Predators as the meta-breakers

[ThePiachu]

So, I've been thinking about what impact Predators have on the game, other than just being "honour warriors". I think that if applied correctly, the Predators might be meta-breakers.

I've noticed this a bit while playing xenos - if there are no Predators around, I know that for the first ~30 minutes of the games, the xenos own the map entirely. Survivors might hunker down somewhere and clutch their guns, while the entire hive of xenos roll out and shape the entire colony to their whim. They can weed everything, break everything, and there is nothing to stop them.

Now, when the Predators are around, suddenly the meta changes. The Queen needs a few xenos at the hive to guard her. The Runners aren't as confident anymore. Every xeno proceeds with caution not to get a wristblade between their ribs. The introduction of the Predators change the "ecosystem" of the game (add a reference to wolves being reintroduced to natural habitat and you get the picture).

Now, with everyone complaining how both sides are constantly just playing the meta on every map, could the Predators similarly be used to throw everything out of the window?

Say, LV. Everyone knows Marines will build a Hydro FOB and that both sides will rush TFort. Who cares if Robotics or Storage would similarly appear as decent FOB locations from the map the Marines are given. Nobody scouts west of Nexus, because that's not where the xenos would be coming from. Now, what would happen if say, two or three predators built a lodge in Hydro? They probably know about the xenos in the caves and that the Almayer is coming. Or say, if they decided to claim TFort as their hunting ground and hunt anything that comes near it. Now imagine what this does to the game.

Suddenly, the Marines are halted and their advance needs to be changed. They either go all-out and try storming the place against the Predators, or have to flank from the east or west. The xenos similarly wouldn't be able to roll down the middle, but would have to work with the flanks. What good is a legion of spinning xenos at TFort if the Marines are going to push from the west beach.

The Predators are pretty well suited to being these mate-breakers of the game. They aren't numerous enough to dominate the entire map, but they sure could lock down small portions of it one side or the other always ends up using "by chance".

Now obviously, they'd need to avoid affecting the essential parts of the match - so power generators and tcomms would be out of the question, and similarly they couldn't just kidnap every monkey in Prison to make the xenos fight them. As long as they prowl some area just close enough to where the engagements always take place and make it so both sides have to work around them, that might be good enough to breathe some new life into the maps without extra coding.

[Jeser]

80% of the time, if preds going out in open, they get killed by aliens/marines with quite some losses on both sides, honestly. I'd love to see pred at tfort being hit by LTB shell, tho.

[davidofmk771]

Unfortunately, certain players hate the meta being broken, and since preds are an intentionally overpowered whitelist role, they tend to get extremely salty about it.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

Some nice thoughts and good observations, however im more inclined to think that the same old map plays will keep happening until maps are redesigned or maybe new maps entirely are created and introduced.

The tank slightly changed the way maps play out, the xenoes changes did also, but you still see the same play-outs creeping back not long after these kinds of changes.It would have to a be a drastic change to get a drastic more permanent change in gameplay.

I really cant see how predators would give that effect, especially with and probably even without the RP rules they have to follow by not being a main focal point of a battle/round.

[solidfury7]

Ive been considering apply for a predator, seeing as rules are being relaxed overall.

There can be some interesting things done, if one puts their neck on the line.

[Casany]

Eh. Any smart marine knows exactly how to deal with a predator, without causing it to use its plasma blaster. Just get your machete and knock it out, take its mask off and just cut its head off.

It works 90% of the time and is very useful for killing preds and keeping their stuff intact

[Steelpoint]

I find it ironic one of the more effective ways to kill a Predator, as a Human, is to engage it in melee combat. Not only since doing so means the Predator can only rely on melee weapons (or spike launcher), but that a single hit to the head is sufficient for a RNG knockout which will kill the Predator.

Also, most Predator players hate the concept of lodging. Its some minor thing you forget about after you toss some cades in a forgotten corner, and it can lead to the opening of a new salt mine when half the Marines decide to attack the lodge that is currently hidden in the most obscure part of the map which results in the Marines getting wiped out.

[Casany]

I find it ironic one of the more effective ways to kill a Predator, as a Human, is to engage it in melee combat. Not only since doing so means the Predator can only rely on melee weapons (or spike launcher), but that a single hit to the head is sufficient for a RNG knockout which will kill the Predator.

