Jump to content

This is asiafortress

welcome

Ready to LAN?

Upcoming
  • asiafortress cup 14
Sign in to follow this  
HaXxorIzed

ASK ME STUFF

Recommended Posts

ASK ANYTHING*

Unless it's personal questions (only Brolex and Spammah can ask those) or stuff that isn't answered by the single best guide on how to play competitive tf2 aka get good by bowt aka http://www.ozfortress.com/showthread.php?t=37375

If I am feeling nice I may even chase up some other players who are really good for their opinion.

*My answers may or may not include me ranting and raving about how bad you are.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In my experience most people can't laugh at themselves but sure as hell can at other people. Sure, they say they can - but they really can't. If you can laugh at yourself, you find it easier to say what you really want to say around other people. You can only say that a limited number of times before it gets boring, or old. So you have to talk about new things, new experiences. The alternative is to talk about more complicated things, like hopes and fears and aspirations. I think most people are easily capable of being a solid 7/8 out of 10 in interesting when they're honest with themselves. I mean, I think what makes people interesting is usually 'different' like topics (ie, I'm really into economic motivations behind 'rational' and 'irrational' behaviour), but what's the 'same' behind those 'different' topics is basically standard human emotions and responses. Since I seem to feel much more confident talking about this than most people, I appear to be the most interesting. Or that's my theory. I don't think I'm that much more of an innately interesting person than anyone else because of my life experiences.

 

And everyone tends to be pretty interesting when they finally start talking about what they want. Fuck, our most loved cultural icons built careers out of it - Radiohead, George Carlin and Mark Twain, anybody?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

whats the major gameplay difference you've noticed watching asians play compared to the aussies? and which region would you say has the most potential is creating the most dominating team?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Asian tf2 has a lot of dynamic factors like deathmatch kings and kritzkriegs and utilities (sniper/spy) which can blow a game wide open. Those kind of X factors are what you want in a stable, reliable team to bring in wins - teams don't have much stability and it shows.

 

Like, Bowt's get good guide kind of has his "creed" with creating a team. IM have been the top of Australian TF2 for aeons (and dogz before that), and the way they accomplished that was a mixture of consistency and X factor. They have their 6-8 core players, who all are on the same page with how the team wants to play. They all play as much as they can and they understand advantage/disadvantage. If people have issues they voice them clearly (well, comparatively clearly). It's just about keeping the game simple, everyone being positive and talking openly if they have a problem + watching their own games. I presume this was the reason Bowt had an issue with me in Fray until we talked about it I presume - Fray was a pretty negative team because we didn't have 6 players on the same page. There was a lot of infighting and I guess he thought I was the leader and that I was really behind a lot of the infighting/negativity/hating on own team. Funnily enough, that observation is kind of the opposite - I let the negativity happen and would back down from fights/defend the mistakes of teammates too much. I guess you could say I was not confident enough in the opinions I had until half our core was over trying to get one player in particular on the same page, which is when I produced my best play. This is also why I get especially angry when I see other teams having no confidence/not confronting obvious issues, because it's the dumb mistakes my team made.

 

I haven't seen a single Asian TF2 team that did that. I mean, xq might have (of course I'm only speculating given they played 'smarter' than the rest from like two years ago). As we discussed a lot in the casting for Masters, it was no surprise Choice won even when every game they played had them on some kind of ping or server disadvantage. They had a core of four players who all seemed to know who the leader was, had been playing together for ages, and the +2 in their team were Dohash and Peanut, who (going on ingame) shut up and played off what their team was trying to do. It's really telling that Asiafortress teams got embarassed by what was basically a mix that stuck to three simple rules.

 

-> Keep it Simple

-> Play percentages

-> Being really positive and enthusiastic. (You listen to IM and it's so obvious how excited they are to be playing TF2 at a top level. Any american or euro team is the same. )

 

That's all they needed. They turned a scout down into a popped uber or a backcap or a team fight win, they were unselfish, they were focused. 9/10 Their players had the mentality , and even when they ran into a brick wall of deathmatch (Dizziness, Masterful, everyone else) they'd wear them down by never picking bad fights.

