Alien Adjustment I'm thinking of making...

[Yottawhat]

... You can't be serious, I knew there was YET ANOTHER POINTLESS ALIEN NERF but the devs can't possibly be that stupid to take away one of the runner's ONLY advantages as an evolution tree.

Yeah, GGgoobleCC is B.Sing here. The Runner line got a slight speed nerf but isn't really noticeable. Personally, I did not really see the reason for it but it's not like marines are going to be able to out run a Runner.

[Davidchan]

Pretty typical reaction, anytime Xenos aren't buffed across the board people who like playing them flip out and act like we're going back to core-baycode days of 3 shot kills.

[Azmodan412]

Look at the buff lists throughout updates: Marine, marine, marine, marine, xeno once in a while.

[Arachnidnexus]

Server's gone through times when marine win rate was 70% and when alien win rate was 70%. If these changes push alien win rate to 30% again then I'm sure aliens will get buffs.

[Wesmas]

I see a lot of people talking about the winning, but if its not any fun to win then it doesnt matter. There are games which you can win easily by standing in a certain place, but as son as you have worked it out playing the game is boring. I dont find the aliens fun to play any more, and as far as I can tell, other people are becomming fed up too. I have seen a lot of people saying its balanced because of this or that, but in the end the number of people who are willing to play the 'bad guys' seems to be small and shrinking. This idea seems meh, but its worthless because it takes away from the feeling of sucsess. If I am a runner and I have been atacking, making it to my evolution proves I had some level of skill to not be killed.
The only sucsess's an individual alien has are evolving and capturing hosts. Killing is okay, but you reduce your potential numbers. Giving aliens even less achivement will make it less rewarding, leaving it even more underfilled.
I guess what I am asking for is some kind of reward for being an alien. As a marine doing something cool means people know your character did something impressive. As an alien your fame is far shorter. I know this is kinda rambaling, but this is where the issue is. This is a game, people play games for fun. Its not fun to play aliens, its more like an obligation. Please make it fun.

[Reznoriam]

I wouldn't want to see any limitations placed on the number of higher evolutions available because that's likely one of the only factors helping aliens during high population times when there's more marines. Right now the limitation on alien evolution is time needed for the jelly to develop, so what about the Queen having a different kind of jelly-specific resource instead of plasma. The queen's rate of this resource's generation would be dependent upon population (Perhaps total server population instead of the alien population so aliens will have a much higher production rate when outnumbered). Another possible limitation would be the number of jellies currently on the ground so that the aliens don't end up with a large stockpile of jellies.

[Reuben Owen]

But... is there currently a problem with the jelly system now?

[Arachnidnexus]

The one issue I have with the current jelly system is that the optimal way of using it is to have low castes sit in the hive until they can evolve to T3s. It's pretty boring and unsatisfying unless you're a drone caste and build things. And even then the building isn't particular exciting.

[Azmodan412]

If xenos play right, T1s can have loads of fun in and out of the hive while waiting to evolve. A good runner fetches hosts and plays smart so they won't be torn apart like the wet paper towel they are. A good sentinel stays with the Queen, feeding her plasma until evolution. A good drone gets to fashion the hive as how his/her imagination thinks it should look (Won't mean shit to Marines who fire through it all anyway.).

[Arachnidnexus]

Sorry but feeding plasma isn't particularly fun. And yes, most rounds T1s leave the hive because they can do other stuff. I'm just saying it can be equally effective and safer to just stay in the hive and wait for evolution. But that's not as fun as risking your life and future evolutions to derp around the colony.

[Davidchan]

Sorry but feeding plasma isn't particularly fun. And yes, most rounds T1s leave the hive because they can do other stuff. I'm just saying it can be equally effective and safer to just stay in the hive and wait for evolution. But that's not as fun as risking your life and future evolutions to derp around the colony.

Lots of aspects about this server/gamemode aren't exactly fun. Feeding plasma is probably one of the rarest things in the game, I have a macro to feed the queen plasma, and quite often make it a point to give boilers and dronecastes plasma outside the hive so they can do their job (barrage and spread weeds respectively) if done right everyone ends up a winner in that scenario.

[Jeser]

Extremely dependent on competent Queens though.

Like any real life hive is, heh.

[Saidas]

In my opinion, Apophys is missing the point behind the whole problem with aliens in their current state: they're just not so fun to play in comparison with marines. They are not weak - actually, even T1 aliens are very powerful if played right; they are not as fun as any marine role. These changes would only make things worse by:
1) Making aliens even more dependable on their Queen;
2) Nerfing their potential to amass high-caste manpower;
3) Creating a huge problem with locating the jelly. Seriosly, even nowadays we could find ourselves in situation when in late game Queen have pooped a ton of jellies in the hive, but newborn larvas just blindly rush to the Queen, screaming and braggin' to get some more of that precious yellow poo. Now imagine what logistic clusterfuck would cause if we actually implement this new jelly system.

