Help with Commanding please?
Nailo
Join Date: 2013-05-06 Member: 185138Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
Join Date: 2013-05-06 Member: 185138Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
I've played NS2 for about 150 hours and I decided I need help commanding in both aliens and marines. My gameplay experience is limited to pubs but I've watched almost every competitve game to date as far as tournaments go.
As a Marine commander I feel pressured to go early phase in Pubs, not sure why, and I know its probably really silly, but I do feel slightly pressured to do so, if only because no one in pubs ever objects or requests otherwise. So, my first request is if someone can help me with different openings. I've seen different posts on this before but none taking in the newest builds. Technically I suppose any build is viable, they just all have drawbacks. So maybe what I'm asking is for someone to help me learn each opening and the benefits vs drawbacks in each opening. I went into Explore mode and tried for early upgrades, one thing I noticed immediately was that I lacked enough res to drop a 3rd RT early on unlike when I was going for early phase. Thats just one example of things that make me hesitaint when wanting to try a different build.
For Aliens I feel the question is much the same as it was for the marines, I've done both cara and shift openings. I've gone for early 2-3 rts as well. I've never done a real fast 2nd hive drop mostly because I'm unsure of how it plays out. Take Veil for example. Say we start in Sub, is it possible to grab nano and drop a really fast hive in cargo? How many gorges would that require if it could and would doing something like that just give marines free_reign over most of the map due to some aliens tied up defending?
I don't want a whole team to not have fun simply because I'm experimenting blindly with a build. Basically want I want is a basic frame to work with, a general idea of each build and what mindset I should have going in with it. I'd feel bad If I did the example above and found out that even though we held nano, I didn't have the res for both RT's and the hive if thats what I was going for.
Thanks for reading thus far and hearing me out, if you can help me, please by all means do so ^_^ This was also my first post so here's to hoping I haven't done something stupid lol.
As a Marine commander I feel pressured to go early phase in Pubs, not sure why, and I know its probably really silly, but I do feel slightly pressured to do so, if only because no one in pubs ever objects or requests otherwise. So, my first request is if someone can help me with different openings. I've seen different posts on this before but none taking in the newest builds. Technically I suppose any build is viable, they just all have drawbacks. So maybe what I'm asking is for someone to help me learn each opening and the benefits vs drawbacks in each opening. I went into Explore mode and tried for early upgrades, one thing I noticed immediately was that I lacked enough res to drop a 3rd RT early on unlike when I was going for early phase. Thats just one example of things that make me hesitaint when wanting to try a different build.
For Aliens I feel the question is much the same as it was for the marines, I've done both cara and shift openings. I've gone for early 2-3 rts as well. I've never done a real fast 2nd hive drop mostly because I'm unsure of how it plays out. Take Veil for example. Say we start in Sub, is it possible to grab nano and drop a really fast hive in cargo? How many gorges would that require if it could and would doing something like that just give marines free_reign over most of the map due to some aliens tied up defending?
I don't want a whole team to not have fun simply because I'm experimenting blindly with a build. Basically want I want is a basic frame to work with, a general idea of each build and what mindset I should have going in with it. I'd feel bad If I did the example above and found out that even though we held nano, I didn't have the res for both RT's and the hive if thats what I was going for.
Thanks for reading thus far and hearing me out, if you can help me, please by all means do so ^_^ This was also my first post so here's to hoping I haven't done something stupid lol.
Comments
- Giving orders to players by name and keeping track (as best you can) who is where
- Having your players call out enemy positioning (e.g. 2 skulks in crossroads) so that you can make a mental map of how the enemy players are distributed
- Having your players call out important events (e.g. first fade, RT locations, when they just killed a valuable structure) so you can keep track of enemy progress
- Coordinate simultaneous pushes into enemy territory
- Organize your players into distinct roles (e.g. player 1 protects the PGs, player 2+3 are your RT assault team, player 4 is your destroyed RT rebuilder, etc)
- Work on efficient medpack drops/enzyming
If you can master these things as comm, then the other RTS components will fall into order fairly easily. For example, Scrajm isn't one of the best comms in NS2 because he has some amazing build orders (he goes cara first just like the rest of us), but because he has a superb ability to organize his fellow Archaea players correctly to win engagement after engagement.
It sounds like to me you already have a good grasp of the different tech paths, you just have to keep in mind the above when doing something different.
