a new player looking for some suggestions.

[Volbia]

I just joined FF, first off id like to say that I love it and the feeling sticks true to the good old days of TFC.

Ive been gone from TFC type play for about 5 years and im getting well... owned. I need some help on recapturing some of the skill i used to have. im currently relearning soldier and sniper but what i really need help with is on defense. I find that some skilled scouts are going so fast through the base that i cant get to them before they are out of the base and back into their own. i just played a game of aardvark in which a scout was able to pick up and capture the flag within 10 seconds. is there any way i can try and stop this?

[SmellyCat]

The classic way to start learning soldier (or at least the path I chose) is to start positioning yourself in really awkward positions for the enemy to get passed and stop them with a mixture of aim and blocking. After a while you'll start picking up confidence and getting used to the speed of play and feel you can either move out of the choke point a little (making it more challenging for you, and more fun to play against you) or find harder positions to play in to practice.

I found that after a while of doing this I wouldn't want to completely block the choke point 'cause I'd always enjoy trying to hit slightly harder shots. Sadly, it's mostly practice in getting used to predicting movements - I'm sure someone else will have some better advice as to how this can be done.

Also, a decent pair of headphones can be helpful. Sound is your friend, if you're not already using it to your advantage.

[FooL]

http://video.google.com/videosearch?...en&emb=0&aq=f#

[pF]

Originally Posted by SmellyCat

The classic way to start learning soldier (or at least the path I chose) is to start positioning yourself in really awkward positions for the enemy to get passed and stop them with a mixture of aim and blocking.

Yes. Encourage communication with your team on incoming enemies, pick an engineer's sentry gun you'd like to help defend, use nailgrens to block off areas when you move off to resupply, be dependable in the position you're playing whithin your team's defense. If need be, you can switch to O and take out heavier D classes and SG's on the enemy defense side.

[SmellyCat]

Hint: airshots wont particularly be your friend. ^^

[caesium]

yeah lol, if you're having to go for airshots then you've got it v wrong. the rly good soldiers always make it look so simple. they use their positioning/movement/resource-monitoring to beat the enemy before they've even fired at them, always trying to manipulate the situation to leave themselves the simplest of shots that least compromises their defence as a whole.

it's all about learning to play the percentages as part of a team, so always be thinking what you can do to make the best use of your resources to help your team. if that means sitting blocking a doorway and doing your best to dm without leaving the chokepoint while repeatedly having grens thrown at you by the enemy offy then so be it!

[Gr3mLin]

Watch some of the american FF soldier demos

Then just don't ever do anything they show in their avis.


All joking aside, what Caesium says really.
I find soldier all about timing, timing your resups and when to die etc. I for one will only resup once I know 3 are already dead in which case that only leaves the possibility of one coming through your posistion.
It depends on the type of offy you're playing too, if you're playing against medics who have to splash 2/3 grenades at you to get past, just sit back and take it they're getting into the fr with nothing and wasting time.

BLOCK pretty self explainatory really.

Try unbinding your grenade key on public servers or in gathers and learn to play soldier without grens, you'll be less reliant in the long run.

Always go for the sure shot, no one really cares if you spend 15 minutes going for missed airshots then hitting one really good one, everyone will just think you're shit.

Mix up your weapons, don't just fire 4 rockets, for an experienced medic it's easy to predict a soldiers rockets when he just fires rockets at you.
Shoot a rocket, swap to ssg then swap back to rocket, this technique works better if you have fast switch enabled.

For the most part of it, you can transfer any soldier skill over from TFC to FF, you just have to learn to deal with the fast pace of scouts and medics using jump pads.

[Volbia]

apparently i played the late parts of TFC when bunny hopping either didnt work or wasnt used much. so im finding it really confusing.
im used to strafing but being able to really aim yourself through tight hallways is hard while going sideways. someone playing scout told me that he was moving at 1050, thats about 4.5 times my movement speed already.. i just dont understand how i can stop him

[MonoXideAtWork]

he wasn't constantly moving at that speed. That was a burst off of a rocket jump/grenade jump/conc jump/ bouncepad whatever.

