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octoroon posted:But "repetitive players models?" What, because there are only three different marine models stratified by preorder status and the aliens adhere to a similar style based on the name of the loving game? I don't even know. LibbyM posted:I just bought this. How awful is the community? If I play a few matches to get a feel, and then decide I want to try a match as commander, am I going to get yelled at and votekicked from the game the moment I do something badly? 1. When they say literally nothing over the microphone so nobody knows what to do. This goes for Marine and Alien commanders alike. 2. When they spend 160 team resources placing onos eggs right in front of a wall of exo-suits and marines after buying every upgrade except carapace and regeneration. God drat this was annoying. As long as you talk and aren't literally retarded you'll be fine. I usually try to be helpful to new commanders and pplayers, especially if they ask. AndyAML posted:drat, if this is true then I've been going about things the wrong way. Too much time playing NS1.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 04:00 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 00:57 |
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Now that I've played my first played my first pick-up games with a mixture of NS1 vets, people with hundreds of hours of NS2 closed beta experience and newbies like myself, I can safely say the people who said the problem of insanely fast unstoppable onos rushes lied in pubbies being bad at the game are dead wrong. There were two types of games: 1) A stacked team Vs. newbies, which meant the newbie aliens either got stomped in less than 5 minutes or were completely crippled by a lack of resources and a second hive. 2) Fairly balanced teams, taking turns to see who can get the fastest onos rush. There is just nothing 5 marines can do against 2 onos and a few gorges before they have grenade launchers, no matter how well coordinated or good at shooting they are. Even people who are actively playing NS2 competitively were complaining about the prevalence of the 6 minute 30 second onos rush.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 04:11 |
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Man I really really like this game. Never played NS1 but I was alright at tremulous, so maybe a bit carried over. Just had a match where as alien, at 18 minutes and two hive we only had carapace and 150 team resources banked because comm didn't talk or listen. Exos were popping up and we were all skulks, about to get rolled over. Finally a different guy comms and gets blink, regen, and adrenaline up simultaneously. I morph fade and backdoor into a base, killing the few guys there and forced a beacon. Then blinked back home and picked off two exos solo, one by one, since they now had zero support and had no chance at hitting a circle strafing fade. After a bit comm dropped an onos egg which I took to win the game, taking down three exos with gorge support. This game!
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 04:12 |
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Bloodmobile posted:There were two types of games: I've never actually seen a stacked team in the game, though I don't doubt it happens. What does happen is that an opposing team with a halfway-competent commander will make it feel like the odds are tremendously against you (and they are). That, at least, will improve as people get more experience with the game. All it takes to make the game feel like it's stacked against your team is a competent commander on the other team and a lovely commander on your team, and that's a combination of two players out of 16+ that's very common.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 04:12 |
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Fallom posted:I've never actually seen a stacked team in the game, though I don't doubt it happens. What does happen is that an opposing team with a halfway-competent commander will make it feel like the odds are tremendously against you (and they are). That, at least, will improve as people get more experience with the game. I was talking about pick-up games played through ENSL, not a pub. Pick up games in Natural Selection have 2 captains selecting players out of a pool of 10 people who signed up for the game. The teams then play 2 games on the same map, with each team taking a turn on both sides. The unbalanced teams were caused by a having a captain who was experienced in the competitive NS2 scene so he knew the people he was selecting from, while a complete newbie was chosen to be the other captain (people vote for the captain, sometimes newbies just vote for the player with the neatest nickname since they have no idea who any of the people there are) who then proceeded to pick people at random while the other captain picked the people he knew are good at the game.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 04:20 |
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LibbyM posted:I just bought this. How awful is the community? If I play a few matches to get a feel, and then decide I want to try a match as commander, am I going to get yelled at and votekicked from the game the moment I do something badly? I'm gonna throw my two cents in here because, I too, was concerned about a lovely community (I came from playing a lot of Dota recently) and I have to say that, right now at least, everyone is extremely chill. Sort of reminds me of the early TF2 days. Just a bunch of noobs learning how poo poo works, communicating, giving each other tips and generally just having a good ol' time. Tons of new players are starting right now and I've seen more than a few vets being patient and helpful. Overall: game is good, community is good, get playing man.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 04:25 |
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edit: Sorry, my connection is messed up right now or something, stream is all choppy. Garfu fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Nov 6, 2012 |
# ? Nov 6, 2012 04:27 |
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Seems to be stuttering quite a bit, particularly with heavy combat, though the audio's fine.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 04:37 |
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Zo posted:After a bit comm dropped an onos egg which I took to win the game, taking down three exos with gorge support. This game! That's what I like about this game, an Onos or Exo without buddies to help are not quite as strong as they could be, but with healers are unstoppable. Great teamwork really makes things work. On the other hand, it still suffers from the problem that if you have a bad commander vs a good commander the game just feels unbalanced. In particular good alien commanders seem hard to come by. I really, really liked the old alien "command system" of gorges running everything; I loved being a gorge and building solid walls of defenses . Is there a Steam group for goons?
