A Question To Our 'special' Customers...

[SaltzBad]

What is it that makes 'IRIMPORTANTGIMMESTUFF's half-empty LMG clip so much more important that he needs to spam every radio command 15 times than his teams med and ammo? Is he going to take down 3 hives in a row and 2 Onos with his ammo, or does he bring world peace with it?

What makes the ressource nozzle of 'OMGCOMMURIDJIT' so much more interesting than his teammate at the hive node, who that very moment would be very grateful for help against those 3 Skulks rushing at him? Is there something I'm missing that requires extreme skill about putting up ressource nodes so that only the best of the best can do it and its not enough having one guy going around capping them while the rest keep the aliens busy?

What does 'WPNUPGRADEWTFBBQ' know about the upgrade system that I don't - do the allcaps he's using increase their effectiveness, or is it the knifing of the commchair thats the magical component? Do those 0.0 bullets more that you have to shoot at a Skulk between level 1 and 0 upgrades constitute an license to suck ass?

Thats my ranting for now. I could go on, but this library comp is kicking me off in 1 minute.

[Loke The Sleek Peruvian]

Bad day as a comm?

[BobTheJanitor]

Still waiting for the day that an 'eject marine' option is coded into the comm interface. It would have the effect of shooting the marine out of the map and into a game of CS somewhere. But remember what I've been harping on: obey the comm is a rule! Point out this behavior if it's getting really bad and it'll be dealt with.

[Niteowl]

saltzbad, although i haven' seen you comm too much, i notice you need more/better/more refined COMMRAGE!!!!

if your chest isn't hurting in the heart area at the end of the game, you're not playing it seriously enough!!

but yes, you are right, they are being idiots, that's bad. perhaps tell them they will never get mores weapons/ammo/meds if they don't go to a certain wp RIGHT NOW! ?

[Sancho]

I noticed a fairly bad crowd last night, who was it that was giving you trouble?  Next time someone is being abusive go to the IRC channel and call for an admin.

[DiscoZombie]

bah, I just typed a rather long post and lost it down the black hole that is the intarweb, when my connection to lm.org got severed

so I'll sum it up instead.  Saltz is my favorite com, not just cuzza his impressive win/loss ratio, but because he makes the games more interesting than most comms' straightforward brute force strategies of capping res nodes, saving for a heavy train, rushing/sieging hives...

but Saltz, you're so hard on your teams, even the intelligent members =P of course there's the lamers who never follow orders and always think they know better than the com -- but then there's those of us like myself who have faith in the com and follow orders 90% of the time, but have doubts once in a while, about things like passing up empty res nodes when we're down to our last one... effectively meaning that if whatever offensive we're on fails, we can't afford another... thereby trashing a half hour's worth of effort holding the enemy back...

I'll freely admit you probably know better than most of us... but even if you COULD see everything from that lofty chair, you still can't think of everything with only one head on your shoulders... most of lunixmonster's clientele is reasonably intelligent (compared to most pubs) -- so give us some credit too =P confidence is helpful for a comm since wishy-washy strategies usually fail, but on the other hand, don't treat your team like they're just idiots you're forced to deal with in your evil scheme of map domination :p suffice to say, most of us do our best, and if you want a team that is totally mindless but aims well and follows orders to a fault, I refer you to http://www.rcbot.net/ .

[SaltzBad]

Meh, the thread wasn't deadly serious anyway - at least while the points are true, it doesn't bug me all that much. Yeah, some guys yesterday evening were very special cases - but thats always going to happen either way. Some venting was plainly in order, to avoid strangulating the marines in the field (which might be kind of a hindrance to winning, kekeke).

Either way DZ, even in some other games I used to make one little rule when doing anything commanding-like : Argue or comment later, I don't care. But when it happens, just do it and don't delay. The reason for this is not my huge manly member or powertrips, its simply that as soon as people start doing their own thing I have no more options in moving people around and can only watch and support them. I can't even contemplate trying another Hive attack for example if the odds are too high people will scatter on the 'nodes along the way - and can't even do the most obvious thing, and send a loner to recap the nodes while everyone else keeps them aliens busy.

So it just immediately degrades into a contest of personal skill between Aliens vs Marines, until at some point a guy actually holds still and builds a phase, I beacon everyone and we rush down the hive. Either that, or more often with the skilled Aliens on lunixmonster, everyone gets raped into oblivion repeatedly and the special cases I mentioned will blame it on the lack of their favorite upgrade.

And yeah DZ, you try hard and its awesome - and I realize from average ns_ gameplay its just an urge to point a gun at a ressource node and ask for orders, but please try to fight the urge. I may not see everything from that chair, but I do see a whole lot - and keeping track of static points across the map whose position never changes isn't so rough that I'll need everyones help with it. But if you absolutely must, just ask if I'm sure - while still walking with the grorup

*shrug* Just think of it as the same thing as the attacking-RTs thing that you almost never fail at - out of habit I too would probably just knife the RT, but its all about fighting those bad habits - be they child molesting, smoking or capping resnodes.

[Isamil]

Is there a rule against telling stupid marines to go down a dead end hallway and blocking them in with a structure?

