Enable rebuckling of hosts in nests

[ForcefulCJS]

Summary : Allow xenos to unbuckle and rebuckle hosts to delay their possible escape.

Benefits :

Every single game a host gets loose and either kills themselves, frees other hosts, or kills hive members who can't reasonably control a loose and angry host.

Details :

1) It's not fair to ask any player to give the hosts nonstop supervision for several hours. I've had hosts get free and kill me/others while I use the restroom, go answer the door, etc. the nest is the xeno's safe spot but too often it turns into a battleground for no fault of the xenos. Requiring diligence is fine, but requiring non-stop 100% focus on the nests is unecessarily punishing for xeno players and MAYBE part of why xeno is unpopular.

2) The stuns available to most xenos are not enough to contain a host. Sentinel spit and pounce stuns last for only a few seconds and tackling is RNG based (and only lasts 2s at most). Lag happens too. Basically xenos are forced to swarm a freed host and tacklespam for any hope of getting him/her back in a nest.

But every time I host gets up there might not be several xenos nearby to contain them like that, especially during highpop when you've got 9 active xenos, only 3 of which are willing to remain on nest duty, trying to keep tabs on the 4-12 hosts waiting to pop. If you split them up then its even more likely for someone to get loose in the nest and go on a shooting spree, if you keep them together then you end up with SADAR/Frags/Orbital Beacons/Mines getting busted out as soon as they stand up. Don't believe me, lets play a game where you have to watch 4 hosts and one of them (you dont know which) has two frag grenades, and you have to control each host as they get up before they can execute a simple click + hotkey combo to pull the pin on the grenade. Hint: You can't stop them and the explosions will kill any nearby larva that just popped, along with nearby hosts, and give surviving hosts a wide opening to escape with all the nearby doors blown out. Same problem applies to marine suicide, you can't stop it.

3) It forces xenos into a shitty bind between the rules and survival. I can't slash feet or hands until a host has escaped and is hostile, slashing feet is currently the ONLY way for xenos to prevent a host from escaping the resin, even when I know that a specialist has a SADAR in his suit storage, I have to freaking nest him down and wait for him to blow the place up before I can try to break his hands. The rules are in a silly place where I'm ENCOURAGED to murder everyone I can see before they get infested by the hugger (aka the hugger+decap combo) because if I make a legitimate effort to nest them but have to break limbs to do it safely, I get Ahelped and bwoinked because I didn't just cut his head off immediately.

4) It maintains the current gameplay direction. Xenos who nest someone and then run off and ignore them will get punished just as badly as they do now, but xenos who are diligent about rebuckling hosts will be able to prevent explosives from being detonated inside the heart of the nest.

Implementation:

There's some code that prevents rebuckling, remove it.

[Seehund]

May as well forcefully ghost the marine player as soon as he is nested.

Honestly, that would just become SO TEDIOUS for the nested.

-1, mang. Just, -1.

[ForcefulCJS]

You got nested, you lost, when I got shot to death as a xeno I get "forcefully ghosted" immediately. You can either stick around and see if the xenos will overlook you (hint: they probably will) or they will be diligent with you in which case you get what you deserve... a nice fat chestbursting. I don't like the entitlement among marine players that even after eating multiple facehuggers AND getting isolated from their squad so that xenos are able to successfully extract you to a nest, that you STILL deserve two chances to get up and kill everything in your vicinity (with bonus facehugger immunity!). Sorry but when its your 50 v. our 8 you really don't need or deserve that kind of cushy treatment that gives you guys a 4th and 5th chance to murder us even when we've played our end correctly.

Only difference is you don't get a 100% guaranteed chance at freedom to kill yourself/everyone around you first, once you've been nested after infested you're a dead man walking anyway 99% of the time if you aren't freed prior to your first successful resist. The only difference is this method might get us the larva we need to win instead of charred craters and self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

This game is more than just marines, It's fun breaking loose and then murdering everything in the area while unbuckling all the other hosts because the sentinel watching you didn't manage to drag and rebuckle you during the 2s neurotox stun, but marines would have fun if they were given durands every round too, there needs to be consideration of balance and making xeno gameplay enjoyable too. Given the disparity of players for each side, you should recognize that (lol at 3am game yesterday yielding 2 xeno players v. 30 humans).

[SkyeAuroline]

-1. Have yet to have a problem with any xenos containing me or any other marines. If anything, they can still rebuckle incredibly easily with the checkerboard nests, which also shouldn't exist, but that's another topic entirely.

You got nested, you lost, when I got shot to death as a xeno I get "forcefully ghosted" immediately.

You also have the option to respawn as a xeno. And you take more than one shot to be instantly stunned for an extended period of time (see: the facehugger issues that have been discussed to death before).

[UnknownMurder]

There's more reasons to keep it disabled than reasons to keep it enabled. I'm not going to list them all, but I'd thought you want to know.

[Veradox]

Let it be known before this progresses any further that there are certain castes designed with denial abilities to prevent hosts from harming themselves and others because it's their job to defend and supervise the hive. Unbuckling and rebuckling from nests was removed because of the powergaming that is very easily seen through the act. Xenos would unbuckle hosts at intervals after tacklespamming and then rebuckle them to reset their timer. It wasn't fun, it wasn't cool and it wasn't an interesting mechanic.

