Remove structure blocking
|strofix|
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165453Members
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165453Members
<div class="IPBDescription">design failure</div>I'm not one of those people who thinks blocking with structures is an exploit and should be disallowed and bannable. I think it is a perfectly legitimate defence, and has seen good use in many games. However, failures in the design of this game have necessitated the need for the strategies immediate removal.
I just played a 2 hour long game in which the aliens had 3 hives by the 15th minute. This is what the marines then proceeded to do.
They placed 3 robotics factories at the repair exit to logistics.
They placed 2 robotics factories at the repair exit to hub.
They placed 4 robotics factories at the ore processing exit to tram.
They placed around 7 robotics factories in and around the warehouse ramp.
They then stationed 1 exo at each base (who sat there for around 1 and a half hours which is quite sad) and proceeded to be 100% untouchable. Each base had at least 3 observatories in it, covering every single angle, with no less than 5 ARCs deployed at any one time, blowing up any structures which came near. To Exos couldn't be reached by anything other than a skulk or fade, which proved completely useless in the middle of marine territory. Each wall of robotics factories had MACs behind it, which would easily outheal gorges which tried to bile bomb through.
I, as commander, went through a series of strategies which attempted to beat these marines. None worked. I even managed to completely take over ore processing, but to absolutely no avail as both those entrances to either marine base were solidly blocked as well. Around the one hour mark I endeavoured to crash the server through dropping whips. After dropping between 150 and 200 whips, the tick rate of the server had dropped to a steady 7, but showed no signs of going any lower.
At one point, where it seemed we made the most progress, was one of many 7 player Onos rushes (with one gorge). At the end of the battle, when only 2 Onos still stood, warehouse was finally ours. Except the marines simply jetpacked from repair, over all the blockades, straight back in again, and killed off the last 2 sickly Onos. Unfortunately, during this push a single marine had moved into logistics and build 3 robotics factories on the stairs leading into shipping. Needless to say, when we found out, we were helpless to do anything about it. They ARCd out shipping, and we lost the game. This after 1 hour and 45 minutes of 3 hive aliens.
This is all due to a key design failure along the way. In strategy games, you do not introduce brick walls. There should be no defence which cannot be circumvented. But in NS2 there is, because aliens have no effective siege weapon that can be spammed. Alien's only res sink is whips, and they are laughable.
So, until this key design flaw is addressed, it seems that structure blocking must be removed.
I just played a 2 hour long game in which the aliens had 3 hives by the 15th minute. This is what the marines then proceeded to do.
They placed 3 robotics factories at the repair exit to logistics.
They placed 2 robotics factories at the repair exit to hub.
They placed 4 robotics factories at the ore processing exit to tram.
They placed around 7 robotics factories in and around the warehouse ramp.
They then stationed 1 exo at each base (who sat there for around 1 and a half hours which is quite sad) and proceeded to be 100% untouchable. Each base had at least 3 observatories in it, covering every single angle, with no less than 5 ARCs deployed at any one time, blowing up any structures which came near. To Exos couldn't be reached by anything other than a skulk or fade, which proved completely useless in the middle of marine territory. Each wall of robotics factories had MACs behind it, which would easily outheal gorges which tried to bile bomb through.
I, as commander, went through a series of strategies which attempted to beat these marines. None worked. I even managed to completely take over ore processing, but to absolutely no avail as both those entrances to either marine base were solidly blocked as well. Around the one hour mark I endeavoured to crash the server through dropping whips. After dropping between 150 and 200 whips, the tick rate of the server had dropped to a steady 7, but showed no signs of going any lower.
At one point, where it seemed we made the most progress, was one of many 7 player Onos rushes (with one gorge). At the end of the battle, when only 2 Onos still stood, warehouse was finally ours. Except the marines simply jetpacked from repair, over all the blockades, straight back in again, and killed off the last 2 sickly Onos. Unfortunately, during this push a single marine had moved into logistics and build 3 robotics factories on the stairs leading into shipping. Needless to say, when we found out, we were helpless to do anything about it. They ARCd out shipping, and we lost the game. This after 1 hour and 45 minutes of 3 hive aliens.
