Gigantic incoming xeno buff.

[WJohnston]

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/15886

So robustin decided to bring this seemingly out of nowhere, which makes xenos even more ridiculously powerful.

Look, me being me, I love buffing xenos in all kinds of ways, but even to me this is pretty overkill.

This shifts the strategy from making use of corners and skill to running at a crowd of well armored and prepared sec officers in a wide open area and coming out on top. You should not be able to get away with that.

[Zilenan91]

WJ, I'm just gonna be up-front about this, not going to sugar-coat it in any way, you don't play. Even at a basic level, because of that simple fact, Oldman is infinitely more qualified to make decisions on balance than you are. It honestly astounds me just how terribly designed Xenos have been made over the years, with nerf after nerf thrown on top of the pile, only becoming less fun as shit was hacked on under the guise of balance.

[oranges]

Robustin doesn't play either.

[WJohnston]

I play xeno all the god damn time and regularly kick everybody's ass as them, regardless of the class I play. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about.

Now, sure, I don't play as the CREW very much, but I get dragged into non-human roles all the time like wizard apprentice, nuke ops cyborg, swarmers etc.

[Steelpoint]

He does, I saw him on in the last few days.

[Zilenan91]

Being on doesn't mean he's playing. He's said to me personally that he observes basically 90% of the time, the other time being when he does actually play. Then again I'm not really one to talk on that because I don't play that much anymore either.

As far as Robustin goes he's on pretty consistently, you can join the server and he'll be there playing. The only reason he was gone for so long for a while was because of law school from what I've been told.

[TechnoAlchemist]

Wjohnston certainly plays xeno rolls I will vouch for that.

[Zilenan91]

Much like playing any antag, traitor, lings, gang, rev, your antag can take over the station but it needs an almost miraculous set of events to happen. Xenos have a slightly easier time of this because of how mobile the lower castes are, but 9.5/10 rounds the queen will evolve in maint, get pooped on, and then the round will end.

[WJohnston]

Yeah, because like I said a dozen times in that PR, those queens *suck*.

Case in point: I observed exactly what you're describing happening on efficiency station. A queen nested above the bridge in maintenance (a horrible place to nest). Proceeded to not really lay any eggs or plant resin (starved of weapons), chased crewmembers down narrow corridors where she was an easy target (worst possible attack move), miserably failed to keep a detective knocked down because she didn't know what tackling was (only used neurotoxin spit and did miraculously well with that, somehow), tried infecting said detective who had a riot helmet on with a royal parasite, which are for making praetorians, then was cucked by the captain and HoS by trying to follow one of them and just... taking the shots.

EVEN AFTER ALL THAT MISERY, she lasted about 10 minutes with that kind of horrible misplaying.

Xenos aren't bad or hard to play, the players just are just bad.

Here's an analogy: Imagine you're playing TF2 as a soldier and you fight a scout. If the scout can't hit the broad side of a barn, runs straight at you, then stands completely still in front of you and *still* misses his shots, does killing him effortlessly make scout a bad class that's too easy to kill? Should we make his scattergun do even MORE damage than it already does, and broaden the spread so you don't even have to aim? Should we give him 200 HP and a third jump for free? No, that player is just retarded.

No matter how much you buff these classes, or in this case xenos, bad players will make them appear to suck. This is not the case.

[Zilenan91]

>bad players
And yet you're only talking about one part of xenos that wasn't even really a problem to begin with, the Queen. The real problem is that any amount of RnD or mechs make them completely irrelevant and unable to do anything but die in droves to kill whatever has them. This is why they're receiving so many buffs, because RnD has grown to such a state of power where xenos cannot compete without being a terrible experience to play because of how easily they die to burn damage, the one thing of which RnD can make a ridiculous amount of.

[WJohnston]

This PR does not help against durands outside of making it slightly easier to prevent them. Who cares if you can take one or two extra shots from the durand's laser cannon? You're still NEVER EVER going to destroy it.

[Zilenan91]

Of course not that's stupid. Humans who have hands can't even destroy those things without extremely specialized gear. What this pr does in particular is make a lot of the laser weaponry RnD makes a lot less ridiculous versus xenos.

