Fortress Opening: On the proper use of double-grinding

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gnorty
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Post by gnorty »

...I probably killed you because you were noobing around and interfering with defense or something.
How many threads have you looked at, roughly, to form the impression that oscilloscope is a noob?

It must be quite a few, I have read loads, and I thought he is a long termer. I wonder what other information I may be missing out on?

Or maybe you actually are a snotty little kid, who thinks that because they type in the same illiterate way they speak, and because they think that being a spotty little chav is cool, and because their mum thinks they are a genius cuz they can turn a PC on, they must be pretty damn leet.

LMAO.
~*PsYkO*~

Post by ~*PsYkO*~ »

Took me 10 seconds to find
Oscilloscope wrote:Understand, it was only that initial round that I didn't grind. There were a handful of subsequent rounds, however, when no one on that team was grinding because they all went into chatbot mode to throw their typographical tantrums. But only that first round did I not do what I was "supposed" to do, and I've explained why. It's ridiculous to me that these—pardon me—fools would get so worked up over what should have otherwise played out as a single, isolated, trivial incident—in a video game, no less—and something that isn't exactly an anomaly on that server.

What's also kind of ironic (besides him calling me a "f'ing noob" when I've been playing well longer than he, to my knowledge) was that this very player is one who, even on the very rare occasion I've played fortress, I've seen accused of being selfish and not recognizing the "team" aspect of the game.

By the way, 2020, it was a sobriquet, not a pseudonym. :wink:
I'm sorry that I read this where he says he hates getting booted for not grinding...that to me says he doesn't know how to grind. Plenty of people noob around even when they know how to play...I do it sometimes like accidently messing up the defense or making a hole for the opposition or some shit. There are also those who get pissed and TK people or turn around when there's already a defense (happened to me yesterday..Skip was pissed that I was wearing a TC clan while his is CT or something and claimed I had been impersonating his clan, so for a match straight he tried to kill me and mess up my defense...This is called "noobing around" doesn't necessarily mean they are a noob.

BTW gnorty, UTSF, you basically just dissed everyone on the forum who is good with computers and/or don't type in PERFECT grammar. Leave that shit off this thread.

LEAVE IT HERE BACK ON TOPIC

Belenus I agree with you, I also get pissed at the double grinders who suck and don't know how to compensate for the center. IT will be hard to punish those who don't listen and keep on double grinding because more often than not they will be leading the points and no one wants to boot them. But I promise I will stop if it ever comes to...indirectly killing the center two times.
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Z-Man
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Post by Z-Man »

PsYkO: had you read Silly's earler post in this thread, you had also seen that he did have a valid excuse: just coming in and having a blank screen still.

Please stop these silly personal fights, all of you. They amount to nothing but Tank locking this thread.

On topic: I tried to do the math, but it's impossible to do exactly and I wasn't able to come up with a good approximate model. Lacking the important ingredient, how the individual speeds at break time influence the victory chances, I quickly lost interest. But one thing is clear: *if* both teams grind to the very last moment if nobody breaks early, and if the DGer times things right, he'll be faster than any other non DGing player on the grid and if he has what it takes, he can dominate the side he breaks to. But if the enemies on his side are prepared and break early, or even reverse and split close to their own zone, nothing is gained.

So I'd only use DGing, if at all, as a surprise move (announcing it to the team). If the enemy is prepared, it's useless and probably not worth the risk. I'd experiment with it in the last rounds of a match, when my team has already clearly won or lost anyway.
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2020
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and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

Post by 2020 »

see you on the grid
:wink:
hold the line
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Van-hayes
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Post by Van-hayes »

I think double grinding can be a useful tactic if done right, but only if the DG is right beside the middle, but lately Ive been seeing a few people DG when thay are 2-4 spots away from middle, to me this is pointless, at best you get alot of speed but cant use it because there is still 2-3 of your teammates between you and the enemy, plus the person on the other side of you barely gets any speed because they have to wait for you to turn back. At worst they tk or cut off the 2-3 teammates and fail to kill even 1 enemy. Just think its selfish and really stupid.

Oh and instead of killing a "good" DG you could just DG them instead, takes there speed away and, unless they're stupid, they should stop.
You've gone too far, turn back!
~*PsYkO*~

Post by ~*PsYkO*~ »

I seldom do that hayes. The reason why is if I see a trend of the first wingman always turns back after breaking off to do a middle attack. If I don't do that I usually get pwnd cuz right after break I can't see sh*t, therefore...I die before I can turn or anything.
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longballlasch
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Post by longballlasch »

when both sides DG the center gets a great late boost and if they have a okay ping they can live. (not me mine is 200 - 220 bad for center.) :D i happen to be a strong supporter of the DG
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Z-Man
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Post by Z-Man »

Finally had some time to experimnet with this, probably won't give any new insights, but anyway :)

DGing gives the DGer speed and takes speed away from the rest of the team. That's not so bad for the people on the side of the DGer if he survives, because the DGer will effectively protect them from all enemy attackers on that side.
The other flank, including the center, has to compensate. If they're prepared, that's not so bad. They probably won't have enough speed to attack or block the enemy attackers all the way to the rim, so they'll have to either fall back to the zone and block there, or stick around in the middle, waiting for it to open up. The DGer will leave holes to slip through, whether he does his job or not.
Meanwhile, to be useful, the DGer absolutely has to kill some, I'd say at least two, enemies on his side. One, to pave the way for his teammates to roll into the enemy zone, and two, to leave the nasty dead man's trail end sticking into the enemy zone to make the defenders life miserable.
The biggest problem there is this: if one of the enemies on the DGer's side breaks early, the surprise attack fails; breaking early effectively counters the DGers speed. If all of them break early, the DGer can't even kill anyone. And the problem with that is that the enemies can (potentially, it needs a keen eye) see you DGing and break early as a reaction, however the potential DGer can't see the enemies not breaking early so he knows a DG will be effective, because it hasn't happened yet.