This is all due to a key design failure along the way. In strategy games, you do not introduce brick walls. There should be no defence which cannot be circumvented. But in NS2 there is, because aliens have no effective siege weapon that can be spammed. Alien's only res sink is whips, and they are laughable.
So, until this key design flaw is addressed, it seems that structure blocking must be removed.
Comments
2-3 Gorges with BileBomb would destroy those factories in seconds no matter the welder support. Your gorges were just bad or not attacking together.
The only blocking I think is "unfair" is one marine being able to stop an Onos from retreating.
The only blocking I think is "unfair" is one marine being able to stop an Onos from retreating.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You think gorges kill singular structures faster than Onos do? Remember, we sent 7 Onos multiple times against these blockades. They were so densely layered that by the time we got through, half of the Onos were already dead, and you think 3 gorges will just waltz in and do it?
They'd get torn to shreds in under 5 seconds flat.
Uhh, yes, that's the point of BileBomb, it IS the aliens anti-structure weaponry. Bilebomb does splash damage that stacks, does DOT, destroys MACs super fast (your stated reason they stayed alive) and can be done from a distance. Those exos you complained about wouldn't be chasing the gorges unless they want to die, and if a JP'er did, that's what your Onos should have been doing (protecting the gorges from JP'ers) until the walls were down. At that point you do your 7 Onos rush (with lerk Umbra support RIGHT?) and win.
Yes structure blocking is annoying for Onos, but it sounds like your team just got outplayed.
Sounds like you were fighting a superior team that decided to turtle for the trolls of it. Sucks they were being overcautious instead of just spamming arcs and finishing you, but happens.
you would have won
This sounds like a hillarious game. No doubt you are bitter at being on the losing side, but I must beg the following question. If you had three hives at 15 minutes, what the hell were you doing while marines started researching exos and saving up money for multiple robos and ARCs? And what were you doing, aside from idly wasting time, while they built up these Great Walls of Robos?
As someone has already said, if you had got 2-3 gorges instead of 7 onoses, you would have torn down those robos in no time. I always blame the commander no matter the outcome (good or bad), and quite frankly it was your job to realise that bilebombing would have secured victory. At the least, if someone with half a brain was on your team, they could have reminded you of this fact.
In conclusion, your opposing commander was obviously better than you. But gg nonetheless.
The bilebomb not only would hit all robotic factories at the same time, but would also splash on the Mac's at the same time as well taking them out.
Your team deserved to lose if it got that far.
3 gorges, at that stage of the game... that is called a tactical blunder.
I'm not saying every attack we made was pulled off perfectly, and that we couldn't have made some better choices along the line. But I think its pretty retarded that our team had them <b>beaten </b> 15 minutes in, only to be completely incapable of moving any further. If perfection is required to end a game in that situation, then I think we are going to have an influx of complaints about end game turtling soon.
<u><b>OH WAIT</b></u>
Only if your gorges are terrible and bilebomb out in the open with no support. They need to bilebomb from far away and behind a corner and only appearing for split seconds at a time to bilebomb moving in and out of a corner. If they throw out grenades, you should have whips there for them to knock the grens back. They should be able to bilebomb far enough away for you to put whips/crags next to them to avoid the Arcs. Crags and other aliens to help them will keep the gorges up for any other marines going after them.
2. Convert them all to gorge eggs
3. Tell gorges to upgrade adren, cara, and silence
4. Suicide bilebomb rush to victory
Then your team deserved to lose.
<!--quoteo(post=2067480:date=Jan 27 2013, 04:02 PM:name=|strofix|)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (|strofix| @ Jan 27 2013, 04:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2067480"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But I think its pretty retarded that our team had them <b>beaten </b> 15 minutes<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No you didn't have them beaten. You had them on two bases, and sat around in slovenly idleness while they stacked up 100s of res on what appears to be a trifling 2-3 res towers, and allowing them to get to tier 3+. Shame on you. Possessing 3 hives does not constitute a victory, any more than 3 or 4 ccs does for marines. Your whining reveals your ignorance of how battles are won in this game.
