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Nerfs queen screech and re-adds bombard to ovi state
About the pull request
Revives https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/colonial-warfare/-/merge_requests/1883 originally denied due to rapidly changing gamestate. Things have calmed down since and this horrible ability still plagues the game. The various limiters (stomps, dragging nerfs) have only served to make queen gameplay more frustrating without really doing anything about the myriad of issues this ability brings.
Removes the standing stun and nerfs the knockdown of queen screech while adding daze and a heavy slow with the goal of making it a less unfun - for both sides - "I win" button that grinds games to a halt. See video section for changed duration and effects.
Re-adds a techweb remnant boiler cloud to queen to improve the super boring ovi and ensure FOB sieges don't become impossible with this change.
Explain why it's good for the game
Screech in its current state has been abominably horrible for the game for years now.
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Completely breaks any sort of natural game progression - even when marines have an advantage and were pushing, the moment they hear a queen, the round will immediately devolve into cadehugging and defensive play, not only grinding it to a boring halt, but also forcing the other side to attack regardless of the strength differences. What could be a fun round instantly becomes a slog.
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In extreme cases can cause the entire round to end just off one ability combo or gained momentum killing the entire front, swinging rounds in an overly extreme fashion (reminiscient of removed FATTY rockets)
Queen shouldn't become a non-factor but should not decide games with a single button or take complete control of the round progress and actions of 100+ players just by showing up.
- Severely breaks xeno ability balance and enforces limits on what could otherwise be added. Look at acid runner and berserker eviscerate as the worst offenders - the former loses all risk and the latter from an ability that normally would hit 2-3 marines becomes a guaranteed 6+ (often into double digits) AoE murdermachine.
Should result in more leeway with abilities and mechanics without the "no because what if scree" limits and reduces the insane ability power swings making balance easier.
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Makes the xeno team overly reliant on one player for whether they win or lose.
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Literally removes the gameplay from the game as it devolves into "walk around the map with queen and slash static helpless mobs".
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Press space to win with no skill requirement and real counterplay is as unfun as it gets.
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Entirely shuts down flanking and by extension command gameplay because one button is enough to kill an entire squad, making anything but murderblobs nigh pointless.
The goal of this PR is to give the game back to the players and actually allow them to play it without this horrible fun limiter. Should result in more dynamic, fun rounds and more of the map being used.
- Likely many other reasons I missed
Overpowered screech is not fun for either side nor necessary.
Doubt it will cause marine stomps since the game should balance itself naturally via marines taking risks, playing and pushing. If that's not the case it should be pretty easy to figure out what needs to be changed - likely buffing weaker xeno caste and t2-t3's ability to deal with crowds through ability (not stat!) tweaks.
The boiler cloud always struck me as a pretty balanced, fun ability (same as railguns for SOs barring cooldown tweaks) that got shafted due to the entire bad system being removed. Punishes overly static gameplay and ensures xenos can go on the offensive within the smoke.
Testing Photographs and Procedure
Screenshots & Videos
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ab224d1f-828a-4481-934a-c6de74575f5e
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2d62bf7b-9b4b-47f9-a91d-2c75fb59ec88
Changelog
:cl: add: Added boiler bombard ability to ovi'd queen with a 30 second cooldown. balance: Lowered screech knockdown within 4 tiles from 4s to 2s and to 1s further away. Removed standing stun. Added 3 seconds of daze and 5 seconds of superslow on both ranges. /:cl:
Honestly, when I first saw this PR my knee-jerk reaction was “What the hell, nerfing the screech? This shit is going to break the absolute crap out of a balancing factor that’s been set in the game for almost a decade.”
But as I read through and thought about it, yeah. You’re right. If you look at it from an outsider’s perspective free of years of CM- Well, an AOE ability that covers almost the whole screen stunning everyone for a solid couple of seconds, negating all possible counterplays besides “Run away faster”, and “Hope for the 0.5% chance that someone runs in and shakes you” Is kind of just… really shitty ability design. You can’t do anything. If any other PVP game added a similar ability to a character, the developers would be crucified on popsicle sticks. Honestly, it’s kind of wild we spent a decade without a rework getting done.
