It Seems The Team Roles Have Changed?

itsmemo

<div class="IPBDescription">seems like it.</div> I've always thought the marines are the ones that require teamwork to win, aliens still needed it but not as much.

lately marines just rambo it out and still win, even if the aliens work together ( 10vs10 games im talking about)

Marines can be EVERYWERE at once its amazing, there was once on ns_tanith the enitre alien team fighting off marines in cargo (marines just kept coming) , and yet there is another group of marines setting up siege at waste and another heading for the sat comm, it seems to much for the aliens to handle? seems so.

arent the aliens the ones to be the annoying ones, the ones slowing the marines down? now this could be that the alien team sucked or the marine team was really good. but i dont think so, our team was ok, marines shouldnt be able to be everywere at once, even if they do split up and still win it just doesnt seem like the way ns is played.

Im not saying all marines should stick together at all times, but something is needed to bring teamwork back. Because we know the aliens get owned in small numbers

the aliens are now the ones to travel in groups, work together to bring the marines down. Aliens can no longer split up and do there own thing (like it use to be) for it leads to a loss.

DarkFrost

at those levels of players the alien team is heavily disadvantaged.
No matter the size of the marine team the commander always gets the same amount of res per res tower
Alien res cycles the team giving 1 res each from each rt, so in bigger games the cycle is bigger, and a serious disadvantage for them.

But thats my opinion as to why the marines win in these conditions

Diablus

well in games i play with alien teamwork and marines none the marines get spanked...hard.... the problem with games i see is like one i just came from (err kicked by admin rom the server) game was 7v6 aliens had 7. the marines lock down vent hive and start moving to furnace which is our only main hive. the team has 2 skulks, 4 gorges and 1 fade. 2 marines start building outside furnace and i tell the team come save the hive. its about anotehr minute later where i got sick of taking on 2 marines and 5 turrents AND crazy medspam by the commander. i tell the aliens to please help save the hive before they seige, but nooo while this whole battles going on the pahses are up 3 gorges are in alser drillnif WITH 1 fade just standing there and the other gorge roaming around somehwere, almsot every 10 seconds i yelled at the fade to get out of alser drilling and help save the hive but he stayed there, the 2 gorges also decided to build up oc's all in laser drilling WHILE the hive is being seiged. i get **** and go onos but of course i get taken out quickly because all we had was 1 freakin movmentand no d and the rines had lvl 3 weapons with HA. so the hive dies game ends my team loses because a fade would rather sit in laser drilling with 2 gorges building ocs in a place which had nothing to do with saving the hive, i tell the aliens if your not going to put your time in saving the hive then dont go aliens. well guess what an admin (who was the fade) ends up kicking me and exited me out of NS and changing my config so now i gotta re-config my NS, later but the point is the game reuqires teamwork or else u WILL lose

PseudoKnight

Always be careful how you yell at teammates. If it's an urgent plea, they might not be offended and actually listen to you. Probably not. But at least they won't kick you. The config thing (if true) is a sign of an abusive admin and I wouldn't ever visit that server again if I were you.

One weakness with marines being everywhere is that the comm has to divide his attention. The strategy has it's advantages and disadvantages.

Eviscerator

Like DF said, the number of players makes a big difference. Try playing on servers with fewer max players, and you'll probably find a more balanced game. It all comes down to the res available. 4 vs 4 = alien victory. 15 vs 15 = marine victory. Somewhere in between is a happy medium. Player skill has a big role in this, too, so find someplace that matches your skill and has an acceptable number of players.

Purely rambo marine tactics do not ever win on the server I play. Aliens would destroy a marine team that attempted that.

ZiGGY

if you can find reasons of imbalance in public games you deserve more praise than gandhi.

Necrosis

Of course the obvious counterbalance is that in big games the bulk of your res is rolling in from RFK.

In small games you can permagorge (and probably NEED to) but in big games everyone's expected to be dropping chambers, etc, so hoarding res should be less of an issue while you skulk about getting RFK.

MMZ_Torak

The prevailing marine strategy, especially on maps like Origin which are very marine friendly, seems to be the Rambo Nodes strat in which the comm sends all the marines out to kill the alien res and capture them for marines. Seems like a simple strat to counter but it's not. Res starved aliens are rather impotent, and add into that people reswhoring for fade/onos and you have an easy win for marines. If someone does manage to drop some upgrades in the hive, the entire rambo team combing the map will find them and kill them. Same is true for RTs. Once the marines have the RTs the next step is Electrifying them. GG.

TheWizard

Regarding team size:

I have always found the most balanced games to have 10-14 players total.

More than 14 players and if the marines stay calm they turn into some uber-fighting force. (5 marines all firing on one target = 1 dead alien). However, if you drop below 10 players the aliens have a large advantage as the marine weapons are no longer as effective.

Still, for quick matches play on a skilled server of about 20 people. If both teams are good they can beat the other, and the matches are normally over in less than 10 minutes (on average of course)

XCan

I think it's kinda hard to balance the 2 teams, as a better than good marine team will <u>always</u> > aliens.
Reason: Ranged attack. If we assume a marine hit 90% of the shots, at least at the beginning the aliens will get destroyed. And most of the time, it's enough to give a marine victory. Also as the topic poster stated, cargo, perfectly for picking off aliens at distance.

SethMoney

I think what we're seeing is the extreme difference between experience levels. Inexperienced aliens vs. inexperienced marines will win, while experienced aliens vs. experience marines is pretty even.

Thats because if you have just a few good aliens you can win the game, where as if you have a bad comm, or generally disobediant soldiers, its over. An individual alien can do a lot more than an individual marine.

- sethmoney