*sigh* Commanding Is So Hard..
Hydra
Join Date: 2003-06-14 Member: 17366Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2003-06-14 Member: 17366Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">I seem to always lose!</div> So far my win-loss record is about 3 wins, and at least 8 losses. I am here after losing another game because I... I just didn't react fast enough, and I did not multitask. I forget about upgrades because I was focused on double.
I fail to notice we have 100+ res because of trying to siege a hive and watching them get slaughtered, probably due to my tardiness of upgrading. I am just losing hope halfway and KNOWING the game is doomed with me in the chair, and I have yet to figure out how to deal with the *$#&ing pressure of the position of commander.
I have YET to correctly execute a complete strategy. Sure, I know plenty, but I never seem to have time to THINK about it. Or if I think about it all the sudden we have a bit of res, no adv armory, and fades + onos crawling out our a**.
What am I doing wrong?
Why can't I seem to just get it right?
I can't really honestly say that it was my teams fault even if they had **** poor aim; Why? because I lose my head and cling to whatever I can instead of being agressive.
I start reacting instead of acting, and in turn my marines are noticing and losing faith and thus losing morale.
I am feeling pretty down after another loss, so far 4 in a row, and I need to figure out what I am screwing up and when.
Help me out here, I need ways to help me focus on the correct plan of attack. I have ADHD so my attention is easily held by something else just long enough for me to forget about those upgrades, or that marine patiently waiting at a node for 3+ minutes. This may be one of the problems, but I may just not be cut out for the job.
On the most recent game I played, on linuxmonster, I was commanding on Tanith (which I never seem to do right anyways), and I started off by dropping two ips and an armory, then an obs after a little.
A marine has made it to double and fends off a skulk but dies to the second right as my medpack lands on him, stupid light fixture got RIGHT in the way. So I recycle the rt, but then two marines walk in right after I do so, DOH.
They shoot the skulk up, I drop the rts, I get PG's (Remembered phase tech right when the marine was being attacked so my support was late) and so I have double, I go to electrify, then I have to build a tf and I build an arms lab now, really later than I should have.
I upgrade amory as well, then get MT after a tad more. So now I have armor 1 and weapons 1 on the way, there is several fades, and I am wondering where I screwed up this time.
Several unsuccessful votes to eject me occur, and I am getting frustrated and then, when I have 4 heavies headed to and arriving at west access corridor.. my computer locks up... The damage I wanted to do to my computer just cannot be expressed in words.
I fail to notice we have 100+ res because of trying to siege a hive and watching them get slaughtered, probably due to my tardiness of upgrading. I am just losing hope halfway and KNOWING the game is doomed with me in the chair, and I have yet to figure out how to deal with the *$#&ing pressure of the position of commander.
I have YET to correctly execute a complete strategy. Sure, I know plenty, but I never seem to have time to THINK about it. Or if I think about it all the sudden we have a bit of res, no adv armory, and fades + onos crawling out our a**.
What am I doing wrong?
Why can't I seem to just get it right?
I can't really honestly say that it was my teams fault even if they had **** poor aim; Why? because I lose my head and cling to whatever I can instead of being agressive.
I start reacting instead of acting, and in turn my marines are noticing and losing faith and thus losing morale.
I am feeling pretty down after another loss, so far 4 in a row, and I need to figure out what I am screwing up and when.
Help me out here, I need ways to help me focus on the correct plan of attack. I have ADHD so my attention is easily held by something else just long enough for me to forget about those upgrades, or that marine patiently waiting at a node for 3+ minutes. This may be one of the problems, but I may just not be cut out for the job.
On the most recent game I played, on linuxmonster, I was commanding on Tanith (which I never seem to do right anyways), and I started off by dropping two ips and an armory, then an obs after a little.
A marine has made it to double and fends off a skulk but dies to the second right as my medpack lands on him, stupid light fixture got RIGHT in the way. So I recycle the rt, but then two marines walk in right after I do so, DOH.
They shoot the skulk up, I drop the rts, I get PG's (Remembered phase tech right when the marine was being attacked so my support was late) and so I have double, I go to electrify, then I have to build a tf and I build an arms lab now, really later than I should have.
I upgrade amory as well, then get MT after a tad more. So now I have armor 1 and weapons 1 on the way, there is several fades, and I am wondering where I screwed up this time.
Several unsuccessful votes to eject me occur, and I am getting frustrated and then, when I have 4 heavies headed to and arriving at west access corridor.. my computer locks up... The damage I wanted to do to my computer just cannot be expressed in words.
