Post by Wolfeye on Sept 24, 2015 19:44:06 GMT
Disclaimer: I am a JKA theorist and duelist. By no means am I a TFFA specialist. But, seeing as we have, currently, no information on TFFA tactics at all, I figured I'd make a post on some basic strategies. This was really tough to decide if it belonged in the words of wisdom or the main database, because its partly opinion on how I think TFFA should be conducted, but also my best attempt to turn the topic into an explanation on how TFFA's work. So, I've placed it here (for now) because I've been advised to but that is subject to change if you guys think it should be moved to the other section.
Today ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to give you my personal tactics guide. And by that, I mean "here are some simple basics that will help you improve your current 'swing saber, get kills' strategy by actually adding the strategy part."
Section 1: Formation
I can't express enough how helpful it is to have some kind of organization. If you all just flail at any enemy you see you're going to end up clustering and teamkilling each other. Generally speaking, you'll want some kind of set formation with basic restrictions for each team member so they know when and where to go.
3v3 Triangle Formation: Something that gets a decent amount of use is keeping everyone on the outside of the formation so that you trap the opponents in the middle. One of the most efficient forms of this is to have a circling triangle of players that keep to the outer edges of the room.
2v2 Yin Yang Formation: Similar in concept, but you do not have a third player for the formation, so instead it's just keeping the two players on opposite sides of the room, moving in a circle. I like to think of it kind of like this picture, where the two are moving along the outside and keeping the enemy team between them. This is also very effective in a 2v1 situation.
Section 2: Model/skin usage and names
If you're looking for a trickery edge, this tends to be useful. Personally, I've never been a fan of this tactic simply because I view it as cheap to a degree, but nevertheless, it is a legitimate and effective strategy. Basically, during any TFFA, a team will be trying to organize and focus weaker members of a team while distracting stronger members in order to get the most kills off weaker ones while evading being killed by the stronger. When your team uses all the same name or all the same model, it suddenly becomes much harder to distinguish who is who, making it so that the enemy team has a hard time targeting a specific member of the team. This causes them to be far less efficient in their attempts to single out weaker fighters, and, yes, does give a powerful edge to your team.
Section 3: End-Game Decisions
Nearing the end of a match, your eyes should be on the scoreboard, either watching for kills or watching the time. Depending on if its a time-base match or fraglimit match, you may wish to approach the ending differently. Another cheap tactic that gets a bit of use every so often is self-kills in fraglimit matches. If the kill cap is 31, and the score is 30-29, you may wish to have a team mate kill you, or fall in a hole somewhere when you have extremely low hp. While it will lower your score to 30-28, it prevents the enemy team from getting the last kill off of you that they would need to end the match, and gives your team time to maybe catch up if they play it right.
Along with the cheap tactics, time-based games mean that near the end, whoever has the lead is bound to win unless the other team rushes for kills. This means that the leading team in the last minute of play can use this to their advantage by playing passive and careful, leading the other team to rush them. The leading team can also use this to draw enemies into areas of the map they otherwise wouldn't go so that they can set traps or use the terrain advantage. Or, of course, if you're feeling exceptionally cheap that day, you can have your whole team just avoid conflict all together in the last few seconds of a close match to ensure a victory.
Section 4: Tactical Players
A tactical player is someone placed in a specific role to help the team. Below is a list of positions I personally think are effective, that can be mixed and matched.
Tactical Passive (TP): Most of the time when I get the chance to really organize a team (which is very rare) I'll pick out the staffer for this position. A tactical passive player is basically someone who uses duals/staff/medium and just stays out of the fight and takes as little damage as possible, while making small hits on enemies that are distracted/engaged with someone else. Keeping in mind that a TFFA isn't about kills, it's about damage. If you deal 130 damage distributed among 3 different players in a single death, then you've still dealt more than you've taken and have overall helped. This would generally be the person to kill low health opponents and/or cause them enough small injuries that other teammates can get the kill.
Tactical Aggressive (TA): This is basically the inverse of the previous position, but in a normal TFFA, this can be interchangeable at times, especially with staffers. The primary goal of a tactical aggressive player is to put pressure on the opponents and make them slip up. It's extremely effective when a staffer can pressure someone back, who then runs into the saber of another teammate. Note that the goal isn't to charge in head first and get killed, it's to keep the opponent moving and harassed so that their guard is down to the other members of your team. While this is a more risky position if not played right, it's extraordinarily useful when done correctly.
