The "walk into the hive and kill it" strategy
Imbalanxd
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
<div class="IPBDescription">does anybody else find this a little too...</div>I can't even think of word to describe this "strategy". Maybe unstrategic?
So anecdotal evidence is never useful when trying to balance a game overall, but let me just give you some perspective. So there we are, playing veil, cargo hive spawn, marines quickly took both sub and pipe, we are in some trouble. My brilliant team rallies, however, and they storm sub hive with 5 or 6 skulks, and 2 gorges. The marines there are taken completely by surprise, and the battle is won, with no casualties no less, and we have the hive room!
Now any retard knows what happens when the aliens take the hive room with force 5 minutes into the game, they drop the hive. So the hive is down, I'm scrolling around as commander, and I hear a beacon. Oh ######... BZWAP, I hear all the marines spawn. Oh no... I hear the armoury restocking ammo. ###### ###### ######! I hear 9 sets of footsteps walking down, past twilight, past overlook... into the hive. And they open fire.
Now keep in mind, all of this took less than 30 seconds to transpire, and I knew it was coming. I told the team what to expect, in fact I told them it was probably a shotgun rush, so they were expecting worse. Nobody left that hive room. We had a team of skulks, backed up by gorges, with a hive in the room, and infestation everywhere. The hive was lost within 20 seconds of the first shot being fired.
In the end we won the game, so the marine team couldn't have been strictly "better". It was a case of too much fire power in too small and mobile a package.
Now I know that with team work and organisation, comes great power and reward, but lets get real. That commander probably beaconed his marines and said something to this effect "Ok guys, what we are going to do is this. You are going to walk from here, to here. I just pinged where you currently are, and I just pinged where you need to go. When you get there, you are going to walk inside, and you are going to kill everything that is there. Now go and do it". And that's exactly what he did. He didn't support them in any strategic way. He didn't set up a forward base for rapid reinforcements. He didn't get an armoury and a powerpack up for resupplies. He didn't outfit them with an array of assorted weaponry to best compliment the squad as a whole. He just beaconed in some default light marines, sent them to a destination, and they shot at a big barn sized blob until it died.
This happens so often, and it even happens to single hive aliens. Like I said, I understand that the marines are all together, and are "organised", but seriously, there is no strategy here, its just steamrolling an opposition that has nothing to fight back with.
So anecdotal evidence is never useful when trying to balance a game overall, but let me just give you some perspective. So there we are, playing veil, cargo hive spawn, marines quickly took both sub and pipe, we are in some trouble. My brilliant team rallies, however, and they storm sub hive with 5 or 6 skulks, and 2 gorges. The marines there are taken completely by surprise, and the battle is won, with no casualties no less, and we have the hive room!
Now any retard knows what happens when the aliens take the hive room with force 5 minutes into the game, they drop the hive. So the hive is down, I'm scrolling around as commander, and I hear a beacon. Oh ######... BZWAP, I hear all the marines spawn. Oh no... I hear the armoury restocking ammo. ###### ###### ######! I hear 9 sets of footsteps walking down, past twilight, past overlook... into the hive. And they open fire.
Now keep in mind, all of this took less than 30 seconds to transpire, and I knew it was coming. I told the team what to expect, in fact I told them it was probably a shotgun rush, so they were expecting worse. Nobody left that hive room. We had a team of skulks, backed up by gorges, with a hive in the room, and infestation everywhere. The hive was lost within 20 seconds of the first shot being fired.
In the end we won the game, so the marine team couldn't have been strictly "better". It was a case of too much fire power in too small and mobile a package.
Now I know that with team work and organisation, comes great power and reward, but lets get real. That commander probably beaconed his marines and said something to this effect "Ok guys, what we are going to do is this. You are going to walk from here, to here. I just pinged where you currently are, and I just pinged where you need to go. When you get there, you are going to walk inside, and you are going to kill everything that is there. Now go and do it". And that's exactly what he did. He didn't support them in any strategic way. He didn't set up a forward base for rapid reinforcements. He didn't get an armoury and a powerpack up for resupplies. He didn't outfit them with an array of assorted weaponry to best compliment the squad as a whole. He just beaconed in some default light marines, sent them to a destination, and they shot at a big barn sized blob until it died.
