Playing Styles
Insidious
Join Date: 2002-11-21 Member: 9553Members
Join Date: 2002-11-21 Member: 9553Members
<div class="IPBDescription">how marines should learn from skulks</div> Since the marine strategy section seems to be temporarily unavailable, this seemed the best place to put it. If a forum moderator would be so kind, it'd be nice to have it moved once the frontiersman's strategy is back.
The games balanced has changed alot between 1.03 and 1.03. I'm not joking. People are learning a lot of the various tricks that make this game so wonderful, making previously unused equipment valuable. I've seen some wonderful shotgun work, I've seen some nasty jetpackers, and I've seen some wonderful teamwork among HA marines that makes two of them more dangerous than 30 rambo HA marines.
I've seen some wonderful games of NS recently that have renewed my faith in this games balance. How the game is balanced depends on how the people use what they have. A skulk that runs straight at a swarm of marines in a narrow corridor with no cover without even considering climbing walls has no right to complain that the game is unbalanced because he has no chance to kill marines. There are a dozen ways to play that situation out differently that would result in at least one dead marine, if not several.
So some general thoughts that will matter later. If you're dependant on being in close quarters to kill, avoid being seen, attack from behind whenever possible, wait at corners, be quiet whenever you can, and make sure your aim is true. Sound like playing skulk? It should. Sound like playing marine? It should. What? That is how marines should play ONCE FADES ARE AVILABLE.
Fades are to marines as marines are to skulks. Deadly at long range, also deadly at close quarters, but that's the only time you can kill one. LMG's at long range vs. acid rockets is like parasite vs. LMG. You're going to die. You may as well take your chance charging... or retreating. This is exactly the choice a skulk is faced with - charge, or try and ambush. The reason skulks become less effective late game isn't that marines are more powerul (frankly, sometimes they don't even upgrade, they just spread out to hives, making them no stronger, just irritating) - they still die in a few bites... but they have motion tracking! No more ambushes. Once fades are available, there are fewer skulks, thus fewer scouts... so aliens become MORE vulnerable to ambushes themselves. I once saw a fade run up to the door to the marine base on hera, open it, fire a few rockets while running away, repeat. Two marines talked the commander into shotguns, and HID on opposite sides of the door. Fade opens door, and is greated with more buckshot in his face than in all of the street signs in the south. Replace the words "fade" and "marine" with "marine" and "skulk" and you get the same sort of story. Charging fades works sometimes, but it's just like charging marines - you're probably going to die, just doing some damage. The difference is a skulk has enough energy to kill 30+ marines if none of them would shoot, while a marine with perfect accuracy could only kill 3-4 fades before reloading, so you don't see lone marines going beserk, clearing entire rooms of fades like a lucky skulk will clear marines.
Another similarity between playing skulk vs. marines and playing marine vs. fade is cones of fire. Marine weapons spread, meaning two clustered skulks are going to die faster because fire will bleed over between the two. Acid rockets work on the same principle, when they hit, they splash. Many skulks have learned to spread out a bit, yet I still see marines rushing fades together... but so close they die to the same rocket, and end up putting more rounds into each other's backs than into the fade. Skulks can spread vertically by wall crawling, but marines only option is lateral spread. PLEASE don't block your teammate's movements or line of fire, one or both of you will live longer, and the fades will die sooner. Each of you pick a side of the hallway, and stick to it (dodging is only negligably effective, unless the fade is going for a straight-on hit, most don't, they know how to splash off walls/floor) And this last bit is kind of hard to coordinate in the field, but if you see which fade your teammate is firing on, concentrate on that one, too. It's better that one fade die than both run away, lick there wounds, then return to lick your whole team.
Other bits of useful skulkieness - even in the middle of a fight, you can gain an advantage by staying out of sight. I circle strafed to stay out of view of a fade that was charging an outpost of ours, and he totaly ignored me in favor of a turret, so I walked right up behind him and welded him to death by pinning him between the turret and myself. He never expected to have his retreat cut off by me physically blocking him, and since I was at the corner of his sight at best, he didn't bother attacking me first.
