Scouting or metarushing?

[HKO20006]

Big Red and Ice Colony are the two maps that don't have fog/blast door. It's good imo, except when it results in salt flowing from both sides about marine scouting or meta rushing.
Like a few days ago, when marines arrived Lamba when T3s are still young and dying left and right, feweh spawned Ancient T3s, eventually turned the tide and steamrolled marines.
Then a Big Red round today sparked scouting or meta rushing debate again. I was late join so I could only see the dchat.
Just wish this won't result in Big Red fog.

[TheDonkified]

With the dropship timer implementation, I wouldn't think "metarush" is a thing any more since marines are constrained to launch at a certain time, and by the time they scout and go near the hive, xenos have had ample time to upgrade and evo unless queen doesn't sack it up properly.

[Oaks]

With the way queens are now fixed in position during the beginning of the game, xenos rarely ever push out from research or lambda.

I was in both "metarush" rounds, and marines encountered absolutely no contact, so of course they are going to rapidly hone in on the turtled hive.

The rounds where xenos don't get backed in to a corner are the ones where they actually push out, say to dorms/Eva if they are based in lambda. Or more to the front entrance of research, rather than letting marines c4 their way in to the courtyard uncontested.

[Marine Tickler]

there is literally nothing wrong with big red and ice colony lack of doors/fog

if anything fog and time doors should be removed. they suck and are unfun and very "arbitrary"

ide rather maps be seeded with random mines / auto turrets to keep xenos in check at roundstart, or have 10-20 survivors

as for xenos getting "metarushed" xenos have 100 options for countering a rush, including just running. drones can always flee to opposite end of the map if a queen gets ganked and start over. if xenos get rolled at battle start they suck and deserve to lose

[Bancrose]

Most people who hive in research will often get discovered by the squad that is on power duty. So it isn't metarushing, If you think logically they will also check the surrounding area but eventually someone has to check the massive research building or the really far corners of the map like Lamda.

In the end its just scouting.

But if they landed, didnt even do any objectives and just straight bee lined it to Lamda and its only 30 minutes in, THEN that is metarushing but its pretty circumstantial.

[Stripetail]

Not going into details on what happened on the rounds in question, more xeno hives need to spread out into the colony and build defenses or walls and doors to slow advances to their main hive.

It also helps to have secondary hives in other locations so you can relocate quickly or give Marines a red herring.

I'm seeing far too many alien teams that just drag every host to their nest, never spread weed beyond their nest, and get surrounded and destroyed because of it.

[davidofmk771]

Not having the most sensitive areas of any operation scouted upon initial landing is absolutely asinine in my opinion, and after security, medbay, engineering and the administration buildings (which are always completely empty and dont take much time to check out) where else is there to go but research? If you have two squads scouting the colony, you're bound to make contact with the hive within 20 minutes simply because the map is limited, and since the xenos tend to go full out and obliterate the marines who made contact, backup is inevitably requested.

Turrets and mines that simply ignore xenos for reasons would work a lot more than "ignore the fact these highly sensitive buildings clearly marked on your maps exist until the magic meta-timer ends or else".

[Lumi Pharon]

I was the queen yesterday when the admins spawned in like 6 elite t3's. I honestly thought it was a pretty shitty thing to do.
The roundstart queen was ssd, so we lost 5min of evo time so yes we did have a mild disadvantage, but the elite t3 spam meant by the time we took lz1, we had over 60 aliens, and marines had less then 60 shipside, so it was honestly a kinda shitty round.

As people have said above, it's the hive's decision to contest the colony early round or not. If they choose not to then they have no one to blame but themselves if the marines coming knocking early - it's not 'metarushing' when marines have literally no where else in the colony to search, and there has been nothing to fight them so far.

Big red is my favorite map largely because of the lack of shitty timerfog, it makes every round much more different then LV, but of course part of that means occasionally one side will get steam rolled, but that's part of the game and part of the fun. There is no benefit to artificially extending the round with 'stand around and do nothing' periods of waiting for fog and the like to go down.

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

PSA: build hives in caves

More defendable and less predictable

[BadApple]

I hated the fog. Now people just rush to hydro and wait there for 20 minuets of nothing. Every LV round feels so samey.

