Would it be so bad having evolutions at first hive?
Vrass
Join Date: 2012-11-04 Member: 166973Members
Join Date: 2012-11-04 Member: 166973Members
Hi all, I'm a newcomer but from what i've seen (and experienced) I think the situation for the alien's upgrade of requesting 2 hives is just absurd... How am I supposed to come back when they simply smash 2 of our hives with 3 double exos in less then 3 minutes? And I am just talking about leap and bilebomb, do what you want with the others but holy hell if aliens suck with just one hive.
I know maybe that would make early game more advantaged for alien, cause cara + leap = dead marines, but passed the first 5minutes of a game marines are already walking with shotties and w1a1 at least, don't really see any problem there.
Fear of early gorge's bb rush? Me too, just make some kind of restriction for that, or just make the game start with the main hive to be mature and allow evolutions to be researched once it is fully mature... I don't know, I just think that aliens feels clunky and not well designed, even when we win (and I usually win a lot).
I know maybe that would make early game more advantaged for alien, cause cara + leap = dead marines, but passed the first 5minutes of a game marines are already walking with shotties and w1a1 at least, don't really see any problem there.
Fear of early gorge's bb rush? Me too, just make some kind of restriction for that, or just make the game start with the main hive to be mature and allow evolutions to be researched once it is fully mature... I don't know, I just think that aliens feels clunky and not well designed, even when we win (and I usually win a lot).
Comments
I know maybe that would make early game more advantaged for alien, cause cara + leap = dead marines, but passed the first 5minutes of a game marines are already walking with shotties and w1a1 at least, don't really see any problem there.
Fear of early gorge's bb rush? Me too, just make some kind of restriction for that, or just make the game start with the main hive to be mature and allow evolutions to be researched once it is fully mature... I don't know, I just think that aliens feels clunky and not well designed, even when we win (and I usually win a lot).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hello, I'll give you my idea on how to play as the Alien Commander which is what everyone else does.
At the start of the game:
Drop a second hive asap (usually look around at the possible starting areas for marines, such as on summit where they have random spawning locations. Because when marines build things you can see it as a alien commander from flashing lights. So knowing where the marines are is usually caught up on within 5seconds if you just quickly look around the map) Or just have your team scout out the marine base, either way works.
Although I belive that the ability to spot marines and where their base is within 5seconds is abit "BS" and should be fixed, the idea is to spot where they are and "counter drop" a hive. Which means that you place the second hive as far away as possible from the marines (aka on the other side of the map)
Some maps are designed for marines to spawn in the same location and on those maps you quickly know where to drop the second hive, once you play as the commander for a couple of runs.
Second thing to do is after you've dropped the hive you start putting cysts out and link them to atleast 2 extra RT locations and place two of them. At which point when they are matured and the hive is complete (without a gorge healing the hive) you can get leap right away.
Then you decide between two things, you either:
Get celerity and carapace, then drop a ONOS egg for a player that is not a complete "hmm hmm" - Or:
Drop a ONOS egg and then get celerity and carapace asap.
This will usually win you the games on pubs.
I usually tend to go with this tactic on PUB'S because I dont trust the random rookies to be able to preform and do what is important.
So for me personally, dropping a quick onos egg is a must and I usually tend to give it to a m8 of mine,
I agree that doing this over and over again is quite boring, and things could possibly change for the better. I belive its a must untill people learn how to play.
I even had the marines take out one hive but i still came with ease. I always put the upgrade chambers at the hive furthest from marines, it is very important. Other than that you have set up your team the best you can. =)
It does have its risks but if a "random rookie" decides to take the egg, I usually tend to quickly advice the individual on what is important and where to go.
Sure some people are rambo's and wont listen to anything and just run in and die, but at the end of the day... thats the nature of all games.
At the start of the game:
Drop a second hive asap (usually look around at the possible starting areas for marines, such as on summit where they have random spawning locations. Because when marines build things you can see it as a alien commander from flashing lights. So knowing where the marines are is usually caught up on within 5seconds if you just quickly look around the map) Or just have your team scout out the marine base, either way works.
Although I belive that the ability to spot marines and where their base is within 5seconds is abit "BS" and should be fixed, the idea is to spot where they are and "counter drop" a hive. Which means that you place the second hive as far away as possible from the marines (aka on the other side of the map)
Some maps are designed for marines to spawn in the same location and on those maps you quickly know where to drop the second hive, once you play as the commander for a couple of runs.
Second thing to do is after you've dropped the hive you start putting cysts out and link them to atleast 2 extra RT locations and place two of them. At which point when they are matured and the hive is complete (without a gorge healing the hive) you can get leap right away.
Then you decide between two things, you either:
Get celerity and carapace, then drop a ONOS egg for a player that is not a complete "hmm hmm" - Or:
Drop a ONOS egg and then get celerity and carapace asap.
This will usually win you the games on pubs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well thanks for the answer but I was not asking how commanding or playing aliens works, even if see you point of view. What I am talking about is more of a mid and late game stage where, even if the aliens are dominating, a exo rush that destroys a second hive just means losing the ggame for the aliens, that is what i really cannot understand.
Plus, I dont really care about balancing around competitive esports scene or percentage of who is winning (ns2stats ec), if I'm playing a side and either winning or losing feels not funny, then something is wrong.
And plus, would it be so bad to give the aliens some other starting strategies that would not implement onos rush? That's really the only way to fast win games, because if the marines go turtle mode, good luck breaking that.
Almost stopped reading there. If you're asking why the game is over when the marines have an exo team and kill a hive I'll clear it up for you.
Generally when the hive is attacked most if not all of the team runs back to it and tries to save it, and that includes all your higher lifeforms. If you fail and the marines do kill your whole team, which is likely the case, you now are down to all skulks and down a hive. Of course they're just going to use that momentum and roll over your last 2 hives. The only possibility for you to win then rests upon whether or not you can back door them and kill their power nodes at both their tech points. I've used a hive as a decoy many times just so the marines all go after it, then most of the alien team goes and kills both their tech points.
Then they unlinked everything from the second hive, with or without maturation mechanics. For a long time we had leap first at 1 minute every game, it was fun but a bit simplistic.
Proponents of tying tech to the second hive argued that fighting for the second hive is a defining element of NS, forces team-play and is a lot of fun. Proponents of untied tech said that linking tech to the second hive hurts strategic depth, because it reduces the number of choices at the beginning of the game. Others responded that there that no strategic depth anyway because of differentially abundant lifeforms (cf. leap first every game). Some suggested that the second hive should be made important by other mechanics (giving res, ...).
Personally I think all this reflects the failure of the alien comm. It's like the true nature of the khara is rebelling against the introduction of this marine element. Somehow, despite the best efforts, it doesn't quite work.
See, I don't think khamm is a faliure. If you compare Gorge building and the Khamm, they sort of offset each other now:
- Building on the front line is risky as Gorge, but now cysts offset that cost of losing a Gorge builder
- Pres of the Gorge was used to build everything, offset by the Khamm res flow being linked
I like the Khammander, but he needs more stuff like bonewall (which I have come to love for trapping marines) and things like cyst rupture to be tweaked to be useful, etc.