Outcome Decided By The First 5-10 Minutes Of Play
DanSTC
Join Date: 2002-11-26 Member: 10046Members
Join Date: 2002-11-26 Member: 10046Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Does it seem odd? (No flaming, please.)</div> Something I've been noticing as of late. Within the first 5-10 minutes of play, the outcome of the game is already decided. Whoever grabs two hives first is practically guranteed a victory. Whoever gets delayed or pushed back within that short window of time inevitably winds up the losing team.
This doesn't seem quite right. I'm all for fast-paced games, but the deus-ex nature of the gameplay is starting to wear a bit thin. In my view, players should have much more of a chance of turning the tide of battle around even if one team locks down two hives. Perhaps this can be ammended by doing such things as upping the lerk's sniping ability (especially against buildings), reducing the overall power of fades, giving marines better incentive to not grab a hive first thing, and so on.
In addition, rushing on the whole seems to have taken over games, be it marines rushing for hives, or skulks rushing the base to take out all the marines. For all the wonderfully complex RTS-style equipment upgrades and this game sports for marines, only a few of them ever play any role until the marines have locked down both hives, and by that time it's like swatting flies with a tactical nuke. (Most of the time, we don't even get our first arms lab upgrade until we have two hives secured...and often, we don't even bother with jetpacks or other stuff and just LMG the final enemy hive to death.)
If it were up to me, I'd love to make this game play more like a swinging pendulum of balance, gradually swaying back and forth between either team until either one team winds up overwhelming the other through overall superior ability (and more importantly, the ability to not give up when the chips are down) or wherein the battle culminates in a massive confrontation with the enemy. The game should allow for players to have a better chance at making a comeback, thus the ability of players to stick it out when things get rough should be rewarded by a chance at a narrow victory.
Instead, the match is decided within the first 5 minutes by the activities of either side. (And generally by the marines, since they are wholly dependant upon a competent commander.) This disappoints me greatly, as I sorta pictured a bit more complexity to this game beyond the single-dimension of the RTS-style rushing mentality, but it seems to have degraded to such.
Hopefully with future patches and additional features to the game, all this will change and I'll have something else less significant to gripe about. But I just wanted to get my opinion on the fundamental flaws in the current gameplay out into the open so I could discuss it with others.
Anyway, thoughts?
This doesn't seem quite right. I'm all for fast-paced games, but the deus-ex nature of the gameplay is starting to wear a bit thin. In my view, players should have much more of a chance of turning the tide of battle around even if one team locks down two hives. Perhaps this can be ammended by doing such things as upping the lerk's sniping ability (especially against buildings), reducing the overall power of fades, giving marines better incentive to not grab a hive first thing, and so on.
In addition, rushing on the whole seems to have taken over games, be it marines rushing for hives, or skulks rushing the base to take out all the marines. For all the wonderfully complex RTS-style equipment upgrades and this game sports for marines, only a few of them ever play any role until the marines have locked down both hives, and by that time it's like swatting flies with a tactical nuke. (Most of the time, we don't even get our first arms lab upgrade until we have two hives secured...and often, we don't even bother with jetpacks or other stuff and just LMG the final enemy hive to death.)
If it were up to me, I'd love to make this game play more like a swinging pendulum of balance, gradually swaying back and forth between either team until either one team winds up overwhelming the other through overall superior ability (and more importantly, the ability to not give up when the chips are down) or wherein the battle culminates in a massive confrontation with the enemy. The game should allow for players to have a better chance at making a comeback, thus the ability of players to stick it out when things get rough should be rewarded by a chance at a narrow victory.
Instead, the match is decided within the first 5 minutes by the activities of either side. (And generally by the marines, since they are wholly dependant upon a competent commander.) This disappoints me greatly, as I sorta pictured a bit more complexity to this game beyond the single-dimension of the RTS-style rushing mentality, but it seems to have degraded to such.
