After A Few Days Play
adventurer
Join Date: 2005-03-11 Member: 44842Members
Join Date: 2005-03-11 Member: 44842Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Just some newbie observations on combat</div> Hey there,
I've definitely enjoyed playing NS for the first time for a couple of days. However, its very hard to 'get' the game as a newbie - even the combat game takes a while to get into. I'm going to restrict my observations to combat here: the one classic game I played was a bit of a nightmare...
There needs to be more in the community manual than just the description of all the classes, technologies and so on. Its definitely worth having a first timers guide. Funnily enough (and I expect most people to be the same) I expected the marines to be the easier side to play as a new player. However, my hunch is, its actually easier to play as an alien, particularly during the first part of the game, or if there is not that many players in the game.
The main reason for this, is that it is far easier to get experience as an alien than a marine - by attacking the marine command centre. This doesn't require any skill, particularly the ability to hit fast moving targets, which is how marines get their experience early on. If you need to improve your ability to do this, just get silence and scent of fear (so you know when the marine's aren't guarding their base). Any other mutation is pretty much a waste of time (including cloak) to start off with.
The biggest killer for the newbie game is the fact it is so hard for new players to earn experience, so that they can get a feel for what to spend it on. For instance, it wasn't until I played a couple of games with a large number of players on the marine side, where we had to defend multiple onos rushes, that I was able to buy HMGs and grenade launchers and see what the relative worth was of each weapon, as well as take advantage of motion tracking. And similiarly, it wasn't until I realised the command centre rush technique was the most viable way of getting experience for aliens, that I could judge the relative worth of silence vs cloaking, and think about upgrading other areas.
As an example of this, I've just played a 2 marines vs 1 alien game with me as the alien, which as far as I can tell, the alien player will always win. The aliens can inflict damage much faster than marines, particularly as marines are likely to run out of ammunition attacking the hive. In this instance, it forced both marines to come back to their command centre and kill me, and by the time this had happened, I had enough experience to upgrade to a fade, and then by getting 3 more marine kills, could upgrade to an onos, which is effectively game over this early in the game (I had been killed 3, maybe 4 times max). This is the first game I even attempted to upgrade to a different life form.
Marines by nature, have to either spawn camp or jet pack rush in order to take the hive, and its still possible to defend camping as a skulk, particularly if you can get in a scent of fear mutation and your are playing a map with a sufficiently convoluted hive structure. Most of the NS maps I've played encourage spawn camping by the marines, and should probably be redesigned so that the aliens come from (for instance) multiple hidden vents and have plenty of darkness to hide in around the hive.
So my suggestions for improving newbie game play in combat are probably:
1. Give 1 level for free to each player for (say) every 2 minutes that elapse without them earning a successful level. This allows newbies to 'fail' to do anything useful, but still get a chance to try out mutations and different technologies.
2. Improve the design of areas around the hive, to allow aliens to defend spawn camping. The aliens need to be able to come from multiple directions and have locations that they can hide in.
3. Similiarly, marines need something to defend against an early skulk rush, particularly as newbie marines tend to get cut down very quickly by experienced skulk players. Maybe giving giving all marines motion tracking for the first 30 seconds of the game would help things for these players. From my experience in classic, this could probably help the marines in that version too...
Anyway, just some thoughts. I'm definitely enjoying playing.
Andrew
I've definitely enjoyed playing NS for the first time for a couple of days. However, its very hard to 'get' the game as a newbie - even the combat game takes a while to get into. I'm going to restrict my observations to combat here: the one classic game I played was a bit of a nightmare...
There needs to be more in the community manual than just the description of all the classes, technologies and so on. Its definitely worth having a first timers guide. Funnily enough (and I expect most people to be the same) I expected the marines to be the easier side to play as a new player. However, my hunch is, its actually easier to play as an alien, particularly during the first part of the game, or if there is not that many players in the game.
The main reason for this, is that it is far easier to get experience as an alien than a marine - by attacking the marine command centre. This doesn't require any skill, particularly the ability to hit fast moving targets, which is how marines get their experience early on. If you need to improve your ability to do this, just get silence and scent of fear (so you know when the marine's aren't guarding their base). Any other mutation is pretty much a waste of time (including cloak) to start off with.
