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#1
07-09-2010, 04:03 PM
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How to have an enjoyable ladder experience
Alright, I'm writing this mini-guide because this seems to keep coming up. This is aimed at newer (and a few older) players who seem to need this. This was written for the common issues in TBD ladder, but most of it applies to ball as well. Before you even think about playing in the ladder, go to the New England or Ball Dojo servers. These will help you with the basics. Once you can win games like nobody's business, then you may glance at the ladder. There are a few things to remember when playing in ladder:
- You are playing for the team, not yourself; unlike in pubs. Nobody cares about your 4.0 ratio. (Zero, read this) - You are not gods gift to ladder. This is something a lot of newer (and older) players have problems grasping. When your whole team (Or even one vocal player) tells you you are doing something wrong, don't be adamant about it. It's okay to learn from mistakes and grow from them. It's not okay to completely ignore the usually accurate criticism. 9/10 times, they're right. - Keep your cool. The opposite also holds true; if you see someone doing something wrong, don't bust a blood vessel over it. Tell them calmly to stop. If they refuse to comply, have an admin kick/ban them after the game. - Mind your plane. I (nor anyone else in ladder) care how "pro" you are in pubs with rev loopy, dumb bombs, rev TA, whatever, we don't want to see it here. If you are asked to change your plane, it's usually good to do so. These planes are frowned apon for a reason. They're either horribly outclassed by something else, or just are generally useless. It's usually nothing against you personally, and if you change when asked there won't be any problems with the more "hateful" players. - Team plane comp. This comes up a lot. You can be paired with some of the best players in ladder and still get owned because your plane comp is bad. You generally want to stick to a 2-3 light, 2-3 heavy plane comp for TBD. Light planes are Mirandas, Loopies, and Biplanes while heavies are Explodets and Bombers. Lets say you have 3 loopies on your team. While this indeed follows the above model, it's bad because of the lack of diversity. So who has to switch? This is usually looked at by how good the individual loopies are. Lets say Captain Wolfe and [Insert good loopy here] are alongside you. They will likely be much more effective at looping then you will be. - I only play X plane and we have too many. You can usually safely switch into bomber and be beneficial on most TBD maps. I can't speak for ball, since I don't play it as much, but in TBD it's very hard to be a useless bomber (Dumb bombs not withstanding). While truely good bombers can make or break a team, you can at least do something helpful by aiming at a choke and holding F. It's far from effective compared to what other pro bombers are doing, but it's likely better compared to what you were doing. I speak from experience; I've been shoehorned into bomber every now and again. While I hate it, I grit my teeth and do my job, and the team usually comes out better for it. - Stick to the plan. Don't randomly change planes or grab the bomb because you want to. I don't care if you are losing, no "last ditch" effort is going to help. It only confuses your team and increases the likelyhood that you will lose. If the team is shifting plane comp, stay on the plane you are playing until told otherwise. Being new, I strongly doubt you know enough about gameflow and counters to understand when a plane change is needed. Someone will usually guide you. - Stay part of the game. You came to ladder, so focus on the ladder. Don't go watch TV in the middle of a game or leave. Repeatedly speccing or playing with an unstable connection is a surefire way to get banned. Playing when you know that you lag spike is also greatly frowned apon, but I personally have yet to see someone get banned for this. - "Whatever man, it's just a game". I see this a lot and am growing tired of it. The ladder was designed for serious competition. If you want to mess around, take to the pubs. Imagine someone showing up at a professional sporting event and then starts moving the ball the wrong way. That's probably a bit extreme of an example, but the point still stands. - **** happens. This is the big one. Everyone ****s up now and again. It's human error. It's life; call it what you like, it happens. It may have cost you a game that you should have won, or even larger stakes. Don't completely lose it in the lobby afterwards. While it's fine to be disappointed, angry with a certain player because of it, just don't let it consume you. If you stay angry, you probably aren't going to have fun. Community notes: (1) Please observe a few matches before you decide to join a ladder match. It will give you an idea for skill level, teamwork, and common comments ("Get rid of reverse" / "switch to whale" / etc.) before you jump in. (2) In BALL, do not grab a bomber if you're clueless or can't choose a plane based on your team's composition. Unskilled bombers tend to have a strange knack for grabbing the ball and throwing it towards their own goal. I don't know why, but it happens over and over. What to do? LOOPY. Go double-fire and emp/shoot everything in sight. More kills = happier team. ----------------------------------------- Quote:
Last edited by Evan20000; 07-09-2010 at 07:39 PM. 
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#4
07-09-2010, 05:56 PM
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Excellent write-up, Sin.
I'd just add two things: (1) Please observe a few matches before you decide to join a ladder match. It will give you an idea for skill level, teamwork, and common comments ("Get rid of reverse" / "switch to whale" / etc.) before you jump in. (2) In BALL, do not grab a bomber if you're clueless or can't choose a plane based on your team's composition. Unskilled bombers tend to have a strange knack for grabbing the ball and throwing it towards their own goal. I don't know why, but it happens over and over. What to do? LOOPY. Go double-fire and emp/shoot everything in sight. More kills = happier team. Can a link to this thread be added to the Rules section of altitudeladder.net?
