Paul wrote:Well things did not go according to plan. I have tried to think what the reason was and I can't think of anything except that they out played us.
I thought we showed good character coming back in the first round but then got complacent and they took it back. I think Dry might be right, we were to cocky before of our practise with RFH, we thought we just had to show up to win
From the oustside looking in, this was the feeling I got. Also imo not enough practice was done, thats a hard one as you all have a life but yea, needed to play that map minimum 2 times.
Just popping to give my brief 2 cents. Wish I had more time, but we did talk a bit after the game.
In short:
- We raged. Most of us did... It affected us and resulted in feeding them hard on Round 2. - Metro is a CQ map and we played against a veteran COD team. Nuff said. My suggestion, we never play Metro again. It just doesn't suit our playstyle. - My fucking PC... Had a hard lock (not BSOD) going into Round 2. As discussed, the opening move will determine the flow of the game. Having 7 soldiers against 8 is a big difference especially when playing a strong team. - RFH were PISS in comparison to ESWAT. We were lax at times. - They were too fast, too on the ball and it showed. I lost 90% of my 1 on 1's last night. I know I could be a little sharper, but they just were too quick for me most of the time.
We played shit. We all seemed in a bit of a negative mood. We didn't call properly. We made many silly mistakes. It was not our best at all. Think we all very disappointed! But all we can do is learn from it and move forward.
For my part, I wasn't at my best, had a bad day and allowed it to effect my performance. Sorry for that.
Round 1: Despite us talking about it, we didn't have enough people covering the dogleg corner, so they broke through. We fought back hard and got their back flag, we held it and held the bleed, then capped B back. We were in position to win, but we once again, didn't call didn't get in position and the stormed back of lifts and took B back from us. To me this was very very poor. We can allow a team to be behind those lifts.
Round2: We had a crash as round started so were a player down. We couldn't get into dogleg, and so our initial strat didn't work. Once we got the player back we made it in t0 lockers on 2 occasions. But once again everybody watched one direction and we got rinsed from behind. After that we just bled.
So silly mistakes, a poor calling, and some bad luck.
I think we might be being too hard on our selves and forgotten that we also want to have fun and enjoy the game. If we approach with more of a fun attitude I am sure we will play better.
I agree we are being a bit hard on ourselves but we still need to learn more. I was hugely impressed though with the fight back in the first round. I think we were down by 40 odd tickets and we turned it around to be 70 -40 in our favour but then as Tyger said we let it slip
You all know were you went wrong, this is going to be a long season. You guys gotta be realisitic and rather look at each game as a potential loss and not assume any game will be easy.
I still stand by my assesment that you are a good team.
The only thing that I think we need to do is "name and shame" I know it sounds harsh but it really is the only way people learn otherwise they always think they aren't the culprit. So obviously without being mean you tell specific people what you think they did wrong.
For example Tyger said there was a time when a couple of people were in lockers but they were all facing the same direction, who are these people? I think I was in that situation but I was there to revive, I specifically remember reviving tyger. Now in my mind, I was doing my job, this could be totally invalid.
We might even go as far as for each player should write a report on the other players, if you don't have anything to say then just say N/A. I will be doing this when I get home.
Something that I've been thinking about, and discussed with Geth a few days back - it was too late to do anything about for this game unfortunately, so I didn't mention it to the team.
I believe that our map selection here was poor. Looking at ESWAT's website you can see that they are a clan that started from CS, now playing BF3 and COD4.
When playing against a quality CS or COD clan, we need to work on the assumption that their CQB infantry skills are going to be better than ours. This won't always be the case, but these guys have spent a lot of time playing a game type where, if you die, you are out of the game until the next round. As such, their twitch reflexes are going to be extremely honed, and they will be tough to beat in infantry mash-ups.
Our primary map choices (AFAIK) are Grand Bazaar, Operation Metro and Seine Crossing? Of these, only Seine Crossing comes close to giving us any kind of advantage due to our BF experience. We should be looking to play the maps that make the most use of armour, with open spaces in which it can move. Also, we should be avoiding linear maps, as we don't want to spend our lives taking on Infantry clans head to head. For this reason. Operation Metro is our worst possible map. Grand Bazaar is a little better as it allows flanking maneuvers, but is still not perfect. Seine Crossing is the best of the small maps because it's non-linear, allowing multiple routes and attacking options.
What about the other maps?
Damavand peak is very linear, and also infantry dominated (IMO), so I'd be avoiding that given a chance.
Noshahr Canals is at first sight a very imbalanced map, one that any halfway decent side should dominate as RU, meaning the winning team is going to come down to the ticket count. However, it's strong armour benefit to the Russians means that we should be able to dominate very strongly as RU, which could well help us in maintaining a strong ticket lead. It's also very non-linear, which would play to our strengths. I think we should consider this as a possible home map. Also, the fact that no-one else seems to like the map could play into our hands. At the very least, we shouldn't be eliminating this map, leave it to the opposition to get rid of.
Tehran Highway is also an interesting choice. Flag placement is linear, but the bases are not at either end of the linear structure, meaning that a team can easily attack any of the flags from base. It also, due to the road network, will allow the APC to play a significant role. I think it's worth looking at too.
Obviously, against a seasoned BF clan like FiB or ASF, the map choice should have less of an impact. But for the clans that come from small map infantry only games, I think we need to revisit our strategy.
Ya very disappointing result, I go as far as to say it broke my heart. I'm sorry I left right afterwards, I was just completely furious and desperately frustrated. We were really developing some momentum, overcoming a similar team (RFH) and starting to believe in ourselves. Unfortunately, when we started losing the 1v1s we just lost the plot completely and threw ourselves like lemmings at their defences instead of banding together and overwhelming them with the res train.
Now I take responsibility for that and it's probably why I feel so crap about it. I should never, and I never will again, agree to a "full team" push. It only "works" 1 time out of 5 and you pay heavily for the few metres it gains you. It's simply not an option going forward. We stick to the plan, if its not working we tweak it, but we keep the same plan. I'd rather lose by 300 tickets on a plan I know and trust than be humiliated like a bunch of noobs with no cohesion.
For instance, when we couldn't get up dogleg we should have sent Lee or Lep there to help. As RU, we should have tubed our way forward, clearing dug in defenders. I think we're able to do both on any other night, we just were not mentally prepared to play that game and tried to win it as individuals.
A little hubristic, eh? Anyway there is so much we did wrong here there's no real point rolling around in it or taking people to task. We need to lift ourselves as a team, improve ourselves with some infantry drills and start winning as soon as possible. The longer we wallow in our own self pity, the worse it will affect us.
Also, this is the last time we arse about face in the warm up session. We had Nutz and spare Baggers online ready to warm us up, but no. We only got onto the Grrr server at 7:30 and then wanted to log onto the SOD server and start knifing the ESWAT guys. I'm sorry, but I'm going to start becoming really pissy about practices, tardiness and focus. I really can't keep being the nice guy and going with the flow. It affects us too much.
