Ns Design Flaw
Infinitum
Anime Encyclopedia Join Date: 2002-08-08 Member: 1111Members, Constellation
Anime Encyclopedia Join Date: 2002-08-08 Member: 1111Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">People are stupid.</div> Notes before reading:
<ul>
<li>I'm talking pub games, not clan wars.
<li>Situations such as the ones below happen in every 2 of the 10 games I play
<li>When I mention stuff like Joe Average and Facility X, they are just generic terms I use for people, places, objects, etc.
<li>I was listening to Enigma - The Eyes of Truth. Makes me very mellow -_-
</ul>
When I try to catergorise Natural Selection I have to put it within the folds of 2 genres. The first being a First Person Shooter, your meant to shoot/eat your opponent. It's not a hard concept to grasp, you get a weapon, you use it and the other guy ends up dead. However the second genre of Real Time Strategy seems to elude a vast majority of the commanders that are commandering the Comm Chair. Now I've played a vast majority of RTS games and there has always been one key element to every round.
Alteration
For example, in Command and Conquer: Generals if I knew my enemy was amassing nothing but Overlord tanks and I was using the USA I would stop producing Paladin or Crusader tanks and start pumping out Tomahawk Missile Launchers. What did I just do? I altered my game play to match the situation I was presented. If I didn't do so I would have been defeated very very easily, it is the simple evolution of a gameplay strategy that is the deciding factor in 90% of the RTS games available (The other being amass a big enough army and rush)
So when I play a round of Natural Selection on Marines, on NS_Nothing, and the commander wants us to F4 because the aliens are at Cargo Bay Foyer, and he wanted to relocate to Cargo and win easily it makes me very angry at the people who populate Natural Selection.
There is no aptitude test for being a Commander, if you can run up to the Chair and hop into it before anyone else does you have a fair chance of remaining in that chair for at least 3 minutes before the Marines realise your an idiot and eject you. The code of Natural Selection cannot differentiate between a good commander and a bad one as it is up to the players to decide this, but if your going to hop into the comm chair I suggest you at least learn how to evolve to the situation presented to you. I know this for a fact, as I am indeed a poor excuse for a commander. I have trouble even commanding one marine, the main reason is because I am not dealing with an AI who follows a laid out routine. He may wander off, or demand stuff from me and that makes commanding a very difficult job.
Now the average game of Natural Selection sees the Commander in charge of, roughly, 7 marines. The conflict of interest that inevitably arises when 7 avatars decide to play the game in their own individual style of analytical approaches to the situation presented to them and you have an extremely difficult job as a Commander. It is your job to adjust YOUR style to suit the needs of the whole marine squad at your disposal, if you know Joe1337 is an extremely good shot (omg hax), can stay alive for a long time and you have limited resources at your disposal, you shouldn't be giving that shotgun to Joe Newbie who is gonna run off and get killed for the nth time this round. This is yet just another example of altering your command style.
I think it's high time someone developed a serious docturine defining some of the more necessary traits of someone whom will be the defining factor of the marines struggle within the confines of Facility X....
Or maybe I'm just too cynical for my own good.
<ul>
<li>I'm talking pub games, not clan wars.
<li>Situations such as the ones below happen in every 2 of the 10 games I play
<li>When I mention stuff like Joe Average and Facility X, they are just generic terms I use for people, places, objects, etc.
<li>I was listening to Enigma - The Eyes of Truth. Makes me very mellow -_-
</ul>
When I try to catergorise Natural Selection I have to put it within the folds of 2 genres. The first being a First Person Shooter, your meant to shoot/eat your opponent. It's not a hard concept to grasp, you get a weapon, you use it and the other guy ends up dead. However the second genre of Real Time Strategy seems to elude a vast majority of the commanders that are commandering the Comm Chair. Now I've played a vast majority of RTS games and there has always been one key element to every round.
Alteration
For example, in Command and Conquer: Generals if I knew my enemy was amassing nothing but Overlord tanks and I was using the USA I would stop producing Paladin or Crusader tanks and start pumping out Tomahawk Missile Launchers. What did I just do? I altered my game play to match the situation I was presented. If I didn't do so I would have been defeated very very easily, it is the simple evolution of a gameplay strategy that is the deciding factor in 90% of the RTS games available (The other being amass a big enough army and rush)
So when I play a round of Natural Selection on Marines, on NS_Nothing, and the commander wants us to F4 because the aliens are at Cargo Bay Foyer, and he wanted to relocate to Cargo and win easily it makes me very angry at the people who populate Natural Selection.
There is no aptitude test for being a Commander, if you can run up to the Chair and hop into it before anyone else does you have a fair chance of remaining in that chair for at least 3 minutes before the Marines realise your an idiot and eject you. The code of Natural Selection cannot differentiate between a good commander and a bad one as it is up to the players to decide this, but if your going to hop into the comm chair I suggest you at least learn how to evolve to the situation presented to you. I know this for a fact, as I am indeed a poor excuse for a commander. I have trouble even commanding one marine, the main reason is because I am not dealing with an AI who follows a laid out routine. He may wander off, or demand stuff from me and that makes commanding a very difficult job.
