Utilizing the information given to you.

Eugene

I recently read a quote from Sherlock Holmes about seeing and observing, which got me thinking about things I observer in everyday life and in reality how blind I really am; then I took the thought to TF2 and began to think about what our observations can tell us.

Scenario: You are a degreaser pyro, you come out of O-spawn on Egypt 1 to see a sapped teleport. Now, you know there is a spy there so you may begin to run around to try and find him. Possibly even wasting some ammo in the process, or you could observer. You see the sapped teleport, no engie nearby so the engie is either near the frontlines or dead. Your first thought should be to check the score screen, if your engie is dead then the spy is not far away. I arrived at this conclusion under this train of thought:

Sapped tele->no engie->dead engie->4 sec respawn means Spy is close, within 1-3 seconds walking distance from the tele.

Now, lets look at what could happen if the engie is alive, now it is possible that the engie just respawned, in which case unless you are using a homewrecker you can do nothing. Chances are, the engie can easily run back and put another tele down, bait the spy and kill them. It would be a waste of time and ammo running after the theoretical spy.

By observing your surrounding and the information given to you, it allows for one to make smarter plays, gain miniscule advantages that can add up and put you in the lead. Another example of this is on egypt 2:

Theoretically you pushed D back to Point 2 and they use the exploit sentry spot. Most commonly it is placed aiming at the left doorway which covers the door and cuts O from the side door. Yes, you could theoretically keep trying to destroy it with uber pushes, however it would be smarter to attack from the right doorway.
1. Assuming it is 1 sentry it will take a second to shift its aim to the doorway which buys you time to pull off the uber AND you won't get backed up by the rockets immediately.

Now of course this isn't a common scenario as usually there are about 9001 turrets set up, however the idea remains the same: next time you play, instead of simply seeing observe the battlefield and use their weaknesses to your advantage.

atatme · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 5:30 pm Post subject:

I concur. Will make you better at the game, even if your doing it on accident. Crazy how often thinking is the answer

anonymousity · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 5:31 pm Post subject:

Quote:

I recently read a quote from Sherlock Holmes about seeing and observing, which got me thinking about things I observer in everyday life and in reality how blind I really am; then I took the thought to TF2 and began to think about what our observations can tell us.

Scenario: You are a degreaser pyro, you come out of O-spawn on Egypt 1 to see a sapped teleport. Now, you know there is a spy there so you may begin to run around to try and find him. Possibly even wasting some ammo in the process, or you could observer. You see the sapped teleport, no engie nearby so the engie is either near the frontlines or dead. Your first thought should be to check the score screen, if your engie is dead then the spy is not far away. I arrived at this conclusion under this train of thought:

Sapped tele->no engie->dead engie->4 sec respawn means Spy is close, within 1-3 seconds walking distance from the tele.

What if the spy is sapping the exit, not the entrance?

Also if people are ever doing the sentry exploit thingy, consider if free points if you can use the loch-n-load or even regular nade launcher and just sidestep out there, lob nade, sidestep out of fire, repeat. Honestly that setup doesn't scare me at all anymore; just have someone cover your ass at an angle so nobody can simply shoot you while you're doing this, and you'll outrace the sentry no problem. Works every time.

I agree though; a little observation and critical thinking goes a long way on the battlefield Very Happy

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♥♪!?

Eugene · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 9:32 pm Post subject:

No, you are absolutely right Nony. It just amazes me that so many players make these mistakes when simply observing instead of seeing could have saved their life.

Vlad Piranha · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 9:46 pm Post subject:

Believe it or not, this style of thought is absolutely key to how I play games, especially Day of Defeat: Source. If you strategize and calculate based on decal life times for blood or explosves decals, how long dead bodies or weapons stay before they disappear and the odds at any given time that someone will be taking the given path based on the objectives necessary to win the battle, you can get a good estimate for the amount of danger you're in at any given moment. The hardest part is executing a psych out based purely on mathematical likelihoods. Once in a while, the universe will come into harmony and you'll bushwhack an entire squad from behind because you zigged when they thought you were going to zag.

There's a scary rifleman (The Chosen Juan) on the DoD:S server I go to who I concede is a much better shot than I am, but I find myself killing him regardless because he can be manipulated or outsmarted the same as anyone. It's even worse for him since he never uses his microphone or chats with his teammates. Being the best isn't always the key to winning a game, it's about being the most cunning, ruthless and unpredictable. Upon examination of what we employ as our strategies in the average TF2 match, I'd say that's probably what makes us the clan we are.

massive · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 11:12 pm Post subject:

I've never really taken TF2 seriously, it's so funny when you pay attention to things that the Heavy says, and see your Pancreas from time to time, etc...I just mainly push the Pyro out and try to get at least 1:2 KDR. (yes, 50%)

But put me in BFBC2 or Desert Combat and my tactics are focused, esp utilizing armor and anti armor activities. Strategy really depends on your team and if you know enough of them well enough, without communication I just zone in on my small part of the BF and hope my gunner is worth a shit.
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Vlad Piranha wrote:

I'm offended that a zombie holocaust isn't on the list. It would be terrifying, sure, but it would be pretty sweet if you think about it.

