Individual Skills vs Teamwork and Strategy

[jitspoe]

In other words, if you have 2 clans that are fairly equal in most respects, but one is composed of players who are very skilled individually and can do very will in 1 vs 1 scenarios but do not have much in the way of teamwork, while the other clan does not have as much raw skill yet works very well as a team and has practiced strategies and game plans for various maps, which clan should win in a match?

This is just another generic poll to get at the core of what players really want.

[Dirty_Taco]

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[jitspoe]

There's a thread about that here: http://dpball.com/forums/index.php?topic=226.0

(Assuming you're talking about dead-man recon)

[loial21]

team work and strategy. I guess good recon would fall into that.

[IronFist]

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[loial21]

Teamwork and strategy is all that can seperate this game from mindless frag fests - and at the moment, it has little of either. The only problem is it's hard to make players play as a team, even to a small extent.

Ideas to increase teamwork might be adding in a new (and primary) game stat like other games: score. You get scores for capture assists with others and normal score points for kills. Just try to work the scoring to award those who work with the team, although there isn't much like that to promote in DP (in battlefield2, you'd be reparing vehicles, assisting in squad attacks, and healing teammates).

Not so, but I agree,

This game would do good with a large scale scoring system (more than whats now done), Its called Team Objectives. Good for ctf match based communities, why was this never done IDK? Like I said before I kill I dont think. Have ROE, Rules of
Engagement. 

[S8NSSON]

It's funny to see 100% up there cause I KNOW there are a group of people out there that don't care squat about teamwork and strategy, and just want to let thier individual skill dictate play.

In fact the decission to create a structured strategy and practice regimine in GT caused several individuals to leave. I think they were vaguely quoted as saying, "We just want to get in there and play, we don't need practice or strategy, that's what public play is for."

I think some players, even some fairly skilled players, just want to get in there with a group of other players and let it fly with the combination of thier "individual" skills. And I think this tactic works well against moderately skilled strategic clans, and other skills-only based clans. But to compete at the highest caliber you must have skill influenced by strategty.

You must know the maps. You must know your opponent. But mostly you must know eachother.
Ultimately, I want to know what each of my teammates will/would do at any given moment/cituation in a match. I want them to know what I would/will do. I want all of us to know eachothers strengths and weaknesses and feed off of that to become a machine programmed to manipulate any situation to our advantage.

The hard part in achieving this is finding a group of people that have the skills, dedication, discipline, and that same drive and desire to become a true "team." I feel Rust had that, also smurfs and eR33t, and some others I can't remember.

An interesting note to this subject.
I read this post and wondered...

Hey Everyone,

I'm looking for a couple litterate players who are capable of forming sentences with proper punctuation and fairly decent grammar.  If you'd like to lend a hand for a special project I have in the works I can provide some benefits or credit where need be.  Drop me a PM on the forum, or find me in #dpstats on irc.enterthegame.com.

And Hey, if you're illiterate(or somewhere in between) but can still perform simple tasks such as watch demos and make comments on them, I guess I need you too.

Now maybe eR33t is just doing something totally unrelated to thier team, but I must wonder...

Of course, any true strategist should be highly interested in anything the top teams are doing. They are, after all, the top teams, and they have an upper hand somehow. Short of pure skill, there must be something they are doing to be the best. Reviewing demos of players sounds like a pretty darn good place to start. Now what's so crazy about that is the entire paintball team community has made reviewing demos an easy way to "learn" a team. Why? Because most teams play as individuals. No need to try to get full team match demos. Just record individual demos off of pub games of each person. The way they play alone is gonna be the way they play with thier team. WOW...I may be a little slow, but that is pretty dang smart guys!!!

I miss Rust

[Blitz]

Speaking of demos, send anything you would like me (mrhedge AT gmail DOT com) to put up at http://pbdemos.houstonareacomputers.com/ and I'll post it online.

Teamwork and independent individual skill are kind of a counterbalance, in my opinion. A group of extremely skilled players will generally defeat a (much) lesser skilled team who utitilizes more teamwork. Teamwork becomes the deciding factor only when you have two teams of approximately (+/- 10%?) the same combined individual skill on a level field. Clearly though, the map choice largely influences this "teamwork" edge. IE, I would say a 4vs4 on blitz.bsp is determined by about 95% individual skill and 5% teamwork. Castle1 and other multi-flag/multi-path maps,  on the other hand.. are clearly more teamwork orienated (70/30?)

EDIT: Another thing I forgot to mention, S8N made an excellent point about how a large part of "strategy" is actually learned independently. For example, I'm rushing high on castle1 (4 vs 4) and I see that DirtyTaco  and Bob have just been killed almost simultaneously by the same opponent. Well, I knew DT was going backdoor -> middle, so I assume that they both lost a firefight in the middle of the map. Now, I also quickly consider the fact that there's probably two opponents in the middle instead of one, since both of them getting killed by a single guy at once seems improbable (there were probably other distractions). So, very quickly, I consider my options in what is now a 2 vs 4 round. Instantaneously I would switch into a defensive position, either chooising to backtrack towards my backdoor/door area.. or otherwise into my base. What my other teammate is doing at this point has no effect on my action, I _know_ to go on the defense. In this case, since there were people in the middle a split second ago.. i swiftly exit their high bd and backtrack towards my backdoor through the middle of the map.. coming up behind my opponents who have moved onto our backdoor area, and killing them both.. much to their suprise. Now, 2vs2 and I feel we have a significant advantage in raw skill in this situation -- I turn offensive and begin to attack the opponents base depending on where my teammate is.. turns out he's already grabbed both flags, and I manage to kill both of the remaining opponents waiting for my teammate to exit the backdoor.

