A tiny bit of reality

I agree for the most part, though I think we can improve quite a bit just by improving our inter-map mobility. A solid group that switched maps opportunistically would give us the appearance of a presence on every map, which would spread our opponents out and make them have react to us. That kind of group would show up to help push anyone out of our borders, but they'd also start breakouts or paper one of the northern towers in other maps in between. The key is that it can't be everyone, and they have to be fast about getting back when needed. We do some of this now, but switching maps is perceived as an interruption and not part of the routine.

We should do anything we can to encourage our opponents to fight each other and take advantage when they are. This is why, for example, ET notoriously shows up as soon as anyone else is in our map. You can backcap or run up the other side almost uncontested when both other sides are already engaged. That takes out all of the work they put into upgrading and ends up drawing attention to that border and not ours.

Getting our stuff upgraded is important, but keeping everyone else's from getting there is also important, and, in the grand scheme, easier given our coverage gaps.

I like what Angel is getting at and agree we need to get more defensive. I also highly agree with Wuze. We need more small strike forces to take more objectives. It makes it easier on the zerg if the other servers have to split their forces to take their stuff back.

Another thing is, we do not need 15-20 people taking 1 tower/camp. I guess one way of splitting up the zerg is for commanders to call it, but this is tough because we cannot rely on the pugs to follow directions. If called upon to go take a camp while others hit the tower I would happy to heed that call, even if it is on another BL.

I often switch maps before the timer counts down to flip 1, 2, sometimes 3 camps. I play a lot with my wife and it is easy to 2 man camps quickly. I guess make friends in game and on these forums so there can be more of these groups out an about.

love the discussion! Thanks Angel.

Great discussion - I agree with Angel's initial post, Wuze's wise observations, Quainee's point of splitting the zerg or having chaos squads taking camps and paper towers. All in all, it seems that the importance of supplies has been overlooked, which leads to no seige for defense, as well as not being able to keep what we take.

Living and Dying for FC,

notWhiteyFord

[WZ] Moonbane

Here is a quote form a IoJ guy at the official forums. He sure identifies our problem. ( post was a day a go )

Cosmic, I think the answer to this is easy.......most of our self appointed commanders (and I use the term commanders extremely lightly) are complete idiots with no actual tactical abilities whatsoever. Just because you know how to stack and push doesn't mean you understand tactics. They avoid our bl as much as possible and sit around and complain that it keeps falling. On the rare occasion you see one try to help hold it, they usually just can't muster enough help to do it because there aren't enough people on our map or they won't follow them or they are too busy pvping in EB to help. Orrrr (that is intentional btw...to be a long or) it is one of the supposed top commanders and they get run over by the huge sf (or whoever we are against at the time) zerg and suddenly all of the tags disappear. Afterall they hate to be there when we lose the entire bl in a few minutes. It makes them look bad. It's amazing how fast those tags can disappear...lol. It's also amazing how many people just leave the map and go pve or something when they do that too. I have no respect for ones that do that and I know a lot of other people that feel that way too. Anyway, one will usually come back after they send someone to make sure the zerg has left and it is safe for them to come back and zerg the map so they can brag how they (and they try to make it sound singlhandedly mind you) took back our bl because we (the few that stay on our bl) were too stupid and unskilled to keep it ourselves. Then they order anyone that is going to stay on our bl to throw away all of thier hard earned money upgrading everything we should never have lost in the first place while they run back to EB to accomplish (usually) absolutely nothing or (occasionally) some little minor victories. BTW SMC IS a minor victory. You can't hold it and it is worthless when you lose our bl to get it. Running all over thier bl's to get camps and sentries is also worthless when you lose our bl to do it. The only thing that seems to matter to most of our "commanders" is EB - period. So, the rest of us really don't need to waste out time sitting around wondering why they do the stupid things they do. Go to EB and hang out with them, then you'll know why they do it. EB is all they care about. We were losing our bl a couple of days ago and one of our "commanders" actually had the nerve to come to our bl and demand help in EB and got mad when he didn't get it. That is a prime example of what AR and SF are talking about. EB was supposed to be more important than our own bl. Personally, I almost never step foot outside of our bl. There is nothing in the others we need until ours is solidly in our hands and we have the forces in place to hold it while any extra forces can then go elsewhere. And that doesn't mean everyone run to EB because we just took the last tower back and some stray "might" finish the camps and sentries. Stay, repair, upgrade, lay down siege and garrison. The people that took it will be right back to do it again as soon as you leave. They know you're gonna leave, you always do. They also know where you're gonna go. You always do. Be there waiting on them and stop them in thier tracks for a change. It's pretty sad when our enemies have to keep asking why our commanders and the people that follow them keep doing rediculously stupid things that make no tactical sense whatsoever. That should tell you something and make you rethink what you are doing. I know it's not, but it should. I also know what i said is going to hurt some of your feelings when you read this and make you mad at me too, but I really don't care. If you are a commander and it hurts your feelings or just makes you mad, then you are one of the ones I am talking about. If you don't do the stuff I mentioned then I'm not talking about you. You don't have a reason to be mad unless you're mad at the other commanders that I actually am talking about.

We can learn a bit from AR. They religiously have people manning towers. Their side of EB have fully upgraded towers and are manned with siege. Our average FC zerg of 15 players can normally take a paper gate tower fairly easily when defenders start streaming in after our attack started (like playing against ET, SF or GoM) but AR have numbers inside already every time! That makes a huge difference and deter our attacks quickly. I've been on the following- and commanding end of attacking AR towers and it is never just a matter of rolling in. To be honest I've not been in a group flipping Durios or Quentin this matchup.

I understand that we have an aggressive nature and want to roll other servers twice our size. That said, if we leave two people in every tower that will leave us with very, very little people to go out and capture objectives. It might be exactly because of this aggressive nature that we are actually leading AR in the points race and in the same breath getting more attention from DR. So do we hunker down and protect our property at all costs or flip paper gates back and forth?

It took AR aaaaages to come out and fight yesterday. They just manned their towers hour in hour out. When they finally came out to play, I was rather surprised at their skill and commitment toward holding a single camp (golanta) for the sake of systematically working on a tower (Klovan). But perhaps they are throwing too much caution to the wind?

One thing that we certainly do need to focus on is asking people to refresh siege. I've heard too many complaints and "oh-no's" in TS about siege that never was refreshed and lost. Part of the catch 22 really, do we loose some of the little numbers we have in the zerg to refresh siege and protect towers, or do we take the largest possible group out for a stroll into enemy territory? Personally I'd like to see at least 2 people in towers taking care of refreshing- and manning siege. I volunteer to be one of them 50% of my gaming time.

not enough defensively minded people on the server, thats for sure