[Grazyn]

One of the things that absolutely must go is the hivenode organ. It completely destroys xenos once the crew gets hold of one, expecially now that killing the queen is already a big deal. Even if xenos somehow survive the queen's death and build a new nest, now their comms are compromised and they can't coordinate anymore since humans are listening. Might as well just make all xenos drop dead on the spot as soon as the queen dies.

[Lumbermancer]

Xenos should be its own mode.

[Steelpoint]

That's called playing the Aliens Colonial Marines server.

You're better off creating a entirely new kind of Alien for a game mode.

[Lumbermancer]

Nothing can be worse than blob.

[DemonFiren]

Nothing can be worse than blob.

Newcult, monkey, arguably gang.

[Lumbermancer]

I'm sorry but Monkey is more entertaining than Blob could ever be.

[Steelpoint]

Monkey Mode when?

Zombie Mode when?

[Lumbermancer]

Funny that you mention zombies, because Xeno mode in my mind would work similarly.

[Steelpoint]

Make Zombies function like it does in Plague Inc.

The game starts with a select amount of players already infected with the virus, but they are still alive and (at round start) virtually identical health wise to a normal human. The players have a set amount of time before their condition gets worse and they eventually die, and here the player may have some choices. They could stave off death to infect more people, infection would possibly be limited at this stage to a certain amount of people, perhaps sacrificing evolution for infection means you make yourself less powerful to start as a Zombie but you get to infect more people. Otherwise you can simply wait until you die and you become a Zombie.

As a Zombie over time you'll evolve new traits that you can select, this can be sped up by infecting and killing people.

If the game is still going for some time eventually Central Command will dispatch a Emergency Response Team (Z-Com) to the station to contain the situation and execute anyone who is infected. Giving a hard timer for the Zombies to get their rear in gear instead of hiding in maintenance to evolve to max level.

I dunno, just spouting a random idea.

[Oldman Robustin]

Robustin doesn't play either.

I hope that's a meme son.

I took a break from like... October-December. But since then I'm on daily for several hours.

Honestly the ONLY part I feel that's controversial about this is the Heat damage ratio.

Part of me thinks it would be easier to nerf the cannon to 30 damage, but that would probably draw just as much controversy.

This PR does not help against durands outside of making it slightly easier to prevent them. Who cares if you can take one or two extra shots from the durand's laser cannon? You're still NEVER EVER going to destroy it.

Yea this PR isn't going to fix everything, aliens will still face a hard fight against mechs. Maybe that's ok. But mechs aren't spammable like las cannons and the heat nerf makes it so that xenos have a shot at escaping a mech push rather than getting 2-shot while climbing into the vent. The only solutions to mechs are overwhelming damage or EMP, giving the aliens EMP is tricky to say the least.



Overall, there's room to disagree but Xenos just aren't scary right now. They can still terrorize an undermanned or incompetent station that doesn't have RND/Cargo order weapons, but basically any exercise of resistance from the crew means that xenos aren't an existential threat. 2 years ago it was not uncommon to have rounds where the primary halls would be covered in weeds and the triumphant xeno swarm would be spamming deathgasp on the shuttle.

Now?

I honestly can't remember the last time Xenos were able to secure the shuttle during a normal midpop+ round. Hunters are the ONLY threatening xeno right now and they die in 2-4 laser shots and get fucked by riot shields. If you gave me a laser cannon and told me xenobio had a queen, praetorian, 2 sentinels and a drone inside I'd still charge in confident that as long as I yakkety'd the awkward neurotoxin (diagonal = absolute safety) I would be fine.

This changes that. If we move toward a serious effort at making a xeno mode (which I think we should) then we can have a deep discussion about the nuances of making xenos a completely balanced foe, but right now Xenos aren't just underpowered compared to humans, they UTTERLY fail at their designed role of being an existential threat to the station. Many admins/players still act like they are, but its just this awkward mismatch where crew calls a shuttle and arms up, only to completely smush the xenos and evac without the slightest risk.

[Gun Hog]

I think you two (WJ, CJS) need to come to a sort of middle-ground here. WJ is a dedicated observer which gives him optimized chances at being an alien, so he has extensive experience at playing the role optimally. CJS is the most vicious, min-maxing powergamer I have ever seen. This means that both of you are at an extreme compared to the average player. WJ would see Xenos as a sufficiently powerful role, and CJS would see them as pushovers. WJ seems them as fine, CJS sees very little challenge from them except one caste.

