New Castes Discussion Thread

[Mann handle]

I'd weigh in here and say that the design philosophy being the two new castes (and the xeno changes on the whole) is just shockingly bad and I'd argue that there needs to be some serious reflection as to how and why these ideas came together. It's terrible even, the level of power creep on the new castes along with the abilities that come with them is just terrible.

It gets worse when a xeno actually has the ability to nugget you while you can't actually fight back or even attempt to run away, it's not fun and has me stuck ship side just to make a round worth playing atm. It's also made other castes completely redundant.
The warrior is also stupidly fast and at ancient it's a runner with superpowers that any McDonalds nugget making machine would want. It leaves you completely powerless when it catches you. If you're captured chances are that you are processed by the nugget maker before you're hugged just so you can't escape. Also I've found that with this caste you don't see that many xenos trying to justify dragging you across a map you 'get rid of the light' when you simply get decapped and then left where you are. Not saying that all xenos don't actually justify moving a body to keep the light advantage, but I'm seeing xenos simply killing marines in a non relivable way just for the sake of removing players from round. It's mildly amusing to watch this part while deeply saddening as well.

The defender is a brick shithouse and has more use compared to a crusher. In-fact I don't think I've SEEN a crusher as soon as the defender came out. The abilities sound nice on paper but again the defenses on a T1 xeno is just simply bollocks to be completely straight with you. The abilities against marines just make facing them a massive pain in the ass as they can disarm a front with a couple of moves then walk away with absolutely no risks involved. The fact they get armour and then the abilities to bolster that as well is nuts.

Now onto what this means for the game;

As xeno: You'll see a mass influx of noobs take on the new castes because of the power they have and how much less risk there is to play them. Meaning when they do get nerfed, you'll have a lot of people just simply not want to play xeno because they got so used to a couple of styles and won't deviate. You'll also see an attempt of a meta change until marines just find other ways to shut down xenos if that's even possible at this point leading to more power creeping updates just to attempt to make xenos work. The reality is that the skill bracket drops faster than a free falling brick and you get updates much like this one.

As marine: Well planet side is a slog and the tank update is a flop atm. Some of the most entertaining roles for me are shipside right now just because of the un-fun slog that is the new ground side meta. It's either MASSIVE FOBS! or a long detracted fight with little ground made unless the xenos have drank mercury instead of the tears of marines.

Sorry to be so direct but I'd rather be brutally honest and say something is shit rather than sugar coat it.

____________

Now for fixes ( as calling something shit without coming up with something to change it is pointless and non constructive )

1, Shrink some of the sprites. Defender is a T1 yet it is massive as fuck, the tile bleed is suffering to watch. The lurker can't really hide when it's so big. etc.
2, Reduce speed of the warrior, it's a runner / crusher hybrid with far too much power. Rework the abilities that allow them to remove players from the game with little skill or effort. Maybe a look on the health pool it has might also be needed.
3, Defenders should not have armour so damn powerful. It's a T1 xeno, not a T3 crusher. Also some of the abilities and it's play style have no risk stamped all over them, when they team up with other defenders or warriors is just a game of stun spam and completely locking marines out of the game. Make them harder to play or something, it's not easy to think about a fix for something so broken, same can be said for the warrior.
4, Work on the other xenos please, it's all good adding new shit but you should make sure the other castes actually see some use.
5, Slap some testing on these things please, I really don't think there should have been a release on something that is this easy to become meta and broken.
6, Prea's spit i think need to not be so damn lethal but that's just me
7, Sentinels need some love, seriously, they were the caste to get to spitters and boilers. It was worthless before the update and now with the nugget maker you don't even need one of these to guard hosts.
8, Don't make things so damn accessible. There's so little skill in xenos on the whole, don't make the skill floor any lower.

[BadApple]

Stop complaining about warriors... Everytime I decapped or captured marines they were alone or ramboing alone getting away from their squad.
Yesterday marines were about to win, xenos were downed down to 6 and then marines went full monkeys yet again and lost as xenos went up to 20. You need coordination and a different-less children approach as marine. Also, you can break free from warrior grab, but if you're alone ( like 90% of marines who get killed by warrior ) there are high chances you're not going out of its range alive.

