There's a lot more to this game than meets the eye. When you're weighing all the options, the risk vs. reward and class matchups as well as the best possible way to get to the intel or point, you'll realize that a lot of thought goes into a match and how it is conducted, either before, during or after the actual game. Gang Garrison's metagame gets a bad rap or is even considered nonexistent because of how small the community it, how simplistic it's mechanics and the "kiddie" visuals. Yet, sometimes you'll find that just playing for the sake of it, doing whatever the fuck you want will get you absolutely nowhere, and guess how badly that can fuck up your team? Well, it'll cause some major problems. For example, when you're in the irc and choosing class compositions, asking to play a class you have no experience or trouble with can be especially troublesome during the actual math. If you haven't gotten a good handle of the heavy reload/overheat system, or you've never actually been that good with the rifleman, when your team really needs you you won't be able to deliver. It's extremely counter-intuitive to the the strategic process; and yes, there's strategy involved. A lot of it takes place before the actual match, when you are choosing compositions and laying out plans of action. But there are a lot of cases in-game where you need proper strategy, common sense and a clear head to get away clean and successful. Think about it: if your entire team decided to just disregard everything, all charge at the intel by themselves, with no medic or coordination, what's going to happen? Nothing. It isn't going to help you win a game. If a person was to stray off course and attempt to cap a point solo while the rest of the team is trying to beat back a push on their point, you're exhibiting no rational thought or strategy; more often than not, your team will have needed you and be beaten, and 3-4 or even 2 people on your point is going to cap faster than you are on theirs. This should help illustrate why strategy is a pivotal point in this game, because so many different tactics, pushes, and maneuvers require a good deal of thought behind them. Going about willy-nilly and not thinking about what you do first of all tips the scales in the "risk's" favor as opposed to the "reward's," and secondly it's throwing any cohesion/synergy you have with your team to the curb in pursuit of your own foolish ends.
Let's lay out a couple of tactics that require strategic and rational thought. The first one I'd like to go over is one we don't usually think about: escaping an infiltrator. You know the situation. You're out and about, sans medic, solo. You hear the infiltrator bullets and see your health start to drain, and you whirl around to face your attacker. You might manage to chip off a shots or two, but the infiltrator cloaks and retreats to an unknown location. Now you're alone again, at least you think so, left to your own thoughts on where this infiltrator might be and whether or not you should continue on your way. Rule #1 is obviously not to drop your guard; in this situation, you're literally being stalked by the infiltrator who has the benefit of passive invisibility and a hell of a lot of patience. In older versions of this game, before ammo was implemented, all you had to do was hold m1 down and run around frantically till' you caught sight of the infiltrator. It doesn't work that way now. Firing constantly will just suck up your ammo, and while you're reloading you could be toast. Just running straight away is not advisable either, unless you're a runner, because they'll just uncloak and revolver away. Good infiltrators are even confident to keep themselves in close proximity at all times, doing such such as "shadowing" rocketmen, detos and firebugs by staying within their sprite and weapon's dead space. (Big surprise- this requires strategy as well, which is why "good" infiltrators will do it.) Needless to say this is a rather precarious situation, and as with many of these examples there is no set way to deal with it. But there are important facets to remember! DOing things such as listening for jumps, backpedaling or flipping directions every so often, and jumping a lot can make a difference. That being said, there are still a lot of factors. What class are you playing? What's the infiltrator's motive? (Which can be determined by proximity to a point of interest: a cp, an intel, etc.) Trog gave me a quick tip on what to do if you're a firebug:
If you're low on health, head to a health source while shooting flares in the spy's general direction, but don't go out of your way to hunt him down unless you connect with a flare so you know exactly where he is, and he's heading somewhere you don't want him to go. If he's heading back to his base then just get your health.
If you're not low on hp, but you're doing something already like going for the intel or attacking people, just continue on with that and shoot a couple flares as a passing thought really. You only need to hunt down the spy if you're not busy or he can do serious damage (he's trying to reset the intel, or you have no defenders).
Remember, patience is involved as well. A lot of it is playing the waiting game and such. My main point is it pays to think about these things. Something like a cloaked infiltrator can seem so trivial at first thought, yet a lot of strategy is involved in actually dealing with it. Playing spy in a 4v4 is a gamble so it's usually only done if the player can confidently and skillfully play the class, so it is usually a safe assumption that you would be playing against a particularly smart or skilled opponent. Such opponents and problem require rational thought to weather- what's your safest route? A practical thought: Think about areas where a lot of jumping is required. That way, you'll definitely know if someone is in pursuit. The key word is strategy- gg2 is not exactly a game of chess or something in that vein, but a lot of the basics do apply.
