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I really like commanding aliens, but I'm afraid of trying my hand as a marine commander. With an alien team it's like, "Okay, you guys go do awesome poo poo, I'll work towards getting you guys some awesome poo poo. If you want a specific upgrade first, I'll try and work towards that." and eventually we get a bunch of onos' and lerks and everything is awesome poo poo. But I just know that my first game as a marine commander we'd be on the verge of winning and then suddenly everyone buys an exo and we're hosed. It's my god drat fate.
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Nov 14, 2012 03:14
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Was going to post on movement and snippets from the relevant .luas to answer some guys question, but got busy instead. Just dropping in to say: Please don't buy turrets, goons. It takes real effort to make marine pubbing unenjoyable, and that is one of those few special ways. Be a Coolmander, not a Cantmander.
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Nov 14, 2012 03:28
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Downward Spiral posted:Was going to post on movement and snippets from the relevant .luas to answer some guys question, but got busy instead. Just dropping in to say: Please don't buy turrets, goons. Mine rushes are infinitely more fun, after all. Though building turrets in the enemy hive is a special kind of trolling that still appeals to me.
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Nov 14, 2012 04:41
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Zigmidge posted:Why didn't you get out and do it yourself? This makes me a bad player, but it genuinely didn't occur to me. On the other hand if someone on my team had said "Hey you can get out and kill them", I would have listened.
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Nov 14, 2012 04:49
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The Crotch posted:I really like commanding aliens, but I'm afraid of trying my hand as a marine commander. With an alien team it's like, "Okay, you guys go do awesome poo poo, I'll work towards getting you guys some awesome poo poo. If you want a specific upgrade first, I'll try and work towards that." and eventually we get a bunch of onos' and lerks and everything is awesome poo poo. Marines are tougher to command, in my opinion. Maybe it's just because I tend to win as alien commander and am roughly 1:1 with marines. I think it's because marines have way more choices to make. Aliens, you just push for the second hive and get an Onos up. That's about it as it relates to aliens. Commanding your skulks around also feels easier to me because I don't have to worry about also giving them build commands. The only major stress for me is convincing my players not to kill themselves as an onos. With marines, you have a lot of tough choices to make. Do you research upgrades fast? If it's a pub, do you get weapons or armor first? Even if weapons are better in the strictest sense, armor makes a huge difference against skulks when your marines can't shoot for poo poo. Do you get phase tech immediately? Do you research weapons? What's the trade-off between getting jetpacks fast and delaying weapon/armor upgrades? How do you brush off dumb requests from marines like "rush to exos" or "commander, you need to build more turrets!" without angering your team? It makes it more mentally taxing, at least for me.
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Nov 14, 2012 05:34
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Speaking of sentries: According to the NS2 wiki, they are supposed to be anti structure.  This is why the battery and sentry can be built on infestation, supposedly.I have never seen them used this way.
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Nov 14, 2012 07:57
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I must say that I've gotten the feeling that the new community, starting to get an early understanding of strategy, are overly focused on onosses. I know that they're powerful in high-level play and were rushed out near-constantly in the recent tournaments, but I get the idea new players have decided they're a requirement for winning. In many games I have new players requesting that I save for an early onos egg (even if it's not for themselves) and that I need 3 onosses to be able to win the game. Meanwhile I've been winning plenty of games without paying much mind to onosses. I'll research stomp when it looks like we might have one, but otherwise there are plenty of useful things I can use that res on to support the team. Hopefully I can show by example that there are plenty of other ways to win, and that cracking a late-game marine base is more dependent on coordination and good gorges than on massing onosses.
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Nov 14, 2012 08:12
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Black_Plague22 posted:Speaking of sentries: I thought they were anti-structure and then they changed that.
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Nov 14, 2012 08:15
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P.S. STILL COMPLETELY DEVOID OF MERIT
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Guesticles posted:I thought they were anti-structure and then they changed that. While they are not formally anti-structure, they can be used for this in a pinch in some cases, letting your marines focus on killing aliens while the sentries kill the hive or whatever. I've done this a few times as com.
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Nov 14, 2012 08:48
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Onos are pretty sweet to have, and I'll admit it's a little more satisfying when you don't die in one loving second to some fucker marine's bullshit insta-reflexes. I kind of miss from NS1 eating a heavy armor and running away so they have to sit in my stomach and not play while they slowly digest. I didn't even need to drink their delicious tears, they were already in my stomach. I'm slowly getting better at skulking, which is actually tremendously satisfying seeing how I was bloody terrible before. I'm still pretty bad though. I've noticed though I get a lot less of those awkward encounters where you go for a marine, but one or both of you sidestep, and one or both of you lose track for the moment where the other is, and you're basically spinning around rear end to rear end like idiots not hurting each other. Looking at the map, or in my brief stints as commander I've seen other people do it and it's hilarious. Sort of related question: FOV - is there any benefit to adjusting this outside of personal comfort or whatever? I've never really messed with FOV in games, but some people freak the gently caress out if it isn't right so I don't know.
