was mentioned and after a series of riggerous test on a private sv_cheats 1, and past xp with xeno in combat and in classic

also as a show of bost on a seriouser idea than some others that have flown around lattly

take xeno its a what five second timer and what 500 points of damage at ground zero, well its quite apparent ya cant reach a rine that has lvl 3 weap, and xeno dont do much with 4th lvl armor,

yes xeno is a awsome ability, its grand in more than one way as its go the ability to clear a huge area with massive damage, yet in classic it requires 3 hives a wait in spawn que and a nice long trip all the way across the map to get back to the fight

eh so theres some issues there, but ill leave that up to some one eles to sujest

what i am going to sujest is a buff to xeno, instead of utter desimation to a vanila rine on one hp, i want utter desimation, of five ha on 4th lvl armor, wait you ask why, why.. well cos i am sitting on mc's, mc's you say how dat help, simple remove the five second timer, give it a prime and detonte tigger eg like a grenade, or like a charge up weapon, hold the trigger powers up realses when ready,

for two reason this would make xeno more versatile, in most casses if you get to the target to soon you got to dodge a almost endless supplie of rounds praying you dont die before the xeno goes off, and if you trigger just to early ya feel like ya misses does after a hot moment of you inside her for no more than 2 minutes on a friday night

in other words deprived

so

ya hold down the trigger, energy burns, the more energy burned the more the damage counts up, eh ya can prolly draw the line some were, i mean there no point in allowing the damage to count up into the millions, so it cuts off at said point, but the energy is still burned at the same rate till the trigger is realses, on realses big boom, not just a little pop

basicly a combat sulk, takes adrenaline can hold this xeno in till his energy is burnt were he will auto fire/detonate, but at full damage so at the cut off point, the percs with classic is, you can sit on a mc and hold this xeno in, it will try and burn to auto fire but the mc's wont allow it, basicly still giveing you the option, to get into pozzie at full power to let one rip when you want

so basicaly we now have a viable 4th weapon for sulk, it changes nothing yet changes every thing

vote one for makeing baked beans the sulks staple diet

i seriously dislike this idea.

why? you are basically making third hive = win with no chance of marines redeeming themselves. protolab upgrades become practically useless if this idea is implemented and xenocide is used properly, and JP/HA is very expensive. skulks can defend the hive by taking down HA/JP by the dozens, what's more xenocide is free. so basically you are denying the marines any hope of ever winning, thus further enforcing the "we gonna lose, let's f4" mentality.

also, i think taking away the timer for xenocide also denies the chance for marines to take down the skulk before it blows, which imho is very unfair. the marines won't get rfk at all since the skulk just clicks once and suicides instantly, and the marines won't even have a chance to kill it.

some nice strong rebuttles there, but basicaly the cut off points would only amount to possibly a extra 200 damage i would go 250 to be safe, the blast radius hasnt been increases, and this idea really has its strong points and weaknesss, basicaly if you only click for a tick, a small boom, and if ya holding it down praying ya dont auto woosh, your not chomping, as with the current timer ya can click it and swap ta other things


so its still on a timer, according to your energy, and it not just a count down, and haveing the option to detonate, when you feel ready really leaves the success and fail rate up to you, you wait to long you could die, or pull off a mega xeno, you reales to early it may not be enough of a force to knock off that rine

you say you want to take random asspects out of the game, this is one of them random asspects that should be given back to aliens to control

the buff in damage and the abillity to detonate when wanted to a exstent, is the price you pay for not being able to use other attacks dureing this burn, leaveing them the alien open to fire

its a third hive weapon, you say its ment to be game over for rines, and dont make me go pull count less threads were this has been stated

it will be effective aginst HA, which is some thing alien need, simple cos aliens can get thrid hive rines have ha, but if rines get ha and alien dont have third hive, tough biccies? well i say this might be the edge the third hive sulk needs for aiding in clearing out HA, jps they wont beable to touch reason being they cant change abilitys for leap any more, the only thing they could do is start a leap change to xeno and charge up a little pop, or falling short with a charge up xeno,

though what it will allow is a sulk to sit on the ground full xeno charge and wait for that jp to run out of juice, hello extra spreads of mc's

this idea will promote team work, it gives control back to the player, there choice lead to victory or success, it brings a well added buff thats needed IMO, it has cons that that are pros to rines

and xeno and redemption are ment to denie the rines R4K

I really like this idea, but I do think the damage shouldn't be upped too much. Make it just enough to kill a non-HA armour 3 marine 1-2 feet away at max charge. That boost, combined with the removed timer should really help it, but not too much. And remember, you need three hives for this, so you deserve something awesome if you manage to get it. The marine easiest and best counter to it is to not allow a third hive. Besides, by the time a third hive is up, the game is usually already decided. This will just help speed up the endgame turtle destruction.

And yes, it could severly hinder a comeback, but a team that let them get a third hive in the first place probably doesn't have much chance to comeback.

na i still say if you get JP these sulks are going to have a rough time, you cant trigger ya xeno to go off now, then leap at the target and piggy back him, you can leap then quike change then fire and realses for a small pop, if ya want to xeno a jp, ya going to have to have a surface, and a charged fart, up ya sleave

I'm not sure this is the right way to go about changing xeno, but I think it needs to be changed. The problem is that xeno is barely used in NS right now, but used constantly in CO. Balancing it for one tends to unbalance it for the other - given the basic functionality of xeno (a big explosion), I think CO is just more conducive to that sort of behavior.

