Bf2 @ Lan, M8

[--Mogwai--]

This thread is for all discussion related to exactly what the title says - "Improving BF2 at our LAN". Please keep your discussion on-topic and hopefully at the end we can produce a report on what we decide is best.

Note: For discussion of specific BF2 tactics, please see this thread (http://www.pausegaming.com/forum/showthread.php?t=279)

Cheers,
Sid

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ok first off, sorry if this comes across as hostile or condescending, as i spent a half hour writng out a reasonable thought-out original version only for a login problem to delete it all.

I found that BF2 was getting really stale and repetitive towards the end of the LAN.

"Oh, look, small map with an attack chopper, I'll spawn over here..." *click* "Oh, shit, I'm dead already because of that attack chopper, hmm, and I've still only got one place to spawn." *click* "Oh, shit, I'm dead again because of that attack chopper...I guess I'll spawn aga...nevermind, we just lost our last point."

This might have been because I was feeling absolutely exhausted all weekend, it also might have been because I really don't enjoy 16 person maps in BF2, they're too small and it's all over ridiculously fast.

If we were playing BF2 and mainly doing 32 person maps with each side having an uncap (for preference) and we threw in a "Please don't slaughter the entire enemy team at their uncap with your invinci-chopper you crazy high-skill bastards. =(" rule we could get some proper pitched battles.

A bit of attacking on the uncap is fine, but when it's to the point where spawning and surviving for 30 seconds is a CHALLENGE it's a bit ridiculous and just makes the game less fun.



seeing as BF2 is by far our most-played game at the LAN, ive heard a fair bit of feedback on how it went for some people and decided to start this thread to hopefully collect everyones opinions in one place, have people suggest improvements, and greatly improve the experience next time round for everyone.

i'm quoting Fyndir here as his is the most complete post with regards to the BF2 games, but from what i gather a fair few people have similar opinions. (so dont take it personally fyndir) ill respond to what seem to be the main points so far and hopefully others will chime in to agree or disagree with my suggestions and add other points to be discuessed. by the time next month rolls round it'll be bf2 heaven.

map size: as much as some people want jets or helis or none at all, the map sizes for for the game are quite specific on the number of players that theyre suitable for. a 16 player map is exactly that - dont play it with more than 16, and dont play anything else with less than 16. the game greatly suffers when you do. as it degenerates into long rage vehicle wars with no encountering enemy infantry (the most fun part of the game in my opinion). my suggestion is to stick to the map sizes strictly and wherever posssible.

uncapturable flags ('uncaps') : on maps that involve them, there should definitely be a SPEC OPS ONLY policy about being in the enemies uncap. and no attacking it wahtsoever with anything else. karkand, sharqi are most common maps with itand we play those a lot. however, maps shouldnt be picked specifically BECAUSE they have an uncappable. uncap bases come in two varieties : the home base for the attacking team in a conquest-assault game, and as home base for BOTH teams in a conquest-head on game. obviously the assualt games need them, but only shite head-on maps use them (no 16 player maps have double uncap, and only pish like 32 fushe and 32 shonghua and 32 oman do use them) and if youve lost everything but your uncap then its game-over anyway, so why prolong the inevitable loss?? your team should be rethinking and planning for the next time ASAP instead of getting pumped in a game they cant win.
my suggestion is dont play double uncap maps as they're baws. instead DEFEND YOUR FLAGS. form or join squads, talk over tactics in ventrilo, whatever. make sure theres a commander on each team who appreciates thats defending flags is an important route to victory.