(also, not medpacking/giving ammo to marines will make them complain a lot as well. On the other hand, giving enzymes to aliens when they are attacking will get you praise, they don't usually say anything when you don't.)
Right now I like 2nd IP into extractors and delayed teching. It's partly to keep your players from not wasting time, and partly to not end up in a situation where you have low resource count and few extractors. If you end up with 1 extractor and only a few res in the bank you've probably already lost the game. This opening has worked well for me.
My alien opening is 2 drifters -> 1-2 harvesters -> carapace -> tunnels -> 2nd hive. You'll probably want at least one more harvester and more drifters somewhere in there. The routes to your structures should have drifters on them. Not getting drifters is one of the biggest mistakes I see mediocre comms doing. "WHY IS NOONE AT OVERLOOK!?!" Because you didn't place any drifters, numbnuts. You want blink ready when the first PRes fades comes up, so that is often my first upgrade on 2 hives. Fairly standard build.
And if they're not covering overlook because you didn't tell them to (or didnt place a drifter), it's NOT your fault. Tell them to press C and use their brains (if they have any)
1-2 drifters
1-2 harvesters
carapace
3rd and 4th harvester
1-2 crags @ 2nd hive
2nd hive
blink
adrenaline
leap
celerity
bile bomb
- drop fade eggs at anytime
- if your team runs blindly in and mass suicides early game, make a shift for eggs but skip celerity and save for 2nd hive. Celerity t.res cost isn't justified, its not a viable first upgrade.
- you can go silence first, carapace 2nd on big marine favored maps like refinery, mineshaft
inf portal
res towers
armory
mines
arms lab
-armor1
shotguns*
welders*
observatory*
-weapons 1 and 2*
phase gates
-a3 or w3
*you can use whatever order you want on these 4
-armor 1, weapons 2 are the best upgrades, get there and then work on arcs or jetpacks or more upgrades
-put mines in base and first res towers, just buy 1 pack a player
-now be aggressive and SHOOT down harvesters, drop ammo!
I don't like phase gates first. I might do phase gates first on big maps, as in docking, refinery, or mineshaft, sometimes veil. But phases cost a lot, 1 phase is a 60 t.res investment. For that you can get A1 and W1, so use them wisely. Don't build phase gates at every tech point at the beginning, you need them at the front lines. Be aggressive, alien pub comms build way too many harvesters early and that loses games, if you are aggressive. Once aliens get 4 harvesters up though, they are sitting pretty. Don't arbitrarily build command stations and observatories at every tech point and delay your tech by 30 resources. Get to A1 W2, then you can do whatever you want.
I suppose it all depends on how thick your skin is. Good luck, in any case.
In any case, build orders are extremely situational and as such you cannot give out any "best bulid order". Rule of thumb: As marines armor 1 and weapons 2 are important (see posts above), as aliens I would suggest carapace or adrenaline and focusing on gaining as much ground as possible (lots of harvesters are always a good thing for aliens, although as said before you should not completely neglect upgrades, the sooner you have them the bigger the impact).
Bad: "Overlook!"
Better: "The overlook RT is being attacked by one skulk. Can someone try to get there?"
Best: "The overlook RT is being attacked by a skulk. Blarney, you're nearby, do you think you could go take care of that?"
Now, of course, on public servers, not every player is going to listen to you, but usually there will be 2-3 communicative and helpful players on any given team who will listen and get the other players to go with them. Another thing you should try to do is refrain from criticizing your players at any point. Nothing turns people off from a comm faster than "Why didn't you guys go save that RT?" or "Wow, you guys are so worthless that I can't do anything!" Feel free to give advice to players, but do it in a way that is constructive and isn't condescending.
As for build order, there are a couple things you should keep in mind, although a lot of it is up to you to discover personal preferences. However, here are a couple of suggestions/general rules of thumb
- Carapace first is almost always the way to go for aliens
- Use drifters frequently
- Be more conservative with RT placement as aliens vs. as marines. An early RT loss can really cripple the aliens, marines can generally recover better. Usually you don't need more than 3 RTs until you've dropped a second hive
- Blink is normally a good research right after the second hive finishes because it take a long time
- Armor 1, Weapons 2 are pretty important for marines
- Mines are great as an early research
- Depending on the makeup of your team and the size of the map, you can choose to prioritize either PGs or arms lab first
- Keep in mind the state of the alien economy, and keep an eye on the game time. You will want to have SGs up before they get lerks, A1/W2 before they get fades, and JPs before they get onos
The advantages are that you'll become familiar with the maps, which will result in you thinking of goals and how to achieve them effectively on your own as learn.