Hopefully with future patches and additional features to the game, all this will change and I'll have something else less significant to gripe about. But I just wanted to get my opinion on the fundamental flaws in the current gameplay out into the open so I could discuss it with others.
Anyway, thoughts?
Comments
It's a common phenomenon on PRIVATE servers too. Perhaps even moreso, since the players tend to be much more organized.
It's a fundamental problem with the gameplay, period.
From the marine perspective--
1) if you mean actually fortifying two empty hives in addition to their base - then they deserve to win! Holding two hives is *damn* hard, and it's not coincidence that an alien team with only 1 hive is limited to 3 classes with two attacks each, and only one upgrade.
2) if you mean fortifying one hive and their main base (two "start" locations), then the aliens have every opportunity to win, either by taking back the hive or simply taking the marines out with their potent two-hive classes/abilities/upgrades.
From the alien perspective--
1) if you mean having two hives online, the marines still have an excellent chance of winning. Fades are not the aliens' end-game unit; marines simply need to be coordinated. Of course it is preferable to never let the aliens even get two hives, but a commander who has secured a single hive and 3-4 resource nodes when the aliens get two hives is still in excellent shape to lead his team to victory.
2) if you mean having built two additional hives, giving the aliens 3 active hives... the marines aren't doing their job. The aliens' 3-hive weapons and the Onos class are unbelievably powerful for a reason - efficiently taking apart a floundering marine team. It's not impossible to come back as marines facing 3-hive aliens, but it's not supposed to be easy.
There are a few things that people don't seem to realize about the flow of NS gameplay:
1) ideally, the average game lasts about 30 minutes. You will rarely see clan matches go past 45, but this is also a target Flayra had in mind for pub play. A 30-minute game might go like this:
<!--c1--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->5 mins: Marines have secured 1 hive
10 mins: aliens have 2nd hive and 4-5 resource nodes; marines have 1 hive and 3-4 RNs.
15 mins: early midgame; Fades vs. minimally upgraded marines
20 mins: (marine win) marines take 2nd hive, gain upper-level upgrades and HA/JP.
(alien win) aliens overrun one of the marine bases (main or hive)
25 mins: (marine win) attack on final hive
(alien win) 3rd hive comes online OR attack on marine hive base
30 mins: (either team) opposing base destroyed; hunt down stragglers<!--c2--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
2) the end-game is *supposed* to be fairly one-sided. It's no fun to pound away at base defenses for half an hour when your team has clearly won; nor is it enjoyable to hang onto a certain loss for just as long. In the interest of quickly deciding a win or loss once the tide has definitely turned (in my previous example, the ~22-minute mark), the endgame matchups are deliberately unbalanced. You either have overpowering alien force (needed, since the marines always retain their upgrades) or powerful marine weapons against ill-equipped and unevolved single-hive aliens. I would say that a turnaround is quite possible in the 20- to 25-minute range (again, based on the above example); after the 25 minute mark, the game is on its way to a swift conclusion.
If you feel that the game is over once the aliens gain Fades, you need to play on marine teams with better teamwork and a more capable commander. If you feel it's over once the aliens get 3 hives... barring a miracle, you're right.
If you feel the game is over when the marines have occupied a single hive, you need to learn your 2-hive abilities better; teamwork between a Lerk and Fade (Gorge optional) is deadly at the 2-hive stage. If you feel it's over once the marines have taken two hives... yeah, you're probably right.
If both of the initially empty hive locations have been taken by a single team (locked down by the marines or built by the aliens) within 10-15 minutes, then the other team is very simply not playing effectively; those two hives are the key to victory, and controlling them is absolutely vital. Holding off assaults and taking these high-value locations both require extensive teamwork for either side.
First team to two hives wins.
I think the problem lies with the mid-game... not the early game... with fades/lerks... or HA/HMG... depending on your perspective.
Anyone can tell you the balance shifts dramatically when either side holds two hives... Marines will only have to deal with lerks and skulks should they capture 2 hives. Aliens usually only have to deal with unupgraded marines should THEY take 2 hives.
