Base Rant

[GoldenPlums]

Whoever dubbed me an all-time shark in ?go base can go to hell.

Not that you're self-obsessed or anything. No wait....

[Jason]

I invite you to elaborate on your assessment of me because, frankly, I don't really see myself as being self-absorbed, and you're the first to toss that particular insult my way.

I think maybe you just misinterpreted my post. I get sharked roughly 8 out of 10 games in ?go base, and I know full well just how thankless and boring it can get. I was simply trying to express the fact that I understand where people like geek, Stab and Adman are coming from.

[Pan]

I usually dont happen to have frequent problems when I am picked 98% of the time in shark. I usually am lucky to have somone that has been basing for awhile or just has the feel for shark. If I am indeed sharked with someone who has no mind whatsoever what it is doing I usually just pretend I am going solo. But most of the times the captain takes care of the situation. And if your captain doesnt care and people are barking at you just forget about it and move on. Especially since its only ?go base.

[PaulOakenfold]

I find you can keep sharking in ?go base fun if you play in ?go base only like once a week, and win of course

[Stabwound]

I play at least 2-3 shark games in ?go base per day and I still find it fun. The only thing is that I gotta be careful and remember that a lot of things that work in ?go base don't necessarily crossover well into a TWBD/TWLB situation.

About people complaining when a shark makes a mistake: when a shark screws up, it's almost always a lot more noticible than if a spider screws up. If you throw a mine into your team, or repel shit into your team, everyone will see it (and bitch about it). If a spider sits around an enemy mine and get's repelled into it, killing the entire team, no one really notices the specific person that caused it.

Maybe it's because I play more often in ?go base than many of the other decent sharks, but I am getting to the point where I can't stand playing shark with an inept partner. Unfortunately 75% of the people that shark in ?go base seem to fall into this catagory. People just seem to miss even the most basic things, like letting your partner go ahead of you if he's already used 2 repels and you haven't used any yet.

Originally Posted by Troll King
Honestly, it's more fun to shark in pub. Sure there might be spawnkillers, levis, cloakers and team killing javs, but at least you get to kill instead of just being a rep machine.

Just curious, but when is the last time you played shark in ?go base? The shark is intrinsically a defense ship, but that doesn't mean you can't get kills. Even in TWLB level games, you can rack up a good 20+ kills and minimal teamkills if you are smart and cautious enough about it. An aggressive shark can easily win a game if played properly.

[Richard Creager]

Whoever dubbed me an all-time shark in ?go base can go to hell.

Jason if you don't hold your self to this stupid ass timing bullshit that's going on, I guarantee you'll never shark again.

[Jason]

I was speaking figuratively, Rich. I've just been sharked an assload in the last month or so, and it's getting big time boring. Stab hit the nail on the head in his last post.

EDIT: And one of the main reasons I end up sharking so much is because I don't just spec or leave the arena when I'm not happy with the ship a captain puts me in. People who do that shit need to be blacklisted. Doesn't that piss you off? (I say 'you' meaning the general populous of ?go base.)

[wadi]

There is a pretty bad shortage of people that even know how to shark in ?go base. There are quite a lot of people that shark a lot but don't really know what they're doing. Fucking frustrating.

If you're talking about me, I'm just really bored. I seriously go through these moments where it's like, "You know, I should be repping. Eh, whatever. Maybe next bullet."

Lately, I've taken to lining.

Edit: Is it just me, or does GoldenPlums seek out stupid fights?

[Troll King]

Just curious, but when is the last time you played shark in ?go base? The shark is intrinsically a defense ship, but that doesn't mean you can't get kills. Even in TWLB level games, you can rack up a good 20+ kills and minimal teamkills if you are smart and cautious enough about it. An aggressive shark can easily win a game if played properly.

Yes you can get lots of kills too, but it comes at a loss of defence and tks. 20 kills itself is nothing. The problem is that your reps and being a meat shield is still the most important aspect of the sharking job. Even if those 20 kills makes a difference, the times you repelled a burst away from your terr or took the brunt of spider fire so your jav could fire off a 3-fer will likely have made an even larger difference to render those 20 kills useless. Many times too, if you play an aggressive style all you get are complaints from your teammates for being too aggressive. If you still want to cling to those 20 kills as a positive point, then you haven't realized that an equally aggressive shark can get at least 30-40 in the same 15 minute span in an average pub.

