Aliens In 2.0

SDJason · September 2003

<div class="IPBDescription">not a complaint.. just an observation</div> Aliens in 2.0 dont communicate much early game. People save for early onos.. people drop res.. people do basically whatever they want with very little communication..

Only in an late-mid to endgame scenario (win or lose) do the aliens start serious communication...

WHY?

What exactly is there to communicate? all you can really do is say what ur going for.. or what ur gonna do..

Alien strategy is basically kill kill kill spend res on whatever kill kill kill

I see in games a lot very little communication between aliens... and today it hit me why this is..

The Removal of the one gorge system...

Back in 1.04.. the gorge had his own bodyguard.. EVERYONE on the team knew what hive to take... what res to guard, what the aliens were doing?

WHY? because there was incentive to gather intel, and support your team. If the gorge died.. you were hard hit and almost always scrooed.

Now everyone can go gorge whenever they want.. and build whatever they want... no economic disadvantage to the rest of the team. As a result communication has diminished between aliens greatly

In 1.04 the gorge WAS the comm of aliens. he told them what to do (to an extent) and got teamwork because of his value. The marines do the same through thier commander....

Dont get me wrong.. I LOVE 2.0 and all 2.01 versions.. im just beginning to notice aliens losing much more simply because of this lack of communication.... and it just hit me as to why this is..

~Comments?

BTW.. ill say it again.. im not bashing 2.0 in any way.. simply stating what ive noticed..

Mintman · September 2003

You should try playing on a few new servers, on quite a few I frequent (when the regulars are on) the aliens develop a battle plan between them. For example: "we could do with at last 4 RTs can people drop one as soon as they have the res", "I reckon we'd be better off with Ventilation hive, can we try and keep that clear" and things like that.

If you don't think there is enough communiation, ask yourself: "am I telling the team what I'm doing and what I'd like to do?". If you are, you'll be surprised how many people will give you at least a vague idea of what they want to do. If you aren't, you can't really complain about your team not communicating with you.

Geminosity · September 2003

sometimes I find the team is pretty quiet when I join but I'm such a chatterbox it doesn't last for long ^^;
Like mintman pretty much said, if you aren't talking most other people won't talk either <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>

lolfighter · September 2003

Indeed. You just have to break the ice. Start squawking and people will soon start to listen, make their own comments and so on. Voicecomm helps, as communication is faster and you don't have to type instead of moving. Sometimes it just won't work and people will be intent on doing their own things, but even seen from an egoistical perspective most people want to play as a team. "Two targets means only 50% chance that I'm shot at." Just takes a few stones to get the boulder rolling. But yes, aliens lack teamwork at the moment, and they will suffer for it. And they will learn.

Xaajeh · September 2003

Flayra must care more about CAL than the public offering Natural Selection gives.

He should have left the format as it was in 1.04, with aliens having a type of "central" command, ie the one or two gorges running the show.

It is far too random and jittery on public servers to require basically the whole team cycling through gorges.

Necrosis · September 2003

Pub servers arent too bad if you've 1-3 talking players. They don't have to be GOOD, but if they communicate then you'll have better results that silent players of any calibre.

Probably only once on a pub server has there been a complete lack of communication, which crippled the game despite most of the players being individually of experienced or skilled standard.

Julien · September 2003

I started playing NS with version 2.0, so I've got nothing to compare it to, but in my opinion (and the servers I play on) aliens are quite capable of communicating.

Besides stating what you're doing, or what location you want to attack with teammates, another thing I make a point of doing is to report where the marines are, and where they're heading.

One thing I greatly enjoy about the alien team is that you don't -have- to respond to such communications if you don't want to. Independent action is an advantage of the aliens, as well as a disadvantage, depending on the situation.

A gorge setting up a hive somewhere may decide not to go to the rescue of another hive under attack. That's fine, since if the other aliens do converge and save that hive, the aliens now have two hives. And if that hive is lost, there's at least a backup. An alien or two might decide to ignore communications and wander off to sabotage marine base or rts while hive is under attack. That's double the damage to marines if things go well. Needless to say, if EVERYONE does this, then poof goes the attacked hive and the aliens get to ponder the wisdom of always ignoring communications in the few minutes left to them as they ping to death.

That's the fun of using the map, hivesight, and having teammates who report stuff. You get to make strategic decisions on the fly, individually. See five skulks already converging on two stray marines LMG'ing the hive in desperation? Well, there's probably no need to go tearing across the level to the hive unless you see five alien deaths in the next few seconds.

Yes it can be very exasperating when no one seems to comprehend English and all you see is skulks running randomly across the map getting gunned down individually. But I suppose you can't have good games with great communication going on without having a few bad games like that as well. Perhaps it's just a cumulative effect of a few/lots of bad decisions made by each alien player.

