, they got bolder and began to set up structures at the entrance of the caves and, eventually, the river edge itself. I would identify this as the spark that started a lot of the changes we see today.

I'm skipping over important mechanics and changes that were implemented but, like I said earlier, all of this worked to push the sides into more conflict and cut down on the round time. The removal of cloning reduced the marines ability to recover their numbers, the xeno tier system pushed marines into conflict with xenos so they didn't camp and reach ancient which would cause a curb stomp, splints being able to stabilize broken bones kept marines in the fight somewhat longer, removal of hugger combat, etc.

As the many, many changes (both mechanic and rule wise) have made the round length shorter, tactics have changed to compensate, things have been added to help both sides deal with the faster paced combat, and the results of the round have become more variable as a result.

I hope I explained my thoughts well, I got partially lost of some trains of thought during that due to how long this response is. Just think about it like this, go through all the changes that have been added and think about how they have changed round length in subtly ways and how that round length causes new things to be added.

[Renomaki]

*snarf*

I been around back in those days... Aaah, how times have changed. Marines have so many luxuries now compared to what we had back in the ol' days.

Xenos, sadly, don't seem to be so lucky. While marines get a number of quality of life updates and swanky new toys, xenomorphs seem to get the short end of the stick, at least these days.

Of course, as many would no doubt mention, this is probably more due to xenomorph players being unable to adapt for the most part, many of them thinking the xenos are like they were a year ago, compared to now where brute force just isn't going to cut it anymore.

I plan on making a more proper discussion in the ALIEN SECTION of the forums, but in short, I think one if the biggest issues is how xenos think that screaming queens are the solution to troubling situations, despite the fact that nowadays xenos (and queens most of ALL) require more brains than brawn now. I see so many queens deoving the second situations get a tad stressful (often under an hour into the round) and resorting to screaming their lungs out till they die a pitiful death rather than remaining in ovi and utilizing all their abilities to organize a defense and keep her children alive with a steady stream of heals (often putting a lot of healing in their glass cannons, such as ravagers).

Course, that is just my opinion, of course.

As for round length, I'd rather rounds aim for that sweet 2 hour mark, since that is where you get the best balance of tactical tension, compared to one hour rushjobs that leave players frustrated and/or unsatisfied, or 3+ hour rounds that only go on because of unexpected stalemates due to both sides not having a lasting advantage over another and it becoming more a game of attrition.

I probably didn't reply the way you'd expected, but your post is still somethin to think about regardless.

[RedsPro]

Iron Bears are the Underdogs.

[Survivor]

Marines either need a good nerf, or xenos need a great buff. Preferably the latter.

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

Xenos are the underdog.

Change my mind.

[Gnorse]

While the whole xeno rebalance was needed, we may need to up xeno stats a tad bit.

[UntoldTictacs]

Well it's obviously xeno's currently, with that explosion update, RPG stuns any xeno, including Queen and Crusher, and in general xenos don't have many counters to stuff like that anymore, same with tank (if it comes back ever)