Playing as aliens a bit more.

[TR-BlackDragon]

Ok i'm making this thread to ask the community why you don't like to be an alien and what would it take to get you to like to play as the aliens.

Current belief is that they are faceless beasts but from the alien ooc nicknames thread people don't want to give then a face.

[Azmodan412]

Hi, Queen/Boiler/Carrier here. I would like to know that too. I have had many hives where we had easily double the number of mindless larva compared to the number of active and alive sisters. Why is that?

[Logi99]

Hi, Queen/Boiler/Carrier here. I would like to know that too. I have had many hives where we had easily double the number of mindless larva compared to the number of active and alive sisters. Why is that?

Ever since the SSD larva update came, aliens are rarely played now. I prefered the old way to get aliens, SSD aliens are the cause. Also. Once you die you needa wait 10 minutes to become an ssd alien. People will probably forget about that 10 minute and not go the larva.

[Telegnats]

This is my experience of why I don't play alien since Alpha went live.

For T1 it's basically all or nothing. If you hit the spit/pounce and he's alone, you got a marine 99% of the time. If you miss, you either keep fighting (And chances are you'll die), or you run. On the planet map this is essentially limited to hit W and pray you there aren't marines up ahead. The Nostromo didn't have this problem, because there were chokepoints and vents everywhere. The prison map is 3 wide hallways that stretch for days.

Also, every round on the planet it's more often then not the same shit. Marines FOB at the Nexus, alien hive is at the caves. Marines attack the north, probably get pushed back, and camp in the Nexus until the aliens slowly force them out by copius use of boilers that the marines probably don't have an answer for. The marines leave, and the aliens board the shuttle. Aliens get on the Sulaco and fight a war of attrition until they either die slowly or run over the marines like a runaway truck going downhill with no brakes.

[Egorkor]

I still blame the weapons buff. I'm on a phone and am sleepy, so if you want the details, my thread is somewhere in suggestions.

[Yottawhat]

Ever since the SSD larva update came, aliens are rarely played now. I prefered the old way to get aliens, SSD aliens are the cause. Also. Once you die you needa wait 10 minutes to become an ssd alien. People will probably forget about that 10 minute and not go the larva.

Okay, I've never got this. The old system before was "Marine is infected, goes to burst, larva comes out. If there are no possible players for the larva, Marine takes damage."

And because of this, there would actually be LESS aliens since most of the time, the players who wanted to be aliens would pop early and most the hosts would just die from infection damage since no larva would pop out due to there being no available players.

At least with this system, there should be more aliens out since none of the hosts would be wasted.

[WyattH]

The new system with SSD larva has just made it that much more obvious how little marine players choose to play ayy lmaos.

I have no problem going alien, although I will as a ghost see how competent I think the Queen is being before I'll join as a larva. The timer being dropped to something like 5 minutes would help make the xeno side SEEM bigger, although I doubt it would add very many players in.

Alot of our players like to feel 'robust' and being a xeno doesn't give them that.

[Seehund]

Said it once or twice, I'll keep repeating it until the end of days.

For me, and I'm sure, for a lot of people, it simply isn't fun.
There isn't a SPECIFIC reason - it changes from person to person. Some don't feel like "betraying" their old side, others simply don't enjoy the melee combat being an alien entails. Me, I don't like the lack of social RP. Sure, yadda yadda yadda, wuv you mommy, blah, blah, hiss. I prefer the marines simply because, MOST OF THE TIME, they're people that respond to your cues, and you can generally have a good time RPing with. Your actions have subtle but long-term consequences, and I can appreciate that.

[Wesmas]

I dont enjoy aliens play style. The evolutions are meh and I dont want to play any T3 because they are SO SLOW and are not that much more damaging. Its also offputting when you spend 90 minutes building up a supply of larva, and one ass decides to suicide rush with them. Or people leaving hosts un-nested. Or playing queen and having no clue what 80% of the hive are doing. Or building defences are having people rip them down for no clear reason.
At the end of the day, its a game and I play it to have fun. I get far more fun watching people mess things up as a ghost than I do playing a xeno with people who dont listen, dont plan and wont think about what to do.