If you ask me, Marines should get the win if they take two hives... they've effectively denied the aliens from advancing. But, NOT getting two hives for the marines shouldn't guarentee defeat either... As it stands now, when 2-Hive Aliens go up against Semi-Upgraded Marines, Aliens come out on top. Fades just completely overpower Marines unless they've got heavy armor. Marines have a real hard time defeating the fade/lerk combo unless they've got HA+Grenade... 60 resources.
Time to tweak Fades again? I dunno. It just seems pretty crazy that Fades can take out a Marine with 3 or so Acid Rockets. Marines don't have much choice BUT to take 2 hives if they want to survive... But give the Marines some kind of chance against Fades... and you'll probably see less emphasis on rushing.
Anyway, just some thoughts.
-----
Nullzero
There is a good way out, for NS as for all strategy game: The first moves of the opening must be ritualized, so that both sides can play a perfect opening without too much thinking and reach an even middle game.
The endgame is again superfluous, as the result are obvious.
As for rushing, sometimes it makes the aliens lose (9 aliens have to respawn, while the marines march diligently towards their hive), or the marines lose (though more difficult, since they can just drop a comm center and def it, after killing an aliens' hive they just plain old die). because they rushed and didn't catch the first wave of skulk rushing. Rushing is a big deal in games like starcraft, too. Their game names had things like "5 mins no rush" rules and such just because they didn't like rushing. Perhaps you should play servers with such rules if you don't like rushing, or create one? I personally like the first 5 minutes, and then trying to regain or hold the winning position. After about 15 minutes, if both teams are good, it should start to get very one-sided.
However, this isn't the case. Yes, I know, time is supposedly on the side of the marines, and you're supposed to be able to secure a significant amount of resources enabling so you can tech up your weapons and armor to combat fades, but this is what usually happens (in an aliens-control-two-hives-game):
Marines have already secured three resource nodes, and are working on four.
While establishing the fourth, they come under fire from fades and lerks, and usually lose their ground.
They respawn, inform the commander that they need a grenade launcher for countering umbra (which they've already researched). The commander gives out a GL and a welder but can't afford anything else because he already spent a good 85 RPs trying to secure that fourth node that was lost. The marines go to defend the outermost resource node (the fourth is dead already because it was never completely set up), and find that the aliens are making short work of it.
The grenade launcher stays back and fires off a salvo. The aliens hear the sound, the lerks fly away, the fades blink to safety, and the grenades bounce around harmlessly.
The aliens locate the marines and charge headfirst towards them. Lerk sprays umbra, grenade launcher spam flies everywhere, and the GL guy is eaten by a lerk or skulk while the escort marines try in vain to weld and knife the wrinkly **obscenity**. Maybe a fade died from the grenades, but at this point it doesn't really matter.
GL guy dies, someone else tries to pick up the GL, is killed while reloading, rinse and repeat until the marines are dead.
The aliens go back to munching on the resources.
The commander has lost quite a bit and decides to head off to a different portion of the map, a place that's relatively quiet.
The fade + lerk combo encroaches on the marine main base and sieges it using acid rocket and umbra. Commander skips the resource node, orders all his marines back to base, and gives one guy a GL.
LMG marines suicide 3 at a time into the group of aliens just outside the main base. They die repeatedly. On spawn they are hit with acid rocket and reduced to half health or so.
The GL holds off the aliens indefinitely, until they have the courage to charge into the main base, whereupon the exact same thing happens as before--GL is taken out almost immediately under the cover of umbra, the grenades overshoot and skid behind the aliens, and all the marines die.
Lovely, ain't it?
I had a ton of demos of 15vs15, 12vs12, and 16vs16.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
16v16? That's just not funny. This game isn't balanced on anything bigger than 8v8, IMO. Anything bigger, and you get hit by both the resource "feature" you mention AND the constant alien respawn rate vs the marine adjustable one.
