Viable Hugger Combat Fix

[Xurphorus]

Okay, this is my take on Hugger combat, and how to fix it. A little while ago we had the hugger test, and some of us didn't really think it was a fix. It seemed more like a buff, Carriers were considered the new OP Xeno around during the test due to the fact Huggers could bypass helmets. Sure they gave a buff to certain /kinds/ of helmets but those helmets were only available for certain roles like SL and Spec.

So here is my version of what can be done about hugger combat.


"Hugger Combat Fix in my eyes, Stop Crushers and Ravagers from holding huggers. Only allow slashing on hugged marines until after they are infected. If a hugged marine is not put in a nest until infection settles and they wake up then its the Xenos fault for not getting them to a nest. The Ravagers and the Queen are the only Xenos allowed to slash marines hugged due to their nature.

Side Note:

This does not mean Xenos cannot kill infected marines, its just a simple delay. Once they are hugged, they are basically knocked out, infected settles in, that is when they can be slashed if they are not in a nest. Remember Marines do not wake up right away after being infected. So if they prove to be a dangerous Marine? Simply kill them.

[Renomaki]

honestly, I think the only castes that should use huggers are drones, queens, carriers and hivelords. The rest should learn to use their own gifts to bring death and horror to those that face them.

After all, xenos don't infect everyone they meet. They aren't above smashing a hole in someone's forehead with their inner mouth or shoving their tail up someone's ass and out their mouth. They are deadly creatures that kill just as many marines as they infect. They wouldn't have so many ways to kill things if they were only expected to infect every animal they see. I'd like to see xenos shed more blood on the battlefield, break more bones, fill the air with the screams of their enemies.. Surely I can't be the only player who likes to mangle marines when I go xeno, right? Infecting gets so boring after awhile...

[KingKire]

Also, aliens should have sprites when carrying huggers. If marines had no sprites for the sniper rifle or the smaw, xeno would have some salty sailors.

[Swagile]

This doesn't stop xenos from double huggering then dragging to hive, and killing the player when they wake up after a short tackle + slash combo.

It will just take longer, but it will happen still.

Nor does it stop the atrocious stun in of itself (1 min KO) that even a T1 can pull off, which means your facing a T3 ability whenever you get close to ANY xeno.

[Sneakyr]

I liked the no-hugger combat how it was, personally. Carriers were OP but every other caste was nerfed in comparison, so with a competent SADAR spec it wasn't *that* bad. The main changes that needed to happen was that huggers couldn't home in on you immediately after being thrown (which was fixed) and that they couldn't be hurled over barricades like racks, tables, and plasteel blockers.
Xeno win rate wasn't even changed TOO much and playing as both sides was more fun, since as a xeno you could kill more and as a marine every death felt reasonable or you made a mistake, instead of the unblockable hugger jump.
Sorry if the sentence structure here is a bit incoherent - this was copied from my third attempt to type this on mobile.

[Dapper Stache]

I agree with Sneaky, I was pretty satisfied with the test overall, at first it was kinda weird having huggers do all of this crazy stuff, but whenever you died to anything other than a carrier it felt perfectly reasonable, and you were able to have much better fights with the xenos without them just resorting to the drop and run combat that we're all used to. There were actual claws and tackles and OOH, all the time.

[Dogar]

As a guy who plays survivor every chance he gets, I liked it too. It made combat a much more viable alternative to hiding or barricades, and it was fun to round up a posse of colonists and kick ass.

[4thsurviver]

I like to imagine if hugger combat was in the movie. Just imagine the scene after Apone takes everyone's mags and they go into the nest and the aliens spring from the walls and just start chucking face huggers at the marines. The aliens are diving in and out of cover. Helmets are shattering and flying off of peoples' heads. Frost's trying to shake Apone up so he can stab himself in the face. Vasquez is dragging Drake and Hudson back to the APC. The part where Hicks is trying to close the apc's door and the alien forces it open as Hicks goes to blow its head off and all of a sudden a hugger flies out of no where and he just lets out a muffled scream and is out cold on the floor. It's a lot more comical and thinking about almost makes me love hugger combat but I think I had more fun getting horribly maimed in the test instead.

[ExGame]

How about you can only attach huggers when the person is stunned?

