Playing as aliens a bit more.

[RoswellRay]

Do you think it is because the marines turtle 24/7?

Not really,breaking turtles was a lot of the fun on the exodus aswell. It's just that the planet plays different,they always have the same FoB, hunting in the wide open isn't nearly as fun as hunting in the cramped tunnels of the exodus and with most of the planet being just open land rather than interactable structure there just seems to be a lot less creativity from both sides.

[ParadoxSpace]

The Nostromo really did facilitate higher xeno numbers.

[Gamarr]

Aliens need things to do, and the game to support them more. Not sure how much it was hit upon with previous responses, though one pointed out 'it's not that fun.' That sums up part of my own issue of why I played Marine more than Xeno.

Hive mechanics are boring/flat. Hive 'construction' as some call it consists of just ... shitting doors and walls, resin and beds. Xenos cannot terra/'xenoform' the colony other than fuglying it all up with awful resin floors everywhere. Walls have ridiculously low HP values, meaning you Seriously cannot count on a hive anywhere other than far away, where the distance to get there hampers marine resupply.

The game is not designed for xenos in mind, the interactive world almost solely around Human mobs/playing. The one mechanic xenos could fiddle with was off planet, on the sulaco, when they got the chance to use vacuum for fun. Except, it was not really fun and just got old realll fast until it was more or less outlawed, though being gone several weeks that light 'ruling' about breaching Sulaco might've been lifted I suppose.

Point remains though, there is just -not that much for xenos to do.- Marines, and xenos, too often meta and attack eachother right off, thus negating almost any kind of... alternative situation that might have resulted. Variation is the spice of life and all that.

Mapping, which was also pointed out by someone previous, in that jungle is very wide open meaning xenos cannot really chokepoint and have no vent-like access to get around. Jungle map, imo, should not be a 'main' map. Needs to be some special... interplay, on the colony map, to make it more important for either xenos/marines to move around and hold different areas. A reactor, like the sulaco, that goes critical for instance. Overall, jungle could maybe do with a total rework, as medical bay NOT being in the Hub/nexus makes -absolutely no sense security wise and logically.- You don't put it off in bumblefuck nowhere, like really. Weyland isn't that stupid(greedy and full of dicks but not 'stupid').

Tl;dr Xenos need actual mechanics and/or quality-of-life improvements to give them THINGS to do. There is nothing to do on the jungle other than:
-grow
-acquire hosts
-try not to die while doing everything to get more hosts (which is done even to xenos detriment too often)
-repeat forever
-Xenos cannot interact with the colony, and have absolutely no real overriding goal or method to enact any sort of change anywhere. The closest thing is turtling around the FOB/landing pad and metaing the marines powering up the turbines and stopping that.

[Logi99]

Honestly. It looks like xenos are getting nerfed even though they did get buffs.

[Ninjah!]

Aliens need things to do, and the game to support them more. Not sure how much it was hit upon with previous responses, though one pointed out 'it's not that fun.' That sums up part of my own issue of why I played Marine more than Xeno.

Hive mechanics are boring/flat. Hive 'construction' as some call it consists of just ... shitting doors and walls, resin and beds. Xenos cannot terra/'xenoform' the colony other than fuglying it all up with awful resin floors everywhere. Walls have ridiculously low HP values, meaning you Seriously cannot count on a hive anywhere other than far away, where the distance to get there hampers marine resupply.

The game is not designed for xenos in mind, the interactive world almost solely around Human mobs/playing. The one mechanic xenos could fiddle with was off planet, on the sulaco, when they got the chance to use vacuum for fun. Except, it was not really fun and just got old realll fast until it was more or less outlawed, though being gone several weeks that light 'ruling' about breaching Sulaco might've been lifted I suppose.

Point remains though, there is just -not that much for xenos to do.- Marines, and xenos, too often meta and attack eachother right off, thus negating almost any kind of... alternative situation that might have resulted. Variation is the spice of life and all that.

Mapping, which was also pointed out by someone previous, in that jungle is very wide open meaning xenos cannot really chokepoint and have no vent-like access to get around. Jungle map, imo, should not be a 'main' map. Needs to be some special... interplay, on the colony map, to make it more important for either xenos/marines to move around and hold different areas. A reactor, like the sulaco, that goes critical for instance. Overall, jungle could maybe do with a total rework, as medical bay NOT being in the Hub/nexus makes -absolutely no sense security wise and logically.- You don't put it off in bumblefuck nowhere, like really. Weyland isn't that stupid(greedy and full of dicks but not 'stupid').

