Last night's informal "Training".

Brit

Well, it was certainly 'interesting' - and I think I made my feelings known

The fact is that you can't simply draw a line between defence and offence and leave it at that. Battle, however virtual, is a dynamic thing - it requires people to fill roles quickly, change stances/objectives on-the-fly and so on. As soon as you fail to grasp this, and stop proving unpredictable - you die. It is that simple.

In a game, this divide simply does not exist. Everyone does their part to defend - and the enemy certainly isn't allowed to run 3/4 across the map without being challenged at all. The 'O' team could send 2 or 3 shielded heavies with escort right onto the canyon/valley hill before we could open fire.

Take for example; DangerousCrossing. That map has zero defensive capabilities at all. The base itself is wide open, the turret ineffective at anything approaching close range, and the lay of the land makes for perfect long range sniping.

One mortar through the side, and our re-arming capability is reduced to rubble. And a good mortarman can put 5 rounds through the top of the base from 150+ metres away without being spotted.

The only thing that was positive was that it highlighted the lack of communication between defensive players. Everyone scrambled into a heavy, and was then overrun by lights/meds. Then everyone changed to lights, and the nme used shielded heavy's.

We need to look at each map in turn, and decide the makeup of the D teams armour beforehand. Do we need 5 heavies when we could have 2 and 3 medium shielded harrassers??

So what about next time? The biggest problem for us is getting those flag caps. I would suggest then, that for the next session, the defensive/offensive balance is made 60/40 in Defensive's favour. Why? because in game you inevitably end up in the base with 2, 3 sometimes 4 enemy peeps around you. It will be more realisitic.

Anyhow, there you go. There is serious strategy behind the art of defence - and it certainly doesn't include the restrictions and so on we were under. I know - you say its the "worst case scenario" - but thats not true. Even if we were getting battered, we'd still have some offensive capability to harrass the enemy before they reached us.

Work to be done I think - but on a plus side (yeah, I found one!) - the defensive 'team' worked fairly well together. If we work on our communication, and our strategy (per map) we'll rock.

--Brit--

Remember: The best form of defence, is attack

Suds

quick points:-

defend and you give the field up to the attackers.. You are banking on them losing the game and not you winning it.

In ctf no matter what is happening.. when a flag carrier is under fire DEFEND him - he is your route to a win.

On most servers a triple "Cover me" is usually quite enough to get a 2 man escort to your base even if it means the base is destroyed - 1 point closer to a win.

but tbh 1 rule above all others - when your flag man goes offensive EXPECT him to get the flag and be ready to stop his harrassers... or pick up the flag when he dies..

flag caps make points, and what do points make? Victory.. and victory is all that matters....

YuM

Yup last night was a bit unreal... Total defence! (no such thing) I chased a flag carrier home on Crossings last night they capped it and set off again.. leaving me standing outside their empty base, health in the red and not feeling like the walk back. Giving in to an basic urge whipped in a few disks to do a wee bit of damage, there was a couple of complaints about that hey ! it was a purly defensive action..

Communication is hard to do when your under constant pressure apart from the basics, although with a bit of planning and positioning of ppl the basics would be enough.. HELP coming from someone you know to be holding a certain area etc.

On Crossings last night the only way to defen d that crap base was to stand well off and swat the flys as they landed.. no point in defending the barrel from the inside..

Broadside was a lot better.. more time to communicate.. regroup.. repair, as well as great praccy on defending against multi heavy assualt.. learnt a bit there.. mostly what not to do.. but mine bombing was fun!

Scarbra (whatever) my fave map was brilliant, again you will eventually lose if your on pure defence but jobs were assigned and stuck to..gens, flag room, flying scouts off the map etc.
One point to note: when the gen room is toast & occupied a timed repair of the solar panel can get the defense back in heavy gear to clear the pests out..

anyhows.. thats me lot .. next time can we set 2 teams with offensive & defensive capabilities.. have 5 mins pre-match to sort out positions and see what happens.

YuM

ps. I tend to concentrate on defense due to high pings.. or maybe it's my reactions slowing with age

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[This message has been edited by YuM (edited 13-04-99).]

tHE vAGGABOND

I thought we did well enuf against a constant barage of attackers last nite. When we had brit and chung around with the rest of us we did really well, compared to the times when one or whatever were missing.