This happens so often, and it even happens to single hive aliens. Like I said, I understand that the marines are all together, and are "organised", but seriously, there is no strategy here, its just steamrolling an opposition that has nothing to fight back with.
Comments
Yes but what is the tradeoff here? Where is the choice, where is the investment? It was literally a full team of default light marines. The only cost involved was that of the distress beacon. Its akin to a skulk rush, except when a team of skulks hits a team of marines, the skulks get decimated.
gorges should be able to clog up a good amount of the room and slow down vanilla marines. hydras provide a bit of a distraction as well (gorge spit does a lot of damage too and blinds, so they should keep fire on marines as they scramble over the clogs.
you could probably only win that with early cara. if aliens had no upgrades, or your team wasn't strong skill wise, your commander should have gotten basic upgrades before trying to drop a hive. Or maybe keep them on one side of the map and drop the other side. If they have early phase gates down and start locking the map down its game for the aliens.
You guys (aliens) could have
- rushed their base while they are away (defenseless base)
- cleared out a few extractors
- etc etc etc
Keep in mind that this is an "all-out/do-or-die" move, with high cost for failure, and high reward for success.
if they fail then the map is open for a few minutes for the aliens to do whatever they want.
Also note that you guys applied the same "strategy" when you initially rushed them with your whole team and 2 gorges..
This is "strategy", and its very valid.
I agree with everyone else that there's definitely strategy here, though (and that your strategy of taking the Hive room by rushing it was the same...). Marines give up map control with a beacon + push, which means if you sacrifice the Hive to hit res nodes or base rush the Marines and take out the Obs + IPs or the Armory or whatever, then they can end up in trouble. They can end up in double trouble if you fake them out and don't drop the hive, or if you at least don't drop the hive until you know you're safe.
- rushed their base while they are away (defenseless base)
- cleared out a few extractors
- etc etc etc
Keep in mind that this is an "all-out/do-or-die" move, with high cost for failure, and high reward for success.
if they fail then the map is open for a few minutes for the aliens to do whatever they want.
Also note that you guys applied the same "strategy" when you initially rushed them with your whole team and 2 gorges..
This is "strategy", and its very valid.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Rushing their base would have resulted in another beacon. Consider that marines are roughly the same speed as aliens when it comes to getting from location to location, and marines do far more damage than skulks do. Chances are they would have taken the hive before we even reached their base.
We would have had to clear out 4 extractors in order to equalise the cost of the hive. However, going for something like extractors, instead of defending the hive, is not a fair trade.
The difference between our rush and there's was that they over extended. They had both pipe and sub, yet it still took a concerted effort from our entire team, as well as strategic coordination to include gorges, in order to take sub back. They rushed a central location, effectively "locked down" to the best of aliens abilities, and surrounded by the entire alien team, and they still took it. 9 marines clashing with 9 aliens will always result in a marine victory.
We would have had to clear out 4 extractors in order to equalise the cost of the hive. However, going for something like extractors, instead of defending the hive, is not a fair trade.
The difference between our rush and there's was that they over extended. They had both pipe and sub, yet it still took a concerted effort from our entire team, as well as strategic coordination to include gorges, in order to take sub back. They rushed a central location, effectively "locked down" to the best of aliens abilities, and surrounded by the entire alien team, and they still took it. 9 marines clashing with 9 aliens will always result in a marine victory.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And if they beacon again, they give up their current map presence and 10 resources to regroup at a tech point, which gives you another opportunity to chomp on an objective.
Also sprint is a worthless piece of crap, there I said it.
Why does entire map start out for marines advantage. if 50% of the map was dark and covered in creep, that would make it a lot harder than these skill-less and mindless rushes.
There needs to be risk vs reward, case and point risk is to low, reward is to high. this is where balance needs to come in.
