to new players / also to everyone else

Price

<div class="IPBDescription">Please read and do it!</div><b>Im not a pro, of course not, but its very frustrating that people most times don't know how to play.</b>
And i write down, how i think its good to play...

Its not a problem if you are new, everybody is a newbie/noob at the first time.
The problem is, people who still know the game, don't do their role right.

The goal to win is having most of the resource towers and kill the enemy ones!
As aliens its your primary goal to kill every enemys resource tower.
its NOT the goal to have frags, NS2 is NOT cod or counterstrike, score means nothing, the victory is the goal.
As marines your primary mission is to prevent aliens from getting a second hive, if they have just one hive and your team has most of the resource towers, the game is nearly won!

Both teams:
- KILL KILL KILL enemy resource towers, thats very important!!!!!!!!!!
- watch the damn minimap, press M or what key you have bound (i did Q) and watch it, is some resource tower under attack, is some cyst under attack...

As alien:
- protect as much as you can your secondary hive, its very important too!
- if you are gorge, support your commander/team and help building harvester faster by pressing USE on them (every alien structure can be builded faster, except hive if you are gorge!)
- as gorge don't place hydras in the center of a big room, they have a range, also watch where your cysts are, best way to build hydras (if marines don't have a gl) is near a door in front of a cyst, its hard to explain... if a cyst die, all your hydras will die too, so watch out ( where cysts are, good visible from far away?) where you place your hydras.
- did i mention that your primary goal (except if your secondary hive is under attack) is to KILL ENEMY resource tower? DO IT!
- killing a resource tower IS MUCH better then just killing a powernode, because a powernode can be build in like 10 seconds without ANY LOST!
A resource tower cost 15 Resources.

As marine:
- spread out get resource towers, thats very important!
- but much more important is to prevent aliens from getting a secondary hive, thats your primary goal!
- kill alien resource towers / harvester (if they don't having a secondary hive)
- do not stay and take a nap in your marine base
- if you know there is a fade, do not buy a grenade launcher, its hard to kill a fade with a GL, better is a shotgun!
- do not palce mines in a line, they will explode all! use mines to protect resource towers, if you see a lerk, place the mines at the ceiling, just watch how the lerk fly and place the mine in the high where the lerk is flying, i do kill a lot of lerks with that.
place mines behind corners, most of the aliens don't notice them then.

AS Alien COMMANDER:
- a secondary hive is important, also using catalyze (10 second faster build boost) and build harvester
- if a secondary hive is done, ITS VERY IMPORTANT GIVING THE TEAM regeneration and carapace.
- build defence, whips are very good to protect a room against grenades!
- build crags, shades and stuff, to protect / support your team
- if you have the personal resources, build cysts, they also work as a mobile radar, if a marine touch it, he is visible on the map (if some marines try to move to your hive to rush it)
- if you know marines will move to something or attacking something TELL IT YOUR TEAM, use your microphone or just write it! (suggestion: commander chat should have a diffrent color.)
- if there is only one marine at your hive where you are sitting in = JUMP OUT AND BITE THE HELL OUT OF HIM.
- in mid games and you have resources, don't be shy, go fade/onos and jump back in your hive (be sure there is nothing important to do)
do not forget to tell that your team (someone could join the hive and "steal" your role so watch out)
- don't be shy TALK WITH YOUR TEAM!
- if you have crags, use them! if marines fire grenades you can not much do, but if they shot with shotguns or rifles use UMBRA from crags!
- if you have use shades to hide your secondary hive/structures if marines nearby.


AS Marine COMMANDER:
- comming soon...
i don't play very much marine commander but :
phasegates are important, don't be shy build a outpost with armory.



i just want to say that, people realy don't do most of that.
People you have to kill resource towers, specialy if you play on the aliens team.
But don't forget your primary and secondary hive (mom and dad :P ) protect them!

p.s. please write down your tips, but DO NOT TROLL...no jokes needed.

dePARA

I agree with most of your points, but with the most important one your are wrong:
The goal is to kill all hives not to kill harvesters or get new ones.

You need restowers for better equipment, thats right. But if you have a chance killing an hive, forget the RTs for a while.
Killing hives has to be 1st prio at every state of the game.

I remember a game yesterday, where exact that was the problem.
Aliens had one hive left after we kill crossroadshive, the marines had most of the Restowers.
I said "grab shottys or grenadelauncher and go atrium to finish it".
What happened? One running to dc, cause he thought we need an PG there too, others run to computerlab (marinestart was in flight control btw) cause there were an RT missing, 1 run to crevice to hunt cysts down and only 1 run to atrium and die most of the time.
After some unfriendly hints that we only need to go atrium, the marines do that and the hive was down in a few seconds.

Why turtling around with unneeded RTs or saving all positions if you can win the game by going in and finish this?

Price

<!--quoteo(post=1914541:date=Mar 18 2012, 11:26 AM:name=dePARA)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dePARA @ Mar 18 2012, 11:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1914541"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->but with the most important one your are wrong:
The goal is to kill all hives not to kill harvesters or get new ones.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thats true, but i guess the last hive is very easy to kill if marines already prevent aliens from getting a second hive.
Because lerk/gorge/skulks are not realy dangerous enemys if your team have like level 3 armor, weapon and stuff.
It depend on the team(play).
A big problem i see, a lot of people don't notice commander orders.


<!--quoteo(post=1914541:date=Mar 18 2012, 11:26 AM:name=dePARA)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dePARA @ Mar 18 2012, 11:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1914541"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You need restowers for better equipment, thats right. But if you have a chance killing an hive, forget the RTs for a while.
Killing hives has to be 1st prio at every state of the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thats my point, but the last hive never was a big problem if you understand.
I just hate, people always run through the whole map just for frags.
But yes, a hive kill has always a higher priority then a rt kill/build a rt, thats why i said about "but much more important is to prevent aliens from getting a secondary hive, thats your primary goal!".

ogz

there is never a set rule for most of these stuff... thats why its so interesting and strategic to play :)

sometimes its better to sacrifice a few res nodes to take down the hive
sometimes its better to save the res nodes and leave the hive for another time

sometimes its better to defend a res node than attack a harvester
sometimes its better to attack enemy harvester and ignore your res node being attacked

but as a general rule of thumb, your post is pretty good

Classic319

The most important thing for marine commander is just one, Phase Gate!

Without Phase Gate, they cannot even get close to win, unless they have '49 kills 0 deaths guys' all around the team.

Price

<!--quoteo(post=1914562:date=Mar 18 2012, 01:12 PM:name=ogz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ogz @ Mar 18 2012, 01:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1914562"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->there is never a set rule for most of these stuff... thats why its so interesting and strategic to play :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
At start its the best to do like i said, but yeah you are a bit right but:
<!--quoteo(post=1914562:date=Mar 18 2012, 01:12 PM:name=ogz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ogz @ Mar 18 2012, 01:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1914562"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->1. sometimes its better to sacrifice a few res nodes to take down the hive
2. sometimes its better to save the res nodes and leave the hive for another time
3. sometimes its better to defend a res node than attack a harvester
4. sometimes its better to attack enemy harvester and ignore your res node being attacked

but as a general rule of thumb, your post is pretty good<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
(i add numbers)
1. if its the secondary hive, its like i said primary goal/mission.
2. i guess its never good leave a hive for another time, except if its the last hive and you need resources because the alien defence is to strong (can happend a lot)
i just want to add, that your team don't need all marines to kill a hive, it depends on enemys reaction.
Sure there can not be a rule for everything, because the game is dynamic, but i hope most of the people understand the point. It is not cs or cod, you have to listen to your commander or team.
You don't belive how many times my team lost, because people give a sh*t about resource tower or hives.
3. depend on how many res nodes your team got, for example my experience with marines hows, that up to 3 rts are enough to get the most important upgrades, just defend them and prevent aliens from getting a secondary hive + kill their harvester.
Sure these "tips" are not 100% for every match, humans are dynamic and think diffrent that should be natural but most of the people don't do their "role" in the game, they spread out for kills/frags and thats just wrong and don't realy help the team.
For example if you are in the alien team, my teammates always spread out kill marines, the marines kill them...but nobody of the aliens kill marine rts.
So after a while, they got so many res, they have armor level 3, weapons level 3 and many more weapons, so aliens are helpless if you know what i mean.
4. depend on maplayout, position of your resource tower and of course how many rts your team own/or how many res your team have and if you got a secondhive.
Because if you don't have to much res to get a second hive and you have just one rt or two, the game can be lost very fast.
It also depends on players skills, thats for sure...i mean you can win the whole game just by rushing the other teams base.
the game is dynamic and you should "think" by your own a bit, these tips are just give something to think, not to follow them like a robot.
But i guess there is nothing more important as marine, as if aliens get a secondary hive, to kill the secondary hive.
Because if aliens got fades(more then one), marines have mostly no chance anymore.
and if aliens don't kill marines rts, the game also can be lost very fast, except if aliens already got all 3 hives/onos but thats late game.
Or i mean you can have all the rts of the map except one and you can lose, because player play "bad".
I mean i had matches, where marines dominate like the whole map with rts, but my alien team get a third hive, morph to onos and catch the whole map back.


