Marine Domination In Large Games
sun
Join Date: 2003-11-12 Member: 22714Members
Join Date: 2003-11-12 Member: 22714Members
<div class="IPBDescription">How can aliens counter this?</div> Let me set a few things straight. First off, i play in a large pub server (18 slots, 4 reserved). As much as i want to get back into competive play and the world where people know what they are doing, i dont have the time, nor patience.
As person who enjoys commanding more than anything, i dont mind, but still, the misbalance annoys me. In fact, whenever i comm, i take full advantage of these weaknesses. Most of the time, unless i really screw up, its actually kind of difficult to lose. Just capp, med, and tech. Eventually, I win.
Now, i find that marines DOMINATE large games, for a number of reasons:
1. Res - It is much harder for aliens to capp res nodes compareatively. This doesnt even go into RFK, another nasty advantage for the marines
2. Organization/ Buildings - any comm who can get get people to rush where needed and plop some TF Farm in the center of the map can win. Actually, with so many godarn marines running around, no alien can get anywhere. Aliens are inherently less organized, and less structure based. In a large game, this hurts big time.
What i have noticed is that when the marines lockdown a central location nice and tight, (hive, double, etc) the game is basically over. From there, they just kind of spreak out and cut the fades and gorges off from getting anything done.
Lately, i have been trying to get more gorges to WoL, but then we run into the problem of late fades and not enough res.
How can the Kharra compete?
As person who enjoys commanding more than anything, i dont mind, but still, the misbalance annoys me. In fact, whenever i comm, i take full advantage of these weaknesses. Most of the time, unless i really screw up, its actually kind of difficult to lose. Just capp, med, and tech. Eventually, I win.
Now, i find that marines DOMINATE large games, for a number of reasons:
1. Res - It is much harder for aliens to capp res nodes compareatively. This doesnt even go into RFK, another nasty advantage for the marines
2. Organization/ Buildings - any comm who can get get people to rush where needed and plop some TF Farm in the center of the map can win. Actually, with so many godarn marines running around, no alien can get anywhere. Aliens are inherently less organized, and less structure based. In a large game, this hurts big time.
What i have noticed is that when the marines lockdown a central location nice and tight, (hive, double, etc) the game is basically over. From there, they just kind of spreak out and cut the fades and gorges off from getting anything done.
Lately, i have been trying to get more gorges to WoL, but then we run into the problem of late fades and not enough res.
How can the Kharra compete?
Comments
When you have less than 6 aliens, the res flow is very quick, otherwise its very slow beyond 6. That probably explains why a majority of pub games are won by marines, unless some idiot commander jumps in or the marines can't aim.
Well i find that skulking in packs will help a lot, esp when rushing a locked location. 5 skulks chewing on a pg will take it down very, very quickly. also having gorges and lerks along helps also. Really though, it's the skulk packs that will win the game. they can take down almost any structure incredibly quickly, esp. marine start and res nodes. marines simply can't react fast enough to that much focused firepower. However.. getting the skulk pack together is nearly impossible in pubs. Having one really good fade doesn't hurt either.
Well i find that skulking in packs will help a lot, esp when rushing a locked location. 5 skulks chewing on a pg will take it down very, very quickly. also having gorges and lerks along helps also. Really though, it's the skulk packs that will win the game. they can take down almost any structure incredibly quickly, esp. marine start and res nodes. marines simply can't react fast enough to that much focused firepower. However.. getting the skulk pack together is nearly impossible in pubs. Having one really good fade doesn't hurt either. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're wrong, it does explain it all.
Because of how the khaara res system works, the more players on the team the slower any individual khaara gains res. This slows down the hive, fades, lerk etc... Marines though can still tech at the same pace, if not a quicker pace due to more RFK.
While in comparatively smaller pub games a single good player can rack up RFK and go fade quickly and carry the team, but against 10-12 marines, what can a single fade do? He cant be everywhere at once.
Thus, you should try to exploit that advantage. The best way to do that, would probably be a lerk or gorge rush, which would be hard to organize and execute in a large scale game, unless the players were fairly experienced.
It would be interesting to see 16 gorges drop OCs in MS within 1:00, however.