As a soldier, you can be pretty tough, if you play smart. Try to discourage players from going your way, or position yourself where enemies would need to expose themselves to you in order to get at the sentry gun.

[xks]

Soldier is all about managing choke points.

The offensive classes do have a lot of speed, the key is to minimise the effect of that speed by good positioning and superior awareness. Don't ever put yourself in a position where you have to shoot 'after' someone, always try and get them coming towards you or next to you. If your team has a layered defence or you at least have other players around to mop up if players get past you then hold your position and make sure no one gets past you without at least getting quite badly hurt.

Don't be afraid to use the Shotgun either, one of the key elements of being a good Soldier is the ability to switch weapons on the fly and use their strengths when the need arises. The Rocket Launcher does good damage but you only get four shots and rarely get time to reload before a Medic or Scout is long gone. Use the splash damage of the Rockets to manipulate the movements of those that you shoot. Once you get good you will find yourself shooting a Scout up in the air and dropping another Rocket exactly as he lands, finishing him off. Alternatively you can start with a Rocket shot and switch to the Shotgun to finish since very often a Scout or Medic can ride your Rocket past you.

There are many other things I could say but I can't give away all my secrets

If you find the enemy Medic/Scout has to waste a conc on you then this is quite a good indicator of how well you're doing as a defensive Soldier since those classes rarely give up their concs in such a manner in FF, certainly not like they used to in TFC.

There are maps where it's quite hard to be a Soldier, Aardvark probably being the most obvious of those. On a map like this you have to position yourself well in order to make your job as easy as possible which in turn should make you as effective as you can be.

[Volbia]

thanks for the help everyone i think im actually some kind of credit to the team now. just one last question. i want to practice my aim with rockets is there anyway i can spawn some npcs on a server i make?

[MonoXideAtWork]

pub. You'll find that most of the players aren't that good. You'll surpass them in no time.

[EquilibriuM]

Yea look into servers from you're desktop server browser, if you see Mono go in that server he's an easy target.

[FooL]

dm_squeek is a map good for rocket aim practice

[xks]

Best practice is in actual games in my opinion. You can learn basic shooting and reactions in many places but you can't learn the best places to take advantage of splash damage on Aardvark or SD2 without actually being on those maps. Nor can you learn how to react to Concing enemies without actually playing for real.

[Ihmhi]

Volbia, if you want to basically spar with someone, I'd be glad to help you get back into the swing of things as well as catch you up with the new stuff in FF. Add me to Steam friends if you're interested:

ihmhi

[Credge]

Others have said it, I'll say it again. Airshots are only cool. They're nothing other than that. The only time airshots are useful is when you can juggle a player in the air. Generally, that's only happening against soldiers and maybe a pyro. Either way, it's not happening in any real reliable way.

It's far better to learn to mitigate movement as a soldier. A soldier will always dominate a scout if the soldier knows how to play his class. The reason is because the scout has nothing to deal with a soldiers knowledge of how to mitigate speed.

Also, it's far better to waste the enemies time than to kill them right away. I am, of course, talking about serious levels of play. Every second you waste of your enemies time the less time they'll have. If you kill a person right away they'll just be back sooner. Doing some damage and stopping his movement, and then finishing him off before he does something else is the best way to do things.

With that said, the most efficient thing to do as a soldier is to fire at the legs of an enemy and fire again once he hits the ground. This will juggle him without relying on air shots to juggle.

Mainly, scouts don't like a soldier that knows what they are doing.

[xks]

Scouts/Medics can counter you by concing you but this is something that doesn't seem to happen in FF very often. Back when I played TFC properly you'd find it hard pressed to do anything as a Soldier on some maps because the offy classes would have you conced before you saw them.

[GeoKill----->]

Well if the soldier is jumping, you can conc him away

[Hype]

I had exactly the same thing, I hadn't played TFC for a long time, It just takes practise I guess.