descentchampions.org

Always is and I just checked again to be sure -- usually the first option I look for when setting up a new install lol

Chilly,

I have always felt like I turn around much more slowly than just about anyone else. I understand that my ship doesn't actually turn more slowly than anyone else's but some people are definitely faster at getting turned around than I am. So much so that I developed my flying and game plan around minimizing that weakness.

I think a demo viewing night might not be a bad idea. Viewing from your perspective is vital to understanding where your strengths and opportunities currently are.

There are some specific maneuvers I would like to see if you can pull off with your current knowledge/setup limitations. For example: I need to know if you fly at the utmost optimum angle for speed when tri-chording both in forward and backward directions. This can be tested easily. Secondly: Can you do the vortex maneuver? More easily demonstrated than described but let's say you are on the floor of the level and your enemy is above you near the ceiling....can you turn and bank in such a way that you are keeping them in your reticle if they are strafing? I'll show you what I am talking about next time we get to play.

Don't forget, sometimes the best way to dodge incoming fire in a situation that has sprung up quickly is to not dodge. In other words staying put and against the wall is sometimes the less obvious choice to make in a hallway but can be the right choice. Your opponent will generally expect you to immediately fly to the side in order to escape so they begin shooting towards your escape route instead of AT you. It is a conscious decision that feels wrong in the moment which is why most pilots don't do it but all of your higher level players do.

The mind-game: The mind-game encompasses a lot of things but it generally speaks to playing smart and tricky. ie: Using false information to lure an opponent into an unsafe position. This is generally done with light and/or sound. Most opponents will feel compelled to investigate any sound or light they may see because it's generally coming from your pyro. So, launching a flare down the vamped and/or logic hallway creates light they can see and might misinform them as to your actual location giving you the opportunity to come around from the other side catching them off-guard. Same with noise. ie: opening a door from a distance using Vulcan or possibly a flare depending on where your opponent is currently located will typically make them investigate that door opening. When you have multiple doors available (ie: in Logic) you should almost always open more than one door....and if you can time it to where more than one door is opened at the exact same time then you are forcing them to make a guess as to which one you are going to possibly come in through. This doesn't guarantee that you will make the safe/right choice or that they will make the wrong one but you want to be as tricky as possible and use their senses against them when possible.

The double back: Again, you are using misinformation to create an advantage. There are certain times when you can tell your opponent has seen you but based on how incredibly brief it may have been or based on the angle at which you were flying they assume that you did not notice them seeing you and that opens up the opportunity (depending on your location) that you could likely take advantage of with a double back. More often than not when your opponent sees the direction you are going they will try to cut you off at the pass so to speak instead of expecting a double back since they believe you didn't notice that they saw you. You immediately double back after they have turned in the direction of heading you off for where they thought you were going and now you find yourself on their six! There are a few different ways this can be employed and again it is easier to show you than to tell you.

Hitting the Breaks: This is done most commonly when an unexpected encounter in close quarters has occurred but is also applicable in dog fights because it relates to your opponent wanting to lead their shots when using an energy weapon. Particularly if they are using lasers or fusion they will want to shoot in the direction you are flying and they want to make that lead shot as quickly as possible to ensure that you run into the fire. Knowing your opponent is more than likely going to lead the shot, instead of shooting it where you currently are, you simply STOP (hit the breaks and their shots will be out in front of you instead of hitting you.

This will sound kind of basic but it's important to understand: You want to KNOW where your opponent is at all times and you usually don't want him to know where YOU are. He who has the most information generally has the advantage. When you have two good opponents that are engaging in mind games and misdirects and misinformation then it is he who makes the most right choices/guesses/decisions the quickest that will likely win the encounter.