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 05:18 |
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Torpor posted:That's what I like about this game, an Onos or Exo without buddies to help are not quite as strong as they could be, but with healers are unstoppable. Great teamwork really makes things work. There really hasn't been a lot of demand for a goon group because the community in this game is pretty freaking awesome all on its own.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 05:23 |
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Torpor posted:That's what I like about this game, an Onos or Exo without buddies to help are not quite as strong as they could be, but with healers are unstoppable. Great teamwork really makes things work. I can say pretty definitively that being a good alien comm is so much easier than being a good marine comm. You could be in the top 10% in 2 games, easily. Quick Alien Comm tips(Note, once you're better at it you can deviate, but to give you initial ideas, do this):
Is your team entirely nubby? This is probably your upgrade priority: Celerity > Carapace > Regen > Silence > Anything Shade General ability priority: Leap > Blink > Spores > Bile Bomb > Stomp > Umbra > Vortex > Xeno Lastly: If you're winning and have near 200 res and don't know how to finish marines off, start dropping Onos eggs like candy at the nearest hive to their base. Also, drop several crags as close to their base as you can get, preferably on both sides. Before anyone jumps my throat: This is specifically for new comms and new teams. Obviously other strategies work, and work fantastically, but these priorities and goals are best for a comm to get their feet wet before branching into whatever their own style is.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 05:33 |
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In the same vein as ^, I've found that the safest marine strategy is containment and control. As a marine commander, make sure your team is claiming resources and bases as quickly as possible, setting up sentries and THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of phase gates on absolutely everything you own, including your extractors. -Starve them out, make it extremely hard for them to harass you by constantly pushing their hives. -If your sentries are positioned to cover each other and their battery, near a power station, skulks cannot do poo poo to your rearward bases and holdings. I can't stress this enough. The alien team's strength comes from mobility and harassment. It's extremely important to knock them down and never allow them to get back up. By kicking them. And stamping on their hands every time they try to crawl away. This is what you want to do to the aliens. If you don't, they will constantly eat chunks of your rear end, crawl up your spine and then eat your face. Gormless Gormster fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Nov 6, 2012 |
# ? Nov 6, 2012 05:44 |
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quaunaut posted:Before anyone jumps my throat: This is specifically for new comms and new teams. Obviously other strategies work, and work fantastically, but these priorities and goals are best for a comm to get their feet wet before branching into whatever their own style is. These are solid tips. I would personally rather get carapace/regen before any silence/camo stuff, but the rest is all gold. Aliens really need to expand like motherfuckers.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 05:45 |
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Slappy Moose posted:These are solid tips. I would personally rather get carapace/regen before any silence/camo stuff, but the rest is all gold. Aliens really need to expand like motherfuckers. Basically, yep. They expand enormously faster than Marines, and lose less for losing ground(I can cover a quarter of a map in goop in around 20 seconds, I'm perfectly safe doing so, and I slow down any marines wanting to curb our growth. They have to dedicate 20 seconds of a vulnerable marine's time to restoring a power node, which another skulk can take out without worry). I'd agree on Carapace/Regen before Silence/Camo, but I've got a personal hardon for silence because it makes skulk anklebiting so much easier. When they can't hear your bites it's so much harder to pinpoint you.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 05:58 |
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Never upgrade to Xeno, it does nothing and people will accidentally kill themselves
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 06:24 |
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I've taken out three people at once with xeno. That's a little more than nothing.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 06:25 |
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Xenocide can be amazing, but pubbies would never ruin their k/d by using a suicide strike.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 06:35 |
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quaunaut posted:Basically, yep. They expand enormously faster than Marines, and lose less for losing ground(I can cover a quarter of a map in goop in around 20 seconds, I'm perfectly safe doing so, and I slow down any marines wanting to curb our growth. They have to dedicate 20 seconds of a vulnerable marine's time to restoring a power node, which another skulk can take out without worry). I love being an Onos with silence if only because it allows such a large monster to be tremendously sneaky.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 06:40 |
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PhantomZero posted:I love being an Onos with silence if only because it allows such a large monster to be tremendously sneaky. Yep. It was mentioned earlier in the thread, the idea of silenced Onos nailing the Marine base power core. Sounded like a sound idea to me for easy, unnoticed cripples.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 06:48 |