Plus with a conventional basing climate of basically having as many spider bullets as possible flying towards the enemy, a shark with its recharge speed and defensive abilities means that you're going to be doing a heck of a lot of dying. You also rarely get the chance to even launch a shark bomb because energy is at a higher premium; that negates one of the shark's weapons just from the environment alone.

[Jason]

I feel as though pub sharking is akin to preying on innocent victims. Pubbers are so majorly prone to ram mines like whoa.

[Adman]

sharking in go base, if you're not perfect people cry.

sharking in twlb with a2m
Adman> omg a2m you fucked up
a2m> no it was you.
Adman> oh well we still have base hahahahaaaha
a2m> you're axed.

may or may not have happened.

[Stabwound]

Yes you can get lots of kills too, but it comes at a loss of defence and tks. 20 kills itself is nothing. The problem is that your reps and being a meat shield is still the most important aspect of the sharking job. Even if those 20 kills makes a difference, the times you repelled a burst away from your terr or took the brunt of spider fire so your jav could fire off a 3-fer will likely have made an even larger difference to render those 20 kills useless. Many times too, if you play an aggressive style all you get are complaints from your teammates for being too aggressive. If you still want to cling to those 20 kills as a positive point, then you haven't realized that an equally aggressive shark can get at least 30-40 in the same 15 minute span in an average pub.

Plus with a conventional basing climate of basically having as many spider bullets as possible flying towards the enemy, a shark with its recharge speed and defensive abilities means that you're going to be doing a heck of a lot of dying. You also rarely get the chance to even launch a shark bomb because energy is at a higher premium; that negates one of the shark's weapons just from the environment alone.

I will have to respectfully disagree with a lot of the things you said here. There is a pretty clear line between being aggressive and being too aggressive. If you are neglect your teammates just to throw down some extra mines, or if you rack up 10 teamkills, then yes, you are being too aggressive. I was just saying that it's stupid to say that a shark's only job is to repel and eat bullets. In flagroom battles especially, the shark's bombs and mines are one of the most useful weapons if you are smart about it. Placing mines in unreppable places, or cutting off an enemy's escape route is a great help to your team. If you get the chance, spamming mines all over the enemy's side in flagroom fights will confuse and kill a ton of them. In a lot of 8vs8 games, the sharks get more terr kills than the rest of the team combined.

I realize that you can get more kills by sharking in pub than sharking in 8vs8 basing, but comparing them is akin to comparing apples and oranges. In pub, you are usually facing twice as many enemies, all of whom are willing to run into your mines over and over. In both arenas you only get 4 mines, but in pub you don't really have to worry about a badly placed mine, because someone will eventually end up running into it or repelling it; if not you can just switch ships. In 8vs8, a badly placed mine is probably going to kill a bunch of teammates or just be a waste.

Let me rephrase something I said in my last post. A smart, aggressive shark can easily win a game.

[Troll King]

Like it or not, no matter how well you lay your mines in go base, it's still your defence and your reps especially that makes or breaks things. I'm not saying that sharks don't get to kill at all, but just that kills aren't as important as the other part of the job. Being able to place timely mines and the odd bomb are good skills to have, but as long as you're smart in repping and taking hits, killing is extra. It's like the terr; his main job is to get the team in the flag room and stay alive. Sure, he can get kills and drive opponents nuts with a good burst, but any kills he gets is "extra". With a shark, you can play aggressively and smartly in ?go base, but you still have to rein yourself in a bit. Compare that with the other ships and you'll see the shark has the greater difference between ?go base and pub skills. The other ships as a whole don't have to apply the same ammount of restraint in that transition. You could argue that a terr does too, but that level of restraint is just to try not to kamikaze.

I'm not saying one is better than the other or that one isn't worth playing (although many people who think they are too good for pub would take that position) I'm just saying that pub sharking is more fun because you get to kill more. Yes, you might say that racking up kills in pub is easy and it's a different environment. I am fully aware of that. Yes, there is less pressure, and yes there is more room for error. Yes, I am aware that they are two different styles of play. One environment just happens to give sharks more room for creativity. I know I am comparing apples to oranges; I'm just saying that oranges are juicier.


If you want another analogy, think of base sharking as being like using a hammer to drive a nail into a wall to hang a picture. Pub sharking is like using a sledgehammer. Sure, the smaller hammer will do the job effectively and can do it very well, but deep down, some part of you is thinking that slamming a hole in the wall with the sledgehammer would be neat.

[ZeUs!!]

Sharking's for people who can't aim

[GoldenPlums]

...
Edit: Is it just me, or does GoldenPlums seek out stupid fights?

I guess it's just you.