[POLL]Should Xeno be given it's own Game Mode/Random Event?

tunderchief · Post by **tunderchief** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 4:39 am #21129

I posted a near identical poll on the old forums nearly a year ago. It received votes totaling more than 70% in favor of Xeno becoming an actual, bonafide round type, or an event that actually fires off with some amount of frequency, rather than an admin-only action used to speed up boring rounds or a very rare Admin-run extended round with Xenos at start.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 4:42 am #21130

It's made to end rounds and it'd have to be balanced properly for a game mode so no don't do this aliens are supposed to be mega robust.

tunderchief · Post by **tunderchief** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 4:49 am #21133

paprika wrote:It's made to end rounds and it'd have to be balanced properly for a game mode so no don't do this aliens are supposed to be mega robust.

The only thing Xenos have is the stun touch. That is literally it now. Half the headwear in the game is now facehugger proof.

Cipher3 · Post by **Cipher3** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 4:54 am #21135

I hate Xenos.

Anyways this has been discussed so much for as long as I've known.

kosmos · Post by **kosmos** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:11 am #21142

I like how xenos currently are, but I still say yes if it would be carefully balanced and thought out. Not like it currently is.
The game could use more team-based antag rounds.

Maybe nuke ops but with xenos could work?

tunderchief · Post by **tunderchief** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:19 am #21144

kosmos wrote:I like how xenos currently are, but I still say yes if it would be carefully balanced and thought out. Not like it currently is.
The game could use more team-based antag rounds.

Maybe nuke ops but with xenos could work?

My thoughts exactly. Xenos start with a Queen and one or two drones/hunters/sentinels on a derelict hive shuttle on a random position off the station proper.

mrpain · Post by **mrpain** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 6:49 am #21152

I see a lot of wasted potential with xeno's and a game mode.

Maybe spawn a queen and a view other xenos/ or just some larva and give them an objective such as "have weeds on x amount of tiles" "have x amount of xeno's spawned" etc. Maybe kill shuttle calls like with blob and rev and have the game end when the queen dies or the objective completed. Possibly.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:40 am #21187

Yes please.

Why are xenos better than revolution:

1) They keep people in the round.
2) They don't instantly fuck people over, their objective is to infect, not kill, so you still have a chance to get out and get surgery, instead of instant conversions.
3) They have a bunch of fun content and mechanics. Rev doesn't offer any additional content whatsoever, it just gives people antag status.

Remove rev and replace it with aliens please. Just adding aliens would also be fine, but less so.

Cipher3 · Post by **Cipher3** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 8:11 pm #21282

Actually they remove you from the round, put someone else in your place, and likely will eventually put you back in the round depending on how fail the rest of the crew is comparable to you. And if you come back you're a xeno with one of a few roles, most of which are meh, and your first few minutes back in the round are meh.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 8:44 pm #21287

These polls are just about as useful as online petitions.

If you want to get something in the game you need to actually do it.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 8:45 pm #21288

Ikarrus wrote:If you want to get something in the game you need to actually do it.

Well, it'd be kind of sad to have PR rejected because somebody doesn't like it after you did all the hard work and stuff.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 8:52 pm #21289

The only thing offered here was a very general poll on a "Xeno Game Mode" but doesn't offer any further details or elaboration. We can't judge if a "Xeno Game Mode" PR based on this will be accepted because there's nothing to base any judgements on. It's far too vague to be of any use to anyone. He's already said he made this poll a while ago, so what's the point of running the exact same poll/discussion again?

tunderchief · Post by **tunderchief** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:47 pm #21299

Ikarrus wrote:The only thing offered here was a very general poll on a "Xeno Game Mode" but doesn't offer any further details or elaboration. We can't judge if a "Xeno Game Mode" PR based on this will be accepted because there's nothing to base any judgements on. It's far too vague to be of any use to anyone. He's already said he made this poll a while ago, so what's the point of running the exact same poll/discussion again?

Because it was done on the old forums, and should someone decide to undertake the effort to make a Xeno game mode, I want them to see how feasible it is, and how much of the current community actually supports such an effort.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:54 pm #21300

This should be less of a poll on whether or not it should be a thing and more of an active discussion about how to balance it then. If it's something people want, there needs to be some ideas. One queen spawn? One queen, a few sentinels, etc? I could easily get onto the brig part of the station station and disarm spam all of sec and ruin them as a hunter. Aliens are incredibly robust in the movies and there's TONS of them. It wouldn't work as a gamemode without completely pussifying aliens.

tunderchief · Post by **tunderchief** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:59 pm #21303

paprika wrote:This should be less of a poll on whether or not it should be a thing and more of an active discussion about how to balance it then. If it's something people want, there needs to be some ideas. One queen spawn? One queen, a few sentinels, etc? I could easily get onto the brig part of the station station and disarm spam all of sec and ruin them as a hunter. Aliens are incredibly robust in the movies and there's TONS of them. It wouldn't work as a gamemode without completely pussifying aliens.