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quaunaut posted:Yep. It was mentioned earlier in the thread, the idea of silenced Onos nailing the Marine base power core. Sounded like a sound idea to me for easy, unnoticed cripples. I think silence works better then cloak because it makes you harder to notice approaching. I don't think a silenced onos does the whole screen shake walk thing.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 07:16 |
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randombattle posted:I think silence works better then cloak because it makes you harder to notice approaching. I don't think a silenced onos does the whole screen shake walk thing. I don't know if they do or not, but I do know that a cloaked Onos that is moving even a little bit is pretty noticeable if you're used to the look.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 07:17 |
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My favorite tactic in NS1 was screaming allah akbar while xenoing into large groups of marines. A chuckle, dropping from the ceiling while screeching the xeno death scream.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 07:22 |
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Just had a game in Veil that proves that, in this game, team work trumps skill. With a good comm, we managed to lose literally everything except Cargo, sneak back into some surrounding areas and put up fast hives. After 45 minutes of battling over Nano, Cargo, and Control, we managed to garner enough Onos with Gorge support to take down their main base in Sub Sector. It was magical. Had a real Mighty Ducks vibe, man. We were destined to lose due to what basically amounted to team stacking, but our pro-rear end comm saved our rear end with bone walls and me and another guy were some loving pro-rear end Gorges. In the last push, Team Gorge was all that was remaining, sliding passed dead Onos piles left and right. If we could have looked at each other and shrugged our stubby, little fat arms, we would have. We bile bombed the CC, and we died... but that loving magical moment when the Marines lost their CC to beautiful, acidy damage-over-time seemed to take place in slow motion. "Aliens Win" appeared. Voice chat went nuts with excitement and laughter. Truly magnificent. Haven't had a game experience that good since NS1. This game loving owns so goddamn hard sometimes.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 08:05 |
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I feel like Aliens need some slight adjustments. I'm not sure what exactly it is, but it's lacking something. I've been in games with a bunch of people from NS1 that are playing Aliens, and we will win, but it seems far easier with Marines. It's like everything with Aliens takes 3 Hives, but Marines only need 2 spots. The skulk just seems like a terrible starting unit the farther the game goes on. It just seems like if your team isn't amazing with Skulk's then you aren't going to win. It's the foundation of the alien game. You need to be good with them to get to mid-late game, and even then if you die as a fade/ onos, you are back to the skulk for a while and it's even more difficult to be effective with them as the marines are more powerful. Correct me if I'm wrong but the marines get all of these strong anti alien toys with only 2 CC's. Jet packs, grenade launchers, exo's. Pretty much everything comes from only 2.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 08:09 |
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I just started this game. I played as humans and repaired stuff and died a lot but it was pretty cool then I played as aliens and now I hate this game and aliens are stupid and you just bite stuff and lick things and I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not a good alien. My alien dude wasn't saying anything or telling us where to go or what to do and just yelling at us. My human boss was cool and telling people where to go and what to do.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 08:12 |
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Alien feels like big individual plays are highly rewarded. You can literally take down an entire marine base as a solo fade, killing the 2-4 dudes that phase in at a time. You can't do jack poo poo solo as a marine. On the other hand aliens have amazing group pushes too. Aliens rule.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 08:19 |
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All my alien did was bite and lick things and die nearly instantly when shot at
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 08:26 |
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AxeManiac posted:All my alien did was bite and lick things and die nearly instantly when shot at Yea that was me for my first ten alien games. Then my friend told me to pretend the ground is lava and Always Be Climbing.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 08:29 |
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And jumping. Jump around like crazy.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 08:31 |
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AxeManiac posted:All my alien did was bite and lick things and die nearly instantly when shot at Yeah you need to travel towards marines like an insane person. If you run towards them in any predictable pattern it's easy for them to gun you down, but just climbing up a wall freaks people out way more than it should.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 08:31 |
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Yeah, it got a little better, still like being a space repairman more. This is a good game!