In the same time, theese changes wouldn't solve the core problem which is: for many players - aliens are just not as fun to play as any other marine role.
My personal list of issues:
1) Currently aliens are not that lethal as they're shown in the movies or videogames. Typical (and logical in the current meta) strategy for any alien caste is to carry at least one facehugger - two if you want to infect the enemy, one if you want to kill him. This is actually a huge problem - when player's first visit our lovely little server, they expect a fight with deadly, smart and stealthy beast. An apex predator. Something that should be feared, something that you would see in every shadow, something completely alien to every human being.
That is not true on Colonial Marines. Xenomorphs are only a tool to transport facehuggers. This is their ONLY way to deal any real damage to the enemy without a huge risk of loosing more than achieving. All T2 aliens, if they'll try to go for a kill without a facehugger, would very likely get killed even in a fight with a lone marine. If not - they'll be forced to retreat and heal. I repeat: without a facehugger a lonely T2 alien is weaker than a half-decent marine. Yes, I know, I'm being hypocrite here - earlier I've stated that even a T1 aliens are powerful, but remember - only if they are played right. Only with facehuggers, only against a lone target. Because the manpower balance is not fair in the first place: it's only 4-5 aliens against 20+ marines. So every sane alien should ALWAYS try and infect as many hosts as possible.

2) Second alien problem is a logical extention of the first one: aliens are extremely vulnerable to bad calls.. What is a bad call? In competitive videogames there's a concept of "call" - when one player proposes a course of action for his team. Sometimes calls are good. Sometimes they're bad. For aliens every single call is critical: be it a decision of a lonely hunter to try and pounce on that marine; or be it a collective decision of a group of aliens to launch an attack against someone holed up in the secure storage. If the call is bad and lives are lost - that's it. Those guys are dead and beyond recovery. The only way to join the game again is to join as larva (10 minute cooldown) or to wait for a chestburst. But remember: the pool of players waiting to join as a fresh chestburster is almost always bigger than number of alien casualties. So most of them would stay in ghost chat not even trying (or forgetting) to check out "Join as Larva" button.
In sum: alien manpower is freakin' fragile. ONE single bad call could do a massive damage to the whole hive. Marines on the other hand always got a cloner, which is kinda hard to miss - it sends you a bigass message in the middle of your screen. And even if we assume that cloning takes as much time as joining into SSD larva (which is actually true) - there's still an issue with manpower difference. Remember: it's 5 starting xeno against 20+ marines.

3) One of the most underestimated (but important) problems is: aliens don't get cool stuff. Look at those marines: they could customize their gear, they've got a bigass starships with bigass orbital cannons, they've got turrets, they have unique appearance, they could get a cigar or drink some space vodka, they could have a cool duel with a katana replica against a predator, etc. It's not the most accurate list, but my point is: the best part of marines gameplay is little things. A lit cigar in your mouth while you set xeno nest on fire. A flask filled with vodka + tricodrazine. A deck of cards - to leave a mark on every single fukken xeno you've managed to kill. Zippo lighter - in case you'll find yourself in situation when you're surrounded by aliens and there's a phoron canister nearby...
Give us cool stuff. We're actually good at playing xeno anyway - just let us have some fun in the process. Give a hunter a chance to one-shot marine if he's tail-stinging him from stealth. Give a carrier an option to name his facehuggers. Give ravager an actual ability to gib dead people. Give drones some special building that would make alien eggs much more active in their target scan (what would you call it... a hatchery?).

It's not about balance. Surely, we all would like a shift of power from huggers to actual xenomorphs, but the real issue is little things. We don't get any of those.

[Steelpoint]

I think Aliens need a proper way to immobilize a Human that does not involve throwing twenty facehuggers around. Right now combat is based on getting those facehuggers in to stun the Human forever.

Have you seen 1v1 with no huggers for the Alien? Outside of the Alien wanting to kill the Marine its very obnoxious.