I'd say, therefore, that against a team that knows what it's doing, DGing isn't an effective tactic. There is an effective counter. Luckily for the DGers, on CVS Test this usually isn't the case :) If you observe that your flank of the enemy team breaks late, you can expect to be able to surprise them with a well timed DG. Don't expect it to work more than two times in a row, though, and don't surprise your own team. Have two instant chats, one for DGing on the right, one for DGing on the left.
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Post by gnorty »

I have seen players working on evolving the DG technique beyond the pattern described above. I was trying to counter, so can only describe the technique from my perspective.

I habitually break early and grind to the edge before sweeping and mopping up any enemies before they can mount an attack using the speed advantage from griunding my own trail. (that's the theory at least).

If the point player (I guess it will also work with the next player outside the DGer, but IMO he has another job to do) breaks very close to the DGer and adjusts onto his tail, he can build speed himself. as he overtakes the DGer, this increases also the DGers speed, naturally. They wait until they are close to the rim, and turn towards the enemy base, again adjusting to grind.

In this way the very high speed is maintained, and enables them to be very close behind if not in front of me at the rim. At this point they split, and this is what causes the problem. I have 2 players at high speed to try to block. If I continue to the rim, the player cuttin in will reach centre way before me. Also, as I try to recoup speed to counter the middle player, the rim becomes clear and there is no kill. If I regrind back to center sooner, the rim player has a clear high speed run at the base. If I cut back to the rear wall to block the rim player's access to the base (which maintains enough distance advantage to counter the lower speed) then the center guy has a free and untroubled attack.

Worse still, both players could tag-team me using their numerical and speed advantage, and knock out the pre-defence entirely to allow other attackers through.

In short. I am pretty much able to neutralise most DG attacks, but could not reliably block this, no matter what I tried. If the attack were carried out in this way, with both point AND next wingman involved in a 3 way grind, it would be pretty devastating, assuming they carried it off without suiciding/TK.

The only effective counter I can think of, is to have 2 players act as sweepers, regrinding after the early split to gain speed, although this would probably upset the shape of the team significantly if the attack dont DG, and carries a very high risk of accidents near the rim if not well co-ordinated.
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Lucifer
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Post by Lucifer »

I probably forgot to mention this, but awhile back (earlier in the thread, I guess), a guy and I tried double-grinding on both sides of the center. What we found was that the center always died, and we usually died. This was long enough ago that I don't right remember details.

I'm reminded of WWII aircraft, though. As I recall, both the Japanese and the Germans had faster fighters than the US, and that played to their advantage early. But those damn AMericans, they adapted. Their heavier, and slower, fighters also had better armor, bigger guns (slightly) and more ammunition. After adapting their tactics, they were able to consistently defeat the faster fighters. Remember, too, that the Germans sent out the first fighter jets. While they were able to make a smashing show, they were still defeated.

Moral of the story? Velocity can give an advantage, but it's no substitute for armor and bullets. :)
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Z-Man
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Post by Z-Man »

Yeah, I was center yesterday with two DGers. It's not the most comfortable position :) Your best bet is the narrow middle then. I wasn't complaining, the DGers did do a good job at overwhelming the enemies (although the speed advantage of TWO DGers is nearly zero) and our team won, otherwise I'd have /shuffled and taught them a lesson.
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2020
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hmmm....

Post by 2020 »

zop taught us a lesson a while back:
he somehow managed to persuade most of his team to do this
doublegrinding
and something he calls regrinding
and they took us out for hours
hours...
and we tried various strategies to stop them...
both flanks were over-run consistently...
they didn't even need def...
it was a lesson on how to take a good kicking
:D
hold the line
~*PsYkO*~

Post by ~*PsYkO*~ »

Ok just so you know there's going to be a bit of name changing going on.

The move listed above with Zop is "The Zopmobile"

And double grinding will now be called PSYKO GRIND

lolol
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Post by Lucifer »

No problem. Since Psyko is known to be synonymous with stupid, that makes it an accurate description of the move.
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Post by gnorty »

Maybe this is worth trying?

Center guy between two DGers is pretty much doomed - maybe he can get through the tunnel into the enemy zone, or maybe he can wiggle about in the center long enough to escape, but in general he will die an early death.

SO

Why not use centre guy as goalkeeper? just before the wingmen split, point could 180 back down the tunnel into his own zone, and use his high speed to draw a very quick box around the zone from which to build a proper defence.

One more surviving team member, an extremely well sealed tunnel and something more interesting to do for the point than watching himself explode round after round.
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