Why Is It Always The Commander's Fault?

ImaNewbie · November 2002

map: eclipse, 10v10

Well, this is what I did.

Built 2 infantry portals, a turret factory, ammo factory, a couple turrets at base, then I sent about 6 guys to the hive closest to horseshoe. 5 guys at hive, ok cool I dropped a res tower, turret fact, and 3 turrets. Res tower and turret fact built. While the marines were building the 1st turret, 3 aliens came in, killed em all. Aliens destroyed everything, so I sent all my guys there. 2nd try, The defenses were built, and then I sent a couple guys to build res tower at horseshoe and the other nearby res tower by the hive. Ok so far so good, built defenses for the res tower by hive, and asked 4 marines to guard it. Heading back to base I built a sat comm(Took me 3 minutes to tell the guy at spawn to fix it coz he was just standing by the ammo fact). When I looked back at the res tower by the hive, no one's there....where the heck did my marines go? Oh, they already proceeded to the next hive. 4 marines at the next hive, good. I built a turret factory, and then all the marines went to build it. A couple seconds later 2 skulks came and killed em all. I lost my turret factory, and a minute later lost the res tower by the 1st hive I took over.

And then they ejected me.

If they don't die and start killing(they always die) we could've easily won that game. They blamed it on me coz I'm a noob. Well, my starting build order may be different, but if they would've defended the places well(cmon 5 marines vs. 3 skulks they lose, and I was dropping health packs!) things would've gone as planned.

Sorry for the rant, but this just bothers me. How marines will never blame themselves, rather blaming the commander for a mistake like getting killed on the way to their waypoint. I'm serious, I sent 3 guys to a waypoint, they died on the way there and they were complaining like mad coz "I'm supposed to give them a safe waypoint", and what **obscenity** me off was when they started insulting me that I suck because I so oh sent them to their deaths(can't you people defend yourselves? I remember it was 1 alien vs. 3 marines).

This ever happen to you?

TheGunslinger · November 2002

Rules of NS (and for that matter eveything):

If you lose as a:

a) Commander, its your marines fault.
b) Marine, its the commander's fault.
c) Kharaa, its your team's fault.

In all other cases, the game is either bugged or unbalaned, or the teams are stacked.

CplHicks · November 2002

Gunslinger : LOL

Right!

Sometimes its the CO who is new to the game. Fine! Let him play as CO a bit, make good suggestions where to put stuff, what to research next, where to go etc.
But dont **obscenity**! I have the impression most players who start bitching ASAP something is not going along like they suppose to, they have no impression how the CC looks from the inside.
It is COMMON sometimes a new CO is in charge. Well let him get an impression. You can always tell him he should give way to a guy with better skill, but do it in a mature, polite manner. Same applies to the before mentioned suggestions. Noone is helped by 4 guys yelling "SHOTGUN AND JUMPPACK ASAP AT BASE YOU §$&%§& $"%§$&§!!!!!!". It will ONLY spoil the plan and timing, when the CO gives way to follow those requests.

Marines, STAY IN GROUPS. Not only will this increase your chance of actually achieving a goal, it will also and ultimately increase the chance a plan by CO working as he can easily grab a bunch of you and group them, and send them AS GROUP to a new location.

When there is no order imminent, STAY IN GROUPS, let CO know ONCE per minute that your job is done and you are waiting for orders. If there is a target nearby, like a resource node, go to it and tell him of the new situation. DONT WONDER OFF too far. DONT start ramboing because you get bored in sitting around for a minute or two. Protect a NEARBY installation, or chokepoint.
Use your MIND. MAINTAIN (if you got welder) on your own judgement, either armors of the heavy guys, or installations.
Try to make the job of the CO easier! Nothing is more prohibitive than an entire team running around on the map alone, and running off waypoints you just reached, and having no follow-on orders.
It will confuse the CO, spoiling his planning, and WILL GET YOU KILLED.

IF you go in on your own (IN GROUPS!), TELL the CO of your intention, example "going for Hive, 3 guys", but ONLY if you feel you are currently spared from immediate orders for a reason.

If you feel the CO is really inept, AND is DELIBERATELY spoiling the game, kick him out.

Just my 2 cents.

Unknown · November 2002

who else is a better scapegoat than your overseer?

