Commander Gameplay
sumguy720
Join Date: 2011-02-09 Member: 81101Members
Join Date: 2011-02-09 Member: 81101Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Oh how frustrating it is!</div>Hi everybody!
I was playing NS2 the other day and I was like, oh-- nobody wants to be the commander again. I guess I'll give it a go!
So I jump into the alien hive and immediately get going with all this cyst stuff and who what and what not and know how. But pretty soon I get this very bad feeling in my brain that says "It is not easy to do anything. Damn!"
First off, I had a really hard time placing cysts for a couple reasons:
1. I kept not having enough resource to plant them. This was baffling for me because the little number said twenty five or something, yet all my resources at the top of the screen were higher than that. What is going on??
2. I was trying to build things in the next resource thingy over, so glide on over with the camera, remember I need to select a builder dude, glide back to my base, select the dude, glide over to the resource node and-- ooh. I cant build. There's a cyst right there... why can't I-- oh maybe because it's on a balcony. So I click the ground to de-select my builder-- wait, I guess that isn't a thing I can do, try right clicking, try left clicking... nope. Okay so how to I put down another cyst? Glide back to home base, select the hive, glide back to the resource node, ah now I can make a cyst. I put one down and have the builder guy do a resource thing.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out many things that should have been pretty self explanatory, so I wasn't able to do much to help my team during this.
It's not just placing cysts. It's doing anything as alien commander (maybe marine commander too?) You have to do a lot of moving the camera, and it's hard to use the minimap for this for whatever reason. I don't have much experience in RTS design, but I do know that playing warcraft when it came out was pretty intuitive, and age of empires wasn't bad to figure out, and they never required a lot of edge scrolling, or even moving the camera for the first five or ten minutes of gameplay (I mean, you know, you could manage--beginners and stuff).
I really WANT to like commander gameplay. It's the kind of thing I would like to do, but it's physically hard to play! I think a lot of focus is on the FPS elements because maybe they're a bit more exciting, but both can be fun, and it would be cool if everyone wanted to be commander, instead of losing a lot because nobody wants to deal with it.
I know I only criticize this game when I post-- but I DID buy it, and I DO play it. I just want to help.
I was playing NS2 the other day and I was like, oh-- nobody wants to be the commander again. I guess I'll give it a go!
So I jump into the alien hive and immediately get going with all this cyst stuff and who what and what not and know how. But pretty soon I get this very bad feeling in my brain that says "It is not easy to do anything. Damn!"
First off, I had a really hard time placing cysts for a couple reasons:
1. I kept not having enough resource to plant them. This was baffling for me because the little number said twenty five or something, yet all my resources at the top of the screen were higher than that. What is going on??
2. I was trying to build things in the next resource thingy over, so glide on over with the camera, remember I need to select a builder dude, glide back to my base, select the dude, glide over to the resource node and-- ooh. I cant build. There's a cyst right there... why can't I-- oh maybe because it's on a balcony. So I click the ground to de-select my builder-- wait, I guess that isn't a thing I can do, try right clicking, try left clicking... nope. Okay so how to I put down another cyst? Glide back to home base, select the hive, glide back to the resource node, ah now I can make a cyst. I put one down and have the builder guy do a resource thing.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out many things that should have been pretty self explanatory, so I wasn't able to do much to help my team during this.
It's not just placing cysts. It's doing anything as alien commander (maybe marine commander too?) You have to do a lot of moving the camera, and it's hard to use the minimap for this for whatever reason. I don't have much experience in RTS design, but I do know that playing warcraft when it came out was pretty intuitive, and age of empires wasn't bad to figure out, and they never required a lot of edge scrolling, or even moving the camera for the first five or ten minutes of gameplay (I mean, you know, you could manage--beginners and stuff).
I really WANT to like commander gameplay. It's the kind of thing I would like to do, but it's physically hard to play! I think a lot of focus is on the FPS elements because maybe they're a bit more exciting, but both can be fun, and it would be cool if everyone wanted to be commander, instead of losing a lot because nobody wants to deal with it.
I know I only criticize this game when I post-- but I DID buy it, and I DO play it. I just want to help.
Comments
It's helpful to use the ctrl + NUM groups to be able to quickly select your hives in order to drop cysts.
However, the quick guide is
1. Three 'types' of resources
TRes = Structures/upgrades/marine macs and arcs
PRes = Marine droppables (ammo/medpacks) and reloading sentry ammo
Structure energy = Hives/crags/shades/CS/obs used to active abilities or construct cyst/drifters (aliens)
2. Aliens are most often limited by their hive energy (i.e. not enough for cysts + drifters) so getting a 2nd hive is generally a priority (harder now with 100 TRes 2nd hives)
3. Marines are most often limited by TRes, so getting more res nodes is key
4. Marine comm is full-time (i.e. when not dropping structures/upgrading you usually need to drop ammo/med, beacon, scan, nano shield, control MACs/ARCs) while alien comm can be part-time (i.e. upgrade/build structures then hop out until your hive energy regenerates).