Another tactic: backcapping! It's almost crucial to some 4v4 teams in competitive matches, because it's a fast, albeit dangerous way to score a cap. Backcapping is rather huge, strategically. I'm not talking about "jelloing" in which you would just run straight at the intel and to get in and out without dying. I'm talking about a real, genuine backcap that requires some skill and gives huge rewards if pulled off correctly. The first thing you have to consider is that it will require your team to push a member down. That means it's essentially 3v4 in the biggest engagements, especially against a team that sticks together or one that isn't running a runner or infiltrator in it's team setup. So you have to judge whether or not the rest of your team is up to par for such an undertaking. Most of time, they will be, but if you're noticing they're crumbling under the opposition's pushes, it's better to just save your backcap antics for another round and attempt to go for the intel as a team. It's also huge to consider your surroundings and setting: how many routes are there to and from the intel, if there are any defenders, and importantly: where the main engagement is going on. If it's close to the base and there is a fast, and easy way to do it, it might be a good idea to pluck the intel and run while the other team is distracted. For one thing, it'll usually draw the attackers away from your team, lessening the pressure on them. Which means if the other team manages to catch you, your team can dive in and attempt to grab it themselves. However, there's more to it than that, especially when the other team also has a runner in play. Good 4v4 teams will not have anybody playing static defense (camping one spot) with the goal of protecting the intel or point from a runner or other backcapper. Normally, the more mobile class will also have the role of "interceptor." That means that if a runner notices the intel of his team is being taken, he will disengage from whatever he's doing and attempt to get back to base and stop the backcap there. Designating a interceptor is a good strategy, because it allows a team to still run full-team pushes and have a sort of working defense against backcaps. So a good backcapper has to be ready for such a battle. Oftentimes, when alone they will let their guard down and then end up bested by another runner who drops in out of nowhere to stop them.
Backcapping is much easier if the map is big. Big maps usually have more alternate routes, and of course, it will take longer for the enemies to come and stop you. The best class at backcapping is the Runner of course, then this is followed by a combination of two Infiltrators. Terrain is a big factor of backcapping. If the point you're capping has a tight entrance, you can spam shots at the enemies, you might get lucky and kill them. However, if there are multiple open entrances, then it will be very hard to backcap, because respawning enemies can easily stop you.
You should attempt a backcap if you think your team can successfully fend of the enemies without your help. This can actually help out your team, because if the enemies start chasing you, this allows your team to push. Even if the backcap attempt fails, you still succeeded in helping your team control more of the map.
It's good to remember when backcapping that a lot of it also rests on your health and your perception. Health-wise, you need to consider whether or not your hp allows for just resetting the timer or actually making away with a clean backcap. Even at full health, it's important to think it through. Runners and infiltrators can easily be stopped right at the intel with just a couple of shots, whereas a rocketman (a backcapping rocketman? Skills.) could probably take a bit of punishment.
You should never, ever attempt a backcap with a medic. Never. You are risking your medic big-time, and the medic should be helping your team push, not taking chances for the runner to get out with the intel. So rule out any constant streams of health as a factor when deciding when to backcap. Perception-wise, listening to the sounds of the battle above (or below) can help you determine which classes are in play at the moment. Of course, it's hard to tell which person is on which team, so it's not particularly helpful, but it's big when you're weighing what could happen. In the end, you just need to be a good judge of how helpful this intel run will be to your team. A reset timer on an intel out of base while the rest of your team is closing is closing in can be extremely helpful. However, running at the intel alone only to be killed right as you grab the intel while the rest of your team is off somewhere else does nothing. This is a good indicator of why strategy is important in such a fast-paced game. If we were to all just run straight at the intel just as Jellonixon tried to do in the public games of yesteryear, we'd never accomplish anything. Some final words by Trog that help reiterate my points on backcapping, as well as elaborate on why a backcap does not need to be explicitly successful for it to help out the overall effort:
hm well first of all make sure you're on the right class. I've seen way too many people try and do random shit as medic which loses all their uber and forces their team to retreat. Same thing with heavy, your team needs you up top. You also need to know when you're just not going to get the cap due to the defense. If you find yourself pansying around away from your team for too long, just kill yourself. 8 seconds is a short time, and being away from your team too long could lose you a cap. This applies less to runner since he's not as important to actually holding ground as the heavier classes are.
For the actual backcap itself, you don't need to actually get the cap to be successful. You want to put the team into a position where they think if they don't fall back to deal with you, they run a high risk of losing a cap, then punish whatever action they take. You don't really have to go for the cap if they fall back, you can just regroup with your team and push.
On truefort when an enemy is in your base/intel room, they have already committed very heavily to getting your intel so they probably won't fall back to deal with you, since the map makes this very difficult to do. It's also very possible they won't even know they are getting backcapped until you grab the intel since most of the time they can't see you exiting spawn. In this case you haven't gotten them to retreat, so you want to punish their action by actually getting the intel.
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Topic: Tips & Tactics from the Garrison - Rereleased!! (Read 13173 times)