If there is a way to, I'd like to know it. They have disabled it pretty much outright against predators already - which leads me to believe there isn't, and that it is pretty BS.

I don't mind it being hard, but given its instant nature and the warriors current zoomies and stun recovery, there is no chance for a marine caught out.

More importantly there is a safe, fast and reliable way to turn a captured marine into an armless larva momma

[RobBrown4PM]

I like the changes. Prior to them the Marines were winning more than 60% of the rounds, I personally felt that this was way to high. A 25-35% Marine win rate is just about right for me, and these changes go a long way to help get that number there. Want to kill a numerically outnumbered, but much harder to kill foe? Use your numbers, your tactics and for the love of god use the combines arms aspect available to you. You have OB's, CAS/VAC, A TANK, and so many different explosives.

[NoahKirchner]

Warrior grabs seem to be impossible to resist. This is ridiculous if it's true, because you also can't use any objects while being grabbed even if you can stand, and even if they don't rip off a limb. They can just grab you all the way back to wherever they're going if they catch you somewhere and, even if you're in perfect help, you have no way to stop it.

Aside from that, the warrior seems neat, if a bit powerful, but it doesn't bother me so much.

[Geikkamir]

We just had an "event" round in which the admins gave the marines 4 tanks, PMCs, and a deathsquad, and the new castes were strong enough to stomp all of them.

This shit is crazy.

[misto]

now now, be fair, the deathsquad wiped out most of what remained of the marines, if they had co-operated with the marines they might have lived to backstab the marines if they beat the xenos

[Sulaboy]

-Snip

Also I think warrior grabs persist past their death. If one dies while grabbing you, they'll still be grabbing you.

[DankAnimemes]

A 25-35% Marine win rate is just about right for me, and these changes go a long way to help get that number there.

I agree but the marine win rate is not 25-35%. ATM it is almost 0%. Most round are just a steamroller ride for the Xenos. The only marine wins I have seen were from immense stupidity from the queen, or the tank quarters cheese.

[RobBrown4PM]

I agree but the marine win rate is not 25-35%. ATM it is almost 0%. Most round are just a steamroller ride for the Xenos. The only marine wins I have seen were from immense stupidity from the queen, or the tank quarters cheese.

Get good.

You have the arms and the numbers to stomp the Xeno's in to the ground, although the marines need to learn to work together and use well defined tactics to make these things work.

[Clutch]

Get good.

You have the arms and the numbers to stomp the Xeno's in to the ground, although the marines need to learn to work together and use well defined tactics to make these things work.

do u even play this game good sir

[OatzAndHoes]

Now for fixes ( as calling something shit without coming up with something to change it is pointless and non constructive )

1, Shrink some of the sprites. Defender is a T1 yet it is massive as fuck, the tile bleed is suffering to watch. The lurker can't really hide when it's so big. etc.
2, Reduce speed of the warrior, it's a runner / crusher hybrid with far too much power. Rework the abilities that allow them to remove players from the game with little skill or effort. Maybe a look on the health pool it has might also be needed.
3, Defenders should not have armour so damn powerful. It's a T1 xeno, not a T3 crusher. Also some of the abilities and it's play style have no risk stamped all over them, when they team up with other defenders or warriors is just a game of stun spam and completely locking marines out of the game. Make them harder to play or something, it's not easy to think about a fix for something so broken, same can be said for the warrior.
4, Work on the other xenos please, it's all good adding new shit but you should make sure the other castes actually see some use.
5, Slap some testing on these things please, I really don't think there should have been a release on something that is this easy to become meta and broken.
6, Prea's spit i think need to not be so damn lethal but that's just me
7, Sentinels need some love, seriously, they were the caste to get to spitters and boilers. It was worthless before the update and now with the nugget maker you don't even need one of these to guard hosts.
8, Don't make things so damn accessible. There's so little skill in xenos on the whole, don't make the skill floor any lower.

