The most important CTF advice anyone can give new players [inside]

You cannot stop offense with defense.

Offense never dies. it just respawns.



You can't "zomg let's kill their HO so hard they'll stop coming to our base." On most decent maps if you "kill" an HO they will return with full health within 30 seconds if your team doesn't have offense of it's own. Therefor if you respawn at your base and there are lots of HO around trying to battle them is pointless. You'll never succeed in killing all 6+ of their HO before the first few that died return.

So how do you stop your base from getting overrun by an endless stream of HO? go offense yourself. If you blow up the enemy equipment it slows them down and you can push that 30 seconds up to 45 or a minute.

Now, we've all been on teams in pubs that didn't have enough offense so what do you do in these situations. after respawning look around: Is there a chance an inventory station is about to come online within the next 15 seconds? If so, get in Heavy with an inventory station deploy the inv and do an HO run to their inventories/gen. if not, is there an epack on the ground you can pick up and do some action with? If not, go naked to the enemy base and disc turrets/remote invs or attempt to naked rape their gen if it's undefended.


This is a very counterintuitive lesson but the most critical and important lesson for players to learn. Most see all the enemy HO at the base and think "oh my god we're being overrun I should chase them around with spinfuser" and as I've discussed above this only leads to more enemy HO at the base. please pass this along to players that are new or inexperienced or don't know what to do when their base is down.
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Comments

  • This sort of flies in the face of the flame wars we've been having in other threads about maps being unbalanced in favor of defense.

    We all know the saying "best defense is a good offense", which can certainly apply here, but you still need defenders. Say it's a 40-man night, 20 people per team, and 6 hostile heavies are raping your base. Are you suggesting that a majority of your friendlies load up and return fire at the enemy's base? Do you realize that then leaves you with significantly less people to defend your flag, putting it on a silver platter, even?

    If there's an HO heading for your base and you're loaded up with scout armor, while you will most likely not kill him, shoot discs his way anyway. Do you know why? Splash damage. Even if you don't hit directly, the splash damage should either distract him slightly (slowing him down as he's going to try to avoid fire now), or knock off a couple points of health to help your HDs have an easier time of taking him down.

    And I don't know where you're playing, but I rarely see more than one HO go raping.
  • as has already been said, offense is way more important than defense in t2. almost every team in both 14 man and 7 man ladders have run an offensive "stack" in almost every map; that is, they will have more offense than they have defense (typically, in 14 man the most common was an 8O/6D stack, but on some maps you would even see 9/5 or 10/4, and on 7 man, most teams ran 4O/3D). The key to a successful defense on cluster style maps like dangerous crossing is having a smaller defense that is very efficient, particularly around the flag. respawning O can usually distract HO long enough to get their base up for one or two players who can deploy invs, and if the defense is successful in defending the flag and perhaps distracting HO, they can soon get their offense back up and running, which is the real key to success.
  • oh yeah, and new players should learn HO as their first position over anything else, because it's the most important position in almost any situation
  • edited January 2009
    oh yeah, and new players should learn HO as their first position over anything else, because it's the most important position in almost any situation

    I disagree. Learning to ski effectively as an HO is a pretty damned intensive lesson. I think repairs should be the first learned position, since it gives the player time to learn the base assets, and learn how important they are. Knowing which assets you need to have up most also teaches which ones are best to take down.

    Lesson 1 leads naturally into the next lessons.

    I do, however, agree that Tribes is an extremely offensive game. The smaller portion of your team should be spending time at your own base, while the rest should be attacking the enemy's base, or hunting down their vehicles. If the enemy is unable to load up properly, they'll find attacking your base extremely difficult.

    Small note to players trying to retake your base... For the love of god, shoot the ground with the blaster once, and stop feeding the enemies with health kits.
  • I believe in learning the basics before anything else. The basics being the base assets, the weapons, the packs, etc... I find that knowing what the enemy has in his hand or on his back and what it does when I'm raping them is pretty important information.

