Sunday, September 18, 2005

Thoughts on the game

As usual, great game guys. I think we were all tired - 7 hours of fragging must be a record for us. Today was denifitely the day of the SMGs.

Some random thoughts:

- the Attack and Defence game is good: the flags act as foci for the action, ensuring that there's a high level of fragging. Even in TDM, there can be dull games if everyone goes to ground and camps, whereas objective-based games force a concentration of action.

- communication and co-ordination has improved: the times we didn't communicate and co-ordinate well were because we couldn't be bothered to! =) Let's face it, sometimes it's fun to go lone-wolf, and it takes an effort to co-ordinate your actions with your team-mates. If anything, I think we're getting used to each others' styles/MOs, so we're building co-ordination that way. Bengaliner's spotting in the last game was incredibly useful, enabling me and Pshrike to be ready to repel attacks.

My review of favoured weapons:
- MG34: the Shredder. One good burst does it. It's primary weakness is the limited arc of fire after setting up, so location is everything with this. I find the iron sight slightly irritating: there's a piece of metal that sticks up which blocks your field of view, making it possible for something to enter near the centre of your arc of fire and go un-noticed, especially at long-range. Also has interesting morale/psychological effects: when first hit by an MG34, players tend to go to ground or run, rather than shoot back
- .30 cal: slower rate of fire than the MG34. This limits its first-burst kill-probability (though I get the impression the damage per bullet might be higher). The sights are slightly better than the MG34's but still take up too much of your field of vision
- Flamethrowers: the gift that keeps on giving. One good hit is enough: the burning does damage even after you take the finger off the trigger. Dangerous in a tight spot - the only weapon that can bounce back at you
- FG42: Jack of all trades. Unfortunately, master of none - you're likely to be out-sniped by a sniper, out-suppressed by an MG, and an SMG would run circles round you - but, you're better prepared than any of them.
- MP44. Steady enough for long range shooting, high enough rate of fire for close-in combat. Also, the iron-sights are the easiest to use of all MGs (possibly all weapons), allowing clean aiming
- BAR: very steady platform for long-range shooting, and the low rate of fire means its possible to do long range single shots like a rifle, but is consequently disadvantaged at close-range versus an SMG
- Bren: like the BAR ... but better. The only issue I have is the vertical magazine, which blocks a large chunk of your vision, and decreased situational awareness, and the ironsights are not as easy to aim through as with other MGs

In summary, I am definitely a fan of the larger caliber, heavy weapons. The only SMG I really like is the PPSh: if I have to use a Thompson, I'd rather be using an MP44 - but I'll leave it to Packrat to wax lyrical about the joys of the tommy gun. = )

9 Comments:

Blogger Wes & Jo said...

yep. boko's observer status was devastating to us. packrat and i didn't have the surprise factor. good one guys. guess it was the defend game that got the teamwork to kick in.

1:19 AM  
Blogger Packrat said...

Nice breakdown of the game. Some thoughts:

1) If we're training to play as a clan, I vote that we should do a couple of set up runs for each map. i.e. see what's the best position to set up sniper/suppressing fire positions. That and assault choke points and how to maximise them. We could do this with a couple of dry runs in Assault/Defend games.

2) Communication. Despite Berliner's fantastic warning system, I feel that we could communicate much better. I realise that when pressed to give directions, I'm quite crap at it.

3) Co-ordination of assault teams. So far (mainly through my own lone-wolf syndrome) assault teams haven't been working together all that well. FW! and I did work together at times and that worked very well. (Especially when he mopped up my messes...)

Overall, nice frag session and a goot send off for fw!. We'll be short quite a few players next week. Should we try set up mapping runs next session?

7:21 AM  
Blogger Terz said...

Some points on what Packrat said:

2) Comms. I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to use the compass at bottom left. I was trying it out with fannwong! during our game together. Unfortunately, works only when said communicatee isn't so jittery. The green arrow for fw! tended to flip aruond a lot.

3) Assault teams of the sort you're used to work only on TDM/DM maps. In AD scenarios, I think we need a lot more coordination.

9:37 AM  
Blogger Packrat said...

3) Assault teams are key in AD maps to weed out the snipers. (Camping snipers were our death the other day) Which is why it's key to try to get the maps mapped out...so that snipers could set up their positions and assault teams could take out potential snipers.

10:02 AM  
Blogger Wes & Jo said...

locating enemy via compass seems only viable way in heated battle. wasted no voip.

11:25 AM  
Blogger Packrat said...

Also need to learn to take down tanks. I refuse to believe that we need another tank to do so and I think we'll need to learn to co-ordinate our efforts so that the pwnage we encountered the last time with tanks will not occur again.

1:33 PM  
Blogger Terz said...

Heh. Armour roXXors!

Anyways, always doable. Need more rabbits... I volunteer.

5:39 PM  
Blogger wahj said...

Rabbits are an effective strategy: pair with snipers to root out opfor snipers. T leads the way in this area, but we could all use some practice. The converse of this is that snipers need to practice fire discipline: some targets of opportunity are bait.

Anti-armour: a pzrfaust in the rear does the trick in 1-2 shots. The trick is getting the pzrfaust in position without getting killed. The converse is for us to think about infantry support for armour (but a non-issue until we get 8 players.

Agree on the set-up runs for the maps. We need to get familiar with the choke-points and hidey holes.

BTW Terz: been practising on the rifle range, following your example. I find it's good for getting into the zone. I'd recommend doing a round of rifle range as warm-up before matches. Too bad it's only COD, not UO.

11:57 PM  
Blogger Packrat said...

Anti-Tanks: ambush would work well in built up areas. 2-3 Panzers on it simultaneously should solve the armour problem. 3 different directions. Could try to co-ord that next time. :)

9:00 AM  

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