Comments
As for what went wrong in that game, you got a lot of upgrades, but you didn't get the ones requied to deal with Fades (of course at the moment there aren't really any ones that are really good at dealing with fades). You sacrifed damage upgrades for res protection and motion. This problem is in some part caused by imbalance, you have to go for the right upgrades or your going to lose. Your best bet in the mentioned game would have been to skip motion and elec in favour of earlier arms lab and upgrades.
Edit: Some grammer
Start off with 1 ip, 1 armory.
Then check for the hive while the buildings get built.
Drop and RT for the person requesting one, then drop mines and an armslab and upgrade armor 1.
Keep capping nodes and upgrading, until you build up and extra 20 res, then drop an obs.
Get PG's, then kill their <b>BUILDING</b> hive, not their main hive.
Don't elect nodes, rather have 1-2 people constantly capping backside nodes and harrasing any skulks that come near those nodes.
Don't forgot to drop meds/ammo (and then shotguns when the res is flowing). You may want to upgrade the armory, but I wouldn't start it until you know you are going to need heavier gear, probably if you don't get hive 2 down before it goes up.
Also, those icons that pop up (eg. the med/ammo/need order icons) are all clickable. Those are a godsend for overworked comms, allowing you to go instantly to where you are needed.
You can also try PMing top quality comms for demos. They are usually more than happy to share them with you. I know for a fact that Amelek has offered demos on numerous occasions.
2) I don't recommend dropping two infantry portals right from the start. Your team hasn't even started dying yet, and that extra resources can be used for something else.
3) I recommend you use mines for base defense, as opposed to the popular "build everything around the turret factory" base. Those are annoying and really limits your building area and tends to spawn kill marines a lot (at least I experience it all the time)
4) Drop an arms lab right away and get level one armor. This is the single most important upgrade in the beginning, and can turn the tide of the early game. Commanders who get level one weapons still don't understand what it makes no difference against skulks.
5) Observatory doesn't need to be dropped right away, as phase technology is research relativity quick, and phase gates shouldn't be dropped so early anyways.
6) Try not to electrify resource towers. They are so expensive and it takes forever to pay them off. Try to have a few marines patrol them instead. I know this sounds difficult, but asking marines personally almost always works as opposed to "can someone patrol?"
7) Always be vocal and tell your team what is going on (ie. researching, attacking). Try not to be negative, and always say "good work (certain marine)". Marines love to be praised for their good work.
8) Explain to a certain extent your plans. I hate commanders who say "go get resources." Tell your team what resources you want always goes a long way to getting more trust from marines (in my opinion at least)
Remember, you are the commander, you call the shots, and make the plans. Don't let some stupid, annoying, I want a shotgun marine let you down.
Practice makes Perfect
I do have voice comm, and I use it. I believe that trying to do too much at one time is most likely what got me.
I use clicking on the icons on the side of the hud all the time (thank god).
I coincidentally (or maybe not) also play starcraft, but I am no veteran, I never really played human opponents because I would play it on lan, on teams.
This of course hinders me because with multiple strategists, I did not realize that the pressure is the key to victory.
So I will try another game and use your suggested strat Apoc, and in another game try your tips FCC. (And use the tips that are not strategic but more commanding specific too!)
I actually have played, lets see, Command and Conquer 95, C&C Tiberian (sp?) Sun, C&C Generals, Red alert, Red alert 2, Warcraft 2 and sort of played 3 a little, Starcraft also of course, got yuri's revenge.
Basically I have played a ton of RTS games, they have a certain appeal.
Unfortunatly, NS is difficult to apply strategy to from other games. I assume it is anyhow, I want to know, when you command, when do you decide what strategy your starting with?
I know I never really have a plan (bad!) laid out in my mind at the beginning, and sort of just get rts, upgrades etc and again, react.
So, I err on not applying tactics I KNOW would work, if I had the experience.
I do know that my most successful game involved basically getting a bunch of rts and frying the aliens when they apparently did not know what they were doing (like me) and I lucked out and got some skilled marines. This was like my 3rd game.
I can tell that certain things come with experience as well, I find myself relying on phasegates too much, sure they are great for holding locations, but I have half the team outside a hive and I wait for phasetech, as I reflect on that game I wonder wth was going through my head?! Well those are my thoughts right now.
The key is to learn from your mistakes, i made a number in my matches which i'll list here and i have repeated since:
-Ran out of obs energy and was like WTH, i didn't know about the whole obs energy thing and thought it was 25 res for a scanner sweep, cost me a match. I was sitting outside hamasaki hive for a good 5 minutes whilst my marines held off a lvl 2 onos, D'oh! We eventually lost.