REPTILE · November 2002

imanewbie dont wory its not your fault if your teams is newbies

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>This ever happen to you? </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

i was in a game yestarday 10vs10 and everyone who got in the comand chair was kicked by the newbies 10 sec later
they didnt even wait to see if he was a good commander so 3 min later there was noone to command!!!!!

xBaD_AcCuRaCyx · November 2002

imanewbie, i think the reason you lost is true and that you do have proff your marines were sorta dumb. any GOOD marine player can easily take out 1-2 skulks with lmg then 1-2 more with a pistols and maybe 1 with your knife. if i can do that to 5 skulks alone, how about when i have a team of 5 along with me that has the same skill? ownage thats what. i suggest u build differently as thats the only flaw i saw. build either a phase gate or TF first...cause remember that a res tower won't help u defend so never build them first. build res tower after u 100% secured the hive. and tell them to stick together but a few steps apart, you never seen a good swarm of skulks leap through a whole 5 marine team and kill them all have you? and don't have all of them building, get at least 2/3 the team guarding....because building slower and being alive is better then finishing reallie fast and losing all the buildings + your marines + a hive. thats all i have to say....hope that helps in later games.

Niteowl · November 2002

general CO/marine tip. always send your men into OPEN areas, or LOONG hallways. anything tht cuts down the LOS for the marines gets them killed. it certainly wasn't u're fault from what it looks like. i woulda gone phase gate on the first hive tho.

if they are super noobs, make sure you leave them in a defendable position. they might have wandered off to a tight cornered area, where skulks can easily close the distance and chomp them all!!

Venmoch · November 2002

Heh, don't get me started on this.

I wrote a thread on this somewhere. (General Discussion)

They blame the commander because they can. Some players can't seem to see that the commander is doing the best he can and that going around on their own gets themself killed.

Heist · November 2002

I dissagree Bad Accuracy. Even a good marine won't take out 5 skulks if he is alone and if you can do it in the quick succession that you are implying by having to kill 2 skulks with one round of the pistol and one with the knife, I want you on my team. Let' try to keep this realistic. It's not hard to kill 5 if they show up in ten second intervals but any quicker and your toast. That is even assuming the aliens are bad. Put the shoe on the other foot. A "GOOD" skulk can take out a few marines. All you have to ask for is that your marines average out to kill as many aliens as they have deaths and they have given you a solid effort. A good marine can kill more than one alien per death... even up to 5, but only if they are spaced out.

As for Newbie... Try and micro-manage your marines. If they are recieving orders fairly consistently then they won't mind waiting for another. Also make sure you give them the guard order. You typing or telling them to stay is easy to miss. One more thing. If your marine group is building something then watch them build it from above. You can hear skulks coming better than they can so try to give them some warning.

KaMiKaZe1 · November 2002

It's true that sometimes the loss is the soldier's fault, but I am usually lucky enough to command people who aren't ignorant to orders, and while I'm ordering most of the team to a point I can usually get enough to pull it off. Unfortunately, last night I played 2 games in a row where I issued orders to roughly 10 marines and no more then 2 went to the waypoint. They were too busy screaming "I NEED AMMO HERE! SEE ME? RIGHT HERE! HERE COMMANDER! CANT YOU SEE ME?" and "I DIDN'T ASK FOR HMG, WELDER, AND HA! I WANTED SHOTTY AND JETPACK! EJECT COMMANDER HE IS N00B!" to bother getting to my waypoint and sieging the enemy Hive. I know I could have won both of these games if the marines would just listen.

mwells · November 2002

I can think of three instances where it's not the commander's fault:

1.) All of your marines are complete morons who want to sit in base and voice chat.
I suffered through this as an alien, and it completely annoyed the team to see these five gorges talking about how marines should have a sniper rifle and LAW missile launcher. The next round, they joined marines, the marines lost and shEEp couldn't stop complaining about them. It was a "I know your pain" situation, really.

2.) The aliens do something completely unexpected and catch you off guard:
This can be countered if you're smart enough, but if the aliens pull something you're not expecting, it's a lot harder to get your bearings. All it takes is one lost chokepoint to lose the battle.

3.) Marines not following orders
Obviously, if your marines don't stick together and follow their waypoints, you will lose. You can say that the commander is responsible for his solder's morality, but some people don't really give a crap if they're being a nuisance or not. They've got a cool gun and they've killed two whole aliens, they've got the "right" to run around like a rambo idiot, getting killed every 5 seconds.

Texas_Ranger · November 2002

I have commanded over 60 games, my current record is 24 wins, 14 losses, and 23 other(game crash, server crash, ejections(4*), took over after another commander had already won/lost the game, etc)
*2 of my ejections occured within the first 30 -45 seconds of the game, why, I don't know.
It is my experience that every single ejection I got was due to incompetence by my team or just plain stupidity. In addition at least half my losses are due to marines going awol(rambo), not following orders and generally being newbs. All in all of the 38 games I have commanded from beginning to end, I would have say that about 5 to 6 of them were lost when my team did follow orders, fought well, etc. Sometimes even the best laid plans go to waste. It is rarely the commanders fault, and even then its the team's fault for not realizing the commander hasn't a clue and replacing them early on. On rare occassions, such as this game I played the other day where the commander first built 2 more CC, no portals no nothing, it is 100% of the commanders fault. Only because you just can't eject them fast enough ...