Well, Wizard and Ops are extremely powerful, too, but that doesn't seem to be an issue. And I regularly see Xenos get shut down by a semi competent crew.

That's where it becomes a matter of balance. Should the Xenos start as larvae? Should the crew be warned and given time to prepare?

I mean, I'm considering slapping some code together and borrowing heavily from the Ops mode, but I want to see what people want, and what ideas we can come up with to balance the game a bit.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:00 pm #21304

There's fucking 5 ops and they can't make more. The wizard can only have a limited amount of apprentices or make constructs, which aren't even HALF as robust as aliens are.

I really hate this idea since it'll almost certainly nerf aliens as a random event or be horribly implemented.

tunderchief · Post by **tunderchief** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:10 pm #21310

paprika wrote:There's fucking 5 ops and they can't make more. The wizard can only have a limited amount of apprentices or make constructs, which aren't even HALF as robust as aliens are.

I really hate this idea since it'll almost certainly nerf aliens as a random event or be horribly implemented.

Why do Xenos need to be easy?

Blob isn't easy. Ops isn't easy. Antags win all the time. You could so some shit where the gestation period for facehugged crew is increased, but that'd just be boring.

What if a timed Nanotrasen Commando squad spawns? That was would balance things out quite a bit.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:34 pm #21317

I think that somebody should start infected at the start of the round, like in blob. They receive antag status from the start and turn into larva after certain time, in which they can hide/sabotage/kidnap more people/monkeys/whatever. There should be at least 2 such people so that they won't just die and boom, the end of the round.

Round end is tougher. What kind of objectives should they get? What is crew's winning condition? Escape on the shuttle without xenos? Yeah, but then rounds would end awfully quickly and aliens are slow to mature. I suppose we could make AI receive quarantine law to make it prevent shuttle from calling.

Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:58 pm

Xenos already is a random event

tunderchief · Post by **tunderchief** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:00 pm #21321

MisterPerson wrote:Xenos already is a random event

That almost never happens. A tree falls in the woods and no one sees it, etc.

Alex Crimson · Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:02 pm

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:I think that somebody should start infected at the start of the round, like in blob. They receive antag status from the start and turn into larva after certain time, in which they can hide/sabotage/kidnap more people/monkeys/whatever. There should be at least 2 such people so that they won't just die and boom, the end of the round.

Round end is tougher. What kind of objectives should they get? What is crew's winning condition? Escape on the shuttle without xenos? Yeah, but then rounds would end awfully quickly and aliens are slow to mature. I suppose we could make AI receive quarantine law to make it prevent shuttle from calling.

This sounds pretty neat. The only other option i can think of, like i said in the thread months ago, is to spawn a few Larva on the Mining Asteroid at roundstart.

As for conditions. For Humans the obvious ones would be...

Human major victory - Eradicating all Queens and Drones from the Station and Mining Z-level
Human minor victory - Escaping on the shuttle with no Aliens on board
Alien minor victory - Covering 70-80% of the station in that purple weed stuff. Similar to the Blob objective
Alien major victory - Atleast 1 Alien making it to Centcomm on the emergency shuttle

Humans could call the shuttle early to win, but that would risk giving Aliens the chance at a major victory. A decent way to stop people calling the shuttle instantly i think, although i imagine it will not be very effective.

As for balance, i do not think Aliens are that strong. Sure 1v1 a good Alien will kill you, but its a damn Alien, they are supposed to be killing machines. The whole lore behind Aliens is the idea that they are the ultimate bio-weapon. However if the Humans have lasers, which they can easily order from Cargo, Aliens die very quickly. Their facehuggers can be completely negated by wearing a damn cardborg helmet, which you spawn with. Their spit is useless if Sec arms up with riot shields.

Stickymayhem · Wed Oct 13, 2021 6:17 pm

Without major changes xeno would never work as a roundtype, and I don't want it changed drastically to fit it either.

