The best warbird styles

[Sirius]

I didn't even talk about trends really in my last post, rofl.

And when I talk about trends, I am talking usually about action/reaction anyway, not conscious forcing of memorization of some kind of material presented to you.

Too tired to think right now; haven't slept but I need to get ready for class, peace.

[TopGod]

Haha, oops. I wanted to explain action/reaction so I could explain the next step: playing on the fly. At this level, you stop thinking ahead and make everything up as you go along. You dont know what you will be doing 5-10 seconds from now. However, there are some tradeoffs. First of all, you have to think fast (this is where action/reaction comes in). Straight up memorization of "trends" is too slow for on the fly play. Action/reaction is faster, but still isnt fast enough. Only once you learn to see through action/reactions to the next level of action/reactions can you start thinking at a fast enough speed. That is both an advantage and a drawback of playing on the fly. It makes you think faster, but if you cant keep up with it, then you will play horribly. The biggest advantage is that you are (relatively) unpredictable. More skilled opponents "read" your movements to figure out what you're going to do next. However, if you yourself don't know what youre going to do next, the opponent can only guess. I have dueled a lot of people who make it painfully obvious what they're going to do next and that causes them to die many many times

So yeah... moral of the story, play on the fly!

[Sirius]

But technically, if you're making it up as you go along, you're still making it up in accordance to what the opponent is doing, whether it be offensive or defensive, which still makes it action/reaction, which would technically be how I play. I'm thinking that maybe when you talk about action/reaction you mean keeping a conscious recollection of all the different things they may do and start plotting stuff out, or something, whereas this version would lack that, but nevertheless still be action/reaction.

If it doesn't follow that logic, then that means the person would be doing random things, which doesn't seem to be effective.

[Convection]

My 2 cents:

Running = good for elim/pub, will get you owned in leagues because good people aren't stupid enough to chase you.

Rushing = will get you a lot of kills but you will probably be the first one out.

The best strat: Mix the two.

Just keeping it simple : )

However, for those select few (like myself), that can "get in the zone", strategy doesn't matter. You are able to hit whatever you shoot at and it becomes nearly impossible to die. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, everyone else = cash money.

[a2m+]

shoot people


PS i only posted to get this message accross: HITOPWHATSGOINGONWITHYOUSCHOOLSUXLETSTALKSOMETIMEB UTNOTSOONSINCEIHAVEFINALSTHISWEEK
k tnx

[Foreign]

.....

Actually, in the great majority of my playtime I don't even think about any of this stuff. I used to have to use an intense amount of strategy to beat people, but now I just play in a more fluid fashion. My fingers have memorized the rules so well that I don't even have to think really. Sure, I still have to think a little when three people are shooting at me at once, but I only have to think about three different situations at near-simultaneous speed. It's like adding 1+1+1 real fast. I just zone off areas on the screen mentally that would be bad to fly in and I can usually move in a way to manipulate where those zones fall. Dodging is really the easier aspect of the game.

Blood's post earlier commented on predicting where the enemy will fly and flying there faster. This is the essense of the game. Sure, you can last longer if you play midrange/radar and even rack up a good 10 kills without dying most of the time, but it isn't realistic when anyone else on your team is playing aggressively. I would suggest as training for TWL to get with a squaddie or two and just rush the hell out of each other, taking turns. This way you learn great rush defense and offense at the same time.

And I really don't care to talk about that action/reaction jazz, because it's so subconscious to me I don't think about it when I play. I just recognize the level of play my opponent has acquired, take into account his personal style as I experience it, and I move in ways that I know he would either not expect or be able to counter.

As far as the whole trump-card idea, with better players taking a duel seriously it's a hit/miss strategy. Most trump-cards, when successful, result in an easy kill. However, these same ones result in an easy kill for the opponent if he sees it coming. So really there are no trump-cards between two hardcore duelers. A lot of dueling deals more with adapting instantaneously with your opponent. If he decides to thrust away, you had to have seen it coming to get enough momentum to pop him before he gets out of town.

Momentum is another huge issue in the game. When I really want to win a duel, I just check my opponent's momentum and fly away from it. This makes the opponent's shots slower. Then I get ~full speed to take my shot because I make the opponent shoot first 99% of the time. I've had like 5 minute stalemates with blood trying to rush me before because he wouldn't shoot at me until I shot. There's one thing about blood's rush. If he's doing that evil shutter thing close to you trying to draw fire you BETTER hit him or you're dead (unless you lag like me).

I think that's enough to digest for now.

[TopGod]

Momentum is another huge issue in the game. When I really want to win a duel, I just check my opponent's momentum and fly away from it. This makes the opponent's shots slower. Then I get ~full speed to take my shot because I make the opponent shoot first 99% of the time.

I actually do the exact opposite. If you go away from the enemy, the bullet is slower, but the amount of time that you are exposed to it is longer. If you rush INTO bullets, the bullet approaches much faster, but you are exposed to it for a shorter amount of it. This also makes rushing the enemy much easier. Only catch is that you have to be fast enough to dodge the bullet. Once you get past that, it works much better than running away from bullets.

[Fit of Rage]

Toppy! How you been?