I would have to say all in all though its about 90% of the marines fault, if your commander sucks and you don't replace him, whose fault is that? the marines..
Texas Ranger <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'>

Alarik · November 2002

in my opinion, the commander's job really boils down to giving the marines what they need, when they need it. and if there is no one 'on the ground' to keep the marines organized and focused, then he also needs to set orders and make the plans. (although having to do that is really tough on a comm). if the marines are organized, get to where they need to be, and fight decently, but the commander doesnt get them the buildings they need in time, its the comms fault when they lose. if the commander is placing everything as fast and as well as he can, with good turret placement, good build order, etc...but the marines go rambo or dont follow orders, or suck, or some combination or all of those, then its the marines fault. in your case, it sounds like it was the marines fault.

phr34k · November 2002

I hear you guys. Now I don't really prefer to play marines for they simple fact that people are just TOO greedy. Now I do not expect you marines to take this as gosple (I have only commanded twice: 1 win, 1 lost) but do NOT demand weapons from the commander. It is impossable to express this enough.

Short (hopefully) war story for you people:

Here I am commanding (not by choice, no one else on the team would do it) after about playing half an hour with a decent alien team. We have already manage to secure one hive and the aliens take the other. The commander gets **obscenity** off and leaves because he believe we will never win the game. I jump in there and first thing i do is start upgrading (yes sadly enough we did not even have an arrmor upgrade much less motion tracking <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'> ). After a while of getting faded and holding them back a marine manages to sneak over to the hive the aliens just took. I decided that if we did not take down that hive then we were gonna lose to fades...to make a rambleing short, I decided to sacrafice the well being of the troops that were holding off the fades so that i could seige the hive. Now I had unhappy people defending the base because they were not getting their "ph4t HA and HMG hook ups". A marine demanded a vote to kick me out of the chair cause i would not give him a jetpack and told him to hold the door against fades with an LMG...now lets take a moment to think what kicking the commander out really does...

...

Thats right, it does nothing but **obscenity** over you and the team.

I asked the marine if he would like to be commander and he said he would. I then decided to ask him what he would do and his reply was drop himself a jetpack and a HMG and kill the fades. I just about died. Marines make me sick some times ya know <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'> .

Anyways we end up winning because the two marines that were building me my seige encampment followed orders and didn't even **obscenity** once for health or ammo because they were doing their job, and that deserves a reward.

/rant

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>This post was not edited and contains large amount of spelling errors </span>

playerman · December 2002

it's a pitty the dev team hasn't yet implemented proper voting for ejecting the comm.
if most of the team thinks you'r ok and just a few who think you are not, then you'r out.
that's an obscenenty.

Sparrow · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (playerman @ Dec 1 2002, 02:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>it's a pitty the dev team hasn't yet implemented proper voting for ejecting the comm.
if most of the team thinks you'r ok and just a few who think you are not, then you'r out.
that's an obscenenty.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
That's how it works here in America. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Catgirl · December 2002

Yeah but one bad Commander ruins a whole team of good Marines...you can still (possibly) win with 5 bad Marines as long as they run around and generally make a nuisance of theirselves to distract the Aliens a little. One bad Comm and you're screwed.

"Hey Comm can we get an Arms Lab?" God I have to ask this ALL THE TIME...it's like they think that unupgraded HMGs mean automatic win, or something. And Heavy Armour...don't get me started on the Comms who think nothing is worth anything but Heavy Armour and HMGs.

Teufel_Eldritch · December 2002

Even if it is the Marines fault the Commander still takes the blame. Why? because he is the Commander....the one commanding. The troops under his command are his responsibilty. Thats the price of command...being responsible for others.

Who do you blame for Napoleon's defeat? Napoleon or his troops? Who do you blame for Rommel's defeat? Him or his troops?

sillY · December 2002

it's really simple. no matter how good/bad the commander is or marines are, if they loose a game against aliens on a similar skill/experience level,
THE REASON FOR THAT IS THE FAILURE IN COMMUNICATION BETWEEN COMMANDER AND MARINES. it goes both ways. if they don't listen to each other they are on their way to becoming a snack for <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tiny.gif'>.

the most common scenario is a combination of commander turtling up every res nodes, disregarding marine's requests "lets take the hive ASAP" (they know what it's like dealing with bile bombs, spores and oni) and and marines runing off into the wilderness or begging for "shotty and jetpack plz ASAP" at base, and not following waypoints/verbal orders.

if marines screw up and blame you as a commander, don't take it seriously. you are the commander and you KNOW why your team failed. keep it to yourself and learn from it, even if it was not your fault.

Why Is It Always The Commander's Fault?

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