Aliens simply doesn't work as a roundstart gamemode. Aliens requires a distraction on the station for at least ten and more like twenty minutes to get the ball rolling, and once they do they are literally unstoppable by their most core mechanic: They gib humans and create aliens. This entirely removes people from ever being human again while bolstering the alien force, turning this into an extremely one sided war of attrition.

Alien is meant to be a convenient way to end rounds. The only reason anyone has fun with aliens is because they occur later in a round and bring people back into the game, but they require a sentient hand to guide their spawn location and the timing of their spawning, which the game simply cannot do automatically.

Keep aliens as they are. They absolutely not suitable for an engaging entertaining gamemode in and of themselves.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:45 pm #21329

Alex Crimson wrote:Alien major victory - Atleast 1 Alien making it to Centcomm on the emergency shuttle

The problem with that is that aliens cannot call the shuttle. Humans just won't call it and that's it. Also hiding one alien somewhere in cockpit window or whatever would be quite easy.

Alex Crimson · Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:55 pm

I do not see the harm in atleast trying it out. As far as i know its never been tried before. Aliens tend to be pretty popular, and Alien-spamming servers tend to get a decent amount of players.

and the attrition goes both ways. Aliens can be slowly eradicated by an even semi-organised group of players with helmets and lasers. They can only increase their numbers by impregnating living humans or getting into the monkey pens, which is rare.

The problem with that is that aliens cannot call the shuttle. Humans just won't call it and that's it. Also hiding one alien somewhere in cockpit window or whatever would be quite easy.

Then Aliens can go for the minor victory of overrunning the station. As for Aliens hiding, maybe the crew could stop griefing eachother long enough to search the shuttle? As far as i know there is no spot on the shuttle that is a complete safe-zone. Even behind the consoles at the front of the shuttle, can you not move them with some fancy deconstructing? Cant say ive ever tried.

Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:05 am

No no no, you're missing something important. Suppose the aliens kill all the humans and take over the station. Congratulations, the round will now never end. Ever.

Alex Crimson · Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:08 am

MisterPerson wrote:No no no, you're missing something important. Suppose the aliens kill all the humans and take over the station. Congratulations, the round will now never end. Ever.

As i suggested earlier, give the Aliens a win condition involving them filling the station with weeds. Hell, have them win by killing a % of the stations personnel. You are a coder dude, you tell us if its possible to have win conditions like that.

tunderchief · Post by **tunderchief** » Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:24 am #21341

MisterPerson wrote:No no no, you're missing something important. Suppose the aliens kill all the humans and take over the station. Congratulations, the round will now never end. Ever.

But that's not true.

>Alien minor victory - Covering 70-80% of the station in that purple weed stuff. Similar to the Blob objective

Aliens shit weeds, so the game WILL end in a reasonable amount of time.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Sat Jul 26, 2014 2:17 am #21367

Also someone tell WJ that aliens are purple and not black like in the movies because they feed off plasma and he can take his recolored sprites elsewhere

Kuraudo · Post by **Kuraudo** » Sat Jul 26, 2014 7:12 pm #21519

I vote yes.
Adding Xenos on top of another major threat like changeling, revs, even some dangerous traitors, seems already dumb. That's why it must be a separate game mode.
As for the victory conditions, getting 80 % (or 100 %) of the crew infected/killed seems fair.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Sat Jul 26, 2014 7:15 pm #21523

But aliens usually end really long (and boring) ling/extended rounds. I have never seen them actually ruin a round within 30-60 minutes, ever.

tunderchief · Post by **tunderchief** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 7:00 am #21912

paprika wrote:But aliens usually end really long (and boring) ling/extended rounds. I have never seen them actually ruin a round within 30-60 minutes, ever.

HBL and Bluespace will occasionally run round-start extended rounds with Xenos. And those rounds are honestly ridiculously fun. The whole crew works to fight the threat, rather than a staple percentage showing up for Blob.

If we could design a game mode that revolved around infecting the station, and perhaps an auto-spawned Deathsquad, it would easily become the most enjoyable round type on the servers.

kosmos · Post by **kosmos** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:26 am #21932

tunderchief wrote:If we could design a game mode that revolved around infecting the station, and perhaps an auto-spawned Deathsquad, it would easily become the most enjoyable round type on the servers.

This kinda gamemode would definitely have the best players-in-the-round / players-dead-waiting -ratio throughout the round.

Kelenius · Post by **Kelenius** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:30 am #21933

And we will replace rev with it. Everyone wins!

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 4:44 pm #21962

Why can't people who die to the blob control their own blob zombies seriously

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 4:47 pm #21964

paprika wrote:Why can't people who die to the blob control their own blob zombies seriously

The last thing we want is to encourage people to run into the blob.

