Replace Huggerspam/Combat Facehugging With Halloss Disarming Strikes

[Surrealistik]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):

Per the title.

Carriers may still throw and use Facehuggers offensively.


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

Results in a more fun game for both sides by replacing combat facehugging with more interesting and enjoyable mechanics, including new Xeno buffs (esp durability/mobility for better toe-to-toe fighting/endurance) to compensate for the replacement of a ridiculously powerful mechanic with something less powerful, but more fair/fun.

Makes the gameplay more consistent with the lore (combat facehugging was never a thing outside of the Carrier caste).


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

Aliens except for Carriers cannot throw Facehuggers, or plant them on a conscious human who is unrestrained (humans buckled into a nest are restrained). Aliens may still carry Facehuggers.


While on Disarm intent, aliens deal Halloss ('stun') damage instead of Brute damage with all melee attacks (including tail attacks). This Halloss damage is significantly higher than an alien's base lethal Brute damage (maybe a 1.5-2x multiplier) which is further increased by the Hive intent being set to non-lethal.

As a creature accumulates Halloss damage, he becomes slower. When Halloss damage exceeds 100, the creature falls prone and is stunned for a short period of time (~10 seconds before normally resetting to below 100); this time is reduced via people shaking the stunned creature awake via the Help intent. Repeated disarm attacks on a target stunned by Halloss damage will reset the stun timer. These mechanics should already exist in baycode.


Neurotoxin should also be revised to deal small amounts of Toxin damage, and large amounts of Halloss (Say ~75; will stun in 2 hits instead of 1 but the stun lasts longer; basically tazer hits that do minor Toxin damage). Likewise, Stomp would also do AoE Halloss; enough to stun an untouched marine in 2 hits, but not 1.


Note that this will also unlock design space for making the Xenos stronger to compensate for 1-2 hit 3 minute stuns, and the fact that they have to wade into melee (outside of Neurotoxin and Stomp/Queen Scream) to incapacitate marines.


I will note that because these changes are orientated around pain per the Halloss system, painkillers might need to see a nerf, Oxycodone in particular as it grants effective immunity to pain.


To help prevent Halloss spamming a captured Marine from being the new resin cuffs, it would be impossible to disarm strike a nested marine.


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

Adapt tazer and stun baton code to apply to Xeno attacks when Disarm intent is used.

[Ocnjak20]

Seems fun but in the end the whole point of Huggers gets nulified. Helmets are there for protection and you have over 100 of those if we do not count the lockers. Why implement something as an addon if this system works perfectly fine, people get salty and I can get that but thats the way of the gameplay, unless you want huggers to become NPC's again and get you guys before you can even shoot them. -1

[Surrealistik]

Seems fun but in the end the whole point of Huggers gets nulified. Helmets are there for protection and you have over 100 of those if we do not count the lockers. Why implement something as an addon if this system works perfectly fine, people get salty and I can get that but thats the way of the gameplay, unless you want huggers to become NPC's again and get you guys before you can even shoot them. -1

Set and forget 3 minute stuns are not fun as either the aliens or marines, and offensive use of facehugging was never a part of the lore outside of the Carrier caste.

Further, you ignore the fact that it opens up design space for further buffs to the aliens.

Lastly, helmets are also there to stop you from getting 1-2 hit decapped.

[Steelpoint]

This is basically what I suggested a few days ago.

[Surrealistik]

This is basically what I suggested a few days ago.

No, this is what I (and others) suggested a long time ago in the facehugger thread.

[Ocnjak20]

Set and forget 3 minute stuns are not fun as either the aliens or marines, and offensive use of facehugging was never a part of the lore outside of the Carrier caste.

Further, you ignore the fact that it opens up design space for further buffs to the aliens.

Lastly, helmets are also there to stop you from getting 1-2 hit decapped.

Still you will get decapped with or without helmets, what I advise is the rule against 2 huggers carried at the same time or system that would prevent aliens from carrying two of them at the same time.

What you have suggested is something that will handicap Xenos way too much as it will take more time for them to take down their victims, it takes two huggers to get someone infected and down. When it comes to killing, if you are capable you can get away, if you are not you will get hugged, decapped and salty.

I mean for an example, marines should know when to pull back or be in support roles. Lets say you loose your helmet, why the hell do you keep on attacking, back away and get new helmet then return in new wave of assault. As for spitting, its random and not every spit hits so I do not see a point in replacing the current spit system since it works like a charm.

[Surrealistik]

Still you will get decapped with or without helmets,

It virtually always takes more hits to get decapped with helmets.

what I advise is the rule against 2 huggers carried at the same time or system that would prevent aliens from carrying two of them at the same time.

What you have suggested is something that will handicap Xenos way too much as it will take more time for them to take down their victims, it takes two huggers to get someone infected and down. When it comes to killing, if you are capable you can get away, if you are not you will get hugged, decapped and salty.

Again, you don't understand that this change is to be made in tandem with Xeno buffs.

