Predator only spawnable during high-capacity rounds.

[qsleepy]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):
Limit predator role EXTREMELY and only spawn them when testing.
Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):
stop destroying rounds for people that can only play early in the morning and late at night.
Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):
The extremely over-powered god-like predator character is great when you want to completely destroy rounds and imbalance the server with one or two characters that are as fast as runners with infinite ammo that takes 2 shots to crit a fully healthy marine, or you want cheesy-as-fuck RP where predators are following marines around like dogs giving them equipment and jerking each other. If you are even HALFWAY decent at the game you cannot die as a pred unless you are cornered on the sully, in which case you explode and rip open the hull of the ship.
Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):
Turn it off. It's been weeks now and all of the preds still have the pulse laser, still run around murder-boning marines with no repercussion ("Oh, they shot at me a couple times, I HAVE TO KILL THEM NOW!"). If it isn't actually going to be balanced, then stop torturing the people that have to encounter the non-RP circle-jerky predators that just want to meet humans and walk around aimlessly for fun. Giving them dogs was a great idea, too. That definitely helped their OP status on the server.

[Sargeantmuffinman]

They slaughter marines and aliens.

[SecretStamos (Joshuu)]

You should probably lie down and take off your shoes for ten minutes, come back, and reword your post. Salt overdose kills suggestions.

Valid point or not, you're not going to be taken very seriously if your post resembles an angry tirade rather than a constructive suggestion.

[Jack McIntyre]

If I may since this was brought up in another post, the thing that kills both sides when the predators are just kinda of doing their own thing is to actually mess with them and try to kill them. Don't get me wrong I have had good interactions with both sides, I am not going to hunt xenos if they only have T-1's or T-2's, when they start building up is when I start to just probe for a challenge. Same goes for the marines, I do enjoy pranking them a bit, just moving flares around or uncloaking near them and saying Boo, and yea I even get some good duels out of both sides which doesn't involve me getting swarmed by either side. However the reaction you are talking about is when, well I will be brutally honest here, when someone who is not robust or doesn't have a name on the server things that if they take their whole squad or sees a predator dueling another marine and then running up shooting it knowing other marines will jump in when said predator will start blasting to try and brag that they killed a predator. Unless you actually defeat the predator in one vs one combat, you are not getting any sort of recognition let me just say that right now, may cut down on all the "Hey a predator, I am going to try and throw people at it to try and kill it."

That is it really, the only reactions I have had with the marines is either, honorable and they want to duel and it turns into some good rp on both sides, or I am immediately shot at as they try to chase me down to murder me. Sidenote this will not end well for your side if you keep following. Also there is alot of times where marines found the lodge and immediately engaged me or another predator and then did not expect the outcome, aka us wiping them out. I get it, you get salty when murdered by a predator, yea they are strong, but you can kill them and honestly the predators that I have been on hunts with all put rp over killing everything in sight. We only start to use our gear to fight back when we are provoked first. I understand wanting to put them out of the game, but at the same time it really isn't the players who play predator's fault if you have trigger happy marines or xenos who keep trying to attack a predator when it is just trying to walk around and rp scouting. Just my two cents anyway.

[Stivan34]

This is just salt... Nothing more.

[outordinary]

Another is waking up huh? I'd say just get rid of the hellhounds. Also jack, you and I both no with the server being public, you are going to get somebody who is going to attack you. Its inevitable and once one does, I've seen the preds here count it as war. We're gonna need something other that trying to find a non-meta way to tell your side not to attack them.

[Egorkor]

y'know, maybe you should approach the pred unarmed or not shoot him when he appears immediately?
worked for me, had a nice chat with a pred even though I ran after him and shot him because he shot a marine and dragged her off into the dark, turned out he did it because she shot him right as he decloaked and spoke to her.
on the other side, it's hard not to shoot the thing that just tore your squaddie a new one in a 1v1 duel, but by doing so you basically mark yourself and the squad for kill, better start praying for the pred to not shoot you down.
this is, however, why pred rounds have a random chance of being enabled, and honestly, today's lowpop pred round is the one and only I've seen ever since preds were introduced, it's just a lucky or unlucky thing.

[forwardslashN]

-1
It's a game, relax.

Edit: But I do think we need to limit hellhounds for low-pop. They are very robust. And maybe limit the number of predators to 1-2 for low pop.

