Whats a good way to improve your teamwork/ passing?

[Soul Evans]

Hello, I kind of mentioned this in my introduction but I want to improve my teamwork, and passing skills. I figure this is a better place to discuss that, rather than the offtopic forum. I know the theory of playing a Bomber in TBD or Ball, but I am only decent as a defensive player that tries to zone out, or otherwise shoot at important targets. Whenever I get the ball I either make a strategic mistake or mess up a pass. I main a Bomber but can't lob a ball correctly ^^

So is there something I can do in Pubs to improve my teamwork, or maybe practice my Ball aim offline (how do you get a game without bots anyways). I have been trying to play Miranda lately, but that only helps so much.

[Oyster]

Originally Posted by Soul Evans

Hello, I kind of mentioned this in my introduction but I want to improve my teamwork, and passing skills. I figure this is a better place to discuss that, rather than the offtopic forum. I know the theory of playing a Bomber in TBD or Ball, but I am only decent as a defensive player that tries to zone out, or otherwise shoot at important targets. Whenever I get the ball I either make a strategic mistake or mess up a pass. I main a Bomber but can't lob a ball correctly ^^

So is there something I can do in Pubs to improve my teamwork, or maybe practice my Ball aim offline (how do you get a game without bots anyways). I have been trying to play Miranda lately, but that only helps so much.

Just some general bomber tips for ball:

Bomber is a tricky plane to get used to in competitive games because most of the time you are supposed to be playing off the ball.

On offense, the idea is to predict where the ball is going to move and get to that area before everyone else does. This lets you get the jump on any defenders who might be trying to set up an opposition line and carve out some space for your ball movers to advance.

If you end up with the ball, fly directly towards the opponents goal until you start taking heat, then look for a lane to lob it past the defense or a close teammate to pass it off to. Realistically, you probably aren't going to reach the goal unless you are close to begin with, so pretty much always be look for the pass or lob.

On defense, just hang back between the ball and goal and spam the lanes with nades. You don't want to directly pressure the ball too much in case you get passed. Bomber isn't the fastest plane, so it's hard to catch back up. Most of the time on defense, I lob a few nades to the ball's general area, then turn around and just float in front of the opposition's push while spamming flak.

If you ever want to just practice on ball handling skills by yourself without bots, go to an empty AltitudeRank.com Ladder server. To change maps, type /votechangemap ball_[name]

[Slender]

For bomber, consider as well if you're going either Repair or Heavy Armor. Ideally, when using repair, you will mostly stay behind providing support with heavy spam whereas when going armor, it really doesn't matter if you're face to face with the enemy team, as you won't have a problem rubbing your ass all over them since it'll be easier to shoot enemies down on close combat because of your durability and you picking up health packs dropped by the planes you kill on the go.

[XX1]

Play planes that touch the ball. (miranda, loopy)

Learn from there and you can apply the passing / team work to your bomber. If your wondering how this would help bomber, here's how:

You see/play the game from another perspective. You will be around the ball more -> you will get the ball more -> you will pass the ball more etc.

here is a quote from Savior, a Brood War player taken from God of the Battlefield: Part 2 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/fina...lefield-part-2 (click on secrets of success):

"It seems that's because of my practice method. When I have a match against terran, I practice more with terran than with my main race zerg. Some people may call this arrogant, but it is the practice method that fits me the best. My analysis of zerg is complete, so I found this system is suitable to get to know terrran's characteristics and strategies. This way I am able to understand my opponent better, so I invest more time in it".

"Yes, that's the reason why I play with terran a lot, At first I did it for fun, but as I was getting better, my understanding of terran increased. Studying terran's building placement strategies and attack timing, it helped me to discover good attack timing, divisional movements and counter-strategies for zerg."

Learning other planes deepens your understanding of how the game is played and with that knowledge your play can improve. You will learn what your team mates want from you because you played in that aggressive on-the-ball role.