2shoes · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 11:13 pm Post subject:

why have i not got to shoot you up in BFBC2 massive
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Sparrow wrote:

...if pirates stays on bf1942 i'd hate to see the community grow even smaller, but i know i'll always be around and i hope the rest of you will too!

Special Jimmy wrote:

This mod is rightfully ours, and fuck everyone that stands in our way.

fair winds and following seas, lil shoes 8/3/94-6/23/09

Eugene · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 11:23 pm Post subject:

I want to make an important distinction:

Knowing that an uber last 8 seconds is an act of memorization not observation.

Knowing how much time is left in an uber and estimating how much damage can be caused is an act of observation and critical thinking.

Vlad also brings up a really good point in that someone has to be cunning, ruthless, and unpredictable. In any competitive game I have found that the best players aren't the ones with the best mechanics, or faster hands. They are the ones who can force an opponent to play their game. SavioR one of the greatest Starcraft Brood War players ever played Zerg in an era where Terran stomped Zerg worse then Atatme stomped free-fags during the first F2P week. Anyway I digress, SavioR a;sp had the handicap of being 200 APM under everyone else. However he was clever, he prevented an army twice the size of all his units combined from crossing a path that should take 37 seconds for 3 minutes! More importantly he never used the same build twice, and he never hesitated. The man had entire teams devoted to looking at his replays and trying to destroy his builds, only for him to come out with a new build every game in Best of 5s and thrash his opponents.

TL;DR: Vlad is right and I just felt like sharing a story.

Stealth · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 11:48 pm Post subject:

This makes me want to share my train of thought with you because I had a recent discussion about this.

I am extremely interspective, which is to observe one's own thoughts. Most people do this commonly, but I do it on such a massive scale and in under a minute for a full flushed out, highly complex thought.

I think of it like a loop. You form a thought, any thought. Then I think of why I made that thought. That's usually where people end it and the rest may just be confusing. To aid, I've made a diagram.

This is an extremely simplistic scenario broken down as much as I could. This is often how I explain it to people.

Quote:

Thought: Bunnies are cute.

Why: They are fluffy.

Why do I like fluffy?

Fluffy has a soft texture.

What is it about the texture that is appealing and not just because it's soft

The touch of the texture intrigues the senses, giving way to a curiosity towards the sensation.

This continues for several hundred times sometimes. And although this example focuses mainly on the sense of touch, the majority of the time my loops are used to solve problems and are not linear. It's often I have multiple loops occurring at once.

As a result, when I sit down and take a deep breath and just think (Takes an average of 10 seconds for most problems), I basically do this above and appear to instantly have 20 solutions. However, during the loop I eliminate all possible results of the solutions and end up with 3-5 working plausible ones.

And there you have it. My thought process in a nutshell. However, 10 seconds is a lifetime in a game and only a fraction is used.
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Motherfucking Triangles! Being all three sided n' shit, who do they think they are?!

Erwin Rommel · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:11 am Post subject:

Surely there are other reasons bunnies are cute. Thus, your thought process should really look more like a branching tree. Or, if it does loop back, then a graph with cycles.

^My first though at seeing your thoughts^
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-=|CT|=-Descartes

massive · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:19 am Post subject:

Bunnies are cute cuz they are a great substitute for toilet paper, just ask a bear
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Vlad Piranha wrote:

I'm offended that a zombie holocaust isn't on the list. It would be terrifying, sure, but it would be pretty sweet if you think about it.

Stealth · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 2:25 am Post subject:

While although a branching tree does seem to describe it, Typically that would involve more of a hierarchy. But a good portion of the time I have other thoughts branching off of one of the loops only to come back within itself. Some of these ideals even branch back to the same starting point which helps confirms the previous thought process.

Kind of like saying: Cows eat grass, I eat cows, therefore I eat grass. Terrible example, but it refers back to the first point.

Or

A Cow eats grass, I drink milk, I eat the cow, I can only either eat the cow or drink the milk. Or I can save the milk, eat the cow. Or I can eat the cow, not drink the milk. Again, terrible example but all of this intersects one another.

So I can see it being more like intersecting loops, some lead to no where, some lead back to itself and some form a full fledged solution, which would be an end.

Loops don't end, but we can recognize when the end and beginning meets and therefore can end the loop.

This is the shit I think about when I'm not doing something productive <.<
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Motherfucking Triangles! Being all three sided n' shit, who do they think they are?!

G_Gunner · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 2:53 am Post subject:

Interesting. My thoughts are more like a random thought generator, then possibly a comparison of the thoughts and how they relate, or more random thoughts. lol

massive · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:06 am Post subject:

Stealth, you are the fucking king at thread hi-jacking. Whoever holds that title belt better hand it over to you now.
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Vlad Piranha wrote:

I'm offended that a zombie holocaust isn't on the list. It would be terrifying, sure, but it would be pretty sweet if you think about it.

2shoes · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:10 pm Post subject:

Quote:

_________________

Sparrow wrote:

...if pirates stays on bf1942 i'd hate to see the community grow even smaller, but i know i'll always be around and i hope the rest of you will too!

Special Jimmy wrote:

This mod is rightfully ours, and fuck everyone that stands in our way.

fair winds and following seas, lil shoes 8/3/94-6/23/09