Nerfs queen screech and re-adds bombard to ovi state

[GoldenDarkness55]

About the pull request

Revives https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/colonial-warfare/-/merge_requests/1883 originally denied due to rapidly changing gamestate. Things have calmed down since and this horrible ability still plagues the game. The various limiters (stomps, dragging nerfs) have only served to make queen gameplay more frustrating without really doing anything about the myriad of issues this ability brings.

Removes the standing stun and nerfs the knockdown of queen screech while adding daze and a heavy slow with the goal of making it a less unfun - for both sides - "I win" button that grinds games to a halt. See video section for changed duration and effects.

Re-adds a techweb remnant boiler cloud to queen to improve the super boring ovi and ensure FOB sieges don't become impossible with this change.

Explain why it's good for the game

Screech in its current state has been abominably horrible for the game for years now.

• Completely breaks any sort of natural game progression - even when marines have an advantage and were pushing, the moment they hear a queen, the round will immediately devolve into cadehugging and defensive play, not only grinding it to a boring halt, but also forcing the other side to attack regardless of the strength differences. What could be a fun round instantly becomes a slog.

• In extreme cases can cause the entire round to end just off one ability combo or gained momentum killing the entire front, swinging rounds in an overly extreme fashion (reminiscient of removed FATTY rockets)

Queen shouldn't become a non-factor but should not decide games with a single button or take complete control of the round progress and actions of 100+ players just by showing up.

• Severely breaks xeno ability balance and enforces limits on what could otherwise be added. Look at acid runner and berserker eviscerate as the worst offenders - the former loses all risk and the latter from an ability that normally would hit 2-3 marines becomes a guaranteed 6+ (often into double digits) AoE murdermachine.

Should result in more leeway with abilities and mechanics without the "no because what if scree" limits and reduces the insane ability power swings making balance easier.

• Makes the xeno team overly reliant on one player for whether they win or lose.

• Literally removes the gameplay from the game as it devolves into "walk around the map with queen and slash static helpless mobs".

• Press space to win with no skill requirement and real counterplay is as unfun as it gets.

• Entirely shuts down flanking and by extension command gameplay because one button is enough to kill an entire squad, making anything but murderblobs nigh pointless.

The goal of this PR is to give the game back to the players and actually allow them to play it without this horrible fun limiter. Should result in more dynamic, fun rounds and more of the map being used.

• Likely many other reasons I missed

Overpowered screech is not fun for either side nor necessary.

Doubt it will cause marine stomps since the game should balance itself naturally via marines taking risks, playing and pushing. If that's not the case it should be pretty easy to figure out what needs to be changed - likely buffing weaker xeno caste and t2-t3's ability to deal with crowds through ability (not stat!) tweaks.

The boiler cloud always struck me as a pretty balanced, fun ability (same as railguns for SOs barring cooldown tweaks) that got shafted due to the entire bad system being removed. Punishes overly static gameplay and ensures xenos can go on the offensive within the smoke.

Testing Photographs and Procedure

Screenshots & Videos

Screech.mp4

Boiler.mp4

Changelog

🆑
add: Added boiler bombard ability to ovi'd queen with a 30 second cooldown.
balance: Lowered screech knockdown within 4 tiles from 4s to 2s and to 1s further away. Removed standing stun. Added 3 seconds of daze and 5 seconds of superslow on both ranges.
/:cl:

[harryob]

we still do not do balance feedback on pull requests, this is for code review. take it to the forums

[Drulikar]

This can be tested, but I am almost certain it will need changes so it is DNM for now. As far as what changes, I'm not quite sure yet. Give me some time to see maybe a round of this or tinker with it.

[Drulikar]

Apologies you weren't present when I finally got some time to test this. There may be more feedback that comes in, but I think there is a strong consensus that as this is its very flawed.

1. I don't feel its very appropriate to compensate screech changes with ovi changes.
2. Screech, though it wasn't worthless, I am not inclined to think it needs to change. I'm not sure what to suggest here though since this was the core of your reason for changes.
3. Bombard is very awkward to get to go off - you're fighting lots of line of sight errors and range errors.
4. Bombard decimates survivors and immediately puts pressure on marines first drop. It is just entirely inappropriate to be available from round start.
5. 30s cooldown is far too short.

However, I could see this potentially being a resin purchase if the targeting of it could go a bit smoother. I don't know if the solution would be to just allow it on weeds; or what.