Map awareness, aiming a bit more ahead for laggy players, bounce pass/shots is stuff that just takes practice.
Keep practicing.

[Soul Evans]

Thank you XX1. I guess I need to change the way I see the game/ learn how my opponents are seeing the game. Its just I am really bad at Miranda.

@Oyster/ Slender: Thanks for the tips but I know the theory behind playing Bomber, and I have the experience to target well, I am just really bad practically when it comes to doing anything with the ball and being in position for sudden pushes. I always have at least a 1 to 1 KDA ratio (while playing the objective and not kill whoring) even against players that are better than me, so I know I am playing at least one part of my role correctly. Thanks for the tip for botless practice.

[Sanis]

I dislike bomber mains in ball with the exception of a few(or one active) and think you should try light planes to get more comfortable with your passing mechanics. It is very clear to anyone who ladders that I hate bombers. It is nothing against the player, it just has a confusing role to play.

With that being said, the main reason I don't like bombers is because they don't know what to do with the ball and the pressure of holding it. Yes, many people playing the game don't know what to do with the ball and will cave under pressure. The difference that makes the bomber worse is the fact they're a heavy plane and are very easy to disable when holding the ball. When an enemy randa sees you disabled and trying to make a desperate shot with your slow turn speed, he will not have a very hard time predicting where you will shoot. He will then counter push and have the upperhand with a missing bomber. But hey Sanis, I can just respawn and help stop the push after. That's the thing, bomber is a heavy plane that requires to be in position before hand just like a whale. A bomber rushing into position with the enemy pushing will be a very easy target to EMP/thermo/bipburst/whatever. Unlike the whale however, you cannot stop enemy movement and will just have to accept biplane and loopies flying around you as they please(which is why whales are 10x better at defense).

To stop this from snowballing out of control and handing over the enemy a significant advantage, pass the ball to the closest randa or light. If there is a push already going on, pass it towards your teammate/s while being alert of the enemy randa ready to snag. There are some instances where you will be the only one alive or there is nobody to pass to, and you will just have to find the best place to shoot to waste time which is clearing. But for the most part, there will be a randa waiting for you to hand him the ball since they're the best at creating pushes. I cannot stress this last sentence enough. Countless of times will I be waiting for a bomber to just hand me the ball, with the simplest of passes, with me standing right in front of him. They then think they should take the ball instead, because they think they can survive better than a time anchoring/trickstering randa, leading them back to my first point. On the occasion, they will survive and make a note worthy pass that deserves the legendary ´np´. But more often than not, they will die miserably and should have given it to the randa who has a significantly higher chance of making that pass or play.

Then what is my role if I'm not as good as a whale in the back line or as fast as a loopy in the front line oh mighty Sanis? Just kill in the best way only a bomber can and basically peel for your team. There's a good amount of posts telling you what you should do, and `ways of the bomber`. There just aren't as many posts emphasizing what happens when you do things you SHOULDN'T do. Let the randa have the ball and do what he does best, juking for days. While he lets you do what you do best, massacring the enemy trying to focus him and cover his flanks like the true hero your randa wants you to be, his knight in bomber armor. Become a pro passer with playing more games and tightening your mechanics. Become the best killer bomber that never misses a shot that counts. Show me how glorious bombers can be and stop making me hate my life of altitude when I see one. Goodluck

[REDDRAGON]

hello and welcome to the forums
i see that quite a few people have attempted to give you advice!
however! turns out only 1 of these are not trash (xx1)
please disregard trash player advice and good luck

[Sanis]

Oh where are my manners, welcome to the forums!
I see that quite a few people(1) have attempted to give a false welcome!
However! it turns out one of them is my personal hater and a troll (Redetc)
Please disregard salty trolls and false greetings!

This advice helps on the internet in general too, Goodluck!

