GSF Playstyle Question

[SammyGStatus]

So I've played enough to develop some pretty intense rivalries on my Jung'Ma, and I gotta say that when I see two players in particular, I cringe because my entire gameplay style has to be flawless to not only pull off a victory for my team, but also outperform the opposing players.

 

We had a couple really fun games last night. I had two players that I GSF with frequently (from my guild) and they had a couple helper pilots too. However, even in Domination, one of the players would ONLY target me. It got to the point where we would have a two cap, and one of my rivals was still chasing after ME and not trying to capture objectives. The other rival was doing a bit more of both managing the caps and managing his performance.

 

In TDMs, this was also the case, but normally I had at least one of the two rivals and a random pilot against me. During the earlier portion of the night, it worked well because I only had one wingman, so I would evade and hold their attention while my wingman picked them off. I still walked out of one of the hardest matches with higher or the same KDs as my rivals, but with a victory also (one match we tied 37-37 and we were "defeated" but we outplayed them I think). However, if my opponents didn't focus me the whole fight, they could've targetted other players and increased their lead.

 

My question is this - does it make sense to focus one player all the time, regardless of match type? Even if it means hurting the overall performance of the team

Edited March 31, 2014 by SammyGStatus

[mr_sim]

IMO only if your in a team and that is your strategy. Essentially what you are doing is turning a 12 v 12 into an 11 v 11. Given 2 equal players there is no net change in the outcome, however a weaker player can focus and neutralize a stronger player which likely can yield your team a net advantage.

 

There is something to consider though. Pilots bring many attributes. Many Aces are average flyers but excellent gunners, they utilize enough piloting skill to maximize their gunnery skills. Yet I find they often run a best defense is offense strategy which they usually combine with wing mates or even premades to mitigate their lack of evasive skills. So an extremely skilled non-Ace which I refer to as "Crack Pilots" may be able to employ enough skill to objectively neutralize an Ace. Often though superior flying ability.

 

Aces need only be massively successful against novice and intermediate pilots in most cases, when encountering veteran and up level pilots they only need to maintain a 1-1 K/D to attain victory in TDM as likely there are enough weaker pilots in the match to net the ace a positive contribution.

 

So yes you have 2 choices, objectively neutralize the Ace by committing a focus player or ignore the hard to kill ace and farm out the weaker players on his team and get in a kill race.

 

Personally I opt for the second strategy most times, mostly because I solo or pair que and the scoring seems to favor that strat more then the other with requisition. In fact there is only only one player who I consider a sort of nemesis on my server and will actually focus. Yet it is a unique situation where this one player is only interested in queing with the odds stacked in his favor and is an ***** hole on top of that, who generally is degrading the GSF community on JC. In his case I'll actually leave match normally. In my mind I'm taking my business elsewhere where I actually respect the people I'm in a match with. Unless I see a good team on my side then my strategy becomes to frustrate him beyond all recognition.

[Kuciwalker]

So I've played enough to develop some pretty intense rivalries on my Jung'Ma, and I gotta say that when I see two players in particular, I cringe because my entire gameplay style has to be flawless to not only pull off a victory for my team, but also outperform the opposing players.

 

We had a couple really fun games last night. I had two players that I GSF with frequently (from my guild) and they had a couple helper pilots too. However, even in Domination, one of the players would ONLY target me. It got to the point where we would have a two cap, and one of my rivals was still chasing after ME and not trying to capture objectives. The other rival was doing a bit more of both managing the caps and managing his performance.

 

In TDMs, this was also the case, but normally I had at least one of the two rivals and a random pilot against me. During the earlier portion of the night, it worked well because I only had one wingman, so I would evade and hold their attention while my wingman picked them off. I still walked out of one of the hardest matches with higher or the same KDs as my rivals, but with a victory also (one match we tied 37-37 and we were "defeated" but we outplayed them I think). However, if my opponents didn't focus me the whole fight, they could've targetted other players and increased their lead.

 

My question is this - does it make sense to focus one player all the time, regardless of match type? Even if it means hurting the overall performance of the team

 

This actually pissed me off, because I had asked him to run GS while I ran FF to pressure you and Jokin and that other random GS (I think vs your group and with my current skills that's optimal) but he ignored it so I eventually switched to GS.