Now the average game of Natural Selection sees the Commander in charge of, roughly, 7 marines. The conflict of interest that inevitably arises when 7 avatars decide to play the game in their own individual style of analytical approaches to the situation presented to them and you have an extremely difficult job as a Commander. It is your job to adjust YOUR style to suit the needs of the whole marine squad at your disposal, if you know Joe1337 is an extremely good shot (omg hax), can stay alive for a long time and you have limited resources at your disposal, you shouldn't be giving that shotgun to Joe Newbie who is gonna run off and get killed for the nth time this round. This is yet just another example of altering your command style.
I think it's high time someone developed a serious docturine defining some of the more necessary traits of someone whom will be the defining factor of the marines struggle within the confines of Facility X....
Or maybe I'm just too cynical for my own good.
Comments
Stupid aliens dont hurt the alien team nearly as bad as stupid marines hurt the marine team.
I'll drink to that.
But concerning the original post. You called this a design flaw yet the closest you got to describing one was a few blocks down the road. You effectively said, "be careful who becomes commander" Please be careful what you call a design flaw. (note: I'm an engineer, the term design flaw has been known to stir up some very emotional interactions)
Whatever "plan" you have at the start, you must realize it is just the initial plan. You -will- have to change your plan.
From this follows the second most important thing in strategy: get information on what the enemy is doing, the more the better.
Not only must the comm use the overview map and motion sensor/radar to check on the enemy. Also the grunts should pass on any possibly important information to the comm, because the comm is a very busy person who can't possibly see everything all the time. That's much more usefull than telling the comm what to do (if he's any good to begin with).
The same principal is true for the aliens. The main difference is that the comm doesn't usually have to pass on information on enemy activity as such to all his marines (it's usually more effective to just give appropriate orders).
The aliens however do all have to keep each other informed on anything that can't easily be seen on the hive radar (like, 'how serious is that attack on the hive').
Also aliens will have to communicate about change of plan, while a marine comm could just implement a change by giving orders.
I agree that there are to few good strategic thinkers to comm in NS, and that it's a marine weakness, a 'flaw' in the design of the game if you will. Just because so much depends on the comm. I have been in many games where no-one wanted to comm.
If aliens are at least of average skill, marines need a competent comm to stand a chance unless they are a bunch of elite rambos.
Amen.
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there goes any hopes of getting buildings up this game
I'll take SC, becuase I'm familier with that one. I could lay up questions here and i bet I'd get 3 answers per question rearding how to counter a certian strategy, and I'm willing to bet at LEAST 2 out of each 3 would work. Take these
Low Tech rush High Defense
High Economy High Tech tree
Air units Land units
Now. How would you counter, say a low tech rush, from say the Zerg, the masters of the Rush. Mmmhmm?...WAIT right there. You just started up on option D and ability F and Strat ZZ and upgrade 30...there just isn't that sort of diversity in NS. I understand the work required and all, but..I just think a shat load of new things in the arms and proto labs would give marines a way to get around the "3 strats that work, if you try something else you die" syndrom. The relevance of this to your post, though obtuse, I admit, is that marines are humans. If a human knows "Once they get fades, if we arn't a team, it's over," they'll F4
I'd like to add I've seen this more and more recently. 8 out of the last 10 games we lost it was to Fades, NOT Onos. I mean people give UP to Fades now. However....if Humans know there's something they could possibly wait on, a high cost and/or slow research upgrade that will freak a fades world, well, you get the impetus to hang on that 5 more minutes you know? The problem isn't so much newbie marines, I don't think, AS the experince. When NS came out, you didn't really KNOW when you were loosing! I saw turn arounds becuase aliens werent familer with advanced /forms/. Now....now we all know how hard it is to kill a fade, how far along the aliens are when you see a spore cloud, etc, and most, frankly, have no spine. Until we can assure our marines at least a /chance/ to survive what might come there way, the key being "DECISIONS FROM THE COMMANDER" they will continue to act as they want, when they want.
Every marine seems to think that fades mean the game is lost. Hardly! You've just entered the midgame, where you'll really have to work for that win. 2 Hives is, AFAIK, <i>meant</i> to be a balance point where the aliens and marines meet on a roughly equal footing, and the decisions both teams make determine the eventual winner. Fades are meant to be tough, but not invincible, which is the case as it is now.
Instead, marines all too often see that their chance at an easy win is gone and figure that that's the <i>only</i> way to win. Attention marines: Your LMGs still work fine. If you get two buddies and charge him, you'll come out ahead. Fades have more of a psychological advantage than a game one.
My guess is, once 1.1 is released and people get a chance to see the way the game is <i>meant</i> to be again, this attitude will become less prevalent.
