Hello!
Well I'm a pretty new battlefield 3 person tbh but I read up on this early on and applied it to the way I play. 16 days old and a 1.6 kdr I think that's decent. The passage below is
by somebody named granto, and from what I've read it is pretty good in detailing the qualities in how a "good" player should behave. Perhaps the ideas you might take from this would carry over to other games, perhaps your own life.
That is strategically thinking, being where you need to be, never procrastinating, and being always on the move.
Anyways, this marvelous guy goes on for a bout a few pages but I'll put them down below. If you have the patience to read it you'll probably become a better player because of it. If you don't, well... hopefully the "I'm just having fun" excuse isn't a new thing to you. (That's a dare, read it lol, please lol)
I've attempted to screen the writing for any grammatical errors but it remains relatively intact. Tbh, you should copy and paste this to a document, print it out, and read it over a cup of coffee.
-Avril
-------------- Part I: Strategy and Situational Awareness --------------
EnixDark put up some great guides about weapons, so I was inspired to contribute with some discussion on higher level FPS strategy as it pertains to BF3. I have a background in competitive gaming at the national level and logged over 100 hours in BF3. While I won't claim to be an expert, I might know more than your average bear.
Jumping right in, the number one reason people die is lack of situational awareness (SA). Without SA, you will play a FPS in a reactionary manner, which means someone shoots at you or comes on your screen suddenly, then you try to shoot back. In a game like BF3 that has a short time-to-kill and instant hit weapons (guns), playing a reactive style game is close to impossible. This is because the average human reaction time is close to 25ms, so when someone has a half second (500ms) initiative, you are at an extreme disadvantage. The only way to overcome the enemy initiative is relying on their lack of skill and/or your ability to process motor motions (aim) faster.
The common misconception is that elite players have lightning reflexes, but the reality is that most of them have average reaction times... but they acquire targets much faster. More than anything though, they have incredible SA, which is why a casual gamer watching competitive players often think they have some crazy ESP on how to predict the enemy movements. The key to becoming a better gamer as a whole, is increasing your SA so that in any encounter, you will have a better initiative, forcing your opponent to play a reactionary game.
With that covered, SA is based on six key points:
Map knowledge (knowing the hot/safe zones)
Radar (simply knowing enemy locations, incoming danger)
Flow (movements, deaths, battle visuals/sounds from around you)
Communication (player to player announcements)
Reaction state (more on this later...)Map knowledge is an often cited strategy, but the reasoning behind it is that it conditions you to where you should be aiming. Anyone that plays BF3 long enough will know all the general sniping spots, corners and hot zones. You know the general direction to aim based on where the enemy comes from.
Radar is what separates the casuals (negative KD) from the real gamers. If you can master radar and you are not incompetent at motor controls, you will be above the pack. I will readily admit to dying because I have been using my radar to aim as opposed to my screen. It should be that important to observe with one eye (or two) at all times. Not only should you be looking for the red triangles AND their orientation, you should be looking for skulls of your teammates dying and where. Too often I've flanked enemy squads with a suppressed gun and taken out the last two, reloaded, then finished off the rest. If people are dying around you, be highly alert. You know where to aim because you see where they will be.
This leads to flow, which is the introduction to higher level play that most of you either intuitively know or act on already. Flow is the tide of battle that includes zones controlled by allies/enemies, which side has the upper hand and action on routes leading to each. Essentially, a bird's eye perspective of what is happening on the map. Flow requires using the limited amount of information available (radar, onscreen) and attempting to understand which areas are hot and which areas are vulnerable. Literally, think of water pushing and pulling around the map and that is the idea of flow. Say on Metro, you hear two huge fights at the first escalator and side stairs, you'll know the second escalator will be the least watched.
Casual players don't apply flow and can counted to stack with teammates to push a certain area. This means that flow is best applied toward flanking, because you can identify the routes of least resistance and make your way through to eventually hit the other team from behind. This is almost always high risk/high reward (another reason why casuals don't prefer this method), as the times you die will far outrank the times you succeed. However, when you do succeed, it will often be devastating for the enemy team and disrupt their position bad enough that your team can break through.
I'm sure this is why the radio beacon is getting the nerf, because it's ridiculously powerful in the right hands due to the ability to inject yourself directly into flow. Enemy "safe" zones are now hot and you can force them to slow down, bunker down or abandon a position getting flanked. Without proper flow, things turn into chaos, where you don't know which way to look, what is secure and what not. Casual players HATE chaos and LIKE predictability, which is why they often stack with other players (especially at choke holds). Beacons add chaos to the order, so it really screws with casual players the most when it gets abused.
