So... Are The Marines Still Fun For You?
FlashFrog
Join Date: 2003-08-06 Member: 19078Members
Does anybody enjoy using the marines? Does it really matter to you if you win or lose?
I found that I enjoy playing as the aliens, I like to go gorge, and be the little support guy. I can be decent as a skulk too if I need to be. But I don't want to be alien every game, its pointless, it seems like we win whether I hunt res like a madman or spend the whole round humping a wall.
I don't find the marines fun at all anymore, and not just because they lose more often than not. Even when they win it's an awful mess. I doubt the alien side has the frustrations that the marine side does, at least early on, HA and turret farms take alot of res and time to get, and you can get devoured by an Onos in what was it? 5 minutes 30 to go onos? There was a thread about it. That's a pain, especially when you have alot of health.
The infamous full-team skulk rush at the very start of a level is undefendable, as far as I've seen, if you have a way to stop say... 7 skulks with (lets say... 9 marines max, minus 1 commander, minus 4 builders) 4 guards, would you please tell me? This is as frustrating as anything.
I just want to have some fun playing as the guys with the big guns. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
I found that I enjoy playing as the aliens, I like to go gorge, and be the little support guy. I can be decent as a skulk too if I need to be. But I don't want to be alien every game, its pointless, it seems like we win whether I hunt res like a madman or spend the whole round humping a wall.
I don't find the marines fun at all anymore, and not just because they lose more often than not. Even when they win it's an awful mess. I doubt the alien side has the frustrations that the marine side does, at least early on, HA and turret farms take alot of res and time to get, and you can get devoured by an Onos in what was it? 5 minutes 30 to go onos? There was a thread about it. That's a pain, especially when you have alot of health.
The infamous full-team skulk rush at the very start of a level is undefendable, as far as I've seen, if you have a way to stop say... 7 skulks with (lets say... 9 marines max, minus 1 commander, minus 4 builders) 4 guards, would you please tell me? This is as frustrating as anything.
I just want to have some fun playing as the guys with the big guns. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
A skilled Commander and a competent team almost guarantees a fun round. Win or lose, it's the reason I play NS.
A skilled Commander and a competent team almost guarantees a fun round. Win or lose, it's the reason I play NS. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe I need to find better servers, I just get confusing, ineffective orders, and being yelled at.
Local servers have good pings but horrendous comms....heck everyne ramboes off :\
I haven't had a long game in ages. We manage to lock down one place outside of the base (maybe), and then we spend the rest of the game defending it, making no progress anywhere, until either the aliens rush us, or too many players get fed up and quit and the aliens win by default.
once you've faithfully built the 40 turrets comm drops (as your vid card grinds at 10 fps) you get leet HA, then Mr. Pwnos congratulates you by letting you be his human reverse enema.
but no marines win sometimes!!! them gratifying shotty rushes, where the game ends in 50 seconds, or the farms, where the turrets don't acctually kill, they're collective force crashes any alien players computer when being shot at.
doug
If the marines could just take the weapons themselves without having them handed out to them by the commander (like using the armory, selecting weapon, drain resources or something).
The commander has to give ammo, medpacks, be aware of all the outposts, the main base, upgrades, hand out weapons, give waypoints and assign squads, not to mention keeping an eye on all 5 of them (that is, if he uses 5).
The only thing aliens are dependant on eachother is "What chamber do you want?". Basically. Organized attacks, perhaps, but it's far from what the Marines have to put up with.
This is tideous, and with a frustrated and confused commander, things may crash and you lose. Which is not fun. Well, it can be, but...
If the marines could just take the weapons themselves without having them handed out to them by the commander (like using the armory, selecting weapon, drain resources or something).. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
That'd be nice, but n00bs can be pretty demanding, they'd all want shotties, if that was the best gun available. They'd Rambo and die and want more. No more res.
I don't see how anybody is supposed to handle that much responsibility well. If being a marine is unfun, being the comm is ten times worse.
"if we defend they'll get 2 hives and pwn-nos us! I gotz to atak dem"
I know if we stay defensive we'll lose but almost all the time on pubs they get fed up with defending run off and give a hungry skulk a nudge towards onos. im thinking not many have let the RFK idea sinking through their skulls - 1 death for a marine means much more then 1 for a skulk in most cases.
