Don't always blame Commanders (Marine) for losses
Merciless One
Join Date: 2012-11-08 Member: 168344Members
Join Date: 2012-11-08 Member: 168344Members
I command nearly every game I play, and it's usually either a win streak or a loss streak.
As a Marine Commander, the things I hear sometimes are just aggravating to say the least.
"Get some sentries"... in the first 4 minutes of the game.
"Get some Grenade Launchers"... in the first 6 minutes of the game.
"You should have dropped some medpacks!"... in the first minute of the game.
"Weapons first! No, armor first!"... same debate in the first 2 minutes of the game.
Anyway, what happens is we'll be on at least 2 bases, get to weapons/armor 2 or 3, but the marines can not successfully push in to another base that is held by aliens, whether it be a couple of gorges holding them back or lack of aim or whatever. And this is with forward armories and phase gates.
At the end of the game, there's always at least 2-3 marines who will say, "The commander was a retard, we shouldn't have been pushing x!", or "The commander was dumb, he never got me a flamethrower!"
I don't take offense at name calling or ###### talking or whatever, but players need to understand that your Commander can only do so much for you.
Marines win games, not Commanders. We are here to help you along. Commanders won't help you aim or dodge better, and you shouldn't be expecting a Commander to focus his Tres on you, and only you.
I don't know if its an entitlement thing or what, but players need to understand that Commanders are there to provide you with the tools and the directions, and players are there to execute.
As a Marine Commander, the things I hear sometimes are just aggravating to say the least.
"Get some sentries"... in the first 4 minutes of the game.
"Get some Grenade Launchers"... in the first 6 minutes of the game.
"You should have dropped some medpacks!"... in the first minute of the game.
"Weapons first! No, armor first!"... same debate in the first 2 minutes of the game.
Anyway, what happens is we'll be on at least 2 bases, get to weapons/armor 2 or 3, but the marines can not successfully push in to another base that is held by aliens, whether it be a couple of gorges holding them back or lack of aim or whatever. And this is with forward armories and phase gates.
At the end of the game, there's always at least 2-3 marines who will say, "The commander was a retard, we shouldn't have been pushing x!", or "The commander was dumb, he never got me a flamethrower!"
I don't take offense at name calling or ###### talking or whatever, but players need to understand that your Commander can only do so much for you.
Marines win games, not Commanders. We are here to help you along. Commanders won't help you aim or dodge better, and you shouldn't be expecting a Commander to focus his Tres on you, and only you.
I don't know if its an entitlement thing or what, but players need to understand that Commanders are there to provide you with the tools and the directions, and players are there to execute.
Comments
But ye, have been flamed once too for not having exos ( min 5) :D
Plus, I don't think anyone should be blamed if they had that awkward moment at the beginning of the game where no one wants to command.
I've had complaints and praise both when I have been commanding, and I generally try to let the players know what I am moving towards. Once or twice I have dropped the ball but not usually. Sometimes if you haven't played in a few days or have been playing on small servers you forget to make extra IPs until someone says something (doesn't usually happen to me).
Don't ask for things like sentries though guys unless we have res falling out of our ears. I feel sentries are best used to assist a forward moving assault and not as a permanent defensive installation. Something to help keep a few baddies at bay so you can get more ammo and health not something you hide behind indefinitely. They are also useful when you have an alien comm trying to spread infestation through areas that you might not notice it spreading just to keep him/her from planting a whip farm.
In either case this is usually a concern much later on, and infestation can be much better cleared by a Jetpacker with a flamethrower.
I also play a lot of FPS side of the equation and I do see a few commanders who are clueless. Sometimes when you lose nodes you shouldn't rebuild them depending how far they are from help or how close they are to an enemy base. Sometimes it is far more effective to keep it as a buffer zone until you intend to use it as a staging area for your team. At which point they can easily keep it alive.
Here are some actual signs of a bad marine commander.
<ol type='1'><li>Builds sentries in the first few minutes of game before you have A1/W1 or Shotguns</li><li>Rebuilds nodes over and over that are always under constant harassment (barring few exceptions)</li><li>Does not communicate with you or the rest of the team.</li><li>Does not respond to requests to drop a res / power node</li><li>Has grenade launchers before Shotguns or W1</li><li>Is constantly spamming health or ammo on a doomed target</li></ol>
Good commanders listen and respond to their players, even if it is to say No. Giving people some idea of what your are trying to accomplish is more likely to clue them in towards helping you achieve said goal. As a commander you should also be listening to what your players are saying about what they are seeing. As well as keeping an eye in the sky out for what may be going on with the alien commander. If you scan a hive and can see a Shade you can tell your players they have a shade hive so they know to keep together etc. Or if you see loads and loads of whips you can warn your players about using grenades in various areas. Going early grenade launcher is only effective against alien comms without any whips and once they see you using grenades you can bet they will be putting whips up in key and critical locations.
