... Effigies

[Veradox]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):
Effigies. The epitome of fear represented by a limply hung figure, their many wounds grotesque and open, the kill fresh and reeking of ensuing rot. A glorious sight in the eyes of the killer, a symbol of accomplishment and a raw demonstration of power: You have overcome the enemy, and now their shame shall be displayed for all to see, for all to know that YOU have bested them, that YOU are a force to be reckoned with.

Excellent.
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The details are finally complete, and the Mother has deemed your creation appropriate for the hive's rapid expanses, the masterpiece emitting an aura of rejuvenating warmth, a general nuisance for free movement yet a testament to the glory of your kin. Your race cannot falter, even in unforeseeable death, for you are all true predators, Apex, if you would. A final reassuring nod and the Mother skulks away farther into the recesses of the caverns, a mob of hunched, acid drooling guardians following in her wake.

For the Hive.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):
In this suggestion thread, I'm offering the idea of implementing effigies and statues into the game. Let me break down the reasoning, of course:
As of late, there's been a lot of sillyposting about the difficulties of playing xenomorph and generally, they're only somewhat repeatable, yet definitely a presence in the lack of numbers and excessive disconnects that have risen throughout the weeks. While many solutions come to mind and will be made throughout the time I share creating these threads, my first offer is, as you can see, Effigies. These will offer a stronger foothold for xenomorphs, while being able to benefit the marines in their own form. They will provide certain buffs dependent on what has been created, and will offer some additional hive building strategies, improve assault beachheads and defensive positions likewise.


Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):
Let's just rock this section with a list and their contents, starting with the statues, as we all know Xenos are clearly being wronged pretty hard lately. Remember, OF COURSE THESE DO NOT STACK. It is possible that, with evidence, it may be made not necessary for effigies to be placed on weeds.
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Regeneration Aura Statue
+ Created with 450 plasma, capable of being made by Drone, Queen, Hivelord.
+ Offers a 10x10 radius of additional (small) health regeneration per tick.
+ Straightforward production, the preferred creation on your staged assaults or defenses.
+ 200 hp.
+ Must stand still for 1m30s (One minute, thirty seconds) to create.
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Rejuvenation Aura Statue
+ Created with 750 plasma, capable of being made by Queen, Hivelord.
+ Offers a 13x13 radius of additional (small) plasma regeneration per tick.
+ Offers a 13x13 radius of cooldown reduction every minute (-50%). (Debatable timer, cooldown percentage)
+ Straightforward production, the preferred creation on your defenses.
+ 250 hp.
+ Must stand still for 1m30s (One minute, thirty seconds) to create.
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Vicious Aura Statue
+ Created with 750 plasma, capable of being made by Queen, Hivelord.
+ Offers a 10x10 radius of additional damage (5-10%, debatable).
+ Offers a 10x10 radius of health overcharge, permitting an additional +20 health to all xenomorphs in range. (Optional, seems hard to code!)
+ Preferred creation for holding a position/baiting marines.
+ 250 hp, must be melee'd. (Melee optional.)
+ Must stand still for 2m (Two minutes) to create.
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Fortitude Statue
+ Created with 800 plasma, capable of being made by Queen.
+ Offers a 13x13 radius of (small) plasma regeneration per tick.
+ Offers a 13x13 radius of additional damage (5%).
+ Offers a 13x13 radius of (medium) health regeneration per tick.
+ Offers a 13x13 radius of (very small) structure health regeneration per tick. (Optional, seems hard to code!)
+ Risky construction in hot zones, good for offense and defense.
+ 500 hp.
+ Must stand still for 3m30s (Three minutes, thirty seconds).
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There's lots of optional and debatable bits not explicitly mentioned, but, of course, these are pretty damn hard to make arguably and would probably take a lot of time and effort! Put in your thoughts, but make sure they're well thought out and rounded for feedback and appropriate adjustments just in case this earns a glance of approval!
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Marine Effigies - The counterplay aside from shooting the shit out of statues using the power of DEMORALIZATION. These, of course, DO NOT STACK and are affected by BULLETS along with XENOS.
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Enfeeble Effigy
+ Created with 5 plate as frame, four rods to hang, one Ravager corpse.
+ Offers a 13x13 radius of damage debuff ON xenomorph castes.
+ Best if used in conjunction with Defender Effigy, most useful for advancing bases if time is permitted or near the end of defensive lines.
+ 150 hp, drops all materials used on destruction.
+ Frame takes 15 seconds to create, rods take 10 seconds to place, corpse placement is instantaneous (Grab, reinforce, click on frame).
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Apollo Effigy (Optional, may be odd to code!)
+ Created with 5 plate as frame, four rods to hang, one Carrier corpse.
+ Offers a 5x5 radius of 5-8% chance on each affected tile for all SPIT and BOMBARDMENT to fall short onto it. (5-8% chance on every tile, not cumulative)
+ Useful for center of defenses to prevent constant bombardment.
+ 100 hp, drops all materials on destruction.
+ Frame takes 15 seconds to create, rods take 10 seconds to place, corpse placement is instantaneous (Grab, reinforce, click on frame).
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Defender Effigy
+ Created with 5 plate as frame, four rods to hang, one Crusher/Praetorian corpse.
+ Offers a 13x13 radius of 10% damage reduction.
+ Best used if in conjunction with Enfeeble Effigy, useful behind base lines or during a long offensive to prevent punishment.
+ 100 hp, drops all materials on destruction.
+ Frame takes 15 seconds to create, rods take 10 seconds to place, corpse placement is instantaneous (Grab, reinforce, click on frame).
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Massacred Martyr/Legend/Hysteria Effigy
+ Stacks with similar effect effigies.
+ Created with 10 plate as frame, eight rods to hang, one Queen corpse.
+ Offers a 15x15 (Whatever evens out, I guess.) radius of 10% damage reduction.
+ Offers a 15x15 radius of 10% debuff damage ON xenomorphs.
+ Offers 10x10 radius of 8% of SPIT and BOMBARD to fall short on each affected tile. (8% chance on every tile, not cumulative.) (Optional, may be odd to code!)
+ The holy grail of marine effigies, with a make or break placement punishment.
+ 300 hp, drops no materials on destruction.
+ Frame takes 20 seconds to create, rods take 15 seconds to place, corpse placement is instantaneous (Grab, reinforce, click on frame).
+ Accompanied is narration text (Optional, many to choose from, suggestions welcome):
"The Hive roars in outrage at their desecrated matriarch..."
"The pressure dampens in the area as the monarch is dethroned..."
"Limbs shiver and pupils dilate as the Queen is desecrated..."
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Notice a lot of skipped castes? It's because there's only so much you can do with this code that I'm aware of, and the optional bits are what I'm unsure of! Plus, you know, pretty big advantages for each side, so, let's not go nuts.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):

Just JAM IT IN THERE.

Sprites for statues could be as simple as...

Some kind of pink tinged thumb for Regeneration.
Some kind of green tinged thumb for Rejuvenation.
Some kind of red tinged thumb for Vicious.
Some kind of black tinged thumb for Fortitude.

Nothing special, right? It's not like they're picassos.

And for effigies? Hell, go nuts, it can be gorey or pretty princess.

To code it? Hell, I have no idea. Discuss it, share it, apply your own ideas or ways to implement it and if you think it's neato, give it your pepperonis and we'll see what functions are approved/denied. This is only one of many ideas to come, so be honest! You'll have a bundle of ideas to pick and choose from.

[Azmodan412]

Oh lordy lord... +1!!!

[Anewbe]

On first glance, the creation times and costs for Xenos seem obscenely high. On a good team, that wouldn't be too big of a deal, but a good team is never a guarantee. Often times it's already difficult to get builder castes to create Weeds where they're needed, so adding another structure type that could be considered "Necessary" for sieges or base defense feels a bit like throwing rocks at a drowning man... Could just be me, though.