vehicles: the main complaint here is about the attack helicopter. helis only are good A) with a nuts pilot/gunner combo and B) when the other team doesnt try to shoot it down. not to mention they cant take flags from you and only play a supportig role to a grond force. any map with a heli will have an anti-air stinger/IGLA site at EVERY FLAG. sometimes more. and an AA vehicle - AT LEAST ONE PER HELI. sometimes more. learn where they are and how to use them and soon enough the attack heli is neutralised to the point of being cannon fodder. people use the AWP in CSS... same difference. why are there no complaintd about tanks, which are far more powerful than the helis??
a good driver (engineer) plus a supporting commander is nearly invincible. there are no complaints because noone goes engineer when driving a tank, and commanders dont support them when they do. learn how best ot use tanks and the helis / anything else will start seeming a bit irrelevant compared to the massively armoured uncounterable anti-everything beast thats raping your whole team.
so my suggestion - make sure your team uses tanks to their fullest, learn where the AA sites/vehicles are, play as AT when required to defend your flags.

i think the biggest improvement would be made if everyone on the team was in the same ventrilo channel, or at least made aware of the in-game VOIP. its a hugely strategic game, and anytime its been unbalanced or over quickly is purely down to a lack of strategy on the part of the losing team. all the organised games were tense and close, won on the merits of the various teams tactics. every game could be like that if people put the little effort required in.

if you like bf2 and want it to be better, post here with your views.

[Fyndir]

the main complaint here is about the attack helicopter.


I probably should have been more specific. =P

It's when there's combos like you + Sideshow that it becomes a major problem because you're too damn good with it, I found this ESPECIALLY noticeable on Dalian Plant (I think it was Dalian anyway) where all the AA points seem to be on top of buildings, so while I'm climbing frantically to try to get to them I get gunned down either by the Heli or just in general because you're quite vulnerable if someone notices you while you're climbing.

This complaint might be able to be broken down to team balance, with some of the groupings of good players on the same teams it really was just irritating how badly raped the other team were getting, so we probably need to think about that a bit (especially if we plan more picked team games).

[Uuurrahh]

I think it is helicopters + pwnage helicopter pilots. On the organised game, I think it may have been Dalian also but I'm bad at mapnames, whenever our little convoy [Strings' Squad] encountered the helicopter, we got massacred.

But despite that it was a fairly balanced game, so I think it's just a matter of dividing the 1337 players equally between the teams. But as Mogwai said, each thing has its counter.

[--Mogwai--]

ok, so far a definite improvement would be :

not playing maps with only one heli divided between both teams (dalian 16, zatar wetlands, for example), and spilitting up the good pilots and gunners so both teams have a force to be reckoned with on maps where each team has a heli to begin with.
or even go so far as to only play maps with no air presence besides transport helis, which is what most of the maps we play are anyways. (karkand,jalalabad,mashtuur,sharqi16)

there are only a few as far as i can tell with a lot of practice when it comes to flying, altough there are a lot of players good enough with the helis. just make sure theyre well spread out over the teams. likewise with the gunners.

this comes down to organising teams before the game, maybe just an assigned team for everyone for the duration of the weekend would work?? (with tweaks if it turns out to be too unfair when people have to leave etc) so you always know who you'll be playing with/against, and can plan accordingly when it comes to assigning commanders/pilots/drivers/squad leaders/etc.

[Sideshow]

I have a suggestion which may be controversial: Divide he society up into two teams (or 'houses', if you want to think of it like school). Whenever we play any team games, we always use the same split. I think this would promote the team-spirit nature of team games, and it would allow us to get good balanced games more often. Also, people like to play *with* their friends, or at least I find that a lot more fun.
To work out the teams I'd do it like this: everyone get into small groups (squads) with their friends, 3-5 people per squad. Once we get all the squads, we can work out their relative skills, and then divy them up between the teams. It's generalising a bit, but I think most players convey about the same amount of skill across most games (especially because the main games we're talking about are all FPS).
New sign-ups can be assigned a team alternating between the two to keep numbers even (unless they're friends of members, in which case we can try and get them in the same team)
Apart from a stronger sense of camraderie, ths would allow the teams to talk strategy before the lan, thus eliminating the use of time better spent playing. We could get another couple of forums up (a Red and a Blue), and do likewise with vent channels. If we wanted to go the whole hog we could, instead of prizes (I'm with Yega on those) get some kind of trophy or plaque (I believe we have a quad-soldier CD trophy? :D ), and record which *team* wins at each lan. Maybe that's a little too highschool.
Anyway, I just realised that while I started vaguely on topic I've rambled vastly OT. Sorry Larry.

