The best warbird styles

[Foreign]

Well...

Sirius used a lot of my ideas for his post (I'm kind of flattered there), so I figured I would elaborate on some of them.

Learning Your Opponent

Cumulatively
About 90% of this game is about learning your opponent. The number one reason people suck after being inactive is because the talent pool has changed and they must reinsert themselves into it. The more you play, the more people's individual styles you learn. Given this fact, the more you play, the better you may predict new styles and talents, adapting to current trends in order to win opponents whose styles you have never seen before.

Instantaneously
This is in reference to dueling 1 on 1. The best way I've found to win any duel is to take my first five lives and commit them to learning my opponent. I disregard any assumptions I may have or confidences in beating the opponent without this security, and I instead "go fishing." Basically, I run through several styles to see how the enemy responds to each one. Then I perform a mental check-list of If.... then...'s and I have all the tools I need to defeat my opponent. The only thing left is execution.

Execution

Different people have different practical methods for putting what's in their heads into the game to perform the actions desired. I will disclose a few secrets of my own.

Radar
You want superb radar skills? Put your resolution on at least 1600x1200 (I personally use 2048x1536), head over to EG, and just practice killing people in a warbird with bombs in their pub or elim for about an hour. Come back to trench wars, and you will realize how slow tw ships seem to move and how fast the bullets appear to travel due to the loss in resolution. This isn't necessarily true, but to one's mind, it helps give focus. This works for me every time. I used to spend an hour before every match when I was on Siege in EG. Either that or dueling Tony....

Dueling
The most effective way to become a consistent player and a force to be reckoned with in this game is to duel, duel, and duel some more. Back in the second running of TWEL I spent a few weeks just dueling hardcore and not playing elim. I went back to elim to find my average scores had greatly increased. I had changed from a top 50 player to a top 15 player back when elim was popular among the elites. Dueling in a vast sense allows you to isolate certain styles and find ways to manipulate those styles. Do you think someone thought of the "you're chasing someone and you stop when they get near a rock so when they bounce you can kill them easily" trick while playing elim? No sir.

Focal Points
I use two different focal points when I play. The first is my defensive focal point. When I am in dodging mode I view my enemies in my peripheral while focusing on my own ship so I can make those movements that must be accurate to the pixel for me to survive. When I am preparing to shoot someone, I just use the relative movement of my screen to judge which way my ship is pointing and I focus on the enemy's ship. With this method, the enemy is much easier to see, and therefore easier to predict and aim at. Using this method I rarely miss by more than a centimeter. It's risky though against multiple opponents, unless you have a good perception of center-screen, meaning you use your peripheral vision and don't let bullets pass through the center of your screen (where your ship is) in order to keep yourself alive.

That's all for now, my hands hurt and I'm falling asleep.

[Sirius]

Instantaneously
This is in reference to dueling 1 on 1. The best way I've found to win any duel is to take my first five lives and commit them to learning my opponent. I disregard any assumptions I may have or confidences in beating the opponent without this security, and I instead "go fishing." Basically, I run through several styles to see how the enemy responds to each one. Then I perform a mental check-list of If.... then...'s and I have all the tools I need to defeat my opponent. The only thing left is execution. - Foreign

Haha figures, I do the same exact thing =P

[TopGod]

<3 FOREIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cumulatively
About 90% of this game is about learning your opponent. The number one reason people suck after being inactive is because the talent pool has changed and they must reinsert themselves into it. The more you play, the more people's individual styles you learn. Given this fact, the more you play, the better you may predict new styles and talents, adapting to current trends in order to win opponents whose styles you have never seen before.

Dude... it should take you all of 10-30 seconds to figure all that out... come on, you're as good as I am.

Sirius, what I meant was that the FIRST step is to learn the "trends", but the SECOND step is to unlearn them and to develop your own. You missed the whole point of what I said. The second part was my point, the first part was merely rehashing what you said.

Sorry, not familiar with you, I guess maybe you play at different times or never caught my eye.

I have been on/off retirement for most of the last year and a half. I haven't wb'ed in 2-3 years, which is probably why you have never heard of me.

Also... what you said about older players not sharing tricks... its not that we dont want to share, its just that you wont understand it. Me and Foreign can probably both write books about dueling and 99% of the people who read it would shrug it off because they dont understand. Theres just too much of a skill difference for something like that to work.

[Sirius]

Sirius, what I meant was that the FIRST step is to learn the "trends", but the SECOND step is to unlearn them and to develop your own. - TopGod

That's pretty much what I said in my reply to yours, just the wording probably made it look different.

[TopGod]

Sirius, what I meant was that the FIRST step is to learn the "trends", but the SECOND step is to unlearn them and to develop your own. - TopGod

That's pretty much what I said in my reply to yours, just the wording probably made it look different.

