Why Is Xenomorph's Tail so awful?
The animations, hitbox and timing/aiming of the tail all feel so clunky, complicated and just overall terrible experience using?
I understand that the tail is very hard to use, and I am not a master at it yet but I feel like a part of the difficulty is the overall function of the tail when using it. I don't see how the awkwardness of mismatch hitbox, models, and animation timing could even be correlated to skill, either. Is there a reason that the tail feels so awkward to fire, or is this something the BHVR team is looking into?
Answers
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I think you're very right. BHVR need to figure out between them that ambiguity is not a mechanic, but lazy design.
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there is no reaction time on the tail for the survivors
initial values:
- wind up time for the tail: 200ms
- average ping survivor: 50ms
- average ping killer: 50ms
- extreme fast reaction time from visual input to output to the finger: 180ms
The Math:
- 200ms: Killer starts his tail attack on his computer
- 200ms -25ms = 175ms: Server gets the Information
- 175ms -25ms = 150ms: Survivor computer gets the Information
- 150ms - 180ms = -30ms : Survivor processes the visual information and tries to reacts but already got hit 30ms before his finger can press a button.
edit: typo
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PH feels much better to play and less clunky than tail attack. Which is absurd to even say out loud considering how ######### clunky pyramid head is
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So you're assuming every killer has perfect aim? With a hitbox smaller than a hatchet or tentacle strike.
There's also a delay between the killer hitting the button and the tail attack to take into account.
Unless you're running in a straight line, you have a pretty good chance of dodging it. You just need to be proactive instead of reactive.
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Xeno’s killer power is clunky and complicated, on purpose, to give survivors extra chances at dodging it. This whole game revolves around the killer player experience feeling absolutely terrible, just for the sake of survivor fun.
Trying to aim the tail attack while a survivor is near any environment object, feels absolutely terrible, as it feels like the game really wants to prioritize the tail hitting the environment, just so the game can remove all the hitboxes from the attack. And trying to hit a turret feels terrible, because sometimes the turret is invincible, and sometimes Xeno’s attacks just harmlessly phases through the turret.
And I still don’t understand how the turrets can make loud beeping noises that Xeno can’t hear unless it’s currently being attacked. How does that work? We can’t even pretend the turrets are making a special sound tone that only humans can hear, because Xeno can clearly hear the turret noises when Xeno is being attacked… so this is clearly BHVR just wanting the killer player experience to feel terrible, to make turret ambushes easier to do.
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We could say the same about dead hard though right?
Killers assumed every survivor could pull off a dead hard even after the initial endurance nerf.
There's also a delay between the survivor hitting the button and the animation to take into account.
You just needed to be proactive to counter it instead of reactive...
Also, having to sacrifice loops because you think they are about to use their ability is a lose/lose situation. Imagine if Pyramid Head didn't have any visual animation or sound when using his ability.
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