Starting as a xeno on roundstart

[Toroic]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): For a xeno only player, it's currently a crapshoot whether you're going to be able to play for the first 30 minutes, despite being readied at roundstart. Marines can drop in at any time with 0 wait time. Please allow an option to force start as xeno.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): Makes people less likely to go play other things instead, because they are forced by RNG to get a 30 min late start.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): Mid round joining as a xeno is typically fine to good, but as someone who exclusively plays xeno, it's very frustrating to not be able to play during the early game. Given how long it typically takes for marines to land and the caps on T2 and T3 xenos, I don't think that a few extra larva at roundstart are going to cause a major imbalance. It is usually only 2-3 larva from the initial set of hosts that actually burst, and we almost always have leftovers at the end of the round.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):

Add a third option when listing xeno preferences of "Only" instead of yes and no. Allow players with "only" preference to spawn up to a higher cap at roundstart.

[Toroic]

I'm bumping this because both last night and this afternoon I've been unable to play due to the cap on xenos at roundstart and unlucky RNG.

Last night I had essentially a 90 minute wait to play on login due to xenos getting dunked and not able to join on roundstart, and then today I have a 45 minute wait as I waited for the end of the last round and wasn't part of roundstart again.


As someone who loves to play CM and is actively trying to encourage a sense of community among xeno players, it is very disheartening to have 30+ minute waits a few times a week, and knowing that the more people who are either willing to go xeno, or become xeno mains, the worse roundstart will be for all of us.

I believe the impact on the game of allowing xeno mains to reliably join at roundstart will be nothing but positive, and with the T2 and T3 caps prevent xeno team from getting too strong too fast.

[KingKire]

This asks the question, do you put on a small veteran list on starting xeno ( hmm veteran preference now that i think about it for certain jobs sounds nice...maybe worth opening a discussion else where) so the cream of the crop is allowed to roll out first? Or do you reduce xeno strength to allow for more xeno to spawn in at the beginning? Personally, im under the impression that there needs to be some way of letting the veterans take veteran roles on a more organized basis to help stabilize the game a little more against the whole "greytide rocks the boat" aspect of playing CM sometimes.

[Toroic]

This asks the question, do you put on a small veteran list on starting xeno ( hmm veteran preference now that i think about it for certain jobs sounds nice...maybe worth opening a discussion else where) so the cream of the crop is allowed to roll out first? Or do you reduce xeno strength to allow for more xeno to spawn in at the beginning? Personally, im under the impression that there needs to be some way of letting the veterans take veteran roles on a more organized basis to help stabilize the game a little more against the whole "greytide rocks the boat" aspect of playing CM sometimes.

I think the fairest way is to allow people who have xeno pref on and all marine jobs set to never to get a 100% chance of spawning at roundstart, and then pull in people who have xeno pref on with marine jobs on too until the current limit is reached.

It's pretty often that you'll have a few xeno players unable to join at roundstart, and then you'll get 18/20 larva being SSD. Basically just having a few xenos given a 30 minute wait for no reason. I've never seen even half the first wave of larva wake up.

[Arachnidnexus]

The "xeno pref on/marine never" guaranteeing a xeno start would be nice. It would be nice to have more players active at round start rather than making xeno players wait until runners decide to stop bothering survivors and actually infect monkeys. I'd even be down with a small reduction in monkeys for more round start larva considering so many larva end up SSD anyway.

[Toroic]

The "xeno pref on/marine never" guaranteeing a xeno start would be nice. It would be nice to have more players active at round start rather than making xeno players wait until runners decide to stop bothering survivors and actually infect monkeys. I'd even be down with a small reduction in monkeys for more round start larva considering so many larva end up SSD anyway.

Even half the free larva would probably be a good change, as that would make skilled hunters and infecting early marines actually important, when it currently is not.

[outordinary]

+1 this really needs to happen, it's terrible during highpop hours having to wait for the xeno team to get dunked because key players can't come in and assure their spot.

[Toroic]

3 times in a row now, ready at roundstart and not able to play....

[apophis775]

HMMM
I suppose what we could do, is have it spawn the Larva but not fill them with players, allowing players to just "join as Xeno" through ghosting.
Or maybe, half spawned, half filled?

[Toroic]

HMMM
I suppose what we could do, is have it spawn the Larva but not fill them with players, allowing players to just "join as Xeno" through ghosting.
Or maybe, half spawned, half filled?

As I understand it, if we just had ssd larva it would trigger a marine major.

If 3 ssd larva were generated at roundstart (in addition to the normal larva), and the monkeys on both maps were reduced by 3, I believe it would be much nicer for xeno mains and survivors who get killed early with minimal impact on the outcome of the game.

A 5 minute wait for unlucky xeno mains is no big deal, and if for some reason there are more xeno mains waiting to spawn than the ssd larva, they could coordinate in deadchat.

[planeios]

you're salty because you don't get to play xeno every round when actually having forced xeno would mean there would be maybe 30 xenos on high pop rounds at round start. What about all the people who want to be a specialist? An engineer? nah -1.

[forwardslashN]

We're discussing some potential solutions, and I have already added the join as xeno button to the lobby. Resolved for now.