Tl;dr Xenos need actual mechanics and/or quality-of-life improvements to give them THINGS to do. There is nothing to do on the jungle other than:
-grow
-acquire hosts
-try not to die while doing everything to get more hosts (which is done even to xenos detriment too often)
-repeat forever
-Xenos cannot interact with the colony, and have absolutely no real overriding goal or method to enact any sort of change anywhere. The closest thing is turtling around the FOB/landing pad and metaing the marines powering up the turbines and stopping that.

This is pretty accurate. There is no hunting at all. There are no patrols to ambush.

[aphotic]

I used to play aliens, but I got tired.

Got tired of 80% of the round being watching a timer tick down.

Got tired of going through the pain in the ass of finding an isolated marine, hugging him, dragging him all the way across the map to a hive, then having to stand and watch them break out of the nest. Got tired of being faceless and nameless.

Got tired of getting slaughtered with my entire hive while being unable to do anything because our biological killing machines were afraid of getting banned for killing people.

Got tired of watching the marine side constantly get cool new toys and events while the aliens got nothing- A couple weeks ago there was a night where the marines were getting bonus objectives and toys one round after another, including a predator friend that aided a marine assault on an already drastically weakened hive while the marines were -simultaneously- running with an admin-spawned combat synthetic.

Got tired of the moderation/admin pool increasingly being marine-only players because you can't build a positive/trustworthy rep as an alien with no fixed name/identity.

Got tired of the advantages that made the aliens interesting- speed, numbers, and a powerful home-turf advantage- were either whittled away to nothing (speed) or handed off to the marines (numbers, home-turf).

Got tired of having to go through an incredibly rigorous and dangerous process to get a new alien spawned when marines get both free latejoins and the ability to clone their dead soldiers.

And most of all, I got tired of trying to bring this stuff up only to get constantly shouted down with "aliens are fine l2p" and "you're not supposed to win you're the bad guys" and "lol if you don't like it don't play." Alien players were trying to give feedback, were trying to say why we were leaving, and were trying to communicate that if changes weren't made, there eventually would be very few alien players left. Now all the little things have added up into a big problem.

Honestly? I think it's too late to fix it. At this point even diehard alien players are busting their ass for hosts and the only thing to show for it being a large pool of SSD larva that almost invariably get gunned down, and I don't imagine how that can be fun for anyone. The only way to revert this mess of a downward spiral is to either make xenos baseline strong enough to deal with the 5-to-1 pop disadvantage they're living with or otherwise limit marine numbers somehow, and good luck getting anyone to agree with either of those suggestions.

So here's what I propose: Make aliens NPCs, remove the higher castes, and let the marines roleplay their turkey shoot, because it seems like that's what a vast majority of the server wants.

[GGgobbleCC]

I used to play aliens, but I got tired.

Got tired of 80% of the round being watching a timer tick down.

Got tired of going through the pain in the ass of finding an isolated marine, hugging him, dragging him all the way across the map to a hive, then having to stand and watch them break out of the nest. Got tired of being faceless and nameless.

Got tired of getting slaughtered with my entire hive while being unable to do anything because our biological killing machines were afraid of getting banned for killing people.

Got tired of watching the marine side constantly get cool new toys and events while the aliens got nothing- A couple weeks ago there was a night where the marines were getting bonus objectives and toys one round after another, including a predator friend that aided a marine assault on an already drastically weakened hive while the marines were -simultaneously- running with an admin-spawned combat synthetic.

Got tired of the moderation/admin pool increasingly being marine-only players because you can't build a positive/trustworthy rep as an alien with no fixed name/identity.

Got tired of the advantages that made the aliens interesting- speed, numbers, and a powerful home-turf advantage- were either whittled away to nothing (speed) or handed off to the marines (numbers, home-turf).

Got tired of having to go through an incredibly rigorous and dangerous process to get a new alien spawned when marines get both free latejoins and the ability to clone their dead soldiers.

And most of all, I got tired of trying to bring this stuff up only to get constantly shouted down with "aliens are fine l2p" and "you're not supposed to win you're the bad guys" and "lol if you don't like it don't play." Alien players were trying to give feedback, were trying to say why we were leaving, and were trying to communicate that if changes weren't made, there eventually would be very few alien players left. Now all the little things have added up into a big problem.

