Sat domination strategy

[philwil]

Interestingly, ran into a sat domination match, where at the final outcome we won. A dude hat 32 kills, so many assists, and like 130k damage on the opposing team

 

It was live fire.

 

Didnt know this pilot from Adam.

 

He stated in GSF chat afterwards 'I had so many kills, my team should have been able to hold the sats'

 

I said 'Well, because that map is about sat control. Not about kills/'

 

'Yes it is, if you kill them it leaves a void'

 

So, to a point he is right. You need to kill to take sats and to hold them.

 

But to blindly kill, without really helping the team hold sats isn't 'helping' win.

 

Regardless, he brought out his five shipper team mates, and promptly slaughtered my side.

He said afterwards 'I guess I had nothing to do with that win at all'

 

Well, they had ion spam from gunship[s this time...they had competent bombers.

 

Haha!

 

He mentioned and posted about his wining percentage. I didnt look at it. He wanted to see mine, being at 33 games on the server. Which was right around 50 percent. He then stated 'My strategy works better than yours'

 

But failed to mention he got 'team mates shipped in' instead of the team he lost with, lol.

 

No names or servers will be mentioned, but my own, to protect the other party, and open myself up to ridicule.

[Lavaar]

The key to a domination match is having situational awareness. Knowing the status of the satellites (the number of turrets is a great indicator), flashing turrets, teammates communications, as well as keeping an eye on where the enemy team must be going (ex. there's only 1 on a & b, therefore the rest must be moving on c) are all ways that you can judge the overall "health" of your situation in a DOM match. Holding nodes and killing opponents are both important parts of a successful DOM strategy, but it is important to have a good balance, and too much of one or the other will usually result in defeat.

 

Killing the enemy team is absolutely very important, as never killing the opponents means that an opportunity is never presented to actually take a satellite. Some of the most frustrating and hopeless DOM matches happen when there are too many people trying to hold and cap satellites, but nobody is actually doing any killing of the enemy team, resulting in a lack of results on the scoreboard. Some of these matches it seems to be puzzling as to why sats are never flipping for you, as it seems like your teammates are in the right places. However, the ending scoreboard tells the tale, as it becomes clear that the enemy team had very, very few deaths (if any at all).

 

On the flip side of this, and which appears to be a more common occurrence (in fact, I was in a game like this yesterday), is that the team over commits to kills, and thus nobody puts a priority on staying on the satellite to prevent it from flipping. The best DOM players know when capping/holding is an appropriate strategy and know when to switch into "kill mode" to clear off attackers or to take a heavily fortified satellite. Unfortunately, in games like that, often one player with the knowledge and experience to hold the satellites is unable to be two places at once.

 

I have seen players go full-on kill mode in DOM matches and avoid any attempt to cap or hold, even when doing so, even by just delaying the enemy, would have resulted in a much more favorable outcome. I have seen players fly past a blue satellite in a tightly contested match to go find their next kill. It is important to understand in DOM that it is usually easier to hold a sat once you have it, than to have to wrench your opponents off of it.

 

In essence, realize that awareness and understanding of the situation are important in dom, and knowing when to kill and when to hold are what separates the good players from the great ones.

[MaximilianPower]

phil - I'll respect your decision to leave out names. But I joined the mystery server - and this perpetrator's group - immediately after said game ended. He shared a video of the match with me, and I'm looking at the scoreboard now. His stats: 32 kills, 7 assists, 2 deaths, 146,661 damage. Also 13 medals and 99 objective points.

 

So, with this informed opinion, I will state clearly: no GSF player alive could have possibly done more for his team than this guy did. He was not blindly hammering away at targets away from objectives. He was ioning bomber poop like nuts, and eliminating targets around sats at a preposterous rate. It was one of the most singularly impressive games I've ever seen. He kept that game competitive almost entirely by himself. For you to call his motivation/strategy into question...honestly, I don't get it.

 

The reason your team won was because it was pretty solid top to bottom. The perp's team had complete dead weight at the bottom. He had a little help from a pair of quality players, but literally nothing else. Had it not been for this fellow's play, it would have been a blowout. Of that, make no mistake.

 

I understand that your perception of dom strategy may differ from other folks', and that's fine. But imo you're off base here.

 

Lastly - yes, I joined his group after the match. I'm pretty sure I was the sole "five-shipper friend" be brought out. Yes, we won handily after that. But it was just me. He didn't enlist a league of assassins to demoralize you guys. All that show is the difference one more capable pilot can make in matches like these.

