Beren Hurin
OMNI Endeavors
183
   |
Posted - 2013.01.31 17:44:00 -
[1] - Quote
I'm seeing a little bit of RTS strategy evolve out of the gameplay on skirmish maps and it reminds me of the basic strategies of the real-time-strategy games that I used to play.
In Age of Empires for example there were these three strategies that I will summarize for the non-RTS initiates.
Rushing:
Like it sounds. The player uses limited starting resources to get an early advantage by either crippling his opponent, or getting a terrain oriented advantage against him. The downside is that if he is repelled he can be left much more crippled than his opponent.
In Dust this seems to be the rush at all objectives at once and redline the opponent strategy. This normally takes quick, agile forces and is easier on some maps than others. However those quick forces are more spread out over all the objectives, and could be countered by the team who decides to 'turtle/defend' and just commit to one fortified base early. A rush team can fail too when, after capturing all the objectives and losing much of their first wave to defenders, they may have an uncertainty about which objectives are clear and which are camped. This could result in an early clone deficit costing them their objective advantage. The offensive 'peak' of the rush team is early, pushing the enemy back on their heels to an early defeat.
Boom:
In this strategy the player commits early resources toward what typically ends up being a mid game offensive surge that overwhelms the opponent. Most initial resources or position is commited not toward positional advantage, but toward economic ones that yeild 'bigger guns' later. The idea is to leverage overwhelming force against the enemy rather than catching them off guard.
In Dust, this likely ends up being matches won through clone death, or objective wins where letters are traded early, but then tip toward the Boom team. The boom team is likely more vehicle centric and concentrated on camping spawns and sacrificing objectives in order to get kills. They will concentrate on support as well running in larger groups so that somebody is around to pick up fellow clones. If this strategy is detected early (most often by rushing teams), players could pick up on the fact that spawn camps and vehicles are the main threat which may result in a costly pyhrric victory as vehicles are hunted and offensive positions are lost from long distance snipers and more concentrated or effective counter fire. The Boom strategy peaks midgame hoping that whatever advantage is gained from its overwhelming advance carries it through to the end.
Defense/Turtle
Finally, this strategy is the most cautious comitting initial resources toward an initial defensive situational/geographic/positional advantage and investment in defensive resources best aimed at repelling the rush and feeling out the opponents strategy. It normally loses to the boom as its defenses aren't built enough to repel its overwhelming advance.
In Dust this can be the team that makes an initial commitment to the objective that's easiest to fortify. It puts down deffensive assets like nanohives, flanking uplinks, and is oriented toward logi repair/support and manning of turets. Scout detection of incoming squads yields the advantage of intercepting them before they can take cover and anti-vehicle fits me serve a threat to an incoming HAV/LAV dropship without infantry support. They can then operate out of this fortified area that is more forward than the MCC to make non-commital pushes at the other objectives causing greater clone and MCC HP deficits for their opponents than they themselves suffer from these advances. Obviously though their weakness is that, if they don't conserve their clones, and they don't push to take the majority of objectives and then reinforce them by the midgame, they can just basically be seiged. Once surrounded, even if they are clone efficient, their MCC will fall. The defensive team slowly builds up its offensive 'effect' until it peaks at the end of the match.
Thoughts? Does this reflect what you have seen as well? Of course these are on a continuum, and you don't have to purely commit to one or the other. |
Beren Hurin
OMNI Endeavors
183
|
Posted - 2013.02.01 14:22:00 -
[2] - Quote
It would be really great if we could get recordings from the overview map of a whole game, with blips or something each time a player was killed or layed something down etc.
But I see your point and agree. The game is about applying maximum organized pressure, and I guess I more distilled a few separate aspects of battle strategy rather than gave a formula for winning separate battles.
I am in a small corp at the moment, and we haven't really gotten a chance to do a corp battle yet, but I think what may be worth practicing is very much what you are talking about...that is 'how to get out of the redline'. I haven't seen it discussed much, but a lot of people seem to switch to sniper once you are camped. Which really prevents a push forward. You can't really advance with snipers.
I haven't been redlined yet with a well organized team either, so I haven't had a chance to overcome that well set up red-turtle. My guess though would be that the red-dots on the front line may be opening up a hole in the back of the map. So a LAV/dropship rush to those points dropping uplinks strategically along the way would be crucial.
I would hope that we would get to the point where it makes little strategic sense to redline, because then you get too exposed. |