Lack of 'base under attack' warnings

Morshu

I have now experienced several times for the last 9 days where I'll be the marine commander dropping medpacks/ammo/structures/etc. outside of the main base and then all of a sudden I turn my overview back to HQ to start researching something and VOILA! powernode is down in base and there's half the alien team chewing on the structures without even alerting me AFTER the powernode went out. (and no I'm not deaf or blind or whatever I ******* hear the warning when it's played)

This should really be looked into or atleast made so whenever the powernode for WHATEVER reason it might be damaged then it should give me that warning as it should when it counts and not just ignore it completely at times where I'm busy keeping marines alive during a hopeless defense against a horde of Oni elsewhere while a lerk with spikes or a couple of skulks destroys the powernode in HQ without giving me the warning.

Anyone else that happens to have experienced something similar like this or am I just the 'exception'?

PoNeH

I completely agree. There needs to be more warning when structures in base are being hit.

Techercizer

Your Com gets giant pop-up alerts about those things; it's his job to alert you. If he doesn't warn you, it's the case of a bad Com, not a bad system.

DJPenguin

<!--quoteo(post=2017549:date=Nov 9 2012, 06:17 PM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Nov 9 2012, 06:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2017549"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Your Com gets giant pop-up alerts about those things; it's his job to alert you. If he doesn't warn you, it's the case of a bad Com, not a bad system.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

he's not talking about the footsloggers not getting warnings. commanders for some reason right now don't always get the alerts they need. for one, pressing spacebar for an alert works maybe 1 in 4 times. other times you won't get an alert until your obs or power node is already destroyed.

Imbalanxd

And, assuming its your main base, you have an observatory there, which means a whole bunch of aliens are going to be clearly visible on the minimap to every single player on the marine team. That's 6 to 8 people who can notice that there is a base rush in progress. If you still lose the power node, you deserve to.

As for commanders not getting alerts, the entire community ######ed and moaned when the nice alert lady told them troops needed medpacks too often, or when it said that IPs were needed too often. Now everyone is moaning because it isn't shouting "YOUR BASE IS UNDER ATTACK" every 2 seconds. I hope UWE knows exactly what you guys want, because you sure as hell don't seem to.

SpaceJew

If people have that varied of opinions it should be an audio option in the main menu.

However, I'm with the people that think this is the result of a bad commander not paying attention. That, or the alien's team are good enough to team up on the structures they should team up on, thereby dropping that structure so fast the commander gets the warning just as it goes down. (I.E. four skulks on an Observatory. Good luck with that beacon, commander! ^_^

[AwE]Sentinel

It is not a matter of how often an alert is played, it is a matter of why the comm doesn't receive the warning from the more important attacks. In a long game with several bases and unimportant powernotes (without structures in the room) the comm has all the time warnings in his ears. There should be a special warning if the power of your start base is under attack and different warning sounds for different stuff, so you can filter the warnings better. I guess that is the point of the OP and i support that. Nobody is talking about annyoing alerts that pop up every 2 seconds.

Look at Red Alert 3. You build several bases on a big map and you manage to get every single important alert. NS2 is not like that. It is not intuitive and userfriendly in this regard. You can spamm even more warnings, but if they are all not really recognizeable or noticeable they are useless. A warning should imidiately give feedback on what is going on and where. It is not good if you have to read something first or search a while before you even get a hold of what is going on. Give me a certain sound for a certain situation and maybe a visual signal that shows me where the problem is and I am happy. There are many rts games that do it better than NS2, so don't give me that "if he doesn't sees it in time on the minimap than he is a bad comm". Most of the time it is just luck if you can react in time or not.

One problem is also that if you are above your marines and they shoot, you don't really hear anything of a warning. This is an example of what is NS2 lacking. It works somehow in that matter but it could be way better.