 

I don't ever chase after a specific person to the exclusion of winning - I get too annoyed by losing, which is why I just abandoned the fight to actually play objectives in that last match particularly. (I was the one that got that final cap that won the match ).

 

Note that during all this, you DID actually have more than one wingman - there were a couple scouts that were regularly focusing me too.

 

btw, if it's a tie you didn't outplay the other team

Edited March 31, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[Kuciwalker]

(I was the one that got that final cap that won the match )

 

By the way, the lesson from this is that if a node loses 3 turrets within 6 seconds GET THE HELL OVER THERE. Seriously, I was just sitting on Kuat B by my lonesome for the entire cap duration and no one showed up until about 10s after I'd finished capping.

[Ryuku-sama]

Being from Jung'ma I'ld say one thing. Top pilots, those i won't try to attack in 1vs1 if I can't drop behind them and burn them down are gunship pilots. Every others top pilot, when in a scout or a strike are possible kills. So using a moderately skilled player to basicly keep a gunship on the run is completely worthwhile.

 

Suz'aku (Starguard/and a little of everything else), Yaiba (Quarrel (around 80% upgraded)), Za'buza (Rempart (less than 20% upgraded)), I can't remember my others alts....

[Fractalsponge]

My question is this - does it make sense to focus one player all the time, regardless of match type? Even if it means hurting the overall performance of the team

 

If it hurts the overall performance, no. But whether it is worth it to your team to do so is what you have to judge. If you go and tunnel someone, you're also taking yourself out of your team's contribution. It might sound arrogant, but the very best pilots on the team have better things to do if they want their team to win. Often times you end up over-extending and dying before getting them anyway, since even a bunch of total newbies can swarm and kill you if you get badly out of position.

 

Over 1000+ games on Shadowlands, I've found only a tiny handful of people I'd even consider going to sit on while passing by easier kills or objectives. These are the extremely rare pilots that are simply too dangerous to give a free pass to, since unobstructed they'll wreck most teams on their own. However, almost all of them play on my faction

 

But if you do get tunneled, take it as a badge of honor. If you draw 2+, chances are you're still being a major contributor to the team by drawing them off the objectives.

[Slivovidze]

Focusing you means keeping you busy. If you have that kind of attention, you are less likely to kill 15 worse enemy pilots. Of course, the outcome is different for everyone. If you are a good fighter and the person keeping you busy is not that awesome, you can just blast him in your 1v1 fight and happily attack other enemies while your personal bother respawns.

 

If I get a person like that, I am close to neutralized. I am bad fighter, but great pilot. Once I get focused, I don't fight back, but run. Speed-built ship allows me to survive the whole game even while focused, but instead of 15 kills I have only 3 because I simply don't have enough uptime on others to kill them before my pursuer catches up.

 

So, the answer to your question is, that it depends on what kind of pilot you are. If you are the first case, focusing you might not be the game-winning action. But if you are like me, focusing you will deny you, and thus your team, good 10 kills. That is a winning amount for TDM. And while Domination isn't about kills, keeping the otherwise rampaging pilot tight also yields its results.

[Armonddd]

Tough question. It largely depends on who's playing, and whether anyone's on fire or off their game.

 

Essentially what you are doing is turning a 12 v 12 into an 11 v 11. Given 2 equal players there is no net change in the outcome, however a weaker player can focus and neutralize a stronger player which likely can yield your team a net advantage.

 

This isn't quite right, though I largely agree. In a 12v12, if you have two approximately equal players take each other out of the equation and turn the fight into an 11v11, there is a net change -- the team with the stronger eleven has the advantage. This difference is especially important in TDM; if you have two very good players, but one specializes in prolonged dogfights/chases and the other specializes in farming kills (for example, myself vs Scrab), both players may be aces, but removing Scrab from the equation means my PUGs have a much better chance of... existing... long enough to do work.

 

In short, you can't just look at how much "minus" each team has by removing one of their pilots; you have to look at how much "plus" remains after removing those pilots.

