Alternate alien fundamentals

[Szunti]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):
Destroyable spawnpoints in the hive with weak alien hordes respawning (almost) immediately after dying.
The marines objective would be to destroy the spawnoints in the hive instead of killing a limited number of aliens.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):

I think this would fix the most serious shortcomings as of now, like marine camping, bored marines (eg. when they are just sitting in the FOB and nothing comes) and would make more people to play aliens as they don't have to wait to respawn, can be aggressive all the time and act more like a mindless creature of the movie.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):

Spawning
I think aliens should have a limited number of buildings working as spawnpoints. These would represent the nested colonists. These could be placed by the queen at round start. These would be an infinite supply for weak aliens (call it T0). After dying an alien player would (almost) instantly respawn as a T0. Dying as T0 would cost almost nothing. This would create waves of weak aliens attacking constantly. Which is fun for marines because they are not sitting in the FOB doing nothing. Also more fun for cargo because they really need to deliver ammos on time. And it gives the overrun feeling of the movie. The marines could win only by destroying these spawnpoints. No more reason for camping as marines.

Evolving
This one could have a lot of shape, I think two things that can be used are larvas that bursted from marines and jelly.
One possibility follows.

Classes and evolutions (sentinel is missed, icons could be reused as T0). Classes may need nerf. Eg. spit is not a good idea for the weak T0.

T0                         T1                 T2
                         drone       ->    carrier, hivelord
sentinel       ->        spitter     ->    praetorian, boiler
                         hunter      ->    ravager
                         runner      ->    crusher

To get to a higher class you need jelly (T0 to T2 is two jelly not just one like now) or if the larva came from a marine you start as T1 already. Jelly could be much more limited. (Now everyone can get one easily especially if sharing plasma.) This would gave additional choices to the queen: should I spend the jelly to get T1-s or should I wait and try to get a couple marines and spend the jelly on T2-s.

There is the problem that the ones who die the most would most probably spawn as the T1 from the marine likely wasting it. I don't know an elegant solution to that.

[Sargeantmuffinman]

So the aliens get an xenomorph dispenser for instant respawns or similer to that.

Doesn't seem lore-ish friendly at all.

The upside to this would just be instant alien respawning but jelly would be consumed twice as much.

For the marines assaulting a hive,this would be a nightmare ....... or not.

But what I see here is a quick alien respawn system,almost horde like respawn system(with weak aliens) and the marines being swarmed (as per-usual) with a lot more jelly being eaten.
This would basically render facehuggers near pointless for capturing hosts as it is supposed to be. The facehuggers would then be used to stun and that's it (with decapitation).

[MauroVega]

Its a good idea,but at the same time maybe reduce the spawn time?
maybe like 1 minute or something,also when you say in the alien hive,do you mean like really far up north or at ramdon points?
+1 Leaning to neutral

[Sailor Dave]

I do feel the aliens need a big shift, but I'm not sure this is the way to go. It might be more fun than it is currently, but it might also be a bit too overwhelming, to have instantly respawning aliens. The marines would never get a break. I do think there should be more action, but marines need time to cool down for a few minutes every now and then. Just not for the half hour+ holdups that so often occur.

I feel like xenos need a good, thorough look at what they do and why, down to the basic mechanics, and we need to determine if this is fun for everyone. Balancing what we have now is good, but it doesn't address the real issue, I think.

From the perspective of what we have right now, I can say that the start is very boring. Capturing monkeys one by one and dragging them to the hive, it isn't fun at all. The problem is that aliens NEED those monkeys to stand a chance early on, otherwise they'll have no reinforcements when the marines come knocking.
Also, there's too strong of a focus on facehuggers. Facehuggers are used for everything, from capturing to active offense. Maybe they should be used only for nesting in the hive(s), and refocus aliens on fighting in other ways.

[TopHatPenguin]

I do feel the aliens need a big shift, but I'm not sure this is the way to go. It might be more fun than it is currently, but it might also be a bit too overwhelming, to have instantly respawning aliens. The marines would never get a break. I do think there should be more action, but marines need time to cool down for a few minutes every now and then. Just not for the half hour+ holdups that so often occur.

I feel like xenos need a good, thorough look at what they do and why, down to the basic mechanics, and we need to determine if this is fun for everyone. Balancing what we have now is good, but it doesn't address the real issue, I think.

From the perspective of what we have right now, I can say that the start is very boring. Capturing monkeys one by one and dragging them to the hive, it isn't fun at all. The problem is that aliens NEED those monkeys to stand a chance early on, otherwise they'll have no reinforcements when the marines come knocking.
Also, there's too strong of a focus on facehuggers. Facehuggers are used for everything, from capturing to active offense. Maybe they should be used only for nesting in the hive(s), and refocus aliens on fighting in other ways.

I have to agree Dave that we really need to sift through the alien code to make it enjoyable for everyone, instead of making the enjoyment one-sided.

I mean the respawning aliens sounds like a good idea, but I think perhaps in waves might be better instead of instant and then if we wanted to go further it could be that the more infected you had the shorter the wave time the less you had the longer you would have to wait. (Just throwing out side ideas.)

On a side note it would be great if we could get a shift of power from huggers being the main "Weapon" so to speak to making the actual xenomorph player themselves a weapon to be reckoned with, and just having huggers there as a means to an end not a vital element of the alien arsenal.

[Szunti]

So the aliens get an xenomorph dispenser for instant respawns or similer to that.

Doesn't seem lore-ish friendly at all.

I guess there was much more people on the planet than on Sulaco. Most of them were hugged probably. Where are they? Why is there only like a dozen aliens sometimes outnumbered by marines? Why is it that marines have a theoretically infinite number (joining and getting out of cryo, cloning) and aliens are the limited ones?
When I wrote spawnpoint I meant a supernest that holds hundreds of hugged scientist from Lazarus, they can't burst the same time cause there aren't enough players and having hundreds of bodies may not be easy to handle.