The MAV isn't a flow breaker per se, but given its ridiculous spotting effectiveness, it exponentially increases the SA for your ENTIRE TEAM. The balancing problem with a device like the MAV is that casual players stay the same, but good players get better with a MAV guy on the team.
The other best flow breaker in the game is the M320 smoke. I hardly ever see anyone use smoke except other high level players. The utility factor is twofold, as it hides team movement if you shoot it at hot zones or disorient enemy positions if you fire at them. The caveat is that smoke requires two things: self-sacrifice and the willingness for your team/squad to advance to take advantage of it. A squad with two smokers and two rushers with RPG/shotguns/C4 can deliver a massive effect to a "locked down" area. But, they all have to be willing to rush in and die for it to be effective, which are two things casuals don't understand/are unwilling to do.
What other flow breakers are there? Transport vehicles. The team can spawn on transport vehicles, so keeping these alive and behind/above the enemy is a huge part of team efficiency. (Begin rant) A lot of people here say that transport choppers are a thankless task. Why yes, they are. But they help win games, which is what being part of a team is about. Who is the first guy rushing the MCOM with smoke that gets shot arming it but reveals the 2 guys crouched in the corner on radar? Yeah, that's me, but F*** it, my squad now knows where they are and arm it for me. If I wanted personal glory, I'd go play 1v1 Starcraft or Quake again, but no, I'm playing BF3, so remind myself to man up from time to time, stop whining like a MW3 player worried about their K:D ratio and try to help my team win for a change. The only satisfaction you need is knowing that you are a moving spawn beacon dropping beautiful noobs with cannons into the enemy kool-aid pool. (/rant).
Side note: One of the things BF3 hasn't had much credit is in the map design, because almost all BF3 maps are designed with great flow. Good map designers know how to build maps to design combat around certain areas, but almost always put vulnerabilities into each position (multiple entrances) to prevent outright lock on any one area. Or in a game type like Conquest, if one area is dead locked, you can simply take another point and move on.
I've coached players before on the notion of flow and have guided players around maps where they slaughter players simply from getting better positioning. You don't always have to flank, you can just recognize when the enemy flow is coming to you, wait just for the right moment and pop up your LMG and make the magic rainbows appear. The better you are at flow, the less often you get shot in the back and the more often you shoot someone else in the back. With flow, you know where to aim not because you see them in front of you or on radar, but because you came to that conclusion logically.
Now onto the second most important concept: reaction state. Unless you are trained in meditation, you cannot keep a heightened state of awareness for more than a certain duration. This applies to FPS games as well. When you round a corner KNOWING that a guy will be there, you will enter a certain state where you are ready to hit the trigger, your eyes are already pre-scanning and your reaction time is also sped up. On the opposite side, if you are waiting in a room on the defensive and don't know when the enemy is going to come, it is nearly impossible to keep a high state of awareness, as you can only hold it so long. This is why SA is critical, because it informs your body when to be ready and gives you the initiative in a fight.
Not only that, the way that the network coding works in most modern games (especially faster games like MW), the attacker gets an advantage in terms of reaction time, because by the time your opponent sees you entering a room, you will already have been in the room looking at him. I won't go into full detail on the mechanics, but this is also why you die after rounding a corner, why you SWEAR you won an engagement only to have lost and kill guys who go out of your field of view.
Knowing this, if you know a guy is in the room and have the option of slowly creeping into the door or rushing in, you should always pick the latter. The slow creep (aka pie) only works on guys unaware or a must if you don't know if someone is inside. Bridging the higher level to lower level application, this is also why shotguns and the F2000 are beasts in CQB - they are accurate while on the move AND provide short time-to-kill. You are essentially stacking all variables together (initiative, reaction state, network code, quick damage application) in your favor. At the same time, this is why the F2000 is a preferred gun among many high level players, because it favors the run and gun method, which is very twitchy by nature. It is a terrible gun otherwise, which is why complaints about the F2000 just show ignorance, because if you are encountering more than your share of F2000 players, you are using the wrong play style for your weapon. It is a weapon for point men aka the guys who charge first. Just like if you shouldn't complain about always being sniped if you're that guy trying to pick them off with a SCAR at long range. You play to your weapons advantage.
This leads to the number one thing that effects your reactive state: your weapon sights. From the moment you encounter someone, it's more often than not a rush to move your mouse/analogue stick, aim down your sights and pull the trigger. I'm not going to get into aiming and motor control, because that's really all just practice. But your sights are important, because Irons/RDS/Holo come up faster, ACOG/3.5x/4x/IRNV come up slower and 7x+ come up slowest. If you play a close/twitchy game, you need a fast sight. If you play with a slow sight in close quarters, expect to have an uphill battle.
