This article has been a long time coming. It is something I have alluded to previously in at least one of the instructional pieces I wrote here in the TG forums. At the time, my contention that deaths contribute more than 50% of ticket loss on the TG server was met with skepticism by some players. And in truth, what I am going to talk about represents a genuine shift in the way we think about killing, dying, and holding flags here at TG. It will challenge many peoples' preconceived notions of 'teamwork'. I hope everyone reads with an open mind.


Definitions

Neutral Map: Map in which neither team starts out holding a flag other than their UCB. On Neutral maps, ticket bleed only occurs when you hold more flags than the opponent.

Assault/Defend Map: Map in which one team begins the round in possession of flags and must defend. On these maps, the assaulting team is under ticket bleed until they capture a flag that is held by the enemy at the start of the round.

Flag Bleed: Steady loss of tickets resulting from the number of flags held by your team (or the opposing team)

Death Bleed: Tickets lost due to soldiers dying and not being revived.


Premise

The simple truth is this: the general TG style of play focuses entirely too much on the capture of flags for the purposes of creating or preventing Flag Bleed. Instead we should focus on Flag Capture for strategic advantage to further support our goal of utterly destroying the enemy's forces through Death Bleed.

The Ugly Truth

TG is a community that focuses on teamwork. This is a noble goal. However even the most noble goals can still go awry when poor understanding of game dynamics leads to a misconception regarding teamwork. The truth is, far in excess of 50% of ticket loss on ANY map is as a result of Death Bleed. It is ridiculous to have conversations about effective teamwork and tactics without a basic recognition of this fact. The team that does the most killing typically does the most winning.

The Shift

In essence, the paradigm shift in thinking is this:

We should not kill people in order to cap flags. We should cap flags in order to kill people.

That is to say, when we look at capping flags, we should focus more on which flags offer us positional advantage to kill our enemy than which flags we need to hold to prevent bleed. This isn't to say we shouldn't cap flags. But there are some flags that should only be capped when they are undefended, and some flags that should basically never be defended.

Ruins on Belgrade is a classic example of this. The flag is death on a stick. People can approach you behind all kinds of cover while you don't have a lot. There is a rail gun but it is extremely poorly positioned. Meanwhile the two flags with direct line of sight (Pond and Statue) are both elevated allowing the enemy to shoot down into your position. Any team that is defending Ruins is fighting a losing battle. Meanwhile if we look at Statue - it has limited entryways, elevation. A walker spawns there (walkers are always good for killing people).

Similarly if we look at the flags from a positional standpoint. Some are great staging areas allowing easy access to, and hence attack on, other flags on the map. Other flags are isolated and offer little from a positional standpoint. If you stopped thinking about ticket bleed for a minute and looked for defensible positions from which you could easily attack the enemy, the entire game changes.

Don't Leap To Illogical Conclusions

Now I'm not saying being under bleed is a good thing. That is patently absurd. But when you look at the Assault/Defend maps like Cerbere Landing and Camp Gibraltar, you'll recognize something very quickly: the positions you start in are poor for killing the enemy. Ie, you start off with a positional disadvantage regardless of whether or not bleed is on. THAT is great motivation for capping a flag beyond ticket bleed.

But even then, we should beware the whole attitude of 'cap a flag at any cost'. Flag Bleed simply isn't that rapid. I've seen teams throw away 30, 40 tickets to cap a flag and hence avoid 10 ticket lost in bleed. You have to choose your battleground. Where would you WANT to be fighting out of? If we look at Cerbere Landing, you don't want Church to be the only flag your team holds at ANY point in the game. It's a fishbowl. People can stand all around you and frag the daylights out of you. You might prevent Flag Bleed by holding it, but it will cost you so much in Death Bleed it won't matter.

So I am not saying ignore capping flags. I'm not saying ignore being under bleed. I am saying you have to be smart about both what flags you try to take and WHY you try to take them. There is not such thing as 'stopping Flag Bleed at all costs'. The point isn't to not be under Flag Bleed. The point is to win the bloody game.

So What Do We Do Now?

Spend a few minutes and look at each map. Decide what is worth holding and what isn't. Then when the round starts, do everything you can to take the flags that are worth holding. When you get them, then use whatever positional advantage you just gained to outkill the enemy. Maybe that means setting up an awesome defense and letting the enemy team break against you. Maybe it means sortying out in flanking maneuvers to wipe out enemy squads and then retreat to your stronghold.

Be willing to trade bad flags for good ones. Let's say you do hold Ruins and they hold Statue. When they push for Ruins from Statue, let them in. Pull back, flank around and cap Statue while they are grabbing it. Or another example: perhaps the enemy holds Pond, Ruins AND Statue. Sneak in and Cap Ruins. Then while they are trying to get it back, cap Statue or Pond. Use the capping of a weak flag as a distraction in order to cap a strong one. Always look to trade up which flags you hold.

Also recognize which flags are strong in combination. Honestly Playground and Com Tower on Belgrade are both not easy to hold individually. But when you hold both together they are significantly easier to defend.

Be John Travolta

And lastly: stay alive. Stop throwing your virtual life away in some valiant attempt to take a flag. Instead stay alive and make the other guy die to defend it. Oftentimes you can kill him faster than his flag will cause bleed to you.

The other part of this is, the more you stay alive, the more you can do. The average player dies 7.5 or more times per round. That's almost 2 minutes lying on the ground watching a counter go by. And let's face it: this is TG. Sometimes when you go down you get revived. So in reality even if you only get revived 1 out of every 3 times you actually die, you spend closer to 3 minutes lying on the ground doing nothing. That's about 15% of the average round! If we add in the time your teammates spend trying to revive you, you waste in excess of 20% of the round either dying, being revived or reviving others. That's very inefficient use of time! So be more careful with your virtual life.

The Proof

I don't think I'm bragging when I talk about the impact the 3rd has on the outcome of a round. I honestly feel as though in ANY round if we get 4 or more of us in a squad we should win regardless of who else is playing. But why is that?

The 3rd members are trained to kill people and to not die. That's what we focus on above all else. I obsess over kill/death ratios - both mine and those of our members. If someone wants to join the 3rd, I do two things. I look up his K/D ratio, and I see what everyone thinks of him/her as a person. If they suck at either of these two things (K/D or being a cool, fun person) then they don't get in.

Now yes some of this is just skill. But a lot of it is mentality. The concept of pulling back from a fight and trying somewhere else. Of avoiding the conflict to cap an easy, good flag. The average player chases the action. The 3rd focuses on creating the action. If you don't understand that distinction, then feel free to ask, because I don't mean we run around looking for fights. We look for opportunities to remove the enemy's tickets by the most efficient means possible. Some flags cost too much to take. Some fights cannot be won. Any good SL or Commander HAS to learn to recognize this fact and look for another way to win. Another means to take tickets of the board.

There are times we will go to take a flag, and we actually take a long time to cap it. Because it isn't a madlong rush in to the cap radius. It is a probing push. A pull back. A flank. Another probe. The whole time we're killing people and not dying. We'll revive and pull back and try another angle. We're taking tickets from them here and there trying to find the weakness. And then we find it and exploit it and take the flag. But it is a multi-step process that focuses first on not dying, second on killing the enemy and third on taking the flag.

There are times taking a flag becomes an exercise in frantic desperation. But, you have to recognize when that is necessary.

This has ended up being much more of a rambling, disorganized case of verbal diarrhea than originally planned, but I never really got an opportunity to organize everything neatly. Feel free to ask questions, comment. I'd be happy to explain more.