[Derpislav]

The marines were hibernating in the mines until W-Y found them. Scatter "fossilized" xenos around the rocks, for hive castes to uncover and bring back to life.

I'm not sure if I'm joking or being serious with the above.

[Jen_Llama]

The marines were hibernating in the mines until W-Y found them.

They're coming out of the goddamn walls!
\

[MrJJJ]

While this is a big change of shift and maybe good, i am not sure if its the best way to do it as others said, gonna stay neutral

[Jack McIntyre]

Going with the -1 just due to the fact that it is hard enough to get assaults together after one assault goes wrong, add the fact that you now have to kill these spawn points and they are going to keep cranking out xenos that you have to shoot your way through just to get to the caves which will probably then require a resupply so now you are holding the cave entrances while still under attack or at least being harassed by xenos. You then finally get your supplies after waiting forever by command and then do a assault, the large organized force you brought is now a rag tag group of marines who is over ran at the caves while trying to knock out said spawn points.

Think if the overall idea is people want changes to xenos I can get that, but I don't think this way is the right path to take just due to the fact that marines also have a lot they have to organize from ship level with command trying to make sure supplies are getting ordered and sent down to marines on the ground making sure people aren't running around playing rambo or making sure objectives are being done. So something like this would be a nightmare for the marine side and thus would require their own way to combat said system to make it a bit more even. Just my two cents though.

[Arachnidnexus]

I like the idea to move power away from using huggers as the core of everything aliens do. And I'm also fine with a shift towards xenos as more of a swarm type enemy where an individual loss doesn't feel like it cripples the hive. Anything that offers a shot at removing the most frustrating and boring part of CM (nest guarding and being guarded in a nest) is worth considering.

[forwardslashN]

I like the idea to move power away from using huggers as the core of everything aliens do. And I'm also fine with a shift towards xenos as more of a swarm type enemy where an individual loss doesn't feel like it cripples the hive. Anything that offers a shot at removing the most frustrating and boring part of CM (nest guarding and being guarded in a nest) is worth considering.

+1

[Halinder]

It'd be cool to see the game get much more brutal whilst also forcing aliens to be a lot more skillful. Maybe with this we can move to more permanent xeno injuries, though since they're a different mob type than humans that might be extremely difficult. Some suggestions of my own if this rework goes through:

- Remove facehuggers in a xeno's hands OR make every xeno hold facehuggers similar to the carrier. Each is able to hold 1, except the carrier which holds 6, and can "deploy" huggers when standing on top of downed marines for 3-5 seconds. Carrier can also do this, making sure that they don't need a host to be standing in order to infect it.
- Ability to assign facehuggers to resin nests. They'll automatically try to hug anyone who's nested there. Perhaps a boost to incentivize this, like nest-huggers ignoring all 1-hit head protection? (police, riot, standard helmets)
- Two types of larva; those auto-spawned and those spawned from humans and monkeys. Auto-spawned aliens will be marked in some way, such as an (A) in their name, and will be considerably weaker than those spawned from actual hosts. Perhaps extended jelly time as well?
- Specialized jelly. Each kind is used for evolving, but each does different things. One is the regular royal jelly that lets you evolve with no setbacks. One will decrease your stats in order to rush evolution. One will take long to evolve but raises the alien's stats.
- Now, the actual xenos. Make combat as choicy as possible. Bring the return of grab intent so xenos can trip marines with a tailstab and then drag them off screaming, allow spitting castes to be able to aim at someone's eyes to half-blind them instead of stunning them, little combat gimmicks like that which can be used for advanced tactics. If you're strapped for ideas, just think of what each individual part of a xeno could do to each body part on a human.
- I think it was \\N who made this suggestion; change disarm so that instead of knocking humans down on the spot, it tosses the item in their hand 1-2 tiles away or knocks them back similar to the ravager knockdown (but without the slash, of course). This helps get rid of abysmal tackle spam while also making combat more hectic.

FOR MARINES:
- So many xenos, it's like you're fighting Skynet right outside their production factory. Add the ability to send 5 different xeno caste corpses on the cargo shuttle to convince Central Command of the importance of your mission, which automatically provides.. I guess a supply shipment? Maybe in the fluff they send a carrier to help you with bombers, and with it some new beacons that either napalm-strike, bunker-bust (works in caves but isn't very powerful, like a single orbital beacon bomb), or fill an area with bullets from a passing fighter; whatever's easiest to code, I guess. These would only really work on the planet.
- Also include some wonderful ammo, explosives, etc. to be sent with the supply barge, perhaps already packed into crates for quick resupply since marines are going to be facing loads more ayylmaos.

[qsleepy]

+1 I thought about this while playing the console version of CM. Boost marines, lower aliums and have them able to respawn.


That could be fun. Coding side I think from what I have seen on TG station code it's all ready to go, too.

[Zilenan91]

Alternatively the lore could be that Weyland Yutani had a colony on the planet researching regeneration technology, and the xenos were a part of it. There would be some unkillable but facehuggable gross mutant flesh beasts somewhere on the map that burst and heal up again in a constant flux of agony and unconciousness, with Xenos being made weaker than they are now. I imagine the flesh beasts would be like the slug from "I Have no Mouth but I Must Scream." This idea would likely be best as an alternative round to the Xenos we have currently to break Meta.

Or coders could remove the Queen and add eggmorphing requiring xenos to turn dead bodies into more eggs but I doubt this would work for a server like CM and likely wouldn't be very fun without massively nerfing marines and making them all into even more cannon fodder than they are now so that xenos can have corpses.

[monkeysfist101]

Denied.