The problem is getting worse and worse as performance improves since servers are now running with up to 24 players, and we're still stuck with 3 per wave no matter how many alien players there are. Meanwhile, marines can just drop another IP to keep up with the casualty rate, and even beacon if necessary.
Whips are costly and not really effective as most times marines can stay at a distance and simply shoot from safety.
Let gorges have a hydra with the armour and HP of a whip for the cost of 15 P-Res each (no max) so they can actually be helpful for defending all but the most claustrophobic hive locations (ie lockerroom).
This will help address what your talking about...as would hive telepporting from MC's like in NS1.
Allow aliens who may spawn at the other hive to quickly get to the action this was something NS1 got right that is hurting balance.
Marines having 2 teleporting devices (beacon and Phase Gates) compared to 0 for aliens is a balance breaker no matter what way you look at it.
Way it is marines have mobility dominance from about 2 min mark when they get phase tech.
or
Celerity gets boost to the point aliens are warping around the screen.
The alternative to these two situations is bringing back the Movement Chambers teleporting to hive function.
Then these hive rushes will be easier for aliens to counter...its not a case of finding quickest way across veil...but finding way to nearest hive...Much more new player friendly as they often dont know the maps as well and are often slower to arrive as a result.
2) Alien spawns probably hindered you
3) Aliens need more ways to concentrate forces probably (MCs or hive warp or Gorge Nydus networks)
As previously noted, Marines in large masses grow much better than Aliens enmasse. So you HAVE to harass and take control of the rest of the map and use superior mobility and class synergy to take down death squads. Or bypass them altogether. Fairly reasonable situation in general. But we could tweak a few things to help the Aliens out on the mobility side now that Marines have Sprint and Aliens don't have Hive Teleport and longer respawns.
anyway, i would like to point out that the investment was not only a beacon, it was a shotgun for every marine as well. if you think about it, that equals 4 mines per marine or 2x jetpack or 40% of an EXO. i know you cannot directly compare the latter two (since jp and EXO are lategame) but i think you get my point.
It works a lot more often and does a lot more damage than a similarly numbered alien push and I think thats the area we need to consider.
I think we need to be careful not to just write it off as a well played strat all the time and not accept there might be some underlying issues..
Until bile bomb late game 3-4 skulks are not going to do much damage if the marine comms awake and has beacons or phase tech.
You get 3-4 aliens in a marine base and they will do some damage sure.
If you get 3-4 marines in a hive and kiss goodbye upgrades (assuminglocated there) and the hive will take a huge battering and possibly be lost.
The all in aspect of the strat I dont think there is an issue with but the almost total freedom (especially early game) that marines waltz into a hive is a problem...the poor state of hydras is part of the problem.
Comms generally wont waste money on whips early in the game so unless you have someone gorge and throw 3 res hydras down (not likely) your bases often totally undefended.
I think we need to be careful not to just write it off as a well played strat all the time and not accept there might be some underlying issues..
Until bile bomb late game 3-4 skulks are not going to do much damage if the marine comms awake and has beacons or phase tech.
You get 3-4 aliens in a marine base and they will do some damage sure.
If you get 3-4 marines in a hive and kiss goodbye upgrades (assuminglocated there) and the hive will take a huge battering and possibly be lost.
The all in aspect of the strat I dont think there is an issue with but the almost total freedom (especially early game) that marines waltz into a hive is a problem...the poor state of hydras is part of the problem.
Comms generally wont waste money on whips early in the game so unless you have someone gorge and throw 3 res hydras down (not likely) your bases often totally undefended.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Issue is that all marines can devastate buildings with any of their weapons.
Only a few aliens can do that. Skulks are not one of them. It takes ages to do any damage. Only the bilebomb and onos can take down buildings as well as a marine.
Only a few aliens can do that. Skulks are not one of them. It takes ages to do any damage. Only the bilebomb and onos can take down buildings as well as a marine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah aliens lack any real way to break up a base short of bile, so they are really susceptible to the "waltz in guns blazing" strat, more so than NS1 due to lack of MC teleport.