Furthermore, yes- it synergise with certain xeno abilities to a ridiculous degree, like eviscerate (and of course, the absolute cancer that is guaranteed runner capping- Literally you just get capped with a 100% chance, and there’s nothing you can do about it.)
Now yes, nerfing the queen screech is huge. People aren’t going to like it because it’s a nerf through and through- You lose a lot of really funny synergies, like neurogassing dozens of people to death, acid runners, etc. But the very FACT that it’s huge is part of the problem itself. Like, why is the queen so instrumental to hive performance on the frontline in the first place? Shouldn’t the 20-30 players in the hive be far more important? Obviously, this PR’s pretty controversial. But ultimately, I think that temporary rattled balance is preferable to having the current state of affairs stretch on permanently.
It’ll be healthy for the game- There won’t be as huge a reliance on the queen babysitting the frontline anymore, which always sucked ass since many queens tend to be borderline suicidal in combat, and whilst xenos might feel bad, I think the prospect of cooler buffs for other castes will probably make it worth it. Plus, marine players don’t get guaranteed round-removals with zero counterplays.
I think it’s worthwhile to test merge this and see what happens. Honestly? I don’t think round winrate will change much. The slowdown will still be very good at letting people get chased down, and the gas seems like it’d compensate for a fair bit, while making ovi gameplay less boring. But maybe I’m just optimistic. To balance it out, maybe we should bring back HEFA to req to nerf marines in the meantime. 🥴
You lose a lot of really funny synergies, like neurogassing dozens of people to death, acid runners, etc.
Worth mentioning that I think these should still be possible even with the nerf, just alot less easy/cheesy. From a design POV they should be balanced to not rely on queen, but play off other xeno abilities so the teamwork is more organic rather than a single button press - stuff like sentinel/crusher/hedgehog/boilers setting up cc for the damaging caste etc.
Plus, marine players don’t get guaranteed round-removals with zero counterplays.
Sadar is similarly flawed (especially OT rockets) and barely visible in crowds. It at least requires a good player and sprite clicks, but in an ideal world both would be gone or specs at least made properly visible. I digress though and it's not as damaging to the game as a whole.
While I think a queen screech nerf is warranted, I think the queen needs something else buffed in return for when she's off ovi. Perhaps some better mobility? Queen already gets rushed the moment she screeches, if the stun lasts one second and marines immediately get up and shoot her in return, I feel she doesn't have the tools to actually survive the counter rush.
In addition, I fear with this change that xenos risk to be a bit too vulnerable to marine death balls in general (especially on high pop), when marine firepower is overwhelming, often one of the only ways to deal with it is slowly chip at it with queen screeches and capturing.
every single marine main rushing to upvote this PR lmao
So true honestly, we love abysmal dogshit prs in this repo
Definitely agree with a lot of basil's points here, "muhrine main" aside, queen screech gameplay is not fun for anyone involved.
Sure, there's the dopamine hit of getting off a huge acid bomb or similar AOE into a screech, but beyond that, an ability that just turns off one team's ability to fight is just boring.
As a marine, you're effectively forced to just wait in the back and feed privates to the queen screech so that you can run in and kill her while she's slashing them, if you're on the frontline you're just going to get stunned and die(or worse get dragged off by a runner while you can't do anything about it and be unavoidably capped) As they mentioned, it completely kills flanking as a gameplay option generally because the queen can just wipe any attempt with only one or two other xenos with the ability, turning everything into a miserable slog because the only even slightly viable counter to it is afking behind cades.
As a xeno, I don't find screeches to be especially fun either, there's no risk or real skill involved in killing/capping someone who is stunned on the floor, I guess there's some enjoyment in kill counter go up, but personally I just end up feeling bad for the guy who's getting fracced/taken out of the round over something he doesn't really have any control over.