Agree with every one of these points.

Also just a general point, can we go back to doing playtests and slower feature rollouts like we used to in the past? I remember when hugger combat got removed we had tests, polls, and off and on periods before it was committed. Big shakeup changes like this last one need to be rolled out slower and with more testing. Sure it's not as exciting as one big rollout change, but it makes for a lot smoother adaptation period and allows for a lot more fine tuning and community input.

[RobBrown4PM]

do u even play this game good sir

Indeed I do, which is why I know the Marines are usually uncoordinated mobs, decked to the gills with rambo types and run by command staff that constantly tried to place the square peg in the round hole as children and then man children.

[Casany]

Indeed I do, which is why I know the Marines are usually uncoordinated mobs, decked to the gills with rambo types and run by command staff that constantly tried to place the square peg in the round hole as children and then man children.

I was going to refrain from posting because I usually tend to be a bit inflammatory and get a bit heated about this game (hecking manchild amirite). But honestly this just irks me a bit. Yeah sure, marine have guns and explosives but you aren’t seeing the main center point of the issue. Warriors are powerful, too powerful from what I’ve got. Imagine it in a situation like this. You’re a powerful rich guy who has access to many tools and you can only really use two, and some nice shiny armor. Now you have to go up against a demigod who doesn’t care about the armor and takes all the damage you throw against him and doesn’t care. Now marines do have numbers but numbers don’t mean anything. Cohesion is never going to happen in this game, telling one player to get good and work together doesn’t work. Time and time again it’s proven to be the case that marines will never work in a coordinated manner, or at least a competent one. If you have a way of fixing it fix it, make the marines work better together and then everyone would be happy. But I know you don’t, I know the dev team doesn’t because there is always one variable you can’t control in multiplayer games and that’s the human element. We can always fuck things up.

Onto your point about how marines have super strong weapons. We have CAS strikes and OBs, but both of those have big red markers to show when and where they’re gonna be, and usually are for holding back xenos or forcing a clear spot. They almost never kill because fire does fucking nothing and explosives don’t even stun almost at all anymore. Marines have grenades but again, explosives are low damage almost no stun deterents, and incen are even less. Spec weapons are good but you only have access to four and if they’re wielded in the hands of a new player it’s going to be only about half as useful. And marines get guns but these guns have no ways of stunning and just do flat damage, most of which can be absorbed by xenos health pools, or armor. And that’s not accounting for accuracy. And the tank is a slow, easy to see and easy to counter weapon that doesn’t really do much beside get he occasional T3 kill or lead a push.

So in conclusion, I believe that right now either xenos could use a bit of a nerf or marines a bit of a buff. Honestly you sound like XenoSlayer or his counterpart whoever, which isn’t who you wanna emulate. Take some time and consider abilities and realities. Ina perfect world marines would have perfect coordination and act like a perfect fighting force but this isn’t reality, this is a game.

[kroack]

Also I think warrior grabs persist past their death. If one dies while grabbing you, they'll still be grabbing you.

Feature.

[Stonewall]

Only played drone or marine during this update, so I can only comment on what I've seen.


Not a fan of defenders. As others have said ad-nauseam, they're too far too strong for a T1. They can be massed in unrestricted numbers quickly, and begin aging to ancient from round start. They're tough enough to usurp crushers almost completely, because why spend a T3 slot on something that will be vulnerable and young for 10 minutes or so when you already have the meatshield department covered by a 10 or so T1 defenders that are probably already elite? And that's another problem, because Defenders are T1s that replace T3s, they allow more T2/T3 slots to be filled by even more of a different caste type.


I'm unaware of any mechanical changes to praetorians other than their cone acid spray. The acid spray is pretty overpowered, it seems to put marines on the edge of paincrit or just in it and the duration looks longer than the cooldown, allowing it to continually stun multiple marines on it's own. The spray needs a nerf of some sort.

