Tactics I recovered from the old forums

The following will be things I have recovered from the old forums since you all took the opportunity like I so willingly suggested.

YOALLCAPS thing strategy guide (I had taken out irrelevant information such as where to post for a discussion.)


The Thing Revival: THING Guide.

By: YOALLCAPSLOL

Dedicated to the players. And special thanks of course to Vicboy.

"Theatricality and Deception." - Bane & Ra's al Ghul

This is a guide for helping bettering yourself as a player when playing as the Alien in the Thing. I hope the information you find here can be helpful to you as you strive to become better at this great game.

I plan on updating this guide, so I don't know what format I'm going to do it in exactly, but I do know I plan on having a beginners section for those who are just starting out as playing the thing, and an advanced section for players who are skilled and understand the dynamics of the gameplay and can use advanced strategies, tricks, and tactics to better hone their gameplay.



Prelude: Outside Information:

There are a few things that I think any thing player can benefit from taking a look at and attempting to understand.

- The Thing (1982) Film

- Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" -- This is helpful in many areas of life, and is applicable to this game.

- The Thing (2011) Film

- Take an acting or screen writing class (Or a political science for that matter) -- Improv is key in this game. Remaining in character is everything.




Part 1: Beginner's Guide

"Are you guys really gonna believe Gary? He could be one of those THINGS!" -- Windows.



Section A: The Thing at a glance. What the premise of the game is. (Skip to next section if you understand.)

I. - When the player is the thing, he is an alien bent on eating, destroying, and assimilating all humans. The thing is a game about a squadron of marines trying to get back home to earth but who realize that they have one amongst their crew who is an alien host. They must do what ever they can, using what ever they have at their disposal to kill the Alien, including crashing the evac shuttle back into the station if need to be to prevent the Alien from going home and infecting the earth.

The Alien must systematically work against the odds and defeat the marines, eradicating them using the art of duplicity deceiving others, killing them off stealthily using it's superior strength to over power the humans when not united in full force.

The Alien must assimilate all humans and make it earth, none can survive.


--Always eat the marine if you have a choice, the more identities, the better-- - CAPS

Chapter I: The Chase, The Hunt and The Trap. The Three Phases of Gameplay.

- The game essentially breaks down into three parts which for lack of better vocabulary I have listed on here as the 'The Chase,' 'The Hunt,' and 'The Trap.' Each of which represents a separate phase of the game that The Thing goes through as he is fighting and proceeds to eliminate the marines, culminating in the final stage which is 'The Trap,' if all things go according to plan and the Alien is successful in battling the humans.



Phase 1: The Chase -- The start of the game.



- Initially in the game, the thing is greatly out numbered and at a disadvantage when fighting the marines in large groups. During this time period the thing must be doing everything he possibly can to be remaining hidden and striking at opportune moments attempting to kill the marines off slowly 1 by 1 or maybe 2 at a time. If he is feeling rambunctious maybe attempting to take on more. But it is more advisable, especially as a newer Thing, to try to separate your enemies as much as possible. Once the mob knows your color from you changing into the thing in front of them, or firing at their marines with your gun in human form, it is incredibly hard to shake them as they will Chase you. You want to be as covert as you possibly can during this time. Trying to silence anyone who knows who you actually are, and attempting to gain more identities. You are the stealthy fugitive on the run at this point, and you need to be aware of that, always mindful of your surroundings and who is near you, aware of what they know. Only strike when you are sure you can kill now.
If you are a new thing it can be helpful to kill the coms and lights during this time period to buy you time and / or a vision advantage, but know that if you do that you are revealing clues about your true identity as any marines who are together will have confirmation on each other being Thing. Roaring at them with "ROAR," will have the same effect alerting the marines as to his is a friendly face around them… though it is necessary for striking fear in their hearts….




Phase 2: The Hunt



Eventually as the 13 marines become 10, and then 7 and then 5, the tables begin to slowly turn the community strength factor of the marines begins to fail and wane under this. At this time the Thing has gone from being the hunted to the hunter. He no longer has the same need to run from the squad of marines and can pretty much square off with them toe to toe. At this point the marines will likely start running from the thing in fear after what has already happened to their fallen comrades and the thing will now longer be being chased, but will likely doing the chasing. It is important for the thing to anticipate the movement's of the marines, both who are alone and in groups in order for him to be able to corner the now mobile and fleeing group of humans. It is generally during this time that once you have gotten the group smaller than four, it is advisable to repair the coms tower if broken in preparation for the next step.


