<!--quoteo(post=2022041:date=Nov 13 2012, 07:44 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Nov 13 2012, 07:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022041"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's fun for a while but it quickly becomes a bit sad. I tried hallucination spam, with like 5 things that spawn hallucinations, and micro them as quick as possible, it was fun for 30 seconds. The best thing with alien commander, alongside the old whip rush, was the drifter spam: get 3 hives, hotkey them and then do hive1-myst-drifter, hive2-myst-drifter, hive 1 drifter, hive3-myst-drifter etc. for two minutes, and then profit.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm actually really mad they got rid of drifter spam. It was the single greatest aspect of alien comm.
<!--quoteo(post=2020823:date=Nov 12 2012, 07:45 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Nov 12 2012, 07:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2020823"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think some people though about the queen idea during the beta, it could be an interesting one. You would go into the hive, evolve and drop off as a super gorgy with building powers. It would work a bit like a king/queen in chess, an important piece for the marines to kill, and important for the aliens to protect. Field commander is superior to the top-down alien in some aspect, for example you can build stuff in on the wall and ceiling.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2022100:date=Nov 13 2012, 10:54 AM:name=Shahnaz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shahnaz @ Nov 13 2012, 10:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022100"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What hapenned to the mini-cyst the gorges had?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
removed due to the unreliability of it all. you'd have gorges drop mini cysts at node points, comm drops harvester, gorge dies or changes class, mini cyst dies along with harvester. Among other scenarios. but that was when gorges could only drop hydras on infestation and infestation from comm cysts didn't climb walls so it's really not needed anymore.
<!--quoteo(post=2022118:date=Nov 13 2012, 11:22 AM:name=Davil)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Davil @ Nov 13 2012, 11:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022118"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What is not fun about getting a shift with echo and transporting like 20 fully built whips over to the marine base in a few seconds?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
one of the most gratifying experiences if pulled off. but sadly a lot of people don't know about it, which i think is the case with most of the complaints coming from 12' accounts.
<!--quoteo(post=2022136:date=Nov 14 2012, 02:35 AM:name=DJPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DJPenguin @ Nov 14 2012, 02:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022136"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->one of the most gratifying experiences if pulled off. but sadly a lot of people don't know about it, which i think is the case with most of the complaints coming from 12' accounts.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You could indeed do this in the beta for a while untill they implemented something like a long ass 10 second cd <i>only a few months ago</i> between each echo. Another case of fun biting the dust due to conflicts with balance! :p.
<!--quoteo(post=2022145:date=Nov 13 2012, 08:42 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Nov 13 2012, 08:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022145"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You could indeed do this in the beta for a while untill they implemented something like a long ass 10 second cd <i>only a few months ago</i> between each echo. Another case of fun biting the dust due to conflicts with balance! :p.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No there isn't really a cooldown on it. As soon as one is up the next one can start so I think it is only really like 2 or 3 seconds in between. The marines can't kill them fast enough usually. And if you get the ones with the bile bombs it's hilarious how fast the marine base drops.
<!--quoteo(post=2022145:date=Nov 13 2012, 11:42 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Nov 13 2012, 11:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022145"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You could indeed do this in the beta for a while untill they implemented something like a long ass 10 second cd <i>only a few months ago</i> between each echo. Another case of fun biting the dust due to conflicts with balance! :p.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i don't see the cooldown as the issue to be honest. the hard part is being able to cyst into the marine base itself without them being blasted within seconds so you can even echo the whips in.
I see so many people complain about alien commander being boring but I never see them using anything to support your team. No drifter usage, or enzyme, spike wall rarely, I never see a commander burst a cyst a marine is axing when a skulk is coming up from behind ( it pretty much blinds them for a bit), no healing wave, hallucinations, or echos. So how about you learn how to add those game changers into your play style and then complain.
