Rush Wins Are The Only Decent Strats For Marines
RickyGervais
Join Date: 2003-01-10 Member: 12148Members
Join Date: 2003-01-10 Member: 12148Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Rush is central to NS design</div> The average game is currently won either by a rush be it JP, HMG, IP etc or by lockdown. I despise 2 hive lockdowns with a vengence and I have no respect for comms that use it becuase it is boring for both sides.
Because of all the moaning about JP rushes there has been an increase in popularity in 2 hive lockdowns.
2 Hive lockdowns are boring, easy and slow. It is not hard for marines to take over the 2 empty hives at the beginning and then embark on a long and slow fortyfying teching up process, while aliens prance around with thier 1 hive unable to make little impact on the defence. The next 20 minutes from anything up to 2 hours is completely wasted. Aliens do nothing but run around and die or get frags but not affecting the outcome of the game while marines rambo around over and over until the map is so covered with OCs as the gorges have infinite res and nothing else to do but spamm them everywhere, that the game becomes a joke.
NS does not provide the dynamics for any other method of play. Flayra would like to have marines building res points and defending them with sentrys, teching up while aliens are left to get 2 hives leading to nice happy battles between upgraded marines and fade/lerks/onos, but in NS 1.04 this will never happen as the game is not designed for this.
Marines do not want aliens to get 2 hives becuase that is bad for them, so they employ strategies to prevent them from obtaining them. When these strategies work in any particular game aliens cannot get 2 hives becuase the pace of expansion is in favour of the marines.
Flayra has also said he is reducing the average game time and this is where I believe he is taking the proper step, by improving the alien resource model to compete with marine fast tech you elmininate long drawn out games which are boring, and overall improve gameplay even if only by a small margin. NS is not desinged for long games, one side always takes the upper hand and the game becomes an unbalanced waste of time which drains the fun out of NS.
This is how ns is now, I hope 1.1 changes ns to be more rush based by improving the alien res model to match that of marines as I said above.
Because of all the moaning about JP rushes there has been an increase in popularity in 2 hive lockdowns.
2 Hive lockdowns are boring, easy and slow. It is not hard for marines to take over the 2 empty hives at the beginning and then embark on a long and slow fortyfying teching up process, while aliens prance around with thier 1 hive unable to make little impact on the defence. The next 20 minutes from anything up to 2 hours is completely wasted. Aliens do nothing but run around and die or get frags but not affecting the outcome of the game while marines rambo around over and over until the map is so covered with OCs as the gorges have infinite res and nothing else to do but spamm them everywhere, that the game becomes a joke.
NS does not provide the dynamics for any other method of play. Flayra would like to have marines building res points and defending them with sentrys, teching up while aliens are left to get 2 hives leading to nice happy battles between upgraded marines and fade/lerks/onos, but in NS 1.04 this will never happen as the game is not designed for this.
Marines do not want aliens to get 2 hives becuase that is bad for them, so they employ strategies to prevent them from obtaining them. When these strategies work in any particular game aliens cannot get 2 hives becuase the pace of expansion is in favour of the marines.
Flayra has also said he is reducing the average game time and this is where I believe he is taking the proper step, by improving the alien resource model to compete with marine fast tech you elmininate long drawn out games which are boring, and overall improve gameplay even if only by a small margin. NS is not desinged for long games, one side always takes the upper hand and the game becomes an unbalanced waste of time which drains the fun out of NS.
This is how ns is now, I hope 1.1 changes ns to be more rush based by improving the alien res model to match that of marines as I said above.
Comments
(Full Upgrades, 3 res nodes)
3 HA/HMG/welder
1 HA/GL/welder
1 HA/Shotgun/welder
2 JPs with welders and Shotguns/HMGs
Vs.
(2 Hives)
1 Gorge
3 Skulks
5 Fades
Match.
Oni are too overpowered in 1.04. Even if you have full upgrades, 5 heavies with HMGs/welders, 2 heavies with GLs/welders, you can't defeat more than 2 oni at a time.
Even if you even get a jetpack across their defenses to their hive, the oni take the nearest movement, you get paralized, and your screwed.
