commander & team communication
Cyberwarrior00785
Join Date: 2010-02-20 Member: 70651Members
Join Date: 2010-02-20 Member: 70651Members
i've noticed over my past few games that there is not much to allow the alien team and commander to rely on each other there is no communication between the commander and the rest of the alien team especially when compared to the marine team. is there a way to fix this?
Comments
Moreover I feel the AC is partially responsible for the balance upset right now. In NS1 you had the early game resource sink that was the Gorge. You needed your three upgrade chambers, multiple RTs, and a second hive. Typically this came from multiple people on the team and as I said, it was an early game resource sink. In NS2 however the upgrade chambers, RTs, and hives have all been pushed to the commander thereby removing the resource sink completely. True the Gorge right now is still a resource sink, but for an entirely unrelated and different <b>problem</b>; no one wants or needs to go Gorge and spend their res on mini-cysts or hydras right now.
In my opinion the removal of the early game Gorge resource sink is why you see so many people complaining about Aliens getting higher life-forms out really fast. The team literally has nothing [other than upgrades] to spend their early game resources on, which allows it to stockpile until suddenly you have multiple Fades or Onuses all popping up at once. Unlike in NS1 when generally the team collectively dumped their early res into fast upgrades/RTs/hives, in NS2 the entire resource sink has been moved to a role on the team that is independent of the players.
Thus (going to pull numbers out of my ass here to emphasize my point) instead of having this xyz dominating Alien team at 30 minutes, you have it at 15 minutes and no effort on anyone's part but the Alien Commander.
Trying to shoehorn 'extra information' into games is almost always a giant failure.
Trying to shoehorn 'extra information' into games is almost always a giant failure.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's like telling people who can't get into EVE to "man up and learn the game".
Expecting your playerbase to compensate for flaws in gamedesign is usually considered lazy and bad gamedesign.
Yes, using the Mic and voicechat in general had been and is still a big part of the original NS1 charme, but it's heavy dependence on it also lead to very awkward community interaction that prevented the game from reaching "mainstream status".
Because most new players had to depend on experienced players to "teach them the game and how to play" trough voice interaction while playing the game.
And as such the community compensated for the games steep learning curve with NS1, but that only works to a certain degree/scale of community.
Intuitive design of game mechanics can help ease in new players better and remove the requirement for them to depend on "advanced tactics" like voice chat usage.
Nobody should be forced to depend on voice chat to deliver an "A+ Game", in an ideal world you would design the game in such an way that you assume that nobody is gonna use voicechat at all.
Having to use voicechat should be considered a "failure", because voice is usually a pretty inefficient and slow way to send/signal important and complex information in an hurry.
A complex and fast game like NS2 should instead give players all the right tools without expecting them to bring their own to the fight (like an microphone).
A complex and fast game like NS2 should instead give players all the right tools without expecting them to bring their own to the fight (like an microphone).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not long ago I would have agreed with you.. but you can't deny that mic users have actually quite the advantage over people without.. and it's actually a quite fast form of getting information across to your team... I'd give examples but really you just say what comes naturally.. like letting your entire team know people are headed somewhere, AND clicking on things and making an ambush happen while you report in..... if you just used text, you'd be in chat and unable to press other buttons while doing so making you a target even for a split second - or as the commander not being able to place and move structures and drifters around while communicating to your team. I suppose a system could help but actually the marines got that waypoint system and it oftentimes blocked my view of skulks and lerks coming right at my face.. not only that but actual language over symbols that people may not recognize is another reason why voice communication is more concise.
I can recommend a mic, I use these because they were the cheapest for the best quality:
<a href="http://us.store.creative.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-Tactic3D-Alpha-Gaming/M/B0041OQKIC.htm" target="_blank">http://us.store.creative.com/Creative-Soun.../B0041OQKIC.htm</a>
all the other ones had bad reviews and I tried the turtle beach ones and those were not loud enough for NS2
Also, there is the plan for pheromones so.. some system WILL be implemented eventually anyways.
Moreover I feel the AC is partially responsible for the balance upset right now. In NS1 you had the early game resource sink that was the Gorge. You needed your three upgrade chambers, multiple RTs, and a second hive. Typically this came from multiple people on the team and as I said, it was an early game resource sink. In NS2 however the upgrade chambers, RTs, and hives have all been pushed to the commander thereby removing the resource sink completely. True the Gorge right now is still a resource sink, but for an entirely unrelated and different <b>problem</b>; no one wants or needs to go Gorge and spend their res on mini-cysts or hydras right now.
In my opinion the removal of the early game Gorge resource sink is why you see so many people complaining about Aliens getting higher life-forms out really fast. The team literally has nothing [other than upgrades] to spend their early game resources on, which allows it to stockpile until suddenly you have multiple Fades or Onuses all popping up at once. Unlike in NS1 when generally the team collectively dumped their early res into fast upgrades/RTs/hives, in NS2 the entire resource sink has been moved to a role on the team that is independent of the players.
Thus (going to pull numbers out of my ass here to emphasize my point) instead of having this xyz dominating Alien team at 30 minutes, you have it at 15 minutes and no effort on anyone's part but the Alien Commander.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree with everything you just said, aside from removing the alien Khamm and making it like it was in NS1, I think the only thing they can do is make it so Gorges are required to build alien buildings again, including resource towers. why should aliens not have to build their structures but a marine is required to build theirs, tying up the marine from doing anything else, and leaving aliens to freely go about the map and be aggressive, instantly putting marines on the defensive as soon as the game starts?
this is exactly what i was talking about! there has to be some way to make the AC more connected to the rest of the team.
Natural Selection...ville!
Yeah!
Yeah!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
just sad, the purpose of a com is to help the team stratigise and help cordinate attacks not just sit around growing gardens that just makes a AC useless!
i did not say stop growing gardens i just said there is MORE to growing gardens then that