[Fyndir]

Anyway, I just realised that while I started vaguely on topic I've rambled vastly OT. Sorry Larry.

I actually kind of like your idea for bigger games like CSS, BF2, Sourceforts and the like, each larger Team could split up into smaller teams for things like DoW, maybe?

[--Mogwai--]

yeah, i was saying the same thing to sid on msn earlier actually... a big split down the middle, with each 'house' as you put it containing obviously a whole team for games like bf2 / css, and several samller teams for things like CSS tourneys and DoW Tourneys or the like. get a transfer policy going to keep things balanced and everyone happy as possible. makes the competitions a lot more fun, keeps the tactics organised for each game etc. and obviously for 'fun' games, the system can be dissolved and everyone goes a random team. but i guess its something for the committee to think on, or maybe even start a new thread about. but BF2 at least would certainly benefit from the system, knowing who your squad were everytime would be kinda fun i think, getting the commander/tactics banter all the time with the same people. yah a little off-topic, but definitely something i would be all for.

[YegaDoyai]

the only problem that I see is that air superiority generaly means your team wins. Larry+sideshow/pickles/me/niall will pretty much own any other match up. Therefore, unless larrys side is hideously nerfed in terms of other players then I don't see the deficet being made up. Strings and his goon squad did exceptionally well in the big team game but per player damage was such that for every larry death we lost 5-6 which means we HAVE to have map superiority which would be easy if larry could fly but not much else but truth be told he is not a muppet. Regardless of the teams I will always be happy to be on the side opposing larry as it presents an interesting challenge and is very rewarding, but as he hates the maps I love and the focus for my game becomes "stop larry killing my team" is stops being much fun. Especially when even with stringss best efforts to capture flags and my best efforts to kill larry they still win (and sometimes by quite a margin). I don't know what to do to balance the play other than to play the maps larry doesn't like. I don't really know why he doesn't like fushe and dragon valley 32, I suspect it's because he finds it harder to own on those maps. Oman 32 is a joke for flying as it's open and you are exposed virtually whereever you go so, again, I'd be up for playing it more. I don't think we have anyone that can fly planes so unless someone learns then we will probably avoid the utter bomb whoreing that everyone hates.

More later

[--Mogwai--]

Fushe Pass 32 was the best game of the weekend. i was suprised, but there you go it happens sometimes. it was one of the more organised games, and was very close, even with me+iain both scoring well over 100pts each in the heli. if every game of fushe was that well organised id have no problems with it.
same applies to dragon valley and oman and the likes. obviously i like some maps more than others, but end of the day its BF2 and ill play any map. it seems like im always the one asked for the maplist, so i just choose what i know are the most popular maps online. if other people want to chime in, go for it!!! my main objective here is getting as many poeple enjoying bf2 as possible. perhaps a poll of all players to find what the LAN society feels the best maps are is a good idea??

the maps i DON'T like are generally massive ones with huge drives between flags... the maps i DO like are ones that a guy on foot can get from flag to flag no problem. the majority of bf2 players share the opinion. running around a forest or mountain only for the flag youre headed to to be captured already or for a tank to spot you and kill you is no fun at all. its not like i choose the maps im best at... i just happen to be better at the more popular maps, as thats what gets played most... 24/7 city map servers are all i play.

as for being unbalanced... its the same in any game... muppet/gor @ CSS, bluepixie/yegadoyai @ LFS, sideshow/ru @ DoW. cant be helped. i played super noob sniper class for a laugh/to even it out on mashtuur and it didnt make any difference.

[gor]

I felt Saturday bf2 was a real success, with decent numbers, and healthy competition. The Sunday bf2 was rather horrid though - perhaps overkill for some?

It seems to me the real problem is Larry... kick/ ban? :)

I would like to see us enter bf2 clanbase leagues with 10+ respectable bf2 players from pausegaming - perhaps we can persuade Jan to host a server from whatever source he has access - and then, come LAN time, we should have a competitive 5on5 scenario, with the newer players separated equally between experienced squads.

feedback?

[goose]

Me and Dave (Mitchell (GingerPrinz)) just had a relatively lenghty, almost productive chat after reading everyones posts. I reckon everything important has been said already (almost). Clealry BF2 is an important game to "get right", because it's really popular and its really great.

I started playing BF2 less than 8 months ago and four of us (myself, gingerprinz and mogwai and some italian n00b) would all go round to prinz's flat and hook up, and all go on the same server. We were all playing around the same table so it was really easy to communicate with each other - and very helpfull in that larry was right there to give us all a good dose of advice (or lambasting). I think communication in BF2 is paramount. My problem is that im a total spaz when it comes to computers, so things like ventrillo seem incredibly complicated. But you need to be able to talk to your team mates. Lack of communication coupled with a good ammount of skill at the game lead me to basically loan wolfe it alot. For example Strings and I were in the same squad alot on sunday and I would literally just use that for good respawn spots. You NEED to be able to speak to your team mates. It makes the game so much more fun, and also means that even crap players can be effective. It doest matter if you cant play - an organised squad will descimate a loan wolfe everytime.

On the whole maps issue all I would say in response to Larrys comments about us all learning how to use AA vehicles is that its very difficult to actually do whilst getting shafted by said helicopter. Realistically (if we use Larry as an example) whilst its a massive boon to any team having a top quality player in your team, that player is more devastating in something like a helicopter than if he is an infantry unit. I also think that most people would agree that its alot easier to kill a tank that it is to kill a helicopter. Im not saying people shouldn't be allowed to go in heliicopters... im not even sure there is a *fair* way to resolve those kind of issue, but if you consider the dawn of war analogy it becomes alot clearer why less expirienced players have complaints about BF2. I've spoken to Larry about Dawn of War and told him that I find it an almost impossible game to play considering the gulf in skill between a beginning player and someone of Sideshows callibre. Equally, there is a huge gulf between Larry in a helicopter and most other players. That said I still cant think of a good resolution.

Good skills. Splitting the people into predetermined teams feels like a good call, but I still think that there will be alot of continuous swapping throughout the day, and every other day, because people always seem to spot imbalances or players who were considered the better players of their team were either having good days when that impression was formed or are having off days. I think playing Maps that are mostly infantry based (City Maps) Is a pretty good call because I genuinely think that these sort of imbalances are reduced. Karkand, Sharqi, Mashtuur, Jalalabad - Its not like these are bad maps, but there isnt too much room for the better players maximising their advantages in air vehilcles.

With all that said (sorry if it was a little off topic) I still had a good laugh at the LAN, especially the one round of karkand (one round...ffs!) and I see what all the fuss is about.

He's not even that good anyways.

[GingerPrinz]

I concur.

Additionally, I would like to say that BF2 is a game that only gets better with practise. Starting off was a horrible experience for me, the maps are so huge and everything is very deadly. Now I'm a death dealing war machine who can easily cope with a pithy little helicopter driven by a transatlantic loveboat. If you're going to structure teams or squads then you still need to explain the basic strategy of squad makeup and squad play to people. I think a separate thread for BF2 strategy (or even a separate forum category?) is a great idea. I know I got a lot better at the game once I read some strategy stuff, as well as discovering my unnaturally l33t reflexes, pinpoint accuracy and superhuman supporting ability.

Larry is growing stronger by the minute, if you are to have any hope of beating him you must train like Balboa hammering the meat; stand up to adversity like Iain King did when he led the gladiators to freedom and rejoined his wife and child in the Elysian Fields; when GingerPrinz will stand in front of -x-M0gw4i-x- and demand "Let my people go".

[YegaDoyai]

How the hell did iain merit a gladiator reference?

