(ns2 basics) Want help with the basics of NS2 as a marine? look here
Kasharic
Hull, England Join Date: 2013-03-27 Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
Hull, England Join Date: 2013-03-27 Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
Okay, If you're experienced with ns2, this should all already be a familiar topic for you, but feel free to add thoughts, ideas, suggestions etc.
In this post i'll briefly go over two basic things... Laneblocking and Zoning... This is by no means advance in any way, it explains the very basics and nothing more, but its a good place to start from.
Lane-Blocking
Okay, Lane-blocking basics.
First of all, what is a lane and how many are there?... lets use tram as our example for now.
Lanes are the potential routes to your base, so for this example we will use shipping.
From shipping we can see 3 lanes. Logistics, Observation and South tunnels. (see spoiler image)
Red - Left lane. Green - Middle lane. Blue - Right lane.
In the following picture red lines show where initial, early game blocking should occur, to prevent a base rush and secure natural RTs. You are blocking all entrances including vents to vital rooms (in this case, your Natural RTs)
Once your first resource towers are secure and you are moving on and taking more map to control. the Ideal lane blocking will look more like this.
This secures 5 RT nodes and also should drastically reduce risk of Base rushes.
The only way to block in a more efficient manner would be to block the alien base entirely.
Red lines - Warehouse Hive
Blue lines - Server Room Hive
Using this very basic principle is vital to a marine game. without correct lane-blocking the aliens can win the round in a matter of seconds with a rush.
Zoning
Zoning is very similar to lane-blocking. In lane-blocking you are controlling 1 path, the difference with zoning is that you defend multiple lanes from an optimal position.
Again we will use Tram as the example.
In mid game, we would expect (assuming shipping start) that we need to “block” north tunnels, mezzanine and ore processing. Using zoning, you can achieve this using 2 marines rather than 3.
The red box shows the area (or “zone”) that the marine in Repair room should stick to.
The blue box shows the area that the marine in Mezz/Hub should stick to.
By moving around in these “zones” you are effectively blocking multiple “lanes”.
As you can see, zoning is a very strong tool as it frees up more marines to apply pressure, recap, rotate to help teammates etc.
Feel free to ask question, point out issues, offer advice, request advice etc.
In this post i'll briefly go over two basic things... Laneblocking and Zoning... This is by no means advance in any way, it explains the very basics and nothing more, but its a good place to start from.
Lane-Blocking
Okay, Lane-blocking basics.
First of all, what is a lane and how many are there?... lets use tram as our example for now.
Lanes are the potential routes to your base, so for this example we will use shipping.
From shipping we can see 3 lanes. Logistics, Observation and South tunnels. (see spoiler image)
Red - Left lane. Green - Middle lane. Blue - Right lane.In the following picture red lines show where initial, early game blocking should occur, to prevent a base rush and secure natural RTs. You are blocking all entrances including vents to vital rooms (in this case, your Natural RTs)
Once your first resource towers are secure and you are moving on and taking more map to control. the Ideal lane blocking will look more like this.
This secures 5 RT nodes and also should drastically reduce risk of Base rushes.
The only way to block in a more efficient manner would be to block the alien base entirely.
Red lines - Warehouse HiveBlue lines - Server Room Hive
Using this very basic principle is vital to a marine game. without correct lane-blocking the aliens can win the round in a matter of seconds with a rush.
Zoning
Zoning is very similar to lane-blocking. In lane-blocking you are controlling 1 path, the difference with zoning is that you defend multiple lanes from an optimal position.
Again we will use Tram as the example.
In mid game, we would expect (assuming shipping start) that we need to “block” north tunnels, mezzanine and ore processing. Using zoning, you can achieve this using 2 marines rather than 3.
The red box shows the area (or “zone”) that the marine in Repair room should stick to.
The blue box shows the area that the marine in Mezz/Hub should stick to.
By moving around in these “zones” you are effectively blocking multiple “lanes”.
As you can see, zoning is a very strong tool as it frees up more marines to apply pressure, recap, rotate to help teammates etc.
Feel free to ask question, point out issues, offer advice, request advice etc.
Comments
So when you cover a lane and you're not parasited never give up your position or get parasited unnecessarily.
When you're for example in the Position of the pictures on tram or veil you can cover the lane while standing behind a wall. You should only peek around the corner for a second before going into hiding again.
If a skulk rushes in, you are in a good position to fight and there is a good chance that he is suprised by your ambush and can easily be killed.
More Basic and Advanced stuff like that can also be found the following post or ensl.org/tutorials
Which currently Im sure most rounds do (take shade hive first) as it's just far better than the other options.
Especially on veil where you get ink to protect nano from arcs
Or for the new super buffed halucinations,
Or for the vanilla skulk being super fast already so little point in getting celerity anymore... etc
unless you get the occasional hipster com who wants to echo stuff for the fun of it, or the returning com who didnt played for ages and dont know what the current meta
These are tried and tested principles that are used at the highest level of play... its fine that you don't want to learn, but its ignorant to believe that what the best in the game are doing is wrong.
(note: i'm not calling myself the best in the game, i'm talking about people of much higher skill than myself)
Is it though? Map matters. Player context matters. Shade first hive may be a better option for rookie players, since they can spot ambushes with aura. But experienced players dont need that to play smart and effective.
When marines HAVE to arc nano, they are losing engagements, which means you dont really need shade.
Comp players would rip your tongue out for that :P (jk) Celerity/silence is paramount in fast paced rounds.
Please do explain to me how does echoing out a fully mature RT become undesirable? Not to mention the ease with which the alien comm can move around the healing bases where needed.
Only twice as many? Honestly I'm surprised it's that low.
Silence is amazing. As alien.
Okay, first up,
I didn't misunderstand and you didn't fail to put your point across... you're just wrong.
