Competitive Skill Set: Your Areas of Expertise

[DesertHawk]

For those of us who participate in competitive online gaming, we enjoy a vast array of methods with which to blow each other up and many different mediums through which to do it. Aside from a special few, most of our gaming skill sets show areas of great strength and those of crippling weaknesses. Some gamers are great tacticians and armchair generals, capable of utilizing vast armies as if they were surgical tools; yet would trip over their own shoe laces if they were given a rifle and sent into the battlefield all alone. The opposite is true as well. An elite soldier that couldn't get off the ground if you stuck him in an aircraft, or would scratch his head in confusion if you gave him an economy to manage.

I would like to ask you fellow Escapists, where do your competitive strengths lie? Also, care to admit to some areas/genres that you could use some improvement in?

Take me, for example. I do pretty damn well in tactical shooters similar to Counter-Strike, Battlefield series, Rainbow 6 series, and the Call of Duty games. I just work really well within the realm of that style shooter. Stick me into an RTS, and you'll see my weaknesses almost immediately. I love RTS games, but I've always been crap at them in multiplayer. It's just too much to keep track of for me. I lose sight of my overall strategy/plan in the chaos of even minor engagements. I feel overwhelmed and end up playing a purely reactionary game that inevitably leads to my defeat.

BONUS: Anyone care to make a resolution or a personal gaming project out of improving your weakness or getting better a particular area/genre? Personally, I've decided to work on my RTS skills

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

I am pretty much in the same boat as you.

I love RTS but suck at competitive multiplayer.

I'm very god at sniping and playing tactically in shooters.

For the bonus... once I complete DOW2: Chaos Risings campaign I'm going to go online and play it non-stop for about a week.

 

[The Afrodactyl]

I am very good at FPS's. I can pick up and play just about anything within the genre.

I've decided to try to catch fewer bullets. Once I start doing well, I turn into a bullet magnet.

 

[Chamale]

I can tech like a beast in RTS, grind like crazy in Pokémon if I must, and I'm solid at team-based FPS.

My weaknesses: I tend to not build enough units that are anything other than the highest level. Sometimes I don't even have an army until I'm teched to the max. This strategy has led to some incredible curb-stompings (one time I was at level 5 in Impossible Creature while my opponent was massing level 2's - his attack came at the same time my Woolly Mammoth/Scorpion popped out of the creature chamber). This even applies to World in Conflict, which doesn't have a tech tree - I let my armies die while I don't use any support, and save up tactical aid points for a game-winning nuke.

I get really pissed at cheaters in Pokémon and refuse to play or trade with them, even though this is at least half of the Pokémon community at my school.

In current FPS, I'm terrible at very short-range battle. I'm still used to Battlefield 1942's knives, which could not be pulled out instantly and took 3 hits to get a kill.

I've resolved to get better at World in Conflict. I used to think that I was terrible, until I found that I'm only terrible as my favourite class, Support. I decided to learn to get good with Armour. I'm already getting up to 2,000 points per round on Normal in 8v8 matches.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I'm pretty much the same as you really. I can do fantastic in shooters, not just tactical but pure twitchyness too. I was a beast in both CS:S and Unreal Tournament once.

Yet, sadly, I lost my RTS skills. I used to be so good at it, but nowadays I just can't micromanage. Lack the patience too.

For the bonus... once I complete DOW2: Chaos Risings campaign I'm going to go online and play it non-stop for about a week.

No you won't, for you will be faced with the true horrors of Games for Windows Live (the worst matchmaking tool in history) and will ragequit because of it.

DoW2 is great, GfWL makes it so so crappy online.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

No you won't, for you will be faced with the true horrors of Games for Windows Live (the worst matchmaking tool in history) and will ragequit because of it.

DoW2 is great, GfWL makes it so so crappy online.

If you've seen my posts around the Escapist you may or may not know I am a big defender of Microsoft and GFWL.

I have played DOW2 online before and the GFWL matchmaking may be slow but it works.

Before I started my Primarch runthrough of both campaigns I regularly jumped into Last Stand modes and sometimes played competitive gametypes.