[coroneljones]

1) Currently aliens are not that lethal as they're shown in the movies or videogames. Typical (and logical in the current meta) strategy for any alien caste is to carry at least one facehugger - two if you want to infect the enemy, one if you want to kill him. This is actually a huge problem - when player's first visit our lovely little server, they expect a fight with deadly, smart and stealthy beast. An apex predator. Something that should be feared, something that you would see in every shadow, something completely alien to every human being.
That is not true on Colonial Marines. Xenomorphs are only a tool to transport facehuggers. This is their ONLY way to deal any real damage to the enemy without a huge risk of loosing more than achieving. All T2 aliens, if they'll try to go for a kill without a facehugger, would very likely get killed even in a fight with a lone marine. If not - they'll be forced to retreat and heal. I repeat: without a facehugger a lonely T2 alien is weaker than a half-decent marine. Yes, I know, I'm being hypocrite here - earlier I've stated that even a T1 aliens are powerful, but remember - only if they are played right. Only with facehuggers, only against a lone target. Because the manpower balance is not fair in the first place: it's only 4-5 aliens against 20+ marines. So every sane alien should ALWAYS try and infect as many hosts as possible.

Tell that to the xenos that can wreck chaos in the sulaco,a lone T2 or even a T1 can kill multiple marines ALONE,with a good plan

[Arachnidnexus]

Eh, if that plan involves huggers or camping certain spots as a Hunter then yes. Otherwise a T1 or T2 without huggers is pretty boned. Huggers really are the big difference between winning a 1v1 fight and not for lower castes and even some slower higher castes.

[Saidas]

Tell that to the xenos that can wreck chaos in the sulaco,a lone T2 or even a T1 can kill multiple marines ALONE,with a good plan

And you are right. Good xeno/marine always uses every advantage possible. So it is true that a good xeno could be successful in his lone hunt on Sulaco - especially if he'll try to hunt in low populated areas and would visit a bridge to massacre those unarmored officers that are vital to marines survival.

But there's still an issue that makes a xeno gameplay ridiculous: facehuggers are just too good and in the same time you're at quarter of your potential when you've got none of them (zero if you're a carrier). It's like playing a marine without a helmet: interesting and challenging option, but suboptimal at the very least.

[Steelpoint]

A single hostile Xeno who sneaks onboard the Sulaco is not comparable to a Xeno and a Marine fighting on the surface, as noted above the sneaky Xeno has a clear shot to attack unarmed and unarmoured targets such as the command staff or medical/engineering personal. Also Marine presence on the Sulaco would be low so a response to a Alien would be slow.

[Wickedtemp]

Tell that to the xenos that can wreck chaos in the sulaco,a lone T2 or even a T1 can kill multiple marines ALONE,with a good plan

Because of vent crawling, low population of marines, and the fact there are unarmed, unarmored crew to kill.

Competence levels vary. Some marines barely know how to play. If a xeno happens to kill a couple marines that didn't know 3 bullets could crit the attacking runner, that's not an incident of "See? Xenos ARE fine as is!" but rather "Skilled player kills unskilled player despite natural disadvantage."

I'll frame it this way: You know Pokemon? Or at least the different types? Charmander (fire) is naturally weak against Squirtle (water). So if they're at the same skill level, most of the time the Squirtle would win.

But if you take a level 100 Charizard and fight a level 10 Squirtle, even though Charizard has a natural type disadvantage, it'll win because it's skill level is much, much higher.

So the Charizard wins. But that doesn't mean fire types can stand toe-to-toe against water types. It just means a super powerful fire type could beat a weak water type. And that's what we see here in CM.

It's not normally too difficult to be a runner or Hunter and vent-crawl into medbay and kill a doctor while they're in surgery. Command, too. Chances are they're busy looking at the consoles, but they're probably armed. The hunter in this case has a bit of an advantage. Most of the marines are gone, and it's attacking unarmed crew.

But against a marine? It only takes a few bullets to kill it. Unless the Hunter pounces SUCCESFULLY and goes for the kill immediately, it's boned. If it gets shot, there's no weeds. It's screwed. Whereas if it gets a few good hits on a marine, they just need a bit of Bicaridine and they're completely fine.

And it's completely true, much of the xeno attacks revolve around grabbing all of the huggers they can for the stun. Not to infect, normally, just the stun. Because it works, it's effective, and it saves Xenos from getting slaughtered.

So, some people want to nerf huggers because OP Insta-stun. But that's what's holding up the xeno team now. Xenos can't, under normal circumstances, go on an assault and win, and then have a suitable number of Xenos to attack the Sulaco.

This is because the Marines only have to attack the Hive. But the Xenos have to attack the FOB, push the marines out while losing their numbers, and THEN they have to attack the even more heavily defended Sulaco right after, or risk losing.

Xenos have to do more attacking than marines in order to win. But as it stands, the only real, effective way they can accomplish this is through hugger stuns.

[apophis775]

Nevermind. There's a different update plan in place.

[Lostmixup]

Moved.