Winning Game Becomes Losing Game
Acrobad
Join Date: 2002-10-31 Member: 1779Members
Join Date: 2002-10-31 Member: 1779Members
<div class="IPBDescription">When marines close their ears (long)</div> In my last few games, I had experienced a most urging sensation to kill my fellow marines when I was commanding.
I was commanding for several maps... well, actually, just 2. Tanith and bast, i believe.
anyways, in Tanith, all was going well. I abandoned our base and moved onto satelite, made a new base there, everything went pretty well and we started to have a little outpost in Cargo... which led a pretty big battle at that area throughout the whole game.
I built siege there to take out their reactor hive, things went well, those fades remaining become dead.
I build phase gates there to have my marines travel easier
I even build a little outpost in the reactor hive to make sure it's safe.
now here comes the problem. The aliens only got one hive, but they're still attacking aggressively. I told my troops to gather around Cargo so we can head out.
Well, guess what? some people thought that they will take another route, gathered a few of my man and headed back to our main base, which is now in Kharaa's hand (claws)
Well that was alright we could always use another node. I gave them some health and ammo. The usual demands comes in a 30 seconds to 1 min period. Peopel keep asking for stuff when I'm running low on Rp because we dont have enough nodes
Then cargo was lost. The alien team was pretty brilliant and I do admit there is a blindspot to the factory.
well, that's alright, i told my man to gather at cargo again so we can build stuff again... a team of 7 people, only 2-3 were there.
what are the others doing? I dont know! I'm having trouble building stuff at cargo bay.
remeber guys, the kharaa's have only 1 hive and we got almost everything! jetpack heavy armors you name it we have it.
I told people to move onto cargo bay and secure reactor hive, i told them to build stuff at there...
80% of them decide to go around and hunt for enemies now because they think they have such nice equipments.
Guess what? we lost the *censored* hive and cargo! they're building there again and I figured this is too much frustration I give up.
The people who were listening to me asked me to go back, then the people who thought i sucked because I wouldnt' give them guns and stuff (while the outpost is being destroyed?) took over and well, you guessed it, we lost the game.
That was the game happened in Tanith.
The other game in bast... actually, there were about 3-4 games in bast where i went marine, and i went to command a few of them, and they all headed out and of course, we lost the game quickly. In the second game they got smarter, they stayed in base, but they got owned because they were either all building or they have terrible aim. after a few tries I gave up and became alien owned them quick again. Then, the last game in bast, I went commanding again for one last try...t his time, peopel were actually putting the act together (thanks to a few good players, and me jumping out the Commander console once in a while to save the structures) and we got through the first rush.
The aliens, i guess, were not too experienced, so they didn't ahve skulks around feedwater aread... I warned my team to stick together, and so they did. The game led to a pretty victorious round with them listening to me... until we captured refinery, their 2nd hive... we got through a huge rebellious force there, but we managed, and we feel that we pretty much won the game...
then some of the peopel started moving around and not listen to orders. Many people told me they couldn't hear me (well, I was using mic in bast... but back in tanith i was typing MAD!) so I tried again with typing... but still some of them are not working together and they're just constantly asking for guns.
I gave up, and gave the console to someone else. By this time we have about 500 rps because we captured so many nodes.
Luckily this guy is one of the people who listened to orders and knows what to do. So we did won the game.
But after all these stories, I had a thesis come to mind... Marines, when started out weak and owned by skulks, will tend to listen to orders. But once when they got great weapons and stuff they jsut keep demanding it and start to head out alone and not stick to a group.
I can't say this enough, but marines are supposed to stay together! Even when there is just one skulk you may die just because weapons and equipments are not everything! Teamwork, teamwork, and more *censored* teamwork!!!
[/rant]
sorry, i had to do it. too much frustration.
I was commanding for several maps... well, actually, just 2. Tanith and bast, i believe.
anyways, in Tanith, all was going well. I abandoned our base and moved onto satelite, made a new base there, everything went pretty well and we started to have a little outpost in Cargo... which led a pretty big battle at that area throughout the whole game.
I built siege there to take out their reactor hive, things went well, those fades remaining become dead.
I build phase gates there to have my marines travel easier
I even build a little outpost in the reactor hive to make sure it's safe.
now here comes the problem. The aliens only got one hive, but they're still attacking aggressively. I told my troops to gather around Cargo so we can head out.
