Man, the game always turns sour when you had a bad Commander.
Mkilbride
Join Date: 2010-01-07 Member: 69952Members
Join Date: 2010-01-07 Member: 69952Members
As a Alien, it's not that important, you can still evolve, ect. But as a Marine with a bad Commander, you're ######. We just had one and he wouldn't get out, he couldn't figure out how to build stuff, or use MACS, and he only leff the Comm station as soon as the Aliens had almost the entire map, so it was inevitable defeat.
I get there will be an eject command in the final version, yet still, I find something needs to be done about this. It's far to easy to have some random idiot run to Comm station, take it, use up all the resources and just kinda ruin it for Marines. It's far to easy to troll as a Marine Commander right now. Of course because you can build secondary Comm Stations, it should rectify that, but it doesn't; because of the shared resource pool outside of Plasma. It's really frustrating.
You can fully function without an Alien Commander and win, but without a good Marine Commander, that's it, Marines will lose 100% of the time.
I get there will be an eject command in the final version, yet still, I find something needs to be done about this. It's far to easy to have some random idiot run to Comm station, take it, use up all the resources and just kinda ruin it for Marines. It's far to easy to troll as a Marine Commander right now. Of course because you can build secondary Comm Stations, it should rectify that, but it doesn't; because of the shared resource pool outside of Plasma. It's really frustrating.
You can fully function without an Alien Commander and win, but without a good Marine Commander, that's it, Marines will lose 100% of the time.
Comments
Why didn't you help the guy instead of complaining? Answer his/her questions. Encourage them. You know, make it a good experience for a new player, etc.
Why didn't you help the guy instead of complaining? Answer his/her questions. Encourage them. You know, make it a good experience for a new player, etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, I remember you. And I did try to help him, he didn't respond to anything anyone said, and for a period of like 5 minutes just sat there. It's fine to go AFK in a game, but not if you're in a important role like that.
And I don't see how they turned it around, cause we had Flamethrowers for 10-15 minutes when I left, and we were down to a single base, constantly being harrased, while you guys had 3-4 hives.
The guy had an Asian name, so maybe he was Asian and didn't understand what we were saying, hard to say. It just was really frustrating as I was trying ti upkeep all the bases, researching armor and weapon upgrades, turrets, managing the MACs, trying to secure Resource points. MACs kept randomly going places, I guess he might've been interfering with my control of them, Aliens kept constantly harassing, while none of the other Marines helped. I honestly found them sitting around the base doing nothing.
It was just overall very frustrating, because it seemed like everyone on the Marine team was AFK, while the Alien team was working as packs and making strikes.
In reference to the OP and Kouji's post; the main design flaw of the Marines (and a big draw back of NS1, imo), is how sensitive they are to a bad commander. I suppose the same problem could be multiplicative the more bad commanders you have (in some ways). On a sideways note, but related, this symptom of the design is why I'm very concerned when UW continues making NS2 to be more like NS1. Anyways, not trying to side track the thread.
You'd need a second command chair first though, by the sound of it the guy was completely inactive, nevermind expanding to tech points.
I get there will be an eject command in the final version, yet still, I find something needs to be done about this. It's far to easy to have some random idiot run to Comm station, take it, use up all the resources and just kinda ruin it for Marines. It's far to easy to troll as a Marine Commander right now. Of course because you can build secondary Comm Stations, it should rectify that, but it doesn't; because of the shared resource pool outside of Plasma. It's really frustrating.
You can fully function without an Alien Commander and win, but without a good Marine Commander, that's it, Marines will lose 100% of the time.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Right now there's a big problem with the commander UI being pretty confusing (there's even some incorrect information in it). The existing system is coded in Flash which we don't really have the ability to modify. Brian, one of our programmers, has been busy rewriting all of the UI using a new, more flexible Lua-based system that is allowing us to improve it. He's almost done so that should be available soon and will hopefully address some of the confusion and frustration of first time commanders.
Commanders should be able to click a button to bring up the overall tech tree, similar to the Age of Empires one. Highlight stuff that's been done in one colour, stuff that's available in another, highlight the lines so you can see a clear path (the path the commander is choosing), provide information such as resources and requirements, and unlocks; a fully-integrated graphical representation of the different research paths. Concise, clear and painless.
Also just had this game with this guy "Insufficient funds", I think he was ###### with people, he was using a mic, but his voice was REALLY nasally, like purposefully, you know? And he kept going "OH OH, freaking great", like some kinda YouTube video of trolls.
I also got in the other Command Controller to help setup west base, which was under attack, killed the skulk, got in the CC, started placing turrets, used MAC's to repair the power which was down , suddenly come under attack from 3 Skulks, so my efforts go mostly wasted, guy starts yelling at me and telling me HE'S going to tell people not to play with me. Lmao, what a crock.
Seriously, it's a unique aspect for NS, but at the same time, ever so frustrating when you have an idiot commander.
and you're not screwed as aliens if you have a noob that doesn't build another hive or drop a crag and whip for upgrades?
wtf does that have to do with anything in this post? No one is complaining that there is a commander - it's a matter of what to do when the comm sucks.
