Competition and Sportsmanship

For me the goal of competitive gameplay is to win. Likewise for most other competitive players. The route you take to achieving that win is what I'd like to talk about. When I look at what loadouts or tactics I'm going to use, I look at the effectiveness of them to attain the win.

Talking with other people I hear the word "cheap" and "tryhard" thrown around a lot. And I don't really understand why. My mentality is to win. You can't win every game but I certainly try to. The problem I have is if you're not trying hard or not even trying at all, what are you doing? The other word that makes me cringe is "cheap". Some players have some kind of set of inner rules of "that's cheap, I won't stoop to that level". The rule I have is to use any and all means necessary to win, as long as it's not cheating. Are you more effective a player at using the more overused weapons? Then go ahead and use 'em. Putting C4 on objectives to prevent capture? By all means do it. Players too many times have a rigid structure of play and fail to adapt to new elements or tactics used against them. In result they go cry foul about how that was cheap or not honorable.

Now here's where sportsmanship comes into play. I don't think tactics or gameplay considered "cheap" can also be called unsportsmanlike. I don't believe in things like honor or unwritten rules of games. Glitching and cheating are rules written in stone that should always be followed but competitive games only know winning and losing. Honor or unwritten rules are not the same thing as something that can be considered unsportsmanlike. Things like hatemail and teabagging to me are unsportsmanlike. I really think they're uncalled for. If some person keeps killing you over and over, sending hatemail isn't really going to help you overcome that player. Adapting and improvising will though. There have been times where I get frustrated, everyone does but I don't think hatemail or raging at someone is going to do anything to make the situation better. If you keep putting yourself in the same situation that gets you killed over and over you have to start rethinking some things.

Becoming a top player starts with using any and all means necessary to enhance your chances of winning. If you find a loadout or tactic that gives you the advantage over other players, as long as you're not cheating, then you'd be stupid not to use it. Other noncompetitive players might not find that fun, for me winning is fun. So shrug off those unwritten honor rules and go win. I hope this helps you become a better player and teammate.

                                                                                                    -Tr0y

Communication Part 1

In my introduction I mentioned the three key aspects of winning. Team work, communication and time management. Communication is paramount to success in competitive play. It also goes hand in hand with time management. BF3 objective modes are based on tickets so time management is essential to winning. This is where communication comes into play.

If you've played with me in the past you know I use certain terms when calling for different actions or locations in matches. If I say "I'm down, get the rez, guy's in J2" you should know what I mean. I just gave three key pieces of information in one simple sentence. Too many times I hear people rattle off huge paragraphs of dialogue just to say what I just said. You simply don't have the time to do this in a competitive match.

So I digress, "rez" means to revive. I abbreviate a lot of words to get the info out in a quick and timely manner. When I call out objectives I always use "Alpha, Bravo" instead of "A,B" so there isn't any miscommunication. This is so important in both time management and effective communication. I'll be providing a sort of glossary of terms I tend to use in competitive play. I will elaborate on map location terms in part 2. I hope this helps you to become a better player and teammate.

Rez------------------Reviving
Dez------------------Locking on targets with CITV or SOFLAM
Hitcoin---------------Damage hit markers on enemies and vehicles
Rep(s)---------------Repairs, repairing vehicles
Burn-----------------Flag cap radius in Conquest mode
Nade----------------Grenades
Transpo-------------Transport chopper, jeep, vodnik
Gimme--------------Closest flag to your base deployment
Magdump-----------To empty your entire magazine
Pillar(ing)------------Moving back and forth between cover in tanks, LAV's
Perk-----------------Squad specialization
Down----------------Friendly or enemy killed
Up-------------------Friendly or enemy vehicle coming out of base

                                                                                        -Tr0y

Introduction

Hey what's up guys. When I had this blog in mind, my goal was to create ways to help my fellow teammates and clan members become better players. But then I realized this could help everyone and anyone become better players and teammates in any situation.

The focus of becoming better is knowledge, team work, communication and time management. These are all areas I fill be focusing on further to help people become better and play better. And most importantly...to win. Battlefield 3 is a pretty deep game as far as FPSs go. The amount of weapons, vehicles, maps, gadgets make it more than complex. Finding good info isn't always easy. Here we'll try to focus on everything possible BF3 has to offer. 

A competitive play type mindset is what I like to see from teammates in order to win. That combined with knowledge and communication is essential to winning in a competitive atmosphere. Even though DICE somewhat dropped the ball on making BF3 a more competitive focused game (Battlerecorder, spectator mode) there is still a deep level of gameplay and features to make it competitive. 

So I hope everyone reads up and tries to better themselves. If you take away anything from this blog I hope it's that you learned just a little something to make you improve your game and to succeed more.