Well, guess what? some people thought that they will take another route, gathered a few of my man and headed back to our main base, which is now in Kharaa's hand (claws)
Well that was alright we could always use another node. I gave them some health and ammo. The usual demands comes in a 30 seconds to 1 min period. Peopel keep asking for stuff when I'm running low on Rp because we dont have enough nodes
Then cargo was lost. The alien team was pretty brilliant and I do admit there is a blindspot to the factory.
well, that's alright, i told my man to gather at cargo again so we can build stuff again... a team of 7 people, only 2-3 were there.
what are the others doing? I dont know! I'm having trouble building stuff at cargo bay.
remeber guys, the kharaa's have only 1 hive and we got almost everything! jetpack heavy armors you name it we have it.
I told people to move onto cargo bay and secure reactor hive, i told them to build stuff at there...
80% of them decide to go around and hunt for enemies now because they think they have such nice equipments.
Guess what? we lost the *censored* hive and cargo! they're building there again and I figured this is too much frustration I give up.
The people who were listening to me asked me to go back, then the people who thought i sucked because I wouldnt' give them guns and stuff (while the outpost is being destroyed?) took over and well, you guessed it, we lost the game.
That was the game happened in Tanith.
The other game in bast... actually, there were about 3-4 games in bast where i went marine, and i went to command a few of them, and they all headed out and of course, we lost the game quickly. In the second game they got smarter, they stayed in base, but they got owned because they were either all building or they have terrible aim. after a few tries I gave up and became alien owned them quick again. Then, the last game in bast, I went commanding again for one last try...t his time, peopel were actually putting the act together (thanks to a few good players, and me jumping out the Commander console once in a while to save the structures) and we got through the first rush.
The aliens, i guess, were not too experienced, so they didn't ahve skulks around feedwater aread... I warned my team to stick together, and so they did. The game led to a pretty victorious round with them listening to me... until we captured refinery, their 2nd hive... we got through a huge rebellious force there, but we managed, and we feel that we pretty much won the game...
then some of the peopel started moving around and not listen to orders. Many people told me they couldn't hear me (well, I was using mic in bast... but back in tanith i was typing MAD!) so I tried again with typing... but still some of them are not working together and they're just constantly asking for guns.
I gave up, and gave the console to someone else. By this time we have about 500 rps because we captured so many nodes.
Luckily this guy is one of the people who listened to orders and knows what to do. So we did won the game.
But after all these stories, I had a thesis come to mind... Marines, when started out weak and owned by skulks, will tend to listen to orders. But once when they got great weapons and stuff they jsut keep demanding it and start to head out alone and not stick to a group.
I can't say this enough, but marines are supposed to stay together! Even when there is just one skulk you may die just because weapons and equipments are not everything! Teamwork, teamwork, and more *censored* teamwork!!!
[/rant]
sorry, i had to do it. too much frustration.
Comments
I've also noticed a marine tendency to fall apart in the late mid-game... as soon as they've got some firepower, they just want to do their own thing, the insubordinate little...
Duh . . . <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Sad case . . .
I came out from a game an hour ago, in map Tanith . . .
I did not command at first, another marine was commanding, I ran about building stuff and gunning down skulks etc.
Then they set up a base in Satelite Hive base, even build a command console there.
The Kharaa team wasn't very skilled, I reckon, or maybe they get the wrong guy to be Gorge. Cos we, the marines secured a lot of resource nodes.
After a while, I see the commander jumped out to shoot something, so I jumped in, as I see that the bases could be use better building placement.
I set up phase gates in all of our outposts, set up more marine spawns in hive base sats, set up lots of turrets in hive base sats, set up more than one turret factory in the hive base, etc.
Also kept on dropping health packs for marines in combat.
Luckily the marines I commanded just now are all very good marines that listened to what I said.
Luckily the Kharaa team are not smart enough to fortify the other hive.
One lone marine in HA/HMG walked in there, set up turrets, sieges, and spamming HMG on the hive eventually brought it down.
lol <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
[edit]
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I've also noticed a marine tendency to fall apart in the late mid-game... as soon as they've got some firepower, they just want to do their own thing, the insubordinate little...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->Luckily the marines under my command are very good team players! They always stick together!
I'm very happy commanding them!
They didn't nag me a lot for equipments too!