I do think that something else will have to be added to the queen for this to work, maybe a spitter-esque speed or armor buff after a screech to allow the queen to fall back without getting immediately torn to pieces? Just a random example idea, but I suspect in it's current state this would make the queen a pretty easy target without something to shutdown the inevitable rushdowns, since even now a lot of the time the queen can only barely get into cover after going for a screech.
hopefully this gets TM'd though I'm interested to see how it plays out, it'll probably become obvious real quick if it nerfs xenos too much and makes the game too marine-sided.
I agree that screech limits too many strats that aren't marineballing.
But it is also the MAIN thing that nerfs said strat. Unless marineballing is nerfed alongside it, you're just going to make one of the most broken and problematic strats even worse.
I LOVE the idea of queen attacks from ovi and a more fun screech. But without addressing that other issue this is just going to make rounds EXTRA unfun overall.
On another note, perhaps making queen a better combatant overall could help. Since this makes her unfit for frontlining (a mass slow down is not worth going off ovi and risking dying, specially with a new attack that is eclusive to ovi). Just better tanking so she can actually attack without the stun would help a lot. Otherwise it would be suicide to attempt to crawl towards the front to slash.
Regarding the counter rush/rundown worries, if marines actually play aggressive since the screech is weaker, the queen won't have to play as aggressively with it either so she won't be as exposed - i.e its unlikely to happen. The slow also prevents that, perhaps even more than current state since now you rush a new wave over the downed marines, with slow you'd have to push through the slowed crowd in front of you first. Can also lead to overconfident superslowed marines overextending and getting wiped in turn, hard to say.
As for marineballing being an issue, if winrate skewers towards marines a massive deal (doubt) I still think its better to nerf scree and work towards a better game by addressing longstanding balance issues (certain caste being too weak, OT existing etc) and looking at where CC for individual xenos can be improved to make up for lack of the queen button (spitter vomit downing marines regardless of acid for example). Else we're just continuing piling up issues as the game had been for 2 or so years.
Could even do it like
- testmerge for two weeks > see the issues > remove the test and address the issues > testmerge again
to make it more gradual if needed, though that'd probably be silly.
Regarding the counter rush/rundown worries, if marines actually play aggressive since the screech is weaker, the queen won't have to play as aggressively with it either so she won't be as exposed - i.e its unlikely to happen. The slow also prevents that, perhaps even more than current state since now you rush a new wave over the downed marines, with slow you'd have to push through the slowed crowd in front of you first. Can also lead to overconfident superslowed marines overextending and getting wiped in turn, hard to say.
As for marineballing being an issue, if winrate skewers towards marines a massive deal (doubt) I still think its better to nerf scree and work towards a better game by addressing longstanding balance issues (certain caste being too weak, OT existing etc) and looking at where CC for individual xenos can be improved to make up for lack of the queen button (spitter vomit downing marines regardless of acid for example). Else we're just continuing piling up issues as the game had been for 2 or so years.
Could even do it like
* testmerge for two weeks > see the issues > remove the test and address the issues > testmerge againto make it more gradual if needed, though that'd probably be silly.
Unless the slowdown also affects fire rate, it is irrelevant for their damage output. It makes 0 sense that it would be better than a stun. Hoping marines won't optimally address the situation and will just charge in their current state is not a viable way to balance things either.
You say you doubt this will get worse (despite there being NO reason as to why it wouldn't get worse) and assuming marines won't take advantage of the nerf. Which is just not how this game has ever worked.
EVEN if they tested it for a week and it worked well enough, the issue would still remain, what happens when marines do a marine ball and push?
The optimal strategy to dealing with a Screech is to do a big murderball and push after she screeches, this change won't create a new strategy, if anything the screenwide slowdown might at least make the strategy less effective since while the screech won't allow the xenos to murder everyone, it will at least halt a push.