<!--quoteo(post=2067480:date=Jan 27 2013, 04:02 PM:name=|strofix|)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (|strofix| @ Jan 27 2013, 04:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2067480"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->3 gorges, at that stage of the game... that is called a tactical blunder.
I'm not saying every attack we made was pulled off perfectly, and that we couldn't have made some better choices along the line. But I think its pretty retarded that our team had them <b>beaten </b> 15 minutes in, only to be completely incapable of moving any further. If perfection is required to end a game in that situation, then I think we are going to have an influx of complaints about end game turtling soon.
<u><b>OH WAIT</b></u><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's not perfection that is required, but rather plain, simple, good old, common sense: you expanded to the wrong place. Rather than take a third hive, and pat your own back on the occasion of how awesome you were in achieving this amazing feat (which no doubt has never happened in any other game of NS2, ever), you should have taken out their second base.
You made a strategic error, and paid the price in the end.
Frankly your lack of vision, and your subordinates' lack of gaming-prowess could only have led to one conclusion: the one you eventually, reached.
gg.
(3 + 2 + 4 + 7) * 15 = 240. That's more res than the amount the marine team could put down even all at once. You also mentioned 1 mac. A single mac can't even repair the damage from an attack in any decent amount of time. So somehow, the marines amassed 240 res of road blocks and considerably more since you mentioned ARCs as well... on 2-3 res towers while you owned the entire map and your alien team twiddled their thumbs? It's evident the marine team was decent enough to respond to your attacks and ensure none of the 4 entrances were ever breached.
If anything, this sounds like a case of a competent marine team trolling your less skilled team.
wait wait wait
waaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
wait.
Are we all of the opinion here that there is not a severe, end game marine turtling problem? That's off the table now right? We can tell UWE they no longer need to worry about that. They can move onto an issue that actually exists?
Good to know. UWE, you read it here.
Oh, and by the way, no gorges do not kill singular structures faster than Onos. A gorge can stack bile bomb 4 times, after which only the initial hit does additional damage. A single gorge will destroy a power node 2 seconds faster than a single Onos. Two onos will destroy it much much faster than 2 gorges though.
and how do you plan on taking out structure blocking? dont let the marines build at all? thats the only way other than making them not be able to build close to other buildings but that wouldnt work either.
but then again if your team had decent gorges with umbra and an onos or two you could have taken out factory wall.
but if your team was good at all they wouldnt have let the marines sit there for that long letting them get that much res to build arcs and all those factories
-> didn't read part about 7 Onos
Well, the way many tower defences take care of preventing blocking is to simply destroy anything that blocks a path completely. I don't know if the current bots use pathing, or simply waypoints, but both would suffice in this case, with some minor tweaking.
I guess I would allow something like vortex actually making structures unclippable, simply pushing aliens out of the way if they get stuck inside it. This, I guess, would give vortex some kind of late game use, but in the lamest way imaginable.
Also, next time any of you are playing a game, and you don't beat the marines within 3 minutes of taking the third hive, I invite you to berate yourself about how bad you are. But you probably won't, because the rules you apply to others don't apply to yourself.
I dealt with this on mineshaft marines turtled in repair room and had one onos on top of the drill bit, took like 20 minutes to end it. but we won.
we took out the power 4 times and it didnt help because the team had bad coordination. then we just spammed onos gorge and lerk eggs and went in all at once and kill the chair in seconds and won the game.
Onos does not = win
good tactics and team = win
did you try a bombard whip rush? I know they suck (hit themselves or miss 10 times of 11) but they could be the dent in a successful attack.
Your team went wrong in three places.
1.Couldn't work together to focus down one tech point in bulk, protecting gorges whilst they bile bombed. one suicide gorge will take out any amount of MAC's whilst another 1-2 took out the structures (and that's only if it's absolutely required to get within LOS of marines). Onos to bulletsponge if marines charged out and a lerk with spores/umbra to half the damage and stop marines rushing out. So that's 5 aliens at the most (plus one as Comm?). In a 6v6 match, yes that's going to have to be pulled off pretty well but 6v6 is all about that level of co-ordination. Public matches, you have a lot more margin of error...Assuming you had 8 on your team (7onos + Comm) that's an extra 3 aliens that could be doing anything to assist, when they're probably not absolutely necessary (alien Comm can join a push if you have them trapped in base and 'own' everything else). A long shot from "Perfect".