Had an interesting game on Hera too, started off badly, the aliens rushed, killed the half built turret factory, and 1 of the inf portals, along with 3/4 of the team, after that we tried to take the Vent hive only to find out that they held it, as our team got torn appart... by 3 skulks (8 marines). Once everyone respawned I got the team to move out to the archiving hive, then was planning to take data core. But it all went wrong and they kept the marines trapped in the hive room with turrets because the seiges don't work on Hera and the aliens knew it (had 1 seige in the room.) Eventualy they got fades and took the hive right out of our hands, and reception, and our base.
The thing I hate to see is 3 or 4 HA/HMG marines working as a team...
The heavy armor and heavy guns have both a positive and a negative effect, on the plus side your guys are tough enough to take Fades, but on the minus side they tend to become overconfident and do stupid **obscenity** like chasing a fade and a lerk into a mass of chambers.
Well, we fell and next round went a little better. Our commander bugged out so I took over. But...teamwork...teamwork...teamwork. more then once have I seen a marine team torn apart by a lone skulk because they didn't work together or...had a really poor commander.
And no wonder why the marines always lose, they never listen to their commander!
So untill the marines starts to listen to their commander and works together as a team, we will keep see them loose map after map.
The thing I hate to see is 3 or 4 HA/HMG marines working as a team...
The heavy armor and heavy guns have both a positive and a negative effect, on the plus side your guys are tough enough to take Fades, but on the minus side they tend to become overconfident and do stupid **obscenity** like chasing a fade and a lerk into a mass of chambers.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I must disagree here a little the only wya you cna kill fades is to hunt them down and hunt them till they have no way to turn otherwise they will just bile acid rack you or base to its doom...
though its the lvl3 cloaked onos, you have to worry about when chasing after the fades <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
And no wonder why the marines always lose, they never listen to their commander!
So untill the marines starts to listen to their commander and works together as a team, we will keep see them loose map after map.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've found recently that the reason a lot of marines dont listen to the comm is "HEY i know what im doing just as well as you, mister stupid n00b commander!!!11 j00 sux0rs!!11"
OK so mabe you know what your doing, but can you see the map from an overhead view? can you tell where the enemy is located strategicly? NO!
The commander has an infinitely more expansive view of the battlefield than you do and his strategy may involve a game of tug of war, losing and gaining ground in places only to position himself in range of a hive for siege.
In my last game I was commanding a group of basically CS players who would actually argue with me about securing a room and would sit there like a baby whining until it was fixed. (I argue, but as soon as I get an order, I go) Yet, I kept telling them to move out since a room just outside a hive was wide open to setup another siege base (we had one hive taken already). The two guys that were listening were there, but the rest of the team was running around.
I decided to start building anyway, and the two guys did the textbook, one man builds, one man covers routine. Unfortunately, they are attacked by 3 skulks at once as they were getting a turret up. I swear we could have held that room if they had just listened to me and descended on that room!
Marine players! Listen up! You do not have access to the entire battlefield at once, only the commander knows what's really going on! Follow his orders even if you don't understand them! Even a mediocre commander can win the game if you follow his strategy!
When I'm Marines, I usually command, but when I don't, I always follow orders, secure nodes and hives, and try to be the commander's best friend. The only time I sometimes don't listen to the commander is when my RL friend I play at the same time. We talk over phones, travel very cautiously, always back-to-back, and take turns building/guarding when we secure a node or a hive, depending on who has more health/ammo/armor. The commander sometimes gets **obscenity** at us two for not going to the waypoints (if they even gave us waypoints; ugh), but when he finds out that we secured 3 resource nodes and a hive location, he's pretty damn proud of us two.
Some people just don't get it. You have to work as a team. Atleast have a buddy with you when you go out to secure nodes/hive. Best thing to do is leave one man behind at base (for bulding additional structures and guarding main base) and the rest all travel as a team. The objective is not killing aliens, but its conquest. Also, one of the quickest way you can tell if the commander is good is by the following:
1. He uses waypoints. This usually means that the commander knows the map very well, and you will most likely secure a hive location very quickly as well as a few resource nodes.
2. He drops ammo/med packs to expansion/conquest teams. This means that he's responsible for his teammates. This also means that he knows resource preservation. Dropping a few med packs and ammo for a team of 3 is certainly cheaper than affording 3 HA and 3 HMG after they die.