Personally, I never regarded the IRNV as overpowered, simply because it took so damn long for it to sight in. I died more with it than without it. But I do recognize that it is a huge crutch for casual players with a need for SA. If you have zero flow (and don't pay attention to radar), the environment is a constant S*** fest with bullets whizzing by, enemies popping out of nowhere, in windows and getting shot from behind. The IRNV suddenly makes it a safe place by removing all the noise and shutting you into a game of shoot the big red glowing thing. Instead of looking at the WHOLE screen, the casual player now only needs to look at a few important pieces of information, but at the cost of movement and sight-in speed. This is why sniping is so comforting to casuals, because it's usually in a safe place (at base) with one directional threat.. and also why most snipers are bad (because they're casuals to begin with).
If you have good SA, you should NEVER be looking at perhaps more than 3 localized spots on your screen of where the baddies will be coming from anyways. If you're looking at a whole screen of possible threat zones, then you are way over exposed and now playing a reaction game vs initiative game. If I am in the open, I am either booking it toward cover or being very arrogant with my M320 or M98 and quick-scope/shot abilities. This is why I believe most solid players don't need or use the IRNV.
Along those lines, if you are say, defending a room with two doors, the wrong thing to do is to put your crosshair right between the two (except if they are close together) or swerve back and forth between the two. You pick one door and put your crosshairs over it. 50% of the time, you're right. The other 50%, you have to aim to react. Compare that with putting your crosshairs in the middle, which means 100% of the time, you aim to react. Same goes for breaching a room. Don't stop and scan in the doorway. Pick one direction and commit to it. Hopefully the guy behind you picks another direction and commits to that one. This is proper squad technique and what they use in real life special forces/SWAT training.
Lastly, human vision is very much based on movement. If you are defending with your crosshairs trained on one area, toy with looking ever so slightly off to the side. You tend to have faster reactions out of the corner of your eye than directly looking at something. Probably a survival/evolutionary mechanism. But now we use that ability for FPS games. Oh how Darwin would roll in his casket at the evolution of man. But I digress...
The other way to take advantage of your natural eye abilities is actually to ... just... stop. Don't move your mouse/stick. Don't move your dude. Just stop. Other than the BF3 maps where trash and debris flies around everywhere, your eyes will pick up on the most minute pixel movements if you're close enough to your TV/monitor. PC players probably don't have it as bad, because the human eye can process 72FPS and most rigs can run up that high these days. On console though, there's tons of blur when running and moving the crosshairs around, so against all intuition, sometimes the best thing to do is stop scanning, relax your eyes and let your body do the work. This is actually how most elite snipers scan, as they only use their scope to finish the kill.
Anyhow, that's a huge wall of text, but for those who read through it, hopefully there's some interesting things you picked up. If not, well, you're probably a good player already and are calling me a noob for pointing out the obvious. Good on you, educate the rest of the casuals. And for the record, I don't want to sound like I'm disparaging casual gamers. They make it possible for games like this to be created and for the rest of us to create carnage on the pub servers. Everyone only has a certain amount of time to devote to any one thing.
Lastly, I'm just going to take this last part to thank the Dice and the BF3 crew for one helluva game. For all the bitching everyone does, this is a very, very well thought out game on the balance side that they don't get enough credit for or isn't readily seen by most gamers. Variety is the spice of life and it's easy to balance a game if everything is monotone, but with so many different types of classes, weapons and vehicles, it's pretty darn amazing that it flows as well as it does out of the box. Starcraft was the king of variety, but even that required numerous patches before balance was achieved. That said, if anyone really wants to hear my opinion on balance issues, I guess I can talk that, but I'm just one opinion of many. Meta game is where I like to play
-------------- Part I End--------------
-------------- Part II: Believe in Yourself--------------
After the last post, there were quite a few comments asking that I write more or point to other resources, so I'll give it another go. A disclaimer in advance that this is going to be much more of a stream of consciousness ramble, as I've got some stuff to do today, so I'll see if I can do a brain dump while I'm at the screen.
High level play begins not with your mouse or controller, but with your mind. Always remember that. Not just your ability to process information and act on it, but also your ability to not defeat yourself. Most people have no idea that they are their own worst enemy. What I mean by this is pure mindset. If every time you die, you blame anything other than yourself, then all you've succeeded in doing is making an excuse not to get better.
A mature attitude views everything as learning. When a skilled player dies, they ask themselves what to adjust to prevent it from happening again. The key being themselves and adjust. Those who succeed do so because they operate under the assumption that they must adjust to the game, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Thus, if a weapon / class / skill is really powerful, you figure out how to use it.