[Symbiosis]

Xenos are strongest when a single squad is out of place and unprepared.

When I've gone Queen, pre and post Ovi updates, I've countered the meta rush on those maps with a rush of my own.... flanked by a dozen xenos and a Queen screech you quickly shut that shit down.

[misto]

ice colony is big enough that "metarushing" is not much of an issue.

big red is also moderately large, if smaller than ice col, and the marines routinely truly do split up to have a look around, but xenos routinely make a stupid mistake on big red. xenos sometimes hide in their hive and let it get surrounded and chokepointed while the rest of the human team then blobs up for a push into the hive, whereon the crushers and ravagers run down a hallway into a wall of bullets and die repeatedly instead of ever finding a way around, because theyre scared that if they try to flank the humans will just walk into the main hive, because they missed their opportunity.

when the squads split up to scout the xeno team needs to strike at least one squad while it is isolated and start cutting down human numbers and taking captures before the rest of the human team blobs up. the scouting squad getting hit will call the rest of the squads to them, and AWAY from scouting for the true location of the hive. it is a brief period of opportunity, but it is still important to try to use it.

if your drones are not stupid and lazy, many of the buildings of bigred can be weeded up and acided to be made into decent kill mazes. engage the enemy ahead of the hive in and around those buildings instead of letting them take their time finding the real hive, fortifying the chokepoints into/out of the real hive, and then blobbing up for a push in.

bigred is viewed as a "marine friendly" map because it actually demands the xeno team put in an ounce of thought and effort to their defence instead of having a fogwall to keep them safe, miles of ice tunnels to keep them safe, or prison timelocked doors/miles of prison hallways to keep them safe. and when they DO put in that ounce of thought and effort, they tend to win handily.

the problem isn't with big red. the problem is with the rest of the maps coddling the xeno team and encouraging easy, simplistic play to the point they forget they need to think and work together instead of falling apart into a panic the moment they encounter an enemy that doesn't roll over and die easily for them

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

I agree with misto, about the xeno coddling.

But I've been told that in the past xenos were smashed even harder by marines who just rushed hive locations asap and tried to kill xenos early on.

I want to see rounds without fog and timelocks, just to see what happens because I don't feel that will be a problem anymore with changes. But I'm not a dev, nor an expert on balance, so it's just my 2 cents.

[LocalizedDownpour]

I agree with misto, about the xeno coddling.

But I've been told that in the past xenos were smashed even harder by marines who just rushed hive locations asap and tried to kill xenos early on.

I want to see rounds without fog and timelocks, just to see what happens because I don't feel that will be a problem anymore with changes. But I'm not a dev, nor an expert on balance, so it's just my 2 cents.

There were times when the staff response to stopping the meta rush was admin verb bombing around the marines.

Also, having played and modded these rounds in the past. You're talking marines calling the t-fort the fob on first landing, or marines across the river at 12:40. Aliens just can't fight at that time not against a full force marine force. That said I feel big red really fixes the problems by having a huge map, same with ice colony. Ice is a slog to get though even with no xenos. I feel like big red and ice colony are how maps are supposed to be, sprawling as it gives xenos options.

[misto]

if the xenos can't fight at such an early on time, maybe they should be made able to fight at such an early on time with an early-round evo rate acceleration or something that falls off when the mid round hits, instead of leaning on crude solutions like keeping everyone separate for 40 minutes

it is ridiculous how often i see xeno players curl up and go ssd or afk while waiting for the fog to fall only for them to stay ssd/afk well after the fog is gone, leaving the team literally short handed, bonus points if its a dumb ass crusher or boiler curling up and sleeping (not as big a deal now that queens can devo them but still, its evidence of a problem). theyre literally getting bored and logging off or going afk to do chores or some shit. im not kidding

[Kesserline]

Scouting is not metarushing.

Scouting is investigating locations. Meta Rushing is straight going Lambda labs or Southern Research without taking care of any building between these directions.