[Oyster]

yo wutup and I don't really care about you
i observe that people are trying to help you with healthy discussion
however! i was bullied on as a kid and now im compensating on the internet
pay no attention to anyone and I hope you stop playing altitude soon

[Soul Evans]

@Sanis: Your advice is exactly what I need to improve on! My problem is that I miss easy passes way too often, and end up psyching myself out to wait for a decent time to pass. What should I do when there just isn't a good target to pass to, and I'm fairly certain that lobbing it towards the enemy side is a bad idea?

@Reddragon: I liked Oyster's advice, but I already knew the basic theory behind playing Bomber (I've played it for 3-4 years, I just haven't tried to work on my weaknesses until now), so I was just pointing out that I already knew what he was pointing out. I didn't mean to sound rude or anything!

[unsightly]

Originally Posted by Sanis

vomit

Every randa wants to be a quarterback, not all of them are as effective in the pocket as they like to think.

XX is right. Play other planes, gain some perspective, come back to bomber with newfound lust for life. As a bomber, you're much more effective at moving the ball with your team and watching for the open man near the goal/in the lane, unless you have a legit light on your team who can actually dodge. Work on your bounce passes.

Kill important targets, don't just sit and spam. Use your brain, etc.

[Slender]

You all seem so smart (___:

[Sanis]

Originally Posted by unsightly

Every randa wants to be a quarterback, not all of them are as effective in the pocket as they like to think.

XX is right. Play other planes, gain some perspective, come back to bomber with newfound lust for life. As a bomber, you're much more effective at moving the ball with your team and watching for the open man near the goal/in the lane, unless you have a legit light on your team who can actually dodge. Work on your bounce passes.

Kill important targets, don't just sit and spam. Use your brain, etc.

You call mine vomit, then throw generic nonsense at him? That is irony if i've ever seen it. This one further proves my point of salty trolls wanting attention but ill feed em.
Any team with a brain knows that randa is the most effective at getting it to the other side. Every team runs a randa. Randa. As much as you hate or are jealous of good randas, it is a necessity. Aside from that, my post wasn't about randas, it was about bomber not being as good at running the ball as lights or randas.

@Sanis: Your advice is exactly what I need to improve on! My problem is that I miss easy passes way too often, and end up psyching myself out to wait for a decent time to pass. What should I do when there just isn't a good target to pass to, and I'm fairly certain that lobbing it towards the enemy side is a bad idea?

I have plenty of ball experience, just have to play correctly as I said. To get better at shooting the ball to teammates/goal and shooting enemies you just need to play more. There's really no secret or better way, play more and if you miss ask yourself how you missed and don't do that again. Shot too behind? Let's shoot more ahead until you get it right. At the highest level, it comes down to mind games and only the people with experience and doing stuff naturally can play in those mindgames.

[unsightly]

I don't hate good randas, I hate the ones that sit in the pocket for a good minute waiting for the perfect storm of respawns to allow them free lane movement. No need to be so sensitive chica, especially when your post's tl;dr = ****ting on bombers as a whole, telling him to know his role, etc.

Of course randas are essential to a team, it's just that maybe a quarter of the people who main it are actually good at what they do. Telling him to defer to lights in all things ball related is just wrong, lol.

cue buhu

[Sanis]

Originally Posted by unsightly

I don't hate good randas, I hate the ones that sit in the pocket for a good minute waiting for the perfect storm of respawns to allow them free lane movement. No need to be so sensitive chica, especially when your post's tl;dr = ****ting on bombers as a whole, telling him to know his role, etc.

Of course randas are essential to a team, it's just that maybe a quarter of the people who main it are actually good at what they do. Telling him to defer to lights in all things ball related is just wrong, lol.

cue buhu

You are the one being sensitive, throwing out everything I said and getting angry at randas for whatever reason.

Of course there are bad randas, just like there are bad bombers and bad anything. Your aggressiveness sounds really salty about something that doesn't pertain to me, so do not reflect it at me or it's obviously going to sound troll.