The biggest killer for the newbie game is the fact it is so hard for new players to earn experience, so that they can get a feel for what to spend it on. For instance, it wasn't until I played a couple of games with a large number of players on the marine side, where we had to defend multiple onos rushes, that I was able to buy HMGs and grenade launchers and see what the relative worth was of each weapon, as well as take advantage of motion tracking. And similiarly, it wasn't until I realised the command centre rush technique was the most viable way of getting experience for aliens, that I could judge the relative worth of silence vs cloaking, and think about upgrading other areas.
As an example of this, I've just played a 2 marines vs 1 alien game with me as the alien, which as far as I can tell, the alien player will always win. The aliens can inflict damage much faster than marines, particularly as marines are likely to run out of ammunition attacking the hive. In this instance, it forced both marines to come back to their command centre and kill me, and by the time this had happened, I had enough experience to upgrade to a fade, and then by getting 3 more marine kills, could upgrade to an onos, which is effectively game over this early in the game (I had been killed 3, maybe 4 times max). This is the first game I even attempted to upgrade to a different life form.
Marines by nature, have to either spawn camp or jet pack rush in order to take the hive, and its still possible to defend camping as a skulk, particularly if you can get in a scent of fear mutation and your are playing a map with a sufficiently convoluted hive structure. Most of the NS maps I've played encourage spawn camping by the marines, and should probably be redesigned so that the aliens come from (for instance) multiple hidden vents and have plenty of darkness to hide in around the hive.
So my suggestions for improving newbie game play in combat are probably:
1. Give 1 level for free to each player for (say) every 2 minutes that elapse without them earning a successful level. This allows newbies to 'fail' to do anything useful, but still get a chance to try out mutations and different technologies.
2. Improve the design of areas around the hive, to allow aliens to defend spawn camping. The aliens need to be able to come from multiple directions and have locations that they can hide in.
3. Similiarly, marines need something to defend against an early skulk rush, particularly as newbie marines tend to get cut down very quickly by experienced skulk players. Maybe giving giving all marines motion tracking for the first 30 seconds of the game would help things for these players. From my experience in classic, this could probably help the marines in that version too...
Anyway, just some thoughts. I'm definitely enjoying playing.
Andrew
Comments
I don't think so.
You'll just sit back, wait 10 mintues for level 5, go onos or something, free levels, or get a JP right off the bat.
And I don't think the problem is with aliens chomping on the CC, skulks die very fast, you just have to know how to aim, and how to anticipate the motion of the skulks bhop/jump/wallclimb.
Combat just gives you the feel of the game, NS maps are the maps worth playing.
Attacking the chair is not the best way to get experience. It shouldn't take marines very long to decide to camp in their base to kill skulks. Even if the game is only 4v4, one marine can guard base while the other three move out. If a marine stands far away from the entrances, he should easily be able to kill the skulk that enters base, maybe even two. Also, any marine with a welder can get as much experience from welding the command chair as a skulk gets from attacking it, so it evens out.
You make it sound like Jetpackers are overpowered - they're not. They are easily countered by lerks and leaping skulks. As for the spawn camping part of it, little can be helped especially a 2v1 game, just lure them out.
Your suggestions are invalid, and even if they weren't - I have to say that there are more 'pros' than 'newbies' as you like to say it. Giving points out regularly will just cause the game to go on and on - and repetition sucks. Although, there are some servers that run AMX Mod, that is - a third party addon to the game. AMX Mod gives out free points if you join late, so it improves 'balance' as many people would call it.
Your second point again, seems a bit off. You cannot _defend_ a spawn camp. There simply isn't such thing. All the mapping in the world couldn't rid spawn camping, even an extra two vents wouldn't - because marines'll simply just camp those vents.
