Why don't the Marines Push more? (A discussion to help development)

[sicktrigger]

If they ignore the CC messages then they really aren't following orders, which is the point of playing Marine. Marines follow orders from the CO and especially from CC, while Xeno's follow orders from the Queen.

the main difference being that Xenos are required by the rules to do what the Queen says. Marines aren't required to follow orders and as a result, they very rarely do.

[MikeHdez97]

There are two problems:
1.-A lot of marines doesnt follow orders
2.-The aliens get T3 too fast

[Siserith Vassada]

lack of effective ways of clearing egg fields and fighting around corners. instant stuns and long wound/lack of supplies turnaround makes things hell. personally i would be up for a large t3 buff but cornerfighting for marines is just terrible and usually what ends up with their demise. that with lack of coordination and general rambory people dont want to die because the rounds are so long and the rounds are so long because people dont want to dia

another problem right now is xenos can heal very easilly and recoupe their numbers easilly theres less value in the individuall xeno and since theres never really any turnaround time when they get wounded or have to get huggers they can just fight prolonged battles better.

both sides have tons of ways to defend but with little in the way of offensive options

[Sikillgard]

There's no incentive.

I was T3 that game, and despite apop's stats, we pushed the marines as hard as fuck until they noped out of there. Half the squad left was infected and the other half was freaking out. No wonder they left, and no wonder they stay left.

That said,

there's no reason for the rines not to try again, but unlike ayyliums, they have to first perform some R&R, reorg, RP, and lay to rest some occasional bitchfits between each other. It takes some mildly monumental effort by comdom to push the grunts out the airlock Sulaco. Who knows how long all this'll take?

Ayyliums have an easier time /getting shit done/ thanks to their racial lack of depth in the SS13 iteration of CM. Most classes have the singular purpose involving combat sans guarding and hive-building (1,2,3. 3 Game mechanics, see?) There's nothing to do (especially non-drones) when the marines nope out except wait for T3s everywhere. Thanks to their timers, noone waits for everyone to become T3, T3s whose purpose is to fight moar.

Of course the Ayyliums invade. They invade because there's fuckall to do except to invade. There's little to do and less to RP with, not when everything is built for humans to use. Alium's objective is to kill and infect, they'll want to do that as fast and as much as possible. In fact, they want to invade as fast as possible. It's a growing mentality in the server that /any/ delay in the fighting is more time for the rines to prep, /not/ the aliens. The rine's got all their shit to figure out, and it's in the opposition's interest to counter before they can. Alien communication and organization is easy thanks to Ayyliumchat and a hierarchy of one level (it's good to be a fascist!), so problems in preparing an invasion is a non-issue. Aliens will literally beat the rines to the punch and invade because they're already bored by the time a CO somefuckmiles up in spess manages to wrangle a new SL from the clusterfuck.

Alien numbers require hosts to replenish. What's to stop the marines from waiting for new recruits, regardless of how long it'll take? All the more for the marines to take the defense and stay there.

There's no incentive for the marines to push back. There's plenty of reasons for them to stay, ranging from pizza deliveries(!) to the escape pod. Let's be honest, we're treating an alium minor victory more like a defeat for the aliens. Marines who got away feels like a great escape, and the aliens feel like they failed to grab a major vic. It would then be in the interest of the aliens to invade before they call the shuttle.
The marines can win by sitting duck. There's none for the aliens should they do the same. Hell, it's necessary to invade for them if they aim to win, less every staff remaining on the sully is infected or SSD. Aliens have no alternate win condition, unless it's on the marines to nuke or leave. They can't actively pursue a different victory without invading, and the marines know it. The overall meta is already aware that it's far likelier for the aliens to invade since they can't afford to wait and are bored anyways. So safe in this knowledge, the marine side cower and wait for a very inevitable assault.

No wonder the best enginseers are always marines.

[Siserith Vassada]

rule changes and the reintroduction of motion detectors might help a lot. and conical vision would propably induce teamwork and more clever plays by xenos. like taking away a squad member when no one is looking.

no one teamworks or plays in a winning way even though hate being ghosts and not doing anything very few of them actually try teamwork as an option to stay alive. or push

[HalfdeadKiller]

In the round where 20+ marines ran from 4 aliens, I believe atmospherics played a role in that. Atmospherics is more dangerous than aliens, and aliens know that, and use it to their advantage if atmos issues are present.

