Update Discussion Thread (September 2018)

[kamenkuro]

When you're designing a game, you have to keep the fun of both sides into consideration. To do that, you need to understand why playing both sides is fun and how a given change affects both sides. If you think that playing xeno is completely terrible, that's fine - don't play it, but also don't dismiss how people play it (unless you want to reimplement it from the grounds up to be fun in a different way - go ahead). If the game becomes unfun for one side, both sides will lose due to people not playing.

You do understand that MOST people hate playing xeno right? Xenos are not a fun role to play. The entire point was that they were rare enemies in ss13. Meant to allow the dead to temporarily reenter the round and give those living something to do. They were super simple and easy to play because they weren't meant to be played regularly. This server has not improved on that. There have been no sweeping changes that make them any better. They added boilers and chargers, made a roided out hunter. It's all stat increases. None of which make them fun to play. This game has pretty much kept them in this stagnant state where if you played them a year ago, the only difference is survivability. I've played on better servers with a more intuitive xeno system that's actually fun. The major issue with this is that ss13 isn't entirely about gameplay. It's about interacting with the world and the people and there is very little offerings as a xeno. The fact is that this entire model of server is better suited for Whiskey Outpost. The marines are better suited for turtling behind cades and xenos are better suited for assaulting said cades in large numbers. This is possible to stream line. I've seen it. This server just focuses on new toys some times. I highly doubt someone would actually try to fix the xenos in any significant way.

[Ttly]

How about we increase the sight range for everyone?
7x7 tiles is pretty small screen space at all honestly.

Benos still have darkness as cover and to see marines coming, and accuracy attachments might be worth more to hit something beyond the current range.

[Simo94]

https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/2541

lets just do that, man

[xXen0zS1ay3rXx]

Things are ok now? Seems back to normal- ez marine withen 40mins

[Steelpoint]

I'd rather just buff the kit limit for Specialists to two per role instead of increasing the number of Specialists. I'd cut down on the inane 'race to the prep room' mini-game that Specialist players play.

[WinterClould]

PFC's lost a lot of variety and options to mix things up and have a diverse play style during the crusade agaisnt powergaming. The crusade was justified but it only took from us, never gave anything back, I predicted the stripping of options would dull and harm pfc gameplay but devs have been firm that PFC's were exclusively for Rooty Tooty Shooty till they die.

So yeah I think PFCs need more shit they can do. I'm not sure what we could give them that doesn't step on another classes toes, but it's a fact that while our mean green marines were made for fightin' and winnin' that gets pretty dull here on 2d spessmen after long enough.

More people talk about the tank and this though we're doing good with kinda airing out our problems and giving alternatives like replacing it with a APC battle wagon.

Buffing everyone's view range would actually be great. It would be a marine buff for sure bit with some works to accuracy and how much light some things produce, ya know this could be balanced to work in both sides favors. Could be great!

I don't think buffing specs will help the current game at the moment. We're running into problems with the proletarian masses of the game. The entire xeno hive and the PFC's are having a pretty low time from the sounds of things. Specs are specs but buffing them only gives a tiny few a better time while potential giving the whole xeno side a worse time at any given moment.

[MattAtlas]

I'd rather just buff the kit limit for Specialists to two per role instead of increasing the number of Specialists. I'd cut down on the inane 'race to the prep room' mini-game that Specialist players play.

I dont see how it'll help, people will just rush the two RPGs anyways.

[Steelpoint]

If any particular Specialist kit is seen as being very popular/often picked then that's a symptom of the other kits being too ineffective or one kit is simply way too powerful, and a better solution would be to bring the other kits in line or addressing why this one kit is too effective.

I still profess lifting the hard cap kit limit simply because I feel the issues people profess will occur are unfounded as we went for a very long period of time where there was no kit limit at all to specs, and I personally feel that there were no major balance issues during that period of time (and it was very rare to see three or four specs pick a single kit for a round).

[WinterClould]

What I ment was that it's not something that I think anyone needs to be worried about.
Getting spec no matter what kit you end up with is already privilege enough over normal marines that it's not something I'd personally devote time to tweaking at the moment. Not when my focus could be this tank mess and the whole dealio with pfc getting dull and uninteresting for some people. Oh and xenos being a mess as well of just people not consistently wanting to play or anything else to do with the xenos lack of consistently skilled players playing like marines have.

Specs are low men on the priority pole in my imagination basically, and buffing them could make buffing the marine bottom line harder to justify buffing because of how powerful specs already are.

[Lolibandit]

Before you put in MORE marine buffs, make xenos less shit kthxbai

[MattAtlas]

Before you put in MORE marine buffs, make xenos less shit kthxbai

Xenos are in a good spot atm, dont think they need any buffs but there will inevitably be a meta shakeup soon so we'll go back to something needing buffs

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

Before you put in MORE marine buffs, make xenos less shit kthxbai

Have you actually played the last few days ? With the larva buff and xeno's mature progress early game buff, they're in a fine spot atm.

[Simo94]

IMO, one more mere weapon or ammo type or even a damn attachement addition for PFCs would add far more variety and fun to the game than tank or spec updates can ever dream of.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

IMO, one more mere weapon or ammo type or even a damn attachement addition for PFCs would add far more variety and fun to the game than tank or spec updates can ever dream of.

Depleted Uranium rounds? Could be a cool way to get more radiation factors into the game.

Attachments, underbarrel tactical flashlight, medium ranged scope to compliment the mini and long scope, allow attachments onto helmets like torches or possibly even introduce night vision goggles that can attach to the helmets or have them default(This is year 2186 remember and were still using/relying on flares so much? Nonsense), flare tube grenade variant to compliment the other three already available.What about a laser type weapon attachment, works just like a masterkey/grenade launcher with how limited it is with uses, but fires a effective laser shot, could possibly light the xenoes on fire like a sniper incen round.