Phase 3: The Trap



Once the group of marines has reached a minimal number, best case scenario only one or two left, worst case scenario three or four hopefully, it is time to set the trap. You want to try and time your killings of the marines to a point where when you get to this number of marines left 1-3, the evac shuttle is nearly arriving. Once the group has been narrowed down to so few, the evac shuttle becomes an playing field advantage to the thing, as it is too small for the marines to micro in, (besides behind the fans). Your goal as the thing should be to kill the marines in the evac in the room with the pilot cockpit controlling the ship locking whoever you can in there and slaughtering. That or if you are dealing with microing marines, use that as your safe haven, as you come in and out attempting to kill them. Burrowing and shifting to avoid damage and have maximum maneuverability are your best friends on board the shuttle. Try not to fight the enemy in the fan room at all during lift off, since it is easy to juke a thing who is dealing with the shaking of take off while shooting it from behind the propellers. Hopefully you have gotten a small enough number of them down though, that you have them trapped within the confines of the evac, and they are a savory finish to a good game.




Run away from everyone and turn into the thing as soon as you can at the start of the game once the initial game timer blocking use of actions and attacking as ended. This tactic is particularly effective if you are able to get one or two marines alone after you've changed immediately and can corner and eat them. It gives you the opportunity to inherit more colors right off the bat. And if worst case scenario, one or all of your intended victims escape, they won't know what color you were originally as thing, giving you the opportunity to re-assimilate into the group.

FrkShitStorm's marine strategy guide

THE THING REVIVAL STRATEGY GUIDE: By FrkShltStorm

I want to shout out to YOALLCAPSLOL for giving me the idea of writing a guide on The Thing Revival; Yoall is writing on the theatrics and the deception that goes along with the thing. Yoall is not only one of the best things in this game, but he is also the most entertaining because of his great roleplaying skills.
This will be divided into three sections (Basic, Advance, and Expert) It won’t be helpful to read something you don’t understand, so if you are new, I suggest taking a look at basic only. If you are an expert, then ignore the rest. If you believe that you are boarder line between beginner and advance, then I suggest you read both sections. If you are only interested in thing then skip the marine section and go down until you see it.
Assess yourself correctly or this tutorial might not be very helpful, don’t pretend you are expert when you are advance or novice!

PLAYING AS THE MARINE

Basic Tips:
- If you get hurt with less than full energy, your energy will stop regenerating for a short period of time, keep that in mind for when you choose to stim.

- Only stim when you need to, this will cause you to die more often and it makes you an easy target for team killers + thing.

- If you prime a grenade then understand that you must hit G again if you choose to move, I have seen too many marines kill themselves due to not letting go of the grenade.

- If you know you can’t kill the thing alone, and your one of the last marines, then don’t run for 10 minutes, it is not fun for anyone.

- If you are alone and you see thing, react and stim to run away, don’t let him get an easy kill. Don’t forget that besides stimming you have the ability to lock doors, which will increase the distance between you and the thing.

- NEVER TEAM KILL!!! Let the pros decided who is the thing or not, don’t be the one who kills many marines because you had an idea that they might be thing! This is very important!

Some key terms

- Comms is the smaller post labeled as a white dot on the map, if broken it stops evac from arriving and must be fixed before the timer begins to go down again.

- Generator controls the lights on the map (also white dot on map), and lowers the sight radius by quite a bit; however, the radius for both thing and marine are lowered, so it is not too bad to keep off (if possible fix it when you can, but don’t risk lives over repairing it)

- Team Kill – is where a marine kills another marine, whether it be on purpose, or accident, it is still considered team killing (It is also commonly called TK, or TKING)

- Oxygen – If you are near too many other players, your oxygen begins to deplete very quickly, once at 0 oxygen you begin to start losing health, to get more O2, just stay away from other marines until it begins to go back up.