Haven't had any experience fighting warriors except for when I get dog piled by many xenos. But I do think the 1 hit limb broken is silly, and when elite/ancient, they're absurdly fast, possibly faster than runners. I witnessed an ancient warrior, possibly on frenzy pheromones, dodging 2 M56Ds,1 sentry, and several marine's bullets while doing some damage to their barricade line


Overall I don't see how these new castes are supposed to fit in the xeno forces. They outright replace older xeno castes due to their sheer strength and spammability. Xenos are so strong now, they don't even attempt to capture hosts 9/10 now, they just kill you, even if you're in pain crit or unconscious or being knocked down over and over.


Meanwhile, the only buff marines have received is a difficult to use tank that starts broken at round start and takes a long time to repair and arm. And as an added bonus, it's too large for most areas of the maps. It's a combat vehicle designed for war, why can't it crush walls by ramming them? I can't confirm this, but I'm told that regular bullets damage the tank, meaning a xenomorph can do the Friendly Fire dance around the tank while it slaps it to death with it's claws. I also find it difficult to look at from a balance perspective. It takes a really long time to get anywhere and there's only 1 of it. You just can't rely on it to do much of anything.

Honestly, the best thing for marines about this update wasn't the tank, it was the hanger the tank comes in. Aside from the ladder cheesing, the north tank hanger/elevator area is now the best place to defend from when the aliens inevitably take the planet in 30-50 minutes.


The best marine strategy currently seems to be.

1.Let as many marines die as you need to justify a full evacuation.
2.Rearm/heal up
3.Flee to north tank hanger when alamo heads back
4.Cade up and wait for xenos to commit suicide on your barricades.

[misto]

what do u think of this

https://imgur.com/a/ftuBnOD

[EXOTICISME]

what do u think of this

https://imgur.com/a/ftuBnOD

I like this. Defender have waaaaay too many kits for a T1 compared to other T1 caste, and Warrior is too strong for a T2

[Clutch]

Indeed I do, which is why I know the Marines are usually uncoordinated mobs, decked to the gills with rambo types and run by command staff that constantly tried to place the square peg in the round hole as children and then man children.

This isnt a Arma 3 realism mod bro we dont use VOIP the best you can co-ordinate is through text and if one cog in the wheel isnt there it's going to be harder to do so.
Ive played tons of rounds where squads were linked up with command and req but still got steamrolled by the new castes.

you dont know what the fuck you're on about lol.

[Bancrose]

My stance on this entirely can be contributed to not winning a single round as CO since this update.

So you can imagine how some of my feelings are regarding these new castes.

But to start it off I got to play A defender and warrior in the first 2 rounds it was out so I got to try all the ridiculous shit with it. Like breaking pred limbs and what not.
Which btw are fixed now.

Now it starts off as a Defender, you go from Larva to a Super big T1 Defender. The young stats aren't so bad. you get a skill that breaks bones and knocks down(usually), another AOE damage and knocks down and skill like the crusher that lets you lower your crest that makes you tanky or turns you into the iron curtain(except you cant move but atleast you can stop the tank). While those sound like T3 xeno abilities...its not, Its a T1 xeno. Now as you age throughout the round. You'll hit Ancient by the 12:50ish mark so at that point you're as strong as you'll ever get so its already GG no re for the marines. But the moment you hit ancient, You just become the literal wall. Like rifles, BC shotties and concentrated SMG fire doesn't mean shit to you in the SLIGHTEST. But you should fear the focus AP, Flamers and the M56D fire. I think for how a T1 plays they are just a bit too tanky like almost mature or above level crushers, like its pretty braindead to play it because you have to have single digit IQ to die.

