Want to see NS2 thrive? Command!
godrifle
Join Date: 2006-12-01 Member: 58815Members
Join Date: 2006-12-01 Member: 58815Members
<div class="IPBDescription">We need more Commanders!</div>Every time I command in NS2, I think to myself "I can't wait to skulk around and practice my wall jumps and bite peoples faces off!!"... Then the game starts, and there's nobody commanding. So I command, and I do pretty well. I get a lot of praise commanding, at least when we win. But there are times when I hear the other team say "Nobody commanding gg".
We need more commanders. The commanders are like the two front wheels of an 18 wheeler. The truck just isn't going to move without these two wheels! And imagine that this truck is carrying a bunch of immigrants. Yes! These immigrants are like newbies from other FPSes, enthralled by our Country, Natural Selectania, and we MUST impress them, so that one day, these immigrants will take our jobs, as good Commanders!
So here are ways to help NS2, without having to embarrass yourself over twitter or FB!
-Get a mic
-Learn how to command over youtube, or command in NS2's explore mode, or if there's a vet on the field, ask him kindly if he can show you the ropes on how to command.
We need more commanders. The commanders are like the two front wheels of an 18 wheeler. The truck just isn't going to move without these two wheels! And imagine that this truck is carrying a bunch of immigrants. Yes! These immigrants are like newbies from other FPSes, enthralled by our Country, Natural Selectania, and we MUST impress them, so that one day, these immigrants will take our jobs, as good Commanders!
So here are ways to help NS2, without having to embarrass yourself over twitter or FB!
-Get a mic
-Learn how to command over youtube, or command in NS2's explore mode, or if there's a vet on the field, ask him kindly if he can show you the ropes on how to command.
Comments
Yes obviously there are a few exceptions to the rule regular ppl who are gonna respond with BUT I LOVE TO COMMAND.
Just spending a few minutes as the commander in practice mode will show you the essentials. I feel its not really that people aren't fully capable of commanding, they are just hesitant to do so if they feel they might not do a good job and let down their team, or will be ridiculed. Though from my experience even when we have had a commander that had no clue what they were doing, hardly anyone was ever genuinely hostile, and more often then not suggested what the commander do and how to buy what the team needs.
In short: Don't be afraid to try out the commanding mode, just try to familiarize yourself with the game from fps perspective as well as in a LAN game.
and right now in the game, is the worst time for commander-to-grunt ratios. people are still learning game and are nervous about commanding. but we're only a week old (technically), it will start improving
1.) There's a best way to do it
2.) It's easy to do it the best way
3.) If you don't do it that way, almost invariably you're going to get ######ed at because that means you're effectively hurting the rest of your team
4.) Unless you're a pro at it you're never gonna be able to keep up with all the requests for medpacks and ammo, and are going to get ######ed at because somehow it's your fault that your marine died.
#4 is Marine specific, and 1-3 are more aimed towards alien commander but are true for marines to some extent as well.
I've had Coms threaten to mute me for requesting Phase Tech research and explaining its importance. We didn't get gates until 15 min in that match.
Also, if somebody doesn't want to comm, but forced into the role because nobody else wants to do it, then don't rage at the comm if he does something wrong.
I was recently forced into playing marine comm after nobody else wanted to, and thought everything was going pretty well. Locked down both hives, got all tech. And then some exo who decided to go into the last hive by himself (despite me asking him to hold up for macs or marines with welders) died and got pissed and started calling me a bad comm because I didn't scan. At no point did anybody even tell me there was a shade hive, or request a scan. The commander cannot guess these things unless he sees ink (or sees a shade in basic 'scan to see if a hive is going up' scans).
So anyway, a bit of communication goes a long way. Be nice to people who don't really want to command, but have to. And listen to orders. It's awfully frustrating being blamed for a loss that could have been avoided if people listen to orders. Often, I will ask the team to completely neglect hitting certain locations like lavafalls or nanogrid, if it isn't yeilding much fruit, and the whole team will just sit there while a 2nd hive goes down. Or likewise with marines not phasing to locations.
Having said that. Commanders who blame their team outright for a loss is just as bad. Even if you have a bum team, or likewise, a bum commander, it happens. And everybody has their own opinion on why the team lost or what should have been done different. It all comes back to having a positive attitude. Just gg and hope for a better team/comm next round.
There's no rock, paper, scissors in this game. A little bit in every game is fine. Entire games balanced around it, maybe not. But, because of the lack of RPS, it's the same linear gameplay every game. Marines don't get shotguns specifically because heavier Alien forms are coming out. They get shotguns because they're good no matter what Alien form is out. Marines don't armor upgrades specifically because they're taking hits. They get it anyway, because there's no trade-off to tech. Right after you get armor upgrades, you can get weapon upgrades as well. It's all about when and not if.
Aliens don't get specific upgrades to counter specific Marine actions. They get 'em all anyway. It's nothing but advantages that aren't really in response to anything, so commanding doesn't feel as rewarding. Remember in Starcraft when your enemy massed Zerglings and you cleverly grabbed some Firebats and Medics to melt them like butter? Yeah, that feeling when you reacted to and anticipated the enemy and then <i>countered</i> him? That doesn't really happen here.
And really, what is RTS gaming but the satisfaction of thinking ahead of your opponent?
spot on. at least from some of my games so far I've seen a lot of flak commanders get when they're on the losing team even if the commander him/herself is competent. It also doesn't help if you're trying to learn on a higher pop server. Even now with 473 hours into NS2 alone i can still feel overwhelmed at times juggling between building and responding to a dozen people's ammo/health requests, and it certainly doesn't help that the commander alert system is semi-broken.
So now we have two boring roles : Gorge and Alien Comm...
k.