Hamel wrote:Aliens are overpowered
In the beggining, you can get hit by a skulk rush and its all over
Not to mention anything above a skulk is practically immortal
On public servers infested with noobs and CS rejects, sure.
In clan matches and private servers, marines own aliens.
If you're getting owned by alien rushes, sorry, but your marine team is either not skilled or not working as a team. In the beginning of a game, it only takes 8 LMG bullets to kill a skulk, 4 pistol bullets, or three swipes with the knife. It's only when the aliens get 3 Defense Chambers up that things start getting nasty for the marines. Even then, a good commander will start getting things like motion tracking and weapon upgrades. Once marines have motion tracking, ambushes are nearly impossible. Rushing the base becomes suicide as a skulk.
As for higher forms being immortal, that's ridiculous. Obviously a single, unupgraded marine doesn't stand a chance against a 2 hive Fade with 3 movement (adrenaline) and 3 defense (carapace), but guess what, you're not supposed to go up against one alone. The LMG does damage it, but a single LMG vs. a Fade with carapace or regeneration (and usually fades hang around D-chambers) won't do enough damage by itself to kill the Fade. However, add in, say, some turrets, a few more marines, a shotgun, and you can kill a Fade, provided you don't just let it run off to heal.
Here's a few tips:
-Stay in a group. Don't jump around and dodge like a maniac while doing so. Strafing around (especially when the enemy is at long range) only serves to reduce the overall firepower of your team, since you run through the firing lanes of the other marines. Bullets can't hit the enemy if they are stuck in your back.
-Do what the commander says, when the commander says. You can make suggestions, but always respect the chain of command.
-Don't hump the armory all the time. You'll rarely use 300 LMG bullets or 40 pistol bullets, and the time you spend humping the armory is time you're not defending a position or killing aliens.
-If a phase gate is getting attacked, phase there ASAP. Jump right after you phase, so that if you get hit you fly away from the aliens rather than act as a free lunch.
-Short, controlled bursts. Sure, accuracy isn't a problem, but ammo is. Wild firing tends to just waste ammo, and the muzzle flare impedes your vision.
-Secure resource nodes for your team, deny them to the aliens. It's a simple strategy, but one that most newbies tend to forget in the heat of a fragfest. There are multiple ways to deny aliens resource nodes. Knife any alien RT you happen across (dangerous if alone, or even with a squad, since you give away your position, but if you're careful, it's fine). Welders work as well. Trick is, try not to waste ammo, you'll need it for taking down aliens or offense chambers. Alternatively, have the commander build siege cannons within range of the resource towers, then scan or have a marine look at the towers for total destruction. This is a very good solution, since the Aliens can't just claim towers just outside of a fortified position, and prevents them from building Defense chambers near that position as well. It doesn't matter if the aliens have two hives if they only have 2-4 resource towers (unless there's only 3-4 aliens). Meanwhile, if the marine economy is better than the alien's economy, they can get HA, HMG, GL, JP, armor upgrades, weapon upgrades, and so on.
The biggest problem with the game right now is that quite often there are nasty stalemates that can happen when the aliens have two hives and the marines have one (or none, even). In NS_Nancy, if the marines take and hold the hive at Subspace, expect the game to either end very quickly in favor of the marines, or drag on for at least another thirty or fourty minutes, MINIMUM. Assuming the server doesn't crash, the marines can win, holding just one resource tower, even though the aliens may have royally kicked marine ass and control 95% of the map.
What you're talking about is the 90% newb phenomenon on public servers. If a team is 90% newb, aliens will probably win, and here's why.
Marines: 1 player takes the command chair. If this is a newb, the marines are fucked already. Regardless, the one experienced player will try to help the marines out and suggest objectives and build orders. Assuming the newbs listen, they might get up some IPs and maybe an armory by the time the skulk rush hits. All too commonly though, 7 of the remaining 9 people sit and watch (or run off to Rambo) while 2 people try to build the IPs and Armory. Because of this, everything takes longer to build, so the builders are helpless for longer than they should be. When the aliens come, they are in no position to open fire. The newbs, no knowing which direction the aliens will be coming into base from, are distracted. When the aliens rush, they panic, jump around, and fire a long burst, hitting little more than the walls or each other. As they reload, they die. Some skulks are bound to get pasted, but in all 4 or so should survive. Enough to eat the IPs and kill the command chair/commander. Game over.
Aliens: 1 player leads the rest of the team to the marine base. A newbie does not need to be terribly bright to figure out how to follow someone, and once they've been led by the nose once, they can do it again. They may not be terribly proficient gamers, but let's do be honest, as a skulk, you run up to someone and bite them. It's not as hard as hitting a moving target with a LMG once you're in range. Still, some are bound to get killed in the initial rush, but in the marines are mostly newbs as well, it's hardly going to matter. Even a veteran player is going to be hard-pressed to kill any more than 5 skulks without running out of ammo and getting chomped himself, and ideally you'd want the most experienced player as the commander. Plus, while marines can get in each other's way, such is not true for skulks. Obviously you can't bite through a buddy, but skulks rarely get in each other's way in the middle of combat, if ever.
Playing as marines requires that one learns the art of teamwork. Aliens require teamwork as well, but it's usually much easier to learn alien teamwork than marine teamwork. Part of it, I think, has to do with the shift of responsibility. With marines, all Res goes to the commander, which he then doles out in the form of buildings, upgrades, and equipment. Aliens are responsible for getting their own upgrades (after the gorge has made them available, that is). So when a marine dies, losing his JP and shotgun, he'll stay around in base, whining for the commander to drop him new equipment and refusing to do a damn thing until he gets it. An alien that dies as a fade or lerk without the res to go back has to suck it up and tough it out as a skulk for a while. The ex-CS players that try NS understand that model better than the marine model, and thus adapt to it better. They learn all the tricks for staying alive at all costs. Regeneration, D-Chambers, Redemption, Umbra, etc. Marine newbs don't even seem to understand that there is a resource meter on the top of their screen, and that a commander can't drop a HA/HMG/Welder value meal with only 20 res.
But I ramble.