<!--quoteo(post=2022152:date=Nov 14 2012, 02:52 AM:name=Davil)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Davil @ Nov 14 2012, 02:52 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022152"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No there isn't really a cooldown on it. As soon as one is up the next one can start so I think it is only really like 2 or 3 seconds in between. The marines can't kill them fast enough usually. And if you get the ones with the bile bombs it's hilarious how fast the marine base drops.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Forum logic strikes again! No cd, but there is 2-3 seconds inbetween? Anyway, just checked and its actually 5 seconds. <!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->ShiftEcho.kTeleportDelay = 5<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
It takes <b>half a minute</b> (the same ammount of time it takes to cross the distance of any map and then a bit) to teleport even just 6 whips in. mature whip has 1200 hp, dies in basically 2.5 lmg clips. So all you need is 2-3 marines to kill each and every whip in just over 2 seconds. Echo is by no means a game ender, nor an effective use of tres. Imagine if nydus only exited one unit every 5 seconds - how boring.
dj is right, the cysts are a problem too. Even more so a problem when you have such long echo cd's.
*another time i tried to move my 15 crag battery forward, it took so long the onos frontline had already moved to the next room. So on so on. Echo is now in the boring, tedious waiting category imo.
What pisses me off the most as a Alien commander is the narrow choice of strategies offered to me. If I don't go fast 2nd Hive, we lose. If I don't go fast Onos, we lose. If I go Shade hive first, we lose.
<!--quoteo(post=2022170:date=Nov 13 2012, 09:07 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Nov 13 2012, 09:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022170"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Forum logic strikes again! No cd, but there is 2-3 seconds inbetween? Anyway, just checked and its actually 5 seconds. <!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->ShiftEcho.kTeleportDelay = 5<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
It takes <b>half a minute</b> (the same ammount of time it takes to cross the distance of any map and then a bit) to teleport even just 6 whips in. mature whip has 1200 hp, dies in basically 2.5 lmg clips. So all you need is 2-3 marines to kill each and every whip in just over 2 seconds. Echo is by no means a game ender, nor an effective use of tres. Imagine if nydus only exited one unit every 5 seconds - how boring.
dj is right, the cysts are a problem too. Even more so a problem when you have such long echo cd's.
*another time i tried to move my 15 crag battery forward, it took so long the onos frontline had already moved to the next room. So on so on. Echo is now in the boring, tedious waiting category imo.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Honestly I don't care what the script you found says, cause it's not exact with real time. Seriously try it yourself. And I don't consider it a cooldown because it's not like it does it instantly and nothing is happening. You actually have time before the one you just echoed comes up to put up another 1 in the exact same spot. Also it's atleast a full second before the building comes up that you can start the next one. As long as you're using the hot keys it's really only about 3 seconds in between each one coming in. So in actual practice, and not your oh so wonderful theory-crafting, it takes more like 20 seconds to move those whips in. If you have 2 or 3 marines that are able to orient quickly enough to start killing 6 whips that are popping up right next to them in the span of 20 seconds that's quite a team.
Lol just noticing something even more awesome while testing I tried selecting 2 shifts and teleporting whips with them. Turns out it'll teleport 2 at the same time in the exact same spot! So now you can move 6 whips in 10 seconds. Hell you could even move 3, 4, 5, 6, or however many you want at once. As a side not I timed it and 6 took me 21.3 seconds to move with one shift, 11.1 with 2 shifts. GG
<!--quoteo(post=2021692:date=Nov 13 2012, 04:58 AM:name=grazr)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (grazr @ Nov 13 2012, 04:58 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021692"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My only problem is how detatched the alien commander is from his team. The alien com doesn't require any player help in order to build structures like harvesters so it's always "harass marine roll out while i get resources up in my own leisure" and the success of the round depends on the success of that harass and partly whether the com bangs his head against a brick wall by advancing towards the marine base instead of away from it where marines have no map control.
I understand that the developers like the concept of a-symmetry and they can differentiate commander styles by having aliens rely on cysts but maybe they should be more expensive. A marine cutting off a cyst chain isn't nearly as annoying as it should be as it barely scratches the alien economy when they are replaced as they are destroyed providing they have at least 3 harvesters up. Nothing really bugs the alien commander like it does a marine one. At the very least, if the developers want to reduce the amount of micro for alien coms in comparison to marines, they could at least add in a little resource management to put in some actual RTS element.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I totally agree with you, when I play alien commander, I just focus expanding and having 3 hives. I don't even need my team to capture res points, cause i can use whips to destroy marine extractors and i can build everything by myself. Also cysts are so cheap that I can spam and troll the entire map with it instoring a psycological barrier wich many marines wont dare to cross.
