Psychology Of Ha

EnronEnron Join Date: 2003-08-13 Member: 19656Members
<div class="IPBDescription">"I'm invincible..."</div> Last night, I'm comming a group of 4-5 rines. Things start out great, build our base, fend off a lame skulk rush, rines are actually following orders and defending/building. I go for a quick phase tech and send out a group to a hive. Again, great organization. They kill 3 skulks on their way and dont lose a man. Phase gate up, kill res tower, get up tfac, the hive is ours. Wow, this game is going really well. Our res is sitting at 3 vs their 5 we still control rine start and a hive. I now have one dedicated rine who phases back and forth from hive and rine start. Fending off bile bombs and the occasonal lerk. Meanwhile, I send 3 others off to capture a dual res. Once again, perfect teamwork, the few casualties were quickly replaced via phase gates. The guys even listened to me to wait up for their fallen--taking up defensive positions down long hallways as there were only 2 of them. We seige up dual res and take it fairly easily. Another gate makes for quite a network of travel. I now have 2 rines set up as defense as they are pressing our hive base and dual res. Seige turrets and pinging along with the 2 rines make for pretty effective defense. The remaining 2 go silently to the second hive, passing by res towers etc. and set up a strategic tfac which gets immediately upgraded to seige. They obey orders to build turrets but not finish them. On my say they, finish all turrets and get a ping from me. Instant chaos for the aliens. We bring in our 2 defending rines and have quite a shootout at our new seige location. With phase gates, we hold them off and take our second hive! I'm ecstatic, these rines are doing a great job. This whole time i have done all 6 upgrades and we have more res than we know what to do with...I tell them to get back to base and load up with hmg/gl/ha/welders. This is when it hit the fan...

Suddenly, orders mean nothing. "I have my own armor and gun, I'm gonna do what i want." The equipment transformed this well oiled team into a bunch of cowboys in mere seconds. I'm getting ammo calls at 4 different places on the map. I'm geting cussed at saying that HMG's dont matter if they dont have ammo. I'm freaking out trying to get them to actually pick up a welder, much less actually weld a teammate. The 2 marines that did a great job defending our bases earlier each walked out and found their own OC wall or hungry hungry onos. We lost more rines once we had HA than we did before hand. Simple alien combos made quick work of our dual res base, a hive was soon to follow. Phase gates were never used again, each rine was determined to 'cut' his own way through to their hives. Do you know how annoying it is to have 2 fully outfitted marines 1 room apart from eachother each yelling for ammo/health/repairs only to see one get devoured and the other one gored to death.

The first half of the game, the aliens were jealous of my commanding and said they wished they had had me last game. Oh how the tables turned once I gave out some good equipment.. It's probably the novelty of a new gun and armor, hopefully this will fade with time, just another step on the NS learning curve I guess...

Comments

  • CEldinCEldin Join Date: 2002-09-16 Member: 1323Members
    I've noticed this trend as well actually. Generally speaking though they only do it ONE time when they know I'm comming. As soon as my team splits up I recycle IPs and go rambo as well. Now they know how it feels to have 20 minutes down the drain because of job negligence.
  • SnidelySnidely Join Date: 2003-02-04 Member: 13098Members
    edited August 2003
    That was a nice, well written little anecdote. Thanks for sharing. (:

    I've seen the exact same thing happen. I've also seen marines just become complacent because they dominate the map (whether it be two hive lockdown or a lot of RTs) - it's as if they run out of batteries. The aliens pull off a focused attack, and suddenly, the game that was in the bag has gone to hell. /:
  • EnronEnron Join Date: 2003-08-13 Member: 19656Members
    Yeah, it was like 2 am and I had to be at work the next day, today. (even though I basicaly spent all day lerking the forums and reading the latest gaming news...thanks for all your tax dollars everyone <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ) So i threatened to quit as they were really **** me off by now. One of the rines also chimed in and rallied everyone together and we took back a hive. Soon after, it was back to Joker: Space Cowboy.

    I suppose aliens deal with this on some lvl as well, with everyone saving up for an Onos rather than teamwork. But in the current state a redemption onos, even in the hands of a noob, means problems for rines. Don't get me started on redemption <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
  • XodlikeXodlike Join Date: 2003-06-03 Member: 16985Members
    happened more than a few times with me... its just the fact that 290 extra hitpoints is well ALOT combined with 100 hp is 390 which is getting close to an onos but if u go in big groups of 4 or 5 hmg/welder/HA u are invincible.<<<<<notice the period lol
  • ForlornForlorn Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2634Banned
    I've noticed this also, it's really foolish to grab HA and walk off by themselves like they are MR. Invincible.
  • coilcoil Amateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance. Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    edited August 2003
    I've generally seen effecting comming of HA through the following method:

    1) Announce your plan for a HA train -- that is, EVERYONE in HA, all together.
    2) First drop welders, then HA, then weapons.
    3) *Constantly* tell your HAs to stay in base until everyone is equipped.
    4) Make sure you put them in a squad together. Just hearing "You're Squad 5!" does wonders for teamwork.
    5) Keep them updated on progress - "just waiting for two more GLs," or "hang on, upgrading MT," etc.
  • ZekZek Join Date: 2002-11-10 Member: 7962Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--QuoteBegin--nukeaqua+Aug 18 2003, 04:55 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (nukeaqua @ Aug 18 2003, 04:55 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> happened more than a few times with me... its just the fact that 290 extra hitpoints is well ALOT combined with 100 hp is 390 which is getting close to an onos but if u go in big groups of 4 or 5 hmg/welder/HA u are invincible.<<<<<notice the period lol <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    That's not how armor works. Armor absorbs a percentage of damage dealt to your HP, depending on how much armor is left. The lower your armor, the more HP damage you take per hit...

    Anyway, I've found that most HAs know that they have to stick together to survive. The real problem is a complete refusal to weld. The comm spends the res to give every single one of them a welder, and only a couple HAs at most are ever willing to weld a teammate. Everybody else runs around shooting at aliens and ignores the well-being of their teammates, and even in the base they walk around screaming for a weld when they themselves have never used their welder. It's incredibly irritating, and has always been one of the reasons I tend to stick to aliens, though many of them aren't any better...
  • ZeoZeo Join Date: 2003-02-07 Member: 13224Members
    I was comming just now, and I'll admit things were in a bind. The map was Caged, we relocated to double res, and we're moving on Ventilation hive from shipping.
    The phase gate is up, my vanilla marines fought like warrior poets to keep it alive! The guys I had watching base I wanted rotated into the front line.
    We had just the two nodes in Central and I could afford two HAs and no other weapons, so I dropped them into the field.

    But. This was not sufficient for my new "elite" guys. The wanted HMGs, they wanted GLs.
    My god, I told them the plan before they were even suited up. But no, they felt they deserved better guns.

    Now I don't have the best mic in the world, but my orders are pretty understandable.
    Three words: "Heavy Armor PHASE!!"

    The Phase Gate lasted all of 15 seconds while my vanilla's were screaming into voice comm: "WHERES THAT BACKUP??" The Sporing was stacking up. Hmm a perfect place for a .....Heavy Armor?

    "LMGs dont suddenly become obselete just because you get more hitpoints guys."

    Comms have a helluva job in pubs dont they?
  • lolfighterlolfighter Snark, Dire Join Date: 2003-04-20 Member: 15693Members
    This was more or less the only way of winning a 1.x game for the aliens. Once jetpacks were being handed out, the marines were thinking "win win win" and started getting careless. Considering how the marines often teched off only two or three rts, res was often scarce for the rine team, so if you could defeat the jetpackers, you suddenly had quite a good chance (and umbraing the hives helped immensely here). By the time the next jpers came around you usually had a few Fades, and then the game quickly went downhill for the rines. If they'd just stuck together and concentrated on taking down the hives, they would have won. Of course, this is exactly what they did in clan games, leading to almost no alien wins at all in those games.
  • GoldenShadowGoldenShadow Join Date: 2002-04-21 Member: 483Members
    I was playing on mineshaft today commanding and It was a small game of 5v5 at first because the server wasn't full. I split up my team and make 2 squads and sent one off to cap the node on the way to tram, and tram itself, then they capped the double node. the other squad that was defending the base were getting figity so I promised them a good reward shortly. After a while I had phase gates up at tram and refinery(double node) and told the defensive squad to patrol the phases. by this time more people had joined the server so I had a full team of 8 and I was neglecting all the new guys since those 2 squads were doing so good. I finaly equipped them with heavy armor and some of the new guys and regrouped again into a HA squad and told them to march into sewer hive. they went and we capped cafeteria on the way but had to stop there since there were lots of onos pressuring them. I set up a phase at cafeteria and an armory for them to reload their HMG and GL they took down several oni and we continued our march. I didn't even have to set up a siege, they knew exactly how to take down the defenses and move in, they kept each others welded up and I med spammed them. we set up a big TF in sewer and phase and capped the node...gg alien they f4ed
  • EnronEnron Join Date: 2003-08-13 Member: 19656Members
    *drools* Goldenshadow, aint it pretty when it works <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
  • Fang-CEFang-CE Join Date: 2003-01-06 Member: 11946Members
    Well, keep in mind that hmg's go through ammo like water through a sieve. I had a similar situation except I was in an HA/HMG outfit. We obeyed the commander and had a group of 5 HA's heading for their final hive. We bust through their defense with only one HA lost. We finally got to the last two O chambers right in front of their hive. However, by this time, all of us were out of ammo and in desperate need of health packs. You'll still die if you have 2 health and 290 armor. We patiently asked the commander for health and ammo. He drops a couple of packs and then focuses his attention elsewhere. So one guy gets a clip and healed, but the rest of us are still almost dead and using knives. We yell for more ammo/health and 5 minutes later he drops a couple more packs. He's busy trying to help defend an output on the other side of the map. Nevermind that the final assault that he organized is languishing from lack of ammo and health. Eventually all 4 remaining HA's die one by one, with knives and full armor. We go on to lose the game, and we were right at their last hive, we just needed a commander to give us ammo.

