Especulations about clan play
Huan
Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 80Members
Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 80Members
<div class="IPBDescription">And what about hardcore games?</div>I was speculating a bit on how NS gameplay would evolve and i'd like to ask some questions to you. As you have said this is meant to be a carnage mod where aliens attack the marine base and they fire a lot and shout and die and bla bla bla but...
What is forcing them to attack?
On a normal enviroment defense is ALLWAYS more powerfull than offense, on a pub nothing really matters as people want to have fun, but if you put two organized clans fighting on a map you will find them securing their positions much more than they attack, is there a time limit? What is there that forces teams to attack, specially the marines which seem to be very defensive with those inmobile sentry guns.
BTW, where is the fun in sentry guns? i've played LOTS of q3f and still haven't understood where is the fun or the skill in them, but nevermind, i'll write an article flaming them as soon as i can play NS a bit.
People here is asking for mountable guns, more sentries, land mines, traps... WTF?!!! Is camping everything you are thinking about here?
You all want to see aliens coming to you shouting in strange ways but you all want to see THEM coming, not you. Or else you want to ambush marines from strange places which try to explore the area, but you want THEM to explore your area, not YOU attacking them???
What is forcing them to attack?
On a normal enviroment defense is ALLWAYS more powerfull than offense, on a pub nothing really matters as people want to have fun, but if you put two organized clans fighting on a map you will find them securing their positions much more than they attack, is there a time limit? What is there that forces teams to attack, specially the marines which seem to be very defensive with those inmobile sentry guns.
BTW, where is the fun in sentry guns? i've played LOTS of q3f and still haven't understood where is the fun or the skill in them, but nevermind, i'll write an article flaming them as soon as i can play NS a bit.
People here is asking for mountable guns, more sentries, land mines, traps... WTF?!!! Is camping everything you are thinking about here?
You all want to see aliens coming to you shouting in strange ways but you all want to see THEM coming, not you. Or else you want to ambush marines from strange places which try to explore the area, but you want THEM to explore your area, not YOU attacking them???
Comments
let me start with the 'defensive'-thing:
First, the aliens are anything but defense-orientated:
They've got mostly close combat-weapons, what makes defense (which aims on killing people BEFORE they arrive) a tad bit difficult, second, they're pretty fast and (relatively) weak armoured (ie, still better than marines, but...), what makes engaging a better tactic, third, they may not accomplish their goal without of attacking - at least one marine (the comander) will never get out in the field.
The marines, on the other hand, may have some defensive stuff like turrets, but a completely defensive marine strategy will end up in them being crushed by an alien team consisting of nothing but lvl5-ers. Besides, the marines goal is to destroy all hives, so they've got to get out there.
The mostly used marine strategy will be to set up a small outpost near the hives, to get some heavy turrets and weapons on line, and then to run a fast, hard strike.
So, yes, you may try and bury yourself into your spawnpoint - if you like to be vanquished.
The first minutes of the game will be pretty silent:
Although every player that got into the team before the round started spawns at once, you won't see too many rushes:
An 'army' of bobs is barely a threat for the marine spawnpoint, and the marines will have to find out which of the three different hive rooms is the first spawnpoint (it's randomly choosen), so the in beginning, there will mostly be a number of scouting marine groups being ambushed by small formations of aliens.
BTW, i wasnt refering to rushes as "bad thing that kills gameplay" because it isn't, in fact rushing is a very nice and risky strategy which makes the gameplay more wealthy <!--emo&:D--><img src="http://66.78.33.98/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'><!--endemo-->
If marines camp and wait, killing some aliens with minimal loss, what will give the alien team points to get those 5th levels?
Strategicly this is a RTS, economy is the crucial factor and marines can be very defensive without letting aliens kill much of them, thus making the alien's economy very weak and then the marines can attack with late-game weapons the alien hives which have low-level aliens due to their poor economy, isnt it? Or there is some other income of resources i'm missig here?
On the close-combat weapons i agree this is a good idea to make aliens more offensive, but imo this is taking skill of out the game, mostly because there is no skill in mele weapons (no aiming) unless you turn that into a Blade/Rune-like sword game which is something you aren't doing, right?
EDIT: Understand me, i'm not critisizing the mod, i love moving around and i don't like how moving skills are useless in Q3A if you opponent has a little bit of aim (I dislike that so imagine how much i dislike cs crouch&fire philosophy, no dodging = sucks <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://66.78.33.98/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->), but i feel this would take a bit of skill out, what about low range weapon (like the UT green shaft) which is close-combat but takes skill, is there anything like that in the game?
Yep, there's one crucial bit of income you're missing: the aliens get a new hive automatically every x minutes (set by the map). Each hive constantly generates resources for every alien player. Also, each new hive unlocks new abilities for each lifeform. The idea here is that if the marines never make a move against the hives, the aliens will outgrow the marines.
As far as low range weapons, there is one in there now (the level2 has a spit attack with a short range) and there will probably be more (at least for the aliens).
I think NS will have succeeded if a coordinated rush by all the aliens (mostly or all as level 1s) is a viable tactic, but one that can be easily countered (say, with one or two turrets that were built before the onslaught, either at the base, or in a place preventing alien retreat) if the marines know it's coming.