Right know I believe that an alien commander, by controling a big portion of the map, is the win or loose power of a game. Sad only that he does it by himself not requiring any help from his team.
My idea to counter this would be to limit for example the cyst chains to 5 or 10 in a row max and then you'd have to place a special, more expensive (between 5 and 10 res) "relay cyst" inbetween two chains wich could eventually only be grown with the help of a gorge. What do you think?
Because right now while the marine commander needs marines to expand, the aliens, quite unfairly, can harras the marines while the khammander keeps expanding by himself with no help at all, and that anoys me when i play marine commander. Marines are a vital resource to expanding while a khammander just sends his troups as cannonfodder without even caring about them...
<!--quoteo(post=2022184:date=Nov 13 2012, 12:26 PM:name=Shahnaz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shahnaz @ Nov 13 2012, 12:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2022184"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What pisses me off the most as a Alien commander is the narrow choice of strategies offered to me. If I don't go fast 2nd Hive, we lose. If I don't go fast Onos, we lose. If I go Shade hive first, we lose.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Dunno who you're playing with. I hardly ever rush hive two. I usually onos egg after two hives and most upgrades. That' about 1.5 minutes before the rest show up.
I shade hive OFTEN (with silence on smaller maps, and cloaking is 100% now with camo), and even crag a bit with regen now.
IT's all in telling your team what you plan to do, getting consensus, and adapting playstyle to it.
If you drop immediate hive without telling the team first, and marines find it before a gorge is there, you didn't communicate.
If you drop shade without telling the team and ensuring they're aware it limits eggs until second hive, you didn't communicate.
If you dont' feel you have a competent group to do these things, don't. Stick to what works or find a better server with more team based players.
There is nothing wrong with there being a difference between how both sides command. I prefer it this way. When you homogenize everything in a game, the game begins very stale. I'm all in favor of more micro toys, but I like the "gardener" approach that the alien commander has. They should really call it the Kharra Keeper.
I have to say that i love playing as alien commander. and i dont think its boring, u can do a lot of stuff. Preparing traps for marines. place some whips around the cornen and when they walk around trap them with your spike wall. Or help your onos to escape or trap the marines who are running for their life.
I like alien com, its fine as it is, maybe 1 more active abillity ( babblers ? anyone ? )
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Noobs need to learn how to play alien comm.. :P
Check some of these fun things to do...
Hallucinating onos into a base with a rush causes pandemonium
Hallucinating hives to draw marines into traps
Succesfully repel an attack on a hive, marines regroup, wait till they have a full forward base set-up and move the hive to another tech-point..
These are just a few of the great tactics available to keep the alien comm busy. Plus, get out of the chair for a bit and do some damage on the field...
Really, there are so many unexplored options as alien comm, many of which are hilarious to watch marines trying to deal with... When I am bored as alien comm I love to mess with the marines... Use your imaginations and don't think solely about upgrades. Shift is great fun as first upgrade, but so is shade..
Go away and see how you can mess with marine minds as khamm. The deception and intrigue :D
agree 100% with OP. i like to sometimes command marines, and it can sometimes get hard to focus and tell your team where to go to expand. you drop medpacs and ammo... and you can actually give people waypoints which i just don't seem to be able to do as alien for some reason... also why cant i waypoint exos either... stuff is weird, but its still fun, it feels like a very intense RTS game, where its 50% you and 50% your team whether you win or lose.
With aliens i prefer to just play skulk, then go to lerk and troll people (onos gets boring fast, fade needs blink to be effective and is too expensive to get if you don't know whether you got blink or not), i avoid commanding as much as possible, its easy, it depends more on your team than you whether you win or lose all you have to do is build cysts, harvesters and upgrade this and that, you can try to command your team to defend this and that position, works every time if marines are focusing on pushing one spot... gets harder if the marines spread out a bit and push more locations, your team wont handle it. usually if thats the case, you lose harvesters, you lose hives, you lose game.
Only thing you can really do other than the basic stuff that must be done is build a 5 second wall out of infestation... yay.
Whips are also underpowered, aliens need a stronger defense structure or longer range defense structure.
Aliens can do so much less than marines as comm that it hurts the pride of my brain cells.