To shut down counterstatements that you can no longer tackle nested hosts, the castes designed to supervise the hive have their own specific instant knockdown ability to suffice. I've had a pretty easy time dealing with hosts that are capable of damage because I used what was supposed to do that job. Going to go with -1 for this little idea. To have a fun time at playing xeno, you have to get good.

[Disco Dalek]

I honestly wouldn't mind seeing tackles last longer or have a higher chance of working, but this is a little extreme. I can't speak for the xeno's point of view since I've only played as one twice, but being rebuckled after struggling to escape for a couple minutes without even being able to stand up would likely give half the player base dangerously high blood pressure. This area is extremely difficult to balance to everyone's liking, but this is tipping the scales too far in the xenos' favor. You have to keep in mind that most marine deaths/captures involve being stunned. There are few things more enraging in this game than being helpless. While that happens fairly often to xenos (SADARS, grilles, mines), it's nearly a guarantee for marines every single round.

[Jack McIntyre]

Forceful can you not play the game without complaining about everything? -1

[Wickedtemp]

I'm honestly neutral on this, not to let Xenos unbuckle before the marines actually get out, but if another marine A escapes and pulls marine B out... Marine B is now immune to being nested for a while. Marine A gets re-nested, but nest-immune marine B gets him out.

Now they're both immune to being nested.

This happens more than it should, and it's a fucking bitch to deal with.

[ForcefulCJS]

Challenge:

1) You're a sentinel watching multiple nests, one of the nests on the northeast of your screen just had its host break loose.

2) You have to go open his door and spit him down before he shoots himself to death, denying the hive a precious new larva.

3) This isn't a challenge, its an impossibility. Welcome to Xeno gameplay.

4) Bonus challenge: The host got up and immediately whipped out his M4, you have to walk across your screen and open his door before he fires off the 5 rounds it takes to destroy his door and run for it, once he's moving your spit targeting will never hit him as long as he strafes you.

5) Super bonus challenge: You landed your sentinel spit on him within seconds of him escaping and he's now 4 tiles from his nest, drag him back to his nest and buckle him in the 2 seconds you have before the neurotoxin expires. Hint: Neurotoxin lasts as long as it takes to open a single xeno door, GOOD LUCK

I know you guys love marines but its simply indefensible to say "Yea just use the spit that won't even last long enough to open the damn nest door and then pray that your <50% tackle RNG blesses" and "well if a marine frags himself (and all the adjacent hosts) within 1 second of standing up you just gotta deal with it".

Every round I witness this shit, every, round. It's usually not even me, but its other perfectly reasonable players who simply can't manage 4-5 hosts at once because its 8 v 50 and between the queen, hive expanders, host gatherers, etc. can't be forced to babysit. We have a massive attrition rate on successful marine burstings and given nearly universal marine winrate during highpop hours it becomes unsustainable.

Disco had a reasonable reply but I have to disagree, I mean if people are willing the massively buff the tackle rate so that you don't get these instances of 6 consecutive unsuccessful tackles then sure do that instead, but if marines are gonna fight this hard over rebuckling I can't imagine they'd be on board with tackle spam.

[coroneljones]

-1
No
Just
No

Its the sentinels specific job to watch the nests,and drones should have built cell nests or such
And renesting over and over is the dickest of moves

[Azmodan412]

I don't even LIKE checkerboard nests so I always build 2x2 nests or 3x3 just to give marines a CHANCE at escape. All the xenos crowding into one nest and four doors to deal with a host isolated just pisses me off. And so, I maximize the nest-hive ratio by making 2x2 or 3x3 nest rooms.

[Toroic]

I don't even LIKE checkerboard nests so I always build 2x2 nests or 3x3 just to give marines a CHANCE at escape. All the xenos crowding into one nest and four doors to deal with a host isolated just pisses me off. And so, I maximize the nest-hive ratio by making 2x2 or 3x3 nest rooms.

2x2 or 3x3 are not useful because marines unbuckling each other is a huge risk.

I understand you don't like them, but non 1x1 nests cost xeno lives

[Azmodan412]

2x2 or 3x3 are not useful because marines unbuckling each other is a huge risk.

I understand you don't like them, but non 1x1 nests cost xeno lives

If the sentinels are on point and IF one sentinel per human, it works.

[ForcefulCJS]

@coronel

Even if you assign sentintels to defense.

AND those sentinels survive the marine offensive (lol spitters v. SADAR). You aren't accounting for population differences at all, in highpop your nest guards will never be 1:1 with hosts.

