Battling on Battlefield 3

I had some good games in Battlefield 3, the other night, on our new BF3 server. Yes, after years of rejecting the realism of the standard first-person shooter, I’ve started playing one. Having been softened up by TF2, I reckon.

TF2 = downward spiral

Anyhow, we’re trialling a server. Many in the clan and community have moved away from TF2 now, they’ve been playing it since it began and there’ve been many changes in the game, which some feel have diluted it’s nature. So it made sense for the Clan to look at other games being played. And BF3, being one of the most recent and biggest releases seemed an obvious choice.

We decided to start modest and get a 32-slot servers and trial it for 3 months. It’s been set to a mix of Rush and Conquest maps (Rush: basically attack and defend, Conquest: basically capture points) with a 2-player start up. The default is 8-player but this is a large number of players for a small community to guarantee being available to start a server up (below that number, you’re just frozen in place waiting for others to join).

The first night we only managed to play with three or four of us, with no randoms joining us. Randoms tend to be the key to a server’s success; players who either find the server via the Quick Play option or via the server filter. Regulars are also vital of course, but unless you have a huge pool, there are often not enough fill a server. The hope is, of course, that enough randoms will favourite the server and become Regulars to do this and build a community. It’s the same really in TF2.

The other night, however, we managed to more-or-less fill the server. A fair few were us, along with various friends, but others I didn’t recognise. I hope they were randoms.  There have been complaints in BF3 forums that the Quick Play system wasn’t picking up some servers so they weren’t getting random players. Also that only a certain number of servers ever showed up in the browse servers option, this option seriously needs refining anyway. You can’t filter for ping for starters which means a large number of the servers that show up after a search are of little use. But maybe the other night showed that the WDG server was managing to get itself picked up.

Anyway, time will tell.

Edit: patch came out today which seemed to set minimum number of players to 4, to prevent stats padding apparently. They have also reduced idle time before you get kicked. Together these are potentially not good.

(shameless plug: server name WDG)

ETF2L Season 10 draws to a close

Season 10 in the European TF2 League is just drawing to a close. We’ve seen some good games at the top, a bit of drama; teams folding with other teams being unexpectedly promoted as a result and interesting line-up changes, along with the usual amount of low-level inter-player abuse and mild (or sometimes not so mild) homoerotic innuendo that goes to make up our happy little Tf2 world.

My clan has a team in Division 5. And it has been exciting to watch them, as they attempt to arrange games and get everyone together at the same time to play bearing in mind work commitments, life commitments and time zones. Sometimes they’ve made up to three or four arrangements in the same week. It’s kept me on the edge of my seat.

I think some matches have been played, though these seem a small, insignificant part of it all. We seem to have done well, though regarding actually winning games, perhaps less so.

But to be honest, in my opinion, any team that has made it through the Season, as a team, has done good.

6 vs 6 gameplay in TF2

I’ve written before about pub play compared with comp play. Most comp games are played 6 players vs 6 players (although there are other formats; 2vs2, 9vs9). The main comp classes are Soldier, Medic, Demoman and Scout although other classes will be used as the occasion demands. Most pub games are played either on either 12vs12 or 16vs16 maps.

I’ve never played 6 vs 6. It sounds as if it would be very different in style and pace from the usual pub match. Certainly as a Demoman, my fave class, there seems to be certain things that you must be able to do or know, to be able to play. For starters, you need to be able to do sticky jumping; sticky jumping and knowing exactly what you intend to do as you soar through the air. And then you need to know rollouts. On 5 cp  maps  (capture point), much depends on which team can capture the central point. The team that can get there first has the advantage and often as not, this hinges on the Demoman. Rollouts are the fastest routes to the central point. The Demoman, assisted by sticky jumping, uses map specific Demoman rollouts to get there quickly, and using sticky traps etc, will secure it, alongside the Scouts who are the fastest class and who will have made their own way there. It may be the Scouts who actually capture the point (they capture at double the speed), the Demoman holding defence and dealing out the damage.

Badlands; one of the rarer maps played in 6vs 6 and Comp (this is a lie)

So, in order to play 6 vs 6 I need to learn the rollouts. There is a lot of information out there, many Youtube videos.  But the trick is remembering what you’ve watched on a video when you’re actually in-game. TF2 allows you to create maps off-line which is useful, this means you can practice this sort of thing without the distraction of getting killed or being required to do something; yawn!

There are opportunities for less experienced players. There is a Steam Group that has been set up by various higher level players since TF2 went f2p to help introduce new people, in particular f2p players, to the 6 vs 6 format (6 vs 6 doesn’t have to be competitive as such, it is just a different style of play). One thing I like is about the TF2 community and many of the high level comp players is how much they promote TF2 and encourage and support others to play the game, whether it’s pub f2p players or fellow comp players at lower levels.

Anyhow, when I’ve reached a level of competence and confidence, I may give this group a try.  From what people have said, playing 6 vs 6 as well as being a new (for me) and fun experience, also helps improve play generally which can never be bad.