Psychology Of Ha
Enron
Join Date: 2003-08-13 Member: 19656Members
Join Date: 2003-08-13 Member: 19656Members
<div class="IPBDescription">"I'm invincible..."</div> Last night, I'm comming a group of 4-5 rines. Things start out great, build our base, fend off a lame skulk rush, rines are actually following orders and defending/building. I go for a quick phase tech and send out a group to a hive. Again, great organization. They kill 3 skulks on their way and dont lose a man. Phase gate up, kill res tower, get up tfac, the hive is ours. Wow, this game is going really well. Our res is sitting at 3 vs their 5 we still control rine start and a hive. I now have one dedicated rine who phases back and forth from hive and rine start. Fending off bile bombs and the occasonal lerk. Meanwhile, I send 3 others off to capture a dual res. Once again, perfect teamwork, the few casualties were quickly replaced via phase gates. The guys even listened to me to wait up for their fallen--taking up defensive positions down long hallways as there were only 2 of them. We seige up dual res and take it fairly easily. Another gate makes for quite a network of travel. I now have 2 rines set up as defense as they are pressing our hive base and dual res. Seige turrets and pinging along with the 2 rines make for pretty effective defense. The remaining 2 go silently to the second hive, passing by res towers etc. and set up a strategic tfac which gets immediately upgraded to seige. They obey orders to build turrets but not finish them. On my say they, finish all turrets and get a ping from me. Instant chaos for the aliens. We bring in our 2 defending rines and have quite a shootout at our new seige location. With phase gates, we hold them off and take our second hive! I'm ecstatic, these rines are doing a great job. This whole time i have done all 6 upgrades and we have more res than we know what to do with...I tell them to get back to base and load up with hmg/gl/ha/welders. This is when it hit the fan...
Suddenly, orders mean nothing. "I have my own armor and gun, I'm gonna do what i want." The equipment transformed this well oiled team into a bunch of cowboys in mere seconds. I'm getting ammo calls at 4 different places on the map. I'm geting cussed at saying that HMG's dont matter if they dont have ammo. I'm freaking out trying to get them to actually pick up a welder, much less actually weld a teammate. The 2 marines that did a great job defending our bases earlier each walked out and found their own OC wall or hungry hungry onos. We lost more rines once we had HA than we did before hand. Simple alien combos made quick work of our dual res base, a hive was soon to follow. Phase gates were never used again, each rine was determined to 'cut' his own way through to their hives. Do you know how annoying it is to have 2 fully outfitted marines 1 room apart from eachother each yelling for ammo/health/repairs only to see one get devoured and the other one gored to death.
The first half of the game, the aliens were jealous of my commanding and said they wished they had had me last game. Oh how the tables turned once I gave out some good equipment.. It's probably the novelty of a new gun and armor, hopefully this will fade with time, just another step on the NS learning curve I guess...
Suddenly, orders mean nothing. "I have my own armor and gun, I'm gonna do what i want." The equipment transformed this well oiled team into a bunch of cowboys in mere seconds. I'm getting ammo calls at 4 different places on the map. I'm geting cussed at saying that HMG's dont matter if they dont have ammo. I'm freaking out trying to get them to actually pick up a welder, much less actually weld a teammate. The 2 marines that did a great job defending our bases earlier each walked out and found their own OC wall or hungry hungry onos. We lost more rines once we had HA than we did before hand. Simple alien combos made quick work of our dual res base, a hive was soon to follow. Phase gates were never used again, each rine was determined to 'cut' his own way through to their hives. Do you know how annoying it is to have 2 fully outfitted marines 1 room apart from eachother each yelling for ammo/health/repairs only to see one get devoured and the other one gored to death.
The first half of the game, the aliens were jealous of my commanding and said they wished they had had me last game. Oh how the tables turned once I gave out some good equipment.. It's probably the novelty of a new gun and armor, hopefully this will fade with time, just another step on the NS learning curve I guess...
Comments
I've seen the exact same thing happen. I've also seen marines just become complacent because they dominate the map (whether it be two hive lockdown or a lot of RTs) - it's as if they run out of batteries. The aliens pull off a focused attack, and suddenly, the game that was in the bag has gone to hell. /:
I suppose aliens deal with this on some lvl as well, with everyone saving up for an Onos rather than teamwork. But in the current state a redemption onos, even in the hands of a noob, means problems for rines. Don't get me started on redemption <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
1) Announce your plan for a HA train -- that is, EVERYONE in HA, all together.
2) First drop welders, then HA, then weapons.
3) *Constantly* tell your HAs to stay in base until everyone is equipped.
4) Make sure you put them in a squad together. Just hearing "You're Squad 5!" does wonders for teamwork.
5) Keep them updated on progress - "just waiting for two more GLs," or "hang on, upgrading MT," etc.
That's not how armor works. Armor absorbs a percentage of damage dealt to your HP, depending on how much armor is left. The lower your armor, the more HP damage you take per hit...
Anyway, I've found that most HAs know that they have to stick together to survive. The real problem is a complete refusal to weld. The comm spends the res to give every single one of them a welder, and only a couple HAs at most are ever willing to weld a teammate. Everybody else runs around shooting at aliens and ignores the well-being of their teammates, and even in the base they walk around screaming for a weld when they themselves have never used their welder. It's incredibly irritating, and has always been one of the reasons I tend to stick to aliens, though many of them aren't any better...
The phase gate is up, my vanilla marines fought like warrior poets to keep it alive! The guys I had watching base I wanted rotated into the front line.
We had just the two nodes in Central and I could afford two HAs and no other weapons, so I dropped them into the field.
