FPS/RTS Commanding: The Human Factor
ScardyBob
ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">A primer on my experiences commanding players rather than bots</div>One of the biggest differences between commanding in an FPS/RTS like NS2 with a RTS like SC2 is the players. Quite simply, every player in NS2 has their own agenda and the free will to do whatever they want. If you are lucky, that agenda includes helping you lead your team to victory. However, I frequently find players who, either through ignorance or apathy, aren't very useful in helping you win. So what can you do? Here are some helpful tactics and strategies I've used in various FPS/RTS games (primarily NS2/NS1 and Empires) to command teams to victory.
<b>NOTE</b>: These tips are primarily for public matches. Organized clan or tournament matches will be different.
<b>PLAYER TYPES:</b>
The first thing I like to do is to mentally separate my players into two categories:
<ol type='1'><li>Active-control players</li><li>Passive-control players</li></ol>
<u>ACTIVE-CONTROL PLAYER STRATEGY:</u>
Players in the first group will be the ones that win the match for you. You can give them detailed and complex orders and be (mostly) confident they will effectively complete them (hence, the term ‘active-control’). The key is to ensure that they have the proper tools and resources to carry out your orders. More specifically for NS2, that generally means getting them better tech fast (shotguns on the marines side and fades on the alien side) and spending a fair amount of time giving them specific orders and attention, such ‘attack central hive’ or ‘defend double res’. As marine comm, these are the players I like to spend most of my time giving ammo/medpacks because there is a large benefit in keeping them alive and on the frontline as long as possible.
<u>PASSIVE-CONTROL PLAYER STRATEGY:</u>
Players in the second group are mostly used as a distraction. The key is to get them to tie up the attention of the enemy team so that players in the first group can effectively carry out their orders. The main problem is that this second group of players is unlikely to follow your orders directly because they 1) don’t know how (e.g. don’t know that ‘double res’ on tram means the repair room) or 2) don’t care (e.g. they are just interested in playing NS2 as a deathmatch). Therefore, the only way to make them useful to your team is to institute various passive methods of controlling their behavior, such as
<ul><li>Give very generic orders (e.g. ‘attack res nodes’, ‘defend main’, ‘don’t attack powernodes’, or ‘find and kill enemy players)</li><li>Give them orders to locations with known enemy players/structures (e.g. marine or alien start) so that the enemy will have to spend time/resources defending that location</li><li>Control friendly player spawn and movement locations via locked doors, hive/CS/IP placement, and (eventually) phasegates.</li><li>Control friendly player weaponry with selective research (e.g. I don’t like to research grenade launchers as marine comm unless I have too because newer players don’t know how to use them effectively)</li><li>Getting armor upgrades to make these players harder to kill</li></ul>
The best way to figure out which group a player fits into is to observe and get to know them, their combat style, and their tactics. However, you can use the scoreboard as a quick and rough way to separate them. Players that are consistently on the top of the scoreboard for several rounds are likely, but not necessarily, going to be in the first group.
<u>SPECIFIC TIPS</u>
-Offense wins matches. Unless the teams are so skill imbalanced that you can't defend the majority of your structures by yourself or with the help of another player, you want you're generic standing orders to be 'attack something'. Encourage all of your players to push out and make the enemy defend their territory rather than you defending yours.
- Don't attack powernodes. In the time it took to kill that powernode you probably could have killed the structures (most likely an extractor) in that room. Also, killing an extractor costs the marines 15 res to replace while killing a powernode costs them nothing. The worst is killing a powernode in an empty room which not only doesn't help, but wastes valuable time you could have spent actually attacking a marine player/structure. As the alien comm, you will want to constantly stress that no one should be attacking powernodes. If you need to kill a powernode (e.g. in marine start), get one of the players in the first group to do so.
- Flamethrowers are newb-proof, shotguns aren't. If in doubt, tell your players to get the most newb-friendly weapon, which in the current NS2 beta is the flamethrower. Its point and shoot, works even with bad lag, and can do damage pretty much anything, even if it doesn't do a lot of damage. While the shotgun and grenade launcher are much more effective, they both require enough skill that its unlikely newer players will be able to use them successfully.
This is not an exhaustive list, so I welcome input from anyone who has useful suggestions or criticism. However, I frequently find these concepts/tips lead me to victory while commanding not just in NS2, but in FPS/RTS games in general.