Onos costs 75 Res and is too weak to do much damage for long even with support, think we would both agree gorge with biles better than onos at breaking up a base.
But to have the default marine so strong against structures and no "real" scaling on alien side makes this less of a strat and a little bit more of an exploiting a game mechanic (or lack of) on the alien side, that shell is as strong as it will ever be when it built (and thats vulnerable to w0 marines!).
I dont think the hive rush is in itself a problem but the lack of scaling and hive travel for aliens has caused it to look like one (symptom though not cause).
Why does entire map start out for marines advantage. if 50% of the map was dark and covered in creep, that would make it a lot harder than these skill-less and mindless rushes.
There needs to be risk vs reward, case and point risk is to low, reward is to high. this is where balance needs to come in.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They devs did say they were looking into dimming the lights and perhaps having them flicker every 10 seconds in neutral areas where nodes aren't built yet.
Subtle cues like these would really help players understand the territorial control aspect of NS2.
the overall balance advantage for the marines, as well as the lacking range of the arcs ...
the small range is, in my opinion, one of the mainreasons, why arcing isn't that attractive, than sieging in ns1.
Other reasons are the allready mentioned advantage of the rines ... where you dont need to arc a hive, you won't do it ...
the point, that u need a powered area to set up the buildings
and the overall longer buildingtime of arcs in comparison with sieges in ns1
i'd love to see the good all sieging strategies from ns1 in ns2
the overall balance advantage for the marines, as well as the lacking range of the arcs ...
the small range is, in my opinion, one of the mainreasons, why arcing isn't that attractive, than sieging in ns1.
Other reasons are the allready mentioned advantage of the rines ... where you dont need to arc a hive, you won't do it ...
the point, that u need a powered area to set up the buildings
and the overall longer buildingtime of arcs in comparison with sieges in ns1
i'd love to see the good all sieging strategies from ns1 in ns2<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Err you dont recall the arc trains of a few builds ago? followed by JP rushes, shotties, GL's etc....that alien spawns easy picking for cheap points (ie upgrades, eggs) I am assuming your jesting about arcs lacking range.
i dont think that it can be intended that u have to drive the arcs into the hiveroom ...
that doesnt make sense overall, when u think about the fact, that they can shoot trough walls ...
if i compare the sieges from ns1 to the arcs of ns2, the sieges were much better and at least in some situations, needed ...
in my opinion u dont need the arcs at all ...
3-4 exos, which are able to get into one hiveroom, will kill the hive in 10 seconds ... the aliens don't even get to the hive before its down ... with jetpacks its nearly the same ...
of course ... if you see them early enough, you can try to kill them, but u wont stop an exotrain with welding support, if the marines are playing together ...
Uhhhhh, no?
'Cause we kinda changed like a lot of other gameplay features. So porting directly from NS1 is asking for failure. Perfect example is how without the innate extra mobility of Aliens (Marine Sprint, cyst spreading, Celerity stops on damage, no Hive teleport, long wave spawning timers) it's harder for Aliens to concentrate forces. Therefore it's much easier to walk in and shoot instead of have to setup outside.
That doesn't mean I won't reference NS1 a lot since 1) it was stable and 2) it's the closest to NS2, therefore it provides the perfect context to think about what the differences are and how they affect gameplay.
I remember 3+ sieges hitting a hive and the surrounding structures for like a minute or two before everything was down.
NS2 hives seemed to go down in a few volleys from 3 or so arcs.
I remember 3+ sieges hitting a hive and the surrounding structures for like a minute or two before everything was down.
NS2 hives seemed to go down in a few volleys from 3 or so arcs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This
Back in the day, a siege was a siege. A siege is not a quick solution to a problem. A siege is a moderate to slow solution to a problem that is just safer for the siegers. There are meant to be two options. Rush into the hive, putting yourself in danger, in order to take out the hive quickly, or siege from a protected position, where it will take longer but you will be in less danger.
I think when "siege" weapons are the fastest way to kill a hive, there is a problem.
u would still have the arcs, that have on some maps just a too small range to siege from a "saver position"