Fades, even with adrenaline, have a limited number of acid rockets at the ready. If a fade is attacking your base and you have a nice place to hide, wait until he's blown his load, then follow around the corner while he's "reloading." Once again, this is just what a skulk should do to a lone marine that's shooting an alien structure.
On a quick side note, I've noticed that aiming low on fades works best. Games with locational damage have taught many of us bad habits, always going for the head. But fades don't jump very high (well, nothing but a jetpacker or lerk does), but they do duck a lot lower than the model shows. I find aiming for the thighs gets me a satisfying spray of green ichor, jumping, ducking, or running.
Another quick comment for playing marine - you may as well bind your key for moving backwards to "commadner, I need a medpack!", because you're going to get hurt. It's better to strafe at full speed than retreat at half speed. If you need to get away fast, strafe away, then you're only a quarter turn away from either flat out running, or turning back to return fire. You can retreat faster by zig-zag strafing than you can backing up, and circle strafing drives skulks nuts.
Please comment if you have any other advice to include other than vague comments like "charge the fade!"
You wouldn't expect a newb to have much fun with this mod if he was told to always "charge the guys with the blazing guns!" as skulk. He'd be spending more time respawning than in CS. Combat is a lot more complex than that in NS, and that's one of the main reasons it's such an amazing mod.
Just remember, once fades are in play, <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> = <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo-->
The games balanced has changed alot between 1.03 and 1.03. I'm not joking. People are learning a lot of the various tricks that make this game so wonderful, making previously unused equipment valuable. I've seen some wonderful shotgun work, I've seen some nasty jetpackers, and I've seen some wonderful teamwork among HA marines that makes two of them more dangerous than 30 rambo HA marines.
I've seen some wonderful games of NS recently that have renewed my faith in this games balance. How the game is balanced depends on how the people use what they have. A skulk that runs straight at a swarm of marines in a narrow corridor with no cover without even considering climbing walls has no right to complain that the game is unbalanced because he has no chance to kill marines. There are a dozen ways to play that situation out differently that would result in at least one dead marine, if not several.
So some general thoughts that will matter later. If you're dependant on being in close quarters to kill, avoid being seen, attack from behind whenever possible, wait at corners, be quiet whenever you can, and make sure your aim is true. Sound like playing skulk? It should. Sound like playing marine? It should. What? That is how marines should play ONCE FADES ARE AVILABLE.
Fades are to marines as marines are to skulks. Deadly at long range, also deadly at close quarters, but that's the only time you can kill one. LMG's at long range vs. acid rockets is like parasite vs. LMG. You're going to die. You may as well take your chance charging... or retreating. This is exactly the choice a skulk is faced with - charge, or try and ambush. The reason skulks become less effective late game isn't that marines are more powerul (frankly, sometimes they don't even upgrade, they just spread out to hives, making them no stronger, just irritating) - they still die in a few bites... but they have motion tracking! No more ambushes. Once fades are available, there are fewer skulks, thus fewer scouts... so aliens become MORE vulnerable to ambushes themselves. I once saw a fade run up to the door to the marine base on hera, open it, fire a few rockets while running away, repeat. Two marines talked the commander into shotguns, and HID on opposite sides of the door. Fade opens door, and is greated with more buckshot in his face than in all of the street signs in the south. Replace the words "fade" and "marine" with "marine" and "skulk" and you get the same sort of story. Charging fades works sometimes, but it's just like charging marines - you're probably going to die, just doing some damage. The difference is a skulk has enough energy to kill 30+ marines if none of them would shoot, while a marine with perfect accuracy could only kill 3-4 fades before reloading, so you don't see lone marines going beserk, clearing entire rooms of fades like a lucky skulk will clear marines.