One big battle taking out every skulk but one and every marine but the commander - it will take the aliens about 4 minutes before they have all spawned back. With 4 IP's, it will take the marines less than one. Unless the commander feels like blowing 15 res points on a distress call, in which case it will take about 5 seconds.
With 16 players, each res node gives the marines about 40 resources per minute. Capture three, and you have more resources than you can spend, basically. And how hard it is to capture three resource nodes with 15 active marines?
The problem is, the Kharaa don't get any advantage from the increased resource flow until the skulks starts to fill up - which they do at about constant rate no matter the team size. So time to second hive is cut by about 10% on a 16v16 server compared to an 8v8, while the marines are researching and building turret factories at TWICE the rate.
Personally, I limit my playing to 8v8 servers. If the marines know what they are doing, they have a pretty good chance of winning - especially if they know the "WIN" spots on the maps, rush there before the Kharaa has ANY chance of building any defenses, and build the phasegate that wins the game.
Most of the times, the aliens win. I figure its because good marine commanders tend to want to play larger games, as it is much easier to win those, so smaller games usually gets less experienced commanders.
Depends on the server...the players....the map...At least most games are only 30 minutes to an hour or so. So they are not super long and endless. Most of the time.
And as a comm for marines i've had a game where we one on cage in 5 minutes, got a little base, sent them to the sewer and they took out the hive.
Why try and halt rushing, its a great tactic, its a legit tactic, its what your meant to bloody do, if your an alien god damn you rush, you do not have the resources to do anything interesting so why sit your arse down at the hive when you could be sitting arses down at their respawn.
2 examples, maybe 5 occurances of this in games i've played out of dozens.
We've had 3 hives, full upgrades, onos stamping all over them yet its not decided, because they had a dozen hmg ha guys blasting our arses.
My point is this, its not over untill its over. The rush is a great tactic for both sides, but it can be so easily stopped, want to stop it, stand by the entrances to respawn and blast anything coming through, a few skulks with no upgrades are dog meant for marines. If your a skulk and your going to be rushes, get ya arse up in the rafters and hide then ambush them. Rush is so effect but only because people are so thick they rarely try to counter againist it, its not hard to be killed when you've got your back to entrance putting things up and all 6 of ya are there is a field day.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here's how rushing as a marine can be incredibly effective:
Don't build anything.
Order all your marines to a point outside their hive--the commander simply listens at each location and will know.
Preferably this location will be difficult to flank, and be a straightish hall, providing little cover for skulks.
Everyone but two marines in a 9 man team camps the entrances.
The skulks come.
They kill maybe 4 marines. No big deal. They die. A single entrance makes it easy to spot incoming skulks, and by now a CC and two IPs are up.
More skulks come.
They half eat an IP and take out more soliders.
Now seven IPs are up and the marines are respawning instantly.
They run in groups of three over and over into the hive.
Eventually they kill more than they die, and the endless stream of marines overpowers the skulks, since the skulks only respawn one at a time, and the marines spawn instantly. Two marines concentrate on the hive while the rest kill skulks that spawn instantly. Marines have won in less than three minutes.
<a href='http://www.shambler.net/articles/nsbalance.phtml' target='_blank'>http://www.shambler.net/articles/nsbalance.phtml</a>
Interesting.
Nobodies knows how to take out fades so a poor upgraded marine team (no thxs to the commander) so then the aliens have already won or this can be the -ONLY- chance the marines can get back. But it's too hard, one well placed fade rocket or 2 can clear out 3 guys. Who cares of aliens get only 2-3 attacks, CQC,Far and other...They are more powerful than the marines.
I've won as marines, but omg it's a **obscenity**. Only hope is a good combo of team + commander. ANybody w/ the name NSplayer should not command on a game of +6 people or more lol.