I love GFWL as a PC platform.

There are a lot of bugs that need ironing out but I will support it all the way.

 

[Jazzyluv2]

Tend to overly rely on aim.

Am good at every fps and am better than the average of any FPS on PC besides Quakeworld.

Have competed and won prize money tournaments.

Tend to have a tendency to let be too aggressive(a lot to do with my very good aim)

RTS= don't have the dedication or time to learn to adapt the countless situations.

Tactical games i tend to excel at, but thier very nature irritates me, because from the a skill perspective they are limited(CS, COD2, COD4, CSS)

Fast paced fps are my Bread n Butter.(quake, tf2, quakeworld, nexuiz, Warsow)

In fighting games i tend to have a problem with defense. But my hit confirms are great and i have amazing pressure and combo abilities. Also have good grab timing, and very good mixups.

 

[Cowabungaa]

le snip

I bég to differ. In DoW2 I kept getting matched against rank 50-60-ish people while I'm rank 3 myself. One team of low ranks (mine) and one team of high ranks, pretty much 90% of all matches was like that. Always ends in a massacre.

If it was just slow you wouldn't hear me complain that much, but as it is now it just tries to make me hate the game.

 

[Mister Six]

I tend to go in hot or cold streaks in both RTS's and FPS's, take, for example, MW2. I'll go three games in a row with a solid 30-50 kills with 10 or so deaths, but then go only 5-10 kills for the next ten games. Which is why, when I play with my mates who can pull off 30+ kills a match steadily, I play more a support role, using gear and tactics to confuse or weaken the opposite team. In RTS's I tend to over-rely on harrying/hit and run tactics so that if I get into a straight up brawl I end up getting curb-stomped.

 

[DesertHawk]

In fighting games i tend to have a problem with defense. But my hit confirms are great and i have amazing pressure and combo abilities. Also have good grab timing, and very good mixups.

Heh, Fighting games are another area where I fall flat on my face. I've had too many bad experiences with gloating friends/opponents, so that I just don't care to ever play against another person. I'm content to just sit and beat up AI opponents in Soul Caliber.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

I bég to differ. In DoW2 I kept getting matched against rank 50-60-ish people while I'm rank 3 myself. One team of low ranks (mine) and one team of high ranks, pretty much 90% of all matches was like that. Always ends in a massacre.

If it was just slow you wouldn't hear me complain that much, but as it is now it just tries to make me hate the game.

As I said I generally play last stand.

I've never been in your situation, I generally have very varied teams on rank.

I still lose but that's because I haven't got a clue what I'm doing.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

I'm always good at preparing/executing Sneak Attacks (in pretty much any genre, but mostly Shooters)
- ever been backstabbed over 100 times in a CoD4 game? - it was probably me

 

[That One Six]

You! Mister Six! I challenge you to a duel!

OT - I'm a lot better in RTS's than FPS's for the most part, save for Halo on the PC, where I dominate my friends.

 

[Azure Sky]

Jack of all, master of none.

I am generally not brilliant at what I play, but I can tend to get by.

So my skill would be.. Filling in roles that are lacking?

 

[Mister Six]

You! Mister Six! I challenge you to a duel!

Very well sir, name the time and place and we shall settle this like gentlemen.

 

[That One Six]

You! Mister Six! I challenge you to a duel!

Very well sir, name the time and place and we shall settle this like gentlemen.

For name-thievery, both virtual and real-worldly, I believe that a dusk, mountaintop duel would be appropriate. Do you agree?

 

[Brandon237]

I'm an okay sniper and do really well at Unreal tournament, thrashed many friends who were veterans when I player, but I'm mostly singleplayer, so my MP skills are generally poor.

 

[Vhite]

I have both skills of general and soldier, neither is perfect so I gues you could say Im captain.

 

[Geekosaurus]

It has to be FPS's. What do over-the-shoulder shooters come under? Because I'm pretty good at them too.

 

[Omikron009]

I'm good at somewhat slow paced FPS games with an emphasis on positioning and tactics, but not ultra realistic. Bad Company 2 is my favourite.