Honestly? I think it's too late to fix it. At this point even diehard alien players are busting their ass for hosts and the only thing to show for it being a large pool of SSD larva that almost invariably get gunned down, and I don't imagine how that can be fun for anyone. The only way to revert this mess of a downward spiral is to either make xenos baseline strong enough to deal with the 5-to-1 pop disadvantage they're living with or otherwise limit marine numbers somehow, and good luck getting anyone to agree with either of those suggestions.

So here's what I propose: Make aliens NPCs, remove the higher castes, and let the marines roleplay their turkey shoot, because it seems like that's what a vast majority of the server wants.

Nailed it

[Davidchan]

Nailed it

Sums up my feelings too. All I have to add/suggest would be;

I've often wondered why we don't bring back the Nostromo map, it's better than Prison ship imo, SS13 players new to the server can at least navigate it, Aliens had a lot more choices for hives without having to naturally pick the single location close to their spawn or far away from marine insertion points as they could.

Setting alien as a priority role like any marine role (I.E. able to set Squad Medic as High, Alien as Med and other roles as low so if you didn't get a marine role you wanted, you'd be considered for Xeno or vice versa.)

Late join Xenos would also be nice, if we are infact chained to this SSD Larva/Alien system, why not add Larva to join screen if 1 or more SSD larva is an option? New players would be able to instantly jump to the Xeno side in a ready body without having to observe for 5-10 minutes of inaction on their part, and since there is no respawn option to go back to the lobby it'd be a very hard thing to abuse.

Increasing Alien to Marine ratio at round start, high pop rounds are usually marine victories because if the Marines get down to the planet in the first 30 minutes, the Xenos just won't have the numbers and T2-3s they need to repel a full strength Marine assaults. I feel that right now we have a ratio of 1:8 or 1:7 for Aliens to Marines, it should be closer to 1:2 or 2:3, ideally high pop rounds (60+) would be 30 xenos vs 30 marines at round start.

Honestly, cutting down on hugger/stun dependance would go a long way, a Xeno shouldn't feel powerless or defenceless if they don't have a facehugger to stun a host, other abilities to incap and do STAMINA damage that make it harder for marines to run while still able to fight back if they are skilled enough to do so, as it stands right now Xenos are too powerful with huggers and too weak without them, when by source material they shouldn't even be bringing facehuggers outside of the hive.

[Azmodan412]

If you want a turkey shoot, then go on a different server.

[Derpislav]

I have way more fun dying as a marine that winning as a xeno, and the reasons are hard to pinpoint. I would guess it's a mix the lack of RP (...or at least having a name), variety in gameplay and how arcade playing an alien feels. Run at marines, click, retreat to weeds, repeat. Alternatively wait around the corner, click marines, retreat to weeds, repeat.

Since my last "I exclusively play marines" post, I've played quite a few xeno rounds, and... I dunno. I don't feel like a part of the story. My impact on how the round unfolds is limited to clicking someone to death, unless I go through the pains of evolving into a support caste like hivelord or boiler. It's still fun, but it feels like playing a flash game rather than SS13.

EDIT: It's also worth mentioning that an alien victory is not really fulfilling. Sure, since the weapons buff I don't get such a rush from managing to drop a ravager either, but when I'm playing as a marine, I feel like all the odds are against me. It's me, the retards in my squad and my gun against the never-ending horde of nightmarish monsters. It's not quite like that now that the M41 shreds T3s to pieces, but still. As an alien, I feel like the game is staged for me to win. Victory is an obvious outcome, not something heroically earned.

[Azmodan412]

Neverending? More like four or five that get wrecked and you circlejerk for the next hour until you attack. As xenos, you deal with 6:1 odds against you. I get more of an achievement rush when I win as xenos.

[ParadoxSpace]

>10 minute larva wait times
>'I-i'm killing my own squadmates bawwww'
>not being spawned right into your alien
>maps not actually good for alien gameplay since we stopped being Nostromo
>any 'buff xenos' suggestions get shot down immediately
>any buff marines suggestions get upvoted x1,000,000
>xenos move at a snails pace
>marines can outrun most of the classes
>marines get orbital bombardment
>marines get cloning
>marines get names
>suggesting aliens get names ends up in 'not lore friendly -1'
>alien claws are like butter knives
>marines constantly get new shit
>aliens don't
>aliens get basically one place to set up a nest
>aliens easily get dunked by three to five bullets
>marines get shit like B-18 and SADARs
>aliens have to sit and wait for a timer before they get T3, which half the time isn't all that good

[Egorkor]

never understood the "no face eww" problem, infact I had never thought of it until it came up.
and I think I never will understand it.