Its why I hate the "Borg Converter" and why the victim does not control the alien that emerges from their corpse.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 4:48 pm #21965

oh, true. why not make it like alium and have it pull from deadies? Borger should do that too.

Cheridan · Post by **Cheridan** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 6:12 pm #21990

PROJECTED TIMELINE OF ALIUM MODE:

1. Alien mode created
2. Imbalances, issues and bugs arise
3. Issues are fixed
4. People whine that it was better before, everyone hates it and calls it a shit mode
5. Taken out of heavy rotation
6. Maintenance on the code decreases, some bug eventually renders the mode unusable (hi meteor mode)

aliens have been fucked with so many times can we please just leave them alone and put effort towards something more productive

Cipher3 · Post by **Cipher3** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 6:23 pm #21995

Cheridan wrote:4. People whine that it was better before, everyone hates it and calls it a shit mode

This is true for half of our current modes, too.

Cipher3 · Post by **Cipher3** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 6:23 pm #21996

Cheridan wrote:4. People whine that it was better before, everyone hates it and calls it a shit mode

This is true for half of our current modes, too.

Alex Crimson · Post by **Alex Crimson** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:17 pm #22017

Cheridan wrote:PROJECTED TIMELINE OF ALIUM MODE:

1. Alien mode created
2. Imbalances, issues and bugs arise
3. Issues are fixed
4. People whine that it was better before, everyone hates it and calls it a shit mode
5. Taken out of heavy rotation
6. Maintenance on the code decreases, some bug eventually renders the mode unusable (hi meteor mode)

aliens have been fucked with so many times can we please just leave them alone and put effort towards something more productive

It hasnt even been tried yet, as far as i know. Why would you assume this would be the case? The only Alien game mode ive ever seen was the servers set up specifically to run Alien rounds all day, and they were pretty popular if i remember right. The only major complaint was that having Aliens constantly 24/7 got a little boring, which would be the case for any game mode.

So what? We never make new games modes because the coders are afraid of imbalance and bugs? Well jeez, i guess we will never have new things added to the station in that case. Because everything you guys make is always balanced and bug-free...

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 3:46 am #22067

The main problem with the Alien only servers was not the game mode, it was the administration being utterly shit (Banned for admin disrespect level) and the owners making unpopular changes to the game's code which made it even worse (Going from /tg/ code to Bay code, removing core aspects) and then forcing Role Play rules similar to Baystation to a heavy extent.

On top of the poorly designed maps used, being unable to stop shitlers and a heavily inconsistent administration of rules (I got into a argument on a admin wanting to ban me for meta-gaming cause I wore a Gas Mask, as a Soldier).

The alien game mode has proven to be well received and fun, it just needs proper coding, balancing and administration.

tunderchief · Post by **tunderchief** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 4:12 am #22077

Cheridan wrote:PROJECTED TIMELINE OF ALIUM MODE:

1. Alien mode created
2. Imbalances, issues and bugs arise
3. Issues are fixed
4. People whine that it was better before, everyone hates it and calls it a shit mode
5. Taken out of heavy rotation
6. Maintenance on the code decreases, some bug eventually renders the mode unusable (hi meteor mode)

aliens have been fucked with so many times can we please just leave them alone and put effort towards something more productive

But Monkey Mode is perfect and everyone loves it, amirite?

If you compare the support for Xeno mode against the support for any other game mode barring maybe Traitors, you will see more support for Xeno.

People want the round type. People have wanted the round type for literally years, and have been ignored.

There is not a single damned reason why the overwhelming support in favor of a Xeno game mode should not be taken into account, whilst shit like Monkey Mode and Blob is tried over and over even though a large percentage of the community dislike it.

kosmos · Post by **kosmos** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 6:26 am #22088

Cheridan wrote:PROJECTED TIMELINE OF ALIUM MODE:

1. Alien mode created
2. Imbalances, issues and bugs arise
3. Issues are fixed
4. People whine that it was better before, everyone hates it and calls it a shit mode
5. Taken out of heavy rotation
6. Maintenance on the code decreases, some bug eventually renders the mode unusable (hi meteor mode)

Of course this can happen, everything we do has certain risks.
But aliens could also experience what happened with Blob, I don't know the details of how that went production-wise, but it seems to be doing pretty darn well now compared to what it was and I've seldom heard people say that Blob was better before.

Should Xeno be given it's own Game Mode/Random Event that actually occurs?