3. The base/expansions are organized. Good spawn point locations, good ammo depot location, and good turret locations are crucial. Especially the turret factory. When I'm on Aliens, and when I see an expansion with all the turrets in the front and nothing in the back, I simply run past the turrets, get behind the factory and chomp away. Very easy to tell if they commander sucks or not.
Peace.
Jeebus and I were the 2 aliens who (basically) took the game away from Acrobad's marines on Tanith. It was actually pretty amazing that we came back, haha. We managed to rally our rather nubish teammates together, and poured on the attacks with our skulks and lerks against the 2nd hive. So much fun hearing Acrobad scream at his marines, as we build up the 2nd hive, then send out our waves of Fade attacks.
And on bast, lol. We did win like 4 straight skulk rushes, then I was done. Don't really like bast, so I quit. Sad to hear that you finally beat the aliens, heh.
But good games had by all <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I've also noticed a marine tendency to fall apart in the late mid-game... as soon as they've got some firepower, they just want to do their own thing, the insubordinate little...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm re-quoting myself just to make sure more people see this; it's a pretty important bug to know about. If your marines don't seem to be listening to you at ALL, chances are they can't hear you. Don't forget to logout periodically to refresh your voicecomm!
Another thing that i do that most people dont realise you should do is FOLLOW OTHER PEOPLE when you have nothing to do. You standing there in the spawn or around an outpost and you see people going to-and-fro, follow them wherever they go, no matter if you think what they are setting out to do is stupid. Marines work in small groups and people always fail to realise that.
The aliens work so well because there is a general sense of team-orientation and teamwork. True, they work as individual units, but they know to the roots of their scrawny little bones one irrefutable fact: "That which is good for the Hive is good for me."
And they follow it with vicious ambition.
That is why it works. If all you Frontiersmen stick together out there, you will survive.
<span style='color:yellow'>lest they have Onii, heh.</span>
LM
I feel much better now, and seeing as how probably half of the server was filled with n00bs it was going pretty well really.
Lazermane brought up a very good point though. <b>Follow other people</b>. Always stick together as a group, or groups of 2-3 people. Never alone unless your commander had something planned for you. Sometimes I tell a single person to stay at a place <b>far</b> from the alien hive to build nodes and stuff... It's risky, but if I know that person can handle a few skulks from the distance, I will give him back up often and tell him to build stuff, hear/watchout for skulks for him <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
One funny thing though. Back in Tanith, when I gave up commanding due to frustration, some guy who was asking for stuff got to command chair, spawn his stuff, get back out and get his equipment then moved on. I was amazed by such act of individuality and selfishness. I mean, the command chair is not a *censored* tool like the CS buy menu... it's a responsibility! it's a frigging war to lead!
The other guy who got in the chair later, commanded for a while, suggests "Commanding is too hard" and switched to the other team.
I'm just waiting for friday, where I can have a lan party of NS and hopefully people there willbe much more coordinate there and we should ahve a wonderful time.
[edit]I just want to add that, <b>Light Machine Gun is not that bad</b>. if you have good aim you could kill a fade with 2-3 buddies around you. Marines don't need heavy armor or heavy weapons that badly. If you dont see one or two equipment hanging around the base, the commander is probably busy commanding the hive battles, and you should join the battle as soon as possible, even if you're just equipped with a LMG and pistol you can still help the team out.
If you're really trying to help the team but need equipment, Try to ask for a welder instead of heavyarmors and guns. If your commander have enough resoruces he'll probably give you hvy armors and guns too. It makes him feel less annoyed and feel that you are actually trying to help the team instead of Going off killing rambo style, wasting resoruces.[/edit]
Perhaps an arbitrarily assigned squad grouping (like commander group hotkeys in other RTS games) where other players actually see icons over the heads of those in their group. Thus they know who they should be following around.
Others have recommended some arbitrarily assigned sargeants(sp?) that serve as someone the marines can rally around.
Another thing is that there's bugs with the commander's interface in general, these bugs lead to orders being given to people that shouldn't be getting those orders. Things like the inability to deselect something means a commander may have his marines all ready to breach a hive, then remembers that we wants to build something at base, and ends up ordering all his men back to base by building something. Players know about the bugs, so often times they'll discount orders if the waypoint is too far away thinking that it's a bug.
if they have only experienced being a commander, most of them would straighten up and fly right.