But ye, have been flamed once too for not having exos ( min 5) :D<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's not "always" but this definitely does happen. I take it seriously when people do that kind of backseat comm with me, I seriously evaluate weather there's any reality to what they're saying. Often requests for better medpacks are legit, I know I'm not the best medder in the world. However, most of the time it's just garbage.
General goal for every marine game imo.
As Marines, I need to physically get out of the command chair and lead them to the second hive where they should build things while offering cover fire from 80's Arnold, Steven, and Stallone.
I've also found that a handy stick with weapons 3 attached to it with a bit of string and duct tape works as well, but have you tried finding a stick in space?! <i>Improbable!</i>
I.e. the Commander quit and no-one else would take over and more often an on the ground player I can say some of the most annoying things are;
From a commander perspective:
Being moaned at for not dropping health / ammo on a doomed target - You had 3 skulks on you and you we're alone with no back up coming, I'm not wasting Res on medipacks for you.
Being moaned at for "forcing" marines to build a forward armoury rather than constant health and ammo drops. Its simple economics if I can get the armoury up it a lot cheaper to do the push.
Robotics before Observatory - this one really got me, we had a fair bit of the map secured but everyone was refusing build orders so I set up a robotics lab to work on stuff in base using to the macs to build obs as no-one else was.
As aliens not being told about a cut cyst chain, chances are I have 5 chains going out so I can't constantly be checking each full line. the worst one the marines cut a line right outside a base and for 15 minutes of the game my team were running past the resource point and said nothing.
As Marines people not following orders. This is a big one if you're a lone Marine and I've sent you to a side room chances are its because I know there's enemies about in the corridors ahead. I had one guy refuse to go in a side room despite even using the way point and threat alerts. he ran clean in and was butchered and by the time the 2 Marines I had ready to back up arrived the enemy had pushed into that room and simply butchered them from both side losing the room. While if said Marine had gone into the room, chances are he would have died but held it long enough back up to come in and only have to mop up not face a force prepared on both sides.
On the ground as a troop
Commanders not supporting troops, especially marines. when I get "You guys are useless you should have pushed X" from the commander often I end up going "Well commander if you wanted X you should have supported us" had this one pushing elevator control. The enemy had a shade hive so were cloaked we have basic weapons basic armour and were pushing in from a powered resource node. The commander refused to build us an armoury to heal up at, and refused to scan the area so every time me and two others were pushing in only to have 5 skulks uncloak and rip us apart in there.
Commanders who refuse to drop Res points. Ok pinging the map can get annoying but as commander pressing space to check it out is about 2 seconds and if its something important such as a res point missed then its fair enough.
I've been caught by this too... but at the same time it's really not the alien player's fault, nor their job to babysit your cysts. You ARE informed as to the status of your cyst chain. When your cysts are taking damage they turn red on the minimap, you just have to practice keeping an eye on the minimap and not overlooking things like that.
Oh, and the robotics thing is understandable, but it's still a wasteful tech path. Unless it's a game of 3v3 it's better to just jump out and build yourself (inform your marines you're having to do this, and that's why they are not getting meds/orders fulfilled)
It's almost always a good amount of both. Many players seem to feel it's the comm's fault if they don't know what to do. That's not really the case though. At the end of they day though, a good enough marine team can win without a comm, or with a very bad comm. A bad marine team cannot be saved by a spectacular comm. Throwing blame around is rarely productive either way.
Oh, and the robotics thing is understandable, but it's still a wasteful tech path. Unless it's a game of 3v3 it's better to just jump out and build yourself (inform your marines you're having to do this, and that's why they are not getting meds/orders fulfilled)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oddly I like robotics before Phase gates in normal games too because it lets you access the rarely use sentries. It then means when you do set up the phase gates you can have your mac at base make one and your away team do the other and quickly follow it up by having the away team set up senteries to guard it until you've set up a more permanent base or position there.
Too often I've seen phase gates go up and the away team run from the gate, get massacred and the alien then move in on the gate and take it out.
kinda annoying
whenever marine is on low health the comm will get a request automatically
I don't particuarily like marine com in pub games because nobody gives a ###### about your orders, if you are lucky, you have 2 out of 10 people listening to you. As marine, it's impossible to do a decent push with 2 people listening, while on the alien side, it's not much different in terms of people listing, but those 2 can easily kill the few marines that wander off and kill your cyst chains and res towers (usually at least), while the other guys do whatever they do until you win.
Also, in the worst case you can place shifts near areas you want to hold and spawn some eggs as marines approach, so the newbies spawn there and kill them. As marines, it not that easy with pgs / ips, cause the dumb idiots usually only phase once, so even if you have multiple pgs they just fail; sometimes it's funny, but yet sad to watch, how you have 2 pgs (let's say in xroads and comp lab on summit), and they always walk from xroads to comp lab to pressure instead of using the pg directly, but yet xroads is too valueable to sell.