The idea of marines spiking aliens up as trophies is cool, but I feel that hanging a dead, leaking bag of acid in the middle of a fortification is just begging for trouble.

Also not sure how feasible any of this is, but that's not my area of expertise by any means.

[Veradox]

Howdy. The creation costs were intentionally set high to prevent one every block of the caves. You can regenerate your plasma pretty quickly as a building caste if you set aside a minute to sit and stew about and with a rejuvenation, it's not really that hard at all by experience. If the statues are passed through, you'll probably get some naggers telling the bad builders to make 'em anyway and nobody wants to sit through that. It's not exactly necessary either, it's just an opportunity to not get curbstomped as hard and provide an easier experience to nerf some of the gun updates over a limited radius since that's been a pretty good controversy lately.

On the topic of Effigies, it's titled ... Effigies for a good and dandy reason-- Because that shit is nuts. Putting them up can offer morale and demoralizing values to xenomorphs and marines, provide RP discussion for 'Is this right...?' and 'I LOVE THIS.' sides for arguments, and if it turns out to become a big topic of discussion, who says we can't just hang them up for vanity?

To address the topic of feasible... Yeah, this'll be pretty hard to do if possible. It'll take a lot of work, and'll need a boatload of community support for it to become a viable path to take.

[ChickenShizNit8]

"Aliens are getting Robbed"

...

[Wickedtemp]

Howdy. The creation costs were intentionally set high to prevent one every block of the caves. You can regenerate your plasma pretty quickly as a building caste if you set aside a minute to sit and stew about and with a rejuvenation, it's not really that hard at all by experience. If the statues are passed through, you'll probably get some naggers telling the bad builders to make 'em anyway and nobody wants to sit through that. It's not exactly necessary either, it's just an opportunity to not get curbstomped as hard and provide an easier experience to nerf some of the gun updates over a limited radius since that's been a pretty good controversy lately.

On the topic of Effigies, it's titled ... Effigies for a good and dandy reason-- Because that shit is nuts. Putting them up can offer morale and demoralizing values to xenomorphs and marines, provide RP discussion for 'Is this right...?' and 'I LOVE THIS.' sides for arguments, and if it turns out to become a big topic of discussion, who says we can't just hang them up for vanity?

To address the topic of feasible... Yeah, this'll be pretty hard to do if possible. It'll take a lot of work, and'll need a boatload of community support for it to become a viable path to take.

Okay, there's not really going to be an RP side to this for marines other than "YEAH STRING EM UP AND PUT EM ON DISPLAY! FUCK XENOS! MURICA!", just being real here. People who actually say anything against that on the Marine side will likely just be one or two people.

Now, with that out of the way...

I love this. I don't give a damn if it doesn't fit with lore, or if it's too close to "lel anshent majicks", this is a good idea. The plasma cost on the xeno side, along with the timer, seems suitable. I was worried about this when marine effigies were listed, marines are buffed enough as it is, especially when they outnumber xenos 6 to 1 at times, but the fact they'll actually need a body of a T3 makes it difficult to spam those everywhere around the FOB, making a hellishly fortified area even more hellishly fortified.

Also I would suggest that marines shouldn't be able to build these on the Sulaco due to decency. Command wouldn't allow the marines to put torn up bodies on display on the Sulaco, it'd be unsanitary, unsightly, and just plain wrong. Those are, however, just RP reasons to not allow that, so here's the main gameplay reason. The Sulaco is normally locked down tighter than Fort Fucking Knox when the Queen touches the console the first time. 1, sometimes 2 layers of grilles around the entire shuttle (sometimes they're electrified) and then tables and metal barricades around the grilles. Every entrance is covered and locked down, marines are shooting literal fish in a barrel. There's no need for the marines to have further buffs on top of that. Of course, the Queen doesn't give a shit if xeno effigies are placed on the Sulaco so that would be allowed.

