• Registered: 2007-10-02
  • Posts: 237

Topic: Defend this position

Thanks to Safekeeper for raising this one in the 'Rhen Var Ice Plains' thread.

If you are on the defending team on a push-mode map, 'Defend this position' is the most important order of all, so why is it the hardest squad order to get players to comply with?

On a large map like Bestine or Endor, the distance between CPs makes it easy for a squad to slip past a team that's pushed too far from its last CP, take it and have the next one greyed out before the other team can get back to save the day. I've taken advantage of this laxity on many occasions, but more often I've won by getting a squad to dig in deeper than an Alabama mule tick and watching the other team's tickets bleed.

'Defend this position' means stay within the flag capture circumference, or at most not more than a few metres from it. Players within flag radii keep the flags; pushing forward to spawncamp the other team's forward UCB loses flags. It really is that simple.

I realise that proper, sit-and-wait-for-them-to-come defending is not some player's favourite style, but can assure you that it is a winning style and therefore well worth trying.

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  • Pam
  • Pam
  • Imperial Officer
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  • Registered: 2007-05-13
  • Posts: 220

Re: Defend this position

Is this a problem that just came up? Did FS invent the possibility of defending flags?

Is this really a FS related problem or more a tard-related one?

I cant quite follow...

  • Registered: 2007-10-02
  • Posts: 237

Re: Defend this position

First Strike's push mode has made defence even more crucial, particularly on those flags that you can't turn back once you've lost them. Neither push mode nor unrecappable CPs were a feature of vanilla 2142, so yes, it's FS-related in that way.

However, it's not a criticism of the mod, nor even a whinge at the players; it's just me being helpful and offering a suggestion that they may like to take note of if they like winning. wink

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  • Registered: 2007-10-02
  • Posts: 51

Re: Defend this position

This is so TRUE ,  I will tell my squad to defend here , and check my map after I start getting pounded by enemies , half of them are scattered across the map , very frustrating . Some folks play the game for  the kills the teamwork and following orders element is not really a part of their playbook . kind of goes back to that STATS thing , they are interested in padding their score with the safest spot and most easy kills , so they are of no help to me.  What can be done with it?   Only thing you can do as SL , is filter the non-compliers the next round and if they ask you kick them? tell them you need a teamplayer not a lone wolf.

  • From: New Hampshire, USA
  • Registered: 2007-07-09
  • Posts: 753

Re: Defend this position

I think First Strike's problem is that people don't understand the concept and idea of the game. I think we need to take a look at some other mods. For example, Project Reality. It pretty much FORCES teamwork on you, and most people comply. AND its the most popular mod for BF2. But why? I'm not sure myself, but if we figure it out we may be able to have everyone play FS the way its meant to be played.

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  • Twigs
  • Twigs
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  • Registered: 2007-09-28
  • Posts: 4,233

Re: Defend this position

People don't defend simply because they think someone else will do it for them, not realising that there aren't enough people to keep a realistic defence. A few also believe that an offense makes the best defence, letting the enemy simply waltz round the back.

Then you have the odd couple that just dont understand the concept, yet no matter how many times you tell them a popint can't be recapped they still stand there asking why its not running down. I've seen three or four people sitting in Ewok village an entire round spamming the com asking why they cant cap.

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7 Reply by Safe-Keeper (edited by Safe-Keeper 2008-07-21 17:36:13)

  • From: Grong, Norway
  • Registered: 2006-07-25
  • Posts: 5,192

Re: Defend this position

I think First Strike's problem is that people don't understand the concept and idea of the game. I think we need to take a look at some other mods. For example, Project Reality. It pretty much FORCES teamwork on you, and most people comply. AND its the most popular mod for BF2. But why? I'm not sure myself, but if we figure it out we may be able to have everyone play FS the way its meant to be played.

I think that the difference is that PR advertises itself as nothing but a realism/teamwork mod. FS, too, is a teamwork-oriented mod, but doesn't in any way advertise itself outward as such, and therefore players don't get that first impression. I was driving around in Mos Espa on a local server with a Combat Speeder, and my brother and a friend of his saw me play. Their comment? "That looks like Battlefront".

I've commented earlier that a lot of players "think of FS as a kind of Battlefront 3", and I think there's some truth in that. It's been a while since the X-Wing series, and they were really the only thing I can think of that was close realistic or teamwork-oriented. Now it's Battlefront and Force Unleashed, which are lone-wolf run-and-gun games. SW fans come straight from those games and expect FS to be more of the same, then get frustrated when the game won't let them do whatever they want. The worst thing is that I can understand their frustration.

I realise that proper, sit-and-wait-for-them-to-come defending is not some player's favourite style, but can assure you that it is a winning style and therefore well worth trying.

It just dawned on me... you're not really supposed to just sit and defend. You're supposed to patrol, lay mines, set up a Repeater fire base, lay homing beacons, prepare bacta canisters and ammo boxes at strategic locations, perhaps send out one or two players to scout for approaching enemies... really, if you have a teamwork-oriented squad, you should have plenty to do.

Not that it's possible to do all this, of course, but if you have VOIP (I'm looking at people like Twigs, Ty, and Jafar), I think it's possible to keep players busy so they don't get bored defending smile .

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