Making xenocide a passive.
dragonmith
Join Date: 2013-02-04 Member: 182817Members, Reinforced - Diamond
Join Date: 2013-02-04 Member: 182817Members, Reinforced - Diamond
It's hard to use xenocide well.
What if it became something the skulk didn't have to activate, but activated on death? To stop exploding aliens everywhere, a reverse mutation, skulks hatch from eggs busting with unstable fluids and "potential" which if killed with produce a spectacular explosion.
Later, as they get upgrades and settle down, explosions are smaller and eventually will not occur.
Here's my thinking:
-Skulks busting from eggs with marines nearby are not very effective. No upgrades, in the open and little element of surprise (the skulks main weapon)
-By having a timer on explosions, kharms would be encouraged to move shifts to the frontlines, spawn more eggs and generally be better kharms (after all, isn't it newer kharms who would research xenocide?)
-Finally, it would buff xenocide. Nuff said.
Any thoughts? I'm not sure how current damage of explosion would work, nor the "decay" rate, so please assume that could all be fixed
What if it became something the skulk didn't have to activate, but activated on death? To stop exploding aliens everywhere, a reverse mutation, skulks hatch from eggs busting with unstable fluids and "potential" which if killed with produce a spectacular explosion.
Later, as they get upgrades and settle down, explosions are smaller and eventually will not occur.
Here's my thinking:
-Skulks busting from eggs with marines nearby are not very effective. No upgrades, in the open and little element of surprise (the skulks main weapon)
-By having a timer on explosions, kharms would be encouraged to move shifts to the frontlines, spawn more eggs and generally be better kharms (after all, isn't it newer kharms who would research xenocide?)
-Finally, it would buff xenocide. Nuff said.
Any thoughts? I'm not sure how current damage of explosion would work, nor the "decay" rate, so please assume that could all be fixed
Comments
I like the concept of having a stronger Xenocide if the Skulk refuses to use traits, though. But overall is a built-in Martydom simply something annoying to have for marines. You have the enemy right where you want him, pushed back to his Hive where he already has the healing advantage. And now you expect them to get nearly automatic kills because you kill them? That's ridiculous, tbh.
I research all abilities when I command. Even if Xenocide is available, nobody ever really uses it. The problem is not that it's too weak (marines need armor 3 to stand a chance of survival) but that you are probably going to be more useful to your team if you stayed alive because the respawn times are long.
Even with that, the premise behind current xenocide is just boring. Press a button, avoid getting killed, blow up. Not a lot of skill to it. Making it passive just removes the first step, but its still boring.
Even a1 is enough to guarantee survival even if the skulk is at the edge of your hitbox, only a0 is an instant kill. I believe it does 200 normal damage with an immediate dropoff, so unless the marine is INSIDE the skulk he is going to take less than max damage. Testing showed marines with about 19 health left after collision range xeno at a1.
Besides, an example is if a marine (or exo) is shooting an egg and a skulk jumps out. The skulk will die pretty much instantly because he has no Cara or cel, what can he do but jump at the marine and try to get a few bites in?
This passive xeno would help a tiny bit, which is all you need sometimes.
BTW, technically upgrades have passive helps. Leap allows you to jump into certain vents easier and bile bomb makes weapons disappear.
No, they’re not passives in the sense of the word, but the same logic could apply to xeno, you can still trip it for same effect yourself; just add an instant one too.
and never played alien commander....
Nothing wrong with that... I think...
That's cool @GrueneMedizin, but why would it be overpowered? You do the same thing, but are just able to parasite or bite while doing so. (And you can still use it normally, it just adds explode on death for a few XYZ after spawn).
I must admit that I have not seen many good kills with xeno either, so I think it needs buff
That's half of the third hive upgrades...
Put yourself into the position of the marines, if you got to fight higher lifeforms and constantly biting+xenociding (activation of xeno alone usually excludes biting) skulks, it'd be almost impossible to take down a hive or do some successful harassment if you cant shoot the skulks before they come into proximity.
I have kill bound to a key and use it whenever I think it's the most efficient way to get where I need to go. I am committing suicide intentionally just to travel around the map, you think I care about deaths?
Xenocide is AWFUL.
You know, the one everybody hated so much that I think they specifically started banning people from servers for using it?
In my opinion xenocide is underpowered because you can't bite after you triggered it. If it was possible sculk can weaken marines and finish them with xeno.