 

As for the other scenes I think the US top4 teams are a little better than their "equivalents" in the EU, but the EU has a larger number of "Invite/Premier" level teams, and has ever since old Dignitas stopped caring. Most of the top European teams in their place show a level of understanding of advantage/disadvantage that isnt' as good Prophets/eMg, or x6 displayed. The big reason behind this is the core of most European teams hasn't been around the many, many seasons Prophet's core of b4nny/Mackey/Tyrone has*. I think that's not helped by the fact only a few European soldiers understand the value of their own life (Hocz, Punpu, GeaR, Mike), especially in the Pocket role - Matnun's been a standout for me so far this etf2l season, especially given he plays on 120 ping.

 

I think Epsilon have the understanding and are ahead of everyone but the best Americans, but until they come together as a team and Knoxxx stops playing a dumb unnecessarily high-death pocket game, they are not quite as well rounded. However, against anyone but the "old" x6 / Prophets / Maybe this new mixup (tl;dr, the absolute best america can produce) Epsilon would win. So if you like, the short version of that is I feel like the rationale behind the "best" team isn't so much which side of the continent they come from, it's team stability and having a committed roster. The stability and commitment of the top American teams is the strongest right now and I think that's reflected in them being marginally better. However, I do think the Euros put themselves on the back-foot in that they lack in dominating pockets.

 

* I Also think Tyrone is the best caller in the game. He seems to be really clear, concise and obvious at all times - and gets numbers and so on. Hopefully he can get a decent PC for online that gives him more than 30 fps, lol.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

getting all six players on the same page will and always be the hardest i think. watching vanillatv insights, i'm amazed at the consistency and precision of the team comms. besides just have the team play together more, how else would a team improve in comms? i agree that in the asian scene we have a very big crowd of dm idiots, alot of teams just do not have the comms to support the skill that these players have.

 

being around the game for quite some time now and i've only noticed a couple of good callers. how would one work on being an effective caller? would it be class specific? any thoughts?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think comms improve when the players in the team understand the game better. Because not only then do you understand what to call, but also why (which affects how you call).

 

The current relic are allright. Larsa's got pretty good aim, they just don't look too polished / probably don't scrim enough.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've noticed that in each country there are classes that stand out. In the US you have really strong soldiers, in Asia its all about them scouts and snipers, etc.

 

1.) What would you say is the class that people fear the most in Australia?

2.) Has Robin Walker's research money saved any of your friends from being Australian?

3.) Also do you have another name that you go by in game?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

so even after stating that teams are usually not on the same page and just rely on deathmatch to play and win off games, how would you recommend teams to improve comms, keep them simple and play percentages? any ways of getting all 6 to be on the same page other than just "JUMP IN GET DEMO GET MEDIC AND WIN GAME"?

 

i dont even know if what i asked makes sense

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't think there is a class that really stands out in any one country when you settle down and actually watch the teams, we're mostly influenced by personalities. Europe is all about the arrogance and hilarity of the old diggy team + the demomen (Byte, Extremer, Numocked). We remember them over the selflessness of the dm soldiers GeaR and Punpu, who dont' stick out much (or Zerox and waltrs, the aim machine) I think you can apply that to to most scenes - their big personalities define the classes we "fear", but every scene tends to have players of an equivalently strong level in every class. America definitely has more of an emphasis on the role of the pocket for example, but that simply means the soldiers in the US have different skillsets - I see both Hocz and TLR as very hard-hitting pockets with great dm, it's just one is very subservient to his demo's 'wants' and one is all about the HEAL ME AND I WILL MAGE-FIST THESE NERDS, so it's obvious who "sticks out".

 

Robin Walker's research has saved nobody, and I alias a lot.