Tactical Kill-Carry (TC): We all know that one person who looks to be team carrying in every TFFA just because they have double the kills of everyone else on the team. That's this guy. Every team needs at least one person designated to go in and just kill something. This would be your aggressive fighter, and when they attack, everyone else should remain passive and act as supports rather than charge in, because otherwise, you'll all get in each others way and end up teamkilling left and right. This generally should be a single-saber user because they have access to strong style and also the versatility of being able to use medium and fast when needed.
Tactical Distraction (TD): I might as well just call this position "Cannon Fodder." This would be the person I would designate to distract the best player on the other team. Their goal isn't to get a kill, or even really deal damage. Their goal is to stay alive and keep the best player focused on them so the rest of the team can target and feed off the weaker links. When the top player isn't around, then sure they can help focus the main fight, but they need to make sure that guy isn't beating down the rest of the friendly team. This person may also be useful in guiding the enemy team into traps or into different parts of the map that are more beneficial for their team.
Section 5: Team Leader
Every TFFA team needs an assigned leader. If you go in as every man for themselves, than you're going to get results that reflect that. If you go in with more than one person allowed to be the shot-caller, than you'll end up with mid-match arguments and conflicts that will only lead to worse results. A team leader needs to keep their team motivated (even when they are losing) and has the task of setting the team strategy. This includes assigning roles, giving mid-game orders (often through binds), and keeping an eye on the score and time to know if they need to adjust
Team Constructs Suggestions:
This is more or less just my opinion on the best team grouping options.
3v3: I'd usually want a staffer as a TA player to keep the opponents off guard, a medium-using TP for supporting the TC, and a strong style TC for dealing the heavy blows. I'd usually have the TA double as a TD in cases where the best player on the other team simply outclasses us, since staffers are often targeted in TFFA as being high priority dangers. I'd almost never suggest having more than one multi-saber fighter on a team, because staffers and dualists often get in each others way during 3v3 fights. I do normally suggest having one on a team though, because people have to fight staff/duals differently than they would single, so it causes people to have to re-adjust every time they engage, and also may keep single users paranoid about switching to fast/medium because they know a staff could hit them at any moment.
2v2: In my experience, two single players, one TC and one TP, are often very effective for 2v2 matches. I would always advise having at least one single player on a team, and that that single player be the TC, even if you choose to have a TP or TA staffer/dualist. TD's do not really have any place in a 2v2. If you run into an enemy you really can't handle, you should try to 2v1 focus either the weaker opponent and avoid the stronger one, or 2v1 focus the stronger one and evade the weaker.
As with any of my newly-added posts, this is subject to have more added to it. Comment below if you have things you want to add, though.
Today ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to give you my personal tactics guide. And by that, I mean "here are some simple basics that will help you improve your current 'swing saber, get kills' strategy by actually adding the strategy part."
Section 1: Formation
I can't express enough how helpful it is to have some kind of organization. If you all just flail at any enemy you see you're going to end up clustering and teamkilling each other. Generally speaking, you'll want some kind of set formation with basic restrictions for each team member so they know when and where to go.
3v3 Triangle Formation: Something that gets a decent amount of use is keeping everyone on the outside of the formation so that you trap the opponents in the middle. One of the most efficient forms of this is to have a circling triangle of players that keep to the outer edges of the room.
2v2 Yin Yang Formation: Similar in concept, but you do not have a third player for the formation, so instead it's just keeping the two players on opposite sides of the room, moving in a circle. I like to think of it kind of like this picture, where the two are moving along the outside and keeping the enemy team between them. This is also very effective in a 2v1 situation.
Section 2: Model/skin usage and names
If you're looking for a trickery edge, this tends to be useful. Personally, I've never been a fan of this tactic simply because I view it as cheap to a degree, but nevertheless, it is a legitimate and effective strategy. Basically, during any TFFA, a team will be trying to organize and focus weaker members of a team while distracting stronger members in order to get the most kills off weaker ones while evading being killed by the stronger. When your team uses all the same name or all the same model, it suddenly becomes much harder to distinguish who is who, making it so that the enemy team has a hard time targeting a specific member of the team. This causes them to be far less efficient in their attempts to single out weaker fighters, and, yes, does give a powerful edge to your team.
Section 3: End-Game Decisions
Nearing the end of a match, your eyes should be on the scoreboard, either watching for kills or watching the time. Depending on if its a time-base match or fraglimit match, you may wish to approach the ending differently. Another cheap tactic that gets a bit of use every so often is self-kills in fraglimit matches. If the kill cap is 31, and the score is 30-29, you may wish to have a team mate kill you, or fall in a hole somewhere when you have extremely low hp. While it will lower your score to 30-28, it prevents the enemy team from getting the last kill off of you that they would need to end the match, and gives your team time to maybe catch up if they play it right.