I don't have anything against the NS2 alien commander, except that it really cut down the gorge's ability set, and alien comm also gained most of the interesting features that could have gone to new lifeforms.
Outside of Alien commander, NS2 aliens didn't get <i>any</i> new evolutions.
Marine commander is a strict parent, you do what he says or you lose. He influences everything and directly affects the battle.
Alien commander is an intelligence agent who likes to garden. You steadily spread the creep, build structures to support allied movement, research based on lifeforms your team want, monitor marine movements using drifters and attempt to direct alien team focus.
Personally I enjoy both, just wish alien commander had maybe 1 or 2 extra abilities that were off structures.
<!--quoteo(post=2021107:date=Nov 12 2012, 03:51 PM:name=SpaceJew)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SpaceJew @ Nov 12 2012, 03:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2021107"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Comparing Pub games to competitive play is something you should never do. At the very least because of the difference in team size. Can you honestly tell me that in a server with 12 people per team you have time to get out of the hive for long periods of time and do something else? If you do, GG, because your Cyst chains will be in tatters after a minute. On top of that, why build chambers at forward positions in a competitive game? It's all rushing, rushing, rushing, with no time to stop for two seconds and heal. 'Hit and run' doesn't seem to be the mantra of competitive play, instead it's rush as quickly as you can and kill as many of the other team as you can. At least, that's how it looks to me.
As far as it being 'fun' or not, well that's highly subjective. There are plenty of people that think being alien commander is the most fun you can have in NS2, myself included. I won't lie and say it's perfect, but it has all the necessary tools to get the job done and be fun while doing it. Anything they add on will be gravy.
I see a ton of alien commanders that never spawn a single drifter, never build a single whip, and don't build any structures. Can such a commander win? Of course. Are they helping as much as they could? Certainly not. They aren't saving for an early Onos either, they're just suboptimal commanders. In time, more commanders will learn the more advanced options and the complaints will recede.
As a final point, I see <i>very</i> few players that go gorge, and even fewer gorges that will actually interact with the commander. If you think whips and forward structures are useless, it's because you don't have a competent gorge helping you out. Team work is still rewarded as a gorge, you just gotta work with the hive a little. A gorge healing a few whips while covering them with Hydra's behind a clog can hold off <i>several</i> marines, depending on the situation.
I view alien command as being an enabler. You enable your team to do what they do best, while supporting them with structures and watching the places where they aren't. There are strategies certainly, but if you have a player that is an amazing fade you want to get him blink before leap. Aliens, more than marines, requires your team to be vocal in what they can do. My job as commander is made infinitely easier if one or two team-mate's step up and coordinate the skulks running around with them. It's a 'boots on the ground' leadership dynamic, since it's all about timing your attacks as skulks. I can lead a skulk to marines, but I can't make them slaughter. Good players don't need to be prodded to work together a lot of the time, whereas bad players won't listen no matter what the circumstance.
Gorge is an area denial / heavy assault specialist right now. Bile bomb is one of the single best abilities in NS2, and yet is one of the most underused life forms in public play. For 10 P.Res, it is quite possibly the best upgrade you can buy if you like stopping the Marines cold. You might not kill them all immediately, but unless they charge en masse you have a very good chance at killing them all eventually. (Did you know heal spray damages marines, and can be fired through your clog walls? Weakens marines for your Hydra's on the other side when they inevitably push through. Spit also does <i>a ton</i> of damage if you can hit someone with it.)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have to agree with everything you've said here. I for one find myself perfectly busy enough as alien comm (I'm not a pro player), and I know I'm still not using everything at my disposal. Perhaps it's more a mentality of 'single player online game' that leads to this idea that communication and coordination aren't important... Those are certainly the two things that I look for in a team when I'm playing: if you can't work together, you're not going to win - and that takes a LOT of dedication and effort on the commander's part. Yes, it's not as 'fast paced and frenetic' as the marine commander, but I for one appreciate that. I can spend a little more time getting my slow brain working through strategies rather than having a heart attack because I'm unable to drop 4 medpacks in 3 different areas of the map while simultaneously scanning for res/hives, directing 3 different groups of marines to build/defend/attack and also making sure the upgrades are coming in not one second late...