In NS right now, xeno isn't that useful. Alien's midgame already shows up pretty fast and packs quite a punch though, so it does need to be kept a late game ability.

This is just a really random suggestion I thought of and I'm not sure how it would play, but hear me out. What if xeno left the skulk with like 1 HP but did more damage? If the marines are all killed (unlikely) the skulk doesn't have to wait through the spawn queue and can run off to a hive/DC or gorge for healing. If he doesn't get all the marines, they kill him and get the RFK.

This idea is interesting. First off it changes how skulks xenocide currently. I don't know about you, but I xenocide usually in one of two ways. Either I'll click xenocide, leap into marines, bite one of them, and hope to explode, or leap into them, start the xenocide, bite them, and hope to explode. This would take the leaping part out of that but you'd have the option of when to detonate and how big your detonation will be depending on how long you were holding down xeno. It has its advantages and disadvantages. I think it makes it harder for skulks to take out jetpacks, considering how they can't leap and xeno in the air. At the same time I think it makes skulks a bit stronger against heavies, something that could upset balance somewhat. As of now I'm undecided but I think a third system implementing both the current system and your system would be the best idea.

Interesting idea.

+ more damage, more control of when you xeno.
- no more xeno-leap-chompchomp *boom!*

I do have to say one of the more annoying things about xeno is the xeno-leap. While it takes skill to get it right, once you mastered it, it's really hard for marines to defend against it. In other words, marines don't exactly have a chance, and hope their armor/welding will protect it against them.

This, however, changes the mentality. Because you don't have leap anymore, skulks with xeno are MUCH more vulnerable. Skulks will have to ambush either from the ceiling or vent instead of zooming by a hallway, leaping into the crowd of marines. The offset is more damage, and more control.

I'm pretty mixed about this. I like the idea, but... I'm not so sure how it'll play out. Oh, and I'm assuming that the increased damage here isn't so much that it can take a fully armored HA in one hit. I'm also assuming that the powering the xeno at full will make the skulk auto-explode, so the skulk can't just run around with xeno at 'max' setting.

im going to build myself 3 mcs in marine spawn...

and then i ll activate xeno...and as soon as the relocate position brakes down and the commander beacons i ll blow the whole marine team to death. Muahaha

And the Rts around Marine Start...and the CC of the relocate spot...

wait a sec... o0

no...i dont think that would be too good. lets leave it as it is now...

(and yes i know you werent talking about million-damage)

Cheese, the game's over by 3 hives, anyway.

Somehow I managed to forget entirely about the structures thing.

I think jetpackers are already hard enough to deal with on some maps.

I'm willing to say that I am seriously overpowered with xenocide in CO. I am by no means an excellent player, but I know how to **** xeno and it's ridiculously effective. I get silence and leap (in either order), then save up and get xenocide by level five. Silence means that the marines don't hear the charge-up so they can prepare, leap gets me close to the rines. By triggering xeno before leaping, then timing my leap right, I can blow up before the marines get any real chance to kill me. No rfk for them. So what if they have level three armour? Two or three xeno blasts and they're dead anyway. No problem with CO's fast respawning. And they're easy pickings for my teammates in their weakened states, anyway. Xeno doesn't need a buff.

And five seconds charge-up time? Where did you get that number from? It's closer to 1-1.5 seconds.

I've been thinking about this longer and longer, the more I start leaning towards the system we already have where you can leap and xeno. It's so key to be able to do that, that having a charge up xeno where you can get a ton more power, but not be able to leap, would be rendered moot since most likely you won't even get to the marines by the time you're fully charged, and you might get killed, certainly faster than with the current system. I like my xeno the way it is. It takes skill to use it correctly timed with leap, and getting bites in is all for the better.

I really never thought xeno was underpowered... unlike most things in all of NS, I actually think xeno is just about right. Xeno isnt meant to be an atomic explosion, its meant to be more of a primer for a skulks teammates, so marines are weakened for the incoming alien advance. At least this is how I see it.

I like the idea on the whole of it, but I see balance issues cropping out of it, mostly due to JP's.

In one sense, the xno is been nerfed, no more leaping/biting/paraing whilst xenoing.
Whilst it also become harder to use effectively. -- Choose Xeno, click fire, and hold, whilst trying to sneak (whilst charging up the xeno, is the skulk gonna scream increasingly louder, or some new sound FX?), or jump out at the rines hoping to catch them before they blow the skulk away.
The skulk player has to choose the best time when the jump out, somewhere between having their skulk screaming loud enough to give themselves away, and yet have enough explosive power to kill their target/s. And that's if they can get close enough. Perfect Grade Xeno might become the domain of the bunny hoppers, as they are the only ones who can get close enough.

Increaseing the total Xeno damage is the way to offset any issues, but still it has to be balanced correctly. Not too much. Not too little.

Perhaps it's something for the devs and playertesters to explore. I'm not advocating this is the best way, or most fun/playable way forward, just that it should be explored.

I can just imagie some new players starting out though.
"What does xeno do?"
Click.
Boom!
"Oh. That's kinda of pointless."
They come back later and get owned by someone who knows to hold fire down.