"rendered irrelevant" is the phrasing that you are wrong about... laneblocking is NEVER irrelevant... I don't care what hive type you use, what stage of the game you're at, what lifeforms are on the field or what upgrades you're using... Laneblocking is ALWAYS a necessity.
If Aura truly made laneblocking irrelevant, you wouldn't do it... what you mean (correct me if i'm wrong here by all means) is that aura HELPS COUNTER laneblocking... it can do it in multiple ways, #1 it allows you to ambush more effectively, killing marines opens up lanes... and #2 you can see where marines are, and as such avoid them to get to their back res by spotting holes in the lanes.
the problem is -
#1 can be countered by getting fast armour 2, which gives marines the chance to actually fight the ambusher rather than dying before he/she can react, if the commander is fast with his/her meds, the marine has a much larger chance of survival... to use your own wording "making aura irrelevant"
#2 is only possible IF THERE ARE HOLES IN THE LANES! if there are no holes, you have to fight... meaning that the marine is doing his job properly, he is protecting the lanes... regardless of if he wins or not.
And secondly,
Aura is strong yes, but statistical evidence exists to show that shift hive is the preferred hive due to silence making aliens so much stronger in the early game, marines fail to block lanes due to sound scouting, lose in combat more often because they don't hear the alien coming and the commander is able to expand super fast (and reinforce expansion fast) due to echoing.
You may have a preferred style of play that leans heavily on aura, and you may even be more effective with aura, but the stats are not in your favour here.
Since february first on all rounds played (that are tracked by Wonitor) with 12+ players that lasted more than 5 minutes.
Shift hive first 2703 rounds 56% winrate for aliens
Shade hive first 1366 rounds 56% winrate for aliens
Crag hive first 477 rounds 52% winrate for aliens
No hive tech first 40 rounds 7% winrate for aliens
So you see, the stats show that shift hive is done almost twice as often as shade hive and has the same winrate.
#2 happens all the time in average skilled game, that is the skill level at which any reasonable person would agree the game should be balanced around.
not about my playstyle lol, if anything its about the playstyle of everybody with a grasp of which upgrades works better in most scenarios
your stats are not accurate you need to look specifically at maps Tram and Veil, by far the two most played maps, which both have enough vents and side paths to make aura shine.
There is so much wrong with this comment I don't even know where to start... but lets give it a shot.
#1 I never said ambushing requires aura, I said it helps make ambushing a lot easier.
#2 yes, holes in lanes do happen all the time in average/low skill games... because people don't understand how to laneblock properly... HENCE ME WRITING THIS THREAD
#3 Balancing for mid range skill leaves room for high skill players to snowball and destroy mid/low skill players with more ease than you could ever believe... you balance based off of the higher skilled people and add in options for lower skill players to still make an impact.
#4 I have a firm understanding of all the upgrades, how they can/should be used and I have tutorials that I've written up that will explain all of that, which is part of this "basics" tutorial series i'm doing... feel free to stick around and read that thread too, you will probably learn a lot from it.
#5 This game has 12 official maps (Biodome, Caged, Derelict, Descent, Docking, Eclipse, Kodiak, Mineshaft, Refinery, Summit, Tram and Veil) and that isn't even mentioning the MANY custom maps that also exist... if your logic only works on 2 maps, your logic is flawed.
Look how far you've come :')
Say 9v9 on tram because it's easy. 2 rines repair, 2 rines base of stairs mezz, 4 rines hub... Now if aliens push hard either side 2-3 marines from hub shift to support. If aliens are poorly coordinated 1-2 hub rines Haras RT. Hub/mezz are way open, If 6 skulks rush from mezz your going to take heavy losses to 2 decent rines, and hub guys are right there to clean up. Best bet is repair because there is cover.... But if spawning rines run their lanes and hub shifts to cover good luck holding.
Problem with lanes is that if you grab 2 random pub players an tell them to hold repair chances are their total hive skill will be sub 2k.... Now your decent 2.5k player goes and solos them and ambushes the hub rines running in to support killing 1 more, meanwhile 4 skulks and a gorge hit from mezz.
A lane blocked by "beginner" players is an allusion of safety... With the differences in skill in this game breaking lanes is a matter of finding the week link....
Personally i find more offensive strategies effective, that on small maps like tram you should run your lane, not hold, forcing aliens to react or trade.
No matter what way you look at it, the average hive skill is pretty close to 1000. I really don't think he actually wants to balance around average skill because that would be balancing for the lowest common denominator.
Don't make me pull out graphs. I really don't want to go through that kind of effort.
Laning never becomes irrelevant, regardless of the alien's tech level.
Pretend that you are facing two doors. One has a guy with a gun behind it, and the other one is empty, "because laning is utterly irrelevant." Which door do you choose?
It's okay to be an average player. It's not okay to be intentionally stupid and borderline treasonous to your team. Get your shit together
?... ????
No the exact opposite.
You took me too literally and failed to understand what I said.
Your claim is that laning becomes "utterly irrelevant" with aura, which is completely incorrect. Laning is never irrelevant regardless of the tech. Prove me wrong
You took me too literally and failed to understand what I said.
[/quote]
Maybe if people are clearly not understanding you, you should put in a little extra effort and speak more literally. It is the job of the communicator to make their message understandable.
Okay, here is the real statistics not my faulty memory.
During that time period the average hive skill of games played was about 1460. You can also see it is a bimodel distribution with one peak at about 500 hive skill and another at about 1700 hive skill. It would be fair to say that the majority of non-rookie only games have an average skill level of about 1700 which is significantly higher than I was saying earlier.
I should also note that the data is from servers that collect data with wonitor, which is biased towards higher skilled servers. If I had data from all servers, the values would likely be lower than shown in the above histogram.