EDIT:-
Yah I meant to say that goose and gingerprinz should post more, it's nice to see well written posts.

[Ru]

dont care, daves & healey's posts are class!

i agree with pretty much everything larry has said. the helicopter rapeage gets an end put to it pretty brusqeuly when someone jumps in the AA vehicle

[Sideshow]

Are you not entertained?

Also: what Ru said.

[--Mogwai--]

good banter, definitely. the forum legend that is gingerprinz finally strikes!

everything seems to be focussing on the heli... if that is such a problem, then just dont play heli maps. like healey says, city maps are never bad (best maps in the game in my opinion). if were having a maplist, generally only 2/5 or 1/5 maps will have a heli
karkand (no heli)
mashtuur (no heli)
jalalabad (no heli)
sharqi ( no heli on 16player version)
dalian (has a heli)

maybe just cut heli maps from the cycle entirely??? but that conflicts with people wanting to play more diverse maps like fushe and oman. any suggestions?? i think rounds per map : ONE, definitely is a good idea. noone seems to enjoy back to back rapings on any map for whatever reason, and if its a particularly good map then we can just go back it soon.

gors point about getting some clan action online on the go sounds good, but i think we already have 10+ good/effective players who could be divied between the teams...

myself
yegadoyai
gingerprinz
captain banter
gor
ru
sideshow
nogbadthebadman
firefly
octavion
strings
viper

commanders:
sid
fyndir

are (from what i can tell having played in pretty much every game with or against everyone at some stage) the 10+ strongest players, and all made a significant impact in the organised games we played. divide those amongst two teams and then assign the middling and newer players as is seen fit.

[Octavion]

Personally I don't think tanks and helicopters are that big a problem as long as people remember to jam the Q key every time they see them. If you know that a tank are chopper is heading towards you it's usually quite easy to find cover on most maps. If the vehicles can't find you they're pretty useless.

Also, you just need to know the right tactics for dealing with them. For example, during a game of dragon valley the other day a spec ops (me) and two AT troopers managed to hold off several tanks, APCs and AT vehicles for about 20mins before someone in our team finally rolled up with some armoured support. The trick is not to expose yourself to the tanks until you can get a shot at the rear armour, firing at the front is like trying to take down a battleship with a spork.

Choppers can be taken down quite easily with AA, just remember not to spam out all the missiles at once or the flares will stop them all. Fire one and wait for the flares than slam the rest home. You can also scare off a chopper with massed ground fire so if your out in the open get your whole squad to pump round after round into them until they go and look for an easier target.

I think the idea about have "houses" sounds really good as we can then have an on going competition over all the LANs and it would give us that extra incentive to make an effort in all the games. I think we should put a good bit of consideration into the teams though as it would get pretty boring very quickly if one keeps pwning the other.

I'm up for a Pause Gaming online BF2 clan. I reckon would could destroy most of the clans that I've seen online. Yesterday I was on a clan server and scored better than all but one of them because he got the commander bonus.

[Uuurrahh]

z0mg I'm not on t3h list!!!111one :P

16 player maps aren't my bag. Preference was carving through 64 player infantry heavy maps with the old G3 :D

[Bluepixie]

That cut real bad man. :( Why I am I not on that list?

[Octavion]

Cause you're too easy to kill. :p

[goose]

lol. when I read that list I thought larry was suggesting a team...

Also in my previous post (thesis) I typed something along the lines of:

"I see what all the fuss is about" - The word 'don't' was meant to in there somewhere.

Also we were initially going to put an Iain/Gladiator joke in there, but didnt think anyone would get it.

[--Mogwai--]

well its not like an official list, just who i personally saw as having an impact over the weekend. i maybe just coincidentally didnt ecounter some people, im sure others who werent there or who were but had an off day apply as well. its not like a contest or anything.

and well said octavion, play smart, keep hidden, and enemy armour just gets owned. little things like that make a huge difference in bf2.