[mrturkeytoe]

My opinion on the topic is things would be golden if only queens, drones, hivelords and carriers can even pick up huggers and they die after being outside an egg for more than eight seconds unless held by a carrier where they'll live forever and xenos on disarm intent instead of getting frustrating RNG stuns that annoy people on both sides they get consistent halloss damage (pain damage basically) so after a certain number of slashes they'll have someone down and only let people that are in paincrit be huggable unless it's specifically one thrown by a carrier in which case it functions more or less as they already do.




Also possibly just maybe kinda sorta give the standard helmet an extra hit or two just food for thought you know

Also also maybe crushers should get some temporary but not instantly disappearing armor % penalty or like 25% damage from explosives so they can't run through minefields and instantly delete them all with little risk to themself. Especially since mine boxes got nerfed and bullet and boom are the two main ways marines kill xenos and crushers as long as they're not 100% retarded are very resistant to both which just kinda seems sorta little like bad game design, just to me at least

[Jembo]

A few ways to fix hugger combat would be

1) Make it completely against the rules for aliens to slash infected hosts, or people in the process of being infected. This would stop aliens from using huggers as a stun weapon to kill, which would fall between the powergame rules.

2) Increase how long it takes for a hugger to actually knock you down. Right now a hugger on the face is an instant knockout, increasing how much time you have to move before the stun is in effect would give marines a few extra seconds to run away before the stun takes place. Maybe have it apply a blind effect / handcuff effect that goes away after it falls off / dies.

3) Make all basic helmets block two huggers, and make the B18 block three - four. Might be a little too powerful but xenos could be buffed to balance this out. This would make it so xenos can't just use a single macro to instantly take a marine out.

4) Change it from a sleep to a stun which could be reduced with Synaptazine at the cost of taking toxin damage which synaptazine causes as it's being processed.

5) Change how long the sleep timer lasts, and the infection time would be faster to reflect the change. Would make it so aliens who spam huggers can be punished, I feel like some xenos just rely so heavily upon running up to a defensive position and throwing huggers at it until enough marines are stunned or have to retreat from infection where they can over run the position. Kinda sad seeing a carrier or two spammy runners do more damage than a boiler / crusher combo on a well constructed defense.

6) Make it so marines can repair helmets on the battle field using a welder / engineer. Just make it take 10 - 15 seconds to repair it or maybe require plasteel / metal to do so. Make Resin paste add a single extra hugger block, so it's not completely replaced.

7) Make it possible to delay the infection a sick host isn't a host that can grow an alien in as quickly. Poison yourself to make your body inhospitable! Wouldn't stop a burst but might delay it for a few more minutes if you're already on deaths door vomiting out welding fuel, and toxins.

8) Make the burst time take longer for anyone who isn't in a resin nest. Make it random! Infected marines are marines who can't get stunned by huggers, it's a double edged sword. If you're spamming huggers to get easy stuns and kills. Well suddenly you now have a 10 marines who you with an extended period of time because they're not in nests assaulting the hive or pushing back against an assault. Xenos would actually have to think about using huggers and weigh risks of increasing hive number / easy stun vrs having a much of marines who you can't stun for an extended 5 - 10 minutes. As it stands now if you get infected you have to retreat and hope the rasp is there for a quick evac or you run the risk of bursting before the doctors can even see you.

9) Make it so melee weapons have a chance of blocking huggers. Have a sword/riot shield at the ready, well it'd make sense that marine would use those tools to stop / autokill the hugger being thrown at them. Balance it by making them take burn damage from the acid splash if using a knife or sword. Trench knife lowest auto kill chance - Riot shield highest.

10) Make it so other items can also give hugger protection while worn.

Just a few ideas I though up.

edited

11) Make it so huggers cannot be placed on the same human within a certain period of time. Kinda like trying to re-buckle a person into a resin nest after being removed from one. Doesn't have to be a large window just 2-3 seconds.

[Katsukai]

I personally would like if the hugger would get into marine face he doesn't instantly get knocked down, like give him a 2-3 seconds time to kill it an xeno could guarantee hugger infecting an marine by tackling him down or hunter pouncing on him or sentinel, spitter neuro spit. Like you see in the comics or movies marines struggling to remove the hugger instead being pansies and letting it infect you.