Furthermore as noted above, since the screech won't be used as offensively as before, the Queen will be less overly exposed.
I 100% agree with the assessment that the queen's Screech is a terrible mechanic from an outsider's perspective, we only tolerate it since we've all been used to it for a decade.
I would love to see this tested or even merged. This is coming from a guy who has played nothing but xeno for the last month.
The optimal strategy to dealing with a Screech is to do a big murderball and push after she screeches, this change won't create a new strategy, if anything the screenwide slowdown might at least make the strategy less effective since while the screech won't allow the xenos to murder everyone, it will at least halt a push.
Furthermore as noted above, since the screech won't be used as offensively as before, the Queen will be less overly exposed.
I 100% agree with the assessment that the queen's Screech is a terrible mechanic from an outsider's perspective, we only tolerate it since we've all been used to it for a decade.
I would love to see this tested or even merged. This is coming from a guy who has played nothing but xeno for the last month.
Again, a slow down is just a worse stun in every shape or form, because it doesn't prevent the marines from shooting. And indeed, it won't create a new strategy, it will just make the already existing bad strategy worse because there will no longer be any counter to it (as poor as that counter is already).
MARINE murderballing is DEF. a worse issue than a stun that couldn't hit a third of the marine force even in optimal conditions.
Xeno "murderballing" is sub-optimal because they can't afford to just charge and die like marines do and they just get in each other's ways. Marines in the other hand can stack their DPS to straight up incontestable amounts.
A strong slowdown will make chasing impractical, a marine shaken up from a stun is still going to be impacted by the screech.
I also think adding a strong offensive attack for a Queen on ovi is a good idea, as it encourages both on and off ovi gameplay.
However, the bombard might be too strong. Can the Queen drop this behind marine barricades? Can she just dump it inside the FOB at will every 30 seconds?
However, the bombard might be too strong. Can the Queen drop this behind marine barricades? Can she just dump it inside the FOB at will every 30 seconds?
Yeah there's no restrictions on using it past cades, I think its fine if it nerfs defensive/static play somewhat as a result. The cooldown likely is a bit too low considering boilers have 20s, but can just raise that after testing. If using it past cades ends up being the main issue, I've no idea how to restrict that. Codewise if turning it into ammo's the only way, a check for the acid vomit structure under queen eye and firing a regular boiler glob from there could work.
Pretty badass chnage all thinks concidert. But maybe dont show of the slow on weeds, wich already apply a slow. Would give it better perspective.
Also, migth be worth increasing the slow time a tad bit. Because most have a point in that hard stun is stronger then slow. Can be both very strong, but hardstun just is so strong you need to go a bit hard to balance it out. Although, the time on the slow deffinitly will be a finicel balancing act.
Just, bump it up a like 3 seconds or so. Otherwise its just a nerf to combat queen and a buff to ovi queen. And those two things dont balance each other out. And maybe redcue the screech cooldown as well.
when we are talking about buffing queen, why not replace her boring tail stab, with "tail sweep" that would have directional 3 tiles wide, and 4 tiles long sweep, that work similar to crusher stomp? that would solve issues, where marines rush queen after scree, that would allow her to "shrug them off" with tail sweep. (it would deal damage but not much)
I don’t get the reasoning for this change. The Queen is obviously supposed to be a lynchpin for the xenos side – a unique character that can quickly change the tide of battle. Everyone already knows that she has the ability to screech and it isn’t terribly difficult to try and play around it. There is a bit of skill as there is a bit of a “guessing” game of when the Queen is going to try and screech. I’ve seen plenty of high level Queen players legit not screeching the moment she gets out and, instead, baiting the marines to get in close in hopes they overcommitment when she actually does screech.
Screech being described as “Press space to win with no skill requirement and no real counterplay” is so reductionist that it’s practically downright wrong.
Usually I'd be like "No" but I think we should give it a chance. My only real issue is.