How many times will oposition get run upon run of heavys into the base, land 4 heavys, 2 mins later land 4 more heavys ect. I thought we faced as bad as we can realisticy expect given the reletive strength of our offence.

Next we should do 3 on defence and 7 or 8 on offence, to see is there any way ppl can be deployed to better operate d in a no win situation.

We have to get a d leader, ie Brit, cos the problem last night was that there were too many chiefs and not enuf indians. After some training we will know who starts where and on what map, and how we must constantly adapt our tactics to secarios.

I reckon as long as we keep this team together, indeed build on it, and keep working on stuff we have the makings of a really good side from last nights brief performances.

vagga

Hecate

yeh last night on Dangerous crossing was frantic (for the defenders anyway) to say the least. It was basically non-stop attacks for half an hour..communication was a bit on the lax side, and it seemed a bit pointless to keep on saying "incoming enemies!"..as you wouldve probably ended up flooding . Anyway my dueling skills got a good workout..i stayed in light for basically the whole time i was there, which proved really effective as i was able to shut down a good few attacks with just a disk launcher and an energy pack. While you may not think that being on D for that map is a hopeless cause, there are a few tactics to stop the incoming enemy. One being to shove a pulse sensor and a beacon underneath their side of the bridge, as discret as you can. Then ski back home, suit up in a heavy, grab a mortar, and begin pounding away at that little green triangle when you see enemys coming from your commander map. You'd be surprised at how many ppl actually take the bridge across

Jaguar

As you may know i like mining places,
people seem to forget the overall defensive/offensive capability of the mines
When a flag carrier is heading back to base he should be dropping mines as soon as he is out of sight of the nme{over ridge or behind bolder etc.}
We should work on defensive mining as well cos they are EXTREMLY valuable

ChungKing

Hello all

Sorry for dropping out on ya abruptly last nite Brit - me mum dropped in and was bending my ear ...

Stonehenge was looking pretty bad when i left it - I had the flag and was in shielded heavy and the enemy were pouring into our base - for a while it was okay - just froggy and i - froggy doing a nice job backing me up. And that's the crunch : if you have the flag & are in shielded heavy on stonehenge - you really only need one person helping you out in there, especially with repairs..everyone else should be defending outside or (more importantly) trying to get our flag back... weeeelll ... for the few minutes before i left, it seemed our whole team was in that base room! There were so many damn people in that room - i could barely see the enemy come in! and boy, were they coming in - after one fracas, most everybody was dead except for a couple of people - i'm there, knackered, with no health & my shield's slowly regenerating...I turn to move to the inv stats barely registering this guy standing beside me ...huh... a guy standing beside me? I turn around, horror slowly settling on my shoulders and yup. A red triangle above his head. We both slowly grin, slowly reach for our weapons, and BOOMBOOMBOOM. We both blast each other's caboodles to hell!

I respawn outside - run back in an re-nab the enemy flag - whew!. Arrg. Then the team decides to convene back inside our base like a bunch of millies in the little girls room - wash, rinse, repeat. Except this time - they trash us again and just as i had got rid of another intruder - armor screwed again - then, the phone rings and my mother arrives at the door. Enemy gets in again and whammo - im dead, flag returned and ...

chungking goes to the pub!

Hope it got better for ya after that, brit

Brit

Hehe - last nite's games were a joke. I joined the game to find myself in our inv room, with every other team member. Now, Froggy and Chung were doing the 'flag' business - but EVERYONE else was just stood around...

Then VAGGA and GANDALF joined, and I thought - ah, things are looking up, but the sheer weight of muppetry on top of us valiant EM members was too much. Despite repeated attempts to work as a team, it just ended up with the EM peeps working together AGAINST the idiocy of the newbie scumbags who were either just loitering, or running off into the great blue yonder to 'explore'..

So no, it didn't get any better. I was literally screaming at the screen (bad day at work too) with frustration and rage. So, after about 45 mins, I called it quits and got some coffee..

I am kinda hoping we don't see a repeat any time.. ever.

--Brit--

ChungKing

As froggy found out last nite - trying to unload stress with tribes usually doesn't work!

See, with quake, etc - deathmatches can be very satisfying - even 30 mins of fraggin & slaggin can give you that friday feeling

With tribes, tho, damn is it stressful! Everything from the concentration required (you really have to be on the ball to be effective) to the nightmare that is a crap team while you're being shat upon ... you end up for more stressed than you would have been watching America's Funniest Home Videos hehe.