Another similarity between playing skulk vs. marines and playing marine vs. fade is cones of fire. Marine weapons spread, meaning two clustered skulks are going to die faster because fire will bleed over between the two. Acid rockets work on the same principle, when they hit, they splash. Many skulks have learned to spread out a bit, yet I still see marines rushing fades together... but so close they die to the same rocket, and end up putting more rounds into each other's backs than into the fade. Skulks can spread vertically by wall crawling, but marines only option is lateral spread. PLEASE don't block your teammate's movements or line of fire, one or both of you will live longer, and the fades will die sooner. Each of you pick a side of the hallway, and stick to it (dodging is only negligably effective, unless the fade is going for a straight-on hit, most don't, they know how to splash off walls/floor) And this last bit is kind of hard to coordinate in the field, but if you see which fade your teammate is firing on, concentrate on that one, too. It's better that one fade die than both run away, lick there wounds, then return to lick your whole team.
Other bits of useful skulkieness - even in the middle of a fight, you can gain an advantage by staying out of sight. I circle strafed to stay out of view of a fade that was charging an outpost of ours, and he totaly ignored me in favor of a turret, so I walked right up behind him and welded him to death by pinning him between the turret and myself. He never expected to have his retreat cut off by me physically blocking him, and since I was at the corner of his sight at best, he didn't bother attacking me first.
Fades, even with adrenaline, have a limited number of acid rockets at the ready. If a fade is attacking your base and you have a nice place to hide, wait until he's blown his load, then follow around the corner while he's "reloading." Once again, this is just what a skulk should do to a lone marine that's shooting an alien structure.
On a quick side note, I've noticed that aiming low on fades works best. Games with locational damage have taught many of us bad habits, always going for the head. But fades don't jump very high (well, nothing but a jetpacker or lerk does), but they do duck a lot lower than the model shows. I find aiming for the thighs gets me a satisfying spray of green ichor, jumping, ducking, or running.
Another quick comment for playing marine - you may as well bind your key for moving backwards to "commadner, I need a medpack!", because you're going to get hurt. It's better to strafe at full speed than retreat at half speed. If you need to get away fast, strafe away, then you're only a quarter turn away from either flat out running, or turning back to return fire. You can retreat faster by zig-zag strafing than you can backing up, and circle strafing drives skulks nuts.
Please comment if you have any other advice to include other than vague comments like "charge the fade!"
You wouldn't expect a newb to have much fun with this mod if he was told to always "charge the guys with the blazing guns!" as skulk. He'd be spending more time respawning than in CS. Combat is a lot more complex than that in NS, and that's one of the main reasons it's such an amazing mod.
Just remember, once fades are in play, <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> = <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
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I always have my slash as a previous weapon for those would be human meaty **obscenity** that try and charge me when I shoot my load off, its soo funny to see the terrified marine try to run back when he loses all his armor and half his health in 1 swipe, and as soon as his back is to me hes mine
As far as the rest of the stuff goes I generally agree. Its like Nam, as soon as all the fresh green players figure out whats going on the games should get better
This one's somewhat evil, in that it invovles doing mean things to your teammates... but...
If a teammate "volenteers" to be bait, take advantage of it. I've finished fades after teammates have weakened them a bit in a badly executed charge, but not enough to make the fade retreat. If a teammate goes off at a bad time, don't die with them, wait in ambush, and pick off the softened up ones.
Teamwork is much more essential for Fade hunting than marine hunting, however, since the Fades will either be regenerating or dropping back to the neighborhood defense chamber between firefights. If you don't kill it, and kill it NOW, twenty seconds from now it'll be as good as new. Only the heavies can go toe to toe with a Fade and expect to take it down, light marines need numbers.
I see more bullets unloaded into the backs of other Marines on pubs than I do into Aliens. I swear, no one gets the idea of not just <i>being</i> a squad, but also <i>moving</i> like a squad.
People think that the Marine game is over if they get to Fades. Well, that's wrong. You're gonna die a LOT more once the Aliens get Fades, but it's not over. All those tactics listed will get you some dead fades. Mostly the reason people die when the second Hive goes up is that they immediately abandon teamwork. Uh oh, Fades. Seeya guys, I'm gonna go off on my own. Bye-bye Jarhead.