I was also thinking abuot deselecting something?
for example, i was trying to give medpack, i clicked on medpack and before dropping it i found out that i wanted the marine to move to a certain waypoint.
Now, i couldn't deselect the medpack and select the marine. All i could do is drop the medpack, using up 2 rps, and end up selecting the marine again.
I have tried dragging the box but it drops the medpack as well.
medpacks and ammos would be alright at these situation. but what if what you wanted to deselect is a turret factory? or an armory? or even a CC? and u can't recycle them unlessthey're built!
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo-->
works wonders.
don't do the SC/WC3 thing, right click to disengage :S
HTH
[OF]Niteowl
You guys have sad commanding stories . . .
Luckily the few games I commanded, the marines under my command are very good, they stick together even when they had HA + HMG/GL + Welder . . .
They were all very nice, didn't request much, didn't spam much for health since I kept on dropping med packs onto them . . .
Then again maybe I'm lucky because I'm not up against very skilled Kharaa players . . .
I think I've commanded like 5 games or so, won 4 and lost 1 . . .
The one I lost was not because of the team not stickiing together, I think was because of bad hive base management I think, the hive base Subspace Interface was lost because Fades kept on attacking it . . .
And I lost a good number of zones too . . .
Oh yeah.. why did i tell this story.... in the marine part.... they never stuck together... they kept on yelling for better weapons and armor and gl and jetpack and this and that.... as soon as they got it.. they went off rambo style
...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
AGH! I agree! Why do my marines always **obscenity** and moan at me when I tell them to just use LMG's?
I guess it's just hard to kill anything when you're off on your own with an LMG and no HA, but then again... if they would work together, they needn't worry about that. *sigh*
It's especially annoying when they ask for an HMG when I've just started to upgrade something, or build something expensive, and we have like 4 resources. They dont remember that they cost 25 resources?? <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
When you do get a group of Marines that knows how to work together and aren't just n00bie CS players, it's great. I had one team of guys that did amazing on bast. We took a hive right off the bat and secured nodes like there was no tomorrow, <b>ALL DONE WITH LMG</b>. Then the guys were happy when I had enough resources to slap HA/HMG on them all, and we ruckused the last two hives with sieges and HMG's really easy.
<!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
And must be very cool and calm at all times.
My 1st commanding experience was terrible.
Marines had a decent commander, i was a good grunt, I listened to his orders always.
But then Commander 'gtg'
Argh.
No commander.
I hopped into the command chair to give it a go.
The map was Tanith, we had fusion reactor hive secured, not not that secured.
I was like ... omfg
So ...
Chaotic ...
Kharaa attacking everywhere . ...
The Marines are everywhere ...
dunno wtf they are doing ...
Bases began to fall apart ...
I dunno where the main spawn base is ...
After a while, I go
"I can't do this, someone else command"
It was then how I realise that how tedius commanding can be for 1st timers,
especially in moderately big games like 8 v 8
Later . ...
I tried commanding again ..
5 v 5 ..
lol
well it was more like 5 v 3 at start .. cos not many kharaa players.
they kept screaming for 'even teams! even teams!'
i barked back
'chill out, i'm a newbie commander practicing my hand at commanding.'
it felt much better, less stress, marines sticking together.
although there's one marine who goes rambo style, but he is very skilled.. lol gets lots of kills even using lmg.
keeps the kharaa busy all by himself while the rest secure the zones.
After that ...
I get to command 6 v 6 , 7 v 7, or even 8 v 8 games ...
Always did fine ..
Only lost one time when I did a slooppy job of securing mess hall ..
Another thing that i do that most people dont realise you should do is FOLLOW OTHER PEOPLE when you have nothing to do. You standing there in the spawn or around an outpost and you see people going to-and-fro, follow them wherever they go, no matter if you think what they are setting out to do is stupid. Marines work in small groups and people always fail to realise that.
The aliens work so well because there is a general sense of team-orientation and teamwork. True, they work as individual units, but they know to the roots of their scrawny little bones one irrefutable fact: "That which is good for the Hive is good for me."
And they follow it with vicious ambition.
That is why it works. If all you Frontiersmen stick together out there, you will survive.
<span style='color:yellow'>lest they have Onii, heh.</span>
LM<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
"That which is good for the Hive is good for me."