Also getting tired and winning as aliens, I've been going marines and getting beat. Even when I am a fade, I feel too overpowered. Except when 2HAs come after me which is rare because mainly. "most people dont know how to kill a fade." You are supposed to rush that **obscenity**
and something about the shotty..has anybody had success killing a fade in 3-4 shots against a fade pointblank?
okay i'm done w/ my rants
(take note that i was playing against a cheater today and lost a good amount of times and my NS is starting to crash after each game ending so i'm a bit **obscenity** off) <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo-->
<a href='http://www.shambler.net/articles/nsbalance.phtml' target='_blank'>http://www.shambler.net/articles/nsbalance.phtml</a>
Interesting.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't read that, but I play on the same private servers as Dan, and since release of 1.03, I've probably gone through at least 2 games per day, maybe even more on weekends (I'm speaking for myself--others stay on for as long as 6 hours at a time on weekends).
It's pretty much either the marines cheaply rush the aliens (at which point the aliens get **obscenity** Edit: wow, the past tense of pee is a swear word off and leave), or the aliens get two hives and the marines **obscenity** and so's a female dog and moan about "not killing us fast enough already."
We play with the same group of 50 people or so routinely, and get the same results every time. There's only been two really good games where the aliens had two hives and it was a constant back and forth for about seven hours.
It's interesting to note that in 1.02, we all split up and scrimmaged four times (two games on two separate weekends). Since we're both sort of loose clans that share the same servers, we're about the same skill.
The other guys raped us the first time with a marine rush, but then we lost as marine (first match).
The next time, we lost as marine first while attempting to get a second hive before they did (this didn't happen). Then they lost as marine as they tried to aggresively cap resources and tech fast.
Eventually they kill more than they die, and the endless stream of marines overpowers the skulks, since the skulks only respawn one at a time, and the marines spawn instantly. Two marines concentrate on the hive while the rest kill skulks that spawn instantly. Marines have won in less than three minutes.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've seen that occur several times lately. It's getting more frequent as players discover they can subvert all the game's rules by simply rushing ahead.
I had a ton of demos of 15vs15, 12vs12, and 16vs16. All with my favorite commander, mainly because we're good friends, and he knew how to play the game. I was on both sides when the round would end, so I could record both sides.. and no matter how coordinated the aliens were, no matter how talented or skilled they were as skulks and/or gorges, they could NOT win. Now, he just laughs and pretty much toys with the alien team, and we all know we're going to lose, but he even once completely recycled an entire marine-held hive.. and when we thought it was just a mistake on his part of his joke, his entire team had HMG/HA with a few people with HA/GL. When a few marines were damaged, the people with GL would spam and the people were injured would repair armor, and he'd drop medpacks and ammo. They were practically invincible, and we had fades/lerks pumping umbra! Eventually our lerks all died because of the GL spamming, and the heavies just marched through, practically killing/destroying anything.
In the end of that, we still lost.. and horribly.
Ahem.. well, that was kind of pointless. What I was trying to point out relaly, was that there's a huge .. "bug", I suppose for big servers. Marines get so many resources, it's silly. And they're not shared like the aliens, and if the aliens have a newbie gorge or a griefer gorge who thinks it's funny to build a sensory or just sit on gorge to make the other gorges have less resources. (Ever seen a team of 12 players with 5 gorges? It's not cool.) Anyway, I'd REALLY like to see a patch for big servers, and a patch for the smaller servers, but that's up to Flayra and his talent as a coder, since I really don't bother with that area.. maybe he can just make it all into one patch.. but damn, it's becoming annoying to play NS now.. and I don't know how much longer I can play when aliens seem to be so .. disadvantaged.
It just makes for a more interesting game.
I agree with Tazol, Large games are extremely different then small games. But, I think adding a faster respawn rate to the aliens first hive would go very far to make the game more even (how many times has half your team been dead and it takes you a min and a half to respawn back in?).
Oh, and in the few really long ones that had a significant midgame, the marines held on by having four HA's, all equipped with welders, one with shotgun, two with HMGs, and one with a GL. The rest of the marines acted as cannon fodder basically while these guys stayed together and cleaned up.