Yeah... you chopped off the 2nd part of what I said in your quote

[Foreign]

Topgod is my e-pimp

Dude... it should take you all of 10-30 seconds to figure all that out... come on, you're as good as I am.

and all of it took me about 5 minutes to write.... It's hard to go into any sort of depth without writing a book on it.... You know that. You gotta start with the basics. Personally I like to plant the seed and see what different people do with it.

[TopGod]

and all of it took me about 5 minutes to write.... It's hard to go into any sort of depth without writing a book on it.... You know that. You gotta start with the basics. Personally I like to plant the seed and see what different people do with it.

Not like anyone else here but us knows what we're talking about =( hehehe. I'm thinking of coming back to teach some of the new "elites" a lesson or two, but that would require some effort and I'm lazy.

How ya been 4n?

[Mattey]

The best way to get absurdly good at this game is to play on low resolution. I played on 1024 for about 8 months, and 800 for 4 before moving up to max res. Since most of warbird dueling is about dodging, this obviously helped me a ton.

[Sirius]

The best way to get absurdly good at this game is to play on low resolution. I played on 1024 for about 8 months, and 800 for 4 before moving up to max res. Since most of warbird dueling is about dodging, this obviously helped me a ton. - Mattey

And lag too. People like me and Foreign are forced into having high reaction speed due to our high ms, and when we do play on low ms, it's amazing how much time there is to dodge, it feels like forever.

[Blue Thunder]

When the squad Elites was around I use to practice my Wbing skills by dueling them whenever I could, since they were one of the best squads in trench wars back then.

Matty makes a good point about low res. The lower the resolution, the harder to dodge bullets because you cant see them coming. If you get really good at dodging bullets at 640x480 res. then chances are when you switch back to max res. there wont be a single ranged shot that'll hit you.

Foreign and TopGod know what they are talking about. They most likely have no idea who I am, even tho ive had this name 3 yrs , but I've been playing almost if not as long as they have, and the skillz they talk about dont just come to you over night, they can take a while to learn and years to master.

~Blue

[WiseCherub]

<3 FOREIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been on/off retirement for most of the last year and a half. I haven't wb'ed in 2-3 years, which is probably why you have never heard of me.

Also... what you said about older players not sharing tricks... its not that we dont want to share, its just that you wont understand it. Me and Foreign can probably both write books about dueling and 99% of the people who read it would shrug it off because they dont understand. Theres just too much of a skill difference for something like that to work.

Yeah, I don't understand all this, its rocket science to me, way over my head. Can you help me please? I only play for 1 year and need help, I suck!!!

I wana be as good as you... maybe I can become a 3 day wonder and own some.

Thanks for help elites.

[Sirius]

Lesson 2

So how do you deal with an opponent who learns really well in the middle of a duel and adapts to your style? That's where your tactics library comes in. You have to keep pulling out new individualistic/unique tactics in relevance to your estimation of the opponent's learning speed.

If I'm dueling an idiot, I may just use the same tactic throughout the whole duel (believe it or not some people fall for the same thing all 10 deaths without even apparently noticing any trend), but if I see the opponent will learn quickly, I may change my tactic every kill or every 2 kills. I usually set up a little mental map of styles I'll use and in which sequence I'll use them [the sequence in which you change styles can strongly effect the outcomes; styles fall into certain categories and proper shuffling can cause less anticipation on your opponent's behalf and more confusion], depending on who I'm fighting.

Also, as you keep playing competitively, you'll find yourself figuring out certain tactics which you'll come to recognize as defensive or offensive 'trump card' tactics that work 95-100 % of the time, but due to their powerful nature they are typically rather easily noticed by your opponent and can therefore only be used once or twice, but also depending on how smart/stupid your opponent is. If you're fighting a good opponent, 'trump card' type tactics will usually only work once or maybe twice. Also, successful completion of an offensive [not defensive dodge type] trump card tactic usually means death for your opponent.

Anyway, the reason I bring those tactics up is because one thing you can try against opponents who learn well is to unleash all your offensive trump card tactics one after another each kill as soon as the duel begins, which usually intimidates the quick-learning opponent with the realization that you are not doing anything consistent, and that you are demonstrating a deep resource of effective strategy and depth [even if they may not realize that you might be bluffing with a limited, but powerful amount of tactics]. It also keeps them on their toes and keeps them too busy to work on figuring or calculating your next moves.

Starting off with a bunch of trump cards usually gives me a good lead of about 4/5-0 to say the least, but depending on the caliber of the opponent, they may catch on to a particular overall trend and make a comeback. Practice makes perfect.