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#5
07-09-2010, 06:01 PM
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#6
07-09-2010, 06:56 PM
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In my time spent smurfing over the last week, I've heard some "experienced" players give some plain ole terrible criticism. So the 9/10 statistic that YOU OBVIOUSLY JUST MADE UP ON THE SPOT should be taken with a grain of salt.
edit: wording Last edited by Smushface; 07-09-2010 at 06:58 PM.
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#7
07-09-2010, 07:01 PM
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In what could perhaps be called an addendum to Senior Smush's observation, don't be afraid to tell some loud mouth on your team to shut up and play once in a while. You should never catch anyone circling pointlessly over your bais more than twice, and twice is the MAXIMUM allowable limit. No matter how important your 5 page essay on the finer points of alti is to you, we don't need to hear it. We need you to man up and press f.
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#8
07-09-2010, 07:38 PM
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However, while I agree with what you're saying, new players will start telling older ones to shut up when they're giving decent advice. But it's true that some people really don't know what they're talking about. Last edited by Evan20000; 07-09-2010 at 07:40 PM.
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#9
07-09-2010, 07:48 PM
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This isn't a text-based game. Even someone giving good advice needs to keep their clam-hole shut long enough to actually play for their team. Advice needs to be given in a fashion that will allow players to keep focused on the game, not in a long, drawn-out rage session that draws everyone's attention away from the game. This kind of "advice" giving is just as bad as playing a "bad" set up, and is actually worse in most situations. It throws the whole team off balance and forces them to concentrate on something which is less important than winning the game. In ladder, your job is to press f, d, s, up, down, left, and right in a manner that will lead to your team's success. Use of other keys should be kept to an absolute minimum. Things like "need a whale" or "[insert player name here], run it" are much better than "goddammit you ****ing asshole, play something useful!"
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#10
07-09-2010, 07:51 PM
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So very true. I was refering to when an older player asks a newer one in a nice manner to do something else. ACE-style rage isn't beneficial to the game, on anyone's part.
A nice general rule of thumb is to type when you die or in the 2 seconds that you heal on the base with.
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#11
07-09-2010, 08:12 PM
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#12
07-09-2010, 08:32 PM
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the fact of the matter is, you have 3-8 seconds to say what you need to say between lives. i can't write a damn treatise explaining why you need to switch planes and how it will benefit us.
for example, when i play with MJ, i occasionally say something like "MJ go bomber" no explanation, nothing else. he just does it because he knows i know he's good at bomber, and he evidently trusts my judgment. he ignores me sometimes, but it normally works out because we both understand wtf we are doing. now when i say XXXXX player, go bomber plz, i normally get a "y" or "i only play loopy lololololol" in response. i don't have time to debate with them, they get one chance to do it. if they don't i'll probably start yelling at them and they will tell me i'm bad. the biggest problem with ladder are the jokers who only play 1-2 planes, and are mediocre with them. they reduce the flexibility of your team so much its absurd, because (in ball specifically) this normally means that the best loopys on the team (looking at you void) have to switch to explodet because nobody else can play it. whenever one team gets natural explos it gives them such a huge advantage its not even funny. new players, and even many "experienced" players don't understand how to counter certain planes setups. they also don't understand that if they are the only person in the server using repair reverse loopy, there is probably a reason nobody else is using it. the lovely responses of "but i'm good with it" or "but it's fun" just piss me off massively and i don't have the time to debate with them. i am not a committee. just do it.
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#13
07-09-2010, 08:32 PM
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#14
07-09-2010, 09:23 PM
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I did everything you said in this guide, and I still did not have an enjoyable ladder experience. I demand a refund.
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#15
07-09-2010, 09:25 PM
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#16
07-09-2010, 09:37 PM
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#18
07-10-2010, 02:15 AM
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#20
07-10-2010, 11:37 AM
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Not much good will come of this since most players don't read guides cause they're too pro. There are veteran players with noobie mistake (not human error, noobie mistakes at the basic level of understanding the game). I wish new players would read more, fact of the matter is they don't which is kinda sad. Nice guide though Sin even though I kinda loled at the whoring part (but you're improving
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#25
08-16-2010, 05:20 AM
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Okay, because this has been coming up a lot lately, feel free to link to this post as needed when people go "BUT RULE 12!".
YOUR PERSONAL FUN AND SATISFACTION DOES NOT OUTWEIGH THE FUN OF EVERYONE ELSE WHO WANTS A SERIOUS GAME. YOU ARE BY NO MEANS ENTITLED TO IT AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS. YOU ARE NOT MORE IMPORTANT THEN THE OTHER 9-11 PEOPLE IN THE GAME. RULE 12 IS A SAFEGUARD AGAINST PEOPLE WHO TRY TO EXPLOIT LOOPHOLES IN THE LADDER RULES, NOT YOUR PERSONAL SCAPEGOAT FOR VENDETTAS. SPEAKING OF VENDETTAS, NOBODY ON THE FORUMS REALLY CARES UNLESS THEY'VE OUTRIGHT VIOLATED THE LADDER TERMS OF USE. Okay, I got that out. I feel better now. Note that this is not directed at any single person, but the lot of you who keep coming back with the same old excuses/flawed arguments.
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