The immature attitude always faults lag, teammates or the game for their short comings. Everyone knows "that guy" who plays just as much as you always complain, yet never does better. The reason is that they can't internalize their natural learning process and apply a feedback loop, because their pride blocks it. High level play has pride, but that's because they've put in countless hours of study, practice and self-inspection on making their game better.
This is why video games are like any sport: it requires patience, dedication, perseverance and mental fortitude to win. Some champions are born with raw talent, but the vast majority of them are built from putting clay into the oven. Not only that though, you need the BELIEF that you can become a champion player. And this is where most of you will defeat yourselves, because when I say any one of you reading this can become legendary, I seriously mean it. You don't believe it because you say to yourself: "Oh my reactions aren't that fast", "I'm just not that good" or "I'm just playing for fun". Those are all excuses. You don't need fast reactions. You're not good because you don't try. If you're playing for fun, why are you here reading this?
The thing is, if you cannot believe that you will become a better player, you've already lost. All star players, types like Michael Jordan, they thrive in the opportunity to take the last shot of the game when their team is down. They have a hunger to win that supersedes any fear of losing. You cannot play in fear, as it impedes your ability to adapt and learn.
This is the reason I love video games, because subtly act as a mental training tool. It provides instant feedback when I do something right AND something wrong. I can apply this feedback loop to correct myself immediately. Secondary, it's a perfectly safe environment, where the only thing that can be damaged is my ego.
For anyone in doubt, video games (notably multiplayer) in the end are all about self-worth. It's your ego on the line vs. someone else. That's why we obtain enjoyment from every kill, because you are proving your worth against another, just like sports. So when "that guy" is shown a weapon damage spreadsheet or video tutorial and he scoffs, saying "I just play for fun", it's an indirect way of saying that he isn't willing to get better or doesn't believe he can get better. He's actually afraid of trying, because that might actually expose his own ego. Those who actually play for fun aren't afraid of losing because their ego isn't in the game to begin with.
So if you do care about winning, you owe it to yourself to believe than you CAN do better and that you WILL do better. Macolm Gladwell (author of Blink and Tipping Point), writes about the concept of Mastery in his book Outliers. Mastery is concept of becoming totally adept at any one subject. Whereas most people look at someone with mastery and think that they cannot achieve that level, Gladwell shows that just about anyone can achieve this level of proficiency... and that there is a magic number when it happens: 10,000. And by that, he means 10,000 hours. Your jaw may drop, because you can't fathom the idea of spending 10,000 hours on video games. No one is asking or expecting you to. But this is a mental exercise of saying, if you were simply capable? If the answer is yes, then you admit that you can take steps to being legendary. On that, why not take them then? No one is asking you to take all 10,000 steps, but just see where it takes you. Pretend to be great and you might just succeed.
Those of you who haven't deboarded the pep-talk train, I realize that many of you have the drive to learn, but don't have the resources available. Reading at places like /r/battlefield3 and improving your mental game is a fantastic first step. Motor mechanics are a huge aspect of the game that can't be overlooked, but that is predominantly something you will just have to practice (which I can help point out). And when I say practice, I mean actual learning mindset and not logging more hours.
Learning, in the most pure simplification, is pushing you outside your comfort zone and building new neural pathways. Every time you play a new map or use a new weapon, are you in learning mode. But when you are playing with the goal of just racking up your score, that is not learning, that is utilizing what you already knew. Remember that the games you do worst in are the games where you learn the most. On the other side, the games where you stomp on the other team, you probably learned nothing. This is why while BF3 montages of massacres are fun to watch, they teach you nothing practical.
So, understand that playing and practicing utilize totally different parts of your mind, because when you are playing, you are mostly on autopilot. When you are practicing, you are emptying out everything you know and learning anew.
For example: You play assault, like the M16A3, shoot in full auto, play mid-range and sometimes up and close. You jump on a server, utilize your known play style, kill people, play the objective and are done. What have you learned? Probably not much, but you had fun.
Now, instead, you are given an 870MCS with buck. You cannot play mid-range and are single shooting. This is unfamiliar. You engage at medium, realize you have to get in close and dirty, which you have trouble with. You're dying a lot, it's frustrating and you just want to switch back to your rifle. This is learning right here. Practice means playing it through the endless deaths, learning how to get close without notice and picking your fights. The point isn't that you've learned a shotgun. The point is that you've learned the patience of closing engagement range and picking your fights. You need to be taken out of your comfort zone in order to expand your abilities. This is the true definition of learning.
If you want to become a better player, you need to push the envelope of what you're used to. I love the new DICE assignments because they are forcing everyone to play with weapons they might not to unlock new items. If you want to push your own abilities, I challenge you to the following:
Equip the 870MCS on Metro or Grand Bazaar. Never stop running, for any reason, even to shoot or reload. 1 round.