You have 1-2 sentinels in a BEST case scenario who have to control 6-10 hosts nested in various locations. It only takes seconds for a human to gun their way out of a nest and once a marine can move in 2-dimensions spitters will never land their spit on a moving target. I've found sentinels and spitters to be the #1 casualty of escaped hosts and I gave an example in the last thread where a single host busted out with a suit storage m4 in under 5 seconds and immediately ran into the cave's underground lake. 3 spitters died trying to get him out but with the massive water slowdown not only was landing spit still almost impossible (pretty sure a marine in a wheelchair could juke spit indefinitely), but when it did land there was no way they could drag him out of the water before he was up again. Spitters are only good for nest control if you have a small nest population and can IMMEDIATELY spit them when they stand up. When you have to watch 4x+ hosts as a spitter, you can't get to them all before they managed to shoot their way out and enter yakketysax mode where spitting because a joke.

Honeycomb also suffers because if you put hosts near the outside of the pattern they're just one doorway from freedom and will routinely escape, but if you put them near the inside behind multiple doors, then a guard has to take 10+ seconds opening multiple doors to reach them and by that time they can escape to unbuckle teammates, suicide, set explosives, etc.

Your post just reeks of marine bias. "Renesting is the dickest of moves" but yet you support marines getting a free chance to blow themselves up or suicide just to deny xeno a larva, like that's not somehow the most massively dickish of moves. Even some of the arguments are innately illogical. You're against the ability to rebuckle because it means you can't escape a diligent nest guard, but at the same time you claim that a diligent nest guard guarantees you can't escape.

CM nesting according to marine players:

- Being rebuckled by a diligent guard = OMG HUGE DICK MOVE TERRIBLE REMOVE THIS FROM THE GAME

- Our first captured marine hosts have a SL who sets an orbital beacon and kills themselves and every other marine we captured = HAHA HOORAH MARINE GOOD JOB KILL THEM BUGS LOL WE 2 GUD THIS IS A GREAT FEATURE DON'T REMOVE IT

[Toroic]

If the sentinels are on point and IF one sentinel per human, it works.

It's very rare and extremely wasteful to have 1 xeno guarding each host. I regularly contain 3-4 hosts for the entirety of their gestation as a hivelord. Good nest design and technique are critical, but work even with a slow caste with no neurospit.

One praetorian should be able to handle 4 robust marines consistently. A sentinel should be able to handle two, and a spitter 3.

Now, some people make deep checkerboard nests where you have to cross 6 doors to get to a host, which is poor form. It's better to have multiple 2-3 row checkerboard nests.

Having two marines nested next to each other is just insuring you need to deal with the massive pain in the ass that is an infected "recently unbuckled" host. Bonus points if they have a smartgun, so you can't even tackle disarm.

@Forceful, I'm more than willing to help mentor you, and I'm sorry you've suffered from the generally incompetent nest design.

[ForcefulCJS]

Wish Xenos could have a symbol or some other sensible monicker that would let you identify others across games in the same way most marines static-name. It's hard to develop useful relationships as xenos (I never know if Runner 233 is a high skilled team player or the guy who's going to pounce someone in front of an auto turret).

You're a rare soul if you routinely do that sort of work but Xenos who routinely do nest work and do it well are the rarest thing in Colonial Marines, there's no glory, recognition, or innate reward to just building a decent nest. Nest-minders are also assigned to host guarding and that's an equally ugly job where nobody notices you if its done right and everybody shit talks you if a host gets out.

[Toroic]

Wish Xenos could have a symbol or some other sensible monicker that would let you identify others across games in the same way most marines static-name. It's hard to develop useful relationships as xenos (I never know if Runner 233 is a high skilled team player or the guy who's going to pounce someone in front of an auto turret).

You're a rare soul if you routinely do that sort of work but Xenos who routinely do nest work and do it well are the rarest thing in Colonial Marines, there's no glory, recognition, or innate reward to just building a decent nest. Nest-minders are also assigned to host guarding and that's an equally ugly job where nobody notices you if its done right and everybody shit talks you if a host gets out.

When I play hivelord, I tend to have a distinctive 3x3 tunnel area, surrounded by 3 doors, with the corners having resin walls. I also almost always push for nesting in the northeast caves, and usually have a double thickness wall dividing that large chamber.

Idea being that hosts can be devoured and taken via tunnel to the hive, and once in the deepest part of the hive will be surrounded by checkerboard, sticky resin, a thick wall, and won't have been OOC able to see their way in so they know which way lies freedom.

I haven't been as active as I'd have liked lately, but it is neigh-impossible for a host to escape if they don't know which way to go, have to fight on sticky resin, and take down multiple doors and walls to get out. Once a host has been disarmed down to a knife or fists their ability to be a threat is much lower. If the tunnels are set properly then they form the main method of xeno travel, which eliminates a lot of the worry from distant hosts.

Forward nests are rarely effective, in my experience, and forward bases on the planet almost always are a net loss due to the eventual OB.

Hopefully soon we'll get OOC tags for xeno players that'll make it much easier to see who is good, and who is not.

[Edgelord]

Why even have the struggle option in the first place if you can keep people buckled for the entire duration? Definite minus 1 on that. Marines escaping is a problem for the Xenos and the drones, hivelord, and sentinels are the solution.

[apophis775]

Denied.
There's a timer for a reason (to prevent shitters from abusing).

You have the same risk of being killed in the Hive, as does the bridge crew if an alien sneaks onto the Sulaco.