I dare say the competition players didn't stay in the hive all the time because they were saving for an early onos. At least that was the case in all the videos I watched, which isn't all of them but is at least a handful. If you want to try something different, it requires a LOT more attention, and also organising a bunch of pub players, many of whom are good but some really struggle with teamwork and communication, requires more effort from the khamm as well.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->2) Drifter + enzyme cloud combines to cost 5 Tres, a HUGE cost for a measley 25% attack speed boost when most people already can't use their full attack speed to accurately attack marines. Even if you assume the drifter lives every time, thats still 2 res for a crappy ability.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Structures and power nodes can't dodge. 25% extra attack speed can make the difference between a successful base rush, or allowing the marine comm enough time to call in a beacon.
<!--quoteo(post=2025950:date=Nov 16 2012, 01:14 PM:name=Jiggles)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jiggles @ Nov 16 2012, 01:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2025950"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't have anything against the NS2 alien commander, except that it really cut down the gorge's ability set, and alien comm also gained most of the interesting features that could have gone to new lifeforms.
Outside of Alien commander, NS2 aliens didn't get <i>any</i> new evolutions.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Feign Death and Hypermutation, before they got pulled temporarily, were in the Beta. Vortex is new.
The NS2 alien commander is an improvement from the NS1 model. Having a top-down view of the map and being solely responsible for res nodes and upgrades means that the alien team is protected from fail gorges that dropped SC first, or from not having any gorge at all. Even if the gorges are good, they still have to spend res to be a gorge, make their way to the hive location/res node without getting killed, spend their own res building stuff and end up being stuck as a gorge (or devolve back to a skulk) for most of the game.
<!--quoteo(post=2026003:date=Nov 16 2012, 12:59 PM:name=Gorgenapper)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Gorgenapper @ Nov 16 2012, 12:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2026003"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Structures and power nodes can't dodge. 25% extra attack speed can make the difference between a successful base rush, or allowing the marine comm enough time to call in a beacon.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty much this. Enzyme is amazing, if situational. Crappy skulks that hold down the attack button will still see an improvement, it's more chances to actually connect with a Marine. In groups, it can be devastating or not do anything at all; it depends on the players. Saying that a 3 T.Res enzyme is expensive? Hardly, unless the Marines have locked your arse down in one hive. Crags cost 3 T.Res to heal decently too. It costs T.Res to spawn eggs, shift structures, or really do <i>anything useful</i>. It's cheap unless you're losing horribly, it really is.
A lot of the people that say 'alien commanding isn't fun' simply don't use all the tools at their disposal. Whether this is because they simply don't know, or if they read a lot of 'early Onos' threads and decided that was all they plan on doing I don't know. What I do know is that the few times I don't command, the person in the hive never uses a single drifter. In a game where drifters essentially give wall-hacks, I consider this to be a huge failing of the community of commanders and is the #1 cause of lost upgrade chambers in a main hive.
It's just stupid to not use any of the tools available, then claim it isn't fun or useful. Commanding will never be for everyone, that much is true. For those of us that <i>do</i> love commanding, the Aliens team is a lot of fun. It will come with time and experience, though frankly it's pretty easy to be an ok alien commander. I'll frequently Gorge and walk someone through it just because it's easy to do so.
The Marines commander is a much harder experience overall, and requires a bit more to win with. At the end of the day the Marines are stronger with evenly matched teams, but that direct strength can be countered by the Aliens if they're smart. If you have a team full of new players versus Marines that know their stuff, or the other way around, you are going to lose unless an absolute fluke happens. (I.E. One good player manages to ninja an Observatory and Power Node in a Marines base, etc.)
TL;DR
If you don't like Alien Commanding, then don't and let someone who's either good at it or wants to do it into the hive. There are lots of people who enjoy the experience, and they'll probably do better than you since you admit you don't use any of the team support options as commander.
Comments
I'm actually really mad they got rid of drifter spam. It was the single greatest aspect of alien comm.
Let's try to not copy SC2 anymore than it is.
What hapenned to the mini-cyst the gorges had?
removed due to the unreliability of it all. you'd have gorges drop mini cysts at node points, comm drops harvester, gorge dies or changes class, mini cyst dies along with harvester. Among other scenarios. but that was when gorges could only drop hydras on infestation and infestation from comm cysts didn't climb walls so it's really not needed anymore.
one of the most gratifying experiences if pulled off. but sadly a lot of people don't know about it, which i think is the case with most of the complaints coming from 12' accounts.
