6 Kharaa Wins. Bad Commander Or Wierd Server Mod?
HeXetic
Join Date: 2003-01-17 Member: 12423Members
Join Date: 2003-01-17 Member: 12423Members
<div class="IPBDescription">You be the judge.</div> Did six successive bad commanders break six frontiersmen teams, or did a server mod totally upset the game's balance? Two nights ago I was playing on a pubbie server* and the Kharaa managed to beat back the marines six times in a row.
At first glace, that's not impressive. But here's what happened in between each of those rounds:
1. Some people left, some new people joined (I was probably the only guy who'd sat through the whole six wins).
2. Almost half of the Kharaa players - and the good ones, not the bad ones - went Marines.
3. The marines were constantly whining about how crappy their commander was.
4. I always went Kharaa - by necessity, not by choice. I'd been chugging down apple juice to flush out a cold all night and had to go to the bathroom at the end of each round, by the time I'd come back, the teams would be set at 8 frontiersmen, 7 Kharaa.
As you can see, the circumstances seem to indicate that the commander was sucky each time. Seeing as how I was always Kharaa, I don't know exactly *what* the commanders were doing wrong, but although I was playing pretty well that evening I don't think the Kharaa wins can be chalked up to highly skilled Kharaa players alone.
The first 5 wins were on ns_caged. The sixth was ns_eclipse. Almost every time we won a different "way":
1. Very quick second hive to fades (twice).
2. Slow second hive with continual skulk harassment (also twice).
3. Succesful base bum-rush.
4. Gradual chambering-in of the frontiersmen and acquisition of third hive.
On the other hand, some things were constant:
1. On caged, we jammed the double doors (position skulk underneath one part, close, then open and move out of the way) and the cargo door (put a chamber so it can't open, then try opening it so it won't close) every time.
2. We continuously took advantage of the server's "steal resources" mod to keep our gorges tanked up and happpy.
3. The frontiersmen managed to continually harass our hives and defenses.
4. The frontiersmen almost always managed to briefly capture one hive.
What is this "steal resources" mod, you ask? It's another piece of the puzzle. On this server, when a gorge heals another player, he steals their resources, very slowly (about 1 per second or so). Obviously, the gorge can't do this continuously (lack of energy), and he has to be close to the players to steal the resources, but nonetheless it is definitely an advantage. The popular "press F4 to give me resources" 'cheat' didn't work on this server because players were prevented from F4-ing for the first 10 minutes. I guess the server ops decided that took too much away from the Kharaa so they put this mod in instead.
Now you know the situation. What do you think caused the wins, bad commanding or the server mod? Remember that the teams were changed each round, with many of the good Kharaa switching to the Frontiersmen. Remember that this was a random pubbie server and there were only a few (advertised) clan players. Remember that though I was playing pretty well, there's no way in heck one guy is going to beat back a whole team. Therefore, it must be one of those two options: commander or mod.
* I can't remember the name of the server, but it had a playerlimit of 17 (effectively 16, since there was one reserved slot), had mp_decalfrequency set to 0 (so I applied my logo liberally to the join area in-between rounds), and had an extra mod that made it so that gorges "steal" resources from fellow aliens when they heal them.
At first glace, that's not impressive. But here's what happened in between each of those rounds:
1. Some people left, some new people joined (I was probably the only guy who'd sat through the whole six wins).
2. Almost half of the Kharaa players - and the good ones, not the bad ones - went Marines.
3. The marines were constantly whining about how crappy their commander was.
4. I always went Kharaa - by necessity, not by choice. I'd been chugging down apple juice to flush out a cold all night and had to go to the bathroom at the end of each round, by the time I'd come back, the teams would be set at 8 frontiersmen, 7 Kharaa.
As you can see, the circumstances seem to indicate that the commander was sucky each time. Seeing as how I was always Kharaa, I don't know exactly *what* the commanders were doing wrong, but although I was playing pretty well that evening I don't think the Kharaa wins can be chalked up to highly skilled Kharaa players alone.
The first 5 wins were on ns_caged. The sixth was ns_eclipse. Almost every time we won a different "way":
1. Very quick second hive to fades (twice).
2. Slow second hive with continual skulk harassment (also twice).
3. Succesful base bum-rush.
4. Gradual chambering-in of the frontiersmen and acquisition of third hive.
On the other hand, some things were constant:
1. On caged, we jammed the double doors (position skulk underneath one part, close, then open and move out of the way) and the cargo door (put a chamber so it can't open, then try opening it so it won't close) every time.
