I wanted to get some opinions on interpretations of Rule 3. I've only just gotten done with a Solaris Ridge match wherein I was on the Xeno side in the form of a Lurker. I had managed to survive the entirety of the round, and score several kills throughout. During the round, I did notice a few instances of somewhat sketchy behavior, such as intentionally dragging Marines into the corners of the map before killing them to ensure their bodies wouldn't be retrieved. This will become relevant at a later point.
During the LZ1 siege battle, and after the Xeno forces had breached Telecomms and gotten onto LZ1, I was participating in the battle. I had managed to assist in the killing of a pair of Marines, but had taken relatively high damage in the meantime, putting me at about half of my health. I ended up pouncing towards a final target as the Dropship was beginning to land for evacuation. I didn't end up damaging them enough to kill them, nor did I have time, and I was promptly shot a few more times which utterly ruined my health.
Seeing the landing Dropship, knowing the extremely loud sound through personal experience that round (I was the Beno who had initially reported its landing), I pulled off a tackle on the Marine I was fighting, and promptly moved them one space onto the LZ in the hopes that it would squish them. I missed, naturally, and disengaged due to my rather low health and the group of Marines right next to me.
A few moments later, I was sent a message by Dorkelli, a Trialmod. He began the message with something along the lines of, "You tried to use the DS to crush a Marine." I admitted to the act, seeing no harm in it, and questioned the reason why. Through a long-winded conversation, I was essentially informed that it was in violation of Rule 3 to attempt to remove someone from the round in a permanent fashion.
Of course, I brought up that this seemed somewhat illogical given that there are inherent mechanics built into the game and observable behaviors that allow for such things. A Warrior is capable of ripping a Marine's head off of them, and the Queen is capable of gibbing others. After some long-winded discussions wherein I'd like to say we both reacted in pleasant discussion, he offered to bring in his senior to discuss the clarification with me.
Mvp came into the PM and informed me that as a Xenomorph, the issue was that I had attempted to use the dropship to go about the killing. In an earlier example, I had highlighted that certain Xenomorphs would use the previously present Elevator in order to facilitate rather long-winded kills, and that such behavior had to my knowledge, and in player report been excused as perfectly acceptable. He informed me that that was totally fine, because a Xenomorph could clearly see that a pit would hurt someone. I questioned whether or not I was incapable of looking upwards and pointed out that I had previous knowledge of the Dropship from earlier in the round.
Essentially, the conclusion that I was given was that a Xenomorph should never be using outside tools in order to facilitate their kills, but that perma-killing on the grounds of the Warrior and the Queen didn't violate Rule 3. I questioned him on the matter of fire, and whether it was acceptable to drag a Marine through it, and he stated that it was fine due to the fact that fire is very clearly damaging, and easy to understand.
At roughly this point, the round ended, and I was unable to contact him in a quick manner, and somewhat unwilling to send an Ahelp (It's late.)
I do feel as though the current interpretation of this rule seems to exclusively limit a single behavior, but allows for any other form of environmental hazard, and question how this is, as it were, any more scummy than any other form of permanent-killing allowed through mechanical means. So, I took to the forum discussion page wherein such matters may be conversed over, and came to see what everyone's thoughts on the issue were.
- Is it scummy to permanently kill a Marine through mechanical means such as those of a Warrior or a Queen?
Is it scummy to use the environmental to gain kills?
If a Xenomorph is pushed under the Dropship (I've seen it happen to Xenos, and Predators for that matter), then is it considered to be acceptable behavior since any form of death given to a Xenomorph is permanent?
And finally, If it is determined as it seems to be implied that the only unacceptable behavior here for Xenomorphs is literally throwing Marines underneath the Dropship Landing Zone while its landing, would it not be prudent to place that in the Rules section for Xenomorphs so that any other players are not stricken with the same issue in the future? It's difficult to know what is and isn't illegal when the rules seem to shift somewhat depending on who is looking, and when things are not written down anywhere to my knowledge.