You could indeed do this in the beta for a while untill they implemented something like a long ass 10 second cd <i>only a few months ago</i> between each echo. Another case of fun biting the dust due to conflicts with balance! :p.
No there isn't really a cooldown on it. As soon as one is up the next one can start so I think it is only really like 2 or 3 seconds in between. The marines can't kill them fast enough usually. And if you get the ones with the bile bombs it's hilarious how fast the marine base drops.
i don't see the cooldown as the issue to be honest. the hard part is being able to cyst into the marine base itself without them being blasted within seconds so you can even echo the whips in.
Forum logic strikes again! No cd, but there is 2-3 seconds inbetween? Anyway, just checked and its actually 5 seconds.
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->ShiftEcho.kTeleportDelay = 5<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
It takes <b>half a minute</b> (the same ammount of time it takes to cross the distance of any map and then a bit) to teleport even just 6 whips in. mature whip has 1200 hp, dies in basically 2.5 lmg clips. So all you need is 2-3 marines to kill each and every whip in just over 2 seconds. Echo is by no means a game ender, nor an effective use of tres. Imagine if nydus only exited one unit every 5 seconds - how boring.
dj is right, the cysts are a problem too. Even more so a problem when you have such long echo cd's.
*another time i tried to move my 15 crag battery forward, it took so long the onos frontline had already moved to the next room. So on so on. Echo is now in the boring, tedious waiting category imo.
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->ShiftEcho.kTeleportDelay = 5<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
It takes <b>half a minute</b> (the same ammount of time it takes to cross the distance of any map and then a bit) to teleport even just 6 whips in. mature whip has 1200 hp, dies in basically 2.5 lmg clips. So all you need is 2-3 marines to kill each and every whip in just over 2 seconds. Echo is by no means a game ender, nor an effective use of tres. Imagine if nydus only exited one unit every 5 seconds - how boring.
dj is right, the cysts are a problem too. Even more so a problem when you have such long echo cd's.
*another time i tried to move my 15 crag battery forward, it took so long the onos frontline had already moved to the next room. So on so on. Echo is now in the boring, tedious waiting category imo.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Honestly I don't care what the script you found says, cause it's not exact with real time. Seriously try it yourself. And I don't consider it a cooldown because it's not like it does it instantly and nothing is happening. You actually have time before the one you just echoed comes up to put up another 1 in the exact same spot. Also it's atleast a full second before the building comes up that you can start the next one. As long as you're using the hot keys it's really only about 3 seconds in between each one coming in. So in actual practice, and not your oh so wonderful theory-crafting, it takes more like 20 seconds to move those whips in. If you have 2 or 3 marines that are able to orient quickly enough to start killing 6 whips that are popping up right next to them in the span of 20 seconds that's quite a team.
I understand that the developers like the concept of a-symmetry and they can differentiate commander styles by having aliens rely on cysts but maybe they should be more expensive. A marine cutting off a cyst chain isn't nearly as annoying as it should be as it barely scratches the alien economy when they are replaced as they are destroyed providing they have at least 3 harvesters up. Nothing really bugs the alien commander like it does a marine one. At the very least, if the developers want to reduce the amount of micro for alien coms in comparison to marines, they could at least add in a little resource management to put in some actual RTS element.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I totally agree with you, when I play alien commander, I just focus expanding and having 3 hives. I don't even need my team to capture res points, cause i can use whips to destroy marine extractors and i can build everything by myself. Also cysts are so cheap that I can spam and troll the entire map with it instoring a psycological barrier wich many marines wont dare to cross.
Right know I believe that an alien commander, by controling a big portion of the map, is the win or loose power of a game. Sad only that he does it by himself not requiring any help from his team.
My idea to counter this would be to limit for example the cyst chains to 5 or 10 in a row max and then you'd have to place a special, more expensive (between 5 and 10 res) "relay cyst" inbetween two chains wich could eventually only be grown with the help of a gorge. What do you think?
Because right now while the marine commander needs marines to expand, the aliens, quite unfairly, can harras the marines while the khammander keeps expanding by himself with no help at all, and that anoys me when i play marine commander. Marines are a vital resource to expanding while a khammander just sends his troups as cannonfodder without even caring about them...