Equip only the M320 on Canals or Grand Bazaar with extra 40mm perk. Shoot at everything that moves in a window or against a wall. If you run out of ammo, suicide yourself. 1 round.
Pick your favorite non-sniper rifle. Put it on single shot. 2 rounds.
Equip the F2000. Put a laser on it. You are not allowed to do anything but hip shoot. 1 round.
Equip the ASVAL. Play until you kill at least 7 in a row only using the ASVAL. If you die or use any other weapon, start over with the count.
Equip your favorite pistol. Play until you kill at least 5 in a row only using the pistol. If you die or use any other weapon, start over with the count.
Equip the biggest LMG you have. You are not allowed to fire it, as much as you are tempted. You can, however, stab people in the back with your knife. 2 rounds.
After these are done, play your absolute best. Every kill counts. 3 rounds.
These challenges are all designed with very specific goals in mind. Those of you who understood flow from the last post will readily see the purpose of these exercises. They are also all difficult and you should expect to die and be frustrated. But you will learn and especially on how to put your ego aside.
Besides practice, in both sports and video games, the watching of films/replays is mandatory. Films are a direct way of analyzing your own mistakes after the fact. Watching films of others also gives you incredible insight into how top level players think. Do you know if you miss more frequently to the left or right? How often do you get flanked when it should have been apparent? How often do you reload at a very bad time?
If you watch film, you can answer these questions and analyze what is going on in the game. In all the most competitive games, StarCraft, CS, Halo, there are libraries of film/replays out there for people to watch for this very reason. Watching a full video of a skilled player at work is where you gain the most. Not only that, the videos where they LOSE are worth their weight in gold, as it shows mistakes they made that can contrast the successes on films where they do well.
I know that this is yet another wall of text, so thank you if you've made it this far. I've always regarded mental mindset as the key factor of every high level player I've met, yet it's the least talked about (if at all) and also the one that is most intangible. Forums these days are covered in "Which XXX is the best" type discussions, which have their place, but are really the equivalent of an overweight bicyclist buying the lightest bike possible. I say it again: the greatest areas of improvement aren't in your gun; they're in your skills using it.
Case in point, most people get pissed off when they If you've seen those aimbot type videos where a LMG guy shoots 20 guys in the head. I look at those videos and realize that any gun, in the right hands, is extremely powerful. As such, the gun isn't the bottleneck, so why work on it first?
You don't have to be the MVP each game or have a certain K/D or win ratio. You don't have to dedicate 10,000 hours. Just play better than you did the day before. Stay engaged in the game. Use your mind. Don't let your emotions get the better of you. Use your emotions to drive your determination. Stay tough when the S*** gets tough. Every impossible moment in the game is another few seconds of learning how to be comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. Then one of those days, when everything comes together, you're going to make the impossible, possible. You'll hold the fort all on your own and wonder how the F*** you pulled it out of your ***. And you'll have yourself to thank, because you didn't quit like the rest of your team when the S*** was hitting the fan. You didn't give up, because at some point, you found your mental fortitude. Eventually, you'll be that guy everyone wants on their team, leading the way, clearing routes, flanking the push and being an inspirational meat shield running into the S*** with only your stubbornness and unflappable spirit of leading those behind you. Because at that point, you've become the leader. You've gotten past the idea that the new guy hiding behind you is unworthy of the fight. In your maturity, you realize they just need some prodding and a belief that they too, are capable of being great. You will show them.
-------------- Part II end--------------
-------------- Part III: Power--------------
As my last post on higher level strategy, I will attempt to address the remaining concepts behind FPS dynamics. Quick recap for those joining the show, I made an earlier post regarding situational awareness (SA), which boils down to becoming a pro-active player that is able to dictate the flow of a game, as opposed to being reactive to the forces that be. My second post was about developing the right attitude toward becoming a better player and coming to terms with the fact that higher level play requires a commitment beyond that of simply playing recreationally.
Here are the concepts that will be covered:
Speed and movement
Zones and resources
Power and momentumAsk any top gamer and they will tell you speed is the most important aspect of the game. Speed enables you to:
Get better positioning than your enemy
Be the first to secure resources
React to developments in game
Dictate flowThe last point is the most important, because it builds upon the base of SA by not only understanding flow, but actually controlling it. In Rush, it is imperative for the defenders to create a perimeter around the MCOMs, as failure to do so means the attackers both arm the MCOM and have superior defensive position. In Conquest, taking the middle point first (assuming 3 flag map) creates a power (aka people) multiplier on that position, as your team can still spawn on the point while the enemy is re-taking it, forcing them to kill higher than a 1:1 ratio if they are contesting it with the same power.