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 08:52 |
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AxeManiac posted:Yeah, it got a little better, still like being a space repairman more. This is a good game! Once you know the ropes of both sides, you will enjoy the freedom and speed aliens have to react to things. Aliens and their commander are not attached to the hip like marines are, so gameplay is a little more free form. Once you discover fades and the power of blink, marines almost become a drag.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 08:57 |
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I bought this game off goon recommendations and for the first few hours I really didn't dig it. Then today something just 'clicked', and suddenly I'm having a whole lot more fun with it, especially as a Skulk. Having a competent comm helps a shitload though, as my first game was jumping on the losing team in late game and having literally no clue where to go or what to do. Fun game though, really starting to get into it now.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 09:03 |
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AxeManiac posted:Yeah, it got a little better, still like being a space repairman more. This is a good game! I killed you a few times with my bullets. Earlier in the server I was playing in there was a 1 hour 30 minute game that was absolutely stupid. Marines had won for such a long time but couldn't get the final hive. What pisses me off most is the aliens who keep defending at the very end. Just let them kill the hive so we can all get on with our lives. Yesterday we had the opposite with the aliens having a hard time getting the last marine base. Game went on over an hour and at least 20 minutes were spent just assaulting the final marine base. I don't even really understand why resources function in a way that makes something like that possible. Is there a surrender vote option hidden somewhere? Because that needs to be in the game. AngryGuy fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Nov 6, 2012 |
# ? Nov 6, 2012 09:04 |
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AngryGuy posted:I killed you a few times with my bullets. There's a server plugin out that allows surrender, but I've only seen it on one server so far. Conversely, I had three rounds in a row where all our skulks ran directly into the enemy base and immediately took out the infantry portal, ending the games in about two minutes. EDIT: Also I love that my Lerk has a 'screach' button. I'm pretty sure it's the taunt, but it's a great way to instill fear in the hearts of your enemies. RadicalWall fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Nov 6, 2012 |
# ? Nov 6, 2012 09:16 |
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Bio-Hazard posted:My favorite tactic in NS1 was screaming allah akbar while xenoing into large groups of marines. A chuckle, dropping from the ceiling while screeching the xeno death scream. It doesnt seem to work quite the same in NS2 though, in NS1 you could press xenocide and you would blow after a few seconds like a suicide bomb. Now it seems like if a xeno and leap in, it won't work because I don't have some kind of minimum required energy for the xeno to go off (probably because of the leap?) Anyway my point is xeno never works the way I expect it to, nor do I have any idea what the radius and damage are actually like to know if it is ever worth using at a certain time, though I have seen some great room clearing moments.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 09:17 |
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Gormless Gormster posted:Commanding is pretty much the best thing about this game by far, and I'm happy that most people would rather shoot aliens and let me jump in the chair. Also, my accent allows me to play the callous, hunting obsessed Victorian gentleman soldier, so I can't be blamed for hamming it up a bit. drat it, I wish I had a good accent so I can pull this off. All I can do is chatterbox endlessly. Splicer posted:Second hive + res towers -> crag and shift -> shield + spur -> Leap + Carapace + Celerity all complete research simultaneously. True, much of my comments about shift/shade/crag first go out the window if you do Hive first instead. My comments were based more on the idea you'd upgrade once before getting hive 2.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 09:20 |
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TheMostFrench posted:It doesnt seem to work quite the same in NS2 though, in NS1 you could press xenocide and you would blow after a few seconds like a suicide bomb. Now it seems like if a xeno and leap in, it won't work because I don't have some kind of minimum required energy for the xeno to go off (probably because of the leap?) Anyway my point is xeno never works the way I expect it to, nor do I have any idea what the radius and damage are actually like to know if it is ever worth using at a certain time, though I have seen some great room clearing moments. Also played a game where the commander refused to get xeno for whatever reason which sucked because we were sieging their base and all the marines were standing right next to each other not moving and begging for two/three xenocides to gently caress them all up.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 09:50 |
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Gormless Gormster posted:Does anyone else find the aliens a little underpowered? I see aliens win a LOT more than Marines. The only time I see Marines win is if they form a deathball and scoot to the primary Hive and shoot it down from afar while the comm spams ammo/meds on them. If it even gets to two bases on each side, I almost never see aliens lose. Onos are just too easy to keep alive and murder marines too easy. Exos just don't feel nearly as awesome or useful, they're slow, clunky, and extremely vulnerable to the cheapest non-base unit the Aliens have, assuming bile bomb is up (which it drat well should be if the alien comm isn't an idiot, because it's incredibly good) Most games, like half the team does Skulk and ambushes like crazy until we can do a mass Onos morph, then we roll five angry gorilla/rhino hybrids into the Marine main base and level it without giving a poo poo what the Marines do about it. From there, pin them into their secondary, double expand, starve them, and win. I think Marines are actually underpowered in pubs, myself, having played almost exclusively aliens. Onos rock ultimate, Fades are amazing, Gorges are WHEEEEEPIGGYYYY, Lerks are irritating, and Skulks are just fine for an early game unit, and more than capable in the mid game with Celerity, Leap, and Carapace.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 10:04 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 00:57 |
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AngryGuy posted:I killed you a few times with my bullets. There is a plugin out there that makes it behave like ns1 (ie, if a team is outnumbered by 4 players they immediately lose), but this requires 4 people going to the ready room and you can't keep playing once your "vote" is cast. The important feature about surrender votes is that they let you know if your team wants to continue and keep playing if that's the case. edit: If you're a marine commander and the game is really lost you can just recycle the IPs while staying in the chair.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 10:06 |