With that said, take ALL of my +1's. Every single one. Take them all. Maybe these might help a little the next time the aliens board the Sulaco.

[Wickedtemp]

"Aliens are getting Robbed"

...

The number of alien victories that I've seen in the past three or four days can be counted on one hand, even if I had half of my fingers cut off. I know that apparently Apop's logs showed it was like 1:1, or pretty close to it, but want to know the reason?

Xenos pretty much only win during low pop, and the Marines pretty much always win during "prime-time" for the server, because they outnumber the xenos to such an extent, the starting 8 aliens could nest 20 marines and they'd have another 40 marines still charging and killing them. Know what this means? It means that, depending on timezones, there are people that see pretty much only marine victories. They're not online all the time, the only window of time they've got to play is during high-pop hours where it's marine major after marine major. It'd be discouraging for a xeno player who's only online during those times, to be a part of the ever-losing team.

This isn't balanced. The main reason xenos are winning is because there's only a handful of marines. And even then it's still anyones game. If the xenos board the Sulaco, with the way things are currently going, it's game-over. They'll be met with a hangar with tables, grilles, barricades literally outlining the shuttle so they're completely trapped until they break through. Which is difficult when the grilles are electrified. The aliens just don't have the numbers to do that well with an assault now.

One of the few Xeno victories I saw, they only won because the Staff online at the time FORCED the marines to leave the Sulaco via emergency evac while disabling the evac shuttles, leaving them with no choice other than going to the prison. The Sulaco was so overly defended that if the xenos HAD gone there, they would've all died. That's the ONLY reason they won is because they didn't all board. So, with xeno effigies placed on the shuttle then maybe they'll be able to survive the Hangar Fortresses.

Or make another invasion route aside from the Hangar...

[ChickenShizNit8]

The number of alien victories that I've seen in the past three or four days can be counted on one hand, even if I had half of my fingers cut off. I know that apparently Apop's logs showed it was like 1:1, or pretty close to it, but want to know the reason?

Xenos pretty much only win during low pop, and the Marines pretty much always win during "prime-time" for the server, because they outnumber the xenos to such an extent, the starting 8 aliens could nest 20 marines and they'd have another 40 marines still charging and killing them. Know what this means? It means that, depending on timezones, there are people that see pretty much only marine victories. They're not online all the time, the only window of time they've got to play is during high-pop hours where it's marine major after marine major. It'd be discouraging for a xeno player who's only online during those times, to be a part of the ever-losing team.

This isn't balanced. The main reason xenos are winning is because there's only a handful of marines. And even then it's still anyones game. If the xenos board the Sulaco, with the way things are currently going, it's game-over. They'll be met with a hangar with tables, grilles, barricades literally outlining the shuttle so they're completely trapped until they break through. Which is difficult when the grilles are electrified. The aliens just don't have the numbers to do that well with an assault now.

One of the few Xeno victories I saw, they only won because the Staff online at the time FORCED the marines to leave the Sulaco via emergency evac while disabling the evac shuttles, leaving them with no choice other than going to the prison. The Sulaco was so overly defended that if the xenos HAD gone there, they would've all died. That's the ONLY reason they won is because they didn't all board. So, with xeno effigies placed on the shuttle then maybe they'll be able to survive the Hangar Fortresses.

Or make another invasion route aside from the Hangar...

Cute...

Aliens would win if they could follow orders and actually use their caste correctly...

Aliens are overpowered, I don't care what you say, if they use their classes and work together properly, they would STEAMROLL marines. Why add something just because aliens can't work together?

[Toroic]

Cute...

Aliens would win if they could follow orders and actually use their caste correctly...

Aliens are overpowered, I don't care what you say, if they use their classes and work together properly, they would STEAMROLL marines. Why add something just because aliens can't work together?

This is pretty hilarious from a player that generally only plays marine, and the level of marine vs marine that happens in a given round.

I mean, how much stronger would marine team be if they weren't constantly engaging in friendly fire?