Example: US caps B with 6 players. RU arrives at B with 6 players. Fight ensues; RU has 3 remaining to US none. US dead players spawn on B while RU taking, forcing RU to overcoming 6:3 disadvantage.Side note: If you first to respawn at a contested point or last one remaining, it is often good to wait for reinforcements to spawn/arrive and then retake when you have numbers advantage, as opposed to being a hero. If you see a contested zone on your spawn screen, do your team a favor and help at that point whenever possible.
While the above only illustrates the beginning 20 seconds of a game, the concept is that speed is a mechanism to acquire the ultimate resource in BF3: land. This may strike you as odd, as the term “resources” are used more often in RTS games like StarCraft. In FPS games however, resources are still there, but in more subtle forms like weapon or map control. In BF3, controlling map space means that the enemy forces are consolidated into smaller areas, which mean more predictability, easier chokes and most importantly, the prevention of power imbalance.
The example of map control that most of you can relate to is when one team has all flag points and is now camping outside the enemy base. In this situation, the enemy has only one way out, cannot flank, cannot overwhelm your position with more players and is in a deadlock pattern. While this is the extreme example, this is an illustration of why map control and superior positioning is paramount in BF3.
If you watch high level play, you’ll often see guys running immediately after a fight or trying to get somewhere with major determination. The reason is that these guys know where they need to be next and want to get there first or grab as much control as possible. There is usually little hesitation, because there is the implicit realization that every second waiting is giving up precious time that could be used to get more control.
Speed has a close relation to power, which is essentially the firepower your team brings to a fight in terms of people, skill and weapon power. Power is a raw measure of the outcome of any fight. I use a notation like 7:4 to show the power of team vs. enemy, generally meaning number of players on each side (assuming equal skill).
The goal in any engagement is to win, but the key behind winning is bringing more power to the fight than the enemy. Supplying a location with more power is a factor of not just power available, but ability to deliver power faster; hence the importance of speed. What delivers speed and power? Vehicles. Tanks/attack choppers provide a large power presence while jeeps/buggies/transport choppers provide speed. If an area is heavily contested, you should always look for the opportunity to bring in a heavy vehicle to flip the power balance to your team’s favor. Many of you may not like driving tanks, flying aircraft, etc., but being a truly skilled BF3 player means adapting as the battle dictates. It’s far too often that if I’m on a losing team, it’s no coincidence that there is a row of empty tanks at the base spawn.
A rough gauge of your own power level is simply your K:D ratio (assuming you play as a varied solider). Thus if you have a K:D of 1.2, then you are worth 1.2 soldiers in a fight. Again, this is a dirty measure and doesn’t include play styles that are generally safer, such as snipers, mortars, stationary LMG guys, and such. My own K:D varies wildly depending on what type of situation I’m in, from probably 4:1 in a vehicle to 0.5:1 charging an objective, but obviously averages out over all encounters combined.
As a side tangent, it’s my belief that games like Battlefield, Modern Warfare and Counter-Strike have done so well is that the designers have found the sweet spot on an acceptable power curve between average and top level players. In these type of games, a K:D ratio of 2:1 – 2.5:1 is considered elite, whereas the bulk of the players lie within a 0.7 – 1.2 ratio spread. This makes the game accessible (fun) for most players because they can still get kills and not get completely dominated in a normal game.
In the beginning of the FPS days, with games like Quake and Unreal Tournament, the power curve was extreme, which made those games very popular among the competitive community, but difficult for recreational players. The greater the range of possible power factor, the less room for error there is in the game. That in turn is the dividing issue between casual and hardcore players: a willingness to dedicate significant amount of time and effort to stamping out those small percentages of errors. As a mental exercise, if the weapons in BF3 became more accurate after each successive patch, the game would become more popular with competitive gamers, but less popular with recreational players because taking out the recoil and spread factors would reduce the randomness factor in the game and create larger power gaps between the skilled and average player. A successful versus game finds the sweet spot between skill and unpredictability; which is similar to the terms “Any given Sunday” or “Any two cards” used to describe two popular pastimes. Why? Because short term luck is also hope. Hope makes anything possible and something to look forward to. Your underdog team might make an 80 yard Hail Mary just like you might shoot a SMAV into the air and nail a helicopter pilot from across the map. Just some food for thought.
Anyhow, getting back on track, don’t start judging yourself based on your K:D or play different to get a higher K:D. It’s simply a measuring tool, as knowing what you are capable of is extremely important in applying power. Part of good situational awareness is being able to assess the power situation at any one spot. Imagine a situation where the enemy controls point A and your team controls B about 100 yards away. A casual player will charge from A to B alone, die and maybe take down a guy or two in the process if he’s lucky. The power imbalance here is huge for the Rambo mission, because it is a one vs. many dynamic. The casual player doesn’t care though, because in his eyes, if he can keep killing one person at a time, his score goes up and the enemy goes down by one. The reality is that the enemy can spawn in base, immediately reinforcing their position, while the casual player has to take 20 seconds to run once again from A to B. If enough people do this, this is just the single-file death march, which drains your team of tickets. (Again, why speed matters so much in the delivery of power.)