2. Let a marine slip through and build a base (I can imagine the smile on the marine Comm's face when that marine got the power on). It's not intuitive to put drifters watching routes out of a turtle but it would have stopped that marine! If the match went on that long, it should have crossed your commanders mind that it could occur.
3. Allowed the marines to get to that point after you'd secured that 3rd hive and most of the map...it would have taken a long time to get the resources through for that level of defense.
wait wait wait
waaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
wait.
Are we all of the opinion here that there is not a severe, end game marine turtling problem? That's off the table now right? We can tell UWE they no longer need to worry about that. They can move onto an issue that actually exists?
Good to know. UWE, you read it here.
Oh, and by the way, no gorges do not kill singular structures faster than Onos. A gorge can stack bile bomb 4 times, after which only the initial hit does additional damage. A single gorge will destroy a power node 2 seconds faster than a single Onos. Two onos will destroy it much much faster than 2 gorges though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yup, there is no end game marine turtling problem. They can move on to issues that actually exist and not worry about an incompetent team that can't take down a marine team turtling.
Also, why do you keep comparing Gorge's bilebomb to an Onos when attacking against only 1 building when dealing with a blockade?
Bilebomb splashes and hits multiple buildings at once. So 1 bilebomb will be hitting 4 robotic factories + any Macs near them + any other objects near them. This is how you get past a blockade.
I can't even remember the last time I saw a rine turtle longer than a few minutes.
As I said before, and as others have said after me, you most likely got trolled by a team that was superior to yours but had a silly commander who wanted to turtle.
I'd be very much interested to see the kills/deaths on this match.
In a way it's almost to be expected when you consider aliens are used to working on their own or in small groups. So when faced with the need to work as a full team they're scratching their heads. I've seen Onos run in one at a time and run out, afraid to die.
When marines block entrances, you can bile bomb repeatedly (since bile bombs stack) as well have an Onos hack away at it while gorges heal his ass. Meanwhile send a lerk in with umbra to give them all some cover and bullet resistance. Also send in a skulk or two to take runs at the EXO if the EXO gets too close to the door. Work as a GROUP and you can crush any turtle.The other option?
Do nothing.
Yes you heard me right. Back off, and stop attacking.
Part of the problem people have when they play as alien is that they don't consider that marines are weaker on offence than on defence. So back off. Sit and wait. If they sit and wait too, see who blinks first. I guarantee marines will see this as a chance to push back, and when they do they'll have to open a door. (since EXOs are as big as Onos and wouldn't be able to leave) Once they do, make your move. Herd them. Set up your players at the other exits and leave one 'conveniently' unguarded. Keep a skulk or two on watch for rambos, but otherwise give them an opening. When they take it, move in.
Sometimes brute force doesn't work, and you need to use tactics.
The other consideration here?
Aside from the fact it would take 255 res to build all those factories, it would also take many minutes to do so. Where was your team when this was happening? Like I said above, aliens tend to be timid, and this gives marines a change to turtle hard. I bet it took them 10 minutes to get most of that in place, and they had no resistance.
If aliens want to win then aliens have to take the risks. Don't expect the other team to roll over.
Crappy for one side; aliens. Looks like the marines had an epic end game.
If what strofix says is accurate, aliens controlled most of the map and most of the res nodes, and should have had every tech ability. After taking Ore, the marines are down to two res nodes. Keep them at two res nodes, control hub/south/north, control observation, and control platform (just keep marines from getting the node). From there, use lerks (1-2), onos (2), gorges (3) to finish the game. Once aliens had Ore, the game should have been over, imo. Marines wouldn't be able to afford much in losses; arcs, advance structures, etc.
Maybe strofix's players got bored or worse complacent. Maybe strofix had a great early game, which masked the skill level of your team. Maybe the marines got a "second wind" after downing a few onos.
It doesn't look like a game problem.