ADAPTED FROM A RECENT ONLINE DISCUSSION:

my goals vs. silver are to be happy with putting up double digits, gold is 5+. not meeting that makes me livid; I feel like they're easy enough targets with a couple of simple vulcan grabs and whacks with homing missiles. harder to be happy with that schedule -- so to speak -- vs silvers because I'm getting up closer and closer to forcing OT (and hopefully taking a game beyond that), so I'm expecting better and better scores than the goal.

sort of in that vein: two things I think are criminally underrepresented by experienced pilots towards a new one in an early DCL career are learning to lose and what the score really means. in this iteration of Trying To Learn Comp D1, I'm stepping into the former a little bit by setting realistic goals like 10 vs silver or 5 vs gold, but still getting plenty heated at shitty losses -- it's simply not a fun time to die on or close to spawn when you don't know enough movement, map, or strategy to get yourself out of a bad placement. I get it's not in the spirit of comp d1 or the dcl or whatever, but it'd be great to see any matches with a silver or below allowing spawn cameras. there's a lot of understated -- unmentioned -- bad spawning in this game that flatly gives points away against low-level pilots and especially on small maps like wrath and ascend; experienced pilots can punish those quickly, but new pilots may not be aware they can or that it's even fair game to do so to begin with.

(related to that, I struggle with the ruthlessness in comp d1; I feel bad when a kill isn't squeaky clean. taking advantage of bad spawn positions, homing missile hits a good minute after I'd launched them, smart floaters, etc,. I find tactical suiciding and shooting the enemy after death unsportsmanlike. I know they're part of the game and such, and don't expect quarter given on these fronts -- it is what it is. maybe this is due to the lack of relative anonymity? I grew up as the oldest of 4 kids -- gotta make sure everyone's having a fun time in whatever game we're playing)

in terms of score differences, 20-10 in a lot of other games is abysmal; in d1 it's actually not as huge a margin. that's tough to get one's head around. 20-16 is easier to stomach -- it's a few bad spawns and a couple of shitty trick losses off from a tie game. birds's comments are absolutely right -- I comparatively have zero cockpit time and therefore just a few pages of mind game compared to years and decades of experience and entire libraries of knowledge. in a lot of cases I have to rely on the few months or years of slightly faster reflexes I have left against some of the older pilots here, and the mindgames built into weapons themselves: damage of Q4s, demoralizing vulcan hits, spread's speed and area denial, plasma's bullet hell, fusion's timing and size, and the movement force of secondaries.

thinking on what I mean when I say I haven't learned anything of substance, I feel like I'm just getting better at what essentially jumped me into comp d1: a 200-7 2-match set on wrath vs. jedi. to me, every match is just a repetition of those first ones; dodge smarts and pray they don't hit, try to place them where it might kill me in the hostile pilot's position were I them, and eventually find a lead point with the vulcan that grinds their shields down over a couple of stocks. I'm getting better at the first, but everything else just feels lucky and I just can't leave those games in wrath, even if I know more and more with each match.

Lee, your post could get me stoked to run through a brick wall -- but wanting, needing a win so profoundly does nothing but get me tilted to the point of antipathy for the game and everyone here playing it. It's not a headspace I want to be in -- that is true tilt. I'll shake off the pouting in roncli's discord after a bit but I can't get that emotionally invested in winning.

idk -- it's tough. by and large comp d1 at the bottom level is not fun to play or learn, which is an ouroboros unto itself: there aren't any regular bronze pilots to practice and win against, which means they all leave except for an occasional sticky one that works their way up the ladder a ways, which means there aren't any regular bronze pilots to practice and win against, and etc etc etc. this may just be my perspective, but after tough losses all I can think is 'thanks, I hated it.' I personally disagree with the notion that you gain the most from dying to everyone constantly...but will agree that it's a matter of perspective on what a loss is (see above). Still, a loss is a loss, and losing constantly sucks, and after a time it serves only to invalidate the idea that a new pilot is learning at all.

anyway, novels aside, I can feel myself getting slightly better in some matches, but I'm still a bronze dumbass for a lot of the time; I can dogfight and find a lead point after taking a bruising in an engagement, but then I'm out a good chunk of shields most of the time. I routinely get destroyed in trap levels and aspect maps like ascend or flea or lurk or logic. I still have too much faith in homing missiles to work for anyone but the other pilot and smart blobs to actually move and fusion blasts to be small enough and where the spreadfire to hit something, and casually refuse to disengage from close-range dogfights. I consistently get annihilated in point-blank engagements where both pilots collide or one winds up on top of the other in a corner somewhere, and have no idea how to either avoid those situations or win out on them. most of my mindgame right now is to consider the enemy position, and react against the opposite of whatever I'd do in their shoes...when I can remember to think like that.