[Fyndir]

Squad 5 - N00b squad

any of:

4 spec ops
2 assault, 2 spec ops
3 assault, 1 engineer (because he thinks the shotgun is "funny")
4 medics (who will revive noone unless they're beside an enemy tank)

The shotgun is immense in part of a good squad.

I once took Best Combat in 32 man Fushe (I think, West Mine Entrance was there anyway. =P) by defending the West Mine with Engineer from start to finish, hiding behind sandbags and popping up to let off a round before ducking for the pump-action bit was AMAZINGLY effective with the infantry running at the flag because I kept planting more mines to take out their transports....this was back in the AT-mines = Friendly Fire days, and even WITH idiot teammates driving straight into the mines and punishing me (despite me regularly using the Team-Talk to type a warning that there were mines around the West Mine Flag and to be careful. =/) I still managed enough kills to take best Engineer + Best Combat.

Note: This was not just random public servers, this was the IGUK BF2 FFA, where various LAN Centres around the UK compete to be top of the league (there's also a lotto for £50 every week, 1 point = 1 ticket, winner picked at random), so I reckoned it was quite a testament to my shotgun skills. =P

So yeah, don't denounce the shotgun, it's very useful if used effectively with cover to inflict some pretty serious damage on infantry.

A good squad is always important, and all too often people forget to organise it at all.

[--Mogwai--]

Note: This was not just random public servers, this was the IGUK BF2 FFA, where various LAN Centres around the UK compete to be top of the league (there's also a lotto for £50 every week, 1 point = 1 ticket, winner picked at random), so I reckoned it was quite a testament to my shotgun skills. =P



the iguk super noob league you mean??? where the most retarded players in the UK congregate to play by noob rules on noob maps and whine at each other, only to completely disregard anyone with skill and award the prize to someone who got lucky??? l33t skillz.


aaanyways... nice one dave. we had a way old thread about bf2 strategy which is perhaps outdated now, because noone really played too much back when it was made... there was a bf2 strategy wiki, actually... what happened ot that?? does it still exist??? maybe amalgamate this and the old thread/wiki so everythings in one place. (any maybe move it to the gaming section with the other strategy stuff?)

original thread has been bumped to the first page of 'gaming' section.

[Fyndir]

the iguk super noob league you mean??? where the most retarded players in the UK congregate to play by noob rules on noob maps and whine at each other, only to completely disregard anyone with skill and award the prize to someone who got lucky??? l33t skillz.

So because of the lotto format and the fact that it was Fushe pass with "Don't fucking attack the uncaps, you scum." rules + me defending West Mine Entrance effectively means that me earning best combat with the Engineer basic shotgun is somehow noobish of me? 0_o

I didn't win the lotto that week, which was a shame, but surely you can give me some credit for out-killing everyone else on a server when I was playing Engineer the entire time instead of just shitting all over me. =/


We know you're fucking amazing at BF2, and you're better than most of us at DoW aswell, but dear god did you really need to make my minor achievement, which was worth mentioning since Gingerprinz was implying that the Engineer shotgun is shite, sound like all I did was drool on myself a bit and mash the keyboard while screaming "MOAR LAZARS!" or something? 0_o

[--Mogwai--]

this is a strategy thread... for the promotion of organised and informed play in a PauseLAN environment. boasting about IGUK and their 'league' is i feel quite irrelevant here. implying its anything more than a muck about is just a joke. im sure the archives already have a thread of yours dedicated to your glorious achievments. (and yes im aware that this strategy thread already exists somewhere else as well, but a new memeber wouldnt be able to find it easily on page 7 of the archives)
the amount of chat thats been going on about bf2 lately, im glad to see gingerprinz bring up the issue of a strategy thread again, all those points hold true, but random pish like 'no wait the worst gun in the game is really good because i prawned some newbz with it! on a really pro sever as well!!!11!!' only detracts from the issue at hand. the engineer shotgun IS shite, unanimously shite. it has poorer range and poorer rate of fire and poorer accuracy than practically any gun inthe game, zero damage at anything but point blank range and a painful reload time. you could never claim it to be a good addition to anything.
yes, i have a bit more experience at bf2 than some, (the DoW comment... excuse me??? ) and considering how important it seems to be that bf2 games at lans actually work, i feel i should contribute as much as possible.
its frustrating for those of us making an effort to give tips and better organise games when people make comments like yours that are entirely unhelpful, and if anything damaging to the message we're trying to convey.