Give req a limited supply of drum cartridges for certain guns like the M4, or tactical shotguns, spice it up.

Also, one thing ive noticed with special vendors like for the SG, Spec and SL dont even have the attachments available that are the actual attachments most players use or have to use with their weapons.

SG should have access to a barrel charger and burst fire adapter if they want to use it.Specs should have access to the attachments relevant to what loadout they have selected, so if youve chose sniper, you should have access to the bipod attachments.If you chose the grenade launcher, then you should have access to a magnetic harness as thats all you can attach on it.And so on, and so forth.

However even though all this kind of stuff would be good additions, i think this could easily be solved if attachments were just accessed through the prep vendors, but req apparently is a ritual necessity ive read.Even if you make it so marines can pick 2-3 starter/lesser attachments from the vendors and then move to REQ if you want 2 more rarer/sparse attachments, therefore not affecting much traffic to REQ to keep them busy and also reducing the constant nagging hopefully by marines for the most sought after attachments.SG's wont complain because its already in the vendor and so ANY barrel chargers at the REQ can be given to anyone else without this unofficial rule of "not giving barrel chargers to privates" for example(i dont even use them, you can keep em)
This wouldnt just add more variety but a better and faster quality of life for the marine players, especially reducing the bullshit req staff get.

Privates being able to easily and quickly pick their own attachments without speculation would make them happier i reckon.

This might just help everyone get to briefing on time.

And when the hell is the sniper zoom macro getting fixed!

[Grubstank]

Depleted Uranium rounds? Could be a cool way to get more radiation factors into the game

you make some valid points but I just can't resist nitpicking -- the radioactivity of depleted uranium is negligible.... That's the entire point of the term "depleted". You would have to leave numerous depleted uranium bullets in you for hours, or even days in order to start noticing the effects of radiation sickness

the reason it makes for powerful ammunition is that it is very dense, and relatively hard. These characteristics allow for extreme penetration without sacrificing ballistics.

[spookydonut]

The only change to spec kit choices will be to make them preferences such that you get your kit chosen round start via job assignment but that's been on the drawing board for as long as I've been a dev so who knows when it will get done.

[kooarbiter]

If any particular Specialist kit is seen as being very popular/often picked then that's a symptom of the other kits being too ineffective or one kit is simply way too powerful, and a better solution would be to bring the other kits in line or addressing why this one kit is too effective.

I still profess lifting the hard cap kit limit simply because I feel the issues people profess will occur are unfounded as we went for a very long period of time where there was no kit limit at all to specs, and I personally feel that there were no major balance issues during that period of time (and it was very rare to see three or four specs pick a single kit for a round).

you seem to have forgotten the old days of the sulaco where specs were expected to have at least 2 sadars every round, and would commonly roll with 3 sadar to 1 smartgunner because sadar was just that stronk

[Heckenshutze]

Hey I know this may sound crazy but what if we added more customization options for the marines? Maybe that’s what they all need to find a new meaning into playing any USCM roles.

Examples: more hairstyles, more facial hairs, more loadouts boonie, ability to pre-choose your armor pattern or new armor patterns etc

[Blade2000Br]

hairstyles have been nuked because of your resident anime characters. thank then for it.

boonie won't happen because of el meme. Blame him.

the rest I am ok with.

[Sleepy Retard]

as a clarification from the barely english ramble above, it wasn't my fault, it was everyone else's for taking it too far

[CABAL]

Hell no for bonies. It would be like a massive nerf for marines that would wear shitty hat instead of helmet. Are we playing CM13, or Team Fortress 13?

[IrishCow]

Are there any plans for an Event schedule?

I tend to miss a lot of events on CM and want to participate in more of them.
I get it that Events are more of an impromptu thing by Admins and other moderators, but I remember back when we had the Mchat some admins would give times and dates of events like tribes and Infection.
Are there any plans for something like this, or would the player-counts tank the server?

[Snypehunter007]

Are there any plans for an Event schedule?

I tend to miss a lot of events on CM and want to participate in more of them.
I get it that Events are more of an impromptu thing by Admins and other moderators, but I remember back when we had the Mchat some admins would give times and dates of events like tribes and Infection.
Are there any plans for something like this, or would the player-counts tank the server?

As a former admin, usually it is up to the admin if they want to advertise something. More often than not though, it is impromptu.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

you make some valid points but I just can't resist nitpicking -- the radioactivity of depleted uranium is negligible.... That's the entire point of the term "depleted". You would have to leave numerous depleted uranium bullets in you for hours, or even days in order to start noticing the effects of radiation sickness

the reason it makes for powerful ammunition is that it is very dense, and relatively hard. These characteristics allow for extreme penetration without sacrificing ballistics.

Good points and as your aware, it was just a example but expanding on the points you have made i might as well add to it.

Maybe the catch with DU rounds in the way of working in this game is that they have better penetration than AP and are very limited, but the rounds actually cause the user issues if held onto for long periods of time, could give some use to Russian Red pills again.Could do anything with it really.

boonie won't happen because of el meme. Blame him.

They are already in the game, under the guise of the paper hat.

Boonie hats should be a sniper only headgear, replacing the unused Durag, change that Durag with a Boonie Hat and watch and see how many people will use it, even if it has 0 protection value hahahha!

Boonies will arrive one day, the playerbase will make sure of it.

I bet you 5 bucks.

[WinterClould]

Durag has armor doesn't it? It's basically a helmet right? For, some, reason...?