Now when I got to try out the Warrior it was much more fun. You got an ability that you ran up on people and punch em in the dick or the head and instantly scramble someones brains or give marines vasectomies for free. For a short time it worked on preds which made them screech autistically as there was no counterplay to that. You got a instant chokehold grab like you're the Undertaker from the WWE about to chokeslam some poor PFC. And for a limited time you could do it to preds and preds couldn't even get out it as it was a reinforced grab. Now in this time, the said person in your hold was completely at your mercy. A small gang of warriors could just run up and McGangbang that poor marine or pred by ripping off limbs or even going as far as to tear specs, smartgunners and SL's heads off for the lulz. You get to toss salads as well, For a solid 2 minutes straight 2 chucklefuck warriors were playing hackey sack with me in the CIC, it was so bad I couldn't even get up to put my mateba in my mouth to end it all. So it was a 10/10 meme but extremely frustrating for everyone else. You were also pretty quick and you have a decent health pool so you can front line and skirmish quite well.


We will NOT talk about the Praetorians because the thought of it makes my blood boil. The shotgun spit stunlock may be the one of the most cheese things in the game and I want to just screech every time I see them running up to cades assblasting marines into oblivion. And the rest of the castes are fine but I do think the spitter castes got shat on just a lil bit. Lurker needs a smaller sprite as its not hiding very well.

Now its gotten so bad for marines now that some of the regular players we know just refuse to play because its not fun to lose all the time as a marine so alot of balancing must be in order here. Now you all heard me bitch and moan for the last 4 paragraphs so what is the counterplay to this? I haven't even thought of one and to be quite frank I dont genuinely think there is one. The only thing you can do is to ask the RO to stack metal, Put 3 squads on FOB duty and make a mega autism fort at the LZ and PRAY to god you can bog the xenos down for as long as possible. Killing as many as you can, evac and hope that the amount you killed on the planet was enough so that you can kill them on the ship.

So far none of the regular or orthodox marine strats have been working and I'm running out of ideas and I think I am slowly losing hope. Also I have read what a lot of you keep saying, These things like combined arms and all that but I have tried it all and it really isn't making a difference as the outcome has been the same. I think the marines have only won on the really lowpop rounds or a handful of times with admin intervention. So my only advice to marine players is to turtle. Turtle like its ice colony. Because we will be on the defensive until this is balanced or we find some way to counter these new castes

But don't worry men. I will consult the great Bill Carson and other CO's and we will find a way to turn this around. We will have to switch a few plays in the coach's playbook and we will be back out throwing hail mary's in NO TIME.

[Gut_TC]

When a Warrior suddenly run toward and chokehold grab you but your Spec came up in time to save your ass.
https://youtu.be/TLcAgNQ2i5I?t=1m2s

[Pogo92]

I don't like to harp on the Devs too much because I know they do this for free and we all appreciate it, and giving Xenos more tools is great.

But this is embarassingly poorly implemented. There are a lot of nuanced issues people have brought up here that are difficult to predict, like the sprite tile overflow on stealth-based castes. Don't fault the devs, that stuff slips through.

But the massive imbalance and straight-up obsolesence of certain classes is egregious. Defenders are literally T1 Crushers. I'm not gonna sugar coat it. Only thing that can't do as well is breach a FOB, but Fortify protects Boilers, Tail Swipe is a better Offensive and Defensive tool than anything the Crusher has, and comparable durability.

Warriors have way too more versatility. Do you like high mobility, high capture, reasonable durability, and high damage? Well, don't pick a lurker, you dork! Only thing they can do is leap around! Just go with the Warrior, since you can also chuck baldies, punch shit, and generally be a better caste overall.

But surely the Tier three is the big difference maker. Ravagers have big ass claws that can fuck stuff up! They can also move kind of fast! Well, that's where you're wrong, bucko. Prae's may not have the same delimbing ability, but they have three different fucking spits, a mini-boiler acid cloud (Because fuck unique identies for other castes, right?), pheromones (Because fuck unique identies for other castes, right?), and strong corrosive acid. These mother fuckers still fuck stuff up in combat pretty well, but they also have batman's fucking utility belt, and it just got expanded even more. Sure, you can evolve into a Crusher too, but why bother? The defender is basically just as good, you'll reach ancient faster, and it's basically as durable with more tools.

