Why are Archaea so good?
|strofix|
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165453Members
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165453Members
Title says it all.
I've been with this game since the alpha, and I've watched the tournaments from the start. No team has ever come close to making Archaea break even the slightest sweat. Why is nobody good enough to make these competitions truly competitive?
The purpose for this thread is strictly in the interest of competitive NS2. Nobody wants to see the kind of games that went down tonight. They simply are not entertaining. We need true competition to spark greater interest in this game. Potential competitors need to dismantle the situation and determine what is going on.
I've been with this game since the alpha, and I've watched the tournaments from the start. No team has ever come close to making Archaea break even the slightest sweat. Why is nobody good enough to make these competitions truly competitive?
The purpose for this thread is strictly in the interest of competitive NS2. Nobody wants to see the kind of games that went down tonight. They simply are not entertaining. We need true competition to spark greater interest in this game. Potential competitors need to dismantle the situation and determine what is going on.
Comments
So what makes people like him so incredibly good?
- hardware plays a role of course (mouse/kb/monitor/computer)
- 16hrs of play a day?
- red bull?
- being in the zone at all times?
I typically like to wait a while before posting in my own thread again, but this is starting up slowly, so lets get some controversy rolling to get more input.
I accept that Fana is very good at aiming and flying around or whatever it is that he does. That is very nice and a very good thing for his team, but I cannot be lead to believe that that is why Archaea are so unstoppable. People with good aim are a dime a dozen in FPS games. Granted, people with bad aim are a nickel a dozen, but I promise you that right now, there is someone with NS2 in his steam games that is as good an aimer as Fanatic. I would wager that there are tens of such people. There is always someone better, but where are they? Why are they not playing?
Oh, and it might also be because 'competition' or 'sports' generally revolve around two evenly matched symmetrical teams to make skill the deciding factor rather than RNG or I-Win game mechanics? Just spit balling here.
I guess SC2 is the example people will use to 'prove me wrong'. I guess we'll also sweep every other game under the carpet so we can ignore the norm and focus on the exceptions.
Not to discredit Archaea at all though, they are clearly a very good team, but they are beatable. If and when the competitive scene picks up, I think you'll see established teams hone their timings and coordination more and provide some excellent matches.
He's the most dangerous
They don't play like normal players play. They are physically and mentally at a higher level than us. Fana's arm movement while flying as a lerk is astounding, he could be washing a windscreen at lightspeed, sweeping all the way across the entire desk over and over. Their discipline in communication is total. Short, sharp messages through teamspeak and never losing their cool at each other. They react instantly as a whole team to threats, and respond with alacrity to strategic orders from Scrajm. They calmly and serenely discuss their play after matches. They maintain cheerfulness and sense of perspective, not taking themselves too seriously.
For a team to beat Archaea, they will need to step up their game in more than just shooting skill and meta-knowledge. They need to get onto that physical/mental plane and beat Arc off it.
That's not all there is to it though. Their tactics are also very solid. They simply know the game very well. NS2 is a lot like Starcraft in that every potential timing makes a difference. Everything from what upgrade to get, to when and where to hit the enemy, or when or where to position themselves defensively and with how many people, all of that counts. They're on a higher level. At the professional level even slight differences in metagame win or lose a match. One engagement can snowball out of control.
As strofix pointed out, good aim only gets you so far. While I do think Archaea aim significantly better than any other team out there, eventually an aim ceiling level is hit, and at that point what massively contributes to the game is simply strategy. At that point it's just like Starcraft. It's all about timing and positioning from then on. Are Archaea perfect with their strategy? I don't think so. I feel like there's loads of room for improvement, and I mean loads. NS2 just hasn't attracted a lot of talent yet, in my opinion.
EDIT: To add a bit more, I noticed some errors their com made. Being able to multitask is important in this game, especially for the marine commander. Having Starcraft level speed and multitasking for the marine com is very important. Being able to micromanage and drop medpacks at two fights at the same time does require a certain level of skill. It's little things like that that will bring teams out on top.
As for 'strategy', I always find it laughable when people imply NS 2 has a lot of strategic depth and/or variety, that simply isn't the case. So it's rather a combination of flawless aim and top-notch coordination/teamwork more than anything else.
If their commander is indeed bringing them together into a cohesive fighting force, assigning roles constantly and directing them using his superior perspective of the battlefield, then that may indeed be a potential source of their ability to win games easily.
However, I suspect it the case will be that all the players simply react in the correct way to threats, which naturally leads them to occupy roughly the same area, and attack together. If this is the case, then all competitive level players should already have this ability. It has little to do with team dynamics and everything to do with optimal choice.