[GGgobbleCC]

never understood the "no face eww" problem, infact I had never thought of it until it came up.
and I think I never will understand it.

That whats makes it such a problem, you see nearly every marine player being a special snowflake with a "Nickname". RPers love their individuality, you'll never be anything more than Drone (X) or whatever as aliens getting mowed down by the ridiculously broken damage from the guns and their ammo capacity chewing through the wet paper resin walls.

[aphotic]

EDIT: It's also worth mentioning that an alien victory is not really fulfilling. Sure, since the weapons buff I don't get such a rush from managing to drop a ravager either, but when I'm playing as a marine, I feel like all the odds are against me. It's me, the retards in my squad and my gun against the never-ending horde of nightmarish monsters. It's not quite like that now that the M41 shreds T3s to pieces, but still. As an alien, I feel like the game is staged for me to win. Victory is an obvious outcome, not something heroically earned.

I'm not entirely sure how you can feel this way given that xenos need time, luck, and skill to even reach parity with marines while marines themselves start with their strongest equipment right out of the gate, and one failed assault can put the xenos back to square 1 while the marines have a pretty good chance of recovering their wounded in addition to limitless resources. It's you, your gun, a never-ending supply of other guns, the retards in your squad, another 40 retards, typically at least 3 rocket launchers, a logistics, command, and medical staff with full cloning facilities, a spaceborne fortress that gets advance warning of any assault, a full gameset of building mechanics, and occasionally a predator, against a small handful of xenos that you typically outnumber by a large margin. This is about as far as you can get from struggling against 'an endless alien horde' and I can't help but feel that a moderator of all people being unable to see that reinforces the complaints about marine bias.

[Egorkor]

That whats makes it such a problem, you see nearly every marine player being a special snowflake with a "Nickname". RPers love their individuality, you'll never be anything more than Drone (X) or whatever as aliens getting mowed down by the ridiculously broken damage from the guns and their ammo capacity chewing through the wet paper resin walls.

so what'? for example, I play alien when I want some fun and arcade, popping fools with ease. played a marine when I wanted some real challenge. I never cared about the names, or distingushing marks or that kinda shite, if there are, they're purely cosmetical. the thought that there can be some kind of "alien RP" or "snowflakes" is unable to find a way into my head, cause aliens were never meant for RP - in my opinion.

[aphotic]

so what'? for example, I play alien when I want some fun and arcade, popping fools with ease. played a marine when I wanted some real challenge. I never cared about the names, or distingushing marks or that kinda shite, if there are, they're purely cosmetical. the thought that there can be some kind of "alien RP" or "snowflakes" is unable to find a way into my head, cause aliens were never meant for RP - in my opinion.

Popping fools with ease? You mean playing as a race that specifically almost never directly kills? No alien RP, when talking and obeying in hivemind like an alien is enforced? It's kind of dubious that you claim to play alien and then go on to state two things that directly contradict a major facet of their current playstyle.

And yeah, I've seen the real challenge you enjoy as a marine.

OOC: Egorkor: mfw I went to the hive alone, took Barnabus with me after I met him, and we ended up eliminating the hive.
OOC: Egorkor: popped a queen, a runner, a crusher, a spitter, a hivelord and a larva.
OOC: Egorkor: rip.

Regardless, hey, guess what- This thread is soliciting ideas for making aliens more attractive to players and the name/identity is one such idea. If you don't think the lack of RP is keeping people away from playing xenos, then what is? What problems can you identify that have contributed to this issue?

[Derpislav]

I'm not entirely sure how you can feel this way given that xenos need time, luck, and skill to even reach parity with marines while marines themselves start with their strongest equipment right out of the gate, and one failed assault can put the xenos back to square 1 while the marines have a pretty good chance of recovering their wounded in addition to limitless resources. It's you, your gun, a never-ending supply of other guns, the retards in your squad, another 40 retards, typically at least 3 rocket launchers, a logistics, command, and medical staff with full cloning facilities, a spaceborne fortress that gets advance warning of any assault, a full gameset of building mechanics, and occasionally a predator, against a small handful of xenos that you typically outnumber by a large margin. This is about as far as you can get from struggling against 'an endless alien horde' and I can't help but feel that a moderator of all people being unable to see that reinforces the complaints about marine bias.