The Start of the Game

As a marine, there are a few rules that should be kept in mind while finding the items at the beginning of the game.
1. Stim at the very start of the game – there are almost no drawbacks to Stimming at the start; with the exception of Aquilon (I will talk about that in a bit) because the Energy comes back before anyone can even attack, and it increases the chances to find beginning items over other marines. The only map that should be noted is Aquilon because of the cold while outside it drains energy and if you Stim + run outside you will not be able to Stim as soon as you get your attack, which may lead to a few unlucky + unlikely deaths.

2. Understand the value of items – Depending on your level of skill, different items have different values that you should keep in mind when running around for items.


From best to worst

- Grenades – Grenades are my personal favorite item by far; however, something to keep in mind is that I only like to carry 3, and for good reason. Each grenade takes 3.5 seconds to blow up, and stim lasts for 10 seconds, so just as your third blows up your stim will run out, I have a good rule that if I don’t have stim I won’t try to grenade. Also if you are not very good with grenades try not to pick up too many, go for other suggested items in this list.

- Med kit – This may vary with Molotov; however, for the sake of this list I believe that personally a med kit out classes a Molotov. At the start I normally ignore med kits until I have enough grenades to support my solo kill (2 or 3) and then I go for med kits because they are not as popular as other items and don’t get picked up as often. Don’t use meds unless you know you will need the boost of health right then and there, otherwise heal up naturally (unless you’re below like 40% health).

- Molotov – in this items current state it is extremely powerful and should be in the hands of average players who are not that good with grenades. I believe in their current state, Molotov’s are like heat-seeking grenades that do less damage, they require little to no skill and slow the thing to get some easy damage in. Expect this item to be nerfed in the near future.


Items that I never use

- Flamethrower – It is a nice tool for average players who know how to turn the thing on, and should not be used by very new players (who don’t know how to turn it on and die before attacking/ people who like to chase after thing) or very experienced players because the loss of stim while holding the flamethrower is too much of a burden. Also if you choose to use flame thrower you must try and stay near the middle of the group (it is the first target of the thing), and if you know the thing is on the other side of a door, don’t walk in alone!!!

- Wrench – This item is basic, and I only use it in micro spots to stop the thing from throwing me (I will talk about this later). Wrench is nice for when the thing likes to run back and forth from lights to comms over and over! However if you find yourself being one of the last marines alive (which should start happening with my strategies) having a wrench and radio are completely useless! They are a hazard to your health if you find it a smart choice to try and repair the comms alone!!

- Radio – What good is the radio? It’s a nice tool to have I suppose, but the waste of an inventory space is a large price to pay for having something useless in your inventory that actually has two different draw backs! One it takes up a space that may cause you to not pick up certain items on the fly (say when you are running from thing) and it also allows people to see a red circle beyond the point they could normally see you. I suggest you avoid this item at all costs, unless if you just love radios.

3. Don’t lock at the start! - Try not to lock at the start of the game to prevent others from getting items, it is just bad manners. If you time your stim at the very start of the game, then locking should not even be necessary.

4. Group up - As the game progresses it is important to stay with a group of people, who can protect you from thing. It is very important to know that team-killing is almost ALWAYS the wrong choice, even if you don’t intend on killing others and you are almost certain that the marine that just walked in alone is thing – DON’T Team kill him! Look it is not advantageous of the group to kill everyone who is alone. If the thing happens to join the group, there is not a major benefit he gets from doing so. Moral of the story kids, is to not team kill!
Advance tips:
- If you are choosing to grenade the thing the most important part to understand is to know when to start the prime, For instance: if you find yourself in the back of the group and you are chasing thing then don’t try to grenade, you will end up hurting the group more than helping it.
- Try to hold the grenade longer than you normally do, as you get better you can hold the grenade longer and longer. I hold the grenade until about .3 seconds depending on the range of the thing. I suggest throwing no later than .7-.8 seconds until you get the feel for it.
- If you plan on soloing I don’t suggest using Molotov’s they tend to give the thing an advantage over the marine (this is subject to change once I figure out how to solo with Molotov’s + grenades)
- If you are going to solo the thing, then find a spot to do so, there are three types of locations on each map: great solo spots, average solo spots, and impossible solo spots, find the spots that you can rely on to solo in. Some bad spots that should be avoided at all costs: Aquilon on snow, Ragnov – top middle of the map, Liberty – in the woods. These are some examples of bad solo spots because they all allow the thing to escape easily giving it an unnecessary advantage.
- VERY IMPORTANT – try and learn the major 1x1 micro spots and get familiar with them to an extent where you can go to them any time of the game and be safe from the thing!
- A small tip is that once a grenade has been thrown it can be picked back up, be carful – it is very hard to pick it up.