Your third point again, would cause a lot of tension in the game. 30 seconds of Motion Tracking will just encourage alien skulks to camp in corners, and even though you know where they are - you can't possibly remember them all. Let's not forget you don't have eyes at the back of your head, so you cannot simply keep track of them all. (unless you're talking about an unpopulated server, but heck - why play with only 4 people? <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
My suggestion to you is, play in populated servers - they are the ones that you have most fun in. You have 'backup' so to speak. Experienced players are generally in there playing and you can always ask for tips and tricks of the like. After you get the 101s of the game, and get used to aiming and such - move on to the vanilla maps where you incorperate strategy and teamwork to win; which is possibly one of the reasons why Natural Selection is a great game.
Give the game a few more days, if not a few more weeks - you'll slowly understand why the game was made the way it was, and that it was the most logical thing to do... at the time. =]
Happy gaming.
I don't think so.
You'll just sit back, wait 10 mintues for level 5, go onos or something, free levels, or get a JP right off the bat.
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But a newbie with an Onos or a JP is still a newbie... I know. I've onos'ed up, and still been taken down by a single guy with an HMG.
And I'm not saying that aliens chomping on the CC is a problem. I'm saying its a good thing. You've said 'you just have to know how to aim, and how to ancipate the motion of skulks bhop/jump/wallclimb'. But, by definition, a newbie doesn't know how to do these things, so how do they get experience, other than by chomping on the CC, and the odd lucky shot?
If 'combat is just to learn the game', why not give away free experience in combat games so at least newbies get to try out everything...
Andrew
Attacking the chair is not the best way to get experience. It shouldn't take marines very long to decide to camp in their base to kill skulks. Even if the game is only 4v4, one marine can guard base while the other three move out. If a marine stands far away from the entrances, he should easily be able to kill the skulk that enters base, maybe even two. Also, any marine with a welder can get as much experience from welding the command chair as a skulk gets from attacking it, so it evens out. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've played a lot more than just a single 2v1 game. (However, I have also now played a 3 marine vs 1 alien game, where pretty much the same thing happened - I was on the marine side this time, and lost).
Having small games balanced that a single player can take on 3 opponents seems a little... interesting...
I guess we are talking about pub games here though, where its always (?) possible to find a crowded server.
Attacking the chair is not always the best way to get experience. Attacking the chair if you are a newbie, and a marine or alien can kill you in a one on one (Which is the case for a lot of newbies) *is* probably the best way to get experience, regardless of the number of people in the game.
And its a lot harder for marines than skulks to sneak into the enemy base. Thus my observations.
I would always want to go 2 marines on 1 alien with newbie marines, particularly if they don't or can't go armour 1. And some base designs allow skulks to get very close to the CC before getting in LOF.
I didn't know about the welding xp. I'll test it out and see if that helps things. Does getting a welder require xp in combat? Because that'd prevent it from helping newbies without xp, which is what my original post was about.
EDIT: Welder cost 1 point.
You mentioned 3 marines v 1 alien. Marines can easily win that unless they are extremely crap (no offence). Even if you flip it so its 3 aliens v 1 marine the marine can still win if he is good enough.
Yes you need xp to get a welder.
And if you start giving newbies XP its pretty pointless really isnt it if you think about it. In CS for example (using this as an example because everyone will have heard of it even though it is a DIRTY DIRTY GAME that should be burnt) would you want to give all the newbies weapons that automatically lock on and big lumps of armour so they have a chance?
Like with any other game it will take time for you to learn all the little things about the game but you should really be able to jump in with combat if you have played an fps before (which im sure 99.99% of people who are playing will have because it is a mod of an fps) and just go about shooting things. It won't take long for you to realise or if you don't have a clue where you are going. Just to follow around other people. Do something wrong (i.e. jump out at marines when there are 8 of them and the person you are with has cloak) and you will get shouted at by who you were with and know that was a bad idea and you wont do it again. Follow around others and you will get XP when they kill people letting you get upgrades.
I think the most common problem though isn't not getting any XP it is not reading the manual before hand so you know about the XP.
I agree that the best way to advance from the newbie stage is to play the game. However, I didn't start to enjoy the game as a newbie until I realised (a) getting experience is the most important thing to do and (b) what's the best way to get experience when you are first starting a game.