Edited April 9, 2016 by MaximilianPower

[Ramalina]

I believe you misspelled whining percentage, there's an h after the w.

 

In a TDM it's fairly straightforward for an ace to carry a game, just kill as much as possible as fast as possible, and without dying much.

 

In Domination, it gets more complicated. The pressure strategy is good gunship play at any level, but it's not enough to hold two sats without help from the rest of the team. So if the team has no clue, communicating with them so that they have at least a little clue and a desire to use it can be as important or more important than creating pressure. It's sort of like flying and teaching kindergarten at the same time, and often people don't learn enough soon enough to change the outcome.

 

The other way to go is to pick up a bomber or a battlescout and try to hold two sats at the same time solo. It requires soft opposition, because one person with a fast ship with AP weapons who knows what they're doing can mess it up pretty effectively. It also takes stupendous flying on the ace's part, but there are people like Drakolich and Scrab who have a real talent for solo holding two sats.

 

Complaining about, "should have won," and linking win percentage was certainly immature and whiny on their part. The real should have was should have helped teach newbs on the team how to be more effective kindly enough so that the newbs are encouraged and eager to get better. Venting at newbs where newbs may be able to see or hear, is unseemly.

 

Still, it can be frustrating when no matter what you do the satellite that you're near is green and the other two are red. So while I don't approve of their reaction to the loss, I can definitely sympathize.

[philwil]

Zuck...yes. I told him I was impressed with the kills.

 

And he wanted to call me out because I said kills were not the 'point' of the dom matches. But sat control. And he continued at me, just as his fellows did on that server.

I know it's not my 'home', nut I know how to play and the requirements for the different maps.

 

 

Let's put it this way. I can literally win a dom match by 'sitting' on the sat and holding for the duration.. ..I as a player do not have to kill.

 

And yes, his team before that match was not very good. As you stated, it was very close. But, how do you account for the wall of five shippers that appeared after, lol. AFTER I mentioned about the 'kill' not the point of that type of match. If you have a multitude of 5 shippers, using the various ships you can use to hold sats, of course you are going to win over what my side tended to be.

 

So, I looked at the entire mess afterwards as a 'I'll show you kills dont matter!'

 

He even told me to shut up when I was explaining things in whisper. (remember when I put him on ignore for a few seconds? yeah...right after 'shut up!!', lol)

 

So, he is a little hurt over saying killing isn't the reason for the season (dom match). It's the holding of sats to achieve 1000 points, or the highest score.

 

TDM is the place for kills.

 

I achieve nothing sitting under a rock, or under a structure.

 

I was IN the that first game. An I can tell you I didnt know who he was till i looked at the scoreboard and said 'who the F was that?'

 

Someone spoke up in GSF chat and said 'an as whole', lol.

[Greezt]

Let's put it this way. I can literally win a dom match by 'sitting' on the sat and holding for the duration.. ..I as a player do not have to kill.

 

You can't "literally" win a DOM match by sitting on a sat and holding unless your team is doing all the work, or the opposite team is doing nothing. How can you expect to win while staying on one node the whole match? Only if your team is holding another, that's how...

Edited April 9, 2016 by Greezt

[philwil]

You can't "literally" win a DOM match by sitting on a sat and holding unless your team is doing all the work, or the opposite team is doing nothing. How can you expect to win while staying on one node the whole match? Only if your team is holding another, that's how...

 

For the record, I don't sit. And it is an 'example'. Control of the sat x 2 is crucial. Or the occasional 3 cap come back.

 

If he kills 100 and doesnt hold a enough sats to win.

 

Like I mentioned in chat, my wins have been littered with multiple top two or three killers being on the opposition.

 

Killing is NOT, i repeat NOT the purpose of DOM. Does it help? Of course.

[MaximilianPower]

Zuck...yes. I told him I was impressed with the kills.

 

And he wanted to call me out because I said kills were not the 'point' of the dom matches. But sat control. And he continued at me, just as his fellows did on that server.

I know it's not my 'home', nut I know how to play and the requirements for the different maps.

 

 

Let's put it this way. I can literally win a dom match by 'sitting' on the sat and holding for the duration.. ..I as a player do not have to kill.

 

And yes, his team before that match was not very good. As you stated, it was very close. But, how do you account for the wall of five shippers that appeared after, lol. AFTER I mentioned about the 'kill' not the point of that type of match. If you have a multitude of 5 shippers, using the various ships you can use to hold sats, of course you are going to win over what my side tended to be.

