UPCOMING BALANCE CHANGES

[Steelpoint]

In my mind the Boiler should be a slow and weak Alien that has a powerful ranged offensive attack, slow sure but powerful. Its meant to be effectively a Siege Weapon designed to help batter down Marine defences.

Being able to move faster is NOT something a siege unit needs over accurate offensive fire.

[Wickedtemp]

Think I'm agreeing with Toroic. With every update there's a new xeno nerf, when they're already easily beaten by a proper squad of marines. There's a reason they only really win at night, because the Xenos can't withstand an assault from a properly manned squad. The population imbalance is so bad, every xeno could infect and nest 3 marines and there'd still be thirty perfectly healthy, combat ready marines that are now retreating to the Sulaco to camp.

So, yeah. Probably not going to be playing much at all, if any... If the Xenos do get legitimate balancing to compensate for being outnumbered 8 to 1 so that they can actually win a round during "prime" hours, I might come back. But until then it isn't worth playing a game that just isn't fun.

[Infernus]

Think I'm agreeing with Toroic. With every update there's a new xeno nerf, when they're already easily beaten by a proper squad of marines. There's a reason they only really win at night, because the Xenos can't withstand an assault from a properly manned squad. The population imbalance is so bad, every xeno could infect and nest 3 marines and there'd still be thirty perfectly healthy, combat ready marines that are now retreating to the Sulaco to camp.

So, yeah. Probably not going to be playing much at all, if any... If the Xenos do get legitimate balancing to compensate for being outnumbered 8 to 1 so that they can actually win a round during "prime" hours, I might come back. But until then it isn't worth playing a game that just isn't fun.

As Abby stated in the first post, a new balance update for xenos will be up after she is done.
One thing at a time.

[Egorkor]

I don't know where to post it, so I'll do it here.
Aliens throwing huggers activates their AI, i.e. - I just saw a runner run up to a marine, toss a hugger 3 tiles away from the marine, hugger instalocked on and latched onto the marine's face.
Outcome? Runner caste/any caste is now carriers with two huggers that are able to throwspam people, this will of course lead to the alien victories, and that's nice, but imo it's as bullshit as marines emittering the hangar. And will encourage turtling.


However, I MIGHT be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that was what I saw. So this uh, might require some testing. I'll try to observe it more.

[Bath Salts Addict]

I don't know where to post it, so I'll do it here.
Aliens throwing huggers activates their AI, i.e. - I just saw a runner run up to a marine, toss a hugger 3 tiles away from the marine, hugger instalocked on and latched onto the marine's face.
Outcome? Runner caste/any caste is now carriers with two huggers that are able to throwspam people, this will of course lead to the alien victories, and that's nice, but imo it's as bullshit as marines emittering the hangar. And will encourage turtling.


However, I MIGHT be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that was what I saw. So this uh, might require some testing. I'll try to observe it more.

Let the Marines have their emitters and the Xenos have homing facehugger missiles.

[Egorkor]

I don't care about it, the thing is that marines will just turtle more. Though, epic defences are good too, we'll just have to see how it works out in the future.

[Fritigern]

So much xeno alarmism.

The best crushers I've seen have all played like tanks, cock-blocking marines with their giant foreheads, keeping me from shooting at their softer counterparts. Then, when the time came to go all in, they acted as crowd control to bust shit up and send everyone running.

Sorry if not every alien caste is a murder machine like the ravager.

ALSO. I find it funny how the argument for or against certain balance changes flies back and forth between "Well the Marines will just keep turtling!" or "Then aliens will always have to turtle then!"

Guess what? Whoever is defending has the advantage, that's why rounds swing wildly back and forth during different points of the game. Even now you have rounds where aliens are never aggressive and force the marines to attack, or you have marines that are ninja turtles. What dictates that behavior is not the DPS on this gun or that, but the people who are actually fucking role playing as the leaders of these two opposing factions.

What's going to TRULY stop "turtling" is to start giving both marines and aliens objectives outside of a war of attrition. A good commander and a good queen will create conflict via roleplaying, forcing the two forces to fight each other in different places and situations. What should be done is to start giving each side specific objectives on the map that force each side to come out of their hidey-holes. A good example of this being the engineering sections on both the planet and prison station. Take over X to gain such and such advantage, force players to move across the map outside of their comfort zones.

[Toroic]

As Abby stated in the first post, a new balance update for xenos will be up after she is done.
One thing at a time.

Lolwhat?

If the goal was to buff one side while maintaining balance, then what you don't do is give one side mostly major buffs, and the only mostly nerfs, and then say "I'll get to it later"

Abby has also been gone for a while, and a lot of good suggestions fell by the wayside because there weren't any coders.