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Nov 14, 2012 09:00
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Looking for some advice: when do people go fade instead of saving for onos? Maybe have one or two people fade as mid-game skirmishers, or if you don't have much map control and you need to push some bases? It's tough for me to pin down because I feel like I usually do more good sitting on the res and waiting for onos, maybe it's just a skill thing though.
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Nov 14, 2012 09:08
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Brackhar posted:Yeah. I'm not too keen on turrets in general, but there are times where the 20 res for that investment is better than the 15 res for a pack of mines. One or two turrets are usually a pretty good idea to cover e.g. Nano while you're getting phase gates up - after that, just recycle them and let marines gate from base to defend it. How negatively do people think the game would be affected if you had to have three hives to build Onos and three chairs to build dual mini exos? It seems like it would lead to less "gently caress up once, game's over" type scenarios. Tornado Lazers posted:Sort of related question: FOV - is there any benefit to adjusting this outside of personal comfort or whatever? I've never really messed with FOV in games, but some people freak the gently caress out if it isn't right so I don't know.  Higher FoV means you see more means it's harder for people to sneak up on you since you have more peripheral vision. What other benefits do you want?
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Nov 14, 2012 09:16
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AgentF posted:I must say that I've gotten the feeling that the new community, starting to get an early understanding of strategy, are overly focused on onosses. I know that they're powerful in high-level play and were rushed out near-constantly in the recent tournaments, but I get the idea new players have decided they're a requirement for winning. In many games I have new players requesting that I save for an early onos egg (even if it's not for themselves) and that I need 3 onosses to be able to win the game. At the moment there are two kinds of alien commanders; Those who go for early onos and scrubs who think their tactics are too superior to stoop to early onos. It's used in pretty much every game in both pubs and competitive because no other strategy compares to it, and until it gets nerfed all you're doing by going for something else as alien comm is hurting your team.
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Nov 14, 2012 09:26
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Thanks for calling me a scrub. I never said my strategy was superior; it's good enough and I win games without onos rushing. But go on, do tell me how I should mindlessly repeat this over-used strategy because of how overpowered it is 
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Nov 14, 2012 10:51
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Man, I love how incredibly easy Steamworks makes applying mods. No more rummaging through a ton of directories and dropping files from a .zip and doing it over if there's an update to that release. Click subscribe and activate from the main menu, brilliant. Some of these mods look pretty good too, I love the StarCraft 2 Creep replacement for the Infestation.
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Nov 14, 2012 11:13
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Black_Plague22 posted:Speaking of sentries:
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Nov 14, 2012 11:16
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Christ! All of this dude's mods are horrific!
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Nov 14, 2012 11:19
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Lemon Curdistan posted:How negatively do people think the game would be affected if you had to have three hives to build Onos and three chairs to build dual mini exos? It seems like it would lead to less "gently caress up once, game's over" type scenarios. e: Assuming you rebalanced the game of course. If you left it as-is but with that additional requirement then Marines would win slightly more since they'd never build dual exos so idiots would never buy them, since the game is currently set up so that Aliens can expand to three hives easier. If you nerf alien expansion aliens would never win because they'd never be able to get their three evolutions up. Splicer fucked around with this message at 11:23 on Nov 14, 2012 |
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Nov 14, 2012 11:19
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AgentF posted:Thanks for calling me a scrub. I never said my strategy was superior; it's good enough and I win games without onos rushing.
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Nov 14, 2012 11:36
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So, to all the fade players out there (I'm terrible at fade and feel like I'm re-learning the game from scratch. It's the same atmosphere but feels totally new to me from NS1 on all gameplay fronts..) How many of you use Vortex? -It can disable a Marine structure for a short time (like 3 seconds?) -It can take a Marine out of combat, like devour I guess, but balanced so it isn't pretty much a free kill How many of you actually request Vortex? I could see it being used to support a final push, putting the Fade on the observatory to deliberately vortex the observatory when the buzzer sounds. I assume you CAN interrupt the beacon because power going down can interrupt it. E: If power is still up on the observatory, the beacon will continue to go through, only delaying the beacon. I could see it being used during the initial push, vortexing the Arms Lab (most marine teams only spend cash on one), to reduce the marines to 0/0 upgrades for a short burst. Could see it used on phase gates while pushing a forward base to buy a lot of time to kill a power node too. So what are your thoughts on Vortex? Does it just come too late in the tech tree to be useful or what? Erata fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Nov 14, 2012 |
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Nov 14, 2012 12:27
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Vortex is currently horrible because it has few good uses and the energy cost is high enough that it's usually not worth using even in the cases where it might actually do something, and its duration is very low. It's far too late game to be more generally useful; if it was a 2 hive ability it would be pretty handy for killing phase gates midgame. I'd be surprised if it wasn't changed to be cheaper or last longer in an upcoming patch.