I'm talking about how it feels like according to what I'm expecting from the movies. Our aliens are whimsy pansies compared to the original ones, but the xenomorph is an icon in how deadly it is. If you win while playing as the creature that single-handely wiped out several ships, it feels like "well, that was to be expected".
On the other hand, in the movies the humans are always painfully hopeless and even the tiniest victory requires 30 minutes of epic action scenes and sacrifices.

It's hard to get that out of your mind.
It would be better worded if I said "Xenomorphs are the antagonists, marines are the heroes."

[Egorkor]

I stated it in either this thread or the other "aliens" thread - the weapon buff. I'm currently unable to elaborate, so I urge you to search the suggestions forum to find my suggestion to debuff guns, there you'll find it all.

[GGgobbleCC]

The staff aren't bias guys, we swear

[aphotic]

On the other hand, in the movies the humans are always painfully hopeless and even the tiniest victory requires 30 minutes of epic action scenes and sacrifices.

It's hard to get that out of your mind.

And yet the server dynamic has shifted so far in the other direction that it's literally a complete inversion at this point.

It would be better worded if I said "Xenomorphs are the antagonists, marines are the heroes."

That's exactly the kind of thinking that's caused this problem. Players are not AI routines, and they don't get enjoyment out of being helpless, faceless target practice. You can't keep crapping on people and expect them to keep playing a game that is actively hostile to them purely to enable someone's power fantasies.

But if you want to talk about movie feel? Marines get most of it. They get the military organization, the cool weapons, the banter and jargon, the dropship, the atmosphere. Aliens get the sprites, and that's it. Their hives aren't dangerous, they're not dangerous as individuals, they have no force of numbers, they don't inspire fear, and their main method of attack and defense is throwing facehuggers, which is as far as you can get from the melee-focused insectoid reapers of the movies.

[Derpislav]

This is slightly derailing the thread, but I would be much happier about playing aliens if they weren't... essentially marines limited to two (in Carrier's case, 8) shots without returning to the base to reload. Getting into melee with a xenomorph should be a death sentence, while infecting should take much more effort (and of course breaking out of nests should be much harder or impossible). They can even stay as fragile as they are if they're much faster (moving slower than a human? What the hell?) and harder to hit while moving.
Their entire gameplay revolves around using their special ability to get into facehugger-slap range. That's not something I enjoy. As an alien, my facehuggers are both my "crutch" letting me keep up with the marines, and the reason why I'm not getting any buffs - if xenos were faster, they would be able to get into hug range quicker and that would be OP, eh? Eh...?

There, I said it. This is just a personal opinion and the fact that I don't like playing on the alien side does not mean I'm biased against them. At least they're usually less retarded than my typical squadmate.

[aphotic]

This is slightly derailing the thread, but I would be much happier about playing aliens if they weren't... essentially marines limited to two (in Carrier's case, 8) shots without returning to the base to reload. Getting into melee with a xenomorph should be a death sentence, while infecting should take much more effort (and of course breaking out of nests should be much harder or impossible). They can even stay as fragile as they are if they're much faster (moving slower than a human? What the hell?) and harder to hit while moving.
Their entire gameplay revolves around using their special ability to get into facehugger-slap range. That's not something I enjoy. As an alien, my facehuggers are both my "crutch" letting me keep up with the marines, and the reason why I'm not getting any buffs - if xenos were faster, they would be able to get into hug range quicker and that would be OP, eh? Eh...?

See, I agree with all of that. I guess the question now is 'why hasn't that happened/why isn't that in the process of happening?'

Honestly at this point I feel like a better hugger mechanic would be to just make them a projectile that jumps out of the egg, making the egg itself kind of a like an infection proximity mine. Make the aliens much more dangerous in melee and make the primary method of infection disabling hosts and taking them back to the hive to get egg-hugged.

[aphotic]

The staff aren't bias guys, we swear

No, of course not. There's certainly not a marine-only metaclub run by the head administrator.

[GGgobbleCC]

No, of course not. There's certainly not a marine-only metaclub run by the head administrator.

Thats good, I was worried since things like the hangar defense and marines being able to join all game long were just a little biased