 

So, I looked at the entire mess afterwards as a 'I'll show you kills dont matter!'

 

He even told me to shut up when I was explaining things in whisper. (remember when I put him on ignore for a few seconds? yeah...right after 'shut up!!', lol)

 

So, he is a little hurt over saying killing isn't the reason for the season (dom match). It's the holding of sats to achieve 1000 points, or the highest score.

 

TDM is the place for kills.

 

I achieve nothing sitting under a rock, or under a structure.

 

I was IN the that first game. An I can tell you I didnt know who he was till i looked at the scoreboard and said 'who the F was that?'

 

Someone spoke up in GSF chat and said 'an as whole', lol.

 

It seems to me this was more of a miscommunication issue than an actual difference of opinion. The guy was peeved that you seemed to be pinning the loss on him, when in reality, there was nothing more he could have possibly done to help win that game. He, too, is a server nomad; he prides himself on knowing the game inside & out, and most importantly, winning. He know what it takes to win as well as anyone in the game. For a guy he didn't know to call his strategic decisions into question - after having a game like that - well, I'd probably get a little ticked off too.

 

The banter that followed was certainly, uh, uncivilized, and I imagine he isn't proud of that. Can't speak for him, obviously, but that's my guess.

 

Re: the wall of 5-shippers in the following match - that's easy to explain. Wasn't a coordinated effort on any level; rather, largely just the nature of matchmaking in wargames. In the game you originally posted about, you had five 5-shippers (not including you and your 4 ships), and the other guys had 4 (including the one you got into the spat with). Next game, I joined (with my 5 ships), and I know another 5-shipper got in on my side. Anyone else was just randomly selected by the matchmaker. And iirc (I didn't take a screenie, though I wish I had) you actually did have some 5-shippers on your side too. If you ended up with fewer on your side, blame SWTOR, not any sort of conspiracy against you, or an effort to make the point that "kills win doms".

 

Also, merely owning 5 ships in one's hangar says very little about a pilot's ability to meaningfully contribute in a match. It's a sign they've played a bit, sure. But we've all seen some truly bad 5-shippers out there. You may have been saddled with one or two of those in that latter match.

[Verain]

One reason kills can look so large on a losing dom team is how the players are split up. At any given point, the team with two satellites will be spread thin, and it will be easier to get kills. Routinely I will attack a node I have no chance of taking to keep the pressure off another satellite. There's just so much going on that isn't on the scoreboard.

[Lavaar]

Also, merely owning 5 ships in one's hangar says very little about a pilot's ability to meaningfully contribute in a match. It's a sign they've played a bit, sure. But we've all seen some truly bad 5-shippers out there. You may have been saddled with one or two of those in that latter match.

 

While this is true, and there are certainly a lot of ill-equipped five-ship players out there, I would like to point out that having five ships shows that the player has played AT LEAST enough matches to buy those ships, and has a basic understanding of the game if they were able to figure out how to purchase them (and not blow their fleet req on RFL). Too often I hear people in this community lament about how "being a five shipper means nothing", when in fact it is a much better indicator of general competence than I think we give credit for.

 

Players with a full compliment of ships on their bars can be a wide range of skill levels, true, but are, on average, going to be much better than those without 5. The chances are that someone who has LESS than five ships on their bar, is HIGHLY LIKELY to be either very new, very bad, very under-equipped and/or very inefficient, barring a few specific cases of people deliberately deceiving the opposition with less ships, aces starting new toons (which would still be under-equipped), and the power rangers among us who throw one ship on their bars to show how dank they are. Keeping this in mind, it is actually quite accurate to say that the more non-five shippers on a team, the more likely that team is to be severely handicapped.

 

I realize this isn't really the point of this thread, but It is something that has been on my mind awhile. I saw my opening and I took it.

Edited April 9, 2016 by Lavaar

[philwil]

Zuck, exactly. My four ships have maybe at best level 2 equipment (as I build from the as end first, then work forward).

 

The pilot is an amazing pilot. On par with the best harbinger has to offer.

 

Yeah, we got blasted like the second match several matches, lol. You can see how I would assume (you know what assume means, hehe) what had happened, as the same ships seemed to appear on the opposing side every one of them.

 

So, I figured it was done to drive the point home.

 

It was a statement that was not intended for *** for tat argument.

[Verain]

It *is* offtopic, but I generally agree. While a five shipper could have about seven or eight games under their belt total, in practice the average case of a five shipper versus a two shipper is large. I think that comparing five shippers to veterans is in general where you see the big skill difference.