Team Fortress Wiki talk:Competitive representation/UGC Highlander League/US/Archive Winter 2011

After-match review: ctf_impact2

I figured that since this talk page isn't used for much of anything, I may as well use it to see what we can learn from our matches.

First thing, this was a horribly shitty map. There was no real way to defend effectively, it was crazy easy to get spawn-camped, and the intel was placed horribly. It might make sense for Quake, but there is absolutely no reason why UGC should have used a non-vanilla map for matches. It doesn't make sense to complain since it's over now, but it really shouldn't have been a problem in the first place.

Overall, we did pretty well this time, considering the circumstances. Roster issues meant we had to field mercs and play classes that we weren't practicing for, but otherwise we still did pretty well and managed to fend off the other team's pushes several times. However, I feel that we should solidify our schedules a bit earlier in advance so that we know which classes may be needed so that we can practice in advance. For me, I was mainly practicing Demoman on the map and figuring out how to use the drop-down and where to plant sticky traps, but since inShane didn't show up I had to switch to Medic, and I have no idea how much Jman practiced the map.

We're getting better at coordinating our moves and calling out events, but there were still plenty of problems. For one, from what I saw, Magikarp spent a whole lot of time camping their Engy and trying to kill his Sentry nest despite the fact that most of us were nowhere near the Intel; if he'd been helping us with defending by stabbing their players or even just distracting as they tried to push, it might have helped us a bit. I was also having trouble trying to make pushes with teammates since we were still all over the place, so I spent a lot of time in the defending area with Wind since I needed to keep building Über. This ties partially into practicing more and playing the classes that we're used to, if we can coordinate better then we can play more offensively.

I also wanted to propose, again, that we schedule some times with the EU UGC team and scrim against each other. It lets us get a better feel for how we can coordinate on that specific map, and that really should give us an advantage over some of the other teams we've been playing. I know that scheduling a practice with this many players can be hard, but we won't know unless we try.

Overall, the main issue is just that we need to practice more together, and in the roles that we're going to play for the match. We're all good enough to be able to wing it on these maps, but the problem is making coordinated pushes and organizing effective defenses, which requires practice. If we can play more together, we can get better. -- LordKelvin 02:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree on many things you pointed out here. That is why i want practices. My overall goal for the practices is to 1, go over some details about the map, and second go through and work together as a team. I would love to have a scrimmage against a team, even if its just us vs some pubs. This past match i think our problem was more offensive then defensive. When we were holding them and even when their team had died, we did not make too many offensive pushes.

I am not a huge fan of that map, at least in competition play, but that is really no excuse. Communication was not bad. We all did well reporting what was going on to the team. I will say our defense held down the flag for a lot longer than previous matches, in spite of their pushes.

I hope we can get some more practicing in together. I think we are all half decent players and we have just been off. K-Mac (Talk | Contrib) 18:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

After Match Review: Granary vs. OHL

OK, so, this match was pretty great all-around, we were able to communicate pretty effectively, even with Gemini [Nom3] not being on Mumble.

I was using the Scottish Resistance throughout this match, even though I said that I'd probably switch to the regular sticky launcher if we were proving to be able to push forward better than we usually do. IMO I did pretty well with it, since I was able to make selective sticky kills on several occasions, and disarmed their Demo's traps at least twice.

Overall, their performance was pretty good but not entirely cohesive.

• Their Scout liked to pressure back-caps but didn't really do much in terms of making picks, mainly just harassing. On the one occasion where he succeeded in back-capping, he had the Soldier to help. He also did pretty poorly on picking, since he should have gotten me on at least half a dozen occasions (especially since I was playing SR Demo), but failed.

• Their Soldier had a Buff Banner, but only managed to charge it twice that I saw and only when there were one or two nearby teammates, as opposed to making a coordinated push with at least four. I didn't see much from him TBH.

• I didn't see much from their Pyro either, he only managed to get close to me on two occasions.