[Fyndir]

its frustrating for those of us making an effort to give tips and better organise games when people make comments like yours that are entirely unhelpful, and if anything damaging to the message we're trying to convey.

If the message you're trying to convey is that no-one should ever play Engineer then well played, you've probably put people off of playing it by declaring the gun to be utter shite. =/

I wasn't just randomly bragging either, I was giving a fucking example of how the shotgun can be used effectively.

Yes, it may not hold up against you and Sideshow swanning around in the attack chopper and raping us all but nothing other than either a tank or the AA stuff does, the rest of it you shrug off and then blow us up again.

It may not hold up against a rifle at long range, but that's a given since it's a shotgun, hence my emphasis on using cover effectively to get in to about mid/low-range and constantly ducking back into cover so that you can wear someone down with it.

Since Gingerprinz had been talking about Engineers being useful in a good squad earlier in his post I thought it best to give an example illustrating that the gun isn't utterly shite (since he seemed to be saying so later on in the post) so people are more likely to be willing to play it without moaning, thus increasing the likelyhood of successful team play. =/

In WHAT way is that detracting from your message?

Oh ho ho, it's NOT, it is, in fact, adding to it by letting people know that all the guns can be used effectively (therefore making people more likely to play the different classes listed), it's just a matter of practicing with it a bit and knowing how, therefore we're more likely to see some decent shotgun action in, well, almost EVERY squad, since Gingerprinz mentioned Engineer as either a good idea or a strong option for most of them. =/

[Sideshow]

...and you wonder why I killfiled him...

[Phizz]

Can someone move all the flaming to another thread please. And just stick to putting in either small alterations to the given long, titled stratergy guides or the guides. E-peens away.

[Octavion]

I thought I'd just move this across from the BF2 LAN thread:

Personally I don't think tanks and helicopters are that big a problem as long as people remember to jam the Q key every time they see them. If you know that a tank are chopper is heading towards you it's usually quite easy to find cover on most maps. If the vehicles can't find you they're pretty useless.

Also, you just need to know the right tactics for dealing with them. For example, during a game of dragon valley the other day a spec ops (me) and two AT troopers managed to hold off several tanks, APCs and AT vehicles for about 20mins before someone in our team finally rolled up with some armoured support. The trick is not to expose yourself to the tanks until you can get a shot at the rear armour, firing at the front is like trying to take down a battleship with a spork.

Choppers can be taken down quite easily with AA, just remember not to spam out all the missiles at once or the flares will stop them all. Fire one and wait for the flares than slam the rest home. You can also scare off a chopper with massed ground fire so if your out in the open get your whole squad to pump round after round into them until they go and look for an easier target.

[CaNNoN_FoDDa]

You don't need to fire one to get them to flare. Most pilots (even experienced ones) will flare as soon as they get a missile lock warning, so you just to need to lock, wait, then fire. Experienced pilots will tend to dive for cover and sneak around behind you if youre in a fixed emplacement, since they know where they all are.

[Sid]

OK, I've had a look and I think that since the posts in this thread are just bits and bobs and discussion into how to make the BF2 better at the LANs, it should all be in here for convience during the discussion. Note: I have moved Gingerprinz's post to the old strategy thread.

Ideally, once all the brainstorming and decisions have been made, I'd like the outcome of this thread to be a well-written report with the title "Making BF2 good at our LAN", to be placed into the articles section. Similarly, if the interested parties get together and create a definitive "BF2 Strategy and FAQ" article, that'd be very useful.

I'm going to try and clean up this thread and make a list of topics in the opening post.

Let the discussion continue...