[Logi99]

I dont enjoy aliens play style. The evolutions are meh and I dont want to play any T3 because they are SO SLOW and are not that much more damaging. Its also offputting when you spend 90 minutes building up a supply of larva, and one ass decides to suicide rush with them. Or people leaving hosts un-nested. Or playing queen and having no clue what 80% of the hive are doing. Or building defences are having people rip them down for no clear reason.
At the end of the day, its a game and I play it to have fun. I get far more fun watching people mess things up as a ghost than I do playing a xeno with people who dont listen, dont plan and wont think about what to do.

Crushers is the speed of Usain Bolt when it is at full momentum

[Azmodan412]

Ravagers are speedy fucks. Praetorians are decent in speed, boilers are slow af due to their artillery role, and hivelords are the stay-at-hive types. Off weeds, I tested this, a Carrier outspeeds marines on run.

[Toroic]

Okay, I've never got this. The old system before was "Marine is infected, goes to burst, larva comes out. If no there are no possible players for the larva, Marine takes damage."

And because of this, there would actually be LESS aliens since most of the time, the players who wanted to be aliens would pop early and most the hosts would just die from infection damage and no larva would pop out due to there being no available players.

At with this system, there should be more aliens out since none of the hosts would be wasted.

Yes, that is correct. Logi99 has no idea what he's talking about.

[ZDashe]

Personally I play both Marines and Xenos quite evenly. If I die as marine and most likely not gonna be recovered for cloning, I'll turn Xeno prefs on and join as larva after 10 minutes. Exceptions are when something very interesting is happening and I may delay joining just so I can observe (Events, round spice etc.).

I do feel that as a Xeno, you'll have less opportunity for RP compared to marines because you are part of a hivemind. As a marine, you can have banter, mutiny, conflicts and arguments. If you play Xeno and attempt to do the same, you'll probably be acting out of character, scorned for degrading teamwork or violating one of the Xeno rules (you can't disobey the queen like you can violate marine orders RP wise). I'm not advocating such a style of RP, merely just pointing out what I tend to observe on both sides, and people seem to enjoy the player-player interaction.

The most fun part of RP as a Xeno is when you get to interact with marines on first contact. In the past, I have seen Xenos befriending marines as a guise to board the Sulaco (The Crusher 'pet'), attempt to communicate with infected host (The Xenova Convention story) and also enslaving human colonists to dig and expand their hive (The Slave Miner). However, such events don't quite happen as often because many marine players just straight out meta-attack Xenos on first contact, or Xenos go on the offensive straight away.

I think that more players would probably enjoy playing as an alien more if they move their focus away from the winning part to the RP part of CM, and perhaps more such fun opportunities could pop up for people to enjoy.

[Disco Dalek]

As other people have already pointed out, the lack of identity as an alien is a fairly large factor. Being nameless and barely ever recognized by the community seems to be the exact opposite of why people play online games.

My biggest personal reason for not playing as a xeno is because there are absolutely no roles that appeal to me. While I enjoy the occasional fight to the death as much as the next guy, I really enjoy medical roles. As anyone who's read any of my other posts likely knows, I'm a medic/doctor only player at this point. The closest thing to medical assistance aliens ever need is a healthy supply of weeds. Medically then, there's no challenge, there's no sense of urgency from mounting casualties, and there's barely any strategy aside from weed spam. Admittedly, I know anything that would cause the xenos to require more advanced healing would be a straight up nerf to their ability to attack. This is simply how the game has to work and it's my own personal preferences that keep me a marine only player for now.

Just to emphasize how much I prefer medical roles, I usually check the server repeatedly over a period of several hours in the hopes of a medical role opening up rather than join as some other marine role.