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Nov 14, 2012 12:49
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Had a sneaky phase gate set up at The Neck outside Pipeline. Prepared for a GL push by beaconing and telling the team to arm up and phase there. Two players did but most players phased to double and then fanned out aimlessly from there. I suppose people don't know where The Neck is and I should have said "phase to the new gate" or "phase to outside Pipeline". Needless to say the push failed then my game crashed.
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Nov 14, 2012 13:28
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3 Stacked Midgets posted:Marines are tougher to command, in my opinion. Maybe it's just because I tend to win as alien commander and am roughly 1:1 with marines. I find that the holdover from NS1 of dropping shotguns in base, beaconing, and telling the team to phase and rush a hive is a good way of getting everyone on the same page. Even if you don't have a phasegate outside a have, having the team phase to a nearby hive and walking, or just walking from base is still a good way to get everyone on the same page. Lemon Curdistan posted:Higher FoV means you see more means it's harder for people to sneak up on you since you have more peripheral vision. What other benefits do you want? Bloodmobile posted:At the moment there are two kinds of alien commanders; Those who go for early onos and scrubs who think their tactics are too superior to stoop to early onos. It's used in pretty much every game in both pubs and competitive because no other strategy compares to it, and until it gets nerfed all you're doing by going for something else as alien comm is hurting your team. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 14, 2012 13:59
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AgentF posted:Meanwhile I've been winning plenty of games without paying much mind to onosses. I'll research stomp when it looks like we might have one, but otherwise there are plenty of useful things I can use that res on to support the team. Hopefully I can show by example that there are plenty of other ways to win, and that cracking a late-game marine base is more dependent on coordination and good gorges than on massing onosses. As an example, in pub games on Veil where the marines have fortified Sub Sector, I nearly always end up being able to kill the power from the vent there by spitting at it as a gorge after the rest of the team has tried throwing fades and onos at the place. Since lots of players love exo so much I never need to worry about getting pushed out by a jetpack user, and can just clog up if there are grenades. The gorge in the nano-grid vent is a good one too, just making a clog ladder straight up and then using a hydra one top of that to give you a little more height lets you bile everything safely and just totally ruin that place. AgentF posted:Had a sneaky phase gate set up at The Neck outside Pipeline. Prepared for a GL push by beaconing and telling the team to arm up and phase there. Two players did but most players phased to double and then fanned out aimlessly from there. I had a comm on Veil who kept telling people to go 'The Dome', where ever the hell that is. TheMostFrench fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Nov 14, 2012 |
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Nov 14, 2012 15:08
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The Dome is a very strategic phase gate location between Pipeline and Cargo.
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Nov 14, 2012 17:55
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The Dome used to have a dome at the top. Now its some sort of horrible square skylight thing.
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Nov 14, 2012 17:59
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Bloodmobile posted:At the moment there are two kinds of alien commanders; Those who go for early onos and scrubs who think their tactics are too superior to stoop to early onos. It's used in pretty much every game in both pubs and competitive because no other strategy compares to it, and until it gets nerfed all you're doing by going for something else as alien comm is hurting your team. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 14, 2012 18:01
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I was playing alien comm last week and I could tell it was a group of fairly inexperienced players since they were having trouble taking out single marines, even with a 2v1 or 3v1 advantage. Despite that, they were doing their best, we had managed to take a second hive, and I was about to start researching Leap when someone joined our team and started criticizing every decision I made because it wasn't dropping an Onos egg. The guy was definitely a good player, to be fair, but his attitude was so lovely for a random pub game. We ended up losing the game and he made sure to spend the rest of the time in the ready room moaning that we wouldn't have lost if we had gotten that Onos. It's bewildering how some people expect everyone to know the "most optimal" strategy for a game that's only been officially released for two weeks.
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Nov 14, 2012 18:26
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AndyAML posted:It's bewildering how some people expect everyone to know the "most optimal" strategy for a game that's only been officially released for two weeks.
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Nov 14, 2012 18:34
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Most of us are pretty sure UWE will implement 3rd hive tres onos if not his patch, then the next. There was a ton of criticism given to Charlie in person at the EU event last weekend.