Yes, once you get better you can run the ball on bomber because you won't allow yourself to be caught out. That's why I said I liked one bomber because he can actually control his position for optimal killing/survival while looking for a pass. But even then, the better randas can also run the ball even better so he hands the ball to me whenever in sight.

OP can do whatever he wants with the advice. I'm just sure he'd rather have a good discussion with constructive resources from his peers. This calling my post vomit and stepping down to dyke's level 1 trolling is pretty immature. But trolls will do what trolls want because they're anonymous and want to start drama because their lives are very boring as it is.

[unsightly]

my goodness

[GGQ]

*Awakens from eons of modsleep*

Settle down, folks, settle down! Treat each other with respect, or at least civility while you're on the public forums. Thank you!

[Woofy]

Despite inevitable decay, this conversation was actually very helpful. Since I am not nearly as experienced or skilled as the players that have helped you so far, I want to talk more about the actual act of learning in Altitude.

If you look around the Altitude community, you'll find that lots of us have put a lot of time into the game. Many people have played thousands of hours. But there is a huge range of talent in our community, even within these players that have a lot of experience. This comes about because while the majority of the players are just playing the game and going through the motions, or "autopiloting", some players are consciously trying to improve their play and analyzing what works and what doesn't. And while autopiloting might help you to learn the basic mechanics of the game, you're learning suboptimal habits.

Now, the first step is to identify your mistakes and find the best solution to the common situations where you are making mistakes. Some of the best have already helped you out. Refer back to their posts every time before you play. Print them out and put them on your mirror. Also, the community can many times help with this; I have helped players out in-game more than a handful of times, and I learned from some of the guys that already posted (although it might be hard to get them now). The key is that you recognize situations where you are making bad decisions and acknowledge them. You can do this on your own to; try to take note of the specific move that spelled your demise. Keep working to improve.

The next step is practice. I don't mean just playing the game for fun and seeing if you win or whatever. Forget fun. Break down everything you're doing and use your knowledge to change your habits.

It all comes down to one simple idea that I'm sure you know already. You get good at what you practice. If you practice autopiloting and not really getting better, then you're going to be really good at being mediocre. If you practice being disciplined when you play, you'll be better than I am in half the time it took me to get here.

Think of the learning curve. You're rising, and it gets harder and harder to get better the better you get. At any point you can allow yourself to say "that's good enough", and you'll plateau. The longer you plateau, the harder it is to start rising again. People like XX2, Sanis, and Dyke (RD) became nearly perfect at the game. Most of us are somewhere in between sucking and them. It's honestly your choice where you end up.

[Mango777]

What...

If you want to practice passing, find some people and join a empty ball server. That way you have enough people to practice passing and teamwork.

[Soul Evans]

Originally Posted by Mango777

What...

If you want to practice passing, find some people and join a empty ball server. That way you have enough people to practice passing and teamwork.

This is strange, I always assumed that you could set up an offline game without bots, and I always failed. I guess nowadays you need to go online for some private practice.

Thank you @Woofy. Identifying my mistakes and saying that I'll try to practice more is the easy part. Do you have any advice on practice methods? Is just theory crafting ideas, and switching my entire playstyle in pubs enough? I imagine it isn't.

@ Anyone else reading this, are there any practice groups that would let me practice with them? I don't necessarily want to join a clan at this time, or use a mic howeve, I'm fine with having teamspeak in my ears.

Thanks again to everyone that has given me advice!

[Mango777]

You can also play offline in skirmish, but servers have people.
(you pass to the people )

[abski170]

Hi Soul Evans,

You can practice passing with my ball team Volare if you're around when we're around. I hope this helps you.

[Soul Evans]

Originally Posted by abski170

Hi Soul Evans,

You can practice passing with my ball team Volare if you're around when we're around. I hope this helps you.

That would be awesome! I'll be sure to check it out. Although depending on your server location, practice might be impractical due to ping. According to this you guys practice on Fridays and Saturdays at 12pm, but I don't see any server names listed anywhere.