Metarushes and the failure to deter them

[Renomaki]

You know, lately I been noticing that marines have been having a harder time controlling themselves as of late.

Despite admin punishment again and again (from artillery to attack animals), there is always going to be that one random squad leader that decides to lead his squad across the river for no logical reason, despite there being a fair bit of jungle left to explore for survivors and intel. But why keep doing it despite all the shit that is bound to happen to the marines that'll cost them the victory they so seek?

Even when admins don't get involved, metarushes almost ALWAYS end with marines getting screwed over hard, what with a good chunk of men being either captured or killed due to a lack of planning beforehand. After all, they are called metaRUSHes, not metaassaults, mainly due to how poorly planned out they are. Doesn't matter how good a leader you are, you can't do an attack on the hive all on your own, it is a team effort.

Yet, despite how 90% of the time, metarushes hurt the marines horribly and ruin the round for a large number of people, these marines continue to do it (some of them being repeat offenders even, if possible). So I now ask.. What DOES a metarush accomplish? Are some people so impatient that they want the round to end in under an hour? Have marines grown so bored lately that they stopped giving a crap about self control?

Keep in mind, the gray tide has passed several months ago, so I'd assume that a lot of the marines that come here are those that should have a basic understanding of the rules by now, so it still baffles me how even marines with more recognition just rambo out there without a care in the world. Even I was unwillingly dragged into theses metarushes by my squads a few times, and being aware of the metarush rule, struggled to keep out of the way without outright abandoning my squad.

What could we do to fix this? Clearly spawning upwards of 250 mobs doesn't help, and firing warning shots via artillery only deters them for so long. I think we need to figure out new ways to discourage metarushes, and I'm not just talking a map change, since that is only a temporary fix until the marines get to know the map better.

[Jeser]

Half a year ago I suggested making river impossible to cross for marines due to flood, leaving one destroyed by flood wide bridge, which should take some time to build. And to build it, let's say, marines will need to receive special cargo supply from High Command which will arrive 30 mins into round.
Marines will be able to repair and after that hold said Bridge. On both sides there should be some reinforced structures, which can be easily turned into defensive positions to make it easier for marines to hold the Bridge when they will fix it.

[Derpislav]

Well, there's also the fact you can scout the entire colony thoroughly in three minutes and then only engineers have anything to do, with the rest awkwardly standing around for a hour and a half HOPING AND PRAYING xenos will give them something to do.

[Simo94]

part of meta rushing is xeno's fault too, they acid bomb you from the north river side to hydro medbay or the runners/hunters who attack and throw huggers then run north to the direction of the hive with a few marines chasing them which leads to meta rushing

as for the solution there was an event sometimes ago where we had a big wall on the whole south river side with a bridge in the middle, we had an EPIC round with a fucking AWESOME bridge fight, it was the most entertaining round I had on CM, there was no rushing, xenos and marines met right on the bridge, it was a looong epic fight, xenos still won that round, I have no idea why they never did that event again

I suggest you make the river wall and bridge a PERMANENT THING PLEASE

[Renomaki]

Well, there's also the fact you can scout the entire colony thoroughly in three minutes and then only engineers have anything to do, with the rest awkwardly standing around for a hour and a half HOPING AND PRAYING xenos will give them something to do.

A lot of xenos aren't hiding in their hive, with a lot of hunters and runners (and sometimes even higher tier aliens) roaming the colony.

The early hour of the round is spent holding off the xenos and protecting the colony, while the latter half is cleaning out the hive. And in all my experiences, marines had plenty to shoot at in the jungle half of the map.

Xenos are always going to come to you, one way or another. You don't need to come to them within 10 minutes of landing.

... And of course, even if the xenos are really passive, if you have a good commander who makes up new objectives along the way, it helps pass the time.

[Derpislav]

The thing is, many queens lately go "everyone stay behind the river, let them come to us" route. And then the Commanders say the exact same thing to marines. So a hour of not seeing the other team ensues, until someone gets impatient and gets slaughtered, sparking a rush.

I miss the good ol' days of "forward hives" that gave both teams something to do.

[Aeleto]

Marines associate waiting with being wrecked against elite and ancient xenos. I've had rounds as XO/CO where a single leader disregarded all of my orders, rushed the hive and fucked all the marine round in the process because we lacked the manpower to do a proper assault later.