It turns queen from "The Matriarch of the hive and the ruler of its kingdom, capable of defeating its foes with ease" type of menace to a "Big scary creature that can be shrugged off if pushed"
The Queen is obviously supposed to be a lynchpin for the xenos side – a unique character that can quickly change the tide of battle.
Nerfed scree is still the strongest ability in the game so that doesn't change,
Everyone already knows that she has the ability to screech and it isn’t terribly difficult to try and play around it. There is a bit of skill as there is a bit of a “guessing” game of when the Queen is going to try and screech.
Yeah and these situations are boring. The entire game momentum dies and it becomes a cat n mouse with both sides playing defense neither willing to commit - xenos because they can't and marines because they can't contest the ability if they do.
It kills the round flow and natural progression. Leads to weird situations with queen going off ovi because marines are too strong and pushing too hard, but suddenly having to attack them because they're playing defensive. (queue fabled 30+ minutes of walking back and forth with nothing happening till marines kill the queen off one bad decision and end the game 5 minutes later)
I’ve seen plenty of high level Queen players legit not screeching the moment she gets out and, instead, baiting the marines to get in close in hopes they overcommitment when she actually does screech.
I know, I pretty much pioneered this with Chi way back when we were racing for prime queen and neurodrag nerf was the result.
Screech being described as “Press space to win with no skill requirement and no real counterplay” is so reductionist that it’s practically downright wrong.
There is no real counterplay to it, if she never screeches, you can never punish her for screeching. Its why queen dragging was nerfed, because there was no counterplay to neurodrag with screech threat, all the change did was further stalemate the game though. Stomps were also a way to address the issue but didn't do much besides introducing frustration to queen gameplay and promoting defense even more. Funnily enough xenos have also began murderballing over time, dumbing/basic'ing down the game further.
It just devolves into a waiting game till one of the sides gets bored/frustrated enough to overcommit. Either the marines finally push her, get screeched and die or she walks out too far and dies. You're confusing queens making mistakes like this with counterplay. Admittedly there is some skill involved but only in having the general gamesense to know when to and when not to use it, which really isn't difficult - playing any other xeno caste or a regular pfc is harder.
I don’t get the reasoning for this change.
It constraints development because any good ability will become gigabroken. It ruins round progression, it's not fun for either side, it causes boring stalemates and promotes overly defensive play, being the no.1 reason for cadehugging with advantage. Puts too much importance on a single player because the entire game starts revolving around the off ovi queen, as if she's the winning condition resulting in an instant marine major and not killing the entire - sidelined - xeno team. Discourages/ruins offensive and fun flanking plays in favor of both sides silently murderballing using a fraction of the map.
To put it another way there isn't a single reason not to make this change besides the "can xenos win without a long lasting screenwide stun" question, but if the answer to that is no that's cause of long neglected caste balance issues (hedgehog till I buffed it, oppressor still horrible) and a pile-up of similar unfun mechanics (severely overtuned OT falloff numbers, stims).
Does this PR address any of the concerns brought up in the last one you linked?
Some of the old comments expressed concern at the remote glob ability, since it is basically uncounterable and risk-free. Similar to AMR, and from what I've seen abilities like this are extremely painful to play against and don't add a net positive to the game.
Some people in the old one were also saying the game in general needs to get to a better state balance-wise before you make an alteration to an ability like this. Imo the game is in a pretty crummy state right now, feels like it's been on a solid decline for the past few years. Lots of changes over the years I think have led to the current resulting metas and stagnancy in rounds, but queen screech isn't one of them. Queen screech is the only thing that hasn't changed these past years; I think the issues you're referring to, or hope this will fix, are stemming from other factors - for example, marines and xenos alike play defensively not because of queen screech, but other reasons, maybe like how punishing the game is now if you get injured or die. You're out of the round for at least half an hour if you need to go shipside for surgery, or sit in larva queue.