But. This was not sufficient for my new "elite" guys. The wanted HMGs, they wanted GLs.
My god, I told them the plan before they were even suited up. But no, they felt they deserved better guns.
Now I don't have the best mic in the world, but my orders are pretty understandable.
Three words: "Heavy Armor PHASE!!"
The Phase Gate lasted all of 15 seconds while my vanilla's were screaming into voice comm: "WHERES THAT BACKUP??" The Sporing was stacking up. Hmm a perfect place for a .....Heavy Armor?
"LMGs dont suddenly become obselete just because you get more hitpoints guys."
Comms have a helluva job in pubs dont they?
If you issue HA's and HMG's you HAVE to support them or it's your waste of res. It sounds like you were still too busy trying to defend instead of focusing enough attention on your HA's. HA's survive longer and spend ammo more quickly then LA/LMG's so they'll need your support. Were you using hotkeys to group them? Did you communicate your plan/path that you wanted them to take on the assault to the final hive?
Like he said that when **** hit the fan (i happened to come in durning the 1st HA rush. 2 HA/HMGs let the before mentioned fade go to build a TF (no big deal, not what i woulda done) then wandered off to kill DT WITH OUT BUILDING 2 SIEGES. I was watching through dead cam in utter amazment as the fade with 10hp went gorge and build the hive!! After a minte or two they wondered back to sewer found there was no TF/sieges left and then started to HMG hive. They both unloaded at once and completely igonred Me and gorge. As soon as they ran outa ammo we both jumped then and instead of switching to knifes or welders and fighting they turned there backs and RAN!!.
Over the next 30 minutes we staged what I beleive to be one of the great comebacks in v2. Out numbered we killed scores of mairnes, broke outa locked down hives and decimated there resnodes. The only guy who basicly did anything worth while was the lone mairne welding up everything. Unfortently for him As soon as I went onos He got assainated every time I saw him. Speaking of him that was another thing. I had those guys utterly terrafied of my onos. I would devour the welder and they would all scatter 5 differnt ways which allowed me to pick em off.
Non off them covered each other while building, they NEVER set up firing lanes and they ALLWAYS allowed me to ambush them at coners where they would only get glanicng shots at me.
Honestly I believe that was a text book case of bad marines. A good com and one dedicated marines just could not make up for 4 other morons
I'm normally a pretty conservative guy, but last night brought out a side of me I haven't seen in awhile. We HAD THE GAME! The countdown had already started but as stated above, they got that hive up....grrr.
Also, as said above, he came in late. He didnt see the marines working together early on in game. Thats what allowed us to lockdown the hives and have you guys on the run. Whether it was laziness or overconfidence, I dont know, but the guys just stopped working together once they got their shiny new equipment. Very annoying, I too think its one of the better comebacks of 2.0, definitely a rare case of the marines losing--not the aliens winning <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Looking back it was a fun game, but I definitely thought differently last night as I tried to fall asleep, still pretty mad <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Give someone a sufficiently powerful weapon and they start to feel invulnerable. This can be used to good effect (using tanks or IFVs to cover infantry advances) or can cause problems (MGs tend to forget to move, heavily armed people become careless about staying aware for threats).
Bear in mind, HA also has a psychological effect on Kharaa.
You should have seen my face when 5 HA's walked underneath me. Me. A lowly second hive skulk. Shame I didn't think about parasiting them, heh.
we have base, rr and waste secure. i give my marines a wp to just ouside cargo. siege the area and move in.
get a pg and tf up, reinforcements directly arrive and start helping to build, they hold of 2 onos and another one that came in alone. all of those onos's redeem to fusion. with some ammo and med spam my rines are able to hold of 4 attacks. then it was too late as the hive was dead.
we secure fusion, blablabla.
by that time i had all possible upgrades. have a team that works togheter as 1 big machine. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
i have res to spare so i dicide to give <span style='color:red'>everybody</span> HA/HMG and welder and 2 of them get a GL.
i bind them all to squad 1. tell them the plan and start giving out equipement for one at a time. everything is fine until there.
unfortuantly 2 already wandered of once they had been given there equipement. try to get them back to base but they don't listen. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
i thought, ok now big deal i still have 6 left.
well wrong guess. once they have their wp everybody seems to take a different route. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
with only 2 rines left following orders (who themselves try to get the rest of the team with them, without succes.) i try to get sat. as expected, they get eaten by a couple of onos who dicided to work togheter.
regroup at fusion and try from the outside.(the wall you can blast) but again only 2 rines left following orders. get a tf, turrets, upgrade and start sieging their defense. defense is gone so we are able to move into the hive and with some med and ammo spam those 2 rines where able to kill the hive and all respawning aliens.
great game to those 2 players <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
we won the game but not thx to the rest of the team. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
a nice example of what better weapons can do to teamplay. sadly enough. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Funny how it is possible for aliens to come back from marines controling 2 hives and haveing mass res and still win the game.... too bad there are never any marine combacks.
"Rare case of the marines loosing".... from what I can tell marines loose all the time in v2.0... not entirely sure what you mean by that.
Too many people are obsessed with the idea that HA means you are now a factor better than you were before. You just tell yourself that when you're being devoured while I was able to outrun you.
"Marines don't win games; Aliens just lose them."
A way of saying that due to (questionable) imbalances the only way for a marine team to win is for the aliens to shoot themselves in the foot or try to lose. This game, it seemed as though the marines were trying to lose and they did a heck of a job doing it...
Hell yeah, I have Comm'ed some badass marine comebacks. Marine have Vary good come back potenial due to there ability to turrtle while banking res. In v2 there even better off as RfK gives them a huge shot of res once there down to one resnode.