The thing you said about charging Fades is true. I was reading an Alien strat on Fades and it said how to combat HMG's: Range. An HMG in close to a fade is death for the Fade. If you can circle strafe him while he tries to claw you(most fades will switch to claws in close) he's dead. If you can circle strafe him while he tries to claw you <i>and</i> your team is hosing him down, he's dead quite a bit faster.
woops, I guess I should read the post before mine, haha.
Most Commaders tend to either send us Marines on Suicide-Missions ("get that fae at any cost") or fall back and fortify other spots for the incommin fades... at lest the second method is not THAT bad.
Best how-to-beat-up-some-fades-strategie i"ve played so far was the following:
We were playing nancy , aliens got second hive and were smashing us down at may spots.
We decided to set up a trap at mess hall.
2 Marines with HMG+Jetpack where Hidin an that spot at the roof.
2 Marines mit HMG were waiting behind the door going to marine start area.
1 marine had to play the bait.
Our Commander placed a phase gate and a recource station there and the lonely marine got to work.
After a short while 3 Fades came in and attacked the marine... killed him with no problem.
Then thez switched to melee attack and attacked the unfinished phase gate... that's what we were waiting for.
The door opened and we ran out fiering at those beast. Same time our mates with the Jetpacks opened fire from the cieling.
We "only" lost 2 Marines, but killed all 3 Fades.
well, this was an one-time-special that won't work most of the time, but i think this is a very good example how sneaky tactics can work for marines as well as for aliens.
The problem with such tactics on public servers is, that you need people you know or at least players who are willing to follow such ideas, or you just can't use them.. Another disadvantage is, that such a planning MAY cost some time and recources.
Teamwork is the only way to win as marines....
oh, and please stop whinning "OMG Fades... everyone press F4, we've lost anyway".. this suxx0rs.
We where beeing overwhelmed by the fades, (little judgement-error on the marine side <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> )
But we had ha/hmg and all, so while they where spamming acid-rockets from our 2nd res-point (just past that black/yellow door, on the way to mes-hall), we took the left corridor and moved around. We encounterd 1 or 2 fades with the same idea, we killed them, but my mates got SERIOUSLY injured, and we forgot to bring a welder <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
So I continued alone, approached the fades form the back, and emptied my hmg at praticly point blank, I killed like 4 fades before they knew what happend <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->, but then 2 turned around <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->, and smacked my to dead, cause I was out of ammo, the hmg reload-time is a killer then <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> But hell, It was fun
(btw, about the hmg, not an inbalance, it's good the way it is)
I even managed to charge fades at end-game with just lmg/la, and shoot them.
Just attack the **obscenity**, keep pumping ammo in them, it'll at least buy your team some time.
- 'distance management' [no it's not a weird new business technique]
Fades have 2 weapons:
- slash [melee range, lots of damage]
- acid rocket [long range, splash, very nasty, but at close range will damage the fade too]
The 'trick' is to get the fade to use the wrong weapon...
- if the fade has rocket selected, they will strafe and run away - run towards them as fast as you can [jumping/strafing/screaming] and shoot.
- if the fade has slash selected, they will move towards you, back away and shoot.
Some fades will continue using acid at close range, which is fine - they'll probably do more damage to themselves than you will.
-----------
Typically:
- you will die. No nice way of putting this, most of the time you die. [but you will die anyway - so no great loss]
- the fade lives....
So, why do I do this?
- that fade needs to run off to a d-tower to get health back.
- that fade is vulnerable, if someone else attacks before the fade reaches a d-tower then the fade is in great danger of death [although they'll be back in about 60 seconds anyway].
What does this accomplish?
- the fade is out of action for a bit, allowing the other marines a better chance of accomplishing their goal.
And that is really the whole point, MARINES ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KILL ALIENS. Fades live for a long time, by the time you kill one, they will usually have enough resources to evolve into a fade again and come back. The 'objective' is to keep the fade away from marines for as long as possible [death is slightly longer than regeneration...].