I agree with some of the people here- the way you're portraying queen scree as it currently stands as some kind of game-breaking ability feels like an extreme and somewhat misguided oversimplification. I don't wanna say this reads like a cope pr, but it feels almost as ludicrous as if I were to suggest all specs be removed or heavily nerfed because of how much they can alter/impact the round with relatively minimal counterplay. It's not entirely wrong, but at the same time it would completely disrupt the entire powerstructure of the faction that relies on them in a negative way that current balance doesn't allow them to make up for. I get you're saying once it's removed other balance can go forward, but you're pinning part of your argument for a definitive nerf of one faction on the hope of future buffs that may or may not go through, and will take a long time to do so, leaving the game in a relatively more miserable state in the meantime.
There is no real counterplay to it, if she never screeches, you can never punish her for screeching.
This isn't true. The counterplay to screech is the ungadeathball tide that comes down on her head like a pile of bricks. One could argue the screech is the counter to the deathball (and even then it's only as good as the hive that capitalizes on it, a lone queen screeching does nothing but delay a push for a few seconds then ring the dinner bell).
And she doesn't need to screech for you to punish her, the queen herself off ovi is still counterable by the deathball, AP rounds, flechette, XM88, etc., by specs like pyro, sniper, SADAR, SGs (especially with the buff now), as well as mortar and CAS.
Regarding the counter rush/rundown worries, if marines actually play aggressive since the screech is weaker, the queen won't have to play as aggressively with it either so she won't be as exposed - i.e its unlikely to happen.
Despite my reservations I was still somewhat on the fence about your suggestions, but reading this has made me more skeptical of your suggestions to making balance changes to queen; with all due respect, this is not a sentence I would expect from someone who's had much experience to the queen caste, or the general round/gameflow in general.
Queen screeches, marines push. You make screech less powerful, marines are still gonna push after. Even more than before probably because the threat of screech is often more effective than the actual couple seconds of stun, it's the only thing preventing a queen from just getting run down like a dog. I don't understand this logic.
How is queen not expected to play as aggressively when marines get more aggressive? Screech is there to counter/hamper aggression. As it stands when marines don't fearrp screech is still ineffective at halting a full deathball at times. You're saying if you make screech less severe somehow this will make marines less aggressive, which it won't. In other words it is very likely to happen.
I might be wrong though, I wouldn't mind a brief testmerge, as long as it actually gets unmerged afterwards if it negatively affects the game or people don't like it and doesn't just turn into another "it's here now live with it".
remote glob ability, since it is basically uncounterable and risk-free
It's counterable by dodging - walking out of the telegraphed AoE. I don't see the issue with it being risk free, long range abilities are inherently like that and it's nowhere as bad as remote building (cancer whack a mole replacing PvP gameplay). Its pretty much the same thing as marine mortar, CAS or OB.
Queen screech is the only thing that hasn't changed these past years
It changed indirectly - adding stomps to try and mitigate how OP screech is has directly led to the current meta of backing off/cat and mouse/defensive play.
marines and xenos alike play defensively not because of queen screech, but other reasons, maybe like how punishing the game is now if you get injured or die
Death became less punishing due to minor roles like huggers, drones and buffs to medical letting you get rezzed no matter how high the damage. Transport is also faster nowadays. Its as you said anyway that people don't wanna die, but I dunno how you missed that pushing anywhere near queen = guaranteed death - people are willing to go melee a door that has some t3 behind it since they can still walk away or fight, if the queen is there no one will walk up.
And she doesn't need to screech for you to punish her, the queen herself off ovi is still counterable by the deathball, AP rounds, flechette, XM88, etc., by specs like pyro, sniper, SADAR, SGs (especially with the buff now), as well as mortar and CAS.
You can shoot her, but you can't realistically kill her since she will just screech when low and walk away. Repetitive stalemate until either side makes a mistake and overextends.
I get you're saying once it's removed other balance can go forward, but you're pinning part of your argument for a definitive nerf of one faction on the hope of future buffs that may or may not go through, and will take a long time to do so, leaving the game in a relatively more miserable state in the meantime.