I’m pretty sure a boot knife has about the same RNG chance for knockout that a machete does, but a machete does more damage. But yeah it’s pretty funny that one of the best ways to down a pred is melee

Never shoot a pred. Don’t shoot at a pred. The second you even fire one shot in their direction they’re gonna valid the hell outa you and murder you with plasma. If you never engage them in ranged combat and use melee, they can’t use their OP launchers to blow you apart

[Heckenshutze]

Predator's KO time has been lowered since it made no sense to had such high KO chance even with the mask on, you can get KO'd as pred (and still don't black out) and get up in what, 2 seconds?

Source: Getting KO'd as pred and KOing a pred as marine.

[Steelpoint]

If it was nerfed, it must've been very recently. I got one hit KOed as a Predator a few weeks ago by a melee hit by a bloody M41A.

[Heckenshutze]

Perhaps it has been reverted, but it was like that last time I saw, or they just messed around with the RNG chances

[ThePiachu]

Ive been considering apply for a predator, seeing as rules are being relaxed overall.

There can be some interesting things done, if one puts their neck on the line.

Yeah, I'm also considering that. It would be nice to experiment a bit with the role...

[Casany]

Predator's KO time has been lowered since it made no sense to had such high KO chance even with the mask on, you can get KO'd as pred (and still don't black out) and get up in what, 2 seconds?

Source: Getting KO'd as pred and KOing a pred as marine.

Well, if your quick you can still manage to rip the mask off a predator before it gets back up. And the knockout chance still must be pretty high

Source: Knocked a pred out and took its mask and murdered it, knocked it out in one hit to the head.

[TheMaskedMan2]

Predators can get bamboozled a lot easier than people think, but currently people complain about Predators a lot as is. I simply just want more tools to RP instead of just murder-meme people. I'd like a garunteed way to remove limbs so I can take them as trophies, or perhaps remove xeno tails from crit xenos for a spear or a trophy.

Hrm, thoughts ahoy. Though as is I think Predators doing anything "different" will result in salt 90% of the time.

[Steelpoint]

If a Predator set up a lodge in a common Hive/FoB spot I can guarantee you everyone would get pissed off.

[Nantei]

I definitely agree with them being roleplay tools, not murderbone tools. If predators were just to kill people, they wouldn't be whitelisted, simple as that.

I don't like the idea of predators trying to be extremely disruptive. Setting up a lodge in a common marine spot really makes no sense for a predator. Last I checked their lodges are supposed to be pretty obscurely located and hard to find, and on top of that, Predators want to hunt, not throw a wrench in the marines plans. I would say purposely trying to obstruct marine passages would both cripple the marines, and ruin the entire point of predators. Being denied Hydro would basically kill the marine push, and autolose them the game. Even if they eventually got it, the odds that they recover would be very low.

You might say just go around but... that makes no sense for Marines, and it also isn't done for a reason. Everyone uses Hydro to stage because Hydro is the best location to stage from. The others all kind of suck. LZ2 to the north jungle is about the only other way you can setup your FOB and have it not blow chunks, and even that I am not fully convinced on.

[Jeser]

Never shoot a pred. Don’t shoot at a pred. The second you even fire one shot in their direction they’re gonna valid the hell outa you and murder you with plasma. If you never engage them in ranged combat and use melee, they can’t use their OP launchers to blow you apart

Did you try applying LTB shell to face area? W-Y doctors recommend this treatment.

[ThePiachu]

I mean, it's all in the playstyle. A Predator is supposed to be an apex hunter, so if they want to tempt fate and be blatant about their presence because they think they are robust, they could be arogant enough to try.

Probably building a lodge straight in the only FOB location would be a bit much, but say, building it close to where the action usually is, essentially controlling one of the paths of an advance, might be something more manageable.

[Kerek]

Good intentions, bad idea.

Predators are a salt causing force when a side kicks the hornets nest and then get stung. If you want predators to hydro lodge, you’re asking for all the marines to get killed because of their massive unga. The phat loot on predators is too tempting for most players for a team of predators to be simply ignored like that.

The biggest meta change that predators can do is if they just harrass the absolute shit out of the hive and the marines the whole round. It would most likely cause a much more defensive playstyle from both sides, but you’d honestly need an admin to say go ahead just for a bit of protection with how out there it is for constant harrassment with how much it’d change the game.

[ThePiachu]

That would be something. Essentially it would be a small event in itself - a handful of predators out on a hunt to get as many trophies as they can. Camping money spawns to kill first runners, trapping the generator rooms, cutting wires to tcomms, etc. Now that sounds like a horror show and a nightmare salt factory. Maybe one day, if the admins are feeling like

[CABAL]

So, I've been thinking about what impact Predators have on the game, other than just being "honour warriors". I think that if applied correctly, the Predators might be meta-breakers.

