Curse

valence · May 06, 2008, 12:09 AM // 00:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Sand

Note however, that you quoted me, and not the original poster, and therefore gained my complete and undivided attention.

I didn't forget those points because in the example I provided, in those 35 seconds, those "they miss because they cannot cap" points have not been made. AND you cannot count on winning the skirmish against another team, but you can count on winning the shrine. AND despite your winning the skirmish, you can lose the battle if you are behind on shrines.

There were five paragraphs in that post, you paid attention to two.

The difference between them not capping a shrine is 2 points everytime the clock hits the count. Those points weren't counted in, that is a big difference. You could say they didn't make them, but then you are assuming the opponent does nothing, I assume they play.

As I have said multiple times, a skrim gives greater reward when done right. A bigger loss if you fail. Capping and avoiding a skrim at all times is giving the final decision to 8 random people you don't know, cause their skrim will count double.

So next time, cap. Cap and cap more. But if others lose a skrim and therefor they cannot cap, you will lose. Finding a balance between fighting and capping is the difference between an ok and a good team.

Red Sand · May 06, 2008, 03:21 AM // 03:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by valence

The difference between them not capping a shrine is 2 points everytime the clock hits the count. Those points weren't counted in, that is a big difference.

So what you're saying is the shrine points are important, and capping is important. All this time I thought you were disagreeing with me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by valence

You could say they didn't make them, but then you are assuming the opponent does nothing, I assume they play.

I assume that during the time period that you are fighting, the only points scored are the ones you have for the shrines you hold and for the kills you make. You assume that you win the skirmish and they didn't stop you from capping.

Quote:

Originally Posted by valence

As I have said multiple times, a skrim gives greater reward when done right. A bigger loss if you fail.

I believe that's actually the first time you've admitted that you could lose and the loss could be costly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by valence

Capping and avoiding a skrim at all times is giving the final decision to 8 random people you don't know, cause their skrim will count double.

And that's why it's alliance battles and not GvG, or HA. The unpredicatable nature of the other 8 people makes AB very challenging.

Quote:

Originally Posted by valence

Finding a balance between fighting and capping is the difference between an ok and a good team.

I think I've found that balance, I've said several times when I think fighting is appropriate. I play on a very good team, we each just turned in 15000 faction tonight.

While I agree that your tactics have merit, I believe that your strategy is flawed. You don't want to admit that skirmishing can only give you a win if 1) You already have a decent lead, 2) You control more shrines than the enemy, and 3) You don't get killed in the skirmishes.

My strategy is to cap until we have a decent lead, skirmish but do not waste time doing it, and maintain more shrines than the other side. That's how to win.

I admit that capping forces you to be dependent on the other 8 people to do their jobs, here's the rub: Your tactics requires the other 8 people to do their job too. That's why I can't agree with what you've been posting.

It's AB: You try to utilize your 4 man team, while predicting what 20 other people are going to do next. It's not easy. If it was, the best, most elite PvP'rs would always win.

Edit: typo "improtant' in paragraph 1

Syntonic · May 06, 2008, 04:05 AM // 04:05

Er no, skirmishing and holding the enemy back can lead to a win when behind on points/shrines despite you dying in the end as long as you tie up the enemy long enough for your team to capitalize on it. It has before for many people on this forum and in game. This normally involves fighting more than one team and sure, it also requires some degree of competence on the part of the other two teams. Not much though - in those circumstances, they are probably capping and running from the enemy anyway and as long as they don't engage with you till your side has more of the shrines, you've accomplished your goal. If you don't try to stop the opposing side, you probably won't win regardless. If you do, you might have a chance depending on how things progress. In short, there's nothing to really "lose" from trying to stall the enemy even if you die in the process in some given scenarios.

Fighting at the beginning of the matches can also proceed to give you an edge and possibly a win later since fighting becomes far more important as you move further into enemy territory. So more or less, the best most elite PvP'ers already win right now - meaning whichever side has the higher average of nonstupid semi-organized players will win. If your side can win with 12 dolyak mending wammos, then I'd hate to see the other side. It's good to see that people on the forums are at least talking about the value of fighting in AB at least since there were some threads that didn't even acknowledge it was part of AB.

SurareVaera · May 06, 2008, 08:16 AM // 08:16

On a map like Etnaran (I play Kurzick), wiping a team early is tactically detrimental. If you kill a team on the first pass right out of the gate, they will respawn at the res shrine making that crucial shrine more difficult to take. On Etnaran that res shrine is the highest priority - but it should only be assaulted if it's (1) free of red dots and (2) you or your allies haven't wiped a team in the last 20 seconds. Since there are so many quick paths to the res shrine on that map, capping vs. fighting entirely depends on who owns the res shrine and how many enemy dots you can expect to be at the res shrine. Killing a team while not being in control of the res shrine is actually very stupid and short-sighted. If you go around fighting while the res shrine belongs to the enemy, you're ultimately doing more harm than good by sabotaging another team's attempt to take the res shrine with cascading respawns. It's better to let the red dots pass or move away from the res shrine first. Then you can take the res shrine and proceed to wipe the luxons back to their base. On Etnaran, if the Kurzicks manage to take the 3 shrines closest to the Kurzick base plus the res shrine, they have nullified the map advantage and are in very good position to pin the Luxons in their base.

If you were Luxon on Etnaran, then there really isn't any penalty for fighting right away. Even if you lose your skirmish, you res very near to where you died. Also, chances are you probably sent one or two Kurzicks back to their base, wasting far more of their time.