It's tough. It's frustrating. It's compelling.

Maybe learn to manage your expectations. Some people here have been playing for over twenty years. You cant waltz in here and expect to dominate as it just doesn't work like that. Set yourself reasonable targets given the skill disparity between you and your opponent then look to improve gradually in time. Don't worry so much about single games more so the trend of your scores in general. Games where you get smashed have infinitely more content to learn from than games you did well in you've just got to suck it up and figure out how you can avoid these deaths next time.

Nothing I hate more than losing. I can't stomach it. I turn into the Hulk most of the time when it happens. Descent is an incredibly tough game to become competitive in. You would think that there is very little reward for the effort considering there are so few pilots to test oneself against.....yet somehow it is satisfying. The process of improving is incredibly painful and yet incredibly rewarding.

Lee is right, keep it in perspective. When I first came back to this game in the modern era I struggled mightily. My brain knew what to do (at least I thought so) but my execution just fell short. I was 'pretty good' back in the day and so I had some high expectations of myself. The process of de-rusting and learning the new meta was a difficult and painful one. It took me a few months of daily devotion to see the improvement I wanted to see.

Some former badasses have made an attempt to come back only to discover that having your ass handed to you daily just isn't fun and they couldn't get past the initial pain of relearning. As they say, "No pain, no gain."

I guarantee that you are learning despite losing over and over. You are witnessing what can be done to you. You may not yet know how they are doing what they are doing....but exposure to what can be done is very important. Don't hinder your learning by handicapping anything. Don't turn on spawn previews. The fact that they are off and you have noticed what can happen to you because of them has already taught you something. It's hard to figure out how to do what others are doing to you but it's even harder to figure out how to counter what they are doing to you. The learning process is long and difficult but we have all gone through it. You have to face it over and over and you will improve much more quickly this way.

Now, it would also help tremendously to take one thing to focus on and ask someone to help you with it. You have to view a demo of a game with someone that just demolished you from both perspectives and ask for feedback.

The fact that you can't stand losing tells me that you have the will to win. You have to have that to succeed. If you hate losing....DO something about it! Fight! Learn! Don't worry about your DCL record....when the new season begins your record will be wiped clean and the wins and losses will look differently

People worth talking to about the process: Cyrus went from bronze to gold in a relatively short amount of time. Drakona went from being happy with getting 2 or 3 kills on me to ultimately getting legit wins against me. Code most recently went from bronze to gold as well. One thing they both have in common was seeking out matches vs the best players. Their early records look truly terrible. So what? They sacrificed their records in their first seasons and gained a crap ton of experience that has paid off in the long run!

if you feel slow, try adjusting your configuration. It may not be the best configuration for competitive play.


You cant have good execution if your controls suck.

Morfod's Hierarchy of H8:

Mechanics > Tactics > Strategy > Execution

Bronze > Silver > Gold > Platinum

A Bronze pilot perceives that a Silver pilot simply flies better, but the Silver pilot is using tactics relevant to the situation. The Bronze pilot isn't fully there yet.

The Silver pilot thinks that all that's separating them from Gold is a little bit of luck and a willingness to engage on favorable terms. The Gold pilot may have weaker mechanics and tactics, but is managing the Silver pilot to remove their strengths and even the odds.

The Gold pilot knows how the Platinum pilot held them to single digits: Not making a single, wretched mistake. Platinum is about knowing limits, mastering within those limits, and stretching to redefine their personal limits of: mechanics, tactics, and strategy to where the success rate is +90%.

ChillyBus, you have EVERYONE'S sympathy. You are entering a personal hell to keep playing here. It is far better to enjoy this game with a peer. We all agree. We wish we could give you that opponent. We WANT there to be that stone to sharpen your axe against.

But in terms of ladder play: we can't. We have no control over this. We must go all-out. We have no players in our back pocket.

If we can construct an exhibition match with agreed-to rules, I'm willing to play it to get you through teething.