I agree with Robustin on a few issues, primarily growth speed and the weakness being somewhat too effective. Still, I think he may handling his approach incorrectly. A note I wanted to make: The spit being an aimed projectile is actually on WJ's wish list.

That being said, I myself feel that simply reducing the egg and larva growth times, along with making spit an aimed projectile will be sufficient to even the playing field without causing too significant a change.

[Zilenan91]

I'm not even a power player and I feel like xenos are just terrible. They've managed to be designed in such a way where every single death they have feels cheap because of their doubled burn damage. As crew they're also terrible because there's so many ways to just shit all over them while they can do nothing.

[PKPenguin321]

• Buff: Burn mod for xenos reduced from 2x to 1.5x
  Buff: Sentinel acid spit cost reduced. Corresponding nerf: Sentinel acid spit stun reduced.
  Buff: Queen's tail sweep has larger range and stun duration. Corresponding nerf: The cooldown for the queen's tail sweep has been doubled.
  Buff: Nothing, hunters were not buffed. Corresponding nerf: Leap now has a 15 plasma cost and has a longer cooldown.
  Buff: Larvae's evolve speed has been increased.

There was also some shit about tackling but what he actually changed is so poorly formatted and unclear (and not to mention buried in paragraphs of Oldman rants) that I'm not sure if there were any actual changes to tackling at all. This sentence in particular was very helpful:

It also skillful leaping as opposed to the current system of "leap down the hallway and fuck up the first thing you touch".

>It also skillful
Right.

Anyways,
tl;dr: This is really more of a "rebalancing" than a """"gigantic"""" buff", and could almost be seen as a nerf, especially to hunters.

[Oldman Robustin]

I get tired I word and sometimes dont finish


Tackling is currently 80% chance to stun and 20% chance to disarm.

Since the game pretty much requires you to go through tedious stripping to even get a facehugger onto people now, its awful having to constantly play "cat herder" trying to keep one person down while you fiddle with a menu and get your victim to a secure location.

I made the tackle 100%, I feel that its balanced for everyone except the current hunter, so I made leap cost a lot of plasma. The plasma cost is a perfect solution because:

1) Leap spam is gone (the CD only applies if you stun someone with it)

2) It means that damage against hunters is a lot stickier (before hunters had almost 0 use for plasma, and keeping your plasma topped off meant that you'd constantly regen HP on weeds). Now that most hunters will be regularly using plasma like the other castes, returning to weeds from an injury means you'll probably need to spend roughly twice as long healing your injuries. This addresses just how frustrating it was trying to put down hunters that were constantly healing while moving at sanic speeds, get them low, and then have them come back 30 seconds later at full HP.

Other changes I'd consider (perhaps in lieu of current ones) are:

- Nerfing laser cannons instead of heat damage ratios

- Nerfing hunter speed down from sanic. It's just really hard to balance around sanic speed.

- Giving praetorians a different role

- Bumping up queen speed

- Nerfing tacklespam in exchange for facehuggers actually tearing off helmets/hardsuits and masks.

[WJohnston]

I'm gonna counter a few of your points there:

Since the game pretty much requires you to go through tedious stripping to even get a facehugger onto people now, its awful having to constantly play "cat herder" trying to keep one person down while you fiddle with a menu and get your victim to a secure location.

-You should not be holding multiple people down and trying to facehug them all at once on the floor, it is best to have a bunch of nests ready to strap them into first, as it gives you a gigantic 2 minute window to strip and put a facehugger on, then kill them after they have been infected.

I made the tackle 100%, I feel that its balanced for everyone except the current hunter, so I made leap cost a lot of plasma. The plasma cost is a perfect solution because:

-100% tackle all on its own is seriously overkill, this makes it even less possible for cyborgs to get out of being juggled between disarm and harm (reducing their stuns to 1 tick instead of 2 would be nice). I've already suggested how to make it more fair for minor screw ups by first making it guaranteed try to disarm their weapon, and, if they have an empty hand, THEN it is a guaranteed tackle.