The problem in most games is accruing the amount of RPs necessary in that case. The only thing I remember from the game was that the aliens somehow messed up in getting their second hive. I don't remember how (I dropped in for 10 min at the beginning and came back an hour later) but it came later in the game than usual, apparently, so the marines had plenty of time to tech up and just camp the few res nodes they had.
This left us with one hive and them getting heavy armor and other upgrades and getting tons of resources to help. The game seemed almost over when due to great work and attacks, we managed to take back holoroom and hera although building was still impossible. We still had both hives although one was getting sieged but the siege was stopped just in time. Then we finally cleared out our 3rd hive even though we were still getting attacked heavily at datacore hive. Even with 3rd hive we did not instantly win. The marines also had all upgrades and the game from then on went back and forth
They would almost take a hive but get pushed back and so on. Eventually tho the tide finally turned back to us the aliens. We managed to take out there entire main base. However they moved right infront of one of our main hives and managed to siege it and build a brand new base there (archiving) However with the help of a few still evolved onos and fade and lerk with umbra support, we slowly yet surely took back the room and one the game. This game went on forever! (at least it seemed that way) it just goes to show that just because theyve taken 2 hives it doesnt always mean defeat. Especially with good players.
And as a comm for marines i've had a game where we one on cage in 5 minutes, got a little base, sent them to the sewer and they took out the hive.
Why try and halt rushing, its a great tactic, its a legit tactic, its what your meant to bloody do, if your an alien god damn you rush, you do not have the resources to do anything interesting so why sit your arse down at the hive when you could be sitting arses down at their respawn.
2 examples, maybe 5 occurances of this in games i've played out of dozens.
We've had 3 hives, full upgrades, onos stamping all over them yet its not decided, because they had a dozen hmg ha guys blasting our arses.
My point is this, its not over untill its over. The rush is a great tactic for both sides, but it can be so easily stopped, want to stop it, stand by the entrances to respawn and blast anything coming through, a few skulks with no upgrades are dog meant for marines. If your a skulk and your going to be rushes, get ya arse up in the rafters and hide then ambush them. Rush is so effect but only because people are so thick they rarely try to counter againist it, its not hard to be killed when you've got your back to entrance putting things up and all 6 of ya are there is a field day.
Just yesterday on NS_Nancy, I've played a game where the marines bum rushed two hives and fortified it with phases and turrets. My clanmate [IronShirt]Tom, after seeing us, the alien team, being slaughtered took charge and practically screamed at us to group up. We did and massed up in the mess hall (it was unaken by marines since they fortified the hives and by aliens since we were busy trying to take a 2nd hive back). It took 2-3 tries as a mass, but we did manage to storm a hive with 5 skulks at the start of the attack and 1 gorge outside the hive (port engine; we started at no_name) building Defense chambers and kept a steady stream of reinforcement as each alien died and respawn.
Just a little story to point out that marines taking 2 hives don't guaranteed a loss, although I don't know how that would work out on bigger servers since aliens would have a long-**obscenity** spawning line.
The only problem with the midgame deciding factor is that most marine just straight out don't know how to kill a fade let alone a fade/lerk combo. I've seen countless, witless marine shoot fades from a distance with an lmg and then tries to run away when he's about to die. It's amusing sometime, but it's usually quite sad.
Also about the shotty contraversy, you can throw all your worthless math calculations out the window. The only gameplay worthwhile thing about the shotty is that it can kill a skulk in one hit and is good vs a fade that IS RUNNING AWAY- ie. after he has taken heavy damage and is retreating to Dchambers.
And just to be on topic, I would have to agree and agressively back up the fact that the first 5-10 minutes do and should decide a _predictable_ outcome. This kind of custom is evident in _every_ single game with any sort of team element.
the game only just begins when aliens have 2 hives and marines have 1, at this point the marines have a good chance to take another hive or aliens taking third.