Being able to assess power imbalance forces you to think rationally. You can:
Pick of opponents one at a time, reducing the power imbalance.
Wait for a team regroup to try and come close to a similar power match-up.
Bring more power to the situation via vehicles
Attempt to flank and take out many opponents at onceMore often than not, picking off opponents is the fall to strategy. This primarily falls under your aiming skills, but the key in engaging multiple enemies at once is to never engage more than one at a time if possible. Use cover, barriers, chokes to create a situation where only you and one other person are shooting at each other. It’s crucial to take the first person out fast, because once the other teammates are aware to your location, you will be exposed on multiple angles and can expect all sorts of pain coming your way.
Depending on the distance of the engagement, this is where a M320/SMAV/RPG/sniper rifle comes in handy, as you can take a quick shot, pop back under cover and move. As possible one hit kill weapons, if you take your target out, you’ve eased the pressure on you and the angles, at which the enemy can attack you from, giving you space to re-position, create another buffer and re-engage. Standing still trying to outshoot everyone while exposed is a recipe for getting killed.
All skilled FPS players avoid the 2v1 disadvantage and will attempt to equal the playing field through repositioning, using grenades, bullet spam and speed to get away. That said, when a skilled player must engage multiple enemies, that’s where the epic YouTube videos of some guy head shooting X guys in a row come from, as the possibility is there to overcome the odds, but over the long term, it’s a losing proposition.
So, if you realize a power imbalance is so great that not only is a point uncappable but the enemy will come cap your point, your best option may simply be to lay low, wait for them to pass and then ninja cap it after they leave.
Even though BF3 is heavily team and squad dependent, the ability for one lone person to change the outcome of a game is still very possible. The pre-requisite for this is a keen sense of SA, combined with the ability to accurately assess power and execute on your strategy (most often, kill baddies). This is also why BF3 is also a “play to your style” game, where a smart guerilla style player can get just as many points (if not more) than a run-and-gun hot zone player.
The design of BF3 also immensely rewards smart players, because of the squad spawn system. All it takes is for one player to stay alive in the hot zone/flanking area to have their whole squad spawn on them (power) at once (speed). This is why if you are the last person remaining on your squad, your top priority over all things in the world should be to get to a safe place and survive. There is nothing worse than having an entire squad wiped, having no vehicles and having to book it on foot from the closest spawn point. Thus, if you are at the back of your squad rush, give a little room and provide support from the back, cover the flank, revive/resupply while avoiding danger, so that your squad can spawn of you if things fall apart. On the other side, if your squad is timid, you should be aggressive and push the advance/slow the enemy advance, as you can rely on your teammates to spawn you directly into the front lines again.
The other way that you can change the game as a single player is through the manipulation of the enemy power allocation. As a flanker for example, you don’t necessarily need to kill half the team and cap the point – you just need distract half the team to look your direction and stop focusing on shooting at your teammates coming in the front. You can toss smoke and run right in the front door without shooting anyone, just to get people to chase you. You can buzz a MAV overhead the enemy line and have guys running just to avoid the humiliation of a road kill. You can drop a SOFLAM in a hard to shoot spot outside the enemy base that makes tank drivers sit and shoot at it for a minute. You can charge the enemy line outside the MCOM and force them into disarray. Anything that delays the enemy resupply, grabs their focus hopefully enables your team to grab more map control.
Power and speed builds onto the last concept, which is momentum. In modes like Rush, the attacking team usually masses up together until a critical power level is reached before surging into the MCOM, overwhelming the defenders. This power imbalance, coupled with speed is what I call momentum. Once a team has momentum, it is often hard to stop because teammates can keep spawning on the group via live squad mates (speed and power), or if the group caps a point, then anyone on the team can spawn and join the group.
On a linear map like Metro for example, if your team loses B and the enemy team has put it in neutral and is capping, it is almost a guarantee that the point isn’t anything close to “neutral” but is currently massing up with additional power as everyone waits for the cap points and surges ahead. So if you try to be a hero and retake immediately, you will probably run into an army. However, if you position yourself in a defensive spot anticipating the momentum push, you will probably kill a lot of guys and stop their flow at that point.