I don't think it'll upset the balance that badly, not all rounds even require queen to beat marines. Besides, most of balance issues could be ironed within a month, it just depends on whether dev team is even willing to accept balance PRs - longstanding issues like OTs is a simple number rebalance of nerfing falloff and buffing shrapnel and fire to compensate. Was willing to do that a year ago, but told to make an ideasguys thread that never got an answer.
Its still better to take steps to fix things rather than wait until they magically fix themselves. It's in a miserable state regardless, just a question whether anyone's still willing to do anything about it or the game's perma'd dev-wise just piling up issues. But I digress, doubt this pr will have any huge winrate impact.
you're portraying queen scree as it currently stands as some kind of game-breaking ability feels like an extreme and somewhat misguided oversimplification. I don't wanna say this reads like a cope pr, but it feels almost as ludicrous as if I were to suggest all specs be removed or heavily nerfed
Because it is gamebreaking. The FATTY missile that was removed was like that too, it'd be an oversimplification to call it game-breaking since it had limits, required teamwork etc but at the end of the day that's all it was - gamebreaking. Specs aren't nearly as ludicrous even if they have some balance issues (sniper aimed shot numbers, sadar being sadar) - the only thing that compares is OT and massive explosions.
How is queen not expected to play as aggressively when marines get more aggressive?
Because you don't have to push them when they're willing to push you, it's pretty simple.
Theres literally not a single justification worth listening to in this pr that in any way justifies re-adds boiler throw on queen on ovi when you can already have a significant impact on the game while building, queen screech cannot be nerfed because despite marines being stupid and dumb the %25 not being afraid of screech will now just mean every queen instantly dies.
Also this doenst help fob sieges in anyway.
Queen has to have the screech as it is because if you dont play aggresively you will be stuck in caves untill stimms arive and youre guaranteed a loss anyway, please consider these before making prs you have any idea on about.
The queen is literally a beacon for both xenos and marines to flock to, because you are arguably the strongest thing in your game due to your stun if its removed marines have nothing to fear, screech is an ability where the use of it is often less dangerous then the threat of it, nerfing it even further wont make this anymore better for the queen, or the game overall. especially not with the recent sg buffs. please stick to making strain buffs nerfs
Queen screech is an ability that can be played around by marines, meaning you can shake people out of the stun. Instead of lowering the skill ceiling maybe let people adapt to the game
A strong slowdown will make chasing impractical, a marine shaken up from a stun is still going to be impacted by the screech.
I think Steelpoint makes a very good point- The slowdown lasts for 5 seconds, so it would be harder for marines to push. Instead of full-speed marines outrunning xenos and murdering them after the stun timer, now you get really slow marines trying to counter push. I think modifying the slowdown potency and duration depending on how a testmerge goes would be a great balancing method, since people generally prefer being gimped on speed but still able to do something to avoid being fucked.
Also, migth be worth increasing the slow time a tad bit. Because most have a point in that hard stun is stronger then slow. Can be both very strong, but hardstun just is so strong you need to go a bit hard to balance it out. Although, the time on the slow deffinitly will be a finicel balancing act. Just, bump it up a like 3 seconds or so. Otherwise its just a nerf to combat queen and a buff to ovi queen. And those two things dont balance each other out.
I think something more interesting could be just making queens faster. Queens are uber-slow, even more so when dragging- Couldn't queens get speed buffs and get less speed debuff from dragging? Making the queen faster and better at GTFOing after a screech would make this much more appealing, I think.
I might be wrong though, I wouldn't mind a brief testmerge, as long as it actually gets unmerged afterwards if it negatively affects the game or people don't like it and doesn't just turn into another "it's here now live with it".
Yeah, at this point I suppose all we can really do is wait for a testmerge and see how it goes. Might end up awful, or might end up actually decent.