Attacking the CC isn't the only way of getting xp as an alien: hiding in corners and getting behind the enemy, particularly after you can afford the silence upgrade so they can't hear you coming. Holding back as a marine, and finding a long corridor that skulks have to run down to attack the base is another really good way of getting xp. So are other ways: the problem for a newbie is that they won't have fun until they get some xp to spend, but its not clear for new players, what the easy ways of getting xp are. That's why one of my suggestions was to give players who are not doing well (e.g. noobs) free xp.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> You make it sound like Jetpackers are overpowered - they're not. They are easily countered by lerks and leaping skulks. As for the spawn camping part of it, little can be helped especially a 2v1 game, just lure them out.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Jetpackers aren't overpowered at all. However, as a newbie, I'm never going to kill a jet packer, particularly not with my skulk with no experience, so I just ignore them and concentrate on other things.
Spawn camping is an odious experience for all alien players and it gets worse in larger games, not better, when the marine weight of numbers starts to bear out. How are you supposed to 'lure' someone out when within 0.2 seconds of starting, your skulk is hit by a shottie blast. This is particularly encouraged by the fact that all the alien lifeforms take a long time to gestate so its in the marine interest to get to the alien spawn and shoot those onus eggs.
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You cannot _defend_ a spawn camp. There simply isn't such thing. All the mapping in the world couldn't rid spawn camping, even an extra two vents wouldn't - because marines'll simply just camp those vents.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree. Some spawn areas are a lot easier to defend than others. The key thing is those spawn areas that are good for skulks and bad for marines e.g. lots of vents and dark corners, not too many long sight lines. For instance, to camp the 'aliens start in vents idea' you'd need 1 marine staring down each possible vent attentively, as opposed to 1 or 2 marines (total) running around a nice open spawn area.
I'm not saying that all alien spawns should be nothing but vents - I'm saying that all alien spawn areas should be built with the specific purpose of discouraging marine camping, by making it easier to defend against camping. I'll get some map names of the ones I feel are better and get back to you.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Your third point again, would cause a lot of tension in the game. 30 seconds of Motion Tracking will just encourage alien skulks to camp in corners, and even though you know where they are - you can't possibly remember them all.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Huh!?! You are arguing that Motion Tracking for marines at the start would advantage the alien player because it would encourage camping in corners??? Um, what exactly else to skulks do at the start of the game?
Anyway, thanks heaps for your response. Its good to hear other peoples opinions. After all, I am a noob.
Andrew
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I agree that participating in fire fights with experienced players is a good way to get xp. Often I'll be skulking around just outside the marine base, and some of my more capable comrades will rush in and I'll get some free xp.
But if I'm directly in said fire fights, I'm going to die before my more experienced colleagues kill many of the opposition, so I won't get the xp for their kills 90% of the time.
Having said that, pretty much everytime I play as a marine, I rely on over 50% of my experience early on from experienced players either (a) shooting aliens that I've missed or (b) shooting and then being killed by aliens that I sometimes hit enough times to actually kill.
Its not until I get a shotgun (armour 1, weapon 1, shotgun) or HMG by which time there are some big targets called onus's which have appeared on the opposition team, that I can reliably kill aliens even close to 50% of the time on a 1-on-1 (or 3-on-1 against onus).
So your tactic is great for marines. But as I said, I think newbies should actually play aliens.
I'm thinking about getting some mines, but I'm not sure if they come back if I die.
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EDIT: Welder cost 1 point.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thanks. If a welder costs 1 point, its probably worth putting in the welder description that you can use it to get xp.
Andrew
And if you start giving newbies XP its pretty pointless really isnt it if you think about it. In CS for example (using this as an example because everyone will have heard of it even though it is a DIRTY DIRTY GAME that should be burnt) would you want to give all the newbies weapons that automatically lock on and big lumps of armour so they have a chance?
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To take your example, CS would be a lot more newby friendly if you could have an auto-target option (like half-life). Experienced players would hate it, of course, because it points the gun where the target is, not where its going to be.