[Bob (SRB)]

the problem with me is that i go into major slumps that i have problems getting out of. I think it might be because I enjoy every single ship in the game. I like warbirding, Javing, Leviterring (I do levi and terr), basing in spids, sharks, wbs and terr. I think that might be why I'm in a warbird and jav slump right now. I've basically screwed myself over, Because when I used to only warbird and leviterr a couple years ago I was pretty good at both, then I added in javing, and I've been basing on and off for a couple years, but I've gotten more serious into it now. I haven't had time to leviterr so im hugely rusty at that, I think my javing and maybe my base spidding is screwing up my wb, and after perfecting my jav rush recently i found i just lost that too. Im sure if I went back to what I always used to do, just play elim and leviterr then i'd get my warbird skills back. I guess I'm just not good enough right now to handle every ship. So when I wb in a dd I have to completely rely on rock shots and radars, my mid aim is complete garbage right now. Also I've found that when i dd, if i start off with a positive rec i will ALWAYS do better than when i start with a negative rec. The worse my rec gets the worse i do and vice versa. And now that I have to stick to rock shots and radar for the time being, I will often have a rec like 5-3 when the rest of my squad is out if we're playing a hard squad. Oh and lastly, If i've been playing ss for 3 or more hours at a time, I found that after about 2-3 hours my warbird gets worse and worse as time goes on. These are some weird things that I experience. I think they are mostly psychological because I used to have pretty elite aim in almost every aspect.

[WiseCherub]

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...

Thanks for that advice TopGod, much appreciated. Yep, only get better by dueling someone better than you, quite true, I agree 100%.

However, my last reply was totally sarcastic and directed at you for making that false assumption of me. You seriously think I don't understand Sirius and Foreign? lol...though I will give them credit for their brilliant articles and respect what they say. Yes, Foreign is right it would take a book to write about this all, not 5mins.

In fact, when I started playing this game last year, around June/2003, I started a project. TW Warbird Dueling Help, and I just accumulated knowledge as I played the game thru-out the year and made notes. Even though I have given good friends these notes, they appear way to lazy to even read it fully, quite sad to say the lest. Unfortunately, you can give some people the silver platter and they will just be totally ingrateful for that knowledge.

I played this game for 1 year now, with 1800 hrs of usage, and only focussed on the warbird dueling. Probably 1/2 the time I spent chatting with people, digging and searching for any knowledge that I could use. I'am quite resourceful and don't depend on anyone to help me. However, I give thanks and alot of respect to these two wb duelers who did share vital knowledge with me: Ripper, and Mr.420.

I probed many players searching anything to add to my little compilation of wb dueling notes.

Most elites I came across were not too friendly, so I could only spec them; watch and learn..see how they tick.

Yeah, Mattey is correct he probably knows 90% of the people who warbird duel.. well I have no idea what % I have, but I can say I now know how alot of players duel based on my analysis of them, also I dynamical update my dueler memory on their increase in skill as well. I don't statical lock a pre-conceived assumption of certain players like some people most arrogantly do.

The first realization regarding how people tick, how they duel, etc. occurred with me back around Oct/2003, and as time went on it evolved. I have no idea when Foreign first came to this realization, but probably well before I did. It was back in TW Server went down cause of those DOS hacker attacks. Many of us addicted TW players went over to EG Zone to play in a TW arena. Well what do you know who was playing in pubs..lol.. Foreign and Lofty.. they dueled and joked around.. and Foreign started to open his mouth about what he talks about now (I forget..this was in November? lol..oh well). Anyhow, that made me realize I wasn't the only one aware of this. By seeing what Foreign and Lofty said, I investigated this even further and they were 100% correct. And give them credit respectively for giving me even a greater desire to investigate this, since their words carry much weight.

Anyhow, I'm glad Foreign showed his face on this thread; I must admit I enjoy how he writes text, sort of makes me giggle to myself.

Let this be a lesson to you TopGod, don't be arrogant, be ready for the un-expected... never be (over or under - confident), just be confident.

Arrogance is a bad habbit, and can be the undoing of many so called elites. This goes for any real world stuff too, arrogance is a real bad habbit.

A side-note:

Foreign your 5 death probe test is an interesting concept, thanks for sharing. Just remember, wb duelers evolve, they don't stay one level, unless they give in to bad attitude, stagnation, or retirement.

I may never be one of the best wb duelers in this Zone, but atleast I have knowledge to be above-average, and that is all that matters to me at this point. I don't dwell on stats, like spend x # of hrs, to see if I get #1 in ELIM ranks..etc.. I just come to have fun and test my wits with others. I enjoy testing my wits with others, cause I take great joy in out-witting someone. Like I said before, but most never read my excessively long forum messages, warbird dueling is like real-time chess.

[Due]

Sirius - emphasized and depended primarily on his rushing skills

sirius = lag

without lag he is kinda sucky!

now if u take mattey he is $$$ in rushing.

[TopGod]

Let this be a lesson to you TopGod, don't be arrogant, be ready for the un-expected... never be (over or under - confident), just be confident.

Arrogance is a bad habbit, and can be the undoing of many so called elites. This goes for any real world stuff too, arrogance is a real bad habbit.

What are you talking about?

warbird dueling is like real-time chess.

Nice to know other people see it this way too.

[abrasion]

Mattey, i hate your sig. Every time my teacher walks by and i see one of you posts, she sees a big "I LOVE PENIS" and i get in trouble. :down:

[abrasion]

LOok at mattey's pics. Thats his strategy.

[MusLimStuDiO1]

Personally, I usually fly backwards in my wb. I dunno, Ive been playing like that for the longest time, and im used to it. Other people might not agree with me, but it works for me because Ive gained a lot of experience with it.