This is the "knowing maps/situations" kind of personal stategy that S8N is explaining, and without a doubt the most important part of this game.

[Dirty_Taco]

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[XtremeBain]

When developing eR33t's strategy 2+ years ago we used a collection of top-down views of maps(similar to what BoB posted in his Everglades post) and drew them up gameplay-style with the collaboration of most of the clan to determine a couple different strategies to use against different opponents.  We did this for a limited number of maps, typically those were were having troubles with: castle1, midnight, docks2 are ones that come to mind initially.
Quite often we have discussions among members regarding strategy in our private channel, but unfortunately we usually have enough skill to get by with playing it by ear.

[digi]

"We just want to get in there and play, we don't need practice or strategy, that's what public play is for."

Hence why they suck. 
public = teamwork/strategy? LMFAO.

[digi]

When developing eR33t's strategy 2+ years ago we used a collection of top-down views of maps(similar to what BoB posted in his Everglades post) and drew them up gameplay-style with the collaboration of most of the clan to determine a couple different strategies to use against different opponents.  We did this for a limited number of maps, typically those were were having troubles with: castle1, midnight, docks2 are ones that come to mind initially.
Quite often we have discussions among members regarding strategy in our private channel, but unfortunately we usually have enough skill to get by with playing it by ear.

I was never around for any of that I guess..
Strategies are pretty pointless in dp IMO.
If you have good aim and work as a team, you'll most likely win.. there's not much strategizing to do, even in big maps like c1.

[Eiii]

"We just want to get in there and play, we don't need practice or strategy, that's what public play is for."

Hence why they suck. 
public = teamwork/strategy? LMFAO.

No, he's saying that public is just for jumping in and playing.

[digi]

"We just want to get in there and play, we don't need practice or strategy, that's what public play is for."

Hence why they suck. 
public = teamwork/strategy? LMFAO.

No, he's saying that public is just for jumping in and playing.

ugh.. No. He's saying that when he tells GT to work on strategy and such they say 'why? we just wanna play. we can work on strategy in public servers'

[James]

I believe all maps require teamwork skill more than people think. Sure a person can pretty much solo another team on blitz.bsp and pbcup.bsp, but they usually do a lot better with teamwork. I'm not going to repeat our castle1 strategy because Blitz and DirtyTaco have already established it.

Now for the dead man recon (OMG THERES ANOTHER THREAD FOR THIs). This is one of the best forms of teamwork. You may think it's just a form of wallhacking, but have you ever had recon that tells you exactly where the person is at all times? No, unless that person camps and doesn't move while doing so. It also helps you form a new strategy if you're not prepared for the events that come. I.E. In castle1 in a 3v3, 2 of your teammates are down and you have both flags and the other team has 2 flags. Your teammates guide you through the best decision to do in this kind of situation. Again, it's for people who are unprepared, not all people are going to not know what to do.

Now from what S8N said, all I got out of it was that pub play is nothing but messing around, and match play is where your teamwork resides. I agree 100%. I try to recon people in pub and play as a team, usually doesn't work out cause everyone wants to to their own thing. Althought in match play, I work as a team with my teammates and we go together.

[XtremeBain]

Here's some samples of stuff that we had been using a long time ago:

Midnight 3v3 Strategy

Code: [Select]

Round Start:
Player A: Grabs Carbine and supplies in high base under platform and second best barrel.  Proceeds up top ramp and out into high entrance shadows.
Player B: Grabs high end gun, 200+ hopper and best barrel.  Waits at high entrance.
Player C: Grabs supplies and proceeds to low hall exit.

Offensive:
Player A: Eliminates opponent on round start.  When Player C is in position, proceeds onto bridge.
Player B: Takes high end gun on bridge if desired, then drops down to low middle.
Player C: Eliminate any players in low middle area, and proceeds into opponent low hallway.

Flag Attack:
Player A: Player A waits at the top of opposite team's upper area for player C to get in position, Once player C is in position drop down from upper area and proceed to grab flag.
Player B: Player B waits in low middle for both flag people to get in position, once both say are in position and then Go, start spraying the corner area.
Player C: Player C waits at low ladder area for player A to get in position, when in position, both players proceed to get flag, Player C's obligation is to create the distraction but not to kill right away for player A to grab the flag.

And a top-down image of monet.bsp

[CainAssassin]

I saw Rust a few months ago...but I never saw him after that

[Dirty_Taco]

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[digi]

LOL

[**glenn**]

Teamwork brother.