I'd argue that xeno team generally has better teamwork, and needs better teamwork to win, due to their lower numbers and simple command structure.

Marines in contrast seem to have half the team either doing nothing or actively causing trouble.

I've seen a single marine squad with robust marines kill 80% of the xenos themselves for a round.

Coordinated xenos probably would steamroll marines. That's not because xenos are OP, that's because marines are dicking around.

[Arachnidnexus]

Construction times on the marine effigies would be 25 seconds compared to 90-120 seconds for alien effigies. Xeno effigies would also be limited to be built by quite slow castes (Hivelord, Queen) while marine effigies can be built by anyone and refund materials upon being destroyed. That's gonna be tricky to balance. I'm also not a big fan of the idea of effigies lore-wise so I'm going to have to give this a -1.

[Wickedtemp]

Construction times on the marine effigies would be 25 seconds compared to 90-120 seconds for alien effigies. Xeno effigies would also be limited to be built by quite slow castes (Hivelord, Queen) while marine effigies can be built by anyone and refund materials upon being destroyed. That's gonna be tricky to balance. I'm also not a big fan of the idea of effigies lore-wise so I'm going to have to give this a -1.

Okay, so maybe allow drones to build a few more of the effigy types. And as far as the marine effigies go, they'd need to kill a T3 and then drag it's body all the way back to their base. If the aliens are careful, they can prevent this from happening. The number of effigies they have directly depends on the number of T3's they're able to kill, making them more expensive and MUCH harder to spam, whereas a patient drone could plant effigies in lots of places. I'd say this is rather balanced as it is.

[Arachnidnexus]

Eh, it's honestly hard to say how balanced it would be without having it in play, and I'm still not a big fan of it lore-wise. It might also promote more turtling since it would make it even dumber to leave the safety of a zone affected by multiple effigies in favor of pushing out into enemy effigy-entrenched positions.

[Wickedtemp]

Eh, it's honestly hard to say how balanced it would be without having it in play, and I'm still not a big fan of it lore-wise. It might also promote more turtling since it would make it even dumber to leave the safety of a zone affected by multiple effigies in favor of pushing out into enemy effigy-entrenched positions.

Fuck the lore, we don't have to abide by it all the time. And there's no way turtling can get worse than it already is... Besides, think of it this way... As a drone, you'd want to put effigies near your xeno pals to aid them in their attack on the marines FOB... So once effigies have been made around the outside of the FOB, the xenos would be more likely to attack.

[apophis775]

I'm not sure how i feel about this...

[HalfdeadKiller]

I'm gonna lean towards... -1. I don't really see the point of it. Aliens already have pheremones, and marines have engineers and medics.

[Lostmixup]

We aren't a tribal server. It's a cool concept, but I don't think it fits very well with the theme. Perhaps predators could do this.

[monkeysfist101]

We aren't a tribal server. It's a cool concept, but I don't think it fits very well with the theme. Perhaps predators could do this.

In my opinion, predators stringing up the dead seems a lot more believable.
-1 for the xenos.

[Edgelord]

I feel like on a different type of gamemode/server this would be amazing and definite props to the idea, but I"m not sure if it fits in with CM

Neutral.

Edit: But on the note what if the Predator made such effigies like mentioned earlier? As in the Predator, should it be implemented again, would be able to tip the scales of the match. Just spitballing here.

[Terminator541]

I feel like on a different type of gamemode/server this would be amazing and definite props to the idea, but I"m not sure if it fits in with CM

Neutral.

Edit: But on the note what if the Predator made such effigies like mentioned earlier? As in the Predator, should it be implemented again, would be able to tip the scales of the match. Just spitballing here.

If anything, effigies should just be aesthetic or part of a set of objectives like stringing up X amount of marines. Predators are solitary hunters and should always be on the move, not camping a corpse for bonus stats.

[Arachnidnexus]

Effigies as a predator lore thing might be pretty cool actually since the whole tribal trophy thing fits them much more than humans or xenos.