Momentum also refers to the ability of a group to resupply itself with power in a timely fashion. An example to this is that if an attacking team of 10 meets a defending team of 10 at a point, the typical scenario plays out as attrition with highs and lows in the power values of each side. However, say a few well-placed rockets kill half the enemy team and the power situation is 8:5, attacking side. For the duration until the defending team spawns back on the point, the attacking side has huge momentum in their favor, but only if they act on it and move forward. This is where you come into play, because if you recognize a momentum shift when your team doesn’t, you need to take the initiative to try and push/flank while the window of opportunity is still open. One of the best roles of vehicles is to initiate this push, both in practice and on the mental front, as it signals to your team that it’s time to advance. On the flip side, the worst thing a team can do (and often does) is sit around, wait for the coast to be perfectly clear before moving in, because that is a reactive play style that relies on someone else to do all the work.
Those experienced in BF3 will have noticed that rather than one flag point changing at a time, it’s often the fact that flag points often go down in sequence or even at the same time. This is an effect of momentum, as a group at one freshly captured point will usually move to the next point together, creating an impromptu cohesive force. The defense on the other hand, is tossed into disarray as many players are now spawning, but might spawn at base, another point, arrive at different times and so on that continue to keep their team at a power imbalance when the attackers arrive.
So, what I’m really talking about here is actually hive mind and the ability to non-verbally self-organize. To me, it’s amazing stuff to watch, because it’s like our own version of an ant hive mind. If you have trouble understanding me, visualize dropping two squads of BF3 players into a room to defend. Rather than everyone stacking on one door and leaving all sorts of defensive holes, the players will instead roam around, spread themselves out from each other, find unique positions to cover entrances and provide a fairly solid defense. This is evolved intelligence at work – not randomness. The point I’m making is that there is definitive, non-verbal, organic organization that occurs frequently and dynamically in each game. Once again, this is why a casual player sees noise and randomness whereas someone with a deep understanding of flow can see the team dynamic at work.
The thing about momentum though, is that it can actually harm your team if it becomes too big in a non-linear type map, such as Caspian, or maps with a low player/flag ratio, as it over-allocates power to a single point. This makes your team play too reactive in constantly recapturing points with a huge force while the enemy might have one squad operating each point. As such, you have to make the decision whether to operate in parallel with your team’s momentum or be a complimentary power.
In Rush games for example, the defending team usually creates a semi-perimeter of troops surrounding the MCOM stations. This defense is inherently weak, because if the defense is split, the attacking team only needs to coordinate on one point (purposefully or accidentally) to create a momentum advantage. As such, if the defense doesn’t have a few lone wolves that go out to poke the attackers, you should play this role to do all you can to interrupt their offense. In doing so, you prevent a mass buildup of troops and with a disorganized team, ensure that they keep feeding a steady stream of easy tickets into the front door.
On the flip side, if your team is filled with guys who are rushing the attackers and the MCOMs are totally undefended, then your job should be to plant yourself on defense to be ready for those attackers that make it through your team’s aggressive perimeter. This isn’t a glamorous job, but its part of being a well-rounded player to know when to adapt as the situation dictates. If you are selfish and want to run off and get kills like the rest of your team, the most likely scenario is that someone will eventually arm those stations again and again and your team will lose.
As such, to be a well-rounded player requires that you know how and when to play a parallel or complimentary role to support your team. While there are many players that specialize in one type of role, knowing when to self-sacrifice is an important attitude if winning is your top objective. This is why most people hate snipers, as they are seen as selfish players that are only interested in points as opposed to playing the objective. Every sniper that camps the team spawn or pilot that waits around for a jet reduces your team’s overall power potential – especially on large maps.
So, the last concept is that of the catalyst player. I believe that in team oriented games, the catalyst player is the best teammate to have. This is commonly the guy you can rely on to break the team defense with superior skills or hold back a rush all on his own. What most people don’t realize is that this can ALSO be the guy that plays the objective, knows when to make a suicide charge, when to be patient and hold the defense and makes decisions that lead the momentum of the team. This guy is the unsung hero that charges in first to his death, flies the transport chopper, mans the AA gun when enemy air gets too close, keeps the squad alive, stubbornly keeps shooting missiles at the Viper to keep it out of battle and repairs tanks in the hot zone. You don’t always have to be a catalyst, but if everyone does it once in a while on the team, it makes it that much easier. I might have been on an Assault rampage for half the game, but seeing an empty transport chopper on my spawn selection, might switch to Engineer just so I can sit in the flying boat and repair it depending on our flag and ticket situation.
What all of this boils down to in a nutshell is the idea of perfect efficiency: finding the shortest, safest route to the engagement that is most in your favor that does the most possible damage to the other team. It’s not a black and white decision – it’s all shades of gray that only reveal the wisdom of your decisions over the long term.
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