One other thing I'd like to mention is: asking instead of demanding. That might improve response to communications by severalfold.

(I go gorge a lot in my games. I'm happy to give up res for the team. If I have the res, I'm very happy to dump some dcs down for you if you say, "2 more dc pls?" I stop being happy and start grinding my teeth instead if you keep screaming "GORGE, gorge, dc!!" "build dc!" "gorge, dc now!" every three seconds. Either trust your gorge to know what he's doing, ask him or call him by name, or -go gorge yourself-. Your gorge would be way happier with redemption himself too. He's not building dcs because he has no res, figures the team needs res towers more or something similar along those lines.)

Other than that, I think the only way to improve alien communications is to improve your own personal responses to it. Aliens are set up to be more independent individuals than marines. Their strength is that they can be in many places doing different things at the same time. A two or threefold attack on marine locations can be going on, while gorges are capping rts and building hives. As long as a majority of aliens are talking and responding, things will get better with time.

Xzilen · September 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Xaajeh @ Sep 20 2003, 03:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Flayra must care more about CAL than the public offering Natural Selection gives.

He should have left the format as it was in 1.04, with aliens having a type of "central" command, ie the one or two gorges running the show.

It is far too random and jittery on public servers to require basically the whole team cycling through gorges.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
You have no right to say that.

Honestly, if you hate it so much, don't play.

Typhon · September 2003

I actually think such lack of communication is a symptom of the early game being relatively safe for aliens. There isn't much to talk about because there isn't much threatening them at that point. Except for a shotty rush, the marine early game consists of capping nodes and fortifying, leaving the aliens to just run around a take down marines whenever they see fit.

Often the only time I see a lot of communication on the aliens early game is if the marines are very agressive in pushing locations and moving towards the alien hive. Alien early game is very reaction based: aliens only change their plan based on the actions of the marines. If the marines dont do much, then there isn't much to change/talk about.

SinSpawn · September 2003

Want communication, joi na server with people you know, between you and your pals you will communicate a;pt.

im_lost · September 2003

The idea of a "commanding" gorge was based on the idea that gorges got res three times as fast as other aliens, forcing the aliens to only have one gorge (or possibly two) to get anything done in the early game. A big change from 1.04 to 2.0x is that aliens can evolve to any lifeform no matter how many hives they have. If gorges got res faster than everyone else, then many people would go gorge simply to save for onos.

Necrosis · September 2003

The "we don't need communication" philosophy is whats killing the alien game in 2.01

All sides need to communicate now, and act as a cohesive team. Its getting to be very much like playing on the marine team, where a few rambos can quickly cripple your game plan.

For aliens, when a hive's under attack and you holler out for help at hive, half the team think what they're doing is more important, and that "everyone else will cover for me". Which just isn't the case, especially against marine teams who've spent most of their games getting creamed by uncoordinated aliens. Marines have learnt about teamwork and fast lightning strikes - aliens CANNOT afford to keep being so slack.

tankefugl · September 2003

I've developed a habbit when playing aliens. The first thing I say is "I'll save for hive". Then I might even continue to distribute tasks: "Ok, (insert name) get us 3 dcs, (insert name) save for early onos/fade, rest of you get rts!"

Even if my fellow alien players won't agree with me, it usually contributes to a lot of communication and activity.

Then, a minute into the game or so, (if it haven't become apparent already) I usually ask my team what's happening. What are the marines doing -- any movement? Relocations?

Quaunaut · September 2003

Personally, I agree with you. The majority of servers, there isn't much communication. Now, its just a "good idea" instead of a requirement. I wish it was a requirement again....AND I want the gorge bodyguard back...but I stilll dun wanna lose this resource system...(it kicks ****)

Rapacious · September 2003

I have to agree with Mintman here. Chances are, there will be very little communicating, and the only way to amend this is to begin communicating yourself - Not doing this is just plain daft... However, it has to be said that the majority of NS players will continue to be 'joe n00b' and store up 100 res for a first hive onos attack...

Flak50C · September 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Flayra must care more about CAL than the public offering Natural Selection gives.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

The point I've tried to make many times.

And onos saving as gorge was ALWAYS a risk, I daresay more in 1.0 because res were more scarce. Basically the only way you could get onos fast besides holding 9/10 rts was to gorge. With kill res, most players get about as much resources as 3x gorge speed now anyway. At least, I do... hehe.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The majority of servers, there isn't much communication. Now, its just a "good idea" instead of a requirement.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>Gravity isn't just a good idea, its the LAW</span></b>. Just thought I'd share that with you.