Along with the cheap tactics, time-based games mean that near the end, whoever has the lead is bound to win unless the other team rushes for kills. This means that the leading team in the last minute of play can use this to their advantage by playing passive and careful, leading the other team to rush them. The leading team can also use this to draw enemies into areas of the map they otherwise wouldn't go so that they can set traps or use the terrain advantage. Or, of course, if you're feeling exceptionally cheap that day, you can have your whole team just avoid conflict all together in the last few seconds of a close match to ensure a victory.
Section 4: Tactical Players
A tactical player is someone placed in a specific role to help the team. Below is a list of positions I personally think are effective, that can be mixed and matched.
Tactical Passive (TP): Most of the time when I get the chance to really organize a team (which is very rare) I'll pick out the staffer for this position. A tactical passive player is basically someone who uses duals/staff/medium and just stays out of the fight and takes as little damage as possible, while making small hits on enemies that are distracted/engaged with someone else. Keeping in mind that a TFFA isn't about kills, it's about damage. If you deal 130 damage distributed among 3 different players in a single death, then you've still dealt more than you've taken and have overall helped. This would generally be the person to kill low health opponents and/or cause them enough small injuries that other teammates can get the kill.
Tactical Aggressive (TA): This is basically the inverse of the previous position, but in a normal TFFA, this can be interchangeable at times, especially with staffers. The primary goal of a tactical aggressive player is to put pressure on the opponents and make them slip up. It's extremely effective when a staffer can pressure someone back, who then runs into the saber of another teammate. Note that the goal isn't to charge in head first and get killed, it's to keep the opponent moving and harassed so that their guard is down to the other members of your team. While this is a more risky position if not played right, it's extraordinarily useful when done correctly.
Tactical Kill-Carry (TC): We all know that one person who looks to be team carrying in every TFFA just because they have double the kills of everyone else on the team. That's this guy. Every team needs at least one person designated to go in and just kill something. This would be your aggressive fighter, and when they attack, everyone else should remain passive and act as supports rather than charge in, because otherwise, you'll all get in each others way and end up teamkilling left and right. This generally should be a single-saber user because they have access to strong style and also the versatility of being able to use medium and fast when needed.
Tactical Distraction (TD): I might as well just call this position "Cannon Fodder." This would be the person I would designate to distract the best player on the other team. Their goal isn't to get a kill, or even really deal damage. Their goal is to stay alive and keep the best player focused on them so the rest of the team can target and feed off the weaker links. When the top player isn't around, then sure they can help focus the main fight, but they need to make sure that guy isn't beating down the rest of the friendly team. This person may also be useful in guiding the enemy team into traps or into different parts of the map that are more beneficial for their team.
Section 5: Team Leader
Every TFFA team needs an assigned leader. If you go in as every man for themselves, than you're going to get results that reflect that. If you go in with more than one person allowed to be the shot-caller, than you'll end up with mid-match arguments and conflicts that will only lead to worse results. A team leader needs to keep their team motivated (even when they are losing) and has the task of setting the team strategy. This includes assigning roles, giving mid-game orders (often through binds), and keeping an eye on the score and time to know if they need to adjust
Team Constructs Suggestions:
This is more or less just my opinion on the best team grouping options.
3v3: I'd usually want a staffer as a TA player to keep the opponents off guard, a medium-using TP for supporting the TC, and a strong style TC for dealing the heavy blows. I'd usually have the TA double as a TD in cases where the best player on the other team simply outclasses us, since staffers are often targeted in TFFA as being high priority dangers. I'd almost never suggest having more than one multi-saber fighter on a team, because staffers and dualists often get in each others way during 3v3 fights. I do normally suggest having one on a team though, because people have to fight staff/duals differently than they would single, so it causes people to have to re-adjust every time they engage, and also may keep single users paranoid about switching to fast/medium because they know a staff could hit them at any moment.
2v2: In my experience, two single players, one TC and one TP, are often very effective for 2v2 matches. I would always advise having at least one single player on a team, and that that single player be the TC, even if you choose to have a TP or TA staffer/dualist. TD's do not really have any place in a 2v2. If you run into an enemy you really can't handle, you should try to 2v1 focus either the weaker opponent and avoid the stronger one, or 2v1 focus the stronger one and evade the weaker.
As with any of my newly-added posts, this is subject to have more added to it. Comment below if you have things you want to add, though.