• Their Demo was okay-ish, he mostly managed to have me beat in single combat since he was using the regular sticky launcher, but on the times that he tried laying sticky traps I was able to disable them without a lot of problems. I saw that Wind was dominating him at one or two points in the game as well.

• Their Heavy tended to be unfocused and strayed into open areas occasionally, on at least three occasions I was able to sneak up to him and make contact pipes and fade away. From what I saw, you guys weren't having many problems either.

• Didn't see much from their Engy either, since by the time I was able to get up to deal with him you guys had already pretty much finished him off. On the two or three occasions where he tried to push forward, I was able to deal with his Mini-Sentries pretty well, and I only had trouble when he got a Level 2 set up on their second point.

• IMO, their Medic was probably one of the weak links. He liked to pocket their Heavy, and wasn't very aware of his surroundings, I was able to pick him a few times without much in the way of problems. He also only deployed an Über maybe twice, otherwise he was just overhealing them and not much else.

• Their Sniper was probably their strongest player, he was able to make picks when they mattered. He didn't really pose much of a problem for me, but I saw that he was able to pick Viper, Shane, and Gemini on at least one occasion each while we were making pushes.

• Their Spy was easy for me to deal with, surprisingly. He was able to make picks a few times, but spent too much time being cloaked and not accomplishing much.

One of the problems I ran into this game was that people kept picking up health packs in front of me while I was lit. Shane was nice enough to give me a Sandvich at one point, and I was otherwise only forced to sit back for a few seconds since their team wasn't really pushing forward, but in other matches we might not be so lucky. Also, there was one occasion where I was calling for Medic in-game while I was lit but Gemini didn't respond. I'm going to try to learn to call out being lit on my mic instead, since usually I just learn to play without a Medic (the pubs that I play on have terrible Medics unless I'm the one playing Medic).

Again, overall, a pretty good performance from us. We were communicating a bit better, and coordinating better, but the problem of scheduling and not having enough players at the last minute reared its ugly head again. It's something that we might have to find another solution for in the future. -- LordKelvin 20:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I again agree with many things that you had said in this review. The only difference I have for this one is communication. We did communicate well regarding many aspects of the match. But, I feel that there was too much chatter dealing with things that were funny or good shots and what not. There were a few occasions where we would try to talk over each other where a few people were congratulating someone on a good kill and that continued for a minute while others were trying to relay important information. Other than that, we did relay information forward and backwards regarding things that had taken place, and did so moderately well. The other team played well, defense held us quite a bit on that second round and even fought back to recap past center. Their sniper had me marked, but i was usually able to take out a teammate or two of his before i got capped. Then I was able to finally score some shots on him. I think that we did well, but could have done better if we capitalized on some opportunities that we missed. Have a look back on the game demo to see what I mean. The other team used the in game chat system so you can hear what they went through. If i remember correctly I heard them say something along the lines of "we got lucky" a few times when we missed these opportunities. Any who, good win for us, we did play well overall (not me so much). The other team even said "wow that guy was good" a couple times on the mic...looking at you Fender...K-Mac (Talk | Contrib) 03:25, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Noooooo, they're definitely looking at the guy that has around 20 total hours of Heavy played (compared to hundreds of hours for the core comp classes). Actually, Fender might qualify for that, too...ANYWAY, I assume everyone has Mumble's talk set to a button so we don't constantly hear noise. There is no need for me to hold down "F" while cursing about my death. Curse without your mic button held down, THEN calmly say "____ down!" At the very least, if you need to yell about your death, announce which class we're now missing. That being said, about Heavy. I think one of the key parts of the game was everyone's ability to hold the line without Sir 300 HP there. I think I played him as I would the Scout, but slower...which means running up to their attic and dropping down on their Engineer. I don't mind playing as Heavy, but someone should probably tell me if I need to stick near the frontlines. We rarely had the Heavy/Medic combo going, partially my bad. Then again, we did have the Soldier/Medic combo, I think, so that balances out. -- InShane 20:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC)