More Players = More Marine Wins?
Nil_IQ
Join Date: 2003-04-15 Member: 15520Members
Join Date: 2003-04-15 Member: 15520Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Or more alien wins?</div> Recently, i've noticed that in general, on larger games, (10vs10 or more) marines will pwn. Unless of course they have a bad commander, but that will pretty much always result in defeat, even in 1.04.
However, I got into a bit of a debate with someone who firmly believes that it is ALIENS that win more often with more players, because:
- A standard Skulk is stronger than a standard LMG marine, hence aliens take the early lead and own.
- More aliens means big packs of skulks chewing their way through eveything in their path.
My argument was that:
- More skulks does NOT mean big packs of skulks chewing through everything in their path, it means lots and lots of rambo skulks who get gunned down by the 12 marines who are in a group.
- Marine upgrades are more cost effective with more players; 1st level upgrades cost 20 points (in 2.0) to upgrade any amount of marines
- More aliens means less res per individual alien, hence longer before you see a 2nd hive, and longer before you see teh <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo--> .
So who do you think was right? It was an epic flamewar, but I think I came out the loser, since the general consensus in the server was that aliens win more often with more players.
So am I being a complete nub? Or was HE being a complete nub?
Enlighten me please.
However, I got into a bit of a debate with someone who firmly believes that it is ALIENS that win more often with more players, because:
- A standard Skulk is stronger than a standard LMG marine, hence aliens take the early lead and own.
- More aliens means big packs of skulks chewing their way through eveything in their path.
My argument was that:
- More skulks does NOT mean big packs of skulks chewing through everything in their path, it means lots and lots of rambo skulks who get gunned down by the 12 marines who are in a group.
- Marine upgrades are more cost effective with more players; 1st level upgrades cost 20 points (in 2.0) to upgrade any amount of marines
- More aliens means less res per individual alien, hence longer before you see a 2nd hive, and longer before you see teh <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo--> .
So who do you think was right? It was an epic flamewar, but I think I came out the loser, since the general consensus in the server was that aliens win more often with more players.
So am I being a complete nub? Or was HE being a complete nub?
Enlighten me please.
Comments
Are you watching c00litz? Are you? <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
(i think that was his name, it was probably a bad idea to argue with him, since he was the commander <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> )
-Lee
He plays on roobs most times and pwns us as an alien, maybe his argument was because he prefers aliens and wants to stick up for them.
You can think about it just in terms of firepower. Larger and larger groups of marines are able to eliminate skulks faster at long range: unless a pack of aliens are perfectly spaced and timing, moving at once, the pack of skulks will be evaporated: nearest skulks first, then moving back through the pack. The only way for skulks to make it to the marines is for them to move paralell to each other, and for the marines to all focus on the same skulk (thus wasting their firepower and time while the rest of the skulks close the distance).
Also remember that ambush tactics rely on stopping the marines fast. With larger and larger packs of marines, it gets harder to stop an advance even with a good ambush, because by the time you've chomped on the first marine, the rest of the marine squad is alerted (silence helps, but they still see the death message and hear the marine scream) and it can prevent serious losses.
There are tactics that can help, but the fact remains that with lower player numbers, you don't need those tactics and skills to win. At higher player levels, you do.
kill twelve marines and their three IP's bring them back in about 45 seconds, but kill twelve skulks and theyll be in the one hive spawn queue for DAYS.
anything below 5v5 is alien win 95% and anything above 7v7 is marine win 95% competetive play is done at 6v6 for that reason.
When teamwork skill and teams are even...
on bigger servers marines have the "covering each other while camping/securing one hallway after another" bonus.
On smaller servers aliens get "outflank and surprise attack"boni.
I wasnt able to experience any of thoose boni in enough games of different size to underline that theory due the lack of even teams (intelligent marines) on publics.
But it was that way on 1.04 for sure.
on 2.0 "self ballancing game mechanisms" are completely different and with RFK and new upgrades you get a lotof new strategys/boni.
One alien kills one marine after another, gaining res for upgrades.
10 marines kill 10 aliens, aliens respawn slowly.
As an example, res-hoarding in large groups of aliens doesn't work so well, because the res takes so long to flow. You're better off using what you have to try and speed up your RFK rate. Which means chambers all over the map, folks. And don't just think OCs.. DCs, SCs, and yes, even MCs can help you and your team increase your kill rate. If you've got more aliens then there are res-nodes, there should not be an empty resnode for more than 30 seconds any time in the game. If the marines aren't using it, then the aliens should be. And if marines are using it, the aliens should be concentrating on ripping it down so that they can use it.
Large groups of marines mean that the aliens standard "Charge and overpower" tactic that I see so much of on pubs isn't going to work. Aliens have to play sneakier. Silence over Celerity, Cloaking with SoF and communication, (learn your hotkeys for communication, people. The alien sounds are still there, just not on the pop-up menu,) and a lot more run in your hit-and-run. A big mistake I see in larger games is aliens trying to hold off the marine advance. This is a bad tactic because, in general, people advancing have their weapons pointed forward. In a large group of marines, typically only one or two will check the six of the group. If you're in front of them trying to slow them down, you're dealing with the combined firepower of the group. If you're behind them, you only have to deal with the guy who actually looks back. (As a side note, attacking from the rear does tend to slow them down, as they turn around to deal with you. Of course, when they turn around is the time when your guys hiding at the front come in..)
So let them advance, but take them one by one from behind so that by the time they get where they're going, it's not hard to take them out before anything gets set up.
Also, learn that there are times to ignore their advances. It sounds horrible, but if you can take down a hive outpost and put up the hive in the time it takes them to set up a siege and take down a different one, you've probably come out ahead in the bargain. If nothing else, you've gained a chance to switch chambers. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
What this all means is that, given the same level of play, marines *do* tend to do better in larger games. But if aliens can step up their play, they can still come out on top.
He plays on roobs most times and pwns us as an alien, maybe his argument was because he prefers aliens and wants to stick up for them. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I never denied he pwns, I just had to prove my point because I seem to have a medical condition which means I can never let things like this go... <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Maybe it's just because I'm a bloke <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
if you play 3 vs 3 aliens have 2 major issues by their side:
1) Individual resources grows faster
2) Marines, needing a commander, feel the loss of a 3d of their team
On a small game, say 4vs4, Marines will be hard pressed to win unless they can kill the alien RT's quickly. Most times all the aliens or at least 3 of them will cap nodes. If the nodes stay up, they will get resources at an amazing speed and be able to cap more and put up OC's to protect them. As Marine you *have* to hand out shotguns immediatly (and with a small team you can have your whole team with shotguns at a very low cost) and your grunts *have* to be decent shots. If you take down 2 or 3 nodes you are in the game. Armor and weapon upgrades aren't as important, HA, shotguns and static defense is.
On hera we played 4vs4 and Marines actually won even though the aliens had 3 hives for a short time. The things mentioned above were the keys. We killed some of their early nodes, got our own turreted and/or electrified, then kept teching up (focusing on HA and MT after armor1). They had 2 cows but without lerks they tend to go down rather quick, and equipping your *whole* team with HA is quite cheap with such small numbers. Everyone in HA = no RFK for aliens.
But when you have bad/ramboing marines then the alines have found themsleves free RFK
Just my guess on what will happen if it does happen
Normally I play on 9 v 9 servers (pubs) so the battles are intense.
Size makes a big difference, instead of having 2 teams of 4 marines now you have 3 teams of 3 - 1, this allows the mariens to still have alot of firepower per group and are able to split up and flank more.
Skill anbd tactics play a huge part in marine battles!
2.0 is just insanely alien-biased no matter what team size. The only reason Marines win at all is because Aliens are getting fat, lazy and spoiled.