- Getting side tracked and not getting upgrades, i found myself doing upgrades and then when i went to siege something i completely forgot about upgrading till someone prompted me, now i just remember because it's one of those things you have to do.
- Not beaconing when base was under attack, simple enough, i just sat and watched an onos eat base whilst i typed "base" "BASE" "OMG BASE" "AARGH"
- Getting out of the cc when base was under attack to deal with the onos munching the IP, wroooooong move, i died and we lost the game despite it being an alien last gasp attempt when they had only one hive after i'd sieged two they had :|
After each of these rounds i sat there, realised what i did wrong and now i don't make those mistakes, i make other stupid ones like going to siege a hive that isn't there. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> Practise makes perfect, learn from mistakes, from what i'm reading here i think with some more experience you'll make a good comm. Just make sure you use your mic lots and keep your team aware of what is going on and what you're thinking. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Edit: Don't worry about losing either, all good comms lose, you could have marines new to the game againist experienced aliens, rambo marines who ignore you, a team of French people who can't understand english or you could quite simply get out played by the alien team, don't beat yourself up over it. Loses happen.
o Not upgrading
o Not being aggressive
You know what you've got to do, you've worked that out yourself. Now just go and try to do it! Hell, getting upgrades is more important than dropping that res node 10 seconds earlier. Hell, it's even more important that dropping a medpack to that one marine in the middle of nowhere facing inevitable death!
Another thing, comming is the hardest thing in the game. I'm just glad I learnt how to do it in 1.04/2.0(1) where you had more than a millisecond to do everything.
Just keep practising, it will come.
>>On the most recent game I played, on linuxmonster, I was commanding on >>Tanith (which I never seem to do right anyways)
Don't care.
>>, and I started off by dropping two ips and an armory, then an obs after a little.
Why the Obs? Did you want to putup a phase somewhere more than you wanted A1? Was there any alien circumstance that made Obs-tech a priority?
>>A marine has made it to double and fends off a skulk but dies to the second >>right as my medpack lands on him, stupid light fixture got RIGHT in the way.
Don't care. Not even worth noticing.
>>So I recycle the rt, but then two marines walk in right after I do so, DOH.
>>They shoot the skulk up, I drop the rts,
You shouldn't be remembering that. Its such utterly irrelevant ****.
>> I get PG's (Remembered phase tech right when the marine was being attacked >> so my support was late) and so I have double, I go to electrify, then I have to >> build a tf and I build an arms lab now, really later than I should have.
PGs alone don't hold out that well, definitely not worth you just sacrificing A1 for them. Node electrification is an aweful idea generally too, unless you've got a remote node early on in the game that you want to deny the alien team. Say Southloop or PS3 on Eclipse.
Or an utterly incompetent alien team. But then you shouldn't need that crutch.
>>I upgrade amory as well, then get MT after a tad more. So now I have armor 1 >>and weapons 1 on the way, there is several fades, and I am wondering where I >>screwed up this time.
90% of the replys you'll get to this is from cockmonkeys that failed math 101 and will tell you 'ong WP3!'. The only real problem I see with that build is a) you need MT for a reason right then ? (as in, was it large and chaotic so you couldn't guess well enough where the aliens were?) b) <b>check gametime for the AA</b> - It should either be 0:15-30 for techrushing or 2:00-3:00 if you're just inching towards proto - 8:00 if you were trying to do without.
>>Several unsuccessful votes to eject me occur, and I am getting frustrated and >>then, when I have 4 heavies headed to and arriving at west access corridor.. >>my computer locks up... The damage I wanted to do to my computer just >>cannot be expressed in words.
Eject votes occur randomly, as do the voting idiots. Ignore.
Edit:
And if you want some strategic advice instead of just a basic mindset, try to focus more on blowing up alien stuff than building your own. On publics, theres a percentage of people that just won't listen either way and will cap you an RT regardless of you not asking - if not, all the better you can send a guy capping on the most efficient route. Pressure alien hives and nodes constantly - create diversions, send people in to rape eggs - attack a new hive before the blood from the last failed assault is dry. Often times, its enough to pressure an alien team for them to fail awefully.
Base setup 1-2 ips (5v5-6v6 1 ip 8v8+ 2 ips) 1 armory 1 obs. Research phase tech right off. Send 2 guys to pressure hive and gorges, other guys to run the backfield for nodes and waltz through the open hives and phase gate. After that have them maintain 4-5 nodes while you tech up. End game with shotguns and JPs or HA train. Cake walk <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I send my rines out to cap nodes now, and get the furthest hive. While I'm doing this I get Arms Lab up and get Armour 1 going, then get Phase Tech going from a 2nd Obs in the hive aswell as a TF to secure the location, pop up the PGs, upgrade armoury, then go from there.