<b>NOTE</b>: These tips are primarily for public matches. Organized clan or tournament matches will be different.
<b>PLAYER TYPES:</b>
The first thing I like to do is to mentally separate my players into two categories:
<ol type='1'><li>Active-control players</li><li>Passive-control players</li></ol>
<u>ACTIVE-CONTROL PLAYER STRATEGY:</u>
Players in the first group will be the ones that win the match for you. You can give them detailed and complex orders and be (mostly) confident they will effectively complete them (hence, the term ‘active-control’). The key is to ensure that they have the proper tools and resources to carry out your orders. More specifically for NS2, that generally means getting them better tech fast (shotguns on the marines side and fades on the alien side) and spending a fair amount of time giving them specific orders and attention, such ‘attack central hive’ or ‘defend double res’. As marine comm, these are the players I like to spend most of my time giving ammo/medpacks because there is a large benefit in keeping them alive and on the frontline as long as possible.
<u>PASSIVE-CONTROL PLAYER STRATEGY:</u>
Players in the second group are mostly used as a distraction. The key is to get them to tie up the attention of the enemy team so that players in the first group can effectively carry out their orders. The main problem is that this second group of players is unlikely to follow your orders directly because they 1) don’t know how (e.g. don’t know that ‘double res’ on tram means the repair room) or 2) don’t care (e.g. they are just interested in playing NS2 as a deathmatch). Therefore, the only way to make them useful to your team is to institute various passive methods of controlling their behavior, such as
<ul><li>Give very generic orders (e.g. ‘attack res nodes’, ‘defend main’, ‘don’t attack powernodes’, or ‘find and kill enemy players)</li><li>Give them orders to locations with known enemy players/structures (e.g. marine or alien start) so that the enemy will have to spend time/resources defending that location</li><li>Control friendly player spawn and movement locations via locked doors, hive/CS/IP placement, and (eventually) phasegates.</li><li>Control friendly player weaponry with selective research (e.g. I don’t like to research grenade launchers as marine comm unless I have too because newer players don’t know how to use them effectively)</li><li>Getting armor upgrades to make these players harder to kill</li></ul>
The best way to figure out which group a player fits into is to observe and get to know them, their combat style, and their tactics. However, you can use the scoreboard as a quick and rough way to separate them. Players that are consistently on the top of the scoreboard for several rounds are likely, but not necessarily, going to be in the first group.
<u>SPECIFIC TIPS</u>
-Offense wins matches. Unless the teams are so skill imbalanced that you can't defend the majority of your structures by yourself or with the help of another player, you want you're generic standing orders to be 'attack something'. Encourage all of your players to push out and make the enemy defend their territory rather than you defending yours.
- Don't attack powernodes. In the time it took to kill that powernode you probably could have killed the structures (most likely an extractor) in that room. Also, killing an extractor costs the marines 15 res to replace while killing a powernode costs them nothing. The worst is killing a powernode in an empty room which not only doesn't help, but wastes valuable time you could have spent actually attacking a marine player/structure. As the alien comm, you will want to constantly stress that no one should be attacking powernodes. If you need to kill a powernode (e.g. in marine start), get one of the players in the first group to do so.
- Flamethrowers are newb-proof, shotguns aren't. If in doubt, tell your players to get the most newb-friendly weapon, which in the current NS2 beta is the flamethrower. Its point and shoot, works even with bad lag, and can do damage pretty much anything, even if it doesn't do a lot of damage. While the shotgun and grenade launcher are much more effective, they both require enough skill that its unlikely newer players will be able to use them successfully.
This is not an exhaustive list, so I welcome input from anyone who has useful suggestions or criticism. However, I frequently find these concepts/tips lead me to victory while commanding not just in NS2, but in FPS/RTS games in general.
Comments
Its also a good offensive tactic to kill the PN at well defended rooms with ip's, as they are usually left unguarded (or atleast less guarded), or unrepaired or maybe just easyer to lerk snipe.
Its also a good offensive tactic to kill the PN at well defended rooms with ip's, as they are usually left unguarded (or atleast less guarded), or unrepaired or maybe just easyer to lerk snipe.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is true, but you need to compare the value of the time spent killing the powernode to the value of time that alien could be killing something else. In nearly every case I've encountered, its more valuable to attack the structures directly than to kill the powernode. There is almost always something better to do than kill a powernode. The only exception is a room that is heavily guarded by sentries, which is usually just marine start.