Don’t follow the thing alone into a room while in a group (or in general!) – in a group it is tempting to follow the thing - while it seems that it may be too weak to fight the group, this is where people end up dead, they get over eager and follow the thing to their death, just try and go in as a group rather than alone!
Run if you need to – if you happen to get trapped with thing, assume that he locked the door and that you must run in the other direction, don’t sit around trying to run into an already locked door.
If someone leaves the group, don’t call them thing – this actually just happened so I will acknowledge it right now! If a marine leaves the room, don’t tell everyone that they are thing; you are just getting the group to pointlessly team kill!
Lead the group if you have to – I am confident that when there is a great leader in the front of the group, that the group’s performance drastically goes up. If you plan on leading I suggest that unless you are 100% sure that a marine is actually thing, don’t team kill them.
If you can solo the thing, then go solo! – If you can solo the thing, then stay away from the group and go hunting on your own, if you are average at soloing then go alone but stay near your favorite rooms (the room you choose is very important early on). If the thing does not know who you are, then great, they will underestimate you and it will allow for an easier kill; however, if you are a notorious solo killer, they will know you begin to know who you are causing the fight to be more complicated and causes them to be more cautious (which is never good!)
Key tips for Experts (these are the most important things you need to know about being a marine):
- Never underestimate your opponent *LIKE EVER* (This happens to me still – don’t think that just because the thing is at red hp that you can just run into a room after it, that is how I end up dying in fights vs the thing sadly!).

- Learn how to team kill (this means defend yourself vs team killers) once you get the hang of soloing the thing, it is also very important to note that you will be tked very often *just now while writing this I was almost team killed, but with quick reflexes and enough skill, I locked himself on his on Molotov! (people go after others that are alone, and those that leave the group, so understand what you are getting into when you go out soloing)

- Know all of the micro spots (1x1) where you can fight against thing alone. You need a fairly high apm to achieve this and to stay alive vs good things. Also items should be used on the ground to prevent the thing from throwing you across the micro spot dealing more damage. Watch out for when the thing goes into marine form and gets the first shot, that is where you either start your nade, Molotov, or run.

Side note:

- There are some terms that should be known about soloing beforehand (there is a difference on how solo with 2 vs 3 nades)

- With 2 grenades you will sacrifice some health to do more damage to the thing because you must do about 50% damage per nade to get the kill.

- With three its more control based where you are more focused on the first nade slowing the thing rather than it dealing 50% dmg where it might have a chance to miss.


- Some solo tips (very advance) – This is exactly what I do when soloing thing
- Knowing the skill level of the thing is very obvious after many, many solos! This will determine how they fight:

1. A move attack (they are almost like AFK and they just chase you straight up)

2. They attack and try to dodge the Nades with no burrow around the room

3. They just burrow and don’t burrow charge. (this is almost like a free kill in a sense)

4. They try to flee the room or go around corners to avoid the grenade (which will get some of you, that is one area that needs to be worked on)

5. Top Tier Things – they vary how they fight top tier marines. Thorgal is a great example of top tier things; they are very unpredictable allowing them to take much less damage from grenades and they don’t underestimate anyone.

What to do during the fight if they do the following – numbers correlate from above.

1. If the thing A-moves towards you, it will be played like you are holding 2 grenades (you get in as close as you can to the thing, but not in throw range, and then right before the nade goes off, you throw it on yourself, and run back) you may also just distance yourself from the thing, depending on which you are more comfortable with (playing with 3 nades).

2. If the thing decides to just run around and not attack too much, this is where angles really matter! Think of the thing as the center of a circle, move in that angular formation to be able to hit the thing no matter where he goes. I tend to enjoy things that run and attack because it’s close up but you are also not taking too much damage because they don’t go pure agressive.

3. This is the similar strategy when fighting great things – you run on top of the thing to see where he is (this is why you stay close so you can quickly get on top to see the location) right b4 the nade goes off, just drop it on his location and step back! It’s that simple.