I've noticed this a bit while playing xenos - if there are no Predators around, I know that for the first ~30 minutes of the games, the xenos own the map entirely. Survivors might hunker down somewhere and clutch their guns, while the entire hive of xenos roll out and shape the entire colony to their whim. They can weed everything, break everything, and there is nothing to stop them.

Now, when the Predators are around, suddenly the meta changes. The Queen needs a few xenos at the hive to guard her. The Runners aren't as confident anymore. Every xeno proceeds with caution not to get a wristblade between their ribs. The introduction of the Predators change the "ecosystem" of the game (add a reference to wolves being reintroduced to natural habitat and you get the picture).

Now, with everyone complaining how both sides are constantly just playing the meta on every map, could the Predators similarly be used to throw everything out of the window?

Say, LV. Everyone knows Marines will build a Hydro FOB and that both sides will rush TFort. Who cares if Robotics or Storage would similarly appear as decent FOB locations from the map the Marines are given. Nobody scouts west of Nexus, because that's not where the xenos would be coming from. Now, what would happen if say, two or three predators built a lodge in Hydro? They probably know about the xenos in the caves and that the Almayer is coming. Or say, if they decided to claim TFort as their hunting ground and hunt anything that comes near it. Now imagine what this does to the game.

Suddenly, the Marines are halted and their advance needs to be changed. They either go all-out and try storming the place against the Predators, or have to flank from the east or west. The xenos similarly wouldn't be able to roll down the middle, but would have to work with the flanks. What good is a legion of spinning xenos at TFort if the Marines are going to push from the west beach.

The Predators are pretty well suited to being these mate-breakers of the game. They aren't numerous enough to dominate the entire map, but they sure could lock down small portions of it one side or the other always ends up using "by chance".

Now obviously, they'd need to avoid affecting the essential parts of the match - so power generators and tcomms would be out of the question, and similarly they couldn't just kidnap every monkey in Prison to make the xenos fight them. As long as they prowl some area just close enough to where the engagements always take place and make it so both sides have to work around them, that might be good enough to breathe some new life into the maps without extra coding.

I don't think that Predators are big meta-breakers. They can't kill queen at start, becouse this would bring inbalance, so queen don't needs a few xenos at the hive to guard her. Runners are not that "big" of a target, maybe ancient, young and mature can do what the would without preds since they are too weak and too cowardly alone to do something. Since only runners should be alone, there is no need to be cautionus for other xenos in pack.
Lodge at Hydro is the first target for artillery. Results in only slowing a bit marine progress. Xenos won't take the risk since they can't wear preds stuff. Only time Command/Queen is risking capturing/killing predator is when they have enough power to crush other side, so it's just a way to humiliate them.

Only meta Preds change is to give a goal to marines to kill pred fast and get gear, or xenos to capture him alive. Marines/Xenos atacking their lodge is like a risk they are taking, but they don't have to do, so no meta-breaking besides few dead marines who wanted gear.

Predators are more like RP-breakers. Every round with preds I spotted myself, or I watched as ghost had one thing in common: Preds "fucking" around marines and xenos, strolling casualy like it was a public park in a "good" neighborhood and they were like attention seeking teens with dyed hair and rich parents with cool stuff. Xenos just looking at preds saying "hi" and then giving no fuck. Queen usually says "Don't react to headhunters, they will just fuck around and if you are targetted - Run to your sisters". The same xenos that tries to kill every dangerous living creature, those IQ+200 xenos that can "figure out" that marines can revive dead without even seeing it... They are just letting preds to roll.
What are marines doing? Throwing grenades, trying to kill, or just like xenos: "Hi" and letting them stroll. (salt deposit depleted)

[ThesoldierLLJK]

I think predators should just watch and find marines they deem honorable and worthy to have a 1 on 1 combat with. Kinda like a rare champion spawn in a MMO, if you defeat it, you get the goodies/loot. If not, you die.

[ThePiachu]

Yeah, I've seen some preds being a bit of a waste. Those would include:

- I get into a fight, but when I take some damage I blow myself up
- I stalk everyone the entire round without killing much
- I wait until the roundend and have honour duels with whatever Marine gets left behind

On the contrary, I've seen a few cool predator plays:
- I kidnap the synth, fix it up, and then fight them on my ship
- I got facehuggered, so I fight benos for 20 minutes while the chestburster incubates
- I fight everyone with a whip, Belmont style, and laugh as my prey gets KOd