Demo of Force-a-Nature usage on Badlands

Hey people,

Here is a game I played on badlands using the FaN. I think I made use of the weapon particularly well and made some quite creative play with it. I think you will find this demo quite interesting to watch.

Download the Demo here

Hope you find it useful, and please leave some feedback in the comments!

Peace,
nub

Some thoughts on play

Routine and the unknown

We build up an understanding of the game through experience. We repeat the same actions many times, and by doing so we build up a picture of how we predict events to unfold, and what is the best/most efficient route or position. This is an extremely useful tool, because of it we learn the best strategies, the best player positions and the best build orders in games like Warcraft 3. It is because of this that we can see mirror Starcraft players having units and buildings in perfect symmetry even minutes into the game.

Despite the importance of this part of the way we learn, we have to understand its limitations too. It is easy to fall into the trap of being caught out by more unexpected or creative play when we are just doing our normal routine. We can use the fact people create routines and the standard way of doing things defensively and offensively. Defensively: to learn about and improve ourselves and our play. Offensively: to take advantage of our opponent’s routines.

I will give an example. There was a time when we were playing Weapons of the Rebellion, the map was badlands and we were pushing last point. Both Player Thirty-Two and I had died, and we re-spawned at the same time on the middle point. I ran out slightly ahead of P32, my mind was not on what was happening and I was just bunny hopping away waiting until we arrived inside the enemy base. As I jumped into the enemy house on the way to the canyon, I suddenly got damaged, and then I was dead before I realised. Seconds later Player Thirty-Two was dead too trusting me not to make an error. What had happened was that Predz had somehow got behind, and decided to camp there.

My fatal mistake was assuming that I “knew everything.” There was no reason, no expectation that someone could be anywhere near by when I had just re-spawned on mid, and that clearly incorrect assumption put my team in a horrendously bad position: no scouts alive with an enemy scout behind – not good! It is important to understand why we have routines, that there are always more and less efficient ways of doing things. But it is highly important that we don’t get limited by what we already know, and always remember that no matter how good we are or how much better we are than our opponents there is always the unknown, always something to learn. And always leave room for a touch of creativity!

Overconfidence

I often find that when people pull off a nice manoeuvre such as a good kill or some other kind of good play, they become more likely to make a mistake in their following actions. They become overconfident in their actions, and they are more likely to take risks beyond what is sensible for “good play.” It is standard that as one grows in experience this part of you is tempered, but this kind of overconfidence may still exist in some ways.

An example of what I mean. I remember a time where I was at the enemy canyon on badlands, and two enemy scouts were there. I managed to pull off a double kill getting both of them, which is a considerable feat even versus less skilled scouts. My next action was to rush straight to last point and try and take on 4 players by myself. The result is nothing but halving the advantage my team has, I have just put us up a 2 player advantage, and because of my arrogance I quickly halved that to only a 1 man advantage.

Just a tip to keep an eye on your play. Watch yourself, and make sure you are making good decisions, not brash ones based on your mad lust for frags!

Demos from Monday night

Hey!

So tonight I think I played really well, and had some really nice games versus these two great teams. If any of you are interested in watching the matches, the download links are from speedyshare.com, which is the best upload website I have encountered. The best games to watch are probably Game1 (Gravelpit versus Clan00) and Game3 (Well versus YoYoTech).

The least interesting demo is probably the turbine game, although if you are playing engineer yourself on this map it might be useful to you, and I do kill 3 players as an ubered engineer ^^!

Game1 | Gravelpit vs Clan00 | Download

Game2 | Turbine vs Clan00 | Download
(I am playing Engineer for most of Turbine)

Game3 | Well vs YoYoTech | Download

(People had problems watching this demo, like resolution change, be warned!)
Game4 | Gravelpit vs YoYoTech | Download

Until soon...

Peace,
nub

m0re's FPS configs

I have been really busy this last week, so apologies for the fact I haven’t had any time to write up any content for you all. But fear not, I will try and get something up soon.

I will also use this opportunity to quickly tell you quickly about m0re’s configuration files. I am sure a lot of you have some kind of FPS config, but if you haven’t heard about m0re’s configs then I recommend you have a look. I find they have the perfect balance of settings to fit my tastes, m0re has a really unbelievably good knowledge of the settings.