    Now if you've got someone showing you exactly how things work, sure... you could probably throw all the weapons, base assets, vehicles, grenades, armors, deployables, and packs into a single lesson with skiing. If you're teaching yourself though, I think it's best to start with repairs.
  • There's also the issue of simply wanting to win wich means cap whoring or camping the enemy gens vs actualy wanting a challenge. When it's 700 points to 5, that's usualy an indication the teams are stacked and there's no real challenge.
    Speaking of team stacking, pub servers should track individual scores/stats and making teams based on splitting the various players up by team so as to enhance the challenge. Then again, some of you don't want a challenge, simply to win.
  • I favor team stacking solely because the only reason I play most of the time is to play with friends, and I'd much prefer to be on their team. It just so happens that we're usually the best players in the server, so the teams end up stacked. But hey, since most of the players there are playing just for fun too (allegedly), they shouldn't care that the teams are stacked and they are getting owned.
  • edited January 2009
    The best I can say is that if you feel you're a decent player, and you see your own team crushing the opposition, switch. So what if you've just capped twice in a row, and the other team is still sitting at zero points? The other team could obviously use your help.

    You can be on the opposing team but still be playing with your friends. And the comment on "playing for fun" was as piss poor as my comment on single player games being successful. When you see the other team constantly losing players, you know they're not having fun.
  • " But hey, since most of the players there are playing just for fun too (allegedly), they shouldn't care that the teams are stacked and they are getting owned."

    Yeah! They should be happy to spawn and die over and over again!
  • " But hey, since most of the players there are playing just for fun too (allegedly), they shouldn't care that the teams are stacked and they are getting owned."

    Yeah! They should be happy to spawn and die over and over again!
    That's part of not playing to win. Maybe they should have considered that?
  • The average noob isn't going to play to win right off the bat. They're going to think "I heard this game has planes", and they're going to want to hop into a flyer.

    A noob isn't going to know how to play to win. I want to at least give them a chance to see some of the stuff in the game, and if that means I'll spend ten minutes repairing the gens five times, then so be it.
  • The most important thing anyone can read before playing t2 is more social than technical imho. They need to learn not to take the game too seriously and turn into competitive-tards that joint non-competitive rules servers just to insult everyone for ~15-20 minutes before ragequitting when someone makes it their personal mission in life to do local taunts constantly while attached to this guys hip.

    That and there is something warm and fuzzy inside about knowing that the enemy team cares so much about killing you that they'll drop whatever they're doing and chase you ANYWHERE just to do it.
  • ITT: Experienced players give good advice that is rejected.
  • ITT: Experienced players give good advice that is rejected.

    Surprisingly people usually listen to mine, but then again it's probably mostly from the shock of being told that it's a GOOD thing to deliberately annoy the hell out of the other team.
  • ITT: Experienced players give good advice that is rejected.

    Surprisingly people usually listen to mine, but then again it's probably mostly from the shock of being told that it's a GOOD thing to deliberately annoy the hell out of the other team.
    Not talking people down also tends to help.
  • Probably, but I'm taking the advice regardless of the presentation.
  • Probably, but I'm taking the advice regardless of the presentation.

    Damn, you mean that's not 5 points of my total score like on iron chef?
  • edited February 2009
    If noobs dont know how to play I suggust going to a server that empty and learn whats what rather than trying to learn what weapon/vehicle does what in a heated battle.

    I understand that if there are no noobs then the community is doomed to fail. But in my opinion T1/T2 has a learning curve. And if noobs egos cant stand that if they try to play and aint up to speed, they are gonna be target pratice. Maybe they shoud go play "Pac-Man" or "Halo" or some other shit that their ego can better stand.

    And on the other hand. I have noticed that T2 like T1 has it's share of just A-holes (not to mention would-be hackers). Like the ones that when a noob ask a question. They give them the (Ctrl+k) crap. Haaaa so f--king funny. NOT!!!
  • ITT: Experienced players give good advice that is rejected.

    I have found that it is the way in which the advice is given that decides whether it is rejected or not...
  • Advice: The Plasma Song

    Seriously. If you want to learn don't play in newbie servers. Don't play in non-classic servers. Connect to the core tribes community at teamwarfare.com, irc.tribalwar.com #lastgasp, and tribalwar.com. Watch demos. Remember that the game is capture the flag. Learn to ski using as little jets as possible. Learn to shoot the disc launcher. Smile.
  • ITT: Experienced players give good advice that is rejected.