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Nov 14, 2012 19:07
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I am fine with any Onos availability nerf because Onos is not only a challenge to balance, but I also find it really boring to play as.
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Nov 14, 2012 19:11
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Bloodmobile posted:At the moment there are two kinds of alien commanders; Those who go for early onos and scrubs who think their tactics are too superior to stoop to early onos. It's used in pretty much every game in both pubs and competitive because no other strategy compares to it, and until it gets nerfed all you're doing by going for something else as alien comm is hurting your team. You were talking a handful of days ago about playing your first pick up games - relax. Because the game is brand new there are a variety of interesting strategies open to commanders on both sides in public play. Commanders have a lot of variables to consider each match and early onos is not always the best option. The nature of competitive play boils things down to a focus on the best strategies as they are currently understood, but that is a different level of teamwork that isn't going to exist in many public games. I expect UWE to take a serious look at the issue and to balance accordingly. Just like NS1 we'll get to witness the evolution of strategies used in public play over time and I for one look forward to it!
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Nov 14, 2012 19:16
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Neurosis posted:I am fine with any Onos availability nerf because Onos is not only a challenge to balance, but I also find it really boring to play as. I agree, It's so much more fun to play a blinking fade, but it's hard to justify not waiting for res to go Onos.
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Nov 14, 2012 20:19
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Brackhar posted:You do not build faster with the welder except for destroyed power nodes, in which case it is vastly superior. What it does do when building a structure is it will increase the health of the structure at the same time that you're building it. This will cause some of the visual feedback to look like you're building the structure faster, but in aggregate it still takes the same amount of time to finish the structure with a welder than without. It's generally preferable to build with a welder since it makes the structure stronger should it get attacked half-way through construction, but it's more of a perk than a distinct gameplay advantage. Got bored, so I tested it out for like 15 minutes. The welder does build faster than normal-building. Like. Only around 10% faster though. In terms of time to build, it translates to about 2 seconds faster for constructing Commander-Couches and 1 seconds, heh, faster for almost all other structures. I wish the wiki had this information out there, but it doesn't so there you go.
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Nov 14, 2012 20:21
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You know what I love? Early Onosing with no upgrades and nothing but skulks for support because com put res into early Onos instead of expanding and getting res for the team or upgrades.
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Nov 14, 2012 20:23
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eggsovereasy posted:I agree, It's so much more fun to play a blinking fade, but it's hard to justify not waiting for res to go Onos. They just need to push onos down the tech tree a little. Fades are meant to be midgame units flying around the map terrorizing the roaming small packs of marines. Onos are meant to come out when the serious 1a siege goes down. This is all IMO of course, but that's how it generally played out in NS1, a game that had GREAT flow. Also, I feel that as players get better and JP/shotty fuckers start actually being able to put their tech to use Fades will see a lot more pub-play. You need to be able to pick them out of the sky or else you can kiss your cyst chain and ups goodbye. Leaping skulks can only do so much against a marine ratio player. Smythe fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Nov 14, 2012 |
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Nov 14, 2012 20:25
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I was playing a game as alien and the marine team JP rushed us without phase gate. We got totally wiped out with ease. There is not much you can do as a skulk without leap to JPers.
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Nov 14, 2012 20:29
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So I started using a welder to build buildings. Now pubbies will stop building half the time before it's actually finished since it visually builds completely. You just can't win 
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Nov 14, 2012 20:50
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Brackhar posted:Yeah. I'm not too keen on turrets in general, but there are times where the 20 res for that investment is better than the 15 res for a pack of mines. The best way to use turrets is to build them in some offensive position. For instance, in a hallway before a hive. In overlook, looking down into sub-sector. The turrets have really significant range so you can take advantage of that and make it really uncomfortable to rush the position.
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Nov 14, 2012 20:52
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AgentF posted:Had a sneaky phase gate set up at The Neck outside Pipeline. Prepared for a GL push by beaconing and telling the team to arm up and phase there. Two players did but most players phased to double and then fanned out aimlessly from there. You just need to put a big rock on the mic transmit button and chant "phase to neck phase phase phase keep phasing DON'T STOP IN DOUBLE GO BACK THROUGH KEEP PHASING gogogogogogo SHOOT THE HIVE SHOOT THE HIVE NOT THE RT JUST SHOOT IT" "BEACONING GET READY TO PHASE ... PHASE PHASE PHASE PHASE SHOOT THE HIVE" Something along those lines. Anyone who had the luxury of playing with Rapier7 knows what I'm talkin' about here.
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Nov 14, 2012 21:05
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