This update violated a huge rule of game development. They walked all over the strengths and unique identities of other playstyles in order to create these new castes/abilities. It's just poorly thought out and even more poorly executed. Defenders need to lose an ability (tail swipe or fortify, or both) AND lose some base stats to give Crusher's more room to exceed them. Warrior's need to have their abilities reworked to be less toxic (The grab is just excessive in function) and differentiated from lurkers. Not to mention ignoring classes that probably need more love, like Sentinels, Hivelords, ect. You know, fucking NOT PRAETORIANS.

At some point, you can't just use the "embrace the suck" excuse to pardon shitty or unfun game design.

[RedSovietMuffin]

I totally agree with everything that Pogo said, especially the part about devs working for free, which can be excuse for everything (no sarcasm), but new castes are pure cancer and if same balancing mistake would occur in big game company - the guy who is responsible for balancing should (or would) be fired on spot because of simple mistake that Pogo explained.
Former power development (before update) was pretty balanced and well divided. Classes were unique. I would understand implementation of new castes as new T3s with increased time between upgrades and evolving (like 600-650 to Defender\Warrior from T2) and increased upgrade ticks by ~100-150 (with the base of Crusher\Ravager). That would stop ancient warriors and defenders to be a thing at 1:00 since roundstart. Or to counter it with some implementations like AP Charger (attachment for M41 that increases AP abilities of gun, similar to damage increase for BC). But in current state the game is broken af. Thank you.

[Heckenshutze]

1. New castes were just released, and their numbers have been highly overtuned, give the devs some time to balance this shit out

2. Tanks were also just added, and since it’s a hard mechanic to learn, at first it’s definitely going to be an FF machine and hinder the marines more than it helps.

3. Nearly a month ago movement speeds were experimented on and it fucked almost every caste and certain specialists up, sometimes helping them, usually hurting them

How about instead of coming up with solutions that the devs need to fix, or finding your own “”””adaptations””””, why not just wait for the devs to smooth stuff out and rebalance the game.

[caleeb101]

Warrior grabs seem to be impossible to resist. This is ridiculous if it's true, because you also can't use any objects while being grabbed even if you can stand, and even if they don't rip off a limb. They can just grab you all the way back to wherever they're going if they catch you somewhere and, even if you're in perfect help, you have no way to stop it.

Aside from that, the warrior seems neat, if a bit powerful, but it doesn't bother me so much.

If a warrior grabs you, you're fucked. So no, you cannot resist.

[caleeb101]

1. New castes were just released, and their numbers have been highly overtuned, give the devs some time to balance this shit out

2. Tanks were also just added, and since it’s a hard mechanic to learn, at first it’s definitely going to be an FF machine and hinder the marines more than it helps.

3. Nearly a month ago movement speeds were experimented on and it fucked almost every caste and certain specialists up, sometimes helping them, usually hurting them

How about instead of coming up with solutions that the devs need to fix, or finding your own “”””adaptations””””, why not just wait for the devs to smooth stuff out and rebalance the game. (Butlerblock originally wrote this)

1. I'm not saying release these updates NOW OR I KILL YOU but there is a point someone else on this thread made. The longer you let people play with these busted xenos, the more attached they will grow to them. If they are then changed/nerfed, xeno population will tank. We've seen this again and again in the past. For example, when Hugger combat officially died and only Drone caste/Queen could carry huggers.

2. Mortars were also relatively "recently" added, though people have had the chance to play around with them, learned with them and they are still rarely used. My point here is that there's a certain standard that weapons have to meet before they can be called "viable". The Tank itself is quite bad from what I've seen. It's not always the conductors of it.

3. : shrug : True.

Waiting for the devs to smooth stuff out is cool, making suggestions is cool too. Sometimes your suggestions/solutions can be brought to the game and make a positive impact. There's meant to be a challenging of opinion and discussion/suggestions should always be a good/welcomed thing no matter how shit some of them can be or how much it sounds like someone is bitching/complaining when dropping an opinion.