[GGgobbleCC]

I don't like playing as aliens because why would you want to play the consistently losing side? Every day at primetime the ratio for alien wins in >maybe< 10%(and thats being generous)

Marines just have too much stuff. Couple that with the current weak as shit xenos. I made a post about it in the suggesting fixes in the 'Recent Slew of Marine Victorys' thread. Although its impact is unknown at the time, since many of the current admin/dev team are self proclaimed marine only players.

Want to try playing a runner? Dead from the hail of 10+ marines. Sentinal? Your nerotox stun lasts .5 seconds on a good day then you die to said hail of fire. Drone? All your walls are killed in 4-5 bullets.
The evolutions aren't much better, xenos can't take a hit, dish out hits, and they move slow as hell.

A squad of 4 marines can slaughter a hive of 10+ aliens easily if they bring sadar and rockets.

[Toroic]

Personally I play both Marines and Xenos quite evenly. If I die as marine and most likely not gonna be recovered for cloning, I'll turn Xeno prefs on and join as larva after 10 minutes. Exceptions are when something very interesting is happening and I may delay joining just so I can observe (Events, round spice etc.).

I do feel that as a Xeno, you'll have less opportunity for RP compared to marines because you are part of a hivemind. As a marine, you can have banter, mutiny, conflicts and arguments. If you play Xeno and attempt to do the same, you'll probably be acting out of character, scorned for degrading teamwork or violating one of the Xeno rules (you can't disobey the queen like you can violate marine orders RP wise). I'm not advocating such a style of RP, merely just pointing out what I tend to observe on both sides, and people seem to enjoy the player-player interaction.

The most fun part of RP as a Xeno is when you get to interact with marines on first contact. In the past, I have seen Xenos befriending marines as a guise to board the Sulaco (The Crusher 'pet'), attempt to communicate with infected host (The Xenova Convention story) and also enslaving human colonists to dig and expand their hive (The Slave Miner). However, such events don't quite happen as often because many marine players just straight out meta-attack Xenos on first contact, or Xenos go on the offensive straight away.

I think that more players would probably enjoy playing as an alien more if they move their focus away from the winning part to the RP part of CM, and perhaps more such fun opportunities could pop up for people to enjoy.

I strongly disagree and despise xeno players who engage in such nonsense.

Marines are there to chucklefuck around and beat themselves half the time via mutiny, and xenos are there for focused cooperative play.

Xenos don't have friendly fire, they can make huge hives, they can do hit and run combat but ultimately they are heavily outnumbered and need to survive to evolve. It's not about doing RP that makes no sense and has nothing to do with victory.

[Sargeantmuffinman]

I don't like playing as aliens because why would you want to play the consistently losing side? Every day at primetime the ratio for alien wins in >maybe< 10%(and thats being generous)

Marines just have too much stuff. Couple that with the current weak as shit xenos. I made a post about it in the suggesting fixes in the 'Recent Slew of Marine Victorys' thread. Although its impact is unknown at the time, since many of the current admin/dev team are self proclaimed marine only players.

Want to try playing a runner? Dead from the hail of 10+ marines. Sentinal? Your nerotox stun lasts .5 seconds on a good day then you die to said hail of fire. Drone? All your walls are killed in 4-5 bullets.
The evolutions aren't much better, xenos can't take a hit, dish out hits, and they move slow as hell.

A squad of 4 marines can slaughter a hive of 10+ aliens easily if they bring sadar and rockets.

A squad of four marines can be easily taken down EVEN IF they have a SADAR.
Killing any xeno is typical due to the xenos inexperience and the competence of the mariens.
It all depends on the experience of the player since a good xeno can take down a squad of marines with ease.
The evolutions are in between good and bad but all castes have different roles to carry out.

[Fritigern]

Aliens, by design, lack individuality and identity. This is a moderate RP server after all, and while I wouldn't call the level of role play I've seen from marines to be all that inspired, it's still a nice lampshade over what is essentially a simple PVP game.