[Aredal]

Yeah predator effigies would be cool, setting up dead bodies everywhere in the jungle to spook the marines, and place dead xenos infront of the hive entrances to let them feel the reag and challange you.

[Veradox]

Logged off so I guess it's time to start addressing all the content that's been posted in my absence!
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To refer to the lack of RP, yeah, it was a stretched idea that doesn't really have any secure supports put in place. There's lots of ways to interpret it and it all depends on community participation in the matter but I won't go on and ramble about possibilities when the percentile chance is low enough as it is.
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In regards to construction times? Well, I did say that the entire concept was a constantly shifting variable but I felt fairly certain the numbers were well enough aside from the refunded materials, that only being there out of the fact that there would be a general interest in the construction of these in a properly set up FOB (Which, even if set up, would have to be logistically designed to safely contain the effigies without damaging lines of fire(Difficult!)) could still be at risk from friendly fire. Perhaps lowering the full refund to only a 1/4 refund alongside a gibbed corpse? I'm sure that'd appease criticism on the topic. When it comes to the effigies, you're only going to be putting them in key locations so that there's a minimal chance it'll be destroyed and a high chance that it'll benefit your team in the process. Tricky, right? Good on paper, not so good in placement? *But I rambled a bit there instead, so let's get back on track.*

Xenos have a wide breadth of time to start manufacturing their own statues for buffs, they're essentially just stationary pheromones if your hive happens to be in the absence of the generating castes or if you would prefer not to burn your plasma on babysitting teammates. The caste diversity was originally to be suggested as all drones and hivelords alongside Queens to be able to build them, but that sounded a little bit silly since you're easily met with about five building castes on an early round and don't want these super OP structures popping up everywhere. Yet, I do think that reverting back would be a suitable change since you're definitely not guaranteed freedom of movement in most situations. Regardless, in most combat situations, you'd have built these outside of marine line of sight typically, just adjacent to your assault.
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Don't like the concept because of engineers and medics? Well, if you're not an engineer, you don't typically get much access to the plate needed for an effigy frame, and medics can only provide painkillers to lengthen your time on your feet from damage, damage reduction would just take a portion of incoming damage and reduce it. Don't like the concept because of xenomorphs already having pheromones? Well, as I've just now recently posted, the idea works pretty well as a way to assist hive construction/assaults/defensive positions that they ever so desperately require when put up against the current marine forces. This makes it so you don't have to have everyone reducing their effectiveness to assist others, now you can be a part of it like the rest of them(With some time and effort invested.). Also, sounds cool, right?
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Balance, huh? Well, it's necessary for everything and there's no doubt about that. There's a lot of changes that can be made to effectively work out the possible exploits from a successful setup of the mechanics, such as definitely keeping them off the Sulaco due to the obscenity of it in your own workplace! Not to mention, if it comes down to it, decreasing timers for xeno construction (The thread is mainly about them.) or increasing the material requirements as effigies can easily become a substantial problem over a prolonged campaign.
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Remember, xeno statues are literally just nodes of stationary pheromones to ease up your playstyle. Adding effigies into predators as a last resort would definitely be pretty nifty, and I wouldn't argue against it if it ended up sounding like a swell idea in comparison. They'd be able to mount their achievements to mock their serpent enemies, and that's pretty robust.

[Wickedtemp]

I still like this idea. I like it a LOT... However it does seem like one of those things that nobody will ever get around to coding...

I hope it does get implemented though. The whole 'node of pheromones' idea should still be a thing regardless.

[apophis775]

I'm not really sure how this would fit. Maybe with press, but definitely not for Marines. Maybe for Xenos in the form of "nodes".

[Wickedtemp]

I'm not really sure how this would fit. Maybe with press, but definitely not for Marines. Maybe for Xenos in the form of "nodes".

... Well, sometimes preds decide to side with the marines, allow the preds to string up their xeno kills and that'd act as some sort of morale buff to Marines, maybe? Iunno.