 

If I think the rest of my team can do pretty well without me, or if I know an enemy pilot will mop up if left unchecked. I will absolutely focus my attention on him. Otherwise, if I think my team's ability to hold a node or clear out enemy pilots (including my own contribution) is greater than the other team's ability to do the same, I'll focus on those objectives. Deciding which to focus on is more of a feeling thing than anything -- I can't just say "ok, I think that guy's going to get 18 kills if I let him, and I myself could get 20, or if I harass him he might get 6 and I get 10". And, like I said, it matters as much on how well I feel like I've been flying, and how many mistakes I've watched other people make today.

 

As a scout, I'm very good at that role, so these kinds of decisions can play a critical part in my team's strategy. On the other hand, there's some pilots I'll go out of my way to harass even to my team's detriment, mostly because it's funny.

[Ramalina]

Personally I'm more inclined to harass scouts and strikes in TDM, and gunships in domination.

 

In TDM there's enough open space to play in that it's not too hard to just stay out of range of gunships, or at least LOS them. The more mobile fighters though, there's not much opportunity for escape, so trying to shut down the top one or two pilots on the other side can be pretty useful.

 

In domination on the semi-open nodes a gunship's ability to influence the space around an objective can be a real problem, and it's hard to justify not at least making an attempt to suppress the effectiveness of good gunship pilots on the other side, because disaster typically ensues if you don't.

 

In TDM suppression is a bit easier, because if you can hold a good pilot's kill count down, it has a large impact on the game outcome.

 

In domination, mere suppression is not good enough. The rest of your team has to be able to take advantage of the reduced pressure to take and hold objectives. If they don't, even holding the entire opposite team to few kills won't get you a win.

[SammyGStatus]

I can definitely see the advantage of isolating a player, but when you have 2 aces against another 2 aces (or at least 2 advanced pilots vs 2 advanced pilots), shouldn't it be more of a race to get to the kill limit and... ya know, win? Granted, stats would be sacrificed if the goal was to get to 50 kills fastest without giving a damn about your kd (getting 49 kills with 48 deaths is fine if you get the 50th kill (at least in terms of w/l ratio, because k/d ratio would be laughable).

 

And Alex, I had enough trouble dealing with the two of you to even notice. Also, check the favorite match thread - our TDM where we tied last night counts as my favorite match thus far

[Kuciwalker]

You were flying a gunship. That means I need to commit a reasonable fraction of my attention to keeping track of your position and LOS relative to mine if I don't want to get shut down. Once I'm doing that, it makes the most sense to just use that attention to attack you.

 

If I could rely on other members of my team to do that, freeing some of my attention to attack other members of your team, then sure, I would leave you alone and just try to get kills in the melee. But I can't so I won't.

 

Note that about half of this calculus isn't even based on the fact that you are a good gunship; even in matches vs weak players I make a committed effort to hunt down anyone spawning in a gunship, regardless of skill. If they're good then I'm helping the team by shutting them down, if they're bad they'll be an easy kill.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[QuinMantha]

Tough question. It largely depends on who's playing, and whether anyone's on fire or off their game.

 

This. There are pilots on Ebon Hawk I know you have to shut down or else you're going to be staring a defeat right in the eye. But, at the same time, I vary my strategy.

 

There are days I know I can control a dogfight, lock the bad guy down, and pick him apart every time he spawns while the rest of my team does their job. There are times I know we will have to invest not just me, but somebody to back me up, into taking that player out of the equation. And there are times when I know the bad guy is going to chew me up and spit me back out, but nobody else is going to volunteer, it's the only way we're even going to have a fighting shot, and maybe I'll get lucky.

 

To illustrate the last example better, if my team is a litany of two-ship noobs, and I'm looking across the rankings at a whole slew of two-ship bad guy noobs and two to three aces, my job at my skill level is to shut down the aces as best I can so the noobs can learn how to fly in a less stressful environment. There's no guarantees, but it's what I determine my part to play is. If I beat up on the youngsters, it's open season on my team, too. But if I keep the aces' attention at least part of the time, then my guys have a fighting chance.