Many of these videos also have commentary by skilled players allowing you to become familiar with the terms of the game and how the larger picture fits. The side bonus is you'll be contributing to the community passively as well by increasing your own viewership and becoming familiar with the players of this community.
You'll see that someone from dn' or All-in joins a team, and you'll know to join that team as well (aka stacking) which is currently a vital part of this game (for whatever reason)
The Alien team decided to all go gorge + early lerk egg drop and gorge rush our main base. Little did they know I had put up another CC + IP already. While they were taking out our main base (takes awhile with gorges), my marine team was spawning at the other tech point and they all decided to attack their hive. We won. They faced no resistance save 1 skulk and lerk.
If I had gone with any other strat, we would not have won. If I had waited to put down another CC until after they were already attacking, we may not of had enough people in time to go after their hive.
This just proves that going with the same build order is not always good.
you asked the right questions in the OP, but nobody is going to answer them properly (and you should ignore all responses) because they aren't playing the same game as you
do not worry about "builds" because they are completely worthless in terms of actually learning how to command.
do not worry about what competitive players do because they aren't playing the same game as you (6v6 with excellent shooting and coordination against excellent opponents is not a pub match)
do worry about locations (spots for structures, arcs) because maps are static and you do not have to adapt to them.
treat everything you do as a decision about where to spend resources. your time as a field player and your personal res are also resources.
in terms of commanding (choosing where to spend res), the obvious answer is that it doesn't matter what you do as long as your team makes good use of whatever you bought
some factors to consider are player skill, player life forms, player count, map, and what the enemy is doing
everything has obvious advantages and an associated cost.
what you need to discover is how to evaluate your own decisions so that you can learn. you just need to measure whether anything you spent money on was used effectively. and then you have to incorporate that knowledge and improve.
one of the biggest problems with NS2 is that there is absolutely no feedback about whether you chose wisely. random idiots complaining or praising you is not feedback. winning or losing a game isn't feedback because teams are never even. 10 players posting 10 different "build orders" is not feedback.
if you spend money on a resource tower and it survived for some time, then you have gotten feedback: spending resources on that RT was a profitable decision.
if you spend money on medpacks / ammo / nano, then you have gotten feedback: spending resources on those drops achieved or did not achieve the desired effect.
if you built an arms lab and left it idle for a long time, then you have gotten feedback: there was no return on investment of that arms lab for a while.
commanding is about spending resources wisely. go experiment.
note that you can improve more quickly by understanding why someone better than you made a certain decision
@Res, what was the idea behind the quick CC/ip drop initially? Or was it in reaction to the rush? And that sounds like a funny game lol.
@Pip1, one reason I'm asking for help on comming is so that I can trust myself
@Melancor , I'm working on drifter placements so that when marines do come aliens know about it. I love obs and drifters because they are an immense help and make my job a lot easier
@Marshall, I'll try being more aggressive and I wasn't aware that shade hive was really viable unless you were messing around or wanted to keep the enemy on there toes. Thanks for the tips and the build orders. I'm gonna experiment with them later and see what happens
@Mestaritonttu, have no worries, I most definitely will be playing a lot more and I'm sure I'll be doing the same old same old quite often till I get better, and as I said to Pip, the main idea behind the post was to help me figure out the ins and outs of doing different things, without me screwing up royally in a game instead.
@Mc_Intire, best build order is not needed thankfully
@Blarny_Stone, Thank you for all of your advice especially about blink, I usually went for leap first since most of the team usually is skulks so I'll definitely give this a try. Also, what maps would be considered large vs small? honestly I wouldn't call any map small XD so I would be interested on which maps you and most others consider to be small.
@Fat_Man, I have and always shall continue to watch competitive games ^_^ and I tend to avoid stacking if at all possible.
@DC_Darkling, lol I actually read your post before coming to type this thread and it was amazingly helpful, I just wanted extra advice ^_^
Marine:
- Pressure group = Players that are constantly attacking (together, not solo!) alien harvesters and/or upgrades.
- Res Cap Group = As you can guess, these players will cap or recap res.
- PG/Base Defense Group = Basically, you always want to have at least one marine able to quickly phase to defend any of your PGs and/or bases (mostly against single skulk/lerk attacks but also to buy time for larger attacks).