If I say : Charlie Squad, you have to scout everything between FOB and Lambda Labs, then, proceed to Lambda Labs. Delta squad will take care of Power, scouting Cargo, Engineering, Filtration and then Research Southern Labs. It is not metarushing. As the 2 scouting squads are sharing their scouting patterns and will go most likely, at their final steps, to the potential Hives areas.

Metarushing can be explain either :
- By malicious intent ==> Wanting to wreck Xenos without having IC intel to justify such tactical decision
- By stupid xenos ==> Harassing squads THEN FALLING BACK DIRECTLY to their Hive, leading marines directly where they shouldn't be.

I mean, you can punish marines for malicious intent, because it's breaking the rules. But sometimes, punishing stupid Xenos that weaken their Hives by doing this can be a better action.

(Two examples of Stupid Xenos :
- Heavy roaring by 5+ Xenos behind a wall and the motion detector going crazy
- Spitter/Runner/Hunter attacking one of my squad marines, then falling back, but staying in near visual and leading my squad straight to a Hive-fortified area)

[HKO20006]

Updated topic to Scouting or metarushing? since obviously this is not limited to Big Red.

About the recent Prison Station scouting or metarushing discussion
Staff Report: Slc97 viewtopic.php?f=71&t=16541
Guilt of recent events (and the true cause of it) viewtopic.php?f=64&t=16557
Video from xeno/ghost perspective viewtopic.php?p=185641#p185641

Seeing staff mentioning it was the failure on the mechanics, I suppose it means the maints that bypass the timed blast doors in Prison will be edited/get shut.

[misto]

id prefer if young xenos were made less pathetic rather than relying on more timewasting mechanics

[Kesserline]

Still, I insist on the behavior of stupid Xeno-players leading marines to the Hive when retreating. The could mislead them going in an opposite direction..

But no! They decide to stay in your visual and lead you to their pals. And then, it's meta rushing.

[Gnorse]

Agreed. There have been far too many situations where marines were punished for stupid mistakes xenos did.

[Symbiosis]

Still, I insist on the behavior of stupid Xeno-players leading marines to the Hive when retreating. The could mislead them going in an opposite direction..

But no! They decide to stay in your visual and lead you to their pals. And then, it's meta rushing.

I play Xeno about 95% of the time. Whenever I'm Queen I often catch a dumb runner or Hunter doing just that.

Happened the round just before the infection round. If we hadn't seen the Marines the round would've ended differently!

[thatguyfromlife]

I play Xeno about 95% of the time. Whenever I'm Queen I often catch a dumb runner or Hunter doing just that.

Happened the round just before the infection round. If we hadn't seen the Marines the round would've ended differently!

Ah yes, when Charlie got lead into a cave and EVERY single Charlie Marine on the planet died. That was some good times. We just chased some runners and then got hit in the face with a Queen.

Reminds me of that scene from We Were Soldiers, a platoon follows a lone scout, then gets torn apart and cut off.

[x31stOverlord]

Or the round on big red last night where the xenos melted the blast doors into their hive and led the marines right to their front door. The round would have gone a lot worse for the Xenos had the marines relayed inforation correctly and the command staff had organised everyone into a push.

They ended up losing after a gruelling 2 1/2 hr round of grinding down the marines as they tried to flank and attack one squad at a time. But it could have easily been a round that lasted just over an hour with a marine stomp.

Some in deadchat were calling meta rush. But that was on the xenos for melting the blast doors and just leading the marines to their front door.

[Kesserline]

Maybe applying some warnings/jobbans would help to Aliens that over-chase marines and lead them to Hive. They are the most important source of dis-enjoyment for everyone.

For the Hive, during the round, because it gets stomped.

For the whole playerbase, because of the nerfs that may happen, because 1 to 10 players are still retarded enough to not care about their mates.

[Symbiosis]

Maybe applying some warnings/jobbans would help to Aliens that over-chase marines and lead them to Hive. They are the most important source of dis-enjoyment for everyone.

For the Hive, during the round, because it gets stomped.

For the whole playerbase, because of the nerfs that may happen, because 1 to 10 players are still retarded enough to not care about their mates.

Impossible to manage. Especially since most Xenos have the sight range of a Marine.

It's probably just bald Xenos, which tends to be a majority of the Hive nowadays.