Once again I have to reiterate my scepticism on the superior aim topic. Yes, they are very good at aiming, especially Fana, but you can see from the replays that they are human. They still miss with the shotgun, they still need nanoshields to take on skulks at times. Even in my very small community, I've seen players with superior aim. Players who would not and could not miss with the shotgun, who wouldn't be touched by skulks, yet they weren't better players. Putting emphasis on a single players raw abilities doesn't work in my opinion, because there is always someone better, without exception.
a) ALL (Not some) of the players on arc have the individual skill, game sense, teamwork, etc necessary to be in the top 15 field players of ns2 on their own merits. Where as every other team has 1-2 of these players maximum. Except ray.
b) Scrajm's commanding quality and resource management is a bit above all the other commanders on teams atm and for some time now.
Apart from that, the low performance, little in depth comp coverage and kind of sketchy gameplay elements probably push away some of the potential high tier competitive players. It's pretty hard to put big practise hours into a game that still has quite a few unfinished parts in it.
Now I thought I was a pretty average walljumping skulk (not an average skulk, an average walljumping skulk). I could get pretty fast, but not that fast, and I never really put much time or effort into learning how to do it because its not my style. After watching HG, my feelings were reinforced, with some of them going a little bit faster, but most of them maintaining the same kind of speed I'm used to seeing.
When Archaea went aliens, I was surprised to say the least. They all move twice the speed I ever could. They move faster with carapace than I do with celerity, much faster. The speed at which fana flies with the Lerk is mind boggling to me. I consider myself quite a bit above average, but I could never fly at that speed, no matter what I did. I can't even think how you go that fast.
This honestly make me think of one thing. Exploitation.
They're doing something to get those kinds of speeds. They're abusing some sort of mechanism to get those directional changes. Something that isn't supposed to be there, or shouldn't be there. If you watch them when they attack as a team, every single one of them does it. Its basically mandatory, and I don't like mandatory things.
They're not, you're a moron for saying that who should probably bury his head in some shit for even thinking to type that up.
Remember who started flinging the sh!t first in this thread, lest everyone points the finger at me again.
I assume your primitive mind is reacting to the word "exploitation". Calm yourself my friend.
I use the word exploitation in the same way you would when referring to bhopping in NS1. Many "traditional" players were foursquare against bhopping in the early days, until it became mandatory in order to compete. At least then the gldsrc engine was well documented, and people knew of these exploits. Spark is still young, and there may be unknown exploits yet to be abused. Maybe Archaea know some of these a bit better than the rest. A simple example is the multi-jump off the same wall, which I believe they tried to remove, but its still there.
performance, probably
oh jesus, please don't take away from their incredible skill. this is such a typical attitude - why can't you accept that players are better because they have talent and invest the time and effort into perfecting mechanics such as aim and walljump, instead of simply accusing people when you're inadequate
I think you are projecting a little here.
Mastering an exploit takes skill as does anything else, we all know that their were good bhoppers, and there were great bhoppers. But when it comes to things like exploits, more than skill you need knowledge. As I've made abundantly clear, I personally don't buy into the skill gap argument, so maybe they simply know more?
I would like your post, but I find liking a post simply because it agrees with my point of view to be petty, so *pseudo like*.
Like glissy is definitely a much better walljumper mechanically, but not as good a skulk as tane. That's why your accusation was a completely retarded waste of breath. It was just some random accusation you felt like making for no reason.
Sometimes the right thing to say, is nothing at all.
I find this train of thought interesting. I would like to put forth a theoretical scenario if you don't mind.
So there you are, its 10 years in the past, and you are watching your first ever competitive NS1 match. All is very exciting, and you are enjoying the game immensely. Over time you notice that one team, while playing aliens, perform a strange S like movement, and tend to move much faster than you have noticed most players moving, while the other team does not seem to do this.
So, in the event of a discussion about overall skill difference between the two teams in a variety of situations, you wouldn't dare bring up the aforementioned observation? And above all else, you would most certainly not use the word "exploit"?
If you wouldn't mind, I would like a carefully thought out response to this. One preferably devoid of personal slights.
Don't you see how contradictory that statement is? If anything, my denial of aim's importance is attempting to do the exact opposite.
You think Tane's kind words of encouragement are making Fana hit skulks? You think its the commander's soft whispers? He can do that with or without them. Fana out of Archaea is Fana just the same, public game or not. Anybody can have good aim. If anything is a pub heroes saving grace, its going to be his superior aim.
Teamwork, information, tactics. For those, you need other people. You can't pub hero that. In that category, Fana without the rest of Archaea is nothing. I hope that the real reason isn't aim. I really do.
Your response shows only your realisation of how accurate the analogy is, and how inappropriate your reaction was. Sadly though, most people will find your crude retort to be most enjoyable.
Quite sad really.