2. We continuously took advantage of the server's "steal resources" mod to keep our gorges tanked up and happpy.
3. The frontiersmen managed to continually harass our hives and defenses.
4. The frontiersmen almost always managed to briefly capture one hive.
What is this "steal resources" mod, you ask? It's another piece of the puzzle. On this server, when a gorge heals another player, he steals their resources, very slowly (about 1 per second or so). Obviously, the gorge can't do this continuously (lack of energy), and he has to be close to the players to steal the resources, but nonetheless it is definitely an advantage. The popular "press F4 to give me resources" 'cheat' didn't work on this server because players were prevented from F4-ing for the first 10 minutes. I guess the server ops decided that took too much away from the Kharaa so they put this mod in instead.
Now you know the situation. What do you think caused the wins, bad commanding or the server mod? Remember that the teams were changed each round, with many of the good Kharaa switching to the Frontiersmen. Remember that this was a random pubbie server and there were only a few (advertised) clan players. Remember that though I was playing pretty well, there's no way in heck one guy is going to beat back a whole team. Therefore, it must be one of those two options: commander or mod.
* I can't remember the name of the server, but it had a playerlimit of 17 (effectively 16, since there was one reserved slot), had mp_decalfrequency set to 0 (so I applied my logo liberally to the join area in-between rounds), and had an extra mod that made it so that gorges "steal" resources from fellow aliens when they heal them.
Comments
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> first 5 wins were on ns_caged<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
With the aliens using the f4 exploit its almost impossible to win as marines, you HAVE to lock down two hives INCREDIBLY fast or just rush their first one.
Caged is possibly the second most alien biased map, certainly the most biased for newbies (NS_Nothing the marines are forced to exit their base via two rooms both of which are biased towards kara chomping.)
For a full explanation on Caged read Flatlines excellent analysis of it www.planetns.com has a copy if you cannot find the thread.
On NS caged a combination of a newb commander and the res exploit you used, added to you're killing of the door into vent hive (making it only accessable via welding) would make the map nigh on impossible to win.
BlueGhost
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Would help if you read the post before you reply.. lol
I would estimate that as allowing the gorges to about halve the time-to-build the first hive. Say, at about 5 minutes instead of the usual 8-10 minutes.
If it matters? Yea, it SURE matters. Would require the marines to be much better than the Kharaa to have a chance of winning, and they obviously weren't.
With the exception of the successful-skulk-rush, every other time it still took us a decent amount of time to win. Once the resources started flowing due to multiple res nodes, the gorge-steal thing was much less of a factor, don't you think?
i think you know where i'm going with this. you're getting resources FAR faster than the marines by at least 3 fold. i dunno about the rest of you, but this sounds highly unbalancing.
In my personal experience, I find it best to skirt modified games due to the fact they have not been extensively balance tested nor are they actually NS anymore, but a modification of it.
Play on voogrus server, on this server aliens can donate every ammount of ressources they have in their pool to another player.
Surely the 2nd hive always goes up quick but still the marines almost always counter this because it takes quite long to get fades with 0 res.....
I did re-read what <span style='font-size:27pt;line-height:100%'><b>I</b> </span> wrote:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->With the aliens using the f4 exploit its almost impossible to win as marines<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now a completly un-related statment:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->and the res exploit you used<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not the f4 exploit, the f4 exploit would make it impossible to win as marines on <b>ANY MAP</b>. The 'exploit' they did use (Ok you call it a server mod well a server admin who gives his team an unfair advantage is an exploit in my book, exploitation of power) combined with ns_caged would make it VERY imbalanced toward alien.
How ironic, you told me off for not reading his post propperly when you had infact miss read my own.
BlueGhost
Strange that they would disable the "f4ing to give resources" because they didn't want it to be used as an exploit, and instead put in something else that works just as well in boosting the aliens in the same way as f4ing... My only guess is that the server admins don't like the Marines, so they built a system to screw them.
Yeah anyone making a minimod for NS like that probaly doesn't have a brain to begine with.
Gorge, "give me your res!"
me, "go cap some nodes instead of whine noob"
Gorge, "its faster if you give me res to the 2nd hive"
me, "what is the point of having 2 hives if we have no res to go fade/lerk soon after its up?"
Gorge, "SUYF noob and give me your res, or come here and I will heal you and take them"
I go hide up top on triad so he couldn't take my res.
Gorge, "everyone else donated, you do it to!"
me, "everyone else is a noob, I am not"
Gorge, " I need 30 res for 2nd hive, give me yours now!"
me, "go cap some towers then noob"
Fades cost 50 res on that server, which is awful. When hive #2 was up, we had a whopping 2 rt's, we only won the game thru me melee fading, and 1 other smart player giving me umbra to I could blink in and use celerity to rip apart their base. My suggestion would be to avoid that server or any like it who run that noob mod.
A special shout-out to that gorge who was whining for everyone to give him their res, <b> CAP SOME TOWERS NOOB</b>
|Co|Wendigo