So much xeno alarmism.

The best crushers I've seen have all played like tanks, cock-blocking marines with their giant foreheads, keeping me from shooting at their softer counterparts. Then, when the time came to go all in, they acted as crowd control to bust shit up and send everyone running.

Sorry if not every alien caste is a murder machine like the ravager.

ALSO. I find it funny how the argument for or against certain balance changes flies back and forth between "Well the Marines will just keep turtling!" or "Then aliens will always have to turtle then!"

Guess what? Whoever is defending has the advantage, that's why rounds swing wildly back and forth during different points of the game. Even now you have rounds where aliens are never aggressive and force the marines to attack, or you have marines that are ninja turtles. What dictates that behavior is not the DPS on this gun or that, but the people who are actually fucking role playing as the leaders of these two opposing factions.

What's going to TRULY stop "turtling" is to start giving both marines and aliens objectives outside of a war of attrition. A good commander and a good queen will create conflict via roleplaying, forcing the two forces to fight each other in different places and situations. What should be done is to start giving each side specific objectives on the map that force each side to come out of their hidey-holes. A good example of this being the engineering sections on both the planet and prison station. Take over X to gain such and such advantage, force players to move across the map outside of their comfort zones.

I'm sorry you've only seen crushers half doing their job then.

Crushers really aren't that tanky even from the front against rifle bullets. They deflect about 1 in 3, 1 in 2 while charging from the front. They don't have more hp than a ravager, as far as I can tell.

Before crusher could be used as a can opener, rapidly breaking down marine defenses and opening paths for xenos to use, on top of body blocking and stomping.

Without short charging, easily 50% of crusher utility is gone on a caste that is already notorious for being played badly. It's not about their generally pathetic damage, it's about their limited usefulness.

For me these changes are simply the most recent in a pattern of changes that neglect the things xeno players want to see.

Have you played as xeno? Getting into the game is a pain in the ass. You can get denied at round start, meaning you wait 30 minutes. You can pop on the dropship, or an equally bad spot and have to wait 10 min after waiting 10-20. If there are no larva left, you could wait an hour or more for the chance to play again.

Playing as a marine? Join game, pick a job. No waiting.

I've enjoyed playing xeno, but each set of changes makes the role less fun and more work. Specific to the mag strap, it means trying to tacklespam a marine back to a nest can be as dangerous as a smartgun user, because you can't disarm them. That is directly making playing xeno less fun.

You don't help fix the xeno pop issues by making their least favorite job more dangerous.

[Arachnidnexus]

As a xeno player you also have the ability to come back into the round much faster now (5 min for larva, 10 min for any alien now). Honestly what's making xeno less fun to play is how same-y it has become. Same with playing marine side nowadays too.

On the Crusher specific nerfs/bug-fixes, moonwalking allowed Crushers to essential outdo Boilers at their designated job. Crushers might need a buff to their charging rate, but I'd rather have that instead of having to do very counterintuitive actions.

[Toroic]

As a xeno player you also have the ability to come back into the round much faster now (5 min for larva, 10 min for any alien now). Honestly what's making xeno less fun to play is how same-y it has become. Same with playing marine side nowadays too.

On the Crusher specific nerfs/bug-fixes, moonwalking allowed Crushers to essential outdo Boilers at their designated job. Crushers might need a buff to their charging rate, but I'd rather have that instead of having to do very counterintuitive actions.

While a shorter larva timer is good, that's only good if there are larva left.

Crushers, even with short charging, can't open everything, and they can't melt weapons. The focus is on breaking barriers, and they aren't good at that if they have to start off screen or self stun.

[Arachnidnexus]

While a shorter larva timer is good, that's only good if there are larva left.

Crushers, even with short charging, can't open everything, and they can't melt weapons. The focus is on breaking barriers, and they aren't good at that if they have to start off screen or self stun.

There was a suggestion to reward longer charges with less self-stun. I think that'd be a good step in the right direction rather than rewarding weird micromanaging moonwalking momentum things to finesse the "self-stun vs crush" issue. And like I said, if fixing the bug reveals a weakness then the Crusher should get buffed to compensate. Keeping a confusing bug in because it hides weaknesses in a caste is a poor idea imo.

[Abbysynth]

I forgot to mention a few other buffs to boilers:
Flamethrower cooldown lowered
Bombard cooldown lowered
Tweaked a bit of the self-stuns on Crushers

[ParadoxSpace]

So there's going to be a Xeno update?