Dunno who you're playing with. I hardly ever rush hive two. I usually onos egg after two hives and most upgrades. That' about 1.5 minutes before the rest show up.
I shade hive OFTEN (with silence on smaller maps, and cloaking is 100% now with camo), and even crag a bit with regen now.
IT's all in telling your team what you plan to do, getting consensus, and adapting playstyle to it.
If you drop immediate hive without telling the team first, and marines find it before a gorge is there, you didn't communicate.
If you drop shade without telling the team and ensuring they're aware it limits eggs until second hive, you didn't communicate.
If you dont' feel you have a competent group to do these things, don't. Stick to what works or find a better server with more team based players.
I like alien com, its fine as it is, maybe 1 more active abillity ( babblers ? anyone ? )
Check some of these fun things to do...
Hallucinating onos into a base with a rush causes pandemonium
Hallucinating hives to draw marines into traps
Succesfully repel an attack on a hive, marines regroup, wait till they have a full forward base set-up and move the hive to another tech-point..
These are just a few of the great tactics available to keep the alien comm busy. Plus, get out of the chair for a bit and do some damage on the field...
Really, there are so many unexplored options as alien comm, many of which are hilarious to watch marines trying to deal with... When I am bored as alien comm I love to mess with the marines... Use your imaginations and don't think solely about upgrades. Shift is great fun as first upgrade, but so is shade..
Go away and see how you can mess with marine minds as khamm. The deception and intrigue :D
With aliens i prefer to just play skulk, then go to lerk and troll people (onos gets boring fast, fade needs blink to be effective and is too expensive to get if you don't know whether you got blink or not), i avoid commanding as much as possible, its easy, it depends more on your team than you whether you win or lose all you have to do is build cysts, harvesters and upgrade this and that, you can try to command your team to defend this and that position, works every time if marines are focusing on pushing one spot... gets harder if the marines spread out a bit and push more locations, your team wont handle it. usually if thats the case, you lose harvesters, you lose hives, you lose game.
Only thing you can really do other than the basic stuff that must be done is build a 5 second wall out of infestation... yay.
Whips are also underpowered, aliens need a stronger defense structure or longer range defense structure.
Aliens can do so much less than marines as comm that it hurts the pride of my brain cells.
Outside of Alien commander, NS2 aliens didn't get <i>any</i> new evolutions.
Alien commander is an intelligence agent who likes to garden. You steadily spread the creep, build structures to support allied movement, research based on lifeforms your team want, monitor marine movements using drifters and attempt to direct alien team focus.
Personally I enjoy both, just wish alien commander had maybe 1 or 2 extra abilities that were off structures.
As far as it being 'fun' or not, well that's highly subjective. There are plenty of people that think being alien commander is the most fun you can have in NS2, myself included. I won't lie and say it's perfect, but it has all the necessary tools to get the job done and be fun while doing it. Anything they add on will be gravy.
I see a ton of alien commanders that never spawn a single drifter, never build a single whip, and don't build any structures. Can such a commander win? Of course. Are they helping as much as they could? Certainly not. They aren't saving for an early Onos either, they're just suboptimal commanders. In time, more commanders will learn the more advanced options and the complaints will recede.
As a final point, I see <i>very</i> few players that go gorge, and even fewer gorges that will actually interact with the commander. If you think whips and forward structures are useless, it's because you don't have a competent gorge helping you out. Team work is still rewarded as a gorge, you just gotta work with the hive a little. A gorge healing a few whips while covering them with Hydra's behind a clog can hold off <i>several</i> marines, depending on the situation.
I view alien command as being an enabler. You enable your team to do what they do best, while supporting them with structures and watching the places where they aren't. There are strategies certainly, but if you have a player that is an amazing fade you want to get him blink before leap. Aliens, more than marines, requires your team to be vocal in what they can do. My job as commander is made infinitely easier if one or two team-mate's step up and coordinate the skulks running around with them. It's a 'boots on the ground' leadership dynamic, since it's all about timing your attacks as skulks. I can lead a skulk to marines, but I can't make them slaughter. Good players don't need to be prodded to work together a lot of the time, whereas bad players won't listen no matter what the circumstance.