This seems to be quite effective in pubs, MT allows me as comm to see what the aliens are doing, so I can react before they get to that location, and also helps many of the rines who aren't overly experienced.
Of course, if you have experienced marines, you may as well adopt a "no TF" strategy, where you depend on mines for defense, and shotty rushes for taking out hives, instead of sieging. This means you drop armories at your minibase locations, using them to hand out mines and shotguns. This also means you don't lock down hives. Most marines will insist on dropping a phasegate there, but you don't really need it, since you're not defending anything important. If aliens build a hive, you just shotty rush it again.
By not building TFs, you can't use electicity, so your nodes will go down more often. However, you can easily rebuild them, especially if you can recycle in time. Since you'll be spending very little on defense, you can pump your resources into upgrades. In fact, you'll probably find you will get resources faster than you can upgrade.
While most people advocate attacking the building hive, remember that the aliens main hive is usually not as heavily defended with OCs. It is also, in most cases, their DC hive. Taking out the alien's DC hive can cripple all the fades and onos they throw at you. But, rushing a fully-built hive requires you do it swiftly, so aliens have little time to react. A well-coordinated shotty rush will do just that, and you can throw in some catpacks as well.
Keeping the aliens to one hive makes your life so much easier. Hence, remember to monitor the hive locations for activity. I wouldn't recommend scanning the hive unless it's necessary, as that could clue aliens in to a possible shotty rush. Still, it's foolish to rush without at least seeing if the hive's infested with OCs or not. OCs will definitely make your rush less effective. You can always drop heavy armor and then shotty rush, though.
thats nothing to worry about. sometimes when im sick, tired, stupid, or just plane unlucky ill loose 10+ games in a row. when you have only commed 11 games your not expected to win them all. i doubt even the best commanders win every game on pubby servers.
as for my advice. ditch the double res at the start. i find it better to concentrate on locking hives because most aliencs either rush base or the double rts
Well for the lot of 3.0 Ive commed, Ive won in the end: I either need res-control(half or more of the RTs) of 2 hives....
Well:
normal spawned marine < normal spawned skulk
a3, w3, MT, hand-grenade > normal spawned skulk
...I use early MT........even newbie know how to benefit from that
With rescontrol:
1 hive....you need that
if lerks come, I drop a GL or two
If fades come, SGs (and possible HAs)
Onos: HMGs (and possible JPs)
Tell your rines to move in groups......and they have to spread out...dont stand in 1 pack.....3 ppl in a group = easy to stomp + they hit each other with their weaps......
1 in the middle, 1 at the left+right edge of the corridor = needs two stomp and that costs energy + time for onos....and v HMGs thats bad.
If none of them come, then its just upgrades, upgrades....2 armslabs are common in my strats.....
once I get w3/a3 + MT + nade, I ask ppl what they want.......dont just hand stuff out, ask the best ppl what they're best with, and give it to them....
as for 2 hive lockdowns:
early ptech + MT!
tell your rines to PGpatrol........ say that ppl that they have to keep checking MT and if anything comes to a hive, they have to be there and shoot .........lmgs are fine, 4 lmgs emptied is enough to kill an onos, even without weapon upgrades
You will find that aliens will try MASSIVELY to take one....and I mean MASSIVELY.....
armor 1...and then weaps 1 + 2 + 3...... a2 + a3........just hold the hives....thats 3 RTs, which is fine if your ppl can kill something too....then just get the upgrades.....once you have all upgrades, a HAtrain at the last hive......OR go get res-control on the map and squeeze the aliens
my point is, that if the aliens dont capture key points on the map, they loose the game.....I often send ppl to the hives for starters.......2 hives is an easy win......a marine with level 2 weaps means that the skulk dies in 8lmg-bullets/4 pistol-bullets.....and a skulk without leap isnt that hard to hit......onos without stomp (and that easy to hit), fade cant heal fast without metabolizm(, lerk cant even help without umbra) ....and no bilebombing gorge in the vent <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
elec TF and a few turrets covering the PG is effective , and with another elec thing (RT) even fades will get hurt
I guess I should just stick to digging trenchs as that I'm really good at it...
I guess I should just stick to digging trenchs as that I'm really good at it... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
3/5 is pretty good. When I started comming, I lost all the time. Just practice and eventually you'll be giving advice in threads like this.