I mean for an example, marines should know when to pull back or be in support roles. Lets say you loose your helmet, why the hell do you keep on attacking, back away and get new helmet then return in new wave of assault. As for spitting, its random and not every spit hits so I do not see a point in replacing the current spit system since it works like a charm.

The fact that if you manage to survive a facehugger attack you're forced to choose between a retreat, or risk a 3 minute instastun is very telling as to the depth of how unfun this mechanic is.

And no, spit only misses if gets blocked (via something that can deflect projectiles like a riot shield), or it travels beyond the tile you were aiming at.

[Boltersam]

As a mainly Xeno player, I'll +1 this.

Hugger based combat, is to be frank, boring, and takes people out of the fight too quickly. More skill-based, tense combat is a better alternative.

However, aside from just melee attacks, you need to take into account spit and pounces. Would spit remain the same? Deal halloss?

And pounces, are literally a big, larger than a human alien, crashing into you at a high speed. It would be fair if it was 50-ish halloss.

and let's not forget, Predators. Will they have the same halloss damage limit as humans? Wouldn't they get up quicker?

[Surrealistik]

As a mainly Xeno player, I'll +1 this.

Hugger based combat, is to be frank, boring, and takes people out of the fight too quickly. More skill-based, tense combat is a better alternative.

However, aside from just melee attacks, you need to take into account spit and pounces. Would spit remain the same? Deal halloss?

And pounces, are literally a big, larger than a human alien, crashing into you at a high speed. It would be fair if it was 50-ish halloss.

and let's not forget, Predators. Will they have the same halloss damage limit as humans? Wouldn't they get up quicker?

Spit and stomp are mentioned in the OP, and they do Halloss instead of auto-stunning.

Pounces would do Halloss damage in place of any physical damage while on Disarm as they're melee attacks + their knockdown (knockdown isn't replaced by more Halloss).

Predators might need armour that provides resistance to Halloss; I'm mainly concerned with Alien vs Marine balance so the devs will have to figure out how strong they want Predators to be under this new approach.

[Steelpoint]

I think letting spits still be a one hit stun would be fair, considering the difficulty and plasma cost in spitting.

[Surrealistik]

I think letting spits still be a one hit stun would be fair, considering the difficulty and plasma cost in spitting.

It gets compensated by the fact that the stun is longer.

[Surrealistik]

Updated concept with supplemental notes/details.

[MrJJJ]

+1 its really, REALLY not FUN, you just run up to a dude, click on him, boom, either his helmet is down or he gets hugged, if you are runner or anything fast that can get really close, this is actually worser, you don't have to click, it would be difficult, instead you can just freaking throw the thing and i guarantee you, 80% of times SOMEONE WILL get their helmet/face huggered, and even if the marines keep removing huggers, the damage keeps going up untill you get broken bones, brain damage, making you even LESS usefull in combat, and if you are very, very unlucky and no medic ever treats you, you can get actually decaped (this actually happened to someone with orange health in one round when i was a elite runner)

[Mono]

Neutral on this. Its a good suggestion that would work well with the recent xeno updates, but I don't see it being implemented anytime soon. Also I do enjoy smashing marine skulls with multiple huggers

[Steelpoint]

One good benefit of this system is that it would remove the massive dependence Marines have with their helmets outside of Carriers.

Right now its almost absurd how many Helmets Marines need in the field, as the RO I find myself slapping ten or more Helmets into my supply crates and plenty of Marines drag more down to the planet.

[forwardslashN]

That's kind of interesting as a short term solution for hugger spam.

[Surrealistik]

That's kind of interesting as a short term solution for hugger spam.

What do you imagine a longer term solution being?

[jaggaaff]

+1

Huggerspam makes aliens bad at melee to melee combat as they rely too much on hugger stuns

Also I'm all for stamina damage rather than instant stuns that decide combat.

[Surrealistik]

Neutral on this. Its a good suggestion that would work well with the recent xeno updates, but I don't see it being implemented anytime soon. Also I do enjoy smashing marine skulls with multiple huggers

One of the main advantages of this proposal is that the majority of the code needed to implement it is already there.

[coolsurf6]

This would work. It will help with the hugger spam and hopefully xenos will engage more. I love this

+1

[TeDGamer]

I can see this going very badly for marines and them being salty. Essentially, you can permanest people by disarming every few seconds because they know that you can do halloss damage.

No more need for resin cuffs when all you have to do is do some halloss damage while they're nested every 30 seconds. No longer do marines have even an inkling of a chance to escape.

At the same time, if this truly becomes a thing, Sentinels might be one of the true best T1s for watching the nests at this point and don't require the buffs as you have mentioned in your other thread

[Steelpoint]

You could just make it you can't disarm haloloss someone already on a nest.

[Surrealistik]

You could just make it you can't disarm haloloss someone already on a nest.

This.

[TeDGamer]

This.

Alright then, no qualms about this. Should work really well to combat hugger spam

[Surrealistik]

The other thing to keep in mind too, is that halloss spamming a captured marine is basically like rebuckling one to reset his escape timer which is against the rules.