[driecg36]

A few ways to fix hugger combat would be

1) Make it completely against the rules for aliens to slash infected hosts, or people in the process of being infected. This would stop aliens from using huggers as a stun weapon to kill, which would fall between the powergame rules.

2) Increase how long it takes for a hugger to actually knock you down. Right now a hugger on the face is an instant knockout, increasing how much time you have to move before the stun is in effect would give marines a few extra seconds to run away before the stun takes place. Maybe have it apply a blind effect / handcuff effect that goes away after it falls off / dies.

3) Make all basic helmets block two huggers, and make the B18 block three - four. Might be a little too powerful but xenos could be buffed to balance this out. This would make it so xenos can't just use a single macro to instantly take a marine out.

4) Change it from a sleep to a stun which could be reduced with Synaptazine at the cost of taking toxin damage which synaptazine causes as it's being processed.

5) Change how long the sleep timer lasts, and the infection time would be faster to reflect the change. Would make it so aliens who spam huggers can be punished, I feel like some xenos just rely so heavily upon running up to a defensive position and throwing huggers at it until enough marines are stunned or have to retreat from infection where they can over run the position. Kinda sad seeing a carrier or two spammy runners do more damage than a boiler / crusher combo on a well constructed defense.

6) Make it so marines can repair helmets on the battle field using a welder / engineer. Just make it take 10 - 15 seconds to repair it or maybe require plasteel / metal to do so. Make Resin paste add a single extra hugger block, so it's not completely replaced.

7) Make it possible to delay the infection a sick host isn't a host that can grow an alien in as quickly. Poison yourself to make your body inhospitable! Wouldn't stop a burst but might delay it for a few more minutes if you're already on deaths door vomiting out welding fuel, and toxins.

8) Make the burst time take longer for anyone who isn't in a resin nest. Make it random! Infected marines are marines who can't get stunned by huggers, it's a double edged sword. If you're spamming huggers to get easy stuns and kills. Well suddenly you now have a 10 marines who you with an extended period of time because they're not in nests assaulting the hive or pushing back against an assault. Xenos would actually have to think about using huggers and weigh risks of increasing hive number / easy stun vrs having a much of marines who you can't stun for an extended 5 - 10 minutes. As it stands now if you get infected you have to retreat and hope the rasp is there for a quick evac or you run the risk of bursting before the doctors can even see you.

9) Make it so melee weapons have a chance of blocking huggers. Have a sword/riot shield at the ready, well it'd make sense that marine would use those tools to stop / autokill the hugger being thrown at them. Balance it by making them take burn damage from the acid splash if using a knife or sword. Trench knife lowest auto kill chance - Riot shield highest.

10) Make it so other items can also give hugger protection while worn.

Just a few ideas I though up.

edited

11) Make it so huggers cannot be placed on the same human within a certain period of time. Kinda like trying to re-buckle a person into a resin nest after being removed from one. Doesn't have to be a large window just 2-3 seconds.

I think one of the main problems with huggers is that ANY caste can use them. Really, I think the best/most reasonable nerf to hugger combat is simply making t1 and t2 not able to carry huggers. I mean, runners and hunters with huggers just dont make sense. They're way too fast/stealthy to have access to an insta-stun that more often than not leads into a dead marine.

[Sidriel]

I was playing as survivor with a dude and we managed to kill a runner that got too cocky. Then a second came and hugged us both in what seemed to be under a second. Dead.

I say give huggers a short life cycle (Maybe a bit lighter than eight seconds) and make it where huggers die even faster when they're not on weeds. That'll keep those pesky runners from being cheap.

[KingKire]

Eh, i like the idea of people being able to kill the hugger if they melee it within 3 seconds. That way, if a xeno knocks a person over, they can still hugger a person, but they cant just run up and drop two huggers and expect a marine to be huggered. it seems like the best solution with the least extra change impact.

[driecg36]

That really wouldnt prevent the "aliens are losing but 3 ancient runners are hugging everyone" when the marines have crossed the river, because they would mostly be on weeds.

Then again, removing combat from all t1 and t2 wouldnt be good. Maybe leave it on drones?

[MrJJJ]

Has anyone viewed this from the dev team yet? no?

Please do it now and comment.

Cause hugger combat is...forever cancer