Oh yeah there could be a situation like aliens got a secondary hive, your team kill it, but they got to much harvester and they just build another.
But if your team kill the hive and hunt all the other harvester down, aliens mostly have lost.

Of course there is not a 100% rule and i guess the commander should decide but its not for your team, if you run alone through the map like a chicken, just to hunt enemys, thats the thing which happend a lot in many matches, also people don't watch the minimap.


p.s. and of course people could start diversionary tactic, i did a lot.
For example if my team starting to rush a secondary hive, i move to the mainhive and attack it, to get all the alien attention and in the next second, the secondary hive was gone.
There are a lot of ways to win the game.


<!--quoteo(post=1914565:date=Mar 18 2012, 01:35 PM:name=Classic319)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Classic319 @ Mar 18 2012, 01:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1914565"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The most important thing for marine commander is just one, Phase Gate!

Without Phase Gate, they cannot even get close to win, unless they have '49 kills 0 deaths guys' all around the team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A phasegate is a way to the goal but not the goal.
Because if fades wait on the other side, you die like instantly.

p.p.s.
Im limited with my english so its hard for me to explain it simple but i try.

internetexplorer

<!--quoteo(post=1914536:date=Mar 18 2012, 05:51 AM:name=Price)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Price @ Mar 18 2012, 05:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1914536"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As aliens its your primary goal to kill every enemys resource tower.
its NOT the goal to have frags, NS2 is NOT cod or counterstrike, score means nothing, the victory is the goal.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I really dislike when people approach a game like this (or TF2) and say that just because it has other strategic factors, killing players isn't the goal (or isn't important, etc).
Look at any game as it's ending, and the team that is winning will have better kill:death ratios overall, unless the defending team made an enormous strategic mistake.

In other terms, if both teams used proper strategies, but one team killed the other more during this, they are likely to win.

Why? Killing players does the following:
<ul><li>Removes lifeforms/guns/armor/upgrades from the field, 'costing' the opposing team resources if they want to re-buy them</li><li><b>Removes players' influence from the map for a time (while they respawn/move back to where they were)</b></li><li>Increases the load on eggs/infantry portals</li></ul>

The second item in that list is the most important one. When players die, your commander and teammates can't see the area they were in. Those players can't execute any strategic tasks you want because they're dead, and the enemies who killed them are probably doing something to take the area they were fighting in.

How can you gauge the influence of combat? An easy way is to look at the scoreboard, and do some mental math for kill:death ratios (KDR). If everyone on the marines team has more kills than deaths, and everyone on the aliens team has more <i>deaths </i>than <i>kills</i>, the marines are winning the combat aspect of the game. At times like this, marines putting pressure on the aliens will be able to do damage (kill resource towers without defenders arriving, kill cysts, kill eggs to further delay respawns, attack hives...). In the small scale, you get situations like "we just killed 4 marines on the west side of the map, so we're going to attack res towers on the left side of the map safely", and in the large scale you get things like "we're consistently killing them more than they kill us, so we're taking over the map and teching."

Whether you recognize it or not, the game is fundamentally about<b> how well you can kill enemy players (while not dying) and execute your team's strategy in order to kill all hives/chairs</b>. You can't execute your team's strategy in a vacuum where no combat takes place, and that's the allure of NS2 as a game. Even as a commander, you have to have some FPS skills developed (to aim spells like medpacks), and obviously as a player it's important to develop aim and movement. It's not just an RTS game - it's an RTS-FPS game!