1) Leap spam is gone (the CD only applies if you stun someone with it)

-Are you serious? Putting a 15 plasma cost on leaping "fixes" leap spam? It's gone? You mean to say that, you've been fighting hunters who are SO GOD DAMNED BAD that they cannot hit one person after leaping *10 times* in a fight? This doesn't help leap spam at all. Leap spam has, for the most part, already been fixed, as there is a delay upon successfully leaping onto somebody so you cannot leap across the entire security team, and shields already block you completely. Furthermore, if you want to prevent spamming it, then put a delay between leap attempts. Not a cap on how many you can perform in a burst, even 5 would be far more than enough to win any fight, and that *still* wouldn't fix the core issue.

-No, what are you talking about? Do you know how healing works? Your PLASMA generation is cut in half when you are injured, your health does not get halved if you have used plasma! This, combined with them taking less laser damage, means they would have less health to heal, and would start healing all their plasma back at normal rate soon enough anyway. This barely increases time spent on weeds at all.

Other changes I'd consider (perhaps in lieu of current ones) are:

- Nerfing laser cannons instead of heat damage ratios

- Nerfing hunter speed down from sanic. It's just really hard to balance around sanic speed.

- Giving praetorians a different role

- Bumping up queen speed

- Nerfing tacklespam in exchange for facehuggers actually tearing off helmets/hardsuits and masks.

-That'd have to be its own PR, and you'd have to consider the changes for it against blobs, too.
-Nerfing hunter speed from sanic is already on one of my idea lists, I have plans to buff and nerf the casts in lots of ways that don't involve just toying with the numbers.
-Praetorians are meant to be royal guards, now more than ever. If the queen dies, they suffer *immensely* and won't have any reliable way to escape. They don't have high enough mobility to LEAVE the queen's side, either, so trying to make a super tough xeno as a backup queen to live on the other side of the station wouldn't work.
-Queens are not meant for offense, your speed doesn't matter if you are mainly sitting in a very small area.
-Holy shit god no are you NUTS? Facehuggers are already borderline cancerous playstyle by being 0 effort landmines that you can shit out and throw absolutely everywhere. Making it so they tear off helmets and masks would mean the ONLY way to fight xenos is from far away with fire (not fun for crew or xenos, as they never actually fight eachother and simply relocate to space), or mechs, which xenos cannot beat! The reason the crew loses to xenos is because right now they think they can actually rush in and beat them in close combat (and rarely, they do).

Finally: Your tail sweep changes are a straight nerf. Increasing the stun times by 1 tick is cute and all, but the 1 extra tile range means shit all since it's meant to be used for defense (it was DESIGNED to be a no-effort GET OFF OF ME button). 2 tiles is plenty as is, since it kicks anybody's ass who tries to come at you from a corner, without even aiming. I know you're gonna say "but it sends them flying, so you can't get them before they get up!", and maybe you should, again, think to use this thing in a cramped space full of corners where you CAN'T be flung far. Again, it's about the smart plays and environment use here.
Also, nerfing the stun times from 15 seconds to 30 is enormous, that'll make people use it even less than right now because it is going to become such a last resort weapon. I thought you wanted to buff the queen, after calling her a complete joke?



Listen, I have tons of ideas in mind to buff xenos, it just so happens that all the nerfs are what got coded in first. Don't worry, there's lots and lots of buffs on the way.

[Oldman Robustin]

We'll talk on IRC later but the tail stun is 2 ticks to 5, not +1. Tail swipe is definitely an issue. Xenos want to be pulling victims IN toward tackle range not safely launching them away from you and they're back up again in 1 second. Combined with no brute damage and tail swipe is the queen-killers best friend.

I'm not trying to hold down multiple people, I'm trying to hold down one person with a laser cannon on their back and I get double disarm meme'd and its GG.

Your suggestion would be fine at first, but as people learn the new mechanics, that you can 100% avoid an alien tackle by pulling random shit out of your bag every time it disarms you, you're going to see some A-grade bullshit going on.

I'll look into the plasma stuff but my memory was that missing plasma = little or no health regen.

If Praetorians are just going to be royal guards they should have something unique.

Facehuggers are very visible, easily killable, and without alien pockets they're actually really hard to deploy en-masse. If Colonial Marines can make hugger mechanics actually seem decent, we can too.

[Zilenan91]

From what I remember of it if you're missing health you don't regen plasma at all, rather than the other way around.

[WJohnston]

It was like that originally, but it was semi-recently changed where you now regen plasma at half rate while injured, rather than not at all.