[Siserith Vassada]

In the round where 20+ marines ran from 4 aliens, I believe atmospherics played a role in that. Atmospherics is more dangerous than aliens, and aliens know that, and use it to their advantage if atmos issues are present.

also the fact that everything on the top deck was on fire and that most people got on the pod that came out of nowhere and should never of been sent in the first place

[Toroic]

The combined problem of asymmetrical combat, people being shit at the game under the guise of RP, and general chucklefuckery at every stage of the game by marines makes balance difficult.

If we balance marines based on how godawful the average standard is, a low pop group with a handful of good marines will easily sweep. If we don't, marines lose all the time because their mindset is wrong.

The biggest problem in my opinion is that the dropship separating the planet and the Sulaco makes the shipbound marines feel far too safe, and marines taking forever to land means the xenos will have a fortified hive and 20+ hosts just as a backup, as no xeno will pop until one dies.

In the few times I've played marine, I was blown away by the practice of briefing, which seems to take 30 minutes of stupid shit to give basic orders that could've been done over coms. Meanwhile the xenos are all working constantly.

Xenos fuck up too, godawful queens dooming the team, shit hivelords not building useful tunnels.

In some rounds, my hivelord tunnel network has had enough exits I just sealed up the normal paths to the hive. Hosts can't escape, and to assault it they'd need to cut through 10 layers of resin walls, assuming they even attempt. Generally pressure on the FOB causes a retreat with 30-40 marines alive.

Marines really seem to plan to win the game on the Sulaco, which is why the #1 source of marine salt is hull breaching by xenos and other marines. It completely shuts down the "turtle on the Sulaco until escape shuttle arrives" plan.

What I think marines need is a mechanic besides turtling or an assault on entrenched xenos. Like mining mineral veins to get resources for more specialist weapons or advanced mechs.

It would certainly be difficult to pull off, but it would help end rounds where xenos are slowly losing due to lack of hosts and dead queen, and give marines something they can can use to strengthen their position.

[Wickedtemp]

Marines and Xenos don't really need buffs or nerfs for this to get worked out. (Except for the service pistol. Seriously, give that thing a fire rate and/or damage buff so it isn't completely useless) If the marines just had competent Command, they'd probably do better. One reason why an assault on the Hive is so difficult is because of the weeds. Slowing down marines, healing xenos... However a good researcher could just make plant-toxin bombs to help clear them out, so again, just need competent crew members to get this done.

[Steelpoint]

Here's a good reason.

You get only one life as a Marine, if you die or get captured you've just lost your Marine play for the rest of the game. As a Alien you functionally have many lives, death as a Alien, while a massive setback, is not necessarily permanent. It's easier to become a Alien again than it is to get back in as a Marine two hours later.

Not to mention the many above stated points on how injury as a Marine can mean death or a massive trek/wait to get medical attention whereas Aliens getting hurt is very little of a problem.

[Arachnidnexus]

A few more points about some things I've been thinking about. There's a lot of binary states in CM for both sides where you either fucked or doing okay.

For aliens I would say the biggest thing is weeds. Plasma regeneration off of weeds is atrocious and aliens also don't heal off of weeds. Weeds are pretty vital and also hinder marines by lowering movement speed. Marines know this and would prefer not to fight on weeds at all since removing it either takes a lot of tedious knifing/bayoneting, or wasting precious incinerator fuel or incendiary grenades. It's especially tedious when a drone can sometimes run in even during clearing and plant enough weeds to make the clearing process pointless. At the same time, xenos cannot effectively push without weeds and so they have to spread them everywhere in order to maintain momentum. A lot of T3s have died on the Sulaco because they rushed ahead without realizing that without weeds' health regen they can die pretty damn quickly.

Marines have the issue where the hugger stun is basically a death sentence without any 'wearing down' of a marine's defenses besides his one helmet (thanks to backpack nerfs and the fact some xenos use the hugger stun time to decap to skirt around the slashing non-fighting infected rule). Whereas when marines know that aliens don't have huggers or if they're infected and thus immune to hugger stun they can chase without as much fear. Often times a single infected marine will end up netting a fair number of xeno kills because without the hugger stun it can be hard for xenos to subdue a marine.

I actually think that with the new weapon damage buffs marines can now effectively storm the hive at times, but at the same time a single Carrier can still take down a squad even now with huggers so I understand the inclination to fortify and pick off alien invaders.

[Wickedtemp]

I just played a few rounds as a Marine, and I just have to say this...

Holy hell, the damage buff they have gotten. You can kill a T3 Xeno in seven shots of a rifle, and given that Xeno's are normally outnumbered at around 4-7 marines for each Xeno... Just damn... There's NO reason why the Marines shouldn't wipe out the whole damn Hive every raid! Seriously, I've already seen rounds where a SINGLE rambo marine took down several T3's (I think a carrier, a crusher and a ravager, maybe more) and then the Queen. And it isn't just because Super-Robust Marine. Now, ALL Marines are robust simply because now, they can 1v1 a Ravager and win with relative ease. All they have to do is keep the Ravager within their line of sight while staying out of range of the charge, and it's difficult for a Ravager to successfully charge a moving Marine.

I actually think the damage buff is giving the Marines too much of an edge. They do not have an excuse if they lose at this point. Again, it takes SEVEN BULLETS from the standard marine weapon to kill at least a Praetorian. Five pistol bullets to kill runners/sentinels. They have NO excuse, seriously. My earlier posts about buffing the pistol were before I knew about the massive damage buff so disregard those. I had no idea that I could now pistol a Ravager to death.

[Siserith Vassada]

i'me confused.

[Seehund]

If a marine can 1v1 a ravager, what with the latter's charge, knockdown and pretty much instabehead you have a problem. A problem on the ravager's side.

That aside, I like this buff simply because it forces xenos to think tactically, fight as a team and act like the predators they are.

[Toroic]

If a marine can 1v1 a ravager, what with the latter's charge, knockdown and pretty much instabehead you have a problem. A problem on the ravager's side.

That aside, I like this buff simply because it forces xenos to think tactically, fight as a team and act like the predators they are.

Are you operating under the mistaken assumption that xenos don't have to think tactically or fight as a team?

I'm not sure what "act like the predators they are" means, if anything.

[Seehund]

Are you operating under the mistaken assumption that xenos don't have to think tactically or fight as a team?

I'm not sure what "act like the predators they are" means, if anything.

I'm saying that xenos don't have to think as tactically as the marines, simply because of the leeway for errors they have.
Act like predators mean they should pick marines off one by one, try to lure them into ambushes and generally strike where it hurts the most, not make it hurt by striking.

But again, that's just my opinion. Don't like it, don't listen to it.

[Toroic]

I'm saying that xenos don't have to think as tactically as the marines, simply because of the leeway for errors they have.
Act like predators mean they should pick marines off one by one, try to lure them into ambushes and generally strike where it hurts the most, not make it hurt by striking.

But again, that's just my opinion. Don't like it, don't listen to it.

Marines aren't stupid, just their dossiers.

They aren't going to be lured anywhere, because they don't chase and stick in a group, generally turtling.

Bad marines and xenos die ramboing, but you hardly need strategy for that.

No xeno can fight in melee, build a decent hive, land a good scream, snipe a marine with a facehugger, or survive very long without thinking tactically. T3's are generally slower and don't have damaging ranged abilities.

Most of the time xenos thinking tactically leads to heavy marine salt. Crippling hosts, breaching the sulaco, hug and decap combos.

Both sides need to think and act tactically or they will get crushed.

[Wickedtemp]

See, now you're going to have Xeno's breaching MUCH more than previously. I used to be against intentional breaches because it seemed like the easy way to win, but you know what? When it takes six or seven bullets (about 3-4 seconds of shooting) to kill a tier three alien, and the fact that there's normally 4-7 marines for every 1 xeno, and the fact that marines are faster than the tier 3 xenos... I now encourage breaches.

Why? Because when your enemies outnumber you, are faster than you, and are stronger than you, and can kill you before you even get close, then do what you can to level the playing field.

Or... Marines can get the damage nerfed/3rd Tier Xeno health/armor boost and a speed boost. Anything to help balance this. Right now, marine incompetence is the one of the only things that the Xeno's can hope for, because while you can say "b-but tactics!" all you want, tactics don't mean shit when your enemy can kill you with ease, and they outnumber you six to one.

Except breaching. Breaching works.

[Voldirs]

Well, lets turn the situation other way, aliens managed to kill/capture most of the marines on the ground, only 3-5 managed to escape to sulaco and crawl in medbay awaiting surgery. And soon after that there is warning about alien lifeform accesing bla-bla-bla. And you are MT. Would you just unleash phoron in hangar or accept your defeat?

Same for marines, if the upped deck is breached, in most cases its over for marines (sometimes it backfires on aliens hillariously).