5min - marines get one hive aliens **obscenity** of marines alot by killing them with uber skulks
10minutes - marines secure resource points and get a secured perimeter and start upgrading hmg etc and aliens start to secure second hive
15minutes hmg and heavy armour kick skulk **obscenity** and fades apear everywhere and so do umbra kerks.
after alot of fighting and taking bases and getting killed etc marines start putting sieges EVERYWHERE and start owning aliens, then marines get all upgrades and win.
or aliens manage to break through a base and get 3rd hive, then lerk and onos ownage and aliens win
most of the fair teamed games i play last up to 1 hour like a strategy game.
And as a comm for marines i've had a game where we one on cage in 5 minutes, got a little base, sent them to the sewer and they took out the hive.
Why try and halt rushing, its a great tactic, its a legit tactic, its what your meant to bloody do, if your an alien god damn you rush, you do not have the resources to do anything interesting so why sit your arse down at the hive when you could be sitting arses down at their respawn.
2 examples, maybe 5 occurances of this in games i've played out of dozens.
We've had 3 hives, full upgrades, onos stamping all over them yet its not decided, because they had a dozen hmg ha guys blasting our arses.
My point is this, its not over untill its over. The rush is a great tactic for both sides, but it can be so easily stopped, want to stop it, stand by the entrances to respawn and blast anything coming through, a few skulks with no upgrades are dog meant for marines. If your a skulk and your going to be rushes, get ya arse up in the rafters and hide then ambush them. Rush is so effect but only because people are so thick they rarely try to counter againist it, its not hard to be killed when you've got your back to entrance putting things up and all 6 of ya are there is a field day.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, I'd say you were wrong. Most games are ALWAYS decided on the first 5-10 minutes. Yeah, I've seen a few skulk rushes happen, only because the marines weren't paying attention to the rush. And yeah, it's easy to counter-rush the aliens as well. You say that game wasn't decided in 5 minutes.. it was! The skulk rush failed and you counter-rushed, met little to no resistance since most gorges go secure another hive, rather than the main hive.
And I'll tell you right now, if I ever see you on a server, and you tell the alien team to rush, I will switch teams just to shoot you and laugh. Rushing on big servers is one of the huge differences between small and big servers. Say the entire team of 12 people rush, except one or two who decide to stay back and go gorge.. well, since people know about the rush, and know how to aim for a skulk, the whole rushing group of skulks.. is dead. Now the dead skulks have to wait up to 10 to 15 minutes to respawn. This gives the marines a HUGE upper-hand. A smart marine team will rush the main hive, because again, most gorges don't stick around to build up the main hive.. and will easily decimate it in seconds. The slightly not-so-smart marine team will go around, grabbing as many nozzles as they can, then go for hives, but if they wait too long grabbing nozzles, they let the entire alien team respawn, giving them another chance at winning, when they should've lost.
And if you had three hives.. and you had a group of HA/HMG marines still kicking your **obscenity**, I feel dreadfully sorry for you. You must've had a very bad team. Spores = short work of slow heavies. Even then, umbra + Fade = HMG stopper.
And yes, rushing is a great tactic for marines, not aliens anymore. Marines can easily respawn faster than the aliens depending on the number of IPs. Plus, if the aliens' rush tactic worked, and they were destroying your base.. and depending on if you had an observatory.. distress beacon works great. And there is no counter against the marine rush. None. From what I've found, it's IMPOSSIBLE to prevent the marine rush. Once half your team is dead, and the marines already have a phase gate in your main hive.. you lost. You might as well push F4. Sadly, it would be somewhat preventable if that stupid **obscenity**' no-hive timer wasn't in.. then the gorge(s) that ran off to the empty hives could get a hive up.. but now.. you're pretty much screwed. I have yet to find any sort of counter-rush to the marine-rush. Building chambers in your hive doesn't stop the marines.. especially since the gorges get so few resources in the first 10 minutes of the game. You may be able to put up one or two, MAYBE three chambers up.. but that doesn't stop a team of 10 or 11 marines.