On the marine side, I usually repair powernodes in empty rooms for this very reason. Alien players can't resist wasting time killing powernodes and I'd rather have a skulk attack a powernode than the marine shotgunning their harvesters to death.
Now I can think of a few ways to achieve this, the simplest being to have multiple rooms dependent on one Power Node. Like so:
<img src="http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d185/KuBaN5287/Miscellaneous/PowerNodeDependenceTram.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Stars are Power Nodes
actually no, killing the power node is a great thing but what is currently pointless in killing is second commander center since upgrades aren't tied to the buildings. Marines rush second CC, get the upgrade, recyle and head back to base. Other marines scout out killing alien RTs while commander finishes the upgrades.
Now, marines can shotgun rush and flamethrower rush aliens since aliens have zero defense against these weapons, dying under few shots or split of a second.
or the alien version of this, rush the IP in early game to win.
I can add more amazing strategic versions of this but ns2 has been dumbed-down for easy playing currently. The gameplay needs to be redesigned, it needs to be as it was in ns1. marines lack teamwork is easy to say but the problem lies in how marines are currently setup. Commander and marines have almost no relationship, the marines depend more on the armory than the commander, haha. Alot more can be said what is missing, i just hope one day charlie remembers ns1 values again.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=113095" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=113095</a>
But you are right about the connection between the commander and the marines. For the Aliens it is fine but the marines are just lacking it.
My signature has a quote which I think is an exact conclusion of the current implemention of the marine commander.
I'm not aware what from the original Power Grid design they shared with us is or isn't still planned to be implemented anymore. If they did this, it would at least make destroying a CC as potentially damaging as destroying a Hive, but it would only indirectly (and partially) address the uselessness of the Power Node. (Should probably move this discussion to the Power Nodes thread and not derail it any further).
I think it was suggested to work like this in the end (Company of Heroes once more)
A power node in between a CC and a normal RT room or area. Now if that one were to be destroyed, while the others are still powered by powernodes, it would still cut the power to all those rooms not directly adjacent to a CC room.
Effectively making it possible to cut off areas that are only connected to CC's by another room, take out the powernode in that "in between" room. You effectively take out all other rooms behind it (not directly connected to a CC room). When the marines have more CC's out there, they stand a better chance of powering all those rooms so to speak. ALso eliminating recycling of a second/third CC, sure you could power everything trough powernodes, but it is a lot more open to attack without CC2 or CC3.
Kind off making it work like DI does, with the possibility to cut off areas from power in this case
I'm fairly certain the recycling of a base is going to be removed though, making upgrades dependent on the structures you have like it was in NS. Also will be a nice counter to stalemates ...
You mean the drop 2nd CC, upgrade 1st CC, recycle 2nd CC tactic? Technically, current upgrades are structure dependent, i.e. lvl2 weapons are tied to the command facility and advanced armory. Personally, I think they should get rid of upgraded CC and Armory and just tie tech upgrades to the number of tech nodes captured. That way, you would have to capture and hold two CC's to make grenade launcher/flamethrower or fade available.
Yes. Yes. Definitely yes. I've suggested this in one of the I&S threads, and I know others have suggested this as well.
However, if there is a visual effect/indicator to upgrading the CC, then you can simply keep that as an automatic visual effect/indicator; i.e. CCs automatically "upgrade" when you cap a second node.
One thing I will disagree with you on is the upgraded Armory (for a single upgrade, anyway). (The following would also apply to alien chambers.)
To begin with, an Armory (or an alien chamber) starts off basic, and has all the standard functions, however it can only do the most basic research (if any at all), similarly it is quite cheap and vulnerable.
However, at a cost, you can upgrade the Armory to an Advanced Armory (or an alien chamber to a Mature chamber), and it will allow for all the new upgrade paths, but it will also be far more durable than its standard counterpart (greater hp). This structure(s) will now be more essential to your team (to retain upgrades), and a target for the enemy team.
So essentially you'll have the basic "functional structure", which you can upgrade to an advanced "research structure". There would be little reason to have more than one advanced structure of any type except to increase the health, if you had enough spare resources.
Other than what I've suggested above, upgraded structures are, I agree, generally superfluous.