[GGgobbleCC]

Pretty much yeah.

90% of the things you want to crush, particularly on the prison map are not in places where you have enough momentum. You'll also never crush marines now without blind luck, since by the time you have enough momentum you'll skid stun yourself

I honestly can't imagine why anyone would still want to evolve this caste. It's worse than ravager in pretty much every way now.

I've been slowly drifting away from CM as each important changes catered harder and harder to marines. Marine damage buff. Xenos can't breach the sulaco, so there's little reason to hold the FOB with any urgency. Hivelord are a waste of space on the prison map.

Now any marine with a mag strap can't effectively be disarmed, marines have even more bullet spam, and the entire offensive caste of the xenos just got nerfed, with the crusher effectively being crippled. No one thought crushers were OP before, and they currently have a worthless charge, an awful melee (damage AND accuracy) a good stomp, and a good tackle.

You're definitely going to see even less xeno players now than before, since things that are fun for xeno players keep getting nerfed, and replaced with things that aren't fun (mag strap marines, hanger forts, late join marine reinforcements, massive wait times to join as xeno on the prison map after 1300 because there aren't any SSD larva.

With pred rounds (and preds are almost exclusively going to be marine players, as they are better known and treated better by the current game mechanics) 25% of the time you're going to have preds focusing on xenos and ignoring marines on top of all the other shit.

Xeno players do not exist to be interesting cannon fodder for marines, and the random numbers make it frustrating to try to get a sense of community among xeno players.

What I anticipate is xeno pop will start becoming shit even in high pop and the only time marine players will lose is due to mutiny/events/preds.

As a xeno player, I really appreciate CM doing the same thing for my play experience that the show Heroes did for the viewing experience:

A steady decline in quality until I've lost interest.

I think I'm there, so best of luck.

Shame you didn't get on the balance board, it is currently full of marine-only guys and Apop seems keen on keeping it that way

[Azmodan412]

I feel a bit underwhelmed at all this. I like playing xeno because it is just too damn easy to point and click. I like teamwork above all, win or lose, and if that makes a xeno sympathizer, would you kindly fuck off? I love the community, but when people are starting to say 'Make xenos NPCs and let marines have their turkey-shoot', I draw the line RIGHT THERE. Whats more enjoyable, facing an NPC with a scripted action that you can detect from miles away with poorly calibrated iron sights on a S&M .45 pistol, or facing a living, breathing enemy with their own tactics and spur of the moment actions? Make your choice. Community seems to want the former, while a few who play xeno, such as myself, wants the latter.

Make. Your. Choice.

[Wickedtemp]

I feel a bit underwhelmed at all this. I like playing xeno because it is just too damn easy to point and click. I like teamwork above all, win or lose, and if that makes a xeno sympathizer, would you kindly fuck off? I love the community, but when people are starting to say 'Make xenos NPCs and let marines have their turkey-shoot', I draw the line RIGHT THERE. Whats more enjoyable, facing an NPC with a scripted action that you can detect from miles away with poorly calibrated iron sights on a S&M .45 pistol, or facing a living, breathing enemy with their own tactics and spur of the moment actions? Make your choice. Community seems to want the former, while a few who play xeno, such as myself, wants the latter.

Make. Your. Choice.

... Who's suggesting making xenos only NPCs? Genuine question, I just haven't seen that post, maybe I missed it...

But yeah, maybe when the marines run out of aliens to shoot, when rounds end in thirty minutes or maybe not start at all because there aren't enough people playing xeno, maybe something will change. Of course, by then it'll likely be too late, but whatever.

[Azmodan412]

... Who's suggesting making xenos only NPCs? Genuine question, I just haven't seen that post, maybe I missed it...

But yeah, maybe when the marines run out of aliens to shoot, when rounds end in thirty minutes or maybe not start at all because there aren't enough people playing xeno, maybe something will change. Of course, by then it'll likely be too late, but whatever.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=5207&start=25 Post #31.

[Arachnidnexus]

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=5207&start=25 Post #31.

Actually, I believe that suggestion was offered by an alien player because he was upset at the way nerfs have been going. But yeah, the appeal of being a xeno has decreased a lot because xenos are just not particular scary anymore. To be even more honest though, the whole meta has become a bit stale. Most rounds do not deviate much from a set formula and that has made me less eager to play either side.

[Fritigern]

"Aliens are ruined!" They all cry. "Crushers are useless!"

Insert string of humiliating alien victories all day long with crushes being the lynch pin of each victory with their stomp crowd control. Just totally unplayable guys, totally ruined the gaaaame~!

Herp a derp.