Then, speaking to the PVP mechanics themselves, you're also injecting a competitiveness to the entire server just by being what it is. Competitive players (and humans in general) have strong preferences and rarely drift from them. There's a reason, in say something like Starcraft, a player's identity is often tied to a certain faction. This favouritism also leads to people rooting for one side over the other. Most people, after spending a half hour or more gearing up, role playing and establishing themselves as marines, are probably going to be salty when an alien chain CCs them with face huggers and then cuts off their leg and kills them.

So, we've got a lack of RP potential, human nature picking sides, and salt. What are some solutions to all of this?

Well, aliens could use some more identity. Having random variance to the sprites would be a nice step, or being able to select certain forms of 'battle damage' on character select so your alien, no matter the caste chosen, could be recognizable (and likely infamous) to the server as a whole. Another solution might be to consider restructuring the alien life cycle and hierarchy in general. Perhaps creating more than one hive in certain circumstances, spawning different queens at round start with the option of having them work together or have them fight for control of the hive at large. Could also introduce 'elite' members of castes, perhaps based on a whitelist, who would just be respected players given roles similar to squad leaders on marine side. Often you hear about shit Queens ruining it for the rest of the hive, so how about mitigating that problem by shifting some of the power into the lower ranks? Marine CO's can be pants-on-head-retarded but a strong Squad Leader can still save a round. This shakes up the alien dynamic and creates role play amongst the faction.

So those are some possible solutions to the RP end of things, branching into the overall structure of the alien faction which might make it more appealing. Maybe we should take a strong look at the role of antagonists on the server in general?

The server is called Colonial Marines, not Aliens 2 or Aliens vs Predator, and while the Xenomorphs and the Predator races are the traditional nemesis of said Marines, it doesn't mean they're the only thing out there. Randomizing the antagonist role to something like a hunting party of Predators (A non-whitelist version, with weaker abilities to offset their strength) would be interesting. You could also have a completely different race, something more customizable to attract roleplay and a larger subset of dedicated antagonist players would be nice. Opening up the possibilities of enemies takes some of the weight off the Xenomorph faction, so you don't have to chase a false promise of perfect balance.

[ZDashe]

I strongly disagree and despise xeno players who engage in such nonsense.

Marines are there to chucklefuck around and beat themselves half the time via mutiny, and xenos are there for focused cooperative play.

Xenos don't have friendly fire, they can make huge hives, they can do hit and run combat but ultimately they are heavily outnumbered and need to survive to evolve. It's not about doing RP that makes no sense and has nothing to do with victory.

You're right about not doing RP that makes no sense, which is precisely why I quoted those 3 past experiences which involved Xeno teamwork and had a purpose. Nobody said that deception was not a viable tactic for xenos. Neither was enslaving survivors by threatening their lives. It required communication between the queen and her underlings in order for such plans to succeed and in those events I witnessed, they did, and the Xenos pulled off a major victory in the end. Sure it might be slightly controversial in terms of lore, but it's a game afterall and every now and then, doing the same tactics and adopting the usual strategy gets old. (Not to mention salt)

I guess some players like their Xeno team to be no-nonsense while others like to add a bit more fun to it while achieving the same goal. You can either argue over whether to kill hosts and end up having a nasty name-calling match amongst Xenos or you can come up with an innovative 'Xenova Convention' term to diffuse the situation nicely.

[Ninjah!]

I used to be an alien player because I liked the skill involved. Then I wanted to apply for pred....

[RoswellRay]

I used to play a ton of alien back on the exodus, it was so much fun,stalking through the tunnels and what not. On the planetside map I just can't enjoy it though.

[Ninjah!]

I used to play a ton of alien back on the exodus, it was so much fun,stalking through the tunnels and what not. On the planetside map I just can't enjoy it though.

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

[Stivan34]

I play aliens lots of times, And i don't think they are bad at all. If you think they suck it means you don't play them right.

[KeyWii]

Same answer as every other "Why don't you play Xenos?" Thread.

To me, it isn't fun. Plain and simple.

[TR-BlackDragon]

This Topic is here to figure out what might make people want to play as aiens more often to even up the odds and numbers