Players who are used to easily and quickly adapting to their opponent tend to get a lot more upset over such a turn of events, which can lead to discouragment and loss of motivation to attempt to adapt to anything you're doing. (Good players tend to have less tolerance for failure or inconvenience, which is an exploitable weakness. It's a debate to say whether it's a legitimate aspect or not, one can argue that due to the amount of time and effort good players commit they earn the right to expect higher gratification, and another can argue that it's arrogant and egotistical to accept death from only those of your caliber or higher, but in any case that's still how it is).

And of course if you're good enough, you can have enough trump cards to last you all 10 kills. The only problem this presents though is a trend in trump cards. Good moves worth being noticed generally fall into certain categories, split by the topography of your mind. The player can be perceptive enough to figure out your thought process or thought pattern through the powerful tactics you use, and will proceed to anticipate certain crafty types of manuevers on your behalf. Of course, if you're perceptive enough, you'll notice that and an easy remedy for it is to radically lower your style to a more basic level and start doing things they would figure you too good to be doing. In any case it just takes some feeling to get the hang of that aspect of play.

I wana be as good as you... maybe I can become a 3 day wonder and own some. - WiseCherub

You really gotta have a passion for it, otherwise no amount of teaching or learning is going to help. And usually people who have a strong passion for it do it on their own. It's kind of a two-in-one deal, the same burning ambition that drives you also keeps driving you to go your own path. Having a desire to be recognized or looked up to, and having a desire to go beyond are two different things.

It's like learning a language, you may want to learn it so you can speak it or have it as a useful asset that you can make use of, and so therefore you have someone teach you the language, you memorize the sounds, the meanings, etc., but in the end result when you're speaking the language or listening to it, you're just acknowledging certain sounds to mean what you memorized it to mean, etc. To truly know the language you have to be able to feel it, and everything that it stands for, which usually takes a greater depth of yearning.

People go through certain events to realize certain things in the game, like certain tactics, which make them better etc., so by figuring things out themselves they learn the mechanics behind it, and the attitude accordingly.

I was really good at Starcraft because I enjoyed the game a lot, but when I moved to Warcraft 3 I wanted to be really good there, mostly because it was 'fun' to be at the top of the ladder, to be recognized and such. Some of the best players taught me their tactics...but I just memorized things and systematically executed them in the game..I didn't have the passion to drive me beyond, and therefore I was always limited, and my systematic memorization of elite tactics really didn't get me anywhere in the end result other than being a better than average player.

But for games like Starcraft or Subspace I've felt a much different drive, one which made fortunes like popularity or acknowledgement paltry and obsolete.

I don't really think you can choose which games or events in life you will have a passion for, or which you won't. It just happens, or it doesn't.

[TopGod]

Yeah, I don't understand all this, its rocket science to me, way over my head. Can you help me please? I only play for 1 year and need help, I suck!!!

I wana be as good as you... maybe I can become a 3 day wonder and own some.

Thanks for help elites.

Find a person who beats you with a score 10-6 or 10-7 consistentaly and duel them for a couple hours. See if you can atleast tie them or even beat them. If you do improve, try to isolate the things you did that gave you the biggest improvement and concentrate on those things in the next dueling session you have with someone else. Basically, find someone who's a little bit better than you, duel them until you get to their level, figure out what you did to get to that level, then move on to someone else.

Time to read Sirius' post...

[death row]

You guys all make some very good points. Another thing you want to do, try dueling 2 or 3 people at the same time. It will improve your dodging in those situations/matches, and it can just make you an overall better player. Your reaction time is much better, you're not as lazy in taking a shot, you try to put a little more accurecy into shots knowing you have to hit if you're dueling 2 or 3 ppl. Just something to try when you're bored, get a few buddies, take turns and see who does the best, etc.

[TopGod]

Sirius,
I dont agree with your post at all. If you limit yourself to just memorizing these so-called "trends", you can only get so good. These trends are actually cause-effect pairs, action-reaction pairs, whatever you want to call them. Here's an example: player A and player B are dueling. A shoots bullet at B. B dodges. The "cause"/"action" is the shooting of the bullet. The "effect"/"reaction" is the dodging of the bullet. This is a very basic example, but in order to become a better player you must be able to scale that kind of logic down to the smallest movements.

Whats the point? Instead of memorizing larger "trends" you learn action-reactions. They can be broken up into actions and reactions alone and then grouped together. ie: situation A causes D. situation B causes D. situation C causes E. Here you have 3 actions, but only 2 reactions, bringing the total to 5. With "trends" you would have to know 3 things, but they since 1 trend = 1 action + 1 reaction, it winds up being bigger. But thats not really the point. These action-reaction pairs scale MUCH better than trends. What I mean is that learning 1000 action-reaction pairs is much easier/faster than 1000 trends. Also, thinking of everything as action-reaction makes it easier to get to the next level of skill (trust me on this one)