1 suggestion is to consider getting armor 2 before weapons 3. In 3.0 marines will take an extra bite to kill with armor 2. In fact, on large servers I usually get armor 2 before weapons 2.
I guess I should just stick to digging trenchs as that I'm really good at it... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I <b><i>really</i></b> wouldn't worry about it at all. Comming is by far the hardest part of NS. You have to indirectly get everyone on your team to win the game for you. On top of that, none of the marines has any real reason to follow your orders. You have no real way of enforcing your orders if they are disobeyed. Its tough to begin with, even if the aliens team is just as good as yours. Don't worry too much about the pace either, you'll get used to it eventually, it just take a lot of practice and time. I still get extremly frustrated comming on public games, I swear that a majority of the time my marines have no idea what their lmg are for or why those skulks things keep eating them. Just don't let it bother you too much, chalk each loss up as a learning expierence, and take a break from comming by being an alien and using all those dirty tricks they used against you against the marines that failed you horribly. Actualy... thats an excellent point, go alien often. Nothing will give you a better idea of what an alien faces or thinks about then being one against good and bad comms. Knowing what the aliens are going to do, or are likely to do will help you out emensely.
On another note, I have never commed before but would like to try... but I'm afraid of just getting kicked because I won't know what i'm doing the first few times... does anyone know of relatively noob servers I could practice in? I know there's a thread for noob servers, but its outdated and mostly likely no longer valid.
Start with 1 IP, and an Arm, then go for another RT, Arms lab, upgrade Armory, another RT, Then Proto, upgrading weapons and armour.
That seems to be a basic set-up from waht I've seen.
As long as marines stick together it's ok. But if you have 4 lame noobs in your team you really can't do much.
When im marine, im usually not really arsed if theres some silent guy sitting in the chair who doesnt know english. Then i just run off and rambo a bit.
Now, if theres someone inspiring with voice comms, or one who ive seen get many victories before, who seems like a good comm who knows whats required to win, i'll do anything and do my best to help out, get rt, etc.
You have to give them the impression that you can win any game as comm, as long as the marines do what you want them to do.
Of course, being a regular on a server helps immensely.....But it is not necessary. Ive said it once before; on the first day of public 3.0 beta release, i had a team of total newbies on my team. i think ONE guy who had played before, but they all tried their best for some reason... I think the calm use of voice comms really helped...
Moral of the story: Gain their respect first, and let them win the game for you second <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Even completely new people will listen to you if you explain it to them.. for example if you are giving WP and see rines ignoring it, simply explain why they have such WP, what is current plan and so on..
Always report hive at beggining (you can find hive by listening for RT in hive), this simple act usually convinces experienced players that you are not new, they gain faight and tend to listen more (it also causes some rambo marine to run to hive and kill great numbers of skulks - this is usually very usefull).
Some individuals might always ignore your orders, but they actually do you a good service by hunting on random places and disturbing aliens.. If you have team too strictly obeying orders/WPs, it sometimes causes aliens to expand more, than random running rines. Often those ignoring orders are very skilled and experienced players who evaluate situation by themselves (checking map frequently) and for example try to capture and hold middle hive early, try to spawn kill aliens or sneak to get PG near hive that is up.
Never blame failures on marines (ie. you see 6 rines killed by 1 skulk), don't blame them, instead get lvl2 armor and medspam more, which really helps in early stages allowing you better control over map very early. Even inferior rines can win, I have seen victories where rines had 2 times less kills than aliens (sneaky PG is usually the way then..)
So my general advice: if they ignore you- explain, .. or even just talk orders, you dont need WPs if you explain them what to do, or what is happening. Giving specific order to specific person also helps (calling his name directly)
I like when the commander is more hands on. Giving waypoints, communicating, etc.
I guess I should just stick to digging trenchs as that I'm really good at it... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
3/5 is pretty good. When I started comming, I lost all the time. Just practice and eventually you'll be giving advice in threads like this.
1 suggestion is to consider getting armor 2 before weapons 3. In 3.0 marines will take an extra bite to kill with armor 2. In fact, on large servers I usually get armor 2 before weapons 2. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those 3 times were on small 4v3/4v4 games and such. Last time I commed was on Ayumi, it was 1v1 for a bit then 2v2. A guy joined as they were attacking A35, and I told him to phase and I'll give him anything he wants. That worked very well, and we won through a series if jp rushes and keeping them with a building hive. The problem is that those 2 loses were HORRID as hell. I'm talking of servers you frequent, doing everything you can and nothing working because all the people go 100 different ways while you're telling them double is under attack. Everything that could go wrong did, expecially when some uber clanner went fade. When that happens, I just type quit in console and find another game.