Queen screech is an ability that can be played around by marines, meaning you can shake people out of the stun. Instead of lowering the skill ceiling maybe let people adapt to the game
I think you're overestimating how capable marines are at 'countering' screeches. 9/10, you're not getting shaken up. Shaking people up is extremely rare in practice, and has been that way since the start. Getting shaken up generally requires you to be in a very large deathball of marines- The queen screech as it stands, makes sure that flanking actions by smaller groups of marines are suicide. Furthermore, letting people 'adapt' to the screech just doesn't make sense to me, given that the screech has been in the game, unchanged for almost an entire decade. If people haven't gotten better at countering screeches in a literal decade, they aren't going to become better in a year.
in what way is balancing around people who wont shake a good idea?
It is not balanced around people shaking . Shaking is just a tool that humans have to get around it . Works for any stun . Not only queen screech , its literally a legacy ss13 mechanic
in what way is balancing around people who wont shake a good idea?
I said that shaking is extremely rare in practice because the screech literally freezes the majority, if not the entire group. The marines closer to the queen are stunned on the floor. The marines further away are stunned standing. The marines who can shake are the ones off-screen. When I play, there's literally so few marines that shaking up just doesn't happen unless you have a metabuddy you know looking out for you. You also get the standing-stunned marines literally bodyblocking the shit out of anyone trying to shake people further in.
If I have an AOE ability where I balance it around people who are able to twerk violently at a boss, but that same ability stops anyone from twerking in a 2 kilometre radius, then it's not really a good ability, is it? In what way is balancing screeches around shaking when screeches stop 85% of people from shaking a good idea?
While in theory reworking xenos to not rely on screech so much is a good idea, I think this is a wrong way and the time to do this.
First of all, this outright breaks screech and turns the queen into almost a guaranteed frag when fighting that big marine blob. You don't need that much knowledge to see that it's gonna result in marine speedrun meta.
Secondly, free boiler is kind of annoying above all else, because there's no marine counterplay, at least you can chase down or CAS a real boiler.
Thirdly, and most importantly. I don't think now's that correct time to do this, because there does not seem to be a strong balancing team at the moment. And in general I think we're at that stage of the CM development cycle, where marines are getting almost too overbuffed. So if this gets merged, we're gonna have another DOR sentinel situation, where the balance is going to be upset for like many months, or maybe a year, with permanent marine speedruns and whoever's gonna try to fix it up later is gonna have to deal with the new generation of entitled marines screaming "nooo, everything about xenos is supposed to suck". If you want proof - see the discussions about buffing the sentinel.
Secondly, free boiler is kind of annoying above all else, because there's no marine counterplay, at least you can chase down or CAS a real boiler.
The boiler shot is fine. Its incredibly well telegraphed. If you get hit by it, its your own fault.
Honestly, @GoldenDarkness55. It migth be best to only add the boiler shot alone and touch on queen screech in its own PR. Both dont work to balance each other out anyway. One is Ovi queen, one combat queen. You need to basicly treat those two as their own strain so to speak. Boiler shot should be easy to implement well, telegraphing of it is perfect really.
Then you have enough free room to give the screech the attention it needs to make the rework work. Cause people are rigth, a simple nerf aint the way. Changing how the screech works is fine, but it needs to be a rework then. Not nef, nor buff.
It migth be best to only add the boiler shot alone and touch on queen screech in its own PR.
The boiler bombard might be fine on its own but if you nerf screech and don't add the bombard then FOB sieges risk being absolutely aids.
Then you have enough free room to give the screech the attention it needs to make the rework work. Cause people are rigth, a simple nerf aint the way. Changing how the screech works is fine, but it needs to be a rework then. Not nef, nor buff.
I don't think any rework is necessary for it to work and it's impossible to know what exactly will need changing until the nerf is tested anyway. If it results in issues people can think up solutions - the AoE tail stuff, queen charge after a windup, raising queen speed or whatever they wanna brainstorm. Queen does have room for abilities but they should be tested separately after this is implemented and we know for sure what's required rather than large reworks that might miss the mark.