Froggy herself is having some stressful times at work so she logged on hoping for some fun... fun on tribes? silly girl. Stress is the name of the game...

I still think we should automatically head for the 2nd server/ at least around the 9pm time slot. even with 4-a-side you are going to get a good match and based on monday's match we had quite a few more than 8

tHE vAGGABOND

What was that guys name again who could not firuer out how to cap the flag? I havent laughed so hard in ages Teeth and Ehldas were screaming at him to cat it b4 dar got our flag again, we would return stolen flag, and wait for punter in base to hop up to cap it and he was like "how do you cap the flag...." I swear I almost **** myself laughing both at him and teeths reaction i could see Tom and Jerry style steam coming out of his ears and jaw dropping.

I just changed sides then to even it up a bit. Although we still got massacred the games were a bit better. I must have had their flag 10 times and never once got back to base with it.

That was a good d strategy btw you guys must have had two or three guys laying turrets all the time.

Yis are right lads the ammount of muppets on the servers is going through the roof, but I can see it getting any better in the near future as the game gets released in europe. All it means is that we play more on the second server. It is good though to try things on the server, last night for example I suggested to teeth as a for of a handicap he go in a heavy for the whole game, dunno what he thought but its good to try out mad tactics and praccy on lamers !

later,

vag

gandalf

Yeah Brit last night was a joke alright. The level was Broadside (one of my favs) where I normally go to trash the enemy base/gen rooms /inv stations and basically clear the way for the flag runner.

But last night this was not possible. The basic rule for Broadside is keep the gens up, have defense on the roof/top turret area and defend the front entrance/flag area, this did not happen last night. The amount of times I had engaged the enemy to return to one of our inv stations to find it trashed or without power. I was really losing the head. I'd go(or Vagga/Brit) and repair the gens, in the meantime our flag would be taken. When I'd finished repairing the gens a shielded nmy light would normally appear kill me and trash the gens again (eventhough I asked for cover in the gen room). One of muppets even asked how he got the laser...I could nearly hear Brit exploding with "Read the Manual", to which muppetplayer replied "I don't have one..". Yep last night was on of the most frustrating nights I've had playing Tribes. To end it all my Indigo conn turned to sh1t and I dissed, I didn't bother to reconnect.

Gandalf.

ChungKing

lol - i remember this one time (think i even posted about it) where i'd scream for gen defense/roof defense - go repair the gens & by the time i got to an inv station the gens were down! This happened 4 times in a row - even with me checking out the area to make sure some smart-ass enemy wasn't lurking around ...

Basically, you are going to have more of these frustrating games if you play on IGN 1. the only solution is to take it easy & hope a game gets going on ign 2 ...

Dar

Broadside really was a bit silly. First thing we did was get a heavy at the indoor turret. As far as i know you lads didnt get in very often.. Then we started attackin and found ure top entrance wide open. Non-stop attacks - light with shield packs - stopped you from having gens for more than a few seconds straight thru til near the end of the match. Then grenades down the lift to knock out turrets and away to take out any remote invens you had. We pretty much owned yas for the first 10 - 20 minute, but you did a good job stopping our carriers. Though you only got back a solid defense towards the end. Moral of the story: First thing you do is get heavies to the 2 choke points - the indoor turret and up the inside slope of the entrance. This locks the base up tight - their only chance of getting in besides a massive assault is to run right past the lad at the entrance - right into the flag room turrets and the medium who's keeping everything up and running. And even if he gets past them - both his escape routes are blocked.

As for stonehenge - lovely little tactic to put a stop to all those flag sieges. 2 or 3 lights meet up, 1 runs inside right at the carrier (with a grenade launcher), keeps his (or her) finger on fire and uses to the other hand to press g an m for all he's worth. BAMM, 4 or 5 grenages, 5 handgrenades, 3 mines. Kills em everytime (and yourself ). Then the other 2 close in an grab the flag before the new carrier (if any) can go heavy.
No problem man.

[This message has been edited by Dar (edited 14-04-99).]

ChungKing

hehe - cool post.

I like it when sieges happen on stonehenge cos there ain't nuthin like a challenge, but the last few times i've played i've ended up nabbing the flag & either no one would hold it for me, or (like last nite) i wouldn't trust anyone to hold it for me (i mean the other good players were trying to get the flag back)