He has a high and a highhigh version of his configs, I personally use the highhigh version but with mat_filtertextures set to 1 to turn off the pixilation effect you get (although if you are really struggling for FPS this will give a considerable boost). Also make sure to edit some the settings in the file such as FOV, sensitivity and HUD elements to how you want them. There is also a nice custom HUD which he has developed so you can check that out too if you are interested, you can find his website here, and I have added a permanent link to his site in the links box on the right.

Peace,
nub

Map skills, TF2 Mentor Project

Before I get started I have one important thing to say, I want to make a really big shout-out to the guys at the TF2 Mentor Project who can be found here. Kind volunteers from the community sign up to help out lower skilled teams by imparting their knowledge and helping out with tactics etc. I would also like to say to my fellow div 1 and 2 players if you have any spare time to help out with this project you may be able to help out lower div teams more than you realise.

I have a lot of good things planned for the future guys, so when I have the time I hope I can get some really good stuff posted up here. For today though I am going to cover a small topic, but one of high importance: moving around maps and the different “jumps” available to scouts.

I often take the time to run around a map by myself, just jumping on things without any real purpose, just experimenting and seeing what I can find. I find running around an empty map like this helps open my mind to new jumps and new ways of doing things.

It's easy to get into a routine where I get stuck doing the same stuff: the same few key jumps I use each time, the same routes I take etc. This is bad for a few reasons: one it stops me being creative and approaching things from a new perspective, and secondly I end up becoming predictable for the enemy team.

Don’t jump to conclusions too quickly that spending time on some empty map practice is a silly or useless exercise. For example, something which has happened to me far too many times...

I have a soldier right in my face and I am just about to make a neat jump to avoid his rocket, up I go towards a little ledge where safety awaits me and then hopefully a fast retreat. As I climb through the air in what feels like slow motion, I suddenly begin to realise I’m not going to make it, and I slide back down onto the floor just in time to meet his rocket, damn. Making a neat unexpected jump can often buy you a couple of seconds, sometimes this will enable you to escape, at other times those two seconds will allow you to finish off an enemy medic who would have otherwise survived and could change the outcome of the round.

Other than just running around experimenting on empty maps, another purpose for being there is to practice and perfect specific jumps. I will now go over a few of my favourite jumps, some you may not know and some will be classics that everyone should know...

I will start off with an essential one, from my last post lots of people got back to me asking how to make this jump:

The trick in making this particular jump is hitting the rock on the right at the correct moment when crouched. You double jump off the ramp, not right at the top, but as you have just begun to run down it. Then you want to hit the rock and slide round onto the roof. This jump can be quite tricky, I spent quite a bit of time not understanding how to make it until I got it down consistently.

The next jump relates to my last post as well, being as it is another essential gravelpit one:

The key to making this jump is not trying to jump onto the actual wooden platform: what we are aiming for is the little wooden block which slightly extends from the side (I shoot at it with my pistol at about 10 sec in the video). Once you know that it should be a simple matter of practicing for a little while until you make it, you can easily refer to the video and watch how I do it again if you have any problems.

This jump here is without a doubt the hardest jump I know, and one probably the least number of people will know:

I really can't say how to make this jump, as I can't make it consistently. To be confident at a jump I would say I would want to be able to make it 19 times out of 20 at least. If anyone can pull this jump out in a clan war and make a kill or escape because of it definately let me know and I may post it up here on the blog.

OK, this next jump isn't such an interesting one, but it is a very important one:

To get onto the crate is easy, just make sure you are jumping off of the capture point itself as it's up higher than the floor. Then making it from the crate to the balcony is the hard part. It involves jumping as late as possible, jumping forward and twisting up right on the first jump so you are looking at where we want to be. Then crouch jumping to the ledge on the second.

This next jump is relatively well known now, but I had to put it in because I just love it. I also must shamefacedly admit that it took me ages to get this one perfected:

Practical uses for this jump? Well, it may be harder nowadays because it is so well known, and now I have posted it here it will be even better known. A while back I used to use it when defending: I would go straight to A before the round started and get up top and camp there as the enemy team capped A beneath me. Once they had finished capping and began walking off towards B I would jump off the roof and go for a medic kill. It was surprisingly effective, and even if the medic didn't die I would force uber.

This next one is another of my favourites, again posting it here is going to reduce it's effectiveness, but I hope the ones I have shown you will inspire you to find new and less known jumps ;]

I don't often use this jump, but the times I have used it I have caused even very high skilled players to become extremely confused. I then proceed to do absolutely no good at all because I always laugh too much to be able to aim anymore ;D

Alright people, that is it from me today, I hope you enjoyed this post.

Peace,
nub