If I had to write all that as a 'tip' I'd say "pay attention to how many kills you get and how often you die, and the influence it has on the game." If you're getting lots of kills and it's not having an impact on the game, you're not killing strategically (for instance you might be ramboing bad enemy players who are guarding a res tower, but never killing the tower). If you're getting killed a lot you need to work on your movement and positioning so you spend more time in the field helping your team, and less in the respawn queue.

Soul_Rider

First off this is a very important post ^^ and very true. If you cannot play a FPS, and think you can help your team by just doing RTS type actions, you are wrong. If you cannot shoot/kill you are a liability to the team, and possibly a reason they are going to lose, unless other players on your team can cover your inability to fight.

Also, I'd like to make a point to the OP.

If the 'new' player is here reading this, then they have probably also read half a million other posts on these forums about the game and gameplay, and this post is pretty much irrelevant.

If they are 'new' players without a clue as to what is going on, I would wager that they don't even know of the existence of these forums and thus will never read this post, again making it pretty much irrelevant.

Nothing is more important in this game than the other, within limits. If you are deficient as a team in any aspect of the play, Resource management, Combat, Organisation etc, you are going to lose to a team that doesn't have these deficiencies.

Your point of RTs being the most important is just as big a mistake as the newbies you are trying to correct with their gung-ho combat only concentration. This is a game of balance, and if you don't get it right, you will lose.

There is no right way to play this game that you can tell new players in a post like this. All you can do is make them aware of ALL the aspects of the game, not tell them to switch their over focus on killing to an over focus on resources. Either way your team is likely to lose.

IeptBarakat

Also to everyone who keeps their flashlight on 24/7.

It may make it easier for you to see aliens, but it alerts the aliens to your presence as they can see the flashlight beam if they aren't using alien vision. And the atmospheric effect makes it harder for your teammates to see through it.

Please flashlight responsibly.

internetexplorer

<!--quoteo(post=1914628:date=Mar 18 2012, 01:22 PM:name=IeptBarakat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (IeptBarakat @ Mar 18 2012, 01:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1914628"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also to everyone who keeps their flashlight on 24/7.

It may make it easier for you to see aliens, but it alerts the aliens to your presence as they can see the flashlight beam if they aren't using alien vision. And the atmospheric effect makes it harder for your teammates to see through it.

Please flashlight responsibly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Yeah stop aiming it at my back you dolts!

Chris0132

While you're certainly correct in the sense that this is an excellent, if not the outright best way to win the game, I would not encourage people to do it, because it is also the most incredibly boring way to play.

extollo

as long as there is a scoreboard with kills and deaths . that will be the focus for most players.

"score" is an attempt to counter it, but kill to death ratio is really the bragging rights stat.

you hear it on this board all the time ... 'i killed 50+ as a skulk last game & i'm the top player in every game I played, you are a newb that can't kill anybody so your opinion on gameplay is worthless'

IeptBarakat

<!--quoteo(post=1914650:date=Mar 18 2012, 02:09 PM:name=jbaker8935)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (jbaker8935 @ Mar 18 2012, 02:09 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1914650"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->as long as there is a scoreboard with kills and deaths . that will be the focus for most players.

"score" is an attempt to counter it, but kill to death ratio is really the bragging rights stat.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Tribes Ascend does pretty well with this. As it shows mainly the kills, number of assists, and the overall score of a player. It keeps number of deaths hidden away to everyone else.

But if rfk is involved people are gonna want to know who gave them all their res. At least in high stakes competitive games.

internetexplorer

<!--quoteo(post=1914650:date=Mar 18 2012, 02:09 PM:name=jbaker8935)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (jbaker8935 @ Mar 18 2012, 02:09 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1914650"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->as long as there is a scoreboard with kills and deaths . that will be the focus for most players.

"score" is an attempt to counter it, but kill to death ratio is really the bragging rights stat.

you hear it on this board all the time ... 'i killed 50+ as a skulk last game & i'm the top player in every game I played, you are a newb that can't kill anybody so your opinion on gameplay is worthless'<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I'm guilty of being the guy who says that, but it's because people immediately look at their 2 and 10 on the board, and go "NO KDR DOESNT MATTER!!!!!11"
It's a really reliable way to see who has a clue about FPS games and who doesn't.