Good to hear that the comm interface will be getting more accessible very soon. I might have the courage to step back in the chair again XD
An AI commander would be a worthwhile addition I think. Not as good as a real commander, but it should allow a team of good players without anyone who wants to command to have a fighting chance.
Shouldn't be too hard either, have predefined points for buildings placeable by the mapper, then write a script for the commander to follow and place them if nobody gets in the chair.
Follow with a button available to the commander which switches it off and on to prevent it going nuts when you hop out to build something, and you have a partial solution to the problem.
It's not like you need to handle weapon/jetpack/armor placement any more, and the AI commander could use MACs to build things instead of relying on marines. Of course marines could help out as well, but if they didn't the mac would handle it.
No, you're not. Because you can still Evolve into the flying ones, gorges for Hydra spam, Fades, and eventually the all powerful Onos. So yeah, you're still OK without a good Commander as Aliens.
Marines are completely dependent on becoming able to match later tiers of Alien forces from Commander upgrades. Aliens are not.
However I'm not sure it'd be worth the time trying to implement even a basic one. To state the obvious, a bot commander could never be as good as a decent human one, so most likely if you go onto any half populated server, there'll always be human commanders in the chair, meaning the bot wouldn't get used much at all.
If anything, I think NS 2 needs some sort of single player element to give players experience in the chair. A turotial with bots and atypical tutorial tasks/instructions (such as build a resource tower, build a number of sentries, move base, drop items, etc etc) to give first-time commanders a feel of how to play the game as commander before doing it in a real multiplayer environment would be most useful. Maybe even culminating in a bot skirmish so that you get some commander combat experience also?
Marines are completely dependent on becoming able to match later tiers of Alien forces from Commander upgrades. Aliens are not.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, you are incorrect.
An AI commander would be a worthwhile addition I think. Not as good as a real commander, but it should allow a team of good players without anyone who wants to command to have a fighting chance.
Shouldn't be too hard either, have predefined points for buildings placeable by the mapper, then write a script for the commander to follow and place them if nobody gets in the chair.
Follow with a button available to the commander which switches it off and on to prevent it going nuts when you hop out to build something, and you have a partial solution to the problem.
It's not like you need to handle weapon/jetpack/armor placement any more, and the AI commander could use MACs to build things instead of relying on marines. Of course marines could help out as well, but if they didn't the mac would handle it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
ok and after that we change the aliens to be more like marines to kill this horrible asymetrical stuff. then change the theme a little bit. maybe something more "todayish" hm lets say police/soldiers and terrorists. then lets get rid of the rts part completely and publish the game on xbox and ps3. ahh and add a god damn autoaim. i cant hit ###### without it.
just my 2 cents :- / dumbing down does not help to solve this problem.
True, but what I meant was that when you have a good game going. And a new player joins, lacking any commander experience. They might see an empty command facility and jump in. Wasting resources on junk you don't need and perhaps "stealing" MAC's/Difters from the original commander.
So starting out with a newbie comm (or a lamer who goes afk/wastes resources on purpose) or getting this same issue mid game, still makes me wonder how this mutli-comm is going to help out newbies or counter griefers...
just my 2 cents :- / dumbing down does not help to solve this problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What exactly is dumbed down about that? It doesn't remove any elements, it doesn't stop people from commanding if they want to, it just stops the game from breaking if nobody does want to.
Please think before you speak.
If players hate listening to human comms, who can actually explain what they're doing and talk the player into following, do you think they'll want to listen to an AI comm who can't even talk to the team?
I agree there should eventually be a bot-driven comm tutorial. I hate playing against bots, so I would never touch a single-player version of a multiplayer team shooter. However, I'd make use of a tutorial like that.
If players hate listening to human comms, who can actually explain what they're doing and talk the player into following, do you think they'll want to listen to an AI comm who can't even talk to the team?
I agree there should eventually be a bot-driven comm tutorial. I hate playing against bots, so I would never touch a single-player version of a multiplayer team shooter. However, I'd make use of a tutorial like that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hence the use of MACs.
If the AI commander assumes that players won't build anything and ensures MACs are present to build everything, and simply instructs the players to guard them as appropriate, it should be fine.
You could also tie it into map control, if a room has lots of players in it and no enemies, the commander can try to build stuff in it. That way whichever rooms the players take will be built up.
That beeing said, a idea just crossed my mind. What if the commander could "lock" a CC? so that nobody can use it. That way the first/original commander can decide that he wants to play alone.
The CCs should get unlocked if the commander leaves his CC, so that in case of his dead or if the first CC goes down, the others won't stay locked.
I'm quite curious what these many reasons are though. I mean the bad things about it are quite obvious with perhaps one good thing about it which springs to mind is the fact you can help the main commander by supporting. But the griefer/newbie issue, either from the start of mid-game, is still going to be a biggie...