You will never see this level of organization in a pub.
It is true that it is the res system that limits the aliens in large games.
The first priority is securing an area with OCs, NOT RTs. The reason is since their are much more players, RTs will be taken down a lot faster and controlling areas gives R4K.
The first area you should be going for depends on where your hive location is. If you have a side hive, it will be harder since you will have to go for double res (if possible), or side hive. If there is a chokepoint where you can defend double res AND the middle hive, go for it and drop OCs there. However, if there is no chokepoint, try to capture the place with more res with again, OCs and whatnot. If they lock down a hive, at least it doesn't benefit them at all, if you have more res however, you can fade or onos and take the hive from them.
If you have a middle hive, things will be a bit easier. You are more flexible and can focus on getting res first as opposed to securing a hive. Focus on res areas and eventually you will overtake the game.
It is important to use OCs as it can be difficult for skulks to rescue areas when they spawn. You must keep marines away from key areas of the map as long as you can, otherwise, they will outtech you. It is more beneficial to place chambers throughout the map rather than bunched in one spot.
So when the game starts, have the majority of the team securing a chokepoint or double res. Lock it down and push for the second hive. OC and chamber placement are crucial as you will have to play defense most of the time. Make sure you limit their res as well.
But you do start with 25 res, which is already 50% to Fade.
Raw alien aggression wins the big games, you need to limit marine income to their MS node and RFK only. Assuming a competent player or two, you should expect an early fade and lerk (lerk first probably - we assume both players did NOT drop anything). Once second hive goes up, mass alien bodies are very hard to stop... let alone third hive and huge waves of Xeno.
Coordination and aggression, so you won't see it on your average pub, but you will see it on a pub with a few "known faces".
Actually, i suppose the Aliens habitially defend untill hive #2 or fade, and that is a fatal mistake.
Keeping the mainres reacting to alien agression seems to solve a lot of problems (kills rts, saves yours, prevents lockdowns). The trick then becomes getting pubbers to ambush rather than throwing thier lives away and choking up a spawn cue. Damm those 2 - 3 Ips.
If i could figure out how to do that, i would be NS pub god though, so .... ::sigh::
Your only hope is to be better than the marines, or to execute some gorge/lerk rush strategy.
the problem boils down to the res system, and i can't really think of a way of changing the res system so that marines and aliens would be equal whatever the team size. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Thus, you should try to exploit that advantage. The best way to do that, would probably be a lerk or gorge rush, which would be hard to organize and execute in a large scale game, unless the players were fairly experienced.
It would be interesting to see 16 gorges drop OCs in MS within 1:00, however. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Worth noting again.
Another note: the aliens also spawn relativly slower in large games. This is fixed next release.
Assuming, that you are playing on a 16vs16 server this number can hit 300 with ease. Mind you 300 res is only an average of 18 to 19 per alien. But it means that there could be 6 Fades out, if aliens had a shared res pool, like rines.
The res system is also the reason, why aliens cant turtle, compared to rines.
If you want to win a big game (assuming that you dont play with any plugins) you need superb lerks and skulk, cause you wont see fades that early.
Then the map would be dominated by onos smacktards.
Anyhow, if you coordinate your efforts you can have just as much res. Its just getting over the initial bump of surviving the marine rush.
However, pressuring a hive with 5 - 8 marines just to build a spawn cue is definetly not what people intended teh early game to be centered around. Or is it?
b6 offers dynamic spawn times for the aliens? That would partially help balance the early game.
I dont really know what you can do to the RFK system without fundamentally changing the game. If you make RFK pooled like the regular res from RTs, on average, you are going to get earlier hives but later fades.
I dont know how this will change the game around the 5 minute mark, because having earlier cara/ cele fades could be devastating to game balance, imo. Also, if you bring the first hive and the first fade marks closer together, the alien momentum midgame is going to be even worse than it already is.
Is this a good thing>?
On a big server tho, you're going to need two decent players who can cough up the rfk for a second hive AND an early fade. Once you've got both of those, the rest of the team will do a lot better.
I don't really see big games ever being "fixed" per se, as NS is about small squad based combat, but certainly some of the B6 changes should even it out a little.