A lot of people need to get out of that state of mind where "Fades = us pwned" as well. If you have a 3 level weapon upgrade and a hmg that fade is HISTORY if you keep firing at it, people are just too afraid of dying and losing their precious gun they screamed at the comm for, for half an hour....
I don't have time for stuff like clans anymore (accursed university *shakes fists* ) so I'm more or less limited to the public domain of NS, some days it makes me want to throw my keyboard through the wall...
Better than the alien only-one-thing-works strategy. DMS *sigh*. Oh well, here's to hoping for more diversity in 1.1!
1.) Voicechat ability
2.) The capability to USE the freaking Voicechat ability
3.) Patience
4.) Experience (he knows that there are upgrades in the arms lab *shudder* and knows that turrets cannot shoot through your structures)
5.) Tactical Intelligence (the ability to produce a "plan")
6.) More Patience
7.) A strong Bladder
8.) Leadership skills (knows what a waypoint is and how to set it, explain it, and encourage his team without screaming)
9.) A spacebar (to get to all those ammo/health/your-stuff-is-being-destroyed communications)
10.) 4-6 TSA soldiers that are willing to put aside their petty concerns for the good of the team.
-OldManRipper
They don't adapt at all. It's the same thing over and over DMS, with one gorge, until Hive 2, then lerk's umbra and fade (skulk only if no res to do lerk or fade), and when hive 3 is up, first two to go Onos stay Onos.
Grr.
And here's what gets me, when a gorge tries to change it up by putting sensory first, he does it WITHOUT CONSULTING HIS TEAM. For example...
The Marines have taken Hive B. (Since this is technically your forum, go you.) What aliens REALLY need here is defense, because we simply HAVE to get that carapace to disrupt the TF and take our hive back. Sensory does NO good against turrets. Gorge goes sensory. We lose.
In this situation, the obvious thing to do in this situation is to stay with tried and true defense, because Marines have their tried and true thing of taking a hive for their first objective.
Now, let's say the marines change it up by having only a pair of marines out on res tower missions while the others stay behind guarding base so the comm doesn't have to waste res on mines and turrets for the base. This res is then used to get HMG and Heavy Armor as quickly as possible so a full marine squad can leave the base (with a single dude left to do the mining) to take out existing hives, kicking the crap out of aliens in their way. This is an effective strategy I've seen used to great ends when the two res tower marines are good ones.
In this situation, carapace is going to do the ailens no good. What you need here is sensory, so that your skulks can cloak and ambush the two marines outside the base. But the gorge builds defense first, because the aliens couldn't adapt to this unusual strategy, and the aliens, despite their inability to skulk rush the base, think they're doing good as they've gotten their second hive up and are ready for the third. Then they become green goo as a sqaud of HMGs rips through their armored, but quite visible carcasses.
The moral of the story? COMMUNICATION IS EVERYTHING.
Every marine seems to think that fades mean the game is lost. Hardly! You've just entered the midgame, where you'll really have to work for that win. 2 Hives is, AFAIK, <i>meant</i> to be a balance point where the aliens and marines meet on a roughly equal footing
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You're being idealistic. There is no midgame balance in 1.04, wether there is meant to be a balance or not is irrelevant, it doesn't exist. We can all rush and kill careless lone fades on public servers, that doesn't change the situation. A 3 fade/lerk/gorge team played properly will take a marine base within a couple of minutes, this combination will even fight favourably against a HA/HMG group. There is a reason all effective marine strategies are designed to work at the 1 hive stage. Be it rushing the hive, JP/HMG'ing the hive, or locking down the other 2 hives, these strats are dependant on the marines siezing the game before fades.
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In this situation, carapace is going to do the ailens no good. What you need here is sensory
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You're being idealistic. A countering system such as this is how we would like the game to work, but it doesn't work this way. Carapace is better than sensory in your example situation, it is better than sensory in every realistic situation. NS has no solid countering system, because the aliens have very few options, and the marines have very few options that actually work. The tech decisions of one team have little bearing on the decisions of the other team, such that there are only a few very simple counter situations:
Information that marines are able to use to form counter strategy -
Where is their starting hive?
Information that aliens are able to use to form counter strategy -
Are they teching jetpacks?
Thats it. All other information only applies to the tactical level, ie. where are they attacking so we can defend?/where are they weak so we can attack? No other information has any bearing on strategic decisions. The starting hive decides the marine strategy, and the only strategic decision the aliens have to make is wether to use lerks to counter JPs. The gorge caps res, and builds defence chambers as resources allow, this happens in every situation, and there are no other decisions to make for an alien team prior to the second hive. (And usually at the second hive, the decision is, Do we spawn camp them for extra frags or just kill their IPs?)
An Example:
Gorge builds all Chambers (Movement,Sensory,Defence) at the first hive.
Now Aliens could choose one way to evolve,because they have only one Hive.
Every Alien could choose between Carapace,Cloaking or what he prefers,but he could not evolve 2 or 3 abilities,until second or third Hive is grown up....
This Way Aliens could adapt to a given situation quicker....
Just an Idea...