    I have found that it is the way in which the advice is given that decides whether it is rejected or not...

    Being spiteful doesn't hurt the rude presenter.
  • NO TEAMSTACKING ON OUR SERVER ALLOWED INTENTIONALLY. THAT'S FOR WIMPS
    RB10
    of ## {dggs} Fast V2
  • As an ex HO/HoF I will say my biggest threat was the midfielder, a "good" midfielder" new all the routes new how to fight an new how to stop a HO in his tracks.I can ski to your base, an blow it an anyone i see to shit an die in the process (good HO is a one way trip). But, if I run into a middy who knows what hes about, I am in trouble......HO are not built to mix it up with duellers. We can fight em but often times you get torn to pieces in mid air.

    in old days (for all you newer people) back in T2/T1 heyday HO was brutal you had at least half a doz coming in at same time from all directions at once.... you couldn't stop them all an if they all got through, your base was done in record time....we didn't hold fire if we were all in same area.... HO can take enough slugging it out out to deal with it... so we all land an cut loose with everything......doesn't matter if you TK friends, its the base you need :D

    Get a Minedisk script, mine/grenade toss is a great one if you can still find it (Most of the great scripts) were made by a guy "Mental_Trousers" good mate of mine in same clan as me.

    NV(Novakula)

    so Mine/disk
    grenade/mine spam these work with Mortar as well, you come in high an aim to land ON the target... I drop everything I have before I hit the ground, while spamming mortars as you come in... this way a shit ton of explosive hits the ground just as you do :p
  • I've noticed that it's not a good idea for offensive players to get into duels near the other teams base. Even if you win, they can respawn and you're back at zero. Learning how to use your time on offense is nearly as important as deciding o attack or defend.

    Also, more people need to take on basic tasks, i.e. defending the bases will missiles or just repairing... but I digress.
  • Anytime you're in the enemy base start putting beacons on important things. People tend to destroy beacons so if one suddenly dissapears it's a reasonable assumption that whatever turret you stuck it next to has just been repaired.

    Also: never underestimate deployable cameras. One of those somewhere sneaky and you can basically know exactly what the flag D looks like every time you get a run going.
  • edited February 2009
    I'm rather sceptical about SuperSniper's suggestion. First, it generalizes: While the motto "Offense is the best defense." might apply to CTF in Tribes 2 in general, that's simply right because you need to get the flag from the enemy base. But that's where the problem comes in: A HO will never get any flag. He will trash the base and try to turtle in there. It happens way too often that other LO don't realize the opportunity to catch the flag while the now armorless base-trashed team goes after the enemy. That's where the next problem comes in: A LO generally has no chance against some decent base defense. Think of the turrets, the mines and - of course - the base! Walls, narrow passages! Speed's got much less use there. Therefore, such a zerg of standard-equipped players normally ends in genocide and some nice points for the enemy deployers. What the base-trashed team should do instead is intercepting the HOs in the midfield. The bigger the maps and the more vehicles, the more difficult, of course.
    Thus, in case your base gets trashed: Go midfield and try to freeze the score. It's also where you can kill the enemy cappers the best.
    So don't try to attack the enemy base but to own the midfield. What do you think about my idea?
  • NO TEAMSTACKING ON OUR SERVER ALLOWED INTENTIONALLY. THAT'S FOR WIMPS
    RB10
    of ## {dggs} Fast V2
    Sure thing boss!
    *salutes RB, then raises {dggs} flag.*
    Teamstacking is a noob's tactic.

    This applies in T2:
    Step1: noobs jump to one team.
    Step2: they spam the enemy base.
    Step3: one of them caps the flag.
    Step4: An angry Demoncard kicks them.
    Step5: the remaining noobs cry abuse OR they take a hint and play T2.

    {dggsSA}Demoncard
  • i cant believe you left out the secret alt/f4 combination that activates the t2 autoaim in all classic servers
  • So don't try to attack the enemy base but to own the midfield. What do you think about my idea?
    I think your team is going to lose horribly.
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