 

I think Bowt's get good guide answers a lot of questions on how to get better, but it's about attitude. I things any new team needs to have are positive attitude (this is so important, no politics, no shittalking) and watch their own games. Don't generalise, reread Bowt's get good until you can quote it at lecture readings, and think about every situation specifically.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You could try thinking. Particularly about advantage / disadvantage, examples of the step by step process being described in his guide. Simple things are very obvious - that an uber vs uber push should either aim to get player advantage early, or create a positional advantage from where you get kills and cap.

 

The mentality is knowing situation and what to do. There is no one size fits all strategy and every point requires a new answer. As a staring point my advice would be remember what's consistent and what isn't. The optimal response you can have to a situation will vary based on uber advantage/players, but the terrain/positions you need to take on each point don't change. That is to say, while you may have two players up, or an uber, or just a demo up on even players attacking granary last - the key to winning that point is seizing the pipe and ground around it, this is constant. So that is where I would start thinking about "what do we do" both on the attack and the defense.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Take risks and do dangerous things. Like fucking diving into all 6 enemies and trying to single out the medic alone or similar shit like that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Take risks and do dangerous things. Like fucking diving into all 6 enemies and trying to single out the medic alone or similar shit like that.

 

doing this + having aimbot-like aim = yz50

doing this + having anything else-aim = dm idiot

 

isnt this the sad truth

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Take risks and do dangerous things. Like fucking diving into all 6 enemies and trying to single out the medic alone or similar shit like that.

 

doing this + having aimbot-like aim = yz50

doing this + having anything else-aim = dm idiot

 

isnt this the sad truth

 

Even if it's jest' date=' I have literally never, [i']ever[/i] got a positive vibe from you about your own play, ever. Maybe you should drop all one liners and embrace that taking risks is a percentage game, maybe even stand up for yourself and play your own game instead of always talking about other people. The simple truth is if you understand advantage/disadvantage and spawn times + situations you can literally go for a shitton of +W plays even if you can't hit like a god (see, bowt). Yz50's power wasn't his execution, even though he executed better than anyone else ever has in that role ever. It was that the moment YZ50 had the advantage, his timing was perfect.

 

Sure, it helped that he could slug your scouts 2v1 and dropped any demo in a straight fight, but what made him REALLY scary was he'd do it for free. When you're taking spire vs eMg after a mid wipe and they're delaying your cap he'd grab an overheal, embarrass one of your scouts more than 50% of the time and end up behind your team target hunting (now you're 5v6 and can't push uber easily with any huge advantage). And if he died, who cares? He'd time it 7/10 times so that even if he died he'd respawn in time for the last defense. At worst you lose nothing and well timed, he can help the teamfight (killing a player, especially a demo frag) and best, neutralise uber or some combination of these.

 

The difference between a DM idiot and YZ50 isn't the aim, it's the timing and knowing when you can go for almost "free" risks or those risks are way less important then the rewards/team disadvantage you need to counteract. You have never, ever illustrated a real knowledge of this concept and that's probably why you treat yourself like you suck (and you probably do). Being positive is doubly fucking important because as a playmaker (especially scout/roamer) in this game a lot of your opportunities won't result in anything other than you getting dropped. The point is to keep your goddamn eyes on the prize, keep communicating, keep being positive and focus until you're both getting it done and they're following it up.

 

eMg and Dignitas scrimmed five nights a week for a couple of hours each n for months to get their communication together. They shed players, they pulled people up when they didn't give and shit and they took fucking heavy blows. There were points (as was well but by cbear in the latest MGE podcast) where these champions were once bads laughing stocks. Clearly, it didn't dent their positivity . Every single person in asiafortress should keep this in mind before you act like primadonnas, because getting good is hard, it takes more than a cute little sentence to get good. I can explain it in simple sentences, but the wheels and the rotors and the gears ticking behind that simplicity isn't easy to get and I'd never claim to be in mastery of it like some are (F2, Bowt, etC). But it takes work.

 

Having that confidence also shifts the pressure from "shit man got to hit my shots" to "shit man got to know when I can afford to die". You might even find you hit more.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×