[Black Mage]

COMMSLAP!

a question for salt:
do you play lots of rts's and expect us to follow orders like those mindless drones?
most comms appreciate it when a small group stays by an uncapped resnode while the rest of the team moves to the waypoint so i would assume that's how most people (including me) because nobody ever complained about that extra res from that nozzle that we capped on the way to maint hive or comp core

so, if you want us to follow orders uber-specifically (don't touch anything, forget that node, don't chase that gorge ... things that seem intuitive from the gound) just ask, m'kay?

[Dark]

99% of the time if i'm a rine i go to the wp w/o killing an alien rt, chasing down a gorge, or standing near an empty node because normally when i'm in and saltz is com i'm told to rambo for rts

basically what i do really depends on the com though sometimes i do go and do things i probably shouldn't :ph34r:

[CForrester]

I've screwed up a few times when you told me to do something, Saltz. Sorry. :/

[SaltzBad]

Its not about the people that do it occasionally. Everyone now and then manages to make errors - its those that do it with unrelenting accuracy that are annoying

And BM, its simple - I can deal with micromanaging 95% of the stuff that happens on the field, like sending loners out to cap RTs and say researching without reminders. When then people run around to stare at nodes while the aliens need some pressuring badly, things start to fall apart - as any game will if the aliens get too many nodes, eventually. And thats really my problem - sticky marines that hang on every node don't allow for good pressuring, and if they can't pull it off to in a disorganised fashion win 90% of the gunfights in early game, a team loses.

On the other hand, on teams that work together well, we can loose those 90% of gunfights and have 1:4 K:Ds all across the team and still win. How? Taking down nodes, single people capping countless masses and being able to project force almost anywhere anytime whenever the alien side shows a weakness. HD once put it nicely, by looking at the alien map he already had a good guess where I was going to pressure next and what was weak (Yes, its obviously predictable, although so is anything with 1-3 hives). Its that kind of game that gets the other side down.

Eh, but anyways. Its not the win that matters so much, as that we have some fun as a team - and for both marines and comm thats imo greater when everyone works together.

And on that note, kudos to Sancho, most awesomest teammate!!11oneoneone

[DiscoZombie]

it's all good in theory... and it CAN be predictable... (I know when I'm on aliens and you're commanding, I always tell my team "ok he's probably telling his team to press here while someone else caps nodes here, so we should have 1 or 2 guys go kill those nodes while the rest of us block them here...") but it's definitely more effective in general than simply saying "ok team, go out and cap nodes" like a lot of people do...

I'm a fan of gold leader's comming, too -- very much like saltz, but instead of breaking the team up into 1 ninja and everyone else, he actually uses squads of like 2 ppl each and sends them off in different directions... also very effective... because the aliens are each alone 80% of the time, unless something strategic is being attacked... so groups of 2+ usually have decent success...

that might be worth considering to counter predictability... switch it up a bit, if you find the aliens seem to know exactly where to counter you...

[SaltzBad]

Yeah, I've been picking up on that and am slowly starting to use more of that midgame - most of my earlygames do involve taking one vital spot though, before even trying to break people up. Simply because marines running in their fast enough and setting up camp can be better than anything more complex if it works - if it doesn't, 2-3 IPs make sure we're back in business in 20 seconds.

Definitely will give it a try though, especially now after getting a bit of small-group practice with Sancho and Liku (They can tell you about my torments :p). If either of them are on my team, it would make trying that even more tempting.

[Majin]

Saltz your a good comm!
I forget who it was but I remember a comm (me thinks it waz u) telling everyone in base to go to TOP-O except for me and this one noob wouldn't listen so you got out of the chair and started to TK him!
LOL  :lol:
LOL  :lol:
I finished him off, but still it was tooo funny.

But yesterday on Hara, the first game, you were way to perdictable, a few of us who have watched you comm there knew you would sneak in 1 player to Holo with all the others in cargo to make it look like a relo to cargo.  But the next game that you commed you mixed it up.

Saltz your a fun comm!  ^_^

[Malevolent]

Heh, Saltz, that's the way to make 'em listen. And if knifing him doesn't get your point across, you could always use and HMG .

[Dark]

yes it is always a pleasure to play as a rine under satlz's command since he is always changing how he does it which adds to fun of the game and i don't mind being the lone rambo dying while getting rts  B)

[SaltzBad]

Saltz your a good comm!
I forget who it was but I remember a comm (me thinks it waz u) telling everyone in base to go to TOP-O except for me and this one noob wouldn't listen so you got out of the chair and started to TK him!
 

I was checking for cloaked Skulks. They might have been hiding in one of his orifices, and I'm not touching those spots. So better just shoot them.

[CForrester]

Saltz your a good comm!
I forget who it was but I remember a comm (me thinks it waz u) telling everyone in base to go to TOP-O except for me and this one noob wouldn't listen so you got out of the chair and started to TK him!
 

I was checking for cloaked Skulks. They might have been hiding in one of his orifices, and I'm not touching those spots. So better just shoot them.

You have the best commrage ever.

[Sancho]

Haha, yeah, that was great.

Be careful with that, though, Saltz  We give a lot of lee-way on the rules to comms because of the infamous uncontrollable "commrage", but shooting an inobediant marine is really pushing it bigtime.