    If you issue HA's and HMG's you HAVE to support them or it's your waste of res. It sounds like you were still too busy trying to defend instead of focusing enough attention on your HA's. HA's survive longer and spend ammo more quickly then LA/LMG's so they'll need your support. Were you using hotkeys to group them? Did you communicate your plan/path that you wanted them to take on the assault to the final hive?
  • GoldenShadowGoldenShadow Join Date: 2002-04-21 Member: 483Members
    also, when you are ready to issue out heavy armor and hmg/gl/welder, pick which marines will get it, don't just spam 3 HA then some noob might take it and go run into a cloaked onos. make sure you form a squad first then equip them and make sure they know the plan
  • EnronEnron Join Date: 2003-08-13 Member: 19656Members
    Yeah, I normaly 'screen' my recepients but we had so much res that game that everyone was completely outfited. Perhaps thats part of the problem. Maybe marines need a "protect the HA" rally rather than everyone getting a HA.
  • Trojan2Trojan2 Join Date: 2003-01-14 Member: 12290Members
    First of all I would like to say that Enron did a GREAT job Commanding in that game. When I joined the game he had All three hives killed and the double res noded and drill hives locked down. We had a gorge in Tram hiding and a 10 hp fade in sewer who went gorge and rebuilt it. I had to wait a full 3 minutes just to spawn in....
    Like he said that when **** hit the fan (i happened to come in durning the 1st HA rush. 2 HA/HMGs let the before mentioned fade go to build a TF (no big deal, not what i woulda done) then wandered off to kill DT WITH OUT BUILDING 2 SIEGES. I was watching through dead cam in utter amazment as the fade with 10hp went gorge and build the hive!! After a minte or two they wondered back to sewer found there was no TF/sieges left and then started to HMG hive. They both unloaded at once and completely igonred Me and gorge. As soon as they ran outa ammo we both jumped then and instead of switching to knifes or welders and fighting they turned there backs and RAN!!.
    Over the next 30 minutes we staged what I beleive to be one of the great comebacks in v2. Out numbered we killed scores of mairnes, broke outa locked down hives and decimated there resnodes. The only guy who basicly did anything worth while was the lone mairne welding up everything. Unfortently for him As soon as I went onos He got assainated every time I saw him. Speaking of him that was another thing. I had those guys utterly terrafied of my onos. I would devour the welder and they would all scatter 5 differnt ways which allowed me to pick em off.
    Non off them covered each other while building, they NEVER set up firing lanes and they ALLWAYS allowed me to ambush them at coners where they would only get glanicng shots at me.
    Honestly I believe that was a text book case of bad marines. A good com and one dedicated marines just could not make up for 4 other morons
  • EnronEnron Join Date: 2003-08-13 Member: 19656Members
    Haha, thanks for the props <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->

    I'm normally a pretty conservative guy, but last night brought out a side of me I haven't seen in awhile. We HAD THE GAME! The countdown had already started but as stated above, they got that hive up....grrr.

    Also, as said above, he came in late. He didnt see the marines working together early on in game. Thats what allowed us to lockdown the hives and have you guys on the run. Whether it was laziness or overconfidence, I dont know, but the guys just stopped working together once they got their shiny new equipment. Very annoying, I too think its one of the better comebacks of 2.0, definitely a rare case of the marines losing--not the aliens winning <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->

    Looking back it was a fun game, but I definitely thought differently last night as I tried to fall asleep, still pretty mad <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
  • XodlikeXodlike Join Date: 2003-06-03 Member: 16985Members
    ahh just came back from rr.org linuxmonster anyways nothing like this happened at first the comm was AFRAID to give out HA/HMGs/Welders to all but in the end he rounded up 200 res or so and gave all of us HMGs/HA/Welders we rushed their hive,and their only hive since we claimed pipe and sieged cargo,and it was an ez victory there wasnt one thing above skulk any where after we got the hive down guess what the comm did ARMORIES FOR ALL,and than the server crashed..JK lol....
  • GrendelGrendel All that is fear... Join Date: 2002-07-19 Member: 970Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, NS2 Playtester
    This kind of behaviour has been well documented and has been seriously studied since the second world war, especially in Vietnam.

    Give someone a sufficiently powerful weapon and they start to feel invulnerable. This can be used to good effect (using tanks or IFVs to cover infantry advances) or can cause problems (MGs tend to forget to move, heavily armed people become careless about staying aware for threats).

    Bear in mind, HA also has a psychological effect on Kharaa.
  • TestamentTestament Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 4037Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--Grendel+Aug 19 2003, 12:02 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Grendel @ Aug 19 2003, 12:02 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Bear in mind, HA also has a psychological effect on Kharaa. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    You should have seen my face when 5 HA's walked underneath me. Me. A lowly second hive skulk. Shame I didn't think about parasiting them, heh.
  • HazeHaze O RLY? Join Date: 2003-07-07 Member: 18018Members, Constellation
    Dont give out HA unless you need it, I guess thats the lesson here. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
  • US-cobra-VUS-cobra-V Join Date: 2003-08-10 Member: 19339Members
    ns_tanith.


    we have base, rr and waste secure. i give my marines a wp to just ouside cargo. siege the area and move in.
    get a pg and tf up, reinforcements directly arrive and start helping to build, they hold of 2 onos and another one that came in alone. all of those onos's redeem to fusion. with some ammo and med spam my rines are able to hold of 4 attacks. then it was too late as the hive was dead.


    we secure fusion, blablabla.

    by that time i had all possible upgrades. have a team that works togheter as 1 big machine. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->

    i have res to spare so i dicide to give <span style='color:red'>everybody</span> HA/HMG and welder and 2 of them get a GL.

    i bind them all to squad 1. tell them the plan and start giving out equipement for one at a time. everything is fine until there.

    unfortuantly 2 already wandered of once they had been given there equipement. try to get them back to base but they don't listen. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->

    i thought, ok now big deal i still have 6 left.

    well wrong guess. once they have their wp everybody seems to take a different route. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
    with only 2 rines left following orders (who themselves try to get the rest of the team with them, without succes.) i try to get sat. as expected, they get eaten by a couple of onos who dicided to work togheter.

    regroup at fusion and try from the outside.(the wall you can blast) but again only 2 rines left following orders. get a tf, turrets, upgrade and start sieging their defense. defense is gone so we are able to move into the hive and with some med and ammo spam those 2 rines where able to kill the hive and all respawning aliens.

    great game to those 2 players <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->


    we won the game but not thx to the rest of the team. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->


    a nice example of what better weapons can do to teamplay. sadly enough. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
  • MaredtextMaredtext Join Date: 2003-08-18 Member: 19899Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--Enron+Aug 18 2003, 06:25 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Enron @ Aug 18 2003, 06:25 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I too think its one of the better comebacks of 2.0, definitely a rare case of the marines losing--not the aliens winning. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Funny how it is possible for aliens to come back from marines controling 2 hives and haveing mass res and still win the game.... too bad there are never any marine combacks.

    "Rare case of the marines loosing".... from what I can tell marines loose all the time in v2.0... not entirely sure what you mean by that.
  • EighteenTwelveEighteenTwelve Join Date: 2003-08-10 Member: 19366Members
    Commanders love me. I hate HA, HMG, Welders and JP's. Give me an LMG/Shotgun and my pistol and I'm fine.
    Too many people are obsessed with the idea that HA means you are now a factor better than you were before. You just tell yourself that when you're being devoured while I was able to outrun you.
  • EnronEnron Join Date: 2003-08-13 Member: 19656Members
    Mared, it was a play on the saying i've read around here on the forums...

    "Marines don't win games; Aliens just lose them."

    A way of saying that due to (questionable) imbalances the only way for a marine team to win is for the aliens to shoot themselves in the foot or try to lose. This game, it seemed as though the marines were trying to lose and they did a heck of a job doing it...
  • RuuRuu Join Date: 2003-05-18 Member: 16442Members
    <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> when i'm HA, it's "i'm slow and sound like mechwarrior reject" more then the high armor. i've been taken down by skulks before so i treat the upgrade with respect. tho sometimes i just ask com not to drop one on me
  • Trojan2Trojan2 Join Date: 2003-01-14 Member: 12290Members
    <!--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-->Funny how it is possible for aliens to come back from marines controling 2 hives and haveing mass res and still win the game.... too bad there are never any marine combacks.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Hell yeah, I have Comm'ed some badass marine comebacks. Marine have Vary good come back potenial due to there ability to turrtle while banking res. In v2 there even better off as RfK gives them a huge shot of res once there down to one resnode.
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