Though if you have the opportunity to pull one stupid brawler away from their team early in the match, by all means capitalize. One straggler spawning at a res shrine just gets massacred, or has to waste time to rendezvous with their team. A 3 man team can't skirmish or cap as efficiently as a full group. Also, if you find a group with a monk, moving on after killing everything but the monk makes that monk very very useless for a period longer than the 20 seconds it takes for the rest of the group to res.

toastgodsupreme · May 06, 2008, 08:42 AM // 08:42

Sadly many tactics are lost on people in AB.

It's 16 confused people vs 16 other confused people.

I've watched the enemy team blob up and steam roll shrines and teams only to watch those destroyed teams respawn and go after the blob again instead of pursuing an easier course of caping shrines in the blob's wake.

I've seen people hide in the base due to a loss of the res shrine and an enemy team guarding the base entrance (for some reason, the thought to use the teleporters escapes people when this happens).

I constantly see 5+ people standing at a shrine to cap it instead of having just three stay behind while the others move to the next shrine.

Honestly, it's a mess. And sometimes it's fun. But mostly, it's a mess.

Some voice communication and the removal of enemy dots from the radar would improve the fun factor. Better coordination between teams and less watching of radars and more watching the actual field/game.

Maybe make it so if you don't have line of sight, you can't see enemys while holding shift (that's what mine is bound to).

Red Sand · May 06, 2008, 10:39 AM // 10:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syntonic

Er no, skirmishing and holding the enemy back can lead to a win when behind on points/shrines despite you dying in the end as long as you tie up the enemy long enough for your team to capitalize on it. It has before for many people on this forum and in game.

Even you are advocating skirmishing with the idea that the other 8 players are NOT skirmishing. Advocating engaging your opponents enemy early in the fight, before you have an established lead, will more than likely lead to a loss. In a nutshell, if everyone thinks like you and your whole side skirmishes, unless you hold the majority of the shrines, you will lose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SurareVaera

On a map like Etnaran (I play Kurzick), wiping a team early is tactically detrimental. If you kill a team on the first pass right out of the gate, they will respawn at the res shrine making that crucial shrine more difficult to take.

QFT. All tactics don't work on all fields. Sometimes you engage the enemy and then break off after you kill one guy. They're weakened and have to get that guy from their rez back to them to be effective. They have to decide to fall back to grab their guy, or press on short one. Their guy has to travel all the way to catch up and risk getting picked off again. If their rez is WAY over there, you just helped the overall strategy: Keep the other team from capping. In the meantime, cap like you know you should.

My team doesn't go for the wipe anymore, we've taken to killing three members of a team and leaving their monk or their warrior still standing: neither can cap a shrine by themselves, they have to find their team or another team to be effective.

Trust me, I know when to fight and when not to fight.

Edit: changed "8 teams" to "8 players"

valence · May 06, 2008, 12:42 PM // 12:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Sand

While I agree that your tactics have merit, I believe that your strategy is flawed. You don't want to admit that skirmishing can only give you a win if 1) You already have a decent lead, 2) You control more shrines than the enemy, and 3) You don't get killed in the skirmishes.

If you reread I said that is the best time to create skrims yourself.

However turn it around, since if you are behind the opponent is leading, it is in their benefit to engage you. You can run (hoping they will not follow, otherwise you will waste time) or skrim. If all teams would skrim, then the outcome of that will translate in the amount of shrines.

If some teams skrim and the rest are capping, the cappers will trade shrines (this can be very usefull, as posted above the res shrine has an huge value when in deeper territory and movable npc's give great benefits as well) but the teams skrimming will create either an advantage or disadvantage.

Note: when I talk about capping / capping teams I talk about 100% cap teams. Stay 1 min in any ab outpost, and the message 'lf cap team' will pop up. While capping is good, ab can be more then a droknar run.

MasterSasori · May 06, 2008, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Sand

Pay attention to the lead and the flags: If you are slightly ahead on points but behind on shrines, you are losing. You can't kill fast enough to catch up if you are behind on shrines.

OMG I couldn't agree with this more. People never understand when I say we're losing and theyre like, were ahead by 20 points moron. Then I point out that we have like 2 flags and they have 5. And they still say so?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Sand

Either you agree with the overall strategy or you don't; either you use good tactics or you don't. Personally, I advocate capping when you are behind, and skirmishing when you are well ahead or when you have a clear advantage. That's knowing when to fight and when not to fight.

This is the most important issue before engaging in a brawl, but generally I would prefer not to simply because I don't find it beneficial even if we do win. As I put it in another post, I only fight when its favorable and quick.

Quote:

Originally Posted by valence

I haven't said anywhere that you should solely rambo everything you see, what the 100%cap wannabe's want to beleave. Instead this is to the 'cap teams' that actually think they are doing the right things at all time.

If some teams skrim and the rest are capping, the cappers will trade shrines (this can be very usefull, as posted above the res shrine has an huge value when in deeper territory and movable npc's give great benefits as well) but the teams skrimming will create either an advantage or disadvantage

There are very very few teams that can even reach 100% capping while 100% brawling is not uncommon at all. This 100% pure capping is almost nonexistent.

The rez shrine is not as much of an advantage unless the enemy is dying often, the result of a skirmish in the first place. The more they fight, the more of an advantage it is. The biggest problem with the rez shrine is that people always think they need to protect it when it can easily be capped the moment the mob moves.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syntonic

If you don't try to stop the opposing side, you probably won't win regardless. If you do, you might have a chance depending on how things progress. In short, there's nothing to really "lose" from trying to stall the enemy even if you die in the process in some given scenarios.

Well as you said, it depends on the effectiveness of your stall and whether your other teammates are capping.