But anyway, it is true that some idiots ask for stuff that is impossible, seems like a phenonom since they know kinda now a bit of the game, but never bothered with the requirements (ie. comming). Very often you see retards asking for 1-hive blink/bile/whatever or even more idiotic stuff as marine, like armor 0 exos.
oddly I'm still getting it then, if you press space it takes you too said troop but you're not forced to go if that's what you mean.
scrub: comm, get adrenaline, we need adrenaline!!!
me: we already went shade and crag first
scrub: so what?
another player: you can't, we need the 3rd hive.
scrub: comm, get a 3rd hive then!
me: marine has sub-sector, been saying that for 10 minutes. (the map was ns2_veil and we had cargo and pipeline hive)
scrub: then put up the sub-sector hive!
me put him on mute
scrub: comm, get adrenaline, we need adrenaline!!!
me: we already went shade and crag first
scrub: so what?
another player: you can't, we need the 3rd hive.
scrub: comm, get a 3rd hive then!
me: marine has sub-sector, been saying that for 10 minutes. (the map was ns2_veil and we had cargo and pipeline hive)
scrub: then put up the sub-sector hive!
me put him on mute<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've seen that before. the appropriate command reaction is
"Then capture me that damn area and hold it down like [insert your choice of horrifying scenario here] then I'll set up the 3rd hive there"
well done commander, our team just sucked
don't blame the commander noob, it was marines that failed
well played commander
i don't want to brag, but that's what i mostly get, ofcourse very seldom i get flamed, but most of the time some smart player defends me.
edit : ofcourse, most of the time there is no comments at all, but when there is they usually are positive, not negative when marine's lose.
Telling your team why you lost and telling them they need to aim better does 0 to help the situation other then make yourself feel better and makes your team do worse.
Had a comm today who downing us like this and I actually (first time ever) actually muted the comm. No more then 3 min later (while we still had 2 tech points mind you) he rage quit...
Some people just shouldn't comm.
Had a comm today who downing us like this and I actually (first time ever) actually muted the comm. No more then 3 min later (while we still had 2 tech points mind you) he rage quit...
Some people just shouldn't comm.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Uhh, case sensitive and all that, but you should definitely point out why you lost, even if it's bad aim, it only means the other team in total aimed better. Shouldn't be a big deal.
During my commin experience there was a period of time that's particularly distressing. It's the point where you can execute good plans and build-orders, but if someone suddenly jumps into your face with a "OMFG NOOB COMM WHY WE HAVE WPNS1 WHEN WE DON'T HAVE OBS IN RAGETRIUM?!" -you can't trace back your line of thought reliably enough to explain why we ended up where we are.
Once you get past that point it's all good tho. You can just patronizingly (or be all mushy) explain why we're here and what exactly caused that. Nowdays every time someone gives me criticism 9/10 times I just smile and explain why that is. :)
...aaaand stuff.
When I comm, I get overwhelmed pretty easily with everything that is going on. If there are one or two marines that are good at getting the team organized, it helps out a ton. They say, "let's rush xroads," and the team follows. I'm cool with that. Then, all I have to do is drop stuff out of the sky and keep the upgrades coming. When I comm, I feel more like a support guy than a leader.
I think some players forget just how much crap the comm has to deal with at a given time.
I win maybe 65%~ of the time as comm. We have had some great comeback games that were epic and turn out the be the most fun for both sides
But some other games there is nothing I can do almost like my hands are tied
I played 2 games today where we lost 6 rts within the first 4 mins of the game(refinery and tram warehouse spawn closest rts)
Nothing I can do to keep those rts up and you are going to lose when you are stuck on one RT and a phase gate to nowhere
I had people before the 6 min mark in both games ask why we dont have weapons 1
I can deal with bad aim but I cant deal with players who do the opposite of what you ask them repeatedly
Also I dont drop health and ammo in the first 10 mins or so unless people are sniping upgrades or maybe a building hive
One thing that seems to lose games the most is a bad beacon
Beaconing because 1 skulk is on the main base power is always a bad idea especially when exos are out
The biggest issue I find is getting the marines to push out once you've got two established bases. It becomes too much of a safety net and unless you have rambo pressure on another end of the map, the game bogs down and stagnating aliens will peak tech before marines do.
Secondary to that is the marines lack of mental capacity to watch the map and respond by his own doing to reinforce a position under attack.
Power node alerting is non existent at the best of times. Then you cop the 'why didnt you beacon?' argument because you were medpacking 5 marines who can't kill a spore spamming lerk.
You need a really thick skin to do it regularly. If everyone who played actually got some comm experience it would make them all better players.
Alien commander on the other hand is just a matter of having a chat with everyone whilst you control whatever part of the map you can get. A different world.
Occasionally you get pressured for upgrades 20 seconds into the game but these idiots are rare.
Locker room hive? Rush sentrys in ballcourt and cafeteria.
But if you aren't communicating your players will be like WTFBBQ SENTRIES ? ######ING NUBBBB. And fail horribly.
Almost every strat works if its done with the whole team backing it, comm cannot play solo.
It's the only way to win the game.