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Like with any other game it will take time for you to learn all the little things about the game but you should really be able to jump in with combat if you have played an fps before (which im sure 99.99% of people who are playing will have because it is a mod of an fps) and just go about shooting things. It won't take long for you to realise or if you don't have a clue where you are going. Just to follow around other people. Do something wrong (i.e. jump out at marines when there are 8 of them and the person you are with has cloak) and you will get shouted at by who you were with and know that was a bad idea and you wont do it again. Follow around others and you will get XP when they kill people letting you get upgrades.
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There is a quite good discussion elsewhere on the forums that points out how unforgiving on mistakes classic games are.
If you're a commander, and some of your marines can't hit the attacking players, you may as well give up.
Combat is a lot more forgiving: I've only been sworn at once, for blocking the escape route for a lerk.
Natural Selection (combat) is pretty newbie friendly. Of all the multiplayer games in the half-life stable that I've tried, I'd say only Half-Life Death Match CTF comes close.
Andrew
Every time you spawn you get 1 mine.
You're completely right. The whole point of me and all the other newbies out there playing Natural Selection is to stand around doing nothing. That's much more interesting than trying to learn to play the game.
Sorry if my sarcasm is a little strong.
NS is a complicated game, and it's nearly impossible to get a scenario where new players have a chance to learn anything against experienced players. If you are playing on a small server, then the skill difference really stands out.
If you want to look at co as just a learning area for moving onto ns, then you have to realize that a big part of ns mode is played as an unupgraded/single upgrade skulk, or as a vanilla/armor 1 marine. You need to be decent at that. If you always have 3 upgrades to start out as an alien, or a shotgun and armor 1 as a marine, you will never develop basic skills that are needed for ns mode. NS has a steep learning curve, and the changes you suggested don't help players get past it. My suggestion at the beginning of the post doesn't either, actually. The only way to get better is to play. I would recommend finding a 20 player server to practice on (or at least 14 players, but bigger is probably better), so that your teammates can help out a lot.
Sometime during beta 3 or 2 aliens got free XP over time. all they did was camp in base and wait for marines to come in.
putting free <b>levels</b> for <i>both</i> teams will make it worse. Both teams will end up camping inside base forever until everybody got to level 10.
For that you deserve to be on the receiving end of my focused cloaked skulk.
Then you will see how 'pointless' it is when ur hp is at 0.
Zero.
Nil.
Nada.
Zippo.
Sorry if my pro-cloaking revenge post is a bit strong. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Incidentally,CO is a bad way to get into NS. Start with NS games.
For that you deserve to be on the receiving end of my focused cloaked skulk.
Then you will see how 'pointless' it is when ur hp is at 0.
Zero.
Nil.
Nada.
Zippo.
Sorry if my pro-cloaking revenge post is a bit strong. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Incidentally,CO is a bad way to get into NS. Start with NS games. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
??
He said cloaking isn't great for a newb, not cloaking isn't great period.
Combat is a much better way of getting into NS then playing Ns games. The learning curve is nowhere near as steep.
if you do that, you dont even need cloak.
silence, celerity or carapace (incase he sees you) will do just fine.
in this case focus is even better
kill from out of the sky.
there is no point of cloaking if you are just going to hide in places marines are unaware of.
now for aliens, aliens have one important thing, surprise. they are small and quick, but no matter how fast they are, usually if one or 3 skulks come at me, i usually will kill them all( mebbe two with 1 lmg clip and 1 with pistol).
almost always wen i get killed by an alien, its outa nowhere. from behind or the sides.
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> (imagine marine dieing)
now also, if u want to get better with aliens, i suggest u play The Specialists. play it likes its meant to b played. flip evry moment of combat in that game and ur practicing dexerity/swiftness with ur keyboard.
Well, your are talking about combat. In NS_ you don't get weapons with every life, you are usually a vanilla marine/skulk.
2- in most maps, aliens spawn randomly in large radius. if there is no spawnkill, there is no winning...
3- skulks are very easy to die from all sorts of weapons except knife and welder. just get mines and mine around cc and your team will be fine.
i suggest you stay away from classic until u learned basic concept of the game, because if you do something wrong, your teammates will criticize you heavily, and its not a pretty sight. you can always join bot servers, like rines vs alien bots or the most evil ns server or something like that...