(Also, there has been .. somewhat of a prevention of the marine-rush, but it's incredibly difficult to pull off, and very rarely does it succeed.. basically you wait for all the marines to go out for a hive.. a smart commander will usually have one or two defenders against any skulk rushers.. have your team of skulks waiting.. and let the marines pass. Notice, if they get a phase gate up, the chances of this working are more slim. You MUST do this before they get to your hive, or you lost because of the no-hive timer. After the marines leave, maybe parasite one or two to know when to attack.. if you time it JUST right, you may be able to win if you kill any defenders and go for their IPs instead of their commander's chair. Also, focus on their observatory and IPs.. have most of your force on the IPs, and maybe two or three on the Obs.. distress beacon still works even if there's no IPs.. and it's deadly if there's a lot of marines waiting to respawn.)
I am not going to make a sweeping statement like "2 hives seals a team's fate for sure, 100%". There can be freak incidents like a solo marine with welder and jet pack that takes out your hive or a bunch of skulks happen to destroy the tf of a captured hive or that suddenly the marine comm decided to recycle all his IF or that the alien gorge suddenly went afk in his hiding place or the server admin decides to reset the server and ect ect.
In any game invovling two competent teams, the game is almost decided when any one team gets two hives.
Marines > Skulks + Lerks
Fades > Marines
FYI, a marine without armour upgrade dies with 2 fade swipes or 3 acid rocekts. A marine with lvl 1 armour upgrade dies in 3 swipes or 3 acid rockets still. A marine with lvl 2 armour dies in 3 swipes or 4 acid rockets. Not withstandind the splash damage from the acid rockets, the marines don't seem to have much chance against decent fades with lvl3 carapace (77 bullets to kill with no weapon upgrade 66 with lvl 1 62 with lvl 2 58 with lvl 3). In short the fade with carapace can afford to stand there and let a marine finish his 50 rounds before killing him and then blink away.
Credit goes to Kisune for the weapons stats avaliable here: <a href='http://www.geocities.com/kitsune/ns-stats.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.geocities.com/kitsune/ns-stats.htm</a>
or skulks rushing the base to take out all the marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bah....Marines should never secure two hives first.
All of this is due to "noobish" Alien strategy. The Marines have grown up boys and girls. Aliens base rushing are a thing of the past. Even the Marines have learned the importance of securing hives, now if the Aliens learn it, they can be competitive.
As a Marine player, the game doesn not end with Fades. If you don't have improved weapons and HA when they get fades, then its a commander problem.
The Aliens must learn how to...
A. Control the movement of the Marines.
B. Ambush and not rush.
C. Secure two hives AND expand resources.
D. Quit rushing the Marine base....(I can't stree this enough, of what a HUGE mistake this is. If the Marines are even decent shooters, you will lose all of the rushing skulks. What does this mean? It means that it will take FOREVER for the skulks to slowy spawn back into the game, because the aliens only have one hive. If you do this when I'm in the command chair, you'll be trying to take your second hive from the Marines and the Marines will be phase gating in as fast as you kill them.
This game is usually settled in the first 10-15 minutes because....
1. The Marine Commander is lousy.
2. The Aliens are lousy.
Unless your team is absolutely incapable of working together, there's nothing to dictate that you MUST do such-and-such to win the game. If aliens can coordinate skulks to attack together, they can reclaim a 2nd hive even if it's full of turrets and phased-in marines. If marines don't bother to secure a hive but have plenty of resources, they can still outfit the best toys and stomp aliens wherever they want to advance.
Some of the greatest fights I've seen were between 2-hive aliens and advanced marines, or between rapidly expanding marines and aliens fighting over the second hive. I've seen them go either way, NOTHING is certain until the end.
1. The marines have locked down two hives.
2. The aliens have all three hives.
Marine upgrades could be armor piercing bullets, more effective against Onos but not necessarily against other units. Or gas-filters for the Lerk's spores. Alien upgrades might be harder to come up with, but.. anything is possible.
The "it will only prolong the inevitable" argument is a good one, though. There's always a chance things will change, but that chance is slim.