'Fair' nerfs to Xenomorph
So there are a lot of complaints about the Xenomorph's Tail Attack being too strong and Turrets being too weak. While I think there is something about the Xenomorph that makes it very oppressive in certain scenarios, I first want to address these complaints and why they're a little unfounded or misunderstanding the power.
(TLDR: scroll down to the labelled Nerfs 1/2/3)
1: "Tail Attack should have a longer charge and be more punishing to the killer when missed"
People seem to want the Tail Attack to have a telegraph so that it they can react to it and reliably dodge the attack during chase, and for the cooldown on said attack to be punishing enough to make distance, similar to other killer Special attacks. If the Tail Attack was no better than something like Demo's Shred, with an equivalent telegraph and cooldown for missed attacks... why would there need to be a counter mechanism like Turrets?
Why would it matter if Turrets were reworked, if survivors never needed to use Turrets anyway, because they can just dodge the Tail Attack like you could dodge a Shred?
Counters like Turrets, as well as Singularity's EMP,s or Dredges Locks, are tools given to survivors that allow the killer to have a more impactful and stronger power. Without Locks on lockers, Dredge would be too efficient at teleporting, and would need their base teleport speed reduced to compensate. With Lockers, you provide Survivors with a tool to counter the teleports, thus allowing the killers base power to be more effective and introducing a different element of skill expression to survivors, instead of relying purely on chase ability, you allow them to outplay the killer with strategy by locking the correct locker.
This is why the Tail Attack is as strong as it is. Survivors have a tool to reduce the killers power uptime and slow them down in a chase. With less than 100% power uptime, that power, Tail Attack, is afforded greater strength and impact in a chase. Survivors have the responsibility to counter it through strategy, placing Turrets in a good position, rather than chase ability.
So I don't believe the Tail Attack needs to be nerfed, at all. I think the bug that isn't slowing down the Xenomorph after a successful Tail Attack needs to be fixed, but apart from this, the Tail Attack in itself is deserving of being as powerful as it is due to the built in counter mechanism in Turrets.
Tail Attack is supposed to be unforgiving and difficult to 'counter' while in chase, in order to pressure survivors to make use of Turrets. Otherwise highly skilled survivors would be able to ignore Turrets entirely and rely on their dodging skills to get them by instead. Survivors need to learn to utilise the counter mechanism effectively to avoid being chased by the Xenomorph in Crawler mode. That said...
2: "Turrets are too weak and never work"
Turrets are not intended to work all the time. If they did, then they wouldn't merely be a mechanism to reduce the killers power uptime from 100%, but they would effectively make it 0% when placed correctly. There's a balancing act to play here, they need to reduce power uptime without removing it entirely, which means they can't work all the time.
Even when the killer destroys a Turret, they are being slowed down, they are spending time on an attack and the cooldown and slowdown associated with that attack rather than continuing immediately into the chase. So no Turret isn't 'wasted', even when destroyed, they are serving a purpose either way.
The issue I do have here is that Turrets are an all-or-nothing mechanism. Either the Xenomorph destroys it in time and are only slowed down, or they don't and they lose their power entirely. This results in a skill floor that I believe is too low, where moderately experienced Xenomorphs can almost always disable a Turret in time, and thereby only feel the lesser of the two counters.
Nerf 1: Turrets no longer build up a separate gauge and then either disable Crawler mode or not depending on if that gauge is filled. Instead, Turrets will always knock the Xenomorph out of Crawler mode, but the remaining charge will be relative to the time you were hit by the flames. Similar to when picking up a survivor drops you to 75% charge. Therefore if you do successfully destroy the Turret fast enough, you will regain Crawler mode faster than if you did not.
This would equalise the skill floor a little, so that experienced killers are still moderately countered, but less so than inexperienced still. It would make Turrets feel that they're always doing 'something' for survivors, and be a more proportional counter to the threat of the Tail Attack.
3: "Xenomorph can access tunnels too fast, and make taking a turret too risky"
These I feel are 100% genuine issues. Most other 'teleporting' killers take a while at the start of a match before they're able to access their teleporting power, and while Xenomorph's isn't quite as fast as some others, it's still very quick to find and catch a survivor at the start of a match.
Nerf 2: At the start of the game, maximum speed while traversing tunnels is reduced by 50% (9m/s), gradually increasing to 100% (18m/s) over the course of 45 seconds.
Additionally Xenomorph can emerge from a tunnel as or shortly after a survivor has picked up a turret, when that survivor is completely helpless and out positioned. Some of this you can chalk up to bad luck and needing to be more aware of your surroundings, but usually there's nothing a survivor can do to know if the killer is about to emerge from a tunnel when there isn't already a turret set up there, which is the whole reason for grabbing said turret.
Nerf 3: Once a control station is 'opened' by a survivor (the action taken before you can 'pick up' the turret), for 10 seconds, emerging from that tunnel will force the Xenomorph into the 'slower' exiting animation, the same as is used for emerging from tunnels close to a hooked survivor.
These would make approaching and obtaining turrets, particularly at the start of the match, a little more forgiving for survivors, and make the counterplay to the Tail Attack more accessible, as well as making a surprise ambush immediately upon starting a match a little less likely and less oppressive.
Comments
Must have been a bug then. I've been palleted during corrupt before and didn't lose it.