DJPenguin

the more people in the game, the more attention a marine commander needs to give to his own troops, the more chances there are for roaming aliens to drop a building in a few seconds, the more pop-up alerts that need to be addressed (when they work). you can't expect the average player to maintain all of those responsibilities without reliable feedback from the game itself to help the commander prioritize his attention.

Katana314

I think what's needed is for the system to be a bit more intelligent.

Obvious examples; if the event is happening on-screen, don't announce it.
If a base that contains a command chair is under attack (any buildings that share a power node, or the power node itself), make that a special case.
If marines are in the room (not counting the commander), maybe reduce the priority of the event notification a bit.
In any case, giving a red concentric ping on his mini-map might help, even if it's a less-urgent notification.

I also note that while aliens get a special note about "Our hive is DYING!!" to indicate "No, this is not just some lone marine trying to draw a bit of attention away", I don't recall anything similar for marines.

DJPenguin

<!--quoteo(post=2017637:date=Nov 9 2012, 07:29 PM:name=Katana314)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Katana314 @ Nov 9 2012, 07:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2017637"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I also note that while aliens get a special note about "Our hive is DYING!!" to indicate "No, this is not just some lone marine trying to draw a bit of attention away", I don't recall anything similar for marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

something like the commander's HUD pulsing a little red light to simulate mechanical failure would be neat.

Kouji_San

I've been playing commander and hive mind a bit as of late and found that the alerts are either not there or simply playing on the map, but not audible... Also I would love red blinking icons instead of same color blinking icons.

Imbalanxd

<!--quoteo(post=2017589:date=Nov 10 2012, 12:49 AM:name=DJPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DJPenguin @ Nov 10 2012, 12:49 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2017589"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->the more people in the game, the more attention a marine commander needs to give to his own troops, the more chances there are for roaming aliens to drop a building in a few seconds, the more pop-up alerts that need to be addressed (when they work). you can't expect the average player to maintain all of those responsibilities without reliable feedback from the game itself to help the commander prioritize his attention.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

The more people in the game, the less the commander has to directly monitor the map because the players can act as delegates for different areas. In a properly functioning team, communication is not one way, it goes both ways.

As for the warnings going off in certain situations. You seem to forget that, at any one time, your base may be under attack at up to 8 or so different locations. No RTS deals with this entirely, because the game shouldn't do your job for you. Its actually a valid strategy in a lot of RTS games to attack one location to take a players attention, and then launch an attack on another. All it can tell you is that your base is being attacked, it can't tell you where or when or how.

BearTornado

Sometimes when I'm chewing on a power node or resource tower I feel like none of the marines are paying attention.

Other times A scan goes off around me and maybe one or two marines come in and stop me.



Considering the Marine technology (from the lore and fanfiction) is basically: <img src="http://i.imgur.com/0NAYe.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />



Seems like they should certainly have more organized alerts, and bacterium isn't much different either. I like how the Aliens get "Structures under attack" and its just cysts or things dying from a cyst that was severed.

But I guess it can be chalked up to an issue of the commander paying attention, I can't imagine focusing on one part of the map too long, I like to see the big picture. It makes me think of Supreme Commander (or any other RTS game) where you can scroll out and see everything on the map in an icon-style view, and in turn see alerts, then scroll back in on areas that need attention. Wish that was a feature (unless I'm totally stupid and it is a feature that I am unaware of).

TripleZero

well im commanding alot and sometimes i really get taken by surprise because the alerts are inconsistent.

Often phasegates get hammered somewhere and you get the alert when theyre down do 30% which is ###### awesome.

Also the blinking of structures on the minimap when theyre attacked is a bad joke, if they would atleast blink red or anything, but no they just fade in and out, extremely noticeable...

MistenTH

Yea noticed the same.

Best thing right now is just to have an observatory or drifter near your key bases/structures as an alert to give you warning.

Davil

The alerts can be somewhat spontaneous at times, but honestly I check my map constantly when I'm comm so I notice things. If you're marine comm and you spend more than about 5 seconds looking at any one spot you're probably missing something.