Commanding isn't to bad, all you need is one or two competent(sp?) marines to keep the Ramboette's in check.
in all seriousness pub play for marines and aliens was more fun for ME, in 1.04 (as in my opinion and please don't bring up that JP/HMG rush crap, it was probably the servers i played on but marines didn't dominate like everyone and their cousins friends grandpa's proctologists screams that it was)**no i didn't play clan matches, i realize it sucked for them, hence 2.0, hope can find balance between pub fun and clan match fairness**
in 2.0 i find aliens pretty fun to play but marines is more like a burden on both sides of the coin (winning and losing)
and finally on a side note, with the beta changelog rolling along - things look to be changing, hopefully some testing and we'll see a new patch.
doug
What i see that turns me off -
-All the vets rushing alien entry point and all the newbies rushing marine entry point MAP AFTER MAP AFTER MAP.Once i played 7/8 maps in a row like this on the marines side.Was NOT funny,though all the vets on aliens seemed to think so.And the BRAGGING."OMG OMG OMG WE OWNED A NEWBIE TEAM OF MARINES WOW WE ARE THE BEST PLAYERS IN TEH WORLD!11111"
-ZERO amount of newbies that take advice.Well okay in 1.04 i only saw ONE but at least it wasnt as appaling as the zero number.Typical conversation goes like this :
"I want xxx"
"We cant afford it yet,if you could go to the wp and we can secure it we could get the res so you can get stuff"
"Get the **** out of the chair!"
I still remember in 1.03 i commed a team of newbies that pwned a team of vets simply because of teamwork.Why cant these newbies be the MAJORITY???
-MC pwnage.Celerity skulks destroy even vet marines HARD.As proved in a local scrim where a vet marine team was completely owned by celerity skulks so badly we couldnt even leave our base.Thank god most pubs go DC/sensory
-Sheer ARROGANCE.HOW is it the comm's fault that marines cannot even exit the marine start?Everyone seems to think they are uber comms and keep insisting that YES,even though the marines cant even exit the marine start they can win the game if only i would get the **** out of the chair so they can turn on the marine's aimbots.
but no marines win sometimes!!! them gratifying shotty rushes, where the game ends in 50 seconds, <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
to quote myself!
shotty rushes are fun but it gets old, they still work a lot too.
yeah shotguns are nice at any point in the game but besides rushing, depends a lot on team work and player skill. giving out shotguns isn't gonna win games by itself.
doug
I've never really played marine that much... it's not nearly as much fun as alien, but that's because I'm very, <i>very</i> good at alien, whereas I'm merely "not a total n00b" at marine. I enjoy commanding, though, much more so than 1.04 with the interface upgrade <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm very, very good at alien, whereas I'm merely "not a total n00b" at marine.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->That's the attitude that bugs me, how can you possibly know whether or not you are good if the game is horribly unbalanced? The most useful marines I've seen are the "squad leaders" they know what works, and seem to be able to work within the comm's own plan, they give you instructions, and are good enough that the commander knows they aren't total n00bs, and pays attention to them, this isn't much different than leading a team of aliens in some organized rush on a marine turret-farm. But I see fewer squad leaders than I do competent commanders.
Kinda like the Lewis Black "Candy Corn" joke if you've ever heard of that.
doug
1. I have to join marines because the server throws you into random team after 30 seconds in the ready room and aliens are full -_-
2. I feel like losing (rare occasion..)
Supposedly a super good comm and marines that pay attention and work together are all powerful and invincible. I have seen such marine teams....and then let a skulk run out in in front of said team to draw fire, whilst another Onos and I stomped in and devoured 2 heavys and proceeded to gore the rest to death. I've only seen two marine wins since 2.0...can't give an excuse for that. They had the skill to win and they did.
It's unfortunate that there is still lots of people that decide to just rambo off and in-advertantly give the aliens lots of res to win the game. Once the marines start to work together, there isn't too much aliens can do to stop them winning.
Thats the main difference i feel between v1 and v2, is that marines HAVE to work together or as you say it gets quite boring. suggestion: find a better server with better players.
