As with pretty much everything I start here, this is going to be concerned with realism, feasibility and gamey things.
It's been on my mind for the past couple of days, and also reading the thread about defence, I've found two quotes I'll allow myself to begin with:
And, following that:
Well, here we have the basic clash: whether to choose a feasible way of assaulting - i.e. you're trying to stay alive, while closing in on the objective (be it slower, if you need to keep your head down, or faster if conditions permit it), you're valuing your life and trying to beat the enemy at the same time - or to go for the zerg way - i.e. "If I don't make it this time, I'm sure I'll make it next time!... or sometime within the next 10 respawns!" and the paradigm of "getting into the capzone".
Let's begin by analyzing the elements constituting the - let's adopt such a name - "realistic" assault.
a) the soldier is going to try to stay alive, while also trying to get the job done. What this entails is less ruch and more planning, more care. What, in consequence, suggests more time for planning, planning-on-the-run, or even pre-planning the assault. And of course, it gives more time for the defenders.
b) Given the above, the soldier nevertheless accepts the risk of facing death, but will not recklessly endanger himself, or fellow soldiers.
c) As mentioned above - the assault would have to have some plan according to which the constituent elements of the unit would behave. Obviously, there are various ways to approach that - sometimes it may be better to trickle in reinforcements for the assault, albeit in a conscious manner (i.e.reinforcements arriving in a purposeful manner, with a clear aim in view), or just wait and gather up and form a formidable fighting force which should be less prone to being taken out with relative ease.
d) Following the plan will involve a lot of derailings and a lot of hangups, while some things the plan relies on cannot be done within the desired time. This may render the purposefulness of planning valueless to someone's point of view.
Now, let me try to brief on the "zerg rush":
a) A player is a participant in an online game given a (limited) ammount of lives. He is given free hand in using up as many of these lives, until the reinforcements run dry.
b) A round in a match runs against time, therefore lack of haste works against you, theoretically diminishing your chance of success if the map happens to be long. Haste is your friend.
c) Cap-zones fixation. Get inside, hold, cap. Better yet, if it's not recappable (nothing personal against locked objectives). Just keep that bar slowly filling up and you're good.
d) Last objective madness. Possibly it's last minutes and suddenly everyone's telling you - just throw yourselves at them, they are out of reinforcements, just push! Who cares what happens even one second after the last objective's been taken? Not the zerg, that's for sure.
These are two opposite ends of a scale. Usually, you'll have a mixture of some. When I began RO not long ago, I was extremelly excited to have lasted five minutes - not only to have survived, crawling around in the mud, but also to have engaged targets and (rare as it may have been) taking them out. But, as Basil nicely put it, it just did not pay off enough. Because in the end I ended contributing little to the team - or so it seemed.
Soon after the initial shock passed, I started selling my life cheap - just because I could.
Then there was the stage of getting more accustomed with the game, but - I have to admit this, sadly - I did not revert much. I still all to often sell my life to cheap, for anyone willing to take it. However, recently I am trying to get real, so to say, and while tanking I will stop often and scout for targets, to spot them as soon as possible. On foot, I will try to scout the situation ahead and try to find a good way of solving it. I'm trying not to be in a rush. I'm trying to survive. I'm finding that it's not the default approach in this game. Well, just a little rant. Comments, questions, dirty jokes?
It's been on my mind for the past couple of days, and also reading the thread about defence, I've found two quotes I'll allow myself to begin with:
And, following that:
Well, here we have the basic clash: whether to choose a feasible way of assaulting - i.e. you're trying to stay alive, while closing in on the objective (be it slower, if you need to keep your head down, or faster if conditions permit it), you're valuing your life and trying to beat the enemy at the same time - or to go for the zerg way - i.e. "If I don't make it this time, I'm sure I'll make it next time!... or sometime within the next 10 respawns!" and the paradigm of "getting into the capzone".
Let's begin by analyzing the elements constituting the - let's adopt such a name - "realistic" assault.
a) the soldier is going to try to stay alive, while also trying to get the job done. What this entails is less ruch and more planning, more care. What, in consequence, suggests more time for planning, planning-on-the-run, or even pre-planning the assault. And of course, it gives more time for the defenders.
b) Given the above, the soldier nevertheless accepts the risk of facing death, but will not recklessly endanger himself, or fellow soldiers.
c) As mentioned above - the assault would have to have some plan according to which the constituent elements of the unit would behave. Obviously, there are various ways to approach that - sometimes it may be better to trickle in reinforcements for the assault, albeit in a conscious manner (i.e.reinforcements arriving in a purposeful manner, with a clear aim in view), or just wait and gather up and form a formidable fighting force which should be less prone to being taken out with relative ease.
d) Following the plan will involve a lot of derailings and a lot of hangups, while some things the plan relies on cannot be done within the desired time. This may render the purposefulness of planning valueless to someone's point of view.
Now, let me try to brief on the "zerg rush":
a) A player is a participant in an online game given a (limited) ammount of lives. He is given free hand in using up as many of these lives, until the reinforcements run dry.
b) A round in a match runs against time, therefore lack of haste works against you, theoretically diminishing your chance of success if the map happens to be long. Haste is your friend.
c) Cap-zones fixation. Get inside, hold, cap. Better yet, if it's not recappable (nothing personal against locked objectives). Just keep that bar slowly filling up and you're good.
d) Last objective madness. Possibly it's last minutes and suddenly everyone's telling you - just throw yourselves at them, they are out of reinforcements, just push! Who cares what happens even one second after the last objective's been taken? Not the zerg, that's for sure.
These are two opposite ends of a scale. Usually, you'll have a mixture of some. When I began RO not long ago, I was extremelly excited to have lasted five minutes - not only to have survived, crawling around in the mud, but also to have engaged targets and (rare as it may have been) taking them out. But, as Basil nicely put it, it just did not pay off enough. Because in the end I ended contributing little to the team - or so it seemed.
Soon after the initial shock passed, I started selling my life cheap - just because I could.
Then there was the stage of getting more accustomed with the game, but - I have to admit this, sadly - I did not revert much. I still all to often sell my life to cheap, for anyone willing to take it. However, recently I am trying to get real, so to say, and while tanking I will stop often and scout for targets, to spot them as soon as possible. On foot, I will try to scout the situation ahead and try to find a good way of solving it. I'm trying not to be in a rush. I'm trying to survive. I'm finding that it's not the default approach in this game. Well, just a little rant. Comments, questions, dirty jokes?
