Queen as a 'Final Boss'

[KingPhilipIII]

Now before anyone goes to crucify me, be it staff or players about 'REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WE JUST REWORKED THE QUEEN AND SHE'S OVERBUFFED AS IS!' hear me out because that's not what this was about. I just thought about this when I saw a post referencing the Queen as a final boss, which I think is the idea behind the Xenomorph Commander, the leader of the hive and an accurate descriptor of her in almost every videogame involving the Queen.

And I thought. What if we actually made an effort to do that? What if we just buffed the Queen to such an extent (While fairly limiting her mobility through rules or mechanical means to discourage attempts to join the battle) that she is very much a final boss, a target to slay? And instead of letting a new drone evolve ,the Queen's death becomes an endgame trigger? There are plenty of instances of the death of the Queen being paralyzing to members of the hive due to the trauma, so I imagine if the Queen was slain it would render them helpless to the marines sweeping the colony to finish them off.

I'm not pushing for this change, I just had the thought of 'what if' and wanted to see how other people thought about it. It could make for some interesting final pushes into the cave, render some real glory for whoever renders the killing shot, and stop the issue of combat Queens because I imagine the risk of instantaneous loss would discourage unneccesary aggression. Naturally some of the other xenos will need certain buffs to enable pushes and fill the pointman role the Queen often fills now.

If we really make her powerful enough, then a quick and aggressive push into the caves to fight the Queen without wittling down her minions could end with bloody results for the Marines due to the swarm of xenos supported by their very angry mama.

TL;DR Make the Queen a terrifying monster of godlike strength and her death causes the round to end.

[Solarmare]

You're saying what is already the case, but worse than what we already have.

[KingPhilipIII]

Solarmare, it would be false to say the Queen is as monsterously powerful as I'm suggesting she would be with this change. Any marine with enough skill can take down any xeno of insufficient skill and vice versa. I'm just suggesting we remove the Queen's role from combat and instead make her a more static opponent with much more effort required to kill her.

I understand this would require balance changes across the board but I'm just putting it out there for discussion.

Right now I personally see the Queen as the unholy offspring of the Commander, a Squad Leader, and a Specialist. A frontline heavy hitter with a range of special offensive mechanisms combined with the ability to provide close tactical advice as well as broader strategic command and authority. I'm suggesting moving it out of any comparable role and just be more confined to the center of the hive. Make the Queen into a boss worthy of DarkSouls.

[MattAtlas]

I think this would have to come with heavy changes to ovipositor mode, really. And changes to how the Queen should behave on the Almayer as well, as we won't want a robust Queen rampaging through marine frontlines at 12:40.

[Toroic]

Here’s my two concerns with this idea:

1) Queens in lore are queen because of ruthless competence. Queens in cm are based on rng and you appear to better odds if you’re from brazil with a tenuous grasp of the English language.

2) Marines are never going to be stronger or more ready to pick off the queen than they are at the start of the round. This change encourages rushing even more because you don’t need to kill the whole hive, just the queen.

[Karmac]

b a s e d b r a s i l l i a n o

[Shyguychizzy]

I do like the intention, though making queen limited eh? I reckon maybe this super monster of a queen. Perhaps, at maybe two hour round or three hour mark making powerful queen singular life be quite nice. Instead of cancerous rounds alright killed Elite Empress...oh yeah another became queen that queen dead and another queenie. Yah know sorta mini-boss stage, regular queen becomes one last threat or sorta last stage. Like in some video games where fighting a boss and it becomes stronger or goes up a another tier until its final form. Sorta helps prevent rounds going overboard some rounds aren't needed to overextend. Another theory, if lets say this Monster of a queen is to its last tier, drones could essentially become hunters/runners at this point as a last resort sort.

[Simo94]

'REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WE JUST REWORKED THE QUEEN AND SHE'S OVERBUFFED AS IS!'

[KingPhilipIII]

I knew someone would do that sooner or later.

[Loco52]

Queen is very OP but queens never use their neurospit and that's why they die.

[Printer16]

This is pretty much the case already. It would be interesting to see the queen not be able to charge forever away/towards combat but be stronger as a result.

[begad]

I think it would be interesting to see the queen be more of a passive role like the CO,Since she is like CIC of marines.

[Sulaboy]

I really don't like combat queens through, I mean gameplay wise they're fine but it just feels awkward. I really like the idea of a queen in her chamber with drones tending to her, and with sentinel's and maybe a praetorian nearby to protect the queen. This isn't a viable strategy right now.

[Vampmare]

The Queen is already a killing machine in the right hands currently. A good combat queen is able to singlehandely defeat the marines, no matter the skill of the hive. I don't mind making the Queen a more defensive thing and trying to keep her in place, but buffing her combat viability even more is not the way to go.

And as the others say. Your idea of Queen wont work in practice, as those dirty brazilians are likely to roll it and ruin a round.

[Rohesie]

It would be nice if after the queen becomes an Empress, or something beyond that, no further drones are able to evolve to queen. It signals the round has gone long enough, and avoids delayliens, giving the marines a more clear endgame objective, albeit a formidable one.

[TastyCrabLegs]

It would be nice if after the queen becomes an Empress, or something beyond that, no further drones are able to evolve to queen. It signals the round has gone long enough, and avoids delayliens, giving the marines a more clear endgame objective, albeit a formidable one.

I like this

[Tichys]

The Queen is already a killing machine in the right hands currently. A good combat queen is able to singlehandely defeat the marines, no matter the skill of the hive. I don't mind making the Queen a more defensive thing and trying to keep her in place, but buffing her combat viability even more is not the way to go.

And as the others say. Your idea of Queen wont work in practice, as those dirty brazilians are likely to roll it and ruin a round.

i agree whole heartedly, when i was a ancient empress with just 2 drones and a crusher... we almost wiped the entire marines off the face of the planet albeit it be through shitty tactics or not, we killed almost 60 marines with just 4 aliens

[Madventurer]

Personally, as someone who has played Queen multiple times and fought against her: Nerf please. It's not even fun anymore.

I would suggest changing the absurd fire immunity and explosion immunity (resistance?) to only partial resistance. It would still allow the Queen to shrug off more of those types of damage, but not to the same extent. Perhaps around or under the 50% mark would be fine.

In addition, increasing the penalties of de-ovi would force the Queen to ponder the situation more carefully, instead of simply thinking whether the frontline should fall now or a bit later.

The resistance nerf would open up some wiggling room for specs who were same or WORSE than PFCs against Queen to do at least something, while not giving any easily-exploited weaknesses.