4. This is where people tend to die, while the thing is running out of the room around the wall, again I suggest you stay in this angle formation and don’t run straight on. If they are running around a corner you take the outside edge of the corner and have an angle to hit anywhere they choose to run.

5. Stay close to the thing during the fight, they will juke you to no end, and this is where it gets insane, if you are too close they will throw u and get about 2 free shots in, if you are too far away they will just burrow charge to any spot they want, and it’s up to luck at that point because you are throwing almost blind. Stay close and get ready for a burrow (then realize where they might burrow charge to and throw where you think best. If they are not the best of the best they may show you b4 the nade goes off where they went to (very helpful) but this won’t happen often with pro things though. It is extremely important that you hit with the first nade (that slows the thing down) to do even more damage on the following grenades. Again on the first nade you should not be worried about damage, focus on just getting a hit on the thing, so that they become slow.
Guidelines about counting solos – You can choose whatever you want that counts as a solo; however, this is my list of rules that must be meet to be counted as a solo kill:
- The player must be in thing mode

- They must have green hp before the fight (around max hp)

- No micro spots to solo, or the use of a flame

- The thing that was soloed should have 1k points or more, so you are not just killing an easy thing who is a first time player.


If you have questions you can ask below, or you need help in game about general stuff, also if you want to practice; I can help you as both thing and marine.

PLAYING AS THE THING
- The basic guidelines don’t quite work for thing, a new player who has been thing only a couple of times may have a hard time even getting a few kills, let alone actually winning. The more skilled you become the better this guide will be at improving your play and allowing you to win more games and to get more points per game.
Basic Tips:
- Try and pick off marines that are away from the group, if you see the group, don’t even try to fight them, it will result in a loss.

- If you feel afraid of the marines (that they might kill you) don’t run away for too long, it is quite boring for marines to just sit around waiting to kill a thing that gets about 50 points.

- Constantly go for killing marines, don’t wait around with full health because you only have a limited amount of time
- If you happen to be in marine form as thing, the more people you are around, the faster your control bar goes down. If your control reaches 0 then you morph into the thing without choosing to do so.

- Don’t join the group randomly as thing, it is not beneficial and it can end up costing your life.


Strategies to killing marines (basic)

- A very popular strategy is to go towards the group and bait some marines out (1 or 2) and they lock them away, breaking them from the rest of the group. This is very easy and effective making it one of the most used strategies out there.

- As said above, killing loners throughout the game works for very novice things; however, the kill rate is so minimal that you will run out of time before you kill half of the group (this is best used when you are just starting out).

- If you are a good marine, and understand how to use grenades fully, you can risk bombing the group with some grenades to get some early kills (this is super risky).


Advance Tips:

- At this skill level, it is much more important to go for the victory rather than rushing for the points, only until you are about expert at thing should you even worry about how many points you receive each game.
- This is slightly optional but for the sake of the tutorial, I suggest that you ignore both the generator and the comms. If it is below 8 minutes then you should consider breaking the comms (try to avoid the gen at all costs). Breaking either alerts everyone that not only the thing is not in the group but they also tend to group up even more after a gen or comms breaks.
- Play slowly when it comes to attacking groups, it is very easy to get over eager, rush into a group of marines (thinking you can kill them) and then dying right on the spot.
- Begin to start using your powers as often as you can, there is very little downside to throwing (unless if you really just mess up) and burrow charging.

Killing marines (advance)

- Locking out marines may still work; however, there are more advance killing styles that can be used, such as throwing marines that are close to the door, but refuse to go through. This can work 2 ways:

1. You walk into the room throw behind you and chase, good for if you like to break doors. It is important to note that they may try to run back in the room, the thing can make a choke point to stop them from returning.

2. You walk into the room throw behind you, change to marine, and then lock, breaking apart better than average marines who know the locking door trick.


- Get proficient with the throw mechanic as thing, it is very useful if you can break up groups mid fight and if you time it perfectly you can three shot marines.

- Throwing a flamer right on you will stop the dps for a short time to save some health, which could be the difference between a win and loss.

- At this point of skill I still suggest not engaging into too many marines at once, limit it to about 4 or about 3 if they have flame, have small fights instead of risking it.

- The better you become the more fun (also useful) moves you can use to kill the marines.