Atmosfuckery can be used by marines aswell, but it induces SO MUCH TEARS for the alien side for some reason...

[somhuan]

I seem to get fucked over whenever the ship is breached, marine or alien. It always happens. Atmos is robust.

[Peachy2912]

It's probably not my place to say but I think we've gone rather off topic.

It appears to me that the reason that marines don't push is because of the command structure. The CO and ship board officers can dictate broad orders but are unable to accurately assess what needs to be done on the ground.

This leads to many COs, after receiving reports from various members of the ground team saying the marines are being slaughtered, to call for a retreat, when in fact the reality is the marines are easily able to overwhelm the Aliens.

Alongside this you also have the fact that marines are not forced to obey the commander by the rules, while this is unnecessary for many players many others take it upon themselves to determine that they know best and follow their own goals rather than those dictated by the commander. This destroys any coherence the marine team has and leads to a feeling of utter chaos for the entire team.

This directly feeds into the unwillingness to attack the enemy. With the feeling that your entire team and command structure is a massive clusterfuck it goes against any rational thinking both IC and OOC to attack the hive, who will support you? command? other marines? my own squad? you just don't know. Even when ordered to attack many marines simply don't.

It's hence a lot easier for the marine team to all congregate in one spot (the FOB) and defend as there aren't so many unknown factors and the need to communicate with the rest of the command structure is reduced vastly.

[Wickedtemp]

Well, lets turn the situation other way, aliens managed to kill/capture most of the marines on the ground, only 3-5 managed to escape to sulaco and crawl in medbay awaiting surgery. And soon after that there is warning about alien lifeform accesing bla-bla-bla. And you are MT. Would you just unleash phoron in hangar or accept your defeat?

Same for marines, if the upped deck is breached, in most cases its over for marines (sometimes it backfires on aliens hillariously).

Atmosfuckery can be used by marines aswell, but it induces SO MUCH TEARS for the alien side for some reason...

Last time somebody did that, the xenos stayed in the shuttle until we realized we weren't being hurt by the phoron. Then one of them breached a window. I didn't know that breaching was within the rules at the time so I was totally expecting Staff to give us all a talking to, but it never happened.

[Toroic]

Well, lets turn the situation other way, aliens managed to kill/capture most of the marines on the ground, only 3-5 managed to escape to sulaco and crawl in medbay awaiting surgery. And soon after that there is warning about alien lifeform accesing bla-bla-bla. And you are MT. Would you just unleash phoron in hangar or accept your defeat?

Same for marines, if the upped deck is breached, in most cases its over for marines (sometimes it backfires on aliens hillariously).

Atmosfuckery can be used by marines aswell, but it induces SO MUCH TEARS for the alien side for some reason...

I think the critical difference for marines is that bluespace bombs/superheated phoron is typically used right at the dropship, with barricades placed at the ship exits. There is no counter to that, as marines will always know exactly when and where xenos are coming.

I personally don't like breaching because spacewind is annoying as fuck, and one time when I tried to seal the breach as a drone I got sucked out and pushed to a glitched z level on a hyperspacing ship, and then splatted.

But on the ship if xenos don't quickly take or breach the upper deck there is a huge risk that marines will either escape or set up emitter barriers at all the ladders.

[Dyne]

Give marines easier retreat again that would, say, move the ship and end round, so aliens get their victories.

Marines dont push as cohesion breaks down very fast if things go wrong.
Also aliens have all the initiative- they can out-run and out-see marines, forcing aliens to a pitched battle is pretty hard.

Dont underestimate the fact marines have no idea (and shouldnt) know how many aliens are there.

Overall my recommendation is to just add a "move ship" end of round retreat type, that takes the same time as escape pods, and requires two high-level ID swipes. If marines feel they lost- they can pull out and not prolong it.

[Toroic]

Give marines easier retreat again that would, say, move the ship and end round, so aliens get their victories.

Marines dont push as cohesion breaks down very fast if things go wrong.
Also aliens have all the initiative- they can out-run and out-see marines, forcing aliens to a pitched battle is pretty hard.

Dont underestimate the fact marines have no idea (and shouldnt) know how many aliens are there.

Overall my recommendation is to just add a "move ship" end of round retreat type, that takes the same time as escape pods, and requires two high-level ID swipes. If marines feel they lost- they can pull out and not prolong it.

It's really just runners and charger thay can outrun marines.