[outordinary]

Oh forgot to mention. +1

[Jen_Llama]

Another is waking up huh?

AWAKEN MY MASTERS
\

[qsleepy]

>y'know, maybe you should approach the pred unarmed or not shoot him when he appears immediately?

I did this, this is why they have to be admin spawned only.


After the myriad of bitching from people about marines just shooting at preds, I put my weapons away after he tried to approach and walked out a bit away from the barricades. No weapons in hands the unbloodied rushes over, shoots me twice into crit and cuts my head off while hunting with xeno's with 6 marines in the game. There were 5 xenos when I check after I died.


Super RP and really fun to get shot down empty handed and drug away by a character class that is supposed to be extreme hunters that hunt for sport shooting an unarmed marine. If an admin was on that would have been the end of that persons character. Joining xeno's on a 6 marine server and murderboning them without provocation is exactly what the pred code of honor was supposed to prevent.


The salt isn't over dying in a round, it's from EVERY.SINGLE.PRED encounter I've had now. Good rounds completely unbalanced and destroyed by the most forced-feeling feature in a MP game.

[Arachnidnexus]

Should have reported that predator and gotten them removed from the whitelist. I'm not too fond of predators and the predator players on this server in general, and it would be nice to limit their presence to rounds where they cannot single-handedly swing the game based on their whims. Maybe something like a 20 to 30-ish number of active players before a predator round could start would be a nice way to "balance" their presence.

[Bath Salts Addict]

I can't say I've seen Preds on low pop rounds, but there are some things in regards to Pred players that I agree with.

A lot of Preds simply don't RP. I recall one round as Xeno Queen where an elder Pred (elder Preds are staff members) set up shop in sand temple and got spotted by pounce-happy tier 1s. Curious, I waddle my fat Queenie behind over to see the hubub and notice that my tier 1s are prepping for an assault. Knowing they're gonna get destroyed, I tell them to back off and most do. Then, I contact the Pred via psychic whisper telling them what our territory is, generally don't bother us, etc. Through the wall, Pred does nothing but watch the acided doors that disobedient Sentinels placed. I told it that the Xenos won't attack of it won't, as I told them not to.

The doors melt and a Xeno near the door is immediately blasted by plasma and mauled by a hellhound (hell I even psych whispered the hound too).

I understand if the intention of the Pred was to hunt Xenos, as you can't expect Preds to always pick the same side each time. However, the issue arises that an attempt to RP was not made in regards to the other party that recognizes Predators as an RP-centric role and getting killed in return. Said elder Pred and hellhound proceeded to murder an entire hive of tier 1s and tier 2s that stood little chance and not an attempt at RP on their side was made. They only bothered to RP when it was just me and a runner left, an that was only after when I started complaining about it in LOOC. Sometime after my inevitable death, I think the Pred also started killing Marines.

Another round went only a teensy bit better. On high-pop, a group of 2-3 Preds, two of whom I think we're elder chars once again were being harassed by Xenos yet again and I was Queen. I tell them to back off, psych whisper the Preds, then tell a Boiler to stand and simply observe, and then ahelp staff that if any Xenos attack then it's against my orders. It blows over, and while I'm doing Queen stuff I hear that the Preds start taking pot shots at the aliens watching from a distance. Then one actually does die to a hellhound. Declaring them hostile, I lift the ban on attacking Preds and my better-evolved hive proceeds to demolish the Preds with minimal casualties after a long (and admittedly pretty damn fun) back-and-forth. I don't even think Marines ever realized it was a Predator round because said Preds got themselves killed so quickly and the round restarted due to atmosphere issues. If they had attempted to RP, I wouldn't have been so quick to allow their deaths, but my last experiences soured my opinion.

[apophis775]

Preds have a "chance" to spawn, recently, the chance was made 100% for testing, but it will soon (if it hasn't already) return to 20-25%.

[Seehund]

Preds have a "chance" to spawn, recently, the chance was made 100% for testing, but it will soon (if it hasn't already) return to 20-25%.

Can confirm the chance currently is NOT 100%.

[spheretech]

Almost every predator I've seen and played with hunts the winning team. It may seem unfair if you get killed by yourself in a round, but your team was probably dominating the other and the predator was trying to balance the fight.

[apophis775]

Yeah.

so I'ma deny this.