Yeah, only by greater skill or dumb luck can marines beat aliens. In retrospect, I've probably only won against really dumb aliens as marines, there is no other way of explaining my wins back then and the constant repeated slaughter I've received today and yesterday.
The aliens ALWAYS know where you are, at the start of the level, the marines are always in the same place. Marines need to move in big groups, and always have to build lots of junk to keep any territory, finding a marine is as easy as making a bee-line for where you last saw him. But you NEVER know where an Onos will pop up, and in every game I've been to in the past two days, I'm ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS trying to fend them off with LMG's. Unless you're near a turret farm, your whole team is dead.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->find a better server with better players<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->Give me the ip address of the server you find where the marines can win against equal opponents with teamwork. I challenge you. I'd like to see this.
Marine losses tend to end in a massive all-out firefight, and even though you know you're going to lose at least you go down fighting hard to the very end, instead of slowly dying in a vent somewhere.
Yeah and in the perfect world, everyone lives in peace and harmony and no-one goes hungry.
213.160.110.215:27015
195.20.108.53:27015
212.42.13.26:27015
212.42.1.246:40010
Try these, they normally run good games. Oh and I agree with stoatbringer, who I suppose has seen some alien defeats.
BTW it seems like you are putting too much emphasis on winning games, chill out have fun playing the *game*. *I speak for the pubbers that is.
Aliens are boring. I've lost once as aliens (only played about 15 times) and that was when I was comm did a nice relocation and expansion. Then I dropped, by the time I got back marines were stacked so I had to go aliens <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->.
Marines are <b>extremely</b> frustrating to comm vs a good alien team. The only way to really beat aliens is take a gamble (eg;no base defence) and hope the aliens don't realise. They almost always do...and then the tables turn in 30 seconds... as a comm you feel like personally going round to the aliens houses and smashing their computers to pieces. You get the slight optimism of 'you know team, we may just about pull this off' then BAM! game over...
We fortified in two different directions, seizing an empty hive about 4-5 minutes in, and took resource nodes until we were in control of the map. We contended the spots outside of the main hive, and eventually we made all the aliens f4 out of the game.... it was hopeless for them :)
Although one thing i noticed was that no matter where I went, there were always 2 or 3 other 'rines with me. When you travel in groups, things are MUCH easier.
I started when 2.0 was released; Ive only seen the humans win a few times total, and its usually becuase they outnumber the aliens or becuase theres some major collapse on the aliens' part (my team goes for an uber-late shotgun rush, finds that the enemy has only one hive, one unupgraded onos, and not a defencive chamber to be seen, for no real reason).
I think it has to do with the basic game mechanics- humans have to perform aggressively AND flawlessly (a couple skulks denying an expansion of some kind can be the beginning of the end- pretty soon they go onos and the game is already over). Even after the humans have established themselves (a second solid base in a hive), its a slow game of attrition against the aliens, and several times Ive had commanders quit even when theyre in a not-bad situation because theyre exhausted. Really though, its great to lead my teammates against a retreating onos with nothing but LMGs (I guess that they think that when he runs away hes not coming back?) and kill the ****. He never expects it- we kill him huddled behind a def chamber. YEAH SUCK IT ALIEN SCUM RAWR.
On the other hand, the aliens have only one real test the entire game, thats countering the human expansion/shotgun rush. If they fail then, theyve still got two hives and the rest of the map covered in resource collectors, and theyll come back soon as onoses, lerks, and gorges. Most times, as alien, after weve skulked the hell out of the human expansion, two guys have gone onos, one lerk, and one gorge and theyve set up camp outside the human base, hit-n-running with devour and healing in a pack of def chambers. One other guy is fade, hes blinking accross the map looking for humans foolishly trying to get another res node up. I just camp back and pick my nose, let the onoses do their thing with the other half of my team, which is wandering the map at or near 100 res, not quite sure how to reach the human base as a gorge. Then we get our third hive and I xenocide over and over becuase its fun. Then the game ends. Its fun playing as a skulk, but victory is practically guaranteed.
Marines - Teamwork
Aliens - More or less solo
<!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
1 on 1 a alien might be overpowering, (altough I seriously doubt it) but that's why marines walk in teams... 3 Marines SHOULD be able to handle 1 skulk... (I cannot count the number of times that they can't handle a single skulk as a 4 man hmg team...)