Aliens
- Res Biting = Only attack extractors and avoid direct combat as much as possible (i.e. when encountering marines while killing a RT, these players should retreat to attack another RT rather than fight the marine).
- Player Killers = Should have your best skulks/lerks/fades dedicated to killing marines wherever and as often as you can.
- Mine Clearers = Typically one of your lerks, whose sole job is to clear out every mine he can find.
- Base/RT Defense = Mostly going to be your gorges, but may include skulks and the occasional lerk/fade for the purpose of defending locations during critical times (e.g. 2nd hive while its building, important chokepoints such as system waypointing or hub, etc).
@Scardybob, thanks for helping so much. Do you usually try to have at least 2 on every group (besides mine clearers) or do you have a specific number you like to at least have in said groups?
Marine:
- Pressure group = 2-4
- Res Cap Group = 1-3
- PG/Base Defense Group = 1-2
Aliens
- Res Biting = 1-2
- Player Killers = 2-4
- Mine Clearers = 1
- Base/RT Defense = 1
Also, I should note that you don't have to have the same players dedicated to each group all the time. I'll frequently cycle the res cap/defense players as needed. The only players I would try to permanently dedicate are the Pressure Group/Player Killers as these should be your best shooters/melee players.
@Nailo , It is kind of like an alternate to early phasegates. However, instead of using a phasegate to secure a 2nd tech point, you are using spawning marines from the 2nd IP. Also, gives you the benefit of having the second CC already for jetpacks later and having that 2nd IP for larger servers.
Anything I could add id add to my guide, anything more is just situational and not worth it to point as fact.
As for alien commanding.. ill write a guide sometime if I find the one someone else wrote still lacking, but it was fairly ok.
@Scardybob, cool, thanks for answering my questions. I'll definitely be trying to improve separating marines and aliens into squads.
@Res, that's pretty cool, I'll have to give that a try and see how it goes, maybe rush early jetpacks with it lol.
@Roobubba, Got it, always make sure the team is aware of what you wanna do and offer to something different if they don't want to. Thanks for the advice and I argee its fun to mix it up
@DC_Darkling, please do, an alien commander guide that is just as well written would help a lot. Its also true that what I'm asking for here is situational advice, so generally you wouldn't find it in a guide, hence why I'm asking here ^_^
@Simba, I'd say my problem with meds and ammo are that I'm a bit too proactive at dropping meds. Also I'm pretty sure that a lot of the time I med someone who probably wasn't worth it. I love using nano-shield on a marine that is either defending our bases against fades or being attacked by them, especially if he has a shotgun.
Id not lower my own guide to situational stuff like 'start shift'. (its a marine guide, but id not say it for alien either).
I also disagree. For any experienced player, situational components are the most important, but for the new comm who barely knowns what button to press, you always need the basics.
I may sometime add situational stuff to my guide but lets be honest here.. thats a dangerous path. Best leave them to ask in there own topics aye?
@DC_Darkling, well then can you create an advanced marine and alien com tutorial? One that deals with the situational ideas and the tradeoff's involved. If you could do that, I might not have to ask these questions on the forums and just consult your guide to help me learn more. Your guide did excellent with solid basics, something all new commanders should know, most of those things I knew but it always helps to have a reminder anyway. I want to be a better com all-around and I figure, the more I know and the more I practice the better I get. So I'll ask real nice, pretty please could you create some advanced guides that go over more than just the basics
?
@Scardybob, total agreement, those "complex situational tradeoffs" and "risks/rewards scenarios" are the things I crave to learn more of. Its true playing a few dozen games might grant me the same thing, but I was hoping to tap into the knowledge of comms that are better than myself and who know the tradeoff's of early obs vs early mines, ectera. That way I could become better, quicker and perhaps see for my own eyes what others have given me the knowledge to see.
@Popture, pub commanders are just as welcome as competitive to help me out ^_^ I need all the help I can get. Can I assume you base your opening on how well your team performs then, like if they die a lot you either get a 2nd ip or rush armor 1? I start about the same as you although I just try to constantly keep an eye on everything alongside of teching (aka, I throw down the armory immediately) My instructions most often at start are "even splits to the left and right" with me also asking 2 to go down the center in either Tram or Docking. Another thing I need to work on is changing that up a bit otherwise I'll be predictable, but I'm unsure of where to start. As some have said, experience is key with this thing so I intend to get me some, but I'd like to have some assistance from your experiences as well if you don't mind ^_^