Expert Tips (some from Thorgal):

- This is where the truly beings as thing; you can use additional moves to spice up the game and if you are an elite thing, then dying should not worry you. I won’t talk too much about the top things in this game because this is more focused towards those who want to become expert things rather than those who are already top-tier.
- Here are some moves that can be tried: * they are not too great, but when you get them to work, the reward is amazing*
1. Stopping Molotov’s mid-flight by throwing them as they are about to land, this will either cause it to throw in the direction you choose, or it will just glitch in the middle of the air (stopping it completely)
2. If a Novice player decides to use a nade and throws it too early, you can chuck the nade at the group getting some easy kills (don’t get hit by the nade, but at this skill it should not be a problem) .
3. Alternatively you can run towards the novice marine who has the nade and before it goes off you toss them back into the group, they won’t be able to react fast enough and either do more damage by throwing it straight at the marine, or at the very least it will be a suicide bomb!
4. If they are many marines in 1x1 area (such as the boxes in rag) then you should remain burrowed as often as you can – hit, then burrow, and repeat until everyone is dead. This is especially helpful if the marine count goes over three.
5. As said in #4 this strategy is similar to the one that I use to fight very large groups, you let them use stim and items, while remaining underground unharmed, then once they run out of stim, you burrow and work your expert magic to kill massive groups of marines at once!
6. This is more important for pro things so I will stress the importance of ITEMS!! Don’t just waste items before you change, I see the best things do this for some reason. Either hide the items or use them effectively, don’t just discard them because you are about to change into the thing. The items you discard could have been used to kill a few easy kills at the very start. USE the items unless you are on Baguio – it is a complete polar opposite map that should be played completely differently, only the top tier things tend to have a chance on this map, unless if you get a lobby full of novice players and team killers.

I believe that at this level of play there is not much more to be said tips wise, find a play style that you enjoy; however, try to make changes to constantly improve your play to see how many points you can get.

If you need help for either thing or marine, I can assist you either in comments or in game!
GOOD LUCK!

My marine thing tips (The PandaPower days)

Throw locks

Throw locking is when you separate one players from a group of marines and single him out. Luring is some times required.



Burrow Escape/Door Dodging

Burrowing under enemies is not really advised in areas like this, but under the right circumstances it can also save your life.



Starter: It's pretty simple to know when your the thing, at this point in time if you know you have not gotten very much personal experience playing as the thing you may fall in the line of panic or not know what to do. Fortunately for you, when you are playing you will remember at least some of the tips I will give out on this thread.

Know your players: Easy information gathering thanks to Vic, you have 60 seconds to see if you have a crowd of people who seem to be experienced marines or new blood cadets. (Though points don't always tell what personal players know and what they do not, it is important to have some understanding with the actual people you play with)

Items: Hiding items is not all that tricky since you have a way to hide them in plain sight, what I mean is, you can pan your camera around to hide items in cliffs which is good for the thing since 85% of the players tend to overlook it. (this comes in handy when trying to hide items from players such as the flamethrower or a grenade) also it does not hurt to waste a med or two on yourself at the beginning of the game.

The cost: Since hidding items is risky it comes with a chance that a player with a more or higher skill level will find it. (So it's not smart to do it with a game that has 5 or 6 Captains)

First blood: Keep in mind, you should not wait too long to draw your first attack (But, if you're not sure you have an opportunity to attack that's perfectly fine). Easy first blood kills are a simple door lock or someone who has drifted away from the crowd.

Things to keep in mind: A situation can turn in a matter of seconds with no disregard for who has the advantage. Assume every marine has a molotov or a grenade and always think that he knows how to use it. Why do I need to? Because thinking what your opponent can and is able to do is keen in developing strategies on how to win.

Know your limits: If you have played this game, you most likely have seen a few people morph in very large crowds of marines and try to kill them, so don't be the one who has made that fatal mistake.

Execution of evasions: Know your ways to defend and evade dangers such as grenades, molotovs, massing marines, and being trapped in small areas such as 1 door rooms (Since this is something that needs to be simply kept in mind, all results may differ on the appoint of your own actions).

Response to marine camping: Unfortunately 6/10 games will result in marines camping and newer players might have some difficulty grasping an alternative to counter it, the best you can do is bait and throw lock.

These are quick tips for when you are actually in-game, not a full game guide

*Claps*

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