[Sargeantmuffinman]

I remember when we were allowed to have a squad scout the caves. Was brutal and fun.

[Jay Burns]

The thing is players don't care if it screws them over, i say over and over that it hurts the marines more than it helps, yet they never listen.

[Eenkogneeto]

My solution is simple: Stop missing. Drop the bombs directly on marines and they will learn much faster.

[Monoo]

As an SL I usually give the marines that cross a good verbal flogging. The sensible ones stay back with me, and the deaf get slaughtered.

[Shyguychizzy]

I remember when we were allowed to have a squad scout the caves. Was brutal and fun.

*gets flashbacks* Oh gawd, you reminding me of my old Squad leader days where I be in charge of a squad of five to seven marines and having scouting as their mission, we end up finding the hive accidentally or finding a xeno pack. Its either my entire squad gets wiped and I live to tell the tale or we all dead. Fun times. Marine Tip #544 as squad leader back at those times just run faster than your squaddies, guaranteed to survive longer.

[Bigchilly]

>2 marines are sitting with some beer on lawn chairs at hydro
>peaks through binoculars
>"Hmm"
>"You know theres a giant fucking wall and lots of weird fucking moving lizards and huge glowing ones over there."
>"Should we tell the staff sargent?
>"You mean amass suicide rush into enemy territory?"
>. . .
>"Nah"

I found out most of the time a metarush accures is either:

A. Gaint fucking hive on the fucking river
B. Aliens doing 'hugger runs' (dropping huggers next to marines and running away)
C. Aliens running away across the river in plain sight

Point C bothers the most because this should not be happening, aliens should be tempted to stay and the dark and be cunning, not fucking doing bum rushes across the river and killing a marine and running away. (i do this and get amazing kills)
Then again, this problem will remained unsolved unless someone ACTUALLY does something about it, which either this problem will be solved gameplay wise, or a new rule or some shit.

Aliens plainly show their location to the marines, its running right across the river, or shooting gaint acid balls from it.

And when marines take action to stop them aliens cry meta, and to the fact that they are breaking rules.

[Renomaki]

The thing is players don't care if it screws them over, i say over and over that it hurts the marines more than it helps, yet they never listen.

I suppose it is just stubbornness blinding them from reason, making it hard to realize that uncoordinated attacks just end up feeding the xenos...

.. Kinda like feeding the other team in games like LoL. You think there is a connection? Nah... Maybe?.. Nah..

[Derpislav]

Aliens plainly show their location to the marines, its running right across the river, or shooting gaint acid balls from it.

And when marines take action to stop them aliens cry meta, and to the fact that they are breaking rules.

This. I frequently get admin PM'd "turn the fuck around" while pursuing an alien that's dragging someone across the river in plain sight or trying to finish off that boiler I shot while it tip-toed the shoreline.

[Toroic]

I think that the risk to xenos from a 30 minute rush is much lower than people think, and that preventing marines from attacking is probably not necessary past that point.

However, there's terrible strategy and poor coordination on both sides,to the degree that a single robust player can massively tip the scales.

Eventually we'll have some mechanical protection from rushes

[Renomaki]

Eventually we'll have some mechanical protection from rushes

Oooh, how I'll look forward to that.

Not only to discourage metarushes, but to encourage marines to properly set up instead of poorly hashing something together and going "Yep, this will make a decent FoB".

[Eenkogneeto]

I vote we turn the river into spacelube for the first 45 minutes of the round.

[Renomaki]

I vote we turn the river into spacelube for the first 45 minutes of the round.

I'd rather do what NIGHTMARE does, and make the water toxic to walk in at certain parts, making metarushes harder.

[Derpislav]

NIGHTMARE water is way too quick on poisoning you, considering how laggy SS13 is. I accidentally stepped into it for a quarter of a second and spent the rest of the round vomiting.

[TopHatPenguin]

NIGHTMARE water is way too quick on poisoning you, considering how laggy SS13 is. I accidentally stepped into it for a quarter of a second and spent the rest of the round vomiting.

Pretty much did the same thing as you but instead died over the course of 10 seconds.

[Winter]

I don't know if it's SS13 itself. I never really get much lag on Goon or TG aside from bomb or admin shenanigans. I think it's baycode because it feels artificially slowed.