Gorge is an area denial / heavy assault specialist right now. Bile bomb is one of the single best abilities in NS2, and yet is one of the most underused life forms in public play. For 10 P.Res, it is quite possibly the best upgrade you can buy if you like stopping the Marines cold. You might not kill them all immediately, but unless they charge en masse you have a very good chance at killing them all eventually. (Did you know heal spray damages marines, and can be fired through your clog walls? Weakens marines for your Hydra's on the other side when they inevitably push through. Spit also does <i>a ton</i> of damage if you can hit someone with it.)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have to agree with everything you've said here. I for one find myself perfectly busy enough as alien comm (I'm not a pro player), and I know I'm still not using everything at my disposal. Perhaps it's more a mentality of 'single player online game' that leads to this idea that communication and coordination aren't important... Those are certainly the two things that I look for in a team when I'm playing: if you can't work together, you're not going to win - and that takes a LOT of dedication and effort on the commander's part. Yes, it's not as 'fast paced and frenetic' as the marine commander, but I for one appreciate that. I can spend a little more time getting my slow brain working through strategies rather than having a heart attack because I'm unable to drop 4 medpacks in 3 different areas of the map while simultaneously scanning for res/hives, directing 3 different groups of marines to build/defend/attack and also making sure the upgrades are coming in not one second late...
I dare say the competition players didn't stay in the hive all the time because they were saving for an early onos. At least that was the case in all the videos I watched, which isn't all of them but is at least a handful. If you want to try something different, it requires a LOT more attention, and also organising a bunch of pub players, many of whom are good but some really struggle with teamwork and communication, requires more effort from the khamm as well.
Roo
Structures and power nodes can't dodge. 25% extra attack speed can make the difference between a successful base rush, or allowing the marine comm enough time to call in a beacon.
Outside of Alien commander, NS2 aliens didn't get <i>any</i> new evolutions.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Feign Death and Hypermutation, before they got pulled temporarily, were in the Beta. Vortex is new.
The NS2 alien commander is an improvement from the NS1 model. Having a top-down view of the map and being solely responsible for res nodes and upgrades means that the alien team is protected from fail gorges that dropped SC first, or from not having any gorge at all. Even if the gorges are good, they still have to spend res to be a gorge, make their way to the hive location/res node without getting killed, spend their own res building stuff and end up being stuck as a gorge (or devolve back to a skulk) for most of the game.
Pretty much this. Enzyme is amazing, if situational. Crappy skulks that hold down the attack button will still see an improvement, it's more chances to actually connect with a Marine. In groups, it can be devastating or not do anything at all; it depends on the players. Saying that a 3 T.Res enzyme is expensive? Hardly, unless the Marines have locked your arse down in one hive. Crags cost 3 T.Res to heal decently too. It costs T.Res to spawn eggs, shift structures, or really do <i>anything useful</i>. It's cheap unless you're losing horribly, it really is.
A lot of the people that say 'alien commanding isn't fun' simply don't use all the tools at their disposal. Whether this is because they simply don't know, or if they read a lot of 'early Onos' threads and decided that was all they plan on doing I don't know. What I do know is that the few times I don't command, the person in the hive never uses a single drifter. In a game where drifters essentially give wall-hacks, I consider this to be a huge failing of the community of commanders and is the #1 cause of lost upgrade chambers in a main hive.
It's just stupid to not use any of the tools available, then claim it isn't fun or useful. Commanding will never be for everyone, that much is true. For those of us that <i>do</i> love commanding, the Aliens team is a lot of fun. It will come with time and experience, though frankly it's pretty easy to be an ok alien commander. I'll frequently Gorge and walk someone through it just because it's easy to do so.
The Marines commander is a much harder experience overall, and requires a bit more to win with. At the end of the day the Marines are stronger with evenly matched teams, but that direct strength can be countered by the Aliens if they're smart. If you have a team full of new players versus Marines that know their stuff, or the other way around, you are going to lose unless an absolute fluke happens. (I.E. One good player manages to ninja an Observatory and Power Node in a Marines base, etc.)
TL;DR
If you don't like Alien Commanding, then don't and let someone who's either good at it or wants to do it into the hive. There are lots of people who enjoy the experience, and they'll probably do better than you since you admit you don't use any of the team support options as commander.