Post
by Mycroft Macarthur » 18 Aug 2015, 13:52
i get what you are saying but this is a problem you are never going to see get fixed by simple fact of the matter we're tied to the aliens universe in particular, this means two important and relevant things.
lets suppose we were based off another universe entirely or even our own all original setting but the premise was still the same (army of marines sent in to find a destroyed colony/lab/base/whatever to find an opposing army of unknown combatants waiting for them), for our purposes ill make the most direct comparison i can so lets compare the Xenomorphs to the Tyranids (Warhammer 40k) and to the Zerg (Starcraft) who both represent the closest parallels in science fiction that i can think of.
the xenomorphs have a relatively small amount of alien forms, they start out in weak forms and then evolve over time which translates to the aliens in this game needing to play more conservatively, factors that WOULD take place (aliens losing limbs and shit) simply dont because they are incapable of recovering from wounds or injuries in the same way the marines can so while a marine who is injured MIGHT get treated, an alien CANT be treated because they dont have a way to do that, and the reasons they dont in lore are because thats not how the aliens are, they dont CARE if you die, like zombies for every enemy who falls one more joins their hive (unless they get lazy and just start slashing), and thats one of their biggest problems.
their ability to increase their numbers is DIRECTLY TIED TO THE FACT THEY NEED TO USE FACEHUGGERS, they need to CAPTURE you which is a risky proposition and INFINITELY more difficult then just KILLING you, and after that they have to keep you from escaping for awhile until you burst during which time they can run, pull out extra guns or grab leftovers on the ground and potentially kill numerous aliens, esp since one of the strongest alien weapons, the facehuggers WILL NOT WORK ON THEM ANYMORE now that they've already been hugged, in the movies the aliens had infinitely superior numbers so they didn't need to care about the fact that they were throwing themselves into enemy guns because they always had more and didn't need to care but both here AND in the films they are only as capable of increasing their numbers by as many enemies who come to face them in battle because new aliens (facehuggers aside) CANNOT be created from NOTHING.
in starcraft and 40k the zerg and nids respectively dont have this limitation, they are free to throw themselves at their enemies as much as they want because their ability to increase numbers isn't tied to needing new hosts, its just DESIRABLE, in the case of the zerg they can "Infest" humans to turn them into badass suicide bombers, units capable of wielding the humans OWN weapons against them or even into incredibly strong psychic warriors with near magic powers, for the tyranids they capture people because doing so will often grant them new abilities (zoanthropes came from consuming enough eldar biomass to develop their own variety of psychic powers, which gave them the ability to make powerful long ranged artillery units that fire psychic blasts) but as for just making new zerg or new tyranids, they just do, all the members of their hive they happen to need just SHOW THE FUCK UP as opposed to needing to capture hosts like we do, once eggs or whatever show up you will have as many new members of your hive as you would have eggs or biomass, you wouldn't have to capture ANYONE if you didn't want to and you'd be free to kill anyone you want and in THOSE universes you dont have to worry about surviving to become more powerful forms either because they DONT evolve, not in THAT way, a zergling will always be a zergling, a carnifex will always be a carnifex, what you start out as is what you get and the only "Evolving" that happens in those universes is to improve the abilities and options you ALREADY have, only rarely will you get something completely new, so you would be free to charge enemy positions in massive hordes and die over and over again because there would always be new eggs waiting to send you out either again as the same form you just died in or as a new zerg or tyranid form.
the xenomorphs have to be the way they are because the lore and gameplay mechanics demand it, you will never get the kind of balance you want unless xenomorph numbers stops being tied to requiring hosts to create new aliens and stops requiring those existing aliens evolve to new forms as opposed to just creating those forms from scratch, and to do that would essentially require abandoning the aliens universe as a whole as well as a MASSIVE rebalance of the gameplay mechanics.
and then there is the OTHER issue.
the tyranids and zerg both have a WIDE variety of combat forms and capabilities because warhammer 40k and starcraft were both GAMES, STRATEGY GAMES, they needed to have a shit ton of options you wouldn't see otherwise because they needed to cover a MASSIVE array of combat scenarios, they each needed their own equivalents to aircraft, spacecraft, heavy weapons and vehicles and more, they needed to have upgrades for those units and badass abilities and all these little details.
the aliens universe doesn't have ANY of that shit because the aliens universe was based off MOVIES which then expanded to comic books and only EVENTUALLY began to be games (and it was ALWAYS a first person shooter which requires infinitely less variety in terms of equipment options and units and so on then strategy does), in the films they didn't need a massive variety of different alien types because they only needed ONE ALIEN which they could throw at the protagonists in massive waves, the films needed to focus on storytelling and not in recreating an epic war in space, the needs of films and games are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, in order to have any kind of real variety or options we had to SERIOUSLY dig through the lore to find literally anything we could find to give the aliens cool new options and abilities and to do any more then we have now we would have to start departing from the lore to create all new content for them that wouldn't exist anywhere in the setting as it is now and as it is most of the new shit that we DO have came from colonial marines, as much as everyone may hate that game for sucking it is the ONLY reason we have spitters or crushers at ALL and carriers in the wiki dont even list their source so for all we know they could be COMPLETELY MADE UP.
there ARE other alien forms but unlike in 40k and starcraft, the differences between most of those forms are so minimal we wouldn't even notice for the most part.
im sorry bro but the kind of balance you want just isn't possible with things as they are now, just be glad that the devs arent taking advantage of the fact that aliens exists in the same universe as the terminator and robocop series (given marine balance i would not look forward to facing an army of robots that isn't tied to the same limitations aliens are and who have infinitely bigger guns that use damage types our armor is worthless against)