Yes it does, the main limitation right now is the mindset of a lot of players.
2:hive lockdown is not that easy. If you manage to take the hives but the aliens contain you, you are left with 2-3 RT's, pumping most of the res into defence and replacing destroyed structures. Aliens have the whole map (meaning 5-10 RT's). Until you have siege in both hives you are in danger of getting turreted, once you do, you should be up against a team with 50/25/25 Lerks/Skulks/Gorges who are destroying your structures or a co-ordinated skulk rush supported by 1-3 gorges. Not to mention you have to keep scanning/looking for hidden D chambers.
If you take another couple of resource nodes and can hold them, you will win quickly. Which is totally ok, I mean, if you control 2 hives AND half the nodes, you SHOULD win, quickly.
The only times 2:hive lockdowns get boring is when one of the teams is incompetent. COM's that just keep on turreting the hives instead of trying to expand, long after the hives are secured, or aliens that, as you say, just run around and die instead of getting organised. A 2:hive lockdown between two competent teams is usually the most fun games of them all.
A *real* JP-rush is insanely boring. It just takes advantage of the fact that on a large enough server the resource model is flawed enough to allow Marines to get JP's/HMG's before the Aliens can ever start a second hive. A *real* rush like this consists of either just camping base or taking one node then camping that and base. Wait for 3-5 minutes, then go kill the hive. If that is your idea of fun, then so be it. If that is your idea of "the least boring" then I just think you're playing on bad servers.
Had a fun game yesterday where I decided from the start that I would turret up all the res nodes I could take. We won. If done correctly, any strategy can and will work. The aliens got two hives but we had been very aggressive against nodes so it took a while for them to get fades, and once a fade died, it took forever for them to fade up again (don't think anyone managed). When the second hive went up I think we had 7 RT's turreted and mined, leaving enough res for very good tech. As soon as one was attacked, Marines with 3/2 upgrades would show up and the fades had to run away to avoid getting killed. Now this was a fun game for everyone involved (I left the hive we had unsieged to allow the aliens a chance to take it, but they never realised).
Next game, I'm comm: 2 hive lockdown. The marines start moaning "boring" and "you suck noob".
"No, <i>you</i> suck, thats why we have to employ this strategy!"
I agree that any strategy in this great game can work. Given two factors:
1. The whole team has to be behind it. If a few or even one is **** and moaning about the stratgey, and thinks he knows better, the move will fail.
2. Talent. Especially with rushes. I will always ask from now on: "No **** now guys, whos good with a jp?" It puts the ball in their court, if they screw it up after claiming godlike ability with the jp, then its on them.
And aliens can always break a 2 hive lockdown, you just need good teamwork and a competent lerk/skulk combo to deal with turrets/turret factories respectively. Theres always a point in a game where its no longer possible to come back and win.
It takes experience to deduce when that time is, but it also takes talent and teamwork to <b>control</b> when that time is. Until that point, there is a counter to every strategy. For this is a great game <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
However, I've also seen this fail, as much of the time, on public servers, the wave of incoming marines is wiped out by smarter skulks who are waiting to ambush incoming marines, or by a skulk rush to the undefended marine start.
Two hive lockdown, while not as 100% sure a win if you do it right, is still a viable option that make the game more enjoyable as it lasts longer, and because it doesn't give a garuntee of victory, it takes work to accomplish.
Boring, easy, and slow? I don't see how that works, especially for the marines, running around trying to defend 2 hives, marine start (sometimes) and res towers, they have their work cut out for them. And it's true that the aliens really can't evolve, but I have seen on public servers, entire teams of fully loaded Heavy Armor marines get owned by a group of good skulks and lerks. If the marines concentrate on only getting the two hives, and the aliens concentrate on res towers, the marines become too poor to hold on to anything they've gained.
Conversely, if the aliens achieve a 2 